Synthesis,characterization and adsorption studies of h-BN crystal for efficient removal of Cd2+ from aqueous solution

In the present study, hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN) was synthesized from boric acid and melamine by thermal annealing method in a nitrogen atmosphere. The pure h-BN was used as an efficient sorbent for the uptake of Cd²⁺ ions from the solution phase. The kinetics and sorption studies of metal ions onto the h-BN were carried out in batch adsorption experiments at different temperature, time, pH, sorbent dosage, and concentration of metal ions. The optimum pH for the removal of the Cd²⁺ ions was found to be pH 7. The effect of temperature showed that the process of Cd²⁺ sorption remained endothermic in the range of 298 K–328 K. The Lagergren's first and Ho's second kinetic models were tested to interpret the adsorption kinetic data, however the present data was explained well by Ho's model for kinetics. The thermodynamic perameters ΔG, ΔS and ΔH were determined using the available adsorption data at different temperatures. The physicochemical properties of the synthesized product were also characterized before and after adsorption by different analytical techniques like FT-IR, TGA, XRD and Point of Zero Charge (PZC). The morphology of the surface was analyzed with the help of Scanning Electron Microscopy. The h-BN proved to be an efficient adsorbent for the uptake of the Cd²⁺ ions from aqueous media.     

Egg white proteins and β-cyclodextrin: effective cryoprotectant mixture against oxidative changes in the myofibrillar proteins of Culter alburnus

The effect of egg white protein (EWP) and β-cyclodextrin (β-CD) mixture was analysed on the myofibrillar proteins (MP) of Culter alburnus during a frozen storage at −18 °C for 60 days. Different proportions of EWP:β-CD mixture (0%, 2%, 4% and 6%) were added into MP to analyse their effect against oxidative changes. During the study, sulphydryl contents and Ca-ATPase activity (0.297 to 0.136 mmol g⁻¹) decreased. Moreover, protein denaturation also prompted the surface hydrophobicity (11.47 to 32.06 μg) and carbonyls (26.36 to 49 mg.28 nmol mg⁻¹) of control MP. A significant decline was observed in emulsifying properties. Besides, EWP:β-CD showed remarkable stability against oxidative changes, by significantly reducing the carbonyls (26.26 to 37.69 nmol mg⁻¹) and surface hydrophobicity (11.51 to 20.31 μg) and also the decline of Ca-ATPase activity (0.29 to 0.19 mmol g⁻¹). It can be concluded that EWP:β-CD (6%) is an efficient approach against oxidative changes in MP from Culter alburnus.     

Industrie 4.0 Readiness: Green Computing in Relation with Key Performance Indicator for a Manufacturing Industry

Mobile Networks and Applications - An effective measure of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) is of great significance to enhance the capabilities of a decision support system (DSS) of any...     

Scientists as political experts: Atomic scientists and their claims for expertise on international relations, 1945–1947

This paper explores the construction of scientists' expertise on international affairs through a study of the rhetoric of U.S. atomic scientists during public and policy‐making debates on the international control of atomic energy between 1945 and 1947. It explores the claims scientists made about the nature of their expertise on issues of diplomacy and international relations and how their expertise was produced and reproduced. The paper shows that scientists were able to successfully project themselves, in the public domain, as experts on political and diplomatic matters related to the atomic. In calling for the international control of atomic energy, scientists constructed their expert knowledge in contrast to, as they portrayed it, the failed expertise of diplomats and political thinkers. In boundary work through their speeches, articles, and government testimonies, scientists drew a line between the political and the scientific, but argued that, as scientist‐citizens, they were able to take their rational thinking from one realm into the other.     

Numerical simulation of the effects of elastic anisotropy and grain size upon the machining of AA2024

Turning modeling and simulation of different metallic materials using the commercially available Finite Element (FE) softwares is getting prime importance because of saving of time and money in comparison to the costly experiments. Mostly, the numerical analysis of machining process considers a purely isotropic behavior of metallic materials; however, the literature shows that the elastic crystal anisotropy is present in most of the ‘so-called’ isotropic materials. In the present work, the elastic anisotropy is incorporated in the FE simulations along with the effect of grain size. A modified Johnson-Cook ductile material model based on coupled plasticity and damage evolution has been proposed to model the cutting process. The simulation results were compared with experimental data on the turning process of Aluminum alloy (AA2024). It was found that the elastic anisotropy influences the average cutting force up to 5% as compared to the isotropic models while the effect of grain size was more pronounced up to 20%.     

Multiattribute group decision-making based on Pythagorean fuzzy Einstein prioritized aggregation operators

Pythagorean fuzzy set (PFS) is a powerful tool to deal with the imprecision and vagueness. Many aggregation operators have been proposed by many researchers based on PFSs. But the existing methods are under the hypothesis that the decision-makers (DMs) and the attributes are at the same priority level. However, in real group decision-making problems, the attribute and DMs may have different priority level. Therefore, in this paper, we introduce multiattribute group decision-making (MAGDM) based on PFSs where there exists a prioritization relationship over the attributes and DMs. First we develop Pythagorean fuzzy Einstein prioritized weighted average operator and Pythagorean fuzzy Einstein prioritized weighted geometric operator. We study some of its desirable properties such as idempotency, boundary, and monotonicity in detail. Moreover we propose a MAGDM approach based on the developed operators under Pythagorean fuzzy environment. Finally, an illustrative example is provided to illustrate the practicality of the proposed approach.     

Bright,dark and dark-singular soliton solutions of nonlinear Schrödinger's equation with spatio-temporal dispersion

This article presents an analytical study of the propagation of solitons through optical fibres. We consider a nonlinear Schrödinger equation with spatio-temporal dispersion and quadratic–cubic nonlinearity. Jacobi elliptic functions are used as an ansatz to extract optical dark and bright solitons as well as Jacobi elliptic solutions. The extended direct algebraic method gives dark and dark-singular soliton solutions. The constraint conditions which guarantee the existence of soliton solutions are listed.