Thin-film iron-oxide nanobeads as bifunctional electrocatalyst for high activity overall water splitting

Developing only Fe derived bifunctional overall water splitting electrocatalyst both for oxygen evolution reaction (OER) and hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) while performing at low onset overpotential and with high catalytic stability is a rare instance. We present here the first demonstration of unique iron-oxide nanobeads (FeO_x-NBs) based electrocatalyst executing both OER and HER with high activity. Thin-film electrocatalytic FeO_x-NBs assembly is surface grown via simple spray coating (SC). The unique SC/FeO_x-NBs propels OER initiating water oxidation just at 1.49 V_RHE (η = 260 mV) that is the lowest observable onset potential for OER on simple Fe-oxide based catalytic films reported so far. Catalyst also reveals decently high HER activity and competent overall water splitting performance in the FeO_x-NBs two-electrode system as well. Catalyst also presents stable kinetics, with promising high electrochemically active surface area (ECSA) of 1765 cm², notable Tafel slopes of just 54 mV dec^1? (OER) and 85 mV dec^1? (HER), high exchange current density of 1.10 mA cm^2? (OER), 0.58 mA cm^2? (HER) and TOF of 74.29s^1?@1.58V_RHE, 262s^1?@1.62V_RHE (OER) and 82.5s^1?@-0.45V_RHE, 681s^1?@-0.56V_RHE (HER).     

Sign Language to Sentence Formation: A Real Time Solution for Deaf People

Communication is a basic need of every human being to exchange thoughts and interact with the society. Acute peoples usually confab through different spoken languages, whereas deaf people cannot do so. Therefore, the Sign Language (SL) is the communication medium of such people for their conversation and interaction with the society. The SL is expressed in terms of specific gesture for every word and a gesture is consisted in a sequence of performed signs. The acute people normally observe these signs to understand the difference between single and multiple gestures for singular and plural words respectively. The signs for singular words such as I, eat, drink, home are unalike the plural words as school, cars, players. A special training is required to gain the sufficient knowledge and practice so that people can differentiate and understand every gesture/sign appropriately. Innumerable researches have been performed to articulate the computer-based solution to understand the single gesture with the help of a single hand enumeration. The complete understanding of such communications are possible only with the help of this differentiation of gestures in computer-based solution of SL to cope with the real world environment. Hence, there is still a demand for specific environment to automate such a communication solution to interact with such type of special people. This research focuses on facilitating the deaf community by capturing the gestures in video format and then mapping and differentiating as single or multiple gestures used in words. Finally, these are converted into the respective words/sentences within a reasonable time. This provide a real time solution for the deaf people to communicate and interact with the society.     

A new colorimetric assay for antioxidant capacity and photostability

The antioxidant capacity of cysteine, glutathione, N‐acetylcysteine, and ascorbic acid to reduce Methylene Blue to colourless Leucomethylene Blue was analysed. Interestingly, transient exposure of Leucomethylene Blue to sunlight resulted in a reversible oxidation reaction and thus, provided a fast, easy, and simple quantitative assay to determine antioxidant capacity and photostability of biologically relevant antioxidants.     

Mathematical Model for Isothermal Wire-Coating From a Bath of Giesekus Viscoelastic Fluid

A mathematical model of wire-coating based on Giesekus constitutive equation is analyzed under isothermal conditions. It is desired to see the functional dependence of Giesekus model parameters on the important operating variables in the wire-coating process, which include volumetric flow rate (later referred to as flow rate), shear stress at the wire surface (later referred to as shear stress), force required for pulling the wire (later referred to as force), and radius of the coated wire (later referred to as coated wire thickness). To this end, the equation governing the laminar, incompressible, and rectilinear flow is first derived and then solved analytically for the case of vanishing axial pressure gradient. A numerical procedure is described to obtain the solution for the case of nonvanishing pressure gradient. Our results indicate that the magnitude of shear stress and force follow a decreasing trend with increasing Giesekus model parameters in both cases. The flow rate and coated wire thickness decrease on increasing the Giesekus model parameters when there is no imposed pressure gradient. However, in the presence of pressure gradient these variables first decrease with increasing Giesekus model parameters and then follow an increasing trend.     

Controlled-release naproxen using micronized ethyl cellulose by wet-granulation and solid-dispersion method

This study has been undertaken to develop a controlled-release tablet dosage form of naproxen using ethocel (ethyl cellulose) as the rate-controlling polymer. The formulations were made by employing the conventional wet-granulation method and the solid-dispersion method. Tablets made by both methods were compared for their controlled-release dissolution profiles. Both methods were useful in developing the controlled-release formulations of naproxen with desirable properties. However, the amount of polymer required to make a formulation with the desired release profile was 33% less via solid dispersion than via wet granulation. A cumulative 88% of naproxen was released from the solid-dispersion formulation, compared with 84% from the wet-granulation formulation.     

Effect of dead space on gain and noise ofdouble-carrier-multiplication avalanche photodiodes

The effect of dead space on the statistics of the gain in a double-carrier-multiplication avalanche photodiode (APD) is determined using a recurrence method. The dead space is the minimum distance that a newly generated carrier must travel in order to acquire sufficient energy to become capable of causing an impact ionization. Recurrence equations are derived for the first moment, the second moment, and the probability distribution function of two random variables that are related, in a deterministic way, to the random gain of the APD. These equations are solved numerically to produce the mean gain and the excess noise factor. The presence of dead space reduces both the mean gain and the excess noise factor of the device. This may have a beneficial effect on the performance of the detector when used in optical receivers with photon noise and circuit noise