Background:: Surgical site infections (SSIs) are the leading nosocomial infections and important cause of morbidity and mortality in surgical patients. Objective:: The present study was conducted to investigate the bacterial etiology of SSIs and determine the antibiotic susceptibility patterns of the isolates. Methodology:: A cross-sectional study was conducted between July to November 2019 on 105 patients suspected of having SSIs. Wound swabs were collected aseptically using sterile cotton swabs and processed in suitable culture media following the standard operative protocols. Antibiotic susceptibility testing was done by Kirby-Bauer disc diffusion technique following Clinical and Laboratory Standards Institute (CLSI) guidelines. Results:: Out of 105 samples collected, 69 showed the growth and 77 bacterial isolates were documented altogether. The most frequently isolated bacteria were Staphylococcus aureus 46 (59.74%) followed by E. coli 9 (11.68%). Antimicrobial profile of the isolates revealed that 61.04% were MDR, 25.80% were ESBL producers and 9.68% were carbapenemase producers. Conclusion:: High prevalence of antibiotic resistant bacterial isolates associated with SSIs warrants the need for aseptic techniques during and after surgical procedures and judicious use of antibiotics.

The thermal comfort of pedestrians in the outdoor spaces of urban areas has deteriorated due to the urban densification. The street being a major outdoor space that can promote physical activity, and especially with the emerging concept of walkable cities, thermal comfort in streets should be given utmost importance. Thermal comfort for pedestrians is the absence of any sense of discomfort when interacting with the outdoor thermal environment. This paper aims to evaluate the effectiveness of various landscape measures (trees and pavements) to enhance pedestrian thermal comfort on sidewalks. The study has adopted the quantitative approach and used the simulation and questionnaire survey as methodological tools to meet its objectives. The study was conducted on both sidewalks of Durbarmarg, one of the dense and busy streets of Kathmandu. The microclimatic modeling software ENVI-met 5.03 lite was used for the simulation. The results of the simulation showed that increasing the leaf area density (LAD), tree canopy size and height can reduce the air temperature by 0.2°C and Mean radiant temperature by 4.86°C. Among the various pavement materials in various scenarios for the simulation, the light concrete pavement showed the highest decrease in terms of the air temperature (0.579°C) however the mean radiant temperature was highest (7.22°C) for the same material. Hence, high reflective surfaces reduce the surface /air temperature but it increases the mean radiant temperature and hence they might not be appropriate for the thermal comfort of pedestrians. The paving materials which showed a decrease in both air temperature and mean radiant temperature were porous concrete, flagstone, and brick pavers. The study concludes that proper selection of pavement materials and high leaf area density of trees can enhance the thermal comfort for pedestrians on the sidewalks of Kathmandu.

In Nepal, heritage conservation is inherently political, as can be observed from the several heritage activisms in the various forms of protests, demonstrations, and criticisms of post-disaster reconstruction efforts of heritage structures of Kathmandu, which were heavily damaged by the Gorkha Earthquake of 2015. The politicization of heritage reconstruction is conspicuous in the government’s approach to defining heritage objects and places for conservation, the methods by which it interprets the relics of the past, and the cultural history and the opposition it receives from local communities and civil society. This has led to the emergence of heritage activism to protect cultural heritage from the threat of loss. This paper aims at highlighting heritage activism and its role in the post-disaster context by discussing the politicization of the conservation agenda by the government (state actors) and activists (stakeholders). Specifically, it focuses the role of heritage activism using secondary sources of information to assess the heritage value, its significance, and the “event analysis method” to analyze the events of the protest against the government’s reconstruction plan of Ranipokhari (Queen’s Pond), located in the heart of the city of Kathmandu. The paper discusses the contributory factors for the emergence of heritage activism and its potential role in sensitizing state actors and stakeholders about the conservation agenda to safeguard conservation prerequisites. It concludes that heritage activism can serve as an important means of indirect public participation to influence the post-disaster conservation policies of heritage sites in developing countries like Nepal.

The orientation and glazed surface area used for windows in a building have significant effects on its indoor thermal comfort and overall energy consumption. The increasing use of glazed windows and lack of consideration of orientation in building design have become a major problem in warm and humid regions as windows cover sensitive skin areas for the exchange of energy leading to increased solar gain inside the building. This paper describes the effect of the varied ‘area ratio of glazed window to the wall for different building orientations’ on the thermal performance of the residential building in a warm humid climatic region of Nepal. A typical residential building located in Kalikanagr of Butwal, the fast-urbanizing sub-metropolis of Western Nepal, was selected for the study from 18 houses surveyed using the purposive sampling method. Nine varying values of Window to Wall Ratio (WWR) of glazed façade ranging from 0.1 to 0.9 with a constant increment of 0.1 in north and south façades, and the change in the building orientations were considered for the detailed study. Altogether eighty different test scenarios including base case scenarios were created and annual thermal energy consumption was computed for each test scenario using the Autodesk Ecotect Analysis, 2011. Findings from the study showed that the south orientation is the most appropriate compared to the north-east for all WWR to reduce the building energy consumption and an increase in WWR also results in increased energy consumption. The study concludes the careful considerations of WWR and the south orientation during the designing of building will contribute to efficient energy consumption in residential buildings.