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Inland Fisheries Production Condition with Production Unit-Wise Productivity and Production Growth Rate in Bangladesh

In Bangladesh, 85% of fisheries yield comes from inland fisheries. There is an evident production gap between the inland capture and culture fisheries in sample data, but what is in population? The study evaluates the production gap between inland capture and culture fisheries by appropriate test statistics and traces the production share, productivity, yield area, and growth status of various production units of inland fisheries. The required data have been collected from the website of the department of fisheries of Bangladesh. To evaluate the production gap, the study relies on the Mann-Whitney-Wilcoxon U test. The P-value, 0.02272 < 0.05, suggested that there is a significant yield gap between the population of inland capture and culture fisheries in Bangladesh. Inland capture and culture controlled 82.06% and 17.94% of inland production area and 33.03% and 66.97% of production, respectively. The productivity of the inland culture fishery is 9.2 times higher than the inland capture. Rivers, floodplains, and ponds combinedly control 83.07% of the inland production area and 82.57% of the inland yield. To achieve the vision of Bangladesh, policymakers should make separate fishery policies for rivers, floodplains, and ponds. This study might be helpful to national and international bodies to understand the inland fisheries population and production units which might be helpful to restructure fisheries policy in Bangladesh

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Addressing the supplier selection problem by using the analytical hierarchy process

ACI Pharma spends $ 12 to 15 million yearly to promote its brands. The brand promotional activities of the company were hampered, due to supplier selection subjectively, which impacted market share. The study selects the best supplier with supplier management and purchasing policy for printing materials for ACI Pharma based on objective judgments. The required data has been collected from the company. This study uses the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) to address supplier selection and management problems. Five attributes, cost, quality, delivery, flexibility, and communication, and ten suppliers have been evaluated to select the best supplier. Spark Printers is the best supplier for ACI Pharma as it obtains the highest score, 0.968, whereas Marvelous Printers Limited and Lutfur Enterprise are the second-best and third-best suppliers. The application of AHP in the pharmaceutical supply chain industry is very limited. Further, Previous studies emphasized supplier selection rather than management and purchasing policy. Moreover, industry practitioners, especially in developing countries, might not use complex methodologies due to time, money, or technical constraints. Considering these thoughts, this study is conducted to select and manage the right supplier with purchasing policy using AHP in industry-friendly language and analysis patterns. Other organizations suffering from similar problems, such as ACI Pharma, may benefit from this research. The study has selected AHP, purposively, without any methodological justifications, although many Multi-Criteria Decision-Making (MCDM) techniques are present. Further studies might be conducted to find which MCDM method fits best to address the supplier selection problem in the pharmaceutical supply chain industry.

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Revenue Collection and Division-Wise National Budget Allocation of the Government of Bangladesh

Bangladesh is a developing country, but its inequality is increasing gradually due to improper budget allocation. This study is conducted to evaluate revenue collection, the national budget along with the division-wise allocation in Bangladesh. Data for this study has been collected from the websites of the finance ministry and Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics. From the tax sector, Bangladesh collected 81.5% of revenue in 2021 and has planned to collect 88.9% in 2023. The government is expecting more earnings from the tax sector. The budget deficit of the country was -28.1% of expenses in 2021 and might be 35.7% of expenses in 2023. The increasing budget deficit is creating a fiscal burden on the economy. The country spent 18.7%, 14.8%, and 12.0% in public service, education, and interest payment, respectively, in the revised budget for 2022. Bangladesh should increase the budget allocation in agriculture, health, and housing sectors to promote sustainable development, and it should cut allocation in interest payment, public service, and defense sectors to reduce the budget deficit. Policymakers of Bangladesh may use this study to the allocate national budget and collect revenue in the future. The study considered the total expense of 15 divisions, so further study is required involving operating and developing expenses among different sub-divisions for a better understanding of the national budget allocation of Bangladesh.

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Effect of Hydrophobicity and Salt on the Temperature Responsiveness of Polymeric Micelles Consisting of Hydrophobic and Sulfobetaine Chains

The effect of the hydrophobicity of the core part and salt on the temperature responsiveness of polymeric micelles composed of sulfobetaine and hydrophobic blocks was investigated. Poly(sulfopropyl dimethylammonium propylacrylamide) (PSPP) was used as the sulfobetaine; poly(2-ethylhexyl acrylate) (PEHA), poly(n-butyl acrylate) (PnBA), poly(ethyl acrylate) (PEA), or poly(n-hexyl acrylate) (PnHA) was used as the hydrophobic polymer. Measurement of the transmittance revealed that the transition temperature of the sulfobetaine homopolymer could be controlled by adjusting the concentration, the degree of polymerization (DP), and the concentration of the added salt. The effect of the anionic species of the added salt due to the chemical structural properties of the sulfobetaine chain was consistent with the order of ionic species with strong structural destruction in the Hofmeister series. The temperature response and micelle formation behavior of the polymeric micelles according to the hydrophobicity of the core part and the preparation method were examined by static light scattering (SLS), fluorescence measurement with pyrene, dynamic light scattering (DLS), transmittance, and atomic force microscopy (AFM). Micelles that had EHA (solubility in water was 0.01 g/100 mL) as the core and did not show temperature responsiveness expressed temperature responsiveness at a lower hydrophobicity (solubility of nBA in water was 0.14 g/100 mL). nBA-b-SPP did not show temperature responsiveness due to the block ratio. However, when micelles were prepared by dialysis, smaller and more stable micelles could be formed in an equilibrium state, and temperature responsiveness was observed. Their transition temperature can be controlled by adjusting the ratio of the sulfobetaine blocks, the hydrophobicity of the core part, the concentration of the polymer aqueous solution, and the concentration of the added salt. Furthermore, like the sulfobetaine homopolymer, the effect depended on the anionic species of the added salt.

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Complex Formation in the Sulfobetaine-Containing Entirely Ionic Block Copolymer/Ionic Homopolymer System and Their Temperature Responsivity.

The behavior of micelle formation in the sulfobetaine-containing entirely ionic block copolymer/ionic homopolymer system and its functional expression (temperature responsivity) were investigated. Poly(sulfopropyl dimethylammonium propylacrylamide) was used as the sulfobetaine, poly[3-(methacrylamido)propyl trimethylammonium chloride] was used as the cationic polymer, and poly(p-styrenesulfonic acid sodium salt) was used as the anionic polymer. The changes in transition temperature with the concentration and the behavior of micelle formation in the block-/cationic homopolymer and block-/anionic homopolymer system were compared and examined by transmittance, dynamic light scattering, atomic force microscopy, and 1H nuclear magnetic resonance. Only block-/cationic homopolymer systems with a core-shell (polyion complex-sulfobetaine) structure showed temperature responsivity of upper critical solution temperature type, and the responsiveness was dependent on the concentration. On the other hand, the block-/anionic homopolymer system had a core-shell structure at a concentration of 0.05 wt %, but temperature responsiveness was not observed at this concentration. At higher concentrations, electrostatic attraction caused the anionic homopolymer and block copolymer to interact as a whole, resulting in a loss of responsiveness. When the ionic homopolymer had a higher degree of polymerization than the sulfobetaine, it could not form a core-shell structure by interacting with the sulfobetaine and ionic polymer moieties of the block copolymer, thus resulting in the loss of responsiveness. The block-/ionic homopolymer system prepared by the reforming method through dialysis formed uniform and small micelles but lost responsiveness due to morphological stability and electrostatic interaction between the block copolymer and ionic homopolymer.

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Collapse Behavior of Polyion Complex (PIC) Micelles upon Salt Addition and Reforming Behavior by Dialysis and Its Temperature Responsivity.

Temperature-responsive polyion complex (PIC) micelles were prepared by using two diblock copolymers composed of a sulfobetaine chain (poly(sulfopropyldimethylammonium propylacrylamide), PSPP) and ionic chains (poly(sodium styrenesulfonate), PSSNa, or poly(3-(methacrylamido)propyltrimethylammonium chloride), PMAPTAC). Because the core is PIC and the shell is sulfobetaine with UCST-type temperature response, the corona expands and contracts in response to temperature. To control the size and uniformity of the PIC micelles, the collapse of PIC micelles by salt addition and the reforming behavior by dialysis were investigated by transmittance, DLS, TEM, AFM, and 1H NMR measurements. Investigation of the ionic species dependence of the added salt in the collapse behavior of PIC micelles revealed that it was dependent on the anionic species, although no dependence on the cationic species was observed. Its effectiveness was in the order of I- > Br- > Cl- > F-, which is in agreement with the order of ionic species with strong structural destruction in the Hofmeister series. Heterogeneous and large PIC micelles were formed by the simple mixing method. They collapsed by salt addition and were reformed by the dialysis method to form uniform and smaller PIC micelles. This is considered to be because a uniform and smaller micelle is formed to reform in equilibrium state by dialysis. The temperature response of PIC micelles formed by the simple mixing method and PIC micelles reformed by dialysis showed nearly the same temperature-transmittance curves. These results indicate that the temperature response of PIC micelles is affected by the concentration rather than the hydrodynamic radius. Furthermore, the stability of PIC micelles was found to be affected by the concentration temperature (the temperature at the time of concentration).

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Complex Formation of Sulfobetaine Surfactant and Ionic Polymers and Their Stimuli Responsivity.

We investigated the kinds of complexes sulfobetaine surfactant and ionic polymer formed using lauramidopropyl hydroxysultane (LAPHS) as a sulfobetaine surfactant, poly(sodium styrenesulfonate) (PSSNa) as the anionic polymer and poly[3-(methacrylamido)propyl trimethylammonium chloride] (PMAPTAC) as the cationic polymer. The fundamental properties of LAPHS at various salt concentrations were estimated by various measurements, and it was confirmed that the LAPHS micelles alone did not show temperature responsiveness. The presence of large aggregates in addition to LAPHS micelles was confirmed in the aggregates prepared by adding PSSNa to LAPHS at a charge ratio of 1:0.5, 1:1, and 1:2. However, the aggregates could not be formed when the salt concentration was high or when a monomer was added instead of the polymer. This revealed that the cation part of sulfobetaine, which is the shell of LAPHS micelles, and the anion part of PSSNa electrostatically interacted with each other to form a large aggregate. On the other hand, unlike the case of LAPHS micelles alone and the aggregate consisting of LAPHS micelles and PSSNa, the aggregate of LAPHS micelles and PMAPTAC showed an unprecedented phenomenon of "clear → opaque → clear" with increasing concentration in the concentration range above CMC. The change in the transition temperature due to the change of concentration was a factor. Additionally, we confirmed that the transition temperature was lowered when the concentration was higher than CMC or the salt concentration was increased, and the transition temperature was increased when the PMAPTAC with a high degree of polymerization was added. These results suggested that the LAPHS micelles and the ionic polymer form an aggregate, and the temperature responsivity can be expressed by the interaction with the cationic polymer.

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Formation of Sulfobetaine-Containing Entirely Ionic PIC (Polyion Complex) Micelles and Their Temperature Responsivity.

Sulfobetaine, a type of zwitterionic polymer, is highly biocompatible with temperature responsiveness of the upper critical solution temperature (UCST) type. The objective of this research was to construct polyion complex (PIC) micelles in the shell of sulfobetaine that had these properties. We used poly(sulfopropyl dimethylammonium propylacrylamide) (PSPP) as sulfobetaine, poly(sodium styrenesulfonate) (PSSNa) as the anionic polymer, and poly[3-(methacrylamido)propyl trimethylammonium chloride] (PMAPTAC) as the cationic polymer. The fundamental properties of the sulfobetaine-containing polymer and the complex were investigated to construct micelles in which the corona expands and contracts in response to temperature changes. Changes in the cloud point were observed from the transmittance for sulfobetaine homopolymers with different degrees of polymerization and concentration and aqueous solution of temperature-responsive diblock copolymers with different concentrations. The concentration and degree of polymerization dependencies on temperature responsivity were determined. Then we mixed two diblock copolymer aqueous solutions that did not have temperature responsivity so that the charge number of anions and cations became equal, and the temperature responsivity and the formation of micelles were confirmed from 1H NMR, DLS, and transmittance. This confirmed the formation of PIC micelles with temperature responsivity. The diblock copolymer did not have temperature responsivity due to the influence of the block ratio by introduction of the ionic chain. However, it is considered to have temperature responsivity because the ionic chain becomes the core when PIC micelles are formed. Furthermore, the PIC micelles with temperature responsivity also had a degree of polymerization and concentration dependencies.

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