The Science of Fascism within a Democratic Framework: Part 1: Delinearized History of US Presidency

No USA president in history has received as much opposition as Donald Trump has from all three components of the Establishment, namely the financial establishment, the political establishment and the corporate media establishment. The election of Donald Trump to the office of presidency is marked with dozens of historical first events that are anything but lackluster, yet a bleak picture of Fascism has been painted to describe Trump. This is an extraordinary piece of disinformation, as no modern president has been more consistent in plainly saying what he will do regarding US military and geopolitical goals, both outside and in office. This, even though his stated position is clearly opposite to the wishes of the dominant cabal, supported by both parties, and to US foreign policy since WWII. USA history is not very long, but Trump presidency and his inaugural speech marked a historic starting point for this 'democracy'. Every sentence of Donald J. Trump's inaugural speech was a departure from diplomacy. Knowing what diplomacy actually means, it's a great step toward transparency. It is the best thing that happened in US political history. It is no surprise the Media established completely flipped, the political establishment gasped, and the financial establishment started to conspire a different strategy (George Soros declaring he wants Trump presidency to fail). In the mean time, the typically apolitical science and technology establishment declared Trump completely unfit for the office that he has just been elected to. Trump’s inaugural speech that contained phrases like, "It's time to remember that old wisdom our soldiers will never forget, that whether we are black or brown or white, we all bleed the same red blood of patriots", was in sharp contrast to how Abraham Lincoln viewed America, when he said, "I, as much as any other man, stand in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race… I have no purpose to introduce political and social equality between the white and the black races." Trump’s embrace of humanity and righteousness was reminiscent of Prophet Muhammad’s last sermon at the pilgrimage, where he said over 1400 years, "An Arab is no better than a non-Arab, and a non-Arab is no better than an Arab; a red man is no better than a black man and a black man is no better than a red man – except if it is in terms of piety." Yet, Trump took oath of office swearing on the bible used by Abraham Lincoln. In this two-part paper, the key research question answered is what Trump presidency stands for. In answering this question, the first part deconstructs some of the dominant theories of Fascism. Then, a delinearized history is constructed in order to understand how democracy, as applied in USA, has an inevitable outcome of achieving the same goals as a Fascist regime. The concept of religious extremism, including “Islamic terrorism” or “radical Islam” is also discussed with relevance to ‘war on terror’. The history of US presidency then shows that the office of presidency is used as a tool to advance a Fascist agenda, albeit being packaged as USA exceptionalism. The ground is set for part 2 that analyses the rise of Trump and the demise of DNC integrity, followed by deconstruction of various allegations against Trump

Privacy Preserving Machine Learning for Behavioral Authentication Systems

A behavioral authentication (BA) system uses the behavioral characteristics of users to verify their identity claims. A BA verification algorithm can be constructed by training a neural network (NN) classifier on users' profiles. The trained NN model classifies the presented verification data, and if the classification matches the claimed identity, the verification algorithm accepts the claim. This classification-based approach removes the need to maintain a profile database. However, similar to other NN architectures, the NN classifier of the BA system is vulnerable to privacy attacks. To protect the privacy of training and test data used in an NN different techniques are widely used. In this paper, our focus is on a non-crypto-based approach, and we used random projection (RP) to ensure data privacy in an NN model. RP is a distance-preserving transformation based on a random matrix. Before sharing the profiles with the verifier, users will transform their profiles by RP and keep their matrices secret. To reduce the computation load in RP, we use sparse random projection, which is very effective for low-compute devices. Along with correctness and security properties, our system can ensure the changeability property of the BA system. We also introduce an ML-based privacy attack, and our proposed system is robust against this and other privacy and security attacks. We implemented our approach on three existing behavioral BA systems and achieved a below 2.0% FRR and a below 1.0% FAR rate. Moreover, the machine learning-based privacy attacker can only recover below 3.0% to 12.0% of features from a portion of the projected profiles. However, these recovered features are not sufficient to know details about the users' behavioral pattern or to be used in a subsequent attack. Our approach is general and can be used in other NN-based BA systems as well as in traditional biometric systems

Determining Bank performance using CAMEL rating: A comparative study on selected Islamic and Conventional Banks in Bangladesh

The present article seeks to examine the determinants of the bank profitability in a developing country like Bangladesh and to compare the performance of Islamic and conventional banks during the period 2008 - 2014. Specifically working within the Bangladeshi financial sector, the analysis is confined to the domestic commercial banks operating in the Bangladeshi financial sector during the period 2008-2014. In order to achieve the study objectives and to answer some questions, the ratio analysis and CAMEL has been used. The study found that the higher capital ratio, Tier-1, and growth in total deposits for Islamic banks than conventional banks. On the other hand, Islamic banks are not able to good perform with ROA, ROE and cost-to-income ratio while conventional banks showed satisfactory performance in utilizing funds which was proved in this analysis as high ROA, ROE and cost-to-income ratio. This study shows that management efficiency regarding operating expenses positively and significantly affects the banks’ profitability.   JEL Classifications: G2, G22, H12, G14 The present article seeks to examine the determinants of the bank profitability in a developing country like Bangladesh and to compare the performance of Islamic and conventional banks during the period 2008 - 2014. Specifically working within the Bangladeshi financial sector, the analysis is confined to the domestic commercial banks operating in the Bangladeshi financial sector during the period 2008-2014. In order to achieve the study objectives and to answer some questions, the ratio analysis and CAMEL has been used. The study found that the higher capital ratio, Tier-1, and growth in total deposits for Islamic banks than conventional banks. On the other hand, Islamic banks are not able to good perform with ROA, ROE and cost-to-income ratio while conventional banks showed satisfactory performance in utilizing funds which was proved in this analysis as high ROA, ROE and cost-to-income ratio. This study shows that management efficiency regarding operating expenses positively and significantly affects the banks’ profitability.  JEL Classifications: G2, G22, H12, G1

Estimation of the Optimal Forest Rotation of Sissoo (Dalbergia sissoo) Plantations in Bangladesh

Using various criteria, the paper estimates the optimal rotation period for Sissoo (Dalbergia sissoo) plantations in Bangladesh. Plantations data were collected during 1999-2000 from purposively selected Forest Divisions aged at least 5 years. Under the present management system, mode of marketing, market mechanism and all economic criteria for Bangladesh as a whole, the optimal rotation of Sissoo tree is estimated to be at 8 years for fuel wood and 12 or 13 years for timber. If the Mean Annual Increment (MAI) is considered as rotation criterion, rotation period as 6 years for fuel wood and 11 to 13 years for timber are suggested. The elimination rates varied from 10% to 72% depending on plantation year, location, biotic interference and sissoo mortality. Irrespective of locations, it was revealed that the highest NPV (Tk 6395599), IRR (85%), B/C ratio (6.57), and  (Tk 2608031) start from the 13 year-old plantation. Keywords: Sissoo, Optimal rotation, Forest management, Bangladesh

A 2X2 MIMO Patch Antenna for Multi-Band Applications

In this paper, a Multiple Input Multiple Output (2x2MIMO)  patch antenna for  multiband applications has been proposed. It has been designed using groups of rings nearby the stepped cut at four corners of the patch and a separation in mid slot. This modification is proposed in order to increase the resonant frequencies and reduce the mutual coupling. The proposed 2x2 MIMO patch antenna is simulated using Computer Simulation Technology (CST), fabricated and tested. With such small geometrical dimensions, the proposed antenna is suitable for LTE (1.8 GHz), WiFi (2.4 GHz), and WiMax (3.5 GHz, 5.2 GHz and 5.5 GHz) application

Determining Bank performance using CAMEL rating: A comparative study on selected Islamic and Conventional Banks in Bangladesh

The present article seeks to examine the determinants of the bank profitability in a developing country like Bangladesh and to compare the performance of Islamic and conventional banks during the period 2008 - 2014. Specifically working within the Bangladeshi financial sector, the analysis is confined to the domestic commercial banks operating in the Bangladeshi financial sector during the period 2008-2014. In order to achieve the study objectives and to answer some questions, the ratio analysis and CAMEL has been used. The study found that the higher capital ratio, Tier-1, and growth in total deposits for Islamic banks than conventional banks. On the other hand, Islamic banks are not able to good perform with ROA, ROE and cost-to-income ratio while conventional banks showed satisfactory performance in utilizing funds which was proved in this analysis as high ROA, ROE and cost-to-income ratio. This study shows that management efficiency regarding operating expenses positively and significantly affects the banks’ profitability

Genetic loci regulating cadmium content in rice grains

Open Access via the Springer Compact Agreement Acknowledgements: Plant material was imported into the UK under import licence IMP/SOIL/19/2014. The authors would like to thank reviewers of the manuscript who helped improve the presentation. Funding: The bulk of this work was supported by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council, mostly from project BB/J003336/1. A small part of the work by AJT was supported by project BB/N013492/1 (NEWS-India-UK). PR was financially supported by a Royal Thai Government Scholarship and National Science and Technology Development Agency (NSTDA), Thailand and AAA supported by the Elphinstone Scholarship Scheme (University of Aberdeen).Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Isolation of multidrug-resistant Escherichia coli and Salmonella spp. from sulfonamide-treated diarrheic calves

Background and Aim: The bovine industry is threatened by one of the most serious and deadly enteric diseases, calf diarrhea, particularly in developing nations like Bangladesh. In this context, bacterial resistance to antimicrobial drugs and its detrimental consequences have become a critical public health issue that is difficult to address globally. This study aimed to isolate and identify Escherichia coli and Salmonella spp. with their antibiogram and antibiotic resistance gene detection from sulfonamide-treated diarrheic calves. Materials and Methods: Twelve diarrheic calves suffering from calf diarrhea in a dairy farm were selected and a total of 36 fecal samples were aseptically collected directly from rectum before, during, and at the end of treatment for each calf to determine the total viable count, total E. coli count and total Salmonella count. A polymerase chain reaction was used for the specific detection of E. coli and Salmonella genus targeting fliC and invA genes, respectively. Antibiotic sensitivity test of the isolated E. coli and Salmonella spp. were performed by the disk diffusion method for eight commonly used antibiotics. Results: A total of 36 E. coli (100%) and 12 Salmonella spp. (33%) were isolated from the samples and were confirmed by polymerase chain reaction. Total viable count was found to be ranged from 35 × 107 to 99 × 1010 colony-forming unit (CFU)/g fecal sample before starting sulfonamide treatment, 34 × 105 to 25 × 1010 CFU/g during treatment with sulfonamide, and 48 × 103 to 69 × 1010 CFU/g immediately after completion of sulfonamide treatment. Total E. coli count was found to be ranged from 4 × 104 to 36 × 1010 CFU/g, 24 × 104 to 23 × 108 CFU/g, and 13 × 104 to 85 × 1010 CFU/g, whereas total Salmonella count was found to be ranged from 16 × 106 to 18.5 × 1011 CFU/g, 15 × 104 to 44 × 107 CFU/g, and 13.2 × 105 to 21 × 1010 CFU/g fecal sample before starting sulfonamide treatment, during treatment with sulfonamide immediately after completion of sulfonamide treatment, respectively. The in vitro antibiotic sensitivity test showed that all the E. coli and Salmonella spp. isolated from diarrheic calves (100%) contained multidrug-resistant (MDR) phenotypes. Escherichia coli isolates were found 100% resistant to amoxicillin (AMX), cefuroxime, cephalexin (CN), erythromycin (ERY), and tetracycline (TET); whereas 94.4%, 86.1%, and 77.8% isolates were resistant to doxycycline (DOX), moxifloxacin (MOF), and gentamycin (GEN), respectively. In case of Salmonella isolates, all were found 100% resistant to AMX, CN, and ERY; whereas 91.7% of resistance was observed for DOX, MOF, cefuroxime, GEN, and TET. Based on the molecular screening of the antibiotic resistance genes, tetA gene was present in 83.3% of the isolated E. coli and 75% of the isolated Salmonella strains, whereas 83.3% E. coli and 79.2% Salmonella isolates contained blaTEM gene. Conclusion: These findings suggest that MDR E. coli and Salmonella spp. might be responsible for calf scouring, which is challenging to treat with antibiotics or sulfonamide drugs alone. Therefore, it is important to check the antibiotic sensitivity pattern to select a suitable antibiotic for the treatment of calf scoring. A suitable antibiotic or combination of an antibiotic and sulfonamide could be effective against E. coli and Salmonella spp. responsible for calf scouring

Effect of knowledge of informal poultry drug prescribers on their attitude and practice toward antimicrobial use, residues, and resistance in Bangladesh

Background and Aim: Informal prescribers (IPs) significantly contribute to the development of antimicrobial resistance and in disseminating pathogens from poultry to humans and other animals through the food chain, posing a serious global health threat. Therefore, this study aimed to assess whether the knowledge of IPs has an impact on their attitude and practice toward antimicrobial use, antibiotic residues, and antimicrobial resistance. Materials and Methods: In this cross-sectional study, we conducted a pre-tested and questionnaire-based survey to investigate the knowledge, attitude, and practice of IPs in selected parts of the Mymensingh division, Bangladesh. Then, we used the linear regression model test with R-squared (R2) to measure the association between the study variables. Results: Our investigation revealed that 70% of the IPs knew about antibiotics and 75% had good knowledge about antibiotic resistance, whereas only 50% were aware of withdrawal periods. Informal prescribers also displayed good attitudes toward the use and sale of antibiotics with withdrawal periods and completion of medication (50%). Analysis of their practice on the sale and prescription of antibiotics showed that 70% and 30% of IPs use antibiotics against bacterial infections and other conditions, respectively. Most of them do not consult a veterinarian before selling or prescribing antibiotics, although 80% claim to do so. This is because 75% of IPs gave other options regarding their consultations. However, 95% of IPs uses antibiotics only for therapeutic purposes. Furthermore, only 10% sell antibiotics based on a veterinarian’s recommendation. Approximately 45% of IPs use single antibiotics at a time, while the rest use multiple antibiotics, individually or combined. Approximately 15% use antibiotics monthly, while 85% use them whenever the need arises. The knowledge and attitude of IPs are significantly affected by their age (p ≤ 0.025). The district of domicile also impacted their knowledge. Surprisingly, IPs from Jamalpur had significantly better knowledge compared to those from Mymensingh and Sherpur (p ≤ 0.01). The attitude of IPs from Jamalpur and Netrokona also differed significantly (p ≤ 0.001) from that of Mymensingh and Sherpur. The knowledge of IPs influenced their attitude up to 80.5% (r2 = 0.628) and their practice up to 75.4% (r2 = 0.545). Conclusion: The knowledge of IPs greatly influenced their attitude and practice, while sociodemographics also influenced their knowledge and attitude toward antimicrobial use, antibiotic residues, and antimicrobial resistance

Multiband antenna using stacked series array for Ka-Band application

In this paper, a multiband stack series array antenna is designed in order to attain solutions for the future 28 GHz Ka-band application. Double layer substrate Technology is utilized to accomplish multiple resonant frequencies with higher data transfer capacities due to high bandwidth. The designed antenna is dependent on twofold layer consisting patches and resonators in different layers stacked together. The designed multiband antennas can resonate at single band of (28 GHz), dual band of (28 and 30 GHz) and triple band of (24.18, 26 and 28.453). The results achieved in the simulation are later fabricated and tested. The test result illustrates that the antennas have wide bandwidth, high gain and even higher efficiencies. All the proposed antenna configurations have demonstrated a decent possibility for 5G millimeter wave (mmwave) application