Recent Study on Schottky Tunnel Field Effect Transistor for Biosensing Applications

Silicon - In this review, we discussed highly sensitive biosensor devices which is having a more attractive, wide scope and development in the sensing field. Biosensor devices can detect the...     

Effect of various nanofillers on thermal stability and degradation kinetics of polymer nanocomposites

Structure of nanofillers and their subsequent interaction with a polymer is very important in determining thermal stability of polymer nanocomposite. In this paper, we tried to correlate structure of various 0, 1 and 2 dimensional nanofillers with the thermal stability of hydrogenated nitrile butadiene rubber (HNBR) nanocomposites. Organically modified and unmodified layered silicates such as montmorillonite (Cloisite Na+, Cloisite 30B and Cloisite 15A), rod-like fibrous filler (sepiolite) and spherical nanoparticles (nanosilica) were chosen for this purpose. A significant improvement in thermal stability (obtained by thermogravimeric analysis and differential scanning calorimetry) was observed for silica-filled nanocomposites. However, the activation energy of the nanocomposites calculated by different kinetic methods (both non-isothermal and isothermal methods) was found to be significantly high for sepiolite, 30B and silica-filled nanocomposites. The results were explained with the help of structure of the nanofillers, their interaction with the elastomer and the subsequent dispersion, as measured by X-ray diffraction, transmission electron microscopy and atomic force microscopy. From these analyses it was concluded that organically modified montmorillonite, sepiolite and nanosilica increase the thermal stability of the nanocomposite to a great extent due to the interaction of the reactive groups on the surface of these fillers with the polymer and high thermal stability of these inorganic fillers. Finally, degradation mechanism of HNBR in presence of the nanofillers at severe operating temperatures was investigated with the help of FTIR spectroscopy.     

Influence of molecular parameters on thermal,mechanical, and dynamic mechanical properties of hydrogenated nitrile rubber and its nanocomposites

The present work derives a relationship between structure and properties of hydrogenated nitrile rubber (HNBR) in the presence as well as absence of nanofillers. Four different grades of HNBR were selected to examine the influence of polarity, unsaturation, and molecular weight on thermal, mechanical, and dynamic mechanical properties of the elastomers and particularly their nanocomposites. An increase in thermal stability, tensile strength, modulus at 100% elongation as well as storage modulus of the unfilled rubber was observed with increase in polarity (acrylonitrile content). Different nanofillers, such as montmorillonite, sepiolite, and nanosilica were used to improve the above properties of the unfilled rubber. Interestingly, a reverse trend of thermal properties was observed for the nanocomposites with acrylonitrile variation, although mechanical and dynamic mechanical properties exhibited similar trend to those of the unfilled rubber. These properties, however, gradually deteriorated as the level of unsaturation on the polymer backbone was increased. On addition of the nanofillers, it was found that the improvement in thermal and mechanical properties was higher for the elastomer having 5.5% diene content. The results were explained by X‐ray Diffraction, Atomic Force Microscopy, Energy Dispersive X‐ray mapping, and swelling studies. POLYM. ENG. SCI., 2010. © 2010 Society of Plastics Engineers     

Front end analysis of speech recognition: a review

Automatic speech recognition (ASR) has made great strides with the development of digital signal processing hardware and software. But despite of all these advances, machines can not match the performance of their human counterparts in terms of accuracy and speed, especially in case of speaker independent speech recognition. So, today significant portion of speech recognition research is focused on speaker independent speech recognition problem. Before recognition, speech processing has to be carried out to get a feature vectors of the signal. So, front end analysis plays a important role. The reasons are its wide range of applications, and limitations of available techniques of speech recognition. So, in this report we briefly discuss the different aspects of front end analysis of speech recognition including sound characteristics, feature extraction techniques, spectral representations of the speech signal etc. We have also discussed the various advantages and disadvantages of each feature extraction technique, along with the suitability of each method to particular application.     

Antioxidant activity of lettuce tree (Pisonia morindifolia R.Br.) and tamarind tree (Tamarindus indica L.) and their efficacy in peanut oil stability

Different solvent extracts of lettuce tree (Pisonia morindifolia R. Br.) and tamarind tree (Tamarindus indica L.) were tested for antioxidant activities. The extracts exhibited effective reducing power and higher radical scavenging efficacy against DPPH and hydroxyl radicals. They also showed metal chelating ability and inhibited peroxidation in the β-carotene/linoleic acid emulsion system. The extracts contained considerable levels of vitamin C, vitamin E, total phenolics, tannins, and total flavonoids estimated through standard spectrophotometric methods. As the acetone and methanol extracts of lettuce and tamarind tree recorded pronounced activities, their protective effects in stabilizing peanut oil were tested in terms of their peroxide value, free fatty acid contents, and p-anisidine values in comparison with the synthetic antioxidants butylated hydroxyanisole and butylated hydroxytoluene. Additionally, the antioxidant activity of the extract-treated oil samples and their phenolic contents were monitored to obtain a complete perspective of the influence of the phenolic compounds in oil stability. Results indicated that the selected leafy vegetables, besides acting as good sources of antioxidants, may serve as substitute for synthetic antioxidants in the stabilization of peanut oil.     

Dimensional scalable lossless compression of MRI images using haar wavelet lifting scheme with EBCOT

Modern medical imaging requires storage of large quantities of digitized clinical data. To provide high bandwidth and to reduce the storage space, a medical image must be compressed before transmission. One of the best image compression techniques is using the Haar wavelet transform. The method of discrete cosine transform (DCT) is chosen to be the preprocessing scheme to identify the image frequency information and has excellent energy compaction property. The block coding algorithm uses a wavelet transform to generate the sub band samples, which can be quantized and coded. It is more robust to errors than many other wavelet‐based schemes. In this article, simulations are carried out on different medical Images and it demonstrates the performance in terms of peak signal to noise ratio (PSNR) & bits per pixel (BPP). Our proposed method is found to preserve information fidelity while reducing the amount of data. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Int J Imaging Syst Technol, 24, 175–181, 2014     

Impact of polyphenols from banana pseudostem on sunflower oil stability

The present investigation is focused on the potential use of banana pseudostem, which otherwise is disposed off as a waste, as a source of polyphenols or antioxidants. The polyphenols extracted from the outer leaf sheaths of 3 Indian banana (Musa spp.) cultivars namely, ‘Nendhran’, ‘Robusta’, and ‘Kathali’ were tested for antioxidant activities. The extracts showed effective DPPH, hydroxyl, and superoxide radical scavenging ability. Among the banana cultivars, ‘Nendhran’ followed by ‘Robusta’ contained the highest total phenolic (110.45 and 94.03 mg GAE/g extract, respectively) and total flavonoid (49.62 and 38.61 mg QE/g extract, respectively) contents and antiradical activity. Further, the study was aimed to evaluate the protective effects of the polyphenolic extracts in stabilizing sunflower oil, tested in terms of peroxide value, free fatty acid contents, and p-anisidine values in comparison with the synthetic antioxidants, butylated hydroxyanisole and butylated hydroxytoluene. In addition, the antioxidant activity and total phenolic contents of the extract-treated oil samples were also monitored to obtain a complete perspective of the influence exerted by the polyphenols in oil stability. The results demonstrated that polyphenols from pseudostem of banana cultivars are potent source of natural antioxidants and might serve as a substitute for synthetic antioxidants in oil industry.     

Production and in vitro evaluation of xylooligosaccharides generated from corn cobs

Corn cobs are major byproduct of maize processing industries. For value addition of maize byproducts, the present paper aims at extracting xylan from corn cobs and subsequent production of xylooligosaccharides (XOS). Compositional determination of corn cobs revealed 38.78% hemicellulose, 27.71% cellulose and 9.4% lignin. Recovery of xylan increased with increasing concentration of alkali during extraction. The extracted xylan was subjected to acidic hydrolysis to yield XOS. HPLC analysis of hydrolysate revealed increased production of XOS with time, but prolonged incubation resulted in higher amount of xylose. Four probiotic strains were used for undertaking in vitro evaluation of the prebiotic efficacy of XOS. XOS ensured higher growth rate for Enterococcus faecium as compared to other probionts, while fructooligosaccharides (FOS) supported higher proliferation of Lactobacillus viridiscens. This method of xylan extraction and production of XOS offers scope for value addition to the corn byproducts.     

Effect of different nanoparticles on thermal,mechanical and dynamic mechanical properties of hydrogenated nitrile butadiene rubber nanocomposites

Organically modified and unmodified montmorillonite clays (Cloisite NA, Cloisite 30B and Cloisite 15A), sepiolite (Pangel B20) and nanosilica (Aerosil 300) were incorporated into hydrogenated nitrile rubber (HNBR) matrix by solution process in order to study the effect of these nanofillers on thermal, mechanical and dynamic mechanical properties of HNBR. It was found that on addition of only 4 phr of nanofiller to neat HNBR, the temperature at which maximum degradation took place (T_max) increased by 4 to 16°C, while the modulus at 100% elongation and the tensile strength were enhanced by almost 40–60% and 100–300% respectively, depending upon nature of the nanofiller. It was further observed that T_max was the highest in the case of nanosilica‐based nanocomposite with 4 phr of filler loading. The increment of storage modulus was highest for sepiolite‐HNBR and Cloisite 30B‐HNBR nanocomposites at 25°C, while the modulus at 100% elongation was found maximum for sepiolite‐HNBR nanocomposite at the same loading. A similar trend was observed in the case of another grade of HNBR having similar ACN content, but different diene level. The results were explained by x‐ray diffraction, transmission electron microscopy, and atomic force microscopy studies. The above results were further explained with the help of thermodynamics. Effect of different filler loadings (2, 4, 6, 8, and 16 phr) on the properties of HNBR nanocomposites was further investigated. Both thermal as well as mechanical properties were found to be highest at 8 phr of filler loading. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci, 2010     

Novel role of polymer-solvent and clay-solvent interaction parameters on the thermal, mechanical and optical properties of polymer nanocomposites

Solvent-polymer and solvent-clay interactions are very important in determining the properties of polymer-clay nanocomposites. In the present work, hydrogenated nitrile rubber-sepiolite nanocomposites were prepared and the interaction parameters of various solvents with rubber (χ_AB) and clay (χ_CD) were studied. Nine different sets of solvent combination were chosen based on their solubility parameter. A correlation between thermal, mechanical and optical transmittance properties of polymer-clay nanocomposites and the difference in their interaction parameters with various solvents (χ_AB − χ_CD) was analyzed for the first time. This study helped to identify chloroform/methyl ethyl ketone as the best solvent combination, where temperature at which maximum degradation of the polymer took place was raised by 65 °C and tensile strength and modulus at 100% elongation were enhanced by almost 200% over the neat rubber. The results were correlated with the data of X-Ray Diffraction study, Atomic Force Microscopy and Transmission Electron Microscopy. Finally, thermodynamic interpretation was made to explain the results.