Coconut in the Mekong Delta: An Assessment of Competitivenessand Industry Potential

The numbers surrounding the world coconut industry are substantial – 55,500,000,000 coconuts produced every year from 12,000,000 hectares supporting an industry worth USD 6 billion at wholesale. Yet despite the size and wealth of the industry most coconut growers are among the poorest in their society and over 1 million tonnes of coconut dust are dumped into the environment every year. In the Mekong Delta, riverbanks shaded with coconut trees are an iconic part of the landscape, but only in the last decade has the local coconut industry taken the first steps to becoming a modern, competitive industry. Much of this recent development has happened in Ben Tre province, at the heart of the industry in the Delta with the greatest concentration of coconut trees and businesses. The Ben Tre authorities and industry leaders are now looking to help the industry mature into an internationally competitive and sustainable coconut industry that maximises the value created for the local community, businesses and coconut farmers. This study is part of that process and aims to provide evidence of the current state of the global coconut industry and the local industry in Ben Tre and the wider Mekong Delta and to assess specific opportunities for the industry’s future development. The study also identifies several promising commercial opportunities for local coconut businesses and the impacts these could have on the company’s own bottom-line profits as well as the wider industry. It supplements extensive secondary data with insights and evidence gathered through an international benchmarking exercise with leading competitor countries, including the Philippines, Sri Lanka and Thailand as well as the local industry in Ben Tre

Market returns to acquirers of substantial assets

Does poor post-acquisition performance characterise firms that make non-M&A acquisitions? We investigate the wealth effects of substantial asset acquisitions (i.e. acquisitions that cost over $10 million) on acquiring firms' shareholders. We find significant abnormal positive market reaction to asset acquisition announcements and, contrary to findings for firms undertaking M&As, the acquiring firms perform exceptionally well post-acquisition. Our findings are robust to the research method weaknesses common to many studies of long-term performance and we control for free-cash-flow as well. Our results contradict the hubris hypothesis of acquisitions and lend weight to the argument that the auction-style process that characterizes corporate takeover bids contributes to overpayment

Trends in incidence and histological pattern of thyroid cancer in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam (1996–2015): a population-based study

Background The burden and trend of thyroid cancer in Vietnam have not been well documented. This study aimed to investigate the trends in incidence and histological pattern of thyroid cancer in Ho Chi Minh City from 1996 to 2015. Methods A population-based study retrieved data from the Ho Chi Minh City Cancer Registry during 1996–2015. Trends in the incidence of thyroid cancer were investigated based on age, gender, and histology for each 5-year period. Annual percentage change (APC) in incidence rates was estimated using Joinpoint regression analysis. Results In the study period, there were 5953 thyroid cancer cases (men-to-women ratio 1:4.5) newly diagnosed in Ho Chi Minh City with the mean age of 42.9 years (±14.9 years). The age-standardized incidence rate of thyroid cancer increased from 2.4 per 100,000 during 1996–2000 (95% confidence interval [95% CI]: 2.2–2.6) to 7.5 per 100,000 during 2011–2015 (95% CI: 7.3–7.9), corresponded to an overall APC of 8.7 (95% CI 7.6–9.9). The APC in men and women was 6.2 (95% CI: 4.2–8.2) and 9.2 (95% CI: 8.0–10.4), respectively. The incidence rate in the < 45 years age group was the highest diagnosed overall and increased significantly in both men (APC 11.0) and women (APC 10.1). Both genders shared similar distribution of subtype incidences, with papillary thyroid cancer constituted the most diagnosed (73.3% in men and 85.2% in women). The papillary thyroid cancer observed a markedly increase overall (APC of 10.7 (95% CI 9.3–12.0)). Conclusions There were appreciable increases in the age-standardized incidence rate of thyroid cancer in both genders, mainly contributed by the papillary subtype. The age of patients at diagnosis decreased gradually. The widespread utilization of advanced diagnostic techniques and healthcare accessibility improvement might play a potential role in these trends. Further investigations are needed to comprehend the risk factors and trends fully

Evidence supporting the best clinical management of patients with multimorbidity and polypharmacy: a systematic guideline review and expert consensus

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Wiley via the DOI in this record.The complexity and heterogeneity of patients with multimorbidity and polypharmacy renders traditional disease-oriented guidelines often inadequate and complicates clinical decision making. To address this challenge, guidelines have been developed on multimorbidity or polypharmacy. To systematically analyse their recommendations, we conducted a systematic guideline review using the Ariadne principles for managing multimorbidity as analytical framework. The information synthesis included a multistep consensus process involving 18 multidisciplinary experts from seven countries. We included eight guidelines (four each on multimorbidity and polypharmacy) and extracted about 250 recommendations. The guideline addressed (i) the identification of the target population (risk factors); (ii) the assessment of interacting conditions and treatments: medical history, clinical and psychosocial assessment including physiological status and frailty, reviews of medication and encounters with healthcare providers highlighting informational continuity; (iii) the need to incorporate patient preferences and goal setting: eliciting preferences and expectations, the process of shared decision making in relation to treatment options and the level of involvement of patients and carers; (iv) individualized management: guiding principles on optimization of treatment benefits over possible harms, treatment communication and the information content of medication/care plans; (v) monitoring and follow-up: strategies in care planning, self-management and medication-related aspects, communication with patients including safety instructions and adherence, coordination of care regarding referral and discharge management, medication appropriateness and safety concerns. The spectrum of clinical and self-management issues varied from guiding principles to specific recommendations and tools providing actionable support. The limited availability of reliable risk prediction models, feasible interventions of proven effectiveness and decision aids, and limited consensus on appropriate outcomes of care highlight major research deficits. An integrated approach to both multimorbidity and polypharmacy should be considered in future guidelines.Journal of Internal MedicineKarolinska Institutet Strategic Research Area in Epidemiology (SfoEpi

Practical computational toolkits for dendrimers and dendrons structure design

Dendrimers and dendrons offer an excellent platform for developing novel drug delivery systems and medicines. The rational design and further development of these repetitively branched systems are restricted by difficulties in scalable synthesis and structural determination, which can be overcome by judicious use of molecular modelling and molecular simulations. A major difficulty to utilise in silico studies to design dendrimers lies in the laborious generation of their structures. Current modelling tools utilise automated assembly of simpler dendrimers or the inefficient manual assembly of monomer precursors to generate more complicated dendrimer structures. Herein we describe two novel graphical user interface (GUI) toolkits written in Python that provide an improved degree of automation for rapid assembly of dendrimers and generation of their 2D and 3D structures. Our first toolkit uses the RDkit library, SMILES nomenclature of monomers and SMARTS reaction nomenclature to generate SMILES and mol files of dendrimers without 3D coordinates. These files are used for simple graphical representations and storing their structures in databases. The second toolkit assembles complex topology dendrimers from monomers to construct 3D dendrimer structures to be used as starting points for simulation using existing and widely available software and force fields. Both tools were validated for ease-of-use to prototype dendrimer structure and the second toolkit was especially relevant for dendrimers of high complexity and size.Peer reviewe

Grey wolf optimization-based optimum energy-management and battery-sizing method for grid-connected microgrids

In the revolution of green energy development, microgrids with renewable energy sources such as solar, wind and fuel cells are becoming a popular and effective way of controlling and managing these sources. On the other hand, owing to the intermittency and wide range of dynamic responses of renewable energy sources, battery energy-storage systems have become an integral feature of microgrids. Intelligent energy management and battery sizing are essential requirements in the microgrids to ensure the optimal use of the renewable sources and reduce conventional fuel utilization in such complex systems. This paper presents a novel approach to meet these requirements by using the grey wolf optimization (GWO) technique. The proposed algorithm is implemented for different scenarios, and the numerical simulation results are compared with other optimization methods including the genetic algorithm (GA), particle swarm optimization (PSO), the Bat algorithm (BA), and the improved bat algorithm (IBA). The proposed method (GWO) shows outstanding results and superior performance compared with other algorithms in terms of solution quality and computational efficiency. The numerical results show that the GWO with a smart utilization of battery energy storage (BES) helped to minimize the operational costs of microgrid by 33.185% in comparison with GA, PSO, BA and IBA

Inverse Modeling for MEG/EEG data

We provide an overview of the state-of-the-art for mathematical methods that are used to reconstruct brain activity from neurophysiological data. After a brief introduction on the mathematics of the forward problem, we discuss standard and recently proposed regularization methods, as well as Monte Carlo techniques for Bayesian inference. We classify the inverse methods based on the underlying source model, and discuss advantages and disadvantages. Finally we describe an application to the pre-surgical evaluation of epileptic patients.Comment: 15 pages, 1 figur

Regulation of Anthrax Toxin-Specific Antibody Titers by Natural Killer T Cell-Derived IL-4 and IFNγ

Activation of Natural Killer-like T cells (NKT) with the CD1d ligand α-GC leads to enhanced production of anthrax toxin protective Ag (PA)-neutralizing Abs, yet the underlying mechanism for this adjuvant effect is not known. In the current study we examined the role of Th1 and Th2 type responses in NKT-mediated enhancement of antibody responses to PA. First, the contribution of IL-4 and IFNγ to the production of PA-specific toxin-neutralizing Abs was examined. By immunizing C57Bl/6 controls IL-4−/− mice and IFNγ−/− mice and performing passive serum transfer experiments, it was observed that sera containing PA-specific IgG1, IgG2b and IgG2c neutralized toxin in vitro and conferred protection in vivo. Sera containing IgG2b and IgG2c neutralized toxin in vitro but were not sufficient for protection in vivo. Sera containing IgG1 and IgG2b neutralized toxin in vitro and conferred protection in vivo. IgG1 therefore emerged as a good correlate of protection. Next, C57Bl/6 mice were immunized with PA alone or PA plus a Th2-skewing α-GC derivative known as OCH. Neutralizing PA-specific IgG1 responses were modestly enhanced by OCH in C57Bl/6 mice. Conversely, IgG2b and IgG2c were considerably enhanced in PA/OCH-immunized IL-4−/− mice but did not confer protection. Finally, bone marrow chimeras were generated such that NKT cells were unable to express IL-4 or IFNγ. NKT-derived IL-4 was required for OCH-enhanced primary IgG1 responses but not recall responses. NKT-derived IL-4 and IFNγ also influenced primary and recall IgG2b and IgG2c titers. These data suggest targeted skewing of the Th2 response by α-GC derivatives can be exploited to optimize anthrax vaccination

Recent XAS studies into Homogeneous metal catalyst in fine chemical and pharmaceutical syntheses

A brief review of studies using X-ray Absorption Spectroscopy (XAS) to investigate homogeneous catalytic reactions in fine chemical and pharmaceutical context since 2010 is presented. The advantages of the techniques over traditional lab-based analytical tools, particularly when NMR spectroscopy fails to deliver mechanistic insights, are summarised using these examples. A discussion on the current limitations of the techniques and challenges in the near future is also included