Applying rainfall threshold estimates and frequency ratio model for landslide hazard assessment in the coastal mountain setting of South Asia

Landslides pose a serious risk to life and property in the mountainous regions around the globe. Understanding the interplay of landslide conditioning and triggering factors is essential for lessening the impacts caused by the hazard. Cox's Bazar — a coastal mountainous district in Bangladesh is recurrently affected by rainfall-triggered landslides. Based on analysis of 14 experiential landslides and combination of gauged and satellite rainfall estimates for the period from 2003 to 2019, the present study determines three landslide-triggering rainfall thresholds for the Cox's Bazar District (CBD): 1. Intensity-Duration (ID) threshold derived in this study revealed that any rainfall event with an intensity of ≥4.04 ​mm/h if prolonging for ≥12h can cause slope failures; 2. Event-Duration (ED) threshold suggested that a normalized cumulative event rainfall (EMAP) of 0.15 for one day is expected to trigger landslides; and 3. threshold calculated using randomly chosen antecedent rainfall expressed best distinction on 30-day rainfall and the equation of the threshold came out as Rth ​= ​64–0.02 Ra30. The recurrence probability of the derived antecedent rainfall threshold and likely landslides was determined through the Poisson distribution. Moreover, we assess the landslide susceptibility of the district with a coupled use of Frequency Ratio (FR) statistical measure and Geographic Information System (GIS). Considering the combined role of selected conditioning factors, the landslide susceptibility status of the CBD was quantified and classified into probability intervals. The accuracy of the susceptibility maps was assessed through the Relative Landslide Density Index (R-Index) that used a field landslide inventory, comprising well distributed 891 events. Moreover, gridded population data was superimposed on the derived susceptibility maps to understand the risk levels of people. The derivation of landslide-triggering rainfall thresholds and spatial susceptibility assessment has been useful to propose a low-cost Landslide Early Warning System (LEWS) which can contribute in alleviating the adverse effects of landslide hazard in the CBD

Impacts of ICT Integration in the Higher Education Classrooms: Bangladesh Perspective

For the last few years, ICT integration in education has been the topic of discussion for researchers. Very few researches have been conducted on ICT integration in the context of higher education, especially in Bangladesh. The purpose of this study is to explore the ICT integration in higher education teaching - learning in Bangladesh. This study is qualitative in design. Data were collected from students and teachers in the University of Dhaka through semi-structured interview schedule, focused group discussion and classroom observation schedule. The major findings of this study reveal that ICT is not integrated effectively in higher education teaching-learning. Furthermore, several obstacles have been identified that impede the effective integration of ICT. The obstacles are teachers’ lack of knowledge and skills, teachers’ lack of time to take preparations for class, lack of adequate equipment and access to internet and inadequate technical support. It is asserted that proper teachers’ training about integrating ICT in education will be able to change the scenario to a great extent. This study has, therefore, implications for policy developers, teachers and students of various departments. Keywords: ICT, Pedagogy, Social Interaction, Technology, Teaching – learning

Impacts of ICT integration in the higher education classrooms:Bangladesh perspective

For the last few years, ICT integration in education has been the topic of discussion for researchers. Very few researches have been conducted on ICT integration in the context of higher education, especially in Bangladesh. The purpose of this study is to explore the ICT integration in higher education teaching - learning in Bangladesh. This study is qualitative in design. Data were collected from students and teachers in the University of Dhaka through semi-structured interview schedule, focused group discussion and classroom observation schedule. The major findings of this study reveal that ICT is not integrated effectively in higher education teaching-learning. Furthermore, several obstacles have been identified that impede the effective integration of ICT. The obstacles are teachers’ lack of knowledge and skills, teachers’ lack of time to take preparations for class, lack of adequate equipment and access to internet and inadequate technical support. It is asserted that proper teachers’ training about integrating ICT in education will be able to change the scenario to a great extent. This study has, therefore, implications for policy developers, teachers and students of various departments

Epidemiology and risk factors for pneumonia severity and mortality in Bangladeshi children <5 years of age before 10-valent pneumococcal conjugate vaccine introduction

Abstract Background Pneumonia is the leading infectious cause of morbidity and mortality in young children in Bangladesh. We present the epidemiology of pneumonia in Bangladeshi children <5 years before 10-valent pneumococcal conjugate vaccine introduction and investigate factors associated with disease severity and mortality. Methods Children aged 2–59 months admitted to three Bangladeshi hospitals with pneumonia (i.e., cough or difficulty breathing and age-specific tachypnea without danger signs) or severe pneumonia (i.e., cough or difficulty breathing and ≥1 danger signs) were included. Demographic, clinical, laboratory, and vaccine history data were collected. We assessed associations between characteristics and pneumonia severity and mortality using multivariable logistic regression. Results Among 3639 Bangladeshi children with pneumonia, 61% had severe disease, and 2% died. Factors independently associated with severe pneumonia included ages 2–5 months (adjusted odds ratio [aOR] 1.60 [95% CI: 1.26–2.01]) and 6–11 months (aOR 1.31 [1.10–1.56]) relative to 12–59 months, low weight for age (aOR 1.22 [1.04–1.42]), unsafe drinking water source (aOR 2.00 [1.50–2.69]), higher paternal education (aOR 1.34 [1.15–1.57]), higher maternal education (aOR 0.74 [0.64–0.87]), and being fully vaccinated for age with pentavalent vaccination (aOR 0.64 [0.51–0.82]). Increased risk of pneumonia mortality was associated with age <12 months, low weight for age, unsafe drinking water source, lower paternal education, disease severity, and having ≥1 co-morbid condition. Conclusions Modifiable factors for severe pneumonia and mortality included low weight for age and access to safe drinking water. Improving vaccination status could decrease disease severity

Assessing the effectiveness of landslide slope stability by analysing structural mitigation measures and community risk perception

Rainfall-induced landslides seriously threaten hilly environments, leading local authorities to implement various mitigation measures to decrease disaster risk. However, there is a significant gap in the current literature regarding evaluating their effectiveness and the associated community risk perception. To address this gap, we used an interdisciplinary and innovative approach to analyse the slope stability of landslides, evaluate the effectiveness of existing structural mitigation measures, and assess the risk perception of those living in danger zones. Our case study focused on the Kutupalong Rohingya Camp (KRC) in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, which is home to over one million Rohingya refugees from Myanmar. Although various structural and non-structural countermeasures were implemented in the KRC to mitigate the impact of landslides, many of them failed to prevent landslides from occurring. We utilised a variety of methods from the physical sciences, including the infinite slope, limit equilibrium (LEM), and finite element (FEM) approaches, to calculate the factor of safety (FoS) for specific slopes. Additionally, in the social sciences domain, we conducted a questionnaire survey of approximately 400 Rohingya participants to assess the community’s perception of the interventions and the degree of disaster risk. Our findings indicated that slopes with a gradient greater than 40° were unstable (FoS &lt; 1), which was present throughout the entire KRC area. The effectiveness of the LEM and FEM methods was evaluated for four dominant slope angles (40°, 45°, 50°, and 55°) under varying loads (0, 50, and 100 kN/m2). The slopes were found to be stable for lower slope angles but unstable for higher slope angles (&gt; 50°) and increased overburden loads (50–100 kN/m2). Different mitigation measures were tested on the identified unstable slopes to assess their effectiveness, but the results showed that the countermeasures only provided marginal protection against landslides. Survey results revealed that at least 70% of respondents believed that concrete retaining walls are more effective in reducing landslide occurrence compared to other measures. Additionally, about 60% of the respondents questioned the reliability of the existing structural mitigation measures. The study also found that the cohesion and friction angle of lower sandstone and the cohesion of upper soil layers are important factors to consider when designing and implementing slope protection countermeasures in the KRC area

MHfit: Mobile Health Data for Predicting Athletics Fitness Using Machine Learning

Mobile phones and other electronic gadgets or devices have aided in collecting data without the need for data entry. This paper will specifically focus on Mobile health data. Mobile health data use mobile devices to gather clinical health data and track patient vitals in real-time. Our study is aimed to give decisions for small or big sports teams on whether one athlete good fit or not for a particular game with the compare several machine learning algorithms to predict human behavior and health using the data collected from mobile devices and sensors placed on patients. In this study, we have obtained the dataset from a similar study done on mhealth. The dataset contains vital signs recordings of ten volunteers from different backgrounds. They had to perform several physical activities with a sensor placed on their bodies. Our study used 5 machine learning algorithms (XGBoost, Naive Bayes, Decision Tree, Random Forest, and Logistic Regression) to analyze and predict human health behavior. XGBoost performed better compared to the other machine learning algorithms and achieved 95.2% accuracy, 99.5% in sensitivity, 99.5% in specificity, and 99.66% in F1 score. Our research indicated a promising future in mhealth being used to predict human behavior and further research and exploration need to be done for it to be available for commercial use specifically in the sports industry.Comment: 6, Accepted by 2nd International Seminar on Machine Learning, Optimization, and Data Science (ISMODE

What drives changes in surface water salinity in coastal Bangladesh?

The salinisation of freshwater resources is a priority concern in Asian mega-deltas including the Bengal Basin of Bangladesh where the livelihoods, ecosystem services and health of coastal populations are increasingly under threat. Understanding trends and variations in surface water salinity is required to inform sustainable use of freshwater supplies in the face of hydrological regimes intensified by global environmental change. We interrogate 86 time series of fortnightly records of in situ surface water salinity between 1990 and 2019. Statistical and geospatial techniques were employed to characterise spatiotemporal distributions and trends in surface water salinity and identify key drivers of change in the coastal region of Bangladesh. The observed spatiotemporal structure in surface water salinity is primarily controlled by the magnitude and seasonality of river discharge entering the delta. In the moribund delta north of the Sundarbans, the contour between fresh and brackish water migrates seasonally between ~20 and ~40 km northward during the dry season. Abrupt increases in surface water salinity are observed throughout the coastal region in response to variations in upstream river discharge; the prominence of these events highlights their importance in driving salinity increases. Areas which are better connected to more voluminous seasonal river discharge (active delta), show greater recovery to these episodic inundations by cyclones than those less-well flushed by river discharge (moribund delta). Our reported observations provide a baseline for understanding the consequences of global environmental change and informing more climate-resilient adaptation strategies in coastal environments of Bangladesh and other Asian mega-deltas

An empirical recommendation framework to support location-based services

© 2020 by the authors. The rapid growth of Global Positioning System (GPS) and availability of real-time Geo-located data allow the mobile devices to provide information which leads towards the Location Based Services (LBS). The need for providing suggestions to personals about the activities of their interests, the LBS contributing more effectively to this purpose. Recommendation system (RS) is one of the most effective and efficient features that has been initiated by the LBS. Our proposed system is intended to design a recommendation system that will provide suggestions to the user and also find a suitable place for a group of users and it is according to their preferred type of places. In our work, we propose the Density-Based Spatial Clustering of Applications with Noise (DBSCAN) algorithm for clustering the check-in spots of the user's and user-based Collaborative Filtering (CF) to find similar users as we are considering constructing an interest profile for each user. We also introduced a grid-based structure to present the Point of Interest (POI) into a map. Finally, similarity calculation is done to make the recommendations. We evaluated our system on real world users and acquired the F-measure score on average 0.962 and 0.964 for a single user and for a group of user respectively. We also observed that our system provides effective recommendations for a single user as well as for a group of users

Effects of age and live weight on meat yield characteristics of Giribaz squab

A total of 60 Giribaz squabs of different ages (25-35 days) were purchased, slaughtered and allowed to bleed properly. After dissection the parts of squab were weighed separately and recorded. It was found that dressing percentage, total meat, breast meat, dark meat, wing meat, thigh meat, drumstick meat, total bone, wing bone, thigh bone, drumstick bone and the ratio of breast and dark meat (breast: dark meat) were 53.88, 18.97, 10.45, 8.54, 4.05, 2.41, 2.08, 10.41, 3.72 0.76, 0.88, and 1.22%, respectively. The average length of neck, wing bone, thigh bone, drumstick bone, elementary tract and shank were 5.62, 8.67, 3.37, 5.05, 84.03, and 2.85cm, respectively. On the other hand, the average weight of head, neck, heart, liver, gizzard, spleen, abdominal fat, back, skin and shank were 4.94, 1.79, 1.09, 3.14, 2.20, 0.10, 0.80, 3.31, 9.49, and 1.84%, respectively. Dressing percentage, total meat, breast meat, dark meat were linearly increased (P<0.01) and gizzard and liver weight were linearly decreased (P<0.01) with the increase of age and live weight. Ratio of breast and dark meat, total bone, drumstick bone, head, neck, elementary tract length, back and shank weight did not maintain (P>0.05) any relation with the increase of age and live weight. Despite smaller in size (229.50g), the dressing percentage of squab was fairly higher (53.88%) and relative ratio of breast and dark meat usually higher (1.22), because the growth of pectoral muscle (flying muscle) appeared to be very fast growing in early life of squab. Further study is needed among different breeds and varieties of pigeon available in Bangladesh for better performance

Rapid antigen testing by community health workers for detection of SARS-CoV-2 in Dhaka, Bangladesh : a cross-sectional study

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