Temporal and spectral characteristics of aerosol optical depths in a semi-arid region of southern India

The spectral and temporal variations of aerosol optical depths (AOD) observed over Anantapur (a semi-arid region) located in the Southern part of India are investigated by analyzing the data obtained from a Multiwavelength Solar Radiometer (MWR) during January 2005-December 2006 (a total of 404 clear-sky observations) using the Langley technique. In this paper, we highlighted the studies on monthly, seasonal and spectral variations of aerosol optical depth and their implications. The results showed seasonal variation with higher values during pre-monsoon (March-May) and lower in the monsoon (June-November) season at all wavelengths. The pre-monsoon increase is found to be due to the high wind speed producing larger amounts of wind-driven dust particles. The post-monsoon (December-February) AOD values decrease more at higher wavelengths, indicating a general reduction in the number of bigger particles. Also during the post-monsoon, direction of winds in association with high or low pressure weather systems and the air brings more aerosol content to the region which is surrounded by a number of cement plants, lime kilns, slab polishing and brick making units. The quantity of AOD values in pre-monsoon is higher (low during post-monsoon) for wavelength, such as shortwave infrared (SWIR) or near infrared (NIR), which shows that coarse particles contribute more compare with the sub-micron particles. The composite aerosols near the surface follow suit with the share of the accumulation mode to the total mass concentration decreasing from ~ 70% to 30% from post-monsoon to pre-monsoon. Coarse mode particle loading observed to be high during pre-monsoon and accumulation mode particles observed to be high during post-monsoon. The backward trajectories at three representative altitudes with source point at the observing site indicate a possible transport from the outflow regions into Bay of Bengal, southern peninsular India and Arabian Sea. The temporal variations of AOD, Angstrom wavelength exponent and precipitable water content over Anantapur have also been compared with those reported from selected locations in India.     

A comparative investigation of bio waste filler (wood apple‐coconut) reinforced polymer composites

During the last century natural fibers are used as reinforcement in polymer composite has been continuously growing in the composite industry. This polymer matrix composite has wide range of application in hostile environment where it is exposed to external attacks such as solid particle erosion. The mechanical properties of different polymer composites are also most important characteristics. An attempt has been made to compare the mechanical and tribological properties of the both biowaste wood apple and coconut shell particulate polymer matrix composite. The results show that maximum flexural strength is obtained 78.19 MPa for wood apple shell and 68.25 MPa for coconut shell at 15 wt% filler content. The wood apple particulate composite shows best erosion and mechanical properties than coconut particulate composite. POLYM. COMPOS., 35:180–185, 2014. © 2013 Society of Plastics Engineers     

Retrieval of a metabolite from cells with polyelectrolyte microcapsules

To monitor cellular processes in individual cells, it is important to measure the concentrations of intracellular metabolites and to retrieve them for analysis. The use of functionalized polyelectrolyte microcapsules as intracellular sensors for in vivo reporting is persented. Capsules loaded with streptavidin-rhodamine, which was introduced into fibroblasts by electroporation, autonomously escaped from an endocytic compartment and efficiently recruited biotin-fluorescein from the cytosol. This work demonstrates the utility of polyelectrolyte microcapsules for intracellular capture of metabolites and eventually for drug delivery on an organismic level.     

"No shoes; they walked away?": effects of enhancements on learning and using Blissymbols by normal 3-year-old children

The present investigation studied the effects of enhancements on the learning, retention, transfer to the unlearned form, and use of Blissymbols in 40 normal 3-year-old children. The subjects, seen individually, learned either 12 standard Blissymbols (SBS) or the same 12 symbols in the enhanced form (EBS). The symbols were introduced with short explanations. The number of trials taken to reach > 90% correct identification, the number of symbols selected appropriately to complete a communicative act, the number of symbols correctly identified a week after the acquisition phase was completed, and the number of symbols correctly identified in the untrained form of Blissymbols were determined. The results demonstrated that the subjects learned EBS faster than SBS, remembered more EBS than SBS in the retention task, did not differ in the communicative use of SBS and EBS, and were affected more negatively when presented with SBS than EBS in a task where the untrained form was presented. The results are discussed in terms of how very young children might benefit more from an illustration system such as EBS than from an orthographic system such as SBS.     

Effect of thermomechanical treatment on the phase transformation in Cu-44Ni-5Cr alloy

Cu-44Ni-5Cr alloy has been subjected to thermomechanical treatment which consisted of plastic deformation of as-quenched material by 50, 65 and 80% reduction in thickness followed by ageing in the interval of 500 to 650 °C for various durations of time. Progress in age-hardening was studied by means of hardness measurement and X-ray diffraction studies. The wavelength of composition modulation and strain amplitude were measured. It was found that age-hardening was a result of interaction between spinodal decomposition and recovery processes. Prior deformation was found to enhance the kinetics of both spinodal decomposition and coarsening. It was concluded that this resulted from increased vacancy concentration and increased coherency strain in the cold-worked material.     

Automated screening of congestive heart failure using variational mode decomposition and texture features extracted from ultrasound images

Heart is an important and hardest working muscular organ of the human body. Inability of the heart to restore normal perfusion to the entire body refers to cardiac failure, which then with symptoms results in manifestation of congestive heart failure (CHF). Impairment in systolic function associated with chronic dilation of left ventricle is referred as dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM). The clinical examination, surface electrocardiogram (ECG), chest X-ray, blood markers and echocardiography play major role in the diagnosis of CHF. Though the ECG manifests chamber enlargement changes, it does not possess sensitive marker for the diagnosis of DCM, whereas echocardiographic assessment can effectively reveal the presence of asymptomatic DCM. This work proposes an automated screening method for classifying normal and CHF echocardiographic images affected due to DCM using variational mode decomposition technique. The texture features are extracted from variational mode decomposed image. These features are selected using particle swarm optimization and classified using support vector machine classifier with different kernel functions. We have validated our experiment using 300 four-chamber echocardiography images (150: normal, 150: CHF) obtained from 50 normal and 50 CHF patients. Our proposed approach yielded maximum average accuracy, sensitivity and specificity of 99.33%, 98.66% and 100%, respectively, using ten features. Thus, the developed diagnosis system can effectively detect CHF in its early stage using ultrasound images and aid the clinicians in their diagnosis.

     

Electrically modulated transport of diclofenac salts through hydrogels of sodium alginate,carbopol, and their blend polymers

The electrically modulated transdermal migration of diclofenac sodium (DS), diclofenac potassium (DP), and diclofenac diethylammonium (DD) drugs from the hydrogels of sodium alginate (NaAlg), carbopol (CP), and blends of NaAlg with CP prepared in 2:1, 2:1.5, and 2:2 ratios was investigated. The release of DS, DP, and DD was investigated through excised rat skin to study the effects of viscosity, pH, and the ionic strength of the receptor medium under the influence of an electrical current in a switch‐on and switch‐off mode. A pulsatile pattern of transport was observed that depended on the presence or absence of an electrical current. Drug transport was dependent on the electrical current, the ionic nature of drugs, and the ionic strength of the diffusion medium. Drug transport followed the sequence DS > DP > DD. A decrease in viscosity and an increase in the pH of the hydrogel were observed when an electrical current was applied. CP was more responsive to an electrical stimulus, but the rate of transport was higher for NaAlg. Increasing the amount of CP in the blends increased the electrical responsiveness. The blend hydrogel with a high CP content showed the highest enhancement in drug transport, whereas the NaAlg hydrogel showed the least. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 96: 301–311, 2005     

New scheme for underwater acoustically wireless transmission using direct sequence code division multiple access in MIMO systems

Wireless Networks - This paper proposes a new technique based on Direct Sequence Code Division Multiple Access for underwater acoustically wireless transmission with excessive transmission rate....