For the first time ever, Bangladesh has bagged a gold medal in the Asian Pacific Mathematics Olympiad (Apmo). The result was published on Tuesday.
Md Maruf Hasan, student of Ananda Mohan College, Mymensingh, won the gold medal for Bangladesh in this year's competition. He won silver and bronze medals in 2019 and 2020, respectively.
Besides, Nuzhat Ahmed of Viqarunnisa Noon School and College and Adnan Sadiq of Notre Dame College won a bronze each, while six members of the Bangladesh team were awarded special honours.
In this year's competition, a total of 344 students participated from 37 countries. With a total score of 96, Bangladesh ended up 21st with one gold and two bronze medals.
The Bangladesh Mathematical Olympiad (BdMO) committee announced the local edition of the mathematical olympiad in March this year. It was held at the Monem Business District building in Karwan Bazar, Dhaka.
Apmo is held annually. Each participating country has a representative in charge of organizing it locally. A central committee selects a paper with five questions to be solved in four hours, sends marking schemes and determines award winners.
344 students from 37 countries participated in this year’s competition
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A doctoral student at the Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (Buet) recently made substantial progress in developing a quick and inexpensive method of diagnosing cancer at its earliest stages.
Fatema Jerin Farhana, a PhD student from Buet’s chemistry department, conducted research to this end in collaboration with Australia’s Griffith University, developing a process of creating inorganic enzymes based on iron oxides with functional groups by applying the concept of green chemistry.
With this new type of inorganic enzyme, it is possible to identify the various biomarkers responsible for cancer at an early stage very quickly and at an affordable cost, thus improving the chances of formulating a cure for patients, her study concluded.
The results of her research were published in the Analyst, the Royal Society of Chemistry Journal and in the ACS Applied Nano Materials, the Journal of the American Chemical Society, in May this year.
According to the study, cancer kills a big number of individuals every year all across the world, including Bangladesh and Australia. And only by appropriately diagnosing cancer at an early stage will this number of deaths be reduced.
The research underscores the idea that this new class of inorganic enzymes will play an effective role in creating a simple and accurate method or device for the early detection of cancer at low cost, which will especially be effective in treating the expensive disease in a developing country like Bangladesh.
The main purpose of Farhana’s study was to make a simple and accurate method of diagnosing various diseases at low cost through using knowledge of chemistry, especially nano-chemistry.
Diagnostic centres usually use natural enzyme-based (ELISA) methods or devices to diagnose a variety of human diseases, including cancer, which are expensive and time-consuming. Moreover, the process of preserving natural enzymes is also very complex.
However, Farhana has demonstrated that an inorganic enzyme functions similarly to a natural enzyme in catalytic reactions. Its preservation method is straightforward, and it can accurately identify and measure a variety of cancer biomarkers.
Farhana’s earlier works primarily focused on creating various nanoparticles, organic and inorganic compounds. Later, she became involved in diagnosing expensive diseases like cancer by collaborating with Siddiqui Research Lab in 2018.
Speaking to Dhaka Tribune, Farhana said these inorganic enzymes could be utilized not only to identify cancer but also any disease in the human body.
Furthermore, this novel form of inorganic enzyme can be employed for early detection of plant diseases in various crops such as rice, wheat and sugarcane, in addition to diseases of the human body, she added.
One of the supervisors of Farhana’s research team, Dr Siddiqui, said: “This new class of inorganic enzymes acts like natural enzymes in catalytic reactions. After attaching the necessary functional groups they can be identified with different biomolecules. These special classes of enzymes also have magnetic properties. Using these multifaceted factors, biomarkers of various diseases, including cancer present in human blood, urine or saliva, can be easily diagnosed. ”
Professor Firoz, the research supervisor, thanked Dr Siddiqui and his research team for their cooperation in this work and emphasized creating a multidisciplinary collaborative research culture in the country.
With this new type of inorganic enzyme, it is possible to identify the various biomarkers responsible for cancer at an early stage very quickly and at an affordable cost, thus improving the chances of formulating a cure for patients
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The Australian Journal of Asian law, a peer-reviewed journal of Melbourne University, has published a special issue, exclusively dedicated to legal aspects of Bangladesh, highlighting the country’s ‘serious weaknesses’ in enacting laws and their implementation.
Legal scholars through their research articles argued that Bangladesh’s laws are mostly poorly drafted, and public participation is often sidestepped in the lawmaking process while problems are further deepened by poor enforcement and compliance.
Critically examining the challenges and opportunities of the selected aspects of all articles concluded that Bangladesh needs to build on the existing laws by undertaking appropriate reforms to steer its laws towards a more sustainable future.
The special issue titled “Law in Bangladesh: Examining Bangladesh’s Legal Responses to the Emerging Law and Policy Issues: Successes, Limitations and Future Direction” was published online on Friday.
Mohammad Sohidul Islam, a Joint District Judge of Bangladesh Judiciary and a PhD candidate at the University of Melbourne, worked as the guest editor for publishing the special issue of the journal while all the articles were written by Bangladeshi legal experts who are currently staying in different countries.
A series of articles dealing with vital areas of the current laws were carefully selected for the special issue, which broadly cover specially four key themes -- constitutional discourse, environmental protection, access to justice and law and policy reform.
The special issue underscored key reforms and brought forth the issues for policy attention that include ensuring public participation and deliberation in adopting laws like constitutional amendment, transforming tort liability into the domain of public law compensation, embedding a better regulatory underpinning for sustainable groundwater irrigation, controlling noise pollution in Dhaka through the lens of the constitutional right to life’, making the environment courts functional to ensure environmental justice across the country, promoting women’s right to access to justice through the enhanced use of public interest litigation, and reforming anti-terrorism laws to tackle wide-ranging terrorist activities more effectively.
Talking to UNB, Mohammad Sohidul Islam said this is perhaps the first issue of an international, refereed law journal exclusively dedicated to legal issues in Bangladesh.
He said although Bangladesh has a vast body of laws that makes it a fertile ground for scholarly research, it remains largely underrepresented in the legal literature rendering it inaccessible to a wider audience.
“Through this special issue of the journal, Bangladesh’s important legal issues have been highlighted for drawing the attention of the local and international experts. We hope it’ll help encourage a greater attention to the vital ‘next steps’ in Bangladesh’s law reform journey and, perhaps, the energy to take those steps, too,” Sohidul added.
The Australian Journal of Asian law, a peer-reviewed journal of Melbourne University, has published a special issue, exclusively dedicated to legal aspects of Bangladesh, highlighting the country’s ‘serious weaknesses’ in enacting laws and their implementation. Legal scholars through…
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