A study of external mass transfer effect on biodegradation of phenol using low‐density polyethylene immobilized Bacillus flexus GS1 IIT (BHU) in a packed bed bioreactor

The impact of external mass transport on the biodegradation rate of phenol in a packed bed bioreactor (PBBR) was studied. A potential bacterial species, Bacillus flexus GS1 IIT (BHU), was isolated from the petroleum‐contaminated soil. Low‐density polyethylene (LDPE) immobilized with the B. flexus GS1 IIT (BHU) was used as packing material in the PBBR. The PBBR was operated by varying the inlet feed flow rate from 4 to 10 mL/min, and the corresponding degradation rate coefficients were found to be in the range of 0.119–0.157 L/g h. In addition, the highest removal rate of phenol was obtained to be 1.305 mg/g h at an inlet feed rate of 10 mL/min. The external mass transfer was studied using the model . A new empirical correlation for the biodegradation of phenol in the PBBR was developed after the evaluation at various values of K and n.     

Inactivation efficacy of plasma-activated water: influence of plasma treatment time,exposure time and bacterial species

This study aimed to evaluate the influence of plasma treatment time, bacterial exposure time to PAW and bacterial species on the inactivation efficacy of plasma-activated water (PAW), with additional investigation of the inactivation mechanisms of PAW. Six bacterial species, including Listeria innocua, Staphyloccus aureus, Escherichia coli, Pseudomonas fluorescens, Shewanella putrefaciens and Aeromonas hydrophila were selected as the representative bacteria. The initial bacterial concentration was around 7 log CFU ml⁻¹ after mixing with PAW, and the inactivation efficacy was measured after different exposure times during the 4 °C storage. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) images of the bacteria after PAW treatment were carried out to inspect the cell structure damage, and physicochemical properties of PAW, including pH, conductivity and long-living reactive species of H₂O₂, , and , were examined. The results showed that the inactivation efficacy of PAW was positively correlated with plasma treatment time and bacterial exposure time, and for the species examined in this study, the Gram-negative species were more sensitive to PAW than the Gram-positive species. Cell structure damage, including shrinkage, distortion, or holes, was observed after PAW treatment. The pH of PAW was acidified to 2.5–2.9, and conductivity was significantly increased to 518.0 μs cm⁻¹. and H₂O₂ were reduced during the 48 h storage, while an increased concentration was observed for . This study demonstrated that the processing parameters of plasma treatment time, exposure time and characteristics of bacteria can significantly affect the inactivation efficacy of PAW.     

A multilevel hybrid anomaly detection scheme for industrial wireless sensor networks

Real-time sensing plays an important role in ensuring the reliability of industrial wireless sensor networks (IWSNs). Sensor nodes in IWSNs have inherent limitations that give rise to different anomalies in the network. These anomalies can lead to disastrous and harmful situations or even serious system failures. This article presents a formulation to the design of an anomaly detection scheme for detecting the anomalous node along with the type of anomaly. The proposed scheme is divided into two major parts. First, spatiotemporal correlation within a cluster is obtained for the normal and anomalous behavior of sensor nodes. Second, the multilevel hybrid classifier is used by combining the sequential minimal optimization support vector machine (SMO-SVM) as a binary classifier with optimally pruned extreme learning machine (OP-ELM) as a multiclass classifier for detection of an anomalous node and type of anomalies, respectively. Mahalanobis distance-based lightweight K-Medoid clustering is used to build a new set of training datasets that represents the original training dataset, by significantly reducing the training time of a multilevel hybrid classifier. Results are analyzed using standard WSN datasets. The proposed model shows high accuracy, i.e., 94.79% and detection rate, i.e., 94.6% with a reduced false positive rate as compared to existing hybrid methods.     

Dietary exposure assessment of β-glucan in a barley and oat based bread

The objective of this study was to develop a β-glucan human exposure assessment model for a barley and a oat based bread and to compare the resulting exposure to the current FDA recommendation for a health promoting effect (3 g β-glucan/day, 0.75 g/portion of β-glucan). Three formulated barley and oat based breads with 30% (S1), 50% (S2) and 70% (S3) substitution of wheat flour were used in the Monte Carlo simulation model to predict human consumption levels. The level of soluble β-glucan was found to reach 0.77 g/portion for some barley and oat based breads with a substitution level of S3. Under normal consumption patterns, consumption of barley based bread can meet up to 50% of the FDA recommended intake with S1, 70% with S2, and 100% with S3, whereas by consuming an oat based bread the FDA recommended intake is met 30% with S1, 50% with S2 and 70% with S3. The model predicted that total cholesterol (TC) lowered with an increase intake of β-glucan content from ?0.27 to ?0.30 mmol/l and ?0.18 to ?0.29 mmol/l from S1 to S3 for barley and oats based bread, respectively. No significant change was noted for the blood glucose level.     

On electromagneto-thermoelastic plane waves under Green–Naghdi theory of thermoelasticity-II

The present work attempts to investigate the propagation of one-dimensional electromagneto-thermoelastic plane waves in an isotropic unbounded thermally and electrically conducting media with finite conductivity in the context of the theory of thermoelasticity of Green and Naghdi type-II. The heat conduction equation is affected with the Thomson coe?cient. Basic governing equations are modified by using Green–Naghdi theory of type-II. Our problem formulation derives two different systems. The first system is found to be coupled with the thermal field and represents the longitudinal wave. However, the second system represents transverse wave that is uncoupled with the thermal field. In both the cases, we identify waves that are affected with the magnetic field. Asymptotic expansions of dispersion relation solutions and various components of plane waves such as phase velocity, specific loss, and penetration depth are derived analytically for high- and low-frequency values in all cases. Analytical results predicting the limiting behavior of longitudinal and transverse waves are verified with the numerical results. The results of the present study are compared with the results of the thermoelastic case, and a detailed analysis of the effects of presence of the magnetic field under this theory has been presented.     

Structural Properties of Boron-Doped Germanium-Tin Alloys Grown by Molecular Beam Epitaxy

Boron-doped Ge_1?x Sn _x alloys with atomic fractions of tin up to x = 0.08 were grown on n-Ge(001) substrates using solid-source molecular beam epitaxy, in order to study their structural properties. The total boron concentration in the alloys was ~ 10¹⁸ cm^?3 as measured by secondary-ion mass spectroscopy, which also indicated low amounts of impurities such as carbon and oxygen. More than 90% of the Sn atoms occupied substitutional lattice sites in the alloy as determined by Rutherford backscattering spectrometry. High-resolution x-ray diffraction showed that the boron-doped Ge_1?x Sn _x alloys were single crystals that were completely strained with low defect densities and coherent interfaces for thickness up to 90 nm, and for Sn composition of 8%. The boron-doped Ge_1?x Sn _x /n-Ge formed p–n junctions with conventional rectifying characteristics, indicating that the boron produced electrically active acceptor states.     

Binning algorithm for high-resolution IRS-P4 OCM chlorophyll image

Daily chlorophyll-a concentration from the Ocean Colour Monitor (OCM) sensor onboard the Indian Remote Sensing satellite (IRS-P4) is used to make weekly and monthly chlorophyll-a concentration maps. The pathwise swath data at 12 noon for every alternate day over the north Indian Ocean (NIO) during February 2004 and February 2005 were used to compare the existing algorithms for binning the data. Atmospherically corrected and geocorrected OCM data were used in the comparative study of three averaging algorithms – arithmetic mean (AVG), geometric mean (GEO) and maximum likelihood estimator (MLE). The analysis shows that the AVG algorithm is best suited when compared with the two other algorithms. However, for case 1 water, MLE gives nearly the same value as AVG. Based on this result, AVG was selected for operational weekly and monthly averaging of OCM data over the NIO. These high-resolution-derived chlorophyll-a weekly and monthly products will be useful to resolve inter-annual-to-decadal changes in chlorophyll-a concentration over the NIO.     

Genesis of enhanced photoactivity of CdS/Nix nanocomposites for visible-light-driven splitting of water

A series of CdS/Ni_x nanocomposite photocatalysts, containing ca. 0.6–15 wt% Ni, were synthesized using a one-step hydrothermal method and characterized for their crystallographic, morphological, interfacial, and optical properties. Rietveld refinement of powder XRD data revealed the coexistence of wurtzite (hexagonal) and zinc blende (cubic) phases of CdS in ratios dependent on Ni content. Only a fraction of Ni existed as a secondary phase of NiS while the majority occupied the lattice positions of hexagonal CdS. Whereas up to 10-fold enhancement in H₂ evolution compared with pure CdS was observed for samples containing ∼1.5–4.5 wt% Ni, samples with smaller or larger Ni content displayed poor activity for visible-light-induced splitting of water in presence of sulfide–sulphite ions as sacrificial electron donors. In contrary to recent findings, our study reveals that the enhanced CdS photoactivity is not a result of charge transfer between p-type NiS and n-type CdS, Ni-induced visible-region absorbance, or the coating of CdS particles by non-photoactive NiS. Instead, the preparation-dependent hexagonal/cubic CdS phase boundaries and particle morphology may play a crucial role. Additionally, certain Ni-doping-induced sub-bandgap shallow energy levels contribute to charge carrier separation.