WATER MANAGEMENT IN BANGLADESH AGRICULTURE: OPTIMAL USE AND INVESTMENT POLICIES FOR ADAPTATION TO CLIMATE CHANGE

In Bangladesh, climatic change is likely to impact significantly upon surface and groundwater availability, as well as in other countries. The population of Bangladesh is projected to be double the current 2010 level by 2050. Demand for water will rise with the increasing demand for rice. This paper considers the optimal demand management of irrigation water with stochastic supply under climate change for a 3-year planning horizon. It also identifies the utilization of irrigation water from surface water sources to maximize the expected net social return from rice production. This is done by considering decision on dam release for rice production with reference to climate change. A stochastic dynamic programming model is developed for analyzing the levels and timing of the allocation of surface water for irrigation. The objective is to find the optimal dam release for irrigation which results in the maximum expected present value of the stream of annual net social return from rice production for the 3 years from 2012 to 2014. Net social return in a year consists of the value of rice consumed, measured by consumers’ willingness to pay for rice, less the total cost of rice production. The paper also identifies the need for irrigation infrastructure and determines the optimal investment policies for the adaptation to climate change in Bangladesh agriculture.climate change, dam release, dynamic programming, Environmental Economics and Policy,

Prevalence, predictors and outcomes of potential drug-drug interactions in left ventricular failure: considerable factors for quality use of medicines

Hospitalized patients with left ventricular failure (LVF) are at high risk for potential drug-drug interactions (pDDIs) and its related adverse effects owing to multiple risk factors such as old age, comorbidities and polypharmacy. This cross-sectional study conducted in two tertiary care hospitals aim to identify frequency, levels and predictors of pDDIs in LVF patients. Data about patients’ demographic, hospital stay, medication therapy, sign/symptoms and laboratory test results were collected for 385 patients with LVF. Micromedex Drug-Reax® was used to screen patients’ medication profiles for pDDIs. Overall prevalence and severity-wise prevalence of pDDIs were identified. Chisquare test was performed for comparative analysis of various variables. Logistic regression was applied to determine the odds-ratios (OR) for predictors of pDDIs. The prevalence of pDDIs was 96.4% (n=371). Overall 335 drug-interacting pairs were detected, which were presented in a total of 2870 pDDIs. Majority of pDDIs were of major- (48.9%) and moderate-severity (47.5%). Logistic regression analysis shows significant association of >6 all types of pDDIs with >12 drugs as compared with <8 drugs (OR=16.5; p=<0.001). Likewise, there was a significant association of >4 majorpDDIs with men as compared with female (OR=1.9; p=0.007) and >12 drugs as compared with <8 drugs (OR=10.9; p=<0.001). Hypotension (n=57), impaired renal function (23) and increased blood pressure (22) were the most frequent adverse outcomes associated with pDDIs. This study shows high prevalence of pDDIs in LVF patients. Majority of pDDIs were of major- and moderate-severity. Male patients and those prescribed greater number of medicines were more exposed to major-pDDIs

Complement components as potential therapeutic targets for asthma treatment

SummaryAsthma is the most common respiratory disorder, and is characterized by distal airway inflammation and hyperresponsiveness. This disease challenges human health because of its increasing prevalence, severity, morbidity, and the lack of a proper and complete cure. Asthma is characterized by TH2–skewed inflammation with elevated pulmonary levels of IL-4, IL-5, and IL-13 levels. Although there are early forays into targeting TH2 immunity, less-specific corticosteroid therapy remains the immunomodulator of choice. Innate immune injury mediated by complement components also act as potent mediators of the allergic inflammatory responses and offer a new and exciting possibility for asthma immunotherapy. The complement cascade consists of a number of plasma- and membrane-bound proteins, and the cleavage products of these proteins (C3 and C5) regulate the magnitude of adaptive immune responses. Complement protein are responsible for many pathophysiological features of asthma, including inflammatory cell infiltration, mucus secretion, increases in vascular permeability, and smooth muscle cell contraction. This review highlights the complement-mediated injury during asthma inflammation, and how blockade of active complement mediators may have therapeutic application

Data Collection in Smart Communities Using Sensor Cloud: Recent Advances, Taxonomy, and Future Research Directions

The remarkable miniaturization of sensors has led to the production of massive amounts of data in smart communities. These data cannot be efficiently collected and processed in WSNs due to the weak communication capability of these networks. This drawback can be compensated for by amalgamating WSNs and cloud computing to obtain sensor clouds. In this article, we investigate, highlight, and report recent premier advances in sensor clouds with respect to data collection. We categorize and classify the literature by devising a taxonomy based on important parameters, such as objectives, applications, communication technology, collection types, discovery, data types, and classification. Moreover, a few prominent use cases are presented to highlight the role of sensor clouds in providing high computation capabilities. Furthermore, several open research challenges and issues, such as big data issues, deployment issues, data security, data aggregation, dissemination of control message, and on time delivery are discussed. Future research directions are also provided

Study of feasibility of pulse detonation engine powered by alternative fuels

World energy demand will continue to increase because of the development of the economy of the world and an increase in population. Non-renewable crude oil- derived liquid fuels are used in the world for more than two hundred years. 90 % of liquid fuels are estimated to be consumed for energy generation and transportation. Liquid fuels cause environmental pollution like carbon dioxide (CO2), carbon monoxide (CO), nitrogen oxides (NOx) and sulfur-containing residues which results in global warming. As we know energy is required but it is short supply, on other side waste is unwanted but it also unavoidable. Agricultural, industrial & domestic waste can be converted into biodiesel, biogas utilizing various techniques. Biogas, biodiesel, biomass, biofuel, alcohol, vegetable oils and so on can solve environmental problems. A pulse detonation engine is anticipated to be a high- performance, next-generation aerospace propulsion engine. This new concept propulsion systems that use repetitive detonations to generate power or thrust. This review is, therefore, a parallel comparison with the hope of analyzing comparatively various biofuels that have been used and documented for PDE. Biofuel combustion characteristics are also investigated in detonation mode. The strategy for exploring the possibility of using biofuels for PDE operation is presented here

A proposed resistance-to-time converter with switching impulse calibrators for resistive bridge sensors

This paper presents a simple resistance-to-time converter. It consists of two voltage comparators, a ramp voltage generator, two logic gates and impulse voltage calibrators. A square-wave generator circuit is suggested in this paper. The design is simple and independent of the OPAMP offset issues. The resulting square-wave is rectified to get its DC equivalent and to a triangular output; the two outputs are applied to a comparator for generating a digital output with duty cycle proportional to a change in resistance upon which is dependent the DC

Salivary Composition of Oral Squamous Cell Carcinoma Patients

OBJECTIVES: The purpose of the study was to determine the salivary composition of Oral squamous cell carcinoma patients. METHODOLOGY: A retrospective study was conducted over 6 months on data of 60 Oral squamous cell carcinoma patients obtained from the patient records of the Institute of Radiotherapy and Nuclear Medicine, Peshawar. Salivary pH, Sodium, Potassium, and total proteins of Oral squamous cell carcinoma patients were recorded. RESULTS: Sodium, Potassium, and total protein concentration in saliva of oral squamous cell carcinoma patients were 23.5 mM/L, 96.7mM/L, and 234.6 mM/L, respectively. These values were significantly higher than normal salivary concentration. CONCLUSION: It was concluded that the saliva of oral squamous cell carcinoma patients contains higher concentrations of Sodium, Potassium, and total proteins

Comparative efficacy of phosphate solubilizing bacteria and synthetic phosphate fertilizers on the growth of wheat

Wheat is recognized as one of the most important dietary elements due to its high nutritious content and thus, has become greatest food option all over the world. Phosphorus (P) being major plant food nutrient plays a vital role multiple functions of plant growth and development. The current study was carried out to compare the performance of phosphate solubilizing bacteria (PSB) as bio-fertilizer with commercially available phosphate fertilizers on wheat crop. The trial was designed in randomized complete block (RCB) replicated thrice. 6 different sources of phosphate fertilizers (Di-ammonium phosphate as DAP, Nitrophos as NP, Single super phosphate as SSP, Restore as PSB, Marathon as PSB, Nitrogen (N2) fixing bacteria as PSB) followed by control were evaluated for agronomic, physiological and quality attributes of wheat. The results showed that most of the qualitative traits were significantly influenced by different treatments. However, application of N2 fixing bacteria was more significant in all treatments. Highest total viable count of colony-forming units (14.63×106 at 3-WAS & 17.70×106 after harvest CFU g-1), maximum tillers’ count (337 m-2), grains’ count (45.57 spike-1), grain yield (2714.3 kg ha-1), LAI (0.67 & 1.16 at 56 & 112 DAS), CGR (13.59 g day-1 m-2), photosynthesis rate (26.13 µ mol m-2 sec-1) and flag leaf sugar content (0.24%) were recorded on account of using N2-fixing bacteria applied as PSB. Moreover, NPK content in shoot, grain as well as uptake of NPK by grain were also received as highest in the same treatment. Based on research findings, it is concluded that application of N2-fixing bacteria as PSB (7.5 kg ha-1) might be increasing wheat production in Dera Ismail Khan and other areas of similar environment in Pakistan