Advantage Of Synergy Research Articles

Cardiovascular Disease Training Programmes: Three Schemes to Train Leaders for Future Challenges.

Cardiovascular disease (CVD) represents the largest burden of disease globally and despite the availability of strong evidence supporting cost-effective treatments for people with CVD, the implementation of these treatments remains low, especially in low-income settings. Shortages in workforce have led to focus on how to increase clinical capacity. However, a simplistic focus on training clinicians will not fill the gaps in research, policy and implementation, which also need to be addressed at the same time. There are multiple efforts to develop early career capacity across diverse areas at national and international level to address these gaps. To-date, there have been limited efforts to compare or evaluate such programmes, and there are no efforts to harmonise such programmes to take advantage of synergies. We now compare three international programmes on global cardiovascular research to train individuals in their early- and mid-career by aims, experience and outputs.

An individualized adaptive distributed approach for fast energy-carbon coordination in transactive multi-community integrated energy systems considering power transformer loading capacity

The optimization of multi-community integrated energy systems (MCIES), as a proficient means of integrating distributed energy resources and diverse loads, poses a compelling challenge. This challenge revolves around strategically harnessing the energy-carbon synergy advantages within these systems, while factoring in the heterogeneity among different communities and the constraints imposed by electrical connectivity devices. Facing the challenge, this paper proposes an individualized adaptive distributed approach for energy-carbon coordination in MCIES with power transformers (PT-MCIES). Firstly, a feasible region is constructed based on current and temperature limits to assess the loading capacity of power transformers. Based on this, a transactive energy (TE) based co-optimization model for PT-MCIES considering energy sharing and carbon trading is developed, where rolling horizon optimization is adopted to cope with the randomness from renewable energy and loads. For the TE problem, the alternating direction method of multipliers (ADMM) algorithm is employed to achieve distributed optimization. Uncertain renewable energy and loads, along with variable rolling horizons, make it difficult for the traditional ADMM to ensure convergence speed in the co-optimization of PT-MCIES. Accordingly, an individualized adaptive ADMM (IAADMM) embedded a spectral penalty parameter selection rule is adopted. Simulation results show that the proposed scheduling model can effectively guarantee the safe operation of power transformers with the suggestion of a feasible region, and achieve higher economic and environmental benefits than the reference one that ignores energy-carbon coordination. Furthermore, the proposed IAADMM exhibits superior performance in terms of convergence speed and robustness to the initial penalty parameter when compared to ADMM and its various variants.

Hybrid solution for photovoltaic and photothermal conversion

In this paper an idea and a realization of a hybrid solution for photovoltaic and photothermal conversion is presented. Proposed solar hybrid system integrates photovoltaic (PV) module and solar thermal collector in one device, which provides direct conversion of solar energy into electricity and heat simultaneously. Origins of the idea and proposal of the solution are presented. Performance and operation of both integrated system and stand alone devices have been measured and analyzed. Obtained results show the advantage of synergy for combined thermo electrical appliance. Future development and possible industrial applications are proposed.

Interactions between animal enterprises and marketing strategies shape organic multispecies farming systems

One of the key ways to improve the sustainability of agricultural systems is through diversification, taking advantage of synergies between farm enterprises. Among diversified systems, multispecies livestock farms with at least two animal enterprises have rarely been studied. We explored 95 organic farms from six countries, accounting for the proportion of animal enterprises, sales management, workforce size, and work organization. The study reveals various types of interactions between animal enterprises. Complementarities were observed between ruminant and monogastric enterprises, particularly fertilizer transfer from monogastric manure to grasslands. Milk production was often associated with on-farm processing and short distribution channels, which enhanced farm viability and reduced its dependency on herd productivity. Eleven out of the 95 farms combined above-average production efficiency, on-farm processing, and the majority of sales in short distribution channels. Their labor productivity converged toward 22 livestock units per annual work unit, regardless of the number of workers. Combining farm structure; livestock production efficiency; social elements, such as the workforce; and sales management led us to distinguish four types of farms: (i) small and very autonomous grassland farms with on-farm processing and short distribution channels; (ii) dairy farms associated with a high-density pig or poultry enterprise, whose feed purchase contributes to high rates of cattle feeding self-sufficiency and stocking rate; (iii) large farms with an extensive, grassland beef enterprise associated with either sheep or monogastrics; and (iv) dairy sheep associated with goat or beef cattle on rangelands, with high added-value products enhancing salaries. This study highlights for the first time the diversity of organic multispecies livestock farms and how consistent patterns of interactions among farm structure, livestock management, sales management, and workforce management shape them. The results are a preliminary basis for designing policy interventions aiming to scale up organic farming and value social assets of diversified and small farms.

MeLM, a generative pretrained language modeling framework that solves forward and inverse mechanics problems

We report a flexible multi-modal mechanics language model, MeLM, applied to solve various nonlinear forward and inverse problems, that can deal with a set of instructions, numbers and microstructure data. The framework is applied to various examples including bio-inspired hierarchical honeycomb design, carbon nanotube mechanics, and protein unfolding. In spite of the adaptable nature of the model-which allows us to easily incorporate diverse materials, scales, and mechanical features-it performs well across disparate forward and inverse tasks. Based on an autoregressive attention-model, MeLM effectively represents a large multi-particle system consisting of hundreds of millions of neurons, where the interaction potentials are discovered through graph-forming self-attention mechanisms that are then used to identify relationships from emergent structures, while taking advantage of synergies discovered in the training data. We show that the model can solve complex degenerate mechanics design problems and determine novel material architectures across a range of hierarchical levels, providing an avenue for materials discovery and analysis. To illustrate the use case for broader possibilities, we outline a human-machine interactive MechGPT model, here trained on a set of 1,103 Wikipedia articles related to mechanics, showing how the general framework can be used not only to solve forward and inverse problems but in addition, for complex language tasks like summarization, generation of new research concepts, and knowledge extraction. Looking beyond the demonstrations reported in this paper, we discuss other opportunities in applied mechanics and general considerations about the use of large language models in modeling, design, and analysis that can span a broad spectrum of material properties from mechanical, thermal, optical, to electronic.

Bioenergy-livestock integration in Brazil: Unraveling potentials for energy production and climate change mitigation

Future projections indicate an expansion for both food and energy demands, which can increase pressure on land use, while there is an urgent global need for climate change mitigation. Bioenergy is foreseen as key option to meet future energy demands and reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, however its sustainability depends on locations and regional characteristics. Simultaneously, agricultural production models that co-produce food, feed, and energy offer sustainability synergies and co-benefits, but site-specific sustainability assessments of their large-scale implementation are missing. This study presents a bottom-up approach to assess spatially explicit sustainability aspects of bioenergy-livestock integrated systems (BLI) in Brazil and shed light on their contribution to future energy demands, to climate change mitigation targets, and their impacts on selected ecosystem services, including bioenergy production, climate change mitigation, reduction of food competition, biodiversity conservation, and avoided deforestation. The proposed integration considers livestock intensification and use of biofuels by-products as animal feed supplement, taking advantage of synergies between these two value chains. The expansion of the BLI system in the Center-South region of Brazil produce up to 89 billion liters of ethanol, enough to meet future domestic ethanol demands from multiple shared socioeconomic pathways and generating surpluses for export. This production takes place on 16 million hectares of pastureland within the Sugarcane Agroecological Zoning, excluding the Amazon and Pantanal biomes, and biodiversity hotspots. BLI expansion mitigate up to 250 million tonnes of CO2eq and generate 15 billion dollars of profits. The best locations to maximize the selected ecosystem services are west of São Paulo, east of Mato Grosso do Sul, and the south-central region of the states of Goiás. This study may encourage the formulation of enhanced public policies for the integration of bioenergy and livestock value chains and guide a sustainable large-scale deployment of BLI systems.

Yolk-shell structured MoS2/NiS@S heterojunction for high-performance rechargeable Al batteries

In recent years, thanks to the excellent safety performance and extremely high theoretical specific capacity of rechargeable Al batteries, the development of Al battery cathode materials has become extremely competitive. In the structural design of cathode materials, the yolk-shell structure has a large amount of storage space and abundant active sites, giving full play to the advantages of synergy in building high-performance cathode structures. The construction of MoS2/NiS@S heterojunction interface effectively improves the conductivity of monometallic sulfide as cathode and improves the discharge performance of the electrode. The surface folds and pores of the heterojunction provide excellent channels for the free insertion and release of Al3+, reducing binding energy and enhancing Al3+ binding efficiency. It has maintained a reversible capacity of 130.19 mAh g−1 at 500 mA g−1 after 2000 cycles. This provides additional ideas for the development of transition metal sulfide materials in Al batteries.

Креативные индустрии: перспективы развития в Республике Крым

In recent years, creative industries have become growth drivers in economically developed countries. The prospects of the creative industries development in the Republic of Crimea were analyzed. The certain features of the creative industries development in the Russian economy were evaluated, and a comparison with global world trends was carried out. That individual creative individuals – individual entrepreneurs, self-employed and small businesses often work in isolation, the possible advantages of synergy of interaction are not used. Maximizing the effect is possible when using the cooperation of such business entities, this can give impetus to the spatial development of the region in the key of creative industries. The scientific works on the topic legal acts, and the author's own research were the information base of the study. The most important directions for creative sectors development are substantiated, recommendations for the development of creative industries are formulated. The proposed recommendations can be used to plan and implement activities for the development of creative sectors, the formation of regional brands under real conditions.

Research Progress on Ferroptosis as a Therapeutic Strategy in Renal Cell Carcinoma

Renal cell carcinoma (RCC) is a common type of kidney cancer in adults and constitutes approximately 90% of all renal malignancies. Although advancements have been made in the treatment of RCC, the 5 -year survival rate is still low, and new treatment modalities are still required. Ferroptosis is an iron-dependent programmed cell death caused by the accumulation of lipid peroxide products. Recent studies revealed the involvement of ferroptosis metabolism, lipid peroxidation, and System XC-GSH-GPX4 shafts as major mechanisms closely related to RCC progression. Nanoparticles in combination with small molecular ferroptosis induction agents have the advantages of solubility, targeted enhancement, low systemic toxicity, controllable drug control, and synergy advantage in emerging combination therapies. In the future, it is possible to be used in nano treatment. The relationship between ferroptosis-related mechanisms and RCC progression and its role in the treatment could provide novel treatment strategies for patients with advance-stage RCC.

Driving the effectiveness of public health emergency management strategies through cross-departmental collaboration: Configuration analysis based on 15 cities in China.

Owing to the complexity of and changes associated with modern public health emergencies, cross-departmental collaborative governance is an inevitable choice for ensuring effective emergency management. In the context of emergency management research, the way in which taking full advantage of synergy can be used to enhance the effectiveness of emergency prevention and control approaches is an important issue that must be addressed urgently. Combined with China's responses to the management of public health emergencies, in this study, we construct a theoretical analysis framework involving three dimensions: information, organization, and environment. Our proposed framework relies on the fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) method to analyze the mechanisms behind the prevention and control of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) cases across 15 cities located in typical provinces throughout China and explore the roles of cross-departmental collaboration in the processing of various elements as well as the effects of their combination on the action mechanisms for ensuring the effectiveness of emergency management approaches. The results show a significant conditional correlation between the effectiveness of emergency management and the factors affecting cross-departmental coordination. Based on the characteristics of multiple concurrent paths, the driving paths can be classified into four categories: organizational, environmental, environment-balanced, and organization environment-based dual-core categories. The effectiveness of public health emergency management is the result of multiple factors. Local governments should strengthen the coordination and integration of information, organization, and environment, improve the coordinated system associated with emergency management, promote the "two-wheel drive" of high-quality development as well as accurate prevention and control, explore and perfect the adaptive combinatorial optimization path, and effectively transform the advantages of linking multi-dimensional factors with governance efficiency.

A choice model-based analysis of diversification in organic and conventional farms

Diversification is a polymorphic strategy to increase agricultural income and reduce the risks deriving from the surrounding environment. This strategy can also be successfully adopted in the context of organic farming. However, there is a lack of confirmation in this regard given the scarcity of studies that explicitly focus on diversification in organic farms. The objective of this paper is to analyse the influence of some territorial, socio-economic, and political factors on the probability of diversifying in both organic and conventional farms. To this aim, multinomial and binary logit models are applied to the Italian case. Results suggest that on-farm diversification requires specific competences and adequate organization. However, the reasons for diversifying differ depending on the production model. In conventional farming, farmers diversify to achieve income levels comparable with those of a more competitive agriculture. Conversely, for organic farmers, diversification represents an integrated part of the production model to take advantage of synergies between organic production and diversification. From these results, some policy implications are drawn.

Will Mergers and Acquisition Vacillate the Performance of Banks? A Case Study of Public Sector Banks in India

The recent change that the banking sector sees is the mergers and acquisitions occurring among the public sector banks. Merger and acquisition in the banking sector are part of the reform strategies to improve financial stability and gain smooth operational flow and synergy advantages. The research focused on the aspects of the banks' profitability, solvency, investment, and liquidity in the pre-and post-merger period. The research attempted to understand the varied reasons behind their mergers, acquisition, and success rate. The main objective was to understand the impact of synergy on the performance and profitability of banks. It was an exploratory research to understand the various objectives of mergers and to map the outcome of those objectives. The analysis was done through ratio analysis and paired t-test to gauge the impact of the pre-and post-merger scenario. The results find that the merger and acquisition are a positive move for some banks. However, there are certain banks which are coping at a slow pace with the synergy. The research also discovers that the synergy amongst the banks reacts in a varied way based on the objective of the mergers. The results indicate that the banks cope with the merger and acquisition at a varied pace due to various factors like Non-Performing Asset (NPA), debts, assets, and market share variabilities amongst the banks. The recent pandemic that the world faces can also be considered a factor for slower coping.

Successful implementation of low temperature district heating case studies

Low temperature district heating is recognized as a key technology for the (cost-) efficient integration of renewable energy and waste heat sources in our energy systems. Several studies indicate that a deployment of local district heating schemes is a key measure for reaching the politically set climate goals. Further, implementation of low temperature district heating systems are recommended for taking maximum advantages of synergies with other sectors for decarbonization of the heating sector. Within the IEA DHC Annex TS2 project already realized low temperature community energy system concepts as well as planned or designed systems are identified and visualized. Furthermore, projects showing an innovative heat use or operation of buildings are also included in the analyses. The different projects are assessed and compared. The presentation of the demonstrators is set up in such a way that knowledge is generated about the indoor heating system, the district heating system and of the competitiveness of low temperature district heating systems, giving the evidence that these systems are feasible, efficient and reliable under various boundary conditions. The demonstrators further indicate that there are existing challenges, where further research on innovative district heating concepts for integrating decentral feed-in of renewable energy is required. The demonstrators included in the IEA DHC Annex TS2 are analysed in regard to which elements of new knowledge they can generate. For each demonstrator there are specific innovations in focus. Furthermore, the case studies show that the related business models for the utilities change when system temperatures are lowered. The paper presents and discusses the results from current research work within of the IEA DHC Annex TS2 on Implementation of Low Temperature District Heating Systems (Averfalk et al., 2021; Annex TS2, 2021 [1]).

Halal Park 2.0: Organising Halal Production and Supply Networks

The halal industry is expanding rapidly. Muslim consumer markets are today among the world’s fastest growing. Despite the significant size of the halal industry, however, which is growing in width (read: introducing new halal certifiable categories) and depth (read: more companies are embracing halal certification), there is an evident gap in meeting increased demand for high-quality halal consumer products. There is also a systemic shortage of halal-certified raw materials, other ingredients, and additives. As halal moves from a product approach towards a supply chain approach, issues of halal integrity have also come to the fore. Likewise, it remains problematic that multinationals from non-OIC countries dominate all halal categories, with only limited (and further diminishing) roles for companies from the Muslim world. There is also a total lack of horizontal and vertical collaboration in halal supply chains, leaving true halal synergy advantages on the table.

Vertically Aligned ZnO/MnO2/Pedot Core-Shell Electrode in 3-D Nano-Architecture for High Energy-Power Density Pseudocapacitive Electrochemical Energy Storage

Electrochemical capacitors have emerged as the favored energy storage technology in diverse applications like hybrid electric vehicles, portable electronics, communication and smart grids. The key challenge is to increase the energy density alongside the high power density. The structured carbons based electrical double layer capacitors are common but fail to meet this requirement. The Faradaic charge storage mechanism based pseudo-capacitors offer enticing opportunities to bridge the energy and power density functionality gap between the battery and supercapacitors. One approach is to use conducting polymers (CPs), poly 3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene (pedot), polypyrrole and polyaniline etc wherein Faradaic processes are visualized as doping-dedoping of counter ions across vast interface with electrolyte. The other approach is to utilize reversible redox process exhibited by transition metal oxides (TMO) such as RuO2, MnO2 NiO, V2O5 etc which due to multivalent cation states and fast ions/electron kinetics can exhibit high charge storage capability. TMOs could have specific capacitance > 1000 Fg-1 but low electrical conductivity and low cycle stability are the main impediments. Conducting polymers have high electrical conductivity, but have poor mechanical strength and cyclic ability. Most past researches have tried to overcome these deficiencies in TMOs and ECPs by forming composite with carbon nanotubes, graphene etc. In this work we have investigated the metal oxide and conducting polymer composite electrode created in a specific nano-architecture that takes advantage of synergy of their potent properties coupled with the short ion diffusion paths and efficient electron exchange during redox processes.By hierarchical integration, supercapacitor electrodes in the 3-dimensional core-shell nanostructure have been designed based on ZnO nanorods at the core, redox active MnO2 layer and surface electro-polymerized pedot conducting polymer as shell. The vertically aligned ZnO nanorods array were hydrothermally grown over flexible graphite sheets to form the core template (Fig 1a). The ZnO nanorods were decorated with a thin ~120 nm layer of MnO2 nanoflakes by KMnO4+MnSO4 solution dip process to form an initial shell nanostructure. A microporous 250 nm thin layer of pedot was molecularly formed by insitu electro-pulsed polymerization over MnO2 surface to create a bi-layer shell (Fig 1b). The pedot shell with controlled porosity was achieved by short 10 ms high current (4 mA.cm-2) pulsed polymerization in aqueous solution of edot monomer, LiClO4 dopant and sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS) surfactant. The ZnO / MnO2/ pedot core-shell nanostructure electrode shortens the ion diffusion path for fast ionic transport and renders large electroactive sites due to vast surface area. Pedot shell facilitates electronic transfer and ZnO core and imparts structural stability beside large surface area. The electrochemical energy storage performance of ZnO core, ZnO/MnO2 and ZnO/MnO2/Pedot core-shell electrodes was analyzed by cyclic voltammetry (CV), impedance spectroscopy (EIS), charge-discharge (CD) and long term cyclic tests in a three-electrode cell with Pt sheet as counter and Ag/AgCl as reference electrode in aqueous 1M sodium sulfate mediumThe Raman spectra analysis shows MnO2 shell forms in birnessite Mn(IV) state uniformly over ZnO nanorods. The pedot is highly conjugated (ClO4 ions) with sufficient micro-porosity for MnO2 to access electrolyte (LiClO4) and possible Li-ion incursion in pedot and MnO2. CV analysis establishes redox behavior of ZnO-MnO2 core-shell and with pedot shell further increase in areal capacitance >1090 F.g-1 with near rectangular CV plots (Fig 2a). The scan rate dependent study of surface charge and ion diffusion limitation shows that pedot layer mitigates poor electronic conduction in MnO2 shell and provided diffusive pathways for the ions thus enhancing capacitive properties (Fig 2b). This is further affirmed from the Nyquist plots showing nonexistent Warburg region indicating inconsequential diffusion limitation and the near vertical imaginary impedance indicating high pseudocapacitance. The 1.0- 3.0 mA cm-2 CD plots of ZnO/MnO2/pedot core-shell electrodes are triangular with minimal resistive drop and ~91% Coulomb efficiency. The ZnO/MnO2/core-shell shows energy density of 25.6 Wh kg-1 and power density 2.6 kW kg-1 and a significantly improved rate capability is realized with added pedot shell as evidenced by power density 20.8 kW.kg-1 corresponding to energy density of 37.9Wh.kg-1 .The cyclic stability tested over 6000 CD cycles show the usual capacitance fading for 900 cycles and highly stable performance thereafter and perhaps beyond 6000 cycles as the CD plots were in triangular without any change in resistive drops (Fig 2c). The supercapacitor device based on two symmetrical ZnO/MnO2/core-shell electrodes was similarly investigated. This paper will report on the significant research findings on the synergistic electrochemical action of nano MnO2 with molecularly integrated microporous pedot over ZnO nanorod array in a 3-dimensional nanoarchitecture Figure 1

Estratégia de Aquisição da Webjet pela Gol:

No fim de 2011, a Gol adquiriu o capital social total da Webjet na perspectiva de obter vantagem estratégica de sinergia. Em 2012, contrariamente, o seu resultado operacional foi negativo em R$ 905,5 milhões. A literatura não tem se ocupado em investigar os fatores geradores desse resultado operacional negativo. Esta lacuna de conhecimento fornece a justificativa para este artigo. A investigação é conduzida por meio da metodologia strategic variance analysis (SVA) desenvolvida em 2000 por Horngren, Foster e Datar e em 2003 expandida por Sopariwala. A metodologia decompõe a variância de cada conta do resultado da companhia em efeito quantidade e preço. A diferença de uma conta do resultado entre dois anos é denominada de variância. Constatou-se que a decisão estratégica de aquisição foi satisfatória, pois a receita aumentou, mas foi totalmente ofuscada pelas variâncias nas contas da despesa operacional: combustíveis e lubrificantes, pouso e decolagem e arrendamento de aviões. É a primeira vez que a metodologia SVA é aplicada às companhias aéreas brasileiras.

A Rolex o a setas. Comunidades Autónomas, cambio climático y modelo económico

Este articulo busca analizar el reciente impulso que la legislacion de algunas Comunidades autonomas ha querido dar a la lucha contra el cambio climatico y contextualizarla en las poderosas tensiones que experimenta de tipo competencial, que a la par lo son tambien con una interpretacion rigida de los limites que impone el modelo economico. Por el momento en Espana parece que frente a las politicas filoclimaticas autonomicas, el gobierno central, en vez de aprovechar las sinergias y ese “papel activo e innovador” que demanda el Comite de las Regiones, ha optado por la mirada corta competencial para lo que ha usado como escudo las “viejas” competencias energeticas y de planificacion de la economia en detrimento de la perspectiva verde.

Synergy between Experiments and Computations: A Green Channel for Revealing Metabolic Mechanism of Xenobiotics in Chemical Toxicology.

Xenobiotic metabolism can lead to metabolites with altered physicochemical and biological properties, which may differ markedly from those of their parent compounds. Thus, xenobiotic metabolism has great implication for chemical safety evaluation, which has become one of the central research areas in chemical toxicology. A plethora of analytical and in vitro methods are now available for investigating the metabolic fate of xenobiotics, especially by cytochrome P450 (CYP), at a high level of detail. However, the interpretations of metabolic reactions often face some mechanistic challenges, for example, the mechanism of the initial and rate-determining step is not easily distinguished due to the transient nature of active species of CYP, and some reactive intermediates are difficult to identify. Alternatively, computational chemistry methodologies such as quantum chemical calculations have the capacity to calculate the electronic structures for enzymatic models with hundreds of atoms, thus to be able to characterize intermediates and transition states during whole metabolic reaction course from both structural and energetics aspects, which can confront some major limitations of experimental methods. In this perspective, I first introduce state of the art experimental and computational approaches for investigating xenobiotic metabolism catalyzed by CYP, respectively. Then the strategies to harvest the synergy between experiments and computations are highlighted, which can be conducted through comparison of their analytical, kinetic, or isotope effect data at a qualitative, semiquantitative, or quantitative level to determine the metabolic mechanism. Two examples are chosen to demonstrate the synergy advantage to elucidate the metabolic mechanism of triphenyl phosphate and atrazine catalyzed by CYP, respectively, which show that the interplay between experiments and computations allows greater insight to be gained than with the isolated methods.

Halal procurement strategy in the food industry: a focus group discussion

A focus group discussion on halal procurement strategy was conducted with food multinationals. The focus group discussion illustrated that leading halal procurement strategies are founded on solid halal risk and reputation management; harmonise, standardise and simplify halal; backup plans for halal critical items purchasing; local suppliers of halal critical items; all suppliers of halal critical items need to be halal certified; business contingency plans by suppliers; and leveraging synergy advantages. There is a preference for local or regional sourcing instead of global sourcing, and a preference for multiple sourcing, instead of single sourcing. The substance of relationship between buyer and supplier evolves based on the maturity of a supplier relationship. Monitoring and evaluation of halal critical suppliers require a combination of vendor rating, benchmarking, and physical audits. There is potential for collaborative purchasing with purchasing organisations both within and outside their own group of companies. As halal procurement is a new field of research, further qualitative research has been recommended.

Impact of Bank Merger on Retail Customer, Shareholers and Employees: a Study of Merger of Dena Bank and Vijaya Bank with Bank of Baroda from a Futuristic Perspective

In every economy, banking sector plays a vital role and it is one of the fast growing sectors in India. In pursuit of gaining a competitive advantage, both private and public banks are making intense efforts to sustain and outperform each other. In the present scenario, banking sector is facing a lot of challenges such as changes in regulatory environment, evolution of online banking, significant financial consolidation etc. which in turn makes Indian financial industry to be highly competitive. In order to gain a competitive advantage and positive synergy, banks are adopting consolidation strategy to have an impact on the market. Mergers and acquisition not only give a synergy advantage but also open up various opportunities and, varied challenges, which may affect the efficiency of the banks, its employees and thereby its customers.