Assessment of effectiveness of hollow fins for performance enhancement of solar still device using simulation approach

Unavailability of relatively clean water for several industrial, domestic and agricultural purposes is a serious concern to many regions of the world today. This challenge is growing worse with the increasing world global warming and human population. Therefore, there is need to research into an innovative, sustainable and/or improved technology for an efficient and effective solution, such as desalination. Desalination of freely available sea water is considered a promising source of fresh water. Solar radiation is abundant and can be used to desalinate water, using a solar still device. Also, it is important to increase the productivity of the solar still device through hollow fin modification. Therefore, the effectiveness of this improvement was investigated in this study, using an analysis system (ANSYS) Fluent computational fluid dynamic (CFD) simulation. Appropriate models were used to describe the physical processes, including condensation, evaporation, multiphase flow, surface tension and solar radiation. A close agreement between the simulation values of solar energy and the water temperature in the basin was observed when compared with the experimental data from the literature. Velocity of 0.259 m/s, pressure of 55.8 Pa, temperature of 57.85 ºC and mass transfer rate of 1.41 kg/m³/s were obtained in the mid-plane of the improved double slope single basin (DSSB). The degree of improvement was 5-7% when compared with the existing models. Importantly, this process is economically efficient and can support the concepts of sustainability and healthy living, especially in rural areas.Peer reviewe

Quantitative Assessment of Damage in Composites by Implementing Acousto-Ultrasonics Technique

This study focused on quantitative damage severity assessment in composite materials using Acousto-Ultrasonics (AU), an in-service and active non-destructive inspection technique in which Lamb waves are communicated through a damaged zone. This was done by activating a signal onto the composite material surface and acquiring the received waves after their interactions with the damage. It relied on early research that presented a series of stress wave factors (SWFs) derived from the frequency-domain of the AU data, as quantitative identifiers of the received signal. Although, the SWFs have previously been proven to determine the understanding of the spatial arrangements of the impact damage, the degree or severity of the damage inside the impact damage area has not been assessed. Therefore, the current research was a step in the right way toward that aim. AU waves were generated via a laminate with increasing concentrations of ply faults, across longitudinal length. The stress wave factors were first examined for an undamaged composite, and the SWFs were then connected with the fault concentration. The significance of the found linkages and the possible futures of quantitative assessment of the degree of damage by such relationships were examined. The stress wave factors showed clear and consistent patterns, as the fault concentration increased. With a rise in fault density, an element measuring the energy content of the waves significantly changed with R- sq(adj) = 91.33% and almost linearly, and provided a robust measurable trend, while other parameter exhibited lesser shifts with R- sq(adj) = 51.86%. The result obtained from the presented work provided a base to cost-effective and in- service measure to early detection of catastrophic failures in composite structures, including the wind turbine blades for renewable and sustainable energy generation.Peer reviewe

Effects of Sensor Spacing and Material Thickness of Al 6082-T6 using Acousto-Ultrasonics Technique

© 2022 The Authors. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, to view a copy of the license, see: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Peer reviewe

A Systematic Analysis of Eluted Fraction of Plasma Post Immunoaffinity Depletion: Implications in Biomarker Discovery

Plasma is the most easily accessible source for biomarker discovery in clinical proteomics. However, identifying potential biomarkers from plasma is a challenge given the large dynamic range of proteins. The potential biomarkers in plasma are generally present at very low abundance levels and hence identification of these low abundance proteins necessitates the depletion of highly abundant proteins. Sample pre-fractionation using immuno-depletion of high abundance proteins using multi-affinity removal system (MARS) has been a popular method to deplete multiple high abundance proteins. However, depletion of these abundant proteins can result in concomitant removal of low abundant proteins. Although there are some reports suggesting the removal of non-targeted proteins, the predominant view is that number of such proteins is small. In this study, we identified proteins that are removed along with the targeted high abundant proteins. Three plasma samples were depleted using each of the three MARS (Hu-6, Hu-14 and Proteoprep 20) cartridges. The affinity bound fractions were subjected to gelC-MS using an LTQ-Orbitrap instrument. Using four database search algorithms including MassWiz (developed in house), we selected the peptides identified at <1% FDR. Peptides identified by at least two algorithms were selected for protein identification. After this rigorous bioinformatics analysis, we identified 101 proteins with high confidence. Thus, we believe that for biomarker discovery and proper quantitation of proteins, it might be better to study both bound and depleted fractions from any MARS depleted plasma sample

Common variants in CLDN2 and MORC4 genes confer disease susceptibility in patients with chronic pancreatitis

A recent Genome-wide Association Study (GWAS) identified association with variants in X-linked CLDN2 and MORC4 and PRSS1-PRSS2 loci with Chronic Pancreatitis (CP) in North American patients of European ancestry. We selected 9 variants from the reported GWAS and replicated the association with CP in Indian patients by genotyping 1807 unrelated Indians of Indo-European ethnicity, including 519 patients with CP and 1288 controls. The etiology of CP was idiopathic in 83.62% and alcoholic in 16.38% of 519 patients. Our study confirmed a significant association of 2 variants in CLDN2 gene (rs4409525—OR 1.71, P = 1.38 x 10-09; rs12008279—OR 1.56, P = 1.53 x 10-04) and 2 variants in MORC4 gene (rs12688220—OR 1.72, P = 9.20 x 10-09; rs6622126—OR 1.75, P = 4.04x10-05) in Indian patients with CP. We also found significant association at PRSS1-PRSS2 locus (OR 0.60; P = 9.92 x 10-06) and SAMD12-TNFRSF11B (OR 0.49, 95% CI [0.31–0.78], P = 0.0027). A variant in the gene MORC4 (rs12688220) showed significant interaction with alcohol (OR for homozygous and heterozygous risk allele -14.62 and 1.51 respectively, P = 0.0068) suggesting gene-environment interaction. A combined analysis of the genes CLDN2 and MORC4 based on an effective risk allele score revealed a higher percentage of individuals homozygous for the risk allele in CP cases with 5.09 fold enhanced risk in individuals with 7 or more effective risk alleles compared with individuals with 3 or less risk alleles (P = 1.88 x 10-14). Genetic variants in CLDN2 and MORC4 genes were associated with CP in Indian patients

Proceedings of Abstracts, School of Physics, Engineering and Computer Science Research Conference 2022

© 2022 The Author(s). This is an open-access work distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. For further details please see https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. Plenary by Prof. Timothy Foat, ‘Indoor dispersion at Dstl and its recent application to COVID-19 transmission’ is © Crown copyright (2022), Dstl. This material is licensed under the terms of the Open Government Licence except where otherwise stated. To view this licence, visit http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3 or write to the Information Policy Team, The National Archives, Kew, London TW9 4DU, or email: [email protected] present proceedings record the abstracts submitted and accepted for presentation at SPECS 2022, the second edition of the School of Physics, Engineering and Computer Science Research Conference that took place online, the 12th April 2022

Impact of COVID-19 on cardiovascular testing in the United States versus the rest of the world

Objectives: This study sought to quantify and compare the decline in volumes of cardiovascular procedures between the United States and non-US institutions during the early phase of the coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted the care of many non-COVID-19 illnesses. Reductions in diagnostic cardiovascular testing around the world have led to concerns over the implications of reduced testing for cardiovascular disease (CVD) morbidity and mortality. Methods: Data were submitted to the INCAPS-COVID (International Atomic Energy Agency Non-Invasive Cardiology Protocols Study of COVID-19), a multinational registry comprising 909 institutions in 108 countries (including 155 facilities in 40 U.S. states), assessing the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on volumes of diagnostic cardiovascular procedures. Data were obtained for April 2020 and compared with volumes of baseline procedures from March 2019. We compared laboratory characteristics, practices, and procedure volumes between U.S. and non-U.S. facilities and between U.S. geographic regions and identified factors associated with volume reduction in the United States. Results: Reductions in the volumes of procedures in the United States were similar to those in non-U.S. facilities (68% vs. 63%, respectively; p = 0.237), although U.S. facilities reported greater reductions in invasive coronary angiography (69% vs. 53%, respectively; p < 0.001). Significantly more U.S. facilities reported increased use of telehealth and patient screening measures than non-U.S. facilities, such as temperature checks, symptom screenings, and COVID-19 testing. Reductions in volumes of procedures differed between U.S. regions, with larger declines observed in the Northeast (76%) and Midwest (74%) than in the South (62%) and West (44%). Prevalence of COVID-19, staff redeployments, outpatient centers, and urban centers were associated with greater reductions in volume in U.S. facilities in a multivariable analysis. Conclusions: We observed marked reductions in U.S. cardiovascular testing in the early phase of the pandemic and significant variability between U.S. regions. The association between reductions of volumes and COVID-19 prevalence in the United States highlighted the need for proactive efforts to maintain access to cardiovascular testing in areas most affected by outbreaks of COVID-19 infection

SARS-CoV-2 B.1.617.2 Delta variant replication and immune evasion

Abstract: The B.1.617.2 (Delta) variant of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) was first identified in the state of Maharashtra in late 2020 and spread throughout India, outcompeting pre-existing lineages including B.1.617.1 (Kappa) and B.1.1.7 (Alpha)1. In vitro, B.1.617.2 is sixfold less sensitive to serum neutralizing antibodies from recovered individuals, and eightfold less sensitive to vaccine-elicited antibodies, compared with wild-type Wuhan-1 bearing D614G. Serum neutralizing titres against B.1.617.2 were lower in ChAdOx1 vaccinees than in BNT162b2 vaccinees. B.1.617.2 spike pseudotyped viruses exhibited compromised sensitivity to monoclonal antibodies to the receptor-binding domain and the amino-terminal domain. B.1.617.2 demonstrated higher replication efficiency than B.1.1.7 in both airway organoid and human airway epithelial systems, associated with B.1.617.2 spike being in a predominantly cleaved state compared with B.1.1.7 spike. The B.1.617.2 spike protein was able to mediate highly efficient syncytium formation that was less sensitive to inhibition by neutralizing antibody, compared with that of wild-type spike. We also observed that B.1.617.2 had higher replication and spike-mediated entry than B.1.617.1, potentially explaining the B.1.617.2 dominance. In an analysis of more than 130 SARS-CoV-2-infected health care workers across three centres in India during a period of mixed lineage circulation, we observed reduced ChAdOx1 vaccine effectiveness against B.1.617.2 relative to non-B.1.617.2, with the caveat of possible residual confounding. Compromised vaccine efficacy against the highly fit and immune-evasive B.1.617.2 Delta variant warrants continued infection control measures in the post-vaccination era

Effect of different smoking methods on the quality of pork sausages

Aim: An experiment was conducted to evaluate the nutritional, physicochemical, microbiological, and sensory attributes of pork sausages treated with conventional smoking (CS) and liquid smoke (LS). Materials and Methods: Pork sausages were prepared by employing CS (T1) and by addition of LS at 3% (T2A), 5% (T2B), and 7% (T2C) while smoking was not done in control (C) sausages. The ready-to-eat pork sausages were evaluated in terms of proximate composition, emulsion stability (ES), cooking loss (CL), pH, water activity (aw), texture profile analysis (TPA), and shear force on the day of preparation and the shelf life of the sausages was evaluated on the basis of thiobarbituric acid reactive substance (TBARS) value, organoleptic qualities, total viable plate count, total psychrophilic count, and yeast and mold counts at 5-day interval up to 15 days under refrigerated storage (6±1°C). Results: The mean percentage moisture and percentage ether extract contents of the conventionally smoked sausages (T1) exhibited significant difference (p≤0.01) with the rest of the formulations. However, in terms of mean percentage crude protein and percentage total solids, no significant difference (p≥0.05) was recorded between the treatment groups. The mean ES (ml of oil/100 g emulsion) of the different sausage emulsions ranged from 1.88 to 3.20, while the mean aw values among the sausage formulations were found to be non-significant. In terms of mean percentage, CL and pH values, significantly lowest (p≤0.01) values were recorded by the T1 sausages. The mean TBARS values recorded at different periods of time in respect of all the treatment groups ranged from 0.10 to 0.33 mg malanoldehyde [MDA]/kg of sausages which are well within the permissible limit. The highest shear force values (KgF) were recorded by the sausages of T1 formulation (p≤0.01), while TPA of the sausages did not record any significant difference (p≥0.05) among the treatments. Organoleptic studies revealed acceptability of the sausages up to 10 days of refrigerated storage irrespective of treatments employed; however, the sausages of T1 formulation scored significantly (p≤0.01) higher panel ratings. Microbiologically, sausages with different formulations were found to be within the acceptable limit up to the 15th day of refrigerated storage. Conclusion: The study revealed that traditional hot smoking has slightly higher edges over the LS-treated sausages in terms of lipid oxidation, microbiological safety, and sensory panel ratings. However, if not superior, the same was found to be well within the acceptable limit in case of LS-treated sausages proving the potentiality of the use of LS as a suitable replacement for the traditional hazardous hot smoking process

Folic Acid and Trastuzumab Functionalized Redox Responsive Polymersomes for Intracellular Doxorubicin Delivery in Breast Cancer

Redox responsive biodegradable polymersomes comprising of poly­(ethylene glycol)-polylactic acid-poly­(ethylene glycol) [PEG-s-s-PLA-s-s-PLA-s-s-PEG] triblock copolymer with multiple disulfide linkages were developed to improve intracellular delivery and to enhance chemotherapeutic efficacy of doxorubicin in breast cancer with minimal cardiotoxicity. Folic acid and trastuzumab functionalized monodispersed polymersomes of size ∼150 nm were prepared by nanoprecipitation method while achieving enhanced doxorubicin loading of ∼32% in the polymersomes. Multiple redox responsive disulfide linkages were incorporated in the polymer in order to achieve complete disintegration of polymersomes in redox rich environment of cancer cells resulting in enhanced doxorubicin release as observed in in vitro release studies, where ∼90% doxorubicin release was achieved in pH 5.0 in the presence of 10 mM glutathione (GSH) as compared to ∼20% drug release in pH 7.4. Folic acid and trastuzumab mediated active targeting resulted in improved cellular uptake and enhanced apoptosis in in vitro studies in breast cancer cell lines. In vivo studies in Ehrlich ascites tumor bearing Swiss albino mice showed enhanced antitumor efficacy and minimal cardiotoxicity of polymersomes with ∼90% tumor regression as compared to ∼38% tumor regression observed with free doxorubicin. The results highlight therapeutic potential of the polymersomes as doxorubicin delivery nanocarrier in breast cancer therapy with its superior antitumor efficacy and minimal cardiotoxicity