ObjectivesMental health problems significantly increased worldwide during the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. At the early stage of the outbreak, the government of Bangladesh imposed lockdown and quarantine approaches to prevent the spread of the virus, which impacted people’s daily life and health. The COVID-19 pandemic has also affected people’s economic status, healthcare facilities and other lifestyle factors in Bangladesh. We aimed to assess the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on mental health among the Bangladeshi population.MethodsWe conducted an online cross-sectional survey among 672 Bangladeshi people aged between 15 and 65 years all over the country from 15 April to 10 May 2020. After obtaining electronic consent, we conducted a survey assessing people’s sociodemographic profiles and psychometric measures. We used The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) Loneliness Scale-8, Patient Health Questionnaire-9, Generalized Anxiety Disorder 7-Item Scale and Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index to assess loneliness, depression, anxiety and sleep disturbance, respectively.ResultsThe prevalence of loneliness, depression, anxiety and sleep disturbance was estimated at 71% (mild: 32%, moderate: 29%, severe: 10%), 38% (mild: 24%, moderate: 11%, severe: 3%), 64% (mild: 30%, moderate: 17%, severe: 17%) and 73% (mild: 50%, moderate: 18%, severe: 5%), respectively. In Bangladesh, the key factors associated with poor mental health during COVID-19 were female sex, unemployment, being a student, obesity and living without a family. The present study also identified statistically significant interrelationships among the measured mental health issues.ConclusionsA large portion of respondents reported mental health problems during the COVID-19 pandemic in Bangladesh. The present study suggests longitudinal assessments of mental health among Bangladeshi people to determine the gravity of this issue during and after the pandemic. Appropriate supportive programmes and interventional approaches would address mental health problems in Bangladesh during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Mallotus repandus (M. repandus) is traditionally used to treat muscle pain, itching, fever, rheumatic arthritis, and a variety of liver disorders. The aim of the present work was to evaluate the hepatoprotective activity and the antioxidant potential of the ethyl acetate stem extract of M. repandus (ESMR) against d-galactosamine (d-GalN)-induced hepatopathy, along with a possible mechanism of action in rats. In vivo hepatoprotective activity of ESMR was examined using d-galactosamine (d-GalN)-induced hepatotoxicity in Sprague–Dawley rats. For this purpose, levels of serum diagnostic markers, activity of hepatic antioxidant enzymes, and liver histo-architecture were employed to assess the protective efficacy of ESMR. Furthermore, the total phenolic, flavonoid, and tannin contents were quantitated, and the antioxidant capacity of the extract was evaluated using different methods such as 2,2′-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH), nitric oxide (NO), hydrogen peroxide (H2O2), and hydroxyl radical (OH•) scavenging assays. Intraperitoneal d-GalN injection triggered hepatotoxicity, as shown by the noticeable increase in the serum hepatic marker enzymes, bilirubin content, γ-glutamyl transferase (GGT), total cholesterol (TC), triglycerides (TGs), and malondialdehyde (MDA), whereas glutathione, superoxide dismutase, and catalase levels were significantly lower compared with that of the control. Pretreatment with ESMR reduced the hepatic enzyme levels along with bilirubin, GGT, and MDA compared to the d-GalN-intoxicated group. These results were supported by histopathological studies, where d-galactosamine caused coagulative necrosis, hemorrhage, and inflammation. However, pretreatment with ESMR ameliorated the histo-architectural changes and brought them back to normal. Results also revealed that the total polyphenolic, flavonoid, and tannin content, and total antioxidant capacity of ESMR were 136.30 ± 0.78 mg GAE/g mg, 38.72 ± 0.85 mg QE/g, 75.88 ± 0.54 mg TAE/g, and 123.16 ± 0.24 mg AAE/g, respectively. In addition, ESMR inhibited free radicals with IC50 values of 94.47 ± 0.51, 127.33 ± 0.36, 164.12 ± 0.45, and 254.14 ± 0.35 μg/mL in DPPH, NO, H2O2, and OH• free radical scavenging assays, respectively. These findings highlight the protective role of ESMR against hepatic injury induced by d-GalN, which may be attributed to its higher antioxidant properties, thereby scientifically justifying its traditional use.

The effect of Ashwagandharishta on the lipid profile and chronic toxicity of both male and female Albino rats were observed for 51 days. Our results demonstrate that the treatment of the plant extract failed to exhibit any statistically significant change (increase/ decrease) in the serum cholesterol (Total), high density lipoprotein (HDL), low density lipoprotein (LDL) and triglyceride of the male rats. But the female rats showed highly (p<0.01) and very highly (p<0.001) significant decrease in the serum cholesterol (Total) levels of the medium and high dose treated groups respectively. Regarding HDL, ASG showed statistically significant decrease at low (p <0.05), medium (p<0.01) and high (p<0.001) dose treated female rats. The LDL level of the medium dose treated female rats were statistically significant (p <0.05). The serum Triglyceride decreased significantly at low (p<0.01) and high (p <0.05) dose treated female rats. Jahangirnagar University J. Biol. Sci. 9(1 & 2): 59-68, 2020 (June & December)

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Digital watermarking has been widely used for ownership identification and copyright protection. In this chapter, a color image watermarking method based on Radon transform (RT) and Jordan decomposition (JD) is proposed. Initially, the host color image is converted into L*a*b* color space. Then, the b* channel is selected and it is divided into 16  16 non-overlapping blocks. RT is applied to each of these blocks. JD is applied to the selected RT coefficients of each block represented in m  n matrix. Watermark data is embedded in the coefficients of the similarity transform matrix obtained from JD using a new quantization equation. Experimental results indicate that the proposed method is highly robust against various attacks such as noise addition, cropping, filtering, blurring, rotation, JPEG compression etc. In addition, it provides high quality watermarked images. Moreover, it shows superior performance than the state-of-the-art methods reported recently in terms of imperceptibility and robustness.

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The experiment was carried out at Agricultural Research Field, Noakhali Science and Technology University, Noakhali, Bangladesh during the period of March to June 2021, to evaluate the growth and yield of cucumber (Cucumis sativus L. CV: MOHABIR) as influenced by different levels of NPK fertilizer. The experiment was laid out in a Randomized Complete Block Design (RCBD) with three replications. The treatments were T0 (no NPK), T1 (N 69 kg ha-1, P2O5 48 kg ha-1 and K2O 75 kg ha-1), T2 (N 69 kg ha-1, P2O5 60 kg ha-1 and K2O 90 kg ha-1), T3 (N 92 kg ha-1, P2O5 72 kg ha-1 and K2O 105 kg ha-1), respectively. Data were recorded from different stages of plant growth on the number of leaves per plant, number of fruits per plant, fruit length, fruit diameter, individual fruit weight, yield per plant and yield per plot. All the recorded parameters were statistically significant (p<0.01). The maximum number of leaves per plant (37.83) was recorded from T3 (N 92 kg ha-1, P2O5 72 kg ha-1 and K2O 105 kg ha-1) whereas the minimum number of leaves per plant (27.92) was obtained from the control T0 (no NPK). Highest number of fruits per plant (11.92), fruit length (16.00 cm), fruit diameter ((4.10 cm), individual fruit weight (167.17 g), weight of fruits per plant (2.00 kg), and yield per hectare (68.35 t/ha) was found in treatment T3 (N 92 kg ha-1, P2O5 72 kg ha-1 and K2O 105 kg ha-1) whereas lowest data recorded from control T0 (no NPK). Observing the results, it can be stated that application of NPK fertilizer @ N 92 kg ha-1, P2O5 72 kg ha-1 and K2O 105 kg ha-1 for cucumber cultivation gave better growth and yield in the coastal region of Bangladesh. Vol. 9, No. 2, August 2022: 117-123

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