Environmental friendly method for the extraction of cellulose from Triflolium resopinatum and its characterization

The leaves of Triflolium resopinatum were collected from the mountains of Malakand division, Khyber Pukhtoonkhwa, Pakistan and was grinded into smaller particles and converted into powder. The ground biomass was treated with different solvents in the Soxhlet apparatus for the removal of soluble extractive like pectin, cutin and wax substances. For bond breaking the alkaline substance was kept in the autoclave. Ethylene diamine tetra-acetate (EDTA) and hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) were used for the removal of most polar substances like pectin, cutin, waxes and other extractives. Furthermore, raw cellulose was purified through acetic acid and nitric acid. Double distilled water was used for the neutralization of pH.The analysis of purified cellulose was carried out through different procedures such as X-ray Diffraction (XRD), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The extracted cellulose has high degree of purity and crystallinity (72%) and thermal stability indicating that the process for the extraction of cellulose is quite adequate.               KEY WORDS: Triflolium resopinatum, Cellulose, FTIR, XRD, TGA, SEM Bull. Chem. Soc. Ethiop. 2019, 33(1), 61-68DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.4314/bcse.v33i1.

Removal of basic green 5 by carbonaceous adsorbent: Adsorption kinetics

The Eucalyptus lenceolata wood was collected from Malakand division, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Pakistan. Chemical activation of sample was conducted for surface efficiency. Batch studies were performed to address various experimental parameters like, contact time, temperature and adsorbent dosage for the removal of dye. For elemental analysis, surface morphology and for identification of different functional groups, energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS), scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) techniques were applied, respectively. Removal of dye (Basic Green 5) was studied on raw and activated samples by kinetics adsorption at different temperature. BET adsorption isotherm was used to characterize the surface area of the sample. Under the conditions investigated, a higher carbonization temperature promoted development of porous structures. Intraparticle diffusion, Elovich and Bhangam models were used for adsorption kinetics studies. From adsorption kinetic data thermodynamic parameters like ΔH≠, ΔS≠ and ΔE≠ were determined. The results show that the adsorption is spontaneous process. The endothermic nature of adsorptive process is due to the positive value of enthalpy. The negative entropy shows that acids molecules on the surface of adsorbent take an oriented position. The results shows that all the models were best fitted for these data of adsorption.               KEY WORDS: Activated carbon, Adsorption, SEM, EDS, FTIR, Surface area Bull. Chem. Soc. Ethiop. 2017, 31(3), 411-422. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.4314/bcse.v31i3.

Raman Spectroscopic Analysis of Normal, Dysplastic and Cancerous Oral Mucosa: A Tissue Engineering Approach

Head and neck cancer (HNC) is the sixth most common malignancy worldwide. Squamous cell carcinoma, the primary cause of HNC, evolves from normal epithelium through dysplasia before invading the connective tissue to form a carcinoma. Only 5% of suspicious lesions progress to cancer and diagnosis currently relies on histopathological evaluation, which is invasive and time consuming. A non-invasive, real-time point-of-care method could overcome these problems and facilitate regular screening. Infrared (IR) and Raman spectroscopy (RS) can non-invasively provide information regarding biochemical differences between normal and abnormal tissues. In this study, RS was employed to distinguish between different tissues-engineered models. 3D tissue engineered models of normal, dysplastic and head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) using normal oral keratinocytes, dysplastic (D19, D20 and DOK) and HNSCC cell lines (Cal27 , SCC4 and FaDu) were constructed and their biochemical content predicted by interpretation of their spectral characteristics. Spectral features of normal tissue samples were mainly attributed to lipids, whereas, malignant tissue samples were observed to be protein dominant. Visible differences were found between the spectra of normal, dysplastic and cancerous models, specifically in the bands of amide I and III. The spectra of HNSCC models showed a broad and strong peak of amide I instead of the sharp and weak lipid peak in normal models at band centred at 1667 cm-1. A shift at 2937 cm-1 was only observed in DOK, differentiating them from the other tissue types. Principal Component Analysis (PCA) and Cluster Analysis (CA) distinguished noticeable differences between tissues

Botanicals to Control Soft Rot Bacteria of Potato

Extracts from eleven different plant species such as jute (Corchorus capsularis L.), cheerota (Swertia chiraita Ham.), chatim (Alstonia scholaris L.), mander (Erythrina variegata), bael (Aegle marmelos L.), marigold (Tagetes erecta), onion (Allium cepa), garlic (Allium sativum L.), neem (Azadiracta indica), lime (Citrus aurantifolia), and turmeric (Curcuma longa L.) were tested for antibacterial activity against potato soft rot bacteria, E. carotovora subsp. carotovora (Ecc) P-138, under in vitro and storage conditions. Previously, Ecc P-138 was identified as the most aggressive soft rot bacterium in Bangladeshi potatoes. Of the 11 different plant extracts, only extracts from dried jute leaves and cheerota significantly inhibited growth of Ecc P-138 in vitro. Finally, both plant extracts were tested to control the soft rot disease of potato tuber under storage conditions. In a 22-week storage condition, the treated potatoes were significantly more protected against the soft rot infection than those of untreated samples in terms of infection rate and weight loss. The jute leaf extracts showed more pronounced inhibitory effects on Ecc-138 growth both in in vitro and storage experiments

Variational calculations of the Λ\Lambda-seperation energy of the Λ17_{\Lambda}^{17}O hypernucleus

Variational Monte Carlo calculations have been made for the $_{ \Lambda}^{17}$O hypernucleus using realistic two- and three-baryon interactions. A two pion exchange potential with spin- and space-exchange components is used for the $\Lambda$N potential. Three-body two-pion exchange and strongly repulsive dispersive $\Lambda$NN interactions are also included. The trial wave function is constructed from pair- and triplet-correlation operators acting on a single particle determinant. These operators consist of central, spin, isospin, tensor and three- baryon potential components. A cluster Monte Carlo method is developed for noncentral correlations and is used with up to four-baryon clusters in our calculations. The three-baryon $\Lambda$NN force is discussed.Comment: 24 pages, 2 figs available by fax., for publication in Phys. Rev.

3D Face Reconstruction from Light Field Images: A Model-free Approach

Reconstructing 3D facial geometry from a single RGB image has recently instigated wide research interest. However, it is still an ill-posed problem and most methods rely on prior models hence undermining the accuracy of the recovered 3D faces. In this paper, we exploit the Epipolar Plane Images (EPI) obtained from light field cameras and learn CNN models that recover horizontal and vertical 3D facial curves from the respective horizontal and vertical EPIs. Our 3D face reconstruction network (FaceLFnet) comprises a densely connected architecture to learn accurate 3D facial curves from low resolution EPIs. To train the proposed FaceLFnets from scratch, we synthesize photo-realistic light field images from 3D facial scans. The curve by curve 3D face estimation approach allows the networks to learn from only 14K images of 80 identities, which still comprises over 11 Million EPIs/curves. The estimated facial curves are merged into a single pointcloud to which a surface is fitted to get the final 3D face. Our method is model-free, requires only a few training samples to learn FaceLFnet and can reconstruct 3D faces with high accuracy from single light field images under varying poses, expressions and lighting conditions. Comparison on the BU-3DFE and BU-4DFE datasets show that our method reduces reconstruction errors by over 20% compared to recent state of the art

The SUSY EW-like corrections to top pair production in photon-photon collisions

We studied the one-loop contributions of the gaugino-Higgsino-sector to the process of top-pair production via $\gamma \gamma$ fusion at NLC in frame of the Minimal Supersymmetric Model(MSSM). We find that the corrections to $\gamma \gamma \to t\bar{t}$ and $e^+ e^- \to \gamma \gamma \to t\bar{t}$ are found to be significant and can approach to a few percent and one percent, respectively. Furthermore, the dependences of the corrections on the supersymmetric parameters are also investigated. The corrections are not sensitive to $M_{SU(2)}$ (or $|\mu|$) when $M_{SU(2)}~>>~|\mu|$ (or $|\mu|~>>~M_{SU(2)}$) and are weakly dependent on the $\tan{\beta}$ with $M_Q$ (or $|\mu|$) being large enough. But they are sensitive to the c.m.s. energy of the incoming photons.Comment: LaTex, 33 pages, 8 Eps figuer

Pair Production of the Lightest Chargino via Gluon-Gluon Collisions

The production of the lightest chargino pair from gluon-gluon fusion is studied in the minimal supersymmetric model(MSSM) at proton-proton colliders. We find that with the chosen parameters, the production rate of the subprocess can be over 2.7 femto barn when the chargino is higgsino-like, and the corresponding total cross section in proton-proton collider can reach 56 femto barn at the LHC in the CP-conserving MSSM. It shows that this loop mediated subprocess can be competitive with the standard Drell-Yan subprocess in proton-proton colliders, especially at the LHC. Furthermore, our calculation shows it would be possible to extract information about some CP-violating phase parameters, if we collected enough chargino pair events.Comment: 39 pages, LaTex, 8 figure

The inflammatory microenvironment in colorectal neoplasia

Peer reviewedPublisher PD