Labor migration, remittances, and human capital accumuation in Nepal

Thesis(Master) --KDI School:Master of Public Policy,2018Labor migration in Nepal is perpetuated by the existence of a porous border between Nepal and India, which is the gate to the outer world for Nepalese formal and informal labor migrants. For decades Nepal has continuously been one of the countries with the highest inflow of remittances as a percentage of GDP, reaching 31% in 2016 (World Bank, 2018). This paper investigates the impact of remittances on human capital accumulation in recipient households in Nepal, using a comprehensive nationwide Nepal Living Standards Survey of 1996, 2003 and 2010. The study addresses the endogeneity of remittances and human capital by adopting instrumental variable two-stage least squares methodology. International remittances are predicted by historical migration rates, which are extracted from Nepal Population Census of 1991. The main results show that there is a statistically significant, positive impact of remittances on educational expenditures, private schooling and private tuition.Introduction Background on Nepal Empirical Literature Review Data Methodology ResultsOutstandingmasterpublishedViktoriya KHAN

Independent Evaluation of Green Climate Fund’s Investment Framework

This evaluation of the GCF Investment Framework assesses the overall relevance and effectiveness of the Investment Framework in the context of the GCF’s efforts towards climate change mitigation and adaptation. Overall, the evaluation examines how effective and fit-for-purpose the GCF Investment Framework is in fulfilling strategic goals and mandate. It assesses the coherence and complementarity of the GCF Investment Framework internally with other GCF internal policies, and externally with the country-level climate change strategies and action plans. It also assesses and analyse the efficiency, effectiveness, coherence and complementarity of the GCF Investment Framework with regard to funding proposals, projects and programmes. In addition, it reviews alignment with wider results and risk management frameworks

Vaccination against myeloid leukaemias using newly defined antigens

First complete remission rates are high in patients with acute myeloid leukaemia (AML), with some variation depending on the presence of specific cytogenetic and molecular aberrations. However, the remission is often not long lasting and relapse occurs after standard chemotherapy within two years. Besides chemotherapy, non-specific immunotherapy in the form of allogeneic haematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT) is an integral part of consolidation and salvage therapy in the treatment of AML. A large number of leukaemia-associated antigens (LAAs) that can act as potential targets for specific immunotherapy have been identified, and the number is still increasing. To date, several of these antigens are being utilized in clinical vaccination trials, either as active specific immunotherapy in form of peptide vaccination or as passive specific immunotherapy as adoptive cell therapies. This chapter reviews the role of newly defined LAAs as well as the results of already performed clinical vaccination trials with known LAAs

Functionalization of additive-manufactured Ti6Al4V scaffolds with poly(allylamine hydrochloride)/poly(styrene sulfonate) bilayer microcapsule system containing dexamethasone

Porous titanium alloy Ti6Al4V scaffolds manufactured via electron beam melting (EBM®) reveal broad prospects for applications in bone tissue engineering. However, local inflammation and even implant failure may occur while placing an implant into the body. Thus, the application of drug carriers to the surface of a metallic implant can provide treatment at the inflammation site. In this study, we propose to use polyelectrolyte (PE) microcapsules formed by layer-by-layer (LbL) synthesis loaded with both porous calcium carbonate (CaCO3) microparticles and the anti-inflammatory drug dexamethasone (DEX) to functionalize implant surfaces and achieve controlled drug release. Scanning electron microscopy indicated that the CaCO3 microparticles coated with PE bilayers loaded with DEX had a spherical shape with a diameter of 2.3 ± 0.2 μm and that the entire scaffold surface was evenly coated with the microcapsules. UV spectroscopy showed that LbL synthesis allows the manufacturing of microcapsules with 40% DEX. According to high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) analysis, 80% of the drug was released within 24 h from the capsules consisting of three bilayers of polystyrene sulfonate (PSS) and poly(allylamine)hydrochloride (PAH). The prepared scaffolds functionalized with CaCO3 microparticles loaded with DEX and coated with PE bilayers showed hydrophilic surface properties with a water contact angle below 5°. Mouse embryonic fibroblast cells were seeded on Ti6Al4V scaffolds with and without LbL surface modification. The surface modification with LbL PE microcapsules with CaCO3 core affected cell morphology in vitro. The results confirmed that DEX had no toxic effect and did not prevent cell adhesion and spreading, thus no cytotoxic effect was observed, which will be further studied in vivo

Human whole-exome genotype data for Alzheimer’s disease

The heterogeneity of the whole-exome sequencing (WES) data generation methods present a challenge to a joint analysis. Here we present a bioinformatics strategy for joint-calling 20,504 WES samples collected across nine studies and sequenced using ten capture kits in fourteen sequencing centers in the Alzheimer’s Disease Sequencing Project. The joint-genotype called variant-called format (VCF) file contains only positions within the union of capture kits. The VCF was then processed specifically to account for the batch effects arising from the use of different capture kits from different studies. We identified 8.2 million autosomal variants. 96.82% of the variants are high-quality, and are located in 28,579 Ensembl transcripts. 41% of the variants are intronic and 1.8% of the variants are with CADD &gt; 30, indicating they are of high predicted pathogenicity. Here we show our new strategy can generate high-quality data from processing these diversely generated WES samples. The improved ability to combine data sequenced in different batches benefits the whole genomics research community.</p