Biological enzymes are macromolecular catalysts that catalyze the biochemical reactions of the natural systems. Although each enzyme performs a particular function, however, holds several drawbacks, ...which limits its utilization in broad-spectrum applications. Natural enzymes require strict physiological conditions for performing catalytic functions. Their limited stability in harsh environmental conditions, the high cost of synthesis, isolation, and purification are some of the significant drawbacks. Therefore, as an alternative to natural enzymes, recently several strategies have been developed including the synthesis of molecules, complexes, and nanoparticles mimicking their intrinsic catalytic properties. Nanoparticles exhibiting the properties of an enzyme are termed as "nanozymes." Nanozymes offer several advantages over natural enzymes, therefore, a rapid expansion of the development of artificial biocatalysts. These advantages include simple methods of synthesis, low cost, high stability, robust catalytic performance, and smooth surface modification of nanomaterials. In this context, nanozymes are tremendously being explored to establish a wide range of applications in biosensing, immunoassays, disease diagnosis and therapy, theranostics, cell/tissue growth, protection from oxidative stress, and removal of pollutants. Considering the importance of nanozymes, this article has been designed to comprehensively discuss the different enzyme-like properties, such as peroxidase, catalase, superoxide dismutase, and oxidase, exhibited by various nanoparticles.
Cerium oxide nanoparticles (nanoceria) are known to exhibit enzymelike activity, such as biological catalase, oxidase, superoxide dismutase, and peroxidase enzymelike activities. Catalytically active ...nanoceria offer several advantages over natural enzymes, such as controlled synthesis at low cost, tunable catalytic activities, as well as high stability against stringent physiological conditions. Exploiting these properties, several biomedical applications, such as biosensing, immunoassay, drug delivery, radiation protection, and tissue engineering, have been maneuvered. This review article provides a comprehensive summary of reported biological enzymelike activities of nanoceria and the possible mechanism of catalysis. It is also discussed that what physicochemical properties (surface charge, size, surface chemistry, and enzymelike activity) of nanoceria are altered when exposed to biologically relevant buffers and even in the mammalian cell cytoplasm. Based on various reports provided in the literature, these important issues need to be addressed. It has also been deliberated that in mammalian cells variations in properties of nanoceria observed are due to the intrinsic catalytic activity or as a result of downstream effects that could have emerged after the particles have interacted with biologic/environmental components. Such studies could be helpful in providing a better understanding the nanoceria's multienzyme-like activities and potential applications in the biomedical fields with special reference to damaging effects of free radicals in biological systems.
•Green transformational leadership influences green human resource management (GHRM) practices.•Green innovation predicts environmental performance.•Green innovation mediates the influence of GHRM ...practices on environmental performance.
Drawing upon the resource-based view and the ability-motivation-opportunity theory, we examined how green human resource management interplays on to the linkages amongst green transformational leadership, green innovation and environmental performance. Using a survey questionnaire, we collected triadic data from 309 manufacturing sector small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). We used covariance-based structural equation modeling (SEM) to examine hypotheses in this study. Results of the study suggest that green HRM practices mediates the influence of green transformational leadership on green innovation. We also found that green HRM indirectly through green innovation influences firm's environmental performance. Overall, the findings of our study support all hypotheses of direct and indirect effects and have several theoretical and practical implications. Finally, our study significantly advances theory and suggests that HRM-performance relationship neither depends upon the additive effect of green transformational leadership and green innovation as antecedent and mediator, respectively, nor on their interactive effect but a mix of both combinational forms (ie., additive and interactive) to affect firm environmental performance. Overall, our study contributes and advances the previous studies wherein in leadership plays critical role to influence the HRM practices and that in turn to predict green innovation in the organization.
Open innovation as driver of organizational performance of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) has received relatively little scholarly attention. Drawing upon the resource-based view and the ...knowledge-based view of firms, we examined antecedents and outcome of open innovation in SMEs. We collected multisource data from 404 SMEs and used structural equation modeling to test the hypotheses. Our study suggests that top management knowledge value and knowledge creating practices influence open innovation, which, in turn, influences organizational performance. Results of the study are discussed in the light of previous studies and suggest implications for theory and practice of open innovation.
What are the medium- to long-term effects of pandemics? Do they differ from other economic disasters? We study major pandemics using rates of return on assets stretching back to the fourteenth ...century. Significant macroeconomic after-effects of pandemics persist for decades, with rates of return substantially depressed. The responses are in stark contrast to what happens after wars. Our findings also accord with wage and output responses, using more limited data, and are consistent with the neoclassical growth model: capital is destroyed in wars but not in pandemics; pandemics instead may induce more labor scarcity or more precautionary savings, or both.
In this article, a new DWT-SVD and DCT with Arnold Cat Map encryption based robust and blind watermarking scheme is proposed for copyright protection. The proposed scheme solves the most frequently ...occurring watermarking security problems in Singular Value Decomposition (SVD) based schemes which are unauthorized reading and false-positive detection. This scheme also optimizes fidelity and robustness characteristics. The grey image watermark splits into two parts using four bits MSBs and four bits LSBs of each pixel. Discrete Cosine Transform (DCT) coefficients of these MSBs and LSBs values are embedded into the middle singular value of each block having size 4 × 4 of the host image’s one level Discrete Wavelet Transform (DWT) sub-bands. The reason for incorporating Arnold Cat Map in the proposed scheme is to encode the watermark image before embedding it in the host image. The proposed scheme is a blind scheme and does not require the choice of scaling factor. Thus, the proposed scheme is secure as well as free from the false positive detection problem. The proposed watermarking scheme is tested for various malicious and non-malicious attacks. The experimental results demonstrate that the scheme is robust, imperceptible and secure to several attacks and common signal processing operations.
Drawing upon new institutional theory, we developed and tested a model on how digital transformational leadership and organizational agility influence digital transformation with digital strategy as ...a moderator. We found that digital transformational leadership and organizational agility positively influence digital transformation, and digital transformational leadership influences organizational agility. The finding of our study also indicates organizational agility to mediate the relationship between digital transformational leadership and digital transformation. Our findings offer an advanced understanding of the impact of transformational leadership and organizational agility on digital transformation and the role of digital strategy. Our study's findings address critical questions about how leadership style and promoting organizational agility in the public sector can enhance digital transformation.
In an era of increased stakeholder pressure for sustainable environmental management practices at workplace, organization should adopt and implement environmental ethics for seamless synergy amongst ...the needs of the business, the society, and the planet. Our study used resource-based view (RBV) and dynamic capabilities (DC) theoretical lenses to examine hypotheses derived from extant literature on the linkages amongst environmental ethics, environmental training, environmental performance and competitive advantage. Using survey questionnaire, we employed structural equation modeling (SEM) on 364 valid responses from managers to examine the hypotheses. The findings of our study will stir up researcher's curiosity to unravel the human side of environmental management and that will surely steer future researches in significant directions. Results suggest that environmental ethics influences environmental training, environmental performance and competitive advantage. We also found that environmental training to employees mediates the influence of environmental ethics on firm's environmental performance and competitive advantage. The findings of the study implies that organizational approach towards environmental ethical practices at workplace should be not be reactive but proactive with intentions to create and sustain synergy amongst the triads namely, profits, the society, and the environment. Environmental training should not be one-off event but a continuous process to beat competitions and improve environmental performance in the organization.
•Environmental ethics affects environmental performance and competitive advantage.•Environmental performance influences firm competitive advantage.•Environmental training mediates relationship of environmental ethics with environmental performance & competitive advantage.
Water-soluble ruthenium complexes (η6-arene)Ru(κ2-L) n+ (n = 0,1) (Ru-1–Ru-9) ligated with pyridine-based ligands are synthesized, and the molecular structure of the representative complex Ru-2 is ...confirmed by X-ray crystallography. The studied complexes are employed for the catalytic dehydrogenation of formic acid in water. Screening of these complexes inferred that Ru-1 (η6-C10H14)Ru(κ2-NpyOH-L1)Cl+ (L1 = pyridine-2-ylmethanol) outperformed others with an initial turnover frequency of 1548 h–1. Complex Ru-1 also exhibited high stability in water and can be recycled up to seven times with a total turnover number of 6050. In addition to formic acid dehydrogenation, Ru-1 also catalyzed the conversion of formaldehyde to hydrogen gas in water under base-free conditions. The effects of temperature, pH, formic acid, and catalyst concentration on the reaction kinetics are investigated in detail. Mass and NMR based mechanistic investigations inferred the presence of several important intermediate species, such as ruthenium-formate species Ru-1B and ruthenium-hydride species Ru-1C, involved in the catalytic dehydrogenation reaction. Moreover, the molecular structure of a diruthenium species Ru-1A′ is also authenticated by single-crystal X-ray crystallography.
PDF
