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Purpose: Crop sensitivity to root zone salinity can vary over time, which can lead to severe damage when high sensitivity coincides with high soil salinity. The variation in salinity sensitivity of sunflower during its growth cycle is unknown. Methods: Two pot experiments were conducted in sand culture with a complete nutrient solution. Solutions were flushed through pots in excess to maintain specified salt concentrations in the soil solution. In Experiment 1, salt-sensitive stages were determined by applying solutions with an electrical conductivity of < 0.7, 2, 4 or 8 dS m− 1 through the vegetative, flowering or grain filling stages. In Experiment 2, the most sensitive stage to root-zone salinity was determined by exposing plants to 10-day periods of salinity (< 0.7, 8, 16 and 24 dS m− 1) overlapping by 4 days starting from 13-leaf to grain filling. Results: In both experiments, decreases in seed yield were associated with exposure of plants to elevated EC during the period before opening of disk flower to ~ 95% anthesis, while grain filling was the least sensitive. The decline in yield was correlated with a decrease in mature seed number. Increasing salinity from 4 to 8 dS m− 1 during flowering increased the area without seeds at the centre of the disk. In experiment 2, measurements of leaf ion concentrations and photosynthesis suggested that Na+ toxicity decreased yield due to decreases in availability of photosynthate to flowers. Conclusion: To maximise sunflower yield in saline soils, it is important to minimise salinity stress from before flower opening to anthesis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Occupational stress is common among nurses and is thought to be one of the key factors for the global shortages of nurses. To the best of our knowledge, no study has been done to assess occupational stress among Bangladeshi nurses. This study aimed to investigate the association of sociodemographic characteristics and occupational characteristics with stress experienced by nurses working in a specialized hospital in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Methods: A cross-sectional study design was employed involving 155 nurses working in the National Institute of Cardiovascular Disease (NICVD). Data were collected using a self-administered questionnaire with the Bengali version of the Occupational Stress Index (OSI). Both univariate (Student t-test or ANOVA) and multivariate analyses (linear regression) were performed to identify the sociodemographic and work-related factors associated with occupational stress. Results: The average score on the OSI was 147.1 – moderate level of occupational stress among nurses. The OSI score was higher in males (150.25) than in females (143.94). Nurses who were aged >40 years, and single, had nursing experience between 10 and 20 years and were considering promotion tended to suffer more stress than their peers. Findings from linear regression showed that the OSI score was significantly (p < 0.001) associated with the work conditions: role overload, role ambiguity, role conflict, responsibility, support from colleagues and rational coping. Conclusion: The findings indicated the importance of occupational characteristics in relation to occupational stress among nurses. Further results of this study can be utilized by researchers and policymakers to guide preventative measures to reduce occupational stress among nurses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Smoking is one of the bad habits in social environment and is one of the main causes of immature death in Bangladesh. Rajshahi is one of the cleanest, most peaceful cities in Bangladesh, but the inhabitants often feel uncomfortable about smokers who smoke in public places and often on transport. Smoking frequency is very high among males compared to females, and a large number of smokers are building or road construction laborers and people involved in offering different services such as transportation, vending from vans, etc. The practice of smoking in this area is destructive for mental and physical health especially for students compared to other professionals because the city is known as the City of Education. Methods: The study analyzes smokers' characteristics, general health, and their (smokers) perception of smoking in public places. Cross-sectional data were collected randomly from 160 smokers through face-to-face questionnaire survey. The determinants of complexities with regard to social environment and human health were studied using frequency distribution, chi-square test, and binary and multinomial logistic regression analysis using IBM SPSS version 24. Results: Frequency distributions reveal that 93.8% of smokers believe that smoking creates public health hazards, 51.3% of smokers think it causes breathing complexities for non-smokers, 48.8% of smokers feel smoking causes air pollution, 68.8% of smokers think smoking causes gastric problems, 24.4% of smokers had headache problems due to smoking and cigarette fumes, 86.3% of smokers learnt smoking from friends, 48.8% of smokers smoke due to their addiction and 25.6% for depression, and 80.6% usually smoke after having a meal. The chi-square test reveals that class of smokers was significantly associated with frequency of heartbeat rate, starting smoking at specific age level was significantly associated with suffering from diseases, category of smoking articles was significantly associated with suffering from disease, class of smokers was significantly associated with causes for smoking, and starting smoking at specific age level was significantly associated with profession of the smokers at 1% level of significance respectively. A significant odds ratio was found (OR = 6.363, 95% CI 1.918–21.104, p < 0.01) for the profession group of students/labour at 1% level; their outcomes for suffering from diseases such as gastric problem and fever/headache/others were 6.363 times those for the profession group of service/other smokers. Conclusion: Smoking in public places should be restricted because non-smokers cannot breathe freely and it is not healthy for them to inhale smoke indirectly, which has many adverse effects on public health. The study also reveals that the majority of the smokers have gastric problems, abnormal heartbeat rates, frequent headaches, depression and addiction problems, etc., and that they believe that smoking causes significant health hazard on human health and social environment. Therefore, necessary interventions should be taken immediately by policy-makers to prevent smoking in public places. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite being highly prevalent, adolescent mental health problems are undertreated. To better understand the mental health treatment gap, we assessed the prevalence and correlates of help-seeking, including perceived need for care and access to that care. Data were drawn from Young Minds Matter (YMM) survey—the second Australian child and adolescents survey of mental health and wellbeing. Parent-reported data and self-reported child data were combined into one dataset to analyse 2464 Australian adolescents aged 13–17 years. We employed bivariate and multivariate logistic regression models to assess the correlation between independent variables (professionally assessed with mental disorders only, self-reported self-harm/suicidality only and both) and their distribution over outcome variables (perceived need and service use). Mental disorders include depression, anxiety, ADHD and conduct disorder. Our study revealed 15.0%, 4.6% and 7.7% had professionally assessed with mental disorders only, self-reported self-harm/suicidality only and both, respectively. Overall, 47.4% and 27.5% of adolescents respectively perceived need for care and used services in the past-12-months. While among those only who perceived the need, only 53% of adolescents used any services. Professionally assessed with mental disorders only, self-reported self-harm/suicidality only and both were associated with higher likelihood of perceived need and service use (p < 0.001 for all). However, adolescents who self-reported self-harm/suicidality only were not found to be significantly associated with service use among those who perceived the need for care. Adolescents who perceived the need for mental health care but did not seek care represent a treatment gap. Our results suggest the importance of reducing the wide treatment gap that exists between need and care. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There has been a gradual rise in the number of cesarean sections (CSs) in Bangladesh. The present study identified the cohort of women, who were more likely to opt for an elective CS based on their sociodemographic characteristics, pre-delivery care history, and media exposure, using the Bangladesh Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey-2019. The survey stratification adjusted logistic regression model and interpretable machine learning method of building classification trees were utilized to analyze a sample of 9202 women, alongside district-wise heat maps. One-in-five births (20%) were elective CSs in the 2 years prior to the survey. Women residing in affluent households with educated house-heads, who accessed antenatal care prior to delivery (AOR 4.12; 95% CI 3.06, 5.54) with regular access to media (AOR 1.31; 95% CI 1.10, 1.56) and who owned a mobile phone (AOR 1.25; 95% CI 1.04, 1.50) were more likely to opt for elective CSs, which suggests that health access and health literacy were crucial factors in women's mode of delivery. Spatial analyses revealed that women living in larger cities had more elective CS deliveries, pointing towards the availability of better health and access to multiple safe delivery options in peripheral areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

On low-lying land in the Ganges Delta, waterlogging, salinity, and poor soil structure are constraints to intensifying cropping systems. Early sowing of dry season (rabi) crops in this area is hypothesized to increase yield potential because the current late sowing exposes the crop to less favourable temperature conditions, soil dryness, and salinity stresses. Field experiments were conducted over 2 years to identify the opportunities and challenges of early sowing between mid-November and mid-December for maximizing sunflower yield in Southern Bangladesh. Sunflower was dibbled into untilled wet soil on five occasions (23 and 30 November and 10, 20, and 30 December in 2016–2017 and 25 November, 14 and 25 December, and 10 and 25 January in 2017–2018), with two mulching treatments (rice straw at ~ 5 t ha−1 and 15–20% rice residue retention). Sowing before 15 December was associated with larger heads, more seeds per head, greater seed weight, and higher grain yield (3.5–4 t ha−1) in the first year, but early sowing was also risky since, in the second year, the sunflower sown on 25 November was hampered by heavy rainfall, which depressed yield compared to crops sown on 15 December. Increased yield from early sowing before 15 December was associated with higher soil water, lower soil salinity, and higher solute potential compared to sowing after 15 December. Lower yield in late sown crops was also associated with increased temperature at grain-filling stage. The rice straw mulch significantly improved soil water availability, reduced soil salinity, increased soil solute potential, and increased yield in the second year. In this paper, we show for the first time that sunflower sown before 15 December in the Ganges Delta has higher yield potential, but to gain the benefits of the earliest sowing, growers will need to manage the increased risk of yield loss due to waterlogging. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mass migration is increasing urban populations globally. One country where urban migration is significantly increasing is Bangladesh, where systematic research will explore the reasons for urban migration in order to devise policies in this area, including maintaining the balance of urban–rural developments. This study used the Urban Health Survey (UHS) 2013 to ascertain the reasons for urban migration in large divisional cities in Bangladesh. The 2013 survey examined the differences between male and female migration, alongside any significant sociodemographic factors that might contribute to their motivation for moving to the city. The survey revealed that a majority of women (64.8%) migrated for family purposes, for example, joining husbands or in-laws, or parents/children. However, in recent years, female migrants have been involved in income-generating activities mostly due to a recent garment-making boom in Dhaka and its suburbs. A higher proportion of men (85.3%) moved to urban areas for work-related reasons: searching for new jobs, better income, or transfer in services. Among the sample in this study, 77% of the respondents (79.3% female and 73.5% male) migrated from villages. This migration mostly centered on Dhaka, the capital city of Bangladesh, where 68.1% of the total study sample migrated followed by 15.7% who went to Chittagong. The results indicate that the contemporary urban-centered economic policy in Bangladesh might require revision to accommodate the increased migrants from rural areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A Correction to this paper has been published: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10389-021-01482-5 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reliable analysis of electroencephalogram (EEG) signals is crucial that could lead the way to correct diagnostic and therapeutic methods for the treatment of patients with neurological abnormalities, especially epilepsy. This paper presents a novel analysis system for detecting epileptic seizure from EEG signals, which uses statistical features based on optimum allocation technique (OAT) with logistic model trees (LMT). The analysis involves applying the OAT to select representative EEG signals that reflect the entire database. Then, some statistical features are extracted from these EEG signals and the obtained feature set is fed into the LMT classification model to detect epileptic seizure. To test the consistency of the proposed method, all experiments are carried out on a benchmark EEG dataset and repeated twenty times with the same parameters in the detection process, and the average values of the performance parameters are reported. The results show very high detection performances for each class, and also confirm the consistency of the proposed method in the repeating process. The proposed method outperforms some state-of-the-art methods of epileptic EEG signal detection using the same EEG dataset. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]