•CoFe2O4/(MWCNTs)x nano-composites were prepared using ultra-sonication method.•Toluene was used as dispersive medium for these nano-composites.•Significant enhancement in dielectric properties of ...these nano-composites was observed with increased MWCNTs contents.•Improved impedance spectroscopic properties were observed for these nano-composites.•These nano-composites can be promising candidates for high-performance energy storage materials.
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Cobalt ferrite ‘CoFe2O4’ (CF) nanoparticles were prepared by co-precipitation method and their nano-composites with Multi-Walled Carbon Nanotubes (MWCNTs) (i.e.; CF/(MWCNTs)x; x = 0–30 wt% were synthesized using ultra-sonication route. Toluene was used as dispersive medium for uniform dispersion of MWCNTs. These nano-composites were characterized through X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), dielectric and impedance measurements. Single phase FCC structures of these nano-composites were explored by XRD and the aggregation of CF nanoparticles on MWCNTs was seen by SEM. The dielectric and impedance measurements were carried out with the help of LCR meter. The dielectric parameters i.e.; dielectric constants, dielectric loss, and loss tangent were increased with augmented MWCNTs contents in comparison to pure CF nanoparticles. While, impedance measurements showed leaning behavior with increased MWCNTs contents. These enhanced dielectric properties of CF/(MWCNTs)x nano-composites can be subjugated in various energy storage devices.
The two most hazardous vectors for humans are Culex pipiens molethus and Musca domestica. Several environmental and health issues have emerged because of the overuse of chemical pesticides. This ...study sought to determine the efficacy of aqueous, alcohol, and oil extracts of Citrullus colocynthis L. plant under in vitro conditions using different concentrations (0, 5, 10, and 20 mg/mL) on the various stages of Culex pipiens molethus and Musca domestica. It also sought to identify natural biological alternatives to synthetic insecticides. The current research revealed that the adult and juvenile stages of mosquitoes and house flies were considerably impacted by the extracts of bitter melon. Concentrations demonstrated a distinct effect and significantly outperformed the control treatment after 24, 48, and 72 hrs of exposure. Compared to other bitter melon extracts, the impact of the oil extract of C. colocynthis was superior. At a dosage of 20 mg/ml, oil extract treatment significantly reduced hatchability and increased mortality in the second and fourth larval stages of C. pipiens molethus. The outcomes also demonstrated the superiority of the oil extract of C. colocynthis in influencing the different stages of the house fly M. domestica with the same previous concentrations (20, 10,5 mg/mL) on egg productivity (22, 72, 89, 82%) and third larval instar (66, 79, 71, 94, 82.88%) mortality rates, as well as pupae weight rates (0.10, 0.11, 0.100 mg). With the help of the current study's findings, we may suggest using bitter melon extracts, particularly the oil extract, as a potentially effective control measure against mosquitoes and house flies. These naturally occurring extracts, which do not contain any industrial chemicals, are difficult for the insect they are intended to kill to withstand. For the aim of understanding the mechanism of action of these extracts on mosquitoes and house flies, as well as understanding the effect of bitter melon extracts on numerous therapeutic insects in the future, more research is necessary.
The need for much better data rate in support for the applications having the high speed has gathered the attention to the development of Free space Optical communication technology (FSO). But the ...widespread usage of this technology is restrained by the several ill effects caused by the atmosphere on the propagation of optical signals. In order to mitigate such problems in the FSO communication, relay assistance has been employed and this serves the alternative to the spatial diversity. Free space optical (FSO) communication is a cost-effective and high bandwidth access technique, which has been receiving attention to recent commercialization successes. FSO get affected by the weather turbulence and it leads to severe problems in the transmission channels. In this paper, we proposed the Centralized Relay selection and Optical Filtering (CROF) for processing the signals in the FSO system which overcomes the environmental challenges. Initially, an effective relay is selected with the centralized switch and stay algorithm. This algorithm selects suitable relay for serial path transmission. Here, the serial path is considered for signal transmission in a free path and the distributed Greedy algorithm with serial transmission is utilized to obtain more information. Then atmospheric turbulence induced scintillation noise presented at the signal is eliminated through modified Kalman filtering. Finally, the performance of the proposed FSO system is evaluated in MATLAB simulation platform and these evaluations are analyzed for different atmospheric conditions like fog, haze, rain and clear weather. The performance evaluation shows that the proposed algorithm outperforms the non-cooperative scheme and an existing relay selection protocol and reliable communication with improved SNR and BER is achieved.
Rice (Oryza sativa L.) is one of the most important grain crops in Iraq. This crop is plagued by several significant pests, including the rice weevil aquatic (Picia mesopotamica) which is a serious ...pest in rice fields. This study was conducted out to learn more about the biological and environmental factors that influence how this insect survives and poses a threat to rice crops in the field. The results of reproductive ability revealed that temperature seems to have a significant impact on females' life cycles and survival rates during the first reproduction. Female egg productivity rates were found to be regulated by temperature, with the lowest rate occurring later in the female's life cycle. Moreover, the average age at the first reproduction of the female was 21 and 10 days at temperature 30°C and the highest rate of 30 and 19 days at temperature 20°C respectively and the highest average number of eggs 294.20 eggs/female at the temperature was 30°C. Further, the lowest average age of the female at first reproduction was 10 days at 30°C and the highest was 19 days at 20°C. The results also indicated the apparent effect of the tested temperatures on the net compensation rates of the insect females with the lowest being 8.793 females/generation at 35°C with the highest112.68 females/generation at30°C and the lowest average generation length 57.68 days at temperature. The population grew at an exponential rate of 0.035 females per day at 30°C, while the population grew at the slowest pace of 0.008 females per day at 35°C. Despite of the effect of temperature on other biological aspects of rice weevils requires more research. We found that temperature has a clear effect on the rice weevils reproductive activities on rice plants, and this research could be crucial in developing a successful pest management method.
Wireless sensor nodes (WSNs) and embedded microsystems (EMS) have become a center of focus for researchers from all over the world due to their enormous sensing and monitoring applications in ...multiple areas including biotechnology, agriculture, healthcare, and consumer electronics. To ensure proper functioning of these systems, continuous power supply is required. The research paper presents a piezoelectric vibrational energy harvester that is designed with enhanced power extraction capability at low frequency. A compliant trapezoidal beam with optimized proof mass placement at one end, to enhance piezoelectric output, is designed, fabricated, and experimentally tested. The parametric design of the energy harvester consists of a piezoelectric ceramic crystal barium titanate (BaTiO
3
) bonded to an optimized micro-folded trapezoidal beam. The designed energy harvester has been analytically modeled using Euler beam theory and simulated using MATLAB. The static, dynamic and piezoelectric energy conversion response of the energy harvester is verified through finite element method (FEM) based Multiphysics simulations. The fabrication of the energy harvester design has been carried out using low-cost wire cutting process. The experimental characterization of the proposed energy harvester shows that 32.36 V voltage and 2.216 mW power can be extracted at the operational frequency of 15 Hz with a factor of safety of 1.30. The experimental characterization results showed a good agreement with the FEM simulations with an error < 7%. The proposed energy harvester can be used to power WSNs, EMS, micro control units and microdevices using low frequency vibrations.
Hematogenous osteomyelitis (HO) is a bone infection wherein bacteria penetrate to the bone through the blood stream. Several single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) have been associated with ...susceptibility to infectious diseases. In this study, we investigated the contribution of SNPs in interleukin (IL)-1B1 (rs16944), IL1A (rs1800587), IL1B (rs1143634), toll-like receptor (TLR)-2 (rs3804099), TLR4 (rs4986790), TLR4 (rs4986791), IL1R (rs2234650), tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-α (rs1800629), TNF (rs361525), and IL1RN (rs315952) towards the development of HO in Saudi patients and compared to healthy controls. Fifty-two patients diagnosed with HO and 103 healthy individuals were genotyped. The frequencies of genotypes GG (rs16944) and AA (rs16944) were lower and higher in patients odds ratio (OR) = 0.34, Pc = 0.05 and controls (OR = 1.33, Pc = 0.05), respectively, suggesting that SNPs at this locus could alter HO susceptibility. In addition, the patients and controls exhibited lower and higher frequencies of the alleles G (rs16944) (OR = 0.43, Pc = 0.007) and A (rs16944) (OR = 2.32, Pc = 0.007), respectively. The expression of alleles C (rs3804099) and T (rs3804099) were higher in patients (OR = 2.05, Pc = 0.04) and controls (OR = 0.49, Pc = 0.04), respectively. In conclusion, SNPs at rs16944 and rs3804099 were found to be associated with HO in the Saudi population.
Osteomyelitis is a progressive bone infection disease caused by destructive immunological inflammatory reactions following new bone formation. Anti-inflammatory cytokines are a series of ...immunoregulatory molecules that control the pro-inflammatory cytokine response. In this study, we investigated 9 single nucleotide polymorphisms in 5 different cytokine/cytokine receptor genes in hematogenous osteomyelitis (HO) patients, and compared their outcomes with normal healthy individuals. Sequence-specific forward and reverse primers and two TaqMan® MGB probes with dyes (VIC™ and FAM™) that specifically detect Allele 1 and Allele 2 of each SNP were utilized. The genotypes CC (P = 0.009) and CT (P = 0.041) of SNP rs2070874, and alleles A (P = 0.044) and G of SNP rs1800871 were significantly different between the patients and healthy controls. The expression of the CC genotype or C allele at rs2070874 was a risk factor for HO development, with higher frequencies of CT and T being found in the control samples. The expression of the A allele of rs1800871 was also significantly higher in patients than in controls, and was therefore considered a risk factor.
The present age is the age of information. The globalization has affected every sphere of the life including education. In spite of availability of ICT infrastructure in schools, their potential is ...underutilized because of digital incompetence of the teachers. New digital technologies are acting as a catalyst towards improvement of learning outcome and enhancing quality of education, but only introduction of such technologies in schools for producing change and innovation is not enough, it requires digitally competent teachers to facilitate the use of ICT in education. These teachers will act as facilitators and mentors to students to lead them towards problem solving and innovation to meet the new challenges of globalization. Teachers must be able to create learning environments which are student centric and foster creativity, Meta cognition, meta-literacy, collaboration and communication in learners. Mere superficial use of ICT in teaching will not yield the required learning outcome, but the integration of ICT in pedagogy is important to enhance teaching, learning process. This can be done only when teachers are competent enough to use ICT tools and facilitate ICT integrated education. In this paper, we tried to assess the teacher’s perspective about the ICT and investigate the factors responsible for resistance of teachers in using ICT in schools and suggestive measures for successful integration of ICT in the teaching process by the teachers of Rajouri district (J&K, India). The ICT skills are very important for teachers to support alternative modes of teaching, learning, i.e. e-learning, mobile learning in the present outbreak of pandemic disease caused by Coronavirus-COVID19.
This paper presents design of a structurally decoupled 3-DoF non-resonant MEMS gyroscope with increased robustness and gain. The proposed design utilizes dynamic amplification in 2-DoF drive mode ...oscillator to achieve large gain. The device performance is verified through behavioral model simulations considering the fabrication limitations of standard electroplated nickel micromachining process, MetalMUMPs, of 20 μm structural layer thickness. A wide operational bandwidth of 1.74 kHz with dynamically amplified again of 0.2 μm is achieved at low actuation voltages. A design sensitivity and Monte Carlo analysis is carried out to show the robustness of the design, without any feedback control, within the fabrication process tolerances. Moreover to verify the device performance under the application of angular velocity, a rate table characterization is carried out which resulted in sense mass displacement of 30 nm corresponding to the rotation induced Coriolis force at actuation voltage of 20
and 30
with angular rotation of 50 rad/s. Behavioral model simulations proved to be an cost-effective and time-saving alternative to the traditional iterative fabrications and physical level simulations.
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