AN ALTERNATIVE TREATMENT TO ELECTROPOLISHING: CHEMICAL POLISHING

Anodic alumina template containing hexagonally ordered nanopores has been widely used over the last decade for the development of numerous functional nanostructures such as nanoscale sensors, computing networks, optoelectronic devices, thin film micro circuits, ultra filtration membranes, keying layers for organic adhesives to hard, wear and corrosion resistant layers and memories. The long range pore order requires the starting aluminum surface to be extremely smooth. Electropolishing is the most commonly used method for surface planarization prior to anodization. While prevalent, this method has several limitations in terms of throughput, polishing area and requirement of special experimental setups. In this work, we report a new treatment called-chemical polishing which offers a viable, simpler, safer and faster alternative to electropolishin

Dinuclear metal catalysts for the synthesis of oxygenated polymers

This thesis describes the synthesis of heterodinuclear and homodinuclear catalysts and the in depth investigations carried out when using these catalysts for the ring opening copolymerisation of epoxide/CO2 or epoxide/anhydride to generate polycarbonates or polyesters, respectively. Chapter 2 reports the kinetic and mechanistic studies carried out for cyclohexene oxide/CO2 copolymerisation reactions. Several di-magnesium catalysts bearing a symmetrical N4O2 macrocyclic ligand and different co-ligands (acetate, trifluoroacetate, benzoate, aryl oxide and bromide) were explored. These investigations revealed that both metal centres of the catalyst are involved in the copolymerisation reaction and that the rate determining step is likely to be the carbonate attack on the metal bound epoxide. CO2 insertion is relatively fast. Additionally, there seems to be a co-ligand effect on the rate of copolymerisation, with an optimum activity observed with the acetate co-ligand. These findings support the hypothesis that one co-ligand remains bound to the catalyst during copolymerisation reactions. Chapter 3 describes the synthesis of a Zn-Mg heterodinuclear catalyst, albeit as a mixture with di-zinc and di-magnesium catalysts. However, this mixed catalyst system has an improved activity in cyclohexene oxide or propylene oxide/CO2 copolymerisation reactions, compared to the di-zinc and di-magnesium counterparts alone or in combination. This suggests that the heterodinuclear catalyst promotes the enhanced activity observed with the mixed catalyst system. Furthermore, this mixed catalyst system has enabled the selective formation of α,ω-di-hydroxyl end-capped polycarbonate chains, which can be used in polyurethane synthesis. Additionally, two asymmetrical di-zinc complexes and an asymmetrical Zn-Mg complex have been synthesised and fully characterised. Chapter 4 shows that the di-magnesium and di-zinc catalysts previously reported by our group, for epoxide/CO2 copolymerisations, are also active in cyclohexene oxide/phthalic anhydride copolymerisation reactions. The di-magnesium catalyst is four times faster than the di-zinc derivative. These homodinuclear catalysts were used in terpolymerisation reactions of epoxide/anhydride/CO2, to form block copoly(ester-carbonates), which have significantly higher Tg values (˃ 90 °C) compared to polyester and polycarbonate chains (˂ 85 °C).Open Acces

EVALUATION OF LIVER AND LIPID PARAMETERS IN CHOLELITHIASIS

Objectives: The objectives of the present study were to compare the biochemical parameters in gallstones patients and controls and to study the differences in their levels in male and female patients. Methods: The patient data were collected from the Navpreet Hospital, Amritsar. All the demographic data and ultrasonographic features were noted in a pre-structured pro forma of cholelithiasis patients. The blood sample was collected in aseptic conditions and serum biochemical parameters of liver (serum glutamic oxaloacetate transaminase [SGOT] and serum glutamic pyruvic transaminase [SGPT]) and lipids (cholesterol and triglyceride) were investigated in the patients. Results: In this study, it was found that cholelithiasis is more prevalent in females (76%) as compared to females (26%). The SGOT and SGPT levels were higher in 20–40 years age group females with a mean of 78±7.12 and 70±5.34 mg/dl, respectively. Alkaline phosphatase (ALP) level also increases in female patients with a mean of 106±5.36 mg/dl. Same pattern was observed for bilirubin and lipid levels. Conclusion: The prevalence of gallstones was found more in females than males. Serum cholesterol, triglyceride, SGOT, SGPT and ALP, and bilirubin play a major contributing role in the formation of gallstone in females. Incidence of gallstones is most often correlated with dietary factors, obesity or overweight, sedentary lifestyle, eating high fat and cholesterol diet, eating low-fiber diet, having a family history of gallstones, and having liver disease

Energy efficient neighbor selection for flat wireless sensor networks

In this paper we have analyzed energy efficient neighbour selection algorithms for routing in wireless sensor networks. Since energy saving or consumption is an important aspect of wireless sensor networks, its precise usage is highly desirable both for the faithful performance of network and to increase the network life time. For this work, we have considered a flat network topology where every node has the same responsibility and capability. We have compared two energy efficient algorithms and analyzed their performances with increase in number of nodes, time rounds and node failures.Comment: 7 pages, 5 figures, 1 table,WiMON 2014 conference proceedings, may 24-2

Sustainability Development in India: The User Prospect

Competitive business environment is been focusing on pertinent infrastructure, technology, economies transform themselves to adapt to the changing institutional environment, largely ignoring the sustainability aspect from the employee’s viewpoint. However, researchers opine that real improvement in sustainability cannot occur if the employee perception is not been considered. Employee’s perception is significant as it impacts their ‘buying behaviour’ as well as enables the employer provider to meet their expectations better, and provides relevant information to the policy makers to improve the sustainability, which lead the firm to achieve a proper ‘fit’ with the environment through changes in strategy (Summer et al., 1990; Zajac, Kraatz and Bresser, 2000).The main purpose of the current study is to assess the perception of employee towards the sustainability development of the automobile sector in northern zone based on the scale developed by Chow and Chen (2011) after making few amendments as per the requirement of the study on the sample of 300 employees. A response rate of 89 per cent was obtained resulting in 267 complete questionnaires. The 44-item scale employed in the study comprised 13 homogeneous sub-scales and tested well for reliability. The findings illustrated some interesting differences in employee perception regarding sustainability and how they varied between different automobile companies and according to the demographic status of employee. The most surprising finding of the paper that sustainability was perceived to be higher in FWAMS (Four Wheeler Automobile sector) as compare to the TWAMS (Two Wheeler Automobile sector). Inadequate knowledge of the employees about the organisation’s collaboration with UN’s Global compact, inability in fighting against consumer’s discrimination, firm’s inability to measure and control the health and safety risks, poor implementation in measuring public’s exposure to toxic products were the important drawbacks reported at TWAMS. This is an outrageous as TWAMS as it is been considered as the more preferable sector by the lower, middle as well as the high class families. The present study gives a light to the prerequisite of appearance of similar manner of research to explore the consumer as behavior toward sustainability in other sectors. One limitation of the study is the use of self amended measures and the coverage of the single sector, which can reduce the generalizability of the findings. Keywords: environment protection, health and safety, legal compliance, sustainability, user, waste minimization

Object Recognition using Linear Binary Pattern

Object Recognition is wildly used in nowadays. The Local binary Pattern (LBP) is the techniques to analysis the shape, size and colour of Object. LBP uses the Edge Detection Techniques. This Paper presents a little survey on recent used LBP types and techniques along with the edge detection techniques.The transformation of image into grayscale image, then divided image into little blocks are the part of LBP. Nowadays LBP is becoming a popular technique for image representation. DOI: 10.17762/ijritcc2321-8169.150510

Two-stage Interval Time Minimization Transportation Problem with Capacity Constraints

This paper discusses a two-stage interval time minimization transportation problem with capacity constraints on each source-destination link. In the current problem, the exact total demand of all the destinations lies in an interval whose end points are equal to the minimum and the maximum total available amount of the homogeneous product (which is being transported), at the sources.  The minimum amount available at the sources is transported in the first stage of transportation, while enough amount of the product is shipped in the second stage so as to meet the exact total demand of the destinations. The objective of the current paper is to obtain a transportation schedule so that the transportation in both the stages is carried out in the minimum possible time. A polynomial time iterative algorithm is proposed which generates a sequence of pairs of Stage-I and Stage-II times. Firstly, a related standard cost minimization transportation problem (CMTP) is solved and then at each iteration, a restricted version of this CMTP is solved in which the time of Stage-I decreases strictly and the time of Stage-II increases. Out of these generated pairs, a pair with the minimum sum of transportation times of Stage-I and Stage-II is considered as the global optimal solution. Numerical illustration is included in the support of the theory. Keywords: Time transportation problem, Combinatorial optimization, Non-convex programming

Curvelet transform and Hybrid Bacterial Foraging Optimization for image denoising

Eliminating noise from the original image is still a challenging task for researchers. Several algorithms have been proposed and each of them has its own assumptions, advantages & limitations. The paper proposes the noise reduction method for the medical images by using Hybrid BFO i.e the fusion of BFO (Bacteria foraging optimization) and the technique of contourlet transform and the results are compared with the older technique of image denoising using curvelet transform. BFO algorithm is an artificial intelligence nature-inspired optimization algorithm technique which is based on mimicking the foraging behavior of E.coli bacteria and it is now applied to the field of imagingdenosin