High-Value Agricultural Products of the Fiji Islands Performance and Prospects

This paper analyses the performance of high-value agricultural products of Fiji Islands in terms of their production and exports during 1975-2004. Problems and key issues affecting this are discussed. The performance of agriculture was poor for traditional, semi- and highly processed products during 1975-2004. Primary products, such as copra declined by 51 percent, paddy rice by 27 percent, cocoa by 91 percent, and beef by 7 percent. Sugarcane production increased only by 12 percent in three decades. There was a substantial increase in pork, chicken, eggs, and fish production. Production of processed products, such as sugar and coconut oil decreased during the period. Butter of local content increased by 24 percent, saw log by 16 percent and stock feed by 134 percent. Volume of export of sugar declined by 12 percent, canned fish by 50 percent and coconut oil by 79 percent. There is a great potential for diversification of exports from traditional to semi- and highly processed products. Improvements in competitiveness coupled with favourable domestic trade policies are crucial for successful export performance.High-value products, less developed countries, South Pacific Islands, agricultural trade, Agribusiness,

Prioritization of Program Elements Based on Their Testing Requirements

Even after thorough testing of a program, usually a few bugs still remain. These residual bugs are usually uniformly distributed throughout the code. It is observed that bugs in some parts of a program can cause more frequent and more severe failures compared to those in other parts. It should, then be possible to prioritize the statements, methods and classes of an object-oriented program according to their potential to cause failures. Once the program elements have been prioritized, the testing effort can be apportioned so that the elements causing most frequent failure are tested more. Based on this idea, in this paper we propose a program metric called the influence of program elements. Influence of a class indicates the potential of class to cause failures. In this approach, we have used the intermediate graph representation of a program. The influence of a class is determined through a forward slicing of the graph. Our proposed program metric can be useful in applications such as coding, debugging, test case design and maintenance etc

Effect Of COVID-19 Lockdown On Heavy Metal Contamination In Yamuna River Water Of Delhi Region

The present study was conducted to measure levels of heavy metal pollution in Yamuna river water in the Delhi region during the COVID-19 lockdown period, which provided a unique opportunity to trace the sources of water pollution in the Yamuna segment in the Delhi region. As expected, the concentration levels of toxic heavy metals (chromium, nickel, copper, zinc, cadmium, and lead) were measured to be below the detection limit (BDL). While iron and manganese were in the ranges of 0.34 - 2.40 mg/l and 0.03 - 2.02 mg/l, respectively. A comparison with the values reported in the literature suggested that the sources of toxic heavy metals in the Yamuna water of Delhi are of primarily anthropogenic origin, whereas iron and manganese can arise from natural as well as anthropogenic sources

Testing the permanent income hypothesis in the developing and developed countries: A comparison between Fiji and Australia

Hall (1978) has stimulated considerable controversy and empirical work on testing the permanent income hypothesis (PIH). Much of the empirical work is on the developed countries where opportunities for inter-temporal substitution are generally higher than in the developing countries. Therefore, it is expected that PIH would be valid for only a smaller proportion of consumers in the developing countries. This paper uses the extended framework of Campbell and Mankiw (1989) to estimate the proportion of consumers for whom PIH is valid in Fiji and Australia. Our results show that PIH consumers are about 40\% higher in Australia than in Fiji

Testing the permanent income hypothesis in the developing and developed countries: A comparison between Fiji and Australia

Hall (1978) has stimulated considerable controversy and empirical work on testing the permanent income hypothesis (PIH). Much of the empirical work is on the developed countries where opportunities for inter-temporal substitution are generally higher than in the developing countries. Therefore, it is expected that PIH would be valid for only a smaller proportion of consumers in the developing countries. This paper uses the extended framework of Campbell and Mankiw (1989) to estimate the proportion of consumers for whom PIH is valid in Fiji and Australia. Our results show that PIH consumers are about 40\% higher in Australia than in Fiji

Investigating the Evolution of Amati Parameters with Redshift

Gamma Ray Bursts (GRB) are among the brightest objects in the Universe and hence can be observed up to a very high redshift. Properly calibrated empirical correlations between intensity and spectral correlations of GRBs can be used to estimate the cosmological parameters. However, the possibility of the evolution of GRBs with the redshift is a long-standing puzzle. In this work, we used 162 long-duration GRBs to determine whether GRBs below and above a certain redshift have different properties. The GRBs are split into two groups, and we fit the Amati relation for each group separately. Our findings demonstrate that estimations of the Amati parameters for the two groups are substantially dissimilar. We perform simulations to investigate whether the selection effects could cause the difference. Our analysis shows that the differences may be intrinsic, and the selection effects are not their true origin.Comment: 6 pages, 8 figure

Scrub Typhus with Acute Bilateral Cerebellar Ataxia: A Rare Presentation

Scrub typhus, also known as Bush typhus, is a zoonotic infectious disease predominantly affecting rural and semi urbanareas. It is caused by the bacterium Orientia tsutsugamushi. Scrub typhus is predominantly seen in monsoon and post-monsoonseasons. It a vector-borne disease and has a varying clinical presentation ranging from mild acute febrile illness to lifethreatening multiorgan dysfunction. Neurological manifestations can occur in the form of meningitis, meningoencephalitis,polyneuritis cranialis, intracerebral hemorrhage; rarely, it can cause cerebellar dysfunction. Herein, we report a case of acutebilateral cerebellar ataxia, one of the rare neurological complications of scrub typhus

Synthesis and characterization of silver nanoparticles by Murraya Koenigii leaves

Nanoparticles have a size of 1nm-100nm in any one of the three dimensions. Smaller nanoparticles have different physical, chemical and biological properties than atoms and molecules. Metals, non-oxide ceramic materials, metal oxides, silicates, and polymers, and organic and biomolecular components can be used to create material nanoparticles. Nanoparticles come in various shapes, like spheres, platelets, cylinders, and tubes. Green synthesized nanoparticles are not costly due to unemployment of toxic and hazardous compounds. Plants are widely spread, freely accessible, and safe to touch. They also supply a variety of metabolic compounds which are advantageous in reducing, capping and stabilizing process throughout in synthesis process. The reduction mechanism is based on the phytochemicals present in plant extract. In present work we synthesize silver nanoparticles by using Murraya Koenigii leaves through ecofriendly method. For synthesis of Silver nanoparticles, Silver nitrate (AgNO3 ) used as metal precursor salt and green extract of Murraya Koenigii used as reducing and capping agent for formation of nanoparticles. The nanoparticles then formed characterized by X-ray diffraction, Scanning electron microscope, Energy dispersive spectroscopy, Dynamic light scattering, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy and optical properties by UV-Visible spectroscopy. XRD revealed the crystalline structure of silver nanoparticles, FESEM and Dynamic light scattering reveled the particle size of 60 nm, FTIR revealed the presence of different functional groups which are attached with sample and Optical properties of sample revealed by UV-Visible spectroscopy that also satis ies different experimental results

Therapeutic targeting of Krüppel-like factor 4 abrogates microglial activation

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Neuroinflammation occurs as a result of microglial activation in response to invading micro-organisms or other inflammatory stimuli within the central nervous system. According to our earlier findings, Krüppel-like factor 4 (Klf4), a zinc finger transcription factor, is involved in microglial activation and subsequent release of proinflammatory cytokines, tumor necrosis factor alpha, macrophage chemoattractant protein-1 and interleukin-6 as well as proinflammatory enzymes, inducible nitric oxide synthase and cyclooxygenase-2 in lipopolysaccharide-treated microglial cells. Our current study focuses on finding the molecular mechanism of the anti-inflammatory activities of honokiol in lipopolysaccharide-treated microglia with emphasis on the regulation of Klf4.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>For <it>in vitro </it>studies, mouse microglial BV-2 cell lines as well as primary microglia were treated with 500 ng/mL lipopolysaccharide as well as 1 μM and 10 μM of honokiol. We cloned full-length Klf4 cDNA in pcDNA3.1 expression vector and transfected BV-2 cells with this construct using lipofectamine for overexpression studies. For <it>in vivo </it>studies, brain tissues were isolated from BALB/c mice treated with 5 mg/kg body weight of lipopolysaccharide either with or without 2.5 or 5 mg/kg body weight of honokiol. Expression of Klf4, cyclooxygenase-2, inducible nitric oxide synthase and phospho-nuclear factor-kappa B was measured using immunoblotting. We also measured the levels of cytokines, reactive oxygen species and nitric oxide in different conditions.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Our findings suggest that honokiol can substantially downregulate the production of proinflammatory cytokines and inflammatory enzymes in lipopolysaccharide-stimulated microglia. In addition, honokiol downregulates lipopolysaccharide-induced upregulation of both Klf4 and phospho-nuclear factor-kappa B in these cells. We also found that overexpression of Klf4 in BV-2 cells suppresses the anti-inflammatory action of honokiol.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Honokiol potentially reduces inflammation in activated microglia in a Klf4-dependent manner.</p