The role of an insurance intermediary in Fiji: a critical perspective of the consumer

The purpose of this article is to critically examine the role played by insurance brokers in the non-life or general insurance sector in Fiji with reference to consumer protection. The article evaluates the regulatory framework enshrined under the Insurance Act 1998 (Fiji) (1998 Act) related to intermediaries in the insurance sector. The article aims to analyse and compare the position of the Act in Fiji with that in the United Kingdom and Australia. The comparative analysis reveals shortfalls in the Fijian legislation and paves the way for legislative reforms in the 1998 Act

Systems Genomics of Thigh Adipose Tissue From Asian Indian Type-2 Diabetics Revealed Distinct Protein Interaction Hubs

We performed a systematic analysis of genes implicated in thigh subcutaneous adipose tissue of Asian Indian Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus (AIT2DM) and created a phenome-interactome network. This analysis was performed on 60 subjects specific to limb thigh fat by integrating phenotypic traits and similarity scores associated with AIT2DM. Using a phenotypic attribute, a contextual neighbor was identified across all the traits, viz. body mass index (BMI) statistics, adipocyte size, lipid parameters, homeostatic model assessment- insulin resistance (HOMA-IR), HOMA-ß. In this work, we have attempted to characterize transcription signatures using the phenome-interactome maps where each of the traits under study including the intermediary phenotypes has a distinct set of genes forming the hubs. Furthermore, we have identified various clinical, biochemical, and radiological parameters which show significant correlation with distinct hubs. We observed a number of novel pathways and genes including those that are non-coding RNAs implicated in AIT2DM.We showed that they appear to be associated with pathways, viz. tyrosine kinase JAK2, NOTCH thereby recruiting signaling molecules such as STAT5 and Src family kinases on the cell surface regulated them and our analyses comprising significant hubs suggest that thigh subcutaneous adipose tissue plays a role in pathophysiology of AIT2DM

Diagnostic utility of neutrophil CD64 as a marker of early-onset sepsis in very low birth weight neonates

Background: Sepsis is a major cause of neonatal morbidity and mortality. It is extremely important to make an early diagnosis of sepsis, as early recognition and prompt institution of treatment is critical for improved outcome. Objectives: This prospective observational study was aimed to evaluate the diagnostic utility of neutrophil CD64 expression for the identification of early-onset sepsis in very low birth weight (VLBW) neonates. Methods: All VLBW neonates with signs and symptoms of sepsis before 72 h of age, born to mother with or without risk factors for sepsis were enrolled. Complete blood cells count, C-reactive protein, absolute neutrophil count, I/T ratio, blood culture, and neutrophil CD64 assessment were performed. Sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value (PPV), and negative predictive value (NPV) of neutrophil CD64 and its combination with other hematological makers for sepsis were measured. Results: A total of 302 VLBW neonates were enrolled; of which, 151 were cases and 151 were controls. Neutrophil CD64 was significantly increased in cases than in controls (p<0.001). The highest performance of CD64 was at

A longitudinal observational study of user’s perspective of use of Copper-T-380-A inserted in immediate post partum period at a tertiary health care centre in Central India

Background: The study aims to understand user’s perspective & complaints due to Copper-T-380A inserted during the immediate postpartum period and to assess the expulsion rate, voluntary removal & mean duration of use. The study also aims to find out reasons for voluntary removal of the IUD.Methods: A longitudinal observational was conducted in tertiary health care center in central India during July-2009 to June 2010. A total of 360 women were enrolled who had immediate post partum IUD insertion. They were interviewed within 48 hours of IUD insertion using a preformed pre tested questionnaire & followed after 1.5, 3 & 6 months in field visits. Results: Of all 74.51% users continued using it upto 22.04±2.66 weeks. The cumulative expulsion rate at the end of 6 months was 16.62%. Most common interval of expulsion was after 3.6±1.5 weeks of IUD insertion. Almost 24.58% users had voluntary removal of IUD after a mean duration of 9.34±3.54 weeks following insertion. The most common reason for voluntary removal of IUD is lower abdominal pain in 13.5%. No instance of uterine perforation, sepsis or hyperpyrexia was noted.Conclusion: Immediate postpartum IUD insertion is safe means of contraception. There is a gradual decline in the discomfort caused by an IUD with time. But there is high expulsion rate

Interactive Concept Bottleneck Models

Concept bottleneck models (CBMs) (Koh et al. 2020) are interpretable neural networks that first predict labels for human-interpretable concepts relevant to the prediction task, and then predict the final label based on the concept label predictions.We extend CBMs to interactive prediction settings where the model can query a human collaborator for the label to some concepts. We develop an interaction policy that, at prediction time, chooses which concepts to request a label for so as to maximally improve the final prediction. We demonstrate thata simple policy combining concept prediction uncertainty and influence of the concept on the final prediction achieves strong performance and outperforms a static approach proposed in Koh et al. (2020) as well as active feature acquisition methods proposed in the literature. We show that the interactiveCBM can achieve accuracy gains of 5-10% with only 5 interactions over competitive baselines on the Caltech-UCSDBirds, CheXpert and OAI datasets.Comment: To appear at AAAI 202

The evolution of insurance law in Fiji: the past and present

The legislative history of insurance in Fiji reflects two main objectives — prudential regulation and consumer protection. Consumer protection is essential in the industry not only as a goal in itself but also because the lack of consumer protection ultimately will prevent take-up of insurance and thus destroy the industry. In other words, customer satisfaction is not only the need for the insurance sector to survive it is the most essential factor for providing social security. Thus, it is often consumer protection and community concerns that drive the regulation of the industry, even where prudential regulation is concerned. The article takes up the historical development of insurance legislation during different times to understand the focus of lawmakers and keeping the customer satisfied

Wind Energy Conversion System With Permanent Magnetic Synchronous Generator

This paper presents a study on grid-connected WECS with PMSG. The application of non-conventional energy resources develops much rapidly to improve low carbon energy resources in India. Nowadays, we are going to depend on solar, wind for the fulfillment of energy demand. Wind energy applications develop much more rapidly than other renewable resources such as solar, geothermal, and so on in the 21st century. It becomes the third core energy resource following non-conventional fuels as oil and chemical. The electrical energy generated by wind power plants is the best developing and most promising renewable energy source. The wind is a clean, free, and limitless energy source. Wind Energy Generation Systems (WECS) are confronted with increasing demands for power quality and harmonic distortion control. With the advance in power electronics technology, the fast growth of variable speed WECS is now witnessed