The influence of shari’ah-compliant e-commerce models on consumer trust

This study is aimed at finding out the real picture of Shari’ah-compliant E-commerce Model and consumer trust in e commerce today, analyzing its drawbacks, and finding out how they influence each other.Shari'ah-compliant E-commerce model is a model that describes how e-commerce should run in accordance with the provisions of the Shari’ah. Broadly speaking, e-commerce in the perspective of Shari’ah must comply with some rules, namely: 1. the form of the offer and transaction agreement, 2. the transacting parties (buyers and sellers), 3. Objects and prices in the transaction, and 4. Free from major prohibitions in transactions, namely (i) interest (riba), (i) gambling (maysir), (iii) uncertainty (gharar), (iv) coercion (ikrah) and (v) the prohibition (haram in nature).The sample in this study is Indonesian citizen who are consumers of e commerce.The number of sample used in this study is 90 respondents.This research uses descriptive and statistical methods with multiple linear regression model.This model is considered relevant and good to be studied in order to enlighten how e commerce is currently in the perspective of Islam

Petroleum Product as Substrate for the Production of Biosurfactive Amphiphlies by Pseudomonas Aeruginosa

Biosurfactant production by Pseudomonas aeruginosa by utilizing diesel as the source of energy and carbon was studied in this research. Biosurfactant-producing strain of the organism was isolated from hydrocarbon-contaminated water and grown in a mineral medium supplemented with diesel. Production of biosurfactant was assayed by monitoring the increase in cell concentration, biosurfactant concentration, emulsification index and decrease in surface tension. Highest level of cell concentration and biosurfactant concentration (3.3^108CFU/ml and 0.0108mg/ml respectively) were obtained at 132hrs. Emulsification index reached its maximum with 33.3% at 108hrs. Surface tension reached its minimum at 120hrs with a value of 1.1^10-6N/m. The results showed that diesel can be utilized by P. aeruginosa to produce biosurfactant and early stationary phase isolates can be used to obtain higher yield. It also revealed the increasing potentiality of microorganisms in the aspect of oil spill cleanup and rapid reclamation of contaminated lands and water bodies.Keywords: Biosurfactant, diesel, surface tension, emulsification index, cell biomass, Pseudomonas aeruginosa

Effect of Exercise Type and Gender on Cardiopulmonary response among Stroke Survivors in Spastic and Relative Recovery Stages

Background: Stroke is one of the most common causes of long-term disability worldwide, and stroke patients need assistance with activities of daily living. Stroke survivors in our environment are not routinely prescribed adequate exercises during stroke rehabilitation partly because of the limited amount of research that has identified optimal dosing of exercises. This study sought to evaluate cardiopulmonary responses to 8-week regimen of squatting and treadmill exercises among stroke survivors of different sexes in the spastic and relative recovery stages. Methodology: Thirty male and female stroke survivors were randomly assigned into two groups comprising of subjects in the spastic (group A) and relative recovery (group B) stages, and subjected to an 8-week regimen of squatting and/or treadmill exercise. Cardiopulmonary functions were recorded at the beginning and the end of the exercise regimen. Data were processed using SPSS version 20.0; p values ˂ 0.05 were considered significant. Results: There was a significant decrease in SBP and DBP, and an increase in HR, FVC and FEV1 at the end of all the regimens, in the spastic and relative recovery groups. At week 1, males had significantly higher values of SBP, FVC and FEV1, but at week 8, males had more reduction in SBP values and more increase in FVC and FEV1 values than the females. Conclusion: Our data show that squatting and treadmill exercise regimens improve blood pressure, forced vital capacity, forced expiratory volume and functional mobility in both male and female stroke survivors in the spastic and relative recovery stages. This improvement is more expressed in males than in females. Keywords: Cardiopulmonary response, Exercise regimen, Gender, Stroke rehabilitation, Stroke survivor

Pattern and management of priapism in a tertiary hospital of North-Western Nigeria

Background: Priapism is a persistent penile erection that continues for more than four hours beyond sexual stimulation and orgasm or unrelated to sexual stimulation1. The objective is to document the pattern and management of priapism in our hospital.Methods: This is a retrospective study of patients managed for Priapism by Urology Unit of our hospital, from January 2009 to December 2015.Results: Thirty patients were managed for managed for priapism within the study period. The mean age at presentation was 23.9 ± 12.2 years with a range of 8- 55 years. Fifteen patients (57.7 %) presented beyond 72 hours of the onset of priapism. All the patients had ischaemic priapism. Half of the patients had sickle cell disease, two (7.7 %) had chronic myeloid leukaemia, five (19.2%) used aphrodisiacs and cause was not established in six (23.1%). The most effective forms of treatments were corporal aspiration and glanulocavernosal shunt. Hydroxyurea was used for the patients with leukaemia. Thirteen (50.0%) of the patients were loss to follow-up after their first visits. Three patients (11.5%) developed erectile dysfunction.Conclusion: Sickle cell disease is the commonest cause of ischaemic priapism in our practice. Late presentation is common and is usually associated with the development of erectile dysfunction.Keywords: priapism, sickle cell disease, aphrodisiacs, erectile dysfunction, treatments of ischaemic priapis

Solution processed PVB/mica flake coatings for the encapsulation of organic solar cells

YesOrganic photovoltaics (OPVs) die due to their interactions with environmental gases, i.e., moisture and oxygen, the latter being the most dangerous, especially under illumination, due to the fact that most of the active layers used in OPVs are extremely sensitive to oxygen. In this work we demonstrate solution-based effective barrier coatings based on composite of poly(vinyl butyral) (PVB)and mica flakes for the protection of poly (3-hexylthiophene) (P3HT)-based organic solar cells (OSCs)against photobleaching under illumination conditions. In the first step we developed a protective layer with cost effective and environmentally friendly methods and optimized its properties in terms of transparency, barrier improvement factor, and bendability. The developed protective layer maintained a high transparency in the visible region and improved oxygen and moisture barrier quality by the factor of ~7. The resultant protective layers showed ultra-flexibility, as no significant degradation in protective characteristics were observed after 10 K bending cycles. In the second step, a PVB/mica composite layer was applied on top of the P3HT film and subjected to photo-degradation. The P3HT films coated with PVB/mica composite showed improved stability under constant light irradiation and exhibited a loss of <20% of the initial optical density over the period of 150 h. Finally, optimized barrier layers were used as encapsulation for organic solar cell (OSC) devices. The lifetime results confirmed that the stability of the OSCs was extended from few hours to over 240 h in a sun test (65◦C, ambient RH%) which corresponds to an enhanced lifetime by a factor of 9 compared to devices encapsulated with pristine PVB.Higher Education Commission of Pakistan through NED University of Engineering and Technology, Karachi, Pakistan and “The APC was funded by Deanship of Scientific Research, King Saud University for funding through Vice Deanship of Scientific Research Chairs”

Current leakage mechanisms related to threading dislocations in Ge-rich SiGe heterostructures grown on Si(001)

This work investigates the role of threading dislocation densities (TDD) in the low density regime on the vertical transport in Si0.06Ge0.94 heterostructures integrated on Si(001). The use of unintentionally doped Si0.06Ge0.94 layers enables the study of the impact of grown-in threading dislocations (TD) without interaction with processing-induced defects originating, e.g., from dopant implantation. The studied heterolayers, while equal in composition, the degree of strain relaxation, and the thickness feature three different values for the TDD as 3 × 106, 9 × 106, and 2 × 107 cm−2. Current–voltage measurements reveal that leakage currents do not scale linearly with TDD. The temperature dependence of the leakage currents suggests a strong contribution of field-enhanced carrier generation to the current transport with the trap-assisted tunneling via TD-induced defect states identified as the dominant transport mechanism at room temperature. At lower temperatures and at high electric fields, direct band-to-band tunneling without direct interactions with defect levels becomes the dominating type of transport. Leakage currents related to emission from mid-gap traps by the Shockley–Read–Hall (SRH) generation are observed at higher temperatures (&gt;100 °C). Here, we see a reduced contribution coming from SRH in our material, featuring the minimal TDD (3 × 106 cm−2), which we attribute to a reduction in point defect clusters trapped in the TD strain fields

FTO genetic variants, dietary intake and body mass index: insights from 177 330 individuals

FTO is the strongest known genetic susceptibility locus for obesity. Experimental studies in animals suggest the potential roles of FTO in regulating food intake. The interactive relation among FTO variants, dietary intake and body mass index (BMI) is complex and results from previous often small-scale studies in humans are highly inconsistent. We performed large-scale analyses based on data from 177 330 adults (154 439 Whites, 5776 African Americans and 17 115 Asians) from 40 studies to examine: (i) the association between the FTO-rs9939609 variant (or a proxy single-nucleotide polymorphism) and total energy and macronutrient intake and (ii) the interaction between the FTO variant and dietary intake on BMI. The minor allele (A-allele) of the FTO-rs9939609 variant was associated with higher BMI in Whites (effect per allele = 0.34 [0.31, 0.37] kg/m2, P = 1.9 × 10−105), and all participants (0.30 [0.30, 0.35] kg/m2, P = 3.6 × 10−107). The BMI-increasing allele of the FTO variant showed a significant association with higher dietary protein intake (effect per allele = 0.08 [0.06, 0.10] %, P = 2.4 × 10−16), and relative weak associations with lower total energy intake (−6.4 [−10.1, −2.6] kcal/day, P = 0.001) and lower dietary carbohydrate intake (−0.07 [−0.11, −0.02] %, P = 0.004). The associations with protein (P = 7.5 × 10−9) and total energy (P = 0.002) were attenuated but remained significant after adjustment for BMI. We did not find significant interactions between the FTO variant and dietary intake of total energy, protein, carbohydrate or fat on BMI. Our findings suggest a positive association between the BMI-increasing allele of FTO variant and higher dietary protein intake and offer insight into potential link between FTO, dietary protein intake and adiposit

Alignment of the CMS silicon tracker during commissioning with cosmic rays

This is the Pre-print version of the Article. The official published version of the Paper can be accessed from the link below - Copyright @ 2010 IOPThe CMS silicon tracker, consisting of 1440 silicon pixel and 15 148 silicon strip detector modules, has been aligned using more than three million cosmic ray charged particles, with additional information from optical surveys. The positions of the modules were determined with respect to cosmic ray trajectories to an average precision of 3–4 microns RMS in the barrel and 3–14 microns RMS in the endcap in the most sensitive coordinate. The results have been validated by several studies, including laser beam cross-checks, track fit self-consistency, track residuals in overlapping module regions, and track parameter resolution, and are compared with predictions obtained from simulation. Correlated systematic effects have been investigated. The track parameter resolutions obtained with this alignment are close to the design performance.This work is supported by FMSR (Austria); FNRS and FWO (Belgium); CNPq, CAPES, FAPERJ, and FAPESP (Brazil); MES (Bulgaria); CERN; CAS, MoST, and NSFC (China); COLCIENCIAS (Colombia); MSES (Croatia); RPF (Cyprus); Academy of Sciences and NICPB (Estonia); Academy of Finland, ME, and HIP (Finland); CEA and CNRS/IN2P3 (France); BMBF, DFG, and HGF (Germany); GSRT (Greece); OTKA and NKTH (Hungary); DAE and DST (India); IPM (Iran); SFI (Ireland); INFN (Italy); NRF (Korea); LAS (Lithuania); CINVESTAV, CONACYT, SEP, and UASLP-FAI (Mexico); PAEC (Pakistan); SCSR (Poland); FCT (Portugal); JINR (Armenia, Belarus, Georgia, Ukraine, Uzbekistan); MST and MAE (Russia); MSTDS (Serbia); MICINN and CPAN (Spain); Swiss Funding Agencies (Switzerland); NSC (Taipei); TUBITAK and TAEK (Turkey); STFC (United Kingdom); DOE and NSF (USA)