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External corrosion prevention and control are addressed by coating/lining and cathodic protection (CP). Monitoring is usually by potential measurement using a standard half cell such as copper/copper sulphate or silver/silver chloride.

The increasing incidence of corrosion induced failures query the efficiency of corrosion prevention measures and/or their monitoring techniques. Of concern too, is the phenomenon of twelve o'clock corrosion and the subsequent rupture. This indicated that the inhibitor was not protecting the upper surface of the pipe wall which could be possibly averted by batching a slug of inhibitor solution ahead of a pig or between pigs on regular (e.g. monthly) basis.

Legislative pressures emanating from the recent Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act and “Carbon tax” have introduced complications to the management of refineries. This situation is exacerbated by the instability in oil prices which makes long term corporate forecasting and planning an arduous responsibility. Added to these explicit concerns are the costs associated with compliance of these environmental regulations which is causing US oil companies to look to other countries for their refining needs and/or open up subsidiaries abroad. In fact, many an African country has reported a surge in US oil activities. Recent indications are the erosion of profit margins of US oil business in contrast to foreign activities.

Strategic management dictates that the arrangement for corrosion control and monitoring should be made during project construction. Subsequent modification/ rectification to accommodate such omissions is uneconomical because of the additional outlay incurred. Contractual obligation cannot absorb such a cost. However, changes in corrosion characteristics resulting from, say, alteration in feed stock and/or operating conditions, may make such a rectification mandatory.

In the developing field of nano-materials synthesis, copper oxide nanoparticles (NPs) are deemed to be one of the most significant transition metal oxides because of their intriguing characteristics. Its synthesis employing green chemistry principles has become a key source for next-generation antibiotics attributed to its features such as environmental friendliness, ease of use and affordability. Because they are more environmentally benign, plants have been employed to create metallic NPs. These plant extracts serve as capping, stabilising or hydrolytic agents and enable a regulated synthesis as well.

Organic chemical solvents are harmful and entail intense conditions during nanoparticle synthesis. The copper oxide NPs (CuO-NPs) synthesised by employing the green chemistry principle showed potential antitumor properties. Green synthesised CuO-NPs are regarded to be a strong contender for applications in the pharmacological, biomedical and environmental fields.

The aim of this study is to evaluate the anticancer potential of CuO-NPs plant extracts to isolate and characterise the active anticancer principles as well as to yield more effective, affordable, and safer cancer therapies.

This review article highlights the copper oxide nanoparticle's biomedical applications such as anticancer, antimicrobial, dental and drug delivery properties, future research perspectives and direction are also discussed.

Using ABA research design and daily indices from South Africa, Eurozone, Japan and the United States of America, this study evaluates the interaction between equity index futures and spot markets before; during and after the COVID-19 pandemic. The results show evidence of cointegration between the equity futures and spot markets before, during and after the COVID-19 pandemic, a unidirectional causal relationship from the equity spot to the futures markets before and after the COVID-19 era, and bidirectional causality between the equity spot and futures markets during the COVID-19 pandemic, except for the South African markets. The results also show evidence of more spikey volatility during the COVID-19 pandemic era than was the case before and after the pandemic and the existence of bidirectional volatility transmission between the markets. The magnitude of transmission was stronger from the spot to futures markets during the COVID-19 pandemic era. Overall, the results suggest that the interaction between equity futures and spot markets varies according to the prevailing economic condition and the level of development of the markets.

The importance of sovereign bond as a source of financing revenue deficit, benchmarking for corporate bonds and debt management in Africa, calls for continual monitoring of its volatility dynamics. This study evaluates the nature of sovereign bond volatility interaction between African countries using bivariate BEKK-GARCH (1, 1) model. Based on a sample of eight African countries, the results show evidence of unidirectional volatility spillover from Morocco sovereign bond to Egypt sovereign bond. Next, the results show absence of volatility interaction between Ghana and Nigeria sovereign bonds. The results further show the existence of bidirectional volatility transmission between Uganda and Kenya. Finally, the results indicate evidence of bidirectional volatility interaction between Botswana and South Africa. Overall, the results show existence of full interaction between Uganda–Kenya and Botswana–South Africa sovereign bond returns, partial interaction between Egypt and Morocco sovereign bond returns and no interaction between Ghana and Nigeria sovereign bonds markets. Thus, these results provide valuable implications for sovereign and corporate credit risk management, as well as strategy for monitoring and minimising negative effect of sovereign bond volatility spillover in Africa.

This chapter aims to identify, analyse, classify and rank the sustainability indices and internationalisation challenges of the footwear industry in the emerging economy of Iran. This would provide deeper decision-making insights into Iranian footwear businesses. First, a list of sustainability indices and internationalisation challenges was obtained by reviewing the literature. Then, a combination of multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) approaches was implemented. The initial sustainability indices and internationalisation challenges were screened using the fuzzy Delphi method, keeping a total of 14 criteria. The best–worst method (BWM) was employed to weigh and rank the criteria. The interpretive structural modelling (ISM) technique and cross-impact matrix applied in MICMAC were employed to visualise the conceptual model based on the levels and classification of the important criteria for the internationalisation of the Iranian footwear industry. The 14 criteria were demonstrated to be important in internationalisation. The most critical sustainability indices were reducing hazardous substances in leather tanning and labour education and training. In contrast, exchange rate instability in Iran’s economy and strict chemical regulations for clothing and footwear were found to be the most important internationalisation challenges. Hence, these criteria should be considered in the internationalisation strategies of the Iranian footwear industry. A combined multilayer sustainable decision-making approach was used to analyse the Iranian footwear industry’s essential sustainability indices and internationalisation challenges. Furthermore, implications and insights are offered to footwear businesses for future decision-making.

The purpose of this study is to comprehensively examine the ethical implications surrounding generative artificial intelligence (AI).

Leveraging a novel methodological approach, the study curates a corpus of 364 documents from Scopus spanning 2022 to 2024. Using the term frequency-inverse document frequency (TF-IDF) and structural topic modeling (STM), it quantitatively dissects the thematic essence of the ethical discourse in generative AI across diverse domains, including education, healthcare, businesses and scientific research.

The results reveal a diverse range of ethical concerns across various sectors impacted by generative AI. In academia, the primary focus is on issues of authenticity and intellectual property, highlighting the challenges of AI-generated content in maintaining academic integrity. In the healthcare sector, the emphasis shifts to the ethical implications of AI in medical decision-making and patient privacy, reflecting concerns about the reliability and security of AI-generated medical advice. The study also uncovers significant ethical discussions in educational and financial settings, demonstrating the broad impact of generative AI on societal and professional practices.

This study provides a foundation for crafting targeted ethical guidelines and regulations for generative AI, informed by a systematic analysis using STM. It highlights the need for dynamic governance and continual monitoring of AI’s evolving ethical landscape, offering a model for future research and policymaking in diverse fields.

The study introduces a unique methodological combination of TF-IDF and STM to analyze a large academic corpus, offering new insights into the ethical implications of generative AI across multiple domains.

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate selected West African currencies/US dollar exchange rates for the evidence of volatility spillover. Specifically, the paper examines West African CFA franc, Gambian dalasi and Nigerian naira exchange rates in relation to the USD, for any evidence of shock and volatility spillover.

The author employs multivariate GARCH (1,1)–BEKK model which enables the evaluation of the interaction within the volatility of two or more series because of its capability to detect volatility spillover among time series observations, as well as the persistence of volatility within each series.

The major findings of this study are as follows: there is evidence of volatility clustering in West African CFA franc, Gambian dalasi and Nigerian naira exchange rates in relation to the USD. There is evidence of bi-directional shock and volatility spillover between the Nigerian naira and West African CFA franc/USD exchange rates, and uni-directional shock spillover from the Gambian dalasi to the West African CFA franc/USD exchange rates. There is, however, no evidence of exchange rate shock and volatility spillover between Nigerian naira and Gambian dalasi.

Although considerable literature exists on the volatility of exchange rate in West Africa and comparative analysis of exchange rates volatility in few countries of West Africa, there is absence of empirical studies on exchange rate volatility spillover among countries in the region. Since containing exchange rate volatility is one of the major objectives of monetary policy, understanding the nature and direction of exchange rate volatility spillover would propel formulation exchange rate policies that would minimise exchange rate uncertainty and entrench sustainable development. In addition, the nature of exchange rate volatility spillover between West African countries would provide basis for international traders and foreign portfolio investors to develop effective strategies for hedging against exchange rate shocks that are propagated across countries by designing appropriate risk management techniques.