A quantitative method for measuring and visualizing species\u27 relatedness in a two-dimensional Euclidean space.

Representing DNA sequences graphically and evaluating, as well as displaying, species’ relationships have been considered to be an important aspect of molecular biology research. A novel approach is proposed in this thesis that combines three methods: a) Chaos Game Representation (CGR), to portray quantitative characteristics of a DNA sequence as a black-and -white image, b) Structural Similarity (SSIM) index, an image comparison method, to compute pair-wise distances between these images, and c) Multidimensional Scaling (MDS), to visually display each sequence as a point in a two-dimensional Euclidean space. The proposed method produces a visual representation called Genome Distance Map (GDM) when applied to a collection of genomic DNA sequences. In a resulting Genome Distance Map, the sequences can be visualized as points in a common two-dimensional Euclidean space, wherein the geometric distance between any two points is approximate to the differences between their respective DNA sequence compositions. In addition, the proposed Genome Distance Map provides a compelling visualization of species’ relatedness in comparison to the phylogenetic trees. Moreover, the proposed method is sensitive and robust in detecting insertions, deletions, substitutions of nucleotides in a genome

A study on the general banking activities of Prime Bank Limited, Gulshan Branch

This internship report is submitted in a partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Business Administration, 2016.Cataloged from PDF version of Internship report.Includes bibliographical references (page 33).After studying numerous theoretical concepts during the various coursework’s of my MBA program at Majoring in Finance, BRAC University, Understanding the practical implications and applications is the next step in the learning process. The MBA internship program provides an opportunity for such steps. In due course of completing my internship project and compiling this report I came to learn about the General Banking and the performance of the Prime Bank Ltd. This report is based on practical working experience at The Prime Bank Limited as a part of internship program. The Prime Bank Limited, the first generation bank in Bangladesh came into being in 1995. Established with the objective of bringing about a qualitative change in sphere of banking and financial management, the bank today serves its customers usefully and collecting funds from the surplus units of the economy in the form of deposit and mobilize deposit to the deficit units of the economy in the form of credit. The noble intention behind starting this Bank was to bring about qualitative changes in the sphere of Banking and financial management. Today The Prime Bank Limited serves its customers at home and abroad with 122 branches spread over the country and about three hundred oversea correspondences.Abu Sadat Md. Sayem BhuyainM. Business Administratio

Eco-design framework for reducing fabric waste and consumption during fast fashion production

Fast fashion business model is well-known for being responsible for accelerated waste generation both at post-consumption and manufacturing phases. The average marker efficiency of industrial fabric cutting process for garment manufacturing is 85%, which means average 15% of fabrics is directly scrapped during this stage. This makes all the efforts and inputs given from fibre to fabric production go fully in vain and the environmental impact and climate change contribution by this 15% of scrapped fabrics unjustifiable. Zero-Waste Pattern Cutting (ZWPC) is a recent trend in increasing fabric utilisation but is only practiced in atelier environment for making one or two garments. Our previous work demonstrated the integration of ZWPC in mass production of knitwear resulting over 95% of fabric utilisation. In this work, we demonstrated an eco-design framework for integrating ZWPC in to design and pattern cutting of woven garments in mass production scenario. As ZWPC approach demands significant changes in pattern geometry to increase fabric utilisation, it is necessary to first check through wearer trial how a garment drapes and appears on human body before finalising the design for mass production. The whole process is heuristic and based on ‘error and trial’ method. The physical prototyping and fit checking processes are very time and material consuming, hence not sustainable in this case. Therefore, virtual prototyping and fit analysis approach has been adopted to test the fit of eco-designed garment

Sustainable adsorbents from plant-derived agricultural wastes for anionic dye removal: a review

The extensive use of dyes in numerous industries results in massive dye discharge in the wastewater, which is a major cause of water pollution. Globally, the consumption of dyes is near seven hundred thousand tons across different sectors, of which around 10–15% goes into the wastewater. Among the dye kinds, anionic dyes make up the main proportion, having a 32–90% share in the wastewater. Different plant-derived wastes, which are sustainable given their natural abundance, effectiveness, and low cost, are frequently proposed for dye separation. However, these adsorbents are inherently more suitable for cationic dyes than anionic dyes. In recent years, the modification of these wastes has been progressively considered to suit them to anionic dye removal. These modifications involve mechanical, thermal, or chemical treatments, or combinations. These attempts propose two-way benefits, as one abundant waste is being used to cure another severe problem, and eventually both could be diminished. This review has a key focus on the evaluation of plant-derived adsorbents and their modifications, and particularly for anionic dye adsorption. Overall, the mechanism of adsorption and the suitability of the current methods are discussed, and their future potential is explored

Mapping environmental sustainability of knitted textile production facilities

To achieve the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 12, it is important to investigate the sustainability of both products and manufacturing facilities to identify the areas to improve. The number of published research works on measuring the eco-indices of fashion products are plenty, while ignoring the measurement of the eco-indices of fashion production facilities. Therefore, this study investigated the environmental sustainability of knit-dyeing facilities linked to fast fashion production in Bangladesh. The Facility Environment Module (FEM) of the Higg index tool 2.0 from Sustainable Apparel Coalition (SAC) was applied to detect the sustainability scores. Multiple case study approach was adopted for this study. Seven tools of FEM related to the environmental management system, energy use, GHG emissions, water use, wastewater, air emissions, waste management, and chemical management were applied to collect data. Scores of these categories were calculated using the FEM tool. Qualitative data was collected through short interviews using a questionnaire. A varying range of scores (from low to high) was found for all the categories. The scores reveal the technical, managerial, and resource limitations on practicing sustainable production approaches in knit-textiles facilities. The overall finding urges all stakeholders, including manufacturers, researchers, buyers, and policymakers, to pay serious attention and reformulate strategies and resources to reduce the negative impact of knit manufacturing on the environment

Design of a compact planar transmission line for miniaturized rat-race coupler with harmonics suppression

This paper presents an elegant yet straightforward design procedure for a compact rat-race coupler (RRC) with an extended harmonic suppression. The coupler’s conventional λ /4 transmission lines (TLs) are replaced by a specialized TL that offers significant size reduction and harmonic elimination capabilities in the proposed approach. The design procedure is verified through the theoretical, circuit, and electromagnetic (EM) analyses, showing excellent agreement among different analyses and the measured results. The circuit and EM results show that the proposed TL replicates the same frequency behaviour of the conventional one at the design frequency of 1.8 GHz while enables harmonic suppression up to the 7th harmonic and a size reduction of 74%. According to the measured results, the RRC has a fractional bandwidth of 20%, with input insertion losses of around 0.2 dB and isolation level better than 35 dB. Furthermore, the total footprint of the proposed RRC is only 31.7 mm ×15.9 mm, corresponding to 0.28λ×0.14λ , where λ is the guided wavelength at 1.8 GHz.This work was supported in part by the Icelandic Centre for Research (RANNIS) Grant 206606051, and in part by the National Science Centre of Poland Grant 2017/37/B/ST7/00563

Assessing Mechanical Properties of Jute, Kenaf, and Pineapple Leaf Fiber-Reinforced Polypropylene Composites: Experiment and Modelling

The application of natural fibers is increasing rapidly in the polymer-based composites. This study investigates manufacturing and characterization of polypropylene (PP) based composites reinforced with three different natural fibers: jute, kenaf, and pineapple leaf fiber (PALF). In each case, the fiber weight percentages were varied by 30 wt.%, 35 wt.%, and 40 wt.%. Mechanical properties such as tensile, flexural, and impact strengths were determined by following the relevant standards. Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy was employed to identify the chemical interactions between the fiber and the PP matrix material. Tensile strength and Izod impact strength of the composites significantly increased for all the composites with different fiber contents when compared to the pure PP matrix. The tensile moduli of the composites were compared to the values obtained from two theoretical models based on the modified “rule of mixtures” method. Results from the modelling agreed well with the experimental results. Tensile strength (ranging from 43 to 58 MPa), flexural strength (ranging from 53 to 67 MPa), and impact strength (ranging from 25 to 46 kJ/m2) of the composites significantly increased for all the composites with different fiber contents when compared to the pure PP matrix having tensile strength of 36 MPa, flexural strength of 53 Mpa, and impact strength of 22 kJ/m2. Furthermore, an improvement in flexural strength but not highly significant was found for majority of the composites. Overall, PALF-PP displayed better mechanical properties among the composites due to the high tensile strength of PALF. In most of the cases, T98 (degradation temperature at 98% weight loss) of the composite samples was higher (532–544 °C) than that of 100% PP (500 °C) matrix. Fractured surfaces of the composites were observed in a scanning electron microscope (SEM) and analyses were made in terms of fiber matrix interaction. This comparison will help the researcher to select any of the natural fiber for fiber-based reinforced composites according to the requirement of the final product

Flexible and transparent circularly polarized patch antenna for reliable unobtrusive wearable wireless communications

This paper presents a circularly polarized flexible and transparent circular patch antenna suitable for body-worn wireless-communications. Circular polarization is highly beneficial in wearable wireless communications, where antennas, as a key component of the RF front-end, operate in dynamic environments, such as the human body. The demonstrated antenna is realized with highly flexible, robust and transparent conductive-fabric-polymer composite. The performance of the explored flexible-transparent antenna is also compared with its non-transparent counterpart manufactured with non-transparent conductive fabric. This comparison further demonstrates the suitability of the proposed materials for the target unobtrusive wearable applications. Detailed numerical and experimental investigations are explored in this paper to verify the proposed design. Moreover, the compatibility of the antenna in wearable applications is evaluated by testing the performance on a forearm phantom and calculating the specific absorption rate (SAR)