Rapid colorimetric detection of proteins and bacteria using silver reduction/precipitation catalyzed by gold nanoparticles

A colorimetric immunoassay has been developed based on the reduction and precipitation of silver ions catalyzed by colloidal gold. This method was evaluated for a noncompetitive heterogeneous immunoassay to detect ovalbumin as a model protein and Escherichia coli as model bacterium. The influence of relevant experimental variables, including the reaction time of antigen with antibody, the dilution ratio of the colloidal gold-labeled protein, time allowed for silver reduction/precipitation reaction and other parameters were examined and optimized. This colorimetric method of detection is convenient, easy to use and economic. The presence of the target molecules or antigens can be visually inferred based on the color change that occurs in a short time without using major instrumentation. This method is widely amenable for detection of proteins, viruses and bacteria.     

Cold roll bonding of multi-layered bi-metal laminate composites

Multi-layered laminate composites of dissimilar metals have assumed importance industrially. Cold roll bonding can produce multi-layered sheet composites. Study of the effect of rolling and material variables on the bonding characteristics needs to be studied in order to predict the optimum bonding conditions and the final composition of the laminate sheets. In this work, cold roll bonding of multi-layered bimetals has been modeled using the slab method. The effect of anisotropy has been included. Effects of different process and material variables are analyzed. Novel experiments were performed on multilayered Ti–Al system and the numerical results from the model were compared with the experimental results. A good agreement was observed between the model and experimental results.     

Automatic room information retrieval and classification from floor plan using linear regression model

International Journal on Document Analysis and Recognition (IJDAR) - The automatic creation of a repository of the building’s floor plan helps a lot to the architects to reuse them. The basic...     

Nanostructured cochleates: a multi-layered platform for cellular transportation of therapeutics

Among lipid-based nanocarriers, multi-layered cochleates emerge as a novel delivery system because of prevention of oxidation of hydrophobic and hydrophilic drugs, enhancement in permeability, and reduction in dose of drugs. It also improves oral bioavailability and increases the safety of a drug by targeting at a specific site with less side effects. Nanostructured cochleates are used as a carrier for the delivery of water-insoluble or hydrophobic drugs of anticancer, antiviral and anti-inflammatory action. This review article focuses on different methods for preparation of cochleates, mechanism of formation of cochleates, mechanism of action like cochleate undergoes macrophagic endocytosis and release the drug into the systemic circulation by acting on membrane proteins, phospholipids, and receptors. Advanced methods such as calcium-substituted and β-cyclodextrin-based cochleates, novel techniques include microfluidic and modified trapping method. Cochleates showed enhancement in oral bioavailability of amphotericin B, delivery of factor VII, oral mucosal vaccine adjuvant-delivery system, and delivery of volatile oil. In near future, cochleate will be one of the interesting delivery systems to overcome the stability and encapsulation efficiency issues associated with liposomes. The current limiting factors for commercial preparation of cochleates involve high cost of manufacturing, lack of standardization, and specialized equipments.     

Experimental Verification of a Method of Detection of Crack in Taper and Segmented Beams Based on Modelling of Transverse Vibration

In this note a method for prediction of location and size of a crack based on measurements of natural frequencies has been verified experimentally considering taper and segmented cantilever beam geometries. The analysis is based on the concept of a rotational spring to represent the crack section and the Frobenius method to solve differential equation with variable coefficients. The crack size is computed using a relation between stiffness and crack size. The maximum error in predicting the crack locations is 8%. The maximum error in predicting the crack size is 20%.     

Cathodic shift and improved photocurrent performance of cost-effective Fe2O3 photoanodes

We successfully fabricated cost-effective and efficient pulse electrodeposited Fe₂O₃ photoanodes for PEC water splitting application. Surface modifications of Fe₂O₃ by oxygen evolution catalysts like cobalt phosphate (Co–Pi), a monoclinic BiVO₄ or both showed cathodic/anodic shift in photocurrent with significantly improved photo-response.     

Sponge microflowers of NiCo2O4: a versatile material for high performance supercapacitor

Journal of Porous Materials - We report the development of well optimised NiCo2O4 microflowers for high performance supercapacitor application. The efforts were made to optimise the electrode...