Market Analysis Discussion

As highlighted in Section 2.3.2, the major proportion of all nitric acid produced in Australia is used for the production of ammonium nitrate. Ammonium nitrate is in turn used in the agricultural industry as a fertilizer and in the mining industry as an explosive. Both of these areas have shown large demand fluctuations over the last decade. The collapse of world commodity prices, the expansion and recent decline of the agricultural sector for overseas markets, and seasonal weather variations have all had a significant impact. 

The problems experienced in Australia have been effectively buffered in the world market by a broad, diverse market base. A substantial proportion of world production is used in other areas of the chemical processing industry (as shown in Section 2.3.3), thereby establishing a more stable base. 

Nominal amounts of nitric acid are imported into Australia from Europe, North America and Japan, totalling approximately 15 tonnes per annum (see Table B.4). 

In contrast to the volatile Australian demand, the world market for nitric acid over the last decade has shown a relatively steady growth (approximately 2% per annum). Again, the broader applications base is at least partially responsible for this superior performance. 

An interesting trend exposed by an examination of world production figures, is the success of the larger producers at the 

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From the author s immersion experiences as well as the wide ambit of issues discussed in the research literature, several frames of analysis can be identified. First, the focus of attention is on academic tourism research and its purposes. This kind of research can be distinguished from government and industry-based research efforts that have some different overall agendas (Jafari, 1990 Pearce, 1993a). The agendas for government-based studies are much more directed towards market analysis, statistics collection schemes that inform policy and provide classifications of activity. The consultancy-based work conducted for industry organisations and busi-... 

This example should have made it clear that even control instruments of statistics fail if the number of observations is too sparse. But what is the required minimum number of observations That again depends on the intended purpose. For the prediction of biological activities, the experimental data of 14 compounds can be sufficient. Conversely, the prediction of consumer behaviour based on a survey carried out on 1,000 volunteers might badly fail. The former QSAR equation will work because we have used throughout similar compounds, whereas the later market analysis goes wrong because we have not used an adequate sample. How to chose representative sets of data will be discussed in Chapter 4. 

The Promochem Group was the first international specialist supplier of certified reference materials (CRMs) and pharmaceutical reference substances used in environmental, medical and trace element analysis. Their experience provides a viewpoint that echoes, reinforces and expands on many of the trends discussed above (Jenks 1997). From the middle of the 1980 s, sales of CRM by Promochem increased between 10 % and 20 % annually, depending on the market sector and application. Since then National and International Metrology Institutes, such as the now privatized U.K. Laboratory of the Government Chemist (LGC), the European and U.S. Pharmacopoeias, the E.U. IRMM and others have recognized that efficient distribution of RMs, backed by available technical support, is as important as production and certification. Thus, they have moved to spread their influence outside their national origins. The Web and e-commerce will continue to grow as major facilitators of better information dissemination and supply of CRMs. 

Chemical process data inherently contain some degree of error, and this error may be random or systematic. Thus, the application of data reconciliation techniques allows optimal adjustment of measurement values to satisfy material and energy constraints. It also makes possible the estimation of unmeasured variables. It should be emphasized that, in today s highly competitive world market, resolving even small errors can lead to significant improvements in plant performance and economy. This book attempts to provide a comprehensive statement, analysis, and discussion of the main issues that emerge in the treatment and reconciliation of plant data. 

In this chapter, reasons why 17 drugs were withdrawn from the Western market between 1992 and 2006 are discussed and facts on 63 terminated clinical development projects presented, so as to identify the most common reasons for the failure of drugs in this late stage of drug development This analysis is then compared with two previous related studies published more than 18 years ago by Prentis et al. [4] and Kennedy [5],... 

An overview of HPLC instrumentation, operating principles, and recent advances or trends that are pertinent to pharmaceutical analysis is provided in Chapter 3 for the novice and the more experienced analyst. Modern liquid chromatographs have excellent performance and reliability because of the decades of refinements driven by technical advances and competition between manufacturers in a two billion-dollar-plus equipment market. References to HPLC textbooks, reference books, review articles, and training software have been provided in this chapter. Rather than summarizing the current literature, the goal is to provide the reader with a concise overview of HPLC instrumentation, operating principles, and recent advances or trends that lead to better analytical performance. Two often-neglected system parameters—dwell volume and instrumental bandwidth—are discussed in more detail because of their impact on fast LC and small-bore LC applications. 

The development of the information required for Table 9-27 was discussed previously in Sec. 9 with the exception of marketing information. An important document for a feasibility analysis is the marketing data so that the latest income projections can be included for management s consideration. As a minimum, the tabulation of sales volume, sales prices, and market share both domestically and globally should be included. Table 9-28 shows a sample of such marketing information. 

In Chapter 4 Aidan Hollis examines three proposals in considerable detail. The first is an Advanced Purchase Commitment by sponsors, who offer an explicit subsidy in advance for innovative products. The subsidy offer includes a fixed-dollar amount per unit as well as a commitment to purchase a specific number of units at that price. The second proposal is that sponsors pay annual rewards based on the therapeutic effectiveness of innovative drugs. The third approach is to offer a patent extension on patented products to pharmaceutical companies if they successfully developed a vaccine for a disease such as HIV/AIDS that is highly prevalent, particularly in some low-income countries. Hollis concludes that the third approach is an extremely inefficient way to reward innovation. By contrast, the second approach could correct the market failure directly by rewarding innovative drugs according to their therapeutic effectiveness, which is measurable by cost-effectiveness analysis, a topic discussed later in greater detail in Chapters 10 and 11. 

The commercial composite materials being marketed today are optimized in order to make the interfacial properties acceptable in the sense that they will not fail at such low levels as to detract from the overall composite behavior. Considering a unidirectional specimen, where the fibers are all aligned parallel to each other, commercial systems can be described by a rule of mixtures661 relationship (Fig. 10). Properties of the matrix and fiber can be linearly combined based on the volume fraction of each constituent. For example, the longitudinal tensile modulus is the sum of the proportion of each component. The interface in these systems is considered ideal in that it efficiently transmits forces between fiber and matrix without failure. Using this model as a basis for micromechanical analysis and discussion, the magnitude of the forces present at the interface can be predicted. 

In the debate about whether it is financially rewarding to farm organically, the question of what to include in the final analysis remains. The private benefits to the farmer are included. From society s point of view, another relevant factor is the difference in off-farm effects between the two management systems. This is notoriously difficult to quantify but is still relevant for the full picture of the total efficiency of the systems. In some of the studies discussed, this factor is already included in the form of subsidies and premium prices, though these extra revenues must also cover the extra cost of small-scale marketing. 

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