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There is almost no scientific literature available on the phytochemistry and pharmacognosy of this plant so the basic aim of the study is to analyze pharmacognostic features of dried leaves of Anemone rupicola Camb. Morphology was studied by using the features like margins, shape, length, width, surface and so forth. For anatomical examination leaves were preserved in formalin acetic alcohol (FAA) and cutting the thin section of leaves and petiole with razor blade. Macroscopic characters of powdered drug were evaluated through organoleptic method. Qualitative phytochemical analysis was done by adopting the standard procedures. The antimicrobial activity of methanolic extract of Anemone rupicola Camb. was performed by Agar well diffusion method. The powder microscopic study showed epidermal cells, trichomes, various type of tracheids, pitted vessels, and sclerenchymatous fibers. Transverse cutting of leaves and petiole revealed the presence of different cells such as epidermis, palisade parenchyma, spongy parenchyma cells, aerenchyma, collenchyma, trichomes, and vascular bundles. The investigation of phytochemicals in distilled water, methanol and in ethanol solvent indicated the presence of various secondary compounds such as phenols, saponins, glycosides, alkaloids, tannins, cardiac glycosides, terpenoids, coumarins, and flavonoids. The methanolic extract of Anemone rupicola Camb. has potential as an antimicrobial agent. However, further studies are needed to confirm its efficacy and safety. This study can be used as powerful tool for the identification and authentication of this plant. For the purity and quality control these results will be helpful tool. This will also shed light into new areas where researchers can intervene in developing new drugs for future use. Research Highlights: Morphological Features of the Anemone rupicolaAnatomical examination of leaves of Anemeone rupicolaMicroscopic features of powdered drug of leaves of Anemone rupicolaQualitative Phytochemical analysis of the leaves of Anemone rupicola [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this research study is to illustrate the role of the Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Method (BREEAM) and Leadership in Energy and Design (LEED) within low-cost urban housing projects through the analysis of multiple factors and motivations impacting the outcome of construction projects. The rate at which climate change is advancing demands that the construction industry change their practices to decrease the natural resources it consumes as well as improve the environmental efficiency of the world's building stock. The introduction of BREEAM and LEED in 1990 and 2000, respectively, provided a system where buildings are evaluated on their energy performance. Issues, however, began to develop as research that illustrated the system's drawbacks undermined its utility. In turn, the role of the green building certifications ought to be researched so that policy and stakeholder communication frameworks can be developed by contractors and designers to ensure the success of BREEAM and LEED projects. The research study was completed through a literature study of prior research as well as by the publishing of a snowball sampling-based survey questionnaire undertaken between practitioners, architects, engineers as well as researchers involved in the UK construction industry. The results of the survey were then collated using IBM's Statistical Package for the Social Science (SPSS) and then a confirmatory factor analysis as well as a correlation matrix was completed. The confirmatory factor analysis illustrated that the two most important factors were climate change and quality. Thus, contractors and designers ought to develop practical policies and stakeholder frameworks to achieve value for money for the market demographic. The results of this study hold potential to increase the application of BREEAM and LEED. The improvement of practice in low-cost urban housing projects will improve the accessibility of BREEAM and LEED housing projects and, in turn, the energy efficiency and sustainability of new building stock. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Considering the rapid environmental changes, the transitions to sustainable practices in the construction industry is vital now. Though the developed construction industries have already made efforts to switching to more sustainable and environment friendly practices, the developing countries are still lacking it. This research was organised to understand the role of project management practises and integrated methods in the sustainable development in the developing countries, for looking on how such practices can help these construction sectors become sustainable. The moderation effect of industrial attitudes and behaviours on sustainable construction was also conducted to understand the intermediary impacts. A survey based on the snowball sample of 208 construction professionals in Ghana was conducted to determine the impact of project management practises and integrated methods on sustainable construction. Research model was tested by employing bivariate correlation and multiple hierarchical regression analysis techniques, to establish the interrelationships among the project management practices, integrated approaches, industrial attitudes and behaviours, and sustainable construction and to explain these constructs in terms of their common underlying dimensions. The findings highlight that the project management practices and integrated approaches are significantly impacting on the sustainable construction practices in terms of BIM, Digital Twin, LEED, and BREEAM. Whereas the industrial attitudes and behaviours were found to be affecting the project management practises and integrated approaches through moderating role on sustainable construction. The study was concluded by suggesting the importance of sustainable construction practices and shaping industrial attitudes and behaviours towards such practices in the developing construction industries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Stakeholders satisfaction, as well as an effective involvement, is of utmost importance for any mega project, when it comes to the public concerning projects this role becomes more essential. In the case of developing countries where the political, economic and administrative settings are challenging, managing all the key stakeholders satisfaction for prosperous projects becomes extremely intricated, no matter even it is about sustainable and renewable energy projects. Studies have been conducted on project governance and shareholder relationships, nevertheless, the role of power‐interest matrix in maximizing stakeholder satisfaction on renewable energy projects has not been fully explored in the literature. This research was attempted to investigate the direct and indirect influencing mechanisms of the stakeholders satisfaction in conjunction with five critical success factors (CSFs) (namely communication factors, team factors, technical factors, organizational factors and environmental factors) in the renewable energy projects. Alongside a direct link of the CSFs in renewable energy projects, an indirect influence of both the internal and external stakeholders satisfaction has been also checked in this research. A quantitative approach was used to collect the questionnaire survey based data from the professionals working in the renewable energy industry of Pakistan. A snowball sampling technique was used to collect a total of 565 valid responses from the professionals working on medium and large scale renewable energy projects. The structural equation modelling (SEM) technique was used to perform the data analysis and provide inferences between the direct impacts of CSFs and indirect influences of internal and external stakeholders satisfaction in the renewable energy projects. The first stage of the SEM analysis depicts the direct impacts of the CSFs on renewable energy projects. However, in the second stage, though the mediating role of internal stakeholders satisfaction was observed in between all the CSFs and project success, external stakeholders satisfaction was found to be significantly mediating only between the communication factors and environmental factors, and renewable energy project success. Though the findings provide useful guidelines for the professionals, policymakers and administrators that in order to have prosperous renewable energy projects the influence of both the internal and external stakeholders satisfaction is important alongside CSFs, however, the role of internal stakeholders satisfaction is more critical to consider for such sustainable projects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Banking activities have crossed the border and spread worldwide. Internationalization is known as the need of the day for sustainability in height competitive banking sector trends. Is there any effect of internationalization on profitability to sustain in a competitive market or just increases risk factors? Here, the study investigates the need and effect of internationalization on bank risk in developing country like Pakistan by using seven public commercial banks' quarterly data that are being taken for the duration from 2007 to 2016. The study constructs hypotheses to justify the significance or insignificance relation of risk with internationalization variables and some other bank‐specific variables that independently affect the risk‐taking of internationalized banks. The main variables are Z‐score for risk measurement and to evaluate the degree of internationalization. The study used foreign loan ratio and foreign income ratios. To support our work, the study also constructed some control variables like size, income diversification, and listed. We find that internationalization is associated with higher income earning in significant and positive relation with risk. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Public construction infrastructure projects have been recognized as one of the fundamental tools in enhancing community socio-economic conditions for community development. The purpose of this study is to empirically investigate the impacts of socio-economic factors on community development of rural regions. Through a questionnaire survey administrated in Pakistan, public construction practitioners' views were sought and evaluated. Empirical support for the argument originated from the data collected from 213 respondents in Pakistan's public construction industry. The questionnaire's data were evaluated employing the partial least square structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM). The study's findings showed that economic and social factors influence the community development of rural regions. The result obtained from PLS-SEM proposed a more viable method to realize community development and objectives. The study's results have offered precious lessons for local authorities, policymakers, and project stakeholders to strengthen the drive for achieving community development goals. Strategies supporting community development in rural regions are indispensable for local community development. This study provides empirical confirmation for the understanding and combining the community development concept; it illuminates absent knowledge about community development, especially in rural regions. This is one of the few studies investigating the influencing dimensions of community development in rural regions. To the authors' best knowledge, this is the first research article providing empirical evidence of the influencing dimensions of community development in rural regions in a developing country. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Around the globe, investment in renewable energy projects has been increased significantly since the last decade. However, recent trends of completed renewable energy projects are not positive enough regarding the significantly contributing through their operational performance. This study is an attempt to figure out the role of financial and non‐financial measures for the performance of renewable energy projects. A sample of 272x respondents was collected from the key project personnel in a view to assessing the influencing mechanisms of financial and non‐financial performance measures toward success in renewable energy projects. The data was collected through a convenient survey method from the employees working on managerial and technical positions in the small and medium‐sized renewable energy projects in Pakistan. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to perform data analysis and draw inferences. It was found that the success of renewable energy projects is largely depending on the influences of both financial and non‐financial performance measures. Moreover, both the financial and non‐financial performance measures were also found to be interlinked with each other positively and significantly. In addition, the role of financial performance measure compares to non‐financial performance measure was found to be more significant while contributing toward project success in renewable energy projects. The results also show that both the financial and non‐financial performance measures function as complements instead of substitute, while contributing toward renewable energy project success. Despite the role of financial measure is higher in contributing to project success as compare to non‐financial performance measure, ultimately both measures are necessary for sustainable project success in renewable energy projects. The research findings provide new insights for governments, policymakers, investors, and key stakeholders working on renewable energy projects to understand the measures driving better performance in such projects, alongside adding a knowledge base for future researchers and practitioners. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In construction projects, some contractors will take default actions against the contracts to obtain maximum profits and damage the owners' benefits as a result. In the construction markets where effective supervision is not performed well, contractors have more opportunities to default. Surety bonds were designed to solve the default problems and promote the sustainable development of the construction markets. This paper was proposed to explore the interactions between owners and contractors and investigate the influence of surety bonds (high penalty and low penalty) on the default behavior of contractors based on a static and dynamic evolutionary game analysis model. The results showed that applying the surety bond strategy is effective at decreasing the probability of the contractors' default behavior when the credit system based on a surety bond system is well developed in the construction industry and the cost of the surety bond is low enough. Therefore, government strategies such as a better development of the credit system driven by surety bonds and the subsidies on surety bonds to reduce the cost can mitigate the contractors' default behavior and keep the sustainability of the construction markets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Present study was aimed to enlighten the antimicrobial and cytotoxic activity of Haplophyllum gilesii (Hemsl.) C.C. a narrow endemic plants of northern areas of Pakistan. The antimicrobial potential of H. gilesii extracts in different solvents was assessed using agar well diffusion method against bacterial and fungal strains, while cytotoxic activity was studied in the methanolic extract using brine shrimp's lethality assay. All the extracts showed significant biological activity against Gram positive, Gram negative bacteria and selected fungal strains. Acetone, chloroform and methanolic extracts showed maximum activity i-e 39mm, 44mm and 35mm followed by ethyl acetate 27mm and n-hexane 26mm against microorganisms studied. Standard antibiotics were used as a positive control for bacteria and fungi respectively. The cytotoxic assay results showed that methanolic extracts of stem and root of H. gilesii had toxic effects on brine shrimp larvae with LD50 values of 116.72 µg/ml and 168.16 µg/ml respec tively. The antimicrobial and cytotoxic parameters reported can be considered as quality standards of H. gilesii in herbal industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Renewable energy projects (REPs) are constructed to contribute to the eradication of global warming and supporting a sustainable aspect of economies. However, due to their entrepreneurial nature, such REPs are quite prone to severe project variations. Mostly, REPs deviate from their allocated plans, which lead them to the time and cost overrun outcomes alongside numerous other hindering impacts. The current research was intended to understand the critical impacts of project variations during the building activities of REPs. Utilizing a sample of 253 field experts engaged with such REPs at Pakistan, we employed structural equation modeling (SEM) to analyze and confirm our propositions. It was found that cost-related effects were the most significant outcomes in the REPs and their severity was higher than other variation consequences of time-overrun effects, productivity-related effects, risk-related effects, and reputation related effects. Nevertheless, an unexpected outcome was observed regarding the variations, which do not show their negative effects on reputation related aspects in the REPs of Pakistan. Considering its critical findings, this research is a useful tool for project executives that they can formulate certain techniques to tackle such variations and their consequences in REPs. This research likewise aimed to add and extend pertinent literature for REPs by following the outcomes of the current research concerning the impacts of project variations. Unlabelled Image • It identifies variation effects for renewable energy projects from pertinent literature. • It categories the project variation effects into five critical clusters. • It affirms a framework that envelops project variation order to effect renewable energy projects. • It suggests policy formulations to avoid variation orders in renewable energy projects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]