Draft bills and research reports on: reducing judicial corruption and child labor in Nepal

These two draft bills and accompanying research report comprise the work of two teams of Nepali officials from Nepal's Ministry of Law and Justice who prepared them in the context of the Boston University School of Law Program on Legislative Drafting for Democratic Social Change. They attended that Program as part of a larger Ministry of Law and Justice Program, funded by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), to strengthen Nepal's legal framework and the Rule of Law. Using the bills and reports as case studies, the four officials aimed to learn legislative theory, methodology and techniques. The Ministry had assigned them, on their return to Nepal, to play a significant role in institutionalizing an on-going learning process to strengthen Nepali drafters' capacity to prepare the effectively implementable legislation necessary to ensure good governance and development

Delusion of Pregnancy and Pseudocyesis: A Diagnostic Dilemma

Delusion of pregnancy and pseudocyesis are found to be relatively common in the developing world but the reported cases regarding the former is rare in the context of Nepal. The present article is a case report regarding delusion of pregnancy. Considering its rarity and familiarity with other pregnancy mimicking conditions like pseudocyesis, the article aims to highlight the possibility of delusion of pregnancy in a case where the delusion is the only presenting feature without other psychotic symptoms. In addition, the obstetricians are more inclined towards diagnosing pseudocyesis being more familiar with the condition. It's even more important to differentiate between two conditions considering the difference of their management, though the demarcation based on the presentation is blurred

Agro-morphological Diversity of High Altitude Bean Landraces in the Kailash Sacred Landscape of Nepal

Many varieties of bean are widely grown across diverse agro-ecological zones in Nepal. And opportunities exist for improving the crops and enhancing their resilience to various biotic and abiotic stressors. In this context, an experiment was conducted from June to October 2016 in Khar VDC of Darchula district to study the phenotypic traits of nine landraces of bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L.). The bean landraces were planted using randomized complete block design in three sites (Dhamidera, Dallekh and Sundamunda villages), with three replications in each site for their comparative analysis. The study considered the following phenotypic traits: days to emergence, days to 50% flowering, days to 90% pod maturity, number of nodes, pod length, pod width, number of pods, number of seeds per pod and weight and grain yield for 100 seeds. Kruskal-Wallis test showed significant differences in the landraces both within and among locations. KA-17-08-FB and KA-17-04-FB were late  flowering (63 and 65 days respectively) compared to other landraces whereas KA-17-07-FB flowered earliest (within 42 days). In all three sites, three landraces namely KA-17-07-FB, KA-17-04-FB and KA-17-06-FB were found to be relatively more resistant to pest and diseases than other landraces. Eight out of nine landraces in Dhamidera and Dallekh villages and seven out of nine in Sundamunda village produced seeds greater than 1.0 t/ha. Among the nine varieties KA-17-02-FB was the highest yielding variety, with an average yield of 3.8 t/ha. This study is useful for identifying suitable landraces for future promotion based on their maturity, grain yield, diseases resistance and other qualitative and quantitative characteristics

Robust superconductivity and the suppression of charge-density wave in Ca3(Ir1−xRhx)4Sn13\text{Ca}_{3}(\text{Ir}_{1-x}\text{Rh}_{x})_{4}\text{Sn}_{13} single crystals at ambient pressure

Single crystals of Ca$_3$(Ir$_{1-x}$Rh$_x$)$_4$Sn$_{13}$ (3-4-13) were synthesized by flux growth and characterized by X-ray diffraction, EDX, magnetization, resistivity and radio frequency magnetic susceptibility tunnel diode resonator (TDR) techniques. Compositional variation of the Rh/Ir ratio was used to study the coexistence and competition between the charge density wave (CDW) and superconductivity. The superconducting transition temperature varies from approximately 7 K in pure Ir ($x=0$) to approximately 8.3 K in pure Rh ($x=1$). Temperature-dependent electrical resistivity reveals monotonic suppression of the CDW transition temperature, $T_{\text{CDW}}(x)$. The CDW starts in pure Ir, $x=0$, with $T_{\text{CDW}}\approx40$~K and extrapolates roughly linearly to zero at $x_c=0.58$ under the dome of superconductivity. Magnetization and transport measurements show a significant influence of CDW on the superconducting and normal state. Vortex pinning is substantially enhanced in the CDW region, and the resistivity is larger in this part of the phase diagram. The London penetration depth is attenuated exponentially upon cooling at low temperatures for all compositions, indicating a fully-gapped Fermi surface. We conclude that a novel $\text{Ca}_3(\text{Ir}_{1-x}\text{Rh}_x)_4\text{Sn}_{13}$ alloy with coexisting/competing CDW and superconductivity, is a good candidate to look for a composition-driven quantum critical point at ambient pressure

Anisotropic superconductivity of niobium based on its response to non-magnetic disorder

Niobium is one of the most studied superconductors, both theoretically and experimentally. It is tremendously important for applications, and it has the highest superconducting transition temperature, $T_{c}=9.33$ K, of all pure metals. In addition to power applications in alloys, pure niobium is used for sensitive magneto-sensing, radio-frequency cavities, and, more recently, as circuit metallization layers in superconducting qubits. A detailed understanding of its electronic and superconducting structure, especially its normal and superconducting state anisotropies, is crucial for mitigating the loss of quantum coherence in such devices. Recently, a microscopic theory of the anisotropic properties of niobium with the disorder was put forward. To verify theoretical predictions, we studied the effect of disorder produced by 3.5 MeV proton irradiation of thin Nb films grown by the same team and using the same protocols as those used in transmon qubits. By measuring the superconducting transition temperature and upper critical fields, we show a clear suppression of $T_{c}$ by potential (non-magnetic) scattering, which is directly related to the anisotropic order parameter. We obtain a very close quantitative agreement between the theory and the experiment

Impact study of temperature on the time series electricity demand of urban Nepal for short-term load forecasting

Short-term electricity demand forecasting is one of the best ways to understand the changing characteristics of demand that helps to make important decisions regarding load flow analysis, preventing imbalance in generation planning, demand management, and load scheduling, all of which are actions for the reliability and quality of that power system. The variation in electricity demand depends upon various parameters, such as the effect of the temperature, social activities, holidays, the working environment, and so on. The selection of improper forecasting methods and data can lead to huge variations and mislead the power system operators. This paper presents a study of electricity demand and its relation to the previous day’s lags and temperature by examining the case of a consumer distribution center in urban Nepal. The effect of the temperature on load, load variation on weekends and weekdays, and the effect of load lags on the load demand are thoroughly discussed. Based on the analysis conducted on the data, short-term load forecasting is conducted for weekdays and weekends by using the previous day’s demand and temperature data for the whole year. Using the conventional time series model as a benchmark, an ANN model is developed to track the effect of the temperature and similar day patterns. The results show that the time series models with feedforward neural networks (FF-ANNs), in terms of the mean absolute percentage error (MAPE), performed better by 0.34% on a weekday and by 8.04% on a weekend

Analysis of the London penetration depth in Ni-doped CaKFe4 As4

We report combined experimental and theoretical analysis of superconductivity in CaK(Fe1−xNix)4As4 (CaK1144) for x=0, 0.017, and 0.034. To obtain the superfluid density ρ=[1+ΔλL(T)/λL(0)]−2, the temperature dependence of the London penetration depth ΔλL(T) was measured by using a tunnel-diode resonator (TDR) and the results agreed with the microwave coplanar resonator (MWR) with the small differences accounted for by considering a three orders of magnitude higher frequency of MWR. The absolute value of λL(T≪Tc)≈λL(0) was measured by using MWR, λL(5K)≈170±20 nm, which agreed well with the NV centers in diamond optical magnetometry that gave λL(5K)≈196±12 nm, which agreed well with the NV centers in diamond optical magnetometry that gave λL(5K)≈196±12 nm. The experimental results are analyzed within the Eliashberg theory, showing that the superconductivity of CaK1144 is well described by the nodeless s± order parameter and that upon Ni doping the interband interaction increases

Quasiparticle spectroscopy in technologically-relevant niobium using London penetration depth measurements

London penetration depth was measured in niobium foils, thin films, single crystals, and superconducting radio-frequency (SRF) cavity pieces cut out from different places. The low-temperature (T<Tc/3) variation, sensitive to the low-energy quasiparticles with states inside the superconducting gap, differs dramatically between different types of samples. With the help of phenomenological modeling, we correlate these different behaviors with known pair-breaking mechanisms and show that such measurements may help distinguish between different pair-breaking mechanisms, such as niobium hydrides and two-level systems (TLS). The conclusions also apply to SRF cavities when tracking the temperature-dependent quality factor and the resonant frequency

Health-Seeking Behaviors and Self-Care Practices of People with Filarial Lymphoedema in Nepal: A Qualitative Study

Background. Lymphatic filariasis is endemic in Nepal. This study aimed to investigate health-seeking behaviors and self-care practices of people with filarial Lymphoedema in Nepal. Methods. A cross-sectional study was conducted using qualitative methods in three endemic districts. Twenty-three patients with current Lymphoedema were recruited in the study. Results. Hydrocele was found to be a well-known condition and a major health problem in the studied communities. People with Lymphoedema primarily sought health care from traditional healers, whereas sometimes home-based care was their first treatment. Later Ayurvedic and allopathic hospital-based care were sought. Respondents reported various psychological problems such as difficulty in engaging in sexual intercourse, anxiety, worry and stress, depression, low self-esteem, feeling weak, fear of being abandoned, and fear of transmitting disease to the children. Standard foot care practices except washing were largely absent. Conclusions. Lymphoedema in the limbs and hydrocele were found to be major health problems. The traditional health care providers were the first contact of care for the majority of respondents. Only a few patients had been practicing standard foot care practices