How Vulnerable are Bangladesh’s Indigenous People to Climate Change?

This paper compares the vulnerabilities to climate change and climate variability of the indigenous people with the Bengali population of Bangladesh. It distinguishes between (a) individual vulnerabilities that are related to an individual’s capability to adapt to climate change and; (b) spatial vulnerabilities, that is, vulnerabilities that are related to the location of a person (like the exposure to climate change-induced disasters). While an individual’s capability to adapt to climate change is determined by many factors, some relatively simple approximation is to look at poverty, landlessness, and illiteracy. Spatial vulnerabilities are reviewed by looking at drought hazard maps, flood hazard maps, landslide hazard maps, and cyclone hazard maps. Hence, the paper compares levels of poverty, landlessness, illiteracy, and the more direct though also more subjective exposures to increased droughts, floods, landslides, and cyclones across the two population groups. The paper concludes with some broad suggestions on adaptation strategies of indigenous people as well as suggestions for policy interventions to reduce climate change-induced vulnerabilities for indigenous people in the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT).Bangladesh, climate change, vulnerability

Substituting Wood with Nonwood Fibers in Papermaking: A Win-Win Solution for Bangladesh

Bangladesh is facing an acute shortage of fibrous raw materials for the production of pulp and paper. On the other hand, the demand for paper and paper products is increasing day by day. This study reviews the availability and suitability of nonwood raw materials for pulp production in Bangladesh. It shows that Bangladesh has a huge amount of unused jute fiber, which is highly suitable for papermaking in Bangladesh. Other agricultural wastes like rice straw, dhaincha, golpata fronds, cotton stalks, corn stalks, and kash are also available and may be used for some pulp production. Given the different properties of these different nonwood fibers, jute pulp can be used as a reinforcing agent with other nonwood pulps for the production of high quality paper in Bangladesh.Bangladesh, natural fibers, jute, paper making, pulp

Analyzing Bangladesh’s Debt Sustainability Using SimSIP Debt

The ability to pay for a government-led investment strategy to achieve the millennium development goals (MDGs) is determined by the resources available to the government through economic growth, taxation, loans, and grants. Unsustainable public debts increase poverty directly through negative impacts on economic growth as well as indirectly through cuts in spending. Hence, the issue of fiscal debt sustainability is critical for achieving the MDGs. In this paper, we use the debt projection module of SimSIP Debt to project the evolution of Bangladesh’s public debt over a 15-year horizon (from fiscal year 2006 to fiscal year 2021) under three different macroeconomic scenarios and two different financing scenarios of an ambitious government-led investment strategy.Bangladesh, debt sustainability, aid

Development, Research and Validation of Environmental Speciation Methods; and Evaluation by Speciated Isotope Dilution Mass Spectrometry in Mercury and Chromium Speciation Analysis

The toxicity of an element depends upon its chemical forms, which also gives vital information for samples and their relevance. A sequential extraction method for mercury speciation in soil and sediments was established based on the mobility and toxicity of different mercury species and was proposed as a draft US EPA Method 3200. In order to finalize the method, an interlaboratory validation study was performed, and the final results verified the applicability of the method. Some of the widely used mercury speciation methods were evaluated during this study and the results were compared with those obtained from EPA draft Method 3200. The performances of these methods were also tested by using SIDMS technique (EPA Method 6800) as a diagnostic tool. A highly pure isotopically labeled methylmercury (CH3201Hg+) was synthesized from commercially available isotopically enriched inorganic mercury (201HgO) and tetramethyltin with a yield of more than 90% in a synthesis procedure lasting less than 1.5 h at 60 °C; the product was characterized using ICP-MS during this study. A simple and fast closed-vessel microwave-assisted extraction method based on acidic extractant has been developed for mercury speciation from soils and sediments. The optimized sample preparation was achieved in a closed-vessel system by heating 1.0 g of sample in 10.0 mL of 4.0 M HNO3 for 10 min at 100 °C with magnetic stirring. During this study, not only the SIDMS technique was established and validated for the first time for mercury speciation analysis but also a set of generic equations for one, two and three species systems in terms of unidirectional and bidirectional transformations have been developed. The modified SIDMS technique was used for the speciation of chromium from road construction materials, soils and sediments by applying microwave-assisted alkaline extraction instead of hot-plate extraction, and was observed that these matrices contain 30-70 times more Cr(VI) compared to the US EPA threshold limit (5 mg/L). This dissertation investigated and provides solution to some difficulties associated with the analyses of mercury and chromium species. The techniques developed and tested here are being adopted worldwide to assist with species related problems

Fully Fuzzy Linear System in Circuit Analysis with the Study of Weak Solution

In this paper, a simpler method to solve a fully fuzzy linear system (FFLS) with unrestricted coefficient matrix is discussed. FFLS is applied in circuit analysis instead of crisp linear system to reflect the real life situation much better. Arithmetic operations of triangular fuzzy number (TFN) are justified by forming FFLS in an electrical circuit with fuzzy sources and fuzzy resistors and then the system was solved by the simpler method. Finally, the case of weak solution is overcome by proposing a new definition of TFN. Keywords: Fuzzy number, Triangular fuzzy number, Fully fuzzy linear system, Circuit analysis, Weak solutio

Thin shell wormhole due to dyadosphere of a charged black hole

To explain Gamma Ray Bursts, Ruffini argued that the event horizon of a charged black hole is surrounded by a special region called, the Dyadosphere where electric field exceeds the critical value for $e^+$ $e^-$ pair production. In the present work, we construct a thin shell wormhole by performing a thought surgery between two dadospheres. Several physical properties of this thin shell wormhole have been analyzed.Comment: 10 pages, 2 figures. Accepted in Mod.Phys.Lett.