Reconsidering State-Society Relations in South Asia: A Himalayan Case Study

Since the mid-eighteenth century when armies serving the English East India Company (EIC) clashed with the Gorkhali power, British officers depicted Nepal as an example of classical Hindu despotism. Subsequent scholars of the region have not challenged these representations, taking such colonial descriptors as ‘facts.’ The portrayal of the centralized and ‘despotic’ state in South Asian pasts rests upon a certain understanding of the state’s relationship with society. It calls for imagining the Gorkhali regime as alien to the rest of society and supposing that ethnicity and caste are inflexible from one century to the next. The excessive attention given to land systems and revenue extraction to understand the early Gorkhali state formation has equally left us with a limited narrative that is conspicuous for its absence of non-fiscal elements of state making. The frequency and volume of state-society interactions as gleaned from the documents of the period however belie static depiction of power and rule in nineteenth century Nepal. This essay, building on previously unstudied sources, replaces the picture of a static ‘Hindu’despotic state with one that responded to its entanglement with internal and external forces, and put together, piece by piece, a Hindu polity out of a plural society along the Himalayan foothills. The resulting order was processual not a homeostatic structure. Gorkhali rulers succeeded in projecting their power through intertwined strategies of literary and religious patronage, code promulgation, and political manipulation of ritual and rank. The early nineteenth century Gorkhali state like other pre-colonial polities in South Asia was simultaneously coercive and consensual, extractive and re-distributive

Containment and Dewatering of Heavy Metal Contaminated Sediments using Reactive Soil Minerals and Cellulose Materials

The aim of this study is to investigate effective and sustainable measures to contain heavy metal contaminated sediments inside a geotextile tube during dewatering process. The efficacy of cellulosic materials (Jute fibers, Peanut hull, and Kraft pulp) on adsorption of selected heavy metals (Pb2+, Cu2+, Zn2+, and Cd2+) and dewatering performance inside a geotextile tube was studied by a series of Batch Adsorption and Pressure Filtration tests (PFT). The cellulosic materials were chosen keeping in mind their cost, accessibility, ease of handling and use, and sustainability. The studied adsorbents are inexpensive, easily available, and sustainable. In order to understand the optimum amount of cellulosic materials to be added into the slurry as well as the optimum mixing time for maximum removal, an independent study was conducted with the heavy metal ions and the cellulose materials. In this study, batch adsorption tests were conducted on a 500 ppm metal solution by changing the amount of cellulose materials from 0.5 g to 2g equilibrated for 4 hours. Two filtrate samples were collected at tested for metal concentration using Inductively Coupled Plasma Optical Emission Spectrometry (ICP-OES) at 0.5hr, 1 hr, 2 hr, and 4 hr to understand the time of mixing on removal efficiency of studied heavy metal ions. The adsorption data were fitted using Langmuir isotherm to quantify their maximum adsorption capacity to heavy metal ions. It was found out that among the studied metals, all adsorbents exhibited highest affinity towards Pb ions, the order being jute\u3e peanut hull\u3e kraft pulp. A removal efficiency of 47% and maximum adsorption capacity of 100 mg/g Pb ions was highest for all combinations of adsorbents and metal ions. A maximum removal efficiency of 28% of Cu was achieved by the kraft pulp and the decreasing affinity was kraft pulp\u3epeanut hull\u3ejute. The maximum adsorption capacity of kraft pulp determined from Langmuir isotherm for Cu was 13 mg/g. Similarly, kraft pulp exhibited highest affinity for Cd and Zn followed by peanut hull and jute. The removal efficiency of Cd and Zn by kraft pulp was almost 28%, significantly higher than 13% removal of Cu or Pb. The maximum adsorption capacity of kraft pulp for Cd and Zn were 24 mg/g and 11 mg/g respectively. It has been seen that the dredged sediments contain soil particles with varying sizes and properties. Hence, understanding the role of different sediments in adsorption and retention of heavy metal ions inside geotextile tube is very important to predict the fate of contaminants leaching out from the tubes. To address this issue, a separate study was conducted where two soil sediments, Tully coarse (55% coarse and 45% fine fractions), and Tully fines (100% fine fractions) were mixed with heavy metal solution (500 ppm-2500 ppm) to form a 15% solid concentration slurry. The slurries was mixed for 1 hour and the filtrate samples collected after mixing were tested for metal concentration using ICP-OES. Moreover, Kaolinite clay was also used in this study. It was seen from these tests that the presence of fine fractions, hydrous oxides of iron and aluminum, reactive clay minerals Illite and Chlorite, surface charge, and pH of a soil play dominant role in adsorption and retention of heavy metal ions specially Pb and Cu. Tully fine sediments exhibited excessively high affinity towards Pb as the more than 99% of Pb was adsorbed and retained. Tully coarse also had high affinity to Pb and Cu with removal efficiency ranging between 85-95%. Kaolinite (1:1 clay) being less reactive and having high molecular stability than most of the 2:1 clays (e.g. Illites, Smectites) exhibited less affinity towards Pb and Cu. However, Kaolinite had better affinity towards Cd ions (approximately 3 times) than both Tully fine and Tully coarse soils. In terms of adsorption of Zn, both Tully soils adsorbed more than Kaolinite. Generally, it was concluded that the presence of reactive clay minerals plays a significant role in adsorption of Pb and Cu. After the understanding of the role of cellulose materials as well as soil sediments in studied heavy metal adsorption, PFT tests were conducted to see the role of cellulose materials in dewatering performance. A 15% solid concentration contaminated slurry was prepared by mixing soil, cellulose materials (2% weight of solids) and heavy metal solution (1000 ppm Pb+500 ppm Cu+500 ppm Cd+500 ppm Zn). It was observed from the PFT tests that in both sediment slurries, the addition of cellulose materials except kraft pulp significantly increased the dewatering rate irrespective of the contamination. However, profound effect of jute fibers and peanut hull on increasing dewatering rate was observed in case of contaminated slurries. A reduction in turbidity of more than 80% was observed with the addition of jute fibers. Peanut and kraft pulp were successful in reducing the turbidity of the filtrate by 78 and 69% respectively. Addition of peanut hulls and jute on contaminated Tully coarse increased the solid content by approximately 33% and 46% respectively. However, in case of contaminated Tully fines a minor increase of 12% was achieved with the addition of jute. The addition of kraft pulp had no significant effect in the solids content. The filtrates collected from dewatering of contaminated Tully fines showed that approximately 98-99% of Cu and Pb was retained, whereas, in Tully coarse slurries 89% Cu and 96% Pb were retained. Although not very high adsorption, both Tully soils were able to retain more than 75% Cd and Zn

Modifications in aerosol physical, optical and radiative properties during heavy aerosol events over Dushanbe, Central Asia

The location of Central Asia, almost at the center of the global dust belt region, makes it susceptible for dust events. The studies on atmospheric impact of dust over the region are very limited despite the large area occupied by the region and its proximity to the mountain regions (Tianshan, Hindu Kush-Karakoram-Himalayas, and Tibetan Plateau). In this study, we analyse and explain the modification in aerosols’ physical, optical and radiative properties during various levels of aerosol loading observed over Central Asia utilizing the data collected during 2010–2018 at the AERONET station in Dushanbe, Tajikistan. Aerosol episodes were classified as strong anthropogenic, strong dust and extreme dust. The mean aerosol optical depth (AOD) during these three types of events was observed a factor of ~3, 3.5 and 6.6, respectively, higher than the mean AOD for the period 2010–2018. The corresponding mean fine-mode fraction was 0.94, 0.20 and 0.16, respectively, clearly indicating the dominance of fine-mode anthropogenic aerosol during the first type of events, whereas coarse-mode dust aerosol dominated during the other two types of events. This was corroborated by the relationships among various aerosol parameters (AOD vs. AE, and EAE vs. AAE, SSA and RRI). The mean aerosol radiative forcing (ARF) at the top of the atmosphere (ARFTOA), the bottom of the atmosphere (ARFBOA), and in the atmosphere (ARFATM) were −35 ± 7, −73 ± 16, and 38 ± 17 Wm−2 during strong anthropogenic events, −48 ± 12, −85 ± 24, and 37 ± 15 Wm−2 during strong dust event, and −68 ± 19, −117 ± 38, and 49 ± 21 Wm−2 during extreme dust events. Increase in aerosol loading enhanced the aerosol-induced atmospheric heating rate to 0.5–1.6 K day−1 (strong anthropogenic events), 0.4–1.9 K day−1 (strong dust events) and 0.8–2.7 K day−1 (extreme dust events). The source regions of air masses to Dushanbe during the onset of such events are also identified. Our study contributes to the understanding of dust and anthropogenic aerosols, in particular the extreme events and their disproportionally high radiative impacts over Central Asia

An overview of airborne measurement in Nepal – Part 1: Vertical profile of aerosol size, number, spectral absorption, and meteorology

The paper provides an overview of an airborne measurement campaign with a microlight aircraft over the Pokhara Valley region, Nepal, a metropolitan region in the central Himalayan foothills. This is the first aerial measurement in the central Himalayan foothill region, one of the polluted but relatively poorly sampled regions of the world. Conducted in two phases (in May 2016 and December 2016–January 2017), the goal of the overall campaign was to quantify the vertical distribution of aerosols over a polluted mountain valley in the Himalayan foothills, as well as to investigate the extent of regional transport of emissions into the Himalayas. This paper summarizes results from the first phase where test flights were conducted in May 2016 (pre-monsoon), with the objective of demonstrating the potential of airborne measurements in the region using a portable instrument package (size with housing case: 0.45 m × 0.25 m × 0.25 m, 15 kg) onboard an ultralight aircraft (IKARUS-C42). A total of five sampling test flights were conducted (each lasting for 1–1.5 h) in the Pokhara Valley to characterize vertical profiles of aerosol properties such as aerosol number and size distribution (0.3–2 µm), total particle concentration (>14 nm), aerosol absorption (370–950 nm), black carbon (BC), and meteorological variables. Although some interesting observations were made during the test flight, the study is limited to a few days (and only a few hours of flight in total) and thus the analysis presented may not represent the entire pollution–meteorology interaction found in the Pokhara Valley. The vertical profiles of aerosol species showed decreasing concentrations with altitude (815 to 4500 m a.s.l.); a steep concentration gradient below 2000 m a.s.l. in the morning; and mixed profiles (up to ca. 4000 m a.s.l.) in the afternoon. The near-surface (<1000 m a.s.l.) BC concentrations observed in the Pokhara Valley were much lower than pre-monsoon BC concentrations in the Kathmandu Valley, and similar in range to Indo-Gangetic Plain (IGP) sites such as Kanpur in India. The sampling test flight also detected an elevated polluted aerosol layer (around 3000 m a.s.l.) over the Pokhara Valley, which could be associated with the regional transport. The total aerosol and black carbon concentration in the polluted layer was comparable with the near-surface values. The elevated polluted layer was also characterized by a high aerosol extinction coefficient (at 550 nm) and was identified as smoke and a polluted dust layer. The observed shift in the westerlies (at 20–30∘ N) entering Nepal during the test flight period could be an important factor for the presence of elevated polluted layers in the Pokhara Valle

Occupational Safety and Health Vulnerability among Brick Factory Workers in Dhading District, Nepal

Background: Occupational safety and health vulnerability considers multiple dimensions, such as hazard, policy/procedure to protect workers, workers’ awareness and their empowerment to participate in injury prevention. This study attempts to bridge the inadequate knowledge regarding the factors associated with occupational safety and health vulnerability in brick factories. Objectives: To identify the status and factors associated with occupational safety and health vulnerability among brick factory workers in Dhading district. Methods: A cross-sectional descriptive study was carried out in five brick kilns of Dhading district. A two-stage cluster sampling method was used; at the first stage, probability proportionate to sample size was used to select the brick factories and simple random sampling was used to select participants from each selected brick factory. A total of 201 workers with at least a year of experience and who had worked over the last year in brick factories were included in the study. The data was collected through face-to-face interviews using a structured questionnaire. Vulnerability was defined as exposed to hazards and having inadequate policies, procedures, awareness and empowerment. Pearson Chi-square test was used to examine the relationship between vulnerability and demographic, occupational and workplace characteristics. Results: Four-fifths of the participants experienced occupational safety and health vulnerability. All participants experienced policy/procedure vulnerability; four-fifths experienced hazard vulnerability and about two-thirds experienced awareness and empowerment vulnerability. Younger, nonnative immigrants, workers carrying bricks out of a chimney and workers from small-sized workplaces experienced higher odds of vulnerability across all domains and overall vulnerability. Conclusion: Occupational safety and health vulnerability was very high among the brick factory workers. Young workers, non-native immigrant workers, workers carrying cooked bricks out of a chimney and workers from small-sized workplace were found to be more vulnerable

Comparison of Fissure Healing and The Incidence of Headache Among the Patients Treated with Endo- and Perianal Application of 0.2% Glyceryl Trinitrate for Chronic Anal Fissure

Introduction: Chronic anal fissure is associated with significant morbidity and reduction in quality of life mostly in young healthy adults. Glyceryl Trinitrate, a most commonly used agent for treatment, is associated with incidence of headache causing discontinuation of treatment. There is belief that endoanal application instead of perianal is associated with lower incidence of headache. This study is to compare the incidence and severity of headache in between perianal and endoanal application of GTN ointment. Methods: Thirty patients were taken in each perianal and endoanal group. They were given orientation to apply 375gm of ointment either endoanally or perianally and to record severity of headache according to visual analogue scale. This record was noted by independent observer in telephonic conversation. Patients were followed up at 6 weeks for evaluation fissure. Results: The mean age, male female ratio and features of chronicity was similar in both the group however the duration of symptoms between the group was different. Regarding outcome, Overall incidence of headache was seen in two-third of patient with severe headache in approx. 10%. Severity of headache was slightly lower in endoanal group but the difference was not significant. Healing rate was comparable. Two patient in perianal and 3 in endoanal group were lost for follow up.  Conclusions: Endoanal application of GTN ointment is associated with slight decrease in intensity of headache and is comparable with perianal application for fissure healing.  Keywords: anal fissure; endoanal; glyceryl trinitrate;headache; perianal.| PubMe

Nepal Ambient Monitoring and Source Testing Experiment (NAMaSTE): Emissions of particulate matter and sulfur dioxide from vehicles and brick kilns and their impacts on air quality in the Kathmandu Valley, Nepal

Air pollution is one of the most pressing environmental issues in the Kathmandu Valley, where the capital city of Nepal is located. We estimated emissions from two of the major source types in the valley (vehicles and brick kilns) and analyzed the corresponding impacts on regional air quality. First, we estimated the on-road vehicle emissions in the valley using the International Vehicle Emissions (IVE) model with local emissions factors and the latest available data for vehicle registration. We also identified the locations of the brick kilns in the Kathmandu Valley and developed an emissions inventory for these kilns using emissions factors measured during the Nepal Ambient Monitoring and Source Testing Experiment (NAMaSTE) field campaign in April 2015. Our results indicate that the commonly used global emissions inventory, the Hemispheric Transport of Air Pollution (HTAP_v2.2), underestimates particulate matter emissions from vehicles in the Kathmandu Valley by a factor greater than 100. HTAP_v2.2 does not include the brick sector and we found that our sulfur dioxide (SO2) emissions estimates from brick kilns are comparable to 70 % of the total SO2 emissions considered in HTAP_v2.2. Next, we simulated air quality using the Weather Research and Forecasting model coupled with Chemistry (WRF-Chem) for April 2015 based on three different emissions scenarios: HTAP only, HTAP with updated vehicle emissions, and HTAP with both updated vehicle and brick kilns emissions. Comparisons between simulated results and observations indicate that the model underestimates observed surface elemental carbon (EC) and SO2 concentrations under all emissions scenarios. However, our updated estimates of vehicle emissions significantly reduced model bias for EC, while updated emissions from brick kilns improved model performance in simulating SO2. These results highlight the importance of improving local emissions estimates for air quality modeling. We further find that model overestimation of surface wind leads to underestimated air pollutant concentrations in the Kathmandu Valley. Future work should focus on improving local emissions estimates for other major and underrepresented sources (e.g., crop residue burning and garbage burning) with a high spatial resolution, as well as the model\u27s boundary layer representation, to capture strong spatial gradients of air pollutant concentrations

Surface ozone over the Tibetan Plateau controlled by stratospheric intrusion

The Tibetan Plateau is a global hotspot of stratospheric intrusion, and elevated surface ozone was observed at ground monitoring sites. Still, links between the variability of surface ozone and stratospheric intrusion at the regional scale remain unclear. This study synthesized ground measurements of surface ozone over the Tibetan Plateau and analyzed their seasonal variations. The monthly mean surface ozone concentrations over the Tibetan Plateau peaked earlier in the south in April and May and later in the north in June and July. The migration of monthly surface ozone peaks was coupled with the synchronous movement of tropopause folds and the westerly jet that created conditions conducive to stratospheric ozone intrusion. Stratospheric ozone intrusion significantly contributed to surface ozone across the Tibetan Plateau, especially in the areas with high surface ozone concentrations during their peak-value month. We demonstrated that monthly variation of surface ozone over the Tibetan Plateau is mainly controlled by stratospheric intrusion, which warrants proper consideration in understanding the atmospheric chemistry and the impacts of ozone over this highland region and beyond.</p

A New Integer Linear Programming Formulation to the Inverse QSAR/QSPR for Acyclic Chemical Compounds Using Skeleton Trees

33rd International Conference on Industrial, Engineering and Other Applications of Applied Intelligent Systems, IEA/AIE 2020, Kitakyushu, Japan, September 22-25, 2020.Computer-aided drug design is one of important application areas of intelligent systems. Recently a novel method has been proposed for inverse QSAR/QSPR using both artificial neural networks (ANN) and mixed integer linear programming (MILP), where inverse QSAR/QSPR is a major approach for drug design. This method consists of two phases: In the first phase, a feature function f is defined so that each chemical compound G is converted into a vector f(G) of several descriptors of G, and a prediction function ψ is constructed with an ANN so that ψ(f(G)) takes a value nearly equal to a given chemical property π for many chemical compounds G in a data set. In the second phase, given a target value y∗ of the chemical property π , a chemical structure G∗ is inferred in the following way. An MILP M is formulated so that M admits a feasible solution (x∗, y∗) if and only if there exist vectors x∗, y∗ and a chemical compound G∗ such that ψ(x∗)=y∗ and f(G∗)=x∗. The method has been implemented for inferring acyclic chemical compounds. In this paper, we propose a new MILP for inferring acyclic chemical compounds by introducing a novel concept, skeleton tree, and conducted computational experiments. The results suggest that the proposed method outperforms the existing method when the diameter of graphs is up to around 6 to 8. For an instance for inferring acyclic chemical compounds with 38 non-hydrogen atoms from C, O and S and diameter 6, our method was 5×104 times faster

Pre-operative Prediction of Difficult Laparoscopic Cholecystectomy

Introduction: Laparoscopic cholecystectomy is one of the most common operation performed. Though LC have become safer and easier at times it can be difficult. Difficult cases can result in prolonged operative time, bleeding, bile spillage, conversion to open technique and bile duct injury resulting in unplanned prolonged hospital stay, increase in estimated cost to the patients and for the surgeon it leads to increased stress during operation and time pressure to complete the operative list. . Identification of difficult cases has potential advantages for surgeons, patients and their relatives. We aim to develop and validate a scoring system to predict difficult LC preoperatively. Methods: Prospective study. History, physical examination, abdominal ultrasound and biochemical parameters were included to develop a scoring system. Hundred patients undergoing LC were included and preoperative scores were calculated preoperatively to predict difficult LC which was compared with operative assessment. Results: Sensitivity and specificity of the preoperative scoring for difficult case was 53.8 % and 89.2 % respectively with PPV of 63.64 % and NPV of 84.62%. Only three parameters (history of acute cholecystitis, gall bladder wall thickness and contracted gall bladder) were statistically significant to predict difficult LC individually. Area under ROC curve was 0.779 (95 % CI, 0.657-0.883). Conclusions: Preoperative scoring system can be used to predict difficult LC. Surgeons can plan operation based on predicted difficulty. Patients and relatives can be counselled preoperatively for the possibility of difficult operation, prolonged hospital stay and increased cost in predicted difficult case. Keywords: difficult cholecystectomy; laparoscopic cholecystectomy; symptomatic cholelithiasis