Mergers and Acquisitions in the Indian Pharmaceutical Industry: Nature, Structure and Performance

This paper tries to address the extent, nature and impact of the recent surge in consolidation strategies especially in the form of mergers and acquisitions followed by the firms in the Indian pharmaceutical industry. The study found that many of the firms are implementing these strategies in the new context of globalisation mainly to overcome the acute competition arising out of the pro-market reforms and to strengthen their market portfolio. The study reaches the conclusion that the consolidation strategies followed by the firms enabled them to cut down the wasteful expenses to a greater extent and which resulted in better performance of the merging firms compared to the non-merging firms in this industry.mergers; acquisitions; consolidation; pharmaceutical industry; performance

Shear Strength Characteristics of Coir Fibre Stabilised Stone Matrix Asphalt Mixtures

The triaxial test measures the mix stability in the form of shear strength and gave better information for the prediction of field performance. The stresses acting on the laboratory specimen during the test simulate the state of stresses existing in the pavement. The Stone Matrix Asphalt mixtures (SMA)were investigated using triaxial shear strength testing at 50.8 mm/min ram rate loading at 60°C to investigate the effect of additive, coir fibre on the strength properties by varying  the percentages of fibre. SMA without fibre  is taken as the control mixture. The test was conducted at 0, 50, 75 and 100kPa confinements. The Mohr-Coulomb failure theory was used to analyze the test data and the analysis shows that the SMA stabilized mixtures had highest cohesion and shear strength as compared to the control mixture, but almost similar angle of internal friction value. The higher values of cohesion and shear strength can be associated to a fibre content of 0.3% and the percentage increase in cohesion is about 53% with respect to the control mixture. This shows that the mixture has greater resistance to shearing stresses than the control mixture. There is a trend that the strain at failure increases with increasing confinement pressure, indicating their stress dependent behaviour. The stress-strain curves indicate that the peak stress developed and the time of its occurrence is higher in stabilized mixtures when compared to those of the control mixture. For stabilized mixtures, it is observed that the shape change of the stress-strain curves is more gradual with increase in fibre content and brittle type failure does not seem to occur as in the case of control mixture.&nbsp

Case Studies on Application of Coir Geotextiles for Soil Stabilization

Coir geotextiles (Coir Bhoovastra) is one of the non-traditional highly demanded and promising coir product with multi usages as eco-friendly, sustainable and substitutable product for many Civil Engineering applications especially in Geotechnical Engineering. Coir Geo-textiles is an emerging area of coir industry. Kerala, the major coir producing state in India is fast growing in the development and application of Coir Geotextile. Coir Geotextile development program is also intended to popularize the coir products as geotextile material in National & International level and to provide internationally accepted standardization for coir geotextile. The use of Coir geotextile is well established in areas of erosion control, blanket drains and as vertical drains. As the synthetic geotextile are non-biodegradable, the natural geosynthetics, especially coir geotextile are increasingly preferred. Experimental studies have proved that while cotton and jute degrade within six months, coir geotextile provide good support on slopes for about 5 years. It is resistant to saline water. Its greatest advantage is that it provides an ecological niche for a rapid re-establishment of the vegetation cover. Coir resembles natural soil in its capacity to absorb radiation. Coir mesh mattings are used extensively in erosion control works. Coir geotextile are also used as reinforcement and separator between sub grade and base course. This paper intend to review the available published case studies in this area along with the study of a case about 1.5km farm road constructed using coir geotextile in Kerala

Ground Improvement Using Stone Column

The use of stone column (called granular piles) has proved to be an economical and technically viable ground improvement technique for construction on soft soils and has been successfully applied for the foundation structure like oil storage tanks, earth embankments, raft foundation etc. When the stone columns are installed in extremely soft soils, the lateral confinement offered by the surrounding soil may not be adequate to form the stone column. In such soil, encasing the stone column with a geotextile can induce required lateral confinement. Considering the cost aspect of stone columns, the major portion of the cost owes to the cost of stone. If replacing a portion of stone by some other cheaper material, without affecting the performance, can reduce the total cost In the present work experimental studies are carried out to evaluate the behavior of stone column encased with geotextile, in which stone is replaced by cheaper quarry dust The effect of geotextile is also studied. It is revealed from the studies that a portion of stone can be replaced by cheaper quarry dust without with out affecting the performance of the column

Synthesis And Characterization Of Novel Nanocrystalline Zirconium (IV) Tungstate Semiconductor

Nanocrystalline zirconium (IV) tungstate is prepared by chemical coprecipitation method using ethylene diamine tetra acetic acid as the templating agent. Elemental composition is determined by EDS. The characteristic bonding position is identified using FTIR. XRD is used to find the theoritical value of size and phase identification using JCPDS. Morphology is examined using SEM and HRTEM. UV absorption at 260 nm corresponds to an energy gap of 4.48 eV, characteristic of semiconducting nanoparticles. When you are citing the document, use the following link http://essuir.sumdu.edu.ua/handle/123456789/965

Occurrence of Blast Disease in Hybrid Napier

Hybrid napier, a cross between pearl millet (Pennisetum glaucum) and napier grass (Pennisetum purpuriam) is a popular cultivated fodder grass in India. It is popular due to high yield, palatability and adaptability to varying soil and climatic conditions. It is relatively free from most of the pests and diseases and the question of plant protection normally does not arise. However, sporadic incidence of blast like symptoms has been observed in hybrid napier maintained in the college farm and the disease has been confirmed as blast caused by Pyricularia grisea Sacc. The disease causes severe leaf blight in some cultivars leading to leaf senescence. Leaf blast reduced photosynthetic rate of the remaining green parts of infected leaves (Bastiaans, 1991). Bastiaans and Kropff (1993) reported reduction in canopy photosynthesis because of the effect of blast lesions and shading by dead leaf area. Severe leaf blight caused by the pathogen induces production of phytotoxins and disruption of normal biochemical and physiological balance (Young-Ki et al., 2010)

Prevalence of intestinal parasites among patients of a tertiary hospital in Ambala city, Haryana, India

Background: Intestinal parasitic infestation is major public health problem in the world. Gastrointestinal (GI) protozoa and helminthes flourish in settings characterized by warm temperatures, humidity, poor sanitation, dirty water, and substandard and crowded housing. Various sanitation programmes are launched in India from time to time. Our present study was conducted to know the prevalence of Intestinal parasitism among patients with gastrointestinal symptoms in rural area surrounding Mullana, Ambala, Haryana, India; which will tell us about the effect of these sanitation programmes in this area.Methods: The present study was conducted between November 2010 to August 2012 in the Department of Microbiology, Maharishi Markandeshwar Institute of Medical Sciences and Research, Mullana, Ambala, Haryana. Specimen was stool of the patient. The study was conducted on 500 consecutive stool samples received in the Department of Microbiology and processed as per departmental protocol.Results: Total of 500 consecutive stool samples were processed within a period of 21 months (November 2010 to August 2012). The overall prevalence of intestinal parasite infections was 7.8%. Giardia lamblia 12 (30.76) was the most common parasite followed by E. histolytica 7(17.9) among protozoa and H.nana 4(10.25) followed by Ascaris lumbricoids 3(7.69) among helminths.Conclusions: The decrease in prevalence of intestinal parasites especially in soil-transmitted helminths in patients attending hospital evidences the success of sanitation programmes, health education, improved sanitation and a healthy lifestyle.

Mergers and Acquisitions in the Indian Pharmaceutical Industry: Nature, Structure and Performance

This paper tries to address the extent, nature and impact of the recent surge in consolidation strategies especially in the form of mergers and acquisitions followed by the firms in the Indian pharmaceutical industry. The study found that many of the firms are implementing these strategies in the new context of globalisation mainly to overcome the acute competition arising out of the pro-market reforms and to strengthen their market portfolio. The study reaches the conclusion that the consolidation strategies followed by the firms enabled them to cut down the wasteful expenses to a greater extent and which resulted in better performance of the merging firms compared to the non-merging firms in this industry

Effects of Carbohydrates on in vitro axillary shoot initiation and multiplication of Bambusa pallida Munro.

The purpose of the current study was to optimize the carbohydrate sources and sucrose concentrations for mass clonal propagation of B. pallida. Sucrose in MS liquid medium consisting additives (ascorbic acid, 50mg/l + citric acid, 25 mg/l + cysteine, 25 mg/l) was found to be the best carbohydrate source for shoot induction and shoot multiplication.  NAA 0.25mg/l in combination with TDZ 0.25mg/l in the medium exhibited high frequency shoot induction and NAA 0.25mg/l with BAP 1.0mg/l helped for further multiplication of quality shoots.  IBA pulse treated shoots were rooted in the MS half strength agar gelled medium fortified with sucrose (2%) and glucose (1%). Rooted plantlets were well established in the green house with more than 95% survivability within four weeks period.&nbsp

Occurrence of powdery mildew disease of Gerbera in Kerala

A purposive sampling survey on the hilly tracts of Wayanad, Kerala revealed the existence of powdery mildew disease in gerbera crops, grown under both protected and open field condition. Among the other fungal diseases of gerbera, powdery mildew disease causes decisive damage to the ornamental cut flower crop, thereby decline in the industrial value of the crop. Symptom of the disease include as white powdery mat on the upper surface of leaf lamina that gradually turned pale yellow to brown. Powdery mildew existed in two locations of Wayanad viz., Ambalavayal and Chulliyode where highest per cent disease severity (PDS) of 50.72 was observed at Chulliyode and 47.2 per cent was observed at Ambalavayal during November-December. In Ambalavayal, the disease was non-significant and no correlation existed between weather parameters and disease progress. But, in Chulliyode, correlation studies revealed that it was significant with positive correlation to relative humidity and a reverse relation existed with temperature and rainfall. The weather data clearly depicts that at a low rainfall of 96 mm and above average relative humidity of 80.27 per cent during November-December was the congenial factor influencing the disease development. But during summer, decline in relative humidity (78.37%) and rainfall (63.13 mm) caused a slight reduction in mean per cent disease severity of 49.12 per cent and 33.6 per cent at Chulliyode and Ambalavayal respectively. Morohological and cultural characters of the pathogen depicts presence of two distinct organism viz., Golovinomyces cichoracearum (Erysiphe cichoracearum) and Podosphaera sp. as the causative organism of the disease. Golovinomyces cichoracearumproduced hyaline, septate mycelia with globose conidia with irregular peripheral end formed in a chain and Podosphaera sp. produced superficial, hyaline, coenocytic mycelium with oval or ellipsoidal, catenate conidia with dimension ranging from 22.1-30.18 x 13.36-18.08ìm formed in unbranched erect conidiophores