Adherence to Antiretroviral Therapy among Patient Living with Human Immunodeficiency Virus/Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (PLHA) Patients Visiting at Anti-retroviral Therapy Center in Pokhara

The main objective of this paper is to assess the status of adherence to Anti-Retroviral Therapy (ART) among patient living with HIV AIDS (PLHA) patients receiving ART therapy. A crosssectional descriptive design was used to collect data from 326 PLHA patients. Data were collected through face to face interview among the attended in ART clinic western regional hospital, Pokhara. Participants aged 18 years and above and patient receiving ART at least for 12 months or more were included in this study. The collected data entered in Epi-data and analysis was done using SPSS. The age group of the respondents was from 18 to 70 years with the mean age of 40.29±11.84 (SD). Out of 326 respondents 55.2% were male and 59.8% were married. Forty percent of the respondents had no formal education and most of the respondents (60.4%) were unemployed. Majority (86.5%) of respondents were taking ART since more than 2 years of duration. Majority of the respondents (92.9%) had >95% adherence with ART while 7.1% respondents had non- adherence. The majority of the PLHA patients have more than ninety five percent adherences to anti-retroviral therapy. Some of them have still nonadherence to ART and the reason they claimed were forgetfulness during travelling and too long duration of treatment. It is recommended to promote awareness program related to ART therapy and importance of its adherence to their family member and community people

Financial Performance Analysis of Nepalese Financial Institutions in the Framework of CAMEL

Analysis of financial performance to detect financial health of finance companies, development banks and commercial banks as a whole is a less explored research in Nepalese context. This paper, therefore, attempts to examine the financial performance and factors influencing financial performance of Nepalese financial depositary institutions in the framework of CAMEL. This study is based on descriptive cum casual research design. This study is based on secondary data which was extracted from various publications published by Nepal Rastra Bank such as banking and financial statistics, financial stability report and bank supervision report. All commercial banks, development banks, and finance companies are taken as population of the study. The study deals with financial performance analysis of entire population covering five years from 2014/15 to 2018/19. The variables such as capital adequacy, assets quality, management efficiency, earnings and liquidity are used to analyze financial performance. Descriptive as well as pooled regression analysis was used to assess the relationship among the variables. Descriptive analysis shows that financial institutions in each category meet NRB standard regarding capital adequacy. On the basis of capital adequacy and earnings, finance companies stand at first, on the basis of assets quality, development banks stand at first and on the basis of management efficiency, commercial banks stand at first. Finance companies store high liquidity as compared to other class financial institutions. The regression analysis shows that return on assets, ROA has significant positive relationship with capital adequacy and ROE but ROA has significant negative relationship with assets quality. However, return on equity, ROE has significant positive relationship with assets quality and ROA but ROE has significant negative relationship with capital adequacy. Capital adequacy and assets quality play major role to maximize ROA and ROE of financial institutions.

Performance Evaluation of Local Body of Pokhara Metropolitan City

Local governments are the closest unit of government to the people at grass root levels. The principal objective of this paper is to evaluate the performance of the local government of Pokhara Metropolitan City that lies in Kaski district, Nepal. This paper describes and analyzes the performance of the newly formed local government. It is based on the source of primary data from fieldwork with ground theory and secondary data- journal articles, books, Constitution of Nepal, 2015, act, rule, and regulations. The election of local government was held in Nepal in 2017, after 20 years. It is expected to bring political stability as well as peace and prosperity in Nepal. Nepal has been restructured as a federal democratic republic nation with federal, provinces and local government units- for sharing of power among the three tiers of government. Following the local elections, Pokhara Metropolitan City has already ratified more than six dozen laws (rules and regulations) for effective day to day service delivery to the local people. With grievances and grudges, the Nepalese people are experiencing the governance system of local bodies but the notion of people’s participation is more rhetoric. Also, financial capacity-both expenditure capacity and revenue generating capacity has severely limited the operational efficiency of local government. Moreover, transparency in public affairs has not been fully achieved yet.

Microbial Diversity in the Glacial Ecosystem of Antarctic, Arctic, and Tibetan Plateau: Properties and Response to the Environmental Condition

Microorganisms, as successive members of the food web, play a major role in biological processes. They are found in environments ranging from extremely hot to harsh cold temperatures. Thus, the study of bacterial communities in various ecosystems is of great concern around the world. The glacier is one of the parts of the cryosphere, which is the key component and sensitive indicator of climatic and environmental changes. A glacial ecosystem is a habitat for various microorganisms, i.e., autotrophic and heterotrophic. Different physicochemical parameters like temperature, pH, electrical conductivity, the input of nutrient concentration, precipitation, ions concentrations, etc. influence the microbial diversity in the glacial ecosystem for their metabolic processes. Successive studies of bacterial communities in the Himalayan glacial ecosystem are reliable proxies to know the relationships between microbial biodiversity and climate change since the Himalayan glaciers are free from anthropogenic activities. After the study of the relevant literature, it is clear that the researches. have been carried out in the Polar Regions, and the Tibetan plateau mainly focused on the glacial ecosystem. This review concluded that Proteobacteria, Bacteroidetes, Cyanobacteria, Firmicutes, Verrucomicrobia, and Actinobacteria were the most dominant bacterial phyla via 16S rRNA clone libraries and Illumina MiSeq. Alter in landscapes, nutrient cycles, exposure of light, shifting on the concentration of different elements, glacier retreats were the major components for survival strength of dominant bacterial phyla. However, limited studies on the glacial ecosystem of the Himalayas have been published. Thus, the study of bacterial abundance, diversity, and community in the Himalayas will help plug this research gap.

Health Problems of Third Gender in Naulo Bihani, Pokhara

The third gender is in many cultures made up of an individual, considered male at the time of birth, but change on feminine gender role or sexual role when they grow up and vice versa third genders and homosexual are the group of people who are not allowed to talk about their sexual and emotional preferences in public. The study health problems faced by the third gender of Naulo Bihani, Pokhara raises the genuine questions regarding the demographic and health condition of that third gender. All 60 residing there were the sample of data collection through census method by using interview schedule with open and close questions. Observation and KII were done with the management committee of Naulo Bihani, Pokhara, and sister organization of Blue Dimond Society Kathmandu. It attempts to raise consciousness of human rights on the sexual and gender minorities, witness violence, abuse and rape. All the respondents suffered from viral and bacterial diseases; 78.33 percent suffered from protozoa infection. Only fifteen percent respondents were suffered from Syphilis. But no one was suffered from HIV AIDS. They felt social discrimination and tell them Hijara and so on. It is justification to advocate their right in the society so the researcher tried to make a research on the topic.

Gender Differentials in Perceiving Climate Change Impacts in the Kaligandaki Basin, Nepal

The global climate system is changing faster than earlier projections with variable rates across the geographic scale. The impacts are also perceived heterogeneously across the places and communities. This study explores gender differentials in impact-perception in the Kaligandaki river valley in central Nepal. Research used primary data collected from 360 households, 75 Key Informants and 24 Focus Groups Discussion as well as through construction of nine Historical Timeline Calendars from three clusters – Meghauli (lower basin), Lumle (middlepart) and Upper-Mustang (upper-basin). The impact perception was assessed under seven social-ecological variables in the unipolar Likert Scale. The impact perception does not significantly differ across the gender of respondents while testing the means of perception scores and probably it is due to the impacts that have been experienced at profound level. The test of independence of gender to level of impacts indicates no significant association. This research also tried to check if other social-economic variables such as age of respondents and landholding size of household as well as self-reported economic status of households were significantly associated with some of the impacts. However, the number of cells with expected counts less than 5 in chi-square test turned to be more than 20 percent so they were considered to be invalid. Nevertheless, impact perception is significantly associated with the places of residence or study clusters, which indicates that local social-ecological system matters in climate change impacts. The qualitative information however, suggests otherwise that women feel higher level of risk and impacts, and is related to their concern over the welfare of family members and livelihood resources. Since risk perception is found to be related to spatial characteristics, this research recommends for development and implementation of targeted and localized adaptation policies. None the less, those policies must also recognize the women’s concerns on climate change impacts.

Perception of Social Health Insurance Program among Community People in Pokhara, Nepal

Perception of social health insurance program is the way in which it is understood or interpreted in terms of different factors; quality of care service delivery adequacy, benefits of program, convenience, price, providers attitude, peer pressure, Community beliefs and attitudes. The main aim of this study is to identify community people’s perception and the factors influencing the perception of people towards social health insurance program. Data from total of 105household registered in insurance program (insured) were collected. Descriptive cross sectional study design was used. The data were analyzed and interpreted by using descriptive and inferential statistics through the computer program SPSS 16 version and presented in tables. Findings revealed that age group range from 20 to 77 years, 72.4 percent family size 5 or below 74.3 percent utilized the insurance services from the accredited health facility. Regarding the reason for enrollment, 83.8 percent said financial protection against illness, 50.8 percent gave the reason that they had to buy drugs outside facility as the main reason for not renewing the program in future. Price of program related response was top perceived factor with mean 3.97±0.70 whereas provider attitude was low perceived factor with mean 1.95± 0.58. The study concluded that the price of program related factors were the top perceived factors whereas provider attitude related factors were low perceived factors that may influence for the perception of community people towards social health insurance program.

Contribution of Nepal Telecom to Nepalese Revenue

Public enterprise in Nepal plays vital role in generating revenue in Nepal. Nepal Telecom (NT) is the leading and high revenue contributing public enterprise in Nepal. The main aim of this study is to examine the contribution of different tax from NT to Nepalese revenue. Hence, descriptive research design was applied to complete this study. Under the descriptive research design case study of NT has carried out to attain the desired objective of this study. At present there are major five licensed mobile telecom are into operation in Nepal which was considered as population. Out of these, NT has coverage nationwide as well highest revenue generating company. So, NT is taken as sample by following the convenience sampling method. The study has based on secondary data. Revenue from NT includes income tax, and VAT, custom, service fees, local development fees, dividend tax, and share of profit etc. The income tax from NT to total revenue is the highest 1.66 percent and the least 1.19 percent and average 1.43 percent during the study period

Restructuring Spiritualism in New Life: Conversion to Christianity in Pokhara, Nepal

Christianity entered Nepal more than three and half centuries ago but religious conversion is still a contentious issue. This paper explores the trend of conversion to Christianity in Pokhara, Nepal. The study method was qualitative and quantitative. Observation, interview schedule and case study guidelines were used to obtain data from 70 converts of AG Church, Fulbari, Pokhara. The study findings reveal that females and oppressed of all caste/ethnicities with low occupational status were more interested in conversion. With no single cause of conversion, process and consequence, there is a nexus between conversion and modernity, consequences and the elements of continuity. With healing and church charity as the key motivations behind conversion, people convert with different intentions to overcome health problems, discontent with present religion, for money, friends and family influences. Christian church activates charities/supports for conversion. Conversion as a choice is a product of modern individualism, and the converts perceived contentment and changes in post-convert life. The accusation that conversion to Christianity is for financial gains may be valid for those who come with expectations, but the majority converts economic status is not satisfactory. In the absence of a state sponsored health and social security system, prevailing socioeconomic inequalities and pseudo-scientific non-medics superstition of church, conversion may be a way to break predominant sociocultural hierarchy/barriers. Hence, it should not be very surprising that many more will adopt Christianity in future. Educational systems should be reformed to reflect each religion’s genuine teaching and ideology and hence generate awareness on proselytizing.

Customer Satisfaction towards Paragliding Services in Pokhara: The Moderating Role of Gender

Customer satisfaction is an important aspect of successful business. So, every business should maintain a good relationship with its customers to enhance loyalty and increase profit. This research considers ‘gender’ as a moderator in the causal relationship between service quality/ value dimensions and overall satisfaction of customers in paragliding through measurement of perceived service quality and perceived service value by applying descriptive and analytical methods. Perceived service quality is measured by the constructs: Reliability, Assurance, Tangibility, Empathy, and Responsiveness while perceive service value is measured by the constructs: Price, Scenery, and Thrill. The landing site near Phewa Lake was chosen as the study area. A convenient sample of 150 respondents was selected for the study. Questionnaire was constructed to elicit primary data on independent variables and was evaluated on fivepoint Likert Scale. Focused group discussions supplemented the study. Gender-wise mean score of different variables revealed that the contribution of perceived service quality to customer satisfaction is higher than that of perceived service value for both the genders. Among the three significant variables- Reliability, Price, and Thrill, the Reliability has higher contribution in Perceived Service Quality measurement. Similarly, the Price has higher contribution in Perceived Service Value Measurement. Overall, the gender-wise level of satisfaction in paragliding among customers is found good. Further studies are needed to establish causal relationship between customer satisfaction and other demographic variables.