The Vietnam's Transition Economy and Its Fledgling Financial Markets: 1986-2003

In this paper, we analyze the context of Vietnam’s economic standings in the reform period. The first section embarks on most remarkable factors, which promote the development of financial markets are: (i) Doi Moi policies in 1986 unleash ‘productive powers’. Real GDP growth, and key economic indicators improve. The economy truly departs from the old-style command economy; (ii) FDI component is present in the economy as sine qua non; a crucial growth engine, forming part of the financial markets, planting the ‘seeds’ for its growth; and (iii) the private economy is both the result and cause of the reform. Its growth is steady. Today, it represents a powerhouse, and helps form part of the genuine financial economy. A few noteworthy points found in the next section are: (i) No evidence of financial markets existence was found before Doi Moi. The reform has generated a bulk of private-sector financial companies. New developments have roots in the 1992-amended constitution (x3.2); (ii) The need to reform the financial started with the domino collapse of credit cooperatives in early 1990s. More stress is caused by the ‘blow’ of banking deficiency in late 1990s; and (iii) Laws on SBV and credit institutions, and the launch of the stock market are bold steps. Besides, the Asian financial turmoil forces the economy to reaffirm its reform agenda. Our findings also indicate, through empirical evidences, that economic conditions have stabilized throughout the reform, thanks to the contributions of the FDI and private economic sector. Private investment flows continue to be an eminent factor that drives the economy growth.

Hypoallergenic legume crops and food allergy: factors affecting feasibility and risk.

Currently, the sole strategy for managing food hypersensitivity involves strict avoidance of the trigger. Several alternate strategies for the treatment of food allergies are currently under study. Also being explored is the process of eliminating allergenic proteins from crop plants. Legumes are a rich source of protein and are an essential component of the human diet. Unfortunately, legumes, including soybean and peanut, are also common sources of food allergens. Four protein families and superfamilies account for the majority of legume allergens, which include storage proteins of seeds (cupins and prolamins), profilins, and the larger group of pathogenesis-related proteins. Two strategies have been used to produce hypoallergenic legume crops: (1) germplasm lines are screened for the absence or reduced content of specific allergenic proteins and (2) genetic transformation is used to silence native genes encoding allergenic proteins. Both approaches have been successful in producing cultivars of soybeans and peanuts with reduced allergenic proteins. However, it is unknown whether the cultivars are actually hypoallergenic to those with sensitivity. This review describes efforts to produce hypoallergenic cultivars of soybean and peanut and discusses the challenges that need to be overcome before such products could be available in the marketplace.

Using sediment flocculation to reduce the impacts of Chesapeake Bay Microcystis aeruginosa harmful algal blooms

Gemstone Team BREATHE (Bay Revitalization Efforts Against the Hypoxic Environment)

Incorporating grape seed antioxidants into a functional food model

Gemstone Team IMMUNE (Innovative Medicines for Maladies Utilizing Nutraceutical Enhancements)

Variabilidad en la distribución de semillas de maíz : una revisión

p.101-121

Variabilidad en la distribución de semillas de trigo de una sembradora en tres regímenes de labranza, impacto en el establecimiento y desarrollo del cultivo

p.123-132

Efectos de tratamientos de presiembra sobre el comportamiento a campo de semillas de zanahoria y pimiento

p.173-181

Estimación de la demanda de semillas forrajeras mejoradas de pasto miel (Paspalum dilatatum) y agropiro criollo (Elymus scabrifolus) para la producción pecuaria en la Argentina

p.111-120

Demografía de semillas de Sorghum halepense (L.) Pers. en un suelo cultivado con maíz

p.29-37

Comportamiento de las semillas de Ambrosia tenuifolia (Altamisa) en un pastizal de la Depresión del Salado (Provincia de Buenos Aires)

p.75-80

Curvularia lunata, nuevo patógeno de semillas de kikuyo (Pennisetum clandestinum)

p.45-46

Efecto de los cotiledones y el uso de semilla híbrida en brócoli (Brassica oleracea var. italica L.)

p.177-187

Nuevo inoculante líquido para semillas de soja (Glycine max)

p.127-132

The effects of thermo-electrically induced convection in alloy solidification

The effects of a constant uniform magnetic field on thermoelectric currents during dendritic solidification were investigated using a 2-dimensional enthalpy based numerical model. Using an approximation of the dendrite growing in free space it was found that the resulting Lorentz force generates a circulating flow influencing the solidification pattern. As the magnetic field strength increases it was found that secondary growth on the clockwise side of the primary arm of the dendrite was encouraged, while the anticlockwise side is suppressed due to a reduction in local free energy. The preferred direction of growth rotated in the clockwise sense under an anti-clockwise flow for both the binary alloy and pure material. The tip velociy is significantly increased compared to growth in stagnant flow. This is due to a small recirculation that follows the tip of the dendrite; bringing in colder liquid and lower concentrations of solute. The recirculation being not normally incident on the tip is most likely the cause for the rotation. Grain growth consisting of multiple seeds with the same anisotropy growing in the same plane, gives a competition to release latent heat resulting in stunted growth. The initial growth for each dendrite is very similar to the single seed cases indicating that dendrites must become before the thermoelectric interactions are significant.

Rats, floods and flowers: London's Gothicized nature

AUTHOR's OVERVIEW This chapter attempts a definition of London eco-gothic, beginning with an ecocritical reading of the ubiquitous London rat. Following Dracula, popular London gothic has been overrun, from the blunt horror-schlock of James Herbert’s 1970s Rats series to China Miéville’s King Rat. Maud Ellman’s elegant discussion of the modernist rat as a protean figure associated with a ‘panoply of fears and fetishes’, underlines how the rat has always featured in anti-urban discourse: as part of racist representations of immigration; as an expression of fear of disease and poverty; or through a quasi-supernatural anxiety about their indestructible and illimitable nature which makes them a staple feature of post-apocalyptic landscapes. Even so, the London rat is a rather more mundane manifestation of urban eco-gothic than the ‘city wilderness’ metaphors common to representations of New York or Los Angles as identified by eco-critic Andrew White. London’s gothic noses its way out through cracks in the pavements, grows from seeds in suburban gardens or accumulates through the steady drip of rainwater. However, I will suggest, in texts such as Maggie Gee’s The Flood and P. D. James’ Children of Men, London eco-gothic becomes less local and familiar as it responds to global environmental crisis with more dramatic tales of minatorial nature.