Optimal Use of the Sixth Sense in Devkota’s Poem “The Lunatic”

“The Lunatic” is one of Devkota’s widely read and intensely discussed poems by critics, teachers and university level students in Nepal. It has already been studied from structural, thematic and contextual perspectives by other writers, but this article writer attempts to pinpoint the poet’s optimal use of the sixth sense to perceive the people and society mentioned in the poem. The article writer underscores some poetic lines that reflect the utilization of the sixth sense which implies an extra-sensory perception beyond ordinary senses of seeing, hearing, touching, smelling and tasting. These five natural senses are not sufficient to grasp the meanings and messages of the poem. This poem will be better understood if readers are capable of examining the poet’s sixth sense with which he perceives the persons and their deeds in society

Understanding the social determinants of non-communicable diseases in Nepal : a systems perspective : a thesis presented in the partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) in Health Sciences at Massey University, Wellington Campus, New Zealand

Figures are re-used with permission.Non-communicable diseases (NCDs) constitute more than half of the total disease burden in Nepal. Global evidence indicates the problem of NCDs is influenced by the complex interaction of social determinants including behavioural, socio-economic and environmental. These determinants are the focus of global prevention strategies for tackling NCDs. The health system of Nepal, however, is yet to adopt this comprehensive prevention strategies. The main objective of this research was to understand the social determinants of NCDs in Nepal and identify leverage points for systemic actions in Nepal. The study utilized a systems thinking methodology which enabled a creative combination of case study methods and qualitative causal loop diagramming. In each of the two selected case districts (Bhaktapur and Morang), semi-structured interviews (n=39) and focus group discussions (n=12) were conducted with key stakeholders and community members. These case studies were informed by policy level interviews (n=24). Thematic analysis, guided by the adapted social determinants of health framework, helped to identify key themes and develop causal loop diagrams (CLDs). The findings of the thematic analysis, and CLDs, were then validated through local and policy sense-making workshops. The analysis showed four key interlinked thematic areas, each of which is being published as separate papers. The first paper describes the community and stakeholders’ perception and experience of the rising burden of NCDs. The social experience of NCDs metabolic risks such as hypertension and diabetes were shown to be normalised. Moreover, differences in social experience were observed based on gender and socio-economic circumstances. The second paper described the critical role played by tobacco and alcohol in the interaction of social determinants of NCDs. The analysis indicates that socio-economic circumstances was root cause of changing, and damaging alcohol and tobacco practices, and increased the vulnerability to exploitation by industries. The third paper revealed that poor dietary practices and physical inactivity were resulting due to changes in social practices shaped by worsening dietary and physical environment. Socio-economic circumstances, urbanisation and migration all contributed to the population being exposed to an obesogenic environment. While all three papers discussed specific health system challenges, the fourth paper elaborated on health sector challenges, including the curative focus and limited capacity of the health system both at district and policy or national level to prevent NCDs in Nepal. Three key leverage points for health system action on the social determinant of NCDs were identified by viewing the final CLD through the lens of Donella Meadows’ framework for identifying key health system action on the social determinants of health. These leverage points indicated that the health sector should focus on the development of a robust prevention system for effective NCDs action. Overall, the study highlighted the interactions of socio-economic, gender, commercial and health system determinants driving the NCDs problem in Nepal. The leverage analysis indicated that the health sector should focus on the development of a robust prevention system for effective action on complex problem like NCDs. The Ministry of Health could play a proactive role in creating the prevention system that could effectively guide all sectors towards collective action to impacting social and commercial determinants of health

Individual-Based Modeling: Comparing Model Outputs to Telemetry Data with Application to the Florida Panther

Mean distance of the locations of an animal from the boundaries of its home range was presented as a measure of its space-use preference. Methods for evaluating the predictive ability of an individual-based model were also presented. These methods were applied to data on the Florida panther and some interesting results were obtained. A strong negative correlation was observed between age and home range size of the panther, indicating constrained mobility of the panther during its old age. Space-use preference was also highly dependent on age of the panther. A general trend was found for panthers, which indicates they stay away from the boundaries of their home range during old age. It was also observed that sex of the panther and season of the year do not have any effect on the space-use preference. A random movement model was used to simulate panther movement; applicability of this model to panther data was evaluated based upon its ability to depict the animal’s space-use preference and shift of activity center over time. It was concluded that comparison of modeled and observed movement data accumulated over a long period of time might give misleading results. Data should be subdivided into different age periods and the model should be tested in each period

Center for Economic Development and Administration :

Much of the data for this study has also been collected from various agencies and institutions. The best practical research design for this study was found to be the institution building model developed by Milton Esman. It provides the necessary framework for the orderly collection, classification and analysis of the data for the case study, namely: (a) institution; (b) linkages; (c) transaction.It can be concluded that between 1969 and 1975, CEDA has become established in the sense that it was a growing concern with a program, a staff, a set of clients, an acceptable identity and a stable supply of resources sufficient to enable it to continue. The findings of this study show that institutional leadership is one of the major and crucial factors in institution building and development. It also suggests that the institution builder of Nepal must be concerned with discovering what institutions are already there before making assumptions as to what new or additional institutions may be needed. Thus, it is often much easier to add a new program to an old institution, which is already established, than it is to create a new institution merely to have a new program.The purpose of this dissertation is to examine the roles of the Center For Economic Development and Administration (CEDA) in institution building and development in Nepal. The study was performed by a questionnaire containing a variety of items relating CEDA's present and future roles, its place and position, its programs and objectives, its relationship with government agencies, university, public corporations and private enterprises, was administered to a sample of one hundred in Kathmandu, Nepal. In addition, since formal interviews were difficult to coordinate in Nepal's political environment, informal meetings were also organized

Development Of Model for Measuring Audit Quality in Maritime Safety Management

The effectiveness of International Safety Management (ISM) Code has been evaluated in many aspects. However, limited research has been attempted to evaluate the auditing mechanism, its quality, and links with the effectiveness of the Code. The aim of this Paper is to define the concepts of quality in auditing and thereafter propose a model for measuring audit quality in maritime safety management. The major challenge is that almost all auditing literature and research is focused on accounting and financial domain. Therefore, it was decided to utilize suitable principles and concepts about audit quality from financial domain and modify them to maritime context. As no theoretical model for Audit Quality in maritime domain is available, a model sourced from financial audits is modified for use. The framework for recontextualized modifying of borrowed theories from the disciplines outside the reference discipline, was used on Wooten (2003) model and Maritime Audit Quality Model (MAQM) has been proposed for evaluating ISM auditing mechanism

Ethnic differentials of the impact of Family Planning Program on contraceptive use in Nepal

There is wide variation of family planning services use among ethnic groups in Nepal. Despite three decades of implementation the need for family planning services is substantially unmet (25%), and there have been no systematic studies evaluating the impact of the family planning program. This study pooled data from nationally representative surveys conducted in 1996, 2001, and 2006. Multilevel logistic regression analysis of 23,381 married women of reproductive age nested within 764 clusters indicated that Muslims, Janjatis, and Dalits were significantly less likely to use contraceptives than Brahmins and Chhetries (OR=0.27, 0.88 and 0.82 respectively). The odds of using contraceptives by the Newar were higher than the odds for Brahmins and Chhetries, although it was not significant. Exposure of women to family planning messages through health facilities, family planning workers, radio, and television increased the odds of using modern contraceptives. However, the impact of family planning information on contraceptive use varied according to ethnicity. We also found that modern contraceptive use varied significantly across the clusters, and the cluster-level indicators, such as mean age at marriage, mean household asset score, percentage of women with secondary education, and percentage of women working away from home, were important in explaining this.ethnic differentials, family planning, family planning programs, Nepal

Efficacy of botanical formulations and fungicides against Botryosphaeria dothidea, causing white rot in apple (Malus × domestica Borkh.)

The present study was conducted to determine inhibitory effect of plant extracts, their botanical formula-tions (BF1 and BF2) and safer fungicides against Botryosphaeria dothidea cause white rot of apple (Malus × domes-tica) during storage. Poisoned food technique was performed to evaluate the efficacy of different plant extracts, their botanical formulations and safer fungicides. Out of twelve botanicals evaluated under in vitro conditions against the white rot pathogen, leaf extract of Ocimum sanctum was found most effective among all the treatments with 54.07 per cent average inhibition in mycelial growth. Out of twelve plants evaluated for their efficacy, six effective plants Karu (Roylea elegans), Artemisia (Artemisia roxburghiana), Neem (Azadirachta indica), Bana (Vitex negundo), Tulsi (Ocimum sanctum) and Darek (Melia azedarach) were selected for making two botanical formulations (BF1 and BF2). While, BF1 was water based formulation and BF2 was cow urine based formulation. Among these botanical formulations, BF2 inhibited mycelial growth of white rot pathogen by 72.70 per cent and BF1 66.37 per cent at 100 % concentration. Whereas, among the tested fungicides, Score at 100 ppm concentration was found to be most effective with 75.01 % average inhibition in mycelial growth of the white rot pathogen