Synthesis,surface characterization and optical properties of 3-thiopropionic acid capped ZnS:Cu nanocrystals

3-Thiopropionic acid (TPA) capped ZnS:Cu nanocrystals have been successfully synthesized by simple aqueous method. Powder X-ray diffraction (XRD) studies revealed the particle size to be 4·2 nm. Surface characterization of the nanocrystals by FTIR spectroscopy has been done and the structure for surface bound TPA based on spectral analysis was proposed. The optical studies were done using UV-VIS spectroscopy and particle size and diameter polydispersity index (DPI) were calculated. Photoluminescence (PL) spectrum reveals emission related to the transition from conduction band of ZnS to t ₂ level of Cu^2 +. Electron microscopy was also done by scanning electron microscopy (SEM).     

Chemical Characterization of Prickly Pear Seed Oil, Opuntia ficus-indica

Oil extracted from Opuntia ficus-indica seeds constituted 13.6% of the whole seed. Results of the physical and chemical analyses of the oil for refractive index, iodine number, saponification number, Reichert-Meissl number, Hehner value, acid value and unsaponifiable matter compared well with the characteristics of other commonly consumed vegetable oils. Thin-layer chromatography in conjunction with gas-liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry revealed a relatively high degree of unsaturation, 82%, with a linoleic acid content of 73.4% followed by palmitic, 12%, oleic 8.8% and stearic acid, 5.8%. Based on these results, Opuntia ficus-indica seed oil appears to be a good potential source of edible oil for human and/or animal consumption.     

Saliency-based framework for facial expression recognition

This article proposes a novel framework for the recognition of six universal facial expressions. The framework is based on three sets of features extracted from a face image: entropy, brightness, and local binary pattern. First, saliency maps are obtained using the state-of-the-art saliency detection algorithm “frequency-tuned salient region detection”. The idea is to use saliency maps to determine appropriate weights or values for the extracted features (i.e., brightness and entropy).We have performed a visual experiment to validate the performance of the saliency detection algorithm against the human visual system. Eye movements of 15 subjects were recorded using an eye-tracker in free-viewing conditions while they watched a collection of 54 videos selected from the Cohn-Kanade facial expression database. The results of the visual experiment demonstrated that the obtained saliency maps are consistent with the data on human fixations. Finally, the performance of the proposed framework is demonstrated via satisfactory classification results achieved with the Cohn-Kanade database, FG-NET FEED database, and Dartmouth database of children’s faces.     

Application of ferrous sulfate alleviates negative impact of cadmium in rice (<i>Oryza sativa</i> L.)

Soil contamination with toxic heavy metals [such as cadmium (Cd)] is becoming a serious global problem due to rapid development of social economy. Iron (Fe), being an important element, has been found effective in enhancing plant tolerance against biotic and abiotic stresses. The present study investigated the extent to which different levels of Ferrous sulphate (FeSO₄) modulated the Cd tolerance of rice (Oryza sativa L.), when maintained in artificially Cd spiked regimes. A pot experiment was conducted under controlled conditions for 146 days, by using natural soil, mixed with different levels of CdCl₂ [0 (no Cd), 0.5 and 1 mg/kg] together with the exogenous application of FeSO₄ at [0 (no Fe), 1.5 and 3 mg/kg] levels to monitor different growth, gaseous exchange characteristics, oxidative stress, antioxidative responses, minerals accumulation, organic acid exudation patterns of O. sativa. Our results depicted that addition of Cd to the soil significantly (P < 0.05) decreased plant growth and biomass, gaseous exchange parameters, mineral uptake by the plants, sugars (soluble, reducing, and non-reducing sugar) and altered the ultrastructure of chloroplasts, plastoglobuli, mitochondria, and many other cellular organelles in Cd-stressed O. sativa compared to those plants which were grown without the addition of Cd in the soil. However, Cd toxicity boosted the production of reactive oxygen species (ROS) by increasing the contents of malondialdehyde (MDA), which is the indication of oxidative stress in O. sativa and was also manifested by hydrogen peroxide (H₂O₂) contents and electrolyte leakage to the membrane bounded organelles. Although, activities of various antioxidative enzymes like superoxidase dismutase (SOD), peroxidase (POD), catalase (CAT) and ascorbate peroxidase (APX) and non-enzymatic antioxidants like phenolics, flavonoid, ascorbic acid, anthocyanin and proline contents increased up to a Cd level of 0.5 mg/kg in the soil but were significantly diminished at the highest Cd level of 1 mg/kg in the soil compared to those plants which were grown without the addition of Cd in the soil. The negative impacts of Cd injury were reduced by the application of FeSO₄ which increased plant growth and biomass, improved photosynthetic apparatus, antioxidant enzymes, minerals uptake together with diminished exudation of organic acids as well as oxidative stress indicators in roots and shoots of O. sativa by decreasing Cd retention in different plant parts. These results shed light on the effectiveness of FeSO₄ in improving the growth and upregulation of antioxidant enzyme activities of O. sativa in response to Cd stress. However, further studies at field levels are required to explore the mechanisms of FeSO₄-mediated reduction of the toxicity of not only Cd, but possibly also other heavy metals in plants.     

Locality Aware Optimal Task Scheduling Algorithm for TriBA——A Novel Scalable Architecture

An optimal algorithmic approach to task scheduling for, triplet based architecture（TriBA）, is proposed in this paper. TriBA is considered to be a high performance, distributed parallel computing architecture. TriBA consists of a 2D grid of small, programmable processing units, each physically connected to its three neighbors. In parallel or distributed environment an efficient assignment of tasks to the processing elements is imperative to achieve fast job turnaround time. Moreover, the sojourn time experienced by each individual job should be minimized. The arriving jobs are comprised of parallel applications, each consisting of multiple-independent tasks that must be instantaneously assigned to processor queues, as they arrive. The processors independently and concurrently service these tasks. The key scheduling issues is, when some queue backlogs are small, an incoming job should first spread its tasks to those lightly loaded queues in order to take advantage of the parallel processing gain. Our algorithmic approach achieves optimality in task scheduling by assigning consecutive tasks to a triplet of processors exploiting locality in tasks. The experimental results show that tasks allocation to triplets of processing elements is efficient and optimal. Comparison to well accepted interconnection strategy, 2D mesh, is shown to prove the effectiveness of our algorithmic approach for TriBA. Finally we conclude that TriBA can be an efficient interconnection strategy for computations intensive applications, if tasks assignment is carried out optimally using algorithmic approach.