Advanced Sample Preparation Techniques for Surface Spectroscopy Analysis of Organic: Inorganic Hybrid Silica Particles

Silica due to its large inorganic amorphous wall and hydrophilic surface properties renders its suitability for designing different varieties of organic–inorganic silica-based materials. Characterization of such hybrid silica-based materials is one of the fascinating as well as challenging topics to be covered. Surface analysis of these hybrid materials can be done utilizing various techniques, out of which X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), 29Si Solid-state Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy, and Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) is the most ideal ones. Thus, before analyzing these silica materials, it requires a massive study on its sample preparation for appropriate characterization of the organic molecules present in the inorganic network. Hence, this chapter will give a brief elucidation of the sample preparation techniques for analyzing the hybrid materials utilizing the above instrumentation techniques

Equation of Craft in India

Description ‘Equation of Craft in India’ is a design research project of Craft Future Lab, NID Ahmedabad, India under the collaborative effort of the International Centre for Indian Craft (ICIC), Dept. of Lifestyle Accessory Design (LAD), and Design for Social Innovation and Sustainability Lab (NID DESIS Lab). The project was initiated and led by Prof. Amresh Panigrahi with his fellow 16 Master level Design students of the Department of LAD batch 2018 with the prime objective of attempting to understand the current dynamics in the Indian craft sector. The origin of crafts goes a long way back, to the Indus Valley civilization. It had its fair share of evolution through the centuries that followed from the Vedic, Mauryan, Mughal periods to the British colonization and the onset of industrialization. The crafts of India have gone through several impactful events with our relatively newfound Independent democratic country and its political and economic development. The current context of craft in the 20th century takes into account the social, economic and geopolitical setting of India with the presence of various global developments in technology, import-export scenario, travel and popular mass ideas. Here the System mapping is an attempt to represent the identified components and variables and interrelationship within the current system understanding of the craft sector in India. Craft in its essence Craft is a vital source of identity for the craftsman as it derived its meaning by its local acceptance in its socio-cultural fabric. It has developed through a long line of rich cultural heritage. The function of crafts varies from being utilitarian, ornamental to finding purposes in religious, ritualistic, and festival purposes. Crafts now are much more susceptible to cross-cultural influences of the increasing spread of media, the internet, and education. The Development Commissioner of Handicrafts (DCH), India defined crafts as ‘items made by hand, often with the use of simple tools and generally artistic and traditional. They include objects of utility and objects of decoration’. The three main confluence for the creation of a craft comes with (a) an artisan along with his ability working on (b) the raw materials with a little help from the (c) simple tools that aids where human abilities limit him. The craftsmen and the craft dynamics The four significant divisions of craftsmen based on their ability are – Master-craftsmen, Craftsmen, Apprentice, and newly joined. Master-craftsmen display the highest skill and bring novelty in the craft. Apart from the newly joined category of artisans, all other craftsmen majorly learn the craft from the master craftsperson or from within the family itself, passed down through the generations. It is a labour-intensive sector where artisans get less return in terms of money, recognition, value for craft for the much more investment they put into it. The investment may be in terms of effort, time, and the number of workforces. The real success of a craft is no more confined to the ability of the craftsperson’s skills, raw material and tools. It is the time that demands the market knowledge to make the craft a success. However, the craftsman abilities are currently limited with less market knowledge and mostly restricted to the boundaries of his craft understanding. Lack of knowledge, their struggle with the craft practices and its continuity became much more complicated, which forced them to switch to other jobs or to want a different life for their children. Initiatives at organising the sector The craft & cottage industry is the most significant non-agricultural decentralized sector of the Indian economy. In the wake of the government’s attempt to organize the sector and tap into its full potential, it works on multiple value chains of the craft sector. The government provides market platforms through multiple exhibitions, Haats, fairs and emporiums, wherein efforts are put into making the customer realize the cultural context of the craft. One of the major competitors in the market remains to be the mass-produced industrialized products flooding in domestically and also via imports from other neighbouring countries. Domestically, authentic craft loses its market to mass-produced fake craft due to its comfortable, cheaper availability. Protection of crafts ingenuity The fake market affected the craftsmen and the identity of the craft which led to government initiatives aimed at creating protection and preservation of craft’s ingenuity owing to the craftsmen and its community through the creation of geographical indication (GI) tag, Craftmark logo and also through handicraft census. With over 200 crafts GI tagged, it is beneficial to the owners as they can safeguard their products from unauthorized commercial use. Presence of the GI tag has still left some room for improvements for craftsman’s awareness and fight for their rights. The Craftmark logo is an initiative to provide a mark for genuine handicraft for the consumers to authenticate their purchase. Private exhibitions and museums purposefully created for documentation and preservation of the handicrafts. Role of design in craft innovation With above systematic study, the working groups further discovered various gaps as an opportunity for design-driven strategic intervention. Practice-based Design research facilitates the application of design strategies at various levels to imagine a craft social innovation and its sustainable future

In silico ANALYSIS OF EFFECT OF PHYTOCHEMICALS FROM Pavonia odorata AGAINST Epidermophyton floccosum CAUSING ATHLETES FOOT DISEASE

Epidermophyton floccosum causes athletes foot disease. Strikingly, athlete’s foot disease rises primarily during specific molecular events, thus acting as a potential clinical biomarker. Further, athlete’s foot disease may also activate further downstream events, supporting the detrimental phase. To restrict the activity of athletes foot disease, several bio molecules can be deployed, of which the phytochemicals can be the best alternative. Molecular docking-based screening of a few phytochemicals revealed that the phytochemicals effectively associate with the active site of the protein and hence bears diagnostic and therapeutic potentials against athletes’ foot disease

Using Social Network Analysis for industrial plant layout analysis in the context of industry 4.0

Social network analysis (SNA) is a widely studied research topic, which has been increasingly applied for solving different kinds of problems, including industrial manufacturing ones. This paper focuses on the application of SNA to an industrial plant layout problem. The study aims at analysing the importance of using SNA techniques to study the important relations between entities in a manufacturing environment, such as jobs and resources in the context of industrial plant layout analysis. Here, performance measures such as maximum completion time of jobs (makespan), resource utilisation, and throughput time have been considered to evaluate the system performance. Later, with the simulation analysis, the relationships between entities and their impact on the system performance are evaluated. The experimental results revealed that the proposed SNA approach supports to find the key machines of the systems that ultimately lead to the effective performance of the whole system. Finally, the identification of relations among these entities supported the establishment of an appropriate plant layout for producing the jobs in the context of industry 4.0.This work has been supported by COMPETE: POCI-01-0145-FEDER-007043 and FCT –The Foundation for Science and Technology within the Project Scope: UID/CEC/00319/2013

A multi-echelon dynamic cold chain for managing vaccine distribution

While cold chain management has been part of healthcare systems, enabling the efficient administration of vaccines in both urban and rural areas, the COVID-19 virus has created entirely new challenges for vaccine distributions. With virtually every individual worldwide being impacted, strategies are needed to devise best vaccine distribution scenarios, ensuring proper storage, transportation and cost considerations. Current models do not consider the magnitude of distribution efforts needed in our current pandemic, in particular the objective that entire populations need to be vaccinated. We expand on existing models and devise an approach that considers the needed extensive distribution capabilities and special storage requirements of vaccines, while at the same time being cognizant of costs. As such, we provide decision support on how to distribute the vaccine to an entire population based on priority. We do so by conducting predictive analysis for three different scenarios and dividing the distribution chain into three phases. As the available vaccine doses are limited in quantity at first, we apply decision tree analysis to find the best vaccination scenario, followed by a synthetic control analysis to predict the impact of the vaccination programme to forecast future vaccine production. We then formulate a mixed-integer linear programming (MILP) model for locating and allocating cold storage facilities for bulk vaccine production, followed by the proposition of a heuristic algorithm to solve the associated objective functions. The application of the proposed model is evaluated by implementing it in a real-world case study. The optimized numerical results provide valuable decision support for healthcare authorities

Phenothiazinyl boranes: a new class of AIE luminogens with mega stokes shift, mechanochromism, and mechanoluminescence

Phenothiazines with a dimesityl boron moiety, a new class of aminoboranes with B−N linkage, were synthesized. These aminoboranes exhibited interesting photophysical behavior including aggregation-induced emission (AIE), mechanochromism (MC), mechanoluminescence (ML), and a mega Stokes shift (up to 312 nm in hexane). The solid-state emission of the aminoboranes could be switched reversibly by grinding–fuming processes. Furthermore, the phenothiazine derivative with a bromo and an arylborane group at 3- and 7-positions exhibited bright mechanoluminescence

Assessment of traditional rainwater harvesting system in barren lands of a semi-arid region: a case study of Rajasthan (India)

Study region Dudu station, Rajasthan, India Study focus Rainwater harvesting can be used as a method to recharge aquifers. This can happen with a variety of scales and technologies. One such example is shallow infiltration ponds (Chaukas) which recharge groundwater and increase soil moisture facilitating pastureland development. A HYDRUS-1D model was used to estimate potential groundwater recharge. The model was calibrated using field data from 2019 and validated using data from 2020. The time series of Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) was derived at annual scale to assess changes in the vegetation cover. New hydrological insights for the region The modeling revealed that an additional 5% of the rainfall depth was being recharged into the groundwater. In addition, the additional soil moisture was allowing natural grass cover to develop, which could be used by the local community as pastureland. These twin benefits that the local communities are realizing could be scaled up beyond Dudu, to India, and worldwide, as many regions have barren land that is slightly sloping, together with permeable soils, which are the only conditions for the construction of Chaukas. These Chauka systems have helped in sustainable water resources management in these water-stressed regions and the additional livelihood support through developed pastures for animal husbandry