Microhabitat use by the herpetofauna in mixed-evergreen and deciduous forests of Bangladesh

Microhabitats of 35 herpetofaunal species were studied by following visual encounter surveys and night searches with headlamps and flashlights. During the study period 3 nationally rare amphibian species were found: Xenophrys parva found in Dhopachari Reserve Forest, Chittagong beside a rocky Hill stream, Rhacophoruns htunwini found in Satchari National Park of Habiganj District in the undergrowth of mixed-evergreen forestand Kalophrynus interlineatus found in deciduous forest of Madhupur, in the slope of hillock. Among the amphibian species, most of the toads used the forest floor, the roots of trees, human settlement and slopes of the hillock as their microhabitat. The frogs used grasslands, forest floor with fallen leaves, water bodies and hill streams. Reptiles usually prefer to live in the bushy areas and also in trees, shrubs, rocks, under the fallen leaves, besides hill streams, under stones etc. Among the lizards Common Garden Lizard calotes versicolor was the most abundant in number and most of them used the undergrowth of the forest and bushy areas. The skinks used moist areas near hill streams and forest floor. The microhabitat is very specific for a species but many of the herpetofaunal species shared their microhabitat and also showed habitat preference

Activity budgets and dietary investigations of varanus salvator (Reptilia: Varanidae) in Karamjal ecotourism spot of Bangladesh Sundarbans mangrove forest

© 2017, Asociacion Herpetologica Espanola. All rights reserved. Tropical mangrove forest ecosystem of Sundarbans is considered as the most potential habitat for Varanus salvator in Bangladesh. The study was conducted to understand the general ecology and behavior of V. salvator, to assess its activity patterns and feeding ecology in and around Karamjal ecotourism spot of Bangladesh Sundarbans. The activities of water monitor were more frequently seen during 0900 - 1200 hrs, and 1530 - 1700 hrs of the day. The proportion of time spent on different behavioral states by the water monitors varied significantly between the wet and dry seasons. It was found that adult water monitors spent a highest proportion of time in foraging activity during the rainy or wet season, whereas during winter they spent most of the time basking. During this study, their diet was mostly crabs, although they also showed their character as scavengers. Since V. salvato r is an ectothermic species, the influence of environmental variables upon its activities in different habitats either in summer or in winter, should not be ignored

Activity budgets and dietary investigations of varanus salvator (Reptilia: Varanidae) in Karamjal ecotourism spot of Bangladesh Sundarbans mangrove forest

© 2017, Asociacion Herpetologica Espanola. All rights reserved. Tropical mangrove forest ecosystem of Sundarbans is considered as the most potential habitat for Varanus salvator in Bangladesh. The study was conducted to understand the general ecology and behavior of V. salvator, to assess its activity patterns and feeding ecology in and around Karamjal ecotourism spot of Bangladesh Sundarbans. The activities of water monitor were more frequently seen during 0900 - 1200 hrs, and 1530 - 1700 hrs of the day. The proportion of time spent on different behavioral states by the water monitors varied significantly between the wet and dry seasons. It was found that adult water monitors spent a highest proportion of time in foraging activity during the rainy or wet season, whereas during winter they spent most of the time basking. During this study, their diet was mostly crabs, although they also showed their character as scavengers. Since V. salvato r is an ectothermic species, the influence of environmental variables upon its activities in different habitats either in summer or in winter, should not be ignored

EFFICIENT PAPR REDUCTION OF OFDM SIGNAL USING PTS TECHNIQUE WITH HYBRID PARTITIONING METHOD

ABSTRACT The high peak-to-average power ratio (PAPR) is one of the major problems of orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) systems in wireless transmission. Therefore, partial transmit sequence (PTS), a promising scheme that can provide good PAPR reduction performance, has been proposed for OFDM transmission to eliminate distortion. The PTS method divides the input data block into disjoint sub-blocks, computes Inverse Fourier Transform of the subblocks, rotates the sub-blocks with appropriate phase factors and combines them to form the transmitted signal. This paper presents an enhanced PTS approach that combines two PTS partitioning schemes (adjacent and interleaved) to effectively reduce the PAPR of the OFDM systems. The influence of the proposed approach on performance is investigated by varying the size of the disjoint sub-blocks. The PAPR reduction performance of the proposed PTS method is compared with two well known sub-blocks partitioning schemes, namely, Adjacent Partitioning (AP), Interleaved Partitioning (IP). The various computer simulation results for the various sub-blocks confirmed that the proposed method provides better PAPR reduction performance compared with AP and IP partitioning based PTS scheme. In addition, these PTS schemes largely depend on the chosen size of the partitions

Efficient PAPR reduction of OFDM signal using PTS technique with hybrid partitioning method

The high peak-to-average power ratio (PAPR) is one of the major problems of orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) systems in wireless transmission.Therefore, partial transmit sequence (PTS), a promising scheme that can provide good PAPR reduction performance, has been proposed for OFDM transmission to eliminate distortion. The PTS method divides the input data block into disjoint sub-blocks, computes Inverse Fourier Transform of the subblocks, rotates the sub-blocks with appropriate phase factors and combines them to form the transmitted signal.This paper presents an enhanced PTS approach that combines two PTS partitioning schemes (adjacent and interleaved) to effectively reduce the PAPR of the OFDM systems. The influence of the proposed approach on performance is investigated by varying the size of the disjoint sub-blocks.The PAPR reduction performance of the proposed PTS method is compared with two well known sub-blocks partitioning schemes, namely, Adjacent Partitioning (AP), Interleaved Partitioning (IP).The various computer simulation results for the various sub-blocks confirmed that the proposed method provides better PAPR reduction performance compared with AP and IP partitioning based PTS scheme. In addition, these PTS schemes largely depend on the chosen size of the partitions

Feed intake and growth performance of goats supplemented with soy waste

The objective of this work was to evaluate the effects of supplemental feeding of soy waste on the feed intake and growth rate of goats. Twenty male crossbred (Boer x local) goats were assigned to two isonitrogenous diet groups: one of commercial pellet and the other of soy waste. The commercial pellet (1.0%) and soy waste (0.8%) were provided on the dry matter basis of body weight (BW) per day, to the respective group of each diet. The soy waste group had lower daily intakes of total dry matter (0.79 vs. 0.88 kg) and organic matter (665.71 vs. 790.44 g) than the group fed pellet; however, the differences on daily intakes for grass (0.62 vs. 0.64 kg), crude protein (96.81 vs. 96.83 g), and neutral detergent fibre (483.70 vs. 499.86 g) were not significant. No differences were observed between groups for BW gain. The feed conversion ratio and feed cost per kilogram of BW gain were lower for the group fed soy waste than for the one fed pellet. Goats fed supplemental soy waste have a lower total dry matter intake, feed conversion ratio, and feed cost per kilogram of body weight gain than those fed commercial pellets

Burden of disease scenarios for 204 countries and territories, 2022–2050: a forecasting analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2021

Background: Future trends in disease burden and drivers of health are of great interest to policy makers and the public at large. This information can be used for policy and long-term health investment, planning, and prioritisation. We have expanded and improved upon previous forecasts produced as part of the Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study (GBD) and provide a reference forecast (the most likely future), and alternative scenarios assessing disease burden trajectories if selected sets of risk factors were eliminated from current levels by 2050. Methods: Using forecasts of major drivers of health such as the Socio-demographic Index (SDI; a composite measure of lag-distributed income per capita, mean years of education, and total fertility under 25 years of age) and the full set of risk factor exposures captured by GBD, we provide cause-specific forecasts of mortality, years of life lost (YLLs), years lived with disability (YLDs), and disability-adjusted life-years (DALYs) by age and sex from 2022 to 2050 for 204 countries and territories, 21 GBD regions, seven super-regions, and the world. All analyses were done at the cause-specific level so that only risk factors deemed causal by the GBD comparative risk assessment influenced future trajectories of mortality for each disease. Cause-specific mortality was modelled using mixed-effects models with SDI and time as the main covariates, and the combined impact of causal risk factors as an offset in the model. At the all-cause mortality level, we captured unexplained variation by modelling residuals with an autoregressive integrated moving average model with drift attenuation. These all-cause forecasts constrained the cause-specific forecasts at successively deeper levels of the GBD cause hierarchy using cascading mortality models, thus ensuring a robust estimate of cause-specific mortality. For non-fatal measures (eg, low back pain), incidence and prevalence were forecasted from mixed-effects models with SDI as the main covariate, and YLDs were computed from the resulting prevalence forecasts and average disability weights from GBD. Alternative future scenarios were constructed by replacing appropriate reference trajectories for risk factors with hypothetical trajectories of gradual elimination of risk factor exposure from current levels to 2050. The scenarios were constructed from various sets of risk factors: environmental risks (Safer Environment scenario), risks associated with communicable, maternal, neonatal, and nutritional diseases (CMNNs; Improved Childhood Nutrition and Vaccination scenario), risks associated with major non-communicable diseases (NCDs; Improved Behavioural and Metabolic Risks scenario), and the combined effects of these three scenarios. Using the Shared Socioeconomic Pathways climate scenarios SSP2-4.5 as reference and SSP1-1.9 as an optimistic alternative in the Safer Environment scenario, we accounted for climate change impact on health by using the most recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change temperature forecasts and published trajectories of ambient air pollution for the same two scenarios. Life expectancy and healthy life expectancy were computed using standard methods. The forecasting framework includes computing the age-sex-specific future population for each location and separately for each scenario. 95% uncertainty intervals (UIs) for each individual future estimate were derived from the 2·5th and 97·5th percentiles of distributions generated from propagating 500 draws through the multistage computational pipeline. Findings: In the reference scenario forecast, global and super-regional life expectancy increased from 2022 to 2050, but improvement was at a slower pace than in the three decades preceding the COVID-19 pandemic (beginning in 2020). Gains in future life expectancy were forecasted to be greatest in super-regions with comparatively low life expectancies (such as sub-Saharan Africa) compared with super-regions with higher life expectancies (such as the high-income super-region), leading to a trend towards convergence in life expectancy across locations between now and 2050. At the super-region level, forecasted healthy life expectancy patterns were similar to those of life expectancies. Forecasts for the reference scenario found that health will improve in the coming decades, with all-cause age-standardised DALY rates decreasing in every GBD super-region. The total DALY burden measured in counts, however, will increase in every super-region, largely a function of population ageing and growth. We also forecasted that both DALY counts and age-standardised DALY rates will continue to shift from CMNNs to NCDs, with the most pronounced shifts occurring in sub-Saharan Africa (60·1% [95% UI 56·8–63·1] of DALYs were from CMNNs in 2022 compared with 35·8% [31·0–45·0] in 2050) and south Asia (31·7% [29·2–34·1] to 15·5% [13·7–17·5]). This shift is reflected in the leading global causes of DALYs, with the top four causes in 2050 being ischaemic heart disease, stroke, diabetes, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, compared with 2022, with ischaemic heart disease, neonatal disorders, stroke, and lower respiratory infections at the top. The global proportion of DALYs due to YLDs likewise increased from 33·8% (27·4–40·3) to 41·1% (33·9–48·1) from 2022 to 2050, demonstrating an important shift in overall disease burden towards morbidity and away from premature death. The largest shift of this kind was forecasted for sub-Saharan Africa, from 20·1% (15·6–25·3) of DALYs due to YLDs in 2022 to 35·6% (26·5–43·0) in 2050. In the assessment of alternative future scenarios, the combined effects of the scenarios (Safer Environment, Improved Childhood Nutrition and Vaccination, and Improved Behavioural and Metabolic Risks scenarios) demonstrated an important decrease in the global burden of DALYs in 2050 of 15·4% (13·5–17·5) compared with the reference scenario, with decreases across super-regions ranging from 10·4% (9·7–11·3) in the high-income super-region to 23·9% (20·7–27·3) in north Africa and the Middle East. The Safer Environment scenario had its largest decrease in sub-Saharan Africa (5·2% [3·5–6·8]), the Improved Behavioural and Metabolic Risks scenario in north Africa and the Middle East (23·2% [20·2–26·5]), and the Improved Nutrition and Vaccination scenario in sub-Saharan Africa (2·0% [–0·6 to 3·6]). Interpretation: Globally, life expectancy and age-standardised disease burden were forecasted to improve between 2022 and 2050, with the majority of the burden continuing to shift from CMNNs to NCDs. That said, continued progress on reducing the CMNN disease burden will be dependent on maintaining investment in and policy emphasis on CMNN disease prevention and treatment. Mostly due to growth and ageing of populations, the number of deaths and DALYs due to all causes combined will generally increase. By constructing alternative future scenarios wherein certain risk exposures are eliminated by 2050, we have shown that opportunities exist to substantially improve health outcomes in the future through concerted efforts to prevent exposure to well established risk factors and to expand access to key health interventions

Activity budgets and dietary investigations of varanus salvator (Reptilia: Varanidae) in Karamjal ecotourism spot of Bangladesh Sundarbans mangrove forest

© 2017, Asociacion Herpetologica Espanola. All rights reserved. Tropical mangrove forest ecosystem of Sundarbans is considered as the most potential habitat for Varanus salvator in Bangladesh. The study was conducted to understand the general ecology and behavior of V. salvator, to assess its activity patterns and feeding ecology in and around Karamjal ecotourism spot of Bangladesh Sundarbans. The activities of water monitor were more frequently seen during 0900 - 1200 hrs, and 1530 - 1700 hrs of the day. The proportion of time spent on different behavioral states by the water monitors varied significantly between the wet and dry seasons. It was found that adult water monitors spent a highest proportion of time in foraging activity during the rainy or wet season, whereas during winter they spent most of the time basking. During this study, their diet was mostly crabs, although they also showed their character as scavengers. Since V. salvato r is an ectothermic species, the influence of environmental variables upon its activities in different habitats either in summer or in winter, should not be ignored