Radiation induced decontamination of Cr(Ⅵ), Cu(Ⅱ) and phenol in some tannery effluents

Industrialization has led to a number of environmental problems, such as release of toxic metals and other toxic organic and inorganic compounds to the environment. Among all, the rapid expansion of leather related industries in Pakistan have resulted in considerable environmental problems and effluents from processing of both domestic and imported hides and skins have increased pollution to alarming levels. Some tannery effluents of Peshawar area investigated in the present study showed high concentrations of Cr(Ⅵ) (2.7-12.6 mg/L), Cu(Ⅱ) (2.6-11.4 mg/L) and phenol (0.1-4.2 mg/L). These contaminants are very toxic and must be removed from effluents before releasing into water bodies. A new technique of gamma irradiation has been investigated to decrease the load of COD and concentrations of Cr(Ⅵ), Cu(Ⅱ) and phenol associated with tannery effluents to the permitted values. It was observed that concentration of Cr(Ⅵ) in the effluents can be brought to the permitted level by applying radiation dose of 3 kGy. A radiation dose of 2.5 kGy was required to remove more than 95% of Cu(Ⅱ) and 100 % degradation of phenol in tannery effluents could be achieved by only one kGy of radiation dose.     

Hypocholesterolaemic effect of yoghurt containing Bifidobacterium pseudocatenulatum G4 or Bifidobacterium longum BB536

The effect of a yoghurt supplement containing Bifidobacterium pseudocatenulatum G4 or Bifidobacterium longum BB536 on plasma lipids, lipid peroxidation and the faecal excretion of bile acids was examined in rats fed a cholesterol-enriched diet. After 8 weeks, the rats in the positive control (PC) group who were fed the cholesterol-enriched diet showed significant increases in plasma total cholesterol (TC), low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol, and malondialdehyde (MDA). However, groups fed a cholesterol-enriched diet supplemented with yoghurt containing B. pseudocatenulatum G4 or B. longum BB536 had significantly lower plasma TC, LDL-C, very-low-density lipoprotein (VLDL) cholesterol, and MDA than had the PC group after 8 weeks of treatment. In addition, faecal excretion of bile acids was markedly increased in the rats fed the yoghurt containing B. pseudocatenulatum G4 or B. longum BB536 as compared to the PC and NC groups.     

Specific Heat of Olive Oil to 356 MPa

We measured the velocity of sound in olive oil under pressure with the Brillouin light scattering technique. Using the values for the density and the thermal conductivity that have only recently been reported, we calculated the adiabatic compressibility and the isobaric specific heat up to 356 MPa and the thermal diffusivity up to 200 MPa. The specific heat displays a maximum at 124 MPa, suggesting a possible phase transition around this pressure. Apart from the theoretical and practical importance of these results for the food industry and beyond, this work shows that Brillouin light scattering and macroscopic methods are complementary and can be employed to measure thermophysical parameters of food liquids under pressure.     

Mechanism of boron tribromide electroreduction

This study was carried out to investigate the electrochemical behavior of boron tribromide in dimethlyformamide. The reduction of the compound was found to follow a CE mechanism. The kinetic parameters and the diffusion coefficient were calculated by the use of ultramicrodisc electrodes and chronoamperometry. The number of electrons transferred was found to be 2 by rotating disc and ultramicro disc electrodes and 3 by coulometry. These results are in good accordance with those obtained from molten boron salts. This study is important in regard to electrochemical boronizing at low temperatures.     

Optimization of design and operating parameters in a pilot scale Jameson cell for slime coal cleaning

The Jameson flotation cell has been commonly used to treat a variety of ores (lead, zinc, copper etc.), coal and industrial minerals at commercial scale since 1989. It is especially known to be highly efficient at fine and ultrafine coal recovery. However, although the Jameson cell has quite a simple structure, it may be largely inefficient if the design and operating parameters chosen are not appropriate. In this study, the design and operating parameters of a pilot scale Jameson cell were optimized to obtain a desired metallurgical performance in the slime coal flotation. The optimized design parameters are the nozzle type, the height of the nozzle above the pulp level, the downcomer diameter and the immersion depth of the downcomer. Among the operating parameters optimized are the collector dosage, the frother dosage, the percentage of solids and the froth height. In the optimum conditions, a clean coal with an ash content of 14.90% was obtained from the sample slime having 45.30% ash with a combustible recovery of 74.20%. In addition, a new type nozzle was developed for the Jameson cell, which led to an increase of about 9% in the combustible recovery value.     

Fire detection in video sequences using a generic color model

In this paper, a rule-based generic color model for flame pixel classification is proposed. The proposed algorithm uses YCbCr color space to separate the luminance from the chrominance more effectively than color spaces such as RGB or rgb. The performance of the proposed algorithm is tested on two sets of images, one of which contains fire, the other containing fire-like regions. The proposed method achieves up to 99% fire detection rate. The results are compared with two other methods in the literature and the proposed method is shown to have both a higher detection rate and a lower false alarm rate. Furthermore the proposed color model can be used for real-time fire detection in color video sequences, and we also present results for segmentation of fire in video using only the color model proposed in this paper.     

Current status of kinematically complete studies of basic fragmentation processes in atomic systems

Recent developments on kinematically complete experiments on basic atomic fragmentation processes are reviewed. Comparisons between theoretical and experimental fully differential cross sections for single ionization of light atoms by charged particle impact are analyzed. Furthermore, a method developed very recently, four-particle Dalitz plots, is discussed in context of double ionization. The extraordinary power of these plots is their capability to provide a comprehensive picture of the momentum exchange between all four final-state particles in a single spectrum.     

pH Responsive Abelmoschus esculentus Mucilage and Administration of Methotrexate: In-Vitro Antitumor and In-Vivo Toxicity Evaluation

The rapid progression in biomaterial nanotechnology apprehends the potential of non-toxic and potent polysaccharide delivery modules to overcome oral chemotherapeutic challenges. The present study is aimed to design, fabricate and characterize polysaccharide nanoparticles for methotrexate (MTX) delivery. The nanoparticles (NPs) were prepared by Abelmoschus esculentus mucilage (AEM) and chitosan (CS) by the modified coacervation method, followed by ultra-sonification. The NPs showed much better pharmaceutical properties with a spherical shape and smooth surface of 213.4–254.2 nm with PDI ranging between 0.279–0.485 size with entrapment efficiency varying from 42.08 ± 1.2 to 72.23 ± 2.0. The results revealed NPs to possess positive zeta potential and a low polydispersity index (PDI). The in-vitro drug release showed a sustained release of the drug up to 32 h with pH-dependence. Blank AEM -CS NPs showed no in-vivo toxicity for a time duration of 14 days, accompanied by high cytotoxic effects of optimized MTX loaded NPs against MCF-7 and MD-MBA231 cells by MTT assay. In conclusion, the findings advocated the therapeutic potential of AEM/CS NPs as an efficacious tool, offering a new perspective for pH-responsive routing of anticancer drugs with tumor cells as a target.