A review of hydrotalcite based catalysts for hydrogen production systems

Hydrotalcite is a double layered lamellar clay and is used as a catalyst precursor due to its structural properties. Hydrotalcite derived catalysts for hydrogen production through different processes have been reviewed. Recent developments of catalysts for hydrogen production are discussed accordingly. A brief introduction to structure and different synthesis routes of hydrotalcite based catalysts is also included. Article is focused on hydrotalcite derived catalysts consisting of different metals like Fe, Ni, Cu, Pt etc. and their performances in hydrogen production at different conditions. Use of such catalysts in hydrogen production process like steam reforming, sorption enhanced based generation, and various other applications is reviewed critically. Pros and cons of catalysts are discussed in detail. The scope and challenges in development of the hydrogen production process have been detailed out focusing modified hydrotalcite derived catalyst and process conditions.     

Recent Developments in Minimal Processing: A Tool to Retain Nutritional Quality of Food

The modernization during the last century resulted in urbanization coupled with modifications in lifestyles and dietary habits. In the same era, industrial developments made it easier to meet the requirements for processed foods. However, consumers are now interested in minimally processed foods owing to increase in their awareness to have fruits and vegetables with superior quality, and natural integrity with fewer additives. The food products deteriorate as a consequence of physiological aging, biochemical changes, high respiration rat,e and high ethylene production. These factors contribute substantially to discoloration, loss of firmness, development of off-flavors, acidification, and microbial spoilage. Simultaneously, food processors are using emerging approaches to process perishable commodities, along with enhanced nutritional and sensorial quality. The present review article is an effort to utilize the modern approaches to minimize the processing and deterioration. The techniques discussed in this paper include chlorination, ozonation, irradiation, photosensitization, edible coating, natural preservative use, high-pressure processing, microwave heating, ohmic heating, and hurdle technology. The consequences of these techniques on shelf-life stability, microbial safety, preservation of organoleptic and nutritional quality, and residue avoidance are the limelight of the paper. Moreover, the discussion has been made on the feasibility and operability of these techniques in modern-day processing.     

Purification of eutrophic water by ryegrass

The present study was carried out to investigate the growth characteristics of different ryegrass (Lolium perenne L.) cultivars and their ability to remediate eutrophic water using floating plant-bed technology. Greenhouse and lake experiments were conducted to evaluate the grass genotypes for water remediation. Twelve cultivars of ryegrass including Grazer, Secale Cerale, Energa, Rustmaster, AngusI, Abundant, AngusII, Jivet, Gulf, Surrey, Major and Barwoltra were grown in the floating plant-bed system. The plant biomass, plant NP (nitrogen and phosphorus) accumulations and the water purification capacity of selected grasses were significantly different (P < 0.05). Abundant, AngusII and Major showed most efficient purification capacity of eutrophic water. In a greenhouse, after 26 days of growth, the eutrophic water was purified to various extents by the different ryegrass cultivars. Nitrogen removal efficiency varied from 52.20% to 73.82% and phosphorus removal efficiency ranged from 75.12% to 84.77%. In a lake experiment at Huajiachi pond, after 162 days of growth, the plant shoot biomass increased from 321.5 to 922.8 g/m(2) dry weight basis, shoot NP accumulation ranged from 61.5 to 168.2 mg m(-2) d(-1) and 11.9 to 47.2 mg m(-2) d(-1) respectively. NP accumulation rate by the various cultivars of ryegrass was highly positively correlated to their biomass production and water purification capacity. Thus, plant biomass could be used as an indicator for assessing purification capacity of a ryegrass cultivar.     

Traffic Sign Detection with Low Complexity for Intelligent Vehicles Based on Hybrid Features

Globally traffic signs are used by all countries for healthier traffic flow and to protect drivers and pedestrians. Consequently, traffic signs have been of great importance for every civilized country, which makes researchers give more focus on the automatic detection of traffic signs. Detecting these traffic signs is challenging due to being in the dark, far away, partially occluded, and affected by the lighting or the presence of similar objects. An innovative traffic sign detection method for red and blue signs in color images is proposed to resolve these issues. This technique aimed to devise an efficient, robust and accurate approach. To attain this, initially, the approach presented a new formula, inspired by existing work, to enhance the image using red and green channels instead of blue, which segmented using a threshold calculated from the correlational property of the image. Next, a new set of features is proposed, motivated by existing features. Texture and color features are fused after getting extracted on the channel of Red, Green, and Blue (RGB), Hue, Saturation, and Value (HSV), and YCbCr color models of images. Later, the set of features is employed on different classification frameworks, from which quadratic support vector machine (SVM) outnumbered the others with an accuracy of 98.5%. The proposed method is tested on German Traffic Sign Detection Benchmark (GTSDB) images. The results are satisfactory when compared to the preceding work.     

Safety Management in Construction: Best Practices in Hong Kong

Safety issues have gained vital importance throughout the construction industry. Many construction companies around the world are implementing safety, health, and environmental management systems to reduce injuries, eliminate illness, and to provide a safe work environment in their construction sites. This paper describes an exploratory study of site safety management in construction sites’ environments. It explains a successful, modern safety, health and environmental management system for a leading construction company based in Hong Kong. A typical site-specific safety plan was utilized to provide safety guidance throughout the construction project. A safety management survey was conducted to determine the status of safety in the construction sites. All employees of the company and its subcontractors participated in the survey from 20 construction projects. In total, 1,022 valid records were obtained from the construction sites. The analysis provided useful information on eight aspects of construction safety, including safety policy and standards, safety organization, safety training, inspecting hazardous conditions, personal protection program, plant and equipment, safety promotion, and management behavior. The findings of the survey provide practical knowledge to construction project managers and construction safety practitioners in order to make their sites safer. Insights and discussions are given in this paper.     

Analysis of rail potential and stray current in MVDC railway electrification system

In contrast to the conventional direct current railway electrification system (DC-RES), the medium voltage direct current (MVDC)-RES is considered promising for long-distance high-speed corridors. In the MVDC-RES, traction substations (TSSs) are placed much farther and train loads are much heavier than in the conventional DC-RES. Hence, the MVDC-RES brings a drastic change in catenary voltage, TSS spacing, and train loading, which affects rail potential and stray current. In this connection, this work performs some significant quantitative analysis of rail potential and stray current in the MVDC-RES environment. An MVDC simulation model is proposed and different grounding schemes are analyzed for a single-train and two TSSs scenario as well as for a multi-train multi-TSS scenario. According to the simulation and analysis, the maximum values of rail potential and stray current at MVDC-RES distances and the maximum safe distance between adjacent TSSs are determined.

     

Analyzing COVID-19 Impact on the Researchers Productivity through Their Perceptions

Context: Since the end of 2019, the COVID-19 pandemic had a worst impact on world’s economy, healthcare, and education. There are several aspects where the impact of COVID-19 could be visualized. Among these, one aspect is the productivity of researcher, which plays a significant role in the success of an organization. Problem: There are several factors that could be aligned with the researcher’s productivity of each domain and whose analysis through researcher’s feedback could be beneficial for decision makers in terms of their decision making and implementation of mitigation plans for the success of an organization. Method: We perform an empirical study to investigate the substantial impact of COVID-19 on the productivity of researchers by analyzing the relevant factors through their perceptions. Our study aims to find out the impact of COVID-19 on the researcher’s productivity that are working in different fields. In this study, we conduct a questionnaire-based analysis, which included feedback of 152 researchers of certain domains. These researchers are currently involved in different research activities. Subsequently, we perform a statistical analysis to analyze the collected responses and report the findings. Findings: The results indicate the substantial impact of COVID-19 pandemics on the researcher’s productivity in terms of mental disturbance, lack of regular meetings, and field visits for the collection of primary data. Conclusion: Finally, it is concluded that researcher’s daily or weekly meetings with their supervisors and colleagues are necessary to keep them more productive in task completion. These findings would help the decision makers of an organization in the settlement of their plan for the success of an organization.     

Compositional and thermal characterization of genuine and randomized lard: A comparative study

Composition and thermal characterization of genuine and randomized lard were investigated comparatively in an attempt to find common merits that assess lard detection. The investigation included compositional and positional distribution of fatty acids, triacylglycerol profiling by gas chromatography (GC) and reversed-phase high-performance liquid chromatography (RP-HPLC), as well as thermal behavior by differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) of both samples. Individual and total saturated and unsaturated fatty acid composition in total fats of both genuine and randomized lard were identical. On the other hand, the results of pancreatic lipolysis/GC analysis showed that the average percent palmitic acid [PAEF(%)] and myristic acid [MAEF(%)] enrichment factors of genuine (280 and 270) and randomized lard (110 and 98) were quite different. Thus, application of PAEF to detect randomized lard is of no value. However, normalization of fatty acid distribution by randomization in 2-monoacylglycerols made the individual and total saturated and unsaturated fatty acids almost identical to that of total fat and neutral triacylglycerols (TG) of lard. TG compositional analysis by GC revealed that both genuine and randomized lard had six dominant TG (C_46′C_48′C_50′C_52′C_54′ and C₅₆) with quite different concentrations. TG with C₅₂ represent the major constituent of genuine and randomized lard. TG profiling of samples was also carried out by RP-HPLC with a refractive index detector. The same peaks were eluted in both samples, but the area % of major peaks changed due to randomization. 2-Palmitooleostearin (SPO) was found in high proportion in lard. However, the ratios of SPO to 2-palmitooleolinolein of both genuine and randomized lard are close (0.6±0.05) and significantly distinguishable from that of beef (4.24), mutton (6.17), chicken (0.21), and turkey (0.14) fats. The DSC thermogram and thermodynamics of phase transitions of both samples were quite different and do not reveal common characteristic(s) that could be used for immediate detection of lard substances in fat admixtures.     

Solution of nonlinear pull-in behavior in electrostatic micro-actuators by using He’s homotopy perturbation method

The work presented here is about the nonlinear pull-in behavior of different electrostatic micro-actuators. He’s homotopy perturbation method (HPM) is applied to solve different types of micro-actuators like Fixed–Fixed beam and Cantilever beam actuators. Simulated results are presented for further analysis. Also the obtained results compare well with the literature.