Evaluation of the antibacterial influence of silver nanoparticles against fish pathogenic bacterial isolates and their toxicity against common carp fish

At present, nanotechnology and nanomaterials are being emerged very quickly and gained the attention of researchers due to their frequent application history, especially their antibacterial effects against certain bacterial isolates. Therefore, the present study was aimed to check the antibacterial influence and toxic effects of the market available (Chemical Fabricated) silver nanoparticles (AgNPs). For this purpose, the AgNPs were obtained from the local market and used against fish pathogenic bacterial species. The highest zone of inhibition was observed against Aeromonas hydrophila (27.53 ± 0.69). Moreover, the AgNPs were exposed to the common carp fish for toxicity and toxic effects. The highest mortality was seen at the highest concentration (0.09 mg/L) of AgNPs. Finally, the AgNPs mainly were accumulated in the liver, followed by the intestine, gills, and muscles. The intestine absorbed the nanomaterials; therefore, it is critical to check the influence of these AgNPs on the fish intestinal bacterial community via MiSeq Illumina Sequencing.     

Aspect Level Songs Rating Based Upon Reviews in English

With the advancements in internet facilities, people are more inclined towards the use of online services. The service providers shelve their items for e-users. These users post their feedbacks, reviews, ratings, etc. after the use of the item. The enormous increase in these reviews has raised the need for an automated system to analyze these reviews to rate these items. Sentiment Analysis (SA) is a technique that performs such decision analysis. This research targets the ranking and rating through sentiment analysis of these reviews, on different aspects. As a case study, Songs are opted to design and test the decision model. Different aspects of songs namely music, lyrics, song, voice and video are picked. For the reason, reviews of 20 songs are scraped from YouTube, pre-processed and formed a dataset. Different machine learning algorithms—Naïve Bayes (NB), Gradient Boost Tree, Logistic Regression LR, K-Nearest Neighbors (KNN) and Artificial Neural Network (ANN) are applied. ANN performed the best with 74.99% accuracy. Results are validated using K-Fold.     

Precision Delivery of Dual Immune Inhibitors Loaded Nanomodulator to Reverse Immune Suppression for Combinational Photothermal-Immunotherapy (Small 21/2023)

Although photothermal therapy (PTT) can noninvasively kill tumor cells and exert synergistic immunological effects, the immune responses are usually harmed due to the lack of cytotoxic T cells (CTLs) pre-infiltration and co-existing of intricate immunosuppressive tumor microenvironment (TME), including the programmed cell death ligand 1 (PD-L1)/cluster of differentiation 47 (CD47)/regulatory T cells (Tregs)/M2-macrophages overexpression. Indoleamine 2, 3-dioxygenase inhibitor (NLG919) or bromodomain extra-terminal inhibitor (OTX015) holds great promise to reprogram suppressive TME through different pathways, but their collaborative application remains a formidable challenge because of the poor water solubility and low tumor targeting. To address this challenge, a desirable nanomodulator based on dual immune inhibitors loaded mesoporous polydopamine nanoparticles is designed. This nanomodulator exhibits excellent biocompatibility and water solubility, PTT, and bimodal magnetic resonance/photoacoustic imaging abilities. Owing to enhanced permeability and retention effect and tumor acidic pH-responsiveness, both inhibitors are precisely delivered and locally released at tumor sites. Such a nanomodulator significantly reverses the immune suppression of PD-L1/CD47/Tregs, promotes the activation of CTLs, regulates M2-macrophages polarization, and further boosts combined therapeutic efficacy, inducing a strong immunological memory. Taken together, the nanomodulator provides a practical approach for combinational photothermal-immunotherapy, which may be further broadened to other “immune cold” tumors.     

Mobile convolution neural network for the recognition of potato leaf disease images

Plant disease management plays a crucial role in food security as diverse diseases can cause a substantial reduction of crop yield. As an important staple, potatoes are highly consumed over the entire world, while they are easy to be infected by various diseases too. The early recognition and warning can suppress the outbreak of potato diseases and increase the yield of crops. For this purpose, the paper proposes a novel network architecture named MobOca_Net to recognize potato diseases. The lightweight MobileNet V2 was chosen as the foundation network, and to improve the learning capability of minute crop lesion features, we modified the classical MobileNet-V2 by incorporating the attention mechanism behind the pre-trained network, which was followed by an octave convolution block for extracting high-dimensional features. Moreover, the transfer learning from the PlantVillage dataset was applied for model training. The proposed procedure delivered a superior performance gain over other compared methods, and it realized an average identification accuracy of 97.73% on different potato disease types. Experimental findings present a competitive performance and prove the validity of the proposed procedure.

     

Photoactive chitosan–titania multilayer assembly for oxidative dye degradation

This study highlights the highly efficient adsorption, photocatalytic properties, and stability of synthesized titanium dioxide (TiO₂) photocatalyst incorporated into Chitosan (Cs) and supported onto the glass as substrate toward photodegradation of methyl orange (MO) pollutants. TiO₂ was produced using a sol–gel technique, then ex situ synthesized with Cs solution and immobilized on a glass substrate at various weight ratios. The percentages and concentrations of the sorption in dark ambient are calculated in addition to photodegradation of MO under UV light irradiation. At acidic conditions, the photocatalyst with a 2:2 weight ratio of Cs-TiO₂ had the optimum dye removal activity (91%). As a result, the work adds to the knowledge of adsorption and photodegradation in the green mitigation of persistent pollutants.

     

LiTaO3 assisted giant strain and thermally stable energy storage response for renewable energy storage applications

Piezoceramics with composition (1–z) [Bi_0.5(Na_0.84K_0.16)_0.5TiO₃]_0.96–0.04SrTiO₃–zLiTaO₃ (z = 0.00–0.030) were formulated by ordinary firing process following by rapid quenching treatment. Effect of LiTaO₃ on the structural, electrical and energy-storage properties were analyzed. For the composition with molar ratio 0.025, room temperature large-field piezoelectric coefficient (S_max/E_max = d₃₃*) of 885 pm/V at 3.6 kV/mm was recorded. Furthermore, for compositions z = 0.025 and 0.030, broad temperature stable dielectric constants and low losses from ~135 to 350 °C with a small variation of ± 15% was observed. Additionally, the energy density for z = 0.025 was ~0.60 J/cm³ in the broader temperature range of 75–125 °C, along with the energy-storage efficiency of greater than 70%. These observations suggest that the studied piezo-material compositions are promising for the ceramic actuators and capacitor applications.     

Enhanced interlaminar shear and impact performance of woven carbon/epoxy composites interleaved with needle punched high performance polyethylene fiber nonwoven

In this study, high-performance polyethylene (HPPE) fiber-based needle punched nonwovens were interleaved in cross-plied woven carbon fabric/epoxy composite laminates to enhance their interlaminar and impact properties. The placement of needle punched nonwoven interleaves exhibited considerable enhancement in interlaminar shear strength (ILSS), impact damage tolerance, and compression after impact (CAI) strength of laminates as evidenced by higher interlaminar strength, less absorbed energy, higher elastic energy, reduced damage degree, reduced out-of-plane deformation, higher load-bearing capacity, and higher residual compressive strength as compared to control sample. In particular, the composite laminate with placement of interleaves in alternating sequence between carbon plies resulted in 205.76% increase in ILSS and 129, 103 and 85% increase in CAI at 10, 25, and 40 J impact energy, respectively. Moreover, damaged surface area and out-of-plane deformation reduced to 38.75% and 62.5%, respectively for the same specimen impacted at 40 J energy. These results suggest that the HPPE fiber-based needle punched nonwoven interleaving can be adopted as a simple and low-cost approach compared with other interleaving techniques, to enhance the resistance to delamination, impact performance, and damage tolerance of traditional structural laminates.     

Thermal analysis of multigeneration system using geothermal energy as its main power source

The study presented in this paper examines the operation of an integrated system. The study aims to present a method for utilizing geothermal energy in a way that minimizes energy waste and delivers maximum efficiency. A high-temperature geothermal well with a temperature of 300 °C is used as its primary source of energy. The system produces space heating, space cooling, electric power, hot water, freshwater and hydrogen as its outputs. These outputs utilize the excess energy that is obtained from the geothermal well, and by doing so, reduces waste, and increases the overall efficiency of the system. Among these outputs, freshwater and hydrogen are considered the most valuable, as water is an essential life resource and hydrogen is a prized form of energy. The novelty of this system compared to other geothermal sources is that it does not rely on any other source of input energy. It produces both freshwater, hydrogen and considerable amounts of electric power for commercial, industrial and/or residential use. Electric power is produced by two power cycles; the first one is a double flash steam cycle in the geothermal system and the second one is an organic Rankine cycle. 40% of the total electric power produced is sent to an electrolyzer to produce hydrogen gas. Freshwater is produced by single flash desalination. The system produces 22.1 MW of power as net electricity output. The system is assessed energetically and exergetically; it is found that the energy efficiency is 49.1%, while the exergy efficiency is 67.9%. Further parametric studies are carried out using Engineering Equation Solver (EES) to investigate the influence of operating conditions on the energy and exergy of the system. Moreover, major exergy destruction areas in the system are also identified.     

Nanofiber based hybrid sulfonated silica/P(VDF-TrFE) membranes for PEM fuel cells

In this study, novel nanofiber based-hybrid proton conducting membranes for polymer electrolyte membrane (PEM) fuel cells were fabricated via electrospinning method using sulfonated silica particles (S–SiO₂) as a functional additive. Here, poly(vinylidene fluoride-co-trifluoroethylene) (P(VDF-TrFE)) was used as the carrier polymer during electrospinning step for the fabrication of PEM fuel cell membrane structure for the first time in literature. The effect of electrospinning conditions, i.e. namely, solvent, carrier polymer, electrospinning voltage, relative humidity, and flow rate on the uniformity of the resultant electrospun mats, and the average fiber diameter, respectively, were investigated in detail. Furthermore, electrospinning was conducted with poly(vinylidene fluoride) (PVDF) as the carrier polymer to compare with (P(VDF-TrFE)) as well. S–SiO₂ particles were homogeneously distributed along the carrier polymer without any noticeable bead formation. After electrospinning, fiber mats were transformed into dense membranes via hot-pressing and subsequent Nafion® impregnation. After obtaining the densified membrane, proton conductivity, water uptake and mechanical strength of the hybrid membranes were examined and reported as well. Consequently, hybrid membrane with P(VDF-TrFE) carrier exhibited a superior proton conductivity (102 mS/cm) benchmarked with PVDF carrier polymer containing membrane (43 mS/cm) and solution casted Nafion® membrane (95 mS/cm) at the same conditions.     

A comprehensive review on hydrogen production from coal gasification: Challenges and Opportunities

This paper comparatively discusses hydrogen production options through coal gasification, including plasma methods, and evaluate them for practical applications. In this regard, it focuses on numerous aspects of hydrogen production from coal gasification, including (i) state of the art and comparative evaluation, (ii) environmental and economic dimensions, (iii) energetic and exergetic aspects, (iv) challenges, opportunities and future directions. Furthermore, this review paper outlines what differences it brings in and what contributions it makes to the current literature about such a significant domain of potential hydrogen production which can be used as clean fuel, energy carrier and feedstock. Accordingly, this comprehensive review offers some results as follows: (i) plasma gasification system produces higher amount of hydrogen from other gasification processes, (ii) less amounts of solid wastes (slag, ash, tar, etc.) are released during plasma gasification process compared to other gasification processes, and (iii) it is overall more sustainable Thus, plasma gasification is proposed as a potential option for hydrogen fuel production from coals and for practical application in energy sector. As a case study, some plasma gasifiers in the literature are analyzed in terms of the exergetic sustainability. Furthermore, the case study results show that the exergetic sustainability index decreases from 0.642 to 0.186, and the exergetic efficiency drops from 0.342 to 0.156, while the environmental impact factor increases from 1.556 to 5.372 with an increase of waste exergy ratio from 0.839 to 0.532, respectively.