Governance, Empowerment and Benefits of Co-Management of Inland Open Water Fisheries in Bangladesh

The main objective of the study is to assess co-management approaches as institutional arrangement of inland openwater fisheries in Bangladesh. It was done by examining the factors enhancing the governance and empowerment of fishers for improved arrangements of fishers’ and co-management based organisations’ (CBOs. The benefits of co-management approaches on income and transaction costs of fisher communities are examined and the effectiveness of conflict mitigation and resolution are compared. A survey of 311 fishing households in Bangladesh was conducted from July 2008 to October 2008 to obtain information from fishers in the Community Based Fisheries Management (CBFM) project sites and non CBFM sites (control sites) using structured interview questionnaire. The CBFM approaches aim mainly at building local fishery community organizations for managing fisheries sustainably and to improve institutional arrangements of fisher communities. Institutional arrangements have been done through formation of local co-management based organisations which have led to increased democratic participation, empowerment, enhanced fisheries management and better compliance of rules and regulations. Descriptive analysis, Factor analysis and finally Regression analysis are used to analyse the data. The results of the study reveal that the fishers of CBFM sites have increased participation in collective decision-making, improved leadership, trust, decentralisation of management, power sharing responsibility and social networks which have led to improve governance of the fisher communities. The study shows that the fishers and CBOs are more empowered due to training in skill development and capacity enhancement and awareness raising programs facilitated by the Government and NGOs. In addition, they have greater individual access rights to their fisheries through administrative support from the government and they are more capable of controlling the exploitation of fisheries resources in project areas. All these factors have made the CBOs more accountable and transparent. The results also indicate that there are improvements in compliance and legitimacy and lowering of transaction costs. The study shows that conflicts are resolved quickly and conflict management process is smooth in project sites compared to non CBFM control sites. The results of the study show that there is significant difference in total transaction costs in management between project and control sites over the years. The transaction costs trended downward within project sites, but it is increasing in control sites

Framework for benchmarking online retailing performance using fuzzy AHP and TOPSIS method

Due to increasing penetration of internet connectivity, on-line retail is growing from the pioneer phase to increasing integration within people's lives and companies' normal business practices. In the increasingly competitive environment, on-line retail service providers require systematic and structured approach to have cutting edge over the rival. Thus, the use of benchmarking has become indispensable to accomplish superior performance to support the on-line retail service providers. This paper uses the fuzzy analytic hierarchy process (FAHP) approach to support a generic on-line retail benchmarking process. Critical success factors for on-line retail service have been identified from a structured questionnaire and literature and prioritized using fuzzy AHP. Using these critical success factors, performance levels of the ORENET an on-line retail service provider is benchmarked along with four other on-line service providers using TOPSIS method. Based on the benchmark, their relative ranking has also been illustrated

Evaluation of Carbon Emission Factors in the Cement Industry: An Emerging Economy Context

The cement industry is a major contributor to carbon emissions, responsible for 5–8% of global emissions. This industry is expanding, particularly in emerging economies, and it is expected that CO2 emissions will rise by 4% by 2050. To address this critical concern, this paper identifies ten factors that contribute to carbon emissions in the cement production process through an extensive literature review and prioritises these factors using the Bayesian best–worst method. The data was gathered by conducting a methodical online survey with seven cement industry professionals in Bangladesh, with the aim of gaining insights into the emerging economy. The results illustrate that fuel burning and electricity consumption are the two greatest contributors to CO2 emissions in the cement production process. This research provides guidelines for cement industries in emerging economies on how to reduce CO2 emissions as well as suggesting areas of future research for sustainable cement production

Assessment of governance of fisher communities of inland openwater fisheries in Bangladesh

The Community Based Fisheries Management (CBFM) with partnership arrangement of government, non-government organisations, fisher communities and other stakeholders has introduced community management of inland openwater fisheries in Bangladesh. This arrangement introduced CBFM approaches named fisher-led, community-led and women-led approach. One of the principles behind community based managed fisheries is to improve democratisation process of changing governance of fisheries aiming to manage their resources efficiently. The CBFM approach has made a significant contribution towards improvement of governance and democracy to fisher communities. Besides, a wider range of local institutional arrangements as community based organizations (CBOs) have been established through participatory process with legal entity. Now, there is practice of governance and democracy within CBOs and fisher communities. They are more efficient in participation of fisheries management. This paper presents and assesses the governance status of the fisher communities in inland openwater fisheries under co-management arrangement in Bangladesh. In summary, it might recommend at policy level to scale up community based fisheries approach to promote governance for better management with a long term commitment

Vision transformer and explainable transfer learning models for auto detection of kidney cyst, stone and tumor from CT-radiography

Renal failure, a public health concern, and the scarcity of nephrologists around the globe have necessitated the development of an AI-based system to auto-diagnose kidney diseases. This research deals with the three major renal diseases categories: kidney stones, cysts, and tumors, and gathered and annotated a total of 12,446 CT whole abdomen and urogram images in order to construct an AI-based kidney diseases diagnostic system and contribute to the AI community’s research scope e.g., modeling digital-twin of renal functions. The collected images were exposed to exploratory data analysis, which revealed that the images from all of the classes had the same type of mean color distribution. Furthermore, six machine learning models were built, three of which are based on the state-of-the-art variants of the Vision transformers EANet, CCT, and Swin transformers, while the other three are based on well-known deep learning models Resnet, VGG16, and Inception v3, which were adjusted in the last layers. While the VGG16 and CCT models performed admirably, the swin transformer outperformed all of them in terms of accuracy, with an accuracy of 99.30 percent. The F1 score and precision and recall comparison reveal that the Swin transformer outperforms all other models and that it is the quickest to train. The study also revealed the blackbox of the VGG16, Resnet50, and Inception models, demonstrating that VGG16 is superior than Resnet50 and Inceptionv3 in terms of monitoring the necessary anatomy abnormalities. We believe that the superior accuracy of our Swin transformer-based model and the VGG16-based model can both be useful in diagnosing kidney tumors, cysts, and stones.publishedVersio

A bio-sustainable approach for reducing Eucalyptus tree-caused agricultural ecosystem hazards employing Trichoderma bio-sustained spores and mycorrhizal networks

The presence of the exotic Eucalyptus tree in crop-growing soil and the accumulation of its undecomposed leaves is a significant ecological hazard. The waxy coating on the leaves and the phenolic compounds takes a long time to break down under normal conditions. It is necessary to explore various fungi that can degrade these leaves for an eco-friendly solution to this problem. In this study, spores of nine native Trichoderma strains were produced on wheat agar using a lactic acid-induced sporulation strategy (LAISS). Trichoderma biosustained spores and Serendipita indica (SI) spores were applied to a rice field with accumulated Eucalyptus leaves under continuous ponding (CP) and alternate flooding and wetting conditions (AFW). Among the strains, TI04 (Trichoderma viride) and TI15 (Trichoderma citrinoviride) showed faster (5 days) and massive sporulation (1.06–1.38 × 1011 CFU/g) in LAISS. In vitro, TI04 and TI15 biosustained on Eucalyptus leaves and improved rice seedling growth and SI infection under greenhouse conditions. In the rice-field experiment, Trichoderma-treatment had a threefold yield (percentage) increase from control, with TI04 (CP) increasing the yield by 30.79, TI04 (AFW) by 29.45, TI15 (CP) by 32.72, and TI15 (AFW) rising by 31.91. Remarkably, unfilled grain yield significantly decreased in all the Trichoderma treatments. Under AFW conditions, TI04 and TI15 showed a higher pH increase. Furthermore, TI04 and TI15 under AFW had higher water productivity (t ha−1 cm−1) of 0.0763 and 0.0791, respectively, and the highest rates (percentage) of SI colonization of 86.36 and 83.16, respectively. According to the findings, LAISS-produced Trichoderma spores can be applied to break down persistent wastes and restore agricultural ecosystems through increased mycorrhizae networking

Assessing fishers' empowerment in Inland openwater fisheries in Bangladesh.

The Community Based Fisheries Management (CBFM) approach has made a significant contribution towards improvement of fishers' empowerment of inland openwater fisheries in Bangladesh aiming to manage their resources efficiently. This arrangement introduced CBFM approaches named fisher-led, community-led and women-led approach. A wider range of local institutional arrangements as community based organizations (CBOs) have been established through participatory process with legal entity. Now, the CBOs as local institutions and fishers are more empowered in participation of fishery management under co-management arrangement. The study reveals that there is still lack of institutional arrangement to be achieved at optimum level. This paper presents and assesses the empowerment status of the fisher communities in inland openwater fisheries under co-management arrangement in Bangladesh through Factor analysis and regression model. This study might have policy implication to replicate the community based fishery management approach to promote empowerment for better management