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Nanomaterials became targeted materials for many important applications due to its huge surface area and quantum confinement effects. In this work TiO2 nanoparticles (30nm) were used as additive to enhance the corrosion protection of steel rebar in artificial concrete solution (Ca(OH)2 (2g), KOH (22.44mg), NaOH (8mg) in 1L of distilled water) against saline environment (3.5%NaCl) at four temperatures; 20, 30, 40, and 50á´¼C. Three different concentrations of TiO2 NPs were used namely; 1, 3, and 5% by weight. The corrosion parameters and pitting probability were followed using Tafel and cyclic polarization plots respectively. Protection enhancement was recorded at all TiO2 percent used and efficiencies of 75-86% were achieved. Using TiO2 NPs reduces but not diminished the pitting hysterias loop area. The results supported by surface morphology examination using atomic force microscope (AFM).

Internally generated revenue is one the sources of revenue open to the local governments. These revenues are generated within the confines of the local government mostly through services provided to the local population. This source of revenue required some efforts to carryout such as administrative expenses like consultancy fees and stationeries. In the past, little efforts have been geared towards investigating the efficiency of revenue collection and the cost involved, as efficiency is a major criterion in the revenue collection. Therefore, this paper dwells into the relationship between the internal source of local government revenue, and the costs involved in the generation of the revenue to measure the degree of efficiency in the revenue administration. The study used survey questionnaire administered to the revenue section of local governments in North Central Nigeria to seek their opinion on the research question of whether the administrative cost of revenue impacts on the rate of revenue generated. The study applied chi-square statistical method to analyse the result of the questionnaire. From the result, where the null hypothesis was rejected shows that there is a relationship between the rate of administrative cost and revenue generated. Therefore, the study concludes that it becomes necessary for the local government to become more efficient in their revenue generating capacity due to the dwindling nature of funds from the center.

The organic salts are a broad class of ionic chemicals with a variety of properties. Scientists have an interest in violurate salts because of their bright color and crystal structure. In this study, 4-chloroanilinium violurate salt was synthesized and identification using infrared spectroscopy, 13C NMR spectroscopy and Electrospray ionization (ESI). Density functional theory (DFT) calculations have been performed using B3LYP/6-31++G**, and CAM-B3LYP/6-31++G** levels of theory. Practically, chloroanilinium ion (M+H)+ has a relative abundance of 100% in ESI+, indicating its excellent stability. The protonation formula for violuric acid (VA+H)+ shows instability, despite the observation of a low abundance of the (VA+3H)3+ ion. DFT calculations demonstrate the exothermic nature of the salt formation reaction. The calculated enthalpy change is -26.861kJ in the B3LYP/6-31++G** level of theory and -31.82kJ in the CAM-B3LYP/6-31++G** level of theory

Present study investigates the protective role of quercetin in reducing benzene-induced toxicity in rats. Sixteen adult rats, weighing 200-250 g, were selected. They were divided into four groups: 1. Control group, 2. Benzene inhaled group, 3. Quercetin group and 4. Group of benzene and quercetin in combination. Biochemical, spermatological parameters, and histopathological changes in lungs were recorded. Results of aspartate aminotransferase (AST), alanine aminotransferase (ALT), alkaline phosphatase (ALP), urea and creatinine levels in the serum of rats were higher in benzene exposed rats than in unexposed rats. Conversely, exposure to benzene led to a decrease in sperm quality compared to the unexposed rats. Histopathological examinations of the lung tissues revealed structural changes in exposed rats, including emphysema, thinning of the wall of the alveolar sac, congestion between the alveolar sacs and more elasticity in the wall of smooth muscles. The present study showed that quercetin treatment can reverse the negative effects of benzene in approximately all studied parameters and showed amelioration in the histological anomalies induced by benzene toxicity.

The undertaken study includes investigating the performance and effluent characteristics of the treatment plant of Al-Doura refinery. Influent concentrations for some important contaminants, which are TDS, oil and grease, TSS, COD, BOD, and turbidity were 2595 mg/L, 13934 mg/L, 466.45 mg/L, 2538.9 mg/L, 1739.2 mg/L, and 89.18 NTU, respectively, while the effluent concentrations were 1337.8 mg/L, 0.53mg/L, 21.7mg/L, 25.45 mg/L, 17.81 mg/L, and 7.08 NTU, respectively, giving removal efficiencies of 44.47%, 99.99%, 94.4%, 98.96%, 98.96% and 92.05%, respectively. All these results indicate that Al-Doura wastewater treatment plant was efficient in removing contaminants according to Iraqi and EPA specifications. Hence, the second part of this study concentrated on finding a simple and efficient treatment method to treat the effluent so that it can be reused in the boiler system. A pilot plant was designed and dedicated for this purpose, including three units of granular activated carbon filter, ultra filtration filter, and reverse osmosis filter. Average removal efficiencies of oil and grease, turbidity, COD, and BOD were 85.25%, 100%, 34.92%, and 31.11%, respectively at the granular activated carbon filter, with very low efficiencies for the removal of TDs and conductivity. Ultra filtration showed average removal efficiencies for COD and BOD of 30.81% and 32.31%, respectively. While the average removal efficiencies for TDs and conductivity was very low. The reverse osmosis filter removed TDs and conductivity very efficiently, giving average removal efficiencies of 97.63% and 95.43%, respectively. In addition, it provided good removal percentages for COD and BOD, with values of 61.73% and 64.1%, respectively. A recycling procedure was created and the results were eventually comparable to those conferred by some of the traditional approaches.

Abstract

Aims
Granulosa cells (GCs) are the major cellular component in a follicular microenvironment and play an indispensable role in ovarian function. This study was conducted to investigate the effects of ethanol exposure on the cellular and transcriptional changes of ovarian GCs.


Methods
For this purpose, bovine GCs were exposed to different concentrations of ethanol (0, 50, 100, 200, 500 and 1000) to mimic the effects of alcohol in in vitro. Subsequently, 100 and 1000 mM concentrations were discarded from further experiments, as 100 mM was not different from 50 mM, and 1000 mM was supertoxic to the cells.


Results
The results showed that there was a gradual loss of cell viability with the increase of the ethanol concentration, i.e. lowest viability was observed at the highest concentration (1000 mM), which is further supported by cell proliferation assay. Mitochondrial activity decreased significantly at higher concentrations. The expression of NRF2 decreased significantly (P < 0.05) in ethanol-exposed cells compared with the cells in the control group at the 6-h time point, whereas the expression was increased in 500 mM concentration at the 24-h time point. The expression of antioxidant genes, downstream to Nrf2-pathway activation, showed that overall expression pattern similar to NRF2.


Conclusion
The result of this study prompted us to postulate that ethanol exposure decreases the ability of GCs to handle stress by downregulating the expression of genes involved in Nrf2-pathway.

Let be a ring with 1 and D is a left module over . In this paper, we study the relationship between essentially small quasi-Dedekind modules with scalar and multiplication modules. We show that if D is a scalar small quasi-prime -module, thus D is an essentially small quasi-Dedekind -module. We also show that if D is a faithful multiplication -module, then D is an essentially small prime -module iff is an essentially small quasi-Dedekind ring.

AbstractThe undesirable effect of poor exchange rate policy on economic growth has been firmly established in the literature using various parametric methods of econometric techniques. However, less is known about the prioritization of the exchange rate as a determinant of economic growth using a nonparametric approach. Thus, this study introduced machining learning approach (feature selection, particle swarm optimization—PSO, and genetic algorithm—GA techniques) to evaluate the relative primacy of the exchange rate for sustainable economic growth in Germany, South Africa, and Slovakia using Rodrik model with time series data from 1990 to 2016. The study reveals that GDP per capita is the most crucial variable for economic growth in Germany and South Africa whereas, in Slovakia, the real exchange rate takes precedence over all other determinants of economic growth. That is, exchange rate takes precedence over other factors as a determinant of economic growth in an economy (Slovakia) with the high rate of trade openness while income per capita is the most important determinant of economic growth in economies (Germany and South Africa) with a relatively lower rate of trade openness. This partly supports Rodrik's conclusion. We, therefore, recommend that highly opened economies should focus on viable exchange rate policies, such as undervaluation of currency to enhance sustained economic growth. On the other hand, relatively less open economies should focus on policies that improve income per capita rather than exchange rate policies.

Ijarah Sukuk is becoming one of the most improved products in Islamic finance. It has become an alternative source of financing and liquidity for both private and public sectors. Also, it plays important role in development of the economy of Muslim and no-Muslim countries. The objective of this paper is to clarify the concept of Sukuk Ijarah and discuss its opportunity for economic development of the country. Also, the issues and challenges related to the implementation of Islamic finance particularly Sukuk by the Federal government of Nigeria (FGN) and also as an alternative to conventional bond. The paper adopts content analysis of relevant previous studies. Findings reveal the potential of Sukuk ijarah as an alternative for rapid economic growth and its functional role in attracting government and client to invest in it. Furthermore, the authors observe that misunderstanding among religious leaders is a major challenge to the growth of Islamic banks and implementation of Sukuk in Nigeria. It is recommended that workshops, seminars and conferences are to be organized by Islamic centres, financial institutions and academicians in Universities to spread knowledge and create awareness among Nigerians Muslims and non-Muslims about benefit and advantage of Islamic finance products and Sukuk in particular.

Trade has become a carrier for transporting both clean and dirty (pollution-intensive) goods, services and technologies between countries. While the impact of trade on economic development has been reported in the extant literature, insufficient and inconsistent results exist between pollution-embedded trade and environmental performance. Using the Ordinary Least Squares (OLS), Generalized method of moments and panel quantiles via Moments, this study explored the role of government integrity on trade-environment nexus in the post-Kyoto protocol era for 79 countries between 2008 and 2018. The empirical results suggest that per capita GDP and government integrity improve environmental performance whereas trade impedes it. In the quantile regression model, the effect of government integrity is significant at the median quantiles with a stronger effect in countries with higher environmental performance. The negative effect of trade is not only significant from the lower quantile through the median quantile but decreases in magnitude, tracking from countries with lower to higher environmental performance. While the positive effect of government integrity is significant from the median quantile onwards, the negative effect of trade is only significant in the lower quantile. Robustness analysis from the GMM dynamic panel estimation technique shows that interacting government integrity with trade yields a positive and significant coefficient. Meaning that improved government integrity averts the negative effect of trade on environmental performance. The study suggests that outsourcing the regulations of trade-oriented multinational companies operating in developing economies with weak institutions to global humanitarian organisations such as the United Nations would be the first step to reduce trade-attributable environmental degradation. ; publishedVersion

AbstractWhile extant studies have largely associated environmental degradation with energy sources and energy consumption, the procedure of oil exploration has not been excluded in the discus of environmental sustainability. On this note, the current study examined the effect of per capita energy consumption and urban population for the 14 Organization for Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) members from 1980 to 2017. In addition, the validity of Environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) hypothesis is investigated by using the State‐of‐the‐art second‐generation panel data techniques. The main finding reveals that at an early stage, economic growth endangers the environment by release of pollutant emissions. However, sustained economic growth ameliorates environmental problems. Therefore, study validates the EKC hypothesis for the case of OPEC. Additionally, both energy use per person and urban population adversely affects environmental sustainability. Besides, the findings infer that economic growth brings about an increase in energy consumption and not the other way round. Thus, energy conservation policies aimed at rationing energy consumption and controlling carbon dioxide emissions would hurt economic growth.

As at the end year of 2019, the Covid-19 pandemic outbreak had caused an unparalleled human crisis around the world. The disease is causing not just a health problem but also an economic crisis. Numerous countries fell into meltdown and more people fell into poverty. The government may not be sufficiently and solely able to take the economy back to its track. The concentration has now moved from the spread of the virus to the economic consequences the pandemic brought upon the community. Therefore, the aim of this study is to conceptually explore the role of Islamic Social Finance (ISF) in mitigating the effect of the Covid-19 pandemic on the people and the entire community. The method employed by the study is the review of past literature to enable the study to gain insight into the role of ISF. Based on the insight from literature, the study document that Islamic social finance via zakat and waqf decreases the effect of the Covid-19 pandemic on society. Specifically, the study found based on reviewed literature that zakat is positively associated with a decrease in the effect of the pandemic on the people. Similarly, the study found that waqf is positively related to the decrease of the effect of the Covid-19 pandemic on the people and the entire global economy. The study has contributed to the body of knowledge by looking at the role of ISF in terms of the effect of the Covid-19 crisis on the society which is still an ongoing phenomenon. The study has implication for the government and policy-makers in terms of adopting Islamic social finance principles and products to address the Covid-19 crisis, thereby enhancing the social wellbeing of the people and the development of the global economy