Biosorption technology for removal of metallic pollutants-An overview

The main sources of metallic pollutants to the environment are the diffuse sources such as forests and agricultural soils as well as industrial and municipal wastes, which are either discharged directly or transported in to the environment. Various conventional technologies such as chemical precipitation, solvent extraction, ion exchange, membrane separation, electrochemical treatment etc. have been employed to remove metal pollutants from aqueous solution. The exploration of new technologies involves the removal of toxic metals from wastewater with the use of biological adsorption technology. The biosorption is the selective appropriate process for removal of metal ions uptake that may involve the contribution of diffusion, adsorption, chelation, complexation, coordination, or micro-precipitation mechanisms, depending on the specific substrate (biomass). In this overview, the use of the various low cost, easily available and eco-friendly biosorbents used for removal of metallic pollutants from contaminated water and their mechanism are discussed

Formulation and standardization of homoeopathic mother tincture of Cinnamomum zeylanicum

Alcoholic preparation of drugs in Homoeopathy, are called as tincture. The mother tincture of Cinnamomum zeylanicum was prepared by 100 g of coarse powder (40 mess) of Cinnamomum zeylanicum was macerated with 95 v/v % of alcohol to make 1000 ml of mother tincture for eight days (drug strength 1/10). It was shaken occasionally, and filtered. The mother tincture was standardized by using various physical, chemical and chromatographic parameters.Keywords: Cinnamomum zeylanicum, mother tinctur

Effect of super-optimal levels of fertilizers on soil enzymatic activities during growth stages of wheat crop on an Inceptisol

A field experiment was conducted during 2010-2011 and 2011-2012 to investigate the effect of optimal (100% NPK) to super-optimal doses (200% NPK) of mineral fertilizers on soil enzymes such as dehydrogenase (DHA), acid phosphatase (Ac-PA), alkaline phosphatase (Alk-PA), fluorescien diacetate hydrolysis (FDA), urease and nitrate reductase (NRA) at three physiological stages (CRI, anthesis and maturity) of wheat crop on an Inceptisol. Dehydrogenase activity was reduced by 28-37% when fertilizer application was at super-optimal dose (200% NPK), whereas, urease and NRA responded positively in the range of 43-44% and 213-231% respectively. Alk-PAwas 7.3-7.9% higher in treatments receiving 125% NPK as compared to control (100% NPK); whereas, Ac-PA declines in the plots receiving 175 and 200% of recommended dose of fertilizer (RDF) as compared to 150% NPK levels. Addition of 175% RDF increased the FDA to the tune of 46-53% as compared to 100% NPK. A significant (P?0.05) positive interaction between fertilizer treatments and physiological stages of wheat growth was observed on soil enzyme activities (except urease and NRA) being highest at the anthesis stage of wheat. Correlation matrix analysis showed that DHA was correlated with the studied enzyme activities except Ac-PA and FDA; whereas, strong correlation was observed between urease and NRA (r=0.981, P=0.01). This study provides theoretical and practical base for avoiding super optimal application of fertilisers which hinders the enzyme activities and vis-a-vis sustainable nutrient enrichment under rhizosphere

The quantum cryptographic switch

We illustrate using a quantum system the principle of a cryptographic switch, in which a third party (Charlie) can control to a continuously varying degree the amount of information the receiver (Bob) receives, after the sender (Alice) has sent her information. Suppose Charlie transmits a Bell state to Alice and Bob. Alice uses dense coding to transmit two bits to Bob. Only if the 2-bit information corresponding to choice of Bell state is made available by Charlie to Bob can the latter recover Alice's information. By varying the information he gives, Charlie can continuously vary the information recovered by Bob. The performance of the protocol subjected to the squeezed generalized amplitude damping channel is considered. We also present a number of practical situations where a cryptographic switch would be of use.Comment: 7 pages, 4 Figure

Author Correction: The genetic legacy of continental scale admixture in Indian Austroasiatic speakers

This Article contains errors in the Methods section, under subsection ‘Samples collection and genotyping’

Response function analysis of excited-state kinetic energy functional constructed by splitting k-space

Over the past decade, fundamentals of time independent density functional theory for excited state have been established. However, construction of the corresponding energy functionals for excited states remains a challenging problem. We have developed a method for constructing functionals for excited states by splitting k-space according to the occupation of orbitals. In this paper we first show the accuracy of kinetic energy functional thus obtained. We then perform a response function analysis of the kinetic energy functional proposed by us and show why method of splitting the k-space could be the method of choice for construction of energy functionals for excited states.Comment: 11 page

Improved protocols of secure quantum communication using W states

Recently, Hwang et al. [Eur. Phys. J. D. 61, 785 (2011)] and Yuan et al. [Int. J. Theo. Phys. 50, 2403 (2011)] have proposed two efficient protocols of secure quantum communication using 3-qubit and 4-qubit symmetric W state respectively. These two dense coding based protocols are generalized and their efficiencies are considerably improved. Simple bounds on the qubit efficiency of deterministic secure quantum communication (DSQC) and quantum secure direct communication (QSDC) protocols are obtained and it is shown that dense coding is not essential for designing of maximally efficient DSQC and QSDC protocols. This fact is used to design maximally efficient protocols of DSQC and QSDC using 3-qubit and 4-qubit W states.Comment: 8 page

Narrowband Searches for Continuous and Long-duration Transient Gravitational Waves from Known Pulsars in the LIGO-Virgo Third Observing Run

Isolated neutron stars that are asymmetric with respect to their spin axis are possible sources of detectable continuous gravitational waves. This paper presents a fully coherent search for such signals from eighteen pulsars in data from LIGO and Virgo's third observing run (O3). For known pulsars, efficient and sensitive matched-filter searches can be carried out if one assumes the gravitational radiation is phase-locked to the electromagnetic emission. In the search presented here, we relax this assumption and allow both the frequency and the time derivative of the frequency of the gravitational waves to vary in a small range around those inferred from electromagnetic observations. We find no evidence for continuous gravitational waves, and set upper limits on the strain amplitude for each target. These limits are more constraining for seven of the targets than the spin-down limit defined by ascribing all rotational energy loss to gravitational radiation. In an additional search, we look in O3 data for long-duration (hours-months) transient gravitational waves in the aftermath of pulsar glitches for six targets with a total of nine glitches. We report two marginal outliers from this search, but find no clear evidence for such emission either. The resulting duration-dependent strain upper limits do not surpass indirect energy constraints for any of these targets. © 2022. The Author(s). Published by the American Astronomical Society