Direct synthesis of highly crystalline single-phase hexagonal tungsten oxide nanorods by spray pyrolysis

The metastable state hexagonal-tungsten oxide (h-WO₃) has been attracting attention over the past decade because of its high reactivity that arises from the hexagonal channels in its crystal structure. Simplification of the process used to synthesize h-WO₃ is an important step to facilitate the industrial applications of this material. In this study, we addressed this challenge by developing a spray pyrolysis process to synthesize highly crystalline h-WO₃. The ratio of the monoclinic to the hexagonal phase was controlled by adjusting the segregation time. Single-phase h-WO₃ nanorods were synthesized using a carrier gas flow rate of 1?L/min, which was equivalent to a segregation time of 18.4?s. The ability of the h-WO₃ nanorods to adsorb nitrogen and carbon dioxide was evaluated to confirm the presence of hexagonal channels in the crystal structure.     

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.     

Sludge characteristics in anaerobic SBR system producing hydrogen gas

In this study, sludge characteristics of anaerobic sequencing batch reactor (ASBR) were investigated to improve and optimize the efficiency of the system converting starch into biohydrogen. The effect of stratification in settling phase on H2-producing ASBR, which results in settleable and non-settleable sludge, was observed using a batch experiment. It was concluded that specific H2 activity of decanting non-settleable sludge was higher than that of settleable sludge, which may be the reason of low yield in H2-producing ASBR. In addition, effect of settling time on settleable sludge, which is another key operational parameter, was also analysed using another set of batch experiment. Settling time of the sludge was found to be an important parameter in H2-producing ASBR. Specific H2 activity varied inversely with the duration for which settleable microorganisms were contained in settling phase. Microbial species, responsible for H2 activity in each condition, were identified using polymerase chain reaction-denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis (PCR-DGGE) analysis.     

Big Data Analytics Using Graph Signal Processing

The networks are fundamental to our modern world and they appear throughout science and society. Access to a massive amount of data presents a unique opportunity to the researcher’s community. As networks grow in size the complexity increases and our ability to analyze them using the current state of the art is at severe risk of failing to keep pace. Therefore, this paper initiates a discussion on graph signal processing for large-scale data analysis. We first provide a comprehensive overview of core ideas in Graph signal processing (GSP) and their connection to conventional digital signal processing (DSP). We then summarize recent developments in developing basic GSP tools, including methods for graph filtering or graph learning, graph signal, graph Fourier transform (GFT), spectrum, graph frequency, etc. Graph filtering is a basic task that allows for isolating the contribution of individual frequencies and therefore enables the removal of noise. We then consider a graph filter as a model that helps to extend the application of GSP methods to large datasets. To show the suitability and the effeteness, we first created a noisy graph signal and then applied it to the filter. After several rounds of simulation results. We see that the filtered signal appears to be smoother and is closer to the original noise-free distance-based signal. By using this example application, we thoroughly demonstrated that graph filtration is efficient for big data analytics.     

Strong metal-support interactions (SMSIs) between Pt and Ti3+ on Pt/TiOx nanoparticles for enhanced degradation of organic pollutant

In this work, Pt nanoparticles were deposited onto the surface of Magnéli phase titanium suboxide (TiO_x) nanoparticles using a microwave-assisted deposition method. The effect of different concentrations of Pt nanoparticles was investigated to evaluate the strong metal-support interactions (SMSIs) between Pt and TiO_x based on their performance for the degradation of organic pollutant molecules. The adsorption and catalytic performance of the as-synthesized Pt/TiO_x nanoparticles were evaluated with respect to the degradation of rhodamine B (RhB) molecules without any external energy source. The Pt/TiO_x nanoparticles with Pt loading at 10 wt% (10%Pt/TiO_x) exhibited a remarkable performance. The XPS, CV, and FTIR analyses confirmed the presence of RhB degradation reactions under dark condition. This remarkable performance of the Pt/TiO_x nanoparticles was attributed to the SMSIs between Pt and Ti³⁺ atoms, which improves their performance compared with Pt/TiO₂ nanoparticles, and high density of active sites due to their nanometer size, which results in better performance compared with that of Pt/TiO_x submicron particles.     

Efficient Tree Structures for High Utility Pattern Mining in Incremental Databases

Recently, high utility pattern (HUP) mining is one of the most important research issues in data mining due to its ability to consider the nonbinary frequency values of items in transactions and different profit values for every item. On the other hand, incremental and interactive data mining provide the ability to use previous data structures and mining results in order to reduce unnecessary calculations when a database is updated, or when the minimum threshold is changed. In this paper, we propose three novel tree structures to efficiently perform incremental and interactive HUP mining. The first tree structure, Incremental HUP Lexicographic Tree ({rm IHUP}_{{rm {L}}}-Tree), is arranged according to an item's lexicographic order. It can capture the incremental data without any restructuring operation. The second tree structure is the IHUP Transaction Frequency Tree ({rm IHUP}_{{rm {TF}}}-Tree), which obtains a compact size by arranging items according to their transaction frequency (descending order). To reduce the mining time, the third tree, IHUP-Transaction-Weighted Utilization Tree ({rm IHUP}_{{rm {TWU}}}-Tree) is designed based on the TWU value of items in descending order. Extensive performance analyses show that our tree structures are very efficient and scalable for incremental and interactive HUP mining.     

Zero Configuration Networking: Implementation, performance, and security

The ubiquitous access to wired and wireless networks is making information access possible from anywhere, anytime, and any device. Today, end-users are also highly mobile, often equipped with a range of portable devices, and they expect service availability when they require it. In addition, they do not want to be burdened by complex configurations before they can discover and use services. The Zero Configuration (Zeroconf) Networking technology promises to alleviate this configuration burden by allowing users to discover services and devices with little end-user intervention. We compare two popular implementations of Zeroconf namely, Avahi and Mono.Zeroconf running on Linux and Windows XP operating systems, respectively. We evaluate their performance using service discovery time as the performance metric. Our empirical results show that Linux Avahi yields almost 99% improvements in service discovery time over Windows Mono.Zeroconf. We also discuss security solutions that can be deployed to enhance the security of Zeroconf networks. We further investigate the performance of the IP Security (IPSec) protocol when used by our Mono.Zeroconf implementation running on the Windows XP platform. With IPSec, service discovery time increases by almost 45% with our prototype implementation.     

Effects of high density dispersion fuel loading on the dynamics of a low enriched uranium fueled material test research reactor

The effects of using high density low enriched uranium on the dynamics of a material test research reactor were studied. For this purpose, the low density LEU fuel of an MTR was replaced with high density LEU fuels currently being developed under the RERTR program. Since the alloying elements have different properties affecting the reactor in different ways, fuels U–Mo (9w/o) which contain the same elements in same ratio were selected for analysis. Simulations were carried out to determine the reactor performance under reactivity insertion and loss of flow transients. Nuclear reactor analysis code PARET was employed to carry out these calculations. It is observed that during the fast reactivity insertion transient, the maximum reactor power is achieved and the energy released till the power reaches its maximum increases by 45% and 18.5%, respectively, as uranium density increases from 6.57 gU/cm³ to 8.90 gU/cm³. This results in increased maximum temperatures of fuel, clad and coolant outlet, achieved during the transient, by 27.7 K, 19.7 K and 7.9 K, respectively. The time required to reach the peak power decreases. During the slow reactivity insertion transient, the maximum reactor power achieved increases slightly by 0.3% as uranium density increases from 6.57 gU/cm³ to 8.90 gU/cm³ but the energy generated till the power reaches its maximum decreases by 5.7%. The temperatures of fuel, clad and coolant outlet remain almost the same for all types of fuels. During the loss of flow transients, no appreciable difference in the power and temperature profiles was observed and the graph plots overlapped each other.     

Bitter melon (Momordica charantia): a natural healthy vegetable

Bitter melon provides health benefits against various ailments for improving the quality of life. It is nutrient dense plant-based food containing versatility of bioactive compounds such as alkaloids, polypeptide, vitamins, and minerals. Owing to presence of bioactive compounds, it has the ability to fight against various lifestyle related disorders, e.g. cancer insurgence, diabetes mellitus, abdominal pain, kidney (stone), fever, and scabies. Amongst bioactive moieties, p-insulin is similar to insulin whose subcutaneous injection significantly lower blood glucose levels in diabetic patients. It also contains steroidal saponins called charantin, act alike peptides and certain alkaloids that effectively control sugar level in blood. The therapeutic perspectives have been also highlighted as they are helpful in regulating blood cholesterol thus protecting the body from cardiovascular disorders like atherosclerosis. Whole fruit, seeds and leaves of bitter melon regulates impaired antioxidant status and suppress fat accumulation. Moreover, curative potential of its bioactive components and their utilization in value added food products are also the limelight of article.