A prospective study on clinico-epidemiological profile and outcome in management of poisonous snake bite

Background: Snake bite is a major health problem in Nepal. According to WHO, annual morbidity due to snake bite is 162 out of 100,000 people in Nepal. Aim of the study is to observe epidemiology, clinical features, and analysis of possible relationship between time delay in administration of anti-snake venom (ASV) and mortality. Methods: This prospective observational study analyses the data of 81 patients admitted to the Lumbini zonal hospital, Butwal, Rupandehi, Nepal with history of snake bite between April to September, 2017.Results: In this study 56% patients were female. Patients of age group (15-30) years were maximum (38.27%). The study showed that 50.61% of snake bites were occurred outside home. Most of patients (84%) were from the Terai region. Average no. of vials used per case was (28±10) vials. Most of victims of snake bite were from rural areas. In most of cases we found that prothrombin time was prolonged. It was found that most of patients 57% reach hospital before 4 hours of snake bite. The mean days of hospital stay was 6±2.86. Most of case of snake bite was unknown (62%). The mortality rate in this study was 6.17%.Conclusions: There is a great need to improve in existing health care conditions for effective management of snake bite; it requires training of the personnel engaged in the emergency health care management, development of national guidelines based on the clinical trials, improving the distribution and easy availability of antivenom.

Association of biotic factors with indigenous knowledge of farmers on rainfall predictions

Farmers use different factors (biotic and abiotic) around them to predict rainfall. Several Indigenous Technical Knowledge (ITK) practices followed by farmers in different parts of the country are documented and published. ITKs collected from flood and drought prone areas of south India along with documented ITKs were analysed to know the biotic indicators used by farmers to predict rainfall. These biotic factors were classified as insects, birds and animals. Farmers use 19 types of insects, 17 types of birds and 10 types of animals as indicators to predict rainfall. Various behaviour types of these biotic factors are observed by farmers based on which they make decisions about possibility of rain occurring and in some cases the intensity of rain. These are grassroots innovations which are time tested and facilitated farmers to make their farming decisions

Pr2FeCrO6: A Type I Multiferroic

We synthesized double perovskite Pr2FeCrO6 by solid-state method. Analysis of its X-ray powder diffraction shows that the compound crystallizes in a centrosymmetric structure with space group Pbnm. Our X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) studies show that all the cations are present in +3 oxidation state. Magnetization studies of Pr2FeCrO6 show that the material is paramagnetic at room temperature and undergoes a magnetic transition below T-CM = 250 K. We observe clear magnetic hysteresis loop, for example, below 150 K. A low remnant magnetization M-r, similar to 0.05 mu(B)/f. u., is inferred from the observed magnetic hysteresis loop. Fe-57 Mossbauer study at 25 K shows a high hyperfine magnetic field of similar to 53 T at the Fe nucleus, which corresponds to a magnetic moment of similar to 6-7 mu(B)/Fe. These two results together suggest a ferrimagnetic (nearly compensated or canted) ordering of the Fe moments. Mossbauer studies dose to the ferrimagnetic ordering temperature suggest interesting magnetic relaxation effects. A dielectric anomaly observed at T-CE = 453 K signals a ferroelectric paraelectric phase transition. We observe at room temperature a clear and well-defined ferroelectric hysteresis loop, P-S = 1.04 mu C/cm(2), establishing ferroelectricity in the material. From these results, we conclude that Pr2FeCrO6 is a type I multiferroic (T-CE > T-CM)

Projected distribution of the westernmost subpopulation of Assamese macaques (Macaca assamensis pelops) under climate change: conservation implications of a threatened population

Anthropogenic climate change can have a negative impact on the distribution of habitat specialist species with narrow distributional ranges. Among the many areas around the world affected by climate change, the Himalayan region in particular is experiencing marked effects of global warming on its climatic patterns and life forms. This study assessed the current distribution of Assamese macaques (Macaca assamensis) in western Nepal, and projected their likely distribution (via habitat suitability modeling) for the years 2050 and 2070 under the two most plausible greenhouse gas emission scenarios (RCP4.5 and RCP6.0). We recorded a total of 159 Assamese macaques belonging to 10 groups (nine of them residing outside of protected area networks) between 684m and 2550m asl in western Nepal. Climatic niche modeling predicted that 37.03% (25,114 km2) of the total area of western Nepal (67,813 km2) represented suitable habitat of the species, the majority of which ranged between 1000 m and 2000 m asl. Future projections of the current climatic niche of the Assamese macaques revealed a consistent decrease in the suitable habitat for 2050 and 2070 in both of the greenhouse emission scenarios tested. With the RCP6.0 scenario, almost 57% of the current highly suitable habitat would be lost by 2070 with remaining suitable habitat shifted towards higher elevations. The loss of habitat directly affects the species survival and the range shift towards higher elevation exposes them to new areas for conflict with humans. Therefore, the Assamese macaque population in western Nepal requires a high conservation priority with the establishment of new protected areas

Debt/Equity Ratio and Expected Common Stock Returns: Empirical Evidence.

The expected common stock returns are positively related to the ratio of debt (noncommon equity liabil ities) to equity, controlling for the beta and firm size and includin g as well as excluding January, though the relation is much larger in January. This relationship is not sensitive to variations in the mar ket proxy, estimation technique, etc. The evidence suggests that the "premium" associated with the debt/equity ratio is not likely to be just some kind of "risk premium." Copyright 1988 by American Finance Association.

Plantlet regeneration from decapitated embryonic axes of pigeonpea <i>[Cajanus cajan </i>(L.) Millsp.]

496-498An efficient plant regeneration protocol for decapitated embryonic axes of pigeon pea was developed so that this explants can further be used for Agrobacterium mediated transformation. Multiple shoots were produced from 15 hr soaked seed derived embryo axes without apical dome on modified. Murashige and Skoog (MS) medium supplemented with BAP (1 mg L-1) and IAA (0.5 mg L-1). Regenerated shoots were rooted on MS medium supplemented with IBA (0.3 mg L-1). The plantlets, thus obtained, were hardened and successfully established in soil where they showed normal morphological characters and produced seeds

Isolation and characterization of gene encoding vicilin (7S) protein from cDNA clones of immature seeds of pigeon pea [<i style="">Cajanus cajan</i> (L.) Millsp.]

32-36cDNA library was constructed in lgt 11 expression vector from mRNA of immature seeds of pigeonpea.&nbsp; This cDNA was screened with specific non-radioactive, DIG-labelled heterologous pea vicilin cDNA probe (pRC-758). The positive vicilin (7S) encoding cDNA clones were isolated. One of the vicilin cDNA clones showed insert size of ~1.3 Kb, when analyzed by PCR using lgt 11 forward and reverse primers. This PCR product was subcloned in pUC-18 vector for confirmation of gene and product by Southern and Western hybridizations, respectively. The clone was named as pSL-1 and sequenced with M13 universal forward and reverse sequencing primers. The partial nucleotide sequence (1341 bp) has been indexed in NCBI gene bank with accession number AF348366. The complete gene has 1417 base pairs with 972 bp coding sequence. Hence, the predicted polypeptide chain of this gene was determined, which contained 323 amino acids. After post translation modification, the predicted polypeptide has 310 amino acids long with approximately mol wt of 34.1 kDa. This gene encoding vicilin (7S) protein provides the basic understanding of the gene structure of pigeonpea storage proteins

Association of biotic factors with indigenous knowledge of farmers on rainfall predictions

883-889Farmers use different factors (biotic and abiotic) around them to predict rainfall. Several Indigenous Technical Knowledge (ITK) practices followed by farmers in different parts of the country are documented and published. ITKs collected from flood and drought prone areas of south India along with documented ITKs were analysed to know the biotic indicators used by farmers to predict rainfall. These biotic factors were classified as insects, birds and animals. Farmers use 19 types of insects, 17 types of birds and 10 types of animals as indicators to predict rainfall. Various behaviour types of these biotic factors are observed by farmers based on which they make decisions about possibility of rain occurring and in some cases the intensity of rain. These are grassroots innovations which are time tested and facilitated farmers to make their farming decisions

Factors Associated with Postnatal Depression among Mothers Attending at Bharatpur Hospital, Chitwan

Postnatal depression is linked with adverse outcomes for mothers, offspring, and her entire family, which stands as a significant public health problem and is often taken as a neglected issue of maternal and child health in the developing world. Postnatal depression is often falsely interpreted as common consequences related to the recent delivery. The main objective of this study is to find out the status of postnatal depression and the factors associated with it among the postnatal mothers attending at Bharatpur Hospital. Methodology. A total of 242 postnatal women were included in a hospital-based cross-sectional descriptive study. A systematic random sampling technique was done to get the sampling interval. Face to face interview technique was used for data collection, and depressive symptoms were measured by the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale. Data was entered in Epi-Data and imported to SPSS for analysis. The data were summarized in terms of frequency (percentage), mean (SD), or median (IQR) as per necessity for descriptive analysis. The chi-square test and binary logistic regression were performed to find out the association between the covariates and depression status, assuming significance at p value <0.05. Results. The study revealed that the prevalence of postnatal depression was 16.9% by EPDS at cutoff point ≥12. It was found that postnatal depression was associated with current age, smoking, pressure to conceive a child, intent of pregnancy, and delivery-related complications. Conclusion. Postnatal depression within six months of delivery was found among nearly one-fifth of women, where 13.6% also had suicidal thoughts. More than half of the postnatal women had an early marriage. It is recommended that mothers with high risk should be routinely screened for postnatal depression followed by necessary interventions as well as safe motherhood counseling