Effectiveness of a “Whole of Chain” Approach in Linking Farmers to Market: A Case of Pakistan Mango Market

AbstractMango is the second major fruit crop in Pakistan. The domestic retail market for mango in Pakistan is dominated by small retail shops, street hawkers, and road side stalls. The fruit sold in these retail outlets is prescribed by the traditional quality standards of size, appearance and price. However the growth of superior outlets/supermarkets chain especially in the major cities are setting additional quality standards such as blemish free, improved packaging, prestige, convenience to deliver premium quality mangoes. Similarly the export market is mainly targeted to the expatriate Pakistani consumers rather than quality conscious foreign consumers. This is because of inadequate market information and understanding all along the chain. A whole of chain approach is undertaken to improve the market understanding in an ACIAR project. Since the approach is new, a conceptual framework is developed in order to asses the effectiveness of the approach. The results indicate that the participants all along the chain would change their practices if they find the compelling reason to change in their existing businesses

A review of the blood transfusion practices in neuroanesthesia in the perioperative period in a tertiary care hospital

Background: Blood transfusion involves the administration of blood and blood components. Neurosurgical procedures are associated with significant blood loss with the need for blood transfusion in the preoperative, intraoperative and postoperative period to maintain optimal hemodynamic and cerebral oxygenation. Various neurosurgical procedures as traumatic brain injury, complex spinal surgeries, and endovascular neurosurgical procedures may need blood transfusions to maintain the optimal physiology.Methods: This study was performed prospectively at a tertiary care hospital in northern India with about a work load of 800 to 1000 elective neurosurgical surgical procedures being done per year. This data was collected prospectively over a period of one year from the patients being operated for elective neurosurgical procedures and later on shifted to the neurosurgical intensive care unit and the neurosurgical wards. The patients operated for emergency procedures for traumatic brain surgery were not included in the study.Results: A total of 455 elective neurosurgical procedures were done during the study period. Out of these 455 patients there were 95 patients who were in the paediatric age group with age less than 12 years. Out of 360 adult patients 85 patients were in need of blood transfusion which constituted 23.6 percent of the operated patients.   Out of these 85 patients 45 patients needed two transfusions in the form of whole blood or packed cells, 40 patients needed a single transfusion.42 units of fresh frozen plasma were transfused to 17 patients with 15 patients receiving platelet transfusions.Conclusions: In conclusion, neurosurgical population is associated with significant blood loss and a requirement of blood transfusion. About 47 percent of paediatric population needed blood transfusion in our study with around 24 percent of adult population. The transfusion requirement was mainly seen in patients with craniostenosis, meningiomas, cerebello pontine tumours and meningiomas

Consumer preferences to pay a price premium for quality attributes in Pakistani grown mangoes

Consumer preferences in food products are complex and multidimensional in nature, whose measurement requires the designing of succinctly validated scales. This study investigates how urban consumers perceive quality of locally grown mangoes varieties in Pakistan and how much extra price they are willing to pay for these quality attributes. Data was collected through a survey employed at supermarkets in five major cities of Pakistan, and responded 304 randomly selected consumers. Partial least square structural equation modelling was employed in the analysis. The results showed a dimensional structure representing the mango quality perceptions, profiled through extrinsic and intrinsic attributes, and consumers are willing to pay significantly different price premiums for quality attributes in mangoes. The findings of the study will be useful for the policy makers and mango value chain actors because quality in fresh fruits such as mangoes play a key role in determining the final market value of the produce and acceptance by the consumers to pay price premiums. This study contributes to advancing the knowledge on fruit consumption behavior in a developing country where existing research on assessing the willingness-to-pay with actual behavior is scant

Assessing emergency medical care in low income countries: A pilot study from Pakistan

Background: Emergency Medical Care is an important component of health care system. Unfortunately it is however, ignored in many low income countries. We assessed the availability and quality of facility-based emergency medical care in the government health care system at district level in a low income country - Pakistan. Methods: We did a quantitative pilot study of a convenience sample of 22 rural and 20 urban health facilities in 2 districts - Faisalabad and Peshawar - in Pakistan. The study consisted of three separate cross-sectional assessments of selected community leaders, health care providers, and health care facilities. Three data collection instruments were created with input from existing models for facility assessment such as those used by the Joint Commission of Accreditation of Hospitals and the National Center for Health Statistics in USA and the Medical Research Council in Pakistan. Results: The majority of respondents 43/44(98%), in community survey were not satisfied with the emergency care provided. Most participants 36/44(82%) mentioned that they will not call an ambulance in health related emergency because it does not function properly in the government system. The expenses on emergency care for the last experience were reported to be less than 5,000 Pakistani Rupees (equivalent to US$ 83) for 19/29(66%) respondents. Most health care providers 43/44(98%) were of the opinion that their facilities were inadequately equipped to treat emergencies. The majority of facilities 31/42(74%) had no budget allocated for emergency care. A review of medications and equipment available showed that many critical supplies needed in an emergency were not found in these facilities. Conclusion: Assessment of emergency care should be part of health systems analysis in Pakistan. Multiple deficiencies in emergency care at the district level in Pakistan were noted in our study. Priority should be given to make emergency care responsive to needs in Pakistan. Specific efforts should be directed to equip emergency care at district facilities and to organize an ambulance network

Entropy generation as a practical tool of optimisation for non-Newtonian nanofluid flow through a permeable stretching surface using SLM

In this article, entropy generation on non-Newtonian Eyring-Powell nanofluid has been analysed through a permeable stretching sheet. The governing flow problem is based on linear momentum, thermal energy, and nanoparticle concentration equation which are simplified with the help of similarity transformation variables. The resulting coupled nonlinear ordinary differential equations are solved numerically with the help of Successive Linearization method (SLM) and Chebyshev Spectral collocation method. The novel characteristics of all the physical parameters are discussed with the help of graphs and tables. The expression for local Nusselt number and local Sherwood number is also taken into account. It is observed that velocity profile increases due to the greater influence of suction parameter. Moreover, Brownian motion and thermophoresis parameter significantly enhance the temperature profile, however Brownian motion parameter shows converse behaviour on nanoparticle concentration profile. Entropy profile acts as an increasing function of all the pertinent parameters

Special issue on recent developments in Cognitive Radio Sensor Networks

Wireless sensor nodes in traditional Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) use a fixed spectrum assignment policy and their performance is limited due to limited processing and communication power. In addition, these wireless sensor nodes require high bandwidth and their QoS requirements are application specific. Wireless sensor nodes with cognitive radio capabilities (i.e., Cognitive Radio Sensor Networks (CRSNs)), can help to address some of these WSNs limitations. However, there are several research challenges that need to be addressed in CRSNs. In fact, cognitive radio sensor network evolved from Wireless Sensor Networks in order to optimize the bandwidth and Quality-of-Service (QoS) requirements of wireless sensor nodes. Furthermore, CRSNs improve the spectrum utilization, and multiple overlaid sensor networks can be deployed in a specific region. But due to the inherent hardware and energy limitation of sensor nodes, incorporating cognitive radio (CR) capability in sensor nodes imposes challenges. In addition, CRSN nodes must handle additional constraints incurred by CR functionalities such as spectrum sensing, spectrum sharing, and spectrum management

A comparative study of traditional versus best practices mango value chain

Pakistan is the fourth largest producer of mangoes preceded by India, China and Thailand. Marketing of mangoes is mainly in private hands that are supposed to deliver quality mango in the domestic market. However, there is little evidence of developing value oriented mango chain particularly for the high end markets. Growers have attempted to deliver premium quality mangoes at the modern retail stores but due to inadequate marketing skills they were unable to maintain consistent and regular supplies. To keep continuity in transformation, there is a dire need of entrepreneurial traders who can facilitate the growers to fill the gap of connecting them with high end markets. Following the whole-of-chain approach, this study collected data from four mango farms identified in a development project, "ASLP Mango Value Chain Improvement". A wholesaler /commission agent was involved and evaluated from the Multan wholesale fruits and vegetable market. Further, an exclusive premium quality mango sale point was established in Multan Cantonment area and feedback from 100 consumers was collected who bought mango from this outlet. Our findings show the cost/benefits analysis at the whole-of-chain level that can motivate the growers, traders, entrepreneurs and retailers to deliver premium quality mangoes to the quality conscious consumers. The main findings are quality mangoes can easiest achieve a price premium in the domestic market and growers, traders and modern food retailers have adequate benefits in delivering premium quality mangoes to the consumers