Stunting among under 5-year-olds in Nepal: trends and risk factors.

INTRODUCTION: The nutritional status in the first 5 years of life has lifelong and inter-generational impacts on individual's potential and development. This study described the trend of stunting and its risk factors in children under 5 years of age between 2001 and 2016 in Nepal. METHODS: The study used datasets from the 2001, 2006, 2011 and 2016 Nepal Demographic Health Surveys to describe the trend of stunting in under 5-year children. Multiple logistic regression analysis was carried out to assess the risk factors for stunting at the time of the four surveys. RESULTS: The nutritional status of under 5-year children improved between 2001 and 2016. Babies born into poorer families had a higher risk of stunting than those born into wealthier families (AOR 1.51, CI 95% 1.23-1.87). Families residing in hill districts had less risk of stunting than those in the Terai plains (AOR 0.75, CI 95% 0.61-0.94). Babies born to uneducated women had a higher risk of stunting than those born to educated women (AOR 1.57, CI 95% 1.28-1.92). DISCUSSION: Stunting among under-5-year children decreased in the years spanning 2001-2016. This study demonstrated multiple factors that can be addressed to decrease the risk of stunting, which has important implications for neurodevelopment later in life. We add literature on risk factors for stunting in under-5-year children

The association of women's empowerment with stillbirths in Nepal.

INTRODUCTION: Globally, 2.6 million stillbirths occur each year. Empowering women can improve their overall reproductive health and help reduce stillbirths. Women empowerment has been defined as women's ability to make choices in economic decision-making, household and health care decision-making. In this paper, we aimed to evaluate if women's empowerment is associated with stillbirths. METHODS: Data from 2016 Nepal Demographic Health Surveys (NDHS) were analysed to evaluate the association between women's empowerment and stillbirths. Equiplots were generated to assess the distribution of stillbirths by wealth quintile, place of residence and level of maternal education using data from NHDS 1996, 2001, 2006, 2011 and 2016 data. For the association of women empowerment factors and stillbirths, univariate and multivariate analyses were conducted. RESULTS: A total of 88 stillbirths were reported during the survey. Univariate analysis showed age of mother, education of mother, age of husband, wealth index, head of household, decision on healthcare and decision on household purchases had significant association with stillbirths (p < 0.05). In multivariate analysis, only maternal age 35 years and above was significant (aOR 2.42; 1.22-4.80). Education of mother (aOR 1.48; 0.94-2.33), age of husband (aOR 1.54; 0.86-2.76), household head (aOR 1.51; 0.88-2.59), poor wealth index (aOR 1.62; 0.98-2.68), middle wealth index (aOR 1.37; 0.76-2.47), decision making for healthcare (aOR 1.36; 0.84-2.21) and household purchases (aOR 1.01; 0.61-1.66) had no any significant association with stillbirths. CONCLUSIONS: There are various factors linked with stillbirths. It is important to track stillbirths to improve health outcomes of mothers and newborn. Further studies are necessary to analyse women empowerment factors to understand the linkages between empowerment and stillbirths

RIVER ECOLOGICAL STUDY: BUILDING THE KNOWLEDGE BASE FOR VARIETY OF ASSESSMENTS SUCH AS CLIMATE CHANGE IN NEPAL

Climate change is now universally acknowledged to be taking place across the globe. It is generally presumed that the impacts of climate change would be more severe in the country like Nepal due to its location, physiography, poverty and lack of preparedness to cope with the changes. The last reason is mainly associated with knowledge, information and ability to use technologies based on science.The main objective of this research is to analyze and evaluate the effects of climate change by taking fish as an indicator. However, an even more important outcome is to prepare a solid foundation of fish-based information, which could be used in the future as a reference for a variety of purposes including the study of climate change. Two sets of examples, one in the tributaries of a glacial river and another in the tributary of a rain -fed river are compared in terms of fish ecological attributes to test for effects of climate change. In addition to fish-based information, this research also studies physico-chemical parameters and benthic fauna so as to build up an ecological profile of the rivers

Evaluation of Barley Genotypes Against Spot Blotch Disease in Inner Tarai Region of Nepal

Spot blotch caused by Bipolaris sorokiniana (Sacc. in Sorok.) Shoem. is an important disease of barley (Hordeum vulgare L.). A total of 126 barley genotypes received from Hill Crops Research Program, Kabre, Dolakha having SoluUwa as a susceptible check and Bonus as a resistant check were evaluated as barley disease screening nursery (BDSN) under natural epiphytotic condition at National Maize Research Program, Rampur, Chitwan during winter seasons of 2017 and 2018. The nursery was planted in augmented design. The resistant and susceptible checks were repeated and planted after each 10 tested entries. The unit plot size was 2 rows of one meter length for each genotype planted continuously with 25cm row to row spacing. The seed rate was 100 kg/ha. The recommended fertilizer dose of 23:30:0 N:P2O5:K2O kg/ha was applied. The double digit scale (00 to 99) was used to measure overall foliar infection on the whole plant during flowering, soft dough and hard dough stages. Other agronomic practices were followed as per recommendation. Genotypes B86019-1K-3K-0K3, ACC 2087, ACC 2441, ACC GHv-06816, ACC 1597, ACC 1612, ACC 2059 and ACC 2032 were resistant against spot blotch disease. Similarly, 32 barley genotypes were moderately resistant and rest of the tested genotypes were susceptible to the disease. The selected resistant barley genotypes can be used in crossing program and/or promoted for further testing to develop spot blotch resistant varieties for inner Tarai region of Nepal

Riding the Third Wave of SoTL

Taking stock of an enterprise can be a stimulating exercise. It is also an essential one that allows for assessment of what one has while facilitating the planning of what one wants. In this piece, we take stock of the scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL), mapping out what we see as the first two waves of the movement, and then identifying a ‘third wave.’ We believe it is time to think bigger. Specifically, those practicing SoTL need to: infiltrate the mainstream, run interference and catalyze the use of SoTL, and work towards a grand picture of learning

Power savings analysis of clipping and filtering method in OFDM systems

The clipping and filtering method is analyzed in terms of power savings. The analysis takes account of the gain in the amplifier efficiency due to peak-to-average-power-ratio (PAPR) reduction. Assuming a linear amplifier and a typical digital signal processor, the power savings is shown to be in the order of Watts

Diversity techniques for broadband wireless communications: performance enhancement and analysis

The diversity techniques have been proven to be effective for next generation broadband wireless communications, and are the focus of this thesis. The diversity techniques can be broadly categorized into three types: Space, Time, and Frequency. In this thesis, we are mainly concerned with frequency and space diversity techniques. Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) is a frequency diversity technique which offers several benefits such as easier digital implementation, immunity to multipath channels, low complexity channel equalization, etc. Despite these desirable features, there are few inherent problems in OFDM such as high peak-to-average power ratio (PAPR). High PAPR demands large dynamic range in the transmitted chain such as digital to analog converter (DAC) and power amplifier (PA). Unless pre-processed, the transmitted signal gets distorted due to quantization errors and inter-modulation. In the initial stage of PhD candidature, the author focused on PAPR reduction techniques. A simple modification on conventional iterative clipping and filtering (ICF) technique was proposed which has less computational complexity. The power savings achievable from clipping and filtering method was considered next. Furthermore the ICF is compared with another distortion-less PAPR reduction technique called Selective Mapping (SLM) based on power savings. Finally, impact of clipping and filtering on the channel estimation was analyzed. Space diversity seeks to exploit the multi-path characteristics of wireless channels to improve the performance. The simplest form of the space diversity is the receive diversity where two or more antennas with sufficient spacing collect independent copies of the same transmitted signal, which contributes to better signal reception. In this thesis new analytical expressions for spectral efficiency, capacity, and error rates were presented for adaptive systems with channel estimation error. Beamforming (steering signal towards desired receiver) is another useful technique in multiple-antenna systems to further improve the system performance. MRT (Maximal Ratio Transmission) or MIMO-MRC is such system where the transmitter, based on channel feedback from the receiver, uses weighting factors to steer the transmitted signal. Closed form expressions for symbol error rates were derived for MRT system with channel estimation error. The results were extended to evaluate closed form expressions of error rates for Rectangular QAM. Antenna correlation was considered in another contribution on MRC systems. Relay and Cooperative networks represent another form of spatial diversity and have recently attracted significant research attention. These networks rely on intermediate nodes called &quot;relays&quot; to establish communication between the source and the destination. In addition to coverage extension, the relay networks have shown to offer cooperative diversity when there is a direct link or multiple relays. The first contribution is to analyze a dual-hop amplify-forward relay networks with dissimilar fading scenarios. Next error rates of Rectangular QAM for decode-forward selection relay system are derived. Multiple antenna at relay is included to analyze the benefits of dual spatial diversity over Rayleigh and Nakagami fading channels. Antenna selection is a cost-effective way to exploit the antenna diversity. General Order Antenna Selection (GOAS), based on Ordered Statistics, is used to evaluate signal statistics for a MIMO relay network

On the spectral efficiency for selection combiner diversity (SCD) over slow fading

In this paper we derive closed-form expressions for the single-user capacity of selection combining diversity (SCD) system, taking into account the effect of imperfect channel estimation at the receiver. The channel considered is a slowly varying spatially independent flat Rayleigh fading channel. The complex channel estimate and the actual channel are modelled as jointly Gaussian random variables with a correlation that depends on the estimation quality. Two adaptive transmission schemes are analyzed: 1) optimal power and rate adaptation; and 2) constant power with optimal rate adaptation. Our numerical results show the effect of Gaussian channel estimation error on the achievable spectral efficiency