Half-cell study of La and Ca doped strontium titanates anode for direct methane solid oxide fuel cell

One of the major advantages of Solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) over other fuel cell is use of direct natural gas at high temperature without any external reformer. Conventional nickel-yttria stabilized zirconia (Ni-YSZ) composite anode provides excellent catalytic property, current collection and stability for H2 oxidation but it is not tolerant towards sulphur poisoning and also accelerates coke deposition in presence of methane fuel. It necessitates the use of alternate anode for direct hydrocarbon fuel. In the present work, attempts have been made to apply La and Ca doped A-site deficient SrTiO3 (LSCTA-) as potential anode for direct methane SOFC. Low catalytic activity of LSCTA- is improved by infiltration of Ni and CeO2 catalyst. Half cell (YSZ/4%Ni-6%CeO2-LSCTA-) provided 200 mW cm-2 maximum power density and regain its initial performance in H2 even after 6 h exposure to humidified CH4 at 800 °C.Postprin

Time-varying dependence between stock and government bond returns: International evidence with dynamic copulas

This paper investigates the dependence pattern between stock and long-term government bond returns for a wide range of developed countries over the last two decades by using a dynamic DCC-GARCH-copula model. This approach allows obtaining a flexible and comprehensive description of the time variation in the linkage between stock and bond markets. The empirical results show that the dependence structure between stock and 10-year government bond returns varies significantly over time for most countries. In particular, a positive stock-bond association is observed during the 1990s, while the relationship becomes negative from the early 2000s,supporting the presence of flight-to-quality effects. In addition,no evidence of asymmetric and tail dependence is found for the vast majority of countr

Effect of covering by black polythene sheet and coal powder on nearby surfaces of sand bed solar still: Studying heat and mass transfer

Paper presented to the 10th International Conference on Heat Transfer, Fluid Mechanics and Thermodynamics, Florida, 14-16 July 2014.The lack of potable water poses a big problem in the world. Solar stills have long been used as an easy-to-operate and popular water production unit. In present work, the real situation near the seashores where wet sand is available in abundance with brackish water is being simulated and experiments were conducted. The experimental results are helpful for the coastal area where there is abundance of saline water but lack of potable water. The two experimental arrangements were compared for the heat and mass transfer within the single slope solar still and the yield in the month of March at Raipur (Latitude 21.16N and longitude 81.42 E) India. It has been observed that the daily distillation yield is more in second case where surrounding mass of sand has been converted as heat storage that enhances heat and mass transfer. The wet sand top surface temperature that resembles the water temperature of solar still of both arrangements increases slowly as the sun rises up and reaches to its maximum at 1:30 pm of 1st as well as 2nd day by rise of 231 % and 125% more with comparison to morning temperature respectively for solar still S-1. The same water temperature for solar still S-2 also reaches to its maximum at same time 1:30 pm of 1st as well as 2nd day by rise of 234 % and 139 % respectively. It has been observed that the second solar still S-2 remains always ahead as for as yield is concerned. Finally in two days of observation the second still gives 12.20% more yield (6.205 litres in comparison to5.530 litres) per m2 basin area in 48 hours of the basin in comparison to the first solar still S-1 under consideration. This yield can be increased significantly by increasing the area of the basin. One more interesting conclusion is the fact that in still wet sand nearly behaves as a free water surface.dc201

Efecto antimicrobiano, antiulceroso y antidiarreico de las hojas de buganvilla (Bougainvillea glabra Choisy)

In order to scientifi cally appraise some of the folkloric uses of Bougainvillea glabra Choisy, the present study wasundertaken to examine the anti-diarrhoeal, antiulcer and antimicrobial activities of acetone, ethanolic and aqueousextract of leaves. Anti-diarrhoeal activity was tested in Castor oil induced diarrhea model using rats and Loperamide(3 mg/kg) was used as reference standard. The antiulcer activity was determined using alcohol induced ulcer modeland Omeprazole 10 mg/ kg was used as the standard. Both the studies were carried out at two dose level, 200 mg/kgand 400 mg/kg respectively. Antimicrobial activity was done by disc diffusion method at a concentration of 500 μg/discof the extract, using ofl oxacin (5 μg/disc) as the standard. The organisms used were Escherichia coli, Bacillus subtilis,Klebsiella pneumoniae, Staphylococcus aureus and Proteus vulgaris and the zone of inhibition was determined. Theplant extracts showed signifi cant anti-diarrhoeal, antiulcer and antimicrobial activities in the present study. The resultsobtained support the claim of local medical practitioners.Con el fi n de evaluar científi camente algunos de los usos tradicionales de la buganvilla (Bougainvillea glabra Choisy),se realizó el presente estudio para examinar los efectos antidiarreicos, antiulcerosos y antimicrobianos del extractoacuoso, etanólico y acetónico de sus hojas. Se probó la actividad antidiarreica en un modelo de diarrea inducidacon aceite de ricino en ratas y se utilizó loperamida (3 mg/kg) como estándar de referencia. Se determinó la acciónantiulcerosa mediante un modelo de úlcera inducida con alcohol y se utilizó omeprazol (10 mg/kg) como estándar.Ambos estudios se realizaron con dos niveles de dosis, 200 mg/kg y 400 mg/kg, respectivamente. La actividad antimicrobianase estudió mediante un método de difusión en disco con una concentración de 500 μg/disco de extracto,utilizando ofl oxacina (5 μg/disco) como estándar. Los organismos utilizados fueron Escherichia coli, Bacillus subtilis,Klebsiella pneumoniae, Staphylococcus aureus y Proteus vulgaris, y se determinó la zona de inhibición. Los extractosde plantas mostraron una signifi cativa acción antidiarreica, antiulcerosa y antimicrobiana en el presente estudio.Los resultados obtenidos corroboran lo sostenido por los profesionales de la medicina locales

Evolution of oligomeric state through allosteric pathways that mimic ligand binding.

Evolution and design of protein complexes are almost always viewed through the lens of amino acid mutations at protein interfaces. We showed previously that residues not involved in the physical interaction between proteins make important contributions to oligomerization by acting indirectly or allosterically. In this work, we sought to investigate the mechanism by which allosteric mutations act, using the example of the PyrR family of pyrimidine operon attenuators. In this family, a perfectly sequence-conserved helix that forms a tetrameric interface is exposed as solvent-accessible surface in dimeric orthologs. This means that mutations must be acting from a distance to destabilize the interface. We identified 11 key mutations controlling oligomeric state, all distant from the interfaces and outside ligand-binding pockets. Finally, we show that the key mutations introduce conformational changes equivalent to the conformational shift between the free versus nucleotide-bound conformations of the proteins.This is the accepted manuscript. The final version is available from AAAS at http://www.sciencemag.org/content/346/6216/1254346.abstract

Blind Restoration of Motion Blurred Barcode Images using Ridgelet Transform and Radial Basis Function Neural Network

The aim of any image restoration techniques is recovering the original image from a degraded observation. One of the most common degradation phenomena in images is motion blur. In case of blind image restoration accurate estimation of motion blur parameters is required for deblurring of such images. This paper proposed a novel technique for estimating the parameters of motion blur using ridgelet transform. Initially, the energy of ridgelet coefficients is used to estimate the blur angle and then blur length is estimated using a radial biases function neural network. This work is tested on different barcode images with varying parameters of blur. The simulation results show that the proposed method improves the restoration performance

Enhancing the knowledge level of dog owners using an electronic self-learning module

The present study was taken up to assess the knowledge about dog health and management among the pet owners and the effectiveness of a need based electronic self learning module “Dog Health Management Trainer” (DHMT) for enhancing their knowledge. The DHMT was developed and tested on 100 dog owners visiting the polyclinic at IVRI. Results revealed that dog owners were mainly facing problems related to diseases of skin, gastrointestinal system and parvoviral infection besides various other problems. Majority of the owners had medium knowledge about dog diseases while low knowledge about dog breeding and reproduction. Results revealed that DHMT was highly effective in enhancing the knowledge level and dog owners found it very much interesting and user friendly with an overall utility index of 0.87. The price proposed was negatively and significantly correlated with the pre-test knowledge scores for dog health indicating that those dog owners who were having low knowledge quoted higher price for procuring the DHMT