LARVICIDAL AND ANTIBACTERIAL EFFICACY OF GREEN SYNTHESISED SILVER NANOPARTICLES USING MELIA DUBIA

Objectives: Plant extracts seems to be a better alternative to control pathogenic organisms due to the presence of many bioactive compounds. In addition, the plant mediated synthesized silver nanoparticles also have important applications in the field of biology, the present study aims to study the activity of AgNP's (Silver Nanoparticles) synthesized using the leaves of Melia dubia against the 4th instar larvae of Culex quinquefasciatus and pathogenic microbes Methods: The synthesized AgNP's were characterized by UV-Vis spectrum, Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM), Energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy(EDX) and Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR). The 4th instar larvae of Culex quinquefasciatus were exposed to different concentrations of aqueous leaf extract (5, 10, 15, 20, 25ppm) and Silver nanoparticles (1, 2, 3, 4, 5 ppm) for 24 hours period. The antibacterial activity was measured by disk diffusion method against Bacillus subtilis, Proteus mirabilis, Klebseilla pneumoniae, Escherichia coli, and Vibrio cholerae. Results: The observations reveal that the silver nanoparticles synthesized using Melia dubia leaves were more effective than the crude leaf extract of the plant over Culex quinquefasciatus and microbes tested. Moreover, the results of metabolites also revealed that the AgNP's significantly altered the carbohydrates and protein level in the 4th instar larvae of Culex quinquefasciatus. Conclusion: The larvicidal and bactericidal activities are due to various phytoconstituents coated with the nanoparticles. It is further inferred from the results that the use of AgNP's for the control of targeted vectors is to eradicate disease transmitting mosquitoes as well as to control microbes

Impact of opioid-free analgesia on pain severity and patient satisfaction after discharge from surgery: multispecialty, prospective cohort study in 25 countries

Background: Balancing opioid stewardship and the need for adequate analgesia following discharge after surgery is challenging. This study aimed to compare the outcomes for patients discharged with opioid versus opioid-free analgesia after common surgical procedures.Methods: This international, multicentre, prospective cohort study collected data from patients undergoing common acute and elective general surgical, urological, gynaecological, and orthopaedic procedures. The primary outcomes were patient-reported time in severe pain measured on a numerical analogue scale from 0 to 100% and patient-reported satisfaction with pain relief during the first week following discharge. Data were collected by in-hospital chart review and patient telephone interview 1 week after discharge.Results: The study recruited 4273 patients from 144 centres in 25 countries; 1311 patients (30.7%) were prescribed opioid analgesia at discharge. Patients reported being in severe pain for 10 (i.q.r. 1-30)% of the first week after discharge and rated satisfaction with analgesia as 90 (i.q.r. 80-100) of 100. After adjustment for confounders, opioid analgesia on discharge was independently associated with increased pain severity (risk ratio 1.52, 95% c.i. 1.31 to 1.76; P < 0.001) and re-presentation to healthcare providers owing to side-effects of medication (OR 2.38, 95% c.i. 1.36 to 4.17; P = 0.004), but not with satisfaction with analgesia (beta coefficient 0.92, 95% c.i. -1.52 to 3.36; P = 0.468) compared with opioid-free analgesia. Although opioid prescribing varied greatly between high-income and low- and middle-income countries, patient-reported outcomes did not.Conclusion: Opioid analgesia prescription on surgical discharge is associated with a higher risk of re-presentation owing to side-effects of medication and increased patient-reported pain, but not with changes in patient-reported satisfaction. Opioid-free discharge analgesia should be adopted routinely

Advance duct pressure control for HVAC system

97 p.Most of the controllers commissioned in industrial areas are of Proportional-integralderivative (PID) type. Tuning a proper PID controller requires an accurate model of a Process and an effective controller design rule. The tuning procedure can be a timeconsuming, expensive and difficult task. This is also true to Heating, Ventilating, and Air-conditioning (HVAC) systems. Although many improved PID design methods are proposed, the Ziegler and Nichols (Z-N) methods are still adopted by many HVAC control engineers. The Z-N methods have been most commonly used in HVAC systems. It has sometimes been difficult to compensate fully for load disturbance and to keep controlled variables close to set point values within the prescribed range, have the shortcomings such as long testing time, limited control performance.Master of Science (Computer Control and Automation

Design and Implementation of a Shape Shifting Rolling–Crawling–Wall-Climbing Robot

Designing an urban reconnaissance robot is highly challenging work given the nature of the terrain in which these robots are required to operate. In this work, we attempt to extend the locomotion capabilities of these robots beyond what is currently feasible. The design and unique features of our bio-inspired reconfigurable robot, called Scorpio, with rolling, crawling, and wall-climbing locomotion abilities are presented in this paper. The design of the Scorpio platform is inspired by Cebrennus rechenbergi, a rare spider species that has rolling, crawling and wall-climbing locomotion attributes. This work also presents the kinematic and dynamic model of Scorpio. The mechanical design and system architecture are introduced in detail, followed by a detailed description on the locomotion modes. The conducted experiments validated the proposed approach and the ability of the Scorpio platform to synthesise crawling, rolling and wall-climbing behaviours. Future work is envisioned for using these robots as active, unattended, mobile ground sensors in urban reconnaissance missions. The accompanying video demonstrates the shape shifting locomotion capabilities of the Scorpio robot

Tarantula: Design, Modeling, and Kinematic Identification of a Quadruped Wheeled Robot

This paper firstly presents the design and modeling of a quadruped wheeled robot named Tarantula. It has four legs each having four degrees of freedom with a proximal end attached to the trunk and the wheels for locomotion connected at the distal end. The two legs in the front and two at the back are actuated using two motors which are placed inside the trunk for simultaneous abduction or adduction. It is designed to manually reconfigure its topology as per the cross-sections of the drainage system. The bi-directional suspension system is designed using a single damper to prevent the trunk and inside components from shock. Formulation for kinematics of the wheels that is coupled with the kinematics of each leg is presented. We proposed the cost-effective method which is also an on-site approach to estimate the kinematic parameters and the effective trunk dimension after assembly of the quadruped robot using the monocular camera and ArUco markers instead of high-end devices like a laser tracker or coordinate measurement machine. The measurement technique is evaluated experimentally and the same set up was used for trajectory tracking of the Tarantula. The experimental method for the kinematic identification presented here can be easily extended to the other mobile robots with serial architecture designed legs

Fault Diagnosis of a Reconfigurable Crawling–Rolling Robot Based on Support Vector Machines

As robots begin to perform jobs autonomously, with minimal or no human intervention, a new challenge arises: robots also need to autonomously detect errors and recover from faults. In this paper, we present a Support Vector Machine (SVM)-based fault diagnosis system for a bio-inspired reconfigurable robot named Scorpio. The diagnosis system needs to detect and classify faults while Scorpio uses its crawling and rolling locomotion modes. Specifically, we classify between faulty and non-faulty conditions by analyzing onboard Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU) sensor data. The data capture nine different locomotion gaits, which include rolling and crawling modes, at three different speeds. Statistical methods are applied to extract features and to reduce the dimensionality of original IMU sensor data features. These statistical features were given as inputs for training and testing. Additionally, the c-Support Vector Classification (c-SVC) and nu-SVC models of SVM, and their fault classification accuracies, were compared. The results show that the proposed SVM approach can be used to autonomously diagnose locomotion gait faults while the reconfigurable robot is in operation

Copper Oxide Nanorod/Reduced Graphene Oxide Composites for NH3Sensing

The NH3 sensing performance of copper oxide (CuO) nanorods can be enhanced with reduced graphene oxide (rGO) composites (i.e., CuO:rGO) due to their favorable Fermi level alignments and improved carrier mobility. However, the conductivity and the active sites in CuO:rGO are highly determined by the preparation techniques. Hence, we attempt to unravel the role of different chemical routes (wet chemical synthesis and hydrothermal preparation techniques) on the NH3 sensor device performance of CuO:rGO. Morphological imaging reveals the formation of 1D structures in both preparation techniques, and the role of graphene oxide on the evolution of CuO nanorods is discussed. First-principles calculations probe the interactions between CuO:rGO and NH3, and the structure is optimized for the most stable configuration. The absorption binding energies of the CuO:rGO–NH3 systems are measured to be 1.36 eV, which is much higher than those of the metal–rGO composites. For 50 ppm of NH3, the sensor response is measured to be 3.87 and 6.29 for chemically and hydrothermally synthesized CuO:rGO, respectively. The enhanced response of hydrothermal CuO:rGO is due to the more active sites induced on the CuO nanorod surface by rGO and the favorable band bending at the rGO–CuO interface.Fil: Sivalingam, Muthu Mariappan. St. Peter's Institute Of Higher Education And Research; India. National Institute Of Technology Tiruchirappalli; IndiaFil: Olmos Asar, Jimena Anahí. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Córdoba. Instituto de Investigaciones en Físico-química de Córdoba. Universidad Nacional de Córdoba. Facultad de Ciencias Químicas. Instituto de Investigaciones en Físico-química de Córdoba; Argentina. Universidad Nacional de Córdoba. Facultad de Ciencias Químicas. Departamento de Química Teórica y Computacional; ArgentinaFil: Vinoth, Elangovan. Srm Institute Of Science And Technology; IndiaFil: Tharmar, Thangeeswari. Vel Tech Multitech; IndiaFil: Shkir, Mohd.. King Khalid University; IndiaFil: Said, Zafar. University Of Sharjah; Emiratos Arabes UnidosFil: Balasubramanian, Karthikeyan. National Institute Of Technology Tiruchirappalli; Indi