Participatory market chain appraisal for the full range of agroforestry products including market trends and growing markets

This paper focuses on the participatory market chain analysis of agroforestry products in six sites of two districts (Kavre and Lamjung) of Nepal. In total, 93 market actors were involved in the study, in which 80 persons were purposively selected from Local Resource Person (LRP) and Local Resource Group (LRG) members and 13 persons were randomly selected from the local, district and national level traders. Primary data on agroforestry products was collected through Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) tools following several field visits. Fourteen agroforestry products in Lamjung and 20 agroforestry products in Kavrepalanchok district were selected for analysis. The findings showed that small-scale production and insufficient service to farmers from the village level agriculture collection centers and cooperatives are the major constraints to effective and efficient market chain development and management. The main factors responsible for increasing the production of agroforestry products are the rise in awareness among LRPs/ LRGs about agroforestry practices along with institutional and policy development to facilitate the marketing of agroforestry products. The paper concludes by highlighting the controlling factors in agroforestry business.S. M. Amatya, I. Nuberg, E. Cedamon, K. K. Shrestha, B. H. Pandit, P. Aulia, M. Joshi and B. Dhaka

Perceptions of Gender Disparities in Access to Surgical Care in Malawi: A Community Based Survey

Background Gender disparities in surgical care exist but have been minimally studied, particularly in low- and middle-income countries. This study explored perceptions and gender differences in health-seeking behavior and attitudes toward surgical care in Malawi among community members.MethodsA survey tool was administered to adults ≥18 years old at a central hospital, district hospital, and two marketplaces in Malawi from June 2018 to December 2018. Responses from men and women were compared using chi-squared tests. Results Four hundred eighty-five adults participated in the survey, 244 (50.3%) men and 241 (49.7%) women. Women were more likely to state that fear of surgery might prevent them from seeking surgical care (29.1% of men, 43.6% of women, P = .0009). Both genders reported long wait times, medicine/physician shortages, and lack of information about when surgery is needed as potential barriers to seeking surgical care. More men stated that medical preference should be given to sons (17.1% of men, 9.3% of women, P = .01). Men were more likely to report that men should have the final word about household decisions (28.7% of men vs 19.5% of women, P < .0001) and were more likely to spend money independently (68.7% of married men, 37.5% of married women, P < .0001). Few participants reported believing gender equality had been achieved (61% of men and 66.8% of women). Conclusions A multi-pronged approach is needed to reduce gender disparities in surgical care in Malawi, including addressing paternalistic societal norms, education, and improving health infrastructure

Effect of the influenza A (H1N1) live attenuated intranasal vaccine on nitric oxide (FENO) and other volatiles in exhaled breath

For the 2009 influenza A (H1N1) pandemic, vaccination and infection control were the main modes of prevention. A live attenuated H1N1 vaccine mimics natural infection and works by evoking a host immune response, but currently there are no easy methods to measure such a response. To determine if an immune response could be measured in exhaled breath, exhaled nitric oxide (FE NO) and other exhaled breath volatiles using selected ion flow tube mass spectrometry (SIFT-MS) were measured before and daily for seven days after administering the H1N1 2009 monovalent live intranasal vaccine (FluMist®, MedImmune LLC) in nine healthy healthcare workers (age 35 ± 7 years; five females). On day 3 after H1N1 FluMist® administration there were increases in FENO (MEAN±SEM: day 0 15 ± 3 ppb, day 3 19 ± 3 ppb; p < 0.001) and breath isoprene (MEAN±SEM: day 0 59 ± 15 ppb, day 3 99 ± 17 ppb; p = 0.02). MS analysis identified the greatest number of changes in exhaled breath on day 3 with 137 product ion masses that changed from baseline. The exhaled breath changes on day 3 after H1N1 vaccination may reflect the underlying host immune response. However, further work to elucidate the sources of the exhaled breath changes is necessary

Search for direct production of charginos and neutralinos in events with three leptons and missing transverse momentum in √s = 7 TeV pp collisions with the ATLAS detector

A search for the direct production of charginos and neutralinos in final states with three electrons or muons and missing transverse momentum is presented. The analysis is based on 4.7 fb−1 of proton–proton collision data delivered by the Large Hadron Collider and recorded with the ATLAS detector. Observations are consistent with Standard Model expectations in three signal regions that are either depleted or enriched in Z-boson decays. Upper limits at 95% confidence level are set in R-parity conserving phenomenological minimal supersymmetric models and in simplified models, significantly extending previous results

Jet size dependence of single jet suppression in lead-lead collisions at sqrt(s(NN)) = 2.76 TeV with the ATLAS detector at the LHC

Measurements of inclusive jet suppression in heavy ion collisions at the LHC provide direct sensitivity to the physics of jet quenching. In a sample of lead-lead collisions at sqrt(s) = 2.76 TeV corresponding to an integrated luminosity of approximately 7 inverse microbarns, ATLAS has measured jets with a calorimeter over the pseudorapidity interval |eta| < 2.1 and over the transverse momentum range 38 < pT < 210 GeV. Jets were reconstructed using the anti-kt algorithm with values for the distance parameter that determines the nominal jet radius of R = 0.2, 0.3, 0.4 and 0.5. The centrality dependence of the jet yield is characterized by the jet "central-to-peripheral ratio," Rcp. Jet production is found to be suppressed by approximately a factor of two in the 10% most central collisions relative to peripheral collisions. Rcp varies smoothly with centrality as characterized by the number of participating nucleons. The observed suppression is only weakly dependent on jet radius and transverse momentum. These results provide the first direct measurement of inclusive jet suppression in heavy ion collisions and complement previous measurements of dijet transverse energy imbalance at the LHC.Comment: 15 pages plus author list (30 pages total), 8 figures, 2 tables, submitted to Physics Letters B. All figures including auxiliary figures are available at http://atlas.web.cern.ch/Atlas/GROUPS/PHYSICS/PAPERS/HION-2011-02

Search for the standard model Higgs boson decaying into two photons in pp collisions at sqrt(s)=7 TeV

A search for a Higgs boson decaying into two photons is described. The analysis is performed using a dataset recorded by the CMS experiment at the LHC from pp collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of 7 TeV, which corresponds to an integrated luminosity of 4.8 inverse femtobarns. Limits are set on the cross section of the standard model Higgs boson decaying to two photons. The expected exclusion limit at 95% confidence level is between 1.4 and 2.4 times the standard model cross section in the mass range between 110 and 150 GeV. The analysis of the data excludes, at 95% confidence level, the standard model Higgs boson decaying into two photons in the mass range 128 to 132 GeV. The largest excess of events above the expected standard model background is observed for a Higgs boson mass hypothesis of 124 GeV with a local significance of 3.1 sigma. The global significance of observing an excess with a local significance greater than 3.1 sigma anywhere in the search range 110-150 GeV is estimated to be 1.8 sigma. More data are required to ascertain the origin of this excess.Comment: Submitted to Physics Letters

Search for a W' boson decaying to a bottom quark and a top quark in pp collisions at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV

Results are presented from a search for a W' boson using a dataset corresponding to 5.0 inverse femtobarns of integrated luminosity collected during 2011 by the CMS experiment at the LHC in pp collisions at sqrt(s)=7 TeV. The W' boson is modeled as a heavy W boson, but different scenarios for the couplings to fermions are considered, involving both left-handed and right-handed chiral projections of the fermions, as well as an arbitrary mixture of the two. The search is performed in the decay channel W' to t b, leading to a final state signature with a single lepton (e, mu), missing transverse energy, and jets, at least one of which is tagged as a b-jet. A W' boson that couples to fermions with the same coupling constant as the W, but to the right-handed rather than left-handed chiral projections, is excluded for masses below 1.85 TeV at the 95% confidence level. For the first time using LHC data, constraints on the W' gauge coupling for a set of left- and right-handed coupling combinations have been placed. These results represent a significant improvement over previously published limits.Comment: Submitted to Physics Letters B. Replaced with version publishe