The Empirical Analysis of Cigarette Tax Avoidance and Illicit Trade in Vietnam, 1998-2010

Illicit trade carries the potential to magnify existing tobacco-related health care costs through increased availability of untaxed and inexpensive cigarettes. What is known with respect to the magnitude of illicit trade for Vietnam is produced primarily by the industry, and methodologies are typically opaque. Independent assessment of the illicit cigarette trade in Vietnam is vital to tobacco control policy. This paper measures the magnitude of illicit cigarette trade for Vietnam between 1998 and 2010 using two methods, discrepancies between legitimate domestic cigarette sales and domestic tobacco consumption estimated from surveys, and trade discrepancies as recorded by Vietnam and trade partners. The results indicate that Vietnam likely experienced net smuggling in during the period studied. With the inclusion of adjustments for survey respondent under-reporting, inward illicit trade likely occurred in three of the four years for which surveys were available. Discrepancies in trade records indicate that the value of smuggled cigarettes into Vietnam ranges from $100 million to $300 million between 2000 and 2010 and that these cigarettes primarily originate in Singapore, Hong Kong, Macao, Malaysia, and Australia. Notable differences in trends over time exist between the two methods, but by comparison, the industry estimates consistently place the magnitude of illicit trade at the upper bounds of what this study shows. The unavailability of annual, survey-based estimates of consumption may obscure the true, annual trend over time. Second, as surveys changed over time, estimates relying on them may be inconsistent with one another. Finally, these two methods measure different components of illicit trade, specifically consumption of illicit cigarettes regardless of origin and smuggling of cigarettes into a particular market. However, absent a gold standard, comparisons of different approaches to illicit trade measurement serve efforts to refine and improve measurement approaches and estimates.     

New Isopropyl Chromone and Flavanone Glucoside Compounds from the Leaves of Syzygium cerasiforme (Blume) Merr. & L.M.Perry and Their Inhibition of Nitric Oxide Production

A new isopropyl chromone ( 1 ) and a new flavanone glucoside ( 2 ) together with eleven known compounds ( 3–13 ) were isolated from the leaves of Syzygium cerasiforme (Blume) Merr. & L.M.Perry. Their structures were elucidated as 5,7-dihydroxy-2-isopropyl-6,8-dimethyl-4H-chromen-4-one ( 1 ), 5,7-dihydroxyflavanone 7-O-β-D-(6′′-O-galloylglucopyranoside) ( 2 ), strobopinin ( 3 ), demethoxymatteucinol ( 4 ), pinocembrin-7-O-β-D-glucopyranoside ( 5 ), (2S)-hydroxynaringenin-7-O-β-D-glucopyranoside ( 6 ), afzelin ( 7 ), quercetin ( 8 ), kaplanin ( 9 ), endoperoxide G3 ( 10 ), grasshopper ( 11 ), vomifoliol ( 12 ), litseagermacrane ( 13 ) by the analysis of HR-ESI-MS, NMR, and CD spectral data. Compounds 1 , 2 , 5 , 6 and 10 inhibited NO production on LPS-activated RAW264.7 cells with IC₅₀ values of 12.28±1.15, 8.52±1.62, 7.68±0.87, 9.67±0.57, and 6.69±0.34 μM, respectively, while the IC₅₀ values of the other compounds ranging from 33.38±0.78 to 86.51±2.98 μM, compared to that of the positive control, N^G-monomethyl-L-arginine acetate (L-NMMA) with an IC₅₀ value of 32.50±1.00 μM.     

Novel (E)-3-(3-Oxo-4-substituted-3,4-dihydro-2H-benzo[b][1,4]oxazin-6-yl)-N-hydroxypropenamides as Histone Deacetylase Inhibitors: Design,Synthesis and Bioevaluation

Herein, we report the design, synthesis and evaluation of novel (E)-3-(3-oxo-4-substituted-3,4-dihydro-2H-benzo[b][1,4]oxazin-6-yl)-N-hydroxypropenamides ( 4 a – i , 7 a – g ) targeting histone deacetylases. Three human cancer cell lines were used to test the cytotoxicity of the synthesized compounds (SW620, colon; PC-3, prostate; NCI−H23, lung cancer); inhibitory activity towards HDAC; anticancer activity; as well as their impact on the cell cycle and apoptosis. As a result, compounds 4 a – i bearing the alkyl substituents seemed to be less potent than the benzyl-containing compounds 7 a – g in all biological assays. Compounds 7 e – f were found to be the most active HDAC inhibitors with IC₅₀ of 1.498±0.020 μM and 1.794±0.159 μM, respectively. In terms of cytotoxicity and anticancer assay, 7 e and 7 f also showed good activity with IC₅₀ values in the micromolar range. In addition, the cell cycle and apoptosis of SW620 were affected by compound 7 f in almost a similar manner to that of reference compound SAHA. Docking assays were carried out for analysis the binding mode and selectivity of this compound toward 8 HDAC isoforms. Overall, our data confirmed that the inhibition of HDAC plays a pivotal role in their anticancer activity.     

Oxide-Based Solid-State Batteries: A Perspective on Composite Cathode Architecture

The garnet-type phase Li₇La₃Zr₂O₁₂ (LLZO) attracts significant attention as an oxide solid electrolyte to enable safe and robust solid-state batteries (SSBs) with potentially high energy density. However, while significant progress has been made in demonstrating compatibility with Li metal, integrating LLZO into composite cathodes remains a challenge. The current perspective focuses on the critical issues that need to be addressed to achieve the ultimate goal of an all-solid-state LLZO-based battery that delivers safety, durability, and pack-level performance characteristics that are unobtainable with state-of-the-art Li-ion batteries. This perspective complements existing reviews of solid/solid interfaces with more emphasis on understanding numerous homo- and heteroionic interfaces in a pure oxide-based SSB and the various phenomena that accompany the evolution of the chemical, electrochemical, structural, morphological, and mechanical properties of those interfaces during processing and operation. Finally, the insights gained from a comprehensive literature survey of LLZO–cathode interfaces are used to guide efforts for the development of LLZO-based SSBs.     

Laplacian normalization and bi-random walks on heterogeneous networks for predicting lncRNA-disease associations

Background

Evidences have increasingly indicated that lncRNAs (long non-coding RNAs) are deeply involved in important biological regulation processes leading to various human complex diseases. Experimental investigations of these disease associated lncRNAs are slow with high costs. Computational methods to infer potential associations between lncRNAs and diseases have become an effective prior-pinpointing approach to the experimental verification.

Results

In this study, we develop a novel method for the prediction of lncRNA-disease associations using bi-random walks on a network merging the similarities of lncRNAs and diseases. Particularly, this method applies a Laplacian technique to normalize the lncRNA similarity matrix and the disease similarity matrix before the construction of the lncRNA similarity network and disease similarity network. The two networks are then connected via existing lncRNA-disease associations. After that, bi-random walks are applied on the heterogeneous network to predict the potential associations between the lncRNAs and the diseases. Experimental results demonstrate that the performance of our method is highly comparable to or better than the state-of-the-art methods for predicting lncRNA-disease associations. Our analyses on three cancer data sets (breast cancer, lung cancer, and liver cancer) also indicate the usefulness of our method in practical applications.

Conclusions

Our proposed method, including the construction of the lncRNA similarity network and disease similarity network and the bi-random walks algorithm on the heterogeneous network, could be used for prediction of potential associations between the lncRNAs and the diseases.

     

Large-scale preventive chemotherapy for the control of helminth infection in Western Pacific countries: six years later

In 2001, Urbani and Palmer published a review of the epidemiological situation of helminthiases in the countries of the Western Pacific Region of the World Health Organization indicating the control needs in the region. Six years after this inspiring article, large-scale preventive chemotherapy for the control of helminthiasis has scaled up dramatically in the region. This paper analyzes the most recent published and unpublished country information on large-scale preventive chemotherapy and summarizes the progress made since 2000. Almost 39 million treatments were provided in 2006 in the region for the control of helminthiasis: nearly 14 million for the control of lymphatic filariasis, more than 22 million for the control of soil-transmitted helminthiasis, and over 2 million for the control of schistosomiasis. In general, control of these helminthiases is progressing well in the Mekong countries and Pacific Islands. In China, despite harboring the majority of the helminth infections of the region, the control activities have not reached the level of coverage of countries with much more limited financial resources. The control of food-borne trematodes is still limited, but pilot activities have been initiated in China, Lao People's Democratic Republic, and Vietnam.     

Effect of ionic liquids on enzymatic synthesis of caffeic acid phenethyl ester

Although caffeic acid phenethyl ester (CAPE), an active flavonoid, plays an important role in the antioxidant activity of honeybee propolis, the isolation of CAPE from honeybee propolis is time-consuming due to wide variety of impurities present. Therefore, biochemical method to synthesize CAPE was investigated in this study. Since ionic liquids (ILs) possess some unique characteristics as appreciated alternatives to conventional solvents for certain biotransformation, the effect of ILs as reaction media for enzymatic synthesis of CAPE was assessed. Several factors including substrate molar ratio, and reaction temperature affecting the conversion yield of lipase-catalyzed CAPE synthesis were also investigated. Reaction yields were significantly higher in hydrophobic ILs than in hydrophilic ILs (almost zero). Among nine hydrophobic ILs tested, the highest conversion of synthetic reaction was obtained in 1-ethyl-3-methylimidazolium bis[(trifluoromethyl)sulfonyl]imide ([Emim][Tf(2)N]). A reaction temperature of 70 °C was found to give high conversion. In addition, optimal substrate molar ratio between phenethyl alcohol and caffeic acid (CA) was decreased significantly from 92:1 to 30:1 when ILs were used instead of isooctane.