Effects of Row Spacings and Varieties on Grain Yield and Economics of Maize

Maize is the second most important crop of Nepal. The yield of the crop is low due to lack of appropriate plant density for the varieties. The field experiment was carried out to study the effect of different row spacings on different maize varieties at Deupur, Lamahi municipality of the dang district in province No. 5, Nepal during the rainy season from June to September, 2018. Four levels of spacings (boardcasting and three row spacings of 45, 60 and 75 cm) and two maize varieties (Rampur Composite and Arun-2) were evaluated using randomized complete block design with three replications. The highest grain yield was found in Rampur Composite and Arun-2 while they were planted with row spacing of 60 cm with plant to plant spacing of 25 cm. The highest grain yield, cob length, cob circumference, number of rows per cob, thousand grain weight  were reported when maize was planted in the  row spacing 60×25cm. Among the maize varieties, Rampur Composite produced the highest grain yield, cob length, cob circumference, number of rows per cob as compared to Arun-2. This study suggested that maize production can be maximized by cultivating maize varieties with row spacing of 60 cm with plant to plant spacing of 25 cm

Effect of Preceding Crops and Nitrogen Rates on Post Harvest Attributes Of Winter Hybrid Maize (Zea Mays L)

A field experiment was conducted at Agronomy research farm of IAAS, Rampur, chitwan, Nepal during summer and winter season 2010 and 2011 to study the effect of crop sequence and nitrogen rates on hybrid maize. There were thirty treatment combination consisting of six crop sequences, maize-maize, fallow-maize, greengram-maize, cowpea-maize, blackgram-maize, clusterbean-maize in main plots and five nitrogen rates 0, 50, 100, 150, 200 kg/ha in subplots with three replication.The research finding revealed that grain yield of maize was higher after summer legumes than after maize, fallow and clusterbean. Maximum grain yield of maize (4840 kg/ha in 2010 and 5230 kg/ha in 2011) was recorded under greengram-maize sequence followed by cowpea-maize, whereas the lowest grain yield was noted under maize-maize during both the years. Grain yield recorded with 200kg N/ha was maximum (6250 kg/ha in 2010 and 6548 kg/ha in 2011) while lowest yield (2296 kg/ha in 2010 and 2570 kg/ha in 2011) was under no nitrogen application. Maximum cob diameter (3.72 cm in 2010 and 3.85 cm in 2011) was recorded under greengram-maize sequence and it was minimum under maize-maize sequence. Cob diameter was maximum (3.78 cm in 2010 and 3.99 cm in 2011) with 200 kg N/ha while it was minimum at no nitrogen application. Cob length noted under cowpea-maize sequence was maximum (12.2 cm in 2010 and 12.8 cm in 2011) which was comparable to greengram – maize. While cob length was minimum under maize-maize sequences. Maximum cob length (12.5 cm in 2010 and 13.3 in 2011) was recorded with 200 kg N/ha and it was minimum under control. Maximum grain number per cob (334.6 in 2010 and 338.5 in 2011) was noted under greengram– maize sequences and minimum under fallow – maize in 2010 and under maize – maize in 2011. Grain number per cob was maximum 359.0 in 2010 and 364.0 in 2011 ) noted with 200 kg N/ha while it was minimum with no nitrogen during both the years . Maximum grain weight per cob (64. 5 g in 2010 and 65 .9 g in 2011) was recorded under cowpea– maize sequences which was comparable to greengram– maize sequences, while it was minimum under maize– maize. Grain weight per cob was maximum (80.0 g in 2010 and 82.0 g in 2011) recorded with 200 kg N/ha and it was minimum under no nitrogen application.Maximum 1000 grain weight (191.5 g in 2010 and 193.0 g in 2011) was recorded under greengram– maize sequence. While it was minimum under maize-maize sequence. 1000 grain weight was maximum (206.5 g in 2010 and 208 .0 g in 2011) with 200 kg N/ha and it was minimum with no nitrogen application. Stover yield was maximum (10504 kg/ha in 2010 and 11050 kg /ha in 2011) under greengram – maize sequences while it was minimum under maize– maize sequences. Maximum Stover yield (11922 kg /ha in 2010 and 12700 kg /ha in 2011) was recorded with 200 kg N/ha while it was minimum with no nitrogen application

Hepatitis B and C co-Infection are independent predictors of progressive kidney disease in HIV-positive, antiretroviral-treated adults

Chronic kidney disease (CKD) is an important cause of morbidity and mortality in HIV-positive individuals. Hepatitis C (HCV) co-infection has been associated with increased risk of CKD, but prior studies lack information on potential mechanisms. We evaluated the association between HCV or hepatitis B (HBV) co-infection and progressive CKD among 3,441 antiretroviral-treated clinical trial participants. Progressive CKD was defined as the composite of end-stage renal disease, renal death, or significant glomerular filtration rate (eGFR) decline (25% decline to eGFR 800,000 IU/ml had increased odds (OR 3.07; 95% CI 1.60–5.90). Interleukin-6, hyaluronic acid, and the FIB-4 hepatic fibrosis index were higher among participants who developed progressive CKD, but were no longer associated with progressive CKD after adjustment. Future studies should validate the relationship between HCV viremia and CKD

The contribution of Fermi-2LAC blazars to the diffuse TeV-PeV neutrino flux

The recent discovery of a diffuse cosmic neutrino flux extending up to PeV energies raises the question of which astrophysical sources generate this signal. One class of extragalactic sources which may produce such high-energy neutrinos are blazars. We present a likelihood analysis searching for cumulative neutrino emission from blazars in the 2nd Fermi-LAT AGN catalogue (2LAC) using an IceCube neutrino dataset 2009-12 which was optimised for the detection of individual sources. In contrast to previous searches with IceCube, the populations investigated contain up to hundreds of sources, the largest one being the entire blazar sample in the 2LAC catalogue. No significant excess is observed and upper limits for the cumulative flux from these populations are obtained. These constrain the maximum contribution of the 2LAC blazars to the observed astrophysical neutrino flux to be $27 \%$ or less between around 10 TeV and 2 PeV, assuming equipartition of flavours at Earth and a single power-law spectrum with a spectral index of $-2.5$. We can still exclude that the 2LAC blazars (and sub-populations) emit more than $50 \%$ of the observed neutrinos up to a spectral index as hard as $-2.2$ in the same energy range. Our result takes into account that the neutrino source count distribution is unknown, and it does not assume strict proportionality of the neutrino flux to the measured 2LAC $\gamma$-ray signal for each source. Additionally, we constrain recent models for neutrino emission by blazars.Comment: 18 pages, 22 figure

Improved limits on dark matter annihilation in the Sun with the 79-string IceCube detector and implications for supersymmetry

We present an improved event-level likelihood formalism for including neutrino telescope data in global fits to new physics. We derive limits on spin-dependent dark matter-proton scattering by employing the new formalism in a re-analysis of data from the 79-string IceCube search for dark matter annihilation in the Sun, including explicit energy information for each event. The new analysis excludes a number of models in the weak-scale minimal supersymmetric standard model (MSSM) for the first time. This work is accompanied by the public release of the 79-string IceCube data, as well as an associated computer code for applying the new likelihood to arbitrary dark matter models.Comment: 24 pages, 8 figs, 1 table. Contact authors: Pat Scott & Matthias Danninger. Likelihood tool available at http://nulike.hepforge.org. v2: small updates to address JCAP referee repor

Search for astrophysical sources of neutrinos using cascade events in IceCube

The IceCube neutrino observatory has established the existence of a flux of high-energy astrophysical neutrinos inconsistent with the expectation from atmospheric backgrounds at a significance greater than $5\sigma$. This flux has been observed in analyses of both track events from muon neutrino interactions and cascade events from interactions of all neutrino flavors. Searches for astrophysical neutrino sources have focused on track events due to the significantly better angular resolution of track reconstructions. To date, no such sources have been confirmed. Here we present the first search for astrophysical neutrino sources using cascades interacting in IceCube with deposited energies as small as 1 TeV. No significant clustering was observed in a selection of 263 cascades collected from May 2010 to May 2012. We show that compared to the classic approach using tracks, this statistically-independent search offers improved sensitivity to sources in the southern sky, especially if the emission is spatially extended or follows a soft energy spectrum. This enhancement is due to the low background from atmospheric neutrinos forming cascade events and the additional veto of atmospheric neutrinos at declinations $\lesssim-30^\circ$.Comment: 14 pages, 9 figures, 1 tabl