Ferromagnetic nano model study for the peristaltic flow in a plumb duct with permeable walls

Microsystem Technologies - The purpose of the present enquiry is to analyse the mechanics of an incompressible fluid, with water as base fluid, through a radially symmetric plumb duct with...     

Identification of the DRB1*1313 allele in a sibling pair

Amines such as dopamine, norepinephrine and epinephrine were analysed in the brain regions of O.mossambicus exposed to quinalphos, phenthoate and their combination for 96 hr. The three types of treatments significantly (P < 0.05) altered the amines level at various intervals in the brain regions.     

A dynamic variability management approach working with agile product line engineering practices for reusing features

The Journal of Supercomputing - Agile software development (ASD) and software product line (SPL) have shown significant benefits for software engineering processes and practices. Although both...     

Role of situational method engineering to improve visual information systems in agile distributed environment

Software product prone to continuous evolution due to increase in the use of technology. Therefore, more stakeholders are involved in software evolution increases the cost and complexity. This required optimization of resources and cost to handle evolution with Global Software Development (GSD) to utilize time zones efficiently. The significance challenge of GSD reports: time zone difference, geographical location, communication delays, knowledge sharing, control among stakeholders and development team. Because of these challenges, the requirements for development in GSD environment are also challenge as compared to on site development. Different requirement engineering methods have been used to improve the requirements analysis to deal with ambiguities and inconsistency in large set of requirements. The customization and tailoring of requirements according to changing project’s situations required to improve project development with reusing existing agile methods during requirement engineering phase. Moreover, complex information systems where heterogeneity is inevitable that implies the involvement of divergent stakeholders and necessitate a comprehensive framework to capture multidimensional viewpoints and fulfill aforementioned issues. Therefore, a situational multi-dimensional agile requirement engineering method has been proposed to support team and stakeholders’ viewpoints. The schema of the proposed method is based on challenges recognized by performing Literature Review. Then proposed method has been evaluated via experimental approach and statistical analysis conducted to validated reliability of data collected. This result is significant approved both practically and statistically that the proposed approach ease to use, implement, trained and increased productivity and performance. Hence, the experimental study for the evaluation of the proposed approach results concluded that, proposed approach is the important multimedia tool for supporting organization and distributed development team for information sharing, collaboration, product development.

     

Biofilm reduction,cell proliferation,anthelmintic and cytotoxicity effect of green synthesised silver nanoparticle using Artemisia vulgaris extract

Infectious diseases are caused by etiological agents. Nanotechnology has been used to minimise the effect of clinical pathogens which have resistance to antibiotics. In current research synthesis, characterisation and biological activities of green synthesised nanoparticles using Artemisia vulgaris extract have been done. The characterisation of AgNPs was carried out using Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, UV‐Vis spectrophotometry, and scanning electron microscopy. Anti‐biofilm, cell viability, antibacterial, brine shrimp lethality, and deoxyribonucleic acid protection effects have been screened. UV‐Vis spectra showed the absorption peak of synthesised nanoparticles at 400 nm. FT‐IR indicated the involvement of the functional group in the preparation of AgNPs. SEM showed the spherical shape of AgNPs with 30 nm diameter. Biological screening results revealed the antibacterial effect against clinical bacterial pathogens. Biofilm reduction and cell viability assay also supported the antibacterial effect. Cytotoxicity effect was recorded as 100% at 200 μg/ml through brine shrimp lethality assay. Protein kinase inhibition zones recorded for AgNPs (16 mm bald) compared with A. vulgaris extract (11 mm bald). It has been concluded that green synthesised AgNPs are more effective against infectious pathogens and could be used as a potential source for therapeutic drugs.Inspec keywords: cellular biophysics, toxicology, silver, nanoparticles, nanomedicine, diseases, microorganisms, ultraviolet spectra, visible spectra, Fourier transform infrared spectra, enzymes, molecular biophysicsOther keywords: biofilm reduction, cell proliferation, anthelmintic effect, cytotoxicity effect, green synthesised silver nanoparticle, Artemisia vulgaris extract, infectious diseases, aetiological agents, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, UV‐Vis spectrophotometry, scanning electron microscopy, SEM, antibiofilm, cell viability, brine shrimp lethality, deoxyribonucleic acid protection effects, AgNP, cytotoxicity, protein kinase inhibition zones, therapeutic drugs     

A comparative analysis of video codecs for multihop wireless video sensor networks

Wireless video sensor networks (WVSNs) have drawn significant attention in recent years due to the advent of low-cost miniaturized cameras, which makes it feasible to realize large-scale WVSNs for a variety of applications including security surveillance, environmental tracking, and health monitoring. However, the conventional video coding paradigms are not suitable for WVSNs due to resource constraints such as limited computation power, battery energy, and network bandwidth. In this paper, we evaluated and analyzed the performance of video codecs based on emerging video coding paradigms such as distributed video coding and distributed compressive video sensing for multihop WVSNs. The main objective of this work was to provide an insight into the computational (encoding/decoding) complexity, energy consumption, node and network lifetime, processing and memory requirements, and the quality of reconstruction of these video codecs. Based on the findings, this paper also provides some guidelines for the selection of appropriate video codecs for a given WVSN application.     

Experimental investigation on the stability of bride girder against tsunami forces

Bridges are the most useful part in the transportation network. Any disruption of the bridge structures may hamper the whole transportation system. In the last recent tsunamis, numerous number of bridges were structurally damaged by the tsunami waves. Lack of proper provisions of tsunami forces in the design guidelines also contributes to the augmentations of the damage level. Therefore, proper evaluation of the tsunami forces on the bridge girder should be introduced in the design promptly. In this study, laboratory experiments were carried out to reveal the damage mechanism of the bridge girder by assessing the exerted tsunami forces. Both broken and unbroken waves were considered for the analysis. The results showed that measured forces were larger for broken waves than those of unbroken waves. Maximum force of the broken waves was 4.59 times as large as the hydrostatic pressure. Also, waves reached the peak value more rapidly for larger wave heights than those of smaller ones. Additionally, a girder that is placed at a higher position is much vulnerable to tsunami hazard.     

Synthesis and characterization of novel curcumin based polyurethanes varying diisocyanates structure

In this research work, novel polyurethanes (PUs) based on blends of curcumin/1,4-butane diol (BDO) by varying the structure of diisocyanates were prepared following step growth polymerization. Structural study of blends and various diisocyanates based PU through Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy confirmed the incorporation of curcumin into the backbone of the PU. The scanning electron microscopic (SEM) study confirmed the well dispersion of incorporated curcumin and homogeneity of surface of synthesized samples. The SEM results also indicated that surface morphology of synthesized samples much dependent on diisocynates structure. Moreover SEM images inferred that phase separation is more pronounced in aromatic diisocyanate based PU. The anti-bacterial and anti-fungal tests were performed against different strains in order to determine the biocompatibility of the curcumin based PU. The antimicrobial activity results revealed that the material having aromatic diisocyanate are more biocompatible than the aliphatic diisocyanates in the PU structure. On the whole, this work is actually a step towards the generation of novel biocompatible materials preferably useful for biomedical applications.     

Probiotics for cure of Helicobacter pylori infection: A review

Human physiology normally contains pathogenic and non-pathogenic microorganisms in the gastrointestinal flora. Disturbance of these microorganism balance results in the formation of infection. Extensive use of antibiotics for cure of these disturbances like Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori) infection leads to patient discomfort and associated side-effects. There is a need to adopt adjunct or alternative approach in order to minimize such conditions. Probiotics is one of the potential therapies to cure gastrointestinal discomforts especially associated with H. pylori. It competes through non-immune and immune systems. This review article concludes that probiotics are used to eradicate the infection at increased rate, and decreased associated side-effects are caused by triple therapy. A proper evaluation of these probiotics is demanded before their use in future as a commercial product. Furthermore, their effect on immune system requires more research work so that their usage for other chronic disorders can also be considered.     

Why Parents Drive Children to School: Implications for Safe Routes to School Programs

Problem: Rates of walking and bicycling to school have declined sharply in recent decades, and federal and state governments have committed funds to reverse these trends. To increase rates of walking and biking to school will require understanding why many parents choose to drive their children to school and how well existing programs, like Safe Routes to School, work.

Purpose: We aimed to understand why many parents choose to drive their children even short distances to school, and what implications this has for programs to increase walking and biking to school.

Methods: We used data from a telephone survey to explore why parents drive their children to school.

Results and conclusions: We found that 75% of parents driving their children less than 2 miles to school said they did this for convenience and to save time. Nearly half of parents driving their children less than 2 miles did not allow their child to walk to school without adult supervision. Accompanying a child on a walk to school greatly increases the time the household devotes to such a trip. Few Safe Routes to School programs effectively address issues of parental convenience and time constraints.

Takeaway for practice: Safe Routes to School programs should take parental convenience and time constraints into account by providing ways children can walk to school supervised by someone other than the parent, such as by using walking school buses. To be effective, such programs need institutional support. Schools should take a multimodal approach to pupil transportation.

Research support: This research was funded by the Active Living Research program of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the U.S. and California Departments of Transportation through the University of California Transportation Center.