The plight of the Bangladeshi silk industry: An empirical investigation

In spite of having a glorious history in the sericulture industry Bangladesh still is not a bright name in silk production and export. Although the agro-climatic situation in Bangladesh greatly favors the development of silk industry, Bangladesh produces very little amount of silk products every year, whereas India, situated beside Bangladesh, is the second largest producer of sericulture. To investigate the reason behind this, a questionnaire survey has been undertaken in which only the owners or managers have been considered as representatives of the industry. A total of 21 silk enterprises was randomly sampled. Data analyses show that almost 57% of the silk enterprises have less than 40 decimal of land while only 19% have more than 100 decimal of land. These enterprises provided very limited facilities for their workers and mostly depended on imported raw materials. Owners pointed out several constraints to the development of silk industry in Bangladesh including insufficient government patronization and recommended several remedial measures including that the Bangladesh Silk Board (BSB) gives out production credit without too much conditions, adoption of modern technology, and information dissemination . It is evident that government, through BSB and BSRTI (Bangladesh Silk Research and Training Institute) has to play a crucial role to pull this industry up from the brink of destruction

Eco-friendly Entrepreneurship to Promote Plastic Alternatives

Plastic production has become a global concern, including in Bangladesh. Among all types of plastic products, single-use plastic is considered treacherous and the most responsible for damaging the natural environment. To replace plastics on a daily usage basis, the entrepreneurs of Bangladesh have reiterated some initiatives to manufacture and promote plastic alternatives. This study aims to assess the market potential, existing challenges, and users’/customers’ perceptions of the plastic alternative industry in Bangladesh. Key informant interviews (KIIs) with structured questionnaires were conducted among 15 plastic alternative entrepreneurs and 30 customers through online platforms. The framework analysis method was used to analyse and interpret the collected data. Despite highlighting some challenges, plastic alternative entrepreneurs contribute significantly to replacing plastic products, and the market potential is quite promising for this industry. Moreover, this study portrays an efficacious inclination of consumer behaviours towards using plastic alternatives. By following the concept of the green economy, the entrepreneurs of the plastic alternative industry in Bangladesh are gradually able to replace plastic products and contribute toward building a sustainable city

Smart Voltage-Source Inverters with a Novel Approach to Enhance Neutral-Current Compensation

© 1982-2012 IEEE. The presence of a neutral current is quite common in three-phase (3P) four-wire (4W) distribution systems due to an unequal distribution of linear and nonlinear single-phase (1P) loads and small distributed generators. However, a high neutral current can overload the neutral conductor and distribution transformer, which can cause electrical safety concerns and even fire. Among several existing neutral current compensators, the 3P four-leg (4L) voltage-source inverter (VSI) provides better control flexibility and more efficient performance than the passive compensators but requires a higher VSI capacity for the fourth-leg operation. To provide a solution to the aforementioned problem, this paper presents a novel control method to utilize the available capacity of a 3P-4L VSI after active and reactive power regulation to enhance the neutral-current compensation. A smart VSI (SVSI) is designed to operate with a solar photovoltaic unit, regulate the ac side voltage, and minimize the neutral current. Case studies are conducted with actual load data from a commercial building in the PSCAD/EMTDC software environment. The designed system with the proposed control method can provide a significant improvement in the neutral-current compensation, phase balancing, and unbalance factor compared to a fixed-capacity 3P-4L SVSI. Experimental results using a TMS320F28335 digital signal processor microcontroller and modified Semiteach 3P-4L inverter are presented to verify the robustness of the designed controller and the enhancement to the neutral-current compensation using the proposed dynamic capacity-control method

An Efficient Deep Learning-based approach for Recognizing Agricultural Pests in the Wild

One of the biggest challenges that the farmers go through is to fight insect pests during agricultural product yields. The problem can be solved easily and avoid economic losses by taking timely preventive measures. This requires identifying insect pests in an easy and effective manner. Most of the insect species have similarities between them. Without proper help from the agriculturist academician it is very challenging for the farmers to identify the crop pests accurately. To address this issue we have done extensive experiments considering different methods to find out the best method among all. This paper presents a detailed overview of the experiments done on mainly a robust dataset named IP102 including transfer learning with finetuning, attention mechanism and custom architecture. Some example from another dataset D0 is also shown to show robustness of our experimented techniques

Structural Behaviour of Dented Pipelines

A dent is a defect in the pipe wall in the form of localized inward plastic deformation. Dents are a matter of serious concern for pipeline operators because they may cause a rupture or a leak in the pipeline. Hence, a reliable strain-based criterion for the assessment of dents is very important. An understanding of the local strain distributions in the dent is very important for the development of a strain-based dent evaluation criterion. Therefore, this study was undertaken using full-scale tests and a parametric study to assess the influence of various parameters on the strain distributions in a dent. Additionally, the ASME strain-based dent evaluation criterion was reviewed. It was shown that strain distributions and strain values in a dent are significantly influenced by the dent depth, internal pressure, and dent shape. The study also noted that upgrading is required for the ASME criterion

Path To Gain Functional Transparency In Artificial Intelligence With Meaningful Explainability

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is rapidly integrating into various aspects of our daily lives, influencing decision-making processes in areas such as targeted advertising and matchmaking algorithms. As AI systems become increasingly sophisticated, ensuring their transparency and explainability becomes crucial. Functional transparency is a fundamental aspect of algorithmic decision-making systems, allowing stakeholders to comprehend the inner workings of these systems and enabling them to evaluate their fairness and accuracy. However, achieving functional transparency poses significant challenges that need to be addressed. In this paper, we propose a design for user-centered compliant-by-design transparency in transparent systems. We emphasize that the development of transparent and explainable AI systems is a complex and multidisciplinary endeavor, necessitating collaboration among researchers from diverse fields such as computer science, artificial intelligence, ethics, law, and social science. By providing a comprehensive understanding of the challenges associated with transparency in AI systems and proposing a user-centered design framework, we aim to facilitate the development of AI systems that are accountable, trustworthy, and aligned with societal values.Comment: Hosain, M. T. , Anik, M. H. , Rafi, S. , Tabassum, R. , Insia, K. & S{\i}dd{\i}ky, M. M. (). Path To Gain Functional Transparency In Artificial Intelligence With Meaningful Explainability . Journal of Metaverse , 3 (2) , 166-180 . DOI: 10.57019/jmv.130668

Evaluating Cost and Performance Of Adaptive Encryption Architecture for Cloud Database

The cloud database as a service is novel paradigms that can be support several Internet-based applications, its adoption requires the solution of the information confidentiality problems. We proposed a novel architecture for adaptive encryption of public cloud databases that offers an interesting alternative to the tradeoff between the required data confidentiality level and the flexibility of the cloud database structures at time. We demonstrate the feasibility and performance of the proposed solution through a software prototype. We propose an original cost model that is oriented to the evaluation of cloud database services in plain text and encrypted instances and that takes into account the variability of cloud prices and tenant workloads during a medium-term period

An Alternative Proposed Method for Solution of Assignment Problem

The assignment problem is a particular type of linear programming problem. In this paper, we analyzed the standard and existing proposed methods.  After studying these methods, we proposed a new alternative method for solving the assignment problem. We examined the newly proposed method by a couple of numerical examples and compare this result with the standard method. The main characteristic of this newly proposed method is that it constructed a very easy logical and arithmetical algorithm. Here we point out some advantages and limitations of the new proposed method. Programming code for the newly proposed method has been added in this paper

Systematic Literature Review of Social Entrepreneurship Phenomenon: Perspectives and Theoretical Lenses

Social entrepreneurship (SE) is an emerging subject in the field of entrepreneurship research since previous years. However, there has been a significant increase in social entrepreneurship research based on multifaceted literature reviews. Still, this field required more research to mature the concept of social entrepreneurship studies with different dimensions. The established SE literature shows a lack of studies classifying this phenomenon through the theoretical and practical lenses. The current study fills the gap by studying practical and theoretical perspectives of social entrepreneurship. This study used a systematic review spanning 2010 to 2020 to understand social entrepreneurship conceptual and theoretical perspectives. Based on the study findings, poverty reduction, economic growth, social innovation, job creation, and social entrepreneurship orientation is the cluster of social entrepreneurship. This study also describes few theories that explained the social entrepreneurship phenomenon, e.g. social capital theory, institutional theory, economic innovation theory, complex and ecosystem theory, holistic theory of individual decision making, and behavioural entrepreneurship theory in different perspectives; despite these theories, a multidimensional theoretical perspective needs to be discussed to explain social entrepreneurship comprehensively. Moreover, future directions are also suggested in this study to fill the potential in this field