Optimization of sensitizer concentration for upconversion photoluminescence of Yb3+/Er3+: La10W22O81 nanophosphor rods

Yb³⁺/Er³⁺codoped La₁₀W₂₂O₈₁ (LWO) nanophosphor rods have been successfully synthesized by a facile hydrothermal assisted solid state reaction method, and their upconversion photoluminescence properties were systematically studied. X-ray diffraction patterns revealed that the nanophosphors have an orthorhombic structure with space group Pbcn (60). A microflowers-like morphology with irregular hexagonal nanorods was observed using field emission scanning electron microscopy for the Yb³⁺(2 mol%)/Er³⁺(2 mol%):LWO nanophosphor. The shape and size of the nanophosphor and the elements along with their ionic states in the material were confirmed by TEM and XPS studies, respectively. A green upconversion emission was observed in the Er³⁺: LWO nanophosphors under 980 nm laser excitation. A significant improvement in upconversion emission has been observed in the Er³⁺: LWO nanophosphors by increasing the Er³⁺ ion concentration. A decrease in the upconversion emission occurred due to concentration quenching when the doping concentration of Er³⁺ ions was greater than 2 mol%. An optimized Er³⁺(2 mol%): LWO nanophosphor exhibited a strong near infrared emission at 1.53 μm by 980 nm excitation. The green upconversion emission of Er³⁺(2 mol%): LWO was remarkably enhanced by co-doping with Yb³⁺ ions under 980 nm excitation because of energy transfer from Yb³⁺ to Er³⁺. The naked eye observed this upconversion emission when co-doping with 2 mol% Yb³⁺. In order to obtain the high upconversion green emission, the optimized sensitizer concentration of Yb³⁺ ions was found to be 2 mol%. The upconversion emission trends were studied as a function of stimulating laser power for an optimized sample. Moreover, the NIR emission intensity has also been enhanced by co-doping with Yb³⁺ ions due to energy transfer from Yb³⁺ to Er³⁺. The energy transfer dynamics were systematically elucidated by energy level scheme. Colorimetric coordinates were determined for Er³⁺ and Yb³⁺/Er³⁺: LWO nanophosphors. The energy transfer mechanism was well explained and substantiated by several fluorescence dynamics of upconversion emission spectra and CIE coordinates. The results demonstrated that the co-doped Yb³⁺(2 mol%)/Er³⁺(2 mol%): LWO nanophosphor material is found to be a suitable candidate for the novel upconversion photonic devices.     

Simultaneous accommodation of Dy3+ at the lattice site of β-Ca3(PO4)2 and t-ZrO2 mixtures: Structural stability,mechanical, optical,and magnetic features

Structurally stable β-Ca₃(PO₄)₂/t-ZrO₂ composite mixtures with the aid of Dy³⁺ stabilizer were accomplished at 1500°C. The precursors comprising Ca²⁺, P⁵⁺, Zr⁴⁺, and Dy³⁺ have been varied to obtain five different combinations. The results revealed the fact that complete phase transformation of calcium-deficient apatite to β-Ca₃(PO₄)₂ occurred only at 1300°C, whereas the evidence of t-ZrO₂ crystallization is obvious at 900°C. The dual occupancy of Dy³⁺ at β-Ca₃(PO₄)₂ and t-ZrO₂ structures was evident; however, Dy³⁺ initially prefers to occupy β-Ca₃(PO₄)₂ lattice until its saturation limit and thereafter accommodates at the lattice site of ZrO₂. The typical absorption and emission behavior of Dy³⁺ were noticed in all the systems and, moreover, the surrounding symmetry of Dy³⁺ domains has been determined from the luminescence study. All the systems ensured paramagnetic response that is generally contributed by the presence of Dy³⁺. A gradual increment in the phase content of t-ZrO₂ in the composite mixtures ensured a significant improvement in the hardness and Young's modulus of the investigated compositions.     

Traffic video‐based intelligent traffic control system for smart cities using modified ant colony optimizer

Road traffic congestion is a serious problem in today's world and it happens because of urbanization and population growth. The traffic reduces the transport efficiency in the city, increases the waiting time and travel time, and also increases the usage of fuel and air pollution. To overcome these issues this papers propose an intelligent traffic control system using the Internet of Vehicles (IoV). The vehicles or nodes present in the IoV can communicate between themselves. This technique helps in determining the traffic intensity and the best route to reach the destination. The area of study used in this paper is Vellore city in Tamilnadu, India. The city map is separated into many segments of equal size and Ant Colony Algorithm (AOC) is applied to the separated maps to find the optimal route to reach the destination. Further, Support Vector Machine (SVM) is used to calculate the traffic density and to model the heavy traffic. The proposed algorithm performs better in finding the optimal route when compared to that of the existing path selection algorithms. From the results, it is evident that the proposed IoV‐based route selection method provides better performance.     

Fabrication of zinc‐loaded hollow glass microspheres (HGMs) for hydrogen storage

The greatest challenge for a feasible hydrogen economy lies on the production of pure hydrogen and the materials for its storage with controlled release at ambient conditions. Hydrogen with its great abundance, high energy density and clean exhaust is a promising candidate to meet the current global challenges of fossil fuel depletion and green house gases emissions. Extensive research on hollow glass microspheres (HGMs) for hydrogen storage is being carried out world‐wide, but the right material for hydrogen storage is yet underway. But many other characteristics, such as the poor thermal conductivity etc. of the HGMs, restrict the hydrogen storage capacity. In this work, we have attempted to increase the thermal conductivity of HGMs by ZnO doping. The HGMs with Zn weight percentage from 0 to 10 were prepared by flame spheroidization of amber‐colored glass powder impregnated with the required amount of zinc acetate. The prepared HGMs samples were characterized using field emission‐scanning electron microscope (FE‐SEM), environmental SEM (ESEM), high‐resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy and X‐ray diffraction (XRD) techniques. The deposition of ZnO on the microsphere walls was observed using FE‐SEM, ESEM and HRTEM which was further confirmed using the XRD and ultraviolet–visible absorption data. The hydrogen storage studies done on these samples at 200 °C and 10‐bar pressure for 5 h showed that the hydrogen storage increased when the Zn percentage in the sample increased from 0 to 2%. The percentage of zinc beyond 2, in the microspheres, showed a decline in the hydrogen storage capacity. The closure of the nanopores due to the ZnO nanocrystal deposition on the microsphere surface reduced the hydrogen storage capacity. The hydrogen storage capacity of HAZn2 was found 3.26 wt% for 10‐bar pressure at 200 °C. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Extrinsic parameter's adjustment and potential implications in Plasmodium falciparum malaria diagnosis

Malaria is a major public health concern, affecting over 3.2 billion people in 91 countries. The advent of digital microscopy and Machine learning with the aim of automating Plasmodium falciparum diagnosis extensively depends on the extracted image features. The color of the cells, plasma, and stained artifacts influence the topological, geometrical, and statistical parameters being used to extract image features. During microscopic image acquisition, custom adjustments to the condenser and color temperature controls often have an influence on the extracted statistical features. But, our human visual system sub-consciously adjusts the color and retains the originality in a different lighting environment. Despite the use of appropriate image preprocessing, findings from the literature indicate that statistical feature variations exist, allowing the risk of P. falciparum misinterpretation. In order to eliminate this pervasive variation, the current work focuses on preprocessing the extracted statistical features rather than the prepossessing of the source image. It begins with the augmentation of series images for a microscopic field by inducing illumination variations during the microscopic image acquisition stage. A set of such image series is analyzed using a Nonlinear Regression Model to generalize the relationship between microscopic images acquired with variable ambient brightness and a specific feature. The projection point of the centroid feature onto the brightness parameter is identified in the model and it is denoted as the optimum brightness factor (OBF). Using the model, the feature correction factor (CF) is calculated from the rate of change of feature values over the interval OBF, and the brightness of the test image is processed. The present work has investigated OBF for selected image textural features, namely Contrast, Homogeneity, Entropy, Energy, and Correlation individually from its co-occurrence matrices. For performance analysis, the best state-of-the-art method uses selected texture as a subset feature to evaluate the effectiveness of P. falciparum malaria classification. Then, the impact of proposed feature processing is evaluated on 274 blood smear images with and without Feature Correction (FC). As a result, the “p” value is less than .05, which leads to the result that it is highly significant and the classification accuracy and F-score of P. falciparum malaria are increased.     

Development of cerium and silicon co-doped hydroxyapatite nanopowder and its in vitro biological studies for bone regeneration applications

Multi-ion, co-substituted bioactive glass ceramics play a significant role in the stimulation of physical and biological properties for outstanding effects in biomedical application. The following work attempts to develop HAP as a parent material doped with a combination of cerium (Ce⁴⁺ @1.25?wt%) and silicon (Si⁴⁺ @1, 3 and 5?wt%) by refluxing based sol-gel technique. The anti-bacterial tests exhibit E. coli showing higher inhibition efficiency, in vitro hemolytic test exhibit good compatible nature of dual doped HAP with erythrocytes (<5% of hemolytic). In vitro bioactivity assay confirms that the developed dual doped HAP possesses excellent bone-like apatite layer formation on their surfaces. In vitro cellular study was performed for Ce/Si-HAP@5% powder against MG-63 cells, which demonstrated the good cell viability at higher concentrations (up to 800?µg/ml). Further, dual doped HAP powders were characterized by various analytical techniques such as ATR-FTIR, Powder-XRD, TGA-DTA, SEM-EDS, TEM and XPS analysis. The studies confirm that the synthesized dual doped HAP will act as better bioactive glass ceramics for potential orthopedic and dentistry applications.     

Non‐planar mixed‐mode growth of initially straight‐fronted surface cracks,in cylindrical bars under tension,torsion and bending,using the symmetric Galerkin boundary element method‐finite element method alternating method

In this paper, the stress intensity factor (SIF) variations along an arbitrarily developing crack front, the non‐planar fatigue‐crack growth patterns, and the fatigue life of a round bar with an initially straight‐fronted surface crack, are studied by employing the 3D symmetric Galerkin boundary element method‐finite element method (SGBEM‐FEM) alternating method. Different loading cases, involving tension, bending and torsion of the bar, with different initial crack depths and different stress ratios in fatigue, are considered. By using the SGBEM‐FEM alternating method, the SIF variations along the evolving crack front are computed; the fatigue growth rates and directions of the non‐planar growths of the crack surface are predicted; the evolving fatigue‐crack growth patterns are simulated, and thus, the fatigue life estimations of the cracked round bar are made. The accuracy and reliability of the SGBEM‐FEM alternating method are verified by comparing the presently computed results to the empirical solutions of SIFs, as well as experimental data of fatigue crack growth, available in the open literature. It is shown that the current approach gives very accurate solutions of SIFs and simulations of fatigue crack growth during the entire crack propagation, with very little computational burden and human–labour cost. The characteristics of fatigue growth patterns of initially simple‐shaped cracks in the cylindrical bar under different Modes I, III and mixed‐mode types of loads are also discussed in detail.     

Metal organic frameworks as electrocatalysts: Hydrogen evolution reactions and overall water splitting

The development of clean energy technologies to protect the environment is an important demand of the times. Electrocatalysis is emerging as a promising method for evolution of hydrogen and overall water splitting. Nowadays, metal organic frameworks (MOFs) have emerged as electrocatalysts having uniformly distributed active sites and high electrical conductivity. This review summarizes the latest advances in heterogeneous catalysis by MOFs and their composite/derivatives for efficient hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) and water splitting. Pristine MOFs with their recent development are summarized first followed by composites of MOFs with their enhanced electrocatalytic performances. Overall water splitting by using bifunctional electrocatalysts derived from MOFs with different synthetic approaches is provided and this review gives the metal-based categorisation of precursor MOFs. Different strategies to improve chemical stability, conductivity, and overall electrocatalytic properties have been discussed. In the last, perspectives on the synthesis of efficient MOF-based electrocatalyst materials are provided.     

Fabrication of highly sensitive MnO2/F-MWCNT/Ta hybrid nanocomposite sensor with different MnO2 overlayer thickness for H2O2 detection

In this work, we report the development of MnO₂/F-MWCNT/Ta hybrid nanocomposite sensor with different MnO₂ overlayer thickness for the detection of H₂O₂ in real samples. A novel two-step process using e-beam evaporation and spray pyrolysis deposition was adopted for the synthesis of hybrid MnO₂/F-MWCNT/Ta electrodes. SE morphology revealed smaller-sized, compact grains of MnO₂ infiltrated on the outermost walls of MWCNTs. Raman analysis confirmed the existence of carbon nanotubes with abundant structural defects of MnO₂ in the composite. The cyclic voltammetry results displayed a high peak current and narrowed over potential towards the reduction of H₂O₂. The sensor displayed a fast response (<5?s), wide linear range (2–1510?μM) and a low limit of detection (0.04?μM) with significant anti-interfering properties, promising for the development of highly sensitive and reproducible biosensors. The three dimensional nanocomposite sensor also exhibited good recovery (> 98%), thus providing a favourable tool for analysis of H₂O₂ in milk samples.     

Texture evolution in an Al–Cu alloy during equal channel angular pressing: the effect of starting microstructure

In this article, the effect of initial microstructure on the texture evolution in 2014 Al alloy during equal channel angular pressing (ECAP) through route A has been reported. Three heat treatment conditions were chosen to generate the initial microstructures, namely (i) the recrystallization anneal (as-received), (ii) solution treatment at 768 K for 1 h, and (iii) solution treatment (768 K for 1 h) plus aging at 468 K for 5 h. Texture analyses were performed using orientation distribution function (ODF) method. The texture strength after ECAP processing was different for the three samples in the order, solutionised > solutionised plus aged condition > as-received. The prominent texture components were A _E /[`(A)]<sub>E</sub> \bar{A}_{E} and B <sub>E</sub> /[`(B)]_E \bar{B}_{E} in addition to several weaker components for the three materials. The strong texture evolution in solutionised condition has been attributed to higher strain hardening of the matrix due to higher amount of solute. In case of the as-received as well as solutionised plus aged alloy, the weaker texture could be due to the strain scattering from extensive precipitate fragmentation and dissolution during ECAP.