Resource use efficiency of maize production with and without irrigation system in Kaski, Nepal

The study examined the resource use efficiency of maize production in rainfed and irrigated conditions in Kaski, Nepal. It focused specially on the production function of maize, resource use efficiency and socioeconomic characteristics of the farmers. A well-structured interview schedule was used in this study. Out of the 368 households interviewed, 165 farmers cultivated maize and a total of 157 farmers (59 from irrigated and 98 from rainfed) provided useful data. The data analysis was done by using Microsoft excel and SPSS. Cobb-Douglas production function was used to determine the resource use efficiency of maize production.  Compared to rainfed system, maize productivity in irrigated system was higher despite the use of fewer input implying irrigation. Increase in seed use by 10% increased the yield by 1.9% in case of rainfed system and 0.05% in case of the irrigated system. The major implication for the study is that farmers should make proper utilization of their resources to achieve higher level of resource use efficiency

Forest fire threatens global carbon sinks and population centres under rising atmospheric water demand

Levels of fire activity and severity that are unprecedented in the instrumental record have recently been observed in forested regions around the world. Using a large sample of daily fire events and hourly climate data, here we show that fire activity in all global forest biomes responds strongly and predictably to exceedance of thresholds in atmospheric water demand, as measured by maximum daily vapour pressure deficit. The climatology of vapour pressure deficit can therefore be reliably used to predict forest fire risk under projected future climates. We find that climate change is projected to lead to widespread increases in risk, with at least 30 additional days above critical thresholds for fire activity in forest biomes on every continent by 2100 under rising emissions scenarios. Escalating forest fire risk threatens catastrophic carbon losses in the Amazon and major population health impacts from wildfire smoke in south Asia and east Africa.he authors acknowledge the New South Wales Government’s Department of Planning, Industry & Environment for providing funds to support this research via the NSW Bushfire Risk Management Research Hub. We acknowledge the World Climate Research Programme’s Working Group on Coupled Modelling, which is responsible for CMIP, and we thank the climate modelling groups for producing and making available their model output. For CMIP the U.S. Department of Energy’s Program for Climate Model Diagnosis and Intercomparison provides coordinating support and led development of software infrastructure in partnership with the Global Organization for Earth System Science Portals. Some of the analysis was carried out on the National Computational Infrastructure (NCI) which is supported by the Australian Commonwealth Government

Poor Thermal Care Practices among Home Births in Nepal: Further Analysis of Nepal Demographic and Health Survey 2011

Introduction - Hypothermia is a major factor associated with neonatal mortality in low and middle income countries. Thermal care protection of newborn through a series of measures taken at birth and during the initial days of life is recommended to reduce the hypothermia and associated neonatal mortality. This study aimed to identify the prevalence of and the factors associated with receiving ‘optimum thermal care’ among home born newborns of Nepal. Methods - Data from the Nepal Demographic and Health Surveys (NDHS) 2011 were used for this study. Women who reported a home birth for their most recent childbirth was included in the study. Factors associated with optimum thermal care were examined using Chi-square test followed by logistic regression. Results - A total of 2464 newborns were included in the study. A total of 57.6 % were dried before the placenta was delivered; 60.3% were wrapped; 24.5% had not bathing during the first 24 hours, and 63.9% were breastfed within one hour of birth. Overall, only 248 (10.7%; 95% CI (8.8 %, 12.9%)) newborns received optimum thermal care. Newborns whose mothers had achieved higher education (OR 2.810; 95% CI (1.132, 6.976)), attended four or more antenatal care visits (OR 2.563; 95% CI (1.309, 5.017)), and those whose birth were attended by skilled attendants (OR 2.178; 95% CI (1.428, 3.323)) were likely to receive optimum thermal care. Conclusion - The current study showed that only one in ten newborns in Nepal received optimum thermal care. Future newborn survival programs should focus on those mothers who are uneducated; who do not attend the recommended four or more attend antenatal care visits; and those who deliver without the assistance of skilled birth attendants to reduce the risk of neonatal hypothermia in Nepal

Impact of the Food Additive Titanium Dioxide (E171) on Gut Microbiota-Host Interaction

The interaction between gut microbiota and host plays a central role in health. Dysbiosis, detrimental changes in gut microbiota and inflammation have been reported in non-communicable diseases. While diet has a profound impact on gut microbiota composition and function, the role of food additives such as titanium dioxide (TiO2), prevalent in processed food, is less established. In this project, we investigated the impact of food grade TiO2 on gut microbiota of mice when orally administered via drinking water. While TiO2 had minimal impact on the composition of the microbiota in the small intestine and colon, we found that TiO2 treatment could alter the release of bacterial metabolites in vivo and affect the spatial distribution of commensal bacteria in vitro by promoting biofilm formation. We also found reduced expression of the colonic mucin 2 gene, a key component of the intestinal mucus layer, and increased expression of the beta defensin gene, indicating that TiO2 significantly impacts gut homeostasis. These changes were associated with colonic inflammation, as shown by decreased crypt length, infiltration of CD8+ T cells, increased macrophages as well as increased expression of inflammatory cytokines. These findings collectively show that TiO2 is not inert, but rather impairs gut homeostasis which may in turn prime the host for disease development

Quantifying post-fire recovery of forest canopy structure and its environmental drivers using satellite image time-series

Fire is a recurring disturbance in most of Australia’s forests. About one quarter of Australia’s total 149 Mha forests is located in south-east Australia. These forests are largely dominated by eucalypts and support several key ecological services including carbon sequestration, biodiversity conservation, and water supply for major cities. Eucalypts are generally considered well adapted to fire impact by having special adaptive features such as the ability to quickly rebuild their canopy after fire through epicormic shoots. However, projected changes in fire regimes under future climate conditions are expected to cause severe but poorly resolved impacts on Australia’s eucalypt forest ecosystems. This thesis focuses on fire impacts on the canopy structure of eucalypt forests and the associated reduction in carbon uptake during the post-fire recovery. Depending on fire severity, impacts on forest canopies vary from light scorching to complete defoliation, with related variation in the magnitude and duration of post-fire gas exchange by that canopy. Regional estimates of fire impacts on forest canopy structure and post-fire carbon uptake for south-eastern Australia’s forests do not exist. Further, the contribution of environmental factors such as climate and fire history to spatiotemporal variation in the duration of the post-fire recovery has not been quantified for the major vegetation types in the region. These knowledge gaps can only be practically addressed using remotely sensed imagery and will require an approach to identify fire impacts on forest canopies of high heterogeneity in structure and species composition across environments of differing climate, terrain and fire regimes. Vegetation Indices (VIs) computed by transformation of spectral bands were developed to monitor vegetation parameters including canopy structure and photosynthetic activity (Huete et al. 2002). VIs are almost linearly related to the fraction of photosynthetically active radiation (FPAR) absorbed by a plant canopy and are thus demonstrated as useful tools in monitoring photosynthesis up to canopy scale (Glenn et al. 2008). Further, improvement in quantification of post fire recovery duration of forest canopy may be attained by including other VIs from the MODIS especially the more water sensitive ones. Thus, the main aims of this study are a) to evaluate the applicability of the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) data products to identify the post fire canopy recovery period, b) to develop, test and apply a new approach to quantify the duration of the post-fire recovery period from MODIS image time series, and c) to understand the spatial pattern of post-fire canopy recovery and quantify the role of environmental controls across forests in south-east Australia. In this study I used 8-day composite measurements of MODIS FPAR to characterise forest canopies before and after fire and to compare burnt and unburnt sites. FPAR is a key biophysical canopy variable and primary input for estimating Gross Primary Productivity (GPP). A new method is proposed to determine the duration of post-fire recovery from MODIS-FPAR time-series. Here, I assume that the post-fire recovery of a burnt site continues until the local FPAR is no longer distinguishable from that of similar unburnt sites. The method involves a spatial-mode principal component analysis on full FPAR time series followed by a k-means clustering of components to group pixels based on similarity in temporal FPAR patterns. This classification provides populations of unburnt pixels and identifies FPAR time series that provide the information to predict the hypothetical FPAR of burnt pixels (of the same class or cluster) in the absence of fire. The difference between observed and predicted FPAR of burnt pixels provides both a quantification of fire impact or severity and an objective criterion to identify the post-fire recovery period. Using fire history data, time series of FPAR for burnt and unburnt pixels in each cluster were then compared to quantify the duration of the post-fire recovery period, which ranged from less than 1 to 8 years. Validation of the approach indicated reasonable accuracy based on correspondence with field based severity classes as well as performance of clustering large spatio-temporal FPAR dataset. The proposed approach can be readily applied to other forest environments and/or other disturbances affecting forest canopy structure, FPAR and carbon uptake (Chapter 2). The duration of the post-fire recovery period was thus quantified by modelling the response observed in MODIS FPAR time series. In this study post-fire recovery is defined in terms of a convergence of the FPAR in burnt and unburnt pixels. The duration of this process can be assumed to be a function of the severity of initial fire impacts on the canopy and the rate at which foliage, branches and possibly stems, can be replaced. Hence, the duration of post-fire recovery can be expected to be controlled by environmental factors affecting plant growth and primary productivity. In temperate forest ecosystems of south-east Australia, water availability, fire history and topographic position are potentially important factors. Thus, we produced several predictors related to canopy condition, fire history and environmental controls were produced for forest areas burnt in the period 2000-2010 and applied generalized additive modelling (GAM) to investigate their contribution to the duration of the post-fire recovery period. The optimum GAM had seven significant predictors and explained 45.6% of the deviance. From the categories of predictors, a GAM based on predictors related to canopy condition as indicated by pre-fire and maximum FPAR explained 33.3% of deviance in the duration of the recovery period suggesting that pre-fire canopy condition as well as site productivity exerts important control over canopy recovery. Climatic control based on indicator of rainfall condition (average annual rainfall and daily soil water during recovery period) alone explained 19.7% of deviance. This finding demonstrated the important role of water for canopy foliage growth across diverse vegetation types in the region. Predictors based on local fire history, which included fuel age, the number of times burnt previously and the last burn severity, explained 10% of the duration in post-fire recovery while topographic predictors (elevation and slope) explained just 2% of deviance. The performance of the best model was verified using a bootstrapped comparison between predicted and observed durations of post-fire recovery, yielding a spearman’s correlation between 0.56 and 0.76 (Chapter 3)

Plot-level estimates of aboveground biomass and soil organic carbon stocks from Nepal’s forest inventory

Abstract Given the contribution of deforestation and forest degradation to the global carbon cycle, forest resources are critical to mitigating the global climate change effects. Improved forest monitoring across different biomes is important to understand forest dynamics better and improve global projections of future atmospheric CO2 concentration. Better quantification of the forest carbon cycle advances scientific understanding and informs global negotiations about carbon emissions reduction. High-quality estimates of forest carbon stocks are currently scarce in many developing countries. Here, we present the most comprehensive georeferenced data set to date of plot-level forest carbon estimates for Nepal. Based on field observations from Nepal’s national forest inventory of 2010–2014; the data set includes estimates for two major forest carbon pools, aboveground biomass (AGB) and soil organic carbon (SOC) stocks from 2,009 and 1,156 inventory plots, respectively. The dataset fills an important knowledge gap about forest carbon stocks in the Central Himalayas, a region with highly heterogeneous environmental conditions and rich biodiversity that is poorly represented in existing global estimates of forest carbon

Role of mass media on knowledge generation and countering misconceptions about tuberculosis transmission in Nepal

Objective: To explore the role of mass media on knowledge generation and counter the misconceptions about tuberculosis (TB) transmission in Nepal. Methods: A cross-sectional study was performed in the largest referral hospital in Nepal. The quota sampling technique was used to recruit 283 subjects into the sample. Results: A total of 235 (83.0%) respondents correctly replied that TB transmits through air by coughing or sneezing. A total of 29 (10.2%) respondents had correct knowledge about TB transmission without having misconceptions. Similarly, regarding the misconceptions about TB transmission, 157 (55.5%) replied that TB transmits through utensils, 163 (57.6%) respondents replied that TB transmits through sharing clothes/bed sheets/towel, 62 (21.9%) respondents replied that TB transmits through touching a person with TB, 142 (50.2%) respondents replied that TB transmits through food, 88 (31.1%) respondents replied that TB transmits through sexual contact. Respondents who read newspaper (ajusted odd ratio=3.004, cofidence interval=1.208–7.471) and listen to the radio daily (ajusted odd ratio=4.610, cofidence interval=1.738–12.234) were more likely to have correct knowledge on transmission of TB. Conclusions: National TB Control Program in Nepal should give priority in disseminating TB related message through newspapers, magazines and radio programs

Family planning knowledge and practice among people living with HIV in Nepal.

Unsafe sexual behavior is common among the HIV infected. This exposes them to the risks of unintended pregnancy, HIV transmission to uninfected partners and super-infection. Studies on the use of family planning measures among People Living with HIV (PLHIV) are scarce in Nepal. The aim of this study was to explore the knowledge and practice of family planning (FP) in PLHIV. A cross sectional survey was conducted during July-December 2012 in Kaski district of Nepal. A total of 120 PLHIVs were recruited using snowball sampling from three HIV clinics within the Pokhara sub-metropolitan city area. This study found that nine in ten PLHIV had heard about family planning. Two thirds of respondents were using at least one FP method. The majority (65.8%) used condoms and had received FP counseling (67.5%). Less than one percent used condoms in addition to another contraceptive. Being single, being female and having received the counselling sessions were associated with the use of FP. The individuals who received FP counseling were more likely [OR 4.522; 95% CI (1.410-14.504)] to use FP. Females were more likely [OR 4.808; 95% CI (1.396-16.556)] to use FP than males. The individuals who were single/de-facto widowed were more likely [OR 7.330; 95% CI (2.064-26.028)] to use FP than the married individuals. Our findings suggest that there is a need to focus on FP counseling if the HIV prevention program is to increase FP use among the PLHIV population. Use of dual contraceptives need to be promoted through counseling sessions and other health promotion programs focusing in HIV prevention

Female community health volunteers in community-based health programs of Nepal: future perspective

Nepal's Female Community Health Volunteers (FCHVs) program started in 1988. In the early years of program initiation, FCHVs were assigned to promote and distribute the family planning commodities such as condoms and pills. Over past three decades, FCHVs' roles have gradually expanded beyond family planning program and especially are focused on maternal and child health services at a large scale. FCHVs are an integral part of many community-based health programs, and their roles are instrumental in linking families and communities to community health workers and periphery-level health facilities. However, the fragmented nature of health programs poses a challenge for these health volunteers to coordinate activities and deliver the results. This perspective aims to review their contribution, challenges and recommend an integrated FCHV program model to support in the implementation of the community-based health interventions effectively

Variation in Prices of Cardiovascular Drugs in Public and Private Pharmacies in Nepal

Introduction: Higher price of cardiovascular drugs is one of the reasons for high out-of-pocket expenditure in cardiovascular care. The objective of the study was to determine the price variation in commonly available cardiovascular drugs between public and private hospital pharmacies in Nepal. Methods: A cross-sectional survey was conducted in 3 public and 3 private pharmacies in tertiary-level hospitals in Nepal. The price was recorded for the list of drugs commonly available in those pharmacies. A total of 23 drugs were selected for data collection. The price was recorded based on the payment receipt and price reported by surrogate customers. We defined the price variation as the difference between price of cardiovascular drugs between public hospital and private pharmacy. The price variation was expressed as percentage. Results: Price of Amlodipine 5 mg was higher by 667% in private pharmacy nearby Tribhuvan University Teaching Hospital (TUTH) compared to that of TUTH pharmacy. Price of Enalapril 5 mg was higher by 14.47% in Manmohan Cardio Thoracic and Vascular Transplant Centre (MCVTC) compared to nearby private pharmacy. We observed that the price of cardiovascular drugs varied significantly between hospital and private retail pharmacies in TUTH ( P < .001) and MCVTC ( P < .001). Conclusion: For most of the cardiovascular drugs, the price in private retail pharmacies were significantly higher than in hospital pharmacies. Future steps should be taken to establish and run own pharmacies in hospitals which would reduce the cost of medicine and thereby, increase access to medicine