Structural variability and its relation to edaphic attributes of mangroves in the south‐west coast of India

We estimated the tree structural variables (density, frequency and basal area) of true mangroves and soil variables like particle size distribution, carbon, available nitrogen and phosphorus, sulphur, nutrient cations (K, Na, Ca, Mg) of Cochin mangroves and examined the relationship between vegetation and environment. The study sites were classified as seaward fringe, riverine and interior. Of the thirteen true mangrove species present, Avicennia officinalis, Sonneratia caseolaris and Excoecaria agallocha showed higher Importance Value Index. The mean stem density varied from 80 to 25,000 no./ha and basal area from 0.1 to 39.68 m²/ha. Seaward mangroves showed maximum stand basal area and biomass production while riverine exhibited maximum density. Maturity Index value of Cochin mangroves revealed a very low degree of structural maturity. Interior mangroves were characterized by silty soil with higher nutrient concentrations. Principal component analysis of soil data revealed that the major factors influencing mangrove vegetation were soil texture, nutrients, salinity and oxidation–reduction potential. The stem density and basal area of different species correlated highly with soil nutrients and texture (p < .001) while salinity showed negative correlations with vegetation characteristics. The data generated in the study would be fundamental in site‐specific management and conservation efforts of these degrading mangroves.     

Low-complexity low-memory energy-efficient image coding for wireless image sensor networks

Wireless image sensor networks are capable of sensing, processing and transmitting the image in hard-to-access regions without expensive network infrastructure and will have great contribution in Internet of Things. These networks are resource constraint systems with limited memory, energy, processing speed and bandwidth. Low computational energy and communication energy will improve the lifetime of these resource-limited networks. In this paper, an energy-efficient low-memory and low-bitrate image coding is designed exclusively for low-power camera-equipped sensor node. The performance of the proposed image coder is analysed in terms of bitrate, image quality, memory size and energy consumption. Experiments are carried out with Atmel ATmega128 processor. The experimental results show that this system consumes only 0.23% of energy consumed by true Discrete Cosine Transform-based Joint Photographic Experts Group (JPEG) standard and offers reasonable image quality suitable for visual perception at low bitrate. This system requires only 19% of memory required by standard JPEG.     

Anaerobic co-digestion of hazardous tannery solid waste and primary sludge: biodegradation kinetics and metabolite analysis

Generation of solid waste is inherent to manufacture of leather from skin and hide. Solid wastes generated at various unit operations of the tanning process considerably vary in quantity and composition. Fleshing is a type of animal tissue waste generated during the preparatory leather processing stage in relatively larger quantities as compared to other types of solid waste in the tanning industry. Fleshing mainly contains fat and protein and residual chemicals such as lime and sulphide used in the ‘unhairing’ process of beam house operation. Another type of solid waste in tanning industry which requires safe disposal is the primary sludge from tannery wastewater treatment plant. This study shows that both fleshing and primary sludge contains a significant quantity of volatile solids amenable for biodegradation. Different proportions of waste fleshing and primary sludge were subjected to anaerobic digestion. The studies were carried out in a laboratory scale reactor with an aim of developing an appropriate technology for recovery of bioenergy from the waste and subsequently ensure their safe disposal. Volatile solid destruction between 41 and 52%, specific gas production between 0.419 and 0.635 l/g volatile solids feed and methane yield between 71 and 77% were achieved. Further, the biomethanation potential of animal fleshing and substrate specific kinetics of the reaction process were also examined.     

Supplementation of squalene attenuates experimentally induced myocardial infarction in rats

We have investigated the preventive effects of squalene against isoprenaline-induced myocardial infarction in male albino rats. Supplementation with squalene significantly prevented the isoprenaline-induced adverse changes in the levels of protein and glycoprotein components in plasma and heart tissue of experimental groups of rats. It exerted an antioxidant effect by inhibiting the isoprenaline-induced lipid peroxidation and by maintaining the level of non-enzymatic free radical-scavenger, reduced glutathione at near normalcy. Histopathological observations also confirmed the possible cardioprotective action of squalene by maintaining the normal architecture of the heart tissue. The results of the present investigation demonstrate that supplementation with squalene offers cardioprotection in experimental rats by its antioxidant and membrane- stabilizing properties.     

CdO nanoparticles,c‐MWCNT nanoparticles and CdO nanoparticles/c‐MWCNT nanocomposite fibres: in vitro assessment of anti‐proliferative and apoptotic studies in HeLa cancer cell line

A simple ultrasonic assisted chemical technique was used to synthesise cadmium oxide (CdO) nanoparticles (NPs) and CdO NPs/c‐Multiwalled carbon nanotube (c‐MWCNT) nanocomposite fibres.To confirm the physio‐chemico properties and to analyse surface morphology of the obtained nanomaterials X‐Ray Diffraction (XRD), Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR) and field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM) were performed. To evaluate the anti‐cancer property of CdO NPs, c‐MWCNT NPs and CdO NPs/c‐MWCNT nanocomposite fibres, an anti‐proliferative assay test (Methylthiazolyl diphenyl‐ tetrazolium bromide ‐ MTT assay) were performed on HeLa cells which further estimated IC50 value (Least concentration of sample in which nearly 50% of cells remain alive) under in‐vitro conditions. On comparison, CdONPs/c‐MWCNT based system was found to be superior by achieving 52.3% cell viability with its minimal IC50 value of 31.2 μg/ml. Lastly, the CdO NPs based system was taken up for an apoptotic study using DNA fragmentation assay for estimating its ability to cleave the DNA of the HeLa cells into internucleosomal fragments using the agarose gel electrophoresis method. In conclusion, based on our observations, CdO NPs/c‐MWCNT hybrid based system can be further used for the development of efficient drug delivery and therapeutic systems.Inspec keywords: drug delivery systems, electrophoresis, oxidation, toxicology, DNA, nanoparticles, drugs, field emission electron microscopy, scanning electron microscopy, nanofabrication, surface morphology, cancer, X‐ray diffraction, nanomedicine, cellular biophysics, filled polymers, biomedical materials, molecular biophysics, biochemistry, Fourier transform infrared spectra, multi‐wall carbon nanotubesOther keywords: c‐MWCNT nanoparticles, apoptotic study, HeLa cancer cell line, cadmium oxide nanoparticles, c‐MWCNT NPs, anti‐proliferative assay test [methyl thiazolyl diphenyl‐tetrazolium bromide assay], human epithelioid cervix carcinoma cells, live cells, CdO NP‐based system, IC50 concentration, HeLa cell line, cell deaths, CdO‐C     

Novel organomodified kaolin/silica hybrid fillers in natural rubber and its blend with polybutadiene rubber

Phosphorylated cashew nut shell liquid prepolymer (PCNSL) was used as an organomodifier for kaolin and the role of the PCNSL-modified kaolin as a reinforcing nanofiller in natural rubber (NR) and its blends with polybutadiene rubber (BR) was studied. The organomodified kaolin was characterized using thermogravimetric analysis, powder X-ray diffraction, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), high-resolution transmission electron microscopy and scanning electron microscopy. It was found that PCNSL could act as a coupling agent and compatibilizer between kaolin and rubber. Improved physico-mechanical properties were observed at a dosage of 6 phr of the modified kaolin in NR. Blends of NR with BR containing precipitated silica/PCNSL-modified kaolin hybrid filler showed improved tensile properties, tear strength and flex fatigue resistance along with lower heat build-up which could be beneficial for applications such as automobile tire sidewall.     

Convenient synthesis of (thiocyanomethyl)-thio heteroaromatics as antifungal agents

Synthesis of some (thiocyanomethyl)-thio heteroaromatic derivatives by reacting metal salts of (mercapto) heteraromatics with chloromethylthiocyanate using methanol or acetone as cosolvent, reported. All the synthesized derivatives were identified by conventional methods, IR-, ¹H NMR and mass spectral data. All the prepared compounds were tested for their antifungal activity. © 1998 SCI     

Hierarchical Kohonenen net for anomaly detection in network security.

A novel multilevel hierarchical Kohonen Net (K-Map) for an intrusion detection system is presented. Each level of the hierarchical map is modeled as a simple winner-take-all K-Map. One significant advantage of this multilevel hierarchical K-Map is its computational efficiency. Unlike other statistical anomaly detection methods such as nearest neighbor approach, K-means clustering or probabilistic analysis that employ distance computation in the feature space to identify the outliers, our approach does not involve costly point-to-point computation in organizing the data into clusters. Another advantage is the reduced network size. We use the classification capability of the K-Map on selected dimensions of data set in detecting anomalies. Randomly selected subsets that contain both attacks and normal records from the KDD Cup 1999 benchmark data are used to train the hierarchical net. We use a confidence measure to label the clusters. Then we use the test set from the same KDD Cup 1999 benchmark to test the hierarchical net. We show that a hierarchical K-Map in which each layer operates on a small subset of the feature space is superior to a single-layer K-Map operating on the whole feature space in detecting a variety of attacks in terms of detection rate as well as false positive rate.     

Lipase activity in different tissues of four species of fish: rohu (Labeo rohita Hamilton), oil sardine (Sardinella longiceps Linnaeus), mullet (Liza subviridis Valenciennes) and Indian mackerel (Rastrelliger kanagurta Cuvier)

Lipase activity in stomach and pyloric caeca, liver, intestine and red muscle of rohu (Labeo rohita Hamilton), oil sardine (Sardinella longiceps Linnaeus), mullet (Liza subviridis Valenciennes) and Indian mackerel (Rastrelliger kanagurta Cuvier) was studied. Distinct differences in lipolytic activity in different tissues of these fish were observed. Rohu showed the highest activity in all tissues in comparison with the other three species of fish. Among the three size groups of mullet, medium‐sized mullet showed higher activity than the other two groups in all tissues except intestine. Rohu hepatopancreatic lipase exhibited more hydrolytic activity on fish oil than rohu intestinal lipase. Copyright © 2003 Society of Chemical Industry     

Structural and magnetic analysis of nanocrystalline lead europium sulfide (PbxEuyS)

We report the synthesis and characterization of nanocrystalline Pb_xEu_yS, a potentially important dilute magnetic semiconductor. The thermolysis of mixed precursors was adapted for the formation of homogeneous alloyed nanocrystals. Energy dispersive spectroscopy provided the atomic composition for Pb_xEu_yS nanocrystals, which we juxtaposed with the ratio of the precursors. X-ray diffraction and magnetization measurements of the nanocrystals provided evidence that no phase separation occurred for europium concentrations of up to y = 0.15.