Growth and Characterization of Gamma Glycine Single Crystal from Ammonium Sulfate as Solvent

Single crystals of γ-glycine, an organic nonlinear optical material were grown by low temperature solution growth methods from aqueous solutions of glycine and ammonium sulfate. Powder X-ray diffraction of the grown crystal was recorded and indexed. The γ-phase of glycine is confirmed by powder XRD and FTIR spectroscopy.CHN analysis shows the non-existence of ammonium sulfate species in the grown γ-glycine single crystals .Optical transmittance spectrum was recorded in the range from 200 to 1100nm.Thermal properties of the grown crystal have been investigated using differential thermal analysis. The NLO property of the crystal was confirmed by Kurtz and Perry technique

Capturing vehicular space headway using low-cost LIDAR and processing through ARIMA prediction modeling

The paper proposes a low-cost system to capture spatial vehicle headway data and process the raw data by filtering outliers using a novel filtering process. Multiple sensors and modules are integrated to form the system. The sensors used are compact, lightweight, low-cost and have low power consumption. A single beam 1-Dimensional Light Detection and Ranging (LIDAR) was used for capturing the space headway data, a Global Positioning System (GPS) to map each data point with a timestamp and position and also a camera to capture video data with an overlay of date, time, distance and speed in real-time. The filtering technique utilizes the Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average (ARIMA) prediction modeling and mean-filtering. The data captured is stored in a Raspberry Pi module. The data is later processed by using the filtering technique to obtain the least outliers. The overall system has enabled to capture spatial headway data and speed of the vehicle at a very low cost and the data obtained can be used for car-following model analysis and speed-density analysis.Comment: 16 pages, 9 figures, and 2 table

Perspectives of MBBS Students on The AETCOM Module After the Second Year of The Competency Based Medical Education Curriculum

Knowledge of proper Attitude, Ethics and Communication Skills with the patients plays a vital role in success of medical professionals. So, AETCOM module has been formulated to train the medical students from first MBBS itself as a part of their foundation course. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the change in the students' behaviour towards attitude, ethics and communication at the end of their second professional course. METHODS This cross-sectional observational study was carried out over the course of a month with second-year MBBS students who enrolled in Tagore Medical College in the academic year 2019–20. 100 students were included in this study. The teaching schedule of AETCOM Module had four sessions three hours each. At the end of the module feedback on their perception was obtained by pre validated questionnaire and was analysed. RESULTS: A majority of the students (96.1%) opined that the AETCOM Module will definitely improve their communication skills with the patients. They also felt that such training should be integrated in regular teaching curriculum and done continuously in all the semesters. All the 100 students were given the same questionnaire. Most (30) of the first-year students joined the foundation course late because of the delay in the counselling; whereas, at any given time, 20 students were absent for these teaching sessions. AETCOM Module was satisfactory for 84% of students. For 12% it was just satisfactory, the other extreme, 4% students were highly satisfied. Students’ views on AETCOM were- asset for gaining confidence of the patients (72%), useful for themselves and for future practice (10%), excellent method for improvement of diagnosis (8%), wanted multiple exposures continuously throughout the UG course (6%) and can avoid medicolegal issues (4%). CONCLUSIONS: The AETCOM Module will be good for the second year MBBS students on the whole for communicating better with the patients in their medical course. Strengths of this study include feedback from the students for further improvement in the long-term outcome

Popular talk radio and everyday life in Mauritius

This study has attempted to explore the myriad ways talk radio is tied to everyday life in Mauritius. As a point of departure, this study has considered the success of Mauritian private radio stations as a social phenomenon that deserves attention. It has delved into the ways talk radio, especially their morning talk radio programmes, are tied to notions of citizenship, democracy and development. Anchoring popular talk radio as practice, the study has used a multilevel approach to find out what do people do to talk radio, what kinds of engagement are pursued, which ethical considerations are valued and the implications for citizenship and democracy in a Mauritian context of power differentials and social inequalities. Following a three tier approach implying discourse analysis of morning talk radio, focus group discussions with listeners as well as in-depth interviews of journalists, this study has underlined the importance and significance of the new political that has emerged, highlighting the fact that the democratisation of the radio airwaves in 2002 has allowed political engagements and participation of ordinary people hitherto excluded from the Mauritian public sphere. Against the perspective that views the public sphere as constituted unequivocally in rationality and consensus, this study contends that talk on morning talk radio is inherently conflictual and is performed in reason and affects. Anger, fear, anxiety, hope and solidarity are discursive resources that define the life trajectories of ordinary people but are also ways for listeners to “feel their way” into the stories and to bond together to create a sense of engaged community however fleeting these communities may be. The ethics of care and solidarity afforded by talk radio journalists to these communities shift understandings of the liberal democratic norms of journalism from professionalism to “interpretive communities” that are characterized by social reciprocity. Adopting a decolonial approach that foregrounds the importance of listening to the lived experiences of people, this study finally makes the case for an ethics of listening that is based on re-imagining the conditions for talk radio journalists to listen deeply to people, especially to marginalized communities as a way for journalism to stay relevant while improving the capabilities of people and consolidating the conditions of living together well

Wind Farm Life Cycle Cost Analysis

The usage of wind turbine in power generation promotes an alternative option to fossil fuels or any other non-renewable energy sources. Optimizing the life cycle costs of wind farm entertains its usage for generating power to a larger extent in the modern world. This paper analyzes the costs involved in various stages of the wind farm to generate a mathematical model for analyzing the life cycle costs. The previous researches mainly focused on the operation and maintenance costs of the wind farm that involves only 20-25% of the total costs by neglecting costs involved in the other stages. The stages involved in the costs analysis are manufacturing, onsite erection and assembling, transportation, operation and maintenance. To begin with, a generalized cost model is developed to estimate the life cycle costs of a wind farm. The generated cost model developed in this research is a function of project installation costs and operational expenses including equipment costs, development costs, construction costs, labor costs, material and service costs, taxes and other expenses. In the next stage data connection is performed using Jobs and Economic Development Model to determine the combined installation costs and operational expenses of the wind farm. A further case study is performed to determine the relationship between the calculated total costs over installation capacity and turbine size of the wind farms erected in the U.S. The results from this costs analysis could facilitate the wind power industry to generate energy at an optimal cost. This could be possibly utilized by industries that use renewable sources of energy, and it is eco-friendly, thereby emissions polluting the air can be controlled

Design, syntheses and protein responsive assembly/disassembly of amphiphilic dendrimers

Dendrimers, due to their well-controlled size and shape, have emerged as interesting macromolecular scaffolds for fundamental applications in materials to medicine. Amphiphilic dendrimers are among the attractive molecular systems for applications in drug delivery due to their ability to solubilize hydrophobic guest molecules in water. This thesis focuses on a class of amphiphilic biaryl dendrimers that self-assembles to form solvent-dependant supramolecular assemblies, and discusses the following: (i) Molecular design and synthetic strategies for incorporating a single probe unit at specific locations of the dendrimer backbone for understanding microenvironment variation in dendrimer molecules. (ii) Study on the self-assembling properties of amphiphilic dendrimers that are functionalized with bioactive moieties. (iii) Demonstration of the disassembly of the amphiphilic assemblies of these dendrimers using both enzymatic and non-enzymatic proteins. It also elaborates the disassembly-driven release of hydrophobic guest molecules from the assembly interiors. The findings of this dissertation would provide molecular level understanding on both self-assembling properties of amphiphilic macromolecules and strategies to disassemble the amphiphilic assemblies using biological triggers such as proteins

Synthesis, X-ray crystal structure, Hirshfeld surface analysis and DFT studies of (\it E)-\it N\prime-(2-bromo\-benzyl\-idene)-4-methylbenzohydrazide

The title mol\-ecule, C\sb 15H\sb 13BrN\sb 2O, displays a \it trans configuration with respect to the C=N double bond. The dihedral angle between the bromo- and methyl-substituted benzene rings is 16.1(3)\circ. In the crystal, mol\-ecules are connected by N—-H⋅sO and weak C—-H⋅sO hydrogen bonds, forming \it R\sb 2\sp 1(6) ring motifs and generating chains along the \it a—axis direction. The optimized structure generated theoretically \it via density functional theory (DFT) using standard B3LYP functional and 6—311G(d,p) basis-set calculations renders good support to the experimental data. The HOMO—LUMO behaviour was elucidated to determine the energy gap. The inter\-molecular inter\-actions were qu\-anti\-fied and analysed using Hirshfeld surface analysis

enhance the Hardness on Squeeze Cast Aluminium Alloy AA6061 #1, #3

Abstract--The automotive and aerospace industries have been the main driving force behind the search of new production processes which are capable of producing components with high integrity. Squeeze casting is one such novel metal processing technique which combines the advantages of both casting and forging in one operation. Squeeze casting process is suited for all melting ranges of metals varying from lead to iron. But nowadays, light weight materials like aluminium and magnesium are mostly used in the industries. Aluminium alloy AA6061 is one such futuristic material that is widely used to produce automotive and aerospace components. Although the squeeze casting process has many obvious advantages in producing parts of light metals that can be utilized in structural applications, the full potential can only be realized after the process parameters have been optimized. In this attempt, cylindrical components of AA6061 were produced using squeeze casting process and their hardness values were found out. The optimal process parameter combination to obtain maximum hardness was calculated using Taguchi method and Genetic Algorithm approaches. It was observed that Genetic Algorithm yielded better solution when compared to the solution provided by Taguchi Method