Development and physicochemical characterization of modified polymeric surfaces for bacterial adhesion

Radiation‐induced graft polymerization was used to modify the surfaces of polypropylene (PP) sheets for bacterial adhesion. For the experiments, two monomers were mixed: the quaternary ammonium salt (QAS) [2‐(methacryloyloxy)ethyl]trimethylammonium chloride and acrylic acid (AAc). The PP sheets were activated by electron‐beam radiation before the grafting reaction. Different AAc/QAS comonomer mixture ratios (50 : 10, 40 : 20, 30 : 30, 20 : 40, and 10 : 50) were used to determine the degree of grafting and to make the PP surfaces hydrophilic. The graft level increased with an increase in the percentage of AAc in the comonomer mixtures. Synergism was investigated during graft polymerization to quantify the poly(acrylic acid) and poly{[2‐(methacryloyloxy)ethyl]trimethylammonium chloride} graft fractions in the resulting graft copolymers. An approximation of the graft fractions was made with an analytical technique based on acid–base volumetric titration. The wettability of the modified surfaces was determined by the measurement of the water contact angles. The surfaces prepared with higher percentages of QAS in the comonomer mixtures had lower contact angles than those prepared with lower percentages of QAS. The presence of oxygen and nitrogen on the modified PP surfaces was investigated with X‐ray photoelectron spectroscopy. Structural changes in unmodified and modified PP were characterized with differential scanning calorimetry. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci, 2011     

Predictive Modeling of Spring Wheat Varieties by Cluster Analysis

Spring wheat varieties were subjected to physico-chemical, mixographic and amino acid analysis. The data obtained was subjected statistically analyzed. The cluster analysis classification based on centroid method indicated that for lysine and overall cookie scores, generally most wheat varieties fell in one group, while for total chapati score most of the wheat varieties were classified into two groups. The wheat varieties falling in same cluster group have similarities in respect of lysine, chapati and cookie quality. This indicated that wheat varieties in Pakistan have narrow ranges of spectrum in their genetic make up for their quality attributes. However, some wheat varieties were distinguished into different groups having a wide distance range especially Shahkar 95 for lysine content, LU 26 and Punjab 96 for cookie quality and Punjnad 88 in case of chapati quality. The present grouping suggests that wheat varieties in cluster group with wider range for lysine content may be used further in a hybridization program to improve the nutritional quality of wheat.     

Aflatoxins: Biosynthesis,Occurrence, Toxicity,and Remedies

Food contagion with aflatoxins is the modern concern and has received a great awareness during the last few decades. The intermittent incidence of these toxins in agricultural commodities has negative role on the economy of the affected regions where harvest and postharvest techniques for the prevention of mold growth, are seldom practiced. Aflatoxins are difuranocoumarin derivatives produced by a polyketide pathway by the fungus Aspergillus flavus and Aspergillus parasiticus via polyketide pathway which are highly hepatotoxic, hepatocarcinogenic, teratogenic, and mutagenic in nature and contaminate a wide variety of important agricultural commodities before, during, and after harvest in various environmental conditions. The production of aflatoxins in innate substrates depends upon the various factors, that is, type of substrate, fungal species, moisture contents of the substrate, minerals, humidity, temperature, and physical damage of the kernels. These toxins cause several ailments such as cancer, hepatitis, mutation abnormalities, and reproduction disorders. Minimization and inactivation of aflatoxins contaminants through proper crop management at farm level and with physical, chemical, and biological techniques are the limelight of the article.     

Investigation of heat transfer in square porous-annulus

The current study is focused to analyze the heat transfer characteristics in a porous duct. The mathematical model of heat transfer in a porous duct was solved by converting the governing partial differential equations into a set of algebraic equations with the help of finite element method. A simple three noded triangular element is used to mesh the duct domain. The current problem consists of a square duct with outer walls being exposed to hot temperature T_h, and inner walls subjected to cool temperature T_c. Emphasis is given to investigate the effect of width ratio of cavity on heat and fluid flow characteristics inside the porous medium. The results are reported for various duct width ratios, Rayleigh number etc. It is found that the Nusselt number increases with increase in height of cavity along the vertical walls of duct; however the Nusselt number for certain values of duct ratio oscillates along the width of the porous medium at bottom wall of the cavity.     

Improvement in end-use quality of spring wheat varieties grown in different eras

Evaluation of wheat cultivars from different eras allows scientists to determine changes in agronomic and end-use quality characteristics associated with grain yield and end-use quality improvement over time. Forty-four spring wheat cultivars introduced or released since 1933 were evaluated for quality improvement using canonical variant analysis. It was observed that there was a considerable improvement in protein content from 1933 to 1964 whereas the genetic potential for straight grade flour protein from 11.34% in 1933–1964 to 12.13% in 1991–1996. Crude protein increased by 6.95% from 1933 to 1996. Ash content and flour yield declined by 9.55% and 5.51%, respectively. Total chapati scores of modern cultivars were 8.97% higher than those of cultivars grown earlier. The average spread ratio and overall cookie scores increased almost 5.53% and 4.44%, respectively from 1933 to 1996. It was also observed that overall cookie scores were highest during the period 1981–1990. The average dry gluten and total chapati scores of varieties grown since 1991 were approximately 10.20% and 74.72% respectively, which were 4.72% and 8.97% higher than those of cultivars grown since 1933. Average spread ratio and overall cookie scores increased almost 5.53% and 4.44% from 1933 to 1996, respectively. The era (1991–1996) containing the modern varieties showed a substantial improvement in lysine content than the era containing the oldest wheat varieties. Similarly amino acid score was also found to be 4.26% higher than the varieties released during the period 1933–1964.     

Nanocrystalline diamond film for biosensor applications

In this study, we have developed a novel capacitive biosensor based on interdigitated gold nanodiamond (GID-NCD) electrode for detection of C-reactive protein (CRP) antigen. CRP is one of the plasma proteins known as acute-phase proteins and its levels rise dramatically during inflammatory processes occurring in the body. It has been reported that CRP in serum can be used for risk assessment of cardiovascular diseases. The antibodies immobilization were confirmed by fourier transform spectroscopy (FTIR) and contact angle measurements. In this capacitive biosensor, nanocrystalline diamond acting as a dielectric layer between the electrodes. The CRP antigen detection was performed by capacitive/dielectric-constant measurements. Our results showed that the response of NCD-based capacitive-based biosensor for CRP antigen was dependent on both concentration (25–800 ng/ml) as well as frequency (50–350 MHz). Furthermore, using optimized conditions, the biosensors developed in this study can be potentially used for detection of elevated level of risk markers protein in suspected subjects for early diagnosis of disease.     

Investigation of the Observed Localized Corrosion in an Industrial Steel Cation Exchanger Vessel

Cation exchanger (steel vessel), containing polymeric beads as exchange resin, in a process industry is found to be affected from localized “pitting” corrosion during the turnaround. There are two main cycles of such exchanger’s operation, i.e., normal and regeneration cycles, differentiated by passing canal/well water and sulfuric acid solution, respectively. Corrosion rates by Tafel techniques are measured for both these cycles. The different corrosion rates for canal and well water are explained as per reduction reaction equilibrium. During regeneration cycle, certain other tests like cyclic polarization and potentiostatic polarization are also conducted to understand the cause of the localized corrosion. Potentiostatic tests' observations revealed an interesting phenomenon probably explaining the failure not elucidated by the conventional corrosion measurement techniques.     

Impact of Artificial Compressibility on the Numerical Solution of Incompressible Nanofluid Flow

The numerical solution of compressible flows has become more prevalent than that of incompressible flows. With the help of the artificial compressibility approach, incompressible flows can be solved numerically using the same methods as compressible ones. The artificial compressibility scheme is thus widely used to numerically solve incompressible Navier-Stokes equations. Any numerical method highly depends on its accuracy and speed of convergence. Although the artificial compressibility approach is utilized in several numerical simulations, the effect of the compressibility factor on the accuracy of results and convergence speed has not been investigated for nanofluid flows in previous studies. Therefore, this paper assesses the effect of this factor on the convergence speed and accuracy of results for various types of thermo-flow. To improve the stability and convergence speed of time discretizations, the fifth-order Runge-Kutta method is applied. A computer program has been written in FORTRAN to solve the discretized equations in different Reynolds and Grashof numbers for various grids. The results demonstrate that the artificial compressibility factor has a noticeable effect on the accuracy and convergence rate of the simulation. The optimum artificial compressibility is found to be between 1 and 5. These findings can be utilized to enhance the performance of commercial numerical simulation tools, including ANSYS and COMSOL.