Digital Currency: The Future of Money

Digital currency is one of the hottest topics in the world right now. This is more so in India due to the recent demonetization schemes by the government. Due to that, many people have started using online banking, digital wallets, digital currency among others. Although there is knowledge out there about the digital wallets and online banking, the knowledge about digital currencies like Bitcoin is either minimal or next to none. This paper intends to give an overview of the various digital currencies. That includes explaining what Digital Currency really is, its processing, the real life working and the factors affecting the adoption of such currencies. How the various transactions that include digital currencies take place is one of the major points of focus of the paper. The various risks involved in such transactions are also listed in the paper

Critical Assessment of Infrastructure Investment Trusts (InvITs) in India and Suggesting measures to increase their Efficiency in comparison with International Instruments

Indian economy, like any other economy, relies heavily on the infrastructure sector. However, by end of 12th five-year plan (2012-2017) private sector investment in infrastructure started declining causing increase in government spending through budgetary support. To boost investment in infrastructure, Securities Exchange Board of India (SEBI) came up with Infrastructure Investment Trust (InvIT) regulations in 2014. InvIT’s are trust holding infrastructure assets that generate steady cash flow with long term concession. The structure of InvIT is similar to Master-Business Trusts instruments that are prevalent in many developed countries like UK, USA, Singapore, Australia & Hong-Kong. They are listed on stock exchange by issuing their units to investors. While interest of investors have increased in recent past, India\u27s progress in InvIT is still at a relatively nascent stage. As on date, around 10 (ten) InvITs are registered with SEBI. In this study we have attempted to do a critical assessment of the market for InvIT in India. We have also evaluated regulations that regulate InvIT in India and compared them with similar International instruments in order to enhance its attractiveness

Introductory Physics I & II (MGA)

This Grants Collection for Introductory Physics I & II was created under a Round Four ALG Textbook Transformation Grant. Affordable Learning Georgia Grants Collections are intended to provide faculty with the frameworks to quickly implement or revise the same materials as a Textbook Transformation Grants team, along with the aims and lessons learned from project teams during the implementation process. Documents are in .pdf format, with a separate .docx (Word) version available for download. Each collection contains the following materials: Linked Syllabus Initial Proposal Final Reporthttps://oer.galileo.usg.edu/physics-collections/1002/thumbnail.jp

SARS-COV-2 Testing Guidelines for Patients Admitted to MRH for Inpatient Rehabilitation

We implemented a clinical algorithmic approach with an emphasis on symptoms and risk to stratify patients into 3 groups: Acutely Ill COVID Rule Out/PUI Stable COVID Rule Out/PUI COVID OB

Advancing the Productivity-Selectivity Trade-off of Temperature Swing Solvent Extraction Desalination with Intermediate-Step Release

Temperature swing solvent extraction (TSSE) offers a membrane-less and nonevaporative approach to hypersaline desalination, but performance of conventional TSSE operation is restricted by an inherent trade-off between water recovery yield and salt rejection. This study presents enhanced desalination capability of TSSE with a novel intermediate release step (TSSE-IR) over a conventional (c-TSSE) single-step operation. TSSE-IR demonstrated superior performance in the hypersaline desalination of 1.0 M NaCl brines for three amines with distinct water and salt partitioning behaviors: diisopropylamine, triethylamine, and tert-octylamine. The astute introduction of the intermediate temperature step in TSSE-IR dramatically improves salt rejection while minimizing the sacrifices in water recovery yields. We show that the intermediate step does not introduce additional solvent loss compared with c-TSSE operations with the same extraction temperature for any of the three solvents examined. TSSE-IR is demonstrated to advance the productivity-selectivity trade-off that constrains c-TSSE. Finally, Hunter–Nash analysis conducted on diisopropylamine–H2O–NaCl ternary diagrams exhibits good agreement with experimental TSSE-IR results, offering a reliable platform for modeling intermediate-step release performance and informing process design. This study establishes the potential of TSSE-IR to expand the spectrum of viable solvents for hypersaline desalination to include greener chemicals that exhibit high water recovery yields but low selectivities in c-TSSE

Zero Liquid Discharge of Ultrahigh-Salinity Brines with Temperature Swing Solvent Extraction

Zero liquid discharge (ZLD) of hypersaline brines is technically and energetically challenging. This study demonstrates ZLD of ultrahigh-salinity brines using temperature swing solvent extraction (TSSE), a membrane-less and nonevaporative desalination technology. TSSE utilizes a low-polarity solvent to extract water from brine and then releases the water as a product with the application of low-temperature heat. Complete extraction of water from a hypersaline feed, simulated by 5.0 M NaCl solution (≈292 g/L TDS), was achieved using diisopropylamine solvent. Practically all of the salt is precipitated as mineral solid waste and the product water contains <5% of NaCl relative to the hypersaline feed brine. Consistent ZLD performance of high salt removals and product water quality was maintained in three repeated semibatch TSSE cycles, highlighting recyclability of the solvent. The practical applicability of the technique for actual field samples was demonstrated by ZLD of an irrigation drainage water concentrate. This study establishes the potential of TSSE as a more sustainable alternative to current thermal evaporation methods for zero liquid discharge of ultrahigh-salinity brines

Food-derived opioid peptides inhibit cysteine uptake with redox and epigenetic consequences

Dietary interventions like gluten-free and casein-free diets have been reported to improve intestinal, autoimmune and neurological symptoms in patients with a variety of conditions; however, the underlying mechanism of benefit for such diets remains unclear. Epigenetic programming, including CpG methylation and histone modifications, occurring during early postnatal development can influence the risk of disease in later life, and such programming may be modulated by nutritional factors such as milk and wheat, especially during the transition from a solely milk-based diet to one that includes other forms of nutrition. The hydrolytic digestion of casein (a major milk protein) and gliadin (a wheat-derived protein) releases peptides with opioid activity, and in the present study, we demonstrate that these food-derived proline-rich opioid peptides modulate cysteine uptake in cultured human neuronal and gastrointestinal (GI) epithelial cells via activation of opioid receptors. Decreases in cysteine uptake were associated with changes in the intracellular antioxidant glutathione and the methyl donor S-adenosylmethionine. Bovine and human casein-derived opioid peptides increased genome-wide DNA methylation in the transcription start site region with a potency order similar to their inhibition of cysteine uptake. Altered expression of genes involved in redox and methylation homeostasis was also observed. These results illustrate the potential of milk- and wheat-derived peptides to exert antioxidant and epigenetic changes that may be particularly important during the postnatal transition from placental to GI nutrition. Differences between peptides derived from human and bovine milk may contribute to developmental differences between breastfed and formula-fed infants. Restricted antioxidant capacity, caused by wheat- and milk-derived opioid peptides, may predispose susceptible individuals to inflammation and systemic oxidation, partly explaining the benefits of gluten-free or casein-free diets

Phase equilibria insights into amine-water-NaCl interactions in liquid-liquid biphasic systems for temperature swing solvent extraction desalination

This study sheds light on the fundamental phenomena governing temperature swing solvent extraction (TSSE) desalination by investigating the influence of temperature on the equilibrium partitioning of water, salt, and solvent. The distribution of components across a range of temperatures and feed salinities typical to TSSE hypersaline desalination was examined for two amine solvents. A tradeoff between selectivity and productivity is established, providing a novel framework to assess TSSE performance. Salt was shown to be a key determinant in equilibrium partitioning by diminishing the ability of the solvent to extract water at lowered temperatures and salting-out amines from the aqueous phase. Na+ and Cl− ions consistently partition into the solvent phase in equimolar ratios. Analysis further reveals a linear correlation between the natural logarithms of salt activity coefficients and water contents of the organic phase. The two collaborating results suggest that water-ion interactions are more important than amine-ion interactions in the organic phase, resolving a critical gap in the understanding of salt transport. The findings of this study can provide important insights for the informed development of temperature swing solvent extraction for hypersaline desalination

Thermomorphic Hydrophilicity Base-Induced Precipitation for Effective Descaling of Hypersaline Brines

This study presents a novel technology, termed thermomorphic hydrophilicity base-induced precipitation (THBIP), for the effective removal of hardness ions from hypersaline brines with high-scaling propensity. THBIP utilizes thermoresponsive amine bases for the controlled precipitation of scaling constituents in alkaline conditions and subsequently uses low-temperature heat to trigger the phase separation of amine from aqueous solution, thus enabling reuse of the base. Three amines exhibiting distinct water solubility and basicity, specifically, diisopropylamine (DIPA), N-ethylcyclohexylamine (ECHA), and N,N-dimethylisopropylamine (DMIPA), were examined to identify the key parameters affecting THBIP performance. The amine bases were added to solutions containing hardness ions, Mg2+ or Ca2+, to induce the precipitation of hydroxide minerals (i.e., Mg(OH)2(s) and Ca(OH)2(s)). All three amines are effective in increasing solution pH, leading to high Mg2+ removals of over 90%. But because Ca(OH)2(s) is relatively more soluble, only DIPA, which is both highly miscible in water and also the strongest base, obtained significant removal of Ca2+ ions (>33%). The observed precipitation and hardness removal are quantitatively consistent with the principles of aqueous chemistry. Using a simulated hypersaline feedwater (240 g/L total dissolved solids) of high-scaling propensity, THBIP with DIPA achieved ∼80% hardness removal. Subsequent elevation of the temperature from 15 to 70 °C triggered demixing of the thermoresponsive base from the aqueous solution, to enable liquid–liquid separation for amine reuse. The study demonstrates the proof-of-concept of using thermomorphic hydrophilicity bases as an alternative strategy to effectively reduce the scaling potential of hypersaline brines