Search

The pre-processing activities for handwritten Devanagari text recognition includes an significant step called Segmentation. The segmentation accuracy of Devanagari text characters depends entirely on the accurately segmented lines and words in the handwritten documents. The process of segmenting lines and words correctly leads to many issues. More detailed information is lagging on the segmentation of lines and words from Devanagari text documents, whereas it is available more for other script documents in the literature. Here, we accomplished the task of segmenting the lines and words using Connected Components with Statistics Method on PHDIndic_11 dataset. Experimentation using above mentioned method resulted in line segmentation accuracy of 91.91% and word segmentation accuracy of 72.89% which outperforms over Global threshold and Otsu’s optimum threshold methods.

Current environmental issues and depletion of natural petroleum resources demand alternative fuels for transportation. The present study deals with mixed dairy waste and Karanja oil (DK oils) biodiesel production using Taguchi L9 orthogonal array and characterization of the DK biodiesel blends to study its suitability as a renewable alternative fuel through gas chromatography, infrared spectroscopy, element analysis, physicochemical properties investigation, thermal behavior and combustion analysis using TG–DTG and TG–DSC techniques. Gas Chromatography was carried out to examine the quantification of fatty acid methyl esters, whereas infrared spectroscopy investigates the organic, inorganic, and polymeric contents with their vibrations in different molecular bonds. IS 1448 standard and elemental analysis is followed to examine the physicochemical properties of biodiesel and CHNSO percentage. Thermogravimetric analysis was followed to investigate the thermal behavior of the blends. Thermal analysis provides the information related to the stages of mass loss with temperature and mass loss percentage. The ignition temperature, burnout temperature, maximum combustion rate temperature, final decomposition temperature, ignition index, and comprehensive ignition index are the essential properties of fuel combustion analysis that are studied. Results indicate that the lower concentration of biodiesel in B20 blend provides a higher value of ignition index (1.67 × 10–4 to 3.86 × 10–4 min−1 °C−2) and comprehensive ignition index (2.8 × 10–6 to 1.1 × 10–5 min−1 °C−3) which provides better ignition performance during combustion.

Background: Stress echocardiography is a very useful diagnostic and prognostic test in the evaluation of significant coronary artery disease (CAD) causing inducible myocardial ischemia. Stress echocardiography has higher sensitivity and specificity as compared to exercise stress electrocardiography, and therefore, the guidelines recommend opting for the former modality over the latter. There are data suggesting that the incidence of major cardiac events is

The aim of the present investigation is to examine the characteristics of diesel engine for varying concentrations of diethyl ether (DEE) as an oxygenated additive in repurpose used cooking oil (RU...

Conventionally, degumming is carried out at 90°C--110°C temperature by boiling the raw silk with Marseilles soap and sodium bicarbonate which eventually requires a lot of water and energy. In this study, degumming of Chinese bivoltine raw silk fibres with alkaline protease produced by Beauveria sp. (MTCC 5184) is studied. Complete degumming was obtained in 45 min with 75 units of enzyme per gram of silk. Degumming was found to be optimal at 50°C and pH 9.0. Scanning electron micrographs showed that the sericin deposits were removed and the obtained fibres were clean, separated, had smooth feel with shine as compared to untreated fibres. Sericin isolated from silk cocoon (by-product which goes waste) was hydrolyzed with the same alkaline protease obtained from Beauveria sp. to get small molecular weight peptides. These peptides can be utilized further for cosmetic, pharmaceutical, and various industrial applications.

Employees of any company need to know whether their employees are happy or sad or they have any problem in their working environment. There should be some mechanism to handle this information about the employee. Employee chatting messages could be analyzed using sentiment analysis and employee mood detection is retrieved based on text analysis. Also, Employee facial expressions can be detected using Image Processing on employee images taken through Web Camera while an employee is chatting with colleagues. Using Image Processing, Emotion of employee such as Happy, Angry, Sad or Normal is detected. Employee analysis report is shown to company management to find whether the employee is satisfied with company or employee is facing some problem in the working environment Prof. Vijay More | Ms. Ankita Shetty | Ms. Aishwarya Mapara | Mr. Rahul Ghuge | Mr. Rohit Sharma "Employee Data Mining Based on Text and Image Processing" Published in International Journal of Trend in Scientific Research and Development (ijtsrd), ISSN: 2456-6470, Volume-2 | Issue-3 , April 2018, URL: https://www.ijtsrd.com/papers/ijtsrd10791.pdf

The conversion of biobased feedstocks into energy and value-added chemicals is one main approach to address the current global challenge for waste mitigation through the biorefinery mode. Corncob biomass which is one of the most abundant agricultural residue in India with a high hemicellulose content, can serve as a potential low-cost raw material for food-grade xylitol production. The present study demonstrates a process for xylitol production from corncob biomass with detailed energy and life cycle analysis for viability assessment. The major highlight of the process is the use of microbial fermentation, where biomass-derived D-xylose is converted to xylitol with high selectivity. Overall, 0.502 kg of xylitol crystals could be produced from 3.5 kg of corncob biomass. Simulation analysis revealed that the evaporators are the primary consumers of energy, and the process of heat integration can significantly reduce the energy requirements of the overall process. Environmental impacts of the system evaluated showed emission results of 8.68 kg CO2 equivalent and revealed that marine aquatic and freshwater eco-toxicity are the only possible contributors to the environment. The results suggest that the process would have favourable energy balances, which can be used in pilot plant and heat exchanger network design and operation for xylitol production scale up to 500 L.

Employees of any company need to know whether their employees are happy or sad or they have any problem in their working environment. There should be some mechanism to handle this information about the employee. Employee chatting messages could be analyzed using sentiment analysis and employee mood detection is retrieved based on text analysis. Also, Employee facial expressions can be detected using Image Processing on employee images taken through Web Camera while an employee is chatting with colleagues. Using Image Processing, Emotion of employee such as Happy, Angry, Sad or Normal is detected. Employee analysis report is shown to company management to find whether the employee is satisfied with company or employee is facing some problem in the working environment. https://journalnx.com/journal-article/20150558

Alkaline protease from Conidiobolus brefeldianus was efficient in unhairing various types of skins and hides. The crude protease preparation was active toward keratin-azure, elastin-orcin, azocasein, and azocoll, but did not show true collagenase activity. In addition, the crude enzyme exhibited other enzyme activities such as chondroitinase, laminarase, and chitinase. Complete hair removal of skin/hide by the protease achieved in 16–18 h. The dehaired pelt showed smooth and white appearance due to hair removal along with epidermal layer. In addition, the grain was clean and without damage in enzymatically dehaired pelts. The microscopic observation of the cross-section of dehaired goat skin and cow hide showed absence of epidermis, hair shaft with empty follicles. Enzymatic dehairing resulted in complete and uniform fiber opening in the dermis and corium region. Physical properties viz. tensile strength, elongation, and tear strength of dyed crust of enzymatically and conventionally dehaired pelts were comparable. Results were also validated on large scale with goat skins and cow hides.

Retention of total activity of the subtilisin-like serine protease from Beauveria sp. MTCC 5184 (Bprot) in the vicinity of (1) 3 M GdnHCl for 12 h, (2) 50% methanol and dimethyl sulfoxide each for 24 h, and (3) proteolytic enzymes (trypsin, chymotrypsin, and proteinase K) for 48 h led to expect the enzyme to be a kinetically stable protein. Also, the structure of the protein was stable at pH 2.0. Biophysical characterization and conformational transitions were monitored using steady-state and time-resolved fluorescence, FTIR, and CD spectroscopy. Single tryptophan in the protein exists as two conformers, in hydrophobic and polar environment. The secondary structure of Bprot was stable in 3 M GdnHCl as seen in far-UV CD spectra. The active fraction of Bprot obtained from size-exclusion chromatography in the presence of GdnHCl (1.0-3.0 M) eluted at reduced retention time. The peak area of inactive or denatured protein with the same retention time as that of native protein increased with increasing concentration of denaturant (1.0-4.0 M GdnHCl). However, the kinetics of GdnHCl-induced unfolding as studied from intrinsic fluorescence revealed k unf of native protein to be 5.407 × 10(-5) s(-1) and a half-life of 3.56 h. The enzyme is thermodynamically stable in spite of being resistant to the denaturant, which could be due to the effect of GdnHCl imparting rigidity to the active fraction and simultaneously unfolding the partially unfolded protein that exists in equilibrium with the folded active protein. Thermal and pH denaturation of Bprot exhibited interesting structural transitions.

Dyeing of textile fabrics is considered to be one of the most polluting industries today, and there is a need to develop green processes that can reduce this pollution. A promising technology that can potentially cleanup the dyeing of silk fibers that are widely used for textile applications would involve the generation of intrinsically colored silk cocoons. This can be achieved by feeding of Bombyx mori silkworm larvae with a modified feed of mulberry leaves containing a sprayed dye solution. This process significantly reduces the need for treating toxic dye effluents that are generated in traditional dyeing processes. In this report, we have evaluated a set of seven different azo dyes that are used in the textile industry for dyeing to produce intrinsically dyed silk. The dyes used in the study had similar chemical structures with systematically varying partition coefficients. The results suggest that while some dyes produced intrinsically colored silk other did not. Careful evaluation of the physical p...

Degumming of Chinese bivoltine silk with alkaline proteases from various microbial sources was investigated and compared with commercial enzymes. Among the proteases tested, two fungal and two actinomycete proteases were promising, which showed weight loss similar to conventional method (19.58% to 21.78%). Conidiobolus brefeldianus and BOA-2 proteases were best enzymes, which showed weight loss similar to conventional method with low enzyme concentrations and in shorter time. No significant differences were found in tensile strength or elongation at break by enzymatic degumming indicating that there was no damage to the fiber. Scanning electron micrographs showed the sericin deposits were removed and the fibers were separated.

Alkaline protease secreted by Conidiobolus coronatus has been evaluated extensively in tanneries and finds application in pre-tanning operations in leather manufacture. It is important to produce the enzyme in inexpensive and optimized media on large scale for the process to be commercially viable. The present paper describes optimization of fermentation conditions in shake flasks and scale up of production to 100 L in fermentors. The production is complete in 2–3 days comparable to bacterial fermentations. The organism utilized several carbon sources such as starch, sucrose, lactose, glucose and fructose for production. Soyabean meal at an optimum concentration of 2–3% was found to be best inducer. Diammonium hydrogen phosphate, casamino acids and Hi-media peptone gave activities comparable to yeast extract. Preservation and stabilization studies showed that glycerol conferred considerable stabilization at room temperature while ammonium sulphate precipitated enzyme at 0.9 saturation was best with stability up to 2 years even at room temperature.

Hexavalent chromium (Cr 6+ ) is a common and toxic pollutant in soils and wastewaters. Conversion of the mobile Cr 6+ to less mobile and less toxic trivalent Cr 3+ can be achieved with conventional chemical reduction and its subsequent precipitation. Alternatively, Cr 6+ can also be reduced to Cr 3+ by microorganisms and has potential for application in decontamination of industrial effluents. During our studies on chromium toxicity in actinomycetes, a strain of Streptomyces griseus was found to grow and reduce highly toxic Cr 6+ to less toxic Cr 3+ from media containing 5-60 ppm of Cr 6+ . The concentration of Cr 3+ increased with simultaneous decrease in Cr 6+ during growth with complete conversion in 3-4 days. Reduction was faster when addition of chromium (especially high concentrations of chromium) was done after 24 h growth than at the time of inoculation. Conversion of Cr 6+ to Cr 3+ was complete within 24-48 h of chromium addition with significant uptake in the biomass. Reduction of chromium by resting cells and effect of various factors on chromium reduction are discussed.

The disease symptoms characterised by little leaf, phyllody, stunting and branch proliferation were observed during a field survey conducted from June 2015 to January 2016 on common invasive weeds Cleome viscosa (tick weed), Trichodesma zeylanicum (cattle bush) and Tephrosia perpurea (wild indigo), which were found infected with peanut witches’ broom phytoplasmas (16SrII group) strains. Phylogenetically similar phytoplasma strains were also detected in symptomatic samples of Sesamum indicum (sesame), Vigna unguiculata (cow pea), Phaseolus vulgaris (French bean), Dendrocalamus strictus (bamboo) and Carica papaya (papaya) from the same or adjacent fields. This is the first report of 16SrII-D group phytoplasmas (‘Candidatus Phytoplasma aurantifolia’-related strains) associated with witches’ broom disease of C. viscosa, D. strictus and yellow stunting disease of C. papaya. The association of 16SrII-C group phytoplasmas with witches’ broom disease of T. zeylanicum and T. purpurea is also reported for the first time. From the obtained results, it can be inferred that the weed hosts harbors 16SrII group phytoplasma strains associated with little leaf and witches’ broom diseases of economically important grain legume crop species like S. indicum, V. unguiculata and P. vulgaris.

The waste X-ray/ photographic films contain 1.5 - 2 % (w/w) black metallic silver which is recovered and reused. Around 18-20% of the world's silver needs are supplied by recycling photographic waste. Since silver is linked to gelatin in the emulsion layer, it is possible to break the same and release the silver using proteolytic enzymes. Alkaline protease from Conidiobolus coronatus was investigated for enzymatic hydrolysis of gelatin from waste X-ray films. At the end of the treatment, gelatin layer was completely removed leaving the polyester film clean and silver was recovered in the hydrolysate, both of which can be reused. Various parameters such as pH, temperature, enzyme concentration, time etc on silver removal from the film were studied. Gelatin hydrolysis was monitored by measuring increase in turbidity in the hydrolysate, which was accompanied by release of protein and hydroxyproline. Gelatin layer was stripped completely within 6 min with 1.35 U ml -1 of protease at 40°C, pH 10. Rate of gelatin hydrolysis increased with increased in protease concentration. The enzyme could be effectively reused for four cycles of gelatin hydrolysis. Silver in hydolysate was around 3.87% (w/w) based on total weight of sludge. Key words: Silver recovery; X-ray films; gelatin hydrolysis; alkaline protease; Conidiobolus coronatus DOI: 10.3126/kuset.v6i1.3311 Kathmandu University Journal of Science, Engineering and Technology Vol.6(1) 2010, pp60-69