Kinetic and equilibrium modeling of Cu(II) and Ni(II) sorption onto physically pretreated Rosa centifolia distillation waste biomass

The removal of Cu(II) and Ni(II) from aqueous solution by physically pretreated (boiled, heated and autoclaved) Rosa centifolia distillation waste biomass was conducted in batch conditions. The obtained results revealed that initial metal ion concentration, kinetics, and temperature affected the adsorption capacity of the physically pretreated R. centifolia distillation waste biomass. The Cu(II) and Ni(II) equilibrium sorption data agreed well to Langmuir isotherm model and the sorption kinetics were accurately described by pseudo second order kinetic model. The Cu(II) and Ni(II) uptake capacities (mg g-1) of physical pretreated R. centifolia distillation waste biomass were in following order: boiled (66.91) > heated (52.51) > autoclaved (49.82) > native (42.68) and boiled (67.55) > heated (65.19) > autoclaved (58.09) > native (45.19), respectively. The nature of R. centifolia distillation waste biomass surface functionalities was analyzed by FTIR spectroscopy.Keywords: Cu(II), Ni(II), isotherms, kinetics, pretreatment, Rosa centifolia

Risk factors for peritoneal dialysis catheter failure in children

Background Peritoneal dialysis catheter (PDC) failure still remains a common clinical problem in pediatric patients despite advancements in catheter placement and dialysis techniques. Our aim was to determine the risk factors that may lead to PDC failure, especially those factors that could be potentially modified to minimize PDC failures.Patients and methods This study was designed as a retrospective chart review of 31 patients less than 12 years of age who had end-stage renal disease (ESRD) on whom a total of 54 operative PDC placements were carried out at the tertiary Children’s Hospital, King Fahad Medical City, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, from January 2007 to December 2010. The data included patient demographics and perioperative and operative variables.Results Fifty-four PDCs were inserted in 31 pediatric patients with ESRD, of whom 17 (55%) were boys and 14 (45%) were girls. Young age showed a statistically significant effect on PDC failure [1.8 (± 5) vs. 5 (± 7.8), P = 0.007], whereas weight did not (P = 0.085). Five types of PDCs were used, which showed significant association with PDC failure (P =0.009). Supraumbilical paramedian abdominal entry incisions were used in 49 (90.7%) patients without peritoneal leakage in any case. Nonsimultaneous omentectomy and upward PDC exit site orientation showed significant association with PDC failure (Pr0.001). The causes of PDC failure included idiopathic peritonitis in 13 (56.5%), PDC occlusion by omentum in five (21.7%), PDC malposition in four (17.4%) patients, and PDC leakage in one (4.4%) patient. Peritonitis showed a high statistical significance in PDC failure with P value of less than 0.001. The serum albumin level at the time of PDC insertion was not statistically significant in terms of PDC failure (P = 0.40) but had a high association with idiopathic peritonitis.Conclusion Our study provides some recommendations to minimize PDC failures that include improvement of patients’ nutritional status, use of a swan-neck double-cuffed catheter, paramedian abdominal entry incision, simultaneous omentectomy, downward orientation of exit site, and use of an up-to-date technique by a dedicated team for proper use of PDC. However, prospective studies possibly on a multicentric basis are necessary to standardize the best PDC insertion and maintenance techniques to minimize PDC failures and improve the quality of life for children with ESRD. Keywords: end-stage renal disease, pediatric patients, peritoneal dialysis, tenckhoff cathete

Effect of Permeation Enhancers on the Release Behavior and Permeation Kinetics of Novel Tramadol Lotions

Purpose: The aim of this research work was to formulate, characterize and evaluate the in vitro permeation behavior of tramadol lotion containing propylene glycol (PG) and polyethylene glycol (PEG) as permeation enhancers.Methods: The permeation experiments were conducted in vitro using full thickness rabbit skin in Franz diffusion cells. The donor compartment was filled with PBS (phosphate buffered saline) at pH 7.4 ± 0.1. The receptor phase was continuously stirred PBS (pH 7.4) at 37 °C ± 0.5. The amount of tramadol permeated into the receptor phase was determined spectrophotometrically at 271 nm. Various permeation parameters such as permeation coefficient (Kp), diffusion coefficient (D), flux (J), input rate,and enhancement ratio were obtained using Fick’s diffusion laws.Results: Permeation increased with increase in the concentrations of both enhancers tested. Maximum cumulative amount permeated for control lotion (Lc) was 357 ìg/cm2/min with input rate 0.574 ìg/min and lag time (tlag) of 34.93 min, while for the optimum test lotion (L4, containing 8 % PG/PEG in ratio of 1:1 v/v), it was 926 ìg/cm2/min, 1.482 ìg/min and 58.36 min, respectively. The significantly (p < 0.05) higher permeability shown by the test lotion L4 can be attributed, in part, to the interaction of PG withintercellular lipids leading to the disruption of their organization and increasing their fluidity, and also partly as a result of solubilization of lipid bilayers by PEG.Conclusion: A binary system of PG and PEG in lotion can be successfully utilized for the permeation enhancement of tramadol.Keyword: Tramadol, Transdermal delivery, Permeation, Propylene glycol, Polyethylene glycol, Rabbit skin

Screening of systemic fungicides and biochemicals against seed borne mycoflora associated with Momordica charantia

Study of seed borne fungi associated with bitter gourd seeds were conducted under in vitro condition in Department of Plant Pathology, Bahauddin Zakariya University, Multan, Pakistan. Two hundred (200) seed samples of Momordica charantia (bitter gourd) were collected from southern regions of Punjab province (Multan, Khanewal and Bahawalpur). Six fungal species were isolated out of which Aspergillus flavus showed highest percentage that is, 27.3% followed by Rhizopus stolonifer 17.98%, Alternaria alternata 13.34%, Aspergillus niger 5.23%, Myrothecium roridum 7.37% and Fusarium solani 6.69%. More number of fungi was observed by using blotter paper technique when compared with agar plate method. Of the three systemic fungicides used include ridomil gold MZ, bavistin, and score; and two low cost chemicals such as salicylic acid and boric acid. Ridomil gold MZ gave good results at all concentrations (20, 30 and 40 mg/10 ml) against all the isolated fungi compared with other fungicides. Salicyclic acid gave the best results against isolated fungi compared to boric acid.Key words: Myrothecium roridum, bitter gourd, salicyclic acid, southern Punjab, bavistin, Pakistan

Acetone-Gasoline Blend as an Alternative Fuel in SI Engines: A Novel Comparison of Performance, Emission, and Lube Oil Degradation

The disproportionate use of petroleum products and stringent exhaust emissions has emphasized the need for alternative green fuels. Although several studies have been conducted to ascertain the performance of acetone-gasoline blends in spark-ignition (SI) engines, limited work has been done to determine the influence of fuel on lubricant oil deterioration. The current study fills the gap through lubricant oil testing by running the engine for 120 h on pure gasoline (G) and gasoline with 10% by volume acetone (A10). Compared to gasoline, A10 produced better results in 11.74 and 12.05% higher brake power (BP) and brake thermal efficiency (BTE), respectively, at a 6.72% lower brake-specific fuel consumption (BSFC). The blended fuel A10 produced 56.54, 33.67, and 50% lower CO, CO2, and HC emissions. However, gasoline remained competitive due to lower oil deterioration than A10. The flash-point and kinematic viscosity, compared to fresh oil, decreased by 19.63 and 27.43% for G and 15.73 and 20.57% for A10, respectively. Similarly, G and A10 showed a decrease in total base number (TBN) by 17.98 and 31.46%, respectively. However, A10 is more detrimental to lubricating oil due to a 12, 5, 15, and 30% increase in metallic particles like aluminum, chromium, copper, and iron, respectively, compared to fresh oil. Performance additives like calcium and phosphorous in lubricant oil for A10 decreased by 10.04 and 4.04% in comparison to gasoline, respectively. The concentration of zinc was found to be 18.78% higher in A10 when compared with gasoline. A higher proportion of water molecules and metal particles were found in lubricant oil for A10

Novel Butterfly Slot Based Chipless RFID Tag

A compact chipless RFID tag with robust readable features is presented in this paper. The tag is made up of novel concentric butterfly slot resonators. Bit data is encoded in the frequency signature of the tag. Each slot corresponds to a resonance peak representing a bit '1', whereas an absence of the peak signifies a bit '0'. Proposed resonator design demonstrates insensitivity to different polarization and incident angles of the linearly polarized impinging electromagnetic wave. The tag operates in the frequency band of 4.7-9.7 GHz, limited within the license free ultra wide-band. Rogers RT/duroid (R) 5880 substrate is used to realize a 10-bit capacity design that spans 14 x 14 mm(2) resulting in a bit density of 5.1 bits/cm(2)

Predicting humans future motion trajectories in video streams using generative adversarial network

Understanding the behavior of human motion in social environments is important for various domains of a smart city, e.g, smart transportation, automatic navigation of service robots, efficient navigation of autonomous cars and surveillance systems. Examining past trajectories or environmental factors alone are not enough to address this problem. We propose a novel methodology to predict future motion trajectories of humans based on past attitude of individuals, crowd attitude and environmental context. Many researchers have proposed different techniques based on different features extraction and features fusion to predict the future motion trajectory. They used traditional machine learning algorithms like SVM,social forces, probabilistic models and LSTM to analyze the heuristic motion trajectories but they didn’t consider the other environmental factors e.g relative positions of other humans present in environment and positions of objects present in environment which can affect the motion trajectories of humans. We intend to achieve this goal by employing Long Short Term Memory(LSTM) units to analyze motion histories, convolution neural networks to environmental facts e.g. human-human, human-object interaction and relative positioning of 80 different objects including pedestrians and generative adversarial networks(GANs) to predict possible future motion paths. Our proposed method achieved 70% lower Average Displacement Error(ADE) and 41% lower Final Displacement Error(FDE) in comparison to other state of the art techniques

Novel QR-incorporated chipless RFID tag

This work ideates a novel approach for designing a QR-incorporated data encoding structure that functions as a fully-passive, chipless radio frequency identification (RFID) tag. Several concentric square-shaped resonant slots embedded strategically within a QR-patterned region constitute the tag. A functional prototype is realized over an ungrounded Duroid (R) 5880 substrate, and the same is evaluated for its electromagnetic performance. The tag performs encoding of up to 118 data bits distributed across spectral and optical domain in a compact form factor measuring 55 x 55 mm(2). Possible applications of the formulated tag include multi-layer authentication for secure access control in smart cities and connected homes

An Integrated Antenna System for 4G and Millimeter-Wave 5G Future Handheld Devices

In this work, an integrated antenna system with Defected Ground Structure (DGS) is presented for Fourth Generation (4G) and millimeter (mm)-wave Fifth Generation (5G) wireless applications and handheld devices. The proposed design with overall dimensions of 110 mm x 75 mm is modeled on 0.508 mm thick Rogers RT/Duroid 5880 substrate. Radiating structure consists of antenna arrays excited by the T-shape 1 x 2 power divider/combiner. Dual bands for 4G centered at 3.8 GHz and 5.5 GHz are attained, whereas the 10-dB impedance bandwidth of 24.4 - 29.3 GHz is achieved for the 5G antenna array. In addition, a peak gain of 5.41 dBi is demonstrated across the operating bandwidth of the 4G antenna array. Similarly, for the 5G mm-wave configuration the attained peak gain is 10.29 dBi. Moreover, significant isolation is obtained between the two antenna modules ensuring efficient dual-frequency band operation using a single integrated solution. To endorse the concept, antenna prototype is fabricated and far-field measurements are procured. Simulated and measured results exhibit coherence. Also the proposed design is investigated for the beam steering capability of the mm-wave 5G antenna array using CST(R)MWS(R). The demonstrated structure offers various advantages including compactness, wide bandwidth, high gain, and planar configuration. Hence, the attained radiation characteristics prove the suitability of the proposed design for the current and future wireless handheld devices

A catalogue of bright (K <9) M dwarfs

Using the Position and Proper Motion Extended-L (PPMXL) catalogue, we have used optical and near-infrared colour cuts together with a reduced proper motion cut to find bright M dwarfs for future exoplanet transit studies. PPMXL's low proper motion uncertainties allow us to probe down to smaller proper motions than previous similar studies. We have combined unique objects found with this method to that of previous work to produce 8479 K <9 M dwarfs. Low-resolution spectroscopy was obtained of a sample of the objects found using this selection method to gain statistics on their spectral type and physical properties. Results show a spectral-type range of K7-M4V. This catalogue is the most complete collection of K <9 M dwarfs currently available and is made available here.Peer reviewe