The Current and Future State of China's Pharmaceutical Industry

The report is part of the individual study made to complement the Group Management Project with an examination of China’s current and future role in the global pharmaceutical industry. The report represents the individual component of the group project by providing an understanding of the rising competition from pharmaceutical companies like China that is becoming the main source of pharmaceutical products in the European Union (‘EU’) region as outlined in the exploration of future scenarios for the region in the year 2030. Through the analysis of the current state of China’s pharmaceuticals industry, future businesses within the generics market in the EU can determine the best strategic decisions to make with consideration of the presence of the Chinese companies operating within the EU environment in the coming years

The Current and Future State of China's Pharmaceutical Industry

The report is part of the individual study made to complement the Group Management Project with an examination of China’s current and future role in the global pharmaceutical industry. The report represents the individual component of the group project by providing an understanding of the rising competition from pharmaceutical companies like China that is becoming the main source of pharmaceutical products in the European Union (‘EU’) region as outlined in the exploration of future scenarios for the region in the year 2030. Through the analysis of the current state of China’s pharmaceuticals industry, future businesses within the generics market in the EU can determine the best strategic decisions to make with consideration of the presence of the Chinese companies operating within the EU environment in the coming years

Null and void, inoperative or incapable of being performed of an arbitration agreement

The parties must have a written arbitration agreement before referring their dispute to arbitration. The party might refuse to refer their dispute to arbitration on the ground that the arbitration agreement is “null and void, inoperative or incapable of being performed”. This research is conducted to identify the circumstances that the arbitration agreement is “null and void, inoperative or incapable of being performed”. Thus, this research investigated eleven cases from Malayan Law Journal where the courts held that the arbitration agreement is “null and void, inoperative or incapable of being performed”. This can be a guideline for the parties who want to resolve their dispute by arbitration. The methodology of this study is based on documentary analysis with the assistance of Nvivo 11. From the analysis, there are five circumstances which led to the arbitration agreement to be “null and void”. First, the agreement does not have a clear wording to refer arbitration clause in another document. Second, there is no acceptance by a party on the arbitration agreement. Third, the parties in dispute are not the parties in the arbitration agreement. Fourth, the agreement does not show intention to refer arbitration clause in another document. Fifth, the dispute does not within the scope of the arbitration agreement. Besides, there are two circumstances which led to the arbitration agreement to be “inoperative”. First, the party fails to comply with the time frame stipulated in the arbitration agreement. Second, the arbitration agreement incorporated the permissive word and there is another clause which conflicts with the arbitration clause

Pseudo-solidification of dredged marine soils with cement - fly ash for reuse in coastal development

The dislodged and removed sediments from the seabed, termed dredged marine soils, are generally classified as a waste material requiring special disposal procedures. This is due to the potential contamination risks of transporting and disposing the dredged soils, and the fact that the material is of poor engineering quality, unsuitable for usage as a conventional good soil in construction. Also, taking into account the incurred costs and risk exposure in transferring the material to the dump site, whether on land or offshore, it is intuitive to examine the possibilities of reusing the dredged soils, especially in coastal development where the transportation route would be of shorter distance between the dredged site and the construction location. Pseudo-solidification of soils is not a novel idea though, where hydraulic binders are injected and mixed with soils to improve the inherent engineering properties for better load bearing capacity. It is commonly used on land in areas with vast and deep deposits of soft, weak soils. However, to implement the technique on the displaced then replaced dredged soil would require careful study, as the material is far more poorly than their land counterparts, and that the deployment of equipment and workforce in a coastal environment is understandably more challenging. The paper illustrates the laboratory investigation of the improved engineering performance of dredged marine soil sample with cement and fly ash blend. Some key findings include optimum dosage of cement and fly ash mix to produce up to 30 times of small strain stiffness improvement, pre-yield settlement reduction of the treated soil unaffected by prolonged curing period, and damage of the cementitious bonds formed by the rather small dosage of admixtures in the soil post-yield. In short, the test results show a promising reuse potential of the otherwise discarded dredged marine soils

Scenario Planning as a Tool for Long Term Strategic Planning. The Generics Drug Industry in the European Union

As costs associated with medical care continue to increase, and populations continue to age, member states of the EU are increasingly concerned about their long-term public spending budgets. Generic drugs have been targeted by EU policy makers as replacements to high cost pharmaceutical drugs so as to bring healthcare costs down. The EU has taken several measures in the recent past to increase competition in the generic drugs industry within the EU marketplace. As competition increases in the EU generics market over the coming years, firms within the pharmaceuticals drug industry in the region must explore new strategies so as to thrive and prosper in the long term. Decisions on making the best use of available resources must be made and strategies must be reformulated to determine actions going into the future. These long-term strategies will help companies determine their current and future positions, and ultimately, the relevant steps that they need take presently to maintain their market positions. This report seeks to analyze the current EU macro-environment and provide possible future (twenty year timeframe) scenarios to which players within the generic drugs market can prepare themselves for so as to attain a competitive position in the long-term. The scenarios that were crafted after a thorough macro environmental analysis are: the positive scenario (“Todo es Bueno!”), the negative scenario (“Nein, nicht gut!”) and the mixed scenario (“Deux Union Europeenne!”). After the scenario crafting phase, opportunities and threats were identified for the possible future scenario, and thereafter, versatile strategic recommendations were made. Based on the scenarios, the report proposes strategies and recommendations by combining the implication of the scenarios’ opportunities and threats. The report advices 7 strategies that producers can use to add value to their internal strategies and/or further examine the implication of the recommendations presented. The report argues against traditional strategic polar thinking (cost leadership or differentiation) and proposes players to use mixed strategies. It suggests producers to identify the key ingredient that differentiated themselves from competitors. It promotes investing on research to soften the blow of sudden technology changes, identify new technologies to improve business processes, and research to develop new formulation patents. It also suggests producers to invest in stakeholder management, focus on green technologies, proposes investigating the advantages of strategic manufacturing location (i.e. Turkey), and finally, suggests formulating strategic alliances to organizational learning

Scenario Planning as a Tool for Long Term Strategic Planning. The Generics Drug Industry in the European Union

As costs associated with medical care continue to increase, and populations continue to age, member states of the EU are increasingly concerned about their long-term public spending budgets. Generic drugs have been targeted by EU policy makers as replacements to high cost pharmaceutical drugs so as to bring healthcare costs down. The EU has taken several measures in the recent past to increase competition in the generic drugs industry within the EU marketplace. As competition increases in the EU generics market over the coming years, firms within the pharmaceuticals drug industry in the region must explore new strategies so as to thrive and prosper in the long term. Decisions on making the best use of available resources must be made and strategies must be reformulated to determine actions going into the future. These long-term strategies will help companies determine their current and future positions, and ultimately, the relevant steps that they need take presently to maintain their market positions. This report seeks to analyze the current EU macro-environment and provide possible future (twenty year timeframe) scenarios to which players within the generic drugs market can prepare themselves for so as to attain a competitive position in the long-term. The scenarios that were crafted after a thorough macro environmental analysis are: the positive scenario (“Todo es Bueno!”), the negative scenario (“Nein, nicht gut!”) and the mixed scenario (“Deux Union Europeenne!”). After the scenario crafting phase, opportunities and threats were identified for the possible future scenario, and thereafter, versatile strategic recommendations were made. Based on the scenarios, the report proposes strategies and recommendations by combining the implication of the scenarios’ opportunities and threats. The report advices 7 strategies that producers can use to add value to their internal strategies and/or further examine the implication of the recommendations presented. The report argues against traditional strategic polar thinking (cost leadership or differentiation) and proposes players to use mixed strategies. It suggests producers to identify the key ingredient that differentiated themselves from competitors. It promotes investing on research to soften the blow of sudden technology changes, identify new technologies to improve business processes, and research to develop new formulation patents. It also suggests producers to invest in stakeholder management, focus on green technologies, proposes investigating the advantages of strategic manufacturing location (i.e. Turkey), and finally, suggests formulating strategic alliances to organizational learning

Scenario Planning as a Tool for Long Term Strategic Planning. The Generics Drug Industry in the European Union

As costs associated with medical care continue to increase, and populations continue to age, member states of the EU are increasingly concerned about their long-term public spending budgets. Generic drugs have been targeted by EU policy makers as replacements to high cost pharmaceutical drugs so as to bring healthcare costs down. The EU has taken several measures in the recent past to increase competition in the generic drugs industry within the EU marketplace. As competition increases in the EU generics market over the coming years, firms within the pharmaceuticals drug industry in the region must explore new strategies so as to thrive and prosper in the long term. Decisions on making the best use of available resources must be made and strategies must be reformulated to determine actions going into the future. These long-term strategies will help companies determine their current and future positions, and ultimately, the relevant steps that they need take presently to maintain their market positions. This report seeks to analyze the current EU macro-environment and provide possible future (twenty year timeframe) scenarios to which players within the generic drugs market can prepare themselves for so as to attain a competitive position in the long-term. The scenarios that were crafted after a thorough macro environmental analysis are: the positive scenario (“Todo es Bueno!”), the negative scenario (“Nein, nicht gut!”) and the mixed scenario (“Deux Union Europeenne!”). After the scenario crafting phase, opportunities and threats were identified for the possible future scenario, and thereafter, versatile strategic recommendations were made. Based on the scenarios, the report proposes strategies and recommendations by combining the implication of the scenarios’ opportunities and threats. The report advices 7 strategies that producers can use to add value to their internal strategies and/or further examine the implication of the recommendations presented. The report argues against traditional strategic polar thinking (cost leadership or differentiation) and proposes players to use mixed strategies. It suggests producers to identify the key ingredient that differentiated themselves from competitors. It promotes investing on research to soften the blow of sudden technology changes, identify new technologies to improve business processes, and research to develop new formulation patents. It also suggests producers to invest in stakeholder management, focus on green technologies, proposes investigating the advantages of strategic manufacturing location (i.e. Turkey), and finally, suggests formulating strategic alliances to organizational learning

Scenario Planning as a Tool for Long Term Strategic Planning. The Generics Drug Industry in the European Union

As costs associated with medical care continue to increase, and populations continue to age, member states of the EU are increasingly concerned about their long-term public spending budgets. Generic drugs have been targeted by EU policy makers as replacements to high cost pharmaceutical drugs so as to bring healthcare costs down. The EU has taken several measures in the recent past to increase competition in the generic drugs industry within the EU marketplace. As competition increases in the EU generics market over the coming years, firms within the pharmaceuticals drug industry in the region must explore new strategies so as to thrive and prosper in the long term. Decisions on making the best use of available resources must be made and strategies must be reformulated to determine actions going into the future. These long-term strategies will help companies determine their current and future positions, and ultimately, the relevant steps that they need take presently to maintain their market positions. This report seeks to analyze the current EU macro-environment and provide possible future (twenty year timeframe) scenarios to which players within the generic drugs market can prepare themselves for so as to attain a competitive position in the long-term. The scenarios that were crafted after a thorough macro environmental analysis are: the positive scenario (“Todo es Bueno!”), the negative scenario (“Nein, nicht gut!”) and the mixed scenario (“Deux Union Europeenne!”). After the scenario crafting phase, opportunities and threats were identified for the possible future scenario, and thereafter, versatile strategic recommendations were made. Based on the scenarios, the report proposes strategies and recommendations by combining the implication of the scenarios’ opportunities and threats. The report advices 7 strategies that producers can use to add value to their internal strategies and/or further examine the implication of the recommendations presented. The report argues against traditional strategic polar thinking (cost leadership or differentiation) and proposes players to use mixed strategies. It suggests producers to identify the key ingredient that differentiated themselves from competitors. It promotes investing on research to soften the blow of sudden technology changes, identify new technologies to improve business processes, and research to develop new formulation patents. It also suggests producers to invest in stakeholder management, focus on green technologies, proposes investigating the advantages of strategic manufacturing location (i.e. Turkey), and finally, suggests formulating strategic alliances to organizational learning

Dark Matter Halo Properties vs. Local Density and Cosmic Web Location

We study the effects of the local environmental density and the cosmic web environment (filaments, walls, and voids) on key properties of dark matter halos using the Bolshoi-Planck LCDM cosmological simulation. The z = 0 simulation is analysed into filaments, walls, and voids using the SpineWeb method and also the VIDE package of tools, both of which use the watershed transform. The key halo properties that we study are the specific mass accretion rate, spin parameter, concentration, prolateness, scale factor of the last major merger, and scale factor when the halo had half of its z = 0 mass. For all these properties, we find that there is no discernible difference between the halo properties in filaments, walls, or voids when compared at the same environmental density. As a result, we conclude that environmental density is the core attribute that affects these properties. This conclusion is in line with recent findings that properties of galaxies in redshift surveys are independent of their cosmic web environment at the same environmental density at z ~ 0. We also find that the local web environment of the Milky Way and the Andromeda galaxies near the centre of a cosmic wall does not appear to have any effect on the properties of these galaxies' dark matter halos except for their orientation, although we find that it is rather rare to have such massive halos near the centre of a relatively small cosmic wall.Comment: 23 page

Modelling and control of partially shaded photovoltaic arrays

The photovoltaic (PV) array controlled by Maximum Power Point Tracking (MPPT) method for optimum PV power generation, particularly when the PV array is under partially shaded condition is presented in this paper. The system modelling is carried out in MATLAB-SIMULINK where the PV array is formed by five series connected identical PV modules. Under uniform solar irradiance conditions, the PV module and the PV array present nonlinear P-V characteristic but the maximum power point (MPP) can be easily identified. However, when the PV array is under shaded conditions, the P-V characteristic becomes more complex with the present of multiple MPP. While the PV array operated at local MPP, the generated power is limited. Thus, the investigation on MPPT approach is carried out to maximize the PV generated power even when the PV array is under partially shaded conditions (PSC). Fuzzy logic is adopted into the conventional MPPT to form fuzzy logic based MPPT (FMPPT) for better performance. The developed MPPT and FMPPT are compared, particularly the performances on the transient response and the steady state response when the array is under various shaded conditions. FMPPT shows better performance where the simulation results demonstrate FMPPT is able to facilitate the PV array to reach the MPP faster while it helps the PV array to produce a more stable output power