The impact of the prevailing organizational culture on the adoption of green marketing in chemical-industry companies in three Arab states in west Asia

The objective of this study was to investigate the impact of the prevailing organizational culture on the adoption of green marketing in chemical-industry companies in three countries: Syria, Kuwait and Jordan. The research used a survey methodology. A questionnaire was designed and administered simultaneously in the three countries using three different samples consisting of 220 respondents, 12 respondents, and 132 respondents, respectively. The questionnaires collected from the three samples were coded and analyzed. The study concluded that the organizational culture in the samples from the three countries has positive attitudes towards the adoption of green marketing. The Kuwaiti sample has the highest level of positive attitudes in comparison with the other two samples. The task-oriented culture is the dominant prevailing organizational culture in the chemical-industry companies located in Syria and Jordan, but a fulfillment-oriented culture is the dominant prevailing organizational culture in chemical-industry companies located in Kuwait. Our analysis shows that the impact of the prevailing organizational culture differs in accordance with differences in employee education level, country, and years of experience.Organizational culture; Chemical industrial companies; Green marketing; Culture

Trust, regulatory processes and NICE decision-making: Appraising cost-effectiveness models through appraising people and systems.

This article presents an ethnographic study of regulatory decision-making regarding the cost-effectiveness of expensive medicines at the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) in England. We explored trust as one important mechanism by which problems of complexity and uncertainty were resolved. Existing studies note the salience of trust for regulatory decisions, by which the appraisal of people becomes a proxy for appraising technologies themselves. Although such (dis)trust in manufacturers was one important influence, we describe a more intricate web of (dis)trust relations also involving various expert advisors, fellow committee members and committee Chairs. Within these complex chains of relations, we found examples of both more blind-acquiescent and more critical-investigative forms of trust as well as, at times, pronounced distrust. Difficulties in overcoming uncertainty through other means obliged trust in some contexts, although not in others. (Dis)trust was constructed through inferences involving abstract systems alongside actors’ oral and written presentations-of-self. Systemic features and ‘forced options’ to trust indicate potential insidious processes of regulatory capture

A stability-indicating high performance liquid chromatographic (HPLC) assay for the simultaneous determination of atorvastatin and amlodipine in commercial tablets

A simple, rapid, precise and accurate isocratic reversed-phase stability-indicating HPLC method was developed and validated for the simultaneous determination of atorvastatin (AT) and amlodipine (AM) in commercial tablets. The method has shown adequate separation for AM, AT from their associated main impurities and their degradation products. Separation was achieved on a Perfectsil® Target ODS-3, 5 μm, 250 mm × 4.6 mm i.d. column using a mobile phase consisting of acetonitrile–0.025 M NaH2PO4 buffer (pH 4.5) (55:45, v/v) at a flow rate of 1 ml/min and UV detection at 237 nm. The drugs were subjected to oxidation, hydrolysis, photolysis and heat to apply stress conditions. The linearity of the proposed method was investigated in the range of 2–30 μg/ml (r = 0.9994) for AT and 1–20 μg/ml (r = 0.9993) for AM. The limits of detection were 0.65 μg/ml and 0.35 μg/ml for AT and AM, respectively. The limits of quantitation were 2 μg/ml and 1 μg/ml for AT and AM, respectively. Degradation products produced as a result of stress studies did not interfere with the detection of AT and AM and the assay can thus be considered stability-indicating

Secure Proximity-Based Identity Pairing using an Untrusted Signalling Service

New protocols such as WebRTC promise seamless in-browser peer-to-peer communications that in theory remove the need for third-party services. In practice, widespread use of Firewalls, NATS and dynamic IP addresses mean that overlay addressing or use of some fixed rendezvous point is still needed. In this paper we describe a proximity-based pairing scheme that uses a signalling service to minimise the trust requirements on the third party, achieving anonymity and avoiding the need for PKI, while still requiring only a simple asymmetric pairing protocol

Rail Internet of Things: An Architectural Platform and Assured Requirements Model

Given the plethora of individual preferences and requirements of public transport passengers for travel, seating, catering, etc., it becomes very challenging to tailor generic services to individuals’ requirements using the existing service platforms. As tens of thousands of sensors have been already deployed along roadsides and rail tracks, and on buses and trains in many countries, it is expected that the introduction of IP networking will revolutionise the functionality of public transport in general and rail services in particular. In this paper, we propose a new communication paradigm to improve rail services and address the requirement of rail service users: the Rail Internet of Things (RIoT). To the best of our knowledge, it is the first work to define the RIoT and design an architectural platform that includes its components and the data communication channels. Moreover, we develop an assured requirements model using the situation calculus modelling to represent the fundamental requirements for adjustable, decentralised feedback control mechanisms necessary for the RIoT-ready software systems. The developed formal model is applied to demonstrate the design of passenger assistance software that interacts with the RIoT ecosystem and provides passengers with real-time information that is tailored to their requirements with runtime adaptability. Keywords—Assistance; Assured model; Inclusive; IoT; Rail Internet of Things (RIoT); Situation Calculu

On the presence of humpback whales in the Persian Gulf: rare or rarely documented? Report of the IWC Scientific Committee Meeting SC/67A/CMP/14, Bled, Slovenia, May 2017

We critically review the evidence for humpback whale presence in the Persian Gulf. Five specimen records, assumed to belong to the endangered Arabian Sea population, are confirmed in the period 1883- 2017: Bassore Bay, Iraq; Doha, Qatar; Kuwait Inner harbour, Kuwait; Qeshm Island, Iran; and Akhtar, Bushehr Province, Iran. The two Iranian cases, both juveniles, are newly recorded. With accumulating reports, an alternate hypothesis to 'rare stragglers' deserves consideration, one in which Arabian Sea humpback whales may enter the Persian Gulf with some regularity, perhaps as normal visitors, if not permanent residents. Deficiency of records may reflect a general sparsity of whale research effort in the Persian Gulf. The historical description of Megaptera indica Gervais, 1883 is translated from French

Longitude : a privacy-preserving location sharing protocol for mobile applications

Location sharing services are becoming increasingly popular. Although many location sharing services allow users to set up privacy policies to control who can access their location, the use made by service providers remains a source of concern. Ideally, location sharing providers and middleware should not be able to access users’ location data without their consent. In this paper, we propose a new location sharing protocol called Longitude that eases privacy concerns by making it possible to share a user’s location data blindly and allowing the user to control who can access her location, when and to what degree of precision. The underlying cryptographic algorithms are designed for GPS-enabled mobile phones. We describe and evaluate our implementation for the Nexus One Android mobile phone

Phenotype variability of infantile-onset multisystem neurologic, endocrine, and pancreatic disease IMNEPD

Infantile-onset multisystem neurologic, endocrine, and pancreatic disease (IMNEPD) has been recently linked to biallelic mutation of the peptidyl-tRNA hydrolase 2 gene PTRH2. Two index patients with IMNEPD in the original report had multiple neurological symptoms such as postnatal microcephaly, intellectual disability, developmental delay, sensorineural deafness, cerebellar atrophy, ataxia, and peripheral neuropathy. In addition, distal muscle weakness and abnormalities of thyroid, pancreas, and liver were found. Here, we report five further IMNEPD patients with a different homozygous PTRH2 mutation, broaden the phenotypic spectrum of the disease and differentiate common symptoms and interindividual variability in IMNEPD associated with a unique mutation. We thereby hope to better define IMNEPD and promote recognition and diagnosis of this novel disease entity

The Role of Buzz Marketing in Increasing Attention Towards Green Products, ModeratingRole of 'Shockvertising'

Current study aimed at examining the influence of using buzz marketing on drawing attention of customers towards green products through the moderating influence of shockvertising. Study employed elements of buzz marketing (buzzing, seeding, and motivation). Depending on quantitative approach, a questionnaire was uploaded online through Google forms and (456) responses were collected. Utilizing SPSSV26 program, results of study indicated that buzz marketing can have the ability to draw customers' attention towards green products through the moderating influence of shockvertising; results also indicated that buzz marketing through shockvertising can motivate individuals towards getting the product in order to experience what others have based on WoM through social media. Study recommended that buzz marketing is all about presenting what is unusual, but tackling the forbidden within the society as an approach to buzz marketing won't be a good choice for the organization