A Study of Daylighting Performance in Apartment Buildings with Reference to the Gaza Strip

Daylighting in residential buildings is an essential design parameter considering its impact on the visual comfort of users and energy efficiency of buildings. This is more challenging in apartment buildings, where collective residential configurations and deep plans are usually used. This is true in the case of the Gaza Strip, which makes daylighting quality in residential buildings a questionable issue. Thus, this study aims to examine daylighting performance in the Gaza Strip apartment buildings, and to propose some design recommendations to improve this performance. To achieve that, a simulation study has been carried out using Radiance program, where several cases have been examined. The study concluded that there is a direct relationship between the illuminance levels and space orientation, wall-to-window ratio, and reflectance of indoor surface materials. Also, light shelf has a crucial role in improving daylighting distribution in the space. The study therefore recommends applying these design strategies to improve daylighting performance and energy efficiency in the Gaza Strip apartment buildings. In this regard, a quantitative assessment may become part of the requirements of buildings licensing proces

An Efficient Greener Approach for N-acylation of Amines in Water Using Benzotriazole Chemistry

A straightforward, mild and cost-efficient synthesis of various arylamides in water was accomplished using versatile benzotriazole chemistry. Acylation of various amines was achieved in water at room temperature as well as under microwave irradiation. The developed protocol unfolds the synthesis of amino acid aryl amides, drug conjugates and benzimidazoles. The environmentally friendly synthesis, short reaction time, simple workup, high yields, mild conditions and free of racemization are the key advantages of this protocol

In Vitro Antimycobacterial Activity and Physicochemical Characterization of Diaryl Ether Triclosan Analogues as Potential InhA Reductase Inhibitors

Two sets of diphenyl ether derivatives incorporating five-membered 1,3,4-oxadiazoles, and their open-chain aryl hydrazone analogs were synthesized in good yields. Most of the synthesized compounds showed promising in vitro antimycobacterial activity against Mycobacterium tuberculosis H37Rv. Three diphenyl ether derivatives, namely hydrazide 3, oxadiazole 4 and naphthylarylidene 8g exhibited pronounced activity with minimum inhibitory concentrations (MICs) of 0.61, 0.86 and 0.99 μg/mL, respectively compared to triclosan (10 μg/mL) and isoniazid (INH) (0.2 μg/mL). Compounds 3, 4, and 8g showed the InhA reductase enzyme inhibition with higher IC50 values (3.28–4.23 µM) in comparison to triclosan (1.10 µM). Correlation between calculated physicochemical parameters and biological activity has been discussed which justifies a strong correlation with respect to the inhibition of InhA reductase enzyme. Molecular modeling and drug-likeness studies showed good agreement with the obtained biological evaluation. The structural and experimental information concerning these three InhA inhibitors will likely contribute to the lead optimization of new antibiotics for M. tuberculosis