Consequence of Interactive Effect of Exchange Rate Volatility and Trade on GDP Growth

Exchange rate volatility has been regarded as a vital macroeconomic concern for the policy makers and its impact on economic growth has gained much attention from the researchers in recent years. Existing studies tried to analyze the impact focusing on financial development. In contrast, we have given effort to examine it taking into account the trade dependence of the country. A panel of seven developing Asian countries has been studied for a total of 29 years (from 1985 to 2013). In order to generate the variable “exchange rate volatility” GARCH (1, 1) model is used with the monthly exchange rate of the countries for the period 1985 to 2013. By using cross sectional dependence test and panel unit root test the variable properties has been diagnosed and Pooled OLS, Panel Least Squares with Single Fixed Effects as well as Both way Fixed Effects and Panel EGLS with Mixed Effects has been used as the estimation technique. The findings suggest that exchange rate volatility has significant negative impact on economic growth and the impact becomes even more negative whenever Trade – GDP ratio is considered. In particular the negative impact of exchange rate volatility becomes more negative the higher the Trade – GDP ratio of the country. The finding is found to be robust against the definition of exchange rate volatility

Analysis of Ring Yarn Properties Produced from Different Traveller Brands

A traveller is the tiny but significant part in ring frame in a short staple spinning mill. It is a small portion among all the parts of ring machine. It performs two most significant tasks like twisting without which spun yarn production cannot be imagined, and it aids in the winding of yarn on the cop. The traveller is one of the mechanical reasons for the hairiness properties of yarn. Two yarn of 30’s Ne KH (Card hosiery) was produced by using two same number of the traveller of different brands called Lakshmi Ring Travellers (LRT) and X-AXIS. All the processing parameters remained the same during the production of yarn. After that, Uster Evenness Tester 5 machine was used to determine the yarn properties such as unevenness percentage, imperfection index, hairiness, standard deviation of hairiness, standard deviation of hairiness in reference length 1 meter, and standard deviation of hairiness in reference length 3 meters. The end breakage rate was recorded through whole doff for the duration of the production of yarn in ring section. Statistical analysis used t-test to pair two samples to obtain the means for unevenness percentage, imperfection index, and hairiness. This was accomplished with Microsoft Excel 2013. Lakshmi Ring Travellers indicate better results than X-AXIS traveller. It can be decided from the t- test that there is no significant difference in unevenness and hairiness except imperfection index of two brands

Bacterial Isolates and Antimicrobial Susceptibility in Children with Acute Diarrhea at Ibn Sina Medical College, Bangladesh

Backround: Infectious diarrhea is one of common cause of children diarrhea causing mortality and morbidity worldwide. This study was performed to identify the common bacteria and their antimicrobial susceptibility in children with diarrhea. Methods: A retrospective study was conducted from April 2014 to March 2016 at IBN SINA Medical College Hospital, Bangladesh. Stool samples were cultured on MacConkey agar and blood agar. A standard biochemical procedure was used for full identification of bacterial isolates. Antimicrobial susceptibility tests were done on Mueller-Hinton agar by using disc diffusion method. Data were entered and analyzed by using SPSS version 20 and a p-value of < 0.05 was considered statistically significant. Results: A total of 186 stool samples were tested for bacterial isolation and 55 (29.57%) cases were found to have bacterial isolates. From the total bacterial isolates, the predominant isolate was E. coli 39 (70.91%) followed by Salmonella 9 (16.36%) and Shigella Spp.7 (12.73%). As much as 84.62% E. coli were resistant to co-trimoxazole and cefuroxime while 92.31% E. coli were sensitive to amikacin and 71.79% were sensitive to cefepime and gentamicin. Salmonella were 100% sensitive to cefepime, ceftriaxone, cefixime, ceftazidime, and ciprofloxacin. Shigella were 85.71% sensitive to amikacin and cefepime. Conclusion: The results show that E. coli were the most frequently isolated pathogen in children. The majority of the bacterial isolates were resistant to multiple antibiotics. Hence, antibiotics susceptibility test is mandatory before prescribing any antibiotics

RAPD analysis of Sclerotium rolfsii isolates causing collar rot of eggplant and tomato

Eight isolates of Sclerotium rolfsii from four strategically geographical sites of Bangladesh were characterized and their cultural properties like average linear mycelial growth, colony colour, colony consistency, growth pattern and sclerotia formation were studied. Isolates varied in mycelial growth and other growth characteristics and were grouped into three. The highest linear growth was displayed by S8. DNA concentration of eight isolates varied from 1150-7200 ng/?l. DNA fingerprinting by RAPD prompted the grouping of isolates. Selected 3 primers generated 20 bands with size ranging from 100-1500 bp. Out of the 20 bands, 9 bands (45%) were polymorphic and 11 bands (55%) were monomorphic among the eight isolates of Sclerotium rolfsii. The co-efficient of gene differentiation (Gst) was 1.000 reflecting the existence of high level of genetic variations among the 8 isolates. The lowest genetic distance and highest inter isolate similarity was found in S1 and S2 which would be homogeneous. The highest genetic distance and lowest inter isolate similarity found in S3, S7 and S3, S8 pair which would be most divergent isolates. The cluster analysis also revealed that S3, S7 and S8 belong to different clusters. All five varieties of eggplant and tomatoes were graded as susceptible when inoculated with eight isolates. Plant mortality 93.33% was recorded in S4, S6 and in S8. Considering the isolate factor the most virulent isolate would be S8 whereas the less virulent isolate would be S2 and S7. Host plant of S8 was tomato collected from Thakurgaon. S2 and S7 were collected from BAU farm and Dinajpur and host plants were lentil and tomato respectively. It is evident that Sclerotium rolfsii from Thakurgaon on host tomato is more virulent.Int. J. Agril. Res. Innov. & Tech. 6 (1): 47-57, June, 201

E-Device Purchase And Disposal Behaviours in the UAE: An Exploratory Study

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) is one of the high-income countries in the Middle Eastern region and is vying for sustainable development in every sector. One of the UAE sustainable development goals is to ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns; hence, the emphasis is on circular economy. UAE is one of largest consumers of e-devices, and their proper disposal is of paramount importance. E-waste disposal awareness leads to better disposal behaviors. Therefore, the purpose of the study was to understand the e-device purchase and disposal behaviour among university communities in the UAE. A survey was conducted among the students and staff members of a federally funded university in the UAE, namely Zayed University, and quantitative methodology was adopted to analyze the collected data. The study found that 47.95% of respondents purchased mobile phones, and 65% of the respondents purchased 1-3 electronic devices every year. Through chi-square test, gender of the respondents was found to be related with e-device ownership. Through the analysis of variance (ANOVA), age and field of specialization were found to affect the knowledge about e-waste. Older and the respondents with science specialization were more aware about e-waste. Most of the respondents disposed e-devices, such as batteries, earphones/headphones, and electronic toys, along with the household trash. A very small percentage of respondents disposed e-devices such as laptops, phones, and tablets with the household trash. Mostly, these were either repaired, donated, or sold to second-hand users. Many respondents were neither aware of the government initiatives on e-waste collection nor participated in government-sponsored e-waste recycling. The study further identified that 67% of the respondents were aware of the toxicity of e-waste, and 61% of the respondents were keen to join e-waste recycling drives at university. The findings of the study imply that the policy makers need to incentivize e-waste-disposal systems and develop targeted awareness approaches to enhance e-waste disposal in the UAE

Investigation of factors affecting COVID-19 vaccine acceptance among communities of universities in the United Arab Emirates.

The COVID-19 pandemic affected the lives of people living across the world and the development of vaccines against SARS-CoV-2 is considered to be one of the most promising solutions to contain the COVID-19 pandemic. In several countries, we are witnessing hesitancy toward COVID-19 vaccines, which is a complex phenomenon influenced by a variety of factors. A cross-sectional study was performed to comprehensively investigate the impact of factors like demography, COVID-19 pandemic-induced behavior, and vaccine attitude on COVID-19 vaccine acceptance (VA) among communities of five different universities in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). To investigate the effect of demography and COVID-19 pandemic-induced behavioral factors, Analysis of Variance was perfomed. The effect of COVID-19 vaccine attitudes on COVID-19 VA was examined through partial least squares-structural equations modeling. The results of the study showed no difference among the population in accepting COVID-19 vaccines due to their demographic factors. The effect of pandemic-induced behavioral factors on COVID-19 VA suggested that the people of UAE accepted COVID-19 vaccines irrespective of the movement and travel restrictions imposed due to the pandemic. The results on the effect of vaccine attitudes on COVID-19 VA showed that vaccine benefit attitudes, safety concerns, and trust in health-care professionals (TrHP) were found to be significant factors in VA. Furthermore, TrHP was found to reduce the negative effect of safety concerns related to COVID-19 VA. The findings broadly highlight that COVID-19 VA in the UAE was not hampered by demographic factors and the pandemic-induced behavioral constraints. The study also showed that people with co-morbidities had lower level of COVID-19 VA than people with no co-morbidities. To improve COVID-19 VA, the perceived benefits with COVID-19 vaccine and TrHP must be enhanced and simultaneously safety concerns of the vaccines need to be addressed

Mean Reversion of the Real Exchange Rate and the validity of PPP Hypothesis in the context of Bangladesh: A Holistic Approach

The real bilateral exchange rates in many countries have recently been found to be non-stationary in nature implying that they do not tend to revert to a long-run mean. Such empirical findings of real exchange rate being non-stationary in the long-run have thrown the well-known, yet now controversial, theory of Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) under fire. This paper aims to add to the few research works on the validity of PPP hypothesis in case of real exchange rate of Bangladesh by undertaking various approaches. We used five important real exchange rates for Bangladesh with its five important partners of international trade. For validating the PPP hypothesis the stationarity of these real exchange rates have been diagnosed. The tests range from the very rudimentary Augmented Dickey Fuller (ADF) and Phillips Perron tests and other univariate unit root tests, to the tests which addresses one/more breaks in the time series data and finally panel unit root tests that account for the possible presence of cross-sectional dependence in dataset. Such a thorough approach was taken to access the issue of the presence of unit root in real exchange rate in every way feasible, assuming the adjustment process is linear. Almost all the results corroborated each others’ conclusions that the real bilateral exchange rates of Bangladesh with five of its major trading partners are in fact not mean-reverting in the long run and so PPP hypothesis does not hold. Therefore, caution must be practiced when making policies for the country where the stipulated PPP hypothesis is assumed to be accurate

Relationship between Liquidity Risk and Net Interest Margin of Conventional Banks in Bangladesh

Net interest margin (NIM) of a bank depends on several firm-specific factors. The aim of the study was to determine the effect of liquidity risk on the profitability indicating variable NIM of the conventional banks in Bangladesh. Seven banks were analyzed using the annual reports of the banks for the period of 2011 to 2015. Researchers applied descriptive statistics, correlation, and regression analysis to find out the results. The findings of the study provided evidence that cash to asset (CA) ratio had a negative relationship with NIM but a loan to asset (LA) ratio had a positive effect on the NIM. There was also a significant positive relationship between NIM and loan to deposit (LD) ratio. From the regression analysis it was clear that the LD, CA, and LA were able to explain the changes of NIM of the banks.  JEL Classifications: G 2

Relationship between Liquidity Risk and Net Interest Margin of Conventional Banks in Bangladesh

Net interest margin (NIM) of a bank depends on several firm-specific factors. The aim of the study was to determine the effect of liquidity risk on the profitability indicating variable NIM of the conventional banks in Bangladesh. Seven banks were analyzed using the annual reports of the banks for the period of 2011 to 2015. Researchers applied descriptive statistics, correlation, and regression analysis to find out the results. The findings of the study provided evidence that cash to asset (CA) ratio had a negative relationship with NIM but a loan to asset (LA) ratio had a positive effect on the NIM. There was also a significant positive relationship between NIM and loan to deposit (LD) ratio. From the regression analysis it was clear that the LD, CA, and LA were able to explain the changes of NIM of the banks

Assessment of genetic diversity of brinjal (Solanum melongena L.) germplasm by RAPD markers

Assessment of genetic diversity in a crop species is prerequisite to its improvement. The use of germplasm with distinct DNA profiles helps to generate genetically diversified breeding populations. The present study was carried out to investigate the genetic diversity in brinjal or eggplant (Solanum melongena L.) using random amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD). Fifteen brinjal germplasm and three decamer primers were used for random polymorphic DNA assay. A total of 17 fragments were obtained, out of which 12 (70.59%) were polymorphic. Each primer generated 4 to 8 amplified fragments with an average of 5.67 fragments per primer. The highest genetic distance (0.8873) and the lowest genetic identity (0.4118) were observed in Laffa (Elongated) versus Jessore L and Dharola combinations. The lowest genetic distance (0.1525) was observed in several cultivars. The unweighted pair-group method of arithmetic means (UPGMA) dendrogram was constructed from genetic distance and all brinjal cultivars were grouped into five clusters. The genetic diversity of brinjal cultivars reported in this study will be useful when planning future crosses amongst these cultivars