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Hydrothermal synthesis of mesoporous TiO2 nanoparticles for enhanced photocatalytic degradation of organic dye
Get PDFIn this work, mesoporous TiO2 nanoparticle photocatalyst has been prepared by hydrothermal method using titanium tetrachloride as precursor. The resulting photocatalysts have been characterized using X-ray diffraction (XRD), nitrogen adsorption-desorption analyses, RAMAN spectroscopy, Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM) and UV-vis diffuse reflectance spectroscopy (UV-vis DRS). The results showed that the synthesized 2 OiT was anatase phase and mesoporous with specific surface 133.45 m2/g. The decomposition of methylene blue dye under the influence of ultraviolet light was used to test the photocatalytic performance of the produced TiO2 photocatalyst. The photocatalytic activity of the TiO2 photocatalyst for the breakdown of methylene blue dye was significantly higher than that of the commercial TiO2 P25 used as a reference. Moreover, the prepared photocatalyst was stable and reusable. The larger surface area of hydrothermally produced TiO2 was the reason for this enhanced photocatalytic activity. As a result, it is expected that this approach of photocatalytically active semiconducting nanocatalysts will be used in industry to eliminate undesired organics from the environment
Solar light driven transition metal codoped ZnO (Ag, Ni- codoped ZnO) photocatalyst for environmental remediation
Get PDF Visible light efficient Ag, Ni-codoped ZnO photocatalyst has been synthesised in the nano form by co-precipitation and sonochemical method using ZnSO4ꞏ7H2O as a precursor. The structural, morphological and elemental observations of synthesised photocatalyst have been characterized using X-ray diffraction (XRD), FTIR, UV-DRS, SEM with EDX and HRTEM analysis. Incorporation of metal ions into ZnO lattice caused a red shift in the absorption band thus extending its absorption towards visible region through inhibition of electron hole recombination reaction and through the property of surface plasmon resonance (SPR). However the addition of silver and nickel ions has modified the electronic and optical properties of the photocatalyst thus improving the photocatalytic performance of the sample. The photocatalytic performance of Ag, Ni-codoped ZnO nanoparticles have been tested for degradation of Direct Red 81 dye (DR-81), as pollutant in aqueous solution. Under the optimum conditions (20 ppm dye and 10 mg/L photocatalyst), complete mineralization of dye solution under study was achieved within 40min of time duration. The Ag, Ni-codoped ZnO photocatalyst is thermally stable and efficient for five successive consecutive runs thus retaining its efficiency towards degradation. The overall results thus obtained have suggested that a suitable method for the detoxification of environmental pollutants emerging from industries.
E – waste Recycling Technology Patents filed in India - An Analysis
Get PDFThe expanding electrical and electronic equipments have led to a significant rise in E-waste worldwide over the past two decades. E-waste is today the fastest growing sector of the municipal solid waste stream and currently comprises more than 5% of its total flow, which is equivalent to 20-50 million tons a year worldwide. Electrical and electronic equipment contain different hazardous materials which are harmful to human health and the environment. There are several international and Indian initiatives to dispose and recycle E-waste. However India is a dumping ground of E-waste for western countries but no serious effort has been made to arrest the situation. To manage and dispose E-waste, technology may play a vital role. Therefore the present study focuses on most of the E-waste patents filed in India by Indian R&D organization and other countries. The study reveals a good number of technologies developed by Indian institutions like Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, individuals belonging to different institutions of India and other foreign companies. Despite economic importance, research on E-waste recycling has never been seen as priority and gets little respect within brand company in India. Our study suggests electronic brand companies in India are laggard rather than leader in adopting new technologies and innovation on E-waste recycling. This aversion to innovation has left consumers and workers endangered who are associated to it. To reverse this, most of these brand companies will need to venture out of their comfort zone and effective laws should be brought in to ensure that this may happen
The Proposal for Directive on the Protection of Trade Secrets: A Proposal to Harmonise a type of Intellectual Property that has not previously been the Subject of EU Legislation
No full textOne of the last few remaining areas of intellectual property not yet to have been touched by EU legislation, that of trade secrets, is set to be harmonised at an EU level under a proposal for a Directive on the subject issued by the European Commission on 28 November 2013. This article outlines this proposal, the divergences in national laws in Europe that it seeks to overcome, and those aspects of the law of trade secrets which it does not address or which remain controversial
Patent Insurance : The roadmap
No full textA patent does not in any way prevent infringement. It merely grants a right to sue the intruder. Individuals and small and medium enterprises are often reluctant to pursue their patents in a court of law in case of infringement owing to the time and money involved in fighting a costly litigation battle. A patent insurance policy protects the insured in fighting a legal battle against an infringing company or an infringement lawsuit filed by a rival company depending upon the type of policy. World-wide patent insurance is a lesser known phenomena due to reluctance of insurance companies in offering such types of coverage as the risk involved is high. The present paper underlines the necessity of patent insurance along with features which should be included in a patent insurance policy. The insurance companies would not be in a loss if only non technical risk assessment is done at the commencement of policy while technical risk assessment should be done only when a specific claim arises and only then the premiums would be affordable by patentee. Every country should make patent insurance policy mandatory for every patentee, which with the advancement of patent insurance industry would move to a voluntary scheme. It is essential to promote innovative culture in a society
Hepatoprotective activity of Mitragyna speciosa Korth. on Liver Damage Caused by Tuak
Get PDFThis study aims to evaluate the protection and restoration capacity of kratom leaves extracts on liver damage caused by tuak. Group A consist of 12 mice and divided into A1 administered 0.5 mL/20 g body weight aquadest, A2 administered kratom leaves ethanol extract at dose 0.29 mg/20 g body weight and A3 administered silymarin at dose 0.70 mg/20 g body weight on days 1 to 7, then continued given tuak at dose 0.26 mL/20 g body weight on days 8 to 14. Group B consist of 12 mice and divided into B1, B2, and B3, on days 1 to 7 they were administered tuak at dose 0.26 mL/20 g body weight then continued with aquadest at dose 0.5 mL/20 g body weight (B1), kratom leaves ethanol extract at dose 0.29 mg/20 g body weight (B2), and silymarin at dose 0.70 mg/20 g body weight on days 8 to 14 (B3). The average levels of ALT enzyme in the treatment groups respectively showed 29.13±0.40 U/L (A1); 25.25±0.69 U/L (A2); 20.51±1.00 U/L (A3) and 31.20±0.47 U/L (B1); 26.95±0.62 U/L (B2); 23.31±0.89 (B3) (p<0.05). Whereas, the average levels of AST respectively at 34.23±0.63 U/L (A1); 28.64±0.40 U/L (A2); 25.13±0.83 U/L (A3) and 35.69±0.63 U/L (B1); 30,83±0.63 (B2); 27.31±0.83 (B3) (p<0.05). The average scoring for the treatment groups resulted in 2.67; 2.33; 1.33 respectively A1, A2, and A3 (p<0.01) and 2.00; 0.67; 0.33 respectively B1, B2 and B3 (p<0.01). It is concluded that kratom leaves are not effective to protect and to restore the liver.
Deep Learning Approach to Recognize COVID-19, SARS and Streptococcus Diseases from Chest X-ray Images
Get PDFCorona Virus Disease (COVID-19) became pandemic for the world in the year 2020. A large numbers of people are infected worldwide due to the rapid widespread infectious virus which is threatening many lives and economic damages. Controlling of this virus becomes challenging for the world due to non-preparedness and less availability of testing kits, necessary medical equipment, and vaccine. Pathological laboratory testing of a large number of suspects becomes challenging. Some existing pathological testing is producing false-negative results. Therefore, this paper aims to develop a method of automatic detection of transmissible diseases through medical image analysis techniques which are based on the radiological changes in the X-ray images. In this paper, a Deep Learning approach is proposed for the fast detection of COVID-19, Streptococcus, and Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) positive cases. In Deep Learning, 2-D Convolution Neural Network (2DCNN) is used to classify graphical features of X-ray image’s dataset of COVID-19 positive, Streptococcus and Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) patients. The proposed approach is implemented on the COVID-chest X-Ray dataset. Experiments produced individual accuracy of COVID-19, Streptococcus, SARS disease and normal person is 100%, 90.9%, 91.3%, and 94.7% respectively. This approach achieved an overall accuracy of 95.73% over four classes. Validation of the proposed approach results has been done using Precision, Recall, and F1-score matrices. From the experimental results, it is proved that the performance of the proposed deep learning approach is quite better as compared to the mentioned state-of-art methods to detect COVID-19, SARS, and Streptococcus disease using X-ray medical imaging
Spectrum of vaginal lactic acid bacteria in indigenous and cross bred cows of India
Get PDFLactic acid bacteria (LAB) are beneficial microorganisms present in the bovine vagina. Documentation of LAB community in the vagina of indigenous and cross bred dairy cows of India is important to further establish its probiotic potential. The aim of this study was to isolate and identify the spectrum of LAB by phenotypic and genotypic methods. A total of 24 LAB were isolated from the vagina of 110 apparently healthy indigenous and cross bred cows. The LAB isolates belonged to the genus Lactobacillus, Bacillus, Enterococcus and Weisella and were further speciated based on their grouping with respective reference sequences available in the GenBank, on phylogenetic analysis. The species diversity of bovine vaginal LAB identified in this study was Lactobacillus agilis (17%), Lactobacillus mucosae (8%), Lactobacillus plantarum (21%), Lactobacillus fermentum (17%), Lactobacillus pentosus (4%), Weisella cibaria (8%), Bacillus coagulans (4%), Bacillus cereus (4%), Enterococcus faecium (13%) and Enterococcus asini (4%). The overall spectrum and relative abundance of the bovine vaginal LAB reported in this study provides critical information for the formulation of uterine probiotics for the prevention/treatment of bovine clinical endometritis.
Investigation of the effects of changes in formulation and cooking times on the quality parameters in the production of goji berry leather
Get PDFGoji berry (Lycium barbarum L.) is described as a food with several health benefits. This valuable fruit has been processed into fruit leather, which is one of the important traditional products. This study allowed us to determine the effect of changing formulations (starch and flour) and cooking times (10, 15, and 20 min) on quality criteria during goji berry leather production. The goji berry leather samples exhibited the following characteristics: pH values ranging from 4.96 to 4.99, titration acidity values spanning from 2.97% to 3.23%, dry matter content within the range of 84.78% to 87.69%, ash content between 3.12%, and 4.27%, water activity (aw) values ranging from 0.37 to 0.38, protein content between 14.71%, and 15.66%, HMF content varying from 17.33 mg/kg to 34.51 mg/kg, total phenolic content ranging from 7.14 µg GAE/g to 7.89 µg GAE/g, total sugar content falling between 61.18%, and 63.89%, reducing sugar content within the range of 60.13% to 61.89%, sucrose content ranging from 0.91% to 2.25%, thickness values ranging from 0.74 mm to 0.89 mm, hardness values varying between 17.09, and 33.27, stickiness values within the range of 4.10 to 23.34, cohesiveness values from 0.85 to 1.00, elasticity values ranging from 0.88 to 0.97, chewability values spanning from 12.85 to 30.85, L* values ranging from 27.27 to 32.66, a* values between 8.62, and 10.32, b*values varying from 7.06 to 8.59, C* values within the range of 11.15 to 12.81, and H° values falling between 39.31, and 41.13. Following the sensory evaluation of leather samples, it was determined that the color score ranged from 3.80 to 4.27, the smell score fell between 3.53 and 4.00, the taste score varied from 2.93 to 4.00, the mouthfeel score ranged from 2.93 to 3.93, and the general acceptability score was found to be within the range of 3.27 to 4.20. It was determined that cooking time and additional additives affect some quality values of the goji berry leather.
Indigenous craft and gears used for crab fishery in Cochin estuary, Kerala, southwest coast of India
Get PDFThis paper presents an overview of fishing gears and crafts operated for crab fishery in the Cochin estuary. A survey was made in selected areas of the Cochin estuary to study the design and operational details of indigenous craft and gears used in crab fishing. Primary data on crab fishery were collected from fish landing centers and fishing villages through a structured questionnaire. Crab gillnets and ring nets are the dominant artisanal gear supporting crab fishery throughout the study area. Long lines were one of the widely deployed fishing gears for the crab fishery, which is now operational only in limited areas of the Cochin estuary. Incidental catch of crabs is also noted in the stake net and Chinese dip net. The wounding gears and traditional fishing techniques, viz., vazhuka method and midrib trap, are not deployed in commercial crab fishery as they result in low-value realization. The survey discloses that ring net and crab gillnet accounted for 98% of the crab landing along the Cochin estuary. Scylla serrata and Scylla olivacea are the essential species contributing to inland crab fishery along the study area. Wooden canoes belonging to 3 to 7 m in length overall (LOA) are employed for crab fishing. Migrant fishermen use Coracles and the FRP canoes for crab gill net operations along the stretches of the backwaters.