Arum plant parts such as stem, leaf and corm and the corresponding farm soils were sampled from four As-impacted districts of Bangladesh to assess the potential health risk to humans from toxic ...elements (TEs) including arsenic (As), cadmium (Cd) and lead (Pb). The mean concentrations of As in arum leaf, stem and corm were 150 μg/kg, 107 μg/kg and 101 μg/kg, respectively, whereas mean Cd in arum leaf, stem and corm were 115 μg/kg, 261 μg/kg and 180 μg/kg, respectively and mean Pb in arum leaf, stem and corm were 595 μg/kg, 403 μg/kg and 577 μg/kg, respectively. Daily dietary intake of As, Cd and Pb from sampled arum were 0.003, 0.008 and 0.021 μg/kg bw for adults. As per capita intake of arum is low, hazard quotient (HQ) values for all TEs were found minimal, which reveals no appreciable health risk associated with arum consumption to the local inhabitants.
Display omitted
•Distribution of As, Cd and Pb in different edible parts of arum plant.•Arum leaf contained greater amounts of As and Pb than arum stem and corm.•55% of As present in arum as inorganic form of As.•HQ and ILCR values showed no health risk for As and Pb from arum consumption.
Sign language is the predominant mode of communication for individuals with auditory impairment. In Bangladesh, BdSL or Bangla Sign Language is widely used among the hearing-impaired population. ...However, because of the general public's limited awareness of sign language, communicating with them using BdSL can be challenging. Consequently, there is a growing demand for an automated system capable of efficiently understanding BdSL. For automation, various Deep Learning (DL) architectures can be employed to translate Bangla Sign Language into readable digital text. The automation system incorporates live cameras that continuously capture images, which a DL model then processes. However, factors such as lighting, background noise, skin tone, hand orientations, and other aspects of the image circumstances may introduce uncertainty variables. To address this, we propose a procedure that reduces these uncertainties by considering three modalities: spatial information, skeleton awareness, and edge awareness. We introduce three image pre-processing techniques alongside three CNN models. The CNN models are combined using nine distinct ensemble meta-learning algorithms, with five of them being modifications of averaging and voting techniques. In the result analysis, our individual CNN models achieved higher training accuracy at 99.77%, 98.11%, and 99.30%, respectively, than most of the other state-of-the-art image classification architectures, except for ResNet50, which achieved 99.87%. Meanwhile, the ensemble model attained the highest accuracy of 95.13% on the testing set, outperforming all individual CNN models. This analysis demonstrates that considering multiple modalities can significantly improve the system's overall performance in hand pattern recognition.
Accurate and appropriate extrapulmonary tuberculosis (EPTB) diagnosis remains challenging due to its paucibacillary nature, requirement of invasive collection procedures, and lack of sensitive tests. ...This study investigated the diagnostic performance of different methods for the diagnosis of EPTB. A total of 1340 EPTB specimens were collected from presumptive EPTB patients from four different hospitals between November 2015 and March 2017. The collected specimens were tested with AFB microscopy, culture, Xpert MTB/RIF assay (Xpert), and MTBDR
assay. Among the 1340 EPTB specimens, 49 (3.66%), 141 (10.52%), 166 (12.39%), and 154 (11.49%) were positive in AFB microscopy, culture, Xpert MTB/RIF, and MTBDR
assay, respectively. A total of 194 (14.9%) cases were found positive in at least one of these methods. Using culture as a reference standard, the sensitivity and specificity of AFB microscopy, Xpert MTB/RIF, and MTBDR
assay were: 27.0%/99.1%, 83.7%/96.0%, and 79.4%/96.5%, respectively. Compared to the composite reference standard, the sensitivity of culture, AFB microscopy, Xpert MTB/RIF, and MTBDR
assay was 72.7%, 25.3%, 85.6%, and 79.4%, respectively, with a specificity of 100% for all the methods. The Xpert MTB/RIF assay showed the highest sensitivity compared to other methods. Considering the short turnaround time and promising findings, Xpert MTB/RIF assay should be integrated into national TB guidelines as a routine diagnostic test.
This study examines the role of political stability in a firm's financial performance in Bangladesh. By considering 139 listed companies from the Dhaka Stock Exchange over the period of 2011 to 2020, ...we applied a dynamic generalized method of moments (GMM), dynamic quantile regression and dynamic threshold regression. The empirical evidence of this study shows a significant positive impact of political stability on Bangladeshi firms' financial performances. Using dynamic quantile regression, we found a positive impact of political stability in the firms' upper and lower quantiles. Additionally, we found the threshold effect of political stability on the firms' performance to have a score of 13.680. This study contributes theoretically and empirically by examining the importance of political stability on financial performance. For the investors, policymakers and other stakeholders, this study provides evidence of a threshold of political stability on a firm's financial performance.
Copper is one of the most well-known heavy metals; while it is an essential nutrient for living organisms, its excessive presence in wastewaters is equally hazardous, causing a variety of health ...problems. The most successful and low-cost approach for removing Cu(II) ions is adsorption, which employs synthetic and bio-based adsorbents. Chitosan, a chitin-derived biopolymer having hydroxyl and amino functional groups that may chelate Cu(II) ions, is a nontoxic, ecofriendly, and biocompatible biopolymer. Due to a scarcity of sufficient relevant studies, the current review's outline is systematically developed to analyze the recent progress of chitosan-based adsorbent for Cu(II) removal from wastewater and aqueous media. It summarizes and critically assess recent work involving various types of chitosan derivatives, their recyclability, adsorption mechanism, adsorption isotherm, and kinetics, and eventually it offers future perspectives of chitosan-based adsorbents in heavy metal removal from wastewater. Literature survey shows that functionalization of chitosan by crosslinking and polymer grafting improve adsorption capabilities with high potential of reusability. Slight acidic to neutral aqueous medium at room temperature acts favorably to optimize adsorption capacity. Adsorption pattern of Cu(II) on chitosan adsorbents best fits with Langmuir isotherm model, and the kinetics follows pseudo second order reaction. Binding of Cu(II) ions by chitosan-based adsorbents is mostly governed by the complexation (i.e., chelation/coordination) followed by electrostatic interaction, ion-exchange and surface precipitation mechanism.
Display omitted
•Chitosan-based materials are promising materials for the removal of Cu(II) from wastewater.•Chitosan-based aerogel showed the highest adsorption capacity.•Magnetic chitosan represented better recyclability.•Chitosan-based adsorbents has plenty of room to apply for efficient removal of copper ions from aqueous solutions.
To evaluate the diagnostic performance of Xpert MTB/RIF Ultra (Ultra) for the diagnosis of extrapulmonary tuberculosis (EPTB) from different types of extrapulmonary specimens in comparison with ...culture and composite microbiological reference standard (CRS). A total of 240 specimens were prospectively collected from presumptive EPTB patients between July 2021–January 2022 and tested by Ultra, Xpert, culture and acid-fast bacilli (AFB) smear microscopy. Out of 240 specimens, 35.8 %, 20.8 %, 11.3 %, and 7.1 % were detected as Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex by Ultra, Xpert, culture and AFB microscopy, respectively. An additional 15.0 % cases were detected by Ultra compared to Xpert MTB/RIF (Xpert) assay. A total of 28 (11.7 %) cases were identified as ‘trace’ category by Ultra with indeterminate rifampicin resistance result; of which 36.4 % were clinically confirmed as EPTB. Compared to culture, the sensitivity and specificity of Ultra and Xpert were 100 % and 72.3 %; 92.6 % and 88.3 %, respectively. In comparison with CRS, these were respectively: 98.9 % and 100 %; 57.5 % and 100 %. For individual category of specimens, sensitivity of Ultra was 100 % with varying specificity. We found that Ultra was highly sensitive for the rapid diagnosis of EPTB and has extensive potential over current diagnostics in high TB burden countries, but ‘trace’ results should be interpreted with caution.
•Paucibacillary extrapulmonary-tuberculosis (EPTB) remains underdiagnosed.•Xpert MTB/RIF Ultra (Ultra) might overcome the challenges of diagnosing EPTB.•15 % additional cases were identified by Ultra compared to Xpert MTB/RIF assay.•32.5 % of Ultra positive cases were ‘trace’, of which 36.4 % clinically confirmed.•Ultra improves diagnosis of TB from paucibacillary extrapulmonary samples.
In this article, we propose a trustworthy privacy-preserving federated learning (FL)-based deep learning (DL) service framework for Industrial Internet of Things-enabled systems. FL mitigates the ...privacy issues of the traditional collaborative learning model by aggregating multiple locally trained models without sharing any datasets among the participants. Nevertheless, the FL-based DL (FDL) model cannot be trusted as it is susceptible to intermediate results and data structure leakage during the model aggregation process. The proposed framework introduces an edge and cloud-powered service-oriented architecture identifying the key components and a service model for residual networks-based FDL with differential privacy for generating trustworthy locally trained models. The service model decomposes the functionality of the overall FDL process as services to ensure trustworthy execution through privacy preservation. Finally, we develop a privacy-preserving local model aggregation mechanism for FDL. We perform several experiments to assess the performance of the proposed framework.
The occurrence and spatial distribution of microplastics (MPs) in 12 salt pans from the southeastern part of Bangladesh were investigated. A total of 9640 MPs particles were found in the samples ...collected, ranging from 560 to 1253.33 particles kg −1 in each salt pan. The highest amount of microplastic (MPs) was found in the salt pans from South Kutubdia (1253.33 ± 128.58 particles kg −1) and North Kutubdia (1026.67 ± 189.03 particles kg −1), indicating that the sites that are linked to open seawater contain a greater amount of MPs than the sites connected to the sea through channels or creeks. The maximum number of MPs (88%) accounted for in the 300–1500μm size class. Based on colour, black (24%), transparent (17%) and yellow (15%) were the most dominant MPs in the collected samples. Among the six different shapes, fibres (43%) and foams (21%) were the most dominant shapes of MPs. The most abundant polymer types of MPs were polypropylene (40.63%), polyethylene (31.25%), polyethylene terephthalate (18.75%) and polystyrene (9.38%). This study indicated that the surface seawater of the southeastern coast of Bangladesh is highly contaminated by MPs. The presence of MPs in sea salt might pose a significant threat and risk to food safety, food security and thus public health. Therefore, ongoing monitoring should be in place to monitor MPs levels in local sea salts.
•Occurrence and spatial distribution of MPs in 12 sea salt pans area were observed.•Offshore salt pans deposited a greater amount of MPs than the onshore salt pans.•The maximum number of MPs (88%) accounted for in 300–1500 μm size class.•Polypropylene (40.63%) and polyethylene (31.25%) were the most abundant polymer.•The most dominant colour MPs was black (24%), where Fibre (43%) and foam (21%) were the dominant shapes of MPs.
Soil salinity is a global problem that has adverse effects on both agriculture and aquaculture production. The main objectives of this study were to observe the distribution pattern of soil salinity ...in the accreted and non-accreted land of the Noakhali district and to determine the intensity of salinity at different depths (1–2 cm, 15–20 cm, and 45–60 cm). Soil samples from 60 sampling sites were analyzed to measure electrical conductivity (EC). The two-way factorial ANOVA model revealed a significant effect of depth (p < 0.001) and sampling locations (p < 0.001) on soil salinity. After decomposition of this model, one-way ANOVA showed that 45–60 cm of depth contains significantly higher soil salinity (p < 0.01) ranging from 0.28 to 4.70 dS/m compared to 1–2 cm (ranging from 0.14 to 2.39 dS/m) and 15–20 cm (ranging from 0.18 to 2.37 dS/m) depth. In the case of accreted lands, surface (1–2 cm) and mid-layer (15–20 cm) soils were found slight to severely saline, while soil at a depth of 45–60 cm was found high to extremely saline. In all cases, salinity increases from the north to southwards and surface to downwards. Our results showed that the accreted land of the Noakhali district contains higher soil salinity compared to the non-accreted land, and soil salinity is positively correlated with depth. Assessment of suitable species and pattern of traditional cropping practices in the study area show conformity with our salinity profile. The study will help stakeholders associated with agricultural development and management in planning and designing the future land use and cropping practices.
Earth Sciences, Soil salinity, electrical conductivity, accreted land, Meghna River estuary
The fast and accurate detection of susceptibility in drugs is a major challenge for a successful tuberculosis (TB) control programme. This study evaluated the performance of WHO-endorsed rapid ...diagnostic tools, such as BACTEC MGIT 960 SIRE (MGIT SIRE), GenoType MTBDR
(MTBDR
) and Xpert MTB/RIF (Xpert), for detecting susceptibility to first-line anti-TB drugs among pulmonary TB patients in Bangladesh. A total of 825 sputum samples with results from drug susceptibility testing (DST) against first-line anti-TB drugs in the MGIT SIRE, MTBDR
and Xpert assays were evaluated and compared with the gold standard proportion susceptibility method of the Lowenstein-Jensen (LJ) medium. The overall sensitivities of MGIT SIRE were 97.6%, 90.0%, 61.3% and 44.9%, while specificities were 89.9%, 94.5%, 91.3% and 92.2% for detection of susceptibility to isoniazid (INH), rifampicin (RIF), streptomycin (STR) and ethambutol (EMB), respectively. For MTBDR
, the sensitivities were 88.0% and 88.7%, and the specificities were 97.4% and 97.8% for the detection of susceptibility to INH and RIF, respectively. Xpert demonstrated a sensitivity and specificity of 94.8% and 99.5%, respectively, for the detection of RIF susceptibility. All tests performed significantly better in retreated TB patients compared with primary TB cases. For detection of RIF and INH susceptibility, all three assays showed almost perfect agreement with the LJ method, although MGIT SIRE exhibited low agreement for STR and EMB. Considering the high performance, shorter turnaround time and ease of use, molecular-based approaches Xpert and MTBDR
can be widely implemented throughout the country for the rapid detection of drug-resistant TB.
PDF
