Knowledge, Attitude and Practice towards Exclusive Breastfeeding among Mothers in Pokhara-Lekhnath

Background: Exclusive breastfeeding means that the infant receives only breast milk. Infants should be exclusively breastfed for the first six months of life to achieve optimal growth, development and health. Thereafter, to meet their evolving nutritional requirements, infants should receive nutritionally adequate and safe complementary foods, while continuing to breastfeed for up to two years or beyond. Breastfeeding is an unequalled way of providing ideal food for the healthy growth and development of infants; it is also an integral part of the reproductive process with important implications for the health of mothers. Objective: To assess the knowledge, attitude and practice of pregnant women on exclusive breastfeeding. Methods: The quantitative descriptive research design was used for this study. Purposive sampling technique was used to select the subjects in community setting. Total 140 subjects were taken as a sample and self-administered structured questionnaire on knowledge, attitude and practice of exclusive breast feeding among reproductive age group women was used to collect data. Results: The study shows that out of 140 women, 48 (34.3%) belonged to 26 - 30 age group, 136 (97.14%) were married, 109 (77.9%) women followed Hindu caste, 67 (47.9%) women belonged to Dalit group, 129 (92.1%) women were housewife, 73 (52.1%) women had taken primary education, 68 (48.6%) had monthly income >20000, 116 (82.9 %) had ≤3 children. Among 140 women, 69 (49.3%) had good knowledge and fair knowledge whereas only 2 (1.4%) had poor knowledge. Regarding attitude 122 (87.1%) thought that EBF was better than other artificial feeding, 75 (53.6%) believed that first milk should be discarded, 108 (77.1%) agreed that EBF is enough for child up to 6 months, 77 (55%) didn’t feel comfortable with extra feeding other than breast milk, 51 (36.4) stated that they were not comfortable because of insufficient amount to meet child’s demand, 100 (71.4%) agreed that child less than six months who is exclusively breastfed were healthier than child who took additional foods. Out of 140 women, 139 (99.3%) breastfed her last child, 83 (59.3%) started breastfeeding within 1 hr after delivery, 77 (55%) breastfed on demand of baby, 91 (65%) had not given anything before initiating breastfeeding, 25 (17.9%) had given plain water before breast milk after delivery, 107 (76.4%) had given breast milk only starting from birth to six months of age.  J-GMC-N | Volume 11 | Issue 01 | January-June 2018, Page: 40-4

Tourism amidst armed conflict: consequences, copings, and creativity for peace-building through tourism in Nepal

Tourism is sensitive to conflict and responsive to peace. Nonetheless, it has to cope with peacelessness caused by violent conflict and its induced adverse factors. This paper analyzes the impact of a decade long (1996-2006) armed conflict on tourism in Nepal and explores the coping strategies applied by this sector to revive and sustain itself. Based on the historical political transformation of the state and some constructive efforts by the Nepalese tourism actors towards peace building, this paper argues that violent conflict is not always destructive but can also be a constructive social force for tourism if its actors are "practical" and not "apocalyptic". The paper also attempts to add some new knowledge on the complicated relationship between tourism, conflict and peace

Midday bottomside electron density profiles during moderate solar activity and comparison with IRI-2001

Bottomside electron density (Ne-h) profiles during midday (10–14 h) are analyzed using modern digital ionosonde observations at a low-middle latitude station, New Delhi (28.6N, 77.2E, dip 42.4N), for the period from January 2003 to December 2003, pertaining to moderate solar activity (MSA). Each individual profile is normalized with respect to the peak height and density (hmF2, NmF2) of the F2-region. These profiles are compared with those obtained from the International Reference Ionosphere (IRI-2001) model. Bilitza [Bilitza, D. International Reference Ionosphere 2000. Radio Sci. 36 (2), 261–275, 2001] using both the options namely: Gulyaeva’s model [Gulyaeva, T.L. Progress in ionospheric informatics based on electron density profile analysis of ionograms. Adv. Space Res. 7 (6) 39–48, 1987] and B0 Tab. option [Bilitza, D., Radicella, S.M., Reinisch, B.W., Adeniyi, J.O., Mosert Gonzalez, M.E., Zhang, S.R., Obrou, O. New B0 and B1 models for IRI. Adv. Space Res. 25 (1), 89–95, 2000]. The study reveals that during summer and equinox, the IRI model with B0 Tab. option in general, produces better agreement with the observed median profiles, while the IRI predictions using Gulyaeva’s option, overestimate the electron density distribution at all the heights below the F2-peak. However, during winter, in general, the IRI model, using both the options, reveals shows fairly good agreement with the observations

Temporal and spatial variation of equatorial ionization anomaly by using multistation ionosonde data for the 19th solar cycle over the Indian region

The paper deals with the study of temporal and spatial variation of equatorial ionization anomaly (EIA) phenomenon along with its dependence on solar activity and season during the 19th solar cycle by using seven Indian ionosonde stations. Present study is an attempt to carry out the comprehensive study of EIA by using the limited number of ground based instruments. This has been achieved by performing the Gaussian fitting over the latitudinal distribution of F2-region critical frequency (foF2) data. Results reveal that the phenomenon of EIA has a strong dependence on solar activity and seasons. The EIA crest exhibits the feature of latitudinal shifting and expansion with increasing solar activity. It is found out that the effect of solar cycle and seasons on EIA is local time dependent. The observations were also compared with the IRI-2001 model predictions and results reveal that the model values are in general agreement with the observed values with some discrepancies, particularly during the high solar activity period and morning sector. The results have been discussed in the light of relative contribution from transequatorial interhemispheric neutral wind and strength of equatorial fountain process during different local time, season and solar activity levels. Furthermore, an attempt is made to parameterize the location and foF2 of the EIA crest by using the regression analysis. These results can be used to predict the latitudinal position and foF2 of the EIA crest for any given 12-month running average sunspot number (R12)

Temporal and spatial variation of equatorial ionization anomaly by using multistation ionosonde data for the 19th solar cycle over the Indian region.

The paper deals with the study of temporal and spatial variation of equatorial ionization anomaly (EIA) phenomenon along with its dependence on solar activity and season during the 19th solar cycle by using seven Indian ionosonde stations. Present study is an attempt to carry out the comprehensive study of EIA by using the limited number of ground based instruments. This has been achieved by performing the Gaussian fitting over the latitudinal distribution of F2-region critical frequency (foF2) data. Results reveal that the phenomenon of EIA has a strong dependence on solar activity and seasons. The EIA crest exhibits the feature of latitudinal shifting and expansion with increasing solar activity. It is found out that the effect of solar cycle and seasons on EIA is local time dependent. The observations were also compared with the IRI-2001 model predictions and results reveal that the model values are in general agreement with the observed values with some discrepancies, particularly during the high solar activity period and morning sector. The results have been discussed in the light of relative contribution from transequatorial interhemispheric neutral wind and strength of equatorial fountain process during different local time, season and solar activity levels. Furthermore, an attempt is made to parameterize the location and foF2 of the EIA crest by using the regression analysis. These results can be used to predict the latitudinal position and foF2 of the EIA crest for any given 12-month running average sunspot number (R12)

Variation of F-region critical frequency (foF2) over equatorial and low-latitude region of the Indian zone during 19th and 20th solar cycle

The effect of solar cycle and seasons on the daytime and nighttime F-layer ionization has been investigated over the equatorial and low-latitude region during 19th (1954–1964) and 20th (1965–1976) solar cycle. The F-layer critical frequency (foF2) data observed from the three Indian Ionosonde stations has been used for the present study. The dependence of foF2 on solar cycle has been examined by performing regression analysis between the foF2 values and R12 (twelve month running average sunspot number). The result shows that the magnitude of the cycle, seasons and the location of station has considerable effects on foF2. There is a significant nonlinear relationship between the foF2 values and R12 during 19th solar cycle as compared to 20th solar cycle. Further, the nighttime saturation effect is prominently seen during the 19th solar cycle and summer season. It is also observed that the most profound saturation effect appears at the equatorial ionization anomaly crest region. Seasonally, it is seen that all the stations exhibits semiannual anomaly. The phenomenon of winter anomaly decays as we move higher along the latitude and is prominently seen during the intense solar activity

Diurnal and seasonal variation of F2-layer ionospheric parameters at equatorial ionization anomaly crest region and their comparison with IRI-2001

Diurnal and seasonal variations of critical frequency of ionospheric F2-region ‘foF2’ and the height of peak density ‘hmF2’ are studied using modern digital ionosonde observations of equatorial ionization anomaly (EIA) crest region, Bhopal (23.2 oN, 77.6 oE, dip 18.5 oN), during solar minimum period 2007. Median values of these parameters are obtained at each hour using manually scaled data during different seasons and compared with the International Reference Ionosphere-2001 model predictions. The observations suggest that on seasonal basis, the highest values of foF2 are observed during equinox months, whereas highest values of hmF2 are obtained in summer and lowest values of both foF2 and hmF2 are observed during winter. The observed median and IRI predicted values of foF2 and hmF2 are analyzed with upper and lower bound of inter-quartile range (IQR) and it is find out that the observed median values are well inside the inter-quartile range during the period of 2007. Comparison of the recorded foF2 and hmF2 values with the IRI-2001 output reveals that IRI predicted values exhibit better agreement with hmF2 as compared to foF2. In general, the IRI model predictions show some agreement with the observations during the year 2007. Therefore it is still necessary to implement improvements in order to obtain better predictions for EIA regions

An analysis of pump-induced artificial ionospheric ion upwelling at EISCAT

Ion outflow from the high-latitude ionosphere is a well-known phenomenon and an important source of plasma for the magnetosphere. It is also well known that pumping the ionosphere with high-power high-frequency radio waves causes electron heating. On a few occasions, this has been accompanied by artificially induced ion upwelling. We analyze such a controlled experiment at EISCAT up to 600 km altitude. The pump-enhanced electron temperatures reached up to ∼4000 K above 350 km, and ion upwelling reached up to ∼300 m/s above 500 km altitude. The pump-induced electron pressure gradient can explain the ion velocity below 450 km. Between 450 and 600 km the electron pressure gradient correlates equally with ion acceleration and ion velocity, which represents the transition altitude to free ion acceleration. The electron gas pressure gradient can explain ion upwelling, at least up to 600 km altitude. In addition, such active experiments open the possibility to estimating the F layer ion-neutral collision frequency and neutral density with altitude from ground-based observations