• Journal of Korean Society of Forest Science
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• v.94 no.5 s.162
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• pp.342-348
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• 2005

An exploratory survey was performed to assess the present status of distribution and production of coconut palm (Cocos nucifera Linn.) in the rural landscape of Meghna floodplain of Bangladesh. A multistage simple random sampling technique was adopted to identify the study area and respondents. A total of 50 households were selected randomly for the study. Traditional knowledge on cultivation, management, and production of coconut palm was emphasized. Marketing of coconut palm products and income derived from coconut palm cultivation was taken into consideration. Perceptions of farmers, traders and professionals were described in due context of opportunities and constraints of coconut palm cultivation. Coconut palm cultivation was found to play an important role in household economy in rural Bangladesh sharing considerable contribution to the total income. About 10% of their total annual income was reported to come from coconut husbandry. Highest number of the coconut palms, 24%, was found to grow in the homestead compounds and in the pond banks. About one-third lands of the households were found to be covered by the coconut palms. Maximum, 19%, coconut palms were found in the 16-20 years age-class. Production of coconut was found highest at the age-class 11-15 years. The study found some important opportunities and constraints of coconut farming in rural Meghna floodplain area of Bangladesh. The results of this study would be useful for the rural development practitioners in Bangladesh.

• Journal of Forest and Environmental Science
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• v.27 no.2
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• pp.81-91
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• 2011

An exploratory study was conducted in Gopalganj, a southern district of Bangladesh to explore the role of wild date palm (Phoenix sylvestris Roxb.) husbandry in the rural economy. A total of 36 households in the study area were interviewed using a semi-structured questionnaire. A multistage sampling method with 10% intensity and a semi-structured questionnaire were used for the study. Based on the land holding capacity of the households, the farmers were categorized into five groups as landless, marginal, small, medium, and large. The date palm was distributed over seven different habitats of which roadside support the highest value (31%) followed by agricultural field and orchard (25% each). Though the large category farmers own most of the palms (43%), a considerable portion (562 individuals out of 1980) of it is managed by the landless farmers, who earn a substantial livelihood from the palms. The farmers manage the palm mainly for juice production; juice is either used fresh as drink or after some sort of processing as molasses and/or alcoholic beverage. Date palm husbandry contributes 32,601 Tk., 21,107 Tk., 20,626 Tk., 29,574 Tk. and 35,335 Tk. respectively to the five group seasonally and 50,980 Tk., 77,556 Tk., 90,208 Tk., 112,560 Tk., 140,675 Tk. respectively annually (1 US$ = 70 Tk.). Date palm trees contribute 65.48% of mean annual income to landless farmers followed by 27.21% to marginal farmers. However the poor marketing system result in decreasing the annual return from palm trees. Palm husbandry could be a promising source of rural incomes in Bangladesh if the farmers' traditional management knowledge was linked to more scientific management practices.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business
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• v.5 no.2
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• pp.1-12
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• 2014

Tourism has been considered as the largest industry in the world, which is contributing towards employment generation, wealth creation and pursuing social benefits. Growing concern about the impact of human activities upon the environment, increased awareness of and concern for global environment have intensified the demand for sustainable tourism and their focus on balancing of: profit-driven motives, preserving and enhancing the social as well as ecological balance. Based on secondary materials and content analysis present study evaluated existing status of sustainable tourism development and explored important change strategies for future improvement of tourism sector in Bangladesh. The study recognized different views of change management and various strategies for obtaining sustainability in tourism industry. The present study identified the institutional networks, challenges in the way of applying systems approach to change management for sustainable tourism development and suggested important options for overcoming the impediments to operate through the proposed strategic framework in Bangladesh.

• Korean Journal of Agricultural Science
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• v.44 no.2
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• pp.272-282
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• 2017

In Bangladesh, since the beginning of 21st century, the poultry industry has become an unparalleled platform for a quick profit, the generation of local employment, and the production of cheaper animal proteins. This paper summarizes poultry industry-related facts and figures for Bangladesh, starting from the very beginnings of this sector when poultry farming was part of subsistence family farming only to today's highly commercialized horizon, through personal experiences, secondary data analysis, spot visits, and the sharing of views and ideas with stakeholders. A critical analysis reveals that the poultry industry in Bangladesh may become multi-dimensional and more stable in the near future as it establishes sufficient backward and forward linkages to input and output supplies. We can foresee its passing the very fast growing juvenile stages of higher net profit earning and less responsible then becoming fully mature. The projected demand and production potentials of this sector are increasing, but at a slower pace than before, in the face of some important challenges like emerging disease, higher prices of inputs, consumer preferences, and strong market competition. However, evidence suggests that the production systems of poultry in Bangladesh are entering a new era to cater to the needs of consumers, society, and government as it produces healthier and more diversified, further-processed foods, in the coming years. A better economy in the country, a more health-conscious population, and the availability of new and affordable innovations in this sector might be the driving forces to support the foreseen transformations.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business
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• v.2 no.1
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• pp.1-22
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• 2011

Chamber of commerce and industry plays important role for development of business community and creating vibrant competition. Present paper compares chambers operations in Bangladesh, especially, Sylhet Chamber of Commerce and Industry(SCCI) by reviewing global models of chambers practices. The study identifies important gaps between international standards and Bangladesh practices. Mostly practiced chambers model in the world are: Continental Model, Anglo-Saxon Model and Mixed model or Asian model. Like other Asian countries, chambers in Bangladesh including SCCI, have been following Mixed Model. The empirical study found that SCCI is performing different developmental functions like accumulating members, collecting revenue, fulfilling corporate social responsibility and providing business development services to its members and business community. The notable constraining factors of SCCI operations are: short term orientation in assembling members, limited functional activities, lack of creative endeavors in diversifying services, linkage between SCCI and academic institutions, poor research involvement etc. The necessary suggestions for improvement of chambers performance include adoption of creative measures in various operations, providing training to the members, assisting entrepreneurs in obtaining industrial finance and extending support in the establishment of specialized industrial zone for attaining long term developmental objectives.

• Current Research on Agriculture and Life Sciences
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• v.32 no.4
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• pp.171-174
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• 2014

Agriculture in Bangladesh is slowly transforming to the production of high-value fruit and vegetable crops to satisfy the nutrient requirements of their large size population, and this transformation is creating new challenges as regards improving and maintaining the productivity and crop quality. The country has a declining trend of insect pollinators due to habitat loss, land use changes, monoculture-dominated agriculture, and the excessive and indiscriminate use of pesticides. Such pollinator deficiencies can cause reduced yields, thereby threatening the subsistence of marginal farmers. In Bangladesh, growers enjoy free pollination services from the naturally occurring insect populations. While honeybees pollinate mustard, onions, and melons, many other hymenopterans, coleopterans, hemipterans, dipterans, and thysanopterans also visit the crop fields, making these insects significant for the food security, environment, and economy of the nation. Therefore, attention should be given to public policy, research, and human resource development that promotes knowledge and appreciation of the conservation and utilization of insect pollinators.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.8 no.5
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• pp.265-275
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• 2021

This study's motivation is to investigate the association between the stock market, remittance, and the pandemic of COVID-19 for the period from March 3, 2020, to December 14, 2020. For evaluating the impact of COVID-19 and remittances on stock market behaviour during the pandemic, the study applies Autoregressive Distributed lagged (ARDL) for magnitudes estimation and directional association through the Toda-Yamamoto causality test. Study findings from ARDL estimation revealed that COVID-19 measured by detecting new cases negatively influences the stock market both in the long-term and short-term. Remittance positively influences the stock market behaviour, particularly in the long-term. Furthermore, the directional causality test disclosed unidirectional causal effects between COVID-19 and the stock market behaviour, which establishes all proxy measures for the equation's stock market. The hypothesis results explain the causal relationship between remittance inflows and the stock market in Bangladesh. The study's application will help policymakers rethink the policies for channelizing remittances for productive investment areas. Furthermore, the study's findings will reinstate the widely perceived notions, which is the critical role of remittance in the economy even though the economy passes through a great pandemic.

• BMB Reports
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• v.36 no.5
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• pp.427-432
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• 2003

Jute is the principal coarse fiber for commercial production and use in Bangladesh. Therefore, the development of a high-yielding and environmental-stress tolerant jute variety would be beneficial for the agro economy of Bangladesh. Two molecular fingerprinting techniques, random-amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD) and amplified-fragment length polymorphism (AFLP) were applied on six jute samples. Two of them were cold-sensitive varieties and the remaining four were cold-tolerant accessions. RAPD and AFLP fingerprints were employed to generate polymorphism between the cold-sensitive varieties and cold-tolerant accessions because of their simplicity, and also because there is no available sequence information on jute. RAPD data were obtained by using 30 arbitrary oligonucleotide primers. Five primers were found to give polymorphism between the varieties that were tested. AFLP fingerprints were generated using 25 combinations of selective-amplification primers. Eight primer combinations gave the best results with 93 polymorphic fragments, and they were able to discriminate the two cold-sensitive and four cold-tolerant jute populations. A cluster analysis, based on the RAPD and AFLP fingerprint data, showed the population-specific grouping of individuals. This information could be useful later in marker-aided selection between the cold-sensitive varieties and cold-tolerant jute accessions.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.16 no.11
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• pp.4741-4743
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• 2015

The aim of this study was to investigate the knowledge, attitude and practice of testicular self-examination (TSE) among male university students from low income (Bangladesh, Madagascar), middle income (South Africa, Turkey) and emerging economy (Singapore) countries. Using anonymous questionnaires, data were collected from 2,061 male undergraduate university students aged 16-30 (mean age 21.4, SD=2.4) from 5 universities in 5 countries across Asia and Africa. Overall, 17.6% of the male students indicated that they knew how to perform TSE; this knowledge proportion was above 20% in Bangladesh and Singapore, while it was the lowest (12.2%) in Madagascar. Among all men, 86.4% had never practiced TSE in the past 12 months, 7.1% 1-2 times, 3.5% 3-10 times, and monthly TSE was 3.1%. The proportion of past 12 month TSE was the highest (17.6%) among male university students in South Africa and the lowest (7.3%) among students in Singapore. Logistic regression found that TSE importance or positive attitude was highly associated with TSE practice. TSE practices were found to be inadequate and efforts should be made to develop programmes that can increase knowledge related to testicular cancer as well as the practice of testicular self-examination.

• Journal of Forest and Environmental Science
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• v.26 no.1
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• pp.9-15
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• 2010

This paper analyzes data on the plant species diversity and their contribution to the livelihoods of rural people in five villages of Domar upazila, Nilphamari district, Bangladesh. Assessment was done by means of multistage random sampling. Information collected from a total of 40 households ranging from small, medium and large categories. A total of 52 plant species belonging to 34 families were identified as being important to local livelihoods. Fruits (37%), timber (23%) and medicinal (17%) species were the most important plant use categories. Determination of the relative density of the different species revealed that Areca catechu constitutes 19.17% of homestead vegetation of the area followed by Artocarpus heterophyllus, which occupies 10.34%. Margalef index showed that there is no major difference (5.11 for large, 5.49 for medium, 4.73 for small) across the different size classes and Shannon-Weiner Index of the study area varies from 2.75 to 2.98. Results show that the average annual homestead income varied from US$108.69 to US$291.67 and contribute 6.63% of the household income.