This study examines the impact of drinking water salinity on children's education using a unique and rich dataset collected from eight southwest coastal districts of Bangladesh. Salinity ...concentration in drinking water is measured at the household level using water samples from households' primary source of drinking water during the summer, wet and dry season of 20014−15. A third of the deep tube-well water samples was found to be slightly (1000 < TDS < 2000 mg/l) to moderately (TDS ≥ 2000 mg/l) saline. Linking the child-level data on educational outcome to water salinity (i.e. TDS level), the study reveals a statistically significant negative effect of excessive salinity on grade advancement for 7–12 year old children. More specifically, exposure to excessive drinking water salinity (TDS > 1000 mg/l) decreases the grade advancement likelihood of 7–12 year old children by 6.7 percentage points. The results remain robust to alternative model and econometric specifications. The adverse effect of salinity on grade advancement does not vary significantly across the gender of the child while poverty, as expected, exacerbates the effect. Impaired cognitive development due to early childhood exposure appears to be the most plausible channel through which the negative effects of excessive sodium consumption permeate to young children's educational deficit. Additionally, poor health of the adults and elevated medical expenditure play a small yet significant mediating role.
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•At least a third of southwestern coastal residents of Bangladesh are exposed to low to moderate drinking water salinity.•Seasonal variation in deep groundwater salinity is very low to nonexistent.•Exposure to drinking water salinity decreases 7–12 year old children's grade advancement likelihood by 6.7 percentage points.•No significant effect of drinking water salinity on grade advancement of 13–18 age group is identified.•No significant gender difference of the adverse effect of salinity on grade advancement is observed.
•This study assesses economic recovery from the Black Summer fires.•Night-time radiance in affected areas was lower than their baseline values.•Spill-over effects of wildfires occurred up to 2 km and ...5 km radius.•Wildfire recovery varied across spatio-temporal and socio-economic scales.•The results are consistent when using population movement across tiles.
This study examines how communities of New South Wales (NSW), Australia, recovered from the extreme wildfire event of 2019–2020 (i.e., the Black Summer fires). Using monthly night-time radiance as an indicator of economic activity in a geographic area (i.e., a mesh block) from January 2017 to June 2021, I conducted a spatio-temporal and socio-economic analysis of economic recovery after the 2019–2020 wildfires using the difference-in-differences method. This is the first study to examine the intersectional role of space with time and socio-economic characteristics for extreme wildfire recovery. The findings reveal that wildfire-affected locations had about 0.038σ and 0.026σ lower night-time radiance in major cities and rural hinterlands (i.e., inner regions), respectively, than the unaffected areas. These numbers translate to approximately 30% reduction in economic activities in both areas. The findings remain consistent when using Facebook’s movement range data. The pace of recovery varied spatially across time and socio-economic groups. In rural hinterlands of NSW, wildfire-affected communities, both poor and non-poor, followed a slower recovery trajectory than wildfire-affected city dwellers. In major cities, the economic recovery of poor communities lagged behind non-poor communities. Accounting for such spatial, temporal and socio-economic heterogeneity in the natural hazard recovery process can support the design of equitable wildfire risk reduction and management strategies and programs. If unaddressed, gaps in wildfire recovery can increase location and economic group specific vulnerabilities to future wildfires. Note that nightlights are not a good proxy for economic activity in heavily forested remote and rural areas; thus limiting the application of the use of high frequency satellite data for wildfire recovery analysis only in major cities and rural hinterlands.
Energy storage systems have been widely applied in power distribution sectors as well as in renewable energy sources to ensure uninterruptible power supply. This paper proposes a modified model ...predictive control (MMPC) method based on the Lyapunov function to improve the performance of a bidirectional ac-dc converter, which is used in an energy storage system for bidirectional power transfer between the three-phase ac voltage supply and energy storage devices. The proposed control technique utilizes the discrete behavior of the converter, considering the unavoidable quantization errors between the controller and the control actions selected from the finite control set of the bidirectional ac-dc converter. The proposed control method reduces the execution time delay by 18% compared with the conventional model predictive control. Moreover, the nonlinear system stability of the proposed MMPC technique is ensured by the direct Lyapunov method and a nonlinear experimental system model. Detailed experimental results with a 2.5-kW downscaled hardware prototype are provided to show the efficacy of the proposed control system.
Cigarette smoking is the leading avoidable cause of disease burden. Observational studies have suggested an association between smoking and risk of type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM). We conducted a ...meta-analysis of prospective observational studies to investigate the association of smoking status, smoking intensity, and smoking cessation with the risk of T2DM in Japan, where the prevalence of smoking has been decreasing but remains high. We systematically searched MEDLINE and the Ichushi database to December 2015 and identified 22 eligible articles, representing 343,573 subjects and 16,383 patients with T2DM. We estimated pooled relative risks (RRs) using a random-effects model and conducted subgroup analyses by participant and study characteristics. Compared with nonsmoking, the pooled RR of T2DM was 1.38 (95% confidence interval CI, 1.28–1.49) for current smoking (19 studies) and 1.19 (95% CI, 1.09–1.31) for former smoking (15 studies). These associations persisted in all subgroup and sensitivity analyses. We found a linear dose-response relationship between cigarette consumption and T2DM risk; the risk of T2DM increased by 16% for each increment of 10 cigarettes smoked per day. The risk of T2DM remained high among those who quit during the preceding 5 years but decreased steadily with increasing duration of cessation, reaching a risk level comparable to that of never smokers after 10 years of smoking cessation. We estimated that 18.8% of T2DM cases in men and 5.4% of T2DM cases in women were attributable to smoking. The present findings suggest that cigarette smoking is associated with an increased risk of T2DM, so tobacco control programs to reduce smoking could have a substantial effect to decrease the burden of T2DM in Japan.
•This meta-analysis examined smoking and diabetes risk among Japanese.•Current and former smokers showed a higher risk of diabetes than non-smokers.•Diabetes risk linearly increased with higher consumption of cigarettes.•Diabetes risk steadily decreased after smoking cessation.
Phytate induced excessive mineral excretion through poultry litter leads to poor performance and environmental pollution. Exogenous microbial phytase supplementation to poultry diets reduce the ...environmental excretion of nutrient and improve bird's performance. However, excessive dietary sodium (Na) level may hinder the phytase-mediated phytate hydrolysis and negate the beneficial effects of phytase. Therefore, this experiment was conducted to investigate the effects of different concentration dietary Na on phytase activity and subsequent impact on broiler performance, bone mineralisation and nutrient utilisation. In this study, six experimental diets, consisting of three different levels of Na (1.5, 2.5, or 3.5 g/kg) and two levels of microbial phytase (0 or 500 U/kg) were formulated by using $3{\times}2$ factorial design. The six experimental diets were offered to 360 day-old Ross 306 male chicks for 35 days, where, each experimental diet consisted of 6 replicates groups with 10 birds. Along with growth performance, nutrient utilization, intestinal enzyme activity, dry matter (DM) content of litter and mineral status in bone were analysed. Dietary Na and phytase had no effect on bode weight gain and feed intake. Birds on the low Na diet showed higher (p < 0.05) feed conversion ratio (FCR) than the mid-Na diets. High dietary Na adversely affected (p < 0.001) excreta DM content. Phytase supplementation to the high-Na diet increased (p < 0.01) the litter ammonia content. High dietary Na with phytase supplementation improved ($Na{\times}phytase$, p < 0.05) the AME value and ileal digestibility of Ca and Mg. The total tract retention of Ca, P, and Mg was reduced with high Na diet, which was counteracted by phytase supplementation ($Na{\times}phytase$, p < 0.001). The diets containing mid-level of Na improved (p < 0.001) the function of Na-K-ATPase and Mg-ATPase in the jejunum. The overall results indicate that high dietary Na did not affect phytase activity but influenced the nutrient utilization of birds, which was not reflected in bird overall performance.
To investigate the effects of Mg addition at different aging times and temperatures, Cu/MgO/Al2O3 catalysts were synthesized for the low-temperature water gas shift (LT-WGS) reaction. The ...co-precipitation method was employed to prepare the catalysts with a fixed Cu amount of 30 mol% and varied amounts of Mg/Al. Synthesized catalysts were characterized using XRD, BET, and H2-TPR analysis. Among the prepared catalysts, the highest CO conversion was achieved by the Cu/MgO/Al2O3 catalyst (30/40/30 mol%) with a 60 ℃ aging temperature and a 24 h aging time under a CO2-rich feed gas. Due to it having the lowest reduction temperature and a good dispersion of CuO, the catalyst exhibited around 65% CO conversion with a gas hourly space velocity (GHSV) of 14,089 h-1 at 300 ℃. However, it has been noted that aging temperatures greater or less than 60 ℃ and aging times longer than 24 h had an adverse impact, resulting in a lower surface area and a higher reduction temperature bulk-CuO phase, leading to lower catalytic activity. The main findings of this study confirmed that one of the main factors determining catalytic activity is the ease of reducibility in the absence of bulk-like CuO species. Finally, the long-term test revealed that the catalytic activity and stability remained constant under a high concentration of CO2 in the feed gas for 19 h with an average CO conversion of 61.83%.
Loss and damage have become a vital contemporary issue in climate change studies and actions in developing countries. However, studies are scant on this in the fisheries sector around the world. In ...Bangladesh, there is no study on the loss and damage in fisheries dependent communities. This study assesses economic and non-economic loss and damage to coastal shrimp farms due to cyclone Bulbul in Gabura Union of Shyamnagar Upazila, Satkhira district, using a mixed method approach. Results show that all shrimp farms' dependent communities are affected by cyclone Bulbul to some extent. About 14%, 57%, and 29% of the farms were totally, heavily and moderately damaged due to farm inundation and dyke damage. The estimated mean loss and damage per shrimp farm was worth USD 4,633. Around 31% and 72% of the farms' fencing nets and traps were lost, which was worth USD 333 per farm. There were also loss and damage to other resources such as houses, solar panels, livestock and agricultural crops where the estimated mean loss and damage per household was worth USD 3,170. This study reported that the rich shrimp farmers encountered proportionately more economic loss and damage than their poor counterparts. However, this does not mean that the poor suffered less. The current study found a range of non-economic loss and damage in different aspects of the shrimp farmers' household members such as unbearable mental pain, deterioration of health, physical injuries, disabilities, etc. and access to services (e.g., inadequate food, lack of safe drinking water, lack of medical facilities, disruption of education systems), social infrastructure (e.g., damage of roads and markets) and disturbance of cultural functions. The findings suggest that urgent short- and long-term actions may be taken to save the aquaculture farms and dependent livelihoods from economic and non-economic loss and damage to cyclones in future.
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