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This study/paper aims to evaluate the floral richness of the central part of Chattogram city, Bangladesh. Chattogram is recognized as the largest port city and the commercial capital of Bangladesh, which confronts faster urbanization and swift infrastructure development. Green spaces in and around Chattogram city are shrinking sharply, which resulted in rapid loss of floral and faunal resources in this area. The present study was carried out from February 2018 to January 2019 to enumerate the vascular plant species of the Sulakbahar ward located in the central part of Chattogram City, Bangladesh.

The study area was categorized into 10 habitats to assess the variation of floral composition. The extensive whole area survey method was applied to record the flora from all sorts of plant habitats of the research area.

The study enumerated 418 vascular plant species under 315 genera and 120 families including natural, planted and cultivated from the study area. The habit form of the recorded plant composition indicated that herbs (35%) constitute the major plant category followed by trees (34%), shrubs (17%), climbers (12%), ferns (1%) and orchids (1%). The study also indicated that exotic species (50.3%) became dominant than native species (49.7%) in Chattogram city because of their scenic beauty, easy propagation and ornamental value to the city planners and inhabitants.

It appeared that floral resources of the Chattogram city area are in great threat due to aggressive and unplanned infrastructure development for housing, offices and institutions by replacing the green spaces. The study recommended that urgent protection measures should be taken to conserve and protect the existing floral resources for the well-being of the urban people.

In this paper, the authors show that ecological restoration potential through natural regeneration of degraded tropical rainforest is possible. This is significant because at present most of the tropical forest of the world, including of Bangladesh, are degraded.

Regeneration status of Chunati Wildlife Sanctuary (CWS) was assessed through stratified random sampling method using sample plots of 5 × 5 m in size covering 269 sample plots.

A total of 3,256 regenerating seedlings/saplings of 105 species belonging to 35 families were recorded from CWS. From regenerating tree species, maximum (37.83) family importance value (FIV) index was found for Euphorbiaceae followed by Myrtaceae (18.03). Maximum importance value index (IVI) was found for Aporosa wallichii (21.62) followed by Grewia nervosa (16.41). Distribution of seedlings into different height classes of regenerating tree species was also calculated.

Forest scientists are working to find out the best nature-based solution for ecological restoration of tropical rainforests to attain climate resilient ecosystem in a sustainable way. Tropical rain forest has huge plant diversity, and we find that ecological restoration is possible through natural regeneration from its rich soil seed bank. Natural regeneration is the best nature-based solution for sustainable management of the forest.

The authors believe that the findings presented in our paper will appeal to the forest and environmental scientists. The findings will allow readers to understand degraded tropical hill forest ecosystem and its management strategy.

The authors believe that this manuscript will give a clear picture about degraded tropical hill forest ecosystem and its genetic composition, diversity and soil seed bank status to apply appropriate management strategy.

The purpose of this article is to explore the impression management practices in Covid-19 related discourses in the annual reports of the insurance companies in Bangladesh.

To fulfil this objective, the authors have conducted a discourse analysis of the Covid-19 related corporate narratives in the latest annual reports of listed insurance companies. The findings are then interpreted through the lens of impression management theory, following the impression management strategies identified by Caliskan et al. (2021).

It is found that companies tried to manage the impression of the stakeholders through the strategic use of language. There is evidence that the companies used assertive and performance-oriented tactics to impress their stakeholders. In few cases, defensive strategies were applied.

This study will facilitate improving the understanding of corporate communication during the Covid-19 crisis. Policymakers will be able to understand the current status of Covid-19 related disclosures and consider the necessity to provide guidance that may lead to better accountability during the crisis.

This study will contribute to the limited literature on Covid-19 related disclosure from the context of developing economies. This research is methodologically novel as it applies discourse analysis and interprets the findings through the lens of impression management.

In societies with strong presence of Islam, Islamic instruments with more scope for fairness and equity can be innovatively harnessed to play an increasing role in the development process and poverty alleviation schemes. Poor smallholder farmers dominate agricultural production in many developing countries and contribute a significant portion of global food production. This paper aims to develop a scheme to improve poor smallholder farmers’ vulnerable financial situation through the application of Zakah and Salam contract, using Bangladesh as a case study. Secondary goals are to show the effect of the scheme on food security and relevance to Nigeria.

The authors explore the existing traditional modes of financing available to poor smallholders, identify their challenges and propose an appropriate Islamic financing scheme.

With the Zakah-based Salam forward contract, the proposed scheme would procure food through Institutional Demand to offer interest free financing, fair price and access to new marketing channels and reduce income uncertainty for the rural smallholders. The discussions indicate that the local food security will be enhanced through incentivized farming activities and disbursement of food from the food bank to the Zakah-eligible food insecure local people.

This proposal brings forth a potentially powerful idea that needs further empirical validation.

The religion-based Institutional Demand initiative to promote smallholder agricultural development and social protection is a novel one. The attempt to apply the framework to Nigeria context shows the potential of the framework to generalize for other Muslim developing countries with similar characteristics, especially the poorer agriculture-based countries.

Groundwater resources are the primary source of meeting the water demand in Bangladesh. In rural areas, hand-pumped tube wells have been the primary source of drinking water. Though studies claim that Bangladesh has the potential to achieve universal safe drinking water supply coverage, the presence of excessive arsenic in the shallow groundwater sources, and the encroachment of salinity in the coastal aquifers in coastal regions (Satkhira, Khulna, Bagerhat, Patuakhali, Jhalakathi, Pirojpur, Barisal, Barguna etc.) hind the path. The concerned authorities of government and other non-government organizations assist the coastal people with alternative technologies like Desalination Plant, Arsenic-Iron Removal Plant, Pond Sand Filtration (PSF), Managed Aquifer Recharge, Rainwater Harvesting System, Installation of Shallow, and Deep Tube Wells. But based on case studies and surveys, this article shows how these existing technologies fail to ensure water safety within the coastal areas. The Singaporean water management policy is an example, this article advocates for necessary government intervention to ensure safe drinking water in coastal areas.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the institutional and significant competences that have allowed organizations to employ supply chain management (SCM) practices, the practices of SCM and the benefits of SCM practices for both buyers and suppers.

A theoretical model (including hypotheses) has been proposed regarding antecedents, SCM practices and outcomes of SCM. Using purposive sampling method, data were collected from different manufacturing, distributing, wholesaling and retailing organizations. Collected data were analyzed in a principal component analysis and structural equation modeling, including confirmatory factor analysis, and path analysis.

The empirical results provided supportive evidences in favor of the hypotheses and theoretical arguments except one hypothesis. This study did not a find positive relationship between organizational compatibility and SCM practices. The study found relationships between mutual trust and SCM practices, communication and SCM practices, and cooperation and SCM practices, which were positive and significant. Again, the relationships between SCM practices and competitive advantages, and SCM practices and long-term orientation and growth were also positive and significant.

Practitioners could also use the findings to align SCM with business strategy and gain an insight for better utilization of the available resources and technology to perform better.

This study will provide guidance as to the preconditions that need to be in place in order for a company to implement SCM with its suppliers and customers. It will remind practitioners to stay focused on the ultimate goals of SCM – lower costs, increased customer value and satisfaction, and, ultimately, competitive advantage.

This study examines the effect of contextual perceived value activated by contextual marketing offers and information privacy concerns on consumer loyalty in mobile commerce.

The survey was conducted through 340 mobile users in Morocco and the collected data were analyzed using structural equation modeling.

This study's results show that contextual marketing and information privacy concerns are key determinants in improving customer loyalty in the m-commerce context. Perceived ubiquity has a positive impact on perceived trust, which also impacts consumer loyalty. Information privacy concerns also have a positive impact on customer satisfaction, yet it does not impact perceived trust, which is contrary to the results of other researchers. It can also be concluded that customer satisfaction and trust are important antecedents of consumer loyalty.

This research gives rise to some important managerial and strategic implications in order to integrate contextual marketing strategies, as well as theoretical implications that concern this field of study.

This research makes a significant contribution to knowledge by examining the role of contextual marketing and information privacy concerns in the m-commerce context. These results will be considered useful for marketers and for businesses in general who wish to integrate a marketing strategy that is based on a customer-centric approach. It also contributes to the related literature, as there are few studies focused on m-commerce and contextual marketing within the context of Morocco.

Using an integrated theoretical model, this study aims to examine the moderating role of gamification in influencing intentions to use mobile payment applications in Bahrain.

The current examination happens to be the first approximation in the context of Bahrain wherein an extended TPB-based model integrating variables from TAM and UTAUT2 is used along with gamification and situational influence to examine the intentions to use m-payment applications.

The findings revealed that among the variates of the TPB, AT and PB significantly affect the intentions (IN) to use m-payment applications in Bahrain, but SN fails to affect intentions, similarly SI also fails to affect intentions thereby proving that the pandemic fails to drive the intention of the population under study toward using m-payment applications. However, when the application offers gamification (GM) features, SI significantly affects intentions through GM, thus experience along with situation drives intentions and this becomes the major theoretical contribution of the study.

This examination offers useful practical implications in the form of the findings revealing that GM affects intentions to use m-payment applications and that GM moderates the relationship between perceived risk (PR) and IN, as well as SI and IN, which can be used by the service providers to improve the user experience and achieve better acceptance of their application.

The novelty of the study lies in testing the integrated theoretical model in the context of a GCC nation, Bahrain.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the impact of climate change on economic development in Bangladesh. More specifically, the research aims to figure out the influence of climate change on gross domestic product (GDP) growth rate related to different sectors such as agriculture, forest, water, health and infrastructure. It also attempts to explore the effect of climate change on the coastal economy of Bangladesh.

A set of statistical and econometric techniques, including descriptive and correlation analysis and time series regression model, was applied to address the objective of the research. Sector-wise time series economic data were collected from the World Bank for the period between 1971 and 2013. Climate data were received from the Bangladesh Agricultural Research Council online database for the period between 1948 and 2013.

The results from the statistical analysis show that climate variables such as temperature and rainfall have changed between 1948 and 2013 in the context of Bangladesh. The econometric regression analysis demonstrates that an increase by 1°C of annual mean temperature leads to a decrease in the GDP growth rate by 0.44 per cent on average, which is statistically significant at the 5 per cent level. On the other hand, the estimated coefficients of agriculture, industry, services, urbanization and export are positively associated with GDP growth rate, and these are statistically significant at the 1 per cent level. Sector-wise correlation analysis provides statistical evidence that climate change is negatively associated with various sectors, such as agriculture, forest, human health and arable land. In contrast, it has a positive relation to water access and electricity consumption. Analysis of coastal regions shows that climate change negatively affects the local economic sectors of the coastal zone of the country.

Although this study has received significant insight from the world-renowned research publication “The Economics of Climate Change: The Stern Review”, there is a dearth of research on the economic impact of climate change in the context of Bangladesh. The findings of the paper provide deep insight into and comprehensive views of policy makers on the impact of climate change on economic growth and various sectors in Bangladesh.

The purpose of this paper was to study the genetic variability, heritability, heat tolerance indices and phenotypic and genotypic correlation studies for traits of 250 elite International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA) bread wheat genotypes under high temperature in Wad Medani, Center in Sudan.

Bread wheat is an important food on a global level and is used in the form of different products. High temperature associated with climate change is considered to be a detrimental stress in the future on world wheat production. A total of 10,250 bread wheat genotypes selected from different advanced yield trials introduction from ICARDA and three checks including were grown in two sowing dates (SODs) (1st and 2nd) 1st SOD heat stress and 2nd SOD non-stress at the Gezira Research Farm, of the Agricultural Research Corporation, Wad Medani, Sudan.

An alpha lattice design with two replications was used to assess the presence of phenotypic and genotypic variations of different traits, indices for heat stress and heat tolerance for 20 top genotypes and phenotypic and genotypic correlations. Analysis of variance revealed significant differences among genotypes for all the characters. A wide range, 944-4,016 kg/ha in the first SOD and 1,192-5,120 kg/ha in the second SOD, was found in grain yield. The average yield on the first SOD is less than that of the secondnd SOD by 717.7 kg/ha, as the maximum and minimum temperatures were reduced by 3ºC each in the second SOD when compared to the first SOD of the critical stage of crop growth shown.

Similar wide ranges were found in all morpho-physiological traits studied. High heritability in a broad sense was estimated for days to heading and maturity. Moderate heritability estimates found for grain yield ranged from 44 to 63.6 per cent, biomass ranged from 37.8 to 49.1 per cent and canopy temperature (CT) after heading ranged from 44.2 to 48 per cent for the first and secondnd SODs. The top 20 genotypes are better than the better check in the two sowing dates and seven genotypes (248, 139, 143, 27, 67, 192 and 152) were produced high grain yield under both 1st SOD and 2nd SOD.

The same genotypes in addition to Imam (check) showed smaller tolerance (TOL) values, indicating that these genotypes had a smaller yield reduction under heat-stressed conditions and that they showed a higher heat stress susceptibility index (SSI). A smaller TOL and a higher SSI are favored. Both phenotypic and genotypic correlations of grain yield were positively and significantly correlated with biomass, harvest index, number of spikes/m², number of seeds/spike and days to heading and maturity in both SODs and negatively and significantly correlated with canopy temperature before and after heading in both SODs.

Genetic variations, heritability, heat tolerance indices and correlation studies for traits of bread wheat genotypes under high temperature