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Carcinogens in Food: Evaluating the Presence of Cadmium, Lead, in Poultry Meat in South India
Objective: Local chickens were spontaneously sampled and slaughtered in the central markets of Coimbatore, Erode, and Namakkal districts, South India. Materials and Methods: Wet digestion was used to extract lead (Pb), cadmium (Cd), and zinc (Zn) in their blood and selected different organs (intestine, breast, liver, and gizzard), and their concentrations were measured using an atomic absorption spectrophotometer. Results: Apart from the blood of chickens from Coimbatore and Namakkal, where Pb was not found, the concentrations of Pb in the blood and organs of chickens from the three towns ranged from 1.8 to 8.33 mg/kg, exceeding the maximum tolerance thresholds (0.1 mg/kg) in internal organs of poultry birds. Except for the intestine of chickens from the three areas, Cd was only found in the heart, blood, and gizzard of Erode chickens, as well as the liver and gizzard of Namakkal chickens, in concentrations ranging from 0.13 to 0.58. According to threshold level, the upper limit met the maximum limits (0.5 mg/kg). Zn was found in all sections of chickens from the three selected districts, with concentrations ranging from 4.96 to 174.17 mg/kg. Conclusion: Its concentrations were within the permissible limits (10-50 mg/kg) in some areas of certain chickens, but it surpassed the permissible limit in the liver of chicken from Coimbatore. Any organs and blood from local chickens sold in Coimbatore, Erode, and Namakkal areas can be hazardous to ones health. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial 4.0 International License -
Approach for Collision Minimization and Enhancement of Power Allocation in WSNs
Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) have attracted much more attention in recent years. Hence, nowadays, WSN is considered one of the most popular technologies in the networking field. The reason behind its increasing rate is only for its adaptability as it works through batteries which are energy efficient, and for these characteristics, it has covered a wide market worldwide. Transmission collision is one of the key reasons for the decrease in performance in WSNs which results in excessive delay and packet loss. The collision range should be minimized in order to mitigate the risk of these packet collisions. The WSNs that contribute to minimize the collision area and the statistics show that the collision area which exceeds equivalents transmission power has been significantly reduced by this technique. This proposed paper optimally reduced the power consumption and data loss through proper routing of packets and the method of congestion detection. WSNs typically require high data reliability to preserve identification and responsiveness capacity while also improving data reliability, transmission, and redundancy. Retransmission is determined by the probability of packet arrival as well as the average energy consumption. 2021 Debabrata Singh et al. -
Decolonizing Open Science: Southern Interventions
Hegemonic Open Science, emergent from the circuits of knowledge production in the Global North and serving the economic interests of platform capitalism, systematically erase the voices of the subaltern margins from the Global South and the Southern margins inhabiting the North. Framed within an overarching emancipatory narrative of creating access for and empowering the margins through data exchanged on the global free market, hegemonic Open Science processes co-opt and erase Southern epistemologies, working to create and reproduce new enclosures of extraction that serve data colonialism-capitalism. In this essay, drawing on our ongoing negotiations of community-led culture-centered advocacy and activist strategies that resist the racist, gendered, and classed structures of neocolonial knowledge production in the metropole in the North, we attend to Southern practices of Openness that radically disrupt the whiteness of hegemonic Open Science. These decolonizing practices foreground data sovereignty, community ownership, and public ownership of knowledge resources as the bases of resistance to the colonial-capitalist interests of hegemonic Open Science. The Author(s) 2021. -
Impact of COVID-19 on Delivery of Quality Hospitality Education in India
The Covid-19 pandemic caused many industries globally to undergo radical changes in their operational systems, disrupting the service delivery processes. The education industry is no exception to this phenomenon. India's higher educational institutions witnessed the immense challenge of taking the teaching process online with limited means and infrastructural support. This study aimed to assess the impact of the pandemic on the delivery of education online in India with particular reference to hospitality courses. A survey of 250 students and interview of 10 faculty members from 5 universities offering hospitality course across India showed that the online learning system is far from satisfactory and effective. Moreover, teachers need to undergo training sessions in order to improve their online teaching skills and create newer methods of imparting skills and evaluating students' performance. IJHTS -
ENHANCING home security through visual CRYPTOGRAPHY
Home security systems in the recent times have gained greater importance due to increasing threat in the society. Biometrics deals with automated approaches of recognizing a user or verifying the user identity based on behavioral or physiological features. Visual cryptography is a scheme of secret sharing where a secret image is encrypted into shares which disclose no data independently about the original secret image. As the template of biometric are stored in centralized database due to the threats of security the template of biometric may be changed by attacker. If the template of biometric is changed then the authorized user will not be permitted to access the resource. To manage this problem the schemes of visual cryptography can be used to secure the face recognition. Visual cryptography offers huge ways for supporting such needs of security as well as additional authentication layer. To manage this problem the visual cryptography schemes can be used to secure digital biometric information privacy. In this approach the face or private image is dithered in two varied host images that is sheets and are stored in separate servers of data so as to assure that the original image can get extracted only by accessing both sheets together at a time and a single sheet will not be capable to show any data of private image. The main aim of the study is to propose an algorithm which is a combination of CVC and Siamese network. This research implements visual cryptography for face images in a biometric application. The Siamese network is essential to solve one shot learning by representation of learning feature that are compared to verification tasks. In this research face authentication helps in accomplishing robustness by locating face image from an n input image. This research explores the availability of using visual cryptography for securing the privacy to biometric data. The results of the proposed approach provide an accuracy of 93% which is found to be superior when compared with that of the approaches that are already in practice. 2020 -
A research note: More to ponder on the perspectives of sustainability of tourism destinations
This research note focused on tapping the research opportunities on the perspectives of sustainability on tourism destinations. Being a short communication, the research note was created using the literary sources that concentrated only on the sustainability of tourism destinations. Growing tourism attributes; need for positioning destinations in competitive industrial markets; rapid changes in tourism market characteristics, motives, and opportunities; and mainly to sustain the tourism resources for better future consumption and preservation were the primitive forces to undertake the research note, which would facilitate further research works in the arena. The communications highlighted the integral and in-depth aspects such as centrality of sustainability, tourists knowledge about sustainability, tourists responsibility towards sustainability of destinations and natural resources, destination behavior towards sustainability, blending culture and sustainability, and rural destinations and their relevance on a sustainable future. Beneficial keynotes for policy makers and others thereof were enumerated throughout the note. 2021, Associated Management Consultants Pvt. Ltd.. All rights reserved. -
Nanoparticle aggregation effects on radiative heat transport of nanoliquid over a vertical cylinder with sensitivity analysis
A sensitivity analysis is performed to analyze the effects of the nanoparticle (NP) aggregation and thermal radiation on heat transport of the nanoliquids (titania based on ethylene glycol) over a vertical cylinder. The optimization of heat transfer rate and friction factor is performed for NP volume fraction (1% ? ? ? 3%), radiation parameter (1 ? Rt ? 3), and mixed convection parameter (1.5 ? ? ? 2.5) via the face-centered central composite design (CCD) and the response surface methodology (RSM). The modified Krieger and Dougherty model (MKDM) for dynamic viscosity and the Bruggeman model (BM) for thermal conductivity are utilized to simulate nanoliquids with the NP aggregation aspect. The complicated nonlinear problem is treated numerically. It is found that the temperature of nanoliquid is enhanced due to the aggregation of NPs. The friction factor is more sensitive to the volume fraction of NPs than the thermal radiation and the mixed convection parameter. Furthermore, the heat transport rate is more sensitive to the effect of radiative heat compared with the NP volume fraction and mixed convection parameter. 2021, Shanghai University and Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature. -
Electronic structure and intrinsic dielectric polarization of defect-engineered rutile TiO2
Experimental realization of colossal permittivity associated with intrinsic dielectric polarization of defect-engineered (Nb, In) co-doped rutile TiO2 appears to be most suitable for microelectronics and solid-state device applications. Combining resonant photoemission spectroscopy, X-ray absorption spectroscopy, and density functional theory calculations, we here present a coherent understanding of electronic structure, in-gap defect states, doped electron localization, and their connection with macroscopic polarization for various doping configurations. Most often, conventional sample preparation conditions introduce in-gap states of Ti3+? character, limiting the maximum achievable intrinsic polarization value. Our understanding provides a pathway to enhance intrinsic polarization and minimize dielectric loss through suitable defect-engineering. The Royal Society of Chemistry. -
Hybrid AODV: An Efficient Routing Protocol for Manet Using MFR and Firefly Optimization Technique
A MANET is a category of ad hoc protocol that could vary positions and track itself on the flutter. It utilizes wireless connections that are attached to several networks. They include wirelessly in a self-configured, self-healing network while not having permanent communication linked in a collection of mobile networks. The network topology of nodes typically varies in MANET, and nodes are free to stir errantly and independently as a router as they accelerate traffic to more nodes within the network. Ad hoc on-demand distance vector (AODV) was employed for node selection to attain the shortest path strategy in existing techniques. In the proposed system, the hybrid AODV (HAODV) technique incorporates the MFR (Most Forward within Radius) technique to detect the shortest path routing algorithm. The MFR method was deployed for selecting the neighbor node, while HAODV was deployed to find the shortest path. To find the shortest path based on the updating equation, the Firefly algorithm is also implemented into the Hybrid AODV. The proposed work's performance is calculated by different network parameters like the end to end delay, average routing overhead, throughput, and packet delivery ratio. After comparing AODV and DSR algorithms, the proposed algorithm (HAODV) shows improvement in packet delivery ratio, end-To-end delay, Routing overhead, and throughput. 2021 World Scientific Publishing Company. -
Analysis of the chemical properties and high-temperature rheological properties of MDI modified bio-asphalt
As an environmentally friendly material, bio-oil is employed to partially replace non-renewable petroleum asphalt, but its addition weakens the high-temperature non-deformability of petroleum asphalt. Therefore, the 4,4?-diphenylmethane diisocyanate (MDI) was employed as a chemical modifier of bio-asphalt to improve its high temperature rheological properties. The MDI with addition of 0.5%, 1%, 2%, 4% by weight, and the bio-oil with addition of 12% were used to obtain the MDI modified bio-asphalts. The chemical reaction mechanism between the MDI and bio-asphalt was analyzed by employing the Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and gel permeation chromatography (GPC) tests. Meanwhile, the rotational plate viscosity (RPV) test, the temperature sweep test, and the multiple stress creep and recovery (MSCR) test were employed to evaluate the high-temperature rheological properties of the MDI modified bio-asphalts. Moreover, the relationships between the chemical reaction mechanism and high-temperature rheological parameters of MDI modified bio-asphalt were established. Test results show that a nucleophilic addition reaction occurred between the MDI and the active hydrogen of bio-asphalt to form urethane chains, which increased the content of macromolecular polymers in the bio-asphalt. The MDI increased the G*/sin? (rutting factor) and the E(?) (visco-flow activation energy) of the bio-asphalt, but decreased its permanent strain and Jnr (non-recoverable creep compliance). Therefore, the MDI modifier effectively enhanced the permanent non-deformability of the bio-asphalt. Both IUrethane and LMS were positively correlated with the rutting factor, viscosity and 1/Jnr, and had significant correlations at a significance level of 0.05. Furthermore, the optimal ratio of MDI to bio-oil was determined to be 1:6 by mass. 2020 Elsevier Ltd -
Antenna Array with Non-Uniform Excitation and DNG Hybrid Metasurface for Next Generation Communication Equipment
This paper presents an approach for designing a hybrid metasurface array with nonuniform excitation. The proposed design features a unique feed network with minimal use of Quarter Wave Transformers (QWT's) to reduce the form-factor. The impedance matching between the feed network and the patch is achieved by adjusting the inset position and the gap between the patch and the feed. The metasurface consists of a hybrid metamaterial unit cell with five Split Ring Resonators (SRRs) on the bottom and a hexagonal ring made of six triangles on the top surface improves the bandwidth, gain and directivity of the proposed design. Equivalent circuit of the proposed array is modeled using ADS software. A prototype 1x4 array with metasurface is designed for a resonant frequency of 2.4 GHz and fabricated. A high gain of 9.46 dB with a -10 dB impedance bandwidth of 110 MHz is achieved, which amounts to an improvement of 16.36% gain and 31.58% bandwidth compared to conventional uniform excitation array. In terms of overall size, the proposed array antenna is reduced by 38.05% compared to traditional 1x4 microstrip array. 2021 IAMOT. All Rights Reserved. -
An aqueous phase TEMPO mediated electrooxidation of 2-thiophenemethanol using MnO2-Pi dispersed nanocarbon spheres on a carbon fiber paper electrode
An environmentally benign and economic method was developed for the electrocatalytic oxidation of 2-thiophenemethanol in an aqueous acidic medium. Nanocarbon spheres (NCS) coated on carbon fiber paper (CFP) were used as a host matrix to disperse manganese dioxide nanoparticles from phosphate buffer solution through electrochemical deposition. The developed electrode (MnO2-Pi-NCS/CFP) was used as a working electrode for electrochemical oxidation of 2-thiophenemethanol in the presence of a mediator TEMPO in 0.01 M H2SO4 medium. Different analytical methods were used to characterize the modified electrodes. Cyclic voltammetry (CV) and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) were used to study the electrochemical properties of the modified electrodes. The electrochemically active surface area values calculated for bare CFP, NCS coated CFP and MnO2-Pi-NCS/CFP electrodes were found to be 1.43 cm2, 2.86 cm2, and 6.72 cm2 respectively for the geometric area of 0.7 cm2 of the electrodes. Coating of NCS and MnO2-Pi resulted in porosity and roughness of the CFP electrode which enhances the surface area. MnO2-Pi-NCS/CFP demonstrated higher electrocatalytic activity for oxidation of 2-thiophenemethanol to 2-thiophenemethanal in aqueous acidic media with a TEMPO mediator compared to unmodified electrodes. This journal is 2021 The Royal Society of Chemistry. -
A study of the natural convection of water- AA 7075 nanoliquids in low-porosity cylindrical annuli using a local thermal non-equilibrium model
Natural convection in nanoliquid-saturated porous cylindrical annuli due to uniform heat and mass influxes from the solid cylinder and effluxes from the outer hollow cylinder is investigated analytically. The Darcy model and the modified version of the Buongiorno two-phase model are used, and local thermal non-equilibrium between the phases is assumed. A nanoliquid-saturated porous medium made up of glass balls with a dilute concentration of AA7075 alloy nanoparticles well-dispersed in water is considered. Out of three types of annuli considered, shallow annuli provide the best heat transport and tall annuli show the worst performance. The presence of a dilute concentration of nanoparticles significantly enhances the heat transport in the system. Of nine nanoparticle shapes considered, lamina-shaped nanoparticles enhance heat transport the most. Heat transport is enhanced in the case of heat-and-mass-driven convection compared to the case of purely heat-driven convection. The results for a rectangular enclosure are obtained as a particular case of the present study. Two asymptotic routes that take us to the results of thermal equilibrium are shown. The vanishing limit of the concentration Rayleigh number yields the result for a single-phase model. Results for the base-liquid-saturated porous medium form a limiting case of the present study. We conclude that a shallow cylindrical annulus saturated with water-AA7075 lamina-shaped alloy nanoparticles is best suited for heat transfer due to its high effective thermal conductivity in comparison with that of other shaped nanoparticles and a tall rectangular enclosure saturated by water is best suited for heat storage applications. 2021 Author(s). -
Predicting of Open Source Software Component Reusability Level Using Object-Oriented Metrics by Taguchi Approach
Component-based software development (CBSD) is an efficient approach used by software developers to develop new software. The commercial off the shelf (COTS) and open-source software (OSS) are two styles to implement CBSD. The COTS provides the interface and depicts the black-box behavior, but does not support several software quality characteristics. On the other hard, OSS is a more efficient approach compared to COTS due to its source code availability. This research aims to identify the reusability level of OSS components from an online repository of OSS. The OSS components are classified based on Chidamber and Kemerer reusability metrics (CK-metrics). This paper proposed a mathematical model to establish the relationship between the reusability of CK-metrics. Reusability level of OSS component has been measured and most effective CK-metrics obtained by applying the Taguchi design and analysis of variance (ANOVA). The input parameters for the experimental design are evaluated based on the OSS repository. Performance analysis has been carried out based upon the interaction effect between the reusability of CK-metrics. Main effect plots are created to identify the most reusable component of the OSS. The genetic algorithm (GA) is used to predict the optimized value of the different control parameters. The results indicate that the OSS component reusability level is 0.698194. The reusability of software has a significant effect on the quality of software. The quality of software can be improved by increasing the reusability of software components. 2021 World Scientific Publishing Company. -
Down syndrome detection using modified ant colony optimization algorithm
Nowadays, the systems related to healthcare are restructured with innovative skills to offer humans more intellectual and proficient healthcare facilities. Various intelligent healthcare systems are exhibited with the help of machine learning and artificial intelligent tools to offer intellectual and expert services. In human body genetic codes are stored in the genes. All of our inherited traits are associated with these genes and are grouped as structures generally called chromosomes. In typical cases, each cell consists of 23 pairs of chromosomes, out of which each parent contributes half. But if a person has a partial or full copy of chromosome 21, the situation is called Down syndrome. It results in intellectual disability, reading impairment, developmental delay, and other medical abnormalities. This paper introduces an intelligent prediction and classification system for healthcare, feature selection based on density with Ant Colony Optimization (ACO) algorithm for Down syndrome (DS). 2021, Engg Journals Publications. All rights reserved. -
Dust reverberation mapping of Z229-15
We report results of the dust reverberation mapping (DRM) on the Seyfert 1 galaxy Z229-15 at z = 0.0273. Quasi-simultaneous photometric observations for a total of 48 epochs were acquired during the period 2017 July to 2018 December in B, V, J, H and Ks bands. The calculated spectral index (?) between B and V bands for each epoch was used to correct for the accretion disc (AD) component present in the infrared light curves. The observed ? ranges between -0.99 and 1.03. Using cross-correlation function analysis we found significant time delays between the optical V and the AD corrected J, H and Ks light curves. The lags in the rest frame of the source are 12.52+10.00 -9.55 d (between V and J), 15.63+5.05 -5.11 d (between V and H) and 20.36+5.82 -5.68 d (between V and Ks). Given the large error bars, these lags are consistent with each other. However, considering the lag between V and Ks bands to represent the inner edge of the dust torus, the torus in Z229-15 lies at a distance of 0.017 pc from the central ionizing continuum. This is smaller than that expected from the radius luminosity (R-L) relationship known from DRM. Using a constant ? = 0.1 to account for theADcomponent, as is normally done in DRM, the deduced radius (0.025 pc) lies close to the expected R-L relation. However, usage of constant ? in DRM is disfavoured as the ? of the ionizing continuum changes with the flux of the source. 2021 Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. -
Segregating direct and indirect dimensions in ecosystem services valuation: The case of a coastal wetland ecosystem of south india
This paper provides insights into the multiple (direct and indirect) benefits of Kuttanad coastal wetland ecosystem in Kerala. Total annual direct ecosystem services generated from the wetlands are INR 8.45 billion or USD 0.11 billion per annum at 2020 prices. The estimates of the case study indicate that the annual value of indirect ecosystem services is thrice of direct provisioning services (Rs 22.52 billion or USD 0.31 billion per annum at 2020 prices). The valuation study would improve the knowledge and awareness of economic importance of wetland ecosystems among the various stakeholders including the policy makers of the society and their sustainable management to benefit the society. 2021 Ecological Society of India. All rights reserved. -
Thermal and entropy generation of non-Newtonian magneto-Carreau fluid flow in microchannel
The heat flow in microchannels can be established in numerous applications such as micro air vehicles, mechanicalelectromechanical systems, cooling of electronic devices and micro heat exchanger systems. Heat flow optimization deliberates the function of entropy generation minimization (EGM) in engineering applications. Hence, this paper investigates the heat transport of non-Newtonian magneto-Carreau fluid in a microchannel with EGM. Mathematical modeling incorporates the Carreau fluid model. Further, viscous heating, Joule heating and convective heating aspects are also analyzed. The physical features of entropy production in the flow of non-Newtonian Carreau fluid in a microchannel are the major focus of this model. Dimensionless variables are executed for the simplicity of basic equations. The subsequent system is treated by using finite element method. Behaviors of effective parameters on velocity, Bejan number, entropy generation rate and temperature are interpreted. It is established that EGM is occurred for larger values of Weissenberg number. The Carreau fluid exponent is positively related to Bejan number, whereas it is negatively related to EG, temperature and velocity fields. 2020, Akadiai Kiad Budapest, Hungary. -
An efficient approach for fractional nonlinear chaotic model with Mittag-Leffler law
In this work, we exemplify the behaviour of the nonlinear model of arbitrary order differential equations by adopting q-homotopy analysis transform method (q-HATM). In the present study, the illustrated scheme is a graceful amalgamation of Laplace transform with q-homotopy analysis algorithm and we considered arbitrary order derivative using Atangana-Baleanu (AB) operator. The suggested nonlinear system exhibits chaotic behaviour in nature with respect to considered initial conditions. Fixed point hypothesis heard present the existence and uniqueness for the attained solution. We exemplified suggested arbitrary order system with to illustrate and confirm the efficiency of the projected solution procedure. Further, the numerical simulation is illustrated and also the chaotic behaviour of the obtained result captured with respect to arbitrary order in terms of plots. The obtained results confirm the projected scheme is highly methodical, easy to implement and very powerful to exemplify the nature of the dynamical system of arbitrary order. 2021 The Author(s) -
High surface area Nanoflakes of P-gC3N4 photocatalyst loaded with Ag nanoparticle with intraplanar and interplanar charge separation for environmental remediation
The photocatalytic performance of gC3N4 is majorly restricted by insufficient collection of photogenerated charges on the surface during reaction due to highly dense stacking of lamellar structures with lateral size ranging in microns. This deficiency can be overcome by forming thin nanoflakes by systematically breaking the weak bonds that hold the gC3N4 framework without destroying the basic heptazine unit. With this aim, herein, a combination of three different strategies was implemented to design and develop, Ag-loaded and P-doped gC3N4 nanoflakes (Ag3-P1-NF-gC3N4). Using a systematic synthesis method, bulk gC3N4 was first converted into thin nanosheets, followed by fragmentation into nanoflakes, with a planar size up to 100 nm. P doping to replace the corner C atoms in the gC3N4 matrix (forming P[sbnd]N bonds) and intercalation of plasmonic Ag nanoparticles within the interlayers also assists in the bifurcation of the stacked layers and formation of nanoflake morphology. These strategies result in a significant increase in BET surface area to ?196 m2/g from 12 m2/g of bulk gC3N4. Improved inter-planar and intra-planar charge mobility was recorded as a result of the reduced sizes. Doping with P also causes higher absorption of the visible spectrum in gC3N4 while the formation of heterojunction with Ag nanoparticles induces efficient separation of photo-generated charges. All these promoting photo-physical properties lead to an outstanding photocatalytic activity towards degradation of aqueous pollutants with reaction rates ?20 times higher than bulk gC3N4. Complete mineralization of the pollutant and formation of non-toxic byproducts was also confirmed with suitable chromatography techniques. 2020 Elsevier B.V.