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Purchasing plays a momentous role in establishing relationships with a plethora of business partners in supply chain and is pivotal concerning overall firm operations and supply chain performance. Majority of firms militate against the cost-competitive world in reducing the overall component cost by scrutinising cost-effective suppliers. E-procurement is one of the pre-eminent features in supply chain management (SCM) and has garnered considerable attention among manufacturing industries in the Middle East. Due to its distinct nature, a glut of novice criteria and sub-criteria has been augmented with the traditional classifications for selecting a consummate supplier. Initially, the selected criteria were analysed and compared by deriving priority weights using AHP, FAHP and IF-AHP, respectively. Subsequently, we focused on utilising IF-AHP for the first time in e-procurement for efficient supplier selection. Of particular note, this study assists the firm in optimising the evaluation of impeccable supplier selection in e-procurement based on key criteria.

In the context of policy developments surrounding India’s opting out of Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) and India’s lack of ventures in plurilateral regional trade agreements (RTAs), we attempt to analyse the competitiveness and potential of Indian export items in the RCEP region. Our findings show low export intensity for India with RCEP member countries. Higher revealed comparative advantage (RCA) and duty reduction in partner countries may help India in enhancing exports of only a few commodities. India has high RCA in commodities, for which the tariffs by RCEP countries are already moderate. Considering India’s present trade balance position, tariff structure, non-tariff barriers (NTBs) of partner countries, intellectual property rights (IPR) and export competitiveness of Indian commodities, it appears to us that India had limited options but to opt out of RCEP. While the members of RCEP are still open to accepting India, more needs to be worked out on building competitiveness for Indian commodities and the future strategy for negotiations, if India considers itself to be a part of RCEP in the future. Given its limited participation in regional blocks, India should identify its core areas of interest in goods and services where it can enhance its competitiveness and attain better trade performance using strategic bilateral negotiations and possibly exploit imported inputs to promote higher value-added exports.

The Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) agreement was concluded in the year 2020 between ASEAN and its five free trade agreement (FTA) partners excluding India, which was a part of the negotiation since its inception. RCEP remains important for India considering its volume of trade with member countries and FTAs it has with various members of the group. During signing of RCEP, India had FTAs with 12 members except China, Australia and New Zealand. Later, India signed an interim FTA with Australia in April 2022, followed by an Economic Cooperation and Trade Agreement in December 2022. The trade potential India has with these countries will be of interest to the policymakers for influencing its future direction of trade. India’s trade potential with Australia, China and New Zealand with whom it did not have an FTA till the signing of RCEP is important from the perspective of entering into bilateral trade agreements. In this article, the gravity model is used to measure India’s potential trade with RCEP as a block and individually with China, Australia and New Zealand. Here, a high-dimensional fixed effect Poisson pseudo-maximum likelihood model is used for measuring potential trade. A comparison of potential trade with the actual shows that India has more potential for expansion of exports than imports with RCEP as a block and in particular with China, Australia and New Zealand.

The increased complications to the mother and fetus during or after pregnancy and birth are often caused by a wide array of pathogenic organisms mostly belonging to the TORCH group [toxoplasmosis, rubella, cytomegalovirus (CMV), and herpes simplex virus (HSV)]. These agents cause asymptomatic or mild infection in the mother while serious consequences in fetus. The present study was aimed to find significant etiological pathogens in the causation of high risk pregnancy (HRP) in South Indian population. A total of 1,158 HRP women (2010–2013) from Modern Government Maternity Hospital, Hyderabad were considered. Two milliliter of blood was obtained and the serum was analyzed for IgG and IgM antibodies against TORCH agents by ELISA. Twenty-five percent of the study group had fetal congenital malformation in the present pregnancy (Group 1; N= 291) while 75 % showed bad obstetric history (BOH) (Group 2; N= 867). Maternal age of ≤25 years, primi gravida, and consanguinity showed predisposing role for Group 1 while maternal age ≥30 years and ≥ 3 gravida were contributing risk for Group 2. The seropositvity in HRP women for toxoplasma, rubella, CMV, and HSV was 28, 84, 92, and 61 %, respectively for IgG while it was 6, 3, 4, and 3 % for IgG + IgM. Total seropositvity of toxoplasma, rubella, CMV, and HSV in Group 1 was 29, 97, 97, and 62 % while it was 36, 84, 97, and 65 % in Group 2, respectively. Maternal age of ≤25 years, primi gravida, and consanguinity contributed to fetal congenital malformation in the present pregnancy while maternal age of ≥30 years and ≥ 3 gravida towards BOH. Toxoplasma is protective while rubella and CMV are the infectious agents for HRP. Among the groups, toxoplasma and rubella conferred a predisposing risk towards Group 2 and Group 1, respectively. Sixty-one percent seropositvity of HSV in relation to bad obstetric outcome is the highest prevalence reported so far in India.

The yeast FET3gene is required for high affinity iron transport (Askwith, C., Eide, D., Ho, A. V., Bernard, P. S., Li, L., Davis-Kaplan, S., Sipe, D. M., and Kaplan, J. (1994) Cell76, 403-410). The gene has extensive sequence homology to the family of multi-copper oxidases. In this communication, we demonstrate that the gene product is a cell surface ferroxidase involved in iron transport. Cells that contain a functional FET3gene product exhibited an iron-dependent non-mitochondrial increase in oxygen consumption. Comparison of the rate of iron oxidation to O2consumption yielded an approximate value of 4:1, as predicted for a ferroxidase. Spheroplasts obtained from cells grown under low iron conditions also displayed an iron-dependent increase in O2consumption. Treatment of spheroplasts with trypsin or affinity-purified antibodies directed against the putative external ferroxidase domain of Fet3 had no effect on basal O2consumption but inhibited the iron-dependent increase in O2consumption. Anti-peptide antibodies directed against the cytosolic domain of Fet3 had no effect on O2consumption. These studies indicate that Fet3 is a plasma membrane ferroxidase required for high affinity iron uptake, in which the ferroxidase-containing domain is localized on the external cell surface.