Household consumption pattern and buying behavior for fish in an area Mymensingh, Bangladesh

The study was conducted on 238 households in Bangladesh Agricultural University campus and its adjoining areas in Mymensingh. The household were divided into four groups based on their per capita income. Monthly expenditure on fish, income elasticity of demand and marginal propensity to consume were calculated. 'Weighted average' method was used to study the level of preference for fish by sex and age groups and frequency of its purchase. The per capita monthly expenditure on fish of overall households was found to be Tk. 178.83. The consumption increased considerably between and among the income groups rising from Tk. 63.95 in the lowest income group to Tk. 249.11 in the highest income group. Based on income elasticity the proportion of income spent on fish was found to be greater than the proportion of increase in income for lower middle and upper middle income groups. However, percent expenditure decreased from 8.15 in lowest to 5.49 in the highest income group. Female members between 20 and 40yrs had the highest preference for fish in general followed by male members of above 40 yrs. Children (0 to 8 yrs), on the other band, had the least preference for fish, Sing and Magur (Catfishes) were the most preferred fish species for each age and sex group. Rui, a carp, was the single most purchased fish while the introduced exotic fishes were the least bought. Freshness was found to be the most important factor followed by the appearance and taste perception that positively affected the fish purchase.

A power optimised narrowband power-line communication system

Narrowband Power-line Communication (NPLC) technology uses a narrow bandwidth to transmit information. Its major applications include control, smart home systems and security. This paper proposes a power optimised NPLC system to minimise its systemic power consumption without compromising its communication ability. By using the proposed Smart Energy Conservation Layer which reads the signal strength from the PLC channel, a power optimised system is achieved to provide the essential transmitting power to secure the communications. Compared to commercial systems, the potential power saving could be up to 99% in a household environment, as demonstrated by the experimental results. © 2013 IEEE.

Estrogenic effects from household stoves

With the application of a genetically modified yeast, estrogen receptor-activating compounds were detected in the soot and emission gas of a wood-burning household stove. The EC50 value of 17beta-estradiol was divided by the EC50 value of soot, and the obtained relative estrogenic value for raw soot was 2.37E-5, indicating that soot was about 100,000 times less estrogenic than 17beta-estradiol. Chemical analysis revealed that alkyl phenol, benzonic acid, and PAHs represented the major constituents in the most potent fractions of the soot. Along with PAHs, other constituents might also contribute to the estrogenicity of soot. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science (USA).

A power-saving scheme for IEEE 802.11 Ad hoc networks

In the Wireless Local Area Networks (WLANs), the terminals are often powered by battery, so the power-saving performance of the wireless network card is a very important issue. For IEEE 802.11 Ad hoc networks, a power-saving scheme is presented in Medium Access Control (MAC) layer to reduce the power consumption by allowing the nodes enter into the sleep mode, but the scheme is based on Time-Drive Scheme (TDS) whose power-saving efficiency becomes lower and lower with the network load increasing. This paper presented a novel energy-saving mechanism, called as Hybrid-Drive Scheme (HDS), which introduces into a Message.-Drive Scheme (MDS) and combines MDS with the conventional TDS. The MDS, could obtain high efficiency when the load is heavy; meanwhile the TDS has high efficiency when the network load is small. The analysis shows that the proposed HDS could obtain high energy-efficiency whether the network load is light or heavy and have higher energy-saving efficiency than conventional scheme in the IEEE 802.11 standard.

Space saving calculation of symbolic resultants

Lloyd, Noel G., and Pearson, Jane M., 'Space saving calculation of symbolic resultants', Mathematics in Computer Science, 1 (2007), 267-290.

Household Health and Cocoa Production: A Baseline Survey of Smallholder Farming Households in Western Region, Ghana

Background Chronic illness and premature mortality from malaria, water-borne diseases, and respiratory illnesses have long been known to diminish the welfare of individuals and households in developing countries. Previous research has also shown that chronic diseases among farming populations suppress labor productivity and agricultural output. As the illness and death toll from HIV/AIDS continues to climb in most of sub-Saharan Africa, concern has arisen that the loss of household labor it causes will reduce crop yields, impoverish farming households, intensify malnutrition, and suppress growth in the agricultural sector. If chronic morbidity and premature mortality among individuals in farming households have substantial impacts on household production, and if a large number of households are affected, it is possible that an increase in morbidity and mortality from HIV/AIDS or other diseases could affect national aggregate output and exports. If, on the other hand, the impact at the household farm level is modest, or if relatively few households are affected, there is likely to be little effect on aggregate production across an entire country. Which of these outcomes is more likely in West Africa is unknown. Little rigorous, quantitative research has been published on the impacts of AIDS on smallholder farm production, particularly in West Africa. The handful of studies that have been conducted have looked mainly at small populations in areas of very high HIV prevalence in southern and eastern Africa. Conclusions about how HIV/AIDS, and other causes of chronic morbidity and mortality, are affecting agriculture across the continent cannot be drawn from these studies. In view of the importance of agriculture, and particularly smallholder agriculture, in the economies of most African countries and the scarcity of resources for health interventions, it is valuable to identify, describe, and quantify the impact of chronic morbidity and mortality on smallholder production of important crops in West Africa. One such crop is cocoa. In Ghana, cocoa is a crop of national importance that is produced almost exclusively by smallholder households. In 2003, Ghana was the world’s second-largest producer of cocoa. Cocoa accounted for a quarter of Ghana’s export revenues that year and generated 15 percent of employment. The success and growth of the cocoa industry is thus vital to the country’s overall social and economic development. Study Objectives and Methods In February and March 2005, the Center for International Health and Development of Boston University (CIHD) and the Department of Agricultural Economics and Agribusiness (DAEA) of the University of Ghana, with financial support from the Africa Bureau of the U.S. Agency for International Development and from Mars, Inc., which is a major purchaser of West African cocoa, conducted a survey of a random sample of cocoa farming households in the Western Region of Ghana. The survey documented the extent of chronic morbidity and mortality in cocoa growing households in the Western Region of Ghana, the country’s largest cocoa growing region, and analyzed the impact of morbidity and mortality on cocoa production. It aimed to answer three specific research questions. (1) What is the baseline status of the study population in terms of household size and composition, acute and chronic morbidity, recent mortality, and cocoa production? (2) What is the relationship between household size and cocoa production, and how can this relationship be used to understand the impact of adult mortality and chronic morbidity on the production of cocoa at the household level? The study population was the approximately 42,000 cocoa farming households in the southern part of Ghana’s Western Region. A random sample of households was selected from a roster of eligible households developed from existing administrative information. Under the supervision of the University of Ghana field team, enumerators were graduate students of the Department of Agricultural Economics and Agribusiness or employees of the Cocoa Services Division. A total of 632 eligible farmers participated in the survey. Of these, 610 provided complete responses to all questions needed to complete the multivariate statistical analysis reported here.

Influenza vaccination of household contacts of newborns: a hospital-based strategy to increase vaccination rates.

We implemented a hospital-based influenza vaccination program for household contacts of newborns. Among mothers not vaccinated prenatally, 44.7% were vaccinated through the program, as were 25.7% of fathers. A hospital-based program provided opportunities for vaccination of household contacts of newborns, thereby facilitating better adherence to national vaccination guidelines.

Final Archaeological Investigations at the Maynard-Burgess House (18AP64): An 1850-1980 African-American Household in Annapolis, Maryland

The Maynard-Burgess House was excavated by Archaeology in Annapolis from Fall, 1990 to Summer, 1992. The still-standing house is located at 163 Duke of Gloucester Street in Annapolis' Historic District and is today being restored by Port of Annapolis, Incorporated. Archaeological testing and excavation of the site was developed alongside architectural analyses and archival research as the initial phase of the home's restoration. The Maynard-Burgess House was continuously occupied by two African-American families, the Maynards and the Burgesses, from the 1850s until the late 1980s. The main block of the house was built between 1850 and 1858 by the household of John T. Maynard, a free African American born in 1810,and his wife Maria Spencer Maynard. Maynard descendants lived in the home until it was foreclosed in 1908 and subsequently sold to the family of Willis and Mary Burgess in 1915. Willis had been a boarder in the home in 1880, and his sister Martha Ready had married John and Maria's son John Henry. Burgess descendants lived at the home until its sale in 1990.

The induced innovation hypothesis and energy-saving technological change

We develop a methodology for testing Hicks's induced innovation hypothesis by estimating a product-characteristics model of energy-using consumer durables, augmenting the hypothesis to allow for the influence of government regulations. For the products we explored, the evidence suggests that (i) the rate of overall innovation was independent of energy prices and regulations; (ii) the direction of innovation was responsive to energy price changes for some products but not for others; (iii) energy price changes induced changes in the subset of technically feasible models that were offered for sale; (iv) this responsiveness increased substantially during the period after energy-efficiency product labeling was required; and (v) nonetheless, a sizable portion of efficiency improvements were autonomous.