NICKEL AND COPPER MIXTURE TOXICITY TO DAPHNIA IN SOFT WATER

Industrially important metals, such as Cu and Ni, sometimes are present at elevated concentrations in lakes, including those in the Sudbury, ON region. Although they are essential metals, their divalent-cation state (Cu2+ and Ni2+) can be toxic at high concentrations in the water. The free-ion toxicity of each of these metals has been studied in isolation, but rarely as a mixture. The economic importance of Cu2+ and Ni2+ makes them essential to study in the context of mixture toxicity. The objectives were to: (1) determine Cu and Ni mixture toxicity to Daphnia through acute LC50 tests; (2) determine the appropriate model (concentration addition, independent action, or toxic units) to analyze mixture effects; (3) determine how the toxicity modifying factor, dissolved organic carbon (DOC), influences toxic responses. These metals are transported across the membrane through different mechanisms, therefore mixture effects were hypothesized to be additive and follow an independent action (IA) model. Results indicate that Ni-Cu mixtures can be additive, synergistic or antagonistic depending on the concentration of metals. Most combinations tested produced a less-than-additive effect according to the IA model. This finding was also supported by the toxic unit approach. Single-metal acute tests revealed that the 48h LC50 for Cu was 2.43 µg/L (95% CI 2.15-2.82 µg/L) while Ni LC50 was 995 µg/L (877- 1125 µg/L). DOC was protective against Cu only and Cu+Ni mixture exposures but not Ni alone. DOC protection for mixtures varied by source composition. Clearwater Lake DOC was the most protective, Daisy Lake was intermediate, and Luther Marsh was least protective against Ni-Cu mixtures

A Case Study on Effective Use of Active Learning Strategies to Increase Learner Engagement in Digital Marketing Course

The usage of active learning approaches for the delivery of courses can enhance the learning ability of students. This case study establishes the effectiveness of active learning strategies and benefits in grasping the curriculum which is a central concept of student-centered learning, derived from the productive approach. This study focuses on the Course in Digital Marketing where there is a scope to enhance and encourage active participation of students to explore and configure recent tools such as Blogger, Google Ads, Facebook Ads manager, small SEO tools to name a few. The students can analyze and review the performance of advertising campaigns with the Analytics tool and suggest improvement plans based on performance metrics. The active learning approach enhances their interpersonal, and communication skills and a chance for employability in the field of marketing or have their own business ventures

Studies on Optimization of Growth Parameters for L-Asparaginase Production by Streptomyces ginsengisoli

A species of Streptomyces, Streptomyces ginsengisoli, a river isolate, was evaluated for production of an enzyme, L-asparaginase, with multiple functions mainly anticancer activity. The actinomycete was subjected to submerged fermentation by “shake flask” method. The quantity of L-asparaginase produced was estimated as 3.23 μmol/mL/min. The effect of various culture conditions on L-asparaginase production was studied by adopting a method of variation in one factor at a time. Of the various conditions tested, glucose (followed by starch) and peptone served as good carbon and nitrogen sources, respectively, for maximal production of enzyme at pH 8. The temperature of 30°C and an incubation period of 5 days with 0.05 g% asparagine concentration were found to be optimum for L-asparaginase production

Efficient multimedia data storage in cloud environment

With the rapid adoption of social media, people are more habituated to utilize the images and video for expressing themselves. Future communication will replace the conventional means of social interaction with the video or images. This, in turn, requires huge data storage and processing power. This paper reports a compression/decompression module for image and video sequences for the cloud computing environment. The reported mechanism acts as a submodule of IaaS layer of the cloud. The compression of the images is achieved using redundancy removal using block matching algorithm. The proposed module had been evaluated with three different video compression algorithms and variable macroblock size. The experimentations has been carried out on a cloud host environment by using VMWarework station platform. Apart from being simple in execution, the proposed module does not incur an additional monetary burden, hardware or manpower to achieve the desired compression of the image data. Experimental analysis has shown a considerable reduction in data storage requirement as well as the processing time.Web of Science39444243

Remote Data Acquisition and Visualization on an App

In order to allow power consumers to have a better understanding of their industrial electricity, it is necessary to provide them with real-time electricity information. Now a days we need to do meter reading, analysis manually. If any meter is goes down or fluctuating we need to do manual servicing and troubleshooting. It may cause meter loss, Time loss, and financial loss. The platform enables power consumers to have a better understanding of their own electricity consumption status and reasonable arrangements for use of electricity. Its deployment is very simple. For users, they do not need to change the household electricity structure. They can easily view the home electricity information and real-time monitor and control after installing power information visualization APP on their mobile phones or other mobile terminals. User interaction needs to collect power information of all equipment, and provide users with real-time electricity price and electricity information. The basic purpose of system is M-Measure, A-Analysis, R-Record, and CControl. No human intervention for data processing analysis. This is use for Power quality analysis, Identification and prevention of downtime of assets, Alarms and triggers are used for preventive control to avoid loss. Reduce the losses by monitoring and controlling the power quality. Accurate analytics depending on the load connected to the system. It supports most of all make sensors and hardware meters to work with the system. Periodical analysis of the organization for the complete energy health check-up

Understanding energy transfer in aeroelastic flutter and exploiting free-play induced flutter for energy harvesting

Aeroelasticity is well established research area involving undesirable coupling between elasticity, inertia and aerodynamics. Flutter is characterized as an unstable self excited aeroelastic system response, which leads to catastrophic structural failure. It is widely studied how various nonlinearities in fluid flow, structural stiffness, damping, and free-play in the joints affect the phenomenon in different ways. While most of the work in the literature is focused on how to avoid potentially catastrophic onset of flutter, this work unravels the mechanism of energy exchange that takes place between coupled fluid and structure system. The focus of this work is to investigate how to harness the energy in otherwise undesirable phenomenon. The flutter state of interest is the limit cycle oscillations(LCO) which represents marginally stable structural response. More fundamental study aimed at energy aspect of the interaction is done using a simple 2D airfoil (NACA 0012) system with two degrees of freedom and hyperbolic free-play nonlinearity. Variation of kinetic, potential, total energy and balanced energy interaction are established and analyzed in details. The representative experimental results are discussed from energy perspective which motivated the development of high fidelity fully coupled computational model discussed in this thesis. The work presents energy transfer dynamics for this 3D model. The energy analysis from 2D and 3D configuration suggests that there is a potential for harnessing energy that is transferred from flow field to the structure during aeroelastic flutter. The magnetostrictive materials like Galfenol can be used to efficiently convert the energy transferred to the structure by flow field into electrical energy. The dynamics of magnetostriction for Galfenol is presented using published properties of Galfenol by its manufacturer Etrema. For an example, 3D airfoil system simulation results are presented for open circuit voltage that will be generated using the proposed concept. This research gives a deeper understanding of energy exchange between structure and flow field during different phases of dynamic response of aeroelastic system.</p

Image Matching Web Interface Game

Natural ecosystems are the backbone of human society. They support humanity's agricultural needs and provide clean air and water. However, environmental problems such as global warming and rising sea level created a strong urge to preserve natural ecosystem. The goal of the Virtual Prairie project is to study the fundamental mechanisms involved in regulating the population of plants in a prairie. The idea is to involve the general public in ecology projects, first training them in identifying prairie species and then allowing them to identify these species. The data generated are further processed to answer research questions such as how vegetation responds to variation in precipitation, effects of salt water on plant growth, etc. In an experiment conducted in Sapelo Island, Georgia, a large amount of data was recorded by digitally capturing images of a sampling area. The area was approximately 3,200 square meters and 3 to 4 images per square meters were acquired. Analyzing this large amount of spatially explicit digital data is impossible for a single scientist, creating a huge obstacle to progress of ecological studies. It would be helpful if the scientists were able to identify, for example, which plant species dominated over a few months, how it affected the animal community, what was the effect on their natural habitat, etc. Along with the detailed information that is available from the individual image, it is also advantageous to have a complete view of the entire marsh in order to understand the spatial relationships of different species. Therefore, stitching multiple overlapping images together to form a mosaic was necessary. However, applying automatic methods for image alignment and stitching did not produce accurate results because of the issues imposed by prairie images. Hence, the Image Matching Web Interface (IMWI) game was developed. IMWI is used as platform for users to be able to find matching points between pairs of images. We collect the data produced by the trained players playing on unprocessed images. These data will be used by a post-processing group to stitch the overlapping images together to form a mosaic of the marsh.Computer Science, Department o

Study of Central Corneal Thickness (CCT) bBefore and aAfter Small-Incision Cataract Surgery (SICS) and phacoemulsification surgery

Purpose: To highlight the importance of measurement of central corneal thickness (CCT) which is an indirect indicator of corneal endothelial dysfunction after cataract surgery. Materials and Methods: This was a randomised control trial involving 101 patients who presented with cataract. Cataracts were graded using Lens Opacities Classification system grading. Fifty-one patients underwent small incision cataract surgery (SICS) and 50 underwent phacoemulsification (PHACO). Patients with any other ocular pathology were excluded. Results: There was significant improvement in the best corrected visual acuity (BCVA) comparable in both groups. There was a statistically  significant increase in central corneal thickness on day 7th and 30th post op. The change in the CCT and BCVA was comparable between SICS and PHACO on day 30th post op. Conclusion: The increase in CCT suggests that there was some endothelial cell loss leading to change in corneal thickness but not to the extent of causing visual impairment. SICS and phacoemulsification surgery are  comparable in respect to visual rehabilitation. Manual SICS is still a safe and cost-effective option in the developing world. Proper case selection, diligent surgery, and adequate postoperative care are essential to maintain a clear cornea.Keywords: Cataract, CCT, phacoemulsification, SIC