Photocatalytic hydrogen production over CuGa2−xFexO4 spinel

Recovery of hydrogen from industrial H₂S waste using spinel photocatalyst was studied. Spinel metal oxide photocatalysts (CuGa_2−xFe_xO₄ for x = 0.8, 0.6 and 0.4) were synthesized by ceramic route. They were loaded with 0.5 and 1 wt% noble metal oxide, RuO_2. Their XRD pattern revealed a single phase cubic spinel crystalline structure for all the catalysts. SEM displayed small size cubic particles with the particle size decreasing with the decrease in iron content. 1 wt% RuO₂ loaded CuGa_1.6Fe_0.4O₄ decomposed H₂S in aqueous 0.5 M KOH solution under visible light (λ ≥ 420 nm) irradiation and generated H₂ to the tune of 10,045 μmol/h, giving rise to a high quantum efficiency of 21% at 510 nm.     

3D Echocardiogram Reconstruction Employing a Flip Directional Texture Pyramid

Three dimensional (3D) echocardiogram enables cardiologists to visualize suspicious cardiac structures in detail. In recent years, this three-dimensional echocardiogram carries important clinical value in virtual surgical simulation. However, this 3D echocardiogram involves a trade-off difficulty between accuracy and efficient computation in clinical diagnosis. This paper presents a novel Flip Directional 3D Volume Reconstruction (FD-3DVR) method for the reconstruction of echocardiogram images. The proposed method consists of two main steps: multiplanar volumetric imaging and 3D volume reconstruction. In the creation of multiplanar volumetric imaging, two-dimensional (2D) image pixels are mapped into voxels of the volumetric grid. As the obtained slices are discontinuous, there are some missing voxels in the volume data. To restore the structural and textural information of 3D ultrasound volume, the proposed method creates a volume pyramid in parallel with the flip directional texture pyramid. Initially, the nearest neighbors of missing voxels in the multiplanar volumetric imaging are identified by 3D ANN (Approximate Nearest Neighbor) patch matching method. Furthermore, a flip directional texture pyramid is proposed and aggregated with distance in patch matching to find out the most similar neighbors. In the reconstruction step, structural and textural information obtained from different flip angle directions can reconstruct 3D volume well with the desired accuracy. Compared with existing 3D reconstruction methods, the proposed Flip Directional 3D Volume Reconstruction (FD-3DVR) method provides superior performance for the mean peak signal-to-noise ratio (40.538 for the proposed method I and 39.626 for the proposed method II). Experimental results performed on the cardiac datasets demonstrate the efficiency of the proposed method for the reconstruction of echocardiogram images.     

Effect of Roof Surface Type on Storm-Water Runoff from Full-Scale Roofs in a Temperate Climate

Roof surfaces represent a significant portion of the impervious area associated with urban development. Storm-water runoff from those surfaces causes stream degradation in receiving waters attributable to excess volume of water runoff. This paper investigates the influence of roof surface type on storm-water runoff and specifically considers the benefits of a vegetated roof, or green roof, as a storm-water best management practice (BMP). Runoff data were collected over a 6-month period from three full-scale roofs, which were retrofitted with flow meters and automated water-quality samplers. The roof surfaces included an asphalt roof (for control purposes), a vegetated extensive green roof, and a stone ballasted roof. Both the green roof and stone roof were effective at reducing runoff volume and attenuating peak discharge, with the green roof being more efficient for rainfall events less than 2.54?cm. Overall, the green roof retained 68.25% of rainfall volume and reduced peak discharge by an average of 88.86%. Water-quality results were inconclusive, but did provide some indication that green roof systems could reduce nutrient loadings.     

Stealthy attack detection in multi-channel multi-radio wireless networks

Multimedia Tools and Applications - In recent years, the lack of network traffic analysis and flexible network topologies reduce the performance of the multi-channel multi-radio wireless networks....     

Water ingestion during water recreation

Quantitative risk assessments have estimated health risks of water recreation. One input to risk assessment models is the rate of water ingestion. One published study estimated rates of water ingestion during swimming, but estimates of water ingestion are not available for common limited contact water recreation activities such as canoeing, fishing, kayaking, motor boating, and rowing. In the summer of 2009 two related studies were conducted to estimate water ingestion during these activities. First, at Chicago area surface waters, survey research methods were utilized to characterize self-reported estimates of water ingestion during canoeing, kayaking, and fishing among 2705 people. Second, at outdoor swimming pools, survey research methods and the analysis of cyanuric acid, a tracer of swimming pool water, were used to characterize water ingestion among 662 people who engaged in a variety of full-contact and limited-contact recreational activities. Data from the swimming study was used to derive translation factors that quantify the volume of self-reported estimates. At surface waters, less than 2% of canoers and kayakers reported swallowing a teaspoon or more and 0.5% reported swallowing a mouthful or more. Swimmers in a pool were about 25-50 times more likely to report swallowing a teaspoon of water compared to those who participate in limited-contact recreational activities on surface waters. Mean and upper confidence estimates of water ingestion during limited-contact recreation on surface waters are about 3-4 mL and 10-15 mL, respectively. These estimates of water ingestion rates may be useful in modeling the health risks of water recreation.     

Potential Antioxidant and Anti-Inflammatory Function of Gynura procumbens Polyphenols Ligand

The antioxidant and anti-inflammatory potentials of polyphenols contained in Gynura procumbens (GP) extract were systematically analyzed. Polyphenols in GP were analyzed for nine peaks using high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) combined with mass spectrometry (MS), and quantitatively determined through each standard. A total of nine polyphenolic compounds were identified in the samples and their MS data were tabulated. To determine the potential of bioactive ingredients targeting DPPH and COX-2, we analyzed them by ultrafiltration combined with LC. The results identified the major compounds exhibiting binding affinity for DPPH and COX-2. Caffeic acid, kynurenic acid, and chlorogenic acid showed excellent binding affinity to DPPH and COX-2, suggesting that they can be considered as major active compounds. Additionally, the anti-inflammatory effect of GP was confirmed in vitro. This study will not only be used to provide basic data for the application of GP to the food and pharmaceutical industries, but will also provide information on effective screening methods for other medicinal plants.     

Inhibition of Cell Proliferation and Metastasis by Scutellarein Regulating PI3K/Akt/NF-κB Signaling through PTEN Activation in Hepatocellular Carcinoma

Scutellarein (SCU) is a well-known flavone with a broad range of biological activities against several cancers. Human hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is major cancer type due to its poor prognosis even after treatment with chemotherapeutic drugs, which causes a variety of side effects in patients. Therefore, efforts have been made to develop effective biomarkers in the treatment of HCC in order to improve therapeutic outcomes using natural based agents. The current study used SCU as a treatment approach against HCC using the HepG2 cell line. Based on the cell viability assessment up to a 200 μM concentration of SCU, three low-toxic concentrations of (25, 50, and 100) μM were adopted for further investigation. SCU induced cell cycle arrest at the G2/M phase and inhibited cell migration and proliferation in HepG2 cells in a dose-dependent manner. Furthermore, increased PTEN expression by SCU led to the subsequent downregulation of PI3K/Akt/NF-κB signaling pathway related proteins. In addition, SCU regulated the metastasis with EMT and migration-related proteins in HepG2 cells. In summary, SCU inhibits cell proliferation and metastasis in HepG2 cells through PI3K/Akt/NF-κB signaling by upregulation of PTEN, suggesting that SCU might be used as a potential agent for HCC therapy.     

Eco-concrete for sustainability: utilizing aluminium dross and iron slag as partial replacement materials

Emphasis on utilizing the industrial waste/discarded materials can be brought about by discovering innovative methods of disposal. One such a way of waste disposal can be through utilizing them in concrete production as a filler material or pozzolana. In this regard, the present study proposes to use the aluminium dross and granular iron slag as partial replacement materials for cement and natural sand, respectively, to develop eco-concrete. Nine mixes were produced with different proportions of cement, aluminium dross, sand and granular iron slag content. The aluminium dross was replaced at 5, 10, 15 and 20% of the weight of the cement. Initially, the optimal substitution percentage of aluminium dross was found without the substitution of iron slag based on the strength results. Later, by adopting the optimal aluminium dross percentage with cement, the granular iron slag was partially substituted at 10, 20, 30 and 40% of natural sand to find the overall optimal blend. The strength and durability properties of the M40 grade concrete employing these two admixture combinations were analysed. It was noticed that the strength and durability properties of the eco-concrete produced by incorporating aluminium dross ?5% and iron slag ?20% were comparable to that of conventional concrete. Furthermore, from the toxicity analysis, it was seen that the leaching of heavy and trace elements from the eco-concrete was negligibly small and within the limits. In near future, the cost-effective, eco-friendly materials and technologies can be opted as a perpetual strategy to overcome severe material shortages for resource conservation and economy.     

Fuzzy Based Reliable Load Balanced Routing Approach for Ad hoc Sensor Networks

Energy management and packet delivery rate are the important factors in ad hoc networks. It is the major network where nodes share the information without administration. Due to the mobility of nodes, maximum energy is spent on transmission of packets. Mostly energy is wasted on packet dropping and false route discovery. In this research work, Fuzzy Based Reliable Load Balanced Routing Approach (RLRA) is proposed to provide high energy efficiency and more network lifetime using optimal multicast route discovery mechanism. It contains three phases. In first phase, optimal multicast route discovery is initiated to resolve the link failures. In second phase, the link quality is estimated and set to threshold value to meet the requirements of high energy efficiency. In third phase, energy model is shown to obtain total energy of network after transmission of packets. A multicast routing is established Based on path reliability and fault tolerant calculation is done and integrated with multicast routing. The routes can withstand the malicious issues. Fuzzy decision model is integrated with propose protocol to decide the performance of network lifetime. The network simulation tool is used for evaluating the RLRA with existing schemes and performance of RLRA is good compared to others.