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Introduction: Free plastic bags have practical benefits for consumers but because of their non-biodegradability and additives, they have adverse effects on the environment. Therefore, in this study, the factors affecting people's intention and behavior for using plastic bags with the Theory of Planned Behavior and Structural Equation Modeling were investigated. Material and methods: A total of 360 customers in seven major hypermarkets in different areas of Mashhad responded to the questionnaire. Data were analyzed using IBM SPSS Statistic V.22 and AMOS 24 software. An extended model based on the Theory of Planned Behavior was introduced with the constructs including cognitive attitude, affective attitude, economic motivation, feedback, subjective norm, behavioral control, intention, and behavior to determine the factors influencing the behavior. Results and discussion: The results of this study showed that more than half of the respondents to the questionnaires were women and more than 30% of them were in the age group of 25-35 years. The effect of demographic information on the intention to reduce plastic bags in hypermarkets was examined by the ANOVA test. Only the age (p <0.001, df = 7, F = 3.6) and the type of job (p <0.001, df = 7, F = 3.5) had a significant effect on the intention. The fit indices of the structural model were as follows: Chi-squared test was equal to 254.3 with freedom of 106, the ratio of Chi-squared to a degree of freedom was equal to 2.4, IFI was equal to 0.9, CFI was equal to 0.9, NFI was equal to 89, and RMSEA was equal to 0.622. According to the standard, the fit of the model was appropriate. Findings of the structural equation model can describe the relationships between variables: cognitive attitude had a significant statistical effect on effective attitude; there was a statistical relationship between cognitive attitudes and norm. In addition, cognitive attitudes (p <0.001) had a negative effect on behavioral control. There was a positive and significant (p <0.001) relationship between economic motivation and norm (coefficient of 0.18). Also, there was a negative and significant (p <0.001) relationship between feedback and norm (coefficient 0.43). Besides, there was a positive and significant (p <0.001) relationship between feedback and behavioral control (coefficient 0.45). Cognitive attitude had a positive and significance (p< 0.05) effect (coefficient of 0.16) on intention to reduce plastic bags. The norm with a coefficient of 0.41 had a positive and significant effect (p <0.001) on the intention. Conclusion: The results showed that the structural equation model with appropriate fit could describe the relationships between variables. The main parameters of the Theory of Planned Behavior (attitude, subjective norms, and behavioral control) significantly describe the intention of using plastic bags. Adding new variables such as feedback and economic incentives to this theory will help determine other predictors of behavior. The norm is one of the most important variables that mediate the influence of other factors such as cognitive attitude, affective attitude, economic motivation, feedback, and behavioral control on intention to using a plastic bag. Although the economic incentive affects the intention to use free plastic bags, it is appropriate to use the intervention approach based on the model presented in this study to find a solution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Isoform diversity, critical physiological roles and involvement in major diseases/disorders such as glaucoma, epilepsy, Alzheimer's disease, obesity, and cancers have made carbonic anhydrase (CA), one of the most interesting case studies in the field of computer aided drug design. Since applying non-selective inhibitors can result in major side effects, there have been considerable efforts so far to achieve selective inhibitors for different isoforms of CA. Using proteochemometrics approach, the chemical interaction space governed by a group of 4-amino-substituted benzenesulfonamides and human CAs has been explored in the present study. Several validation methods have been utilized to assess the validity, robustness and predictivity power of the proposed proteochemometric model. Our model has offered major structural information that can be applied to design new selective inhibitors for distinct isoforms of CA. To prove the applicability of the proposed model, new compounds have been designed based on the offered discriminative structural features. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Around 50 % of the worldwide population is affected by dandruff, which is triggered by a variety of factors. The yeast Malassezia globosa has been labeled as the most probable causative agent for the onset of dandruff. The β-carbonic anhydrase (CA) of MgCA was recently validated as an anti-dandruff target, with its inhibition being responsible for in vivo growth defects in the fungus. As classical CA inhibitors of the sulfonamide type give rise to permeability problems through biological membranes, finding non-sulfonamide alternatives for MgCA inhibition is of considerable interest in the cosmetic field. We recently screened a large library of human (h) CA inhibitors for MgCA inhibition, including different chemotypes, such as monothiocarbamates, dithiocarbamates, phenols, and benzoxaboroles. Herein, we expanded the research toward new MgCA inhibitors by considering a set of natural polyphenols (including flavones, flavonols, flavanones, flavanols, isoflavones, and depsides) that exhibited MgCA inhibitory activity in the micromolar range, as well as selectivity for the fungal isozyme over off-target human isoforms. The binding mode of representative derivatives within the MgCA catalytic cleft was investigated by docking studies using a homology-built model., (© 2018 Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.)