The epidemic of T2DM is rising across the globe. Systemic inflammation plays a pivotal role in the pathogenesis and complications of T2DM. Combination of two or more oral hypoglycemic agents (OHA) is ...widely prescribed in patients with T2DM, however many patients have poor glycemic control despite receiving combination therapy. The new antidiabetic drugs are relatively costly or many patients have anxiety over the use of injectable insulin. The objective of this observational study was to investigate the effectiveness and tolerability of hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) in T2DM patients uncontrolled on multiple OHA and despite high sugar level not willing to initiate insulin therapy in a real-world clinical setting.
A prospective, investigator-initiated, observational, single-centred study was conducted where 250 patients (18-65 years) with T2DM for more than 5 years, with uncontrolled glycemia despite on a combination of multiple OHA, HbA1c between ≥7% and <10.5%, FPG >130 mg/dL or PPG >180 mg/dL and BMI between >25 and <39 kg/m2, were prescribed hydroxychloroquine sulphate 400 mg once daily for 48 weeks. Percentage of drugs used at the baseline were as follows: metformin 2000 mg (100%), glimepiride 4 mg (100%), pioglitazone 30 mg (100%), sitagliptin 100 mg (100%), canagliflozin 300 mg (52.4%), empagliflozin 25 mg (22.8%), dapagliflozin 10 mg (17.6%) and voglibose 0.3 mg (62%). Mean change in HbA1c, blood glucose and hs-CRP at baseline, week 12, 24 and 48 were assessed using the paired t-test.
After 48 weeks of add-on treatment with HCQ, almost all SGLT-2 inhibitors were withdrawn; metformin dose was reduced to 1000 mg, glimepiride reduced to 1 mg and sitagliptin reduced to 50 mg OD. Patients continued to have good glycemic control. HbA1c was reduced from 8.83% to 6.44%. Reduction in FPG was 40.78% (baseline 177.30 mg/dL) and PPG was reduced by 58.95% (baseline 329.86 mg/dL). Change in mean body weight was -4.66 Kg. The reduction in glycemic parameters and mean body weight was significant (p < 0.0001). Hs-CRP was significantly reduced from 2.70±1.98 mg/L to 0.71±0.30 mg/L 9 (p < 0.0001). More reduction in glycemic parameters and body weight was observed among the patients with higher hs-CRP (> 3 mg/L) as compared to patients with baseline hs- CRP ≤ 3 mg/L. Most common adverse events reported with the drug therapy were GI irritation (3.6%) and hypoglycemia (2%). None of the patients required medical assistance for hypoglycemia.
Add-on treatment of HCQ effectively improved glycemic control in T2DM patients uncontrolled on multiple antidiabetic drugs. By virtue of its antidiabetic and anti-inflammatory properties, it may emerge as a valuable therapeutic intervention for the patients with T2DM.
In the 21st century, environmental problems are wreaking havoc, and sustainability is now of primary importance. Several external factors like population growth, industrialization, development, and ...overexploitation of natural resources play a crucial role in environmental degradation. Thus, the present study endeavors to explore the impact of price sensitivity, governments green interventions and green product availability on green buying intention through the lenses of the theory of planned behavior and the theory of consumption values. It also intends to examine the moderating effect of demographic factors on green buying intention. A cross‐sectional study was carried out. Responses were gathered through a self‐administered questionnaire‐based survey. The final data set of 708 respondents were subjected to structural equation modeling for hypothesis testing. Price sensitivity, government green interventions, and green product availability show negative and significant interaction effects. Perceived behavioral control shows a relatively more substantial impact on green buying intention. Indian consumers from the age group of 41–50 years relatively have higher intention toward green buying. Overall, gender does not reveal any different approaches to environmentally friendly products. Green marketers must focus on communicating the availability of green products to reduce perceived difficulty.
The world faces continuous environmental degradation because of extreme industrialization, construction, and overexploitation of natural resources. This degradation has started to create ...consciousness and attitude towards pro-environmental buying and consumption. Green consumer behavior has gained significant research attention world-wide attributed to its ability to reduce environmental damage. Thus, this research explores the extended model based on the theory of planned behavior (TPB) and the value-attitude-behavior hierarchy in Indian demography. Environmental and health awareness is used as a human value (internal indirect variable) in the extended TPB model. This study administered a cross-sectional survey on the corporate executive, executive MBA students, and regular MBA students of Indian top business schools and firms. Models are validated, and hypotheses tested using variance-based structured equation modeling on the 350+ clean collected sample. The studies’ outcome reflected the non-linear relationship between the independent variables and dependent variables (green buying behavior) of the modified theory of planned behavior (TPB) model. Perceived behavioral control is found as an important independent factor compelling Indian consumers towards green buying behavior. The modified TPB model also gave considerable outcomes in the Indian demography. Government organizations and corporate shall use the results to inculcate more buying behavior among Indian consumers.
All-electric (AES) ship power system (SPS) generally employs energy storage (ESS) to improve operation efficiency, redundancy, and flexibility while reducing environmental impacts. Depending on the ...operating characteristic, ramp rate, and load variation of the SPS, single or hybrid energy storage systems (HESS) with different operating characteristics are utilized to prevent frequent cycling, high depth of discharge (DOD), and accelerated degradation. Hence, this research work focuses on the coordination of optimal voyage, and multi-objective energy management of AES with HESS to optimize the vessel route, operation cost, emission, and degradation of ESS. The optimal route planning is carried out as a dynamic programming problem based on the sea states, and augmented <inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">\epsilon</tex-math></inline-formula>-constraint and reactive approach to energy management strategy are adopted to solve the energy dispatch of the AES while addressing the uncertainty present in the load forecasting. The simulation results indicate that the voyage planning with the consideration of the sea states has strong influences on the path taken and velocity of the AES which in term will influence the propulsion power requirement. It also indicates that the operating characteristic of the HESS and uncertainty present in the load forecasting should be carefully addressed to achieve a realistic operation schedule.
Quorum sensing peptides (QSPs) are the signaling molecules used by the Gram-positive bacteria in orchestrating cell-to-cell communication. In spite of their enormous importance in signaling process, ...their detailed bioinformatics analysis is lacking. In this study, QSPs and non-QSPs were examined according to their amino acid composition, residues position, motifs and physicochemical properties. Compositional analysis concludes that QSPs are enriched with aromatic residues like Trp, Tyr and Phe. At the N-terminal, Ser was a dominant residue at maximum positions, namely, first, second, third and fifth while Phe was a preferred residue at first, third and fifth positions from the C-terminal. A few motifs from QSPs were also extracted. Physicochemical properties like aromaticity, molecular weight and secondary structure were found to be distinguishing features of QSPs. Exploiting above properties, we have developed a Support Vector Machine (SVM) based predictive model. During 10-fold cross-validation, SVM achieves maximum accuracy of 93.00%, Mathew's correlation coefficient (MCC) of 0.86 and Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) of 0.98 on the training/testing dataset (T200p+200n). Developed models performed equally well on the validation dataset (V20p+20n). The server also integrates several useful analysis tools like "QSMotifScan", "ProtFrag", "MutGen" and "PhysicoProp". Our analysis reveals important characteristics of QSPs and on the basis of these unique features, we have developed a prediction algorithm "QSPpred" (freely available at: http://crdd.osdd.net/servers/qsppred).
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
In the present study, microporous biochar was prepared from the waste plant fruit shell of
Pterospermum acerifolium.
To improve porosity and nitrogen content in biochar, the powder form of the ...fruit shell was pre-treated by HNO
3
before the biochar synthesis. Furthermore, to enhance the adsorption capacity of biochar for cationic methylene blue (MB) dye, the surface of biochar was modified by sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS) surfactant to increase the negative charge density on the biochar surface. Before the performance of the adsorption experiments, the nitric acid-treated
Pterospermum acerifolium
fruit waste biochar (NAT-PABC) and SDS-modified nitric acid-treated
Pterospermum acerifolium
fruit waste biochar (SDS-NAT-PABC) were characterized by various sophisticated instruments such as FTIR, XRD, FE-SEM, EDX, elemental mapping, BET, XPS, and point of zero charge. An in-depth study of the functional groups and their interactions in NAT-PABC and SDS-NAT-PABC were examined with the help of the XPS technique and identified the functional groups responsible for the adsorption of MB dye. Batch adsorption experiments were carried out to determine the optimal adsorption conditions. The maximum removal percentage of MB dye was achieved at pH 10 and 9 for NAT-PABC and SDS-NAT-PABC, respectively, within 240 min. The isotherm, kinetic, and mass transfer modeling were also examined and fitted with the experimental data. According to correlation coefficient (
R
2
), nonlinear forms of the pseudo-second-order kinetic and Langmuir isotherm models were best suited for both NAT-PABC and SDS-NAT-PABC. The present work also reported a possible reaction mechanism that describes the adsorption phenomenon. The Gibbs energy and enthalpy for the MB adsorption process by NAT-PABC and SDS-NAT-PABC was found to be negative and positive, respectively, suggesting that the process was spontaneous and endothermic nature; therefore, the reaction was highly attainable at higher temperatures.
Sonication-assisted liquid-phase exfoliation of layered materials in suitable organic solvents offers a simple scalable route for the production of 2D nanomaterials. N-methyl-2-pyrrolidone (NMP) is ...one of the most efficient solvents for liquid-phase exfoliation of a variety of layered solids, including MoS2. We show here that trace water present in NMP is crucial for the stability of MoS2 nanosheets in NMP dispersions. In the absence of water, the sheets are fragmented and chemically unstable. Using solution NMR techniques, 2D nuclear Overhauser effect and spin–lattice relaxation measurements, supported by classical molecular dynamics simulations, we are able to establish the role of water molecules in stabilizing the dispersion. We show that water molecules are localized at the Mo-terminated edges of the MoS2 sheets, thereby inhibiting chemical erosion of the sheets, and they also exhibit enhanced interactions with the solvent NMP molecules, leading to the stability of the dispersion.
The study aims to explore the effect of dimensions of green marketing orientation (GMO) on green innovation and organizational performance utilizing the fundamental concepts of GMO theory, ...institutional theory, and resource‐based theory, or natural resource‐based view. In this research, we mainly explore the unplumbed effect of internal (IGMO), strategic (SGMO), and tactical green marketing orientation (TGMO) of the firm using the GMO theory. Although few scientific attempts tried to measure the effect of IGMO, SGMO, and TGMO, a majority of them disdained the idea of its integrated effect and adopted a futile approach while positioning these constructs in their model. In addition, we investigated stakeholders' role (moderating) in green innovation practices and organizational performance. The proposed model is tested using survey data collected from 201 top and middle‐level working professionals from manufacturing to service industries in India. We used a structured questionnaire and covariance‐based structure equation modeling for the path estimation. All three dimensions showed a direct positive significant effect on green innovation. Only tactical TGMO showed a direct effect on organizational performance, while the other two showed an indirect effect only on organizational performance mediated through green innovation. The study also established the moderating effect of stakeholders' view on the relationships between green innovation and organizational performance. Conclusively, we contribute to GMO theory by extending the scope for further academic/market validation and concurrently advancing managerial inferences for business strategists and market practitioners on sustainable organizational development.
Alloys-based materials have now become advanced from conventional alloys to multi-principal elements and open new areas of applications. High Entropy Alloys are drawn considerable attention because ...of their unique properties, which can be tuned based on the requirements. High entropy materials have extraordinary mechanical properties, corrosion resistance, thermal stability, and other promising functional properties, which makes them to be used as a catalysis for water splitting, electrodes in batteries for charge storage in supercapacitor and as a hydrogen storage material. Thus the high entropy alloy now becomes an emerging advanced material. Moreover, in the last six years, several research articles appeared which described the excellent magnetic properties of high entropy alloys. More than four principal elements help to tune the magnetic properties along with other properties like mechanical, corrosion, etc., which are required for industrial applications of magnetic materials. The magnetic properties of HEAs are highly dependent on the phase structure, microstructure, synthesis route, processing parameter, and alloying elements. This review article summarized the different features of high entropy alloys, core effects, synthesis methods, and state-of-the-art magnetic properties of the High Entropy alloys. A separate section is also devoted to the magnetic properties of high entropy oxide. Also, this review is underlying different principles that have importance on the future development of magnetic HEAsfor industrial applications.
The GroEL/ES chaperonin system functions as a protein folding cage. Many obligate substrates of GroEL share the (βα)8 TIM-barrel fold, but how the chaperonin promotes folding of these proteins is not ...known. Here, we analyzed the folding of DapA at peptide resolution using hydrogen/deuterium exchange and mass spectrometry. During spontaneous folding, all elements of the DapA TIM barrel acquire structure simultaneously in a process associated with a long search time. In contrast, GroEL/ES accelerates folding more than 30-fold by catalyzing segmental structure formation in the TIM barrel. Segmental structure formation is also observed during the fast spontaneous folding of a structural homolog of DapA from a bacterium that lacks GroEL/ES. Thus, chaperonin independence correlates with folding properties otherwise enforced by protein confinement in the GroEL/ES cage. We suggest that folding catalysis by GroEL/ES is required by a set of proteins to reach native state at a biologically relevant timescale, avoiding aggregation or degradation.
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•GroEL/ES chaperonin catalyzes folding of proteins with TIM-barrel domains•Protein confinement in the GroEL/ES cage results in segmental folding•Segmental folding reduces the entropic energy barrier to folding•Folding by GroEL/ES resembles that of chaperonin-independent TIM-barrel proteins
A chaperonin catalyzes rapid substrate folding by promoting stepwise transitions in structure formation; in contrast, spontaneous folding is slow and characterized by one major structural transition.
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