Display omitted
•Ceramic membrane (CM) market is growing with many full-scale applications.•CM is superior to polymeric membrane–high stability & flux, long life, low fouling.•Physicochemical ...processes (e.g., ozonation) are effective for fouling control.•Catalytic (nano) CMs can enhance antifouling, and pollutant removal capability.•Cost analysis of CMs, fouling control & cleaning should be evaluated at full-scale.
Application of ceramic membrane technology in water and wastewater is rapidly growing. Inherent advantages of ceramic membrane including chemical/thermal stability, low fouling propensity and long lifespan make ceramic membrane technology attractive, and the ceramic membrane market is expected to achieve a compound annual growth rate of 12%. Ceramic membranes could be integrated with advanced oxidation processes such as in-situ ozonation that cannot be applied in the case of polymeric membrane due to their potential degradation during long-term exposure. In addition, the hybrid-ceramic membrane processes such as ceramic membrane bioreactor are superior to polymeric counterparts due to higher flux, higher pollutant removal, lower fouling rate and higher cleaning efficiency. Although ceramic membrane has high capital cost, life-cycle costs of ceramic and polymeric plants are comparable. Notably, full-scale ceramic membrane water/wastewater treatment plants have been installed in many countries such as Japan, USA, Singapore and United Kingdom. Given the attractiveness of this technology, performance of ceramic membrane is critically reviewed with a focus on their applications in water and wastewater treatment under mild conditions. In addition, fouling mechanisms and control strategies are elucidated and are compared with polymeric membranes. Importantly, for the first time, the status of full-scale applications and market prospects of ceramic membranes are critically analysed to show their future potential. Lastly, future research directions such as development of cost-effective ceramic membranes, understanding the biofouling evolution and economic evaluation of physicochemical processes for fouling control are proposed.
Display omitted
•3D hierarchical LSTN@NiMn-layered double hydroxide electroctalyst developed for hydrogen production.•Electrocatalyst showed superior HER and OER performance comparable to noble ...metals.•The enhancing the overall activity is attributed to the interface engineering of perovskite and layered hydroxides.
The development of bifunctional electrocatalyst with effective activity and high stability for water splitting reactions is essential for hydrogen production and fuel cell technology. Herein, a 3D hierarchical heterostructure LSTN@NiMn-layered double hydroxide (La0.4Sr0.4Ti0.9Ni0.1O3-δ @NiMn-LDH) supported on highly conductive nickel foam, is presented as a novel bifunctional electrocatalyst with outstanding performance. LSTN heterostructure synthesized by sol-gel method followed by hydrothermal reaction to grow LDH layers (LSTN@NiMn-LDH) resulted in phenomenal bifunctional activity towards both the oxygen evolution reaction (OER) and the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER), by exhibiting a low overpotential of 125 mV at 15 mA cm−2 (OER) and 32 mV at 10 mA cm−2 (HER). Moreover, the 3D electrode showed good long-term durability for 24 hrs. stability test at a current density of 100 µA cm−2, as well as constant LSV results after operating HER for 1000 cycles. This approach of preparing heterostructure LSTN@NiMn-LDH combines the fundamental properties of La0.4Sr0.4Ti0.9Ni0.1O3-δ (highly efficient HER catalyst) with NiMn-LDH (catalytically active for OER) by using interface engineering, resultantly opens a new way of enhancing the overall activity of water splitting reactions.
Classification of human actions is an ongoing research problem in computer vision. This review is aimed to scope current literature on data fusion and action recognition techniques and to identify ...gaps and future research direction. Success in producing cost-effective and portable vision-based sensors has dramatically increased the number and size of datasets. The increase in the number of action recognition datasets intersects with advances in deep learning architectures and computational support, both of which offer significant research opportunities. Naturally, each action-data modality-such as RGB, depth, skeleton, and infrared (IR)-has distinct characteristics; therefore, it is important to exploit the value of each modality for better action recognition. In this paper, we focus solely on data fusion and recognition techniques in the context of vision with an RGB-D perspective. We conclude by discussing research challenges, emerging trends, and possible future research directions.
Display omitted
•We reviewed materials and functionalization strategies to engineer nanobiocatalysts.•Coordination between materials and enzymes play a critical role in developing ...nanobiocatalysts.•The characteristic properties rendering materials interesting matrices for immobilization.•Functionalized constructs can be used as immobilization carriers for enzymes.
Suitable coordination between the new wave of nanostructured materials and catalyst of interests play a critical role in developing nanobiocatalysts with new or improved functionalities. In this context, enzymes with natural origin are versatile biocatalysts with multifunctional characteristics and have been widely utilized in various sectors such as environmental, energy, biomedical, pharmaceutical, cosmeceutical, nutraceutical, fine chemicals, agro-industrial, and food industry, etc. The deployment of enzymes in a non-natural environment has limited boundaries such as the high production cost, challenging separation, purification, and liability to deactivation under non-ambient conditions. These drawbacks can be overcome by the design and fabrication of novel hybrid and functionalized nanobiocatalyst. However, appropriate coordination at chemical, physical, and the biological level is highly requisite to engineer such nanobiocatalysts of supreme interests. Currently, the generation and development of diverse nanomaterials along with new strategies have been established from the nanotechnology perspectives, where the integration of naturally occurring biocatalysts with suitable nanomaterials offer an exceptional corridor to upgrade the catalytic performances of pristine enzymes. Recent innovations in nano-biotechnology furnished numerous opportunities to integrate natural biocatalysts to a range of nanostructured materials with unique attributes. These newly introduced nanomaterials show/impart additional characteristics which enzyme in their pristine form fails to demonstrate on their own. Manipulation of these nanomaterials for enzyme delivery or recovery, remote access for activation or deactivation of enzymatic activity, and new catalytic entities with harmonizing functionalities has taken this field to a new horizon with pronounced biotechnological applications in the coming years. The present review emphases on the recent developments along with the exploitation of nanostructured materials including nanofibers, hybrid nanoflowers, mesoporous/nanoporous carriers, carbon nanotubes, magnetic or non-magnetic nanoparticles, and nanocomposites as support carriers for the immobilization of different enzymes to develop nanobiocatalysts with potential activity and stability characteristics. In addition, strategies for the synthesis and various types of new functionalization approaches, particularly the chemical method for its capability to modify nanomaterials with enormous functionalities are discussed. Towards the end, challenges related to the use of nanobiocatalysts and their possible solution are summarized.
Education in Pakistan is no longer a matter of indifference to the rest of the world. Typically, concern is focused on the role played by the madrasah (Islamic religious school; plural madaaris) as ...the dominant provider of education. The rise in the number of English-medium education institutions countrywide does not enter such accounts. This ethnographic study relates this topic to the pedagogic aspirations of Pakistanis asking, What is the role of English-medium schools in Pakistan and is it even the case that the majority of Pakistanis are markedly in favor of a predominantly religious education for their children? The study suggests thatformal English-medium education is most parents' real-world priority, fluency in English being a prerequisite for higher paying jobs in Pakistan.
The key objective of the present research is to examine the hybrid magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) nanofluid (Carbon-nanotubes and ferrous oxide-water) CNT-Fe
O
/H
flow into a horizontal parallel channel ...with thermal radiation through squeezing and dilating porous walls. The parting motion is triggered by the porous walls of the channel. The fluid flow is time-dependent and laminar. The channel is asymmetric and the upper and lower walls are distinct in temperature and are porous. With the combination of nanoparticles of Fe
O
and single and multi-wall carbon nanotubes, the hybrid nanofluid principle is exploited. By using the similarity transformation, the set of partial differential equations (PDEs) of this mathematical model, governed by momentum and energy equations, is reduced to corresponding ordinary differential equations (ODEs). A very simple numerical approach called the Runge-Kutta system of order four along with the shooting technique is used to achieve the solutions for regulating ODEs. MATLAB computing software is used to create temperature and velocity profile graphs for various emerging parameters. At the end of the manuscript, the main conclusions are summarized. Through different graphs, it is observed that hybrid-nanofluid has more prominent thermal enhancement than simple nanofluid. Further, the single-wall nanotubes have dominated impact on temperature than the multi-wall carbon nanotubes. From the calculations, it is also noted that Fe
O
-MWCNT-water has an average of 4.84% more rate of heat transfer than the Fe
O
-SWCNT-water. On the other hand, 8.27% more heat flow observed in Fe
O
-SWCNT-water than the simple nanofluid. Such study is very important in coolant circulation, inter-body fluid transportation, aerospace engineering, and industrial cleaning procedures, etc.
Whether early or preemptive corticosteroids and immunomodulators should continue to be used to mitigate CAR T-cell therapy-related toxic effects, when such a strategy is associated with an increased ...risk of infections and diminished SARS-CoV-2 vaccine responses, remains a timely question and probably will involve a balancing act.1 To that end, Topp and colleagues2 and Caimi and colleagues3 provided a set of results showing the potential of preemptive corticosteroids and tocilizumab, respectively, to mitigate the risks of severe cytokine release syndrome (CRS) and immune effector cell-associated neurotoxicity syndrome (ICANS).2,3 A subgroup analysis by Topp and colleagues from the pivotal ZUMA-1 trial evaluated the incidence and severity of CRS and ICANS (primary endpoints in cohort 4) with early administration of corticosteroids and tocilizumab. The association between cumulative corticosteroid dose and duration and increased risk of infections has been shown in several studies examining CD19 and B-cell maturation antigen-targeted CAR T-cells.7 This is an important safety consideration as infections are among the most common causes of mortality in CAR T-cell therapy recipients, second only to CRS and ICANS.8 In the era of an ongoing pandemic and continuous emergence of variants of concern, clinical practice and research related to CAR T-cell therapy needs redirection. Importantly, evolving data related to SARS-CoV-2 vaccine responses in patients with cancer suggest that humoral immune responses might be substantially blunted in CAR T-cell therapy recipients, with corticosteroids being identified as the primary driver of diminished vaccine responses.7 Although there might not be an immediate solution to the problem, exploratory studies showing the feasibility of CAR.λ and CAR.κ T cells hold potential for a minimal effect on humoral immunity.
The silver, magnesium oxide and gyrotactic microorganism-based hybrid nanofluid flow inside the conical space between disc and cone is addressed in the perspective of thermal energy stabilization. ...Different cases have been discussed between the spinning of cone and disc in the same or counter wise directions. The hybrid nanofluid has been synthesized in the presence of silver Ag and magnesium oxide MgO nanoparticulate. The viscous dissipation and the magnetic field factors are introduced to the modeled equations. The parametric continuation method (PCM) is utilized to numerically handle the modeled problem. Magnesium oxide is chemically made up of Mg
and O
ions that are bound by a strong ionic connection and can be made by pyrolyzing Mg(OH)
(magnesium hydroxide) and MgCO
(magnesium carbonate) at high temperature (700-1500 °C). For metallurgical, biomedical and electrical implementations, it is more efficient. Similarly, silver nanoparticle's antibacterial properties could be employed to control bacterial growth. It has been observed that a circulating disc with a stationary cone can achieve the optimum cooling of the cone-disk apparatus while the outer edge temperature remains fixed. The thermal energy profile remarkably upgraded with the magnetic effect, the addition of nanoparticulate in base fluid and Eckert number.
PDF
