Modelling perinatal and child mortality in Nepal

South Asia has the second largest burden of perinatal and childhood mortality in the world and Nepal has been reported as a significant contributor to this burden within the region. The main aim of this thesis was to statistically model perinatal and childhood mortality in Nepal. Specifically, this thesis will first conduct a systematic review of factors associated with perinatal mortality in South Asia including Nepal. Second, socioeconomic predictors of stillbirths in Nepal will be examined. Third, Factors associated with perinatal mortality in Nepal will be identified. Finally, this thesis will examine factors associated with under-5 mortality in Nepal. Chapter 2 identifies the factors associated with perinatal and childhood mortality through literature review. The systematic literature review revealed the most common factors associated with perinatal mortality were: low socioeconomic status, lack of quality health care services, pregnancy/obstetric complications and lack of antenatal care. Similarly, poor socio economic status, rural residence, higher birth order and lower birth interval, use of contraceptives, polluted fuel for cooking at home, and antenatal care were found to be associated with under-5 mortality. Chapter 4 examined the socio-economic predictors of stillbirth in Nepal. Multivariable analysis and found maternal age (>25years), ecological zone (mountains or hills), religion (Hindu, Muslim, Christian and others), low maternal education, mother’s occupation (farming) and the use of open defecation system are associated with stillbirth. Chapter 5 presents the factors associated with Perinatal Mortality (PM) and Extended Perinatal Mortality (EPM) in Nepal. In this study, PM rate was 42 [95% Confidence Interval (CI): 39, 44] per 1000 births and the corresponding EPM rate was 49 [95% CI: 46, 51] for the five-year prior each survey (2001-2016). Multivariable analysis revealed that ecological zone, household wealth index, birth order and birth interval; maternal age, use of contraceptives, and types of cooking fuel were associated with PM and EPM. Chapter 6 assesses the common factors associated with neonatal, post-neonatal, infant, child, and under-5 mortality in Nepal, and the study found that the death of the previous child, non usage of contraceptives and non-receipt of TT vaccination during pregnancy were associated with inder-5 mortality. In summary, household with poor socio-economic status, and non-use of contraceptives among mothers were strongly associated with perinatal, and under-5 mortality in Nepal. Hence, future intervention to reduce perinatal and under-5 mortality should focus on family planning and these intervention should target mothers from socioeconomically disadvantaged groups

Program Reporting in Cooperative Extension

This article explores the challenges of reporting outcomes of the Extension educational programs at land-grant universities and presents a model highlighting the focus and expectations of reporting in Cooperative Extension. This model provides a rationale for recognizing the relationship between program planning, evaluation, reporting, and employee-performance appraisal and their implications for organizational growth and learning

A Professional Competency Development Model: Implications for Extension Educators

Professional development refers to continuing education designed to enhance competencies, skills, and knowledge. There is a need for a professional development model based on the educational processes used by educators of adults. A professional competency development model was constructed from a study grounded on four educational process areas in Extension. In this study, 441 randomly selected Extension educators in the North Central Region of the United States participated through an online survey. The proposed model has implications for designing professional competency development programs in the areas of needs assessment/program development, teaching and learning methods, delivery strategies, and evaluation methods. It also indicates the best time and place for Extension educators to develop the competencies and suggests a mechanism to continuously identify the knowledge and skills needed to obtain the best results. This model could be used to develop educational programs in a variety of national and international settings

Heterogeneous Arrival and Departure M/M/1 Queue with Vacation and Service Breakdown

This paper deals with the study of M/M/1 queue with heterogeneous arrival and departure with the provision of server vacations and breakdowns. Customer arrive service facilities with poison process and exponential service time distribution. In this paper we find the mean queue length, mean waiting time in queue and system, average number of customers in the system. The generating function method is used to find these measures of performance. The numerical results are obtained to cite the applicability of model in the real life situations. Key words: Heterogeneous; Generating function; Vacation; Breakdown; Repai

Learning styles and mathematics achievements among higher secondary science students.

This study was conducted to understand the learning styles and its relationship to mathematics achievement among higher secondary students. Two hundred forty seven grade eleven science students from two higher secondary schools at Kathmandu, Nepal, participated in the study. We used the Felder-Soloman Index of Learning Styles (ILS) to inquire the students at the beginning and at the end of the academic year 2012/13. The questionnaire has a set of 44 dichotomized items, and the ILS has four dimensions that include processing (active/reflective), perceive (sensing/intuitive), input (visual/verbal), and understanding (sequential/ global). We also created a Mathematics Achievement Test (MAT) based on 50 items and 100 marks in order to measure student’s achievement. This test was administered at the end of the academic year along with ILS. We used basic descriptive statistics for our data analyses. The findings revealed that the majority of the students tend to balance learning styles among active, sensing, visual, and sequential. The MAT score of the students varies from 38.9 to 48.5 with a mean score of 42.9 and standard deviation of 13.5. We also found a moderate relationship between pre and post learning styles. However, students whose learning styles dimension changed from visual to verbal scored higher in MAT followed by sensing to intuitive, and lower from verbal to verbal