Automatic COVID-19 detection from X-ray images using ensemble learning with convolutional neural network

Pattern Analysis and Applications - COVID-19 continues to have catastrophic effects on the lives of human beings throughout the world. To combat this disease it is necessary to screen the affected...     

Unraveling the physical properties of Mn-doped CdS diluted magnetic semiconductor quantum dots for potential application in quantum spintronics

Journal of Materials Science: Materials in Electronics - The tunability of structural, optical, electronic, and magnetic properties in semiconductor quantum dots (QDs) makes them promising...     

Photocatalytic performance of oxygen vacancy rich-TiO2 combined with Bi4O5Br2 nanoparticles on degradation of several water pollutants

Despite significant advancements in the improvement of heterogeneous photocatalysis towards water treatment, these processes still have some bottlenecks. In this research paper, oxygen vacancy rich-TiO₂ was combined with Bi₄O₅Br₂ nanoparticles (denoted as TiO₂-OVs/Bi₄O₅Br₂) by eco-friendly hydrothermal approach. The outcomes demonstrated that the photoactivity strongly depends on plenteous active sites, reinforced charge segregation, as well as striking visible-light absorption ability in TiO₂-OVs/Bi₄O₅Br₂ nanocomposite with n-n heterojunction. The photoactivity was found to follow the trend: TiO₂-OVs/Bi₄O₅Br₂ (30%) > TiO₂-OVs > TiO₂. Briefly, the removal efficiencies of RhB, MB, and fuchsine were 100%, 96.2%, and 84.7% using TiO₂-OVs/Bi₄O₅Br₂ (30%) in 120 min, while they were 25.1%, 20.0%, and 15.3% over the TiO₂, respectively. Further, the boosted rate constant was observed for the photoreduction of Cr (VI) on the TiO₂-OVs/Bi₄O₅Br₂ (30%) nanocomposite, which was 19.4 and 7.8-folds more than the TiO₂ and TiO₂-OVs photocatalysts, respectively. The radical scavenging tests with different quenchers demonstrated that holes and superoxide anion radicals take part in the degradation reaction. Finally, by investigating the electrochemical properties, a mechanism was offered to describe the improved e^–/h⁺ pairs separation and migration. This research displayed that the design of n-n heterojunction using TiO₂-OVs could be suitable for severely improving photocatalytic performance of TiO₂ under visible light.     

Tribological Behavior of Al-SiC Metal Matrix Composite Under Dry,Aqueous and Alkaline Medium

The present study considers friction and wear behavior of aluminum matrix composites reinforced with SiC particles under three different working environments, viz., dry condition, aqueous medium and alkaline medium. The experiments are conducted with a pin-on-disk tribotester where the composite specimen slides against an alumina disk under the application of varying normal load and sliding speed. It is observed that wear increases with increase in applied load and sliding speed for all three working environments and the maximum wear occurs in the case of the alkaline medium followed by the aqueous medium and the dry condition. In general, the friction coefficient decreases with increase in applied normal load. The microstructure analysis of the worn sliding surface is done with the help of a scanning electron microscope and energy dispersive X-ray analysis. It is seen that the wear mechanism in dry condition is dominated by adhesive and abrasive wear while both mechanical and corrosive wear occur in corrosive environments.     

Green synthesis and characterisation of antioxidant-tagged gold nanoparticle (X-GNP) and studies on its potent antimicrobial activity

Alternanthera philoxeroides (Mart.), a weed, mainly from tropical origin and easily available worldwide. People used to eat it as a food mainly in South Africa. In our previous report we have thoroughly characterise several important phenolics, monoterpene and phenylpropane from methanol soluble fraction of Alternenthera leaves (fraction X) and also reported their α-glucosidase inhibitory, antimicrobial and antioxidant activities. All these isolated natural compounds are well characterised and widely studied. In our present study we try to use this beneficial fraction (named fraction X) in green synthesis of gold nanoparticles (X-GNP). We also try to explore the beneficial aspects of green synthesis in comparison with commonly used chemical synthesis method (GNP) in context with their antimicrobial activity. UV/Vis spectroscopy, DLS, Zeta potential, FT-IR, EDAX and other microscopic techniques namely: SEM, AFM were used to characterise the synthesised nanoparticles. Different important microbial strains were used to evaluate the antimicrobial activity of prepared nanoparticles. Overall the studies suggest successful synthesis of green nanoparticles (X-GNP) and also showed the improvement in antimicrobial activity of X-GNP nanoparticles.     

Kinetic Simulation of Collisional Magnetized Plasmas with Semi-implicit Time Integration

Plasmas with varying collisionalities occur in many applications, such as tokamak edge regions, where the flows are characterized by significant variations in density and temperature. While a kinetic model is necessary for weakly-collisional high-temperature plasmas, high collisionality in colder regions render the equations numerically stiff due to disparate time scales. In this paper, we propose an implicit–explicit algorithm for such cases, where the collisional term is integrated implicitly in time, while the advective term is integrated explicitly in time, thus allowing time step sizes that are comparable to the advective time scales. This partitioning results in a more efficient algorithm than those using explicit time integrators, where the time step sizes are constrained by the stiff collisional time scales. We implement semi-implicit additive Runge–Kutta methods in COGENT, a high-order finite-volume gyrokinetic code and test the accuracy, convergence, and computational cost of these semi-implicit methods for test cases with highly-collisional plasmas.     

Impurity controlled excitations in doped quantum dot exposed to periodic external perturbation

We investigate the excitation behavior of a repulsive impurity doped quantum dot under the influence of an oscillatory external electric field. We have considered Gaussian impurity centers doped at on-center position. The investigation reveals that a variation in the strength and spatial stretch of the dopant causes maximization and minimization in the average excitation rate, respectively. The findings are expected to have important applications involving quantum dot nanodevices.     

Morphological and rheological footprints corroborating optimum foam processability of PP/ethylene acrylic elastomer blend

The focus of the present work is optimization of microcellular foam processing of Polypropylene (PP)/ethylene acrylic elastomer blends, through design of experiment approach using Taguchi technique and establishing correlation among foamability, morphological, and rheological parameters of blends. PP and elastomer are melt blended in a twin screw extruder and thereafter foaming parameter optimization is carried out using Taguchi method followed by analysis of variance (ANOVA) for batch foaming setup. Scanning electron microscope reveals development of submicron elastomer domains, which increase with the elastomer content. Further, complex viscosity and van Grup–Palmen plots are found to have a vital role in attaining cellular morphology development in blends. From Taguchi and ANOVA analysis it is established that foaming temperature has a great influence and major contribution on foamability. Blends with low elastomer content are optimized for better foamability using statistical approach and proved to be consistent with the morphological and rheological outcomes. © 2018 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2018 , 135, 46322.     

Orientation Dependence of Deformation-Induced Martensite Transformation During Uniaxial Tensile Deformation of Carbide-Free Bainitic Steel

Metallurgical and Materials Transactions A - The present study investigates the orientation dependence of deformation-induced martensite (DIM) transformation in carbide-free bainitic steel using...