Shifting the Paradigm of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) towards Corporate Social Entrepreneurship (CSE): An Exploratory Study to Develop a Theoretical Framework

The main aim of the study is to explore and understand the potential for CSR practices to generate and confer unique benefits to a firm from their involvement in its activities, and exploring the scope to connect CSR and its accompanying benefits with the entrepreneurial practices of the firm. Following social constructionist philosophy this study was conducted to understand the construction of reality at the interface of CSR and entrepreneurship in large exemplary CSR practicing and entrepreneurial firms. Focusing on strategic CSR (SCSR) theories and opportunity based view of entrepreneurship, this study followed corporate entrepreneurship (CE) and social entrepreneurship (SE) theoretical underpinnings to establish a link between CSR and firm entrepreneurship to develop a theoretical framework for corporate social entrepreneurship (CSE) for creating economic, social and shared value. This is a qualitative exploratory study and the research site was Bangladesh. Case study method was used as the main method in this study and semi structured interviews as the main method for data for case studies. Secondary sources of information, company records, project profiles and other archival data were also used in this study. Four purposively selected case firms which are exemplary CSR and entrepreneurial firms operating in Bangladesh are selected for case study along with other external stakeholders. Two phases of fieldwork were carried out as per the research plan to collect rich and deep data. Data analysis considered 32 usable interviews of first phase of fieldwork and 9 follow-up interviews of second phase of fieldwork. During the first phase of fieldwork after initial purposive sampling, snowballing also followed to capture deep and thick data to generate rich insights. Since this study mainly followed qualitative cross case analysis, four purposively selected case firms comprised main data set which are exemplary CSR and entrepreneurial firms operating in Bangladesh. Cross case analyses were done to draw out the findings. Transcribed interview data were analyzed using Atlas.ti qualitative data analysis software. Open coding was used to analyze data following thematic coding process. Code co-occurrence analyses were used to do cross case analysis. Within the fields of CSR and entrepreneurship, this study explored the interaction between CSR and firm entrepreneurship focusing on corporate entrepreneurship and social entrepreneurship domains. Findings of the study suggest that the interaction of CSR practices with firm entrepreneurship may bring a better climate for exploring and exploiting business opportunities through promoting entrepreneurial behaviour, scope for innovation and better strategic and entrepreneurial practices for creating shared value. Moreover, this interaction along with social oriented vision, strategic management practices, internal environment and value based culture together are conducive for enacting corporate social entrepreneurship (CSE) to promote robust CSR practices and greater value creation. Due to qualitative cross case analysis involving limited number of cases and primarily dependency on the interview data, generalizability of the findings are limited to theoretical inference. Based on the empirical work, developed CSE theoretical model is the outcome of data analysis in a triangulating fashion which offers validity and reliability. The main implications of this study is that addressing social problems through exploring and exploiting opportunities in the shared value creation space, managers may create an enabling environment and pursue strategies which are conducive for socio-entrepreneurial business practices. Also, CSE theoretical framework is expected to be strategic and entrepreneurial simultaneously which can be effective in bringing competitive advantage for firms

Chemical Enhancer: A Simplistic Way to Modulate Barrier Function of the Stratum Corneum

Human skin could be a prime target to deliver drugs into the human body as it is the largest organ of human body. However, the main challenge of delivering drug into the skin is the stratum corneum (SC), the outer layer of epidermis, which performs the main barrier function of the skin. Scientists have developed several techniques to overcome the barrier properties of the skin, which include other physical and chemical techniques. The most common and convenient technique is to use special formulation additives (chemical enhancers, CEs) which either drags the drug molecule along with it or make changes in the SC structure, thereby allowing the drug molecule to penetrate in to the SC. The main focus is to deliver drugs in the certain layers of the skin (for topical delivery) or ensuring proper percutaneous absorption (for transdermal delivery). However, skin drug delivery is still very challenging as different CEs act in different ways on the skin and they have different types of interaction with different drugs. Therefore, proper understanding on the mechanism of action of CE is mandatory. In this article, the effect of several CEs on skin has been reviewed based on the published articles. The main aim is to compile the recent knowledge on skin-CE interaction in order to design a topical and transdermal formulation efficiently. A properly designed formulation would help the drug either to deposit into the target layer or to cross the barrier membrane to reach the systemic circulation

Seipin oligomers can interact directly with AGPAT2 and lipin 1, physically scaffolding critical regulators of adipogenesis

This work was supported by a Merit Scholarship from the Islamic Development Bank (to M.M.U.T.), The Agency for Science, Technology and Research, Singapore (A*STAR) (M.F.M.S), the Medical Research Council (MRC) [NIRG GO800203 and Research Grant MR/L002620/1 (to J.J.R.), Program GrantG09000554 (to S.O.R)], The Wellcome Trust [078986/Z/06/Z (to S.O.R.)], the MRC Centre for Obesity and Related Metabolic Disorders (MRC-CORD) [GO600717] and the NIHR Comprehensive Biomedical Research Centre [CG50826].Peer reviewedPublisher PD

The Study of Hypoglycemic effect of microencapsulated Glimepiride In Long Evans Rats

In this study glimepiride was used as a model drug to evaluate the hypoglycemic effect of microencapsulated or mucoadhesive drug delivery system. Sodium alginate based Microbeads of Glimepiride was prepared using Glycerine monostearate (GMS) for oral sustained release by Orifice-ionic gelation method. The microbeads were evaluated for physical appearance, floating properties, In-Vitro release study and In-Vivo evaluation. The microbeads were free flowing, spherical in shape and have the good content of uniformity of drugs. The spherical microbeads of 2 mm diameter were prepared by dropping sodium alginate incorporated with Glimepiride solution into aqueous solution of calcium chloride, causing the precipitation of calcium alginate. These Microbeads released the drug for a prolonged residence time of more than 2 hours. The hypoglycemic effect of the mucoadhesive floating drug delivery system is a valuable method for the long term delivery of Glimepiride on Long Evans Rats

Role of Mothers’ Nutritional Knowledge, Nutritional Factors on The School Performance

A cross sectional study was carried out to investigate the effects of mothers’ nutritional knowledge, health and nutritional factors and socio-economic parameters on school performance among class five students of University Laboratory School, Dhaka. All of the eighty students were selected for this study. This study found there is a strong relationship between mother’s knowledge score and school performance. It was found that mothers’ knowledge score was responsible for 91.1 percent change in school performance. The mean BMI of the mothers was 20.44. We found that the school performance measured by class roll number of the students is significantly related with mothers BMI. There was an imperfect negative association between socio-economic parameters and school performance. But the relationship between the school performances with socio-economic parameters was strongly significant. This study also observed the relationship between Individual Dietary Diversity Score (IDDS) of respondent and marks achieved in class 4 final exam. It is alarming that consumption percentage were low for eggs (30) and milk and milk products (37.5), but majority of the students who consumed milk and milk products (63.3%) and eggs (66.7%) got the highest marks

Oligomers of the lipodystrophy protein seipin may co-ordinate GPAT3 and AGPAT2 enzymes to facilitate adipocyte differentiation

Abstract: Seipin deficiency causes severe congenital generalized lipodystrophy (CGL) and metabolic disease. However, how seipin regulates adipocyte development and function remains incompletely understood. We previously showed that seipin acts as a scaffold protein for AGPAT2, whose disruption also causes CGL. More recently, seipin has been reported to promote adipogenesis by directly inhibiting GPAT3, leading to the suggestion that GPAT inhibitors could offer novel treatments for CGL. Here we investigated the interactions between seipin, GPAT3 and AGPAT2. We reveal that seipin and GPAT3 associate via direct interaction and that seipin can simultaneously bind GPAT3 and AGPAT2. Inhibiting the expression of seipin, AGPAT2 or GPAT3 led to impaired induction of early markers of adipocyte differentiation in cultured cells. However, consistent with normal adipose mass in GPAT3-null mice, GPAT3 inhibition did not prevent the formation of mature adipocytes. Nonetheless, loss of GPAT3 in seipin-deficient preadipocytes exacerbated the failure of adipogenesis in these cells. Thus, our data indicate that GPAT3 plays a modest positive role in adipogenesis and argue against the potential of GPAT inhibitors to rescue white adipose tissue mass in CGL2. Overall, our study reveals novel mechanistic insights regarding the molecular pathogenesis of severe lipodystrophy caused by mutations in either seipin or AGPAT2

Study the effect of scratching depth and ceramic-metal ratio on the scratch behavior of NbC/Nb Ceramic/Metal nano-laminates using molecular dynamics simulation and machine learning

Developing a new class of coating materials is necessary to meet the increasing demands of energy and defense-related technologies, aerospace engineering, and harsh environmental conditions. Functional-based coatings, such as ceramic-metal nanolaminates, have gained popularity due to their ability to be customized according to specific requirements. To design and develop advanced coatings with the necessary functionalities, it is crucial to understand the effects of various parameters on the mechanical and tribological properties of these coatings. In this study, we investigate the impact of penetration depth, individual layer thickness, and ceramic-metal ratio on the mechanical and tribological properties of ceramic-metal nanolaminates, particularly NbC/Nb. Our findings reveal that the thickness of the individual metallic and ceramic layers significantly affects the coatings' properties. However, some models exhibited punctures on the top ceramic layer, which altered the scratching behavior and reduced the impact of layer thickness on it. This is because the top ceramic layer's thickness is too low, and the indenter can easily puncture it instead of pushing the ceramic atoms. The minimum thickness required to resist indentation is called the critical thickness, which depends on the indentation size and penetration depth. In the latter part of this paper, we employed machine learning to reduce computational costs, and the model predicts the friction coefficient with an R-squared value of 0.958