University of Bengkulu

About: University of Bengkulu is a education organization based out in Bengkulu, Indonesia. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Vocabulary. The organization has 2288 authors who have published 2351 publications receiving 6645 citations. The organization is also known as: Universitas Bengkulu.

Biosynthesis of gold nanoparticles: A green approach.

Abstract: Nanotechnology is an immensely developing field due to its extensive range of applications in different areas of technology and science. Different types of methods are employed for synthesis of nanoparticles due to their wide applications. The conventional chemical methods have certain limitations with them either in the form of chemical contaminations during their syntheses procedures or in later applications and use of higher energy. During the last decade research have been focussed on developing simple, clean, non-toxic, cost effective and eco-friendly protocols for synthesis of nanoparticles. In order to get this objective, biosynthesis methods have been developed in order to fill this gap. The biosynthesis of nanoparticles is simple, single step, eco-friendly and a green approach. The biochemical processes in biological agents reduce the dissolved metal ions into nano metals. The various biological agents like plant tissues, fungi, bacteria, etc. are used for biosynthesis for metal nanoparticles. In this review article, we summarised recent literature on biosynthesis of gold nanoparticles which have revolutionised technique of synthesis for their applications in different fields. Due to biocompatibility of gold nanoparticles, it has find its applications in biomedical applications. The protocol and mechanism of biosynthesis of gold nanoparticles along with various applications have also been discussed.

Inspired to perform: A multilevel investigation of antecedents and consequences of thriving at work

Abstract: Emerging research evidence across multiple industries suggests that thriving at work is critically important for creating sustainable organizational performance. However, we possess little understanding of how factors across different organizational levels stimulate thriving at work. To address this gap, the current study proposes a multilevel model that simultaneously examines contextual and individual factors that facilitate thriving at work and how thriving relates to positive health and overall unit performance. Analysis of data collected from 275 employees, at multiple time periods, and their immediate supervisors, representing 94 work units, revealed that servant leadership and core self-evaluations are 2 important contextual and individual factors that significantly relate to thriving at work. The results further indicated that thriving positively relates to positive health at the individual level, with this relationship partially mediated by affective commitment. Our results also showed that collective thriving at work positively relates to collective affective commitment, which in turn, positively relates to overall unit performance. Taken together, these findings suggest that work context and individual characteristics play significant roles in facilitating thriving at work and that thriving is an important means by which managers and their organizations can improve employees' positive health and unit performance.

Market segmentation in the Indonesian banking sector: the relationship between demographics and desired customer benefits

Abstract: The recent economic turmoil in Indonesia has hit the financial service sector hard. Consumer confidence in banks is low and institutions are having to work harder than ever to recruit and retain their customers. In this article the potential for banks to utilize benefit segmentation to assist them in this context is explored. It will be argued that for benefit segmentation to offer any real utility in this context, a link must be found between benefits and general observable characteristics, such as demographics. To ascertain whether such a link exists, a primary study of 1,000 individuals was conducted in the city of Bengkulu, Southwest Sumatra. As the results will show, while discrete bundles of benefits were identified, they would appear generally unrelated to consumer demographics.

Colorimetric Detection of Mercury(II) Ion in Aqueous Solution Using Silver Nanoparticles

Abstract: Novel green-chemistry synthesis of silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) is introduced as a low-cost, rapid and easy-to-use analytical method for mercury ion detection. Aqueous fruit extract of water apple (Syzygium aqueum) was used for the first time as bioreductant to synthesize stable AgNPs. The prepared AgNPs have a yellowish-brown color with a surface plasmon resonance peak at 420 nm. The addition of Hg(II) ions then changes the AgNPs color to colorless. The color change was in proportion to the concentration of Hg(II) ions. The presence of other metal ions in the system was also evaluated. The proposed method shows good selectivity and sensitivity towards Hg(II) ions. Using UV-visible spectrophotometry, the detection limit of the developed method was 8.5 × 10-7 M. The proposed method has been successfully applied for determination of Hg(II) ions in tap and lake water samples with precision better than 5%.

Determination of Chromium and Iron Using Digital Image-based Colorimetry

Abstract: Recent advance in digital imaging has made a high-resolution photo produced from digital camera more affordable. The use of digital images comprises current opportunity to develop fast and low-cost colorimetric detections for quantitative chemical analysis. The method employs prime color space RGB (red–green–blue) with individual values varying from 0 to 255. RGB data was extracted from a square-homogenous cropped digital images using Matlab software (Mathworks Inc., USA) to construct calibration curve in quantitative determination. We compare two different methods to determine the concentration of chromium (Cr) and iron (Fe). The first method is based on simple linear regression (SLR) of individual color R, G or B. The second method is based on partial least square (PLS) of all three colors R, G and B. Accuracy of the method was validated using UV-visible spectrophotometry as a reference method. We found that accuracy of the method was better than 2.5% with precision less than 1.4% for both chromium and iron.