Sustainable Urban Revitalization within a Historical Urban Neighborhood-A useful Approach to Complete

The historically important urban neighborhoods are practically a significant entity, a rich reservoir of social and economical milieu and cultural inheritance. Though, it faces many problems due to the rapid growth of population and the steady increases in the new requirements with concern of decompose this historical urban neighborhood. Presently sustainable urban revitalization is a theory to integrate inclusive concept of sustainability into urban revitalization process. Therefore to fix up such theory into true practices, a useful approach of urban revitalization planning should be worked out at the start. To work out how urban design would affect inclusive sustainable theory i.e. economy, environment, social equity and cultural values of urban revitalization schemes within Boro Bazaar Area (Khulna city, Bangladesh), a study investigating this issue is initiated. The paper highlights different approaches and strategies taken by different interview, questionnaire and field survey towards the methodologies of assessing, refurbishing and adding new value to the study areas, in view of increasing not only the quality of economical and social significance but also the quality of public spaces and services, for a better excellence of life of the society and neighbourhood.It is also believed that the research findings of this paper can strengthen the understanding of local developers, urban designers and government officials on how to plan a sustainable urban revitalization scheme afterwards

EFFECT OF SERUM ANTIOXIDANTS (VITAMIN E, C AND A) IN LUNG CANCER PATIENTS

Objective: Intake of vitamin E, C and A have been reported to reduce lung cancer risk because of their roles as regulators of cell differentiation (vitamin A), antioxidants (vitamins C and E), and modulators of DNA synthesis, methylation and repair. Some case-control studies have found inverse associations between intakes of these vitamins and lung cancer risk. However, most of the prospective studies evaluating these nutrients have not found clear inverse associations. Because many of these prospective studies have included less than 100 lung cancer cases, they lacked statistical power to detect modest inverse associations. Therefore, in order to address the national issue the present study attempted a little beat to explore the association between some antioxidant vitamins with lung cancer. Methods: In this study we investigated cases (lung cancer) and control group (Smoker); serum Vitamin A, Vitamin C and Vitamin E level estimation were focused. Detailed information on these facts was collected by questionnaire and blood sample analysis, which were then complied and analyzed with a statistical software package. Results: In this study we found that Serum vitamin C levels were significantly higher in case (0.8 ± 0.2µg/dl) than in control (0.30±0.1µg/dl). But Serum vitamin A and serum vitamin E level showed less difference between cases (75.89±24.1µg/dl) and (657.25±322.7µg/dl) and controls (74.87±26.6µg/dl) and (641.55±413.5µg/dl) respectively. Conclusion: It can be suggested that vitamin E, C, and A has no effect on lung cancer patients

Material selection method in design of automotive brake disc

An automotive brake disc or rotor is a device for slowing or stopping the motion of a wheel while it runs at a certain speed. The widely used brake rotor material is cast iron which consumes much fuel due to its high specific gravity. The aim of this paper is to develop the material selection method and select the optimum material for the application of brake disc system emphasizing on the substitution of this cast iron by any other lightweight material. Two methods are introduced for the selection of materials, such as cost per unit property and digital logic methods. Material performance requirements were analyzed and alternative solutions were evaluated among cast iron, aluminium alloy, titanium alloy, ceramics and composites. Mechanical properties including compressive strength, friction coefficient, wear resistance, thermal conductivity and specific gravity as well as cost, were used as the key parameters in the material selection stages. The analysis led to aluminium metal matrix composite as the most appropriate material for brake disc system

Understanding and Predicting Characteristics of Test Collections in Information Retrieval

Research community evaluations in information retrieval, such as NIST's Text REtrieval Conference (TREC), build reusable test collections by pooling document rankings submitted by many teams. Naturally, the quality of the resulting test collection thus greatly depends on the number of participating teams and the quality of their submitted runs. In this work, we investigate: i) how the number of participants, coupled with other factors, affects the quality of a test collection; and ii) whether the quality of a test collection can be inferred prior to collecting relevance judgments from human assessors. Experiments conducted on six TREC collections illustrate how the number of teams interacts with various other factors to influence the resulting quality of test collections. We also show that the reusability of a test collection can be predicted with high accuracy when the same document collection is used for successive years in an evaluation campaign, as is common in TREC.Comment: Accepted as a full paper at iConference 202

Variations In Volume And Dimensions Of Rays And Their Effect On Wood Properties Of Teak

Six teak (Tectona grandis L.) trees were sampled from two districts in Bangladesh. Ray proportion and dimensions of rays (ray area, ray height, and ray width) on tangential sections were measured, and the influence of ray volume on longitudinal and radial compression strength was investigated. Ray proportion remained more or less constant from pith to bark. Number of rays/mm2 and dimensions of rays became constant at about ring 10 from the pith. Ray proportion and dimensions showed characteristic values from tree to tree and were not affected by growth rate. The trees that had the highest ray volume showed higher specific gravity and higher radial compression strength. It can be considered as the influence of the rays. Hence it may be advisable to breed teak with a high ray proportion

Coming Stakes in the Ocean: Food Production, Shipping and Trade, Tourism, Ecosystem-biodiversity, New Technologies and Climate Change Challenges in Bangladesh

Blue economy is an emerging concept in all over the world where Bangladesh is not in exception. The blue economy of Bangladesh is subject to multiple interlinked activities. Among the major activities, food production, shipping and trade, tourism, ecosystem-biodiversity, new technologies and climate change challenges are the most promising sectors which are discussed in this chapter to project the present and future potential, constrains, ways to overcome in the context of the blue economy of Bangladesh following various published literatures. The review has revealed that Bangladesh has enormous resources which have great potential to uplift the existing economy, improving livelihoods, while significantly reducing environmental risks and ecological scarcities. However, there are lot of constrains which hinder to get the ultimate fruit from these potentialities. The major constrains include lack of policy, institutional or organizational structure and coordination, data or information, knowledge in innovating and diversifying marine products and services, marketing strategies, continuous scientific research, skilled manpower with motivation and dedication, public awareness, maritime security and concern in marine and coastal environment. Initiations to overcome these constrains with long and short term strategic plans and properly implementing the strategic decisions will bring the state more productive and could be a model country with blue economy approach

HYPOCHOLESTEROLEMIC EFFECTS OF FISH AND VEGETABLE OILS ON THE SERUM LIPID PROFILE OF EXPERIMENTALLY INDUCED HYPERCHOLESTEROLEMIC RATS

Aims: This study was conducted to find out the effect of fish and vegetable oils on the serum lipid profile of experimentally induced hypercholesterolemic rats. Methods: Long Evan rats were fed with cholic acid and cholesterol for 14 days to make them hypercholesterolemic. The hypercholesterolemic rats were then supplemented with the oils of Pangsius pangasius fish, Soybean, Flaxseed, Sesame, Black seed and Mustard for 35 days. Serum lipid profile (total cholesterol-TC, low density lipoprotein-LDL, high density lipoprotein-HDL and triglyceride-TG) was determined with ELISA plate reader using commercial kits. Results: All of the oils tested were noted to reduce the serum TC, LDL and TG, but had increase the good cholesterol HDL level in the hypercholesterolemic rats. Among these oils, Pangsius pangasius fish oil showed the strongest anticholesterol property. In reduction of total cholesterol, after the Pangsius fish oil, the next prominent activity was given by black seed oil followed by flaxseed oil, sesame oil, mustard oil and soybean oil and in term of lowering of LDL level, the effect was in order of black seed, flaxseed, mustard, sesame and soybean oil. In giving the effect on good cholesterol HDL level, mustard oil showed the strongest increasing effect, which was followed by black seed oil, flaxseed oil, sesame oil, Pangsius oil and soybean oil. The drop of triglyceride level by the tested oils, it was in line of Pangsius oil, sesame oil, black seed oil, flaxseed oil, soybean oil and mustard oil. Conclusion: The present study showed that both the fish and vegetable oils have significant anticholesterol effects on hypercholesterolemic rats. However, compared to the vegetable oil, fish oil has stronger effect on the blood lipid profile. Regular dietary intake of fish and vegetable oils would reduce the risk of cardiovascular complication

Why is the relative preference for government jobs on the rise in Bangladesh? Evidence from labour force surveys

This article examines the underlying factors contributing to the changing scenario concerning relative attractiveness of public sector jobs in Bangladesh vis-à-vis private sector jobs. The article quantifies wage differentials between the public and the private sector, and examines the changes as regards earnings inequalities between group (public versus private) and within group (within private sector employees), in response to the new pay scale introduced for public sector employees in Bangladesh. The analysis reveals that following salary scale revision of particularly 2015, public sector jobs in the country have become more attractive for job seekers looking for salaried employment. Whilst there has been a shift favouring the entire range of wage distribution curve, it is more evident for jobs at the entry level. Although the higher-paid private sector employees appear to have been able to adjust their salaries in response to government pay scale revision, the relatively low-paid ones in the private sector have not been able to. Additionally, public sector jobs have the added advantage of non-wage benefits of larger coverage compared to the private sector. All these factors have combined to bring a shift in preference in favour of public sector jobs in Bangladesh. The article has argued that the recent ‘quota movement’ in Bangladesh, with the demand to revise the existing quota system in the country, reflects this shifting preference on the part of those entering the job market in recent times

Male-Female wage gap and informal employment in Bangladesh: A quantile regression approach

This article undertakes an examination of Bangladesh’s latest available Quarterly Labour Force Survey 2015-2016 data to draw indepth insights as regards gender wage gap and wage discrimination in Bangladesh labour market. Mean wage decomposition shows that an average woman in Bangladesh earns 12.2 per cent lower wage than man, and about half of the wage gap can be explained by labour market discrimination against women. Quantile Counterfactual Decomposition shows that women are subjected to higher wage penalty at the lower deciles of the wage distribution with the wage gap varying between 8.3 per cent to 19.4 per cent at different deciles. We established that at lower deciles a significant part of the gender wage gap is on account of the relatively larger presence of informal employment. Conditional quantile estimates further reveals that formally employed female workers earn higher wage than their male counterparts at the first decile but suffer from wage penalty at the top deciles

Returns to schooling in Bangladesh revisited: An instrumental variable quantile regression approach

The paper focuses on estimation of returns to schooling in the Bangladesh context. Earlier articles which tried to quantify the returns were constrained by a number of limitations including measurement techniques that were deployed. The present article revisits the issue and makes an attempt to build on the earlier studies by making use of quantile regression and instrumental variable quantile regression methods. The paper finds that endogeneity problem leads to underestimation of the returns to schooling and the returns tend to vary along the wage distribution, which mean regression models fail to capture. The analysis shows that average returns to schooling for female is higher than that of male. The analysis also shows that returns to schooling tends to be higher as one moves along higher percentiles of wage distribution and this is true for both male and female