Drivers of Supply Chain Performance Enhancing Organizational Output: An Exploratory Study for Manufacturing Sector

Purpose - The Purpose of this study is to explore the drivers of supply chain performance and give a framework that how organizations can manage these drivers for their survival. This paper is written especially for the students of business management to enhance their knowledge about supply chain practices. Methodology - The paper contains qualitative approach. In first phase the authors reviewed literature about the drivers of supply chain performance. In second phase the data from internationally published articles were collected and suggest a framework to manage the drivers of supply chain performance. Findings - The whole study concluded that there are six drivers of supply chain performance in literature that need to be managed to enhance organizational performance. These drivers are; Facilities, Inventory, Transportation, Information, Sourcing and pricing. These drivers are closely related with each other and have a greater impact on organizational performance. Organizations need to find a situation where both efficiency and responsiveness in supply chain practices are at average level to enhance their performance. This average level can only be achieved through better management of drivers of supply chain performance. Paper Limitation - The paper is limited by the fact that it focuses only manufacturing sector. Originality/value - This paper provides a collective framework for managing all drivers of supply chain performance. Keywords - Drivers of supply chain performance, Efficiency, Responsiveness, Supply chain management, Supply chain performance Paper Type - Research pape

Molecular Mechanisms and Strategies Contributing toward Abiotic Stress Tolerance in Plants

Plants respond to climate change via sensing the extreme environmental conditions at cell level, which initiated significant changes in their physiology, metabolism, and gene expression. At the cell membrane, plants activate certain genes (like GRP, PRP, AGP) to provide strengthening to cell wall. Drought and salinity stress tolerance attained by osmotic adjustments, activation of transcriptional factors (like AREB, ABF, DREB2), and regulation of Na+ homeostasis via transporters (like NSCC, NHX1, SOS1, HKT1, LTC1). For adaptations to chilling and frost stress, plants use hydrophobic barriers (waxes/cuticles), antinucleator (cryoprotective glycoprotein), and antifreeze proteins. Higher expression of HSPs (heatshock proteins such as HSP70, HSP100, HSP90, HSP60) is important for thermal tolerance. Tolerance to heavy metal (HM) stress can be achieved via vacuolar sequestration and production of phytochelatin, organic acids and metallothionein. ROS generated due to abiotic stresses can be alleviated through enzymatic (APX, CAT, POD, SOD, GR, GST) and nonenzymatic (ascorbate, glutathione, carotenoids, flavonoids) antioxidants. Genetic manipulation of these genes in transgenic plants resulted in better tolerance to various abiotic stresses. Genetic engineering of plants through various genome editing tools, such as CRISPR/Cas9, improve the abiotic stress tolerance as well as enhance the crops’ quality, texture, and shelf life

Impact of Employee Motivation on Employee Performance

Employee motivation is considered as a force that drives the employees toward attaining specific goals and objectives of the organization. Now days, it is one of the sizzling issue in organizations since every wants to make best use of their financial and human resources. Main purpose of this study is to inquire that what kind of factors influence employ motivation in Pakistan and finding up to which extent motivation affects the employ performance. Data is collected from 160 teachers of Government and private schools by using self-administered questionnaire. Regression analysis is applied to find the effect of employee motivation on employee’s performance involving four variables employee motivation, employee performance, intrinsic rewards and employee perceived training effectiveness. The results of this study show that significant and positive relationship exists between employee motivation and employee performance. It is also concluded that intrinsic rewards has a significant positive relationship with employee performance and employee motivation. This study concludes that employee perceived training effectiveness has a negative relationship with motivation. It is also proved from to their responses, they were provided with the training courses but this training was not implemented by them in their routine teaching as they considered it to be ineffective. They were not satisfied with the training provided to them and this affected their motivation to teach. Keywords: Employee Motivation, Employ Performance, Intrinsic Rewards, Employee Perceived Training Effectiveness

Antioxidant, Cytotoxic, and Antimicrobial Potential of Silver Nanoparticles Synthesized using Tradescantia pallida Extract

Silver nanoparticles have received much attention, due to their wide range of biological applications as an alternative therapy for disease conditions utilizing the nanobiotechnology domain for synthesis. The current study was performed to examine the antioxidant, anticancer, antibacterial, and antifungal potential of biosynthesized silver nanoparticles (TpAgNPs) using plant extract. The TpAgNPs were produced by reacting the Tradescantia pallida extract and AgNO3 solution in nine various concentration ratios subjected to bioactivities profiling. According to the current findings, plant extract comprising phenolics, flavonoids, and especially anthocyanins played a critical role in the production of TpAgNPs. UV–visible spectroscopy also validated the TpAgNP formation in the peak range of 401–441 nm. Further, the silver ion stabilization by phytochemicals, face-centered cubic structure, crystal size, and spherical morphology of TpAgNPs were analyzed by FTIR, XRD, and SEM. Among all TpAgNPs, the biosynthesized TpAgNP6 with a medium concentration ratio (5:10) and the plant extract had effective antioxidant potentials of 77.2 ± 1.0% and 45.1 ± 0.5% free radical scavenging activity, respectively. The cytotoxic activity of TpAgNP6 in comparison to plant extract for the rhabdomyosarcoma cell line was significantly the lowest with IC50 values of 81.5 ± 1.9 and 90.59 ± 1.6 μg/ml and cell viability % of 24.3 ± 1.62 and 27.4 ± 1.05, respectively. The antibacterial and antifungal results of TpAgNPs revealed significant improvement in comparison to plant extract, i.e., minimum inhibition concentration (MIC) 64 μg/ml against Gram-negative Pseudomonas aeruginosa while, in the case of antifungal assay, TpAgNP6 was active against Candida parapsilosis. These TpAgNPs play a crucial role in determining the therapeutic potential of T. pallida due to their biological efficacy

Comparative arsenic tolerance and accumulation potential between wild Tagetes patula and Tagetes minuta

Arsenic (As) is a bioactive metalloid that is highly toxic to humans, animals, and plants. Environmental contamination of As especially in groundwater increases due to natural and anthropogenic activities. The present study was performed to evaluate the potential of wild Tagetes species for the phytoremediation of As contaminated soil/water. This comparative research aims to analyze As accumulation and tolerance in two wild species of Tagetes, T. minuta and T. patula. The 20 days old seedlings were grown hydroponically and exposed to the different concentrations of As, 0, 50, 150, and 300 µM As2 O3 for 1-, 4- and 7- days intervals.Effect of As stress was measured on the rate of seed germination, growth parameters like fresh and dry biomass weight, root/shoot length, chlorophyll contents and As contents in root and shoot in both Tagetes species. Increasing concentration of As restricts the growth activity of T. minuta with toxicity symptoms on leaves such as chlorosis. Accumulation of As in the shoot was significantly (p ≤ 0.01) high (634 µg g-1 DW) in T. patula as compared to T. minuta (397 µg g-1 DW) at 300 µM As2 O3 . Both Tagetes species exhibited high variation for As tolerance parameters as well as for As accumulation patterns. Comparatively good tolerance and accumulation of As in T. patula suggests that this species could be used in phytoextraction and re-vegetation in As contaminated sites

Global genetic diversity and evolutionary patterns among Potato leafroll virus populations

Potato leafroll virus (PLRV) is a widespread and one of the most damaging viral pathogens causing significant quantitative and qualitative losses in potato worldwide. The current knowledge of the geographical distribution, standing genetic diversity and the evolutionary patterns existing among global PLRV populations is limited. Here, we employed several bioinformatics tools and comprehensively analyzed the diversity, genomic variability, and the dynamics of key evolutionary factors governing the global spread of this viral pathogen. To date, a total of 84 full-genomic sequences of PLRV isolates have been reported from 22 countries with most genomes documented from Kenya. Among all PLRV-encoded major proteins, RTD and P0 displayed the highest level of nucleotide variability. The highest percentage of mutations were associated with RTD (38.81%) and P1 (31.66%) in the coding sequences. We detected a total of 10 significantly supported recombination events while the most frequently detected ones were associated with PLRV genome sequences reported from Kenya. Notably, the distribution patterns of recombination breakpoints across different genomic regions of PLRV isolates remained variable. Further analysis revealed that with exception of a few positively selected codons, a major part of the PLRV genome is evolving under strong purifying selection. Protein disorder prediction analysis revealed that CP-RTD had the highest percentage (48%) of disordered amino acids and the majority (27%) of disordered residues were positioned at the C-terminus. These findings will extend our current knowledge of the PLRV geographical prevalence, genetic diversity, and evolutionary factors that are presumably shaping the global spread and successful adaptation of PLRV as a destructive potato pathogen to geographically isolated regions of the world

Evaluating environmental commitments to COP21 and the role of economic complexity, renewable energy, financial development, urbanization, and energy innovation: Empirical evidence from the RCEP countries

Despite extensive research to address the impact of environmental reforms under the Paris Climate Agreement, current literature has failed to provide sufficient insights into Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) countries. To this end, the current study attempts to address the impact of the economic complexity on environmental quality in the presence of renewable energy consumption, financial development, urbanization and energy innovation in RCEP countries from 1990 to 2019. Our empirical estimates confirm a significant association between environmental quality, economic complexity index, renewable energy consumption, financial development, urbanization and energy innovation in the short-run and long run. Based on extensive econometric analysis (CS-ARDL, AMG, PMG, FMOLS, and DOLS), we conclude that economic complexity, renewable energy, and energy innovation effectively mitigate environmental degradation. At the same time, financial development and urbanization have an adverse impact on the environment. These findings have extensive policy implications for policymakers and environmental stakeholders, who are aiming to achieve sustainable energy policy and economic growth to meet the environmental commitments under Paris Climate Agreement.(c) 2021 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved

Social sustainability of residential squares : evidence from Narmak neighborhood, Tehran

Local squares function as open spaces where people can conduct many activities and where many social events take place. While squares in Iran have had a historical role in urban life, in recent years they have lost their place as social nodes of neighborhoods. They are losing their sustainability due to diminishing social roles in residential neighborhoods. The primary aim of this research was to investigate social sustainability dimensions in the squares of Narmak neighborhood located in the east of the metropolitan city of Tehran. The research method was descriptive, and 140 questions in seven dimensions were asked from 378 respondents aged 12+, who were selected randomly in 2018. The results showed that social sustainability variables differ in all five types of squares, particularly in terms of sense of place. However, equality was ranked on average as low in all types of squares. This study concluded that social sustainability in residential squares is very sensitive to a rapid urbanization process that has imposed mass apartment blocks, traffic flow, and lack of place identity. As a result, the process has led to social unsafety, low urban security, and weak maintenance of squares, particularly larger squares, as well as the transformation of their role as residential squares to mostly traffic squares and parking spaces. Additionally, this study concluded that small squares are socially more sustainable than larger ones because respondents felt that small squares were safer, more secure, and full of a sense of place. Urban policy-makers can use the results of the present study to evaluate the effects of their executive strategies on urban livability, social sustainability, and the satisfaction of residents.PeerReviewe

Promising Low-Cost Adsorbent from Waste Green Tea Leaves for Phenol Removal in Aqueous Solution

Phenol is the most common organic pollutant in many industrial wastewaters that may pose a health risk to humans due to its widespread application as industrial ingredients and additives. In this study, waste green tea leaves (WGTLs) were modified through chemical activation/carbonization and used as an adsorbent in the presence of ultrasound (cavitation) to eliminate phenol in the aqueous solution. Different treatments, such as cavitation, adsorption, and sono-adsorption were investigated to remove the phenol. The scanning electron microscope (SEM) morphology of the adsorbent revealed that the structure of WGTLs was porous before phenol was adsorbed. A Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) analysis showed an open chain of carboxylic acids after the sono-adsorption process. The results revealed that the sono-adsorption process is more efficient with enhanced removal percentages than individual processes. A maximum phenol removal of 92% was obtained using the sono-adsorption process under an optimal set of operating parameters, such as pH 3.5, 25 mg L−1 phenol concentration, 800 mg L−1 adsorbent dosage, 60 min time interval, 30 ± 2 °C temperature, and 80 W cavitation power. Removal of chemical oxygen demand (COD) and total organic carbon (TOC) reached 85% and 53%. The Freundlich isotherm model with a larger correlation coefficient (R2, 0.972) was better fitted for nonlinear regression than the Langmuir model, and the sono-adsorption process confirmed the pseudo-second-order reaction kinetics. The findings indicated that WGTLs in the presence of a cavitation effect prove to be a promising candidate for reducing phenol from the aqueous environment

Repositioning of acefylline as anti-cancer drug: Synthesis, anticancer and computational studies of azomethines derived from acefylline tethered 4-amino-3-mercapto-1,2,4-triazole.

Novel azomethines derived from acefylline tethered triazole hybrids (7a-k) have been synthesized and evaluated against human liver cancer cell line (Hep G2) using MTT assay. The synthesized series of azomethines exhibited promising efficacy against liver cancer cell line. Screening of the synthesized series identified compound 7d with the least cell viability value (11.71 ± 0.39%) as the most potent anticancer agent in contrast to the reference drug acefylline (cell viability = 80 ± 3.87%). In this study, the potentials of the novel agents (7a-k) to inhibit liver cancer proteins were assessed. Subsequently, the structure-activity relationship of the potential drug candidates was assessed via ADME/T molecular screening. The cytotoxic potential of these derivatives was also investigated by hemolysis and thrombolysis. Their hemolytic and thrombolytic studies showed that all of these drugs had very low cytotoxicity and moderate clot lysis activity. Compound 7g (0.26% hemolysis) and 7k (52.1% clot lysis) were the least toxic and moderate thrombolytic agents respectively