Nanoarchitectonics of Crosslinked Cu:ZnS-Lignocellulose Nanocomposite: A Potent Antifungal and Antisporulant System Against the Tea Pathogen Exobasidium vexans

The objective of the present study was to synthesize Cu doped ZnS nanocore crosslinked with lignocellulose (represented as Cu:ZnS-lignocellulose nanocomposite) for antifungal action against the devastating tea blister blight pathogen Exobasidium vexans. The characteristic features of the nanocomposite were analyzed via different physicochemical techniques like FTIR, XRD, XPS, SEM, SEM–EDX, Elemental mapping, PCS, and UV-PL studies. The FTIR and XPS investigations revealed the crosslinking between lignocellulose and the Cu:ZnS. The presence of lignocellulose was seen to attribute a potent antifungal efficacy, also enhancing the stability of the resulting nanocomposite in aqueous suspensions. The antifungal efficacy confirmed through disk diffusion and broth dilution assays have a maximum zone of inhibition of 1.75 cm² and a MIC50 of 0.05 mg/ml against E. vexans. Additionally, the antisporulant activity was evident as the basidiospores failed to germinate in presence of the Cu:ZnS-lignocellulose nanocomposites. This shows potential for stemming the rapid infectivity of E. vexans by achieving disease inhibition at the early stage. Finally, the comparison with two commonly used commercial fungicides (copper oxychloride and fluconazole) demonstrated?>?tenfold higher antifungal activity for Cu:ZnS-lignocellulose nanocomposites.

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Mesoporous Silica Nanoparticles: Drug Delivery Vehicles for Antidiabetic Molecules

Mesoporous silica nanoparticles (MSNs) are promising nanomaterials that are widely used in biomedical applications like drug delivery, diagnosis, bio-sensing and cell tracking. MSNs have been investigated meticulously in the drug-delivery field due to their unique chemical and pharmacokinetic properties, such as highly ordered mesopores, high surface area and pore volume, tuneable pore size, stability, surface functionalisation, and biocompatibility. MSN-based nanocomposites have been used to deliver therapeutic molecules like insulin, GLP-1, exenatide, DPP-4 inhibitor and plasmid-containing GLP-1 genes for managing diabetes mellitus for the last decade. The functionalisation properties of MSNs make them substantially capable of the co-delivery, controlled delivery and stimuli-responsive delivery of antidiabetic drugs. This review focuses on the delivery of antidiabetic therapeutics with special emphasis on the functionalisation of MSNs and stimuli-responsive delivery.     

Linker Independent Regioselective Protonation Triggered Detoxification of Sulfur Mustards with Smart Porous Organic Photopolymer

The development of efficient metal-free photocatalysts for the generation of reactive oxygen species (ROS) for sulfur mustard (HD) decontamination can play a vital role against the stockpiling of chemical warfare agents (CWAs). Herein, one novel concept is conceived by smartly choosing a specific ionic monomer and a donor tritopic aldehyde, which can trigger linker-independent regioselective protonation/deprotonation in the polymeric backbone. In this context, the newly developed vinylene-linked ionic polymers (TPA/TPD-Ionic) are further explored for visible-light-assisted detoxification of HD simulants. Time-resolved-photoluminescence (TRPL) study reveals the protonation effect in the polymeric backbone by significantly enhancing the life span of photoexcited electrons. In terms of catalytic performance, TPA-Ionic outperformed TPD-Ionic because of its enhanced excitons formation and charge carrier abilities caused by the donor-acceptor (D-A) backbone and protonation effects. Moreover, the formation of singlet oxygen (¹O₂) species is confirmed via in-situ Electron Spin Resonance (ESR) spectroscopy and density functional theory (DFT) analysis, which explained the crucial role of solvents in the reaction medium to regulate the (¹O₂) formation. This study creates a new avenue for developing novel porous photocatalysts and highlights the crucial roles of sacrificial electron donors and solvents in the reaction medium to establish the structure-activity relationship.     

Stochastic modeling for energy efficiency in modified directional discontinuous reception for LTE-5G networks

Fifth-generation (5G) networks deal with high-frequency data rates, ultra-low latency, more reliability, massive network capacity, more availability, and a more uniform user experience. To validate the high-frequency rates, 5G networks engage beam searching operation. By adopting a beam searching state between the short and long sleep, one can reduce the system's delay. The energy consumption of user equipment (UE) in 5G networks is much higher than in the 4G networks. To reduce the energy consumption and increase the energy saving in UE, Long-Term Evolution (LTE)-5G networks adopt the discontinuous reception (DRX) scheme with a fixed number of short sleep. LTE-DRX without beam search operation (i.e., beam alignment) cannot work in 5G networks. Hence, keeping this scenario in mind, we have modeled a new modified directional discontinuous reception (MD-DRX) mechanism for LTE-5G networks. The MD-DRX mechanism captures the behavior of a beam searching, an inactive, an active, a long sleep, an ON, and a short sleep states. The short sleep state consists of a maximum $M$ short sleep. To get the optimal energy saving and energy consumption (i.e., energy efficiency) from the MD-DRX mechanism, it is required to check the system's throughput. The trade-off between energy saving/energy consumption and throughput will provide the system's optimal energy saving and optimal energy consumption. In this paper, we have obtained the system's optimal energy saving and throughput by optimizing the maximum short sleep and short sleep duration. To get the energy efficiency for LTE-5G networks, the trade-off between average energy consumption/energy saving and throughput is shown.