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Fabrication of silver nanoparticle decorated graphene oxide membranes for water purification, antifouling and antibacterial applications
The quality of portable water is adversely affected by inadequate wastewater treatment, increase in domestic & industrial waste, and microbial contamination of surface water sources. Purification techniques such as sedimentation, precipitation, filtration, and ion exchange can be employed to recover clean water from various impurities. Among these, membrane-based purification methods have become more appealing in recent years due to its cost-effective and energy-saving features. However, fouling is a ubiquitous problem in membrane-based purification technologies, which leads to reduced water permeation and quality. Present study embodies the development of silver decorated graphene oxide coated nylon membrane with remarkable antibacterial and antifouling properties. Antibacterial analysis of bacteria Staphylococcus aureus and Escherichia coli, validates that higher concentration of silver in GO (GO A500) composites hinder the growth of bacteria. The antifouling properties of GO A500 membrane showed flux recovery ratio of 96 % with irreversible fouling ratio of 3 % during the filtration of BSA (Bovine serum albumin) protein. Further fabricated composite membrane exhibited pure water flux of 46.7 L m?2 h?1 with dye removal rate of 95 %, 88 % and 85 % for Congo red, Rhodamine-B and Methylene blue respectively. Catalytic studies conducted on GO A500 membrane demonstrated the efficacy of their antifouling properties. The investigations revealed that the composite (GO A500) membrane has excellent antibacterial and antifouling properties, making it a suitable option for wastewater treatment applications. 2023 Elsevier B.V. -
Rayleigh-Bard convection in mono and hybrid nanoliquids in an inclined slot
Linear stability analysis is conducted to investigate the longitudinal and transverse rolls (TRs) generated in Rayleigh-Bard convection in mono and hybrid nanoliquids confined between two infinite inclined parallel slots. Thermophysical properties of six mono nanoliquids and fifteen hybrid nanoliquids are calculated for different volume fractions (0.5%, 1%, 2%) using phenomenological laws and mixture theory. The shooting method is used to solve boundary eigenvalue problems to obtain the eigenvalues for 16 different boundary conditions. It is observed that as the inclination angle is increased, it delays the onset of longitudinal rolls in the case of all boundary conditions. However, it advances the onset of TRs except when the lower plate is adiabatic. The addition of mono and hybrid nanoparticles results in the advancement of the onset of convection. The addition of SWCNT and SWCNT Al 2 O 3 accelerates the onset of convection the most while Cu and Cu-Ag accelerates the onset of convection the least amongst the mono and hybrid nanoparticles considered in the study. 2023 IOP Publishing Ltd. -
Exploring the adsorption efficacy of Cassia fistula seed carbon for Cd (II) ion removal: Comparative study of isotherm models
The current study demonstrates the potential of Cassia fistula seed carbon (CFSC), a waste lignocellulosic biomass, to eliminate Cd (II) ion-from saturated liquid samples. The efficient removal of about 93.2% (w/v) of Cd (II) ions from 10 mg/L concentration was achieved within 80 min of treatment. The CFSC dosage of 100 mg/50 mL accounted as optimal for enhanced Cd (II) removal. Cd (II) adsorption onto CFSC was observed to be maximum at pH 6. The investigational trials were assessed with three isotherm models such Dubinin-Radushkevich, Freundlich, and Langmuir. The specifications obtained from this experimental study align well with the Langmuir isotherm model, which describes the maximal adsorption capacity of 68.02 mg/g. Cd (II) adsorption data from this study exhibited the R2 of 0.9 under pseudo-second-order. Maximum desorption (76.3% w/v) was obtained with 0.3 M HCL. This study revealed that thermally activated C. fistula seed carbon (CFSC) can be tuned to be lucrative adsorbent for Cd (II) elimination from water and waste-water. 2023 Elsevier Inc. -
Corporate social responsibility: a cluster analysis of manufacturing firms in India
Purpose: This paper aims to identify the corporate social responsibility (CSR) patterns of Indian manufacturing firms using a CSR index based on ISO26000 and Indias National Voluntary CSR Guidelines. Design/methodology/approach: A total of 121 manufacturing enterprises in the national capital region (NCR) were surveyed. The questions related to the involvement of CSR in business strategy, involvement in CSR planning, involvement in environmental activities, involvement in social activities, monitoring, evaluation and involvement in CSR, reporting and policy and deployment of CSR. A two-step cluster analysis using log-likelihood measures was used to identify groupings in the data set based on their performance across the seven issues. Findings: The two distinctive segments identified adopted intermediate CSR activities, and one undertook advanced CSR activities. Research limitations/implications: This study has several limitations. First, the survey data were drawn exclusively from medium-sized enterprises in the NCR. Second, all the indicators in the CSR index were equally weighted. Originality/value: This paper contributes to the literature by grouping manufacturers CSR activities based on seven dimensions suggested in ISO26000 and Indias National Voluntary Guidelines. The results of this study can help managers, boards and regulators better understand CSR and identify ways to improve it further. 2023, Emerald Publishing Limited. -
Structure of molecule, density gradient, orbital locator and reactivity of 5,6-dichloro-1-cyclopentyl-2-(methylsulfinyl)-1H-benzimidazole- potent inhibitor of map kinase
The present work consists of theoretical studies with the DFT technique on the benzo[d]imidazole derivative, 5,6-Dichloro-1-cyclopentyl-2-(methylsulfinyl)-1H-benzimidazole, and its biological evaluation in silico. The molecule is subjected to geometry optimisation and further DFT studies in gas and solvent phases. Upon solvation with polar solvents, gradual variation in properties result. Topological analyses are performed using Multiwfn software (ELF, LOL, RDG and charge transfer) to illustrate the electron density distribution, interactions, and excitation within the title molecule. ADMETLab 2.0, PreADMET, and SwissADME online tools compute the ADMET profile. Select MAP-kinase target proteins are docked against the title molecule using AutoDock Tools and PyMOL. Discovery Studio Visualizer software is run for visualisation and result analysis of the docked ligand-protein complex. 2023 Elsevier B.V. -
TelsNet: temporal lesion network embedding in a transformer model to detect cervical cancer through colposcope images
Cervical cancer ranks as the fourth most prevalent malignancy among women globally. Timely identification and intervention in cases of cervical cancer hold the potential for achieving complete remission and cure. In this study, we built a deep learning model based on self-attention mechanism using transformer architecture to classify the cervix images to help in diagnosis of cervical cancer. We have used techniques like an enhanced multivariate gaussian mixture model optimized with mexican axolotl algorithm for segmenting the colposcope images prior to the Temporal Lesion Convolution Neural Network (TelsNet) classifying the images. TelsNet is a transformer-based neural network that uses temporal convolutional neural networks to identify cancerous regions in colposcope images. Our experiments show that TelsNet achieved an accuracy of 92.7%, with a sensitivity of 73.4% and a specificity of 82.1%. We compared the performance of our model with various state-of-the-art methods, and our results demonstrate that TelsNet outperformed the other methods. The findings have the potential to significantly simplify the process of detecting and accurately classifying cervical cancers at an early stage, leading to improved rates of remission and better overall outcomes for patients globally. 2023, Universitas Ahmad Dahlan. All rights reserved. -
Synthesis of novel Se capped polymer photocatalyst mobilized under visible light: Exploration of piezoelectric effect and charge transfer mechanism in polymer matrix
The present study has shown the original and promising usage of zero valent metallic selenium in the photocatalysis process under visible light. Selenium (Se) dispersed into the Polyvinyl Chloride (PVC) and Polyvinylidene Fluoride (PVDF) polymeric solution (Se-PVC/Se-PVDF matrix) by reflux-calcination method. The SEM and TEM results shows Se nanoparticles are well disseminated into the polymer solution and homogenously mixed to avert cluster of particles. The results shows that Se-PVC matrix effectively enhanced the generation rate of photoinduced electrons and reduced transfer resistance endorsed by photoluminescence, transient photocurrent, and electrical impedance spectroscopy techniques. Further, photocatalytic activity studied in presence of potassium iodide (KI) and isopropyl alcohol (IPA). The decrease in photocatalytic activity order is: Se-PVC > Se-PVDF > Se-PVC + KI > Se-PVDF + KI > Se-PVC + IPA > Se-PVDF + IPA systems. The piezoelectricity phenomena and Surface Plasmon Resonance (SPR) effect proposed for Se-PVC/Se-PVDF matrix and correlated with photocatalytic mechanism for the degradation of Methyl Orange (MO). 2023 Elsevier B.V. -
An Objective Evaluation of Harris Corner and FAST Feature Extraction Techniques for 3D Reconstruction of Face in Forensic Investigation
3d reconstructed face images are the volumetric data from two dimensions, it can provide geometric information, which is very helpful for different application like facial recognition, forensic analysis, animation. Reconstructed face images can provide better visualization, than a two dimensional image can provide. For a proper 3d reconstruction one of primary step is feature extraction. The objective of this study is to conduct a comprehensive evaluation of two prominent traditional feature extraction techniques, namely Harris Corner and FAST (Features from Accelerated Segment Test), for the purpose of 3D reconstruction of face images in forensic analysis. In this research paper feature extraction was carried out using the Harris corner detection and FAST Feature technique. 3D reconstruction is completed using the retrieved features. In this study a comparative analysis was conducted assessing the aspect ratio, depth resolution. The results of the assessment provide valuable insights into the strengths and limitations of both techniques, aiding researchers and practitioners in selecting the most suitable method for 3D face image reconstruction applications. 2023, Ismail Saritas. All rights reserved. -
ZnO doped SnO2 nano flower decorated on graphene oxide/polypyrrole nanotubes for symmetric supercapacitor applications
Due to their high power density, lengthy cyclability, quick charge-discharge rates, and environmentally friendly design, supercapacitors are incredibly effective electrochemical energy storage devices. A lot of work has been progressed in this direction to increase the specific power and cyclic stability of supercapacitor mainly by using various metal oxides with 2D composites and high concentration electrolytes. But, there are some challenging issues like low energy density, high production cost, and short cyclic life. In this work, we aimed to resolve the low energy density and operating voltage of electrodes by selecting multiphase inorganic-organic material with a suitable concentration of electrolyte. To create such supercapacitor electrodes for high energy storage applications, ZnO doped SnO2 nanoflower decorated on graphene oxide/polypyrrole nanocomposite, which are novel materials with large specific surface area and cyclic stability were studied. The electrochemical study of the nanocomposite materials is done by studying the cyclic voltammetry (CV), galvanostatic charge-discharge (GCD), and electrochemical impedance (EIS) techniques. The supercapacitor device fabrication is processed using ZS/GP2 electrode, and the analysis of supercapacitor performance is also studied. As a result, ZS/GP2 nanocomposite showed a good capacitive behavior with a maximum specific capacitance of 392 F g?1 at 75 mV s?1 scan rate with significantly high specific energy and power density of 31.6 Wh kg?1 and 5177 W kg?1, respectively after the 27,000 consecutive charge-discharge (GCD) cycles at the current density of 0.25 A g?1. The results evidence that these hybrid materials are highly promising electrode materials for energy storage applications. 2023 Elsevier Ltd -
Why is the size of discouraged labour force increasing in India?
The Indian economy is currently passing through a critical phase of economic development as its structural transformation in employment has stalled, whilst both the youth unemployment rate and the number of youths Not in Employment, Education, and Training (NEET) have increased to an unprecedentedly high level. In the context in which the share of the youth population is continuing to rise despite the declining fertility rate to below the replacement rate, increased educated youth unemployment has caused an upsurge in the Discouraged Labour Force (DLF). This paper explores the trends, composition, and determinants of rising DLF in India using national level employment-unemployment surveys and macro-level panel data. Based on Multinomial logit and System GMM regression results, it is argued that policies aiming to enhance human capabilities through an improved base of technical education and the promotion of industry are necessary to enhance the growth of quality jobs in order to combat the problem of rising educated youth unemployment and DLF. Moreover, these measures could help in the process of harnessing the demographic dividend in India through an increased level of labour productivity in the long run. 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature. -
Molecular architecture of PANI/V2O5/MnO2 composite designed for hydrogen evolution reaction
An ever increasing demand for energy has mandated scientists towards exploring innovative and environmentally friendly energy production techniques that can meet the needs of human beings and the world at large. Among the various techniques, hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) is a cost-effective and efficient method that produces hydrogen, a better fuel, for meeting our energy requirements. The large surface area, good redox capacity, high electroactivity, and tunable bandgap of polyaniline (PANI) makes it a preferred candidate for various energy-related applications. Incorporating mixed metal oxides into a polymer enhances its catalytic activities and can be used as an electrocatalyst for HER. In situ chemical oxidative polymerization method has been carried out to synthesize PANI/V2O5/MnO2 composite. The characterization studies of PANI/V2O5/MnO2 composite are done using XRD, FT-IR, BET, XPS, and FE-SEM analysis. The PANI/V2O5/MnO2 composite is used for linear sweep voltammetry studies and shows that it acts as an efficient electrocatalyst which gives an overpotential of 130 mV at 10 mA/cm2. The high electrocatalytic activity of the composite is due to the better surface phenomenon that is enhanced by the high porosity and surface area. The electrochemical impedance spectroscopy also shows lower charge transfer resistance for the PANI/V2O5/MnO2, confirming its excellent electroactivity. 90% of the current density is retained even after 7200 seconds, validating its stability. 2023 Elsevier B.V. -
A Scoping Review on Integration of Electroencephalogram Neurofeedback Training for Alcohol Use Disorder: Clinical and Neurocognitive Outcomes
Background. The conventional treatment for alcohol use disorder (AUD) consists of dual treatment encompassing pharmacotherapy and psychotherapy. Nonetheless, the impact of these treatments on clinical and neurocognitive outcomes is only low to medium efficacy. Research studies substantiate the integration of electroencephalogram neurofeedback training (EEG-NFT) as an add-on tool with significant improvements in clinical and neurocognitive outcomes. Methods. A scoping review of the existing literature on EEG-NFT and AUD, which are open access, including review papers and empirical studies in the English language, and with human subjects are deemed worthy of the scope of this study. The keywords electroencephalogram neurofeedback training, alcohol use disorder, stress, neurocognition, and relapse were used. The primary sources of the literature search were Science Direct, Scopus, PubMed, and Google Scholar. A total of 35 articles have been included in the scoping review. Studies from the last 15 years were considered for the same. Results. This review revealed that EEG-NFT is a promising tool with significant improvements in stress levels, cognitive deficits, and relapse rates for individuals with AUD when used in integration with conventional treatments. Conclusion. Chronic alcohol use affects cognitive functions, escalates relapse rate, and increases stress experienced by the individual. The present study highlights the significance of NFT as a potent add-on treatment modality to improve clinical and cognitive outcomes, thereby facilitating abstinence and reducing relapse rates in individuals with AUD. Copyright: 2023. -
Probing the soft state evolution of 4U 1543-47 during its 2021 outburst using AstroSat
4U 1543-47 underwent its brightest outburst in 2021 after two decades of inactivity. During its decay phase, AstroSat conducted nine observations of the source spanning from 2021 July 1 to September 26. The first three observations were performed with an offset of 40 arcmin with AstroSat/LAXPC, while the remaining six were on-axis observations. In this report, we present a comprehensive spectral analysis of the source as it was in the High/Soft state during the entire observation period. The source exhibited a disc-dominated spectra with a weak high-energy tail (power-law index ?2.5) and a high inner disc temperature (?0.84 keV). Modelling the disc continuum with non-relativistic and relativistic models, we find inner radius to be significantly truncated at >10 Rg. Alternatively, to model the spectral evolution with the assumption that the inner disc is at the innermost stable circular orbit, it is necessary to introduce variation in the spectral hardening in the range ?1.5-1.9. 2023 The Author(s). -
Blockchain-Based Service Oriented Privacy-Preserving Data Sharing over Distributed Data Streams in Asynchronous Environment
Innovative city applications use information and communication technologies to function various operations efficiently. The widespread use of the Internet of Things (IoT) can be viewed in several applications like smart cars, smart cities, e-commerce, and cyber-physical systems. The huge amount of data produced and transmitted by these systems is handled by cloud-based storage services, which are vulnerable to multiple threats risking the privacy and security features of the application. Cloud storage services employ encryption algorithms to ensure data confidentiality, but it fails to address the privacy issues. Apart from the privacy risks, in these systems, the identity of a user who shares and accesses the data is traceable, as it is required to verify user eligibility before providing access. Also, a vast amount of daily data is stored on a centralized system that processes service requests from multiple users, posing considerable risks to the system's stability during peak periods. To address these challenges faced during the data sharing process in a centralized system, Service Oriented Privacy-Preserving Data Sharing (SOPPDS) platform based on a blockchain framework is proposed. The modified Key Policy-Attribute-based Encryption (MKP-ABE) technique is applied to securely share the data between the service owners and the service consumers. It was evident from the performance evaluation of the proposed SOPPDS platform that the encryption process takes lesser time than the decryption process. Also, the cryptographic operations performed on the prime order sets exhibited increased latency and computational cost. It was observed that comparatively, cryptographic operations performed on composite order sets could overcome the issues in prime order sets. SOPPDS platform works well in preserving the users' privacy, ensuring anonymity in the data sharing process, and maintaining the confidentiality of the data shared in the system. 2023, Ismail Saritas. All rights reserved. -
Spectroscopic study of Herbig Ae/Be stars in the Galactic anti-centre region from LAMOST DR5
We study a sample of 119 Herbig Ae/Be stars in the Galactic anti-centre direction using the spectroscopic data from large sky area multi-object fiber spectroscopic telescope survey program. Emission lines of hydrogen belonging to the Balmer and Paschen series, and metallic lines of species such as Fe ii, O i, Ca ii triplet are identified. A moderate correlation is observed between the emission strengths of H? and Fe ii 5169 suggesting a possible common emission region for Fe ii lines and one of the components of H?. We explored a technique for the extinction correction of the HAeBe stars using diffuse interstellar bands present in the spectrum. We estimated the stellar parameters such as age and mass of these HAeBe stars, which are found to be in the range 0.1-10 Myr and 1.5-10 M, respectively. We found that the mass accretion rate of the HAeBe stars in the Galactic anti-centre direction follows the relation ?acc ? M?3.12-0.34+0.21, which is similar to the relation derived for HAeBe stars in other regions of the Galaxy. The mass accretion rate of HAeBe stars is found to have a functional form of ?acc ? t-1.10.02 with age, in agreement with previous studies. 2023 The Author(s) Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Royal Astronomical Society. -
Computer modelling of trace SO2 and NO2 removal from flue gases by utilizing Zn(ii) MOF catalysts
SO2 and NO2 capture and conversion have been investigated via density functional theory (DFT) and grand canonical Monte Carlo (GCMC) simulations using a novel hydrogen-bonded 3D metal-organic framework (MOF) containing a Zn(ii) centre and a partially fluorinated (polar -CF3) long-chain dicarboxylate ligand with a melamine (basic -NH2) co-ligand. Initially, computational single-component isotherms have been determined for SO2 and NO2 gases. These simulations have shown exothermic adsorption enthalpies of ?36.4 and ?28.6 kJ mol?1 for SO2 and NO2, respectively. They have also indicated that SO2 has a high affinity for polar -CF3 and basic -NH2 binding sites of the ligand in the framework pore walls. The lower adsorption capacity of NO2 compared with SO2 is due to weaker electrostatic interactions with the framework. Furthermore, MOF adsorbent selectivity for removing trace amounts of SO2 and NO2 in flue gases has been estimated through the co-adsorption of ternary gas mixtures (SO2/CO2/N2 and NO2/CO2/N2). Together with DFT, the climbing image nudged elastic band (CI-NEB) method has been used for investigating the plausible mechanisms for HbMOF1 catalyzed cycloadditions of SO2 and NO2 with epoxides leading to the formation of cyclic sulphites and nitrates, respectively. 2023 The Royal Society of Chemistry. -
The Evolution of Interindustry Technology Linkage Topics and Its Analysis Framework in Three-Dimensional Printing Technology
The mutual influence and complementarity of technologies between different industries are becoming increasingly prominent. Revealing the topic evolution of technology linkages between industries is the foundation for understanding the technological development trend of the industry. Although numerous works have focused on technology topic mining and its evolution characteristics, these works have not accurately represented the interindustry technology linkage, analyze the related topics and even ignored the technological development characteristics hidden in the topic evolution pathway. Since the Lingo algorithm fully considers the time-series characteristics of the topics, and the knowledge evolution theory can reveal three inherent characteristics in the evolution of knowledge topics, namely, 'stability, heredity, and variability,' this article aims to combine the Lingo algorithm and the knowledge evolution theory to analyze the topic evolution of interindustry technology linkages. Additionally, because three-dimensional (3-D) printing technology has significant interdisciplinary and cross-industry characteristics, a wide range of application fields, and various interindustry technology linkages, 3-D printing technology is used for empirical analysis. The empirical results show that the key topics of interindustry technology linkages in 3-D printing include model design, manufacturing methods, manufacturing equipment, manufacturing material, and application. In addition, all these topics have the development feature of heredity. However, the topic of manufacturing materials presents significant variability, the topic of manufacturing methods has the strongest stability, and multiple subtopics of the five topics show variability and genetic intersection. 2023 IEEE. -
Soil classification using active contour model for efficient texture feature extraction
Precision farming is a systematic approach in agriculture that aims in improving economic and environment status of the farmers. It is achieved by having prior knowledge on soil texture, nutrient, pH and other climatic conditions. Hence this paper proposes a soil classification for crop prediction approach that uses an active contour algorithm for band estimation in Fourier domain for efficient texture feature extraction. This approach initially segments the soil sample and extracts into the color and texture features. The approach proposes a texture feature extraction where the image is initially transformed to Fourier domain of a 2D-discrete Fourier transform. The image in the Fourier domain is classified into high and low-frequency bands. The cut off frequency is decided by final contour of active contour method, where initial circular contour is used for estimating final contours on Fourier coefficients. This leads to the estimation of an irregular-shaped cut off frequency along with the 2D Fourier coefficients, instead of using a circular-shaped cut off frequency. A local binary pattern (LBP) from the high-frequency band image extracts texture feature. The extracted texture and color features are trained using a fully connected network. Active contour-based proposed model was evaluated by metrics F1-score, accuracy, specificity, sensitivity, and precision on soil datasets of Kaggle and IRSID. The accuracy, F1-score, specificity, precision, and sensitivity of proposed approach active contour-based were estimated as 97.89%, 97.87%, 99.46%, 98.11 and 97.94% respectively when evaluated in the Kaggle dataset. The evaluation results of proposed active contour model based soil classification outperform other traditional approaches. 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Bharati Vidyapeeth's Institute of Computer Applications and Management. -
Design and Implementation of Active Clamp Flyback Converter for High-Power Applications
This paper proposes a solar-powered isolated DCDC converter for high-power applications. The main aim of this paper is to achieve voltage regulation in the output side of the converter and to integrate a lossless active clamp flyback circuit (LACF) to compensate for the high-voltage issues that arise from one-stage DCDC converters. Hardware is developed with a power rating of 2 kW to test the performance of the proposed circuit. The circuit is designed using low-voltage devices and features such as soft switching and regeneration due to the LACF, which enhances efficiency. A novel luminous control algorithm is presented to improve the converter performance. The proposed circuits performance and feasibility are compared with existing converter parameters, such as the number of components in the circuit, voltage rating, and regeneration. 2023 by the authors. -
Educational Deprivation of the Tribes Insights from the Block-level Study
The paper examines the nature of tribal deprivation, with specific focus on the issue of education. The research delves into the supply- and the demand-side factors, which determined the state of education within a region. Reaffirming the deprivation faced by the tribal communities, the study identifies specific factors that cause marginalisation. It points to the failure of the uniform tribal development programme to deal with the context-specific problems and thereby achieving the targeted results. The paper suggests the importance of not assuming the homogeneity of tribal societies, and need for public policies that are sensitive to this fact, in order to translate the goal of empowerment into a reality. 2023 Economic and Political Weekly. All rights reserved.