Mapping Effectiveness: Farm Mechanization Initiatives by Lumbini Province of Nepal (Fiscal Year 2018/19)

An effective farm mechanization program should increase crop production and be profitable to the benefitting households. Increasing labor shortages and decreasing animal draft power in agriculture demanded farm mechanization to increase food productivity in Nepal. To increase crop yield, the Ministry of Land Management, Agriculture and Cooperative (MOLMAC) of Lumbini Province in Nepal distributed 1994 subsidized tools and machinery in Fiscal Year 2018. The farm mechanization program by the government was an ambitious program and was implemented without research to address the actual need of the geography. However, the program had a positive impact on the community. It is found that by using machines agricultural work became quicker, and easier through an increase in profit of 3.65 times to the direct program beneficiaries. Finally, the study concluded that MOLMAC’s farm mechanization program has had a positive impact on technology transfer and was an effective initiative

Effectiveness of Ground Improvement Around Piled-Raft for Tall Wind Turbines in Weak Soil: Analytical and Finite Element Analyses

The generation of sustainable energy from wind has received global recognition in recent years. Large-scale wind farms with tall towers are required to meet the renewable energy demands. Taller towers produce higher power due to steady wind with higher speeds at higher altitudes. The site for building a wind farm is primarily selected based on wind conditions, accessibility to the site, and subsurface conditions. In cases where available land consists of soil with poor geotechnical properties, the construction of foundation can become expensive primarily when the foundation must sustain a substantial horizontal and moment loads induced by a tall wind turbine. In such a circumstance, the soil near the ground surface may be improved to enhance the strength and deformation properties of the soil to achieve substantial economic benefit. The study conducted shows the analytical design, 3D finite element analysis, and cost analysis for a piled-raft foundation for a tall wind turbine on in-situ and improved clays. Initially, the analytical design of the piled-raft foundation for 80 m tall wind turbine on the in-situ soil was completed using the contemporary geotechnical design methods. The final design of the piled-raft foundation in the unimproved ground for design mean wind speed of 80 mph, consisted of 24 auger cast piles each 48.4 m long and 0.457 m in diameter. The raft was designed to be a circular raft, 8 m in diameter and 1 m in thickness. Then, five depths of ground improvement using cement soil mixing (CSM) around the piled-raft foundation were considered, and analytical design was performed for each case. The five successive depths of ground improvement correspond to 0.25, 0.3, 0.35, 0.4, and 0.45 times the diameter of the raft. Two design approaches were used: the first one was to determine the effectiveness of the ground improvement and the second to evaluate the performance. For the first design approach, the length of the piles was adjusted while keeping the number of piles, the diameter of the raft, and the cross-section of pile constant to meet the safety and serviceability requirements. The length of the pile decreased by 79.64 % for the highest depth of ground improvement in comparison with the unimproved case. On the other hand, the differential settlement increased by 73.91 %, and lateral deflection increased by 57.57 % due to the shortening of piles, but these deformations were within the design requirements. For the second approach, the length of the pile was kept constant at 48.4 m, and the deformation behavior of the piled-raft was studied. The differential settlement decreased by 12.9 %, and lateral deflection decreased by 33.05 %. The factor of safety against axial load increased by 104.9 %, and the factor of safety against the moment increased by 126.4 %. To gain further insights into the performance of the piled-raft foundation, three-dimensional finite element models for the piled-raft foundations and supporting soil were created and analyzed using ABAQUS. The FE model created adopting the design outcome from the first approach from analytical design (length of pile varies with ground improvement) lead to a 16.37 % increase in horizontal deflection and 56.67 % increase in differential settlement for the highest level of ground improvement. The FE model created adopting the design outcome from the second approach from analytical design (length of the pile remains constant with ground improvement) leads to a 29.38 % decrease in horizontal deflection and a 1.1 % decrease in the differential settlement. A parametric study was performed by varying the undrained shear strength of soil by ±1standard deviation (σ). The length of the pile increased by 24.38 % with positive variation in undrained shear strength and decreased by 17.36 % with negative variation in undrained shear strength soil. Cost analysis performed by adopting the length of the pile for various cases of ground improvement led to the conclusion that ground improvement reduced the total cost of the foundation

Visualizing Bivariate Statistics Using Ellipses Over a Scatter Plot

A scatter plot shows the relationship between two quantitative variables and . Sometimes, we can predict one variable as a linear function of the other using the least squares regression lines of on or on . These two regression lines together suffice to identify the mean vector, the coefficient of determination, the correlation coefficient, and the ratio of the standard deviations (SD). So, do our proposed summary ellipses. Additionally, the inner ellipse reveals the SDs and the outer ellipse flags potential outliers

GIplot: An R Package for Visualizing the Summary Statistics of a Quantitative Variable

A GI plot is a graphical tool that pictorially represents the five-number summary, the mean, the standard deviation, the sample size, and flags potential outliers that are c standard deviations away from the mean together with their frequencies. The GI plot was developed by Sarkar and Rashid (2021) as a companion to the boxplot. The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of the GIplot package and introduce the main functionality of the package using several examples

shutterplot: An R Package to Display All Summary Statistics of a Simple Linear Regression Model

A shutterplot depicts all summary statistics in a simple linear regression model. Instead of reporting their numerical values, a shutterplot gives their visual representations. In this paper, we provide a step-by-step description of how the shutterplot package constructs a shutterplot and the options the user has in customizing it

Perioperative outcomes after open radical cystectomy for muscle invasive bladder cancer

Introductions: Radical cystectomy with bilateral pelvic lymphadenectomy is a primary intervention for muscle invasive or refractory, high grade Ta, T1, Tis bladder cancer. Owing to its major undertaking, patient succumbs to infection and various morbidities. This study was to assess the perioperative outcomes and complications of radical cystectomy. Methods: This retrospective study analyzed the perioperative outcome (early mortality within 30 days, length of stay, requirement of blood transfusion) of radical cystectomy in patients with bladder cancer during four years at Patan Hospital, Patan Academy of Health Sciences, Lalitpur, Nepal. Ethical approval was obtained. Study variables included patient’s demographics, presenting symptoms, tumor types and configuration, need for blood transfusion, length of surgery, pathological stages, types of urinary diversions, hospital stay, early (<30 days) and late (31-90 days) morbidity and mortality. Results: Total 32 patients underwent radical cystectomy. Data analysed on 18 patients, mean age was 66.7 years and painless hematuria 17 (94.4%). All were transitional cell carcinoma, high grade lesion in 17 (94.4%). Overall 6 (33.3%) patients developed early postoperative complications, paralytic ileus and prolong lymph drainage in 5 (27.8%), wound dehiscence in 4 (22.2%) and ureteric catheter dislodgement in two. There were 2 (11.1% of 18) mortalities (the mortality audit showed total 5 (15.6%) out of 32 radical cystectomy during the study period Conclusions: Perioperative complications occurred in 1/3rd following radical cystectomy for muscle invasive bladder, more complications in those with preoperative associated co-morbidities. Keywords: bladder cancer, radical cystectomy, perioperative complication

Factors Associated With Farmers' Participation in Community Listening to Farm Broadcast in Central Region, Nepal

The primary purpose of this study was to determine the relation of some characteristics, selected factors such as demographic communication behaviours, attitude and organizational effectiveness with the level of members' participation in community listening. A secondary purpose was to identify the problems associated with community listening and to find out the farmers' views on the comprehensibility, relevancy and usefulness of farm broadcast programme of the Agricultural In formation Section of the Department of Agriculture, Nepal. The respondents for this study were 105 members of the community listening centres (cue) from nine villages in three selected districts. Data were collected by interviewing the randomly selected respondents in the sample areas. Members' attitudes and perceptions toward cue were measured using 12 items and 6 items Likert-type scale respectively. A total of 12 hypotheses were tested. Pearson product-moment correlation and chi-square were used to test the hypotheses while frequencies and percentages were used for other descriptive analyses. The study revealed that, in general, the level of participation in community listening programme among members of CLC was low. Participation was analyzed with each of the independent variables separately to ascertain the direction and degree of association. The variables such as extension contact, organizational membership, opinion leadership status, message relevancy, attitudes and perceived organizational effectiveness were found to be related positively with the level of participation. Other variables such as age, level of education, family size, farm size and cosmopoliteness were found not significantly related to the level of participation. The results of this study suggest that extension contact, organizational membership, opinion leadership status, message relevancy, attitudes and perceptions are the good indicators of participation

Voltage Profile Improvement of Distribution System via Integration of Distributed Generation Resources

This study attempts to identify the causes and possible solutions for voltage profile issues in the lower land of Nepal, and is specifically focused on Laukahi feeder, a radial distribution system with an approximate length of 65 km and distributed at 11KV system voltage. Currently, the end-users feeding through this feeder are getting extremely poor voltage along with frequent interruptions in the power supply. In this study, a forward/ backward sweep algorithm is used to analyze the load flow of the distribution system, whereas ant colony optimization (ACO) technique is used to identify the best location for the Distributed Generator (DG) penetrations. After completion of this study, it is found that, the branch loss of the feeder can be reduced up to 87.22%, and voltage profile can be improved from 0.828 pu to 0.982 pu by integrating some form of DGs