Terpenoids as Human Neutrophil Elastase (HNE) Inhibitors: A Comprehensive Review of Natural Anti-inflammatory Isoprenoids

Human neutrophil elastase (HNE) is an enzyme that plays a key role in the body‘s inflammatory response. It has been linked to several diseases such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), emphysema, and cystic fibrosis. As potential treatments for these diseases, HNE inhibitors are of great interest. Metabolites derived from plants, particularly terpenoids such as β-caryophyllene found in black pepper and other plants, and geraniol present in several essential oils, are recognized as significant sources of inhibitors for HNE. Because of their ability to inhibit HNE, terpenoids are considered promising candidates for developing novel therapies to treat inflammatory conditions such as COPD and emphysema. Furthermore, nature can serve as an excellent designer, and it may offer a safer drug candidate for inhibiting HNE production and activity in the future. The Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses were searched to get relevant and up-to-date literature on terpenoids as human neutrophil elastase inhibitors. This review focuses on the isolation, chemical diversity, and inhibition of human neutrophil elastase (HNE) of various terpenoids reported from natural sources up to 2022. A total of 251 compounds from various terpenoids classes have been reported. Further, it also provides a summary of HNE inhibitors and includes a thorough discussion on the structure-activity relationship.     

Carrier Transport Enhancement Mechanism in Highly Efficient Antimony Selenide Thin-Film Solar Cell

Exhibiting outstanding optoelectronic properties, antimony selenide (Sb₂Se₃) has attracted considerable interest and has been developed as a light absorber layer for thin-film solar cells over the decade. However, current state-of-the-art Sb₂Se₃ devices suffer from unsatisfactory “cliff-like” band alignment and severe interface recombination loss, which deteriorates device performance. In this study, the heterojunction interface of an Sb₂Se₃ solar cell is improved by introducing effective aluminum (Al³⁺) cation into the CdS buffer layer. Then, the energy band alignment of Sb₂Se₃/CdS:Al heterojunction is modified from a “cliff-like” structure to a “spike-like” structure. Finally, heterojunction interface engineering suppresses recombination losses and strengthens carrier transport, resulting in a high efficiency of 8.41% for the substrate-structured Sb₂Se₃ solar cell. This study proposes a facile strategy for interfacial treatment and elucidates the related carrier transport enhancement mechanism, paving a bright avenue to overcome the efficiency bottleneck of Sb₂Se₃ thin-film solar cells.     

Assessment of information technology effects on management of supply chain based on fuzzy logic in Iran tail industries

Evolutions rooted in technology in market arena, business, and demands reforms in supply chain and consequently more demands for created value by end user are among factors causing reforms on management of supply chain. Integrity of supply chain activities and utilized technologies is an essential factor to survive competitions in the market. Organizations, therefore, need to adopt policies to coordinate themselves with new arena in market and electronic commerce. Despite bad news from Iran tail industries about unplanned production, the industry is still in growing path. In addition to easy access to mineral resources and low-energy costs, which have made it quite reasonable to invest in the industry, state tariff policies for imported tail products have made new investment chances in the industry. As a result, Iran recently won a position among five leading counties in world tail industry. However, knowing about high profit margin in tail industries, many countries have stepped into the market and through producing high-quality products have intensified competition in the market. This study tries to identify and assess IT indexes in Iran tail industry’s supply chain and hopes to take a step forward to gain better market position in international market by prioritizing the indexes using fuzzy logic.     

Collapse and compressibility behaviour of arid calcareous soil formations

 The geological, climatic and environmental conditions have resulted in the formation of calcareous deposits along the Arabian Gulf coast. Anhydrous calcium sulphate, which commonly occurs in such soils, is notorious for gypsification and dissolution and adds to the potential hazards of indigenous sediments. This paper discusses the properties of the sediments and the compressibility of the calcareous soil formations of eastern Saudi Arabia. Received: 24 June 1999 · Accepted: 26 November 1999     

Mathematical model evaluating for degradation of azo dye in contaminated water by UV/persulfate process

In the present study, the photooxidative degradation of Acid Red 14 (AR 14) was investigated in the UV/persulfate process, and the results of the degradation rate of AR 14 were parametrically represented by ordinary differential equations to find mathematical model for the degradation rate of AR 14 in this process. Our experimental observations led to a model for AR 14 degradation in the UV/persulfate system that could be used to predict removal efficiency by changes of S₂O₈²⁻ (X₁) and dye concentration (X₂), pH (X₃), temperature (X₄) and also distance of UV lamp from solution (X₅). It was found that persulfate and dye concentrations were the most important parameters for AR 14 degradation rate. Moreover, the results showed that the degradation rate was in good agreement with the first-order kinetics for all the parameter values studied. Moreover, the results of the mathematical model agree well with the experimental values (R² = 0.96). Our findings in this study showed that degradation efficiency of UV/S₂O₈²⁻ process for AR 14 was obtained as 98%. Therefore, this model could be applicable before scaling up the AR 14 degradation using UV/persulfate process.     

Geohydrological properties of selected badland sediments in Saskatchewan,Canada

Geological and seasonal weather variations govern the geohydrological properties of the Avonlea badlands in Saskatchewan, Canada. Three surface sediments exhibiting distinct lithologic variations were found: a steeply sloped and fissured sandstone; a mildly sloped and popcorn-textured mudrock; and a flat and eroded pediment. The fines content increased from the dry to the wet state, with contents of 17–33 % seen for sandstone, 4–98 % for mudrock, and 21–42 % for pediment. The water adsorption capacity was found to be highest for mudrock (w _l = 96 % and w _p = 47 %), followed by sandstone (w _l = 39 % and w _p = 31 %), and then by pediment (w _l = 31 % and w _p = 23 %). The soil water characteristic curves of sandstone and mudrock showed bimodal distributions with a low air entry value (6 and 9 kPa) pertaining to drainage through cracks and a high air entry value (160 and 92 kPa) associated with flow through the soil matrix. The pediment presented a unimodal soil water characteristic curve with a single matrix air entry value of 4 kPa. The saturated hydraulic conductivities for sandstone, mudrock, and pediment were measured as 8.5 × 10^?6, 4.0 × 10^?8, and 1.8 × 10^?5 m/s, respectively.     

Model-based design verification for embedded systems through SVOCL: an OCL extension for SystemVerilog

Model Based System Engineering (MBSE) is a renowned approach in the context of embedded systems development. It is frequently used to deal with the structural and behavioral aspects of system design. However, the verification of system design is generally performed in isolation. It is particularly true in the context of assertion based verification. Consequently, there is a huge gap between system design and its verification that seriously effects the productivity and time-to market objectives. Therefore, in this research, we target to reduce this gap by exploiting the features of MBSE and SystemVerilog assertions (SVA’s). This article introduces a novel MBSE approach to model the design verification aspects of embedded systems, along with the system design (structural and behavioral aspects). We propose SystemVerilog in Object Constraint Language (SVOCL), an OCL temporal extension for SystemVerilog, to represent the design verification requirements by means of SVA’s. As a part of research, SVOCL transformation engine has been developed to generate SVA’s code in order to automate the design verification of embedded systems. The application of SVOCL has been validated through four case studies.     

Insights into the Influence of Work Functions of Cathodes on Efficiencies of Perovskite Solar Cells

Though various efforts on modification of electrodes are still undertaken to improve the efficiency of perovskite solar cells, attributing to the large scope of these methods, it is of significance to unveil the working principle systematically. Herein, inverted perovskite solar cells based on indium tin oxide (ITO)/poly(3,4‐ethylenedioxythiophene) polystyrene sulfonate (PEDOT:PSS)/CH₃NH₃PbI₃/phenyl‐C61‐butyric acid methyl ester (PC₆₁ BM)/buffer metal/Al are constructed. Through the choice of different buffer metals to tune work function of the cathode, the contact nature of the active layer with the cathode could be manipulated well. In comparison with the device using Au/Al as the electrode that shows an unfavorable band bending for conducting the excited electrons to the cathode, the one with Ca/Al presents a dramatically improved efficiency over 17.1%, ascribed to the favorable band bending at the interface of the cathode with the active layer. Details for tuning the band bending and the corresponding charge transfer mechanism are given in a systematic manner. Thus, a general guideline for constructing perovskite photovoltaic devices efficiently is provided.     

Time between events control charts for gamma distribution

Modern and emerging techniques of technology have brought a revolution in quality inspection of products. When events in highly efficient production processes occur rarely, it requires to inspect and monitor the time between occurrence of these events (TBE). The exponential and gamma distributions are commonly used models for time between events (TBE) data. In this article, a new monitoring scheme has been established for TBE data based on exponential and gamma distributions. In a previous research, transformation-based control charts have been developed for TBE. The proposed study is aimed to use the exact probability distribution of charting statistic rather than applying transformations to data and this has remained still unaddressed. Average run length (ARL) and percentage decrease in ARL (ΔARL) have been calculated using Monte Carlo simulations and the proposed monitoring method has been compared with existing techniques applied to transformed data. The proposed scheme provides a simpler design structure and better performance on different sample sizes in identifying annoying process variations. Further, the technique has been applied to simulated and real-life data sets of time between manufacturing plant accidents to highlight the worth and particle applicability of the proposed work.