State-of-the-Art of Establishing Test Procedures for Real Driving Gaseous Emissions from Light- and Heavy-Duty Vehicles

Air pollution caused by vehicle emissions has raised serious public health concerns. Vehicle emissions generally depend on many factors, such as the nature of the vehicle, driving style, traffic conditions, emission control technologies, and operational conditions. Concerns about the certification cycles used by various regulatory authorities are growing due to the difference in emission during certification procedure and Real Driving Emissions (RDE). Under laboratory conditions, certification tests are performed in a ‘chassis dynamometer’ for light-duty vehicles (LDVs) and an ‘engine dynamometer’ for heavy-duty vehicles (HDVs). As a result, the test drive cycles used to measure the automotive emissions do not correctly reflect the vehicle’s real-world driving pattern. Consequently, the RDE regulation is being phased in to reduce the disparity between type approval and vehicle’s real-world emissions. According to this review, different variables such as traffic signals, driving dynamics, congestions, altitude, ambient temperature, and so on have a major influence on actual driving pollution. Aside from that, cold-start and hot-start have been shown to have an effect on on-road pollution. Contrary to common opinion, new technology such as start-stop systems boost automotive emissions rather than decreasing them owing to unfavourable conditions from the point of view of exhaust emissions and exhaust after-treatment systems. In addition, the driving dynamics are not represented in the current laboratory-based test procedures. As a result, it is critical to establish an on-road testing protocol to obtain a true representation of vehicular emissions and reduce emissions to a standard level. The incorporation of RDE clauses into certification procedures would have a positive impact on global air quality

Free-standing supercapacitors from Kraft lignin nanofibers with remarkable volumetric energy density

We have discovered a very simple method to address the challenge associated with the low volumetric energy density of free-standing carbon nanofiber electrodes for supercapacitors by electrospinning Kraft lignin in the presence of an oxidizing salt (NaNO₃) and subsequent carbonization in a reducing atmosphere. The presence of the oxidative salt decreases the diameter of the resulting carbon nanofibers doubling their packing density from 0.51 to 1.03 mg cm⁻² and hence doubling the volumetric energy density. At the same time, the oxidative NaNO₃ salt eletrospun and carbonized together with lignin dissolved in NaOH acts as a template to increase the microporosity, thus contributing to a good gravimetric energy density. By simply adjusting the process parameters (amount of oxidizing/reducing agent), the gravimetric and volumetric energy density of the resulting lignin free-standing carbon nanofiber electrodes can be carefully tailored to fit specific power to energy demands. The areal capacitance increased from 147 mF cm⁻² in the absence of NaNO₃ to 350 mF cm⁻² with NaNO₃ translating into a volumetric energy density increase from 949 μW h cm⁻³ without NaNO₃ to 2245 μW h cm⁻³ with NaNO₃. Meanwhile, the gravimetric capacitance also increased from 151 F g⁻¹ without to 192 F g⁻¹ with NaNO

Ablation of the androgen receptor from vascular smooth muscle cells demonstrates a role for testosterone in vascular calcification

Vascular calcification powerfully predicts mortality and morbidity from cardiovascular disease. Men have a greater risk of cardiovascular disease, compared to women of a similar age. These gender disparities suggest an influence of sex hormones. Testosterone is the primary and most well-recognised androgen in men. Therefore, we addressed the hypothesis that exogenous androgen treatment induces vascular calcification. Immunohistochemical analysis revealed expression of androgen receptor (AR) in the calcified media of human femoral artery tissue and calcified human valves. Furthermore, in vitro studies revealed increased phosphate (Pi)-induced mouse vascular smooth muscle cell (VSMC) calcification following either testosterone or dihydrotestosterone (DHT) treatment for 9 days. Testosterone and DHT treatment increased tissue non-specific alkaline phosphatase (Alpl) mRNA expression. Testosterone-induced calcification was blunted in VSMC-specific AR-ablated (SM-ARKO) VSMCs compared to WT. Consistent with these data, SM-ARKO VSMCs showed a reduction in Osterix mRNA expression. However, intriguingly, a counter-intuitive increase in Alpl was observed. These novel data demonstrate that androgens play a role in inducing vascular calcification through the AR. Androgen signalling may represent a novel potential therapeutic target for clinical intervention

Microbial Assessment of Chevon of Black Bengal Goat

This study was conducted to assess the microbial load of Black Bengal goat meat during handling and selling in different markets of Mymensingh, Bangladesh. Total 27 samples were collected from three different places of the city, including KR market, Seshmore and Mesua Bazar. These samples were subjected to determine Total Viable Count (TVC), Total Coliform Count (TCC) and Yeast Mold Count (YMC) by using standard protocols. In raw meat, mean value of TVC were highest in Seshmore market (5.24±0.42 log cfu/g) at 0 hour but having no significant differences with other two places. In case of TCC and YMC highest count were in meat of Mesua Bazar. In case of TCC, difference were observed (P<0.05) among the markets. At 5 hours all the bacterial counts were increased having significant differences with the initial count and in most of the cases the bacterial count crossed the acceptable limit. This was may be due to the unhygienic practices of butchers. Consumers were not conscious. Suggestion has been given to improve the knowledge on hygiene among the meat producers to reduce microbial load

Free-standing supercapacitors from Kraft lignin nanofibers with remarkable volumetric energy density

EPSRC (EP/ R021554/1, EP/N509899/1, EP/P031323/1, EP/S018204/1

The nexus between economic growth, energy use, international trade and ecological footprints: the role of environmental regulations in N11 countries

Diversified human activities and inappropriate economic growth strategies have induced a trade-off between economic growth and environmental degradation worldwide. Consequently, the aggravating environmental concerns have warranted regulations to be enforced for safeguarding the welfare of the global environment. However, the effectiveness of such environmental regulations in reducing environmental deterioration has received equivocal empirical evidence in the literature. Against this backdrop, this study investigates the influence of environmental regulations on the ecological footprints in the context of the Next Eleven countries between 1990 and 2016. The results from the econometric analysis, controlling for cross-sectional dependency issues in the data, reveal that the existing environmental regulations legislated in the Next Eleven countries are ineffective in reducing the ecological footprints of these nations. Besides, greater energy consumption and openness to international trade are found to boost ecological footprints. Moreover, the Environmental Kuznets Curve hypothesis is also authenticated for the panel of the Next Eleven nations. The country-specific findings indicate that energy consumption anonymously degraded the environment in all the eleven nations, while heterogeneous impacts of environmental regulations, economic growth and international trade on the environment are ascertained. Hence, these findings, in a nutshell, recommend the Next Elevennations to strengthen and enforce the environmental regulations, adopt sustainable economic growth policies, reduce fossil fuel dependency and participate in sustainable trade to ensure environmental sustainability