Abstract:Purpose: Innovation, including product, process, marketing, and organizational innovation within a firm, is considered as one of essential component for surviving and growing. These innovation activities create value and competitive advantages for successful organizations; therefore, understanding the organization's overall innovation is the first and foremost to understand the role of innovation on firm performance. The objective of this research is to explore two parts: the impacts of innovation on the different aspect of innovation performance, then their effects to firm performance (production, market, and financial performance). Findings: The result demonstrated there are positive effects of process, marketing, and organizational innovations on firm performance in supporting firms. More specifically, the higher the level of innovation activities is, the greater the innovative performance is, which means the larger level of Process, organization and marketing innovation activities are, the higher level of innovative performance are likely to be. Secondly, the higher level of Process, organization and marketing innovative performance, the better level of firm performances is likely to be. To sum up, in order to improve the innovative and firm performance, those firms in supporting industry should highly concentrate on process, marketing, and organizational innovation activities, rather than product innovation activities.Originality/value: Initially, this study applies successfully the model which supposing innovation is a process, then clarifying innovation definition through the impact of innovation activities on innovative performances. Secondly, this research confirmed the positive impact of innovative performances on firm performances. It provided one more empirical evidence of the relationship between innovation and firm performance. For practitioners, organizational innovation and process innovation are more important factors affecting innovative performance and firm performance than product and marketing innovation. Therefore, enterprises should focus and mobilize resources to create improvement in organizational structure and manufacturing processes.

Graft copolymerization of styrene onto deproteinized natural rubber (DPNR) using tert-butyl hydroperoxide (TBHPO) and tetraethylene pentamine (TEPA) as redox initiator have been investigated. The effects of initiator and monomer concentration on conversion and grafting efficiency were studied. The dynamic mechanical and thermal properties of the graft copolymer were investigated over the wide range of temperatures. It is shown that a high value of storage modulus for the graft copolymer, which was about 25 times as high as that of DPNR, was achieved. The graft copolymer (DPNR-graft-PS) showed the outstanding tensile strength and stable thermal properties. These enhancements were attributed to the interaction between NR and polystyrene as a result of the graft copolymerization. Morphology observation by transmission electron micrograph (TEM) revealed that the core-shell arrangement of the DPNR-graft-PS with about 30 nm in thickness of polystyrene nano-layer was achieved.

BackgroundShigella spp. are one of the most common causes of paediatric dysentery globally, responsible for a substantial proportion of diarrhoeal disease morbidity and mortality, particularly in industrialising regions. Alarming levels of antimicrobial resistance are now reported in S. flexneri and S. sonnei, hampering treatment options. Little is known, however, about the burden of infection and disease due to Shigella spp. in the community.Methods/DesignIn order to estimate the incidence of this bacterial infection in the community in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam we have designed a longitudinal cohort to follow up approximately 700 children aged 12–60 months for two years with active and passive surveillance for diarrhoeal disease. Children will be seen at 6 month intervals for health checks where blood and stool samples will be collected. Families will also be contacted every two weeks for information on presence of diarrhoea in the child. Upon report of a diarrhoeal disease episode, study nurses will either travel to the family home to perform an evaluation or the family will attend a study hospital at a reduced cost, where a stool sample will also be collected. Case report forms collected at this time will detail information regarding disease history, risk factors and presence of disease in the household.Outcomes will include (i) age-specific incidence of Shigella spp. and other agents of diarrhoeal disease in the community, (ii) risk factors for identified aetiologies, (iii) rates of seroconversion to a host of gastrointestinal pathogens in the first few years of life. Further work regarding the longitudinal immune response to a variety of Shigella antigens, host genetics and candidate vaccine/diagnostic proteins will also be conducted.DiscussionThis is the largest longitudinal cohort with active surveillance designed specifically to investigate Shigella infection and disease. The study is strengthened by the active surveillance component, which will likely capture a substantial proportion of episodes not normally identified through passive or hospital-based surveillance. It is hoped that information from this study will aid in the design and implementation of Shigella vaccine trials in the future.

From the ethyl acetate extract of the seeds of Vietnamese Cnidium monnieri L., three coumarins, osthole (1), xanthotoxin (2), imperatorin (3) and a sterol, daucosterol (4) have been purified. Their structures were elucidated by spectroscopic analysis. Furthermore, 8-(3-hidroxy-3-methylbutyl)-7-methoxycoumarin (5) was synthesised from osthole (1) with a good yield (80%). In addition, compound 1 and its synthesis product (5) show moderate and non-selective cytotoxic activities against four cancer cells, KB (a human epidermal carcinoma), MCF7 (human breast carcinoma), SK-LU-1 (human lung carcinoma) and HepG2 (hepatocellular carcinoma).

The dynamic mechanical behavior of modified deproteinized natural rubber (DPNR) prepared by graft copolymerization with various styrene contents was investigated at a wide range of temperatures. Graft copolymerization of styrene onto DPNR was performed in latex stage using tert-butyl hydroperoxide (TBHPO) and tetraethylene pentamine (TEPA) as redox initiator. The mechanical properties were measured by tensile test and the viscoelastic properties of the resulting graft copolymers at wide range of temperature and frequency were investigated. It was found that the tensile strength depends on the grafted polystyrene; meanwhile the dynamic mechanical properties of the modification of DPNR meaningfully improved with the increasing of both homopolystyrene and grafted polystyrene compared to DPNR. The dynamic mechanical properties of graft copolymer over a large time scale were studied by constructing the master curves. The value of bT has been used to prove the energetic and entropic elasticity of the graft copolymer.

We sampled nasal–pharyngeal throat swabs from 96,123 asymptomatic individuals at risk of SARS-CoV-2 infection, and generated 22,290 pools at collection, each containing samples from two to seven individuals. We detected SARS-CoV-2 in 24 pools, and confirmed the infection in 32 individuals after resampling and testing of 104 samples from positive pools. We completed the testing within 14 days. We would have required 64 days to complete the screening for the same number of individuals if we had based our testing strategy on individual testing. There was no difference in cycle threshold (Ct) values of pooled and individual samples. Thus, compared with individual sample testing, our approach did not compromise PCR sensitivity, but saved 77% of the resources. The present strategy might be applicable in settings, where there are shortages of reagents and the disease prevalence is low, but the demand for testing is high.

Cell-penetrating peptides (CPPs) are short peptides with the ability to translocate through the cell membrane to facilitate their cellular uptake. CPPs can be used as drug-delivery systems for molecules that are difficult to uptake. Ocular drug delivery is challenging due to the structural and physiological complexity of the eye. CPPs may be tailored to overcome this challenge, facilitating cellular uptake and delivery to the targeted area. Retinal diseases occur at the posterior pole of the eye; thus, intravitreal injections are needed to deliver drugs at an effective concentration in situ. However, frequent injections have risks of causing vision-threatening complications. Recent investigations have focused on developing long-acting drugs and drug delivery systems to reduce the frequency of injections. In fact, conjugation with CPP could deliver FDA-approved drugs to the back of the eye, as seen by topical application in animal models. This review summarizes recent advances in CPPs, protein/peptide-based drugs for eye diseases, and the use of CPPs for drug delivery based on systematic searches in PubMed and clinical trials. We highlight targeted therapies and explore the potential of CPPs and peptide-based drugs for eye diseases.

Abstract:We have studied magneto-thermoelectric effects in quantum well in the presence of electromagnetic wave. The analytic expression for Ettingshausen coefficient (EC) in the Quantum Well with parabolic potential (QWPP) in the presence of Electromagnetic wave (EMW) is calculated by using the quantum kinetic equation for electrons. The dependence of EC on the frequency, the amplitude of EMW, the Quantum Well parameters and the temperature are obtained. The results are numerically calculated, plotted, and discussed for GaAs/GaAsAl Quantum Well to clearly show the dependence of EC on above parameters and the results in this case are compared with the case in the bulk semiconductors. We realize that as the temperature increases, the EC decreases. The results show appearance of the Shubnikov-de Haas (SdH) oscillations when we survey the dependence of EC on the magnetic field.