A high BDR microstrip‐line fed antenna with multiple asymmetric elliptical wide‐slots for wideband applications

In this study, a novel printed wide‐slot antenna for wideband applications is presented. The designed antenna consists of four merged elliptical wide‐slots (EWSs) of different dimensions in the ground plane. An open‐ended microstrip line having a characteristic impedance of 50 Ω is used to excite the EWS. Each EWS corresponds to the different frequency of operation and hence when merged together give a wideband response. The fabricated prototype of the designed antenna shows the 10 dB return loss bandwidth (RLBW) of about 157.72% ranging from 2.21 to 18.7 GHz. The peak gain varies from 0.1 to 6.5 dB within the RLBW is reported. An almost constant group delay, low variation (<?40 dB) in the transfer function S₂₁ and linear phase variation for both side by side and face to face orientations of the designed antenna shows its applicability for wideband applications. The electrical dimensions of about 0.176λ _L × 0.162λ _L (where λ _L is the lowest operating wavelength) give rise to the bandwidth dimension ratio of about 5505 which is highest among the antenna structures reported in the literature. The measured results are found in good concordance with the results obtained from numerical simulations.     

Impaired Aversive Memory Formation in GPR37L1KO Mice

GPR37L1 is an orphan G-protein-coupled receptor, which is implicated in neurological disorders, but its normal physiological role is poorly understood. Its close homologue, GPR37, is implicated in Parkinson’s disease and affective disorders. In this study, we set out to characterize adult and middle-aged global GPR37L1 knock-out (KO) mice regarding emotional behaviors. Our results showed that GPR37L1KO animals, except adult GPR37L1KO males, exhibited impaired retention of aversive memory formation as assessed by the shorter retention latency in a passive avoidance task. Interestingly, the viral-mediated deletion of GPR37L1 in conditional knockout mice in the hippocampus of middle-aged mice also showed impaired retention in passive avoidance tasks, similar to what was observed in global GPR37L1KO mice, suggesting that hippocampal GPR37L1 is involved in aversive learning processes. We also observed that middle-aged GPR37L1KO male and female mice exhibited a higher body weight than their wild-type counterparts. Adult and middle-aged GPR37L1KO female mice exhibited a reduced level of serum corticosterone and middle-aged GPR37L1KO females showed a reduced level of epinephrine in the dorsal hippocampus in the aftermath of passive avoidance task, with no such effects observed in GPR37L1KO male mice, suggesting that lack of GPR37L1 influences behavior and biochemical readouts in age- and sex-specific manners.     

Bacteriocins: Recent Trends and Potential Applications

In the modern era, there is great need for food preservation in both developing and developed countries due to increasing demand for extending shelf life and prevention of spoilage of food material. With the emergence of new pathogens and ability of micro-organisms to undergo changes, exploration of new avenues for the food preservation has gained importance. Moreover, awareness among consumers regarding harmful effects of chemical preservatives has been increased. Globally, altogether there is increasing demand by consumers for chemical-free and minimal processed food products. Potential of bacteriocin and its application in reducing the microbiological spoilages and in the preservation of food is long been recognized. Bacteriocins are normally specific to closely related species without disrupting the growth of other microbial populations. A number of applications of bacteriocin have been reported for humans, live stock, aquaculture etc. This review is focused on recent trends and applications of bacteriocins in different areas in addition to their biopreservative potential.     

Microwave‐accelerated Synthesis and Characterization of Potato Starch‐g‐poly(acrylamide)

Using a very low concentration of potassium persulfate as initiator, acrylamide could be efficiently grafted onto potato starch under microwave irradiation and for the grafting O₂ removal from the reaction vessel was not required. Under optimal conditions, grafting and efficiency observed were 160% and 89%, respectively. Grafted starch was characterized by using Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), X‐ray diffraction (XRD) and thermogravimetric analysis (TGA). It was observed that the microwave irradiation could significantly accelerate the synthesis of starch‐graft‐poly(acrylamide), because under identical conditions no grafting was observed in a conventional procedure. Viscosity, shear stability and water/saline solution retention of the microwave‐synthesized grafted starch were studied and compared with that of the parent starch.     

Increasing the Prediction Accuracy for Thyroid Disease: A Step Towards Better Health for Society

Wireless Personal Communications - A healthy life is essential for a happy society, however it is a fact that seemingly invisible diseases plague our families and people suffer. The thyroid disease...     

On Exploiting Dynamic Trusted Routing Scheme in Delay Tolerant Networks

Wireless Personal Communications - Delay tolerant network routing is characterized by sparsely or densely populated nodes. In such network routing with limited resource like buffer space is a...     

Thermal plasma spheroidization of aluminum oxide and characterization of the spheroidized alumina powder

Spheroidization of aluminum oxide powder was done by thermal plasma processing. The powder was injected into the plasma jet issuing out of a DC plasma torch. Trajectories of the particles in the plasma jet were seen using a high speed camera and then in-flight velocity and temperature of alumina particles were determined using a ‘Spray Watch’ system. Characterization of the spheroidized powder was done by Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and X-ray powder diffraction (XRD). The results showed that increase of the plasma torch power leads to increase in the extent of spheroidization and conversion to γ-alumina. Results obtained showed that the process can be extended to synthesize free flowing alumina powder for thermal spray applications.     

Aged rare earth doped silicates as optoelectronic material

Samples of various concentrations were prepared and kept unsintered for a period of three years to study the consistency of composition prepared and structural evolution of glass. The expanded peaks in the Raman spectra arise due to thermal agitation, and a Boltzmann type of distribution was expected in the silicate gels. The behavior of the gels during the dehydroxylation and dehydration is conditioned by its microstructure, which depends upon the physical conditions, I.e., pH, and drying conditions.     

Effect of γ‐irradiation on glycolysis of PET waste and preparation of ecofriendly coatings using bio‐based and recycled materials

Recycling of postconsumer poly (ethylene terephthalate) (PET) is a worldwide concern due to large increasing volume of these materials produced by society. In the present study, we report the effect of gamma irradiation on degradation of PET and its subsequent effect on glycolysis by using excess ethylene glycol (EG). The results as analyzed by molecular weight determination showed that extent of depolymerization of PET were dose dependent. The doses of 30, 50, 70, and 100 kGy resulted in decrease in the molecular weight by about 15%, 25%, 30%, and 40% respectively. The irradiated waste PET samples were further subjected to glycolysis using EG by conventional and microwave method which resulted in increased yield of monomeric product, bis (2‐hydroxyethylterephthalate) (BHET). The recycled material, BHET, was then used in combination with bio‐based monomers to prepare a new eco‐friendly polyester polyol which was analyzed for hydroxyl, saponification, acid value and further characterized by FTIR, ¹HNMR, and GPC techniques for molecular weight determination. Polyurethane coatings were prepared from the polyester polyol and various commercial polyisocyanate curing agents. The coated films were evaluated for their performance properties. Thermal properties of coatings were investigated by differential scanning calorimetry and thermogravimetric analysis. POLYM. ENG. SCI., 55:2653–2660, 2015. © 2015 Society of Plastics Engineers