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BackgroundRoad Traffic Injuries (RTIs) are one of the leading causes of death and disability worldwide with 90% of global mortality concentrated in the low and middle income countries. RTI surveillance is recommended to define the burden, identify high risk groups, plan intervention and monitor their impact. Despite its stated importance in the literature, very few examples of sustained surveillance systems are reported from low income countries. This paper shares the experience of setting up an urban RTI surveillance program in the emergency departments of five major hospitals in Karachi, Pakistan.MethodWe describe the process of establishing a surveillance system including assembling a multi-institution research group, developing a data collection methodology, carrying out data collection and analysis and dissemination of information to the relevant stakeholders. In the absence of a road safety agency, the surveillance system required developing individual partnerships with industry, police, city government, media and many other stakeholders. Impact of the surveillance is demonstrated by some initiatives in the local trauma system and improvements in road design to effect hazard reduction.ConclusionWe demonstrated that a functional RTI surveillance program can be established, and effectively managed in a developing country, despite lack of infrastructure and limitation of resources. Data utilization in the absence of well defined road safety infrastructure within the government is a challenge. More effective actions are hampered by the limited capacity in the transport and health sectors to do in-depth analysis through road safety audits and trauma registries.

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SUMMARY In recent years, the commercial potential of oil extraction and biodiesel production derived from vegetable seed is being realized. The process energy input requirements are important factors in oil extraction and biodiesel production. This research work investigated oil extraction from flax seeds and compared extraction yield with the energy load. The effect of moisture content on the oil yield was compared between a mechanical oil expeller, organic solvent extraction, organic solvent and microwave assisted, organic solvent and ultrasonic assisted, and combined microwave and ultrasonic with organic solvent. The maximum oil yields % wt/wt from these techniques was 22.6%, 36.3%, 10.0%, 42.0% and 27.8%, respectively. The moisture content had a significant effect on oil yield with the mechanical oil expeller, organic solvent method and ultrasonic assisted extraction, whereas no or little effect was found on microwave‐assisted extraction. The microwave‐assisted extraction showed better results compared with the ultrasonic‐assisted and combined treatment methods. The relative energy consumption of these processes was experimentally investigated; energy ratios were calculated based on the amount of energy recovered to the amount of energy supplied to the flax seed for oil extraction. The net energy ratios showed that microwave‐assisted extraction had the highest (25.21%), followed by organic solvent method (14.04%), ultrasonic method (6.33%) and lowest was with combined ultrasonic and microwave assisted treatment (5.73%). These results showed that flax seed oil can be extracted using microwave‐assisted methods efficiently and in an energy feasible manner. In situ ultrasonic transesterification was applied to powdered samples with 4%, 8% and 12% moisture content (on % dry basis) within an ultrasonic bath having an intensity of 0.124 W/cm2. The flax seed biodiesel produced showed a highest conversion yield of 93%, and the effect of different moisture content on the yield showed that 4% moisture content sample produced the greatest biodiesel yield. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.