The aquaculture sector is a capital intensive production process where access to credit is helpful in order to develop and manage farms in developing countries. Nevertheless, a supply of credit is ...often not readily available, which is creating credit constraint situations. This study investigates how credit constraints affect the productivity of aquaculture farmers in Bangladesh. An endogenous switching regression model is used to estimate the effects of credit constraints on productivity. The results show that productivity is significantly higher for farmers who are not exposed to credit constraints. This result reveals significant production-enhancing effects when using modern inputs for both constrained and unconstrained farmers. However, the effects are larger for the credit-unconstrained farmers because they have the opportunity to buy higher quality inputs and use them in a better input mix.
Ever since the emancipation of a country, its environmental quality has undergone a significant transition during the development phases; Bangladesh is no exception. Bangladesh is facing a serious ...threat in the age of global warming, and climate change as the country is looking forward in achieving the SDGs by 2030. Yet, there is a dearth of study regarding the relationship among crucial macroeconomic drivers and ecological footprint (a proxy for environmental degradation). Under the circumstances, this study explores the effects of economic growth, capital formation, urbanization, trade openness, energy use, and technological innovation on the ecological footprint by adopting the novel dynamic Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) simulations approach for Bangladesh, using annual frequency data from 1972 to 2017. Empirical results from the bounds test ascertained that there exists a long-run equilibrium association among the outlined variables. Furthermore, the novel dynamic ARDL simulation results revealed that Bangladesh is yet to achieve the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) hypothesis. It was observed that the Bangladesh economy is still at the scale stage of its economic trajectory, emphasizing economic growth relative to her environmental status. However, capital formation, urbanization, and energy use seemed to degrade environmental quality, while trade openness and technological innovation upgraded the environmental quality. Putting it more elaborately, a unit escalation in GDP per capita increases the ecological footprint by 0.829% in the long run, while a unit increase in energy consumption upsurges the ecological footprint by 1.074% and 0.761% in the long run and short run, respectively. As regards technology innovation, one unit increase in it cutbacks the ecological footprint by 0.596% in the long run. Furthermore, the frequency domain causality unveiled the long-run feedback effect between economic growth and ecological footprint. The study further presents possible recommendations that can sustainably address environmental issues, keeping the economy buoyant.
This study examines how carbon performance affects carbon disclosure and how carbon disclosure affects financial performance. With a sample of global firms, the study analyses how relationships ...between carbon disclosure, carbon performance and financial performance vary in institutional contexts. Our results show that carbon disclosure positively affects carbon performance, consistent with the signalling theory. We find that carbon disclosure negatively (positively) affects financial performance in the short-term (long-term). Our findings have significant implications for investors as some firms use carbon disclosure as part of impression management. Our results help regulators to monitor carbon disclosure and assist investors with investment decisions.
•Carbon performance positively affects carbon disclosure.•Carbon disclosure negatively affects financial performance in the short-term.•Carbon disclosure positively affects financial performance in the long-term.•The level of carbon disclosure increases as the firm size increases.
Abstract
Radio frequency (RF) magnetron sputtering was used to deposit tungsten disulfide (WS
2
) thin films on top of soda lime glass substrates. The deposition power of RF magnetron sputtering ...varied at 50, 100, 150, 200, and 250 W to investigate the impact on film characteristics and determine the optimized conditions for suitable application in thin-film solar cells. Morphological, structural, and opto-electronic properties of as-grown films were investigated and analyzed for different deposition powers. All the WS
2
films exhibited granular morphology and consisted of a rhombohedral phase with a strong preferential orientation toward the (101) crystal plane. Polycrystalline ultra-thin WS
2
films with bandgap of 2.2 eV, carrier concentration of 1.01 × 10
19
cm
−3
, and resistivity of 0.135 Ω-cm were successfully achieved at RF deposition power of 200 W. The optimized WS
2
thin film was successfully incorporated as a window layer for the first time in CdTe/WS
2
solar cell. Initial investigations revealed that the newly incorporated WS
2
window layer in CdTe solar cell demonstrated photovoltaic conversion efficiency of 1.2% with V
oc
of 379 mV, J
sc
of 11.5 mA/cm
2
, and FF of 27.1%. This study paves the way for WS
2
thin film as a potential window layer to be used in thin-film solar cells.
Carp polyculture emerged as a promising practice for the development of aquaculture in Bangladesh in recent years. However, the economic potentiality of carp polyculture relied on the profitability ...and inputs use pattern. Therefore, this study investigated the economic viability of carp polyculture farming, particularly focused on profitability, profit sensitivity, economies of scale, and liquidity. A survey was conducted using a structured questionnaire to gather cross-sectional data, which included 183 randomly selected carp polyculture farmers from five districts in Bangladesh. Descriptive and econometric analysis was adopted to evaluate the economic performance of the carp polyculture system. The results showed that feed was the most important production input since it accounted for a major share of operating costs (57.3%). Freshwater carp polyculture farming was generally found profitable, although the profit was considerably sensitive with the alteration of feed price and fish price. Economies of scale were evident in this study, where the farm operated in economies of scale had lower productivity but greater cost efficiency. However, some inputs were inefficiently used by the diseconomies scale of farms, which led them to loss of return even though they had higher productivity. High cash flow coverage ratio due to higher yield strategies and low debt-servicing ratios were found, indicating lower liquidity risk for carp polyculture farming. Based on the present findings, it is suggested that farmers should pay more attention to the efficient use of inputs to facilitate a greater cost efficiency, continual cash flow, and sustainable increase in fish production.
•This is the first original article focusing on survey of commercial carp polyculture farm in Bangladesh in terms of economies of scale and liquidity.•We find feed profitability of farm vary substantially with the feed quality and price.•We report the optimum level of production to which farm can take cost advantage.•Many farmers overuse the input to maximize the productivity although this generates liquidity problem.
For the past 20 years, many authors have focused their investigations on wireless sensor networks. Various issues related to wireless sensor networks such as energy minimization (optimization), ...compression schemes, self-organizing network algorithms, routing protocols, quality of service management, security, energy harvesting, etc., have been extensively explored. The three most important issues among these are energy efficiency, quality of service and security management. To get the best possible results in one or more of these issues in wireless sensor networks optimization is necessary. Furthermore, in number of applications (e.g., body area sensor networks, vehicular ad hoc networks) these issues might conflict and require a trade-off amongst them. Due to the high energy consumption and data processing requirements, the use of classical algorithms has historically been disregarded. In this context contemporary researchers started using bio-mimetic strategy-based optimization techniques in the field of wireless sensor networks. These techniques are diverse and involve many different optimization algorithms. As far as we know, most existing works tend to focus only on optimization of one specific issue of the three mentioned above. It is high time that these individual efforts are put into perspective and a more holistic view is taken. In this paper we take a step in that direction by presenting a survey of the literature in the area of wireless sensor network optimization concentrating especially on the three most widely used bio-mimetic algorithms, namely, particle swarm optimization, ant colony optimization and genetic algorithm. In addition, to stimulate new research and development interests in this field, open research issues, challenges and future research directions are highlighted.
This paper examines the profit efficiency and through that the sustainability potential of pangas pond fish farming in Bangladesh, focusing on the relationship between farm size and profitability. To ...investigate this, a stochastic frontier profit function on cross-sectional data collected from Bangladesh is utilized. Findings reveals that the mean level of profit efficiency is 74%, which implies that 26% of the profit is lost due to the combination of technical and allocative efficiency. Our findings show that profit per hectare increases with an increase in farm size but less quickly than proportional to farm size. Further, fish productivity (quantity output per hectare) is found to increase with increasing farm size, a finding contradicting the inverse farm size – productivity relationship widely found in the crop production literature. After controlling for imperfections in input markets and pond characteristics, our finding is robust. The results also indicate that increased profit efficiency is associated with better access to credit, training and extension services, suggesting that policies to improve access to these services are essential to sustain long-term fish farming in Bangladesh.
•We estimate the profit efficiency and sustainability of pangas fish farming.•Fish productivity and profitability increases with farm size, contradicting the inverse productivity–farm size in literature.•About 26% of the profit is lost due to the combination of technical and allocative efficiency in pangas farming.•Better access to credit, training and extension services are essential for sustainability of fish farming among smallholders.
The optimal use of resources in aquaculture is important, especially in developing countries, to obtain the highest possible outcome from the production process to support food security and poverty ...alleviation. Thus, within this study, the risk, efficiency, and input‐use variation in aquaculture farms in Bangladesh is investigated using a flexible stochastic frontier model with a risk and an inefficiency function. The results reveal that feed, labor, and capital have positive and significant impacts on production. In addition, an increased fingerling density and a larger farm increase the risk, whereas the use of feed and the capital invested have the opposite effect. Access to extension services has a positive effect and increases farm efficiency. An investigation of the farm size–productivity inverse relationship reveals that this phenomenon is not applicable to Bangladesh aquaculture. In general, efficient farmers are large‐scale farmers, who use a lower stocking density but a higher feeding intensity, resulting in a higher yield. On average, farmers use less labor and feed than what is optimal. To increase efficiency and reduce risk, it is recommended that more technical knowledge on optimal input use, extension service, and capital is made available to aquaculture farmers.
Generation of energy across the world is today reliant majorly on fossil fuels. The burning of these fuels is growing in line with the increase in the demand for energy globally. Consequently, ...climate change, air contamination, and energy security issues are rising as well. An efficient alternative to this grave hazard is the speedy substitution of fossil fuel-based carbon energy sources with the shift to clean sources of renewable energy that cause zero emissions. This needs to happen in conjunction with the continuing increase in the overall consumption of energy worldwide. Many resources of renewable energy are available. These include thermal, solar photovoltaic, biomass and wind, tidal energy, hydropower, and geothermal. Notably, tidal energy exhibits great potential with regard to its dependability, superior energy density, certainty, and durability. The energy mined from the tides on the basis of steady and anticipated vertical movements of the water, causing tidal currents, could be converted into kinetic energy to produce electricity. Tidal barrages could channel mechanical energy, while tidewater river turbines can seize the energy from tidal currents. This study discusses the present trends, ecological effects, and the prospects for technology related to tidal energy.
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