Search results

The purpose of this paper was to identify Serratia marcescens to extract and purify prodigiosin pigment to evaluate the antibacterial potential of the pigment.

Samples were collected from shrimp aquaculture ponds. Species identification was conducted using morphological, biochemical and molecular tests. Pigment extraction and purification were carried out using column chromatography. The antibacterial effect of crude and purified prodigiosin pigment was evaluated on Escherichia coli, Bacillus subtilis, Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Staphylococcus aureus as biofouling bacteria. In addition, the interaction between prodigiosin and proteins involved in biofilm formation was evaluated using molecular docking.

The results of prodigiosin extraction with solvents showed the highest percentage of pigment presence with methanol solvent in the second day of culture. The chemical structure of pure prodigiosin obtained from the column chromatography was confirmed by Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy. Both crude and purified pigments exhibited antibacterial effects against selected bacterial strains. The antibacterial effect of the purified pigment was higher, and the highest antibacterial effect was observed on B. subtilis. Prodigiosin docking was carried out with all target proteins, and the docked energy in all of them was at an acceptable level.

Prodigiosin extracted from S. marcescens can be used as a bioactive compound to design and manufacture of anti-biofouling and anti-biofilm formation products to use extensively for industrial applications as a natural color in marine industries, food industry, cosmetics and textile productions.

Integrating tourism and sustainability in achieving an eco-friendlier industry, this chapter highlights current trends in sustainable tourism, both in hospitality and recreational activities. The chapter describes sustainable, tourism, hospitality, and recreation trends. The research analyzes the origin of these trends, the vast majority motivated by the aftermath of the pandemic.

In recent years, entrepreneurship education has become increasingly popular to promote economic development and encourage entrepreneurship. This chapter aims to review the effectiveness of entrepreneurship education and the mode of delivery. This review will help understand the effectiveness of entrepreneurship education (entrepreneurial skills, entrepreneurial intention, enhanced entrepreneurial mindset and greater business success). It will also help understand the mode of delivery (classroom instruction, experiential learning, mentoring and coaching and online learning) Using the traditional review methodology, the chapter focusses on the outcomes of entrepreneurship education on students and their attitudes, intentions and behaviours towards entrepreneurship. The chapter also evaluates the various modes of delivery, including traditional classroom-based instruction, experiential learning and online education. The review compared the United States of America and South African points of view on entrepreneurship education to posit significant directions on how to effectuate entrepreneurship education. The chapter further reviews the sustainable development goals that are aligned with entrepreneurship. Overall, the chapter concludes that entrepreneurship education is effective in promoting entrepreneurial attitudes, intentions and behaviours, and its mode of delivery significantly influences its impact. The chapter recommends the integration of active and experiential learning methods into entrepreneurship education, and the development of innovative modes of delivery to reach a wider audience. Policymakers should also support the integration of entrepreneurship education into the formal education system to promote economic development.

Anti-racism has been practiced in various ways, with varying degrees of effectiveness. This chapter engages with the body of scholarship that focuses on approaches aimed at promoting anti-racist actions, policies and social change. It discusses some of the main anti-racism strategies that have been deployed across different countries and examines anti-racism practices in interpersonal, intergroup and community settings. These approaches encompass civil rights campaigns, legislative and policy interventions, affirmative action, diversity and inclusion training, prejudice reduction, intergroup contact, organisational development and holistic anti-racism approaches. Some anti-racism practices and policies, such as awareness campaigns, social marketing and diversity training, also extend to digital platforms, with social media and multimedia networks deployed to broaden the reach and impact of anti-racist endeavours. This chapter specifically engages with local anti-racism movements and draws principles for broader implementation of anti-racism policy and practice. It concludes with a brief discussion of the effectiveness of contemporary anti-racism approaches.

This study explores the factors influencing the value of enterprise social media (ESM) from the perspective of compatibility. Establishing a theoretical model based on compatibility theory, the authors examine the effects of two dimensions of compatibility and the mediating effects of employees' intrinsic motivations. ESM is an important tool that helps companies to enhance knowledge sharing and cross-department collaboration. Thus, it is important to understand factors that can facilitate the role of ESM in improving enterprise operating performance.

The authors conducted a survey among 353 users of a leading ESM platform and empirically investigated how compatibility influences ESM value through employees' intrinsic motivations. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was applied to study the relationship among compatibility, employees' intrinsic motivations and ESM value.

The empirical research results indicate that compatibility of self-interest with group interest influences the value of ESM, and intrinsic motivations toward collaboration and toward knowledge management partially mediate the effects of the two dimensions of compatibility on ESM value.

First, the empirical analysis relies on data from surveying employees of Chinese companies. Therefore, one direction for future research is to reexamine the model using data from other countries. Second, the effects of compatibility identified in the study may vary among different ESM platforms. In addition, the findings may change for organizations having different sizes.

This finding suggests that managers should pay close attention to potential conflicts of interest when implementing ESM to enhance group communication and collaboration. This study also highlights the importance of compatibility of new working processes with experience in practice. In addition, intrinsic motivations towards both cooperation and knowledge management in ESM are important factors influencing the value creation of ESM. Therefore, to cultivate employees' intrinsic motivation, managers and organizations need to facilitate the formation of a collaborative atmosphere and habits of cooperative adoption.

Although previous studies show that compatibility is a strong belief salient to technology acceptance and continuance usage behavior, the operational definition of compatibility developed by prior studies has generally been limited to the technology perspective and the individual level. However, the primary benefit of ESM is enabling online team collaboration and knowledge sharing across various departments. Thus, the level of compatibility between employees' self-interests and group interests may influence their intrinsic motivations toward ESM usage. From this perspective of individual–group interest conflicts, the authors propose a conceptual research model based on the theory of compatibility in innovation diffusion.

Given the growing importance of religious tourism, the purpose of this paper is to present a review of the literature around the area.

All papers with the term “religious tourism” have been searched via Emerald Insight from January 2006 to December 2017. The search was run in June 2017 for the last time and all early cite papers falling under the criteria were also included. This has ensured that key literature produced after the seminal work by Timothy and Olsen (Eds) (2006) has been reviewed. Certain exclusions apply which have been listed in the paper.

Key themes from the literature on religious tourism along with new developments and overlaps with other tourism sectors have been highlighted.

This paper reviews literature spanning more than a decade on religious tourism.

The purpose of this paper is to introduce a computational time dependent modeling to investigate propagation of elastic-viscoplastic zones in the shock wave loaded circular plates.

Constitutive equations are implemented incrementally by the Von-Kármán finite deflection system which is coupled with a mixed strain hardening rule and physical-base viscoplastic models. Time integrations of the equations are done by the return mapping technique through the cutting-plane algorithm. An integrated solution is established by pseudo-spectral collocation methodology. The Chebyshev basis functions are utilized to evaluate the coefficients of displacement fields. Temporal terms are discretized by the Houbolt marching method. Spatial linearizations are accomplished by the quadratic extrapolation technique.

Results of the center point deflections, effective plastic strain and stress (dynamic flow stress) and temperature rise are compared for three features of the Von-Kármán system. Identifying time history of resultant stresses, propagations of the viscoplastic plastic zones are illustrated for two circumstances; with considering strain rate and hardening effects, and without them. Some of modeling and computation aspects are discussed, carefully. When the results are compared with experimental data of shock wave loadings and finite element simulations, good agreements between them are observed.

This computational approach makes coupling the structural equations with the physical descriptions of the high rate deformation through step-by-step spectral solution of the constitutive equations.

Many laws have been derived from the religions' legislations and many of them do not have the capability of uniqueness and publicity, due to a variety of reasons, especially at the level of countries. However, the spirit of legislations is the same and unique in all religions and it is the Tariqah (Sufi path), Sufism, mysticism and ethical beliefs that have been stable and unchangeable for millenniums, and wisdom has accepted and accepts them in all times and locations. Thus, if the international public law is to be defined and designed upon the base of the unique religions' spirit, we will reach a unique law with most publicity. This paper aims to address these issues.

This paper explores the foundation of public international law from the theosophy approach of Islamic Sufism and mysticism.

By raising 38 principles, the paper proposes basic principles of important public international law subjects to prepare a backbone for recompilation of new law in this subject matter.

Comparative researches in other religions' Gnosticism will be helpful.

These principles can be used for applied debates in the field and become new international law.

Delicateness, truthfulness, and righteousness of Islamic Sufism may turn the attentions of scholars and researchers to this viewpoint, and a new set of laws to be codified.

Public international law scholars have not touched the topic from a Sufi viewpoint. This paper opens new challenging arena for those who are engaged in.