92 research outputs found
Resource use efficiency of maize production with and without irrigation system in Kaski, Nepal
The study examined the resource use efficiency of maize production in rainfed and irrigated conditions in Kaski, Nepal. It focused specially on the production function of maize, resource use efficiency and socioeconomic characteristics of the farmers. A well-structured interview schedule was used in this study. Out of the 368 households interviewed, 165 farmers cultivated maize and a total of 157 farmers (59 from irrigated and 98 from rainfed) provided useful data. The data analysis was done by using Microsoft excel and SPSS. Cobb-Douglas production function was used to determine the resource use efficiency of maize production. Compared to rainfed system, maize productivity in irrigated system was higher despite the use of fewer input implying irrigation. Increase in seed use by 10% increased the yield by 1.9% in case of rainfed system and 0.05% in case of the irrigated system. The major implication for the study is that farmers should make proper utilization of their resources to achieve higher level of resource use efficiency
Performance of ChatGPT on USMLE: Unlocking the Potential of Large Language Models for AI-Assisted Medical Education
Artificial intelligence is gaining traction in more ways than ever before.
The popularity of language models and AI-based businesses has soared since
ChatGPT was made available to the general public via OpenAI. It is becoming
increasingly common for people to use ChatGPT both professionally and
personally. Considering the widespread use of ChatGPT and the reliance people
place on it, this study determined how reliable ChatGPT can be for answering
complex medical and clinical questions. Harvard University gross anatomy along
with the United States Medical Licensing Examination (USMLE) questionnaire were
used to accomplish the objective. The paper evaluated the obtained results
using a 2-way ANOVA and posthoc analysis. Both showed systematic covariation
between format and prompt. Furthermore, the physician adjudicators
independently rated the outcome's accuracy, concordance, and insight. As a
result of the analysis, ChatGPT-generated answers were found to be more
context-oriented and represented a better model for deductive reasoning than
regular Google search results. Furthermore, ChatGPT obtained 58.8% on logical
questions and 60% on ethical questions. This means that the ChatGPT is
approaching the passing range for logical questions and has crossed the
threshold for ethical questions. The paper believes ChatGPT and other language
learning models can be invaluable tools for e-learners; however, the study
suggests that there is still room to improve their accuracy. In order to
improve ChatGPT's performance in the future, further research is needed to
better understand how it can answer different types of questions.Comment: 12 pages, 4 Figues, 4 table
Evaluation of Phytochemical, Antioxidant and Antibacterial Activities of Selected Medicinal Plants
Medicinal plants are important reservoirs of bioactive compounds that need to be explored systematically. Because of their chemical diversity, natural products provide limitless possibilities for new drug discovery. This study aimed to investigate the biochemical properties of crude extracts from fifteen Nepalese medicinal plants. The total phenolic contents (TPC), total flavonoid contents (TFC), and antioxidant activity were evaluated through a colorimetric approach while the antibacterial activities were studied through the measurement of the zone of inhibition (ZoI) by agar well diffusion method along with minimum inhibitory concentrations (MIC) by broth dilution method. The methanolic extracts of Acacia catechu and Eupoterium adenophorum showed the highest TPC (55.21 ± 11.09 mg GAE/gm) and TFC (10.23 ± 1.07 mg QE/gm) among the studied plant extracts. Acacia catechu showed effective antioxidant properties with an IC50 value of 1.3 μg/mL, followed by extracts of Myrica esculenta, Syzygium cumini, and Mangifera indica. Morus australis exhibited antibacterial activity against Klebsiella pneumoniae (ZoI: 25mm, MIC: 0.012 mg/mL), Staphylococcus aureus ATCC 25923 (ZoI: 22 mm, MIC: 0.012 mg/mL), Pseudomonas aeruginosa (ZoI; 20 mm, MIC: 0.05 mg/mL), and methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) (ZoI: 19 mm, MIC: 0.19 mg/mL). Morus australis extract showed a broad-spectrum antibacterial activity, followed by Eclipta prostrata, and Hypericum cordifolium. Future study is recommended to explore secondary metabolites of those medicinal plants to uncover further clinical efficacy
From theoretical to sustainable potential for run-of-river hydropower development in the upper Indus basin
A comprehensive assessment of hydropower resource potential considering factors beyond technical and financial parameters is missing for the upper Indus basin (UIB). Our framework takes a systems approach to quantify the theoretical to sustainable hydropower potential by successively considering natural, technical, financial, anthropogenic, environmental, and geo-hazard risk constraints on hydropower at individual sites as well as at the basin-scale. Theoretical potential of the UIB is 1564 TWh/yr at 500-m resolution. Across three energy focus and three geo-hazard risk scenarios, our cost-minimization model finds that technical (12%–19%), financial (6%–17%) and sustainable (2%–10%) potential are a small portion of the theoretical value. Mixed development combining plants of various size, cost and configuration provides the highest potential with the best spatial coverage. Alongside, our review of 20 datasets reveals a visualized potential exceeding 300 TWh/yr from 447 hydropower plants across the UIB, with only a quarter of the potential materialized by mostly large plants in the mainstreams. Hydropower cost curves show that Swat and Kabul sub-basins have a larger proportion of cost-effective and sustainable potential untapped by the visualized potential. Water use for other sectors represents the strongest constraints, reducing a third of the technical potential when evaluating sustainable potential. Ultimately, human decisions regarding scale, configuration and sustainability have a larger influence on hydropower potential than model parameter assumptions. In quantifying hydropower potential under many policy scenarios, we demonstrate the need for defining hydropower sustainability from a basin-scale perspective towards energy justice and balanced fulfilment of Sustainable Development Goals for water and energy across the Indus
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