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Cotton fiber, which is the most widely used natural fiber in the textile and paper industries, has a crucial environmental impact. Cultivation of conventional cotton consumes a lot of water and requires the usage of a higher amount of pesticides. Organic cotton is a more environmentally friendly alternative to its growing conditions. The characteristics of cotton change with the differences in growing conditions. In this study, the properties of yarns obtained from both conventionally and organically grown cotton were tested and analyzed. The properties of these yarns in the fabric structure were compared in terms of fabric performance. The produced fabrics were dyed in the cold-pad batch method with 5 different colors of reactive dyes, which are the most demanding colors in the ready-made garment industry. The physical properties and the fastness test results of the dyed organic and conventional cotton fabrics were investigated in detail to highlight the plant growing effects on the fabric behavior. Comparative color analysis and evaluation of the fabrics were made to discuss the performance of the fabrics. It is found that organically grown cotton is not only superior in quality but also has no negative eff ECT on fabric properties.

Stones are one of the primary objects that impede the normal activity of underground pipelines. As human intervention is difficult inside a narrow underground pipe, a robot with a machine vision system is required. In order to remove the stones during regular robotic inspections, precise stone detection, segmentation, and measurement of their distance from the robot are needed. We applied Mask R-CNN to perform an instant segmentation of stones. The distance between the robot and the segmented stones was calculated using spatial information obtained from a lidar camera. Artificial light was used for both image acquisition and testing, as natural light is not available inside the underground pipe. ResNet101 was chosen as the foundation of the Mask R-CNN, and transfer learning was utilized to shorten the training time. The experimental results of our model showed that the average detection precision rate reached 92.0; the recall rate was 90.0%; and the F1 score rate reached 91.0%. The distance values were calculated efficiently with an error margin of 11.36 mm. Moreover, the Mask R-CNN-based stone detection model can detect asymmetrically shaped stones in complex background and lighting conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, an increasing number of Bangladeshi men have been working overseas. Whilst working abroad, some migrants engage in unprotected sexual activities, making them vulnerable to different kinds of sexually transmitted infections (STIs) including the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV)/Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS). Upon return home, the wives of these migrant workers are also highly susceptible to contracting HIV/AIDS. This study explores how and what the wives of the migrant workers perceive as practices of health safety regarding HIV/AIDS. In this connection, the Health Belief Model (HBM) was used as a theoretical lens for this study. Data were collected (from January to March 2017) in two phases by using a mixed-method approach. In the first phase, a structured questionnaire survey was conducted among the purposively selected 122 wives of migrant workers from Chauddagram Upazila (sub-district) of Cumilla (previously known as Comilla) district, Bangladesh. The survey data were processed, computed, and analysed through SPSS software (version 19). For the second phase, nine wives of migrant workers were purposively selected for an in-depth interview to grasp more detailed qualitative understanding of this experience. The in-depth interviews were transcribed and analysed thematically. The findings demonstrate many misperceptions about the transmission of HIV/AIDS, including through casual social contact. Stigmatising views were also common, for example, 24% of the participants opined that HIV transmits via hugging, sharing clothes, and sweat of the person living with HIV. In addition, the overwhelming majority of the participants (69%) believed that the HIV/AIDS affected person should be treated by being placed in quarantine. Moreover, 91% of the participants did not intend to suggest their husbands for HIV screening upon their return due to fear of being divorced, shyness, social stigma, and lack of feeling risk (to be infected by HIV) although 25% of them felt that there could be a risk of being infected by HIV due to sexual contact with their returned husbands. Education level, the role of the media, husbands' long duration of staying abroad, and access to information were found to be significantly associated with the components of HIV awareness (such as hearing and sharing about HIV/AIDS, knowledge on how it spreads, and feeling of risk) among the wives of the migrant workers in bivariate analyses. These findings highlight unequal gender relations, women's lack of empowerment, men's hegemonic masculine power, and overall misconceptions about HIV/AIDS transmission are the key components in creating migrant workers' wives' vulnerability to HIV/AIDS. Keywords: HIV/AIDS, Migrant workers, Women, Prevention, Media, Bangladesh, Introduction The global spread of HIV/AIDS introduced the most dangerous epidemic threat to human existence and civilization. In 2018, people living with HIV/AIDS have increased to 37.9 million, the number [...]