Browse Items (1473 total)
Sort by:
-
Synergetic Effect of Metal Nanoparticle Embedded Graphene Membrane : A Novel Approach for Antimicrobial Filtration
Water, the elixir of life, holds a profound significance that extends far beyond its essential utility. It's not just a resource; it pulsates as the life force of our existence, intricately woven into the very fabric of our daily lives. Water is the silent force that shapes our world, from nurturing our health and sustaining social structures to fueling economic development and fostering the environment. However, the adequacy of potable water quality confronts adverse impacts stemming from inadequate wastewater treatment, escalating domestic and industrial waste, and the microbial contamination of surface water sources. Furthermore, climate change emerges as a pivotal factor intensifying the depletion of water levels in natural resources due to diminished rainfall. Reports project that, by 2025, two-thirds of global population might contend with water scarcity. Given the persistence of current scenario, there exists a notable potential for significant conflicts among nations stemming from water scarcity. However, such a predicament can be mitigated through proactive measures, including the preservation of natural resources and the implementation of advanced technologies to recover fresh water from contaminated sources. Advanced technologies for the purification of contaminated water encompass sedimentation, precipitation, filtration, and ion exchange, which can effectively extract clean water from diverse impurities. Notably, membrane-based purification has gained prominence in recent years, owing to its cost- effectiveness and energy-saving attributes. Carbon-based nanomaterials, including carbon nanotubes,fullerenes and graphene have garnered considerable attention in recent research studies, particularly in the realm of membrane applications. Within this, membranes fabricated by carbon nanotubes (CNT) stand out, showcasing exceptional filtering properties attributed to their tubular carbon structure. However, the cost-effectiveness and ease of synthesis impediments pose significant challenges, acting as bottlenecks for their widespread application in water purification. Consequently, graphene-based membranes emerge as a promising alternative to CNT membranes, demonstrating selective separation of ions and molecules. Specifically, membranes derived from graphene oxide (GO) and reduced graphene oxide (rGO) exhibit superior filtering capabilities compared to ceramic and polymeric counterparts, owing to their layered structure featuring tunable nanochannels, hydrophilic or hydrophobic nature, and commendable mechanical resilience. Graphene oxide solution synthesis has been done using Hummer's method, followed by fabrication of high-quality membranes through vacuum filtration techniques. Current work emphasis on recognizing the pivotal influence of membrane thickness on both water flux and dye rejection, meticulous optimization of filtration properties by producing graphene oxide (GO) membranes at various concentrations. Furthermore, reduction of graphene oxide through the hydrothermal method, enabling a comprehensive comparative analysis of water flux and rejection between graphene oxide (GO) and reduced graphene oxide (rGO) membranes was carried out. In our investigation, the results unequivocally validate that the GO 500 sample exhibits optimized filtration properties. Furthermore, the reduced graphene oxide (rGO) variant surpasses graphene oxide (GO) in terms of filtration efficacy, demonstrating superior filtering properties. It is noteworthy to highlight that reduced graphene oxide (rGO) exhibits less antibacterial properties compared to graphene oxide (GO). The disinfection capability of the membrane is pivotal in ensuring the recovery of pure water. To bolster the antibacterial features of GO, we have undertaken an enhancement strategy by incorporating silver nanoparticles. Silver nanoparticle, showcases multifaceted properties including surface plasmon resonance and unique morphologies, which contribute significantly to the inactivation of bacteria. The conducted studies reveal that membranes incorporating graphene oxide with silver (GO-Ag) exhibit remarkable antibacterial properties against both gram-positive and gram-negative bacteria. Additionally, these membranes demonstrate appreciable filtration capabilities and exhibit effective antifouling properties, further emphasizing their potential for advanced applications in water purification systems. Fouling is a significant challenge in membrane technology, as the continuous passage of contaminants results in the formation of layers on membrane surface, thereby diminishing its filtration efficiency. Despite the antifouling properties exhibited by GO- Ag membranes, there exists further improvement in enhancing performance and extending the membrane's lifespan. To address this, we have undertaken a reduction of graphene oxide and incorporated silver nanoparticles, aiming to augment the antifouling properties and overall efficacy of membrane. The conclusive findings indicate that fine-tuned membrane exhibits remarkable antibacterial properties, superior filtration capabilities, and a minimal irreversible fouling ratio. These outcomes provide confirmation that the fabricated membranes stand as potential materials for water purification applications, showcasing a well-rounded set of properties essential for effective and sustainable water treatment. -
Process of Emotion Regulation in Relation to Attachment and Mindfulness Traits During Gottman's Dreams-WIthin-Conflict Intervention
Gottman Couple Therapy (GCT) promotes process research to comprehend how interventions function. A GCT intervention called Dreams-within-Conflict (DWC) encourages healthy emotional regulation techniques including expression and experiencing to diffuse impasses. The purpose of this study is to examine emotion regulation and experiencing changes during a single DWC session using convergent mixed methods on N=30 individuals (15 couples). The techniques for controlling emotions (Extrinsic/Intrinsic affect Worsening/Improving strategies EW, IW, EI, II) and experiencing mode/peak scores (ESM & ESP) were measured using self- assessments, observation rating and coding of video recordings, interviews, and feedback reports in relation to individual traits of emotion regulation (cognitive reappraisal & suppression), beliefs, attachment (avoidance & anxiety), and mindfulness. Paired-samples t-test revealed that DWC significantly reduced partners' EW and boosted partners' EI and II. Both ESM and ESP significantly improved. Results from hierarchical linear modelling showed that before-DWC EI, gender, cognitive reappraisal, and suppression predicted EI and before-DWC II and avoidance predicted II. None of the variables predicted EW or IW. Gender predicted ESM. The emotional regulation strategies, experiencing and preferences for expression (over suppression) shared by Indian couples were examined using thematic analysis. Avoidance, conflict behaviours, and prioritising parents' emotions over partners' (in men) were most used strategies. Experiencing levels 1-3 used before-DWC changed to 3-4 during-DWC. Expression was unanimously preferred by Indian couples. -
-
Hybrid Intrusion Detection Technique for Internet of Things
The rapid expansion and integration of Internet of Things (IoT) applications in newlinevarious aspects of daily life has significantly surprised and impacted contemporary society. The most crucial keyword concerning these applications is security, specifically, in the enormous amount of data generated every second, and how it is used. These applications are vulnerable to various attacks, which could result in an unthinkable catastrophe if not managed and controlled with sufficient foresight. Growing concerns about data security in the expanding IoT landscape are driven by factors such as increased vulnerability of devices to viruses, susceptibility to denial-of-service attacks, and heightened risk of intrusion attempts. To prevent such occurrences, stronger precautions should be taken, enabling system developers and manufacturers of IoT devices to enhance their approaches to better security mitigation. It is essential to identify all potential threats and vulnerabilities that are created explicitly for IoT infrastructures. It is believed that to lessen potential dangers, there is a need for more significant research on security attacks. Security difficulties have been found and must be dealt with, so they may be avoided. Further research must address security challenges in IoT-based environments, particularly for suppliers and consumers, to gradually raise the reliability of IoT applications. Although many conventional methods are still used, there might be superior options for devices with limited resources. Artificial intelligence plays a significant role in this issue. newlineThis research first tries to comprehend how machine learning methods relate to attack newlinedetection. The effects of different machine learning techniques are evaluated using the newlineUNSW-NB 15 dataset. Additionally, it has been found that each model performs worse overall, mainly when security issues are present. As a result, real-time datasets and Deep Learning (DL) algorithms for intrusion detection in the IoT need to be prioritized. -
-
-
A study on Organizational Commitment in relation to Job Involvement in the Information Technology Industry
The research is entitled A Study on Organizational Commitment in relation to Job Involvement in the Information Technology Industry. Both Job Involvement and Organizational Commitment are areas of much interest to academicians, researchers, HR practitioners and the industry in its entirety. The last few decades has seen an increased interest in the study of both Organizational Commitment and Job Involvement by academicians and practitioners in a variety of work settings in the hope that it improves job performance and organizational effectiveness, and reduces tardiness, absenteeism and turnover. Organizations are realizing that it is critical to not just attract the right kind of talent but also ensure the retention of their key talent by addressing the problem of retention. Hence the increased focus on areas such as Job Satisfaction, Job Involvement, Organizational Commitment, Human Resource Development, Psychological Contract, Organizational Citizenship Behaviour or OCB, Organizational Development or OD initiatives, Retention strategies, Employee Engagement, etc. Each of these HR activities play a key role in achieving an organization??s strategy, goals, vision and mission. Both Job Involvement and Organizational Commitment have been studied because they are believed to affect and impact organizational performance and effectiveness in addition to clearly predicting other important variables such as absenteeism, turnover, organizational citizenship behaviour, etc. Several studies have indicated organizational commitment to be a better predictor of turnover than job satisfaction. This study, however, is intended to examine the impact of Job Involvement on Organizational Commitment specifically in the IT industry, and also understand the influence of several personal, situational, and organizational characteristics pertaining to Job Involvement on Commitment. The sample considered was 250 IT workers across various levels (right from industry freshers with no work experience whatsoever to Senior Managers with 12 to 15 years of IT experience) and functions in various IT organizations in Bangalore, India. It involved all employees working in IT organizations, including employees in functions such as HR & Training, Administration, Quality, Marketing/Sales and Finance in these organizations. The tools used for the study were (a) Organizational Commitment Questionnaire or OCQ developed by Meyer, Allen and Smith (1993); the internal reliability coefficient (Cronbach??s alpha) was found to be 0.95; and (b) the Lodahl and Kejner Job Involvement Scale (1965); Cronbach??s alpha for the 20-item Job Involvement scale was 0.79. Some of the key findings of this study were: 1. There is a significant relation between Job Involvement and Organizational Commitment of employees in the Indian IT industry 2. There is a significant influence of Job Involvement on Organizational Commitment of employees in the IT industry 3. There is a significant influence of Job Involvement on Affective Commitment of employees in the IT Industry. 4. There is a significant influence of Job Involvement on Normative Commitment of employees in the IT industry. 5. There is a significant influence of Job Involvement on Continuance Commitment of employees in the Indian IT industry 6. There is a significant difference between Organizational Commitment across demographics in the Indian IT industry. The researcher has also discussed the limitations and future research areas on the variables of this study. -
Quantitative X-ray and Spectroscopic Analysis of Nanocrystalline and Amorphous Carbon Materials
Carbon and its various allotropic forms is a blooming and extensively investigated field for the past few decades. The revolution which started with the discovery of fullerenes in 1985 continues with the newly discovered wonder material graphene and has never failed to amass the interest of scientific community. After all these years it still stays as a hot topic of research. This is primarily due to their unique physical and chemical properties which makes them suitable for a whole host of applications ranging from thin film technology to nano-medicine. But, the production cost of these novel materials is an issue which shadows its glory and hence it is essential to find out efficient and cost effective sources and production methods for these materials. Graphene oxide has attracted much interest because of its low cost, easy access and unique ability to get converted into graphene. Graphene oxide is basically, a graphene sheet which consists of either carboxyl or hydroxyl groups. Foreseeing the upcoming era of carbon nanomaterials on account of their revolutionary applications and the ever increasing demand for economical and viable sources, we have identified and explored the structural parameters of an efficient and cost effective precursor of the same. In the present investigation, wood charcoal and coconut shell charcoal, which is a superior source of activated carbon, is produced by a slow thermal decomposition method in a limited supply of oxygen. It is an impure form of carbon- is a black residue composed mainly of carbon, ash and char. Wood charcoal is transformed into Graphite oxide (GO) by a modified Hummers method. Spectroscopic analysis of the samples is carried out by various techniques such as X-ray diffraction (XRD), Raman Spectroscopy, Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR), X-ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy (XPS), UV-Vis spectroscopy and Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM). The various structural parameters are calculated from XRD and Raman data. -
-
Growth and Characterization of Sb2Se3 and SnSe2 Crystals for Photovoltaic Applications
Tremendous development in crystal growth technology led to the production of good newlinequality samples for the design and fabrication of optoelectronic devices. As naturally available solids exhibit undesirable characteristics, the present research work deals with the artificial synthesis and characterization of defect free binary layered chalcogenide materials newline(LCMs) for photovoltaic (PV) applications. Antimony selenide (Sb2Se3) and tin diselenide newline(SnSe2) have gained special attention in the PV industry due to their eco-friendly, sustainable, and non-hazardous nature as well as the salient features such as moderate melting temperature, p-type conductivity with direct transition, optimum band gap and high newlineabsorption coefficient. Therefore, cost-effective synthesis was implemented to engineer bulk Sb2Se3 and SnSe2 crystals for the enhancement of optoelectronic parameters. Single crystal growth from melt allows the fabrication of large size samples under controlled environment. It gives rise to complexities in maintaining stable temperature for crystallization and newlineachieving chemical homogeneity, if multiple elements are present in the system. The newlinechallenges associated with Bridgman-Stockbarger and Czochralski methods for preparing bulk crystals include irregular heat flow, mechanical movement of furnace or crucible, thermal stress, etc. Moreover, reactivity of the melted material with the ampoule leads to structural irregularities. Hence, horizontal normal freezing (HNF), the facile and inexpensive melt growth technique was employed to explore the suitability of cleaved samples. Most of the vapor phase synthesis methods, especially, the chemical vapor deposition (CVD) deteriorates material quality, which adversely affects the physical properties due to the presence of contamination or foreign elements. But, the physical vapor deposition (PVD) process is favorable as it offers feasible instrumentation and yields stoichiometric specimens with supreme quality and fine-tuned characteristics. -
Social media, campus party politics and political participation
Political Participation is a desired quality among citizens in a democracy. Earlier studies have indicated that Political Knowledge, Political Efficacyand Civic Engagement enhance the Political Participation of college students. The current study has its background in two key aspects in the Indian context: First, the proliferation of Social Media Usage among college students in the last decade; Second, the implementation of the
Lyngdoh Commission Report (May 2006) on Campus Party Politics. Studies have not adequately addressed the question of the direct impact of Social Media Usage among college students, on their level of Political Knowledge, Political Efficacy, Civic Engagement, and Political Participation. The present study attempts to assess the impact of Social Media Usage on Political Knowledge, Political Efficacy and Civic Engagement and Political Participation of college students in the context of Kerala. In the context of the implementation of the Lyngdoh Commission report by some of the college and University campuses inIndia thus banning Party Politics in their campuses, while some of the other campuses still retaining Campus Party Politics, the presence/absence of Campus Party Politics is used as a control variable to see the impact of Campus Party Politics on Social Media Usage, Political Knowledge, Political Efficacy, Civic Engagement, and Political Participation. -
Social media campus party politics and political participation
Political Participation is a desired quality among citizens in a democracy. Earlier studies have indicated that Political Knowledge, Political Efficacy and Civic Engagement enhance the Political Participation of college students. The current study has its background in two key aspects in the Indian context: First, the proliferation of Social Media Usage among newlinecollege students in the last decade; Second, the implementation of the Lyngdoh Commission Report (May 2006) on Campus Party Politics. newlineStudies have not adequately addressed the question of the direct impact of Social Media Usage among college students, on their level of Political Knowledge, Political Efficacy, Civic Engagement, and Political newlineParticipation. The present study attempts to assess the impact of Social Media Usage on Political Knowledge, Political Efficacy and Civic Engagement and Political Participation of college students in the context of Kerala. In the context of the implementation of the Lyngdoh Commission report by some of the college and University campuses in India thus banning Party Politics in their campuses, while some of the other campuses still retaining Campus Party Politics, the newlinepresence/absence of Campus Party Politics is used as a control variable to see the impact of Campus Party Politics on Social Media Usage, Political Knowledge, Political Efficacy, Civic Engagement, and Political newlineParticipation. To check the impact of various factors on Political Participation, a path model is framed and analysed using Structural newlineEquation Modelling. Key demographic variables such as gender, political student union membership, type of management that own and operate the college, the stream of study of students, etc are also examined to see its newlinevarying effects on the key variables under consideration. The results indicate that Social Media Usage and Political Knowledge do not impact Political Participation while Political Efficacy and Civic Engagement do newlineimpact Political Participation. -
A critical study on role of social media in Delhi state elections 2013 & 2015 /
Social media is often hailed as an instrument of digital democracy and social change. This perception is deeply rooted in the well acknowledged potential of ICT’s as ‘agents for development and empowerment .It has liberated people from the tyranny of the free flow of information and ideas. The Delhi elections held in 2013 and 2015 made a revolutionary change in India’s political equations. It shows the emergence of a new party Aam AadmiPart, Aam Aadmi Party and its victory. -
Influence of e-service quality on customer retention in commercial banks
Keeping in mind the dynamic changes that have been taking place in the Indian banking scenario, since the introduction of technology and the advancement of the internet even into the remote regions of the country, the proposed study is designed to determine the impact of e-service quality newlineon the retention of banking customers in the city of Bangalore. Most of the existing studies are based on conceptual understanding and are not based on model testing. The proposed study is relevant to Bangalore as it is a tier one city with a dynamic and fast-paced lifestyle having the best newlinetechnological facilities among the tier one cities in India. The literature review initiates an exhaustive discussion of various newlineconstructs that are outcomes of e-service quality and determinants of customer retention. Based on references from the literature review,constructs identified for e-service quality are customer satisfaction, newlinecustomer commitment and customer retention. The constructs that are outcomes of customer satisfaction were identified as customer trust, commitment and loyalty, which in turn influences customer retention. Thus, commitment, loyalty, commitment and e-service quality were concluded to be influencers of customer retention, with commitment being newlinea construct that mediates the relationship between e-service quality and customer retention. Through extensive literature review, hypotheses were derived and the proposed conceptual model is developed. newlineObjectives of the proposed study are to empirically validate a model to establish the relationship between e-service quality and customer retention, linking customer satisfaction, commitment, trust and loyalty with select antecedents. Research methodology gives an explanation of the population newlinefrom which the samples are collected, the justification for using the particular sampling technique and also the tool employed for data collection. Detailed explanations have also been given for checking the newlinereliability and validity of the tool and pilot data. -
-
Evolution of Virtual Prey using a Virtual Predator
Can evolution happen on a computer is it possible for Images to evolve? This paper tries to show that Mother Nature has got it right and evolution is the future for programs. How many times will a new release come to solve my previous problem and in the process create new problems! Evolution can happen on a computer is very clear in this work titled Evolution of a Virtual Prey using a Virtual Predator. The Virtual Prey can evolve its skin color based on an Artificial Intelligent Virtual Predator. Monochrome patterns have evolved very successfully. Some repeatable patterns in the Brodatz Texture Database have also evolved. Charles Darwin in his famous book Origin of Species suggests that evolution takes place using a method he termed Natural Selection. Survival of fittest has to be considered in context of the environment in which the species are living. One of the criteria of survival depends on whether the specie was able to propagate before it was hunted down by a predator. For example the skin color of a prey like an insect evolves to match the background it is living on such that the predators like birds and frogs will not detect them. Assume there are thousand insects on a surface and if nine hundred and ninety are eaten over a period of time are eaten. Then the last 10 will be those which have got skin color, pattern, and texture closest to the original. Some findings have been in the comparison of different genetic operators to evolve specie. Use of Mutation and Crossover operator is critical. Some level of continuation is required in the next generation to maintain and not lose the quality which has been already attained. The number of generations required depend on DNA length and on the correct use of these three parameters.. The runtime from thirty minutes has been reduced to ten minutes to evolve specie of 100 plus variables in the DNA of the images. If we are ready to run the program for a day on multiple machine in parallel then the possibilities of great diversity is very much possible. The predator will be an algorithm which tries to do a basic computer vision operation of correlating two images and ranking them. Then it eliminates a certain percentage of the population. The dissertation is broken down in chapters. Chapter 1 gives the Introduction and Chapter 2 gives an idea of what all research is happening in this area. Chapter 3 is the core content of my work and it shows the different approaches I have used to evolve textures, the use of different operators. This chapter is followed by the testing I had to do due to the complexity of the application and high chance of error creeping into the results. An idea of the application can be got from the Appendix where I have given a walk through of the Zing World -
Health diagnosis of mango trees using image processing techniques
A Mango disease detection artificial intelligent model needs robust and effective newlinefeature extraction methods. The machine vision system has been designed for the newlineidentification of disease in plants from color leaf images. The research done proposes newlinenovel algorithms to extract color features Pseudo Color Regions and Texture Features newlineusing Pseudo Color Co-Occurrence Matrix. A new Mango dataset has been created and newlinealgorithms tested on it. An artificial intelligence model has also been created and tested on an existing disease dataset of Apple and Tomato plants. Results were compared with existing methods in the literature. The effectiveness of each statistical function was studied in classifying the pattern using a Support Vector Machine. For textures that are newlinedifferent like smooth new leaves, dry leaves, growth a Gray Level Co-occurrence based newlinestatistics was effective but values failed to discriminate in certain diseases. The proposed and implemented novel method which uses second-order statistics on a pseudo-color-based co-occurrence matrix has resulted in better classification. Pseudo Color Region feature is created using a novel intermediate data structure and found to be more effective than hue-based color features. It identifies dots, spots, patches and regions of different colors on the leaf and uses that as a feature vector to classify plant diseases. This generic method can be applied for early disease detection for plants and help farmers take corrective measures to avoid loss of yield. -
-
Localization Method for Camera Networks in Surveillance System
The significance of prevention and mitigation of critical issues especially in the homeland security has been increasing day by day. Emergence of autonomous video analytics tools greatly helped in the prevention of security threats. The recognition of video analytics for anomaly detection based on a set of unsupervised approaches has many fundamental technical challenges. This entails autonomous object localization and tracking technique especially in the presence of occlusion. This paper focuses on deriving a solution for the object detection and tracking in a heterogeneous camera network. The object tracking method is mainly based on Kalman filter whereas frame difference algorithm is used for object localization. This detection and tracking solution is expected to significantly reduce the effect of occlusion while tracking the anomaly. The organisation of the thesis is done into various chapters. The first chapter contains an introduction to the video surveillance system and the need for an unsupervised approach. This chapter also states the objective of the research. The solution overview gives high level solution architecture of the proposed system. The second chapter focus on the literature overview in which the citation from different papers in the field of video analytics, Kalman filter implementation and camera configuration has been referred. Chapter 3 provides the methodology in which a brief introduction to the basic algorithms used in the solution, the Kalman filter and the frame difference algorithm, are discussed. This is followed by the solution architecture of the proposed system. Chapter 4 shows the Matlab implementation of the mentioned algorithms. In Chapter 5, the results of the implementation are discussed. Chapter 6 talks about the summary of the work done and conclusion. This chapter also includes the future enhancements suggested.