Lightweight Self-Compacting Concrete Incorporating Industrial Rejects and Mineral Admixtures: Strength and Durability Assessment

By the recent global research developments, a lot of natural and artificial materials that are normally discarded and landfilled, are continually investiga     

Gamma radiation induced microwave absorption properties of Ultra-thin barium titanate (BaTiO3) ceramic tiles over X-Band (8.2–12.4GHz)

We report the enhancement of microwave absorption properties in BaTiO₃ ceramics induced by exposing under high energy gamma radiation at 5 kGy, 10 kGy and 15 kGy, gamma-ray doses in a properly shielded Co⁶⁰ γ-radiation chamber. The tetragonality ratio (c/a) decreases with increasing gamma dose on powder samples together with the reduction of grain size from ~2 μm to ~0.5 μm. Further, the irradiated BaTiO₃ powder based ceramic tiles are fabricated and electromagnetic (EM) measurements suggest increase in imaginary permittivity and loss tangent values (tanδ_e) at resonance frequency of ~8.8 GHz. Reflection loss (RL) plots of BT tiles showed enhancement in microwave loss at higher gamma radiation doses. As per the customized requirements, two type of extremely thin ceramic tiles are obtained viz. Resonating (RL> 40 dB at 9.6 GHz) and wide-band (RL> 8 dB over entire X-band) for their possible use for MW attenuation on different objects/platforms.     

Ant Colony Based Node Disjoint Local Repair in Multipath Routing in MANET Network

Wireless Personal Communications - Routes discovery that can provide reliable data transmission in Mobile Ad-hoc Networks is challenging due to its wireless channel characteristics and dynamic...     

Plasma-activated liquids for mitigating biofilms on food and food contact surfaces

Plasma-activated liquids (PALs) are emerging and promising alternatives to traditional decontamination technologies and have evolved as a new technology for applications in food, agriculture, and medicine. Contamination caused by foodborne pathogens and their biofilms has posed challenges and concerns to the food industry in terms of safety and quality. The nature of the food and the food processing environment are major factors that contribute to the growth of various microorganisms, followed by the biofilm characteristics that ensure their survival in severe environmental conditions and against traditional chemical disinfectants. PALs show an efficient impact against microorganisms and their biofilms, with various reactive species (short- and long-lived ones), physiochemical properties, and plasma processing factors playing a crucial role in mitigating biofilms. Moreover, there is potential to improve and optimize disinfection strategies using a combination of PALs with other technologies for the inactivation of biofilms. The overarching aim of this study is to build a better understanding of the parameters that govern the liquid chemistry generated in a liquid exposed to plasma and how these translate into biological effects on biofilms. This review provides a current understanding of PALs-mediated mechanisms of action on biofilms; however, the precise inactivation mechanism is still not clear and is an important part of the research. Implementation of PALs in the food industry could help overcome the disinfection hurdles and can enhance biofilm inactivation efficacy. Future perspectives in this field to expand existing state of the art to seek breakthroughs for scale-up and implementation of PALs technology in the food industry are also discussed.     

Effect of Enzymatic Trans- and Interesterification on the Thermal Properties of Groundnut and Linseed Oils and Their Blends

The present study was undertaken to compare the alterations observed in the triacylglycerol (TAG) molecular species of blended and interesterified oils containing groundnut oil (GNO) and linseed oil (LIN). The blended oil (BLE) was subjected to a lipase catalyzed reaction to prepare transesterified oil (TRA). A structured lipid (STR) was also prepared by a lipase catalyzed acidolysis reaction of GNO and free fatty acids concentrate from LIN. The changes in the molecular species of modified lipids were determined by high performance liquid chromatography. The thermal profiles were determined by differential scanning calorimetry. In comparison with GNO, the triunsaturated triacylglycerols were increased and the disaturated triacylglycerol molecular species were decreased in TRA and STR. Both BLE and TRA showed a decrease in the onset temperature for crystallization as compared to that observed with GNO. The total transitional enthalpy for crystallization was higher for BLE, TRA and STR as compared to GNO. The melting temperature of TRA and STR showed a decrease in comparison to GNO, reflecting on the changes in the TAG molecules species present in the oil. Thus, interesterification of oils introduced changes in the physical properties of oils, even though the overall fatty acid composition of blended and interesterified oils remained similar.     

Chemistry of Color Fixation in Crude,Physically Refined and Chemically Refined Rice Bran Oils upon Heating

Compared to other vegetable oils, rice bran oil (RBO) has a characteristic dark color which further deepens upon heating or frying of foods in the oil. Darkening of the oil during heating has been studied. The dark color‐causing material in crude, chemically refined and physically refined rice bran oils was separated using a silica gel column for a hexane‐eluted oil fraction and a methanol eluted fraction. The methanol eluted fraction for all the above three types of RBO produced a dark color upon heating, hence the physically refined RBO methanol fraction was investigated further and contained monoglycerides (23.4 %) and diglycerides (67.4 %) of linoleic + linolenic acids in its methanol fraction as analyzed by column chromatography and HPLC which decreased in concentration after heating. The linoleic acid level of 37.7 % in the methanol fraction was reduced significantly to 18 % after heating (52.3 % reduction). The IR and NMR spectra were similar to those of a monoglyceride/diglyceride with NMR spectra indicating a lower amount of olefinic protons for the heated sample. These results showed that the darkening of RBO was due to the oxidation and polymerization of monoglycerides/diglycerides containing linoleic acid/linolenic acid.     

Biotransformation of nitrosamines and precursor secondary amines under methanogenic conditions

The biotransformation potential of six nitrosamines and their precursor secondary amines by a mixed methanogenic culture was investigated. Among the six nitrosamines tested, N-nitrosodimethylamine (NDMA), N-nitrosomethylethylamine (NMEA), and N-nitrosopyrrolidine (NPYR) were almost completely degraded but only when degradable electron donors were available. On the contrary, N-nitrosodiethylamine (NDEA), N-nitrosodipropylamine (NDPA), and N-nitrosodibutylamine (NDBA) were not degraded. Three precursor secondary amines, corresponding to the three biodegradable nitrosamines, were also completely utilized even with very low levels of available electron donors. The secondary amine precursors of the three, nonbiodegradable nitrosamines were also recalcitrant. A bioassay conducted to elucidate the biotransformation pathway of NDMA in the mixed methanogenic culture using H(2) as the electron donor showed that NDMA was utilized as an electron acceptor and transformed to dimethylamine (DMA), which in turn was degraded to ammonia and methane. The H(2) threshold concentration for NDMA bioreduction ranged between 0.0017 and 0.031 atm. Such a high H(2) threshold concentration suggests that in mixed methanogenic cultures, NDMA reducers are weak competitors to other, H(2)-consuming microbial species, such as homoacetogens and methanogens. Thus, complete removal of nitrosamines in anaerobic digestion systems, where the H(2) partial pressure is typically below 10(-4) atm, is difficult to achieve.     

Single source precursor-derived SiOC/TiOxCy as an anode component for Li-ion batteries

Amorphous silicon oxycarbides are known to be an effective anode material for lithium-ion batteries. Despite their exceptional properties and high charge capacities, however, their practical uses are limited by their significant first-cycle loss, considerable hysteresis, and low cyclic ability. Comparatively, SiOC/metal oxide materials have demonstrated increased rate capability and cyclic stability. This study utilized a liquid precursor-derived ceramic method to modify SiOC with titanium (IV) butoxide precursor to synthesize SiOC/TiO_xC_y. X-ray diffractograms confirmed the amorphous nature of SiOC/TiO_xC_y. The elemental composition and bonding properties were investigated using X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, and electron microscopy was used to explore morphological features. In the first cycle, the reversible capacity of pyrolyzed SiOC/TiO_xC_y was 520 mAh g⁻¹, which then increased to 736 mAh g⁻¹ for the 1200°C annealed SiOC/TiO_xC_y due to the increased free carbon network and TiC conductive phases. The irreversible capacity of the first cycle was 568 mAh g⁻¹, which was lower than the annealed SiOC irreversible capacity of 695 mAh g⁻¹. Interestingly, the rate stability of the pyrolyzed SiOC/TiO_xC_y performed more stability than the annealed sample. Localized carbothermal reactions between amorphous SiOC/TiO_xC_y and free carbon at annealing temperatures resulted in loss of structure stability.     

Comparative Studies on Sintering Behavior of Self-Propagating High-Temperature Synthesized Ultra-Fine Titanium Diboride Powder

Sintering behavior of nano-sized titanium diboride (TiB₂) powder prepared by a self-propagating high-temperature synthesis (SHS) technique was compared with that of the commercially available powder. The SHS-made powder showed excellent sinterability at low temperatures and a maximum of 97% densification was achieved at 2223 K, whereas the identically sintered commercial powder could only be densified to ∼86% at 2223 K. The estimated activation energies for sintering of 35±0.07 kJ/mole and 46±0.7 kJ/mole for the SHS and commercial powder, respectively, indicated the possibility of a different mechanism during sintering.     

Improved Fuzzy Rule Promotion-Based Localized Crop Knowledge Dissemination System for Farmers of Punjab (India) Using Mobile Phone Technology

Indian economy includes the major contribution provided by agriculturally driven activities. There is need to provide the agricultural stakeholders an appropriate, reliable, local, fast, ‘round-the-clock, and precise knowledge, possibly in their native language, in order that they can enhance their decision-making capacity to improve the agricultural productivity. This can be achieved by using mobile phones. Mobile phones are becoming part of the daily routine of farmers and can be used to disseminate this appropriate, multilingual, localized knowledge right at the location of use. In this article, an improved fuzzy rule promotion-based technique to infer advice to farmers has been presented. Using this technique, an Android-based mobile phone application named mAgIDS has been developed. This application uses a Global Positioning System (GPS) for localized inference and local language selected by the user. The application was tested on the dataset of a disease diagnosis of a paddy crop. The chi-square (χ²) test was used to match the result of the mAgIDS system with the experts’ inferences. It was found that the results of the system and experts match with an accuracy of 95.84% at a 5% level of significance. Twenty-two scientists, working at various locations within Punjab state in India, were contacted for validation of the system, with 15 relevant parameters. It was found that the proposed system is statistically valid. The real-time implementation of the system provides immense and timely help to the farmers in making appropriate decisions for their crop production.