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,

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

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

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

Implications of an extended dark energy model with massive neutrinos

Recently there has been reports of finding a lower bound on the neutrino mass parameter ($\Sigma m_\nu$) when using ACT and SPTpol data however these bounds on the $\Sigma m_\nu$ are still weaker for most case around at 1 $\sigma$ level. In this context, here in this work, we study the consequences of using an enlarged four parameter dynamical dark energy equation of state on neutrino mass parameter as well as on the Hubble and S8 tensions. The four parameter dark energy equation of state incorporates a generic non-linear monotonic evolution of the dark energy equation of state, where the four parameters are the early and the present value of the equation of state, the transition scale factor and the sharpness of the transition. We report that with lensing-marginalized Planck + BAO + Pantheon and prior on absolute magnitude $M_B$ and KIDS/Viking $S_8$ prior, the model favours a non-zero value for the neutrino mass parameter at the most at $\sim 1 \sigma$ level ($\Sigma m_\nu = 0.1847_{-0.165}^{+0.0698}$ eV). In this case this model also brings down the Hubble tension to $\sim 2.5 \sigma$ level and the S8 tension to $\sim$ 1.5 $\sigma$ level. This model also provide a tighter constraints on the value of the dark energy equation of state at present epoch $w_0$ ($w_0 = -0.9901_{-0.0766}^{+0.0561}$) in comparison to the CPL like parameterization.Comment: accepted for Astrophysical Journal,more figures adde

Open Access

Regulatory role of TRIM21 in the type-I interferon pathway in Japanese encephalitis virus-infected human microglial cell