LiClO4 doped cellulose acetate as biodegradable polymer electrolyte for supercapacitors

The possibility of producing a biodegradable polymer electrolyte based on cellulose acetate (CA) with varied concentration of LiClO₄ for use in supercapacitors has been investigated. The successful doping of the CA films has been analyzed by FTIR and DSC measurements of the LiClO₄ doped CA films. The ionic conductivity of the films increased with increase in salt content and the maximum ionic conductivity obtained for the solid polymer electrolyte at room temperature was 4.9 × 10^?3 Ω^?1 for CA with 16% LiClO₄. The biodegradation of the solid polymer electrolyte films have been tested by soil burial, degradation in activated sludge, and degradation in buffer medium methods. The extent of biodegradation in the films has been measured by AC Impedance spectroscopy and weight loss calculations. The study indicated sufficient biodegradability of the materials. A p/p polypyrrole supercapacitor has been fabricated and its electrochemical characteristics and performance have been studied. The supercapacitor showed a fairly good specific capacitance of 90 F g^?1 and a time constant of 1 s. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci, 2008     

A simple and sensitive electroanalytical determination of anxiolytic buspirone hydrochloride drug based on multiwalled carbon nanotubes modified electrode

In the present study, a simple and sensitive buspirone hydrochloride (BPH) sensor was developed based on multiwalled carbon nanotubes (MWCNT) modified electrode. The modified electrode was characterized using transmission electron microscopy and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy. The MWCNT modified electrode showed an enhanced oxidation peak current response toward BPH than unmodified electrode. The oxidation peak potential of BPH at modified electrode was 0.85, which was quite lower than that of bare electrode (0.88 V). The BPH was successfully determined at modified electrode using different electrochemical methods, such as cyclic voltammetry (CV), differential pulse voltammetry (DPV), and amperometry. The good sensitivity and linear range response of BPH were obtained using amperometry when compared with other methods employed in this study (CV and DPV). The modified electrode displayed the electro-oxidation of BPH in the linear response from 0.5 to 99.5 μM with the sensitivity of 16.49 μA μM^?1 cm^?2. The limit of detection was calculated as 0.22 μM. In addition, the modified electrode exhibited a good repeatability and repeatability with acceptable stability.     

Leaching properties of chromate-containing epoxy films using radiotracers,PALS and SEM

Model chromate-containing epoxy primer (CEP) films were applied to aluminium alloy substrates using doctor blades. The effect of exposure to NaCl solution on the chromate-containing epoxy film was followed by monitoring the leaching behaviour of Cr. The continuous leaching of chromate inhibitor from the epoxy film is a self-healing characteristic that is designed to prevent corrosion of the aluminium alloy substrate. The CEP films were doped with ⁵¹Cr chromate inhibitor (t_1/2 = 27.7 days), were exposed to NaCl solutions over time, and the ⁵¹Cr gamma emission was used to monitor its release from the film into the aqueous solution. Pulsed beam positron lifetime spectroscopy and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) were used to probe structural changes that might transport properties of chromate species in the epoxy matrix. Positron Annihilation Lifetime Spectroscopy (PALS) was used to determine changes to free volumes at the nano scale in the films and SEM was used to ascertain the chromate distribution and structural scales at the micron level and above. Both PALS and SEM studies were preformed as a function of exposure time. It was found that a SrCrO₄ depletion zone was formed at the surface as a result of the complete dissolution of the inhibitor particles, suggesting that transport of the Sr²⁺ and CrO₄²⁻ might be through a network of channels created by the voids remaining in the epoxy matrix.     

Anti-Obesity Efficacy of Pediococcus acidilactici MNL5 in Canorhabditis elegans Gut Model

In the present study, thirty two lactic acid bacteria (LAB) were isolated from fermented Indian herbal medicine. In comparison to other strains, MNL5 had stronger bile salt hydrolase (BSH) and cholesterol-lowering properties. Furthermore, it can withstand the extreme conditions found in the GI tract, due to, e.g., pepsin, bile salts, pancreatin, and acids. Pediococcus acidilactici MNL5 was identified as a probiotic candidate after sequencing the 16S rRNA gene. The antibacterial activity of P. acidilactici MNL5 cell-free supernatants (CFS) against Escherichia coli, Staphylococcus aureus, Helicobacter pylori, Bacillus cereus, and Candida albicans was moderate. A Caenorhabditis elegans experiment was also performed to assess the effectiveness of P. acidilactici MNL5 supplementation to increase life span compared to E. coli supplementation (DAF-2 and LIU1 models) (p < 0.05). An immense reduction of the lipid droplets of C. elegans was identified through a fluorescent microscope. The drastic alteration of the expression of fat genes is related to obesity phenotypes. Hence, several paths are evolutionary for C. elegans; the results of our work highlight the nematode as an important model for obesity.     

A novel reliable and secure communication scheme for cognitive radio networks using concatenated kernel codes

Cognitive radio networks have emerged as a possible solution for the spectrum scarcity problem. Cognitive radio networks involve heterogeneous entities as part of it for facilitating spectrum sharing. Ensuring reliability and security in such scenario is inevitable for the licensed users (primary users) as well as for the unlicensed users (secondary users). To address the challenges of reliable and secure communication for the secondary users, in this paper, a novel reliable and secure communication framework is proposed. A class of group codes called concatenated kernel codes is used to achieve reliability and techniques of fundamental cutset and fundamental circuit to achieve security in terms of authentication of sender. It is shown that the proposed communication framework provides reliability mitigating the continuous interference of primary users and security by defending against the cryptanalytic attacks such as replay attack, related key attack, and man‐in‐the‐middle attacks. The theoretical basis of the proposed framework is validated, and its performance is evaluated through simulations.     

Distributed denial of service attack detection using an ensemble of neural classifier

The vulnerabilities in the Communication (TCP/IP) protocol stack and the availability of more sophisticated attack tools breed in more and more network hackers to attack the network intentionally or unintentionally, leading to Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack. The DDoS attacks could be detected using the existing machine learning techniques such as neural classifiers. These classifiers lack generalization capabilities which result in less performance leading to high false positives. This paper evaluates the performance of a comprehensive set of machine learning algorithms for selecting the base classifier using the publicly available KDD Cup dataset. Based on the outcome of the experiments, Resilient Back Propagation (RBP) was chosen as base classifier for our research. The improvement in performance of the RBP classifier is the focus of this paper. Our proposed classification algorithm, RBPBoost, is achieved by combining ensemble of classifier outputs and Neyman Pearson cost minimization strategy, for final classification decision. Publicly available datasets such as KDD Cup, DARPA 1999, DARPA 2000, and CONFICKER were used for the simulation experiments. RBPBoost was trained and tested with DARPA, CONFICKER, and our own lab datasets. Detection accuracy and Cost per sample were the two metrics evaluated to analyze the performance of the RBPBoost classification algorithm. From the simulation results, it is evident that RBPBoost algorithm achieves high detection accuracy (99.4%) with fewer false alarms and outperforms the existing ensemble algorithms. RBPBoost algorithm outperforms the existing algorithms with maximum gain of 6.6% and minimum gain of 0.8%.     

Dynamic Bandwidth Allocation Using Radio Over Fiber in Passive Optical Network

Wireless Personal Communications - A Passive Optical Network (PON) does not include any power loss components in the transmission medium and it is immune to RF interference. Due to these...     

High-speed and energy-efficient subthreshold level converter for wider voltage conversion

Analog Integrated Circuits and Signal Processing - In this paper, a high speed and energy-efficient dynamic threshold MOSFET (DTMOS) based hybrid level converter (DTHLC) is proposed with wide...