Management of Asta-Ja System

About a decade ago, I founded the Asta-Ja Framework which identifies Eight Ja—the Nepali letter “Ja,”—meaning Jal (water), Jamin (land), Jungle (forest), Jadibuti (medicinal and aromatic plants), Janashakti (manpower), Janawar (animlas), Jarajuri (crop plants), and Jalabayu (climate), and proposes their sustainable conservation, development, and utilization for fast-paced socio-economic transformation of Nepal. It is a scientific, holistic, systematic, self-reliance, and multidisciplinary grassroots-based framework for conservation, development and utilization of Asta-Ja resources. For its practical application, I proposed eight principles: 1) community awareness, 2) policy decision making, 3) community capacity-building, 4) interrelationships and linkages, 5) comprehensive assessment, 6) sustainable technologies and practices, 7) institutions, trade and governance, and 8) sustainable community development and socio-economic transformation. The first decade of its implementation in Nepal characterized with a vigorous community outreach, strong membership drive, sound policy advocacy, heavy engagement of high-level government officials and dignitaries, community capacity-building, disaster relief works, and cutting-edge research and development. Future direction for its effective implementation include: 1) institutional strengthening, 2) coordination with governmental agencies and other stakeholders in planning and management of Asta-Ja resources, 3) expedited research and development on Asta-Ja resources, 5) formation of Asta-Ja Consortium, 6) development of a comprehensive Asta-Ja Data Portal, and 7) the establishment of Asta-Ja Think Tank

Management of Eight ‘Ja’ for Economic Development of Nepal

This paper proposes a theoretically grounded Asta-Ja framework of Eight "Ja" ─Nepali letter "Ja", Jal (water), Jamin (land), Jarajuri (plants), Janawar (animals), Jungle (forest), Jadibuti (medicinal and aromatic plants), Jalabayu (climate), and Jansakti (manpower) and referred to as Asta-Ja in Nepali language for economic development and management of Nepal. More concretely, it identifies and analyzes key elements of the framework to derive its implications for theory and policy development

The Asta-Ja Environmental and Natural Resources Policy Framework (Asta-Ja ENRPF) for Sustainable Development in Nepal

Effective policy measures are necessary for sustainable utilization, conservation, and development of environmental and natural resources. In order to formulate effective policies, it is important to have a theoretically grounded, holistic, inclusive, science-based, collaborative, forward looking, and systematic policy framework. This paper presents the Asta-Ja Environmental and Natural Resource Policy Framework (Asta-Ja ENRPF) consisting of Asta-Ja policy guidelines and the Asta-Ja policy cycle for sustainable environmental and natural resources development and socioeconomic transformation in Nepal

Region-based Skin Color Detection.

Skin color provides a powerful cue for complex computer vision applications. Although skin color detection has been an active research area for decades, the mainstream technology is based on the individual pixels. This paper presents a new region-based technique for skin color detection which outperforms the current state-of-the-art pixel-based skin color detection method on the popular Compaq dataset (Jones and Rehg, 2002). Color and spatial distance based clustering technique is used to extract the regions from the images, also known as superpixels. In the first step, our technique uses the state-of-the-art non-parametric pixel-based skin color classifier (Jones and Rehg, 2002) which we call the basic skin color classifier. The pixel-based skin color evidence is then aggregated to classify the superpixels. Finally, the Conditional Random Field (CRF) is applied to further improve the results. As CRF operates over superpixels, the computational overhead is minimal. Our technique achieves 91.17% true positive rate with 13.12% false negative rate on the Compaq dataset tested over approximately 14,000 web images

Declining Water Resources and Environmental Degradation: A Case of the Thulokhola Watershed in the Nuwakot District of Nepal

Climate change alters the hydrology of a watershed through changes on precipitation patterns, extreme rain events, increase on temperatures, degradation of forest and soil resources and drought conditions. Drought conditions create stress on agricultural crops, forests, drinking water supply for human and wildlife as well as water supply for industrial uses. Flooding destroys crops, infrastructures, private properties, and results in loss of life. Climate change impacts both the availability as well as the quality of water resources as extreme rain events tend to alter water infrastructures and pollute water sources. In Nepal, climate change impacts include degradation of resource and ecosystem services, shrinking water storehouses, shorter winters with earlier snowmelt and natural hazards (Schild, 2007), as well as rise in mean maximum temperature and changes in the dates for the beginning and the end of the monsoons (Hua, 2009). All of these are major environmental concerns that affect water resources in Nepal. The changes in the reliability of stream flow, erratic monsoons, and flooding (Timsina, 2011) have been pronounced in recent years and adaptation to climate change has become a major issue in Nepal (Feed The Future, 2011). As a part of a larger study on livestock climate change adaptation in the mid-hills region of Nepal, the specific objectives of this study were to: (1) assess the status of water sources in the mid-hills region of Nepal, (2) assess farmers’ perceptions and understanding about the impacts of climate change on water resources, and (3) identify adaptation measures that the local communities have undertaken for climate change adaption for water resources

Issues and Problems in Conducting Sensitive Research: A Case of HIV/AIDS in Nepal

The main aim of this paper is to explore the issues and problems along with possible solutions to conduct sensitive research, specifically research related to HIV/AIDS in Nepal. This paper is based on observation, information and experience obtained during research entitled, “The Economic Burden of HIV/AIDS upon Households in Nepal’ and literature reviews. There are many issues and problems in conducting sensitive research. Major issues and problems are adherence to research ethics, use of research design and sampling, and recruitment of respondents in research. The paper concluded that research on sensitive topics like HIV/AIDS is very challenging and researchers need to strictly follow ethical procedures. Maintenance of anonymity and confidentiality are the key factors for encouraging participants to become involved in such sensitive research. Similarly, a mix of qualitative and quantitative methods help to understand the complex situations encountered during sensitive research. A non-probability sampling method is preferred over other methods of sampling in such research because there is often a problem of establishing a sampling frame in populations. Similarly, support from staff from government hospitals and NGOs is crucial if people living with HIV/AIDS are to be involved in the research. The issue of incentives is a highly discussed topic in sensitive research. But, it has been concluded that incentives especially in the monetary form should not be provided in order to avoid response bias and ethical conflicts

Diagonally Reinforced Concrete Coupling Beams: Effects of Axial Restraint

Diagonally reinforced concrete coupling beams are commonly used in mid- and high-rise buildings to connect adjacent structural walls separated by openings. Under lateral loading, these beams can undergo large inelastic deformations but must retain their strength for the system to behave as desired. It is not known how or whether resistance to axial elongation of the beams, provided by the floor diaphragms and stiff structural walls, affects the strength and deformation capacity of coupling beams. The influence of axial restraint on diagonally reinforced concrete coupling beams was investigated by comparing the results of an axially-restrained coupling beam specimen with those of a nominally equivalent control specimen tested without axial restraint but using the same loading protocol. The presence of axial restraint increased the strength of the coupling beam specimen by approximately 30%, decreased the chord rotation capacity by approximately 10%, and resulted in buckling of diagonal reinforcement at smaller chord rotations

Economic Burden of HIV/AIDS upon Households in Nepal: A Critical Review

Thousands of people are infected with HIV/AIDS in Nepal and most of them are adults of working age. Therefore, HIV/AIDS is a big burden in Nepal. This review was conducted to find the existing knowledge gap about the economic burden of HIV/AIDS at the household level in Nepal, the extent of economic burden exerted by the disease, and to provide policy recommendations. It is concluded that there was a considerable knowledge gap about the issue, and the economic burden exerted by HIV/AIDS was big enough to push the affected households into poverty. It is suggested that more studies need to be conducted to fill the knowledge gap. Similarly, Government of Nepal and other organisations working in the field of HIV/AIDS need to provide economic supports (e.g.- support for travel costs) to the HIV positive people and need to increase the awareness level among general population for reducing stigma and discrimination, and reducing economic burden on them