Facile Synthesis and Characterization of Palm CNF-ZnO Nanocomposites with Antibacterial and Reinforcing Properties

Cellulose nanofibers (CNF) isolated from plant biomass have attracted considerable interests in polymer engineering. The limitations associated with CNF-based nanocomposites are often linked to the time-consuming preparation methods and lack of desired surface functionalities. Herein, we demonstrate the feasibility of preparing a multifunctional CNF-zinc oxide (CNF-ZnO) nanocomposite with dual antibacterial and reinforcing properties via a facile and efficient ultrasound route. We characterized and examined the antibacterial and mechanical reinforcement performances of our ultrasonically induced nanocomposite. Based on our electron microscopy analyses, the ZnO deposited onto the nanofibrous network had a flake-like morphology with particle sizes ranging between 21 to 34 nm. pH levels between 8–10 led to the formation of ultrafine ZnO particles with a uniform size distribution. The resultant CNF-ZnO composite showed improved thermal stability compared to pure CNF. The composite showed potent inhibitory activities against Gram-positive (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA)) and Gram-negative Salmonella typhi (S. typhi) bacteria. A CNF-ZnO-reinforced natural rubber (NR/CNF-ZnO) composite film, which was produced via latex mixing and casting methods, exhibited up to 42% improvement in tensile strength compared with the neat NR. The findings of this study suggest that ultrasonically-synthesized palm CNF-ZnO nanocomposites could find potential applications in the biomedical field and in the development of high strength rubber composites.     

TAP-dependent major histocompatibility complex class I presentation of soluble proteins using listeriolysin

Immunization of mice with mixtures of listeriolysin, a pore-forming hemolysin secreted by the pathogenic bacterium Listeria monocytogenes, together with soluble ovalbumin, nucleoprotein of influenza virus, or beta-galactosidase of Escherichia coli, resulted in strong cytotoxic CD8 T cell responses to each of the respective passenger proteins in vivo. Also, the concomitant addition of either protein with listeriolysin to target cells elicited efficient sensitization of these cells which could be attributed to the pore-forming activity of listeriolysin. This response was dependent upon a functional TAP transporter and was inhibitable by brefeldin A, indicating the transfer of the soluble proteins into the cytosol and the classical major histocompatibility (MHC) class I presentation pathway. The treatment of target cells with listeriolysin under our experimental conditions did not affect cell viability and the pores generated by listeriolysin treatment were repaired within 60 min. Introduction of soluble proteins into the MHC class I presentation pathway by listeriolysin provides a powerful system to study the cytotoxic response towards intracellular pathogens and would allow for rapid screening of potential antigens in vaccine formulations.     

Efficient induction of cytotoxic CD8+ T cells against exogenous proteins: establishment and characterization of a T cell line specific for the membrane protein ActA of Listeria monocytogenes

The property of listeriolysin (LLO) to introduce soluble passenger proteins into the cytosol of antigen-presenting cells allows the induction of CD8+ cytotoxic T cells against such antigens. To overcome the potential problem of presentation of the immunodominant epitope LL091-99 by H-2Kd, a variant LLO92A was established in which Tyr 92 was replaced by Ala. Immunization of BALB/c mice with purified LLO92A failed to stimulate cytotoxic T cells specific for either the epitope LLO91-99 or for any other LLO-derived peptide. Injection of mixtures of purified LLO92A and soluble nucleoprotein (NP) of influenza virus into mice resulted in a strong cytotoxic T cell response exclusively directed against NP. The LLO92A variant was successfully used to generate, propagate and characterize a CD8 T cell line specific for the membrane-bound virulence factor ActA of Listeria monocytogenes. Interestingly, wildtype ActA bound to the surface of live L. monocytogenes was not presented by MHC class I molecules to the CD8+ T cell line.     

Comparison of different methods of monitoring the secondary stage of oxidation of ghee

Thiobarbituric acid value (TBA), ρ‐anisidine value (ρ‐AnV) and carbonyl value (CV) were compared with sensory scores in monitoring the oxidation of ghee. The latter used a 9‐point hedonic scale for flavour. Six samples of ghee were stored at 80 °C and samples were removed at 48‐h intervals. Correlation coefficients of the chemical values with flavour scores were CV ?0.664, TBA ?0.521 and p‐AnV ?0.356, suggesting that the CV was the most suitable of the methods tested.     

Interpolated histogram method for area optimised median computation

The article describes an area efficient algorithm for real-time approximate median computation on VLSI platforms. The improvement in performance and area optimisation are achieved through linear interpolation within a reduced number of histogram bins. In order to reduce the hardware utilisation further, an approximation technique for interpolation is also proposed. This approach extends the utility of the histogram method to data sets having a large dynamic range. The performance of the proposed algorithm in terms of mean squared error (MSE) and resource utilisation is provided and compared to that of the existing algorithms. This comparison indicates that more than 60% optimisation in resources is achieved with marginal compromise in the accuracy of the median. The proposed algorithm finds applications in the areas of image processing, time series analysis and median absolute deviation (MAD) computation.     

Characterisation and comparison of khoa prepared from camel milk with that from cow and buffalo milk

Khoa, a heat‐concentrated milk product, is used as a base material for the manufacture of many popular sweets. The comparison was made between various chemical compositions and characteristics of the khoa prepared from the camel milk with that prepared from the cow and the buffalo milk samples. The khoa prepared from the camel milk had the higher moisture, ash, acidity, soluble nitrogen, free fatty acids and peroxide value, but lower in fat, protein and lactose contents than that prepared from the cow and buffalo milk samples. There was no significant (P > 0.05) difference in 5‐hydroxymethyl furfural between khoa samples prepared from the three milks.     

Analysis of 14nm technology node In0.53Ga0.47As nFinFET integrated with In0.52Al0.48As cap layer for high-speed circuits

CMOS (Complementary Metal-oxide-semiconductor) based high-speed applications in the sub-14 nm technology node using InGaAs Fin field-effect-transistors (FinFETs) confront with inevitable effect in form of interface traps upon integration of dielectric layer with InGaAs material. In this work, we have explored the impact of the traps on short channel effects (SCEs) and a technique of abating the effect of interface traps by introducing In_0.52Al0.₄₈As cap layer. Proposed work reforms the device by varying the cap layer thickness (Tcap), doping concentrations of cap layer and underlap region. The effect of traps on intrinsic delay, work function variation and SCEs was investigated to assess the trend on devices with In_0.52Al_0.48As cap layer. It has been observed that introduction of Tcap improves SCEs and helps to mitigate the effect of interface traps. SCEs can be additionally diminished by presenting underlap fin length at the cost of higher delay. The experimental results show the value of subthreshold swing = 149.54 mV/decade, drain-induced barrier lowering = 38.5 mV V^?1 and delay = 1.1 ps for T_cap = 4 nm without underlap fin length structure for traps concentration of 10¹² cm^?2eV^?1. Thus, significant improvement has been seen in SCEs and delay performance in FinFET structure with cap layer.     

Highly selective sensor for the detection of Hg2+ ions using homocysteine functionalised quartz crystal microbalance with cross‐linked pyridinedicarboxylic acid

This study reports an insightful portable vector network analyser (VNA)‐based measurement technique for quick and selective detection of Hg²⁺ ions in nanomolar (nM) range using homocysteine (HCys)‐functionalised quartz‐crystal‐microbalance (QCM) with cross‐linked‐pyridinedicarboxylic acid (PDCA). The excessive exposure to mercury can cause damage to many human organs, such as the brain, lungs, stomach, and kidneys, etc. Hence, the authors have proposed a portable experimental platform capable of achieving the detection in 20–30 min with a limit of detection (LOD) 0.1 ppb (0.498 nM) and a better dynamic range (0.498 nM–6.74 mM), which perfectly describes its excellent performance over other reported techniques. The detection time for various laboratory‐based techniques is generally 12–24 h. The proposed method used the benefits of thin‐film, nanoparticles (NPs), and QCM‐based technology to overcome the limitation of NPs‐based technique and have LOD of 0.1 ppb (0.1 μg/l) for selective Hg²⁺ ions detection which is many times less than the World Health Organization limit of 6 μg/l. The main advantage of the proposed QCM‐based platform is its portability, excellent repeatability, millilitre sample volume requirement, and easy process flow, which makes it suitable as an early warning system for selective detection of mercury ions without any costly measuring instruments.Inspec keywords: quartz crystal microbalances, chemical sensors, microsensors, mercury (metal), nanosensors, nanoparticles, network analysers, chemical variables measurement, portable instruments, polymers, thin film sensorsOther keywords: mercury ion detection, homocysteine functionalised quartz crystal microbalance, cross‐linked pyridinedicarboxylic acid, mental retardation, Hunter–Russell syndrome, portable experimental platform, LOD, laboratory‐based techniques, NP‐based technique, QCM‐based microelectromechanical system technology, homocysteine‐functionalised quartz crystal microbalance, portable vector network analyser‐based measurement technique, World Health Organization, WHO, limit of detection, PDCA, HCys, nanoparticles, time 20.0 min to 30.0 min, time 12.0 hour to 24.0 hour, Hg     

Watermarking Hardware Based on Wavelet Coefficients Quantization Method

Progress in the digital multimedia technologies during the last decade has offered many facilities in the transmission, reproduction, and manipulation of data. However, this advancement has also brought the problem such as copyright protection for content providers. Digital watermarking is a proposed solution for copyright protection for multimedia. The goal of hardware assisted watermarking is to achieve low power usage, real-time performance, reliability, and ease of integration with existing consumer electronic devices. An efficient architecture for transform domain watermarking using quantization approach is proposed here. This architecture is optimized using pipelining. The main objective of this paper is to propose a very-large-scale integration (VLSI) architecture for robust and blind image watermarking chip. Watermarking architectures with and without pipeline are synthesized using Xilinx’s ISE for a field-programmable gate array (FPGA), and then semi-custom integrated chip is designed using UMC 0.18 μm technology standard cell library for both these architectures. The proposed optimized pipelined watermarking encoder core requires 0.027 mm² area and 0.074 mW power.