Hyaluronic Acid Allows Enzyme Immobilization for Applications in Biomedicine

Enzymes are proteins that control the efficiency and effectiveness of biological reactions and systems, as well as of engineered biomimetic processes. This review highlights current applications of a diverse range of enzymes for biofuel production, plastics, and chemical waste management, as well as for detergent, textile, and food production and preservation industries respectively. Challenges regarding the transposition of enzymes from their natural purpose and environment into synthetic practice are discussed. For example, temperature and pH-induced enzyme fragilities, short shelf life, low-cost efficiency, poor user-controllability, and subsequently insufficient catalytic activity were shown to decrease pertinence and profitability in large-scale production considerations. Enzyme immobilization was shown to improve and expand upon enzyme usage within a profit and impact-oriented commercial world and through enzyme-material and interfaces integration. With particular focus on the growing biomedical market, examples of enzyme immobilization within or onto hyaluronic acid (HA)-based complexes are discussed as a definable way to improve upon and/or make possible the next generation of medical undertakings. As a polysaccharide formed in every living organism, HA has proven beneficial in biomedicine for its high biocompatibility and controllable biodegradability, viscoelasticity, and hydrophilicity. Complexes developed with this molecule have been utilized to selectively deliver drugs to a desired location and at a desired rate, improve the efficiency of tissue regeneration, and serve as a viable platform for biologically accepted sensors. In similar realms of enzyme immobilization, HA’s ease in crosslinking allows the molecule to user-controllably enhance the design of a given platform in terms of both chemical and physical characteristics to thus best support successful and sustained enzyme usage. Such examples do not only demonstrate the potential of enzyme-based applications but further, emphasize future market trends and accountability.

A Capability Approach to Real Estate Valuation and Value Enhancement

There are numerous financial metrics available in the academic and commercial world to estimate real estate value. Appraisers often use such metrics when advising on the purchase or sale of real estate at a point in time. The first part of this paper proposes a new metric, based on the capability approach, to make an ex-post single period valuation. Further, appraisers often give advice to their clients on actions to take in order to enhance the value of their real estate. This area of value enhancement has received scant attention in the academic literature. In practice, this advice is often based ad-hoc, anecdotal recommendations. The second part of the paper develops seven real estate strengths that can be targeted and provides an ex-ante approach to building real estate value. The valuation model presented in this paper is a pragmatic approach to enhancing both the values of tangible and intangible capabilities of a property by utilizing Expense Leveraged Value Indexes (ELVI).

Political Opinion Analysis in Social Networks: Case of Twitter and Facebook

The 21st century has been characterized by an increased attention to social networks. Nowadays, going 24 hours without getting in touch with them in some way has become difficult. Facebook and Twitter, these social platforms are now part of everyday life. Thus, these social networks have become important sources to be aware of frequently discussed topics or public opinions on a current issue. A lot of people write messages about current events, give their opinion on any topic and discuss social issues more and more. The emergence and enormous popularity of these social networks have led to the emergence of several types of analysis to take advantage of them. One of them is the analysis of opinions in texts. It aims at automatically classifying opinions in order to position them on a sentiment scale, thus allowing to characterize a set of opinions without having to rely on a human to read them. Currently, opinion analysis offers us a lot of information related to public opinion, either in the commercial world or in the political world. Many studies have shown that machine learning techniques, such as the support vector machine (SVM) and the naive Bayes classifier (NB), perform well in this type of classification. In our study, we first propose an approach for tracking and analyzing political opinions in social networks. Then, we propose a trained and evaluated machine learning model for political opinion classification. And finally, the study aims at setting up a web interface to collect and analyze in real time political opinions from social networks

THE INFLUENCE OF PLAIN LANGUAGE AND STRUCTURE ON THE READABILITY OF CONTRACTS

Contracts form an integral part of our existence, both in our work and personal environments. They are an unavoidable consequence of our participation in the commercial world. As such they are important since they will determine the distribution of wealth and power in society. South African law has always stuck religiously to the principles of freedom of contract and pacta sunt servanda. That is to say, everyone should have the utmost freedom to enter into contracts with whomever they please and once that agreement has been struck it must be adhered to. Through the application of these principles the law of contract obtained a high degree of certainty which is important for the parties to a contract because they know what their rights and obligations are. Furthermore they are safe in theknowledge that the contract is enforceable. While this may be an ideal situation we do not live in an ideal world. A large percentage of our society has had little contractual experience and even those that have are still regularly involved in contacts over which they have no control. Whilst consumers supposedly have freedom to contract, they very often have no leverage to negotiate the terms of the contract since a business will often make use of a standard form contract. As a consequence of this lack of bargaining power, consumers entering into contracts may not bother to read the terms since they are bound by them no matter what. Another reason is that they may be drafted and set out in such a way as to dissuade consumers from reading them.

Strategic Entrepreneurial Dimensions of Rural Self Employed Women in Kerala: A Micro-Study

For the past 25 years, Indian women have taken a bold stance to overcome the illicit commercial world to this day. Women’s business growth can be seen as a way to empower women. During the period of participation, women’s participation in household income has increased. In India, women entrepreneurs face many challenges in starting their businesses. Earlier, women were reported to have more problems than other men in their families and discrimination against women.

DESARROLLO DE UN PLAN DE LOGÍSTICA INTERNA PARA LA DISTRIBUCIÓN Y ALMACENAMIENTO DE MERCANCÍA EN LA BODEGA DE TECHNOLOGY WORLD GROUP S.A.S

A good logistics plan generates within companies an adequate development of their activities without having any inconvenience, which implies improving the quality of the company and its growth in the industrial and commercial world. The proposed project will generate a favorable performance and structuring in order to allow managers to direct and make decisions with greater efficiency in relation to the operation of the company and its logistics planning, orienting the processes to a better execution of the warehouses and the management of the distribution and storage of equipment, minimizing bottlenecks, reprocessing and actions that increase costs and waste the organization’s resources. On the other hand, the proposed methodology is based on the union of the different procedures carried out in the operational area and the interrelation with processes of the commercial and administrative area, to improve the execution of the procedures for the reception and dispatch of orders requested by distributors and stores, reducing the percentage level of errors made by mismanagement and control of the main Technology World Group warehouse. S.A.S.

Humanitarian aid logistics: a Cardiff University research perspective on cases, structures and prospects

PurposeThis paper provides a contextualised review of research in the area of humanitarian and emergency relief logistics, providing insights with particular emphasis on lessons learned. The paper tracks the evolution of research against the development of partner networks and key global events; information was collated and assimilated from cross-cutting themes such as disaster preparedness, emergency response structures and the transferability of commercial-world concepts and principles (such as sustainability) into volatile and fragile environments. It concludes by suggesting possible future challenges which could steer humanitarian response on the ground and will influence the path of academic research going forward.Design/methodology/approachThe paper provides a general review of work undertaken in the area of Humanitarian Logistics. Use is made of vignettes of case studies in order to provide focus to the discussion and to highlight key issues that emerged from the research reviewed.FindingsThe findings show that there are several new areas of research which will need to be addressed in the humanitarian logistics arena. The discussion demonstrates that research into crisis response is arguably even more important today than it has been previously. Research therefore likely needs to be expanded considerably over the next decade and beyond.Originality/valueThis paper contextualises and synthesises past research into humanitarian logistics responses, highlights key themes and suggests areas for further research.

Digital Arenas: The regulatory framework and other relevant issues on eSports online betting

The contribution of technological development, in an essential and user-friendly way, to the transition of many aspects of the real world to the digital environment, is constantly creating new habits and new fields of activity. This transition, without any shadow of doubt, leads to new and unknown realities, which, apart from the interest they present, they call for thorough investigation and further regulation, where it is needed. The cases of eSports and online gaming, although not new to the user of the digital age, are of high importance to the investment and commercial world, in terms of their further development and exploitation. In this context, although online betting in eSports has been introduced to the Greek market a few years ago, it is unlikely to be developed according to its dynamics, since issues of legal nature are not settled yet. In order to ensure a secure landscape for eSports online betting, the necessity for transparency and integrity and their protection through regulatory action becomes imperative.

The New World Information and Communications Order and Canadian official development assistance

A review of the literature on the non-aligned movement for a New World Information and Communications Order (NWICO) reveals that many of the central concerns which fueled the historical movement remain unresolved. There persists, in particular, an extreme imbalance in the global flow of information, with multinational corporations from the Western nations dominating the production and dissemination of information. The majority of the world's population is still lacking the "basic tools of modem communication, information and knowledge", as a result of the increasingly hierarchical structure of ownership and influence over the emerging communications and information technologies (Mowlana 60). First tracing historically the NWICO movement itself, the paper will argue for the continuing relevance of the movement not only to our time, but will assert that the NWICO demands speak directly to central issues of Canadian communications. While Canadian officials were not prepared to side with the non-aligned proponents of the NWICO, Canada has clearly struggled with issues closely related to those facing less developed countries (LDCs) in the existing world information and communications order. This paper will consider Canada's position on the movement in the context of its own domestic policies, attempting to shed light on the logic driving the official Canadian response to the movement. Despite the coincidence of interests between Canadian leaders and leaders of the nations promoting the NWICO, our policy stance historically has been aligned with the Western world, blocking any real transformation of the New World Order. As a result of the opposition of capitalist liberal-democracies, it would appear that the highly politicized movement of the non-aligned countries has been abandoned. Yet the issues raised by the NWICO continually re-appear, fragmented and de-politicized, in various forums including debates over the inclusion of the cultural sector in free trade. Explored most intensively here will be the ways in which Canadian official development assistance (ODA) in the field of communications may be seen as a Canadian response to the demands for a NWICO. While Canada's policy stance in the debate within UNESCO may have been relatively straightforward, the ideologies underpinning development initiatives must be teased out. The paper will look both at the intent and the impact of Canadian ODA in order to assess the extent to which these initiatives have met any of the demands put forth by the NWICO, or whether ODA has simply exported Western capitalist models. It will be argued here that while historically, Canadian communications policy suggests a similarity between the concerns of the Canadian state and those expressed by the proponents of a NWICO, ODA efforts reveal an unwillingness to support any radical re-ordering of world communications promoted by the non-aligned nations. Canada's alignment with opponents of the NWICO, and its ODA in the sphere of information and communications, have both been driven by a concern with maintaining a competitive position in the world economy. In effect, our ODA efforts have defended the very globalizing commercial world system identified by the NWICO as perpetuating inequalities in information and communications.

The New World Information and Communications Order and Canadian official development assistance

A review of the literature on the non-aligned movement for a New World Information and Communications Order (NWICO) reveals that many of the central concerns which fueled the historical movement remain unresolved. There persists, in particular, an extreme imbalance in the global flow of information, with multinational corporations from the Western nations dominating the production and dissemination of information. The majority of the world's population is still lacking the "basic tools of modem communication, information and knowledge", as a result of the increasingly hierarchical structure of ownership and influence over the emerging communications and information technologies (Mowlana 60). First tracing historically the NWICO movement itself, the paper will argue for the continuing relevance of the movement not only to our time, but will assert that the NWICO demands speak directly to central issues of Canadian communications. While Canadian officials were not prepared to side with the non-aligned proponents of the NWICO, Canada has clearly struggled with issues closely related to those facing less developed countries (LDCs) in the existing world information and communications order. This paper will consider Canada's position on the movement in the context of its own domestic policies, attempting to shed light on the logic driving the official Canadian response to the movement. Despite the coincidence of interests between Canadian leaders and leaders of the nations promoting the NWICO, our policy stance historically has been aligned with the Western world, blocking any real transformation of the New World Order. As a result of the opposition of capitalist liberal-democracies, it would appear that the highly politicized movement of the non-aligned countries has been abandoned. Yet the issues raised by the NWICO continually re-appear, fragmented and de-politicized, in various forums including debates over the inclusion of the cultural sector in free trade. Explored most intensively here will be the ways in which Canadian official development assistance (ODA) in the field of communications may be seen as a Canadian response to the demands for a NWICO. While Canada's policy stance in the debate within UNESCO may have been relatively straightforward, the ideologies underpinning development initiatives must be teased out. The paper will look both at the intent and the impact of Canadian ODA in order to assess the extent to which these initiatives have met any of the demands put forth by the NWICO, or whether ODA has simply exported Western capitalist models. It will be argued here that while historically, Canadian communications policy suggests a similarity between the concerns of the Canadian state and those expressed by the proponents of a NWICO, ODA efforts reveal an unwillingness to support any radical re-ordering of world communications promoted by the non-aligned nations. Canada's alignment with opponents of the NWICO, and its ODA in the sphere of information and communications, have both been driven by a concern with maintaining a competitive position in the world economy. In effect, our ODA efforts have defended the very globalizing commercial world system identified by the NWICO as perpetuating inequalities in information and communications.