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The development of an efficient tumor-specific therapeutic approach, which functions against the primary tumor and also repairs the host immune system to eradicate distant tumors, remains a clinical issue. Herein, this study focuses on the use of polydopamine-coated gold nanoparticles (Au@PDA NPs) that showed excellent selectivity towards cancer cells. The Au@PDA NPs were prepared by a plasma synthesis method with a short reaction time and minimize the use of chemicals. Prominently, Au@PDA NPs not only exhibited high cellular internalization but also stimulated immunogenic cell death (ICD) in aggressive breast carcinoma cells. Moreover, it was observed that damage-associated molecular patterns (DAMPs) were released by damaged cells together with the autophagy process after Au@PDA NPs exposure, which acted as endogenous danger signals to regulate the consequent immune response. This study highlights the novel mechanism of Au@PDA NPs-triggered anti-tumor immunity against immunosuppressive cancers, demonstrated the potential of the Au@PDA NPs for cancer immunotherapy.

Gallia–alumina (Ga,Al)2O3(x : y) spinel-type solid solution nanoparticle catalysts for propane dehydrogenation (PDH) were prepared with four nominal Ga : Al atomic ratios (1 : 6, 1 : 3, 3 : 1, 1 : 0) using a colloidal synthesis approach. The structure, coordination environment and distribution of Ga and Al sites in these materials were investigated by X-ray diffraction, X-ray absorption spectroscopy (Ga K-edge) as well as 27Al and 71Ga solid state nuclear magnetic resonance. The surface acidity (Lewis or Brønsted) was probed using infrared spectroscopy with pyridine and 2,6-dimethylpyridine probe molecules, complemented by element-specific insights (Ga or Al) from dynamic nuclear polarization surface enhanced cross-polarization magic angle spinning 15N{27Al} and 15N{71Ga} J coupling mediated heteronuclear multiple quantum correlation NMR experiments using 15N-labelled pyridine as a probe molecule. The latter approach provides unique insights into the nature and relative strength of the surface acid sites as it allows to distinguish contributions from Al and Ga sites to the overall surface acidity of mixed (Ga,Al)2O3 oxides. Notably, we demonstrate that (Ga,Al)2O3 catalysts with a high Al content show a greater relative abundance of four-coordinated Ga sites and a greater relative fraction of weak/medium Ga-based surface Lewis acid sites, which correlates with superior propene selectivity, Ga-based activity, and stability in PDH (due to lower coking). In contrast, (Ga,Al)2O3 catalysts with a lower Al content feature a higher fraction of six-coordinated Ga sites, as well as more abundant Ga-based strong surface Lewis acid sites, which deactivate through coking. Overall, the results show that the relative abundance and strength of Ga-based surface Lewis acid sites can be tuned by optimizing the bulk Ga : Al atomic ratio, thus providing an effective measure for a rational control of the catalyst performance., Coordination geometry and Lewis acidity of Ga and Al (bulk and surface) sites in mixed oxide gallia–alumina nanoparticles is correlated with the performance in propane dehydrogenation.

We investigated an axial vircator, constructed in a pulsed power generator, called Chundoong, and simulated by a three-dimensional particle-in-cell simulation code, MAGIC. We attempted to increase the receiving power of generated microwaves by directing them at a desired focal point. To do so, a positive and negative zone plates (ZPs) are constructed at main frequency 3.5 GHz, and its focal length is 18.8 cm. The power generated from the virtual cathode is 0.72 GW, from which 24.6 kW is received by receiving antenna without a ZP. The receiving power increased significantly to 45.4 kW (92.6 %) and 47.5 kW (84.5 %) with positive and negative ZPs, respectively. In addition, both positive and negative ZPs have similar focusing properties for the generated microwaves. The ZP contributes significantly to increasing the receiving power. These findings might be useful for real applications to increase the receiving power at a desired focal point.

Carrot is a vital supply of dietary fiber, vitamins, and carotenoids, and it is also rich in antioxidants and minerals. Soil salinity significantly reduces the yield and quality of carrots. Mycorrhiza inoculum (AMF) is known to improve morphological and biochemical traits of vegetables even under saline conditions. But the role of AMF in combating soil salinity effect in carrot is not studied in detail. Therefore here, in the first set, carrot seeds are inoculated with microbes in a pot experiment under polyhouse condition. In total, we applied 7 treatments with different combinations of Mycorrhiza inoculum (Glomus mosseae (Gm) and Gigaspora gigantea (Gg)) and phosphate solubilizing bacteria (Pseudomonas fluroscens (Pf)). In pot experiment study the best two treatments were the combination of Gm + Pf + GG and Pf + GG. Both of these treatments were selected for validation under the open field conditions. Primarily, there seems to be a promising opportunity for AMF application to carrots under pot culture as well as under field trials because of promising effect towards morphological parameters, especially root weight, and disparities in nutrients and metabolites. Overall, our study highlights mycorrhizal fungi and other microbes' efficacy in achieving a successful carrot production under salinity stress.

Eggplant cultivation is subjected to attacks by numbers of pests and diseases from the nursery stage until harvest. Root-knot nematode (M. javanica) is one of the most significant restrictions in the successful cultivation of eggplant as it damages the crop year-round. One of the most essential classes of plant symbionts is arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) and phosphate solubilizing bacteria (PSB), which significantly impact plant development, feeding, disease tolerance, and resistance to M. javanica. Eggplant seedlings were inoculated with two mycorrhizal fungi, Glomus mosseae (Gm) and Gigaspora gigantea (Gg), together with the phosphate-solubilizing bacteria (PSB) Pseudomonas fluorescens (Pf; ATCC-17400) under the presence of nematodes inoculation of Meloidogyne javanica as 1000 eggs of M. javanica in each pot. Observations were recorded for 9 morphological traits, 6 fruit morphometric traits using Tomato Analyzer (version 4) software program, and 4 fruit biochemical traits. Along with the data recorded for mycorrhization (%), number of galls and reaction to RKN. Plants inoculated with the consortium (Pf + Gm + Gg) performed substantially better for most traits. Furthermore, the eggplant plants treated with consortium developed the highest levels of fruit biochemical content along with the highest level of mycorrhization (68.20%). Except for certain fruit morphometric traits, the treatment containing Pf + Gg outperformed the treatment containing Pf + Gm. Overall, this research showed that AM fungi could be a sustainable solution to the eggplant RKN problem.

This paper presents a modified graded mesh for singularly perturbed reaction–diffusion problems. The mesh we offer is generated recursively using Newton’s algorithm and some implicitly defined function. The problem is solved numerically using the finite element method based on polynomials of degree p ≥ 1 . We prove parameter uniform convergence of optimal order in ϵ -weighted energy norm. Test examples are taken, and we present a rigorous comparative analysis with other adaptive meshes. Moreover, we compare the proposed method with others found in the literature.

Highlights • Salt stress effects agronomic traits and uptake of minerals. • Salt stress also enhanced the oxidative stress biomarkers like hydrogen peroxide (H2O2). • Supplementation of Mycorrhiza enhances the agronomical traits and alleviates slat stress. • Silicon application also mitigates the salt stress through modulating antioxidant enzymes. • The combination of Mycorrhiza and Silicon were more effective than their individual effect., Citrullus lanatus L. is critical vegetable for salinity stress. Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) and silicon treatments are known to help as bio-ameliorator of saline soils that can improve salinity tolerance in plants. But their combined effect has never been examined on watermelon therefore, present study investigated the effect of inoculation with the Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) along with silicon on the growth and yield parameters, antioxidant enzyme activities, pigment and mineral content of Citrullus lanatus L. plants grown during salt stress conditions. Outcomes from the study point out that salt stressed watermelon plants showed the best morphological and biochemical values when inoculated with Silicon (4 mM) + Glomus mosseae + Gigaspora gigantean. In addition, the plants inoculated by similar treatment demonstrated less osmotic activity, electrolyte leakage, as well as peroxide content. Treatments comprising Silicon (4 mM) with either Glomus mosseae and Gigaspora gigantean also performed significantly similar for most of the traits studied in the present investigation and better than the treatment only with either one of Glomus mosseae and Gigaspora gigantean. Antioxidant efficiency of melon was certainly appreciably enhanced after incubation with AMF and Si combination in salinity stress. Overall, the application of mycorrhiza and silicon can be considered to overcome the salinity stress in watermelon.

The north Indian states of Haryana and Punjab are believed to be the key sources of air pollution in the National Capital Region due to massive agricultural waste burning in crop harvesting seasons. However, with the pandemic COVID-19 hitting the country, the usual practices were disrupted. COVID-19 preventive lockdown led to restricted vehicular and industrial emissions and caused the labours to leave the agricultural business in Haryana and Punjab. With the changed scenario of 2020, the present study investigates the variations in air quality over the Haryana and Punjab, and their relative impact on the air quality of Delhi. The work attempts to understand the change in agricultural waste burning during 2020 and its implication on the local air quality over both the states and the transported pollution on the national capital Delhi. The study utilises in-situ data for the year 2019–2020 with satellite observations of MODIS aqua/terra for fire counts, aerosol optical depth (AOD) and back-trajectories run by the hybrid single-particle Lagrangian integrated trajectory model (HYSPLIT).

Safflower, an important oil seed and medicinal crop has rich genetic diversity but limited genetic resources, which could be utilized for its improvement. In a bid to enrich safflower’s genetic resources polymorphic genic SSRs were identified by in silico comparisons of the de novo assembled transcriptome sequences from two safflower genotypes. Of the 145 exon-derived primer pairs, 125 produced reproducible amplifications and 44 primer pairs yielded products that showed polymorphism even between the two closely related safflower accessions. Out of the 44 primer pairs, 10 primers that were utilized for assessing the genetic diversity and cross-species transferability on a diverse panel consisting of 24 accessions, revealed high genetic diversity in the panel and cross-species transferability of the markers. The UPGMA dendrogram clustered the wild types and safflower genotypes in three major groups, of which wild types clustered in a subgroup of major group II, whereas the remaining genotypes were scattered in all three clusters with the majority (73.68%) being clustered in group I. The in silico identified polymorphic exon derived genic SSRs are an important addition to the available genetic resources and can be deployed for marker assisted breeding programs for improvement of safflower.

Protein phosphorylation, which is one of the most important post-translational modifications (PTMs), is involved in regulating myriad cellular processes. Herein, we present a novel deep learning based approach for organism-specific protein phosphorylation site prediction in Chlamydomonas reinhardtii, a model algal phototroph. An ensemble model combining convolutional neural networks and long short-term memory (LSTM) achieves the best performance in predicting phosphorylation sites in C. reinhardtii. Deemed Chlamy-EnPhosSite, the measured best AUC and MCC are 0.90 and 0.64 respectively for a combined dataset of serine (S) and threonine (T) in independent testing higher than those measures for other predictors. When applied to the entire C. reinhardtii proteome (totaling 1,809,304 S and T sites), Chlamy-EnPhosSite yielded 499,411 phosphorylated sites with a cut-off value of 0.5 and 237,949 phosphorylated sites with a cut-off value of 0.7. These predictions were compared to an experimental dataset of phosphosites identified by liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC–MS/MS) in a blinded study and approximately 89.69% of 2,663 C. reinhardtii S and T phosphorylation sites were successfully predicted by Chlamy-EnPhosSite at a probability cut-off of 0.5 and 76.83% of sites were successfully identified at a more stringent 0.7 cut-off. Interestingly, Chlamy-EnPhosSite also successfully predicted experimentally confirmed phosphorylation sites in a protein sequence (e.g., RPS6 S245) which did not appear in the training dataset, highlighting prediction accuracy and the power of leveraging predictions to identify biologically relevant PTM sites. These results demonstrate that our method represents a robust and complementary technique for high-throughput phosphorylation site prediction in C. reinhardtii. It has potential to serve as a useful tool to the community. Chlamy-EnPhosSite will contribute to the understanding of how protein phosphorylation influences various biological processes in this important model microalga.

In this article, the impact of random fluctuation sources, such as metal gate granularity (MGG), line edge roughness (LER), and random dopant fluctuations (RDFs), are numerically studied for U-shaped n-channel fully depleted silicon on insulator (FDSOI) MOSFET (U-SOIFET) over conventional n-channel FDSOI MOSFET (C-SOIFET) for 7-nm technology node. This article reports that improved short-channel effect immunity in U-SOIFET results in less $1\sigma $ threshold voltage ( ${V}_{T}$ ) and ON-current ( ${I}_{ \mathrm{\scriptscriptstyle ON}}$ ) fluctuations compared to C-SOIFET due to MGG and LER variability sources. U-SOIFET exhibits a low ${V}_{T}$ mismatch index ( ${A}_{\Delta VT}=1.78$ mV. $\mu \text{m}$ ) close to the literature reported. Due to combined variability sources, U-SOIFET shows less ${V}_{T}$ , ${I}_{ \mathrm{\scriptscriptstyle ON}}$ , subthreshold swing (SS), and DIBL fluctuations compared to C-SOIFET. Immunity to statistical variability sources makes U-SOIFET a suitable silicon on insulator (SOI) device architecture for future CMOS logic device applications.

For space-based laser communications, when the mean photon number per received optical pulse is much smaller than one, there is a large gap between communications capacity achievable with a receiver that performs individual pulse-by-pulse detection, and the quantum-optimal "joint-detection receiver" that acts collectively on long codeword-blocks of modulated pulses; an effect often termed "superadditive capacity". In this paper, we consider the simplest scenario where a large superadditive capacity is known: a pure-loss channel with a coherent-state binary phase-shift keyed (BPSK) modulation. The two BPSK states can be mapped conceptually to two non-orthogonal states of a qubit, described by an inner product that is a function of the mean photon number per pulse. Using this map, we derive an explicit construction of the quantum circuit of a joint-detection receiver based on a recent idea of "belief-propagation with quantum messages" (BPQM) (arXiv:1607.04833). We quantify its performance improvement over the Dolinar receiver that performs optimal pulse-by-pulse detection, which represents the best "classical" approach. We analyze the scheme rigorously and show that it achieves the quantum limit of minimum average error probability in discriminating 8 (BPSK) codewords of a length-5 binary linear code with a tree factor graph. Our result suggests that a BPQM-receiver might attain the Holevo capacity of this BPSK-modulated pure-loss channel. Moreover, our receiver circuit provides an alternative proposal for a quantum supremacy experiment, targeted at a specific application that can potentially be implemented on a small, special-purpose, photonic quantum computer capable of performing cat-basis universal qubit logic., Comment: v2: To appear in npj Quantum Information; see "supplementary_material.pdf" for additional content. Main paper: 22 pages single-column, 11 figures, includes simulations. Comments welcome!

In recent years, lots of stress has been laid on impregnating polymer nanocomposites with carbon nanotubes (CNTs) to impart multifunctional properties. To yield the maximum benefits, it is imperati...

The suicidal death rate is growing rapidly. Depression and stress levels among the people have increased significantly, which is considered to be a risk factor for suicidal thoughts. Social media is gradually more popular and people use them for sharing their sentiments and harmful emotions related to suicidal thoughts. An effective approach is required to investigate for identifying risk factors associated with suicide on social media. The objective is to propose some learning models to evaluate social media data to identify persons having suicidal tendencies. A large data consisting of 8452 tweets are collected from Twitter, pre-processed and bags of words were applied. Different machine learning and deep learning algorithms such as Random Forest, Decision Tree, Bernoulli Naïve Bayes, Multinomial Naïve Bayes, Recurrent Neural Network, Artificial Neural Network and Long Short Term Memory were applied for classifying the tweets in two sets: suicidal and non-suicidal. The performance of these learning models is further evaluated on three parameters: accuracy, precision and recall. These models have shown significant results on the parameters.

Metal additive manufacturing processes offer unique opportunities for the biomedical industry owing to their ability to produce custom-designed implants with near-net shape and intricate geometry. Co–Cr alloys are among the most popular metallic biomaterials due to their excellent resistance to both corrosion and wear. Several studies have been reported in recent years on studying the processing-structure–property relationships in additively manufactured Co–Cr alloys. However, there is a significant gap in knowledge of critical issues such as the microstructural features and properties of additively manufactured parts as well as the role of the processing parameters and post-manufacturing treatments. The performance of the additively manufactured Co–Cr alloys for biomedical applications such as fatigue, wear, corrosion, and the biological response is poorly characterized as yet. This article presents an overview of the existing literature available on additively manufactured Co–Cr alloys and identifies challenges and opportunities for their use in biomedical implants.

The alloy Ti6Al7Nb with the in situ reinforcement of TiB has been processed by selective laser melting (SLM). Premixed Ti6Al7Nb-xTiB2 powders were used for the powder bed. The microstructure of the Ti6Al7Nb alloy was characterized by martensite (αʹ), while the addition of TiB2 led to a bimodal microstructure with refined features as a result of in situ formation of fine TiB phase. A prismatic ││BD fiber texture was evident in all samples, though the texture formation was found to be affected by the change in the phase transformation pathway due to the formation of TiB. Higher hardness and yield strength (YS) in the composites as compared to the base material are attained. The examination of corrosion response revealed a lower corrosion current (Icorr) value for all the specimens in simulated body fluid (SBF) in comparison to Ti6Al4V alloy. The improved mechanical behavior and better corrosion resistance indicate the potential of SLM-processed Ti6Al7Nb/TiB composite as a suitable replacement for Ti6Al4V alloys for bio-implants.

The material response and composite functionality are controlled by matrix-ceramic particulate interface. It is unfortunate that silicon carbide (SiC) dispersoid exhibit inferior wettability in molten aluminium matrix. Herein, we effectively synthesize titanium oxide (TiO2) and nanocrystalline lithium titanate (Li4Ti5O12 abbreviated as LTO) spinel coated core-shell structures of SiC via novel hydrothermal technique for enhancing the dispersoids wettability. Various characterization techniques like field emission scanning electron microscope (FE-SEM), energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX), transmission electron microscope (TEM) were employed for thorough analysis of core-shell structures. Furthermore, the aluminium metal matrix composites (AMMCs) were fabricated by incorporating pristine SiC, TiO2 encapsulated SiC and Li4Ti5O12 encapsulated SiC, respectively via stir casting process. Additionally, friction stir process was carried out on the composite castings to obtained refined grains and adequate dispersion of reinforced particles which can further create opportunity to study the effect of refined grains on damping and mechanical (tensile and hardness) properties. Microstructural analysis was conducted through electron back scattered diffraction (EBSD). The composites were examined for their thermal and mechanical cyclic damping performance in the temperature range from − 100 to 400 °C. Finally, the improved material properties can be attributed to the customized SiC particles with reduced agglomeration, stabilization and good dispersion with the aluminium matrix.

Conservation agriculture (CA)-based practices have been promoted and recouped, as they hold the potential to enhance farm profits besides a consistent improvement in soil properties. A 7 years' field experiment consisting of three crop establishment practices viz., zero-till flatbed (ZTFB), permanent beds (PNB), conventional system (CT) along with the three-nutrient management; nutrient expert-based application (NE), recommended fertilization (RDF), and farmers’ fertilizer practice (FFP), was carried out from 2013 to 2020. The CA-based practices (ZTFB/PNB) produced 13.9–17.6% greater maize grain-equivalent yield (MGEY) compared to the CT, while NE and RDF had 10.7–20% greater MGEY than the FFP. PNB and ZTFB gave 28.8% and 24% additional net returns than CT, while NE and RDF had 22.8% and 17.4% greater returns, respectively over FFP. PNB and ZTFB had 2.3–4.1% (0.0–0.20 m soil layers) lower bulk density than the CT. Furthermore, microbial biomass carbon (MBC) increased by 8–19% (0.0–0.50 m soil layers) in ZTFB/PNB over the CT, and by 7.6–11.0% in NE/RDF over FFP. Hence, CA-based crop establishment coupled with the NE or RDF could enhance the yields, farm profits, soil properties of the maize–chickpea rotation, thereby, could sustain production in the long run.

In this article, a hollow core antiresonant photonic crystal fiber is analyzed for terahertz applications. A numerical analysis of the proposed fiber is first carried out to minimize coupling between the core and cladding modes. The modeling of the scaled-up and inhibited coupling fiber is carried out by means of a finite element method, which is then demonstrated using a Zeonex filament fiber, fabricated by fused deposition modeling of 3-D printing technology. The simulation is carried out to analyze both the transmission and possibility of refractometric sensing, whereas the experimental analysis is carried out using terahertz time-domain spectroscopy, and supports our numerical findings, illustrating how the proposed fibers can be used for low-loss transmission of terahertz waves. The simplicity of the proposed fiber structures facilitates fabrication for a number of different transmission and sensing applications in the terahertz range.

Medicinal mushrooms have been used in various treatments from a very long time, among which, Ganoderma lucidum is one of the most important medicinal mushroom. It is cultivated worldwide to meet its ever-increasing demand in the market. It is generally cultivated by bed log (Sawdust) and wood log (billet) method. This study was an attempt to observe the growth performance of G. lucidum on poplar billets (Populus deltoides) in the Sherpur Village (Dehradun) and Manjgaun village (Tehri Garhwal) of Garhwal Himalaya, India. The farmers’ field with empty house/ rooms having proper growing conditions especially humidity and light were used for the cultivation of G. lucidum. The G. lucidum spawn was inoculated in poplar wood billets and these billets were installed in well prepared soil. The results demonstrated that cropping cycle of G. lucidum was shorter (132–136 days) in Sherpur Village (Dehradun) as compared to Manjgaun village (141–145 days) in Tehri Garhwal. Further the results also revealed that yield was decreased in the subsequent flushes. In Village Sherpur, the fruiting bodies of G. lucidum were harvested between 64-66 days, 100-101 days and 135-136 days during first, second and third flush after the installation of billets, respectively. However; in village Manjgaun, the fruiting bodies of G. lucidum were harvested between 69 and 71 days, 107-108 days and 144-145 days in first, second and third after the installation of billets respectively. Warmer temperature in Village Sherpur resulted in the early emergence and development of the fruiting bodies as compared to village Manjgaun where pinhead and fruiting body development was delayed due to the lower temperature during cropping cycle.

Following the complex-as-a-ligand strategy, self-assembly of W(CN)83- and iron(II) with bidentate nitrogen donor ligand bik (bik = bis(1-methyl-1H-imidazol-2-yl)ketone) ligand affords a cyanide-bridged W2Fe2 molecular square complex HNBu32{W(CN)82Fe(bik)22}·6H2O·CH3OH (1). The complex was characterized by single-crystal X-ray diffraction analyses, (photo)magnetic studies, optical reflectivity, electrochemical studies, and spectroscopic studies. Structural analyses revealed that in the W2Fe2 square motif tungsten(V) and iron(II) centers reside in an alternate corner of the square and are bridged by the cyanide ligands. Complex 1 exhibits thermo-induced spin crossover (SCO) between {WV (S = 1/2)-FeIILS (S = 0)} and {WV (S = 1/2)-FeIIHS (S = 2)} pairs near room temperature and photoinduced spin-state switching with TLIESST = 70 K under light irradiation at low temperature. To the best of our knowledge, 1 represents the first complex containing iron(II) and WV(CN)83- units exhibiting both SCO and photomagnetic effect. © 2021 American Chemical Society.

Herein, synthesis of graphitic carbon nitride (g-C3N4) and its nanocomposites with monometallic nickel (Ni-g-C3N4), and bimetallic zirconium-nickel (ZrNi-g-C3N4) is reported. New materials for high storage performance are investigated eagerly in electrochemical energy applications. With this aim, the electrochemical method is used for the evaluation of hydrogen storage capacity (HSC) of the samples in the present research work. Synthesis of samples were carried out using a combination of thermal and hydrothermal methods. The evaluation of electrochemical hydrogen sorption and storage capability of g-C3N4 and its nanocomposites was done after sample characterization. Characterization techniques followed were powder X-ray diffraction (XRD), Nitrogen adsorption and desorption isotherms measurements at 77 K, thermo-gravimetric analysis (TGA), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), Field-emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM) and energy dispersive X-ray spectrometry (EDS). Cyclic voltammetric and chronopotentiometry measurements carried out in an alkaline medium helped to calculate the HSC. The discharge capacity was measured to be 82 mAhg−1 for g-C3N4, 182 mAhg−1 for Ni-g-C3N4 and 380 mAhg−1 for ZrNi-g-C3N4 at 1 mAg−1 of current density. Catalytic properties of the metal nanoparticles augment the storage capability of the g-C3N4 nanocomposites. These nanocomposites help to store hydrogen which serves as safe carrier in fuel cell applications.

An attempt was made to increase the solubility of High Level liquid Waste (HLW), mainly Cr and Mo, by addition of P2O5 to sodium borosilicate glass. A total of seven different phosphorus containing alkali borosilicate glass samples were in-house fabricated. As a part of chemical quality control, concentrations of four low Z elements namely Si, Na, B and P were determined by in situ current normalized external (in air) Particle Induced Gamma-ray Emission (PIGE) method using low energy proton beam from Folded Tandem Ion Accelerator (FOTIA), BARC. PIGE method was validated by analyzing synthetic elemental standards and suitable certified reference materials. Phosphorus has shown thermal losses during fabrication.

Worldwide, 16.7 million people die each year due to cardiovascular disease. These statistics raise demand of devices like sensor-based pacemakers (PM) which are not just doing heart rate augmentation but also capable to transmit information via wireless link to on body sensor and support remote monitoring of such patients. As per the world health organization WHO reports there are more than 3 million functioning PMs and about 600,000 pacemakers are implanted each year in world. On an average, 70–80% of PMs are implanted in aged patients around 65 years or older. In addition to continuous monitoring of cardiovascular parameters, detection of physical movement of such patients may be helpful to assess their well-being. This paper has been formulated with an aim to highlight an approach which may be used to detect the physical movement of the patient using information signal received from implanted PM. The transmitted signal will experience a pathloss offered by wireless human body channel, which will affect the link quality parameters namely Signal to Noise Ratio (SNR) and Bit Error Rate (BER) and received signal strength indicator (RSSI). In the current work mathematical model has been formulated considering in body and on body channel propagation conditions and received power, received energy, pathloss, SNR, BER, bit rate, energy per bit and RSSI have been evaluated using IEEE802.15.6 channel models CM2 and CM3. Data set has been created and human body movement has been detected using Machine Learning (ML) techniques. Prediction accuracy of Multilayer Perceptron (MLP), k-Nearest Neighbours (kNN) and Random Forest have been compared. The analysis performed depicts that human body movement can be detected using different channel models and ML techniques such as MLP, kNN and Random Forest with an accuracy of 65.3%, 72.8% and 93.4% respectively. The critical comparison of the result indicates that the performance of Random Forest is better than MLP and kNN. This approach will be helpful in remote detection of human body movement of patients.

Heterocyclic moieties are basic skeletons for 80% of commercial medicines according to the US retail market in 2014–2015, yet many actual synthetic methods are not sustainable, calling for eco-friendly strategies. For instance, microwave-assisted synthesis produces molecules rapidly in excellent yields using less energy. Similarly, in nanoparticle-catalysed synthesis, the use of metal-impregnated nanoparticles provides benefits such as recyclability of catalysts, excellent yields and short reaction times. Other sustainable methods include solvent-free synthesis, ionic liquid-supported synthesis, organic synthesis in water, sonochemical synthesis and combinatorial synthesis. Here, we review the application of microwave irradiation for organic synthesis, organic synthesis in water and solvent-free synthesis in a combined manner. We present the synthesis of complex heterocyclic molecules using nanoparticles as catalysts. We emphasize green aspects of synthetic procedures.

Within the transport layer security (TLS) protocol version 1.3, RFC 7748 specifies elliptic curves targeted at the 128-bit and the 224-bit security levels. For the 128-bit security level, the Montgomery curve Curve25519 and its birationally equivalent twisted Edwards curve Ed25519 are specified; for the 224-bit security level, the Montgomery curve Curve448, the Edwards curve Edwards448 (which is isogenous to Curve448) and another Edwards curve which is birationally equivalent to Curve448 are specified. Our first contribution is to provide the presently best known 64-bit assembly implementations of Diffie–Hellman shared secret computation using Curve25519. The main contribution of this work is to propose new pairs of Montgomery–Edwards curves at the 128-bit and the 224-bit security levels. The new curves are nice in the sense that they have very small curve coefficients and base points. Compared to the curves in RFC 7748, the new curves lose two bits of security. The gain is improved efficiency. For Intel processors, we have made different types of implementations of the Diffie–Hellman shared secret computation using the new curves. The new curve at the 128-bit level is faster than Curve25519 for all types of implementations that we considered, while the new curve at the 224-bit level is faster than Curve448 using 64-bit sequential implementation using schoolbook multiplication, but is slower than Curve448 for vectorized implementation using Karatsuba multiplication. Overall, the new curves provide good alternatives to Curve25519 and Curve448.

Second-generation ethanol production involves the use of agricultural and forestry waste as feedstock, being an alternative to the first-generation technology as it relies on low-cost abundant residues and does not affect food agriculture. However, the success of second-generation biorefineries relies on energetically efficient processes and effective enzyme cocktails to convert cellulose into fermentable sugars. β-glucosidases catalyze the last step on the enzymatic hydrolysis of cellulose; however, they are often inhibited by glucose. Previous studies demonstrated that glucose-6-phosphate (G6P) is a positive allosteric modulator of Bacillus polymyxa β-glucosidase A, improving enzymatic efficiency, providing thermoresistance, and imparting glucose tolerance. However, the precise molecular details of the G6P-β-glucosidase interactions have not described so far. We investigated the molecular details of G6P binding into B. polymyxa β-glucosidase A through in silico docking using the site-identification by ligand competitive saturation (SILCS) technology followed by site-directed mutagenesis studies, from which an allosteric binding site for G6P was identified. In addition, a mechanistic shift towards the transglycosylation reaction as opposed to hydrolysis was observed in the presence of G6P, suggesting a new role of G6P allosteric modulation of the catalytic activity of β-glucosidase A.

The usage of ionic polymer metal composite (IPMC) being an electroactive polymer is prevalent in different engineering applications. IPMC are synthetic composite nanomaterials which show artificial muscle behavior under applied voltage or electric impetus. When an electrical potential is applied across the two membranes, the positively charged conjugated and hydrated cations migrate toward the negative electrode. This migration creates an osmotic pressure gradient across the membrane; hence, the strip gets deformed or bent. On the other hand, IPMC strips are capable of generating electrical potential under the action of stretching or bending (thereby acting as a sensor). In this letter, the authors report the pragmatic application of the IPMC strip to study a taste sensor. The sensing characteristics of IPMC strips are applied to sense five general tastes (sweet, sour, bitter, salty, and spicy). Primarily, IPMCs are immersed into individual solutions and kept for 15 min for doping action. Thus, different solutions having distinct concentration of ions will lead to distinct identifications. In this present investigation, the authors have instigated the IPMC strip as a sensor; when an IPMC strip is bent or deformed, an analogous voltage in the range of millivolts is generated across the membranes. Second, clammy IPMCs are bent in the clockwise and again in the counterclockwise direction (10°) to record the corresponding voltage. A set of experimental data was collected, which divulged unique characteristics for different solutions pertinent to different tastes. Thus, IPMC strips are able to recognize different taste senses.

The increased usage of fossil fuels in today's world is leading to an energy crisis and is having a catastrophic impact on our surroundings. There is an immediate need for the development of new, clean and renewable sources of energy especially to power the fuel driven vehicles to decrease the level of carbon footprint around the world. Fuel cells continue to produce power by undergoing a chemical process unlike conventional combustion technology to convert hydrogen-rich fuel into electricity as long as a fuel source is provided and need not be periodically recharged like batteries. The individual fuel cells can be coupled or compiled together to form stacks that can be combined into larger systems and can be scaled based on the requirement. Fuel cell systems have numerous applications from combustion engine replacements for electric vehicles and portable systems for recharging batteries of several devices to large-scale, multi-megawatt installations providing electricity directly to the utility grid. They vary greatly in their size and power output produced. In the present study, thermal integration of Polymer Exchange Membrane Fuel Cell (PEMFC) with Recuperative Organic Rankine Cycle (RORC) is analyzed. The PEMFC has a higher efficiency when compared to conventional energy conversion devices ranging between 40 and 60% and can also be maximized by using regeneration techniques. High temperature PEMFCs also release heat at a useful temperature of 423 K which can further be utilized to extract useful work to improve the overall efficiency of the fuel cell. A further study and analysis of the various processes of thermal regeneration techniques to improve the efficiency of a fuel cell is carried out.

We describe Srinivasania sundarbanensis n. gen. et sp. nov., a multichambered textulariid foraminifer from the world's largest mangrove ecosystem, the Sundarbans, India. The new genus has an agglutinated wall structure, planispirally coiled test, and a single high-arched equatorial aperture located at the base of the final chamber with a narrow, agglutinated lip and with morphological similarity to the genera GobbettiaDhillon, 1968, and HaplophragmoidesCushman, 1910. Phylogenetic analyses, using partial small subunit rRNA gene, partial large subunit rRNA gene, and concatenated (LSU+SSU) sequence data clearly show the placement of this new taxon among other textulariid foraminifers, distant from all other genera in a strongly supported clade. In the new genus and species, the test is discoidal, measuring 100 to 350 µm in diameter with six to seven chambers in the final whorl. Elemental characterization (SEM-EDS) of the agglutinated test wall reveals a preference for quartz grains (SiO2) to construct its test. It is a common species and is presently known only from the northern marsh environments of Indian Sundarbans.

Nonthermal atmospheric pressure biocompatible plasma (NBP), alternatively called bio-cold plasma, is a partially ionized gas that consists of charged particles, neutral atoms and molecules, photons, an electric field, and heat. Recently, nonthermal plasma-based technology has been applied to bioscience, medicine, agriculture, food processing, and safety. Various plasma device configurations and electrode layouts has fast-tracked plasma applications in the treatment of biological and material surfaces. The NBP action mechanism may be related to the synergy of plasma constituents, such as ultraviolet radiation or a reactive species. Recently, plasma has been used in the inactivation of viruses and resistant microbes, such as fungal cells, bacteria, spores, and biofilms made by microbes. It has also been used to heal wounds, coagulate blood, degrade pollutants, functionalize material surfaces, kill cancers, and for dental applications. This review provides an outline of NBP devices and their applications in bioscience and medicine. We also discuss the role of plasma-activated liquids in biological applications, such as cancer treatments and agriculture. The individual adaptation of plasma to meet specific medical requirements necessitates real-time monitoring of both the plasma performance and the target that is treated and will provide a new paradigm of plasma-based therapeutic clinical systems.

Over the past decades, there has been increasing attention tothe study of medicinal plants that contain many phytochemicals beneficial for human health. A number of secondary metabolites derived from various plants have been used as drug components to treat several human disorders since ancient times. The traditional therapeutic applications of secondary metabolites have been reported in the whole world. Numerous bioactive phytochemicals constituents have been identified and isolated using many advanced techniques. These bioactive phytochemicals are responsible for many pharmacological activities such as anti-inflammation, anti-cancer, anti-allergic, and antimicrobial infection. These secondary metabolites are not only beneficial for human health but also protect plants themselves from biotic and abiotic stress. These secondary metabolites are classified into many subclasses like terpenoids, alkaloids and phenolics. Each class of secondary metabolites has its pharmacological activities, which is required to be studied thoroughly for better use in pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, food, and other industries. Therefore, this review paper represents many medicinal plants that contain bioactive secondary metabolites and show pharmacological activities, which provides an opportunity to utilize them for improvement of human health and discover new herbal medicines.

For a bounded smooth domain $$\Omega \subset {\mathbb {R}}^N$$ with $$N\ge 2$$ , we establish a weighted and an anisotropic version of Sobolev inequality related to the embedding $$W_{0}^{1,p}(\Omega )\hookrightarrow L^q(\Omega )$$ for $$1

To find out the varietal preference of H. talaca larvae, leaves of ten selected tea cultivars were provided separately to II, III, IV, and V instars. The food consumption by different larval instars was the maximum on TV20 followed by TV1 > K1/1 > TV22 > TV26 > TV16 > SNT8 > TS520 > HP12 > B157. The nutritional indices showed the highest ECD and ECI values on TV20 followed by other cultivars. However, AD values were inversely proportional to the ECI and ECD. Biochemical analysis of the host leaves indicated higher carbohydrate and lipid concentrations in TV20 which was positively correlated (r = 0.6351) with the mean food consumption, whereas, the lowest carbohydrate and lipid concentration was observed in TS520. The levels of secondary metabolites such as alkaloids (r = -0.6137) and flavonoids (r = -0.7403) showed a negative correlation with larval food consumption. Results of HPLC analysis showed the presence of different types of catechins like, EGC, Catechin, EC, EGCG, ECG, and caffeine in variable quantity in all cultivars that were positively correlated with larval feeding except the Gallic acid which showed a negative correlation (r = -0.5610). Based on the larval food consumption, the susceptible index of cultivars were categorized as ‘highly susceptible’ (TV20, TV1, K1/1, TV22, TV26, TV16, and SNT8), ‘susceptible’ (TS520 and HP12), and ‘moderately susceptible’ (B157). Based on cluster analysis A1 grouped (TS520 and HP12), A2 indicated B157 whereas sub-branches B1 grouped (TV22, TV16, TV26, and SNT8) and B2 grouped (TV1, TV20, and K1/1).

Night vision devices are used for capturing images under low light conditions ( $ lux), which are significantly different from images under standard illumination. The night vision devices based on image intensifier tube have power and cost advantages over other night vision devices, such as thermal imaging for short-range surveillance. However, these vision devices suffer from scintillation noise, which makes the resulting images noisy under very low light conditions. This paper presents a comprehensive methodology that uses a consolidated image processing module to improve the performance of low-light images acquired using image-intensifier-based night vision devices. The proposed module is a combination of a two-stage image processing framework. First, a spatio-temporal filter (based on wavelet and recursive frame averaging) is used to minimize inter-frame and intra-frame noise. Then, image enhancement is performed followed by residual noise reduction using a local spatial filter before applying image tone adjustment for display mapping. The results of the proposed module demonstrate performance enhancement of night vision devices under controlled simulated light conditions as well as field conditions. Objective and subjective analysis also reveals that the proposed module can effectively reduce noise and significantly improve visual image quality by 20–30%.

In this paper, we introduce fractional Boas transforms and discuss some of their properties. We also introduce the notion of wavelets associated with fractional Boas transforms and give some results related to their vanishing moments. Finally, a comparative study of Hilbert transforms and fractional Boas transforms is done.

Reproductive success is attained by various mechanisms in insects. Prolonged post insemination association is one such mechanism to increase the reproductive success. The present study was conducted to assess the role of post insemination association of mating partners on reproductive performance in Chrysomelidae beetle, Zygogramma bicolorata Pallister. The matings were disrupted at different time intervals and fecundity and percent egg viability of the females were recorded. In addition, the mounting attempts, mating attempts, time to commencement of mating and latent period were also recorded. It was hypothesized that: (1) the mounting and mating attempts would not exist, (2) copulation duration, would not affect the reproductive performance, and (3) the beetle would not exhibit the mate guarding behaviour. Interestingly, results revealed that 6.00 ± 1.3 and 6.59 ± 0.93 mounting and mating attempts are needed to establish successful mating. The results revealed that males improved their percent egg viability with a mating duration ranging from nearly 30–50 min. While fecundity increased with a mating duration of above 30 min and up to a duration of 60 min. This result concluded that males of this beetle display post copulatory mate guarding behaviour after 60 min in which male rides on female’s back with his aedeagus inserted in the female genital tract.

Although high-capacity negative electrode materials are seen as a propitious strategy for improving the performance of lithium-ion batteries (LIBs), their advancement is curbed by issues such as pulverization during the charge/discharge process and the formation of an unstable solid electrolyte interphase (SEI). In particular, electrolytes play a vital role in determining the properties of an SEI layer. Thus, in this study, we investigate the performance of a red phosphorus/acetylene black composite (P/AB) prepared by high-energy ball milling as a negative electrode material for LIBs using organic and ionic liquid (IL) electrolytes. Galvanostatic tests performed on half cells demonstrate high discharge capacities in the 1386-1700 mAh (g-P/AB)-1 range along with high Coulombic efficiencies of 85.3-88.2% in the first cycle, irrespective of the electrolyte used. Upon cycling, the Li[FSA]-[C2C1im][FSA] (FSA- = bis(fluorosulfonyl)amide and C2C1im+ = 1-ethyl-3-methylimidazolium) IL electrolyte (2:8 in mol) demonstrates a high capacity retention of 78.8% after 350 cycles, whereas significant capacity fading is observed in the Li[PF6] and Li[FSA] organic electrolytes. Electrochemical impedance spectroscopy conducted with cycling revealed lower interfacial resistance in the IL electrolyte than in the organic electrolytes. Scanning electron microscopy and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy after cycling in different electrolytes evinced that the IL electrolyte facilitates the formation of a robust SEI layer comprising multiple layers of sulfur species resulting from FSA- decomposition. A P/AB|LiFePO4 full cell using the IL electrolyte showed superior capacity retention than organic electrolytes and a high energy density under ambient conditions. This work not only illuminates the improved performance of a phosphorous-based negative electrode alongside ionic liquid electrolytes but also displays a viable strategy for the development of high-performance LIBs, especially for large-scale applications.

In the present study, the physical properties including structural, optical and magnetic of HoCr1-xMnxO3 (x = 0, 0.15) have been thoroughly investigated and compared. A detailed structural analysis of the compounds provided a way to correlate the optical and magnetic properties with the change in Cr-site ionic radius, tilt angles and distortion in CrO6 octahedra due to Mn substitution. Further, the shift in the Raman phonon modes was associated with the increased structural distortion owing to Mn substitution in HoCrO3 compound. The variation in the Urbach energy values, measured from the diffuse reflectance spectroscopy, was found to be closely related to the octahedral distortion. The optical band gap reduced from 3.22 eV to 2.01 eV after Mn substitution. Other optical parameters such as skin depth, refractive index, extinction coefficient and optical conductivity were also perceived to vary noticeably in the substituted compound. The overall structural distortion with Mn substitution resulted in the decrease of antiferromagnetic transition temperature of the pristine compound. The strong magnetic entropy change was observed at low temperatures in pure HoCrO3 compound and its value was enhanced on Mn substitution. Therefore, the present work provides a convenient method to tune the multifunctional properties of HoCrO3 compound, which has practical applications such as photocatalyst and low-temperature magnetic refrigerant.

Lignin is an abundant renewable natural biopolymer. Moreover, a significant development in lignin pretreatment and processing technologies has opened a new window to explore lignin and lignin-based bionanomaterials. In the last decade, lignin has been widely explored in different applications such as drug and gene delivery, tissue engineering, food science, water purification, biofuels, environmental, pharmaceuticals, nutraceutical, catalysis, and other interesting low-value-added energy applications. The complex nature and antioxidant, antimicrobial, and biocompatibility of lignin attracted its use in various biomedical applications because of ease of functionalization, availability of diverse functional sites, tunable physicochemical and mechanical properties. In addition to it, its diverse properties such as reactivity towards oxygen radical, metal chelation, renewable nature, biodegradability, favorable interaction with cells, nature to mimic the extracellular environment, and ease of nanoparticles preparation make it a very interesting material for biomedical use. Tremendous progress has been made in drug delivery and tissue engineering in recent years. However, still, it remains challenging to identify an ideal and compatible nanomaterial for biomedical applications. In this review, recent progress of lignin towards biomedical applications especially in drug delivery and in tissue engineering along with challenges, future possibilities have been comprehensively reviewed.

Microalgae are a sustainable source of lipids for industrial applications. In this study, we tested the effect of three chemical elicitors [chitosan, methyl jasmonate (MeJA), and flavonoids] on lipid accumulation in the microalga Scenedesmus. We analyzed the effect of different concentrations of these elicitors at different time points on growth rate and lipid production. We found that these elicitors did not have an adverse effect on the growth rate of Scenedesmus at different time points, by comparison with their respective controls. Among the three elicitors, MeJA at a low concentration (25 μL/L) was found to be effective at enhancing the lipid production in Scenedesmus when added at the time of harvest and allowed to react for 12 h, whereas flavonoid treatment, specifically at 0.5 mg/L, enhanced lipid production after 24 h. Fatty acid methyl ester analysis by GC–MS revealed no difference in lipid profile before or after chemical induction. Taken together, this comparative analysis highlights the potential of MeJA at a low concentrations to be effective at improving lipid productivity without altering the growth rate in Scenedesmus.

Environmental conditions influence ecological processes that shape stream community diversity and abundance. Deforestation has the potential to limit available particulate organic matter and raise stream temperatures. The degree to which tropical stream communities are impacted by these changes is likely to differ between systems, but empirical data from tropical regions are lacking. This lack of baseline data hinders conservation policy as well as efforts to better understand biogeographic and anthropogenic impacts on species’ distributions. To fill this knowledge gap, we surveyed 27 sites in six previously unstudied streams across a gradient of deforestation in northwest Ecuador and assessed the degree to which localized deforestation predicted patterns of community composition of fishes. Using general linear mixed models and AICC we found that neither forest fragmentation nor canopy closure was a significant predictor of species richness and found no difference between the species richness of fragmented and continuous sites. However, forest fragmentation was a strong predictor of abundance, occurring in 31 of 31 general linear mixed models, with higher abundance in fragmented forest than in continuous forest. Of 16 species found, eight occurred at five or more sites and one (Pseudochalceus boehlkei), numbered 200 out of 627 individuals. NMDS and SIMPER analysis suggested that community composition differed between fragmented and continuous sites. P. boehlkei, Pseudopoecilia fria, and Astroblepus cf. fissidens species presented in higher abundances in deforested sites, possibly suggesting a less functionally diverse community. This pattern is consistent with neotropical streams that have experienced partial deforestation but not total degradation of habitat.

The stability constant Kf for the complexation of Ag(Ⅰ) metal ion with Midodrine hydrochloride were determinedby spectrophotometric method at room temperature .The colored complexes were measured at 300 nm. The stability constant of the complexes were found to be 5.47 by mole ratio method. The stoichiometry of the complexes formed between the Midodrine drug and Ag (Ⅰ) metal ion are 1:1 M/L ratio. Silver conjugated Midodrine hydrochloride Nano synthesized and characterized by UV/Visible spectroscopy, SEM, XRD and FT-IR. The UV/Visible spectra of Midodrine –Ag nanoparticle in the range of 322 nm. XRD conformThe crystallite size of Midodrine - Ag (Ⅰ) nanoparticles are found to be 64.5 nmfrom Debye Scherer formula.Thecrystallinity of nanoparticles is Face centered cubic structure. SEM conform of particle size and surface morphology, FTIR analyzed involvement of -NH2 group in Midodrine is the stabilized of silver nanoparticle. This research is focuses on complexation, Nano synthesis and characterization of Drug-silver nanoparticle for antihypotention therapy.

Water splitting via an electrochemical process to generate hydrogen is an economic and green approach to resolve the looming energy and environmental crisis. The rational design of multicomponent materials with seamless interfaces having robust stability, facile scalability, and low-cost electrocatalysts is a grand challenge to produce hydrogen by water electrolysis. Herein, we report a superhydrophilic homogeneous bimetallic phosphide of Ni2P-CuP2 on Ni-foam-graphene-carbon nanotubes (CNTs) heterostructure using facile electrochemical metallization followed by phosphorization without any intervention of metal-oxides/hydroxides. This bimetallic phosphide shows ultralow overpotentials of 12 (HER, hydrogen evolution reaction) and 140 mV (OER, oxygen evolution reaction) at current densities of 10 and 20 mA/cm2 in acidic and alkaline mediums, respectively. The excellent stability lasts for at least for 10 days at a high current density of 500 mA/cm2 without much deviation, inferring the practical utilization of the catalyst toward green fuel production. Undoubtedly, the catalyst is capable enough for overall water splitting at a very low cell voltage of 1.45 V @10 mA/cm2 with an impressive stability of at least 40 h, showing a minimum loss of potential. Theoretical study has been performed to understand the reaction kinetics and d-band shifting among metal atoms in the heterostructure (Ni2P-CuP2) that favor the HER and OER activities, respectively. In addition, the catalyst demonstrates an alternate transformation of solar energy to green H2 production using a standard silicon solar cell. This work unveils a smart design and synthesizes a highly stable electrocatalyst against an attractive paradigm of commercial water electrolysis for renewable electrochemical energy conversion.

2D layered Ruddlesden–Popper (RP) perovskites gained significant attention owing to their unique optoelectronic properties and ultralow thermal conductivity; however, in comparison to the hybrid Pb...

Short shelf-life of banana at ambient temperature is major concern in tropical regions because the temperature elevates the ripening related changes such as tissue softening, senescence, spotting on peel, off-odour and fungal disease mainly anthracnose. Here, this work is focused to evaluate the potential effect of Aloe gel (AG), lemon peel extract (LPE) and their combinations as edible coating treatment on postharvest quality and shelf-life of banana during storage at 23 ± 1 °C. Effectiveness of coating on banana was assessed by performing variety of physiochemical parameters namely weight loss, decay, disease severity, pH, acidity, soluble solids, sugars and ascorbic acid. Moreover, the antifungal efficacy of lemon peel extract was examined on the most disastrous fungus Colletotrichum musae causing anthracnose in banana. The treated fruits showed reduction in the rate of weight loss and decay of the fruits during storage. The breakdown of organic acids and accumulation of soluble solids were slower in bananas protected with edible coatings. Furthermore, the amount of ascorbic acid in banana was maintained in AG (50%) + LPE (15%) coated fruits during storage. Besides, the application of edible coating extends the banana shelf life up to 9 days with no disease incident. Thus, it indicates that the Aloe gel (AG) and lemon peel extract (LPE) constituted edible coating is an effective alternative to extend the shelf life and reduce the quality losses in banana rather than the use of hazardous fungicides and chemical preservatives.

Conventional von-Neumann computing models have achieved remarkable feats for the past few decades. However, they fail to deliver the required efficiency for certain basic tasks like image and speech recognitions when compared with the biological systems. As such, taking cues from the biological systems, novel computing paradigms are being explored for the efficient hardware implementations of the recognition/classification tasks. The basic building blocks of such neuromorphic systems are neurons and synapses . Toward that end, we propose a leaky-integrate-fire (LIF) neuron and a programmable non-volatile synapse using the domain-wall (DW) motion induced by the magnetoelectric effect. Due to the strong elastic pinning between the ferromagnetic DW (FM-DW) and the underlying ferroelectric DW (FE-DW), the FM-DW is dragged by the FE-DW on the application of a voltage pulse. The fact that FE materials are insulators allows for pure voltage-driven FM-DW motion, which in turn can be used to mimic the behavior of the biological spiking neurons and synapses. The voltage-driven nature of the proposed devices allows the energy-efficient operation. A detailed device to the system-level simulation framework based on the micromagnetic simulations has been developed to analyze the feasibility of the proposed neurosynaptic devices for implementing the neuromorphic systems. A key highlight of the presented work as opposed to the prior works on the DW neurons and synapses is that the proposed device can seamlessly incorporate the “controlled leaky” behavior both in neurons and synapses, leading to the improved bioplausible behavior.

Colorectal cancer is considered one of the leading causes of death that is linked with the Kirsten Rat Sarcoma (KRAS) harboring codons 13 and 61 mutations. The objective for this study is to search for clinically important codon 61 mutations and analyze how they affect the protein structural dynamics. Additionally, a deep-learning approach is used to carry out a similarity search for potential compounds that might have a comparatively better affinity. Public databases like The Cancer Genome Atlas and Genomic Data Commons were accessed for obtaining the data regarding mutations that are associated with colon cancer. Multiple analysis such as genomic alteration landscape, survival analysis, and systems biology-based kinetic simulations were carried out to predict dynamic changes for the selected mutations. Additionally, a molecular dynamics simulation of 100 ns for all the seven shortlisted codon 61 mutations have been conducted, which revealed noticeable deviations. Finally, the deep learning-based predicted compounds were docked with the KRAS 3D conformer, showing better affinity and good docking scores as compared to the already existing drugs. Taking together the outcomes of systems biology and molecular dynamics, it is observed that the reported mutations in the SII region are highly detrimental as they have an immense impact on the protein sensitive sites' native conformation and overall stability. The drugs reported in this study show increased performance and are encouraged to be used for further evaluation regarding the situation that ascends as a result of KRAS mutations.

Because of a continuous increase in energy demands and environmental concerns, a focus has been on the design and construction of a highly efficient, low-cost, environmentally friendly, and noble-metal free electrocatalyst for energy technology. Herein we report facile synthesis of the mixed-valence trinuclear cobalt complex 1 by the reaction of 2-amino-1-phenylethanol and CoCl2·6H2O in methanol as the solvent at room temperature. Further, 1 was reduced by using aqueous N2H4 as a simple reducing agent, followed by calcination at 300 °C for 3 h, yielding a nitrogen-doped mixed phase cobalt [β-Co(OH)2 and CoO] nanocatalyst (N@MPCoNC). Both 1 and N@MPCoNC were characterized by various physicochemical techniques. Moreover, 1 was authenticated by single-crystal X-ray diffraction studies. The hybrid N@MPCoNC reveals a unique electronic and morphological structure, offering a low overpotential of 390 mV for a stable current density of 10 mA cm-2 with high durability. This N@MPCoNC showed excellent electrocatalytic as well as photocatalytic activity for oxygen evolution reaction compared to 1.

Rice sheath blight disease caused by the necrotrophic fungus Rhizoctonia solani, is an economically detrimental fungal disease which significantly affects rice productivity worldwide. Potato snakin-1, a cysteine-rich basic antimicrobial peptide (AMP), is a member of the novel Snakin AMP family. In order to assess the ability of the snakin-1 peptide in protecting rice against the sheath blight disease, we have developed transgenic rice constitutively expressing the snakin-1 peptide. The antimicrobial activity of snakin-1 was evaluated against the sheath blight pathogen Rhizoctonia solani both in vitro and in planta. Crude protein from transgenic rice leaves showed in vitro antifungal activity against Rhizoctonia solani. Moreover, in planta bioassay results also confirmed the same, wherein snakin-1 expressing rice plants showed significantly enhanced protection against the sheath blight disease. This report demonstrates how a member of the Snakin family of antimicrobial peptides has been successfully used to generate sheath blight resistance in rice, without compromising on its agronomic characteristics and at no phenotypic cost.