30 research outputs found
Applications and Challenges of Blockchain Technology in Agriculture Sector: A Review
No full textTechnology plays an important role in the growth of the country. New technologies are helping people in doing the tasks more effectively by saving time, money and effort. Information, Communication and technology helped to push the stagnant growth of Indian industries. In agriculture, dissemination of information has helped people to acquire knowledge of farming activities, sharing needs, access to the market through TV and radio. As technology is evolving, Artificial Intelligence, Machine learning, Deep learning have paved the way in the agriculture sector. Simultaneously, the Government of India took up the initiative of establishing and supporting 10,000 Farmer Producer Organizations to strengthen the farming community and the Indian agriculture sector. In making the initiative successful, apt deployment and use of technology will play a critical role. In this article, the authors have discussed, what blockchain technology is, its applications and challenges in the agriculture sector
Palliative Care as a Health System Indicator in Georgia: Unmet Need, Access Barriers, and Policy Implications
No full textBackground:Palliative care is increasingly recognised as a fundamental component of universal health coverage (UHC) and people-centred health systems. The World Health Organization estimates that approximately 56.8 million people worldwide require palliative care each year, including individuals in the final stages of life and patients living with chronic or progressive illness who require symptom management and supportive care [1,2]. However, only about 14% of those who need palliative care globally receive it, with the greatest unmet need concentrated in low- and middle-income countries [1,2]. The Lancet Commission on Palliative Care and Pain Relief estimated that more than 61 million people experience serious health-related suffering annually, driven largely by cancer, cardiovascular diseases, chronic respiratory diseases, neurological disorders, and advanced organ failure [3]. Demographic ageing and the rising prevalence of non-communicable diseases are expected to substantially increase the global demand for palliative care in the coming decades [4].
Methods:This article presents a policy-oriented narrative review and conceptual analysis based on international literature, national policy documents, and health system statistics. The analysis synthesised evidence from three complementary domains: global research on palliative care needs and serious health-related suffering; Georgia-specific literature and policy frameworks addressing the development of palliative care services and opioid access; and national health system statistics describing healthcare infrastructure, workforce capacity, and service utilisation. Evidence from these sources was integrated to examine how structural characteristics of the Georgian health system influence access to palliative care services and pain management within the broader context of health system performance [5–8].
Results:Global evidence demonstrates a persistent mismatch between palliative care need and service availability. Research indicates that more than 80% of the global population lives in countries with inadequate access to opioid analgesics, while a small number of high-income countries account for the majority of global morphine consumption for medical purposes [9]. In Georgia, available evidence suggests that palliative care services remain limited in geographic coverage and insufficiently integrated within mainstream healthcare delivery. Major constraints include concentration of services in urban centres, limited development of community- and home-based palliative care models, gaps in workforce training, and administrative and regulatory barriers affecting opioid prescribing and dispensing practices. These challenges indicate that palliative care access in Georgia is constrained not only by service availability but also by broader structural factors within the healthcare system [10–13].
Conclusions:Palliative care in Georgia should be interpreted not only as a specialised clinical service but also as a health system performance indicator reflecting equity of access, continuity of care, and availability of essential medicines. Persistent gaps in service coverage, opioid accessibility, workforce capacity, and community-based care reveal broader structural weaknesses within the healthcare system. Strengthening palliative care in Georgia will require expansion of community-based services, balanced opioid policy implementation, improved professional training, and systematic monitoring of service coverage and equity indicators. The Georgian case illustrates how palliative care can function as a tracer condition for evaluating health system responsiveness and equity in countries undergoing demographic and epidemiological transition.
Keywords:palliative care; health systems; universal health coverage; serious health-related suffering; opioid access; health equity; Georgi
A modified mayfly-SVM approach for early detection of type 2 diabetes mellitus
No full textDiabetes mellitus is a chronic disease that affects many people in the world badly. Early diagnosis of this disease is of paramount importance as physicians and patients can work towards prevention and mitigation of future complications. Hence, there is a necessity to develop a system that diagnoses type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) at an early stage. Recently, large number of studies have emerged with prediction models to diagnose T2DM. Most importantly, published literature lacks the availability of multi-class studies. Therefore, the primary objective of the study is development of multi-class predictive model by taking advantage of routinely available clinical data in diagnosing T2DM using machine learning algorithms. In this work, modified mayfly-support vector machine is implemented to notice the prediabetic stage accurately. To assess the effectiveness of proposed model, a comparative study was undertaken and was contrasted with T2DM prediction models developed by other researchers from last five years. Proposed model was validated over data collected from local hospitals and the benchmark PIMA dataset available on UCI repository. The study reveals that modified Mayfly-SVM has a considerable edge over metaheuristic optimization algorithms in local as well as global searching capabilities and has attained maximum test accuracy of 94.5% over PIMA
Unveiling the dynamics of farmer producer organizations in India: a systematic review of status, challenges, and future directions
No full textAbstract India, a developing country heavily reliant on the agricultural sector, has witnessed the emergence of farmer producer organizations (FPOs) as a transformative collective model for farmers as an alternative to traditional cooperatives. The FPOs aim to solve the problems encountered by small and marginal farmers, especially those about better access to capital, technical improvements, and efficient inputs and markets. A comprehensive review of the literature in this field is essential because of the rapid advancement of FPO research articles. Scholars have published several review articles on FPO from different perspectives to tackle this issue. However, there is not a considerable number of published studies on FPO that incorporate bibliometric analysis. In the present study, an attempt is made to investigate the FPO publications with bibliometric analysis. This study employs a systematic literature review methodology, focusing on research published between 2002 and 2023. From an initial pool of 3796 research articles, 64 relevant studies from the Scopus database were identified for the study. These papers were analyzed using publication, journal, country, and author productivity, as well as the highest cited documents, co-citation analysis, bibliographic coupling analysis, and cluster analysis. The findings reveal that most studies focus on assessing the performance of FPOs, with limited attention to critical areas like institutional support, leadership, and policy execution. The cluster analysis results revealed that agricultural marketing, sustainable agriculture, the impact of membership on performance, women in agriculture, manufacturing, sustainability driving innovation, and technological efficiency of the food supply chain are the emerging themes in the literature. This paper provides policy recommendations on some significant challenges FPOs face, such as streamlining documentation, enhancing market access, ensuring fair tax treatment, allowing fertilizer distribution rights, and promoting farmer-led leadership
Study of maternal and neonatal outcome in teenage pregnancy
No full textBackground: Teenage is a period of transition from childhood to adulthood. According to WHO, the period of teenage extends from 11-19 years. The objective of the present study was to find out the incidence and to evaluate the effect of pregnancy in teenage girls (13-19 years) and its maternal and neonatal outcome.Methods: Prospective observational cohort study, the duration from 1st January 2016 to 31st July 2017.Results: 216 teenage patients were studied; however medical termination and abortions were excluded as the study includes both maternal & neonatal outcome. 3944 pregnant patients were admitted for delivery and abortion related care. Out of this, pregnant adolescents were 216. Proportion of adolescent pregnancy was 5.47%. 170(78.7%) were booked, 32 (14.81%) were unmarried, while 50 (23.1%) were literate. Primigravida were 189 (87.5%) & multigravida was 27 (12.5%).39 (18.05%) were Anemic, Preterm labour occurred in 14 (6.5%) & PROM occurred in 41 (18.9%) patients. Preeclampsia and Eclampsia occurred in 27 (12.5%) and 14 (6.5%) respectively. There were 176(81.48%) normal vaginal deliveries.36 (16.66%) had Lower Segment Caesarean Section; commonest indication being Cephalopelvic disproportion (25%) & 4(1.85%) were instrumental deliveries 53 (24.3%) babies required admission at Neonatal Intensive care unit. Low Birth weight babies were 15 (28.3%).Conclusions: - Early ANC registration and good antenatal care with effective intrapartum & postpartum monitoring along with contraceptive advice on discharge help reduce maternal and neonatal morbidity & mortality associated with teenage pregnancy. However, it is evident that teenage pregnancy rates could be reduced by effective measures like sex education in schools, community-based programs, widespread awareness about contraception
