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Supply chains in general and last-mile logistics in particular, have been disrupted due to COVID-19. Though several innovative last-mile logistics solutions have been proposed in the past, they possess certain limitations, especially during COVID-19 motivating the need for an alternative last-mile logistics solution. We present a review of literature related to last-mile logistics and supply chain disruptions to identify the limitations of existing last-mile delivery practices during COVID-19. Using a stylized analytical model, we then propose that "mobile warehouse" can be an effective solution to last-mile logistics issues faced during COVID-19 and beyond under certain conditions. A mobile warehouse is a truck dedicated to a particular geographical location and carries the inventory of various products based on the estimated demand requirements for these products in that geographical location. We provide the condition under which the B2C e-commerce providers find it profitable to adopt a truck as a mobile warehouse to sell high demand items quickly.

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In recent times, signalling quality via queues for generic services has received significant attention. However, the literature till date on primary care services has focussed on the optimal speed-quality trade-off to ensure higher service times and lower waiting times for the patients. Borrowing from the queue management literature on generic services, we aim to understand whether the hypothesis that queue is a signal of physician's quality is reasonable. Based on theoretical arguments, we justify the need to investigate this hypothesis on queue acting as a signal of quality in primary care. Although we conjecture that the queue length on arrival may act as a signal of quality, the waiting experienced after joining the queue is still considered expensive.

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BACKGROUND: Importance of parasites in ecological and evolutionary interactions is being increasingly recognized. However, ecological data on parasites of important host species is still scanty. We analyze the patterns seen in the faecal parasites of tigers in the Tadoba National Park, India, and speculate on the factors and processes shaping the parasite community and the possible implications for tiger ecology. RESULTS: The prevalence and intensities were high and the parasite community was dominated by indirect life cycle parasites. Across all genera of parasites variance scaled with the square of the mean and there was a significant positive correlation between prevalence and abundance. There was no significant association between different types of parasites. CONCLUSIONS: The 70 samples analyzed formed 14 distinct clusters. If we assume each of the clusters to represent individual tigers that were sampled repeatedly and that resident tigers are more likely to be sampled repeatedly, the presumed transient tigers had significantly greater parasite loads than the presumed resident ones.

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