The association of vitamin D with neuro-behavioral outcomes of young children is unclear, particularly of those who reside in tropical countries and are otherwise exposed to adequate sun light. To ...investigate this association, we analysed the existing data of poor infants, who participated in an observational, prospective-cohort (MalED) study, conducted in a slum of Dhaka-city. We assessed 265 infants aged 6-8 months for cognitive, motor, language and behavior development using Bayley-III. Information about infants' temperament and communicative skills were provided by the mothers through a culturally modified "temperament-scale" and a "communicative-developmental inventory". Serum concentration of vitamin D 25(OH)D was measured in 205 infants. Around 28.3% of infants in this community had low level vitamin D, with the cut-off at <50 nmol/L. After controlling for all possible covariates, a multivariable-adjusted linear regression showed that children with vitamin D levels <50 nmol/L had significantly lower scores in two dimensions of temperament: activity (B±SE 1.64±0.78; 95%CI 0.10, 3.18; p = 0.037; effect size 0.37 SDs) and soothabilty (2.02±0.70; 0.64, 3.41; p = 0.004; 0.53 SDs), compared to children with vitamin D levels of ≥50nmol/L. These infants also scored low in word comprehensions (1.28±0.62; 0.05, 2.51; p = 0.042; 0.23 SDs) and were less active during test-procedures (0.33±0.16; 0.02, 0.64; p = 0.035; 0.27 SDs). Both the groups tested similarly in cognitive and motor scores. This study found, despite adequate sunlight-exposure, one in four infants of this slum-community are suffering from a subclinical vitamin D deficiency. Higher levels of vitamin D in these infants showed a positive association with temperament, language and behavior but not with cognitive and motor development. Our findings highlight the early-detected extra-skeletal neuro-behavioral role of vitamin D. Future studies in this area will give more insight.
Machine Learning (ML) and Deep Learning (DL) have already brought unprecedented success in the detection of various diseases of plant leaves, fruits, buds, flowers, etc. Besides, computer science and ...related field researchers are widely trying to use specific ML and DL methods to classify images and get better results in the field of agriculture and technology. Considering these, Deep Convolutional Neural Networks (DCNN) have been applied in this research. We first applied the Gaussian filter and the Median filter separately on the main dataset and saved the filtered images into two separate directories. We then applied two color models (HSI and CMYK) separately to the images in each directory. Thus, we pre-processed the images in four different ways with the main objective of finding the best combination of the filtering methods and the color models. We then applied our selected DCNN models to each output obtained from the pre-processing steps and finally chose the best methodology based on the accuracy. At last, we have found the highest accuracies (98.27% in Vgg-19, 94.98% in MobileNet-V2, and 99.53% in the ResNet-50) by using the Gaussian Blur and the Gaussian Noise filters with the RGB to CMYK color conversion method.
•Deep Convolutional Neural Networks (DCNN) has been applied for detecting tomato leaf diseases.•Here is tried to find out the best result by separately combining the the different filters.•The highest accuracies (98.27% in Vgg-19, 94.98% in MobileNet-V2, and 99.53% in the ResNet-50) have been found.
The study was conducted to investigate the effect of different levels of protein supplements on fertility and assess the fertility gene (BMP15 and GDP9) in sheep of Bangladesh. Thirty six ewes fed ...two protein level (Treatment 1, T1 and treatment 2, T2) and no protein supplement ration (control, T0). Polymerase chain reactions (PCR) were performed from blood cell DNA following standard protocols. PCR products were sequenced using Sanger sequencing and MEGA6 software were used for molecular analysis. The conception rate of ewes was significantly higher (P < 0.05) in the treated group than the control. Gestation period and lambing interval were significantly higher (worse) in control (154.00 ± 0.57 and 186.00 ± 1.24 days) than treated groups. Birth weight of lamb ranged from 1.07 to 1.65 kg and higher birth weight was found in T2 than other groups. Sequence alignment of BMP15 and GDF9 gene in indigenous sheep showed 100% homology with other sheep breed. As no mutation was observed and apparently these genes have no effect on ewe fertility. However, nutritional supplements had a positive impact on reproductive performance. The phylogenetic inferences have close relations of Bangladeshi sheep with other breed elsewhere.
Diarrheal disease still remains a major public health threat and is often associated with fatal outcome especially in children with shigellosis mostly in developing countries. This study aimed to ...determine the presence of any associations between drinking shallow tube well (STW) water and childhood shigellosis. A total of 1394 children aged 0-59 months who presented with moderate-to-severe diarrhea (MSD) in Kumudini Women's Medical College and Hospital, Bangladesh, from December 2007 to March 2011 were enrolled into the study.
Among the study children, STW users often represented poor families (44% vs. 37%,
= 0.010); less often had household electricity (60% vs. 68%,
= 0.001) and cemented floor material (12% vs. 21%,
< 0.001); washed hand before eating (79% vs. 84%,
= 0.020); and had
infections (7.8% vs. 13.1,
= 0.002) compared to deep tube well (DTW) water families (in bivariate analysis). After adjusting for covariates, a significant negative association was observed between childhood MSD episodes due to
infections and the use of STW water (aOR 0.53, 95% CI 0.36, 0.79).
An emergence of less severe
has replaced relatively more severe
among the MSD children from DTW-user families. However, more monitoring in terms of disease surveillance for changes in the distribution of
serogroups and serotypes and its upsurges and antimicrobial susceptibility is essential.
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•Dilution of ionic liquids with aprotic solvents reveals the role of dipole–dipole interactions.•Nanoscale order in ionic-liquid/molecular liquid binary systems persists even at high ...dilution.•Induced charge density gradient in ionic liquids reveals a discontinuous change in organization.
Room temperature ionic liquids (RTILs) exhibit several unusual properties, including the ability to support an induced free charge density gradient, ρf. Upon dilution with water, RTILs form micelle-like structures, and compositional non-uniformity has been reported in other solvents, such as methanol and acetonitrile. The dependence of ρf on dilution is not consistent with uniform dissolution of the RTIL in the diluent. We report here our examination of two imidazolium RTILs diluted with polar aprotic solvents dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) and propylene carbonate (PC). Using the cationic fluorophore cresyl violet (CV+), we evaluate the dependence of ρf magnitude and persistence length on dilution with these two solvents. These properties are found to depend on the identity of the RTIL anion (BF4- and TFSI-). In regions of the RTILs not affected by the induced charge density gradient, we find evidence for the formation of aggregated domains of RTIL in the binary systems. The characteristic domain size is seen to depend on the identity of the diluent and RTIL anion, and for all systems examined, domain size increases with increasing dilution. We discuss these findings in the context of the magnitude of the RTIL ion pair dipole moments.
PurposeFamily entrepreneurship benefits women because of their economic, family, and social needs. But, as rural women, it is not much easy for them to maintain their family entrepreneurship ...successfully. Thus, this paper aims to explore the main challenges faced by rural women entrepreneurs in Bangladesh to survive their family entrepreneurship.Design/methodology/approachThis study is qualitative in nature, based on narrative inquiry. The purposive sampling technique was used as a part of a non-probability sampling method to collect the data from rural women entrepreneurs from three districts (Khulna, Shatkhira, and Sylhet) in Bangladesh engaged in family entrepreneurship. No new information was found after collecting the data from seven (07) respondents; thus, they were chosen as the final sample size.FindingsThe findings show that rural women entrepreneurs faced primarily social and cultural, financial, and skill-related challenges, though they face other challenges to survive their family entrepreneurship. The attitude and perception of society toward women and their roles are at the root of social and cultural barriers. Researchers also found that financial challenges have a colossal impact on rural women and the other problem.Practical implicationsAlthough entrepreneurial activities are essential for socio-economic development in these developing countries, this research adds to the existing information by highlighting the main challenges that rural women face when they want to be business owners and entrepreneurs.Originality/valueResearch on rural women entrepreneurship in Bangladesh is limited and new. This study can provide an overview of the challenges faced by the rural women entrepreneurs and provide them with a blueprint for the development of women entrepreneurs in developing countries.
Appropriate intervention is critical in reducing deaths among under-five, severe acutely malnourished (SAM) children with danger signs of severe pneumonia; however, there is paucity of data on ...outcome of World Health Organisation (WHO) recommended interventions of SAM children with severe pneumonia. We sought to evaluate outcome of the interventions in such children.
We prospectively enrolled SAM children aged 0-59 months, admitted to the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) or Acute Respiratory Infection (ARI) ward of the Dhaka Hospital of the International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh (icddr,b), between April 2011 and June 2012 with cough or respiratory difficulty and radiological pneumonia. All the enrolled children were treated with ampicillin and gentamicin, and micronutrients as recommended by the WHO. Comparison was made among pneumonic children with (n = 111) and without WHO defined danger signs of severe pneumonia (n = 296). The outcomes of interest were treatment failure (if a child required changing of antibiotics) and deaths during hospitalization. Further comparison was also made among those who developed treatment failure and who did not and among the survivors and deaths.
SAM children with danger signs of severe pneumonia more often experienced treatment failure (58% vs. 20%; p<0.001) and fatal outcome (21% vs. 4%; p<0.001) compared to those without danger signs. Only 6/111 (5.4%) SAM children with danger signs of severe pneumonia and 12/296 (4.0%) without danger signs had bacterial isolates from blood. In log-linear binomial regression analysis, after adjusting for potential confounders, danger signs of severe pneumonia, dehydration, hypocalcaemia, and bacteraemia were independently associated both with treatment failure and deaths in SAM children presenting with cough or respiratory difficulty and radiological pneumonia (p<0.01).
The result suggests that SAM children with cough or respiratory difficulty and radiologic pneumonia who had WHO-defined danger signs of severe pneumonia more often had treatment failure and fatal outcome compared to those without the danger signs. In addition to danger signs of severe pneumonia, other common causes of both treatment failure and deaths were dehydration, hypocalcaemia, and bacteraemia on admission. The result underscores the importance for further research especially a randomized, controlled clinical trial to validate standard WHO therapy in SAM children with pneumonia especially with danger signs of severe pneumonia to reduce treatment failures and deaths.
In this study, we evaluated the performance of the in-house developed rRT-PCR assay for SARS-CoV-2 RNA targeting the envelope (E) and nucleocapsid (N) genes with internal control as human RNase P. A ...total of 50 positive samples and 50 negative samples of SARS-CoV-2 were tested by a reference kit at site 1 and a subset (30 positives and 16 negatives) of these samples are tested blindly at site 2. The limit of detection (LoD) was calculated by using a replication-deficient complete SARS-CoV-2 genome and known copy numbers, where Pseudo-virus samples were used to evaluate accuracy. On site 1, among the 50 SARS-CoV-2 positive samples 24, 18, and eight samples showed high (Ct < 26), moderate (26 < Ct ≤ 32), and low (32 < Ct ≤ 38) viral load, respectively, whereas in site 2, out of 30 SARS-CoV-2 positive samples, high, moderate, and low viral loads were found in each of the 10 samples. However, SARS-CoV-2 was not detected in the negative sample. So, in-house assays at both sites showed 100% sensitivity and specificity with no difference observed between RT PCR machines. The Ct values of the in-house kit had a very good correlation with the reference kits. LoD was determined as 100 copies/mL. It also displayed 100% accuracy in mutant and wild-type SARS-CoV-2 virus. This Bangasure™ RT-PCR kit shows excellent performance in detecting SARS-CoV-2 viral RNA compared to commercially imported CE-IVD marked FDA authorized kits.
Objective
To assess the current measles vaccination status in Bangladesh, explain changing differentials in measles vaccination, and determine contexts that may improve measles vaccination coverage.
...Methods
Secondary data analysis of datasets (2004–2014) from the nationally representative Bangladesh Demographic and Health Surveys that followed stratified, multi‐stage cluster sampling design conducted both in urban and rural contexts.
Results
5468 children aged 12–23 months were surveyed, of whom 892 (16%) reported non‐compliance to measles vaccine. After simultaneous adjusting for covariates in multivariate logistic regression, children who came from a poor socio‐economic background, who had mothers with no formal schooling, who were underweight, of higher birth order (≥4), who had adolescent mothers, who had a history of home delivery and who had no exposure to media were observed to be significantly associated with lack of measles vaccination. Measles vaccination coverage among children of adolescent mothers was consistently low. Despite lack of media exposure, measles vaccination status gradually increased from 26% in 2004 to 33% in 2014. Lack of maternal education was no longer associated with measles vaccination status in 2007, 2011 and 2014. Stunted children continued to be associated with lack of measles immunisation in 2014. Children with higher birth order demonstrated 53% excess risk for not being immunised with measles vaccine. Mothers with no exposure to mass media were two times more likely to have children without measles immunisation as indicated by BDHS 2014 data.
Conclusions
Our findings will help policy makers formulate strategies for expanding measles vaccination coverage in order to achieve further reduction in disease burden and mortality in Bangladesh.
Objectif
Evaluer l'état actuel de la vaccination antirougeoleuse au Bangladesh, expliquer l'évolution des écarts de vaccination antirougeoleuse et déterminer les contextes susceptibles d'améliorer la couverture vaccinale antirougeoleuse.
Méthodes
Analyse des données secondaires des ensembles de données (2004 à 2014) des enquêtes démographiques et sanitaires du Bangladesh représentatives au niveau national, qui ont suivi un plan d'échantillonnage stratifié en grappes à plusieurs niveaux, mené à la fois dans des contextes urbains et ruraux.
Résultats
5.468 enfants de 12 à 23 mois ont été interrogés, dont 892 (16%) ont déclaré une non‐adhésion au vaccin contre la rougeole. Après ajustement simultané des covariables dans la régression logistique multivariée, les enfants issus d'un milieu socioéconomique pauvre, dont les mères n'avaient pas de scolarité formelle, qui étaient en insuffisance pondérale, de rang de naissance supérieur (≥4), qui avaient des mères adolescentes, qui avaient un les antécédents d'accouchement à domicile et qui n'avaient pas été exposés aux médias étaient significativement associés à l'absence de vaccination contre la rougeole. La couverture vaccinale contre la rougeole chez les enfants de mères adolescentes était constamment faible. Malgré le manque d'exposition aux médias, le statut de vaccination contre la rougeole a progressivement augmenté, passant de 26% en 2004 à 33% en 2014. Le manque d'éducation maternelle n'était plus associé au statut de vaccination contre la rougeole en 2007, 2011 et 2014. Les enfants souffrant d'un retard de croissance ont continué d'être associés au manque de la vaccination contre la rougeole en 2014. Les enfants dont le rang de naissance était plus élevé ont démontré un risque de 53% en excès de ne pas être vacciné contre la rougeole. Les mères sans exposition aux médias de masse étaient deux fois plus susceptibles d'avoir des enfants sans vaccination contre la rougeole, comme l'indiquent les données BDHS 2014.
Conclusions
Nos résultats aideront les décideurs à formuler des stratégies pour étendre la couverture vaccinale contre la rougeole afin de réduire encore la charge de morbidité et la mortalité au Bangladesh.
The present study investigated the effects of combined ultrasound (37 kHz, 380 W for 5 min) and peroxyacetic acid (PAA; 50–200 ppm) treatment on the reduction of Salmonella Typhimurium and ...Campylobacter jejuni on chicken skin. Ultrasound was not sufficient to inactivate S. Typhimurium (0.48 log CFU/g reduction) or C. jejuni (0.25 log CFU/g reduction), whereas PAA significantly (p < .05) reduced S. Typhimurium (0.93–1.59 log CFU/g reduction) and C. jejuni (0.77–1.52 log CFU/g reduction). However, maximum reductions of 2.21 and 2.08 log CFU/g were observed for S. Typhimurium and C. jejuni, respectively, for combined treatment with 5 min of ultrasound and 200 ppm PAA. Our results indicate that a combination of ultrasound treatment for 5 min and 200 ppm PAA was more effective in reducing S. Typhimurium and C. jejuni compared to the individual treatments, without significantly affecting the color or texture of the chicken skin, thus, demonstrating its potential to increase the microbial safety during poultry processing.
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