460 research outputs found

    Sustainability Practices and Firm Performance: Evidence from Listed Companies in India

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    Purpose: The impact of corporate sustainability practices on the firm performance of Indian-listed businesses was investigated in this study.   Theoretical Framework: The present research investigated the stakeholder theory’s application to corporate sustainability initiatives. Many recent studies have claimed that the theory encompasses a wide range of other elements that can affect the firm's valuation in addition to its purely economic value (Martin, 2022; Bodhanwala, 2022 ). To ensure firm performance in the current dynamic business environment, it is crucial to evaluate the scope of value creation from a stakeholder perspective in this context.   Design/Methodology/Approach: The corporate sustainability practices of 65 listed Indian firms were evaluated using the ESG score from the refinitive database of Thomson Reuters, and the firm performance was evaluated using the ROA (return on assets) score from the Prowess IQ database. The presented hypotheses were tested using single and multiple regression models for the study period of 2017–2021.   Findings: Findings suggest that the sustainability practices of listed companies in India had a significant positive impact on the firm performance. On detailed analysis, it was further found that among the three sustainability variables, social and governance activities of firms had a significant positive impact on firm performance while environmental activities had a negative insignificant association with firm performance.   Research, Practical & Social Implications: The findings of this study highlight the importance of supporting sustainable enterprises and properly reporting them in order to enhance firm-level performance. The study’s findings may also assist the business in piquing the interest of various stakeholders in reference to its sustainability initiatives and aid it in luring more investors.   Originality/Value: The study’s empirical data can be used by different governmental and regulatory agencies to help them take the necessary steps to support different sustainable business practices

    Coping With Grim Dystopia: A Re-Reading of The Fire-Dwellers

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    Canadian writer Margaret Laurence’s novel The Fire-Dwellers has long been critically dismissed as too paltry and insignificant to warrant in-depth treatment. This paper attempts to identify the novel as a significant one in theme and technique incorporating traits of postmodernism and expresses the need for a deeper critical evaluation of the work. Through the novel, Laurence records the terrors of the 1960s counterculture, one of the most turbulent times in recent history. She portrays the struggle of the individual to cope with the fires of an increasingly violent and insane dystopic world which fragments the self. Laurence, in the novel, develops an innovative narrative technique to recreate the protagonist’s fractured consciousness in the fragmented cultural context. 

    DETERMINATION OF ALPRAZOLAM AND FLUOXETINE HCl FROM SPIKED RAT PLASMA USING HPTLC WITH UV DETECTION

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    Objective: The main aim of this study was to develop a rapid, simple and selective validated high-performance thin-layer chromatographic (HPTLC) method with UV detection for the estimation of alprazolam and fluoxetine HCl from spiked rat plasma.Methods: In this method, a mixture of acetonitrile and chloroform (2:4 v/v) was employed as the solvent for extraction of alprazolam and fluoxetine HCl from spiked rat plasma samples with good sample recovery. The separation was achieved on a 20 cm x10 cm TLC plate precoated with silica gel 60F254, the 250μm thickness on aluminium sheets employing a mobile phase consisting of ethyl acetate: toluene: methanol: ammonia (4:3:1:0.1v/v/v/v). The densitometric evaluation was performed at 230 nm. The developed method was validated as per the recommendations of USFDA Guidance for Industry: Bioanalytical Method Validation.Results: The Rf value were observed at 0.48±0.04 and 0.17±0.02 for alprazolam and fluoxetine HCl respectively. The calibration curves were linear in the range of 40-100 ng/μl for both drugs with regression coefficients (r2) of 0.9910 and 0.9932 for alprazolam and fluoxetine HCl respectively. In the intraday and interday precision study, the % CV was less than 15. Results of recovery studies prove the extraction efficiency of the proposed method. Stability data indicated that both alprazolam and fluoxetine HCl were stable in plasma after three freeze-thaw cycles and upon storage at -20 °C for 1 w.Conclusion: In the proposed method, the rapid, single step extraction of drugs from plasma samples coupled with the simple HPTLC-UV chromatographic conditions makes the method cost effective and suitable for analysis of a large number of binary samples of alprazolam and fluoxetine HCl in plasma.Keywords: Alprazolam, Fluoxetine HCl, Bioanalytical method, Liquid-liquid extraction, HPTLC, Spiked rat plasm

    Rapid Scan White Light Pump-Probe Spectroscopy with 100 kHz Shot-to-Shot Detection

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    We demonstrate a femtosecond pump-probe spectrometer which utilizes a white light supercontinuum as input, and relies on mutual synchronization of acousto-optical chopper, pump-probe delay stage and the CCD camera to record shot-to-shot pump-probe spectra while the pump-probe delay is scanned synchronously with the laser repetition rate. The unique combination of technologies implemented here allows for electronically controllable and repetition-rate scalable detection throughput that is only limited by the camera frame rate. Despite RMS white-light probe fluctuations of ~5.5%, fully leveraging the temporal correlations in white light and fine sampling of pump-probe delay along with 30x reduction in equivalent data collection time compared to stepwise scanning leads to reduction of RMS noise without multichannel referencing down to ~0.33 mOD for a scattering nanotube sample. This demonstration opens door for impulsive pump-probe micro-spectroscopy of scattering samples with broadband spectral coverage and minimized sample exposure

    An exploration of the evil-god challenge

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    The Evil-god challenge attempts to undermine classical monotheism by contending that because belief in an omnipotent, omniscient, omni-malevolent God (the Evil-god hypothesis) is similarly reasonable to belief in an omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent God (the Good-god hypothesis), the onus is on the classical monotheist to justify their belief in the latter hypothesis over the former hypothesis. This thesis explores the Evil-god challenge by detailing the history and recent developments of the challenge; distinguishing between different types of Evil-god challenge; responding to several prominent objections to the challenge; and applying the challenge to philosophical arguments for the existence of God. I also evaluate the efficacy of parallel arguments as a whole, with a view to determining the parameters of the Evil-god challenge by laying out exactly which theistic positions are irrevocably undermined by it. I conclude that the Evil-god challenge effectively damages several arguments for the existence of God and, in cases where it does not straightforwardly do so, it nevertheless reduces the Good-god theist’s belief to one or more intuitions

    Public health response to an outbreak of meningococcal B disease in a secondary school in Far North Queensland.

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    This article describes the public health response to an outbreak of meningococcal B disease, linked to a secondary school in Far North Queensland. Tropical Public Health Services in Cairns were notified of three cases of meningococcal disease in the same week in May 2022. The cases occurred in individuals who all attended, or worked in, the same secondary school. All cases were serogroup B and shared the same molecular genotype. The public health response included prompt provision of information, distribution of clearance antibiotics and two doses of MenB-4C vaccine to the entire staff and student population. Antibiotic coverage and vaccination coverage were achieved in 99% and 85% of the student population respectively. Following the intervention, no further cases were detected in the region during the subsequent nine months

    Osteoporosis in Healthy South Indian Males and the Influence of Life Style Factors and Vitamin D Status on Bone Mineral Density

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    Objective. To study the prevalence of osteoporosis and vitamin D deficiency in healthy men and to explore the influence of various life style factors on bone mineral density (BMD) and also to look at number of subjects warranting treatment. Methods. Ambulatory south Indian men aged above 50 were recruited by cluster random sampling. The physical activity, risk factors in the FRAX tool, BMD, vitamin D, and PTH were assessed. The number of people needing treatment was calculated, which included subjects with osteoporosis and osteopenia with 10-year probability of major osteoporotic fracture >20 percent and hip fracture >3 percent in FRAX India. Results. A total of 252 men with a mean age of 58 years were studied. The prevalence of osteoporosis and osteopenia at any one site was 20% (50/252) and 58%, respectively. Vitamin D deficiency (<20 ng/dL) was seen in 53%. On multiple logistic regression, BMI (OR 0.3; P value = 0.04) and physical activity (OR 0.4; P value < 0.001) had protective effect on BMD. Twenty-five percent warranted treatment. Conclusions. A significantly large proportion of south Indian men had osteoporosis and vitamin D deficiency. Further interventional studies are needed to look at reduction in end points like fractures in these subjects

    Spatio-temporal variation of microphytoplankton in the upwelling system of the south-eastern Arabian Sea during the summer monsoon of 2009**This investigation was conducted under the Marine Living Resources Programme funded by the Ministry of Earth Sciences, Government of India, New Delhi.

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    AbstractThe phytoplankton standing crop was assessed in detail along the South Eastern Arabian Sea (SEAS) during the different phases of coastal upwelling in 2009. During phase 1 intense upwelling was observed along the southern transects (8°N and 8.5°N). The maximum chlorophyll a concentration (22.7mgm −3) was observed in the coastal waters off Thiruvananthapuram (8.5°N). Further north there was no signature of upwelling, with extensive Trichodesmium erythraeum blooms. Diatoms dominated in these upwelling regions with the centric diatom Chaetoceros curvisetus being the dominant species along the 8°N transect. Along the 8.5°N transect pennate diatoms like Nitzschia seriata and Pseudo-nitzschia sp. dominated. During phase 2, upwelling of varying intensity was observed throughout the study area with maximum chlorophyll a concentrations along the 9°N transect (25mgm−3) with Chaetoceros curvisetus as the dominant phytoplankton. Along the 8.5°N transect pennate diatoms during phase 1 were replaced by centric diatoms like Chaetoceros sp. The presence of solitary pennate diatoms Amphora sp. and Navicula sp. were significant in the waters off Kochi. Upwelling was waning during phase 3 and was confined to the coastal waters of the southern transects with the highest chlorophyll a concentration of 11.2mgm−3. Along with diatoms, dinoflagellate cell densities increased in phases 2 and 3. In the northern transects (9°N and 10°N) the proportion of dinoflagellates was comparatively higher and was represented mainly by Protoperidinium spp., Ceratium spp. and Dinophysis spp
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