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A series of 1,3,4-oxadiazole-2-thiol derivatives bearing various alkyl or aryl moieties were designed, synthesized, and characterized using modern spectroscopic methods to yield 17 compounds (6a-6q) that were screened for acetylcholinesterase (AChE) and butyrylcholinesterase (BChE) enzymes in the search for 'lead' compounds for Alzheimer's disease treatment (AD). The compounds 6q, 6p, 6k, 6o, and 6l showed inhibitory capability against AChE and BChE, with IC

This paper explores the mythical basis, nationalist affiliations and religious, historical past in James Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and Ulysses. These two selected novels carry different mythical narratives and sensibilities. This paper discusses a journey where time and space are transcended, which is called a “mythic journey”. Issues related to culture, religion and their association with ideological grounds are very prominent. Elements of religious past and feelings attached to these grounds are very vibrant. The author shares his keen observation and deep experience with nationalist affiliations and their impact. This research is qualitative in nature. For better conceptual understanding, documentaries and works of Joseph Campbell and theories presented by Allan Watts: especially his book Myth and Rituals in Christianity, support this research as a major theoretical framework. This research is helpful to know about the historical past and the mythical grounds of that time.

Purpose Transformational leadership, flexibility and visibility improves project responsiveness to highly unpredictable and impactful events referred as the ‘black swans’ in mega projects (Bloch et al., 2012; Raziq et al., 2018; Zailani et al., 2016). However, these concepts have never been empirically tested in a single framework to determine their significant impact on multi-dimensional project success. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the interactional effects of project flexibility and project visibility on the relationship between transformational leadership and “multi-dimensions” of project success including meeting design goals; impact on customers and benefits to project-based organization. Design/methodology/approach Empirical data derived from cross-sectional survey of 160 project managers from telecom intensive companies in Pakistan were used to test the conceptual framework developed from recent literature. Partial least squares-structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) provided detailed analysis of the measurement and structural model. The most recent reflective–formative PLS-SEM approach for higher-order constructs has been introduced. Findings The results indicate that project managers’ transformational leadership (β = 0.348, p < 0.01), project flexibility (β = 0.221, p < 0.01) and project visibility (β = 0.366, p < 0.01) are positively related with the multi-dimensional project success (second-order formative) construct. Interestingly, the relationship between transformational leadership and project success is influenced by significantly negative moderations established through project flexibility (β = −0.100, p < 0.01) and project visibility (β = −0.093, p < 0.05). Research limitations/implications This study in the telecom sector examined the interactional effects of risk mitigating strategies (i.e. project flexibility and project visibility) on the relationship between transformational leadership and multi-dimensional project success. This study creates a basis for future investigations extending to various project types and relevant to different industries especially those involving higher-order (formative) assessments of project success. Practical implications The study findings assist project leaders to meet their escalating commitments in achieving project success from a multi-dimensional standpoint. Additionally, this study underscores a renewed perspective of transformational leadership and project outcomes. Despite prevailing understanding developed through prior research, transformational leadership may become less favorable for project success in conditions of increased flexibility and visibility in projects. Originality/value Earlier studies have overlooked the multi-dimensional nature of project success (second-order formative) construct, despite several attempts to examine the interplay between transformational leadership and project success. Based on the knowledge gap and non-existence of empirical evidence, the authors introduced and empirically tested the moderating role of project flexibility and project visibility in the relationship between transformational leadership and multi-dimensional project success.

Accurate prediction of software effort is important for planning, scheduling, and allocating resources. However, software effort estimation has been a challenging task. Although numerous e...

Eluding the involvement of solvents in organic synthesis and introducing environment friendly procedures can control environmental problems. A facile and an efficient solvent free mechanochemical method (grinding) is achieved to synthesize novel bis-biphenyl substituted thiazolidinones using non-toxic and cheap N-acetyl glycine (NAG). Organocatalytic condensation of a series of Schiff's bases bearing different substituents with thioglycolic acid produces a variety of thiazolidinones derivatives in good to excellent yield. In vitro inhibition studies against mushroom tyrosinase of these thiazolidinone analogues revealed that many of them possessed good to excellent tyrosinase inhibition at low micro-molar concentrations. In particular, six compounds exhibited potent inhibitory potential with IC50 values ranging from 0.61 ± 0.31 to 21.61 ± 0.11 μM as compared with that of standard kojic acid (IC50 6.04 ± 0.11 μM). Further molecular docking studies revealed that the thiazolidinones moiety plays a key role in the inhibition mechanism by well fitting into the enzyme bounding pocket.

Software Effort is defined as the person months required to make a software application. Software effort estimation is usually the most important phase in the software development life cycle. Software effort estimation requires high accuracy at early phases, but accurate estimations are difficult to achieve. Machine Learning techniques are widely exploited that assist in getting improved evaluated values. In this paper we review, analyze and evaluate the work done in this area. This paper highlights general overview of effort estimation using different machine learning techniques containing latest trends in this field. Introducing the new approach is supportive for the reduction of cost and effort. The performance of the proposed method is evaluated to compute the project effort and comparison based on the parameters such as Correct_Percent, Mean Absolute Error (MAE), Root Mean Absolute Error (RMAE) and Relative Absolute Error (RAE).

Formal specification focuses on covering uncovered faults that would probably go ignored with traditional specification methods. The use of VDM (Vienna Development Method) to identify a system is a well known practice in formal specification. This paper presents an approach for the specification of Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) algorithm and formal specification language which is used for specification of cooperating organisms. Formal Specification can explain the problem in an improved way as compared to pure English. So, the current approach upgrades the previous approach by adding the more autonomous, intelligent and smart agent. At the beginning we will look at the case study which involves organisms (intelligent agents) in the form of multiple preys and set of predators. Our case study allows us to go through the characteristics of Particle Swarm Optimization algorithm which will be specified with the help of VDM. The paper specifies and illustrates the data type with their invariants and function with their pre and post condition in accordance with the case study.

Vasicine (1) was isolated from the ethanolic extract of Adhatoda vasica Nees (Acanthaceae) and the structure was confirmed using spectroscopic techniques. Acetylcholine esterase, trypsin, DPPH inhibition potential and FRAP assay were carried out using in vitro models. The results showed 38.4 ± 1.2% and 37.4 ± 1.1% activity in acetylcholine and trypsin inhibition assays respectively. The compound (1) exhibited significant DPPH inhibition activity (70.4 ± 1.3%, IC(50) = 212.3 ± 1.9 μM). A dose dependant behavior of vasicine (1), was indicated in the FRAP assay. Antibacterial activity was checked according to agar well diffusion assay and results revealed that vasicine (1) showed moderate activity.

Aspectual Business Process Modelling is not a new concept in business process based development to support the separation of the cross cutting concerns. Most of the researchers use the concept of the heavyweight extensions of the business processes to incorporate the aspects. This requires changes in the meta-models of the languages and the tool infrastructures, which is not a feasible option. Some of the researchers also provide lightweight extensions in the form of profiles, but these are mostly incomplete and do not provide solutions for modelling some important aspectual concepts like Pointcuts effectively. To overcome this issue, in this paper, we provide a lightweight extension of the business processes expressed in BPMN to incorporate the aspect specific concepts in it. We propose a profile ABPMN which uses the existing notations of the BPMN models for expressing aspectual concepts. Further, we developed a language PCDL to express the pointcuts in an effective way. The language is implemented using XText in Eclipse. To evaluate the applicability of our approach, we applied it on a case study of the E-Bidding system.

In the title molecule, C17H13NOS2, the essentially planar thiazole ring (r.m.s deviation 0.005 Å) forms dihedral angles of 16.85 (8)° and 75.02 (8)° with the phenyl rings. The dihedral angle between the two phenyl rings is 61.95 (9)°.