The present study examined the effects of cashless policy on financial inclusion in the Nigerian emerging economy. The necessary data were collected from the Central Bank of Nigeria Economic Reports as well as Statistical Bulletin and the ordinary least squares method was applied to analyze the data. The findings reveal that the cashless policy maintained a non-significant relationship with financial inclusion both in urban and rural areas of Nigeria. The findings show that the cashless policy had a significant effect on increasing customers’ deposits in commercial banks of Nigeria. Volume of Automated Teller Machine (ATMVL) maintains a positive and significant effect on financial inclusion indicators in urban center compared with the rural areas. Volume of Point of Sales (POSVL) shows more significant and positive influence on financial inclusion in urban area than the rural area. However, Web Based Technique (WBTVL) reveals a non-significant effect on financial inclusion both in urban and rural centers. The study therefore recommends that more branches of commercial banks and ATM centers/outlets should be opened in rural urban centers with efficient network systems and security in order to enhance banking penetration and by extension effectiveness of the financial inclusion and poverty reductions.

The purpose of the current study is to investigate the various factors influencing on people to invest in mutual funds and examine the mediating role of investor’s perception. By using quantitative research approach and cross-sectional research design, 300 questionnaires are distributed among the individual investors and Smart PLS 3 is used to analyze the data. The results reveal that risk and return, liquidity of assets, demographic factors (gender, age, and material status), convenience, reduction in transection cost, tax benefits and transparency were the key factors and maintained significant relationships with investment in mutual funds. Moreover, investor’s perception maintains mediating role between all these factors and investment in mutual funds. The study contributes in literature by investigating the various factors, which influence on investors to invest in mutual funds. Moreover, it also contributes by investigating the mediating role of investor’s perception.

A series of new Schiff bases of 4-(methylthio)benzaldehyde derivatives 3(a-i) were synthesized by the reaction of 4-(methylthio)benzaldehyde with various amines 2(a-i). Newly synthesized compounds were characterized by elemental analyses, UV-visible, FT-IR, Mass and 1H NMR spectral studies. All compounds were evaluated for their in vitro antibacterial activity against clinically isolated strains i.e., E. Coli, P. Fluorescence, M. Luteus and B. Subtilis. These compounds were screened for their antioxidant activity by 2,2-diphenyl-1-picryl-hydrazyl (DPPH•) and ferrous ion chelating assay (Fe2+) methods. The cytotoxicity assay was performed by tryphan blue dye exclusion method. Compounds 3g, 3h and 3i exhibited good antibacterial activity when compared with other compounds in the series against tested pathogenic bacterial strains. All the compounds showed antioxidant activity, where compound 3b was the best radical scavenger and Fe2+ ion scavenger. These findings showed that the Schiff bases of 4-(methylthio)benzaldehyde derivatives possess antioxidant activity with different mechanism of actions towards the different free radicals tested. Among these derivatives, 3b and 3h had the strongest activity against human peripheral lymphocytes.

The global process of society information has covered almost all countries of the world and is currently the core of scientific, technical and socio-economic development. The effectiveness of the power exercise in any state depends on its information support. Indeed, without information, successful political structure, the development of mass political consciousness as well as the interaction of the subject and the object of government are impossible. That is why this research aims to improve the methodics of evaluation of informational security through theoretical-methodological substantiation, forming and calculation of integral indexes of its competitiveness of a country. Global economic crisis had consequences for almost every country and cannot be ignored by any conditions, that is why the methodic of informational security calculations should be adapted to modern economic conditions. Cardinal changes in political, economic and social conditions in Ukraine causes inaccessibility of approaches to information security level calculations and particularly in the national security system. In modern scientific schools the questions of effective informational security have not been sufficiently studied. The aim of this article is to analyze active methods of state informational safety level calculations in order to adapt their indexes to actual global circumstances in Ukraine and in the world. Integral informational security have been composed of such components (indicators): income of the broadband Internet access market, dynamics of broadband Internet subscribers (connections), penetration rate of fixed broadband access (number of subscribers per 100 people), dynamics of Internet penetration (percentage of Internet users to the total population of the country), Network Readiness Index of the country, ICT Development Index of the state, Global Innovation Index, capital investments in intangible assets of Ukraine (that is, in software and databases). Every component of informational safety has factors of relevance and indispensability of reinforcement of national competitiveness on security foundations are substantiated. A taxonomic indicator is used to measure the level of informational safety. The paper proves that each of the components of the state informational security has almost equal input in forming its integral index.

The present study is an attempt to develop an inventory model for deteriorating items with negative exponential demand. Shortages are allowed with partial back logging. This model is different from the existing models where deterioration is a function of time. Accordingly, three different types of probabilistic deterioration functions have been considered to find the associated decision variables and also to make comparisons among them. The optimality is illustrated with numerical values of system parameters and the graphical representations are given to depict the trend. The necessary observations in obtaining optimal values of decision variables are analyzed in the light of the practical aspect of the developed model. Finally, considering the numerical values of system parameters, sensitivity analyses are carried out to study the effect of changes in most important system parameters.

Project scheduling models with resource constraints and multi-mode activities aims to create a schedule for carrying out activities considering precedence constraints and available resources in order to minimize the project duration. In the real world, we face uncertainty related to projects, where there are no historical data, hence, we should rely on the experts' judgements to estimate activity durations. For this purpose, in this paper, the 99-simulation method is used to deal with uncertainty. The exact mathematical programming model is presented in this paper and the hybrid algorithm based on Genetic Algorithm is used to solve this type of project scheduling problem which finds the near-optimal solution in a short computational time. Finally, the effectiveness of the proposed model is examined with a numerical example.

This study examines the impact of internal and external green supply chain management on consumers’ environmentally friendly purchase behavior. Green supply chain management (GSCM) has emerged as a key approach for enterprises seeking to become environmentally sustainable. This study targets all sectors to investigate the impact of internal and external GSCM on consumers’ environmentally friendly purchase behavior. This paper proposes to study and emphasize GSCM practices and their impact by using quantitative methods. Responses were collected from different organizational sectors and analyzed by 50 people using regression and CFA. Internal and external green supply chain management positively impacts consumer purchasing behavior.

Investors’ decision-making are influenced by certain biases as reported in literature. Fundamental analysis is based on the assumption that investors think rationally, but in practice, things may be different. This study captures the impact of herding behavior and overconfidence biases on the investors’ decision-making in Pakistan. The proposed study collects the necessary data through questionnaires distributed among 150 respondents who were active in stock market and manage to process 100 completed ones. The relationships between investors’ decision-making and herding behavior as well as overconfidence biases were empirically tested using Ordinary Least Square (OLS) method. The results show that Pakistani investors’ decisions were significantly influenced by both herding behavior and overconfidence biases.

The purpose of this study is to examine the enhancement of the competitiveness of creative industries based on information technology and good corporate governance in Central Java. In this research, it is expected to find the right selection of information technology and the application of good corporate governance to improve the competitiveness of the creative industries in the handicraft sub-sector in Central Java. The sampling technique is based on a purposive sampling method and get 112 respondents as samples that meet all the criteria. The analytical tool used to test the hypotheses in this study uses the Structural Equation Model. The results of this study indicate that it is necessary to utilize the development of information technology and the application of good corporate governance to increase the company's market competitiveness which will impact on improving company performance. In addition, transparency and accountability are also needed to build stakeholder's trust.

In our present investigation a new series of nucleoside derivatives (2-13) were synthesized from uridine (1) via only two step reactions by direct acylation method. Firstly, uridine (1) was treated with 4-t-butylbenzoyl chloride in pyridine at -5?C and afforded the 5´-O-(4-t-butylbenzoyl)uridine derivative (2) in an excellent yield. In order to obtain newer products, the 5´-O-uridine derivative was further transformed to a series of 2´,3´-di-O-acyl derivatives (2-13) containing a wide variety of functionalities in a single molecular framework. The yields of the compounds were more than 80%. The synthesized titled compounds were characterized by their physical properties, FTIR (Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy), 1H-NMR (Nuclear magnetic resonance) spectroscopy and elemental analysis.