Performance Analysis of Blockchain Platforms

Blockchain technologies have drawn massive attention to the world these past few years mostly because of the burst of cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, Etherium, Ripple and many others. A Blockchain, also known as distributed ledger technology, has demonstrated huge potential in saving time and costs. This open-source technology which generates a decentralized public ledger of transactions is widely appreciated for ensuring a high level of privacy through encryption and thus sharing the transaction details only amongst the participants involved in the transactions. The Blockchain is used not only for cryptocurrency but also by various companies to meet their business ends, such as efficient management of supply chains and logistics. The rise and fall of numerous crypto-currencies based on blockchain technology have generated debate among tech-giants and regulatory bodies. There are various groups which are working on standardizing the blockchain technology. At the same time, numerous groups are actively working, developing and fine-tuning their own blockchain platforms. Platforms such as etherium, hyperledger, parity, etc. have their own pros and cons. This research is focused on the performance analysis of blockchain platforms which gives a comparative understanding of these platforms

Relationship between Income-poverty and Food insecurity in Rural Far-western Mid-hills of Nepal

For the purpose of this study, sample was selected through stratified random sampling from Baitadi district, which falls in rural Far-western Hills of Nepal. Both income and consumption measure of poverty revealed that problem of poverty is more severe in Melauli, which is relatively remote village devoid of transportation, communication, market, and other developmental services. Education, occupation, gender of household head, and family size are found to be the most important factors that affect income-poverty as well as consumption-poverty (food insecurity). Caste and landholding size has a significant effect on poverty when we consider food insecurity. Households with illiterate head, head engaged in laboring, female-head, larger family size, Occupational Caste household, and small holding are suffering from both income-poverty and consumption-poverty in greater extent. Income-poverty measure shows the higher incidence, gap, and severity of poverty compared to food insecurity for all the variables considered for the study. This could be due to inclusion of non-food expenses while constructing poverty line, and is also due nature of consumption itself, which is relatively continuous compared to income. However, in Melauli, incidence, depth, and severity of both poverty measures are closer. This may be due to shortcoming of income-poverty measure to take into account of spatial factor. Therefore, adoption of poverty line for whole region i.e., Rural Western Hills could mislead understanding of poverty. Thus, consumption-poverty is very relevant in the case where construction of location specific income-poverty line demands extra cost. This can further be justified by significantly higher chance of non-poor, in terms of income-poverty, being food insecure, and lower chance of income-poor being food secure in Melauli compared to Patan.Income-poverty; consumption-poverty; Baitadi; householdIncome-poverty, consumption-poverty, Baitadi district.

Role of Cooperative in Improving Accessibility to Production Resources and Household Economy of Backyard Pig Raisers in Batangas, Philippines

The backyard (small scale) pig sector is considered a key proponent in the development of Philippine agriculture and of the local animal industry. For years, it outperforms the commercial (large-scale) pig sector in terms of aggregate inventory, volume and value of production and number of direct dependents it employs nationwide. However, the marked increase of pork demand driven by rapid urbanization and population growth in major urban centers of Metro Manila and nearby provinces of Central and Southern Luzon regions hinder the local backyard pig sector to cope with the "Livestock Revolution". With this phenomenon, backyard pig raisers are required to upscale their farm operation to increase the domestic pork supply and to meet the rising demand of the people. The backyard pig raisers' limited access to scarce production resources is adversely affected by commercial pig operators specially in Central and Southern Luzon regions where the impacts of the "Livestock Revolution" is strongly felt. The assembly of backyard pig raisers to cooperative is one of the potential measures promoted by the government (public) and private sector to directly link them with the dynamics of the whole market chain ranging from procurement of critical production resources and services to the differentiated products of the output market. Through their linkage to the formal livestock market, backyard pig raisers gains the potential to improve their operation and socioeconomic status as well. Based on a field survey, this paper aims to highlight the role of cooperatives in improving the backyard pig raisers' access to various production resources and their household economy.Backyard pig farming, Livestock Revolution, cooperative production, contract growing, facilitate credit and services, household economy, Livestock Production/Industries,

A Poverty Analysis in Baitadi District, Rural Far Western Hills of Nepal: An Inequality Decomposition Analysis

Occupational caste is deprived in terms of education, and landholding. Due to this laboring and agriculture (specially small animals like goats and poultry) remain the prominent source of income for them. Average income from salaried job is the highest followed by remittance and that from laboring is the lowest. This led to the high concentration of Occupational caste under third and fourth income quartile (poorer). A share of income from agriculture in total income is the highest and the share from laboring is the lowest. Relative concentration coefficient (RCC-ci or gi) shows salaried job has both the highest income disequalizing effect (ci = 1.56 or gi = 1.49) as well as the highest factor inequality weight (wici) followed by agriculture. In case of Melauli, however, salaried job followed by remittance has the highest income disequalizing effect. Negative values of Relative Concentration Coefficient and factor inequality weight for laboring indicate that income from it has the income equalizing effect. Thus, agricultural promotion in rural areas based on labor demand increasing policies with proper market arrangement for the agricultural produce will be helpful to reduce the income inequality. In addition, regulation regarding working hour and minimal wage rate should be strictly enforced for the welfare of those involved in laboring, which is also the poorest.Coefficient of variation; gini-coefficient; relative concentration coefficient; factor inequality weight

Climate-Smart Agriculture (CSA): A Systematic Assessment and Analysis of Policies/plans and Practices in South Asia, Particularly Focusing on Nepal and India <Article>

Climate-smart agriculture (CSA) is a promising concept in agriculture to deal with the climate change impacts through innovative policies/plans, approaches, and practices. This study presents the assessment and analysis of the concept, policies, and practices in relation to CSA in South Asia, particularly focusing on Nepal and India. Both countries have different climatic contexts, but most of the farmers rely on rainfall for agriculture, which is the main source of livelihood and food security. This study applied the systematic review of published papers relating to climate policies/plans and CSA practices in Science Direct (SD) and Springer Link (SL) for the period of 2009 to 2019 with specific inclusion and exclusion criteria. It was found that these studies had specifically focused on climate policies/plans and CSA practices chiefly focusing on agriculture and food security in these countries. However, the CSA practices were different based on the local climatic contexts either initiated by farmers themselves or supported by the government, non-government, and other agencies. Farmer-initiated CSA practices were mostly spontaneous, whereas institution-supported practices were planned, guided by the climate policies/plans. However, these policies/plans and practices lacked specific indicators to assess the successes. Many of these practices were common prior to the emergence of the CSA concept and approach. Thus, it is important to define and understand the CSA concept, approaches, and mechanisms through research, development, and promotion at the national as well as local levels.This paper is a partial output of the JSPS Bilateral Joint Research Project (JPJSBP 120197904: 2019), “Moving Towards Climate Resilient Agriculture: Understanding the Factors Influencing Adoptian in India and Japan”, Principal Investigator: Maharjan, Keshav Lall, Professor, Hiroshima University

Antibiotic Susceptibility Pattern of Staphylococcus aureus Isolated from Pus/Wound Swab from Children Attending International Friendship Children's Hospital

A wound gets infected when the organism gets invaded through the breached skin, proliferated and production of various enzymes, toxins, etc. In order to treat the wound infection, antibiotic susceptibility pattern of organism should be determined before the prescription of the medicine. The present study was conducted from September 2017 to March 2018 with an aim to determine antibiotic susceptibility pattern of Staphylococcus aureus identified from the pus/wound swab among the patients visiting the International Friendship Children's Hospital, Kathmandu, Nepal. Total 270 sample were processed, isolated and identified using standard microbiological procedure and biochemical test. Antibiotic susceptibility test was carried out by using Modified Kirby Bauer's Disc Diffusion Method. Out of total sample, 51.48% (139) showed growth. The growth distribution was found to be high in out-patient department 84.9% (118) than in-patient department 15.1% (21). Among 139 positive growth, 83.5% were gram positive and 16.5% were gram negative. All together 12 different organisms were identified, among which S. aureus was found to be predominant organism 105 (75.5%). S. aureus was found to be sensitive towards Linezolid followed by Doxycycline whereas it was found resistant towards Ciprofloxacin. Among S. aureus identified, 50% were Multidrug resistant (MDR) S. aureus and 55% were Methicillin resistance S. aureus (MRSA). MRSA was found to be sensitive towards Linezolid followed by Doxycycline and resistant towards Ciprofloxacin. The association between MDR and MRSA was found positively significant (i.e. p-value = 0.000). All strains of S. aureus were found to be sensitive towards Vancomycin.&nbsp; 22.86% were double disk diffusion test (D-test) positive. The prevalence of D-test was found to be high in MRSA (75%). The relationship between D-test and MRSA was found to be significantly correlated with each other (r = 0.39). Linezolid, Chloramphenicol, Vancomycin and Doxycycline is a drug of a choice for both S. aureus and MRSA infection

Puzzle game using Android MVVM Architecture

The development of Android mobile applications in application industry is growing rapidly. Application requirements change frequently and demand for code structure adjustment with addition of new features. Thus, flexibility and maintainability in a software architecture is a determining factor for an application’s success. The objective of this thesis is to implement Model View ViewModel (MVVM) in a simple 8-puzzle game. The development of this application is carried out in Android Studio IDE. This application uses API level 15 or above to give access for more android devices. The main programming language used in this application is Java. This thesis also explains different architecture concepts used in Android such as Model View Controller, Model View Presenter and finally Model View ViewModel. This study also specifies the uses of best practices in software development. Also, downsides of an architecture such as Model View Controller are also pointed out and the alternatives presented. This thesis uses a Slider puzzle application written in Java to implement MVVM architecture pattern. This was previously written in MVC architecture pattern. In conclusion, the thesis illustrates how the use of a well-designed architecture could affect the overall quality of an application in terms of flexibility and maintainability. It also encourages a best-practice minded approach in software development and further studies toward the implementation of the Model View ViewModel architecture in Android