Factors Affecting the Productivity of Coffee in Gulmi and Arghakhanchi Districts of Nepal

Coffee is one of the major potential cash crops with lucrative export value grown in mid-hills of Nepal. Nepalese coffee production has suffered long by low productivity. Research was conducted from February to May, 2019 to analyze the factors affecting the productivity of coffee in Arghakhanchi and Gulmi districts of Nepal. These two districts were, purposively selected for this study taking account of comparative advantage and past studies recommendations for coffee sector. Altogether, 100 coffee growing households 50 from each, Arghakhanchi and Gulmi, were sampled by using multistage sampling technique. A pre-tested semi-structured interview schedule was used to collect the primary information while secondary information was collected reviewing the relevant publications. Ordinary Least Square (OLS) regression model was used to determine the factors affecting the productivity of coffee. The study revealed that the number of active family members involved in coffee production (0.000), adoption of income diversification through intercropping (0.005), training (0.072) and technical assistance (0.021) had positive and significant effect on coffee productivity. Encouraging the household to have coffee production as their primary occupation, providing technical assistance on rational land utilization and intercropping and strengthening the skill and knowledge of farmers through trainings could significantly support in increasing the productivity of coffee

Terrestrial ages of the Antarctic meteorites based on thermoluminescence levels in their fusion crust

This article does not have an abstract

Thermoelectric studies of KxFe2-ySe2: weakly correlated superconductor

We report thermal transport measurement of KxFe2-ySe2 superconducting single crystal. Significant peak anomaly in thermal conductivity is observed at nearly TC/2 indicating a large phonon mean-free-path in the superconducting state. The zero-temperature extrapolated thermoelectric power is smaller than the value in typical strongly correlated superconductors, implying large normalized Fermi temperature. In contrast to other iron superconductors, thermoelectric power in our sample does not exhibit significant anomalies. These findings indicate that KxFe2-ySe2 is a weakly or intermediately correlated superconductor without significant Fermi surface nesting.Comment: Revised version, 5 pages, 5 figures, Will appear in Physical Review

Agricultural and Finance Intervention Increased Dietary Intake and Weight of Children Living in HIV-Affected Households in Western Kenya.

We tested whether a multisectoral household agricultural and finance intervention increased the dietary intake and improved the nutritional status of HIV-affected children. Two hospitals in rural Kenya were randomly assigned to be either the intervention or the control arm. The intervention comprised a human-powered water pump, microfinance loan for farm commodities, and training in sustainable farming practices and financial management. In each arm, 100 children (0-59 mo of age) were enrolled from households with HIV-infected adults 18-49 y old. Children were assessed beginning in April 2012 and every 3 mo for 1 y for dietary intake and anthropometry. Children in the intervention arm had a larger increase in weight (β: 0.025 kg/mo, P = 0.030), overall frequency of food consumption (β: 0.610 times · wk-1 · mo-1, P = 0.048), and intakes of staples (β: 0.222, P = 0.024), fruits and vegetables (β: 0.425, P = 0.005), meat (β: 0.074, P < 0.001), and fat (β: 0.057, P = 0.041). Livelihood interventions have potential to improve the nutrition of HIV-affected children. This trial was registered at clinicaltrials.gov as NCT01548599

Relation between geometric phases of entangled bi-partite systems and their subsystems

This paper focuses on the geometric phase of entangled states of bi-partite systems under bi-local unitary evolution. We investigate the relation between the geometric phase of the system and those of the subsystems. It is shown that (1) the geometric phase of cyclic entangled states with non-degenerate eigenvalues can always be decomposed into a sum of weighted non-modular pure state phases pertaining to the separable components of the Schmidt decomposition, though the same cannot be said in the non-cyclic case, and (2) the geometric phase of the mixed state of one subsystem is generally different from that of the entangled state even by keeping the other subsystem fixed, but the two phases are the same when the evolution operator satisfies conditions where each component in the Schmidt decomposition is parallel transported

Friend Finder: A Lifestyle based Friend Recommender App for Smart Phone Users

Today’s Social Networking services focuses towards suggesting you friends based on users social graph or Geo-location based, which neither take users life style into account or users liking ,disliking etc. Suggesting friends using the users’ link analysis may not be the best preference of suggestion for the users. In this paper, we present FriendFinder, a reliable user relation based friend suggesting app which recommends friend list to app users based on their analysis of life style and daily curricular activities on mobile phone instead of social graphs. FriendFinder captures users data i.e. daily activities and work done through mobile, for ex: - App Usage, App Frequency, Browser Activities etc. Then we create a user profile with all gathered data and find most relevant matching profiles of existing candidate friends matching our profile for similarity and suggesting the result out of similarity test to the user as a friend

Geometric interpretation of the Pancharatnam connection and non-cyclic polarization changes

If the state of polarization of a monochromatic light beam is changed in a cyclical manner, the beam acquires-in addition to the usual dynamic phase-a geometric phase. This geometric or Pancharatnam-Berry phase equals half the solid angle of the contour traced out on the Poincaré sphere. We show that such a geometric interpretation also exists for the Pancharatnam connection, the criterion according to which two beams with different polarization states are said to be in phase. This interpretation offers what is to our knowledge a new and intuitive method to calculate the geometric phase that accompanies non-cyclic polarization changes. © 2010 Optical Society of America

A common live-attenuated avian herpesvirus vaccine expresses a very potent oncogene

Vaccines play a crucial role in the protection of animals and humans from deadly pathogens. The first vaccine that also protected against cancer was developed against the highly oncogenic herpesvirus Marek’s disease virus (MDV). MDV infects chickens and causes severe immunosuppression, neurological signs, and fatal lymphomas, a process that requires the viral oncogene, meq. The most frequently used Marek’s disease vaccine is the live-attenuated CVI988/Rispens (CVI) strain, which efficiently protects chickens and prevents tumorigenesis. Intriguingly, CVI expresses at least two isoforms of meq; however, it remains unknown to what extent these isoforms contribute to virus attenuation. In this study, we individually examined the contribution of the two CVI-meq isoforms to the attenuation of the vaccine. We inserted the respective isoforms into a very virulent MDV (strain RB-1B), thereby replacing its original meq gene. Surprisingly, we could demonstrate that the longer isoform of meq strongly enhanced virus-induced pathogenesis and tumorigenesis, indicating that other mutations in the CVI genome contribute to virus attenuation. On the contrary, the shorter isoform completely abrogated pathogenesis, demonstrating that changes in the meq gene can indeed play a key role in virus attenuation. Taken together, our study provides important evidence on attenuation of one of the most frequently used veterinary vaccines worldwide

Prevalence and comparison of depression rates in geriatric patients of old age home and community, and its association with chosen demographic factors

Background: Depression is an emerging mental health condition and elderly population of the world is often affected by it. In the elderly, it often goes unnoticed and often burdens them.Methods: Two groups of population one from an old age home and the other from a community were selected. Data was collected using a Geriatric Depression Scale (GDS) and a demographic form. The data was compiled and analyzed using Google Spreadsheets.Results: Depression rates were found in both, the old age home and the community. The rates were found higher in the old age home than the community. The demographic factors chronic illness, gender, educational status and marital status were found to be associated with depression.Conclusions: As depression in elderly is a fairly common phenomenon, it should be paid more attention. The elderly should receive intervention for the disease and be able to sustain it