Livelihoods and informal trade at the Bangladesh border

Abstract

Cross‐border informal trade is one of the most important issues between India and Bangladesh. It takes place between people who live a short distance apart, but who find themselves separated by an international boundary. The people of international border areas believe that cross‐border informal trade is a process to maintain a sustainable livelihood because it provides a livelihood to the unemployed. This research has analysed the nature and impact of informal border trade between India and Bangladesh. It has highlighted the sources of security and insecurity through the process of informal border trade. It also analyses the different socio‐economic conditions of informal border trade in border trade prone areas. This research argues that although informal border trade is considered illegal, it is necessary for the maintenance of the livelihood for the poor in the bordering areas. The state failures in fulfilling the needs of the poor force them to involve themselves in informal border trade.     

A comparative study of conventional and supercritical fluid extraction methods for the recovery of secondary metabolites from <Emphasis Type="Italic">Syzygium campanulatum</Emphasis> Korth

Syzygium campanulatum Korth is a plant, which is a rich source of secondary metabolites (especially flavanones, chalcone, and triterpenoids). In our present study, three conventional solvent extraction (CSE) techniques and supercritical fluid extraction (SFE) techniques were performed to achieve a maximum recovery of two flavanones, chalcone, and two triterpenoids from S. campanulatum leaves. Furthermore, a Box-Behnken design was constructed for the SFE technique using pressure, temperature, and particle size as independent variables, and yields of crude extract, individual and total secondary metabolites as the dependent variables. In the CSE procedure, twenty extracts were produced using ten different solvents and three techniques (maceration, soxhletion, and reflux). An enriched extract of five secondary metabolites was collected using n-hexane:methanol (1:1) soxhletion. Using food-grade ethanol as a modifier, the SFE methods produced a higher recovery (25.5%?84.9%) of selected secondary metabolites as compared to the CSE techniques (0.92%?66.00%).     

No scholar is an island: The impact of sharing in the work life of scholars

The sharing of scholarly articles is an intrinsic and often ignored facet of the value and mission of scholarship. It is so entwined in the daily work life of scholars that it has almost become second nature, an integral part of the research process itself. This article addresses this often overlooked area of research in usage studies. In an international survey of 1,000 published scholars, the Beyond Downloads project examined their sharing behaviours in order to gain a more contextualized and accurate picture of their usage beyond download patterns and citation counts. Scholars share published articles with others as a mode of content discovery and dissemination, particularly if they work in groups, and most expect to increase their sharing in the future. While their methods of sharing articles may change, and their reasons for sharing may vary from self‐promotion to the more altruistic motives of scientific progress, they desire to share the final published versions of articles with their colleagues.     

How accurate are cited references in Iranian peer‐reviewed journals?

The references cited in scientific articles are as important as any other part of the paper, because of their usefulness to the scientific community and to abstracting and indexing services and citation databases. I studied inaccuracies in references and in‐text citations in sample of 97 of the 519 peer‐reviewed journals accredited by the Iranian National Commission for Journal Accreditation Policy (Ministry of Research, Science and Technology). The target journals published 2,980 articles with 74,577 cited references and 108,151 in‐text citations. The results showed 36.6% as the average percentage error rate (range 5.6% to 61.3%). The mean number of errors in cited reference and in‐text citations was 2.7 per article, and the mean number of errors per journal was 690. For the entire sample of articles, 4,369 in‐text citations did not match any source in the list of references (4%), and 8,683 cited references did not match any in‐text citation (11.6%). The stakeholders in scholarly communication, especially authors, pay insufficient attention to the accuracy of bibliographic references. Peer‐reviewed journals should encourage the use of standardized journal policies and quality‐control measures regarding peer review, data quality and accuracy.     

School-university partnerships: a new recipe for creating professional knowledge in school

This paper first reviews the literature on school-university partnerships to evaluate and describe challenges and paradigms of Japanese approaches to school-university partnerships in theory and practice. Secondly, it clarifies the role of three-year school-university partnership between the Nagoya University and the Tokai City Board of Education in the central Japan for creating an effective environment in schools for teachers to learn from each other and for developing more learning-centered education that focuses on the real needs of students. From this study it can be claimed that more effective relationships between Japanese school teachers and university researchers can be established through developing collaborative a school-based research framework especially through the process of jugyou kenkyuu (lesson study).     

Bibliometric Analysis of Gold Open Access in India

This study analyzes the current state of gold Open Access (OA) in India based on papers published in the Web of Science indexed journals. It specifically focuses on research output published in OA journals and examines the difference between gold OA and general research output for papers authored by Indian researchers. In order to analyze the Indian contribution of gold OA literature and compares with other countries, Web of Science?-Core Collection was used. There is an increasing trend of contributing research papers in OA journals by Indian researchers. Among the top 20 publishing countries India ranks 10th place in terms of the general research output, but secures 8th place in terms of gold OA papers. However, India's position in terms of share of gold OA publications is relatively higher than other leading countries of the world. Researchers in India mostly prefer to contribute their gold OA papers in Indian journals rather foreign journals and the proportion of gold OA research output in Clinical, Preclinical, Health, Life Sciences and Physicals Sciences is much higher than other disciplines such as Arts &; Humanities and Social Sciences. Since most of the research output in India is published in local journals, the study suggests further analyses of publications which are not published in Web of Science indexed journals.     

The resilience of the MBA in emerging economies: student motivations for wanting an MBA in China and the United Arab Emirates

In recent years, domestic demand for MBAs has fallen in most major Western markets but has increased or remained stable in emerging economies such as China and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), which are the two countries globally that host the largest numbers of international branch campuses. Thus, this research aimed to discover why students in China and the UAE still want an MBA. A survey questionnaire was completed by a total of 354 MBA students, at two universities in China and two universities in the UAE. Some of the results were surprising and unexpected. For example, recognition, prestige and networking – all key features in Chinese and Emirati societies – were found not to be key motivators for wanting an MBA. Instead, the desire to acquire knowledge and skills was the strongest motivator among respondents, accounting for 32.4 per cent of variance. This was followed by reasons associated with intrinsic benefits. The findings have implications for institutional strategy, curriculum design, program delivery and the marketing of programs.     

Phytoremediation of heavy metal polluted soils and water：Progresses and perspectives

Environmental pollution affects the quality of pedosphere, hydrosphere, atmosphere, lithosphere and biosphere. Great efforts have been made in the last two decades to reduce pollution sources and remedy the polluted soil and water resources. Phytoremediation, being more cost-effective and fewer side effects than physical and chemical approaches, has gained increasing popularity in both academic and practical circles. More than 400 plant species have been identified to have potential for soil and water remediation. Among them, Thlaspi, Brassica, Sedum alfredii H., and Arabidopsis species have been mostly studied. It is also expected that recent advances in biotechnology will play a promising role in the development of new hyperaccumulators by transferring metal hyperaccumulating genes from low biomass wild species to the higher biomass producing cultivated species in the times to come. This paper attempted to provide a brief review on recent progresses in research and practical applications of phytoremediation for soil and water resources. Project supported by the Higher Education Commission, Government of Pakistan for the faculty training under the R & D Project “Strengthening Department of Soil Science and Soil and Water Conservation” at the University of Florida, USA, a grant from the St. Lucie River Water Initiative (SFWMD contract No. OT060162), USA, in part, and the Program for Changjiang Scholars and Innovative Research Team in University (No.IRT0536), China