INVESTIGATION OF THE SYNERGISTIC ANTIBACTERIAL ACTION OF COPPER NANOPARTICLES ON CERTAIN ANTIBIOTICS AGAINST HUMAN PATHOGENS

Objective: Resistance to antibacterial agents by pathogenic bacteria has emerged in recent years and is a major challenge for the healthcare industry. Copper nanoparticles (CuNPs) are known to be one of the multifunctional inorganic nanoparticles with effective antibacterial activity. Hence the present investigation has been focused on synthesizing and evaluating the bactericidal effect of copper nanoparticles.Methods: CuNPs were synthesized by reducing the aqueous solution of copper sulfate with sodium borohydride. The synthesized particles were characterized by x-ray diffractogram (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS) techniques to analyze size, morphology and quantitative information respectively. The antibacterial activity of CuNPs was examined by agar well diffusion method. Synergistic effect of CuNPs with broad-spectrum antibiotics was determined by the agar disc diffusion method.Results: Color change of reaction mixture from blue to dark brown indicated the formation of CuNPs. SEM image clearly demonstrated that the synthesized particles were spherical in shape and its size was found to be 17.85 nm. EDS report confirmed the presence of elemental copper in the resultant nanoparticles and its accounts for major proportion (96%) of the mass of nanoparticles. Bacterial effect of CuNPs revealed that Pseudomonas aeruginosa showed the highest antibacterial sensitivity (16.00±1.63 mm), whereas least susceptibility (9.67±0.47 mm) was noticed against Staphylococcus aureus. An enhanced antibacterial activity of commercial antibiotics was also noticed when it combined with CuNPS. A minimum zone of inhibition was increased from 0.67±0.47 mm to 10.66±0.24 mm when the nanoparticles and antibiotics were given together.Conclusion: It was observed that copper nanoparticles exhibited profound activity against all the tested bacterial strains which shows that CuNPs may serve as a better option for use in medicine in the future

Assessing the Potential for Increased Capacity of Combined Heat and Power Facilities Based on Available Corn Stover and Forest Logging Residue in Mississippi

The amount of available biomass feedstock and associated cost components were analyzed to determine the potential increase in energy capacity of two existing combined heat and power plants in Mississippi. The amount of corn stover and forest logging residue within a 10-mile radius can satisfy the existing requirements of CHP plants in Scott (1 MW) and Washington counties (5 MW). Transporting feedstock within a smaller source area had lower transportation costs, but higher total unit cost than the two other source buffer scenarios. However, capital costs associated with higher plant capacities were significantly higher and plant expansion may not be economically advantageous. Increasing the CHP capacity from 1 MW to 2 MW in Scott county and 5 MW to 10 MW in Washington county might be a sustainable approach by drawing feedstock from a smaller area and at lower utilization rates, while keeping transportation costs low

Whelk processing industry at Thirespuram — Tuticorin

Tuticorin located on the southeast coast of India with its rocky and reely grounds in the Gulf of Mannar affords vast opportunities for the exploitation of a variety of finfishes, shellfishes, molluscan resources

Estimation of Defect proneness Using Design complexity Measurements in Object- Oriented Software

Software engineering is continuously facing the challenges of growing complexity of software packages and increased level of data on defects and drawbacks from software production process. This makes a clarion call for inventions and methods which can enable a more reusable, reliable, easily maintainable and high quality software systems with deeper control on software generation process. Quality and productivity are indeed the two most important parameters for controlling any industrial process. Implementation of a successful control system requires some means of measurement. Software metrics play an important role in the management aspects of the software development process such as better planning, assessment of improvements, resource allocation and reduction of unpredictability. The process involving early detection of potential problems, productivity evaluation and evaluating external quality factors such as reusability, maintainability, defect proneness and complexity are of utmost importance. Here we discuss the application of CK metrics and estimation model to predict the external quality parameters for optimizing the design process and production process for desired levels of quality. Estimation of defect-proneness in object-oriented system at design level is developed using a novel methodology where models of relationship between CK metrics and defect-proneness index is achieved. A multifunctional estimation approach captures the correlation between CK metrics and defect proneness level of software modules.Comment: 5 pages, 1 figur