Search

Novel, safe, and effective antilisterial agents are required in order to prevent

Conversion of saline water into freshwater by the use of solar thermal energy is known as solar desalination and the devices used for carrying out solar desalination are known as solar stills. The major problem faced by the solar stills is that they have low productivity and therefore unable to meet the high demand for freshwater. Over the years, several researchers have worked on improving the productivity of solar stills. Preheating of feed water, forced convection and energy storage are some of the methods used to increase their efficiencies. Some of these methods are discussed in the present review. The main aim of the current review is to provide the researchers with an idea to select the appropriate method for the improvement in the performance of currently available solar stills.

Nanoenabled technologies hold great promise for medicine and health. Nanomedicine has defined the remit of this emerging and important field. Nanomedicine is clearly multidisciplinary and builds on the existing expertise, in a large number of different scientific fields. It is expected to have a great impact in the near future due to its multiple advantages, namely its versatility to adapt a drug to a cohort of patients. This chapter deals with the properties and requirements of pharmaceutical dosage forms at the nanoscale, so-called nanomedicines. An overview of the main current nanomedicines in preclinical and clinical development is presented, detailing the challenges to the personalization of these therapies. Next, the process of development of novel nanomedicines is described, from their design in research labs to their arrival on the market, including considerations for the design of nanomedicines adapted to the requirements of the market to achieve safe, effective, and quality products, and that the expertise of researchers in many fields need to be brought together to move new discoveries out of the laboratory and into the clinical environment where patients can reap the benefits.

Drought remains one of the most serious environmental stresses because of the continuous reduction in soil moisture, which requires the improvement of crops with features such as drought tolerance. Guar [Cyamopsis tetragonoloba (L.) Taub], a forage and industrial crop, is a nonthirsty plant. However, the information on the transcriptome changes that occur under drought stress in guar is very limited; therefore, a gene expression analysis is necessary in this context. Here, we studied the differentially expressed genes (DEGs) in response to drought stress and their metabolic pathways. RNA-Seq via an expectation-maximization algorithm was used to estimate gene abundance. Subsequently, an Empirical Analysis of Digital Gene Expression Data in the R Bioconductor package was used to identify DEGs. Blast2GO, InterProScan, and the Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes were used to explore functional annotation, protein analysis, enzymes, and metabolic pathways. Transcription factors were identified using the PlantTFDB database. Our study identified 499 upregulated and 191 downregulated genes in response to drought stress. Of those, 32 upregulated and six downregulated genes were deemed as novel genes exclusive to guar. An aggregate of 137 protein families, 306 domains, 12 repeats, and two sites were upregulated. The proton-dependent oligopeptide transporter family and transferase, aquaporin transporter, calcium/calmodulin-dependent/calcium-dependent protein kinase, aspartic peptidase A1 family, UDP-glucuronosyl/UDP-glucosyltransferase, and major intrinsic protein were the most upregulated protein families. The upregulated unigenes were associated with 88 enzymes and 77 KEGG pathways. Finally, the MYB-related, MYB, and ERF transcription factor families were upregulated. These data may be useful for understanding the plant molecular response to drought stress.

The major focus of this research was to investigate the effects of religiosity factor on internet addiction among young adults enrolled at college level. We adopted two instruments to gather the information including OK-religious attitude scale for Muslims developed and used by Ok, Uzeyir, and Internet Addiction Test prepared by Widyanto and McMurran. In total, 800 Muslim college students enrolled in four colleges at graduate level of southern Punjab Pakistan were chosen through multi-phase sampling. The subscales revealed more than .76 Cronbach alpha coefficients. The outcomes expressed positive role in case of DE conversion in world faith toward internet indications, whereas intrinsic religious orientations remained beneficial in decreasing internet usage. Students' anti-religion subscale demonstrates higher increase in becoming of internet addict; however, intrinsic religious orientations show significant decrease in using internet. Similarly, DE conversion in world faith view and Anti-Religion Scale indicate students' significant contributions in expecting them being internet addict. The study determines that the religiosity factor considerably illuminate the variances in developing internet addiction among the Muslim college adults with the direct effect of intrinsic religious orientation and indirect effect of anti-religion aspect.

GCC i.e. Gulf Cooperation Countries consists of 6 countries such as United Arab Emirates, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Oman, Qatar, Kuwait and Bahrain have implemented value added tax since January1, 2018. The amount of the VAT is 5% of some leisure articles. The main reasons behind are to reduce dependence on Petroleum and other hydrocarbons and natural gases as a source of revenue. It is a consumption-based tax that is applicable on special goods and services. The system is implemented not only to regulate tax function but also to create a significant way that a business transforms or runs and decreasing the various operational costs such as the cost of Information Technology, supply chain, cash flows, marketing and accounting so on. Various business processes should be monitored to assist the entire business operation. Within the last 2 decades United Arab Emirates the level and the standard of the business tends to be most successful and this country is becoming a successful economy based country. Many foreign companies from Europe, Asia and America and so on are investing their foreign currency at UAE to set up their own business as well as outsourcing. Here the term Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) appears which is used as an effective tool to increment of economic level and decreases the barrier and complicacy of trade. United Arab Emirates including the main Emirates such as Dubai and ABUDHABI, it is an attractive place and lucrative method for the companies where they are identifying their investment plan to start up their business.

Near-real-time water-quality monitoring in uncertain environments such as rivers, lakes, and water reservoirs of different variables is critical to protect the aquatic life and to prevent further propagation of the potential pollution in the water. In order to measure the physical values in a region of interest, adaptive sampling is helpful as an energy- and time-efficient technique since an exhaustive search of an area is not feasible with a single vehicle. We propose an adaptive sampling algorithm using multiple autonomous vehicles, which are well-trained, as agents, in a Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning (MARL) framework to make efficient sequence of decisions on the adaptive sampling procedure. The proposed solution is evaluated using experimental data, which is fed into a simulation framework. Experiments were conducted in the Raritan River, Somerset and in Carnegie Lake, Princeton, NJ during July 2019.

ACE is an important drug target in the treatment of vesicular diseses. ACE is primarily known for its ability to cleave Angiotensin -I to the vasoactive octa peptide Angiotensin-II, but is also able to cleave a number of other substrates including the vasodilator a physiological modulator of hematopoiesis. In present study virtual screening of Alangium salvifolium phytocompounds act as Angiotensin-I inhibitor and assess its molecular basis of inhibition. The present research computationally emphases to Angiotensin-I protein receptor with four Alangium phytocompounds, using molecular docking and simulation studies. From the results showed the interactions be?tween 4YAY (Angiotensin-I) receptor protein with A. salvifolium phytocompounds, a alangum1(Alangium-1(4(benzoyloxy)methyl-2hydroxyphenoxy tetrahydorxy hexoxone 1,2,3,4,5, pentaium ) showed the best glide docking XP score -8.5 kcal/mol binding energy value with best fit simulation study .. Based on the result, the Alangium-1 and target were run on MD simulations stable at 10 ns. Finally, this study concludes the Alangium-1 is a more suitable drug for vesicular remodeling by blocking Angiotensin signaling cascade.

The purpose of this study was to examine the influences of religiousness on the prevalence of Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD) among young adults. Prevalence of three forms of Allportian religious orientation, three forms of quest religious orientation and seven symptoms of NPD were examined through self-reported measures. 618 randomly selected Muslim students from the four public sector Pakistani universities participated in the study. Three research instruments comprising Religious Orientation Scale developed by Gorsuch and McPherson, Quest Scale developed by Batson and Schoenrade and Narcissistic Personality Inventory developed by Raskin and Terry were used to collect the data. All subscales demonstrated more than .70 Cronbach Alpha Coefficients. The findings demonstrate comparatively higher presence of intrinsic, extrinsic personal and extrinsic social religious orientations among the Pakistani Muslim young adults. The presence of NPD symptoms remains higher among the participants too. The study concludes that the religious orientations significantly explain the variances in the prevalence of NPD symptoms among the Muslim university students with the direct effects of intrinsic and extrinsic personal religious orientations and indirect effects of quest religious orientations.

The study was conducted to investigate the mixture of Alangium salvifolium extracts with distinguished organic solvents which were generally used to screen for antibacterial activity against Macrococcus brunensis, Bordetella hinzii, Morganella morganii, Salmonella bongori, Klebsiella oxytoca, Alcaligens faecalis, Achromobacter xylosoxidans, Comamonas testosteroni, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, and Pseudomonas plecoglossicida that obtained from seven fish pathogens. Three pathogens were elucidated in the study which is conducted by using SDS-PAGE to its localisation. The extracted solvents (Acetone) gave good and enhanced antimicrobial activity in their way. The present investigation is an essential step for developing plant-based drugs which are eco-friendly for the management of the pathogenic bacteria of a fish pathogen. Development of commercial formulation of botanicals used to enhance the probability of managing such pathogenic bacteria. Further investigations are necessary for developing commercial formulations based on fields, animal trails, and toxicological experiments. This research may be footprint towards managing the newer antimicrobial entities against the fish pathogen.

Display Omitted Applicability of ANNs in determining green pellet characteristics is examined.Significance of various input parameters is identified.SOM provided good visualization and association of the process parameters.GA is used for synthetic data generation instead of optimization. This paper presents a soft computing approach to estimate wet or green pellet size and strength and signifies the importance of individual process parameter. A huge portion of available minerals and materials is in the form of fine powder that makes their management and utilization a tedious job. Pelletization, a size enlargement technique, is used to tackle aforementioned problems and provides benefits such as ease of handling and storage, convenient transportation and improved process efficiency. Besides other characteristics, pellet size and strength are of prime significance and their accurate estimation can enhance the product quality. Real-life constraints (e.g., time in conducting experiments, repetition of experiments considering measurement errors, availability of resources, etc.) pose difficulties in generating sufficient experimental data at the laboratory. Hence, the concept of random population generation of genetic algorithm is exploited to fulfill data requirement where fitness functions are formulated using multiple regression. Better visualisation of pellets attributes and operating conditions is done through self-organizing map which also helped in deducing some important facts. Sensitivity analysis and construction of learning curves is also performed in present study. Finally, multilayer perceptron, a popular supervised neural network model, is applied on synthetic data to approximate pellet properties. Agreement between estimated and corresponding experimental values ascertained that neural network based system can be employed as an effective and credible tool to anticipate characteristics of wet pellets.

Zincoxide nanoparticles (ZnO NPs) are among the most produced and used nanomaterials worldwide, and in recent times these nanoparticles have also been incorporate in plant science and agricultural research. The present study was planned to synthesize ZnO NPs biologically using Ochradenus arabicus leaves and examine their effect on the morphology and physiology properties of Maerua oblongifolia cultured in vitro. ZnO NPs were characterized by UV–visible spectroscopy (UV–vis), X-ray diffractometer (XRD), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), and transmission electron microscopy, which demonstrated hexagonal shape nanoparticles of size ranging from 10 to 50 nm. Thus, the study uncovered an efficient, eco-friendly and simple technique for biosynthesis of multifunctional ZnO NPs using Ochradenus arabicus following growth of Maerua oblongifolia shoots in different concentrations of ZnO NPs (0, 1.25, 2.5, 5, 10, or 20 mg L−1) in Murashige and Skoog medium. Remarkable increases in plant biomass, photosynthetic pigments, and total protein were recorded up to a concentration of 5 mg L−1, at the same time, the results demonstrated a significant reduction in lipid peroxidation levels with respect to control. Interestingly, the levels of proline and the antioxidant enzyme catalase (CAT), superoxide dismutase (SOD), and glutathione reductase (GR) activities were increased significantly in response to all ZnO NP treatments. These findings indicate that bioengineered ZnO NPs play a major role in accumulation of biomass and stimulating the activities of antioxidant enzymes in plant tissues. Thus, green-synthesized ZnO NPs might be of agricultural and medicinal benefit owing to their impacts on plants in vitro.

Genome size is one of the fundamental cytogenetic features of a species, which is critical for the design and initiation of any genome sequencing projects and can provide essential insights in studying taxonomy, cytogenetics, phylogenesis, and evolutionary studies. However, this key cytogenetic information is almost lacking in the endemic species Reseda pentagyna and the locally rare species Reseda lutea in Saudi Arabia. Therefore, genome size was analyzed by propidium iodide PI flow cytometry and compared to k-mer analysis methods. The standard method for genome size measures (flow cytometry) estimated the genome size of R. lutea and R. pentagyna with nuclei isolation MB01 buffer were found to be 1.91 ± 0.02 and 2.09 ± 0.03 pg/2 °C, respectively, which corresponded approximately to a haploid genome size of 934 and 1.022 Mbp, respectively. For validation, K-mer analysis was performed on both species’ Illumina paired-end sequencing data from both species. Five k-mer analysis approaches were examined for biocomputational estimation of genome size: A general formula and four well-known programs (CovEST, Kmergenie, FindGSE, and GenomeScope). The parameter preferences had a significant impact on GenomeScope and Kmergenie estimates. While the general formula estimations did not differ considerably, with an average genome size of 867.7 and 896. Mbp. The differences across flow cytometry and biocomputational predictions may be due to the high repeat content, particularly long repetitive regions in both genomes, 71% and 57%, which interfered with k-mer analysis. GenomeScope allowed quantification of high heterozygosity levels (1.04 and 1.37%) of R. lutea and R. pentagyna genomes, respectively. Based on our observations, R. lutea may have a tetraploid genome or higher. Our results revealed fundamental cytogenetic information for R. lutea and R. pentagyna, which should be used in future taxonomic studies and whole-genome sequencing.

Global Software Development (GSD) has gained great attention during the past decade or so, and it is also being adopted by most of the software development organizations. The GSD approach is practiced by the software development organizations in China and a wide range of firms have established its operations in various Chinese cities. However, GSD practices becomes more challenging for the projects based on the agile concepts. The aim of this study is to develop a taxonomy of the factors that could positively impact the scaling process of agile methods in the Chinese GSD industry. The factors are identified by exploring the available literature and conducting industrial study with the Chinese agile and GSD practitioners. The finally reported factors are categorized, prioritized and developed their taxonomy using the multi-criterion decision making (MCDM) Fuzzy AHP approach. The given taxonomy is significant and progressive for GSD industry to assess and improve the scaling process of agile methods.

Environmental issues resulting from the sand over dredging have contributed to worldwide restrictions on its production, with a significant economic impact on concrete construction. The demolished building waste is not widely recycled globally. A suitable, environmentally friendly approach with an adequate alternative to sand is introduced in the present study. Four types of concrete, natural dune sand concrete (NDSC), recycled crushed sand concrete (RCSC), recycled crushed sand stone dust concrete (RCSSDC), and recycled crushed sand crumb rubber concrete (RCSCRC), have been introduced in the present study. In-situ compressive strength of demolished building concrete has been measured by the Non-destructive test (NDT) core testing. In the present research work, recycled crushed sand (RCS) was substituted by natural dune sand (NDS) in the ratio of 40%, 100%, and 80% in mixes 40NDSC, 100RCSC, 80RCSSDC, and 80RCSCRC, respectively. A detailed physical analysis was conducted to evaluate material properties such as specific gravity, water absorption, particle grading, and sand equivalent value. The chemical analysis pH, FTIR, and SEM-EDX have also been carried out on stone dust (SD) and crumb rubber (CR). The concrete specimens were tested at ambient and elevated temperatures 100, 200, 300, and 400 °C for four hours in an electric oven. Experimental studies show a slight increase in the compressive strength of 100RCSC (up to 300 °C) compared to 40NDSC. A sudden fall in the strength was observed at 400 °C for all concrete types 40NDSC, 100RCSC, 80RCSSDC, and 80RCSCRC. Replacement of RCS at 20% by SD and CR indicated a decreasing pattern in compressive strength. The compressive strength reduction rate was more in crumb rubber, which indicates that crumb rubber should not be used in higher percentages in concrete. The concrete samples 40NDSC and 100RCSC performed significantly better than the other concrete types.

In quest to develop effective anticancer drugs, a series of twelve heterocycles (1 − 12) embedded with oxopyrrolidine rings was synthesized. The compounds (1–12) were characterized by microanalysis, FT-IR, UV–Vis and 1H NMR spectroscopy, and mass spectrometry. Experimental DNA binding and computational docking studies were carried out to identify the biological targets of 1–12. The values of DNA binding constants of 1–12 ranged from 1.5 × 104 to 4.0 × 105 M− 1. The docking energies of the DNA-compound adducts varied from − 23.84 to − 30.96 kJ/mol, and the adducts were stabilized by H-bonding and hydrophobic attractions. The compounds preferred to enter minor grooves of DNA during adduct formation. Cytotoxicity studies of 1–12 were carried out towards both cancerous and normal cell lines. Compounds 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 at 1.0 nM concentration exhibited good anticancer activities with cell viabilities in the range of 19–110% against breast (MCF-7) and microglial (BV-2) cancer cell lines. The potency of 1–12 as future anticancer agents was ascertained by drug likeness using Lipinski's rule of five. It was observed that 1–12 obeyed the ‘Rule of Five’ with logP values

ManyPhoenix dactylifera(date palm) cultivars are grown in the arid and semiarid regions of the world, including Saudi Arabia.P. dactyliferais highly tolerant to salinity stress. To investigate the response of Khalas cultivar ofP. dactylifera, two-month-old plants were treated with sodium chloride (50, 100, and 150 mM NaCl) for three months. Our result showed that proline content was higher in all treated plants compared to control plants. Thiobarbituric acid reactive substances (TBARS) were increased at 100 and 150 mM NaCl treatments; however, the result was found nonsignificant between control and plants treated at 50 mM NaCl. Similarly, enzyme activities of catalase (CAT) and superoxide dismutase (SOD) were 0.805 and 0.722 U/mg protein/min, respectively, and were greater at 100 and 150 mM NaCl treatments compared to the control plants. Total chlorophyll content and fresh weight of shoots and roots decreased substantially with the increase of salinity. A cDNA start codon-targeted (cDNA-SCoT) marker showed a variation in different gene expressions profiling between treated and untreated plants under various NaCl concentrations.

Efficiency of plant operations rely heavily on the stable availability of green pellets of desired size and quality. However, agglomeration plant often operate under capacity because of the sensitivity of balling circuits towards even the small perturbation in operating conditions. Though many researchers came up with various models to estimate the behaviour of continuous agglomeration system, there is still scope to develop improved modelling and simulation techniques. In this study, we present a neural network-based approach to simulate the nature of continuous balling process for better circuit control and improved plant efficiency. Mathematical expressions are developed to capture the response of produced and recycled load for a given set of parameters. Using these expressions, a multilayer perceptron model is trained that can predict the behaviour of circuit for pre-specified values of operating conditions. After simulation, effect of varying parameters on the dynamics of produced and recycled mass is summarized. Moreover, variations in process properties such as average recycled load, cycles needed to achieve steady state and maximum amplitude of recycled mass are also discussed.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the influence of religious orientations on the prevalence of social media disorder among Muslim university students in Pakistan. A total of 686 students (59.0% females), enrolled in the three public-sector universities, participated in the study. The new indices of religious orientation revised and a short version of social media disorder scale were adapted to collect the required information. Both scales demonstrated high reliability coefficients. Results demonstrate significant differences in the religious orientations of disordered and non-disordered social media users. Findings support that the higher extrinsic and quest religious orientations enhance likelihood of being disordered social media users. The enhanced intrinsic religious orientation, however, decreases the chances of being disordered social media users. The implications of research findings in related academic and non-academic settings are discussed at the end of this paper.

The aim of the proposed work is to use an artificial neural network(ANN) to predict the best weld made of two dissimilar metals i.e. MS (AISI 1040) and SS (AISI3014) fabricated by Gas tungsten arc welding (GTAW), also known as tungsten inert gas (TIG) welding. The process parameters used are weld travel speed, current, gas flow rate, and inclination. Experiments are designed and conducted as per the Taguchi method. Further MOORA method is used to find the best combination of input process parameters. The results of experiments are used to model the process using for artificial neural network. The performance ANN models is compared with experimental results and found the good correlation between the experimental results and the results provided by ANN.

Despite the numerous potential antimicrobial products and antibiotics in market, bacterial infections are still a main root of diseases and death throughout the globe. Due to the multidrug-resistant bacterial strains, there is an immediate need for the development of new types of biocidal materials that can counter these multidrug-resistant strains that harbor in different types of articles used in our everyday life. In this direction, attention has been turned toward nanotechnology that is gaining remarkable momentum in the present century due to its ability to modulate materials into their nanosizes having enhanced physical, chemical, optical, biological, and other properties. These nanoparticle (NP)-based materials have emerged as new types of antimicrobials in the field of antimicrobial chemotherapy. Especially metals such as Ag, Cu, Ti, and Zn and their oxides, in the form of NPs such as silver NPs, silver-based nanostructured materials, TiO2 NPs, TiO2 nanocomposites, zinc oxide NPs and nanorods, and copper NPs have the tremendous potential as antimicrobial agents. These NPs have emerged as potential antimicrobial agents and found diverse applications such as nanomaterial-based medical dressings, NP-coated medical devices, and nanoantimicrobial coatings in textile industry. This chapter therefore summarizes the various antimicrobial applications of such NPs in various fields, especially in medical, health care, and in textile industry as an nanoantimicrobial coatings.

In the title compound, C14H14N2O4S, the benzene and thiazolidine rings are almost coplanar with a dihedral angle of 2.98 (14)°. The butyl chain is directed almost perpendicular to the plane of the rest of the molecule. In the crystal, a combination of C—H...O hydrogen bonds and offset π–π interactions leads to the formation of a three-dimensional structure.

This chapter highlights the role of single-cell omics in cardiovascular diseases (CVDs). It starts by highlighting CVDs as a major issue worldwide, covering their genetics and the inheritance pattern that differs from disease to disease. It then explains the two basic techniques, association studies and linkage analysis, used to determine candidate genes, reported to play an important role in the development of CVDs. It then discusses the complex genotype–phenotype correlation that is the outcome of different environmental factors playing a crucial role in disease development. It also explains techniques for single-cell analysis (SCA), which has great prospects to work miracles in the domain of CVDs. The chapter also highlights cardiometabolic phenotype analysis. By the end of the chapter, the utility of single-cell omics in special reference to CVDs has been discussed along with the challenges posed to this emerging method.

Conventional experimental methods for testing the performance of super-capacitors include the measurement of capacitance through charge and discharge, measurement of equivalent series resistance (ESR) and measurement of self-discharge and the equivalent circuit model (ECM) by electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS). However, the methods are not suitable for the mass production line of supercapacitors since they require a long time for the test and several kinds of different instrument. EIS is an attractive method to evaluate the performance of supercapacitors except that it takes a long time for a single test. In this paper a fast EIS instrument suitable for quality assurance for the mass production of supercapacitors is proposed. In order to reduce the time for the test, a multi-sine sweeping method is used for the EIS test and the results are analyzed by extracting the parameters of the ECM to evaluate the performance of the supercapacitors. The proposed instrument is developed to have multi-channel to further decrease the time for the test with a supercapacitor. It is also presented as to how the extracted parameter values of the ECM can be used to evaluate the performance of the supercapacitor.

Ziziphus spina-christi (sidr) is a shrub, sometimes a tree, native to a vast area of Africa stretching from Mauritania to West Africa. In the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, it is an exotic medicinal plant for many diseases. The aim of this study was to assess the genetic diversity within and among 34 accessions of Z. spina-christi collected from different regions of Saudi Arabia. The amplification of genomic DNA with 11 inter-simple sequence repeat (ISSR) primers yielded 105 scorable loci, of which 93.4% were found to be polymorphic. The observed number of alleles (na), effective number of alleles (ne), Nei's gene diversity (h) and genetic diversity estimated by Shannon's information index (I) were 1.93, 1.44, 0.26 and 0.41, respectively. The total genetic diversity, Ht (0.266 ± 0.0289) was close to the average intrapopulation genetic diversity, Hs (0.2199 ± 0.0216). A high level of gene flow (Nm = 2.37) between populations, reflecting high genetic differentiation (Gst = 0.1739). The analysis of molecular variance showed that the maximum value of genetic variation was found within populations (90%), whereas a low value of genetic variance was observed among populations. The analysis using the unweighted pair-group method with arithmetic averages clustered the population from Farasan Island as an out-group due to its geographical origin. The obtained results demonstrate that the ISSR markers may be used for evaluation of the genetic diversity due to their efficiency in revealing polymorphism even in closely related germplasm and may help in Ziziphus genome analysis.

It is a continuous chase of researchers to separate chiral racemates due to their dominance in the pharmaceutical industry, agrochemicals, and food additives. There are many analytical techniques which have been used to resolve one chiral center racemates, but, little the literature report is scanty for the resolution of multiple stereogenic center racemates. Therefore, in this article the efforts were made to describe the enantiomeric resolution of multiple stereogenic center racemates by different modalities of chromatography. The various modalities discussed are high-performance liquid chromatography, capillary electrophoretic chromatography, miceller electrokinetic chromatography, supercritical fluid chromatography, nanoliquid chromatography, and gas chromatography. Besides, the attempts have also been made to discuss the future challenges and prospectives of the enantiomeric resolution of multichiral racemates.

Enantiomeric resolution and simulation studies of four enantiomers of 5-bromo-3-ethyl-3-(4-nitrophenyl)-piperidine-2,6-dione on a Chiralpak IA column were presented. The mobile phase used was pure acetonitrile at 1.0 mL min−1 flow rate. The detection wavelength and column temperature were 254 nm and 27 °C. The column used was a Chiralpak IA (250 × 4.6 mm; 5 μm). The values of retention factors were 2.40, 2.95, 5.00 and 7.45 for 3S,5S, 3R,5R, 3S,5R and 3R,5S stereomers. The values of the separation factors were 1.22, 1.69 and 1.49. The values of the resolution factors were 3.88, 7.04 and 8.22. The limits of detections and quantitation ranged from 1.0–3.5 and 11.1–35.6 μg mL−1, respectively. The chiral recognition mechanism and elution order of the reported stereomers were determined by simulation studies. It was observed that hydrogen bonding and π–π interactions are the major forces for the chiral resolution. The described chiral method may be used for the enantiomeric resolution of the four stereomers of 5-bromo-3-ethyl-3-(4-nitrophenyl)-piperidine-2,6-dione in any unknown matrices.

The compressive stress-strain behavior and other characteristics of treated fly ash based roof tiles have been studied by several experimental tests. This paper attempts to presents the results and observations of a study and comparison based on the past reported experimental data. Based on the results and observations of the comprehensive experimental study, five “control points” have been identified. The new sets of experiment have been carried out to investigate whether it might be possible the use of fly ash in fly ash based roof tiles for residential construction. In the present study, treated fly ash (TFA) of C category was used with different materials as a replacement of clay for making treated fly ash stone dust roof tiles (TFASDRT). Treated fly ash stone dust roof tiles (TFASDRT) were studied at varying percentages of cement, coarse sand, and radish stone dust (RSD) along with the constant percentage of waste polythene fibre (WPF). A research program was undertaken to evaluate the suitability of such test for assessing the properties of treated fly ash stone dust roof tiles (TFASDRT). The result of this study recommends that the fly ash based roof tiles provides a sustainable supplement to the traditional clay roof tiles, they increase the efficiency of traditional roof tiles and significantly help to reduce the environmental issues associated with the disposal of these waste materials.

A soft computing-based approach to capture the influence of process parameters on wet pelletization is presented. Wet pelletization is highly susceptible to even the minute change in operating conditions that results in substantial changes in product characteristics. This sensitive nature inspired research towards the development of new models for forecasting pellet attributes and increasing process understanding. The present modelling approach is based on support vector machine (SVM), a soft computing technique, to predict wet pellet characteristics and to analyse the effect of individual variable parameters. Experiments are carried out on a laboratory scale disc pelletizer with changing parameter values. However, experimental data were insufficient to train SVM and afterwards to test its prediction accuracy. To accomplish this task, genetic algorithm is employed to generate synthetic data and its fitness functions are derived using multiple regression. SVM is trained and validated on synthetic data while original data are used for testing. The significance of process parameters on pellet characteristics is also examined by deliberately removing them one by one from the model and recording the corresponding variation in prediction accuracy. The study employing SVM for the first time establishes the predictive ability of SVM with precision in wet pelletization.

This study aims to examine the impact of ownership structure and board composition on the level of voluntary disclosure by non-financial firms listed in the Amman Stock Exchange (ASE). The study uses panel hand-collected data from 443 annual reports for a 5-year period (2012 – 2016) and employs an OLS-regression to test the study predictions. Compatible with the study predictions and most prior related studies’ findings, both higher managerial ownership and the CEO-duality produce low levels of voluntary disclosure, while foreign ownership is positively associated with the level of voluntary disclosure. Findings also indicate that larger firms deemed to provide higher levels of voluntary disclosures than smaller firms. Besides, companies audited by big4 firms disclose more voluntary information than those audited by others. The study findings have implications for policymakers and regulators. Policymakers and regulators may encourage, emphasize and enforce, if necessary, the regulation that enhances the quality of financial disclosures including the separation between the Chairman of the board of directors and CEO roles to improve the level of control and supervision and enhance the transparency of financial reporting by Jordanian firms.

This paper inspects whether variable- and fixed-length moving averages (VMA and FMA), and trading range breakout (TRB) rules have prognostic capability and can earn profits superior to buy-and-hold plan, when applied on KSE-100 index of Pakistan stock market during the full sample period January 1, 1997 to December 31, 2013. Full sample results provided empirical evidence for VMA rule that it has significant predictive power and is able to generate profits superior to simple buy-and-hold plan even after inclusion of transaction costs. The highest mean buy returns yielded by VMA, FMA and TRB rules are seen in noncrises periods. The overall implication of this study is that traders in the Pakistan stock market can utilize this information to obtain excess returns on a regular basis.