Insights into discrepancy in power generation among glucose and malate grown Rubrivivax benzoatilyticus JA2 microbial fuel cells

In this study, Rubrivivax benzoatilyticus JA2^T (=ATCC BAA-35^T = JCM 13220^T = MTCC 7087^T), an anoxygenic photosynthetic bacterium, was subjected to altered conditions and observed for changes in power outcome in the two chambered microbial fuel cells (MFCs), the basis of which was established using metabolomic studies. This is an extension to our previous studies, which showed that, under photo heterotrophic conditions, glucose in the form of a solitary carbon resource in minimal media, caused the strain JA2 to exhibit altered growth rates, progressive loss of pigmentation and reduced cell size (3–4 μm), compared to malate grown cells (6–7 μm). When R. benzoatilyticus JA2 cells were grown in malate bio-anodes, they presented higher potentials (289.22 ± 4.6 mV or 436.22 OCV per mg dry weight) compared to glucose bioanodes (163 ± 5.5 mv or 188.98 OCV per mg dry weight). Insights from the metabolomic footprints and fingerprints have revealed differential regulation of key components in the central metabolic pathway such as fumarate, citrate and succinate, which are significantly increased in malate grown bio anodes. Strain JA2 cells when grown with malate as substrate are densely grown on the electrodes and exhibited reduced size, when observed under SEM, which contrasts with control cells grown on malate broth. The artificial selection pressure of the MFC and the different metabolic pathways followed by these bacteria are the reasons for such discrepancy in the power production by the strain JA2. These adaptations may indicate survival advantage during the electron transfer and growth in bio anodes. The study throws light on what types of effluents would be more suitable as substrates for R. benzoatilyticus JA2 microbial fuel cells.     

Cognitive Mapping and Planning for Visual Navigation

International Journal of Computer Vision - We introduce a neural architecture for navigation in novel environments. Our proposed architecture learns to map from first-person views and plans a...     

Seismic Fragility of Steel Piping System Based on Pipe Size,Coupling Type,and Wall Thickness

In this study, a probabilistic framework of the damage assessment of pipelines subjected to extreme hazard scenario was developed to mitigate the risk and enhance design reliability. Nonlinear 3D finite element models of T-joint systems were developed based on experimental tests with respect to leakage detection of black iron piping systems, and a damage assessment analysis of the vulnerability of their components according to nominal pipe size, coupling type, and wall thickness under seismic wave propagations was performed. The analysis results showed the 2-inch schedule 40 threaded T-joint system to be more fragile than the others with respect to the nominal pipe sizes. As for the coupling types, the data indicated that the probability of failure of the threaded T-joint coupling was significantly higher than that of the grooved type. Finally, the seismic capacity of the schedule 40 wall thickness was weaker than that of schedule 10 in the 4-inch grooved coupling, due to the difference in the prohibition of energy dissipation. Therefore, this assessment can contribute to the damage detection and financial losses due to failure of the joint piping system in a liquid pipeline, prior to the decision-making.     

Towards finding the best-fit distribution for OSN data

The Journal of Supercomputing - Currently, all online social networks (OSNs) are considered to follow a power-law distribution. In this paper, the degree distribution for multiple OSNs has been...     

Integration of textual cues for fine-grained image captioning using deep CNN and LSTM

Neural Computing and Applications - The automatic narration of a natural scene is an important trait in artificial intelligence that unites computer vision and natural language processing. Caption...     

Design of a Stable DC Voltage Source and Computer Controlling of It Using an Indigenously Developed All-Digital Addressing-Cum-Control Hardware

We have developed a digitally operated addressing and control module (DACM) for addressing and controlling of equipment from a remote computer using a communication protocol developed in-house. This is useful for automation of an experiment that uses multiple equipment in a pre-decided synchronized manner. We also report design of a multipurpose high voltage direct current (DC) source that provides output of 0–100 V with an average stability of 1.90 (36) mV and has minimum step size of 3 mV. Operation of the DACM is examined by selecting the desired equipment, which in this case is the dc source, and remotely controlling its output from a computer. We also show that this can generate voltage with different waveforms within a 0–10 Hz frequency bandwidth. Such computer controlled ultra-stable high voltage sources tuneable to any arbitrary waveforms at low frequencies have many applications such as, driving a piezo for smooth scanning of laser frequencies, tuning length of a Fabry–Perot cavity, biasing of the electrodes in an ion trap and so on.     

Design and Engineering of Open Weave Jute Soil Saver for Potential Application in the Field of Soil Erosion Control and Hill Slope Management

Out of several natural agents causing extensive damages to roads, landslides can claim to be a major destroyer. There are several causes for landslides such as hazardous ground conditions, landform configuration adversities, occasionally occurring natural physical forces and anthropogenic impact on the environment. In such vulnerable situations the top soil on hill slopes get disintegrated due to intensive precipitation or shaking due to tremors and eventually flows down rapidly down the slope. The situation deserves the search for a biocover which can reduce the velocity of overland flow and entrap detached soil particles thereby controlling top soil loss. Jute Geotextile (JGT) if properly designed can fulfill the said criteria besides facilitating growth of vegetation. This paper discusses optimization of property parameters of open weave Jute Geotextile in tune with different parameters of design concerning protection of hill slope along with comparative analysis of the results of different tests on one hand and determination of tolerance limit of the prime property parameters of the developed JGT samples, on the other, which have been employed in different case studies to prove their potentiality and technoeconomic viability.