Determination of Trace Elements in Sediments Samples by Using Neutron Activation Analysis

The Juru River is a highly industrialized, urbanized, and agricultural catchment. This study aimed to investigate trace elements in Juru mangrove sediments, including geochemical baselines and enrichment. Sediment was collected from the mangrove in Juru, Penang, Malaysia. A total of eight target elements was examined.  Instrumentation activation analysis (INAA) was used to determine the concentration of Fe, V, Cr, Zn and Co. Atomic absorption spectrometry (AAS) was used to determine the concentration of elements that not detectable by INAA (Cd, Pb, and As). In both methods, validated reference material studies were used for validation of the methodology. Metal pollution was estimated using the Enrichment Factor (EF), Geoaccumulation Index (Igeo), Contamination Factor (CF), and Pollutant Load Index (PLI). The EF, Igeo, and CF ranges from 0.45–7.96, -2.18 – 1.95, and 0.33–5.83 respectively. The order of accumulation of the elemental concentration found was Fe > Zn> Cr > V > Pb > As > Co >Cd. The computed mean value of PLI exceeds the unit (PLI > 1)

Preliminary assessment of Polytrichum commune extract as an antimicrobial soap ingredient

Mosses have long been used in traditional Chinese medicine due to the presence of secondary metabolites which have shown high biological activities. In particular, these secondary metabolites have demonstrated effective antibacterial activity against pathogenic microorganisms. In this study, the influence of different extraction solvents on the antibacterial activities of the Polytrichum commune was carried out using the disc diffusion method. Results showed that both 12.5 mg/mL of methanol moss extract and 6.25 mg/mL of ethanol moss extract were the most effective concentrations against Bacillus cereus and Pseudomonas aeruginosa. Additionally, the P. commune extracts were included as an added ingredient in soap bases to produce antibacterial soap prototypes where the effectiveness of the soaps containing the extracts in removing microorganisms from actual test individuals was carried out. Results of the thumb impression test of test individuals showed that the growth of microbial reduced after washing hands with the usage of both liquid and solid soap with the addition of P. commune extracts. Moreover, the antibacterial soaps performed better in eliminating microorganisms in comparison to control soaps without P. commune extracts. Taken together, P. commune extract could be a good candidate as a value-added ingredient utilized to produce antibacterial soaps due to its antibacterial properties

Development of biodegradable solid polymer electrolytes incorporating different nanoparticles for electric double layer capacitor / Chong Mee Yoke

The increasing demand, rapid consumption of fossil fuels and undesirable consequences of environmental pollution are the alarming concerns from the last few decades. Therefore, much effort has been made to develop biodegradable solid polymer electrolyte (SPE) using natural polymer as host polymer for energy storage and energy conversion devices. The choice of natural polymers as host polymer for the preparation of SPE are hydroxylpropylmethyl cellulose (HPMC) and hydroxylethyl cellulose (HEC). As a result, HEC has been chosen in this study because it has huge amount of hydroxyl groups compared to cellulose and its derivatives. Consequently, it assists in the adsorption of charge carriers, which results in the improvement of charge storage capacity. However, preparation of biodegradable SPE by using solution casting technique exhibits low ionic conductivity. Thus, green ionic liquid (1-ethyl-3-methylimidazolium trifluoromethanesulfonate (EMIMTf)) and nanoparticles (fumed silica (fumed SiO2), copper(II) oxide (CuO) and yttrium(III) oxide (Y2O3)) have been incorporated into the biodegradable SPE along with magnesium trifluoromethanesulfonate (MgTf2) salt as mobile charge carriers to improve its ionic conductivity for electric double layer capacitor (EDLC). Electric double layer capacitor has been chosen over batteries owing to their good thermal and chemical stability, higher potential window (which leads to high energy density) and longer cycling stability. Based on the findings, cell fabricated by inclusion of 2 wt. % of CuO nanoparticles obtained the highest specific capacitance (36.7 F/g) at scan rate of 5 mV/s along with the lowest charge transfer resistance (25.0 Ω) whereas cell fabricated by 2 wt. % of Y2O3 nanoparticles achieved the highest capacitance retention of 91.3 % over 3,000 cycles at current density of 0.4 A/g

Enhancing the performance of green solid-state electric double-layer capacitor incorporated with fumed silica nanoparticles

Solid polymer electrolyte (SPE) based on fumed silica nanoparticles as nanofillers, hydroxylethyl cellulose (HEC) as host polymer, magnesium trifluoromethanesulfonate salt and 1-ethyl-3-methylimidazolium trifluoromethanesulfonate ionic liquid is prepared by solution casting technique. The ionic conductivity, interactions of adsorbed ions on the host polymer, structural crystallinity and thermal stability are evaluated by electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), X-ray diffraction (XRD) and thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), respectively. Ionic conductivity studies at room temperature reveals that the SPE with 2 wt. % of fumed silica nanoparticles gives the highest conductivity compared to its counterpart. The XRD and FTIR studies confirm the dissolution of salt, ionic liquid and successful incorporation of fumed silica nanoparticles with host polymer. In order to examine the performance of SPEs, electric double-layer capacitor (EDLC) are fabricated by using activated carbon electrodes. EDLC studies demonstrate that SPE incorporated with 2 wt. % fumed silica nanoparticles gives high specific capacitance (25.0 F/g) at a scan rate of 5 mV/s compared to SPE without fumed silica. Additionally, it is able to withstand 71.3% of capacitance from its initial capacitance value over 1600 cycles at a current density of 0.4 A/g

Role of ionic liquid and tin (IV) oxide nanoparticles on the ionic conductivity of biodegradable solid polymer electrolyte

Solution casting technique is used to prepare solid polymer electrolyte (SPE) utilizing biodegradable hydroxyethyl cellulose (HEC) as host polymer and magnesium trifluoromethanesulfonate (MgTf2) salt as charge carrier. However, the performance of the SPE is hindered by it's low ionic conductivity at room temperature. Thus, room temperature ionic liquid, 1-ethyl-3-methylimidazolium trifluoromethane sulfonate (EMIMTf) and tin (IV) oxide (SnO2) nanoparticles have been added into the SPE to overcome the shortcomings. As a result, the room temperature ionic conductivity improved to 9.28 × 10-5 and 2.84 × × 10-4 S/cm upon addition of 40 wt.% EMIMTf ionic liquid and 2 wt.% of SnO2 nanoparticles, respectively. The conductivity-temperature plot shows that the transportation of ions in these films obey Arrhenius theory. The improvement of the ionic conductivity at room temperature for HSn2 makes it attractive for application to electrochemical devices

Integrative pathway enrichment analysis of multivariate omics data

Multi-omics datasets represent distinct aspects of the central dogma of molecular biology. Such high-dimensional molecular profiles pose challenges to data interpretation and hypothesis generation. ActivePathways is an integrative method that discovers significantly enriched pathways across multiple datasets using statistical data fusion, rationalizes contributing evidence and highlights associated genes. As part of the ICGC/TCGA Pan-Cancer Analysis of Whole Genomes (PCAWG) Consortium, which aggregated whole genome sequencing data from 2658 cancers across 38 tumor types, we integrated genes with coding and non-coding mutations and revealed frequently mutated pathways and additional cancer genes with infrequent mutations. We also analyzed prognostic molecular pathways by integrating genomic and transcriptomic features of 1780 breast cancers and highlighted associations with immune response and anti-apoptotic signaling. Integration of ChIP-seq and RNA-seq data for master regulators of the Hippo pathway across normal human tissues identified processes of tissue regeneration and stem cell regulation. ActivePathways is a versatile method that improves systems-level understanding of cellular organization in health and disease through integration of multiple molecular datasets and pathway annotations