Water quality of Barishal sadar upazila in Bangladesh for drinking, irrigation, aquaculture and livestock consumption

A study was conducted to assess of groundwater and surface water quality of Barisal sadar upazila. Total 22 water samples (11 pond water and 11 groundwater) were collected from January to March, 2017. Samples were slightly acidic in nature and 7 pond water not suitable for aquaculture in respect of pH. Samples of pond were "excellent" and groundwater samples were "good" for irrigation except two high salinity group water for irrigation for EC. Calcium indicates the samples were suitable for aquaculture but 7 samples were not suitable due to higher Mg content. In respect of K, 9 samples were not suitable for aquaculture. Cu concentrations found suitable for all purposes. For Fe and Zn samples are suitable for irrigation and consumption. Chloride showed, samples were not suitable for livestock consumption except 7 ponds sample. Samples are not suitable for aquaculture in respect of Cl, Fe and Zn. For Manganese, samples (except 1) found suitable for consumption. Samples were "excellent" for sensitive, semi-tolerant and tolerant crops in respect of B. Not any samples responded to CO3 test and HCO3 concentrations found normal. All water sources free from Arsenic contamination. Phosphorus concentration in groundwater might not be harmful for multipurpose use. SAR categorized all samples "excellent" class for irrigation except 2 groundwater samples. 15 samples were "suitable", 3 were "marginal" and 4 were "unsuitable" for irrigation in respect of RSC. For HT, 13 were "moderately hard" and 09 were "hard" limit for irrigation and samples were suitable for drinking and livestock consumption. Asian J. Med. Biol. Res. March 2020, 6(1): 44-5

Malaysian automobile industry and green supply chain management

The automotive industry is one of the main producers of industrial wastes affecting the natural environment. The purpose of this study is to identify the most important barriers to the Malaysian automotive industry. Researching 145 companies in Malaysia’s automotive supply chain industry collected the data. The data were examined using Problem Conflict Index (PCI) to determine the most important critical barriers that put automotive companies in a difficult position to implement green supply chain management (GSCM). The results of this study report that the number one barrier in the automotive sector is "market competition and uncertainty" with a PCI of 298. The second problem is “Lack of Implementing Green Practice” with the PCI of 297. Like these two barriers, cost implications, unawareness of customers, lack of corporate social responsibility, lack of globalization, lack of technical assistance from the government have been identified as top-level barriers and lack of the government’s willingness to invest, reduced involvement in environmentally related conferences. The elimination of these barriers will help to apply the GSCM in the Malaysia automobile industry

Immutable Autobiography of Smart Cars Leveraging Blockchain Technology

The popularity of smart cars is increasing around the world as they offer a wide range of services and conveniences. These smart cars are equipped with a variety of sensors generating a large amount of data, many of which are critical. Besides, there are multiple parties involved in the lifespan of a smart car, such as manufacturers, car owners, government agencies, and third-party service providers who also generate data about the vehicle. In addition to managing and sharing data amongst these entities in a secure and privacy-friendly way which is a great challenge itself, there exists a trust deficit about some types of data as they remain under the custody of the car owner (e.g. satellite navigation and mileage data) and can easily be manipulated. In this paper, we propose a blockchain assisted architecture enabling the owner of a smart car to create an immutable record of every data, called the autobiography of a car, generated within its lifespan. We also explain how the trust about this record is guaranteed by the immutability characteristic of the blockchain. Furthermore, the paper describes how the proposed architecture enables a secure and privacy-preserving mechanism for sharing of smart car data among different parties

Effects of corporate governance on banking performance of commercial banks in Bangladesh

Corporate governance is the system by which organizations are directed, monitored and controlled. It is an oversight mechanism to ensure the management team efficiently allocates the organizational resources, so as to protect the interest of shareholders and stakeholders. There is a need for good corporate governance practice to stabilize the performance of financial institutions. This study investigated the influence of corporate governance in banking performance. Panel data analysis has been conducted for the top nine public and private commercial banks operating in Bangladesh for a period of 2009 to 2017. Board size, structure of internal audit committee and capital adequacy ratio were being taken as independent variables to measure the effects of corporate governance whereas return on asset, return on equity and earnings per share were being taken as dimensions for measuring bank performance. Correlation and regression analysis techniques were being used to examine the relationships between corporate governance practices and bank performance. The results indicated that CAR has the greater impact on Bank performance. The information derived from this study can be valuable and will help to enhance the understanding of the governing bodies of financial institutions for accelerating banking performance

COVID-19 Contact Tracing: Challenges and Future Directions.

Contact tracing has become a vital tool for public health officials to effectively combat the spread of new diseases, such as the novel coronavirus disease COVID-19. Contact tracing is not new to epidemiologist rather, it used manual or semi-manual approaches that are incredibly time-consuming, costly and inefficient. It mostly relies on human memory while scalability is a significant challenge in tackling pandemics. The unprecedented health and socio-economic impacts led researchers and practitioners around the world to search for technology-based approaches for providing scalable and timely answers. Smartphones and associated digital technologies have the potential to provide a better approach due to their high level of penetration, coupled with mobility. While data-driven solutions are extremely powerful, the fear among citizens is that information like location or proximity associated with other personal data can be weaponised by the states to enforce surveillance. Low adoption rate of such apps due to the lack of trust questioned the efficacy and demanded researchers to find innovative solution for building digital-trust, and appropriately balancing privacy and accuracy of data. In this paper, we have critically reviewed such protocols and apps to identify the strength and weakness of each approach. Finally, we have penned down our recommendations to make the future contact tracing mechanisms more universally inter-operable and privacy-preserving

A Comparative Analysis of Distributed Ledger Technology Platforms

Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) has emerged as one of the most disruptive technologies in the last decade. It promises to change the way people do their business, track their products, and manage their personal data. Though the concept of DLT was first implemented in 2009 as Bitcoin, it has gained significant attention only in the past few years. During this time, different DLT enthusiasts and commercial companies have proposed and developed several DLT platforms. These platforms are usually categorized as public vs private, general-purpose vs application-specific and so on. As a growing number of people are interested to build DLT applications, it is important to understand their underlying architecture and capabilities in order to determine which DLT platform should be leveraged for a specific DLT application. In addition, the platforms need to be evaluated and critically analyzed to assess their applicability, resiliency and sustainability in the long run. In this paper, we have surveyed several leading DLT platforms and evaluated their capabilities based on a number of quantitative and qualitative criteria. The comparative analysis presented in this paper will help the DLT developers and architects to choose the best platform as per their requirement(s)

Factors affecting the intention of the rice farmers to adopt the integrated cash waqf environmental protection model: an empirical study in Kedah Malaysia

The objectives of this study are to propose the Integrated Waqf Environmental Protection Model (IWEP) and investigate the farmers’ intention to adopt it. In developing the IWEP model and investigating farmers’ willingness to adopt it, this study surveyed 4 00 farmers in Kedah. The intention of the farmers to adopt the proposed model was analysed by adding perceived barriers and socio socio-economic variables into the theory of reasoned action (TRA) model. The collected data were processed using structural equatio equation modeling (SEM). The SEM results show that the subjective norm is positive and has a significant impact on the intenti ons of low low-income farmers to accept the IWEP model. This indicates that the decision of the low low-income farmers to accept the IWEP model is significantly influenced by their family members, neighbours and friends. Furthermore, awareness and perceived barriers have a greater impact on the elderly, highly educated and wealthy farmers. The findings indicate that the elderly, highly educated and wealthy farmers are aware of climate change and they perceive higher risks or barriers to climate change. As a result, they are more likely to have an adaptation intention. If we encourage people to create a waqf fund, we can increase the value of the farmer and the country’s total GDP