Determinants of Loan Default of Low-Income Borrowers in Urban Informal Credit Markets: Evidence from Dhaka City

A major problem for credit markets is to discover the factors that are responsible for the non-repayment of loans. This study identifies the factors which are liable to loan default in urban informal credit markets. A questionnaire survey was conducted among four hundred low-income people in Dhaka city who took loans from informal credit markets. A logistic regression was used to find out the factors which cause loan default in these markets. The results show that loan default is strongly related to interest rate, size of loan, loan diversion, and collateral of loan. In addition, multiple sources of income, borrower’s monthly income, education and age play important roles in this regard. The identification of the factors affecting loan default is expected to help the loan providers of both informal and formal credit markets to reduce default loans and establish discipline in financial markets. Keywords: Determinants; Loan default; Low-income borrower; Informal credit market; Dhaka DOI: 10.7176/EJBM/11-26-10 Publication date:September 30th 2019

Towards Misleading Connection Mining

This study introduces a new Natural Language Generation (NLG) task – Unit Claim Identification. The task aims to extract every piece of verifiable information from a headline. The Unit Claim identification has applications in other domains; such as fact-checking where the identification of each verifiable information from a check-worthy statement can lead to an effective fact-check. Moreover, the extracting of the unit claims from headlines can identify a misleading news article, by mapping evidence from contents. For addressing the unit claim identification problem, we outlined a set of guidelines for data annotation, arranged in-house training for the annotators and obtained a small dataset. We explored two potential approaches - 1) Rule-based approach and 2) Deep learning-based approach and compared their performances. Although the performance of the deep learning-based approach was not very effective due to small number of training instances, the rule-based approach shoa promising result in terms of precision (65.85%)

GABA mediated response of aqueous, ethanol andethyl acetate extracts of Dicranopteris linearis leaf inSwiss Albino mice

Introduction: The objective of the study was to assess the potential of the leaf of Dicranopteris linearis in altering the CNS functions with three different extracts; aqueous, ethanol and ethyl acetate.Methods: To evaluate and compare the activities Morris maze, elevated plus maze (EPM),open field, hole cross and head dip tests were performed and many behavioral parameters wereobserved. The forced swim in Morris water maze analyzed the depression of rodents in termsof inability to self-rescue. Alongside, hole cross and open field tests assessed the inhibition oflocomotor activities. Moreover, EPM test screened the anxiolytic potential while the head dippinghole board test supported the previous experiments by evaluating both sedative, depressive andanxiolytic potentials of the extracts.Results: The results showed that the ethanol extract significantly suppressed CNS activity byreducing number of locomotor activities and increasing the stability phase (in EPM and Morrismaze) supporting mild sedation, depression and anxiolysis. Furthermore, the ethyl acetate extractalso possessed moderate to high potential in reducing locomotor activities depending on gradientdoses. Results were compared with control group and found statistically significant.Conclusion: As this plant mimic the activity of a gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA) agonist, itcan be concluded that the plant may have GABA mediated involvement in central nervous system.However, the responsible compounds for these activities are yet to be investigated and this maypotentiate a new source of drug development

Impacts of mangrove plantations on land stabilization along the coastline in Bangladesh

Rapid degradation of stabilized mangrove plantations in the southern and south-eastern part of Bangladesh has raised much concern to the scientists and environmentalists. In the past, land stabilization concept in connection to mangrove plantations is poorly understood. This study aimed at assessing the current status of mangrove plantations and understanding more about their impacts on land stabilization along the coastline of Bangladesh. The study was carried out at five Coastal Afforestation Divisions (here mentioned as CADs) of Bangladesh Forest Department (BFD) from September 2014 to August 2015. Primary data on stabilized mangrove plantations over the time period of 1966 - 2014 were collected from BFD field offices. Secondary data on natural accretion and erosion were collected from a large number of existing literatures. The results showed that more than 192,395 ha of mangrove plantations were stabilized over the period from 1966 through 2014 in five CADs with the highest distribution in Noakhali (40%) followed by that in Chittagong (26%), Bhola (20%) and Patuakhali (14%). The total area of stabilized mangroves maintained a significant (

Case report of jelly fish stinging in Bay of Bengal: A report from Bangladesh

Introduction: Jelly fish or jellies are the members of the phylum Cnidaria (Coelenterata), consisting of a gelatinous umbrella-shaped bell and trailing tentacles. Sting contains toxic peptide, pbospholipase A and histamine-liberating factor. Jelly fish stinging in Bangladesh is rare. Yet, from a management point of view, this epizoonozis might gain importance given the ever-growing popularity of seaside fishering and tourism. We are presenting a case of jelly fish contact illness in Cox's Bazar Medical College. Case Report: A 30 year old male patient was stung by a jellyfish while tishering in the Bay of Bengal near Teknaf of Cox's Bazar District on 3rd June' 2013. A couple of minutes later urticaria were formed in the contact area accompanied by a bmniug and sore sensation. Within few minutes be developed severe abdominal pain, bodyache and parestbaesia. Immediate decontmninalion was done by patient himself with sea water though ideally it should be with 5% acetic acid. Routine laboratory investigations show no abnormality except non-significant ST elevation in ECG. The patient was managed conservatively with antihistamine, corticosteroids and antibiotics and recovered completely within four days