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Purpose – This paper aims to explore consumers' perception of quality of new processed beef products and the role of expected and experienced quality in the formation of consumer's purchase intentions. Based on the Total Food Quality Model, a conceptual framework is developed that relates cue evaluation, expected quality, experienced quality, purchase motive fulfilment and purchase intention. Design/methodology/approach – Structural equation modeling is used to test the framework with data from a sample of 201 respondents, involving three steps. First, principal component analyses were applied to explore underlying factor structures within each construct. Based on the exploratory factor analyses, measurement models were estimated, with the measured variables as indicators of latent constructs for all the four products. Finally, structural models were estimated for the relationships among the latent constructs. Findings – Results show that cue evaluations, expected/experienced quality and purchase motive fulfilment are all predictors of purchase intention, but that their weight and causal structure differ between purchase intentions before and after trial. Practical implications – Implications for the introduction of new beef products are discussed. Originality/value – This paper is an attempt to quantitatively estimate the relationships between quality cues, expected and experienced quality, and purchase motives as determinants of purchase intention for new products using structural equation modeling.

Background.Imbalance of serum sodium in the form of hypo and hypernatremia has bad prognostic impact, and linked with increase morbidity and mortality. Covid 19 is a deadly viral infection can be complicated with either of the two state. This increases the complications associated with the covid 19 infection.Material and method.This is the observational cohort study, conducted at The Indus Hospital Karachi, from March 2020 to September 2020. All patients were divided in to three groups on the basis of their serum sodium level, and distribution of variables was observed in all these three groups. To observe the effect of dysnatremias on outcome, binary logistic regression was run and odds ratios with 95% confidence interval were obtained.Results.We included 655 patients, in which 70.7% were male, while 29.3% were female. Mean age was 54 ± 15.5 with minimum of 1 year and maximum of 95 year. Hyponatremia was more common 154(23.5%) than hypernatremia 79(12.1%) patients. Dysnatremia were common in patients of age group of 51 – 65 years (Hyponatremia 72(46.8%) hypernatremia 36(45.6%). Hyponatremia didn’t show any significant effect on the clinical manifestation, critical illness and outcome of the patients except drowsiness (p=0.022). On the other hand hypernatremia had highly significant effect on clinical manifestation, critical illness and outcome of the patients. The patients who had hypernatremia died 16.8 times more than patients with normal sodium (p= 0.001).Conclusion.Dysnatremias has profound impact on the outcome of covid patients. We found development of hypernatremia has devastating effect on patient survival.

<b><i>Introduction:</i></b> Placental abruption (PA) is a major obstetric complication leading to increased risk of maternal and neonatal morbidity and mortality globally. This study aims to determine the prevalence and its feto-maternal outcome in cases of placental abruption in our population. <b><i>Methods:</i></b> A retrospective descriptive case study was conducted from January 2013 till December 2017 in Dubai Hospital, Dubai, UAE. All patients admitted with suspicion of placental abruption at 28 weeks of gestation and beyond were included in the study. The clinical information like maternal age, parity, antenatal risk factors, gestational age at delivery, mode of delivery, postpartum complications and perinatal outcome were studied. <b><i>Result:</i></b> A total of 15,079 deliveries occurred during the study period; PA accounted for 0.61%. 62% of the women had revealed abruption and 38% had concealed abruption. The antenatal risk factors associated with abruption were diabetes (26%), chronic hypertension (2.2%), pre-eclampsia (19.5%), previous cesarean section (26%), and multiple pregnancy (9.8%). Cesarean section was the mode of delivery in 78% of abruption cases. 33% had postpartum hemorrhage and 20% had received blood products. Adverse fetal outcomes were as follows: 51% of the cases had preterm delivery, 47% of the babies had a birth weight of less than 2.5 kg, 8 cases died of intrauterine fetal death and there was 1 neonatal death. <b><i>Conclusion:</i></b> Even when being aware of the risk factors, placental abruption still remains unpredictable or unpreventable. Having better equipped obstetric and neonatal units with multidisciplinary management can improve both maternal and perinatal outcome in cases of placental abruption.

Background In an ESRD subset of patients, COVID-19 infection is associated with increased disease burden and higher mortality rates. Methods We conducted a retrospective single-center cohort study in which 43 ESRD patients had a diagnosis of COVID-19. Association of risk factors with mortality was assessed by chi-square test and logistic regression analysis. Data were collected on a structured performa which included variables like age, gender, comorbid conditions, drug history, clinical presentation, hemodynamic status and laboratory parameters. Outcome variables were recovery and death. All patients received standard treatment for COVID-19 according to hospital protocols, along with hemodialysis and continuous renal replacement therapy (CRRT) when needed. Results Those most affected were found to be male, 25 (58.1%), while the number of females affected was 18 (41.9%). The most frequent comorbid condition was hypertension (HTN), seen in 35 (81.4%) patients; however, thromboembolic complications were very few in these patients. The mortality rate in our study was 25.6%, and the population most susceptible to poor outcomes in the ESRD subgroup was elderly people (45.5%), while younger patients recovered the most from COVID-19 (53.1%). Hypoalbuminemia, leukocytosis, lymphopenia and raised LDH were also found to be associated with death in ESRD patients suffering from COVID-19 (81.8, 72.7, 100 and 100%, respectively). In multivariate logistic regression analysis, we found that the odds ratio of dying from COVID-19 was 19.5 times higher in patients aged >65 years as compared to patients aged 18–50 years (p=0.039). Similarly, patients with a high TLC were 24.1 times more likely to die than patients with a normal TLC (p=0.008). Conclusion In our center, the mortality rate of ESRD patients affected with COVID-19 disease was 25.6%, and older age, leukocytosis, lymphopenia, hypoalbuminemia and high LDH were significantly associated with mortality.