Strong interfacial charge transfer between hausmannite manganese oxide and alumina for efficient photocatalysis

Well crystalline manganese oxide(Mn_3O_4) nanoparticles anchored on gamma alumina(γ-Al_2O_3) have been successfully tailored via a proficient and cost effective chemical process as an efficient material for photo catalysis. XRD indicated the composite formation of γ-Al_2O_3 and hausmannite structure of Mn_3O_4. SEM and TEM revealed that hetero structure of Mn_3O_4/γ-Al_2O_3 exhibits an amalgam of aggregated nanoparticles and nanorods. XPS demonstrated the chemical states of binary nanocomposite.The band gap tuning has been performed with γ-Al_2O_3 nanoparticles by assimilating hausmannite Mn_3O_4 particles into flower like microstructure of Al_2O_3. The photoluminescence spectra affirmed the enhancement in charge separation in Mn_3O_4/γ-Al_2O_3 binary hybrid photocatalyst. The band gap becomes narrow with the increase in concentrations of Mn_3O_4. The narrowing of band gap is concorded with crystalline domains of primary aggregated particles. To elucidate the mechanism of the photocatalytic activity linear sweep voltammetry was performed. The results showed that Mn_3O_4/γ-Al_2O_3 nanocomposite revealed the enhancement in current density as compared to pure γ-Al_2O_3 which confirmed the electron transfer from Mn_3O_4 to γ-Al_2O_3 through the interfacial potential gradient in conduction bands. The optimum concentration of 6.0% Mn_3O_4/γ-Al_2O_3 for hybrid structure showed an excellent photocatalytic activity under visible light due to narrow band gap energy. High degree distribution of Mn_3O_4 nano architects overlying on γ-Al_2O_3 induces a significant synergic effect between γ-Al_2O_3 and hausmannite phase of manganese oxide(Mn_3O_4). This strong interfacial contact between γ-Al_2O_3 and Mn_3O_4 endures the quick transfer of photo generated charge carriers across interface.     

Glucose Detection Devices and Methods Based on Metal–Organic Frameworks and Related Materials

Assessment of glucose concentration is important in the diagnosis and treatment of diabetes. Since the introduction of enzymatic glucose biosensors, scientific and technological advances in nanomaterials have led to the development of new generations of glucose sensors. This field has witnessed major developments over the last decade, as the novel nanomaterials are capable of efficiently catalyzing glucose directly (i.e., act as artificial enzymes, therefore defined nanozymes) or to entrap enzymes that are able to oxidize glucose. Among other nanomaterials, metal–organic frameworks (MOFs) have recently provided a tremendous basis to construct glucose sensing devices. MOFs are large porous crystalline compounds with versatile structural and tuneable chemical properties. In addition, they possess catalytic, peroxidase-like, and electrochemical redox activity. This review comprehensively summarizes the general characteristics of MOFs, their subtypes, and MOF composites, as well as MOF-derived materials employed to construct electrochemical, optical, transistor, and microfluidic devices for the detection of glucose. They include enzymatic, nonenzymatic, wearable, and flexible sensing devices and methods. The review also outlines the design and synthesis of MOFs and the working principles of the different transduction-based glucose sensors and highlights the current challenges and future perspectives.     

Error Detection and Pattern Prediction Through Phase II Process Monitoring

The continuous monitoring of the machine is beneficial in improving its process reliability through reflected power function distribution. It is substantial for identifying and removing errors at the early stages of production that ultimately benefit the firms in cost-saving and quality improvement. The current study introduces control charts that help the manufacturing concerns to keep the production process in control. It presents an exponentially weighted moving average and extended exponentially weighted moving average and then compared their performance. The percentiles estimator and the modified maximum likelihood estimator are used to constructing the control charts. The findings suggest that an extended exponentially weighted moving average control chart based on the percentiles estimator performs better than exponentially weighted moving average control charts based on the percentiles estimator and modified maximum likelihood estimator. Further, these results will help the firms in the early detection of errors that enhance the process reliability of the telecommunications and financing industry.     

Biological,medicinal and toxicological significance of Eucalyptus leaf essential oil: a review

The genus Eucalyptus L'Heritier comprises about 900 species, of which more than 300 species contain volatile essential oil in their leaves. About 20 species, within these, have a high content of 1,8‐cineole (more than 70%), commercially used for the production of essential oils in the pharmaceutical and cosmetic industries. However, Eucalyptus is extensively planted for pulp, plywood and solid wood production, but its leaf aromatic oil has astounding widespread biological activities, including antimicrobial, antiseptic, antioxidant, chemotherapeutic, respiratory and gastrointestinal disorder treatment, wound healing, and insecticidal/insect repellent, herbicidal, acaricidal, nematicidal, and perfumes, soap making and grease remover. In the present review, we have made an attempt to congregate the biological ingredients of leaf essential oil, leaf oil as a natural medicine, and pharmacological and toxicological values of the leaf oil of different Eucalyptus species worldwide. © 2017 Society of Chemical Industry     

An Efficient Adaptive Network-Based Fuzzy Inference System with Mosquito Host-Seeking For Facial Expression Recognition

In this paper, an efficient facial expression recognition system using ANFIS-MHS (Adaptive Network-based Fuzzy Inference System with Mosquito Host-Seeking) has been proposed. The features were extracted using MLDA (Modified Linear Discriminant Analysis) and then the optimized parameters are computed by using mGSO (modified Glow-worm Swarm Optimization).The proposed system recognizes the facial expressions using ANFIS-MHS. The experimental results demonstrate that the proposed technique is performed better than existing classification schemes like HAKELM (Hybridization of Adaptive Kernel based Extreme Learning Machine), Support Vector Machine (SVM) and Principal Component Analysis (PCA). The proposed approach is implemented in MATLAB.     

Effect of low‐content carbon nanotubes on the dielectric and microwave absorption properties of graphite/polymer nanocomposites

Honeycomb cores (HCs) coated with graphite and multiwalled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) filled in a thermoplastic resin are proposed as microwave absorbers. The MWCNT contents varied from 0.2 to 0.6 wt % in a graphite‐filled (15 wt %) thermoplastic resin. The HCs were coated with three different types of coating materials for the sake of comparison: graphite, MWCNTs, and graphite plus MWCNTs. The dielectric properties [the real and imaginary parts of complex permittivity (ε′ and ε″, respectively)] and reflection loss (RL) of all of the coated HCs were measured and compared. We observed that the permittivities and RL increased significantly with increased weight percentage of the MWCNTs in the graphite‐filled thermoplastic resin. The RL measurements showed a maximum loss of ?20 dB around 7 GHz and a bandwidth of 2.7 GHz at ?10 dB in the HCs coated with the 0.4 wt % MWCNT plus graphite. There was also a shift in the RL peak position from the x band to the c band after the increase of MWCNT content. We also observed from the measurements that a combination of graphite and MWCNTs resulted in a broadband microwave absorber; a bandwidth of 13 GHz was observed for 80% RL when the MWCNT content increased to 0.6 wt % in the graphite‐incorporated resin. The possible mechanism that increased RL with the incorporation of MWCNTs in the graphite‐mixed thermoplastic resin is discussed. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2014 , 131, 40891.     

Model for MHD viscoelastic nanofluid flow with prominence effects of radiation

Present phenomenon is dedicated to analyze the problem of steady state flow of an incompressible fluid model pertained to as magnetohydrodynamics viscoelastic nanofluid through a permeable plate. Continuity, momentum, energy, and concentration expressions are elaborated to comprehend nature of the fluid flow. Numerical solutions are presented. The arising mathematical problem is governed by interesting parameters which include viscoelastic parameter, magnetic field parameter, nanofluid parameter, radiation parameter, skin friction, Prandtle number, and Sherwood number. Solutions for the dimensionless velocity, temperature, and concentration fields and the corresponding skin friction, Nusselt number, and Sherwood number are determined and canvassed with the help of graphs for the distinct values of pertinent parameters.     

Design of NS3 VLC module and performance analysis of ad hoc network under VLC and Wi‐Fi layers

Visible light communication (VLC) is the branch of optical wireless communications that uses light‐emitting diodes for the dual purpose of illumination and very‐high‐speed data communication. The main motivation behind the current work is finding alternatives to the saturated radio frequency spectrum, radio frequency security issue, and vulnerability to interferences. The current work is aimed at developing a module for the physical layer of a VLC‐based ad hoc network in network simulation 3. The VLC physical layer module is developed by using the optical signal modules available in the network simulator. The work also includes modelling of VLC‐based transmitter, wireless optical channel, and the optical receiver. Furthermore, the implementation and evaluation of the VLC‐based physical layer is carried out over a typical ad hoc network under different performance metrics. The designed ad hoc network is also tested under Wi‐Fi module followed by its comparison with corresponding ad hoc network under VLC module. The comparison is based on bit error rate curves, system throughput, and gain in received signal‐to‐noise ratio mainly. Finally, the suitability of different modulation schemes is also investigated in the current work for both Wi‐Fi– and VLC‐based ad hoc networks.