Bang ladesh J . P lan t Taxon. 10( l ) : 99-111, 2003 (June) - Review Paper PRESENT TRENDS IN PLANT TAXONOMY IN BANGLADESH AND ITS FUTURE Hespns Mo. InpnNur-r-nH School of Biological Sciences. Jones Building, University of Liverpool Liverpool L69 3GS, UK E-rna i l : h rn i l fan@l iverpoo l .ac .uk , h rn i r fanu l lah@hotmai l . com Keywords: Plant taxonomy, plant systematics, Bangladesh Abstract The trend in plant taxonomic research in Bangladesh between 1972 and 2002 has been investigated by using a broad categorisation scheme and a scoring system. Inventory taxonomic s tud ies (mo lpho log ica l taxonomic s tud ies invo lv ing p lan t resources cataloging) were fbund to be significantly higher than the integrared studies (s tud ies us ing the knowledge o1 ' d i f fe ren t d isc ip l ines o f b io logy) . S tud ies on angiosperms were fbund to be significantly more than any other groups and followed by that on algae. while gymnosperms received signif icantly least artention. Despite the wor ld -w ide dec l ine in taxonomic research , taxonomy can make s ign i f i can t cont r ibu t ions in Bang ladesh i f in i t ia t i ves are taken to comple te the inventory o f p lan t resources th rough a count ry -w ide campaign , to incorpora te in tegra ted approaches in tradit ional taxonomy and to stress on the conservation issues in taxonomic studies. Such efforts could be more effect ive i f cooperation among insti tut ions concerned with plant taxonomy could be increasecl through eff lcient ne twork in ,e . Introduction Taxonomy is a synthetic discipline (Stuessy 1990). It draws data from various branches of biology, namely, morphology, anatomy, embryology, paleobotany, palynology, cytology, genet ics, cytogenet ics, chemistry, reproduct ive biology and ecology. Whi le tradi t ional plant taxonomy is exclusively based on morphological features, in the last fifty years or so, by using the knowledge and techniques of other discipl ines of biology, more integrated approaches are being taken to elucidate different issues of plant classification as well as phylogeny and evolution (e.g. Stuessy 1990) . Taxonomy, spec i f i ca l l y morpho log ica l taxonomy, however , i s now experiencing an alarming decline (Disney 1998, Lee 2000). It is quite strong in the developed countries, where recent advancement in applied biology is attracting a large proportion of the research funds indicating commercialisation of biological research programmes. Despite the importance of al l p lant species in natural ecosystems, emphasis has now been given on specific plant species or plant groups because of their appealing economic benefits. 100 IRFANULLAH On the contrary, in the less developed countries like Bangladesh the scenario ts apparently less vigorous, but needs to be assessed. Recent comprehensive reviews on the studies carr ied out so far in Bangladesh on algae (Is lam 1991a), bryophytes (Hadiuzzaman 1991), pter idophytes ( Is lam and Hadiuzzaman 1991). gymnosperms ( is lam 1991b) and ang iosperms (Khan 1991) have h igh l igh ted the impor tance o f taxonomy in the overall plant studies in this country. During the British regime in the Indian subcontinent. plant taxonomy flourished as an essential part of the botanical explorat ion (Khan l99l) . Al though Bangladesh encompasses a smal l area compared to the whole subcont inent, the ful l inventory of her plant resources is yet to be completed. Regular reports on new taxa and new records of plants from different groups. especial ly angiosperms and'algae, suggest superb f lor ist ic r ichness and immense possibilities of taxonomic studies in this country. The aim of this paper is to show the trends in plant taxonomic research in Bangladesh over the last three decades (1912-2002). A categorisation system and a scoring system are proposed to demonstrate the magnitude and the direction of such trends. Scopes and opportunities of plant taxonomic research in Bangladesh are also discussed. Approaches undertaken Three journa ls , pub l i sh ing p lan t taxonomic research papers , namely , Bangladesh Journal of Botany (BJB by Bangladesh Botanical Society, 1972-2002), Journal of the Asiat ic Society of Bangladesh, Science (JASBS by Asiat ic Society of Bangladesh, 1975-June 2002) and Bangladesh Journal of Plant Taxonomy (BJPT by Bangladesh Association of Plant Taxonomists. 1994-2002) were consulted to identify, record and classify published plant taxonomic papers under a suggested category- system as described below. These three journals were selected because of their different magnitudes in publishing plant taxonomic papers: BJPT, exclusive for plant taxonomic papers; BJB, exclusive for botanical research papers including taxonomy and JASBS, all kinds of scientific papers including botanicals ones. All these journals are being published on a two-issue-per-year basis. Here algae, including blue-green algae (cyanobacter ia), bryophytes, pter idophytes, gymnosperms and angiosperms were considered as plants. To be qualified as a study of Bangladesh the worked out material(s) (plant or place) must be from Bangladesh and should be carried out by one or more Bangladeshi scientists inside or outside Bangladesh. In addition, volumes of the FLora of BangLctdesh (Khan et al. 1972-1996) were also included as revisions of angiospermic families. PRESENT TRENDS IN PLANT TAXONOMY Categories All the taxonomic research papers recorded were classified using two separate categortsat ion scheme. In the f i rst scheme, al l the papers were classi f ied into two broad categories on the basis of the nature of the studies: | ' Inventoryt studies: This mostly includes area based floristic studies, checklists of certain areas or of certain taxonomic groups, new records of taxa, and revisions on genera. families and orders. Papers in relation to nomenclature like describing new taxa. proposlng new combinat ions and changing names were most ly done in the papers of f lor ist ic studies. Micromorphological studies using l ight or eiectron microscopes and ethnobotanical studies with taxonomic perspect ive were also included in this category. The common feature of all these studies is traditionai morphological taxonomic approaches (include both morphology and anatomy) were taken to carry out them. 2' Integrctted st t tdies: Studies, where knowledge of di f ferent branches of biology other than morphology, l ike chemistry, cytology, cytogenerics, ecology and reproductive biology were used with a definite aim to elucidate taxonomic probiems or to faci l i tate taxonomic understanding were included in this category. Use of numerical methods in taxonomy was also incorporated in this group. The second categorisation was done on the basis of the broad taxonomic group that a paper dealt with and the proposed six categories are: 1 . Angiospermic studies: exclusively on angiospermic plants; 2. Gymnospernic studies: exclusively on gymnospermic species; 3. Pteridopltytic studies: exclusively on fem and fern allies; 4^ Bryophytic'studies: exclusively on mosses and liverworts; 5" Algal studies: includes freshwater, brackish water and marine algal taxa; and 6. Mixecl studies: any two or more of the above-mentioned cateeories. Scoring system. A scoring system has been proposed to quantify the published works of a category in a given year ' A paper scored three points, whi le a short communicat ion scored one point. Each volume of the Flora of Bangladesh scored three points as a revision. Total score of a category in a given year was then used for stat ist ical analyses. Non- pararnetric statistics, namely. Mann-Whitney tests and Spearman rank correlations were done to determine significant differences and correlations among the datasets, respectively. 1 0 1 1Q2 IRFANULLAH Patterns revealed During the period of 1972-2002, the extent of inventory studies was significantly greater than that of integrated studies (P<0.001) (Fig. 1). Moreover, a clear increase in the overal l taxonomic studies was also evident since 1994. Inventory papers published in the studied journals were dominated by revisions, new records and floristic studies (Frg. 2A). Although cytogenetical studies were the major integrated studies, there was no significant difference among different integrated studies carried out (Fig. 2|-) again suggesting very low attempt for such research. Figure 3 presents the overal l t rend of taxonomic studies in di f ferent plant groups. Studies on anglosperms were srgnificantly higher than any other group, which was followed by algal studies, and gymnosperms received least at tent ion. Correlat ions between different types of studies also showed similar magnitude in different plant groups (Table 1). Inventory studies as a whole showed strong positive correlation with most Table l. Results of Spearman rank correlations among different types of taxonomic studies and pla,nt groups calculated on the basis oi yearly scores, Different iiltegrated sturiies were not included separately because of their very low individuai y"euily r.o""r. Total. sum of iriventory a1a^i{eEa-!9! stqdies; +, positive correlation: -. negative correlationi ns-, not significant at P<0.05; *P<0.05; **P<0'01; ***P<0'001' Total Inven. Inreg. Alga. Br.yo. Pter i .cym. Angi . Mix. Nom. Micro. Rev. Flor . New check ns n s + N S + N S + + + + * * * * * * + ns ns ns ns * + + + + + - x * a * * * * * + * + + n s + + + n s n s + t * * * * * x x n s + + + n s n s + + * * * * * * * + * * n s + + n s n s n s l l s + + * * * * * x x + + 11s + lls + + + + + n s + + n s n s + + n s + + x * : k * + ) k * * x ns ns ns ns ns + + + + + , k * + * + . F + * * * * x * + + n s + n s * * * i . a x + + n s + + ) k * : F * * * + + + + n s * * * 1 . * * * n s n s n s - + * a + + n s + n s * + * + * * * * * + + n s + + + + x * x . < * * * * * + + n s + + * * * + * * * + * * * + + + n s n s + * * * * x x lnventory Integrated Algae Bryo. Pterido. Gymno. Angio. Mixed Nonren. Micromor Revrsron Flolistic New Rec. Checklist Ethnobot. PRESENT TRENDS IN PLANT TAXONOMY 103 of the plant groups' while combined integrated studies only showed correlation with angiospermic studies. Arnong different inventory studies, floristic, new records and checkl ists showed highest correlat ions with other types of work, whereas revisions showed the least. Publ icat ion of the Bangladesh Journal of plant Taxonomy has enhanced an signi f icant increase in the overal l plant taxonomic research rn Bangladesh compared to the yearly contributions made by the Bangladesh Journal of Botany and the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bangladesh, Science in the earlier two decades (Fig. I , Table 2). 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 0o O1 02 Yeaf, Fig l Yearly scores of inventofy and integrated raxonomic stuclies over a period of lg72-2002. The horizontal lrne across the bars is the overall mean of the combrned score per year. Letters 'a' and 'b' indicate the first publicatlon of t l . re Journal of the Asiat ic Society of Bangladesh, Science and Bangladesh Journal of p lant Taxonorrrv. lespect i ve ly . Global status of taxonomic studies A recent sharp decline in traditional taxonomic studies has been well recognised, which is quite evident in developed countries than in developing countries (Bramrey 1994, Disney 1998, Lhotsky 1998, Lee 2000). Tradit ional morphological taxonomy is now facing two-way attack: one from its sister discipline molecular systematics (Lee 2000) and the orher from rhe other appl ied discipl ines of biology (Boero 2001). Funding for research in biological sciences is increasing, but is almost exclusively control led by the commercial benef i ts of the funding agencies. Hence appl ied disciplines, like pharmacy, molecular biology and plant transformation are j"rting increasing attention rather than those dealing with basic sciences. Similarly,-funds coming into systematics studies are mostly taken up by projects dealing with specific I Integrated 8o Elar.ra.rtory 104 IRFANULLAH plant species with specif ic economic importance, leaving the tradi t ional taxonomy with more or less empty hands. Moreover, now-a-days taxonomic studies are considered as an old-fashioned, non-creative research in the intellectual arena of biological sciences. Thus rnolecular bioiogy and other appl ied science courses are getting preference in the universities and flourishing progressively, while taxonomy courses are dwindl ing (Lhotsky X998, Boero 2001). Nonetheless, unequal cash f lows into the di f ferent branches of biological sciences also control l tng the career perspective of the young researchers. Journals publishing classical taxonomic papers have lower Impact Factors (Lee 2000. Valdecasas et al. 2000), thus are less appealing to the funding agencies and are also less useful in career bui lding. Exclustve publication of experimental research articles in the new as well as in the established journals of plant biology and systematics also demonstrates this development (Lee 2000). Al l these are dr iv ing young researchers to take the'advanced'avenues of biological sciences with better job prospects (Boero 2001). Plant taxonomy: Bangladesh scenario ln a developing country l ike Bangladesh the picture is a bi t di f ferent. In recent years. the funds for environmental projects have been increased considerably, and are available from both internal and external sources. These mostly provide support to the projects on sustainable development of rural communit ies or conservation of threatened ecosystems through community participations. Inventory and rnonitoring of plant species are often being carried out under these projects as a part of the documentation of the natuml resources of the project areas. Despite the present pol i t ical recognit ion of the importance of biodiversi ty, funding for basic research in the f ie ld of plant taxonomy is megre. In terms of plant taxonomic expert ise, the Botany departments of the Universi ty of Dhaka, Universi ty of Chittagong, Jahangirnagar University and Rajshahi University, and institutes, such as, Bangladesh Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (BCSIR) of Chittagong, Bangladesh Forest Research Institute (BFRI) and Bangladesh National Herbarium (BNH) are the important bodies harbouring around 35 academics and scient ists activeiy involved in plant taxonomic and ethnobotanical research. Among these the BNH can be considered as the icon of the plant taxonomic research in Bangladesh" In addit ion to the three mentioned journals, other journals that publ ish taxonomic art ic les are the Universi ty Studies of the above-mentioned universi t ies and the bulletins of the BFRI. Moreover, different books have also documented the plants of different broad groups of Bangladesh, such as medicinal plants (Khan and Huq 1915), aquat ic plants (Khan and Hal im 1987), mangroves (Hussain and Acharya Iggq, trees (Das and Alam 2001) and plants of di f ferent bio-ecological zones of Bangladesh (Nisirat et al. 2002). PRESENT TRENDS IN PLANT TAXONOMY 105 Aithough the status of plant taxonomy in Bangladesh is not falling clown, but not flourishing either in the way it should be considering the prevailing opportunities. The ctrear increase in plant taxonomic studies in Bangladesh in the last 10 years or so is the direct result of the regular publ icat ion of the Bangladesh Journal of Plant Taxonomy (Fig. l . Table 2). Whi le this suggests the importance of special ised journals for promoting the advancement of a scientific discipline, the overall picture of plant taxonomy in Bangladesh is not that satisfactory. In next few sections, I shall discuss the scopes and opportunities that can be explored for the enhancement of plant taxonomic research in Bangladesh. Table 2. Overall mean sco-res of different types of taxonomic studies in Bangladesh related to three different periods characterised by journals. See the section Approaches undertaken"for abbreviations. Different smatl letters in the same column represent values that are-different at P<0.05, values with asterisks (+) were not included in such comparison because of their verv low values. Types of studies Major groups studied J ou rna l s l n v e n t . I n t e g r a Algae B r y o . P t e r i d o . C y m n o A n g i o Mixed BJB ( t 91 2 - \ 97 4 ) BJB+JAStsS ( 191 5-1 993 ) BJB+JASBS+BJPT (1994-2042\ 9 a 1 l a 4 7 b l a 1 . 2 a 2 .3 a 7 a b 3 . 6 a 1 2 b 0 * 0 .6 a 4.9 b 0 * 0.2 a 3 . 6 b 0 * 0 :k 0 . 1 * 3 . 3 a 7 . 3 a 2 7 b 0 * 0.-1 a 1 . 7 a 4 5 3 5 3 0 1 2 5 ' 2' i s l a " l we Cytogen. Cytolo. Ecolo$ Nuner Integrated studies Rep. B io l Ftg.2. Overal l l rean scores ofdi f ferent taxonomic studies as the percentages of tota l A) inventory or B) integrated studies. ln graph A. bars with diff'erent small letters are different at P<0.05 as dererrnined on the basis of yearly scores; bars with asterisks are significantly different from each other. Inventory studies include nomenclatural, micromorphological, revision, floristic, new records, checklists and ethnobotanical studies; and integrated studies include chemical, cytogenetical. cytological, ecological, numerical and reproductive biological studies. 106 IRFANULLAFI Acceleration of inventorying and conservation initiatives The present study suggests that the strength of plant taxonomy in Bangladesh is in inventory taxonomy (Fig. 1, Table 1). However, despite the long tradition of such taxonomic research in Bangladesh (Khan 1991), we are yet to f in ish our complete inventory of plant resources. Sti1l many areas, especially in the Chittagong Hill Tracts, remain f lor ist ical ly unexplored. Sporadic col lect ions and f lor ist ic studies are cont inuously contr ibut ing to the species l ist of Bangladesh (Fig. 2A), al though the iow proportion of nomenclatural studies undermines the actuai extent of these studies as most of the reports on new to science taxa are published in revision or floristic papers. However, with the current rate of documentation, it seems to be a long way to have a complete list of the flora of Bangladesh. An encouraging initiative was taken by the Bangladesh National Herbarium with the f inancial support f rom the government in the mid-1990s for a comprehensive inventory of the plant resources of the country, from algae to angiosperms. But unfortunately it was not executed due to some unresolved problems. Complet ion of such large-scale inventory is very essent ial , importance of which has literary been over-emphasised on different occasions. To accelerate the taxonomic explorat ion in Bangladesh, botany teachers of col leges or equivalent academic inst i tut ions with B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees could tre encouraged in undertaking taxonomic inventories. A detailed plan for that could be designed involving leading taxonomic experts of the country, and concerned bodies and off ic ials of educat ion and environment ministr ies of the government, and accordingly those teachers could be trained to carry out such country-wide project. At present regular training programmes are organised for the college teachers every year by the government as a part of the skill enhancement programme. The proposed 'training programme on taxonomy' can be tied up with the existing training scheme. Moreover, botanists involved in different environmental projects can also be included in simi lar t raining programmes. Such use of non-special ist taxonomists to expedite inventory by sieving out well-recognised taxa and by leaving rare, difficult or new ones for experts 'considerat ion is wel l discussed (Alberch 1993, Beatt ie and Ol iver 1994. Brower 1995). Such an endeavour will in fact trigger a country-wide movement of taxonomic exploration, which is urgently needed, and the findings will facilitate the publication of the complete flora of Bangladesh including all plant groups. However, we should be careful that this passion of recording species does not compromise with the r igidi ty and rel iabi i i ty of taxonomy as science (Renner and Ricklefs 1994). Moreover, we should be cautious enough in designing such programme to avoid the fate of such initiative taken by the INBio (Instituto Nacional de Biodiversidad) of Costa Rica in terms of insufficient training, erroneous sampling, slow identification, poor performance of para-taxonomists leading towards disappointing outputs (Lobo 1e94). PRESENT TRENDS IN PLANT TAXONOI\4Y Besides complete inventory, another pr ime issue, which I think the future of faxonomic studies in Bangladesh l ies with, is the conservat ion of plant diversi ty. At present our activity is limited to mere survey of the conserved areas. Although it is the f i rst step to start with, but is not the main focus of conservat ion. Cont inuous monitoring, an essential part of the whole conservation scheme (Yoccoz et at. 2001), is almost absent in the present conservation programmes. Furthermore, like anywhere in the world. threatened plants of Bangladesh have received less attention compared to the threatened animals. However, the recent publication of the Red Data Book of Vascular Plants of Bangiadesh (Khan et at. 2001) can be a very important tool to guide the plant conservation movement in Bangladesh. In this volume, a total of 106 plant species are listed as threatened after an extensive literature survey, search in herbaria and accompanying f ie ld works. St i l l , l ist ing of 99 species as ei ther 'Data Deficient' or 'Not Evaluated' indicates the need for more intensive investigation in this regard. Nonetheless, ecosystem approaches would always be more preferable in any conservatron initiatives. especially when lower plant groups are involved. Vitalization of integrated approaches The second important issue ident i f ied by the present study is the lack of integrated approaches in taxonomic studies (Fig. 1,28, Table 1). But there are excellent scopes for undertaking collaborative studies involving cytology (e.g. Begum et al . 1994), cytogenet ics (e.g. Sobhan et al . 1991, Alam et a\ .2000), biochemistry (e'g. Alam et aL. 2000), breeding and life-cycle for elucidating taxonomic issues, like delimiting taxa, or those involving ecology, reproductive biology and tissue culture for the conservation of threatened species. Lack of advanced technologies or funding cannot be an excuse for staying away from such initiatives. If necessary, we need to modify the available techniques and continue studies with our available resources, whi le looking for other routes for further advancement. Integrated studies rn col laborat ion with workers from other branches of botany/biology wi l l be more effective than sole efforts by the taxonomists. Such alliance will definitely improve our out look towards taxonomy. thus i t is the taxonomist who should ini t iate such venture' We should learn from the USA, which once neglected i ts tradi t ional taxonomy, has now started the Partnership for Enhancing Expert ise in Taxonorny (PEET) programme, a combinat ion of morphological taxonomy and moiecular systematlcs to get maximum out of taxonomy (Boero 2001). Balance in studies of different plant groups In the taxonomic studies in Bangladesh there are comparatively less emphases on the p lan t g roups o ther than ang iosperms (F ig .3 , Tab le l ) . A l though the Bangladesh National Herbarium (BNH) is the sole inst i tute exclusive for plant systematics, even i t does not include lower plant groups in i ts regular act iv i t ies. t0 l 1 0 8 IRFANULLAH Despite their importance in nature, inconspicuous, microscopic organisms are less appealing to common people and also to the research funders. But they should not be to the trained botanists. In case of algae, although there is a huge scope and need for phyco- l imno log ica l s tud ies in Bang ladesh, we on ly have a coup le o f ac t i ve phycologists, and phycological studies are almost based at the University of Dhaka and the Rajshahi University. Moreover, there is virtually no integrated study on the lower plant groups, namely, algae and bryophytes" This scenario should be altered by changing the perspect ives of concerned workers and by undertaking systematic studies incorporat ing l i fe-history studies, and cytological , cytogenet ical and biochemical approaches. The BNH should also come forward with specific projects on lower plant groups and should include phycologists and bryologists in its working team. In the other two least studied groups, pteridophytes and gymnosperms, focus shouid be given on their conservation as they bear significant number of endangered species (Khan et sl. 2001). Algae Bryo. Pterido. Gymno. Angio. Mixed Taxonomic group Fig" 3. Overal l nrean scores of dif t 'erent plant gloups as the perccntages of total score: bars with dif f 'erent small letters are dif l 'erent at P<0.05" Enhancement of institutional collaboration For the advancement of plant taxonomic research, cooperat ion among the organisations involved in plant taxonomic studies is very important. In this regard, the Bangladesh Natior-ral Herbarium (BNH) and the Bangladesh Association of Plant Taxonomists (BAPT), two platforms of plant taxonomic research and conservation of plant resources in Bangladesh, can effectively work together and they have already demonstrated the fl 'uitfulness of their collaboration in the last ten years or so. One of PRESENT TRENDS IN PLANT TAXONOMY 1 0 9 the important activities of the BAPT is the publication of the Bangladesh Journal of Plant Taxonomy (BJPT), regular publication of which has undoubtedly accelerated the pace of taxonomic research in Bangladesh (Table 2). But strong effort should be made to publ ish BJPT regular ly, and to publ ish i ts abstracts in internat ional abstracting journals and also on abstracting databases available on internet to improve its international acceptability. As an expansion of their col laborat ion, BNH and BAPT should also take the inittatives to bring together organisations, like Botany departments, institutes, different botanical associat ions l ike Bangladesh Botanical Society and groups involved in commercial use of plants. both from the country and abroad, to establish a network of all possible stakeholders to facilitate a movement in integrated taxonomic studies in Bangladesh. Besides, such networking can also help in developing an electronic data- base on the flora of Bangladesh, and contribute to the improvement of the libraries, herbaria and research facilities for plant taxonomy. Conclusion Through the above discussion one thing I was try ing to i l luminate is that taxonomy needs a change in the att i tude of the taxonomists. Despite the present decline, traditional taxonomy has been proven to be useful and will be needed for cont inuous inventorying, including bioprospect ing, conservat ion biology as wel l as for evolutionary and phylogenic studies (Cotterill and Dangerfield, 1991, Baker et al" 1998, Jaspars 1998, Lee 2000). Besides other factors, taxonomists themselves are also responsible for the current decline in the taxonomic studies by not coming up with realistic and clearly achievable goals (Godfray 2002). Taxonomists should come our from their unappeal ing, non-creat ive image and should upl i f t their uniqueness, irreplaceability, importance and necessity in this degrading world. Taxonomy should adopt knowledge from the other discipl ines of science, thus reinvent i tsel f to overcome the present cr is is. and to cope with the demand of the 21st century (Godfray 7002). Final ly, concentrat ion should also be given on the development of young botanists, which would involve improving the taxonomy syl labi and teaching techniques in col leges and universi t ies. and also involving them in di f ferent programmes on taxonomy, biodiversity and conservation to build up generations that appreciate and care therr plant resources. Job opportunities for the taxonomists, which is the main concern of botany students to come into taxonomic research, are there in Bangladesh, especially in this age of ecological sustainability, but we need to upgrade our students' know-how and their outlook to meet the requirements demanded by these professions. 1 i 0 IRFANULLAH Acknowledgements I would iike to thank Prof. A.K.M. 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