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ABSTRACTThe major objective of the work is to explore the mechanical properties of biphasic calcium phosphates (BCP), a biomaterial derived from marine resources like prawn (Fenneropenaeus Indicus)shell biowaste through wet chemical treatment of CaO. We report the BCP, a mixture of hydroxyapatite and octa calcium phosphate from prawn shell biowaste using wet chemical synthesis at 80°C under pH 10. XRD of BCP revealed the coexistence of secondary phases like β-TCP and α-TCP along with HA upon sintering at different temperatures. Furthermore, the SEM and EDS opened well-sintered uniaxial grains and the presence of trace elements like Fe, Mg, Si, and Na. The specimens sintered at 1100°C showed the highest compression strength of 56.8 MPa due to MgO at the grain boundaries, which plays an important role in grain boundary diffusion. Therefore, the prawn shell biowaste-derived BCP has good mechanical properties, making them suitable materials for high-strength bone substitutes.

Exposure to ultraviolet (UV) radiation has been known to cause skin cancer, erythema, and sunburn. Continuous efforts have been made to make sunscreens more efficient and non-toxic. Inorganic sunscreens like TiO2and ZnO are continued to be used for a few decades, and they are efficient in giving protection against harmful UV radiation, but they are photochemically active as well. They generate free radicals upon irradiation, which leads to reactive oxygen species (ROS) generation which is harmful to the human skin. Hydroxyapatite (HA) is a biocompatible material as it has a composition the same as the mineral content of the human bone; therefore, it is suitable for the dermatological application. Though HA itself does not provide protection against UV, studies on doped HA with various ions showed excellent performance. Pure HA absorbs only between 200 and 340 nm, with an intense band below 247 nm. HA doped with bivalent Zn2+, Fe2+, and trivalent Fe3+and Cr3+, showed absorbance in the entire UV region. TiO2provides absorbance in the entire UV range, while ZnO does so only in UVA. Compared to HA (refractive index, n= 1.6), TiO2(n= 2.6) and ZnO (n= 1.9) have higher refractive index, which gives unwanted whitening effect. Additional properties can be brought in HA composites by adding material while retaining their individual properties. As HA is not photocatalytic, it does not lead to a generation of free radicals. This paper throws light on several aspects of HA-based sunscreen filters as an emerging future cosmetic material, and brief analysis and conclusions.

This paper considers the shrinkage estimation of multilevel models that are appropriate for ordinal longitudinal data. These models can accommodate multiple random effects and, additionally, allow for a general form of model covariates that are related to the overall level of the responses and changes to the response over time. The likelihood inference for multilevel models is computationally burdensome due to intractable integrals. A maximum marginal likelihood (MML) method with Fisher’s scoring procedure is therefore followed to estimate the random and fixed effects parameters. In real life data, researchers may have collected many covariates for the response. Some of these covariates may satisfy certain constraints which can be used to produce a restricted estimate from the unrestricted likelihood function. The unrestricted and restricted MMLs can then be combined optimally to form the pretest and shrinkage estimators. Asymptotic properties of these estimators including biases and risks will be discussed. A simulation study is conducted to assess the performance of the estimators with respect to the unrestricted MML estimator. Finally, the relevance of the proposed estimators will be illustrated with a real data set.

In this work, solution combustion processed titanium, zinc co-doped indium oxide high transparent semiconducting thin films were demonstrated at annealing temperatures of 300, 350 °C. In the process, low-temperature combustion at 123 °C was verified through thermogravimetric analysis; acetylacetone, 2-methoxyethanol served as fuel and solvent respectively in the redox reaction. Indium titanium zinc oxide (ITiZO) films were developed on glass substrates by spin coating followed by annealing at different temperatures. ITiZO films, powder exhibited high crystallinity exactly matching with indium oxide peaks without forming secondary phases. But, the presence of In, Ti, Zn, and O is clearly visible on film through energy dispersive spectroscopy. Films had transparency more than 85% in the visible range with optical band gap ranging 3.8-3.9 eV. These ITiZO films with smooth and low roughness ranging 0.46-0.5 nm, can have a potential application as an active layer in transparent thin film transistors and optoelectronic devices.

Abstract: Optimal allocation designs for the allocation proportion are obtained in the present paper for a two-treatment situation, in a completely correlated setup where the sum of the responses no longer follows a binomial distribution. We consider treatment difference and odds ratio to find the optimal allocation proportion. Numerical computations are done to illustrate the influence of possible correlation in the allocation proportion. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Inkjet printing of organic thin film transistors is an enabling technology for many applications requiring low cost electronics such as RFID tags, sensors, e-paper, and displays. This review summarizes the achievements and remaining challendges in the field. An all inkjet printed organic thin film transistor is feasible, but manufacturability needs to be improved. Often, a hybrid process in which only some layers are inkjet printed is used. Development of devices requires optimization of (1) ink chemistry, (2) inkjet process, (3) substrate ink interaction, and (4) new device structures. Several conducting, dielectric and semiconducting materials have been used to formulate ink. It appears that metal nanoparticle based conducting ink and PEDOT:PSS are widely used materials to fabricate source, drain and gate electrodes. PVPh is the most popular dielectric material for inkjet printing. To print semiconducting layer, both polymers and oligomers/small molecules are used. Many high performance organic semiconductors are p-type, but few n-type organic semiconductors show excellent performance. In addition to improved materials, challenges inherent in the inkjet process also need solutions. These are registration, alignment of the source,and drain with gate, resolution, reducing off-state current, and roll-to-roll processing.

Abstract: Descriptive measures/statistics are tools to understand the features of a probability/frequency distribution. Not many descriptive measures/statistics have been attempted for nominal categorical data. The present paper is motivated to provide some sensible descriptive statistics, analogous to the variance, skewness, and kurtosis, for univariate nominal categorical data. The measures are illustrated by some real data. Some intuitive test procedures are also described in this context. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]