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Bio-accumulation, remediation, and disposal of arsenic (one of the regulated elements) in the environment are investigated and discussed comprehensively.

Non-rhizobial endophytes (NREs) are active colonizers inhabiting the root nodules. Though their active role in the lentil agroecosystem is not well defined, here we observed that these NREs might promote the growth of lentils, modulate rhizospheric community structure and could be used as promising organisms for optimal use of rice fallow soil. NREs from root nodules of lentils were isolated and examined for plant growth-promoting traits, exopolysaccharide (EPS) and biofilm production, root metabolites, and the presence of nifH and nifK elements. The greenhouse experiment with the chosen NREs, i.e., Serratia plymuthica 33GS and Serratia sp. R6 significantly increased the germination rate, vigour index, development of nodules (in non-sterile soil) and fresh weight of nodules (33GS 94%, R6 61% growth) and length of the shoot (33GS 86%, R6 51.16%) as well as chlorophyll levels when compared to the uninoculated control. Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) revealed that both isolates could successfully colonize the roots and elicit root hair growth. The inoculation of the NREs resulted in specific changes in root exudation patterns. The plants with 33GS and R6 treatment significantly stimulated the exudation of triterpenes, fatty acids, and their methyl esters in comparison to the uninoculated plants, altering the rhizospheric microbial community structure. Proteobacteria dominated the rhizospheric microbiota in all the treatments. Treatment with 33GS or R6 also enhanced the relative abundance of other favourable microbes, including Rhizobium, Mesorhizobium, and Bradyrhizobium. The correlation network analysis of relative abundances resulted in numerous bacterial taxa, which were in cooperation with each other, having a possible role in plant growth promotion. The results indicate the significant role of NREs as plant growth promoters, which also includes their role in root exudation patterns, enhancement of soil nutrient status and modulation of rhizospheric microbiota, suggesting their prospects in sustainable, and bio-based agriculture.

The effective removal of hexavalent chromium is a very important issue for many countries. There is rising interest in the use of inexpensive and widely accessible materials for the adsorption of Cr (VI). Simarouba glauca, a easily available medicinal plant was found to be very effective in removing Cr(VI) from aqueous medium. First part of the study deals with the implementation of 25 Full factorial design technique to investigate adsorption of Cr(VI) onto S. glauca. It aided in the assessment of the main effects and interactions between the dose of S. glauca, pH, temperature, initial Cr(VI) concentration, and time. The adsorption significance was predicted through ANOVA, T-Test, Pareto chart, main effect and interaction plot. The second part of the study deals with the investigating potential of S. glauca by continuous adsorption mode in a fixed-bed column. The effects of Cr(VI) inlet concentration (50,100,150 mg/L), flow rate (13 and 21 mL/min) an S. glauca bed height (30, 36, 40 and 45 cm) on the breakthrough characteristics of the adsorption system were determined. The highest bed capacity of 611.69 mg/g was obtained using 100 mg/L inlet Cr(VI) concentration, 45 cm bed height and 13 mL/min flow rate. Three well-known fixed-bed adsorption models, the Thomas, Yoon-Nelson models and Adam's-Bohart were used to match the adsorption data. With correlation coefficients of 0.99 under various circumstances, the results suit the Thomas and Yoon-Nelson models well. According to this study, we may utilise this method to remediate chromium-contaminated water in industrial settings.

In this paper, a 13-level asymmetric configured cascaded H-bridge (CHB) inverter is used with a 54-pulse AC-DC converter to feed a medium voltage indication motor (IM). A thorough analysis is caried out to design an isolated multi-winding transformer (MWT) based 54-pulse converter. Accordingly, the main aim of this converter is to extract the power from the grid as per the power quality standard. Moreover, a higher number of voltage levels in CHB inverter is used to adhere the power quality due to asymmetric DC supplies, having 1:2:3 voltage ratio. Hence, a 13-leevl CHB-MLI is implemented with nine DC voltage sources. The converters of this drive system ensure that the quality of the grid currents and drive currents are excellent and meet the IEEE 519 power quality successfully. A nearest level control technique is implemented to generate the switching logic for a 13-level CHBCHB inverter. Simulated results demonstrate the performance of a 298.4kW induction motor drive in steady state and dynamic state. A validation study is conducted on an experimental setup with a 7.5kW IM at steady and dynamic states. Test results show a good agreement in terms of total harmonics distortions, power loss, and efficiency.

Arsenic is one of the regulated hazard materials in the environment and a persistent pollutant creating environmental, agricultural and health issues and posing a serious risk to humans. In the present review, sources and mobility of As in various compartments of the environment (air, water, soil and sediment) around the World are comprehensively investigated, along with measures of health hazards. Multiple atomic spectrometric approaches have been applied for total and speciation analysis of As chemical species. The LoD values are basically under 1 μg L−1, which is sufficient for the analysis of As or its chemical species in environmental samples. Both natural and anthropogenic sources contributed to As in air, while fine particulate matter tends to have higher concentrations of arsenic and results in high concentrations of As up to a maximum of 1660 ng m−3 in urban areas. Sources for As in natural waters (as dissolved or in particulate form) can be attributed to natural deposits, agricultural and industrial effluents, for which the maximum concentration of 2000 μg L−1 was found in groundwater. Sources for As in soil can be the initial contents, fossil fuel burning products, industrial effluents, pesticides, and so on, with a maximum reported concentration up to 4600 mg kg−1. Sources for As in sediments can be attributed to their reservoirs, with a maximum reported concentration up to 2500 mg kg−1. It is notable that some reported concentrations of As in the environment are several times higher than permissible limits. However, many aspects of arsenic environmental chemistry including contamination of the environment, quantification, mobility, removal and health hazards are still unclear.

BACKGROUND Otologists always yearn to improve the hearing outcome of their patients with chronic suppurative otitis media. There are different options for ossiculoplasty to choose from, depending on the extent of disease, condition of ossicular chain and availability of implant material and there has always been a quest to make appropriate decision with a predictable outcome. In this study, we have tried to analyse various factors which can affect hearing outcome after Ossiculoplasty. METHODS A retrospective study was done to study the effect of implant material, condition of ossicular chain and disease in the mastoid on post-operative hearing improvement on 200 patients, who underwent tympanoplasty or tympanomastoidectomy from January 2018 to January 2020, in Department of Otorhinolaryngology and Head and Neck Surgery, K.D. Medical College, Mathura. Decision of ossiculoplasty was made based on intra-operative findings. Autograft incus, Teflon TORP (total ossicular replacement prosthesis) and cartilage columella were used based on availability and feasibility. RESULTS Mean improvement in average air-bone gap of 200 patients was found to be 18.57 dB, with autograft incus, it was 19.99 dB, with Teflon TORP (total ossicular replacement prosthesis), 19.53 dB and with cartilage columella 16.73 dB (P = 0.023). Mean hearing improvement was 18.98 dB when handle of malleus was present and 15.59 dB when it was absent (P = 0.023). Mean hearing improvement was 19.42 dB when stapes superstructure was present and 16.92 dB when it was absent (P = 0.016). Even though the hearing outcome was better when mastoid was disease free (19.57 dB) compared to when it was diseased (18.30 dB), the difference was not statistically significant. (P = 0.177) CONCLUSIONS In our study, we found autograft incus to be the best material for ossiculoplasty and presence of handle of malleus and stapes superstructure improved postoperative hearing outcome significantly but involvement of mastoid by disease did not significantly affect the hearing outcome post-operatively. KEYWORDS Chronic Suppurative Otitis Media, Ossiculoplasty, Tympanoplasty, Ossicular Prosthesis, Autograft

A continuous adsorption study in a fixed-bed column was carried out by using Tinospora cordifolia as an adsorbent for the removal of fluoride from aqueous solution. The effect of flow rate, influent fluoride concentration and bed depth on the adsorption characteristics of adsorbent was investigated at pH 7. The dependencies of breakthrough curves on these parameters were confirmed from the data obtained. Modeling of data was done. Thomas, Yoon–Nelson and Adams–Bohart models were applied to experimental data to predict the breakthrough curves. These kinetic models were helpful to determine the characteristic parameters of column designing for defluoridation on a large scale. Thomas and Yoon-Nelson models were found to be more suitable for the description of the breakthrough curve than the Adams–Bohart model in the present study. It was concluded that the Tinospora cordifolia-packed column can be used for effective defluoridation of water. HIGHLIGHTS Large scale removal of fluoride from waste water.; Low cost removal method of removing fluoride from water.; Environment-friendly defluoridation method.; Removal at neutral pH.; Effective regeneration of adsorbent.

The aim of this research was to see whether a biosorbent derived from the Simarouba glauca plant can effectively remove Cr(VI). The initial concentrations, pH, biosorbent dosage, temperature, and contact time, among other things, were optimized. As a result, the biosorption capacity was obtained as 10.90 mg/g at an optimized pH of 2, a standing time of 45 min, and a temperature of 27 °C in the batch mode operations. The optimum contact time was found to decrease with an increase in temperature and biosorbent dose. The adsorption kinetics was studied with Langmuir, Freundlich, Temkin, Dubinin–Radushkevich, Elovich, and Jovanovic adsorption isotherm models. The Langmuir adsorption isotherm was found to fit the best with the highest R2 (0.99) value. The adsorption efficiency was studied kinetically, and the adsorption process was found to follow the pseudo-second-order reaction. Elovich kinetics model proved the chemical adsorption mechanism between the active sites and Cr(VI) ions. The adsorption mechanism was found to involve intraparticle diffusion of Cr(VI) ions. The variability and the endothermic nature of the reaction are shown by the positive value of ΔS˚(0.207 kJ/mol) and ΔH˚ (60.168 kJ/mol), respectively. Also, the negative ΔG˚ values show the spontaneity of the reaction. FTIR study revealed the involvement of hydroxyl(-OH), alkane(-CH), alkyne, and carbonyl group in adsorption. The aggregate of Cr(VI) within the voids in the biosorbent was proved by SEM–EDX analysis. The biosorbent showed the regeneration efficiency of 74% after five successive adsorption–desorption cycles with 0.1 N HNO3. Overall, the present plant biosorbent has proved to have a high capability for removing Cr(VI) from synthetic and industrial water and can be employed at a large scale in a continuous process.

The present study identifies the prevalence, pattern & geographical distribution of pregnancy loss and its various determinants. The choropleth equal interval maps and local indicators of spatial association maps were used to investigate the locations requiring attention. Spatial regression techniques were used to investigate the factors associated with pregnancy losses across India using data derived from the fourth round of National Family Health Survey. A decision tree was constructed to investigate the interaction effect of the significant factors.The percentage of pregnancy loss in India is noted to be 14.3% (95% BCa confidence interval: 13.47, 14.79). The spatial autocorrelation coefficient ( $$\rho = 0.61,~p < 0.001$$ ) indicated the spatial dependence in the data. Hotspots of response variable were observed in districts of Uttar Pradesh, Manipur, and Odisha. Locations, with high percentage of women who have attained education upto high school and above, women who did not want the pregnancy, and women whose family did not want more child, were likely to have increased percentage of pregnancy loss. Struggles in a womens life, family’s pressure and own desire to have child coupled with their education status are related to the pregnancy loss. Preventing the unplanned pregnancies will play a pivotal role in decreasing the pregnancy loss which further prevents maternal mortality and morbidity. Timely and adequate supplies of contraception in public health institutions particulary sub-centre, primary health centre should be ensured.

Introduction It has always been a concern of ENT surgeon to prevent post operative complications like nasal bleeding, septal hematoma and septal abscess after septoplasty. Traditionally nasal packing has been done to avoid these complications. Although the nasal pack itself has been a concern for several reasons, packing apart from causing breathing distress, has resulted in epiphora, dysphagia, sleep disturbance, post-operative pain, headache, septal infection, septal abscess and even toxic shock syndrome. Materials and Methods This study has compared the efficacy of a newly designed septal splint with clip with nasal packs. This study was done on 60 patients, nasal packing was done in 30 patients and septal splints with clip were applied in 30 patients. Results Post-operative pain, epiphora, dysphagia, dryness of mouth and sleep disturbance was found to be significantly less in patients with septal splints with clip as compared to those with nasal packing. Conclusion Septal splints with clip is more efficacious alternative to nasal packing in patients undergoing septoplasty.

The study reports biosorptive removal of uranium(VI) water contamination by a wild epiphytic orchid plant: Vanda tessellata. This orchid plant was chosen based on abundant availability and adsorption efficacy. In batch mode operation the maximum uranium(VI) adsorption capacity was found as 416 μg g−1 of dry biomass. The optimum pH for adsorption was neutral (7), and the equilibrium time was 15 min at 30 ± 5 °C temperature. The adsorbent properties were characterized by SEM, EDS, and FTIR techniques. The effects of various variables like pH, initial ion concentration, biosorbent dose, contact time, and temperature on the adsorption process were studied. The Langmuir isotherm showed better agreement (R2 = 0.987) to describe the adsorption process, and the adsorption process followed pseudo-second-order kinetics. The thermodynamic study showed the endothermic, and spontaneous nature of adsorption in a feasible manner. The adsorbent can be used for developing a remedial method for uranium contamination in the water.

A new modular transformer based 36‐pulse ac–dc converter for a cascaded H‐bridge‐inverter fed medium voltage induction motor drive is proposed in this work. The conventional multi‐pulse ac–dc converter has only 18‐pulses in its line input current with six output dc voltages, whereas, the proposed multi‐pulse ac–dc converter has 36‐pulses in its line current with six output voltages. Due to this, the proposed medium voltage induction motor drive has improved power quality at input end. A 9‐level cascaded H‐bridge‐inverter is applied on drive side to boost the performance of medium voltage induction motor drive. A modified model reference adaptive system based speed sensorless vector control is presented in this paper. A nearest level modulation scheme is used to operate a 9‐level inverter at fundamental frequency switching over the entire speed range of an induction motor drive. The performance of this drive is verified through both simulation and experimental results.

In the proposed work, a new control is used with inner loop as a current control and the outer loop as a voltage control of a solar photovoltaic (PV) array-fed single-phase grid interfaced system, ...

Objective To investigate the psycho-social factors associated with COVID-19 and the nationwide lockdown in India. Study design An online survey was conducted from April 11 through April 16, 2020 in 28 states and 8 union territories (UT) of India. The potential participants were recruited using snowball sampling procedure. Methods A cross-sectional online survey was conducted among the people of all states in India. A spatial analysis was performed and Moran's I statistic was applied to investigate the overall clustering of locations. Fisher's exact test was used to investigate associations. GeoDa and R console were used to analyze the data. A total of 1316 responses were received. Results Those worried for their family's health were likely to follow the lockdown measures(p, Highlights • Consider sentiments of the community while planning strategies. • Emphasize on the psychological well-being of individuals, along with physical health. • Tailored intervention should be innovated for states requiring more attention regarding psycho-social measure.

A new approach to improve the power quality of medium voltage induction motor drive (MVIMD) at both utility and drive end is presented. Here, 3-multi-winding transformers (MWT) (T1, T2, T3) are utilized and each MWT converts 3-phase input AC-supply into two isolated 5-phase AC-supplies with unique (18°) phase-shift among them. Moreover, due to unique (±6° and 0°) angle in the primary sides of these MWTs, the line current drawn from the grid has 60-pulses. By applying this technology, the input current harmonics are decreased to well below the requirement of the IEEE 519 standard. This 60-pulse AC-DC converter gives 6-isolated DC-supplies, which are input of a 5-level six-leg neutral point clamped (NPC) inverter feeding an induction motor. A modified direct torque control (DTC) strategy is used in this study for 5-level six-leg NPC inverter fed induction motor drive (IMD). Because of it, this IMD has better performance than the existing IMD. The system performance is evaluated using MATLAB-Simulink software and is then experimentally verified on a prototype developed in the laboratory under all required operation of IMD to validate the performance of the system.

A multiwinding transformer for ac–dc converter with multilevel inverter fed induction motor drive (IMD) is presented in this article. An 18 pulse ac–dc conversion is used on input side of the IMD, to meet the power quality requirement as per the IEEE-519 standard. At IM side, a ternary configured nine-level cascaded H-bridge (CHB)-inverter is used to enhance the response of the IMD. A simple online calculation of switching angles and its implementation of selective harmonic elimination strategy, are proposed to control a nine-level CHB-inverter. In this article, a nine-level CHB-inverter is operated at fundamental frequency switching for reducing the losses and suppressing the lower order harmonics (fifth, seventh, and eleventh) to a negligible value and to enhance the torque profile of the IMD. The performances of IMD are evaluated in MATLAB-Simulink environment and then simulated results are verified by test results taken from developed prototype in the laboratory to show its effectiveness for medium power applications.

This paper proposes a new three-phase to five-phase transformer, with a 30-pulse AC–DC converter for power quality improvement in vector-controlled induction motor drive. Here, three isolated transformers (T1, T2, and T3) are used and each transformer is designed to convert three-phase AC-supply into five-phase AC supply, to achieve ten-pulse AC–DC conversion. A unique configuration and angle among these three transformers is designed in such a way that the resultant input current of this transformer shows 30 pulses in it. A hybrid multilevel inverter is proposed in this paper, which is cascading a three-level neutral point clamped inverter with a two-level voltage source inverter to drive an induction motor (IM). A modified level shifted carrier-based sinusoidal pulsewidth modulation and a 3rd harmonic injection techniques are utilized to modify the modulating signal, to enhance the fundamental magnitude, and to reduce the harmonics than traditional technique. The responses of proposed medium voltage induction motor drive (MVIMD) are evaluated by simulating in MATLAB-Simulink. The proposed MVIMD performance is then verified using a scaled down laboratory prototype under various operating conditions such as steady state, starting, load perturbation, speed control, field weakening, varying load conditions, and over a wide speed range of IM.

Medium voltage induction motor drives (MVIMDs) are the vital constituents of industries. Here, a less complex, compact size drive system meeting the power quality standard is developed for crucial applications of industries. This paper presents a novel structure of the multi-winding transformer (MWT) and power converter for the drive system with a focus on achieving minimum total harmonics distortion (THD) and high efficiency. Hence, a unique configuration of a 5-level cascaded multilevel inverter and a 24-pulse rectification system is designed to improve the power quality at the supply and the motor terminals of MVIMD, respectively. The simplest star-delta configurations are utilized to design a 24-pulse converter. Apart from this, less complex conventional configured three level voltage sources inverters are cascaded in way so that five level phase voltage is obtained. A modified level-shifted pulse width modulation and indirect field-oriented control (IFOC) are utilized to demonstrate the flexibility of the drive system during the steady-state and dynamic conditions. The higher pulse rectification and high number of level systems are needed to be investigated, because they comply with the stringent power quality standard defined in the IEEE-519. A prototype of the drive is developed, and the obtained simulated results and experimental response ensure the practicality of presented configuration of drive system.

In this article, a new structure is used for induction motor drive (IMD). A Δ-polygon configuration based multi-winding transformer is designed in it to get an eighteen pulse AC-DC converter, which fulfill the DC-supply requirement of a 7-level cascaded H-bridge (CHB) inverter. This 7-level CHB-inverter is utilized at the drive end, to drive an induction motor (IM) and it requires less semiconductors switches and DC-supplies than the existing 7-level CHB-inverter. Therefore, a modified multi-winding transformer is designed to fulfil the need of a 7-level CHB-inverter, which also makes the input current closer to sinusoidal and reduces its THD to an acceptable value. A vector control is used to control an IM, which has good performance than v/f control. A new fundamental frequency switching technique (area equalization modulation strategy) is used in this work, to operate a 7-level CHB-inverter at fundamental frequency switching, which reduces the switching losses and increases efficiency of the system. The comparative study is also given to show the effectiveness of the system. Performance of the system is analyzed in MATLAB/Simulink under various operating conditions of IM. The simulated performances are validated from the experimental results captured from the developed laboratory prototype.

In this article, a new structure is used for induction motor drive (IMD). A Δ-polygon configuration based multi-winding transformer is designed in it to get an eighteen pulse AC-DC converter, which fulfill the DC-supply requirement of a 7-level cascaded H-bridge (CHB) inverter. This 7-level CHB-inverter is utilized at the drive end, to drive an induction motor (IM) and it requires less semiconductors switches and DC-supplies than the existing 7-level CHB-inverter. Therefore, a modified multi-winding transformer is designed to fulfil the need of a 7-level CHB-inverter, which also makes the input current closer to sinusoidal and reduces its THD to an acceptable value. A vector control is used to control an IM, which has good performance than v/f control. A new fundamental frequency switching technique (area equalization modulation strategy) is used in this work, to operate a 7-level CHB-inverter at fundamental frequency switching, which reduces the switching losses and increases efficiency of the system. The comparative study is also given to show the effectiveness of the system. Performance of the system is analyzed in MATLAB/Simulink under various operating conditions of IM. The simulated performances are validated from the experimental results captured from the developed laboratory prototype.

In this article, a new configuration of the adjustable speed drive is proposed for the medium-voltage industrial induction motor drives (IMDs). Here, a new configuration of a 40-pulse multiphase staggering modular transformer is proposed for power quality improvement in the vector-controlled induction motor drive (VCIMD) at the utility end. In it the two transformers (T1 and T2) are utilized and both have extended-delta configured input windings with +9° and −9° phase shift and their secondaries have two sets of five-phase ac supplies to achieve a 20-pulse ac–dc conversion. Because of these primary angles, these two transformers are reconfigured as a 40-pulse ac–dc converter. A new cascaded multilevel inverter (C-MLI) is proposed at the drive end. This C-MLI is cascading four two-level voltage source inverters in a unique manner to get nine levels in its line voltage. A modified sinusoidal pulsewidth modulation strategy is utilized, which offers very low switching frequency, low switching losses, enhanced fundamental magnitude, and low total harmonic distortion. The performance of the proposed VCIMD, is evaluated by simulating it in MATLAB Simulink. The performance of the proposed VCIMD is also verified using a scaled down laboratory prototype under various operating conditions such as steady state, starting, load perturbation, speed control, varying load conditions, and over a wide speed range of IMD.

Background: The involvement in action video gaming alters the cognitive abilities and hence affects the neural functionality. Electroencephalogram (EEG) favorably provides the measure. Wavelet coherence, which is a wavelet transform based feature that provides useful information regarding synchronized activity between two signals. It does not depend on the stationarity of the signal and hence very much relevant for non-stationary EEG application. Methods: We aimed to examine how the task-related synchronization pattern of action video game players (AVGPs) differs from non-AVGPs. EEG data were collected from thirty-five young and healthy male participants while performing an attention inhibition task and a visuospatial short-term memory-retention task. The sub-frequency components, theta, alpha, beta and gamma bands of EEG were extracted using Discrete wavelet transform (DWT). The intra and inter-hemispheric coherence in EEG sub-frequency bands were assessed as a feature for the analysis. Results: Theta, alpha, beta and gamma coherence has shown a significant difference (p Conclusion: These EEG based analysis reports enhanced neural communication with improved attention inhibition and short-term memory retention in AVGPs. Result also established the Wavelet coherence as an effective tool in understanding the neural communication among different brain locations.

Calibration on the available auxiliary variables is widely used to increase the precision of the estimates of parameters. Singh and Sedory [Two-step calibration of design weights in survey ...

Introduction It has always been a concern of ENT surgeon to prevent post operative complications like nasal bleeding, septal hematoma and septal abscess after septoplasty. Traditionally nasal packing has been done to avoid these complications. Although the nasal pack itself has been a concern for several reasons, packing apart from causing breathing distress, has resulted in epiphora, dysphagia, sleep disturbance, post-operative pain, headache, septal infection, septal abscess and even toxic shock syndrome. Materials and Methods This study has compared the efficacy of a newly designed septal splint with clip with nasal packs. This study was done on 60 patients, nasal packing was done in 30 patients and septal splints with clip were applied in 30 patients. Results Post-operative pain, epiphora, dysphagia, dryness of mouth and sleep disturbance was found to be significantly less in patients with septal splints with clip as compared to those with nasal packing. Conclusion Septal splints with clip is more efficacious alternative to nasal packing in patients undergoing septoplasty.

Hot springs are considered to be a unique environment with extremophiles, that are sources of industrially important enzymes, and other biotechnological products. The objective of this study was to undertake, analyze, and characterize the microbiome of two major hot springs located in the state of Madhya Pradesh explicitly, Chhoti Anhoni (Hotspring 1), and Badi Anhoni (Hotspring 2) to find out the inhabitant microbial population, and their functional characteristics. The taxonomic analysis of the microbiome of the hot springs revealed the phylum Proteobacteria was the most abundant taxa in both the hot-springs, however, its abundance in hot-spring 1 (~88%) was more than the hot-spring 2 (~52%). The phylum Bacteroides (~10–22%) was found to be the second most abundant group in the hot-springs followed by Spirocheates (~2–11%), Firmicutes (~6–8%), Chloroflexi (1–5%), etc. The functional analysis of the microbiome revealed different features related to several functions including metabolism of organics and degradation of xenobiotic compounds. The functional analysis showed that most of the attributes of the microbiome was related to metabolism, followed by cellular processes and environmental information processing functions. The functional annotation of the microbiomes at KEGG level 3 annotated the sequences into 279 active features that showed variation in abundance between the hot spring samples, where hot-spring 1 was functionally more diverse. Interestingly, the abundance of functional genes from methanogenic bacteria, was higher in the hot-spring 2, which may be related to the relatively higher pH and temperature than Hotspring 1. The study showed the presence of different unassigned bacterial taxa with high abundance which indicates the potential of novel genera or phylotypes. Culturable isolates (28) were bio-prospected for industrially important enzymes including amylase, protease, lipase, gelatinase, pectinase, cellulase, lecithinase, and xylanase. Seven isolates (25%) had shown positive results for all the enzyme activities whereas 23 isolates (82%) produced Protease, 27 isolates (96%) produced lipase, 27 isolates produced amylase, 26 isolates (92%) produced cellulase, 19 isolates (67%) produced pectinase, 19 isolates (67%) could produce lecithinase, and 13 isolates (46%) produced gelatinase. The seven isolates, positive for all the enzymes were analyzed further for quantitative analysis and identified through molecular characterization.

This paper analyzes the time to event data in the presence of collinearity. To address collinearity, the ridge regression estimator was applied in multiple and logistic regression as an alternative to the maximum likelihood estimator (MLE), among others. It has a smaller mean square error (MSE) and is therefore more precise. This paper generalizes the approach to address collinearity in the frailty model, which is a random effect model for the time variable. A simulation study is conducted to evaluate its performance. Furthermore, the proposed method is applied on real life data taken from the largest sample survey of India, i.e., national family health survey (2005–2006 ) data to evaluate the association of different determinants on infant mortality in India.

In this paper, a phase-shifted technique based 18-pulse rectification is utilized to feed medium voltage drive-based high power applications like the petroleum industry. In the current scenario, the industries are demanding a large number of pulse rectification to adhere to the power quality standard IEEE-519. The presented four-level voltage source inverter (VSI) configuration has three two-level voltage source inverter (VSI) in which, one is floating VSI. The presented drive system is reliable due to the compact size. Here, a MATLAB/Simulink model is utilized for performance analysis of an indirect field-oriented control (IFOC) technique based 37.5kW induction motor drive. The performance analysis is made in a dynamics and steady-state. The power quality performance is found good at the grid and the drive end of this system.

This study presents the performance evaluation of medium voltage induction motor drive, which is designed by a 4-level cascaded multilevel inverter (C-MLI) and a 30-pulse AC-DC converter. This topology has cascaded configuration to attain 4-level inverter output voltages. Here, the multi winding transformers (MWT) have multiphase output and phase shifted technique to enhance the number of pulse in the grid side current for valuable power quality at the grid end. A 30-pulse rectification is utilized to ameliorate the power quality at the grid side. A modified carrier-based LSPWM technique is used to enhance the performance of the MLI at low switching frequency. Simulation results demonstrate the performance of the presented 400hp induction motor drive in steady state and dynamic state conditions.

Here, 18-pulse rectification system is presented to supply clean power to medium voltage drives used in applications such as oil and gas production. High pulse rectification systems are demanded by industry to satisfy international power quality standards like the IEEE-519. A cascaded multilevel inverter is used here, which is cascading three –phase voltage source inverter (VSI) in unique manner. The presented four –level inverter has three 2-level VSI in cascaded arrangement. This induction motor drive (IMD) system is compact in size as it requires less number DC voltage sources, thus making it reliable. A Simulink model is built to analysis the performance of an indirect field-oriented control (IFOC) technique based 30kW IMD. Therefore, to validate the Simulink result a 7.5kW induction motor (IM) experimental setup control by a DSP (dSPACE DS1006) controller. A comprehensive study shows a superior power quality performance both at grid and drive end of the system.

In this paper, a multipulse ac–dc converter fed multilevel inverter (MLI)-based indirect vector controlled induction motor drive (IVCIMD) is proposed for medium-power application. A 54-pulse ac–dc converter is utilized at the supply side to suppress the input current total harmonic distortion, as per the IEEE-519 standard. Mainly three separate isolated transformers are utilized and each transformer is configured as an 18-pulse ac–dc converter. Due to the phase shift in primary windings, these three transformers are reconfigured as a 54-pulse ac–dc converter. A 15-level binary-based cascaded MLI is utilized at the motor side to enhance the required performance of IVCIMD. A 15-level inverter is switched at fundamental frequency, which ensures the very low switching losses in the proposed IVCIMD. A modified nearest level modulation strategy is proposed to achieve fundamental switching frequency. The performance of the proposed IVCIMD is simulated at various operating conditions by utilizing Simulink/MATLAB platform. Simulated results are validated with experimental results on a developed prototype in the laboratory to show its usefulness for medium-power applications.

A multi-pulse AC-DC converter fed space vector modulation (SVM) controlled neutral point clamped (NPC) inverter based vector control induction motor drive (VCIMD) is proposed here for medium power rating applications. To improve the power quality at supply side, a 12-pulse AC-DC converter is used and to meet the IEEE-519 standard, a high-pass filter is also used along with it. A three-level NPC inverter is utilised on the motor side to enhance the required performances of an induction motor drive (IMD). A modified SVM strategy is proposed to balance the capacitor voltages of the NPC inverter and to switch this inverter at very low switching frequency. The neutral point voltage balancing is achieved by the time adjustment between positive and negative small vectors. The model of proposed IMD is developed using the Simulink/MATLAB platform, and simulated response is validated with test results on a developed prototype in the laboratory to demonstrate its usefulness for medium power applications.

The ability to attend relevant visual information, suppressing or inhibiting irrelevant information present in the visual field is a vital feature of human plasticity. To examine how long-term involvement in action video games modulates the neural processes of the inhibitory control mechanism is the aim of this study. The experiment involves quantitative analysis of brain signals of Action video game players (AVGPs) and non-AVGPs on an attention inhibition task, named Bivalent shape task (BST). Discrete Wavelet Transform (DWT) based features are collected from task-induced electroencephalogram (EEG) signals of thirty-five participants. Improved wavelet energy and entropy measures of alpha frequency band are observed indicating better inhibitory control with lesser irregularity in AVGPs. An average classification accuracy of 93.05% and 96.89% are obtained by considering all the EEG features of alpha, beta and gamma sub-frequency bands, with linear and non-linear SVMs respectively. These findings suggest that training on action video games voluntarily enhances neural control mechanism of interference suppression and the neural activity in the alpha frequency band can be a signature of active inhibitory control. The gaming environment of action video games might stimulate the same kind of inhibitory control mechanism as used in this particular task can also be inferred.