AN EXPLORATION OF TOTAL QUALITY MANAGEMENT AND SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT ENABLERS

ABSTRACT This study investigates the TQM (Total Quality Management) and SCM (Supply Chain Management) enablers in the organization. TQM and SCM both are management philosophies to strengthen their organizational performance. The objective of this paper is to identify the TQM and SCM enablers and then compared. The major finding of this paper is most widely used enablers are top management commitment and customer satisfaction within the organization. The future scope of this study is through the enablers, managers can easily get the information about the business world

Antidepressant, analgesic activity and SAR studies of substituted benzimidazoles

Purpose. Benzimidazole class of compound is found to have diverse biological properties. From the literature study, it is observed that depression is a severe mental disease affecting a huge population and pain is affecting about 20% of world population. In continuation of our previous research work, we selected benzimidazole pharmacophore to further explore its pharmacological activities. Methods. Forced swim test and Thermal stimulus test were used to assess the antidepressant and analgesic activity of synthesized benzimidazole analogs. Results. The antidepressant activity results showed that compound 3j was found most potent having Mean ± SEM value 21.6 ± 0.8 for treated group. Furthermore, in the analgesic test, 3b, 3j, and 3o showed Mean ± SEM values; 1.8 ± 0.10, 2.3 ± 0.10 and 2.2 ± 0.10, respectively. The study results suggested that these compounds could be explored further for the development of better antidepressant and analgesic agents. Conclusion. From the present study, it may be concluded that these active benzimidazole derivatives have been found to possess potential antidepressant and analgesic activit

Hough transform generated strong image hashing scheme for copy detection

The rapid development of image editing software has resulted in widespread unauthorized duplication of original images. This has given rise to the need to develop robust image hashing technique which can easily identify duplicate copies of the original images apart from differentiating it from different images. In this paper, we have proposed an image hashing technique based on discrete wavelet transform and Hough transform, which is robust to large number of image processing attacks including shifting and shearing. The input image is initially pre-processed to remove any kind of minor effects. Discrete wavelet transform is then applied to the pre-processed image to produce different wavelet coefficients from which different edges are detected by using a canny edge detector. Hough transform is finally applied to the edge-detected image to generate an image hash which is used for image identification. Different experiments were conducted to show that the proposed hashing technique has better robustness and discrimination performance as compared to the state-of-the-art techniques. Normalized average mean value difference is also calculated to show the performance of the proposed technique towards various image processing attacks. The proposed copy detection scheme can perform copy detection over large databases and can be considered to be a prototype for developing online real-time copy detection system

A Review of Hashing based Image Copy Detection Techniques

Images are considered to be natural carriers of information, and a large number of images are created, exchanged and are made available online. Apart from creating new images, the availability of number of duplicate copies of images is a critical problem. Hashing based image copy detection techniques are a promising alternative to address this problem. In this approach, a hash is constructed by using a set of unique features extracted from the image for identification. This article provides a comprehensive review of the state-of-the-art image hashing techniques. The reviewed techniques are categorized by the mechanism used and compared across a set of functional & performance parameters. The article finally highlights the current issues faced by such systems and possible future directions to motivate further research work

Analysis of L-citrulline and L-arginine in Ficus deltoidea leaf extracts by reverse phase high performance liquid chromatography

Ficus deltoidea (FD) is one of the native plants widely distributed in several countries in Southeast Asia. Previous studies have shown that FD leaf possess antinociceptive, wound healing and antioxidant properties. These beneficial effects have been attributed to the presence of primary and secondary metabolites such as polyphenols, amino acids and flavonoids. Objective: The aim was to develop a reverse phase high-performance liquid chromatography method with ultraviolet detection that involves precolumn derivatisation with O-phthaladehyde for simultaneous analysis of two amino acids L-citrulline and L-arginine in FD leaf extracts. Materials and Methods: An isocratic elution program consisting of methanol: acetonitrile: Water at 45:45:10 v/v (solvent A) and 0.1 M phosphate buffer pH 7.5 (solvent B) at A: B v/v ratio of 80:20 on Zorbax Eclipse C18 SB-Aq column (250 × 4.6 mm, 5 μm) were used. The flow rate was set at 1 ml/min and detection was carried out at 338 nm with 30 min separation time. Results: Good linearity for L-citrulline and L-arginine was obtained in the range 0.1-1000 μg/ml at R2 ≥ 0.998. The limit of detection and limit of quantification values for both L-citrulline and L-arginine were 1 and 5 μg/ml, respectively. The average of recoveries was in the range 94.94-101.95%, with relative standard deviation (%RSD) less than 3%. Intra- and inter-day precision was in the range 96.36-102.43% with RSD less than 2%. Conclusion: All validation parameters of the developed method indicate the method is reliable and efficient for simultaneous determination of L-citrulline and L-arginine for routine analysis of FD

Moxibustion (artemisia plant at acupuncture point) as alternative therapy in hypertension: a promising approach

Hypertension is a pathological condition in which the blood pressure is higher than under normal physiological conditions, i.e., 140/90 mmHg or higher. Blood pressure is measured as the force exerted by the blood pumped by the heart against the walls of arteries (aorta) and distributed throughout the body. Use of complementary and alternative medicine as a cure for hypertension is a common phenomenon because of the high risk of cardiovascular complications and kidney diseases caused by conventional Western medicine. It is reported that high blood pressure causes ~49% of myocardial infarction and 62% of strokes. Effective treatment of hypertension is restricted by adverse effects and cost of the medication. Moxibustion is the application of heat by burning a small bundle of tightly bound moxa, to targeted acupoint, and sometimes it is used along with acupuncture. Encouraging results have been reported on randomized trials indicating the ef cacy of moxibustion. But more controlled clinical trials are required to further establish the potential ef cacy of moxibustion approach in hypertension

In vitro adipogenic potential and glucose uptake stimulatory effect of the terpenoids isolated from Tetracera indica Merr.

In vitro adipogenic potential and glucose uptake stimulatory effect of the terpenoids isolated from Tetracera indica Merr

Evaluation of the Involvement of Pharmacists in Diabetes Self-Care: A Review From the Economic Perspective

Objectives: To analyze the studies encompassing the involvement of pharmacists in diabetes self-care.Method: We reviewed studies conducted from 2005 to 2017 on the involvement of pharmacists in diabetes self-care. The keywords mainly used in this search are pharmacoeconomic analysis, diabetes self-care, pharmacist involvement,cost-effectiveness analysis, cost of utilization, cost of illness, cost of minimization and cost-benefit analysis. PubMed, Science Direct, Springer Link and Medline searched for the relevant studies. These databases searched for full text articles ranging from 2007 to 2017. We tried to limit the search with the inclusion of studies having any sort of pharmacoeconomically relevant component.Key Findings: Cost of illness varied among the countries in managing diabetes mellitus, and the cost of managing diabetes complications were twice the cost of management of diabetes. Continuous involvement of the pharmacist in primary health care is a cost-effective strategy and pronounced to be essential for helping diabetes patient in controlling and managing their disease. Implementation of diabetes self-care by pharmacists such as lifestyle intervention rendered improved quality of life of patient without any increase in health care cost. Self-care management generates intensive blood glucose control and improved quality of life.Conclusions: Implementation of diabetic self-care intervention including intensive lifestyle intervention, education, self-monitoring of blood glucose and adherence toward medication-initiated reduction in the overall healthcare cost of diabetic patients compared to patients relying on only any one of the interventions. Impact of diabetes self-care intervention by pharmacist reported to significantly reduce the HbA1C levels of diabetic patients along with the reduction of yearly healthcare cost. This review showed that pharmacist involvement in diabetes self-care interventions prove to be cost-effective and can significantly affect the condition of the diabetic patients and reduces the risk of complications

Investigation of α-glucosidase inhibitory activity of tetracera scandens leaf using fourier transform infrared spectroscopy-based metabolomics

Introduction: Tetracera scandens is a shrub that belongs to Dilleniaceae family. The leaves of this plant have medicinal values and traditionally been used in the treatment of diabetes mellitus in Malaysia. The conventional quality control analysis of medicinal plantsthat relies on the quantification of few major metabolites is considered time-consuming since it requires extensive sample preparation and neglects the possible impacts that the other metabolites could have on the activity. Objectives: This study was aimed to investigate the α-glucosidase inhibitory (AGI) potential of different ratios of water-methanol extracts of T. scandens leaves and to establish a predictive multivariate model that could be used for the quality evaluation of T. scandens leaf based on the Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR) spectra of its extracts. Materials and Methods: Different ratios of solvent (0%, 20%, 40%, 60%, 80% and 100% methanol in water) were used to prepare a total of 36 extracts. The AGI potential and the FT-IR fingerprint spectrum were acquired for each extract. Results: A four components OPLS model (1+3+0) with R2Y of 0.951 and Q2Y of 0.916 was established to describe the correlation between the fingerprint FT-IR spectra of different T. scandens extracts and their corresponding AGI activities. The carbonoxygen, carbon-halide single bonds, as well hydroxyl and carbonyl groups were identified to be positively correlated with the AGI activity. Conclusion: An OPLS model was successfully developed as a rapid quality evaluation method to predict the AGI activity of T. scandens leaves

Correlation of FT-IR fingerprint and α-glucosidase inhibitory activity of Salak (Salacca zalacca) fruit extracts utilizing orthogonal partial least square

Salak fruit (Salacca zalacca), commonly known as snake fruit, is used indigenously as food and for medicinal applications in Southeast Asia. This study was conducted to evaluate the α-glucosidase inhibitory activity of salak fruit extracts in correlation to its Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR) fingerprint, utilizing orthogonal partial least square. This calibration model was applied to develop a rapid analytical method tool for quality control of this fruit. A total of 36 extracts prepared with different solvent ratios of ethanol–water (100, 80, 60, 40.20, 0% v/v) and their α-glucosidase inhibitory activities determined. The FT-IR spectra of ethanol–water extracts measured in the region of 400 and 4000 cm−1 at a resolution of 4 cm−1. Multivariate analysis with a combination of orthogonal partial least-squares (OPLS) algorithm was used to correlate the bioactivity of the samples with the FT-IR spectral data. The OPLS biplot model identified several functional groups (C–H, C=O, C–N, N–H, C–O, and C=C) which actively induced α-glucosidase inhibitory activity