Unravelling trends, patterns and intellectual structure of research on bankruptcy in SMEs: A bibliometric assessment and visualisation.

Despite the burgeoning interest among academics in investigating the factors contributing to the high business failure rate among SMEs (small and medium-sized enterprises), the systematic synthesis of the literature on bankruptcy in SMEs is restricted. This article aims to significantly advance the understanding of the causes and repercussions of bankruptcy in SMEs and the preventative actions that may be taken to avoid it. This review assesses 282 articles from 175 outlets employing quantitative and statistics-based bibliometric tools. This bibliometric assessment helped delineate the citation and publication trends and the top contributors to the domain. The underlying thematic clusters of research on bankruptcy in SMEs were also identified, deciphered and elaborated, along with charting the future research vistas through the lens of theory, context, and methods framework. The authors believe this bibliometric variant of systematic literature review makes a significant contribution to bankruptcy and SME research by highlighting the development of the literature and some of the most active research fronts in the domain by offering insights that were not clasped thoroughly or assessed by prior literature assessments.

Therapeutic benefits of natural oils along with permeation enhancing activity.

The skin is the largest organ of the integumentary system with a multifunctional purpose to protect the body from heat and microbes, regulate body temperature, and act as a sensory organ. A topical dosage form applied on the skin will have to cross the stratum corneum, which would then allow the dosage form to traverse the subsequent layers of the skin. The drug with poor solubility and short half-life would serve as an ideal candidate for its delivery via the transdermal route. This review reports the role of natural oils in enhancing the permeation of drugs through skin as they possess different features like natural origin, favorable penetration enhancement, and partitioning action in the skin. Chemical penetration enhancers have been used widely but are associated with toxicities. Thus, more research should be channelized in the area of extraction of oils from natural sources, along with their active constituents, which can serve as therapeutic alternatives to various disorders and diseases. Natural oils are obtained from leaves, fruits, flowers, seeds, bark, and roots, which have a therapeutic potential as well as penetration enhancing activity. The demerits of oral drug delivery include degradation of drugs in the gastrointestinal tract, addition of taste masking, and coating of tablets, which can be overcome by delivering the drug via the transdermal route. Natural oil contains lipids, flavonoids, and terpenes, which play a significant role in anti-inflammatory and penetration enhancing activity.

Growth, carcass traits, cecal microbial counts, and blood chemistry of meat-type quail fed diets supplemented with humic acid and black cumin seeds.

OBJECTIVE: The present study attempted to determine safe and sufficient growth promoters in poultry feeding. METHODS: A total of 520 seven-day-old quail chicks were randomly allotted to eight treatment groups in a 4×2 factorial design experiment to evaluate the effect of different levels of humic acid (HA) and black cumin (BC) seed and their interactions on growth, carcass traits, gut microbes, and blood chemistry of growing quails. Quails were randomly distributed into 8 groups in a 4×2 factorial design, included 4 HA levels (0, 0.75, 1.5, and 2.25 g/kg diet) and 2 BC levels (0 or 5 g/ kg diet). RESULTS: Increasing HA level associated with a gradual increase in final weight, feed intake and body weight gain along with an improvement in feed conversion ratio. Dietary addition of 5 g BC powder/kg diet gave similar results. The highest level of HA (2.25 g/kg diet) recorded the best values of carcass weight, breast yield, intestinal length, and intestinal weight comparing with the control and other HA levels. Total viable microbial counts decreased (p<0.05) with increasing levels of HA except the intermediate level (1.5 g/kg diet). The concentration of serum cholesterol and low density lipoprotein (excluding that 0.75 g HA) decreased (p<0.05) and high density lipoprotein increased (p = 0.034) along with increasing HA level. The interaction between the 2.25 g HA×5 g gave the best results regarding most studied parameters. CONCLUSION: These findings indicated that HA combined with BC could be used as effective growth promoters, with the recommended level being 2.25 g HA+5 g BC/kg of quail diet.