Secure direct communication based on ping–pong protocol

Communication security with quantum key distribution has been one of the important features of quantum information theory. A novel concept of secured direct communication with no need of establishing any shared secret key has been the next step forward. The present paper presents a secured communication scheme with three particle GHZ state as the initial state where the receiver can simultaneously receive information from two parties. Possible eavesdropping has been examined.      

Effect on Cellular Membrane Fatty Acids in the Stressed Cells of Leuconostoc Mesenteroides: A Native Probiotic Lactic Acid Bacteria

Probiotics are microbial cell preparations or components of microbial cells that have a beneficial effect on the health and well being of the consumer. With increasing demand for such products, a lactic acid bacterium was isolated from whey and studied for its probiotic properties. This study deals with the importance of the role of cell membrane fatty acids in response to a pH reduction. An increase of unsaturated fatty acids such as palmitoleic acid (9.1%), oleic acid (5.8%), linoeic acid (5.4%) and linolenic acid (2.8%) was found at pH 3.0, which were 103.2, 2.7, 15.6 and 9.93 fold higher, respectively, compared with the same culture grown at pH 6.5. The work was done on a native isolated culture, which was identified as Leuconostoc mesenteroides (Accession number MTCC 5209). It has antimicrobial properties against 6 toxic food pathogens and resistance to common antibiotics so as to maintain normal intestinal microflora. It has high β-galactosidase activity (278.6 micro M/100 mg protein) and can hydrolyze 3% lactose. The ability to adhere hydrocarbon provides evidence that the culture can adhere and colonize the intestinal tract. The culture is able to tolerate low pH and a high bile salt concentration, which implies the ability to survive harsh conditions of the gastrointestinal tract when orally administered in any food formulations. All these properties make it a potential probiotic culture.     

Cellulase production using biomass feed stock and its application in lignocellulose saccharification for bio-ethanol production

A major constraint in the enzymatic saccharification of biomass for ethanol production is the cost of cellulase enzymes. Production cost of cellulases may be brought down by multifaceted approaches which include the use of cheap lignocellulosic substrates for fermentation production of the enzyme, and the use of cost efficient fermentation strategies like solid state fermentation (SSF). In the present study, cellulolytic enzymes for biomass hydrolysis were produced using solid state fermentation on wheat bran as substrate. Crude cellulase and a relatively glucose tolerant BGL were produced using fungi Trichoderma reesei RUT C30 and Aspergillus niger MTCC 7956, respectively. Saccharification of three different feed stock, i.e. sugar cane bagasse, rice straw and water hyacinth biomass was studied using the enzymes. Saccharification was performed with 50 FPU of cellulase and 10 U of β-glucosidase per gram of pretreated biomass. Highest yield of reducing sugars (26.3 g/L) was obtained from rice straw followed by sugar cane bagasse (17.79 g/L). The enzymatic hydrolysate of rice straw was used as substrate for ethanol production by Saccharomyces cerevisiae. The yield of ethanol was 0.093 g per gram of pretreated rice straw.     

Effects of acid,alkaline, and seawater aging on the mechanical and thermomechanical properties of glass fiber/epoxy composites filled with carbon nanofibers

Owing to the superior corrosion resistance, fiber-reinforced polymer (FRP) composites are the prime choice of structural materials for various marine and chemical industries, where there is a long-term direct contact of the components takes place with corrosive fluids. In this present work, glass fiber/epoxy (GE) composites have been fabricated with and without carbon nanofibers (CNFs), and aging has been carried out in acidic (pH = 1), seawater (pH = 8.2), and alkaline (pH = 13) solutions for 150 days. The resistance of CNF-filled GE composites toward the corrosive fluids has been evaluated in terms of alteration in the mechanical (flexural), microstructural (fractography analysis by field emission scanning electron microscope), and thermomechanical (dynamic mechanical analysis) behavior of the materials. It is revealed that as the immersion time increases, there is a continuous decrement in flexural strength and modulus, and glass-transition temperature (T_g) of all the materials in all these solutions. Compared to the 1% CNF-filled GE composite, control GE composite showed more degradation in the case of alkaline aging and seawater aging. Maximum reduction (56%) in the strength of GE composite was observed due to 150 days of alkaline aging. However, the control GE composite showed better resistance to the acidic solution than that of CNF-filled GE composite. Possible failure modes, changes in the chemistry of the material due to aging have been studied by fractography analysis. © 2019 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2020 , 137, 48434.     

Improved Recognition Results of Medieval Handwritten Gurmukhi Manuscripts Using Boosting and Bagging Methodologies

Neural Processing Letters - The uniform sampling strategy is widely used in time series segmentation, but unable to handle time warping problem or preserve the latent patterns in time series. To...     

Multi-objective segmentation approach for bone age assessment using parameter tuning-based U-net architecture

Multimedia Tools and Applications - Bone age assessment investigates the ossification improvement for estimating the skeletal age of the pediatrics for analyzing their skeletal growth and forecast...