Electrochemical studies of conducting polymers

This project addresses the development of low band gap organic materials with high intrinsic conductivity which remains a big challenge for many conducting polymer based applications. New bridged bithiophene and fluorene systems were investigated. Results proved that the linkage of two bridged bithiophene moieties by a double bond, and bridging fluorene moieties by sulphur atoms can produce low band gap materials with low-lying LUMO energy levels. This new approach to the design of low band gap materials compliments the strategy of introducing electron withdrawing groups at an sp² carbon bridging a bithienyl precursor for producing n-type conjugated low band gap systems. Advanced polymerization techniques such as copolymerization (polymerization from solution of two monomers), homopolymerization of a comonomer (a molecule containing both monomer units) and working electrode rotation during polymer growth were developed to tune band gaps and enhance intrinsic conductivities. Investigations of copolymers with conjugated bridged bithiophene and fluorene systems support the donor acceptor strategy for band gap reduction. Hence, by advanced synthetic strategies, the band gap of a polythiophene derivative was tuned from 1.0 e V to 0.1 e V and its intrinsic conductivity was improved by an order of magnitude. Further, a variety of polyfluorene derivatives with band gaps ranging from 1.2 eV to 0.8 eV were synthesized and structureconductivity relationships were studied. These materials may have potential uses in electrochromic displays and related applications

Gutman Index and Detour Gutman Index of Pseudo-Regular Graphs

The Gutman index of a connected graph G is defined as Gut(G)=∑u≠vd(u)d(v)d(u,v), where d(u)  and  d(v) are the degree of the vertices u  and  v and d(u,v) is the distance between vertices u  and  v. The Detour Gutman index of a connected graph G is defined as   GutG=∑u≠vd(u)d(v)D(u,v), where D(u,v) is the longest distance between vertices u  and  v. In this paper, the Gutman index and the Detour Gutman index of pseudo-regular graphs are determined

Investigations on Self-Curing Concrete using Polyethylene Glycol

Curing is the name given to the procedure used for promoting the hydration of the cement and consist a control of temperature and moisture movement from the concrete. Curing allows continuous hydration of cement and consequently continuous gain in the strength, once curing stops strength gain of the concrete also stops. Proper moisture conditions are critical because the hydration of the cement virtually ceases when the relative humidity within the capillaries drops below 80%. Proper curing of concrete structures is important to meet performance and durability requirements. In conventional curing this is achieved by external curing applied after mixing, placing and finishing. Self-curing or internal curing is a technique that can be used to provide additional moisture in concrete for more effective hydration of cement and reduced self-desiccation. When concrete is exposed to the environment evaporation of water takes place and loss of moisture will reduce the initial water cement ratio which will result in the incomplete hydration of the cement and hence lowering the quality of the concrete. An experimental study carried out an investigate the use of water-soluble polyethylene glycol as self-curing agent. In this study compressive, tensile and flexural strength of self-curing concrete for 7 and 28 days is found out and compared with conventional concrete of similar mix design

Cold compaction of ODS 9Cr martensitic steel powder synthesized by mechanical alloying

119-124Oxide dispersion strengthened (ODS) steels are advanced class of nanoscale composite materials whose microstructure can be controlled through incorporation of oxide particles by mechanical alloying (MA). This paper deals with the methodologies attempted for cold compaction followed by subsequent sintering of ODS steel of composition Fe-9.2Cr-2W-0.2Ti-0.28V-0.01Mn-0.01Si-0.152C-0.02Ni-0.008Mo-0.33Y2O3  synthesized via mechanical alloying of elemental powders. Microstructural studies of the compacted and vacuum sintered specimens after solutionizing heat treatment are reported. As-cold compacted specimens had a green density of 82% TD. Hardness of the heat treated samples is also reported

5G Elliptical Slot-Coupled Butler Matrix with Tri-beam Antenna Beamforming Systems

This paper presents a beam forming network using a three-input three-output Butler Matrix which is designed using the slot-coupled transition method. In this method, two sides of the substrate are stacked on top of each other, resulting in a compact size and a non-lossy structure. Unlike the conventional Butler Matrix, this design only requires hybrid couplers and phase shifters while circumvents the crossover structure. In the design of the Butler Matrix, three elliptical slot-coupled hybrids (ESH) with common ground plane are connected to the 0 degree, −90 degree and −180 degree phase shifters which produce the progressive output phase difference of 0 degree, −120 degree, and 120 degree, respectively. When the Butler Matrix with patch antenna array is fed with signals, three beams are created, pointing towards −4 degree, −36 degree, and 29 degree with the gains of 11 dBi, 9.19 dBi, and 11 dBi, respectively. The radiation pattern is generated from the antenna array factor, which derived from the consecutive output phases with λ 0 /2 antenna spacing at 28 GHz. The system can be a platform for fifth generation (5G) wireless connectivity at millimeter wave

Multiplicative Long Short-Term Memory with Improved Mayfly Optimization for LULC Classification

Land Use and Land Cover (LULC) monitoring is crucial for global transformation, sustainable land control, urban planning, urban growth prediction, and the establishment of climate regulations for long-term development. Remote sensing images have become increasingly important in many environmental planning and land use surveys in recent times. LULC is evaluated in this research using the Sat 4, Sat 6, and Eurosat datasets. Various spectral feature bands are involved, but unexpectedly little consideration has been given to these characteristics in deep learning models. Due to the wide availability of RGB models in computer vision, this research mainly utilized RGB bands. Once the pre-processing is carried out for the images of the selected dataset, the hybrid feature extraction is performed using Haralick texture features, an oriented gradient histogram, a local Gabor binary pattern histogram sequence, and Harris Corner Detection to extract features from the images. After that, the Improved Mayfly Optimization (IMO) method is used to choose the optimal features. IMO-based feature selection algorithms have several advantages that include features such as a high learning rate and computational efficiency. After obtaining the optimal feature selection, the LULC classes are classified using a multi-class classifier known as the Multiplicative Long Short-Term Memory (mLSTM) network. The main functionality of the multiplicative LSTM classifier is to recall appropriate information for a comprehensive duration. In order to accomplish an improved result in LULC classification, a higher amount of remote sensing data should be processed. So, the simulation outcomes demonstrated that the proposed IMO-mLSTM efficiently classifies the LULC classes in terms of classification accuracy, recall, and precision. When compared with ConvNet and Alexnet, the proposed IMO-mLSTM method accomplished accuracies of 99.99% on Sat 4, 99.98% on Sat 6, and 98.52% on the Eurosat datasets

Hydrothermal synthesis of titanium dioxide nanoparticles: mosquitocidal potential and anticancer activity on human breast cancer cells (MCF-7)

Mosquito vectors (Diptera: Culicidae) are responsible for transmission of serious diseases worldwide. Mosquito control is being enhanced in many areas, but there are significant challenges, including increasing resistance to insecticides and lack of alternative, cost-effective, and eco-friendly products. To deal with these crucial issues, recent emphasis has been placed on plant materials with mosquitocidal properties. Furthermore, cancers figure among the leading causes of morbidity and mortality worldwide, with approximately 14 million new cases and 8.2 million cancer-related deaths in 2012. It is expected that annual cancer cases will rise from 14 million in 2012 to 22 million within the next two decades. Nanotechnology is a promising field of research and is expected to give major innovation impulses in a variety of industrial sectors. In this study, we synthesized titanium dioxide (TiO2) nanoparticles using the hydrothermal method. Nanoparticles were subjected to different analysis including UV–Vis spectrophotometry, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), X-ray diffraction (XRD), field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM), zeta potential, and energy-dispersive spectrometric (EDX). The synthesized TiO2 nanoparticles exhibited dose-dependent cytotoxicity against human breast cancer cells (MCF-7) and normal breast epithelial cells (HBL-100). After 24-h incubation, the inhibitory concentrations (IC50) were found to be 60 and 80 μg/mL on MCF-7 and normal HBL-100 cells, respectively. Induction of apoptosis was evidenced by Acridine Orange (AO)/ethidium bromide (EtBr) and 4′,6-diamidino-2-phenylindole dihydrochloride (DAPI) staining. In larvicidal and pupicidal experiments conducted against the primary dengue mosquito Aedes aegypti, LC50 values of nanoparticles were 4.02 ppm (larva I), 4.962 ppm (larva II), 5.671 ppm (larva III), 6.485 ppm (larva IV), and 7.527 ppm (pupa). Overall, our results suggested that TiO2 nanoparticles may be considered as a safe tool to build newer and safer mosquitocides and chemotherapeutic agents with little systemic toxicity