Considerations for Potential Global Expansion of Serum Institute of India

In a time of global vaccine shortages, especially for COVID-19 products, Serum Institute of India (SII) is straining to meet demand for vaccines in India. While this organization is not known worldwide, they entered into a recent alliance with AstraZeneca, who is partnered with Oxford University for Covid-19 vaccine, to manufacture their supply of vaccines for distribution in India. Several other such partnerships are also underway. And, SII is considering plans to become a much larger player, not only in India, but globally. This commentary is focused on if, when, where, why, and how global expansion could proceed. Our work was carried out as a class project to identify options and strategies appropriate for expansion and has been expanded subsequently as events continued to develop.

Is It Possible to Intervene in the Capacity of Trypanosoma cruzi to Elicit and Evade the Complement System?

Chagas’ disease is a zoonotic parasitic ailment now affecting more than 6 million people, mainly in Latin America. Its agent, the protozoan Trypanosoma cruzi, is primarily transmitted by endemic hematophagous triatomine insects. Transplacental transmission is also important and a main source for the emerging global expansion of this disease. In the host, the parasite undergoes intra (amastigotes) and extracellular infective (trypomastigotes) stages, both eliciting complex immune responses that, in about 70% of the cases, culminate in permanent immunity, concomitant with the asymptomatic presence of the parasite. The remaining 30% of those infected individuals will develop a syndrome, with variable pathological effects on the circulatory, nervous, and digestive systems. Herein, we review an important number of T. cruzi molecules, mainly located on its surface, that have been characterized as immunogenic and protective in various experimental setups. We also discuss a variety of parasite strategies to evade the complement system - mediated immune responses. Within this context, we also discuss the capacity of the T. cruzi infective trypomastigote to translocate the ER-resident chaperone calreticulin to its surface as a key evasive strategy. Herein, it is described that T. cruzi calreticulin inhibits the initial stages of activation of the host complement system, with obvious benefits for the parasite. Finally, we speculate on the possibility to experimentally intervene in the interaction of calreticulin and other T. cruzi molecules that interact with the complement system; thus resulting in significant inhibition of T. cruzi infectivity.

The Market for Audiobooks

Storytel is one of the world’s largest subscribed audiobook and ebook streaming services and offers unlimited listening and reading of more than 700 000 titles on a global scale. Its vision is to make the world a more empathetic and creative place with great stories to be shared and enjoyed by anyone, anywhere, and at anytime. Storytel operates in 25 markets around the globe and is headquartered in Stockholm. In summer 2021, Storytel launched a customized student discount offering in several of its markets, targeting audiences at universities and colleges. Logos seized the opportunity to talk to Storytel’s Chief Content Strategy Officer Helena Gustafsson – about stories, global expansion, the wave of audiotainment, and the evolution of literature in a digital era in which books are more accessible than ever.

Neoisoptera repetitively colonised Madagascar after the Middle Miocene climatic optimum

Madagascar is home to many endemic plant and animal species owing to its ancient isolation from other landmasses. This unique fauna includes several lineages of termites, a group of insects known for their key role in organic matter decomposition in many terrestrial ecosystems. How and when termites colonised Madagascar remains unknown. In this study, we used 601 mitochondrial genomes, 93 of which were generated from Madagascan samples, to infer the global historical biogeography of Neoisoptera, a lineage containing upwards of 80% of described termite species. Our results indicate that Neoisoptera colonised Madagascar between seven to ten times independently during the Miocene, between 8.4-16.6 Ma (95% HPD: 6.1-19.9 Ma). This timing matches that of the colonization of Australia by Neoisoptera. Furthermore, the taxonomic composition of the Neoisopteran fauna of Madagascar and Australia are strikingly similar, with Madagascar harbouring an additional two lineages absent from Australia. Therefore, akin to Australia, Neoisoptera colonised Madagascar during the global expansion of grasslands, possibly helped by the ecological opportunities arising from the spread of this new biome.

Odds-wise view: Whose ideas prevail in the global integrity campaigns against match-fixing?

The global expansion of sports betting has resulted in the formation of (inter)national governing regimes aimed at sustaining revenue and regulating attendant issues, including match-fixing. This article explores the workings of these regimes vis-à-vis the management of match-fixing issues in sport. More particularly, this article focuses on betting monitoring programmes as countermeasures against match-fixing and conceptualises these as social instruments that ultimately define issues and influence the wider integrity agenda of anti-match-fixing campaigns. Analysing documentary, observation and interview data from two disparate monitoring programmes, the results show that betting monitoring is a technical extension of corporate risk management, invariably reflecting the business interests of the betting industry. Therefore, the operating logic of betting monitoring defines match-fixing as an act of sabotaging the competitive edge of betting companies. Moreover, this interest-laden paradigm reigns within the broader policy agenda of sport integrity by equating the betting industry's interest with that of sport. From this, the article suggests that betting monitoring plays a part in the legitimation of commercial gambling by reframing the issue of match-fixing as a common enemy that gambling and sport join forces to combat, not a risk that gambling brings to sport.

The Determinants of Global Expansion: A Study on Food and Beverage Franchisors in Malaysia

In the past decade, franchising has become a well-known platform for business expansion. Various strategies have been employed by franchisors in expanding their business into the global market. However, few studies have assessed the determinants that can be adopted by the franchisors in bringing value as well as opening up opportunities for global market expansion. This study aims to explore the determinants of global expansion based on Malaysian franchisors’ experience. A qualitative research approach was adopted through various case studies with ten franchisors from the food and beverage industry in Malaysia. In-depth interviews were carried out to explore this topic. Thematic analysis was performed through the “Atlas.ti” software package version 9.0, which was also used in analyzing the data. The findings indicated that there are four themes, and nine sub-themes were discovered from the grounded data. The franchisors agreed that franchise brand, business location, product, advertising, and promotion were able to influence franchisors in designing strategies for global expansion. The data were also able to provide an in-depth understanding of the determinants for global expansion that can be undertaken as a guide to prospective franchisors who want to start exploring the global market. These results are expected to assist the government as well as the agencies involved with franchising in improving related policies, strategies and programmes. Thus, it is important to understand these determinants in order to survive in a competitive global market.

“Toward the World’s Center Stage”

Chapter 11 discusses the dawn of China’s strategy of global expansion, its perception of American decline, and the arrival of a new Party concept—the “great changes unseen in a century”—associated with both. It argues that China’s strategy of expansion emerged following another “trifecta,” this time consisting of Brexit, the election of Donald Trump, and the West’s initial response to the coronavirus pandemic. In this period, the Chinese Communist Party reached a paradoxical consensus: it concluded that the United States was in decline globally but at the same time was waking up to the China challenge bilaterally. It argues that Beijing now perceives an opportunity to displace the United States as the leading global state by 2049, with the next decade deemed the most critical to this objective.

De São Paulo a Seúl: las estrategias de Netflix en los mercados periféricos

Aiming to examine Netflix’s strategies in its global expansion and based on the debates on the transnationalization of tv flows, we observe the platform’s presence in two peripheral markets: Brazil and South Korea. In both, we find similar tactics, such as the licensing and commissioning of local content and partnerships with national production companies. Although we identified a recent shift in the company’s strategies from Latin America towards the Asian market, we argue that it is imperative to deconstruct Netflix’s position as a mediator of narratives to and from the “rest of the world”.