Analytical study on couple stress flow of GO-EG and GO-W nanofluid over an extending cylinder along with variable viscosity.

The main goal of this research is to present the concept of enhancing heat transfer within emerging technology. To achieve this, tiny metal and nonmetal particles ranging from 1 to 100 nm in size are introduced into base liquids. These nanoscale particles are utilized to improve the thermal performance of the liquids, leading to what are termed nanofluids. The utilization of these fluids and the examination of the flow of thin films have valuable implications across various sectors such as engineering, technology, and industries. This research focuses on analyzing the convective flow behavior of nanofluids, specifically, graphene oxide-ethylene glycol (GO-EG) and graphene oxide-water (GO-W) on a moving surface. The study investigates the impacts of magnetic fields and varying viscosity. By making use of the thermophysical characteristics of the base fluid and the nanofluid, as well as implementing a similarity transformation within the fundamental equations that govern energy and momentum, we formulate a 5th order nonlinear ordinary differential equation (NODE) to describe the velocity profile. This is combined with a second-order NODE that describes the distribution of temperature. To solve this derived NODE, we employ a method known as the Homotopy Analysis Method (HAM) for analytical solution. The impact of the relevant factors, Prandtl number, including magnetic field parameter, thickness of the liquid, couple stress parameter, temperature distribution, dynamic viscosity, and Eckert number, on the skin friction, velocity profile, and Nusselt's number are interrogated through graphical representation. The velocity field exhibits a decline as the couple stress parameter, magnetic field parameter, liquid thickness, and dynamic viscosity experience an increase. Conversely, the temperature field displays a rise as the Eckert number and dynamic viscosity experience an increase. To ensure the convergence of the issue, dual solutions of the problem are employed, and this is verified through the utilization graphs and tables. Due to the considerable challenge encountered in heat transfer applications for cooling diverse equipment and devices across industries like automotive, microelectronics, defense, and manufacturing, there is a strong expectation that this theoretical methodology could make a favorable contribution towards enhancing heat transfer efficiency. This improvement is sought to meet the requirements of the manufacturing and engineering sectors.

Entropy generation in magneto couple stress bionanofluid flow containing gyrotactic microorganisms towards a stagnation point on a stretching/shrinking sheet.

The study focuses on the behavior of an electrically conducting non-Newtonian fluid with couple stress properties, using water-based bionanofluid. The fluid is analyzed as it flows across a porous stretching/shrinking sheet within its own plane. This Study also explores the Bejan Number and Entropy Generation. To facilitate this investigation, the governing nonlinear partial differential equations undergo a transformation, wherein they are converted into nonlinear ordinary differential equations through a suitable similarity transformation. An ideal strategy has been employed to achieve the desired results from the modeled challenge. The Homotopy Analysis Method is applied to determine the solution of the system of differential equations. The convergence of the applied method and their comparison with the numerical method are described through graphs and tables. The main features of the different profiles are briefly described. Graphs are used to analyze the impact of the Bejan number, concentration, temperature, velocity profile, and entropy production rate. Tables present the characteristics of skin friction, Nusselt, and Sherwood numbers for various limitations. The stretching and ambient fluid velocities should fluctuate linearly as the distance from the stagnation point increases. A rise in the magnetic and porosity parameters is accompanied by an increase in the velocity profile. While the velocity profile falls off as a Couple of fluid parameters are increased. The phenomenon of temperature boost is observed to be positively correlated with the increase in Brownian motion parameter while exhibiting no significant dependence on other parameters such as Brinkman number, Prandtl number Lewis number and Thermophoresis parameter. Entropy generation increases with the Brinkman number while decreasing with the radiation parameter and diffusion parameter as is plainly demonstrated.

Stability of magnetohydrodynamics free convective micropolar thermal liquid movement over an exponentially extended curved surface.

Micro polar fluids have a wide variety of applications in biomedical, manufacturing, and technical activities, such as nuclear structures, biosensors, electronic heating and cooling, etc. The aim of this study is to investigate the properties of heat transfer on a magnetohydrodynamic free convection movement of micro polar fluid over an exponentially stretchable curved surface. The flow is non-turbulent and steady. The effects of Joule heating, varying thermal conductivity, irregular heat reservoir, and non-linear radiation are anticipated. The modelled PDEs are converted to ODEs via transformation, and the integration problems are then addressed using ND-Solve method along with bvp4c package. It is observed that velocity is reduced and the micro rotation field is increased as the micro rotation parameter is increased. It is witnessed that the temperature of the fluid enhances as the Eckert number is augmented. The velocity is increasing function of the curvature parameter while the decreases with increasing magnetic factor. The distribution of temperature is improved by a rise in temperature-dependent thermal conductivity characteristic. It is investigated that as the values of temperature ratio, Prandtl number, and the Biot number are increased the temperature distribution is enhanced. For the stability of the numerical results, the mean square residue error (MSRE) and total mean square residue error (TMSRE) are computed. For the confirmation of the present analysis, a comparison is done with the published study and excellent settlement is found.

Numerical treatment of thermal nanofluid flow for energy enhancement over a porous stretching sheet impact of slip and buoyancy force.

The advancement of nanofluid innovation is a crucial area of research for physicists, mathematicians, manufacturers, and materials scientists. In engineering and industries, the fluid velocity caused by stretching sheets and nanofluids has a lot of applications such as refrigerators, chips, heat exchangers, hybrid mechanical motors, food development, and so on. The originality of the current study is the analysis of the thermal nanofluid in the existence of a porous matrix, and buoyancy force over the stretched sheet, so in limiting cases, the existing work is equated with the available effort, and excellent correspondence is originated. The governing equations in terms of PDEs are changed to the convection differential by utilizing the appropriate transformation and then solved by the ND-solved method along with bvph2. The thermal boundary layer thickness upsurges as the radiation and temperature factors are improved. It is observed that with the growing amount of volume fraction factor the velocity profile declines. When the velocity slip factors and permeability are enhanced the velocity profile augments. It is examined as the values of permeability factor, Biot number, and velocity slip factor are increased the inner temperature of the fluid improves. For the increasing values of θ_r, ϕ, and Nr, the temperature is increasing. In the future, the present model can be extended by using the hybrid nanofluid for the activation of thermal conductivity and heat enhancement analysis.

Membrane-based nanoconfined heterogeneous catalysis for water purification: A critical review✰.

Progress in heterogeneous advanced oxidation processes (AOPs) is hampered by several issues including mass transfer limitation, limited diffusion of short-lived reactive oxygen species (ROS), aggregation of nanocatalysts, and loss of nanocatalysts to treated water. These issues have been addressed in recent studies by executing the heterogeneous AOPs in confinement, especially in the nanopores of catalytic membranes. Under nanoconfinement (preferably at the length of less than 25 nm), the oxidant-nanocatalyst interaction, ROS-micropollutant interaction and diffusion of ROS have been observed to significantly improve, which results in enhanced ROS yield and mass transfer, improved reaction kinetics and reduced matrix effect as compared to conventional heterogenous AOP configuration. Given the significance of nanoconfinement effect, this study presents a critical review of the current status of membrane-based nanoconfined heterogeneous catalysis system for the first time. A succinct overview of the nanoconfinement concept in the context of membrane-based nanofluidic platforms is provided to elucidate the theoretical and experimental findings related to reaction kinetics, reaction mechanisms and molecule transport in membrane-based nanoconfined AOPs vs. conventional AOPs. In addition, strategies to construct membrane-based nanoconfined catalytic systems are explained along with conflicting arguments/opinions, which provides critical information on the viability of these strategies and future research directions. To show the desirability and applicability of membrane-based nanoconfined catalysis systems, performance governing factors including operating conditions and water matrix effect are particularly focused. Finally, this review presents a systematic account of the opportunities and technological constraints in the development of membrane-based nanoconfined catalytic platform to realize effective micropollutant elimination in water treatment.

Analysis of second grade hybrid nanofluid flow over a stretching flat plate in the presence of activation energy.

The research of fluid containing nanoparticles for the heat transport characteristics is very famous because of its variety of real-life applications in various thermal systems. Although the thermal efficiency of the nanofluid was effective but still the nano scientists were trying to introduce some new advance class of fluid. Therefore, an advance class of fluid is developed by the dispersion of two different nano sized particles in the conventional base fluid known as "Hybrid nanofluid" which is more effective compared to simple nanofluids in many engineering and industrial applications. Therefore, motivated from the hybrid type of nanofluids in the current research we have taken two-dimensional laminar and steady flow of second grade fluid passing through porous plate. The engine oil base fluid is widely used fluid in the engineering and industrial problems. Keeping these applications in mind the engine oil is considered and two different nanoparticles Copper and aluminum oxide are added in ordered to get the required thermal characteristics. In addition to this the thermal radiation, chemical reaction, activation energy, Brownian motion and thermophoresis are also addressed during the current research. The present proposed higher-order PDE's is transformed to the non-linear system of ODE's. For the solution of the proposed high non-linear model HAM method is employed. As the hybrid nanofluid are highlighted on the second-grade fluid flow over a horizontal porous flat plate. During the present analysis and experimental study, it has been proved that the performance of hybrid nanofluid is efficient in many situations compared to nanofluid and regular fluid. For physical interpretation all the flow parameters are discussed through graphs. The impact of volume fraction is also addressed through graphs. Moreover, the comparative analysis between hybrid and nanofluid is carried out and found that hybrid nanofluid performed well as compared to nanofluid and regular fluid. The engineering quantities obtained from the present research have been presented in tables.

Bibliometric Analysis of the Research on the Impact of Environmental Regulation on Green Technology Innovation Based on CiteSpace.

With increasing environmental regulation (ER), the requirements for green technology innovation (GTI) in enterprises are also rising. However, there are relatively few systematic summaries of the themes of ER-affecting GTI. Adopting the method of bibliometrics and visual analysis, this research discusses the status of research and development trends of ER-affecting GTI and summarizes the research in this field. The paper takes 738 papers from 2001 to 2021 in the core database of Web of Science as the research sample. Based on CiteSpace, this paper makes a visual analysis of the number of published papers, institutions, authors, keywords, countries (regions) and journals. The study found that to some extent, favorable collaboration between authors and institutions in this field needs to be strengthened. Research hotspots in this field include innovation, technology, performance, policy and environmental regulation. Renewable energy consumption, the pollution haven hypothesis, sustainable development, carbon dioxide emission, energy technology and environmental Kuznets curve are the current research frontiers in this field. In terms of the number of published papers, research in this field has been conducted in a national (regional) layout with China as the core force, and Italy, America, Britain, Germany and other European countries as important forces. This field covers three main research areas: enterprise performance, policy instruments and research methods, going through the start-up phase (2001-2011), the growth phase (2012-2018) and the development phase (2019-2021). Future research can further incorporate the digital economy and synergy of multiple environmental regulation policies into this field, which will continuously enrich the theoretical research system in this field. The content, methods and conclusions of research in this field are becoming increasingly diverse.

Microbial degradation of low density polyethylene by Exiguobacterium sp. strain LM-IK2 isolated from plastic dumped soil.

Low-Density Polyethylene (LDPE) is one of the significant environmental pollutants as it is resistant to natural degradation. In this study, we reported the LDPE-degrading bacterial strain i.e., Exiguobacterium sp. strain LM-IK2 isolated from plastic dumped soil which shows potential degradation capability. The percent weight loss of LDPE was calculated as - 5.70 ± 0.7 after 90 days of incubation in a carbon-free MSM medium. The Field Emission Scanning Electron Microscopy (FE-SEM) analysis shows that LDPE films show slight surface disruption after treatment with bacteria. The Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR) revealed the chemical changes in LDPE films e.g., formation and reduction of typical carbonyl peaks after incubation with bacteria. The X-Ray Diffraction (XRD) analysis displayed an increase in percent crystallinity, with a slight change in total carbon content. Genetic analysis showed the presence of Laccase (167 bp) and Alkane Hydroxylase (330 bp) genes that are responsible for LDPE degradation. Thus, Exiguobacterium sp. strain LM-IK2 has the potential to degrade LDPE and could be further explored to improve its efficiency in the bioremediation of LDPE.

Bidirectional flow of MHD nanofluid with Hall current and Cattaneo-Christove heat flux toward the stretching surface.

Vacuum pump oil (VPO) is used as a lubricant in pumps of different machines. The rate of heat transport is a fundamental requirement of all phenomena. To enhance the rate of heat transmission and reduce the amount of energy consumed as a result of high temperatures. For this reason, the vacuum pump oil (VPO) is taken as a base fluid and Fe3O4 is the nanoparticles suspended in VPO. That's why, the present study inspected the consequence of Hall current, Joule heating effect and variable thickness on these three-dimensional magnetohydrodynamics bidirectional flow of nanoliquid past on a stretchable sheet. Further, the Cattaneo-Christove heat flux and radiation impacts are also considered. The VPO-Fe3O4 nanofluid model is composed of momentum equations in x-direction, y-direction and temperature equations. The leading higher-order non-linear PDEs of the current study have been changed into non-linear ODEs with the implementation of appropriate similarity transformations. The procedure of the homotopy analysis method is hired on the resulting higher-order non-linear ODEs along with boundary conditions for the analytical solution. The significance of distinct flow parameters on the velocities in x-direction, y-direction and temperature profiles of the nanofluid have been encountered and briefly explained in a graphical form. Some important findings of the present modelling are that with the increment of nanoparticles volume fraction the nanofluid velocities in x-direction and y-direction are increased. It is also detected that higher estimations of magnetic field parameter, Prandtl number and thermal relaxation time parameter declined the nanofluid temperature. During this examination of the model, it is found that the Fe3O4-Vacuum pump oil (VPO) nanofluid enhanced the rate of heat transfer. Also, the vacuum pump oil (VPO) has many industrial and engineering applications. The current study will help to improve the rate of heat transmission by taking this into account due to which working machines will do better performance and the loss of useful energy will be decayed. Lastly, the skin friction coefficient and Nusselt number are also illustrated in a tabular form. Some major findings according to the numerical computation of the problem are that the enhancing estimations of magnetic parameter, nanoparticles volume fraction and wall thickness parameter augmented the skin friction coefficient in x-direction and Nusselt number. The reduction in skin friction coefficient of the nanofluid in y-direction is examined for Hall current and shape parameter.

Numerical computation of 3D Brownian motion of thin film nanofluid flow of convective heat transfer over a stretchable rotating surface.

This research examines the thin-film nanomaterial movement in three dimensions over a stretchable rotating inclined surface. Similarity variables are used to transform fundamental systems of equations into a set of first-order differential equations. The Runge-Kutta Fourth Order approach is utilized for numerical computations. The impact of embedded parameters (variable thickness, unsteadiness, Prandtl number, Schmidt number, Brownian-motion, and thermophoretic) is examined carefully. Physically and statistically, the indispensable terms namely Nusselt and Sherwood numbers are also investigated. Results indicated that, as the dimensionless parameter S raises, the temperature field decreases. In reality, as the values of S increases, heat transmission rate from the disc to the flowing fluid reduces. Internal collisions of liquid particles are physically hampered at a low rate. The momentum boundary layer is cooled when the parameter S is increased, as a consequence local Nusselt number rises. Sherwood number decreases as the parameter S increases because of inter collision of the microscopic fluid particles. Enhancing in the apparent viscosity and concentrations of the chemical reactions, a higher Schmidt number, Sc, lowers the Sherwood number. With increasing values of Prandtl number the Nusselt number decreases. For validation purpose, the RK4 method is also compared with homotopy analysis method (HAM). The results are further verified by establishing an excellent agreement with published data.

RK4 and HAM Solutions of Eyring-Powell Fluid Coating Material with Temperature-Dependent-Viscosity Impact of Porous Matrix on Wire Coating Filled in Coating Die: Cylindrical Co-ordinates.

In this work, we studied the impacts of transmitting light, nonlinear thermal, and micropolar fluid mechanics on a wire surface coating utilizing non-Newtonian viscoelastic flow. Models with temperature-dependent variable viscosity were used. The boundary layer equations governing the flow and heat transport processes were solved using the Runge-Kutta fourth order method. A distinguished constituent of this study was the use of a porous matrix that acted as an insulator to reduce heat loss. In this paper we discuss the effects of numerous development parameters, including ß0, Q, m, Ω, Kp, and Br (non-Newtonian parameter, heat-producing parameter, viscosity parameter, variable viscosity parameter, porosity parameter, and Brinkman number, respectively). Furthermore, the effects of two other parameters, D and M, are also discussed as they relate to velocity and temperature distributions. We observed that the velocity profiles decreased with increasing values of Kp. Fluid velocity increased as the values of M, Br, N, and D increased, while it decreased when the values of Kp, Q and D increased. For increasing values of M, the temperature profile showed increasing behavior, while Br and Q showed decreasing behavior. Furthermore, the present work is validated by comparison with HAM and previously published work, with good results.

Consumer's Satisfaction with Community Pharmacies in Sindh, Pakistan.

OBJECTIVE: The present research is the first comprehensive cross-sectional study of consumer satisfaction with community pharmacies in Sindh, Pakistan. Moreover, the study has also designed a nonorder theoretical model for consumer satisfaction with community pharmacies. METHODS: This is a cross-sectional descriptive study from a general population of Sindh, Pakistan, with a total of four hundred and fifteen (n = 415) participants. A confirmatory factor analysis was used to verify the factor structure between Pharmaceutical services (PS), the Skill of Pharmacists, Non-pharmaceutical services (NPS), and pricing (P). Pearson correlation analysis, Kendall's tau correlation analysis, and Spearman's rho correlation analysis were used to identify the correlation between different factors, such as PS, SKP, NPS, and P. FINDINGS: The 23-item scale that consisted of four elements have shown an acceptable root mean squared error of approximation (0.076), Cronbach's alpha (0.787), and Chi-square value (3.381) (P < 0.001). Of the respondents, 56.4% rated their satisfaction on pharmacist attitude, whereas 67.2%, 41.4%, and 51.8% were satisfied with other services, such as receipt provided on medication they take, prescription drug service and availability of pharmacies on the weekend and public holidays, respectively. CONCLUSION: This cross-sectional study confirms that there are relationships among PS, SPK, NPS, and P. Moreover, there is a lack of facilities in community pharmacies in Sindh, such as the unavailability of a consultation room, immunization services, information on routine health matters, and medication record.

Computational optimization for the deposition of bioconvection thin Oldroyd-B nanofluid with entropy generation.

The behavior of an Oldroyd-B nanoliquid film sprayed on a stretching cylinder is investigated. The system also contains gyrotactic microorganisms with heat and mass transfer flow. Similarity transformations are used to make the governing equations non-dimensional ordinary differential equations and subsequently are solved through an efficient and powerful analytic technique namely homotopy analysis method (HAM). The roles of all dimensionless profiles and spray rate have been investigated. Velocity decreases with the magnetic field strength and Oldroyd-B nanofluid parameter. Temperature is increased with increasing the Brownian motion parameter while it is decreased with the increasing values of Prandtl and Reynolds numbers. Nanoparticle's concentration is enhanced with the higher values of Reynolds number and activation energy parameter. Gyrotactic microorganism density increases with bioconvection Rayleigh number while it decreases with Peclet number. The film size naturally increases with the spray rate in a nonlinear way. A close agreement is achieved by comparing the present results with the published results.

The Inter-Relation of Corporate Social Responsibility at Employee Level, Servant Leadership, and Innovative Work Behavior in the Time of Crisis from the Healthcare Sector of Pakistan.

Organizational crisis can serve as a base to provide an opportunity to an organization for enhancing individuals, organizations, and communities. The healthcare sector is one of those sectors that remains under continuous pressure to provide high-quality service delivery to the patients. Hence, the requirement of innovation for this sector is huge when compared to other sectors. The majority of the previous studies have investigated the phenomenon of CSR at the employee's level (CSR-E) to influence employee behavior positively. However, the importance of CSR-E to enhance the innovative capability of the employees at the workplace is not well-explored in extant literature. Moreover, it is not clear from previous studies how the concept of servant leadership can explain the employee's engagement towards innovative work behavior (EIB). Thus, the current survey aims to test the relationship of CSR-E and EIB in the healthcare sector of Pakistan with the mediating effect of servant leadership. The data of the current study were obtained through a self-administered (paper-pencil) survey and they were analyzed through the structural equation modeling (SEM) technique. The empirical results of SEM analysis revealed that CSR-E and EIB are positively related and servant leadership partially mediates this relationship. The findings of the current study will be helpful for policymakers to improve their understanding towards CSR-E to induce EIB in the time of crisis. At the same time, the current study also highlights the importance of servant leadership to the policymakers in encouraging the employees to display their innovative capability at the workplace to serve their organization during the time of crisis.

Dynamics of water conveying zinc oxide through divergent-convergent channels with the effect of nanoparticles shape when Joule dissipation are significant.

AIM OF STUDY: The shape effects of nanoparticles are very significant in fluid flow and heat transfer. In this paper, we discuss the effects of nanoparticles shape in nanofluid flow between divergent-convergent channels theoretically. In this present study, various shapes of nanoparticles, namely sphere, column and lamina in zinc oxide-water nanofluid are used. The effect of the magnetic field and joule dissipation are also considered. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY: The system of nonlinear partial differential equations (PDEs) is converted into ordinary differential equations (ODES). The analytical solutions are successfully obtained and compared with numerical solutions. The Homotopy perturbation method and NDsolve method are used to compare analytical and numerical results respectively. CONCLUSION: The results show that the lamina shape nanoparticles have higher performance in temperature disturbance and rate of heat transfer as compared to other shapes of nanoparticles.

Chemically reactive MHD micropolar nanofluid flow with velocity slips and variable heat source/sink.

The two-dimensional electrically conducting magnetohydrodynamic flow of micropolar nanofluid over an extending surface with chemical reaction and secondary slips conditions is deliberated in this article. The flow of nanofluid is treated with heat source/sink and nonlinear thermal radiation impacts. The system of equations is solved analytically and numerically. Both analytical and numerical approaches are compared with the help of figures and tables. In order to improve the validity of the solutions and the method convergence, a descriptive demonstration of residual errors for various factors is presented. Also the convergence of an analytical approach is shown. The impacts of relevance parameters on velocity, micro-rotation, thermal, and concentration fields for first- and second-order velocity slips are accessible through figures. The velocity field heightens with the rise in micropolar, micro-rotation, and primary order velocity parameters, while other parameters have reducing impact on the velocity field. The micro-rotation field reduces with micro-rotation, secondary order velocity slip, and micropolar parameters but escalates with the primary order velocity slip parameter. The thermal field heightens with escalating non-uniform heat sink/source, Biot number, temperature ratio factor, and thermal radiation factor. The concentration field escalates with the increasing Biot number, while reduces with heightening chemical reaction and Schmidt number. The assessment of skin factor, thermal transfer, and mass transfer are calculated through tables.

Radiative mixed convection flow of maxwell nanofluid over a stretching cylinder with joule heating and heat source/sink effects.

This work analyses thermal effect for a mixed convection flow of Maxwell nanofluid spinning motion produced by rotating and bidirectional stretching cylinder. Impacts of Joule heating and internal heat source/sink are also taken into account for current investigation. Moreover, the flow is exposed to a uniform magnetic field with convective boundary conditions. The modeled equations are converted to set of ODEs through group of similar variables and are then solved by using semi analytical technique HAM. It is observed in this study that, velocity grows up with enhancing values of Maxwell, mixed convection parameters and reduces with growing values of magnetic parameter. Temperature jumps up with increasing values of heat source, Eckert number, Brownian motion,thermophoresis parameter and jumps down with growing values of Prandtl number and heat sink. The concentration is a growing function of thermophoresis parameter and a reducing function of Brownian motion and Schmidt number.

Micropolar gold blood nanofluid flow and radiative heat transfer between permeable channels.

This article characterizes flow and heat transmission of blood that carries the micropolar nanofluid of gold in a permeable channel. The thermal radiations are also present in the channel while its walls are either moving or stationary. The base-fluid is considered as blood while micro polar nanofluid is taken as gold. By using similarity transformations along with dimensionless quantities the modeled equations of the problem are transmuted into a system of non-linear ODEs with a set of appropriate boundary conditions. The semi-analytical method, HAM is then applied to determine the solution of a set of resultant equations. The results obtained by HAM have also compared with numerical solutions. The influence of non-dimensional parameters like fractional parameter suction/injection ß, Reynolds Number Re, Darcys Number Da, micropolar parameter  K, Prandtl number Pr and Radiation parameter Rd etc., which provides physical interpretations of temperature, microrotation n and velocity fields are discussed in detail with the help of graphical representations. Nusselt number is calculated and presented through table. This study determined that the temperature of micropolar nanofluid augmented along with augmentation in the volume fraction. Radiation Rd augmented the heat transfer rate at the upper wall and reduce it at the lower wall. The suction/injection parameter 'ß' reduces the heat transfer rate in case of ß < 0 at the upper wall, where it is augmented at lower wall.

Consumer preferences toward organic food and the moderating role of knowledge: a case of Pakistan and Malaysia / Fatores que afetam as preferências do consumidor na intenção de compra de alimentos orgânicos e o papel moderador do conhecimento no Paquistão e na Malásia

ABSTRACT: The present study aimed to identify the elements of the Theory of Planned Behaviour along with health consciousness and determine the role of knowledge as a moderating variable in Pakistan and Malaysia. Three hundred and forty-one observations from Pakistan and 280 observations from Malaysia were acquired through questionnaire; while, confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modelling was applied for the analysis. The magnitude of the results varied across both countries; however, attitude, subjective norms and health consciousness, as well as their interaction terms, were significant predictors, whereas, perceived behavioural control and its knowledge interaction terms had insignificant impacts on the purchase intentions of consumers for both countries. This research will help to further understand about consumer perception in the purchase of organic food items, which will assist retailers, advertisers and manufacturers in developing strategies for such products.

RESUMO: O presente estudo teve como objetivo identificar os elementos da teoria do comportamento planejado juntamente com a consciência em saúde, e determinar o papel do conhecimento como uma variável moderadora no Paquistão e na Malásia. 341 observações do Paquistão e 280 observações da Malásia foram adquiridas através de questionário; enquanto que análise fatorial confirmatória e modelagem de equações estruturais foram aplicadas para a análise. A magnitude dos resultados variou entre os dois países. No entanto, atitudes, normas subjetivas e consciência da saúde, bem como seus termos de interação, foram preditores significativos, enquanto que controle comportamental percebido e seus termos de interação do conhecimento tiveram impactos insignificantes nas intenções de compra dos consumidores para os dois países. Esta pesquisa ajudará a entender melhor a percepção do consumidor na compra de alimentos orgânicos, o que ajudará varejistas, anunciantes e fabricantes no desenvolvimento de estratégias para esses produtos.

A proof of concept study for wastewater reuse using bioelectrochemical processes combined with complementary post-treatment technologies.

This article describes a proof-of-concept study designed for the reuse of wastewater using microbial electrochemical cells (MECs) combined with complementary post-treatment technologies. This study mainly focused on how the integrated approach works effectively for wastewater reuse. In this study, microalgae and ultraviolet C (UVC) light were used for advanced wastewater treatment to achieve site-specific treatment goals such as agricultural reuse and aquifer recharge. The bio-electrosynthesis of H2O2 in MECs was carried out based on a novel concept to integrate with UVC, especially for roust removal of trace organic compounds (TOrCs) resistant to biodegradation, and the algal treatment was configured for nutrient removal from MEC effluent. UVC irradiation has also proven to be an effective disinfectant for bacteria, protozoa, and viruses in water. The average energy consumption rate for MECs fed acetate-based synthetic wastewater was 0.28±0.01 kWh per kg of H2O2, which was significantly more efficient than are conventional electrochemical processes. MECs achieved 89±2% removal of carbonaceous organic matter (measured as chemical oxygen demand) in the wastewater (anolyte) and concurrent production of H2O2 up to 222±11 mg L-1 in the tapwater (catholyte). The nutrients (N and P) remaining after MECs were successfully removed by subsequent phycoremediation with microalgae when aerated (5% CO2, v/v) in the light. This complied with discharge permits that limit N to 20 mg L-1 and P to 0.5 mg L-1 in the effluent. H2O2 produced on site was used to mediate photolytic oxidation with UVC light for degradation of recalcitrant TOrCs in the algal-treated wastewater. Carbamazepine was used as a model compound and was almost completely removed with an added 10 mg L-1 of H2O2 at a UVC dose of 1000 mJ cm-2. These results should not be generalized, but critically discussed, because of the limitations of using synthetic wastewater.