Palladium nanoparticles (Pd) combined with smart polymer microgels have attracted significant interest in the past decade. These hybrid materials have unique properties that make them appealing for ...various applications in biology, environmental remediation, and catalysis. The responsive nature of the microgels in these hybrids holds great promise for a wide range of applications. The literature contains diverse morphologies and architectures of Pd nanoparticle-based hybrid microgels, and the architecture of these hybrids plays a vital role in determining their potential uses. Therefore, specific Pd nanoparticle-based hybrid microgels are designed for specific applications. This report provides an overview of recent advancements in the classification, synthesis, properties, characterization, and uses of Pd nanostructures loaded into microgels. Additionally, the report discusses the latest progress in biomedical, catalytic, environmental, and sensing applications of Pd-based hybrid microgels in a tutorial manner.
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Chronic non-healing wounds tender a great challenge to patients, physicians, and wound care professionals. In view of the increasing prevalence of chronic wounds due to ischemia, ...diabetic foot, venous, and pressure ulcers, their appropriate management requires significant attention. Along with the basic techniques of medical and surgical treatments; an ideal dressing is essential for a speedy recovery and rapid healing of such wounds. Mechanistic understanding of chronic wound pathology will not only help towards future directions for an ideal dressing model but also to resonant advance research related to specific dressings for various wound types. This review provides key insights into causes, pathophysiology, and critical issues pertaining to chronic wounds and their management. It also summarizes the challenges faced for chronic wound treatment and specified factors responsible for delayed healing. Moreover, this review delivers a detailed discussion on available polymeric materials (alginate, chitosan, hyaluronic acid, collagen, polyurethane, cellulose, dextran, gelatin, silk, and polyaniline), their functional characteristics, and usage as chronic wound healing agents for polymeric wound dressing development. Incorporation and comparison of the research studies for their thermal behavior, structural analysis, and microscopic studies by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, thermogravimetric analysis and scanning electron microscopy, respectively and swelling studies of different polymeric materials are discussed. Additionally, studies of anatomy cum physiology of wound healing, pathophysiology, tissue engineering and advance healing management approaches makes the content of this review a significant tool for future studies on chronic wounds healing by polymeric wound dressings. In this review, polymeric wound dressings have been explained in terms of their structures, function, chemistry, and key characteristics. These features are directly linked to the polymeric systems’ potential in the management of chronic wounds. These polymeric systems have gained promising success in solving real word global health problems. More recently, innovative approaches to fabricate the polymer dressings have been introduced, but their commercial, sustainable, and high-scale production largely remains unexplored. This review also summarizes the promises of polymeric wound dressings and provides a future perspective on how the clinical and commercial landscape could potentially be propelled by utilizing polymers in wound care management.
Recently, novel coronavirus is a serious global issue and having a negative impact on the economy of the whole world. Like other countries, it also effected the economy and people of Pakistan. ...According to the publicly reported data, the first case of novel corona virus in Pakistan was reported on 27th February 2020. The aim of the present study is to describe the mathematical model and dynamics of COVID-19 in Pakistan. To investigate the spread of coronavirus in Pakistan, we develop the SEIR time fractional model with newly, developed fractional operator of Atangana-Baleanu. We present briefly the analysis of the given model and discuss its applications using world health organization (WHO) reported data for Pakistan. We consider the available infection cases from 19th March 2020, till 31st March 2020 and accordingly, various parameters are fitted or estimated. It is worth noting that we have calculated the basic reproduction number Formula: see text which shows that virus is spreading rapidly. Furthermore, stability analysis of the model at disease free equilibrium DFE and endemic equilibriums EE is performed to observe the dynamics and transmission of the model. Finally, the AB fractional model is solved numerically. To show the effect of the various embedded parameters like fractional parameter Formula: see text on the model, various graphs are plotted. It is worth noting that the base of our investigation, we have predicted the spread of disease for next 200 days.
Decomposition of toxic organic compounds is a major environmental problem. Increasingly, research is being conducted to use plasmas to decompose these wastes in water, as it is simple, effective and ...does not require the addition of other chemical agents. Different groups have used varied reactor designs. This study calculates and compares relative energy yields of about 27 major types of plasma reactors. The results reveal dramatic differences in the energy yields, up to five orders of magnitude. The most efficient are pulse powered reactors, in which plasma is formed in gas phase and the waste solution sprayed into it. Factors that account for this improved energy yield are discussed. This study will help narrow down efficient reactors for further studies, development and commercial uses.
Monitoring physical activities by using wireless sensors is helpful for identifying postural orientation and movements in the real-life environment. A simple and robust method based on time domain ...features to identify the physical activities is proposed in this paper; it uses sensors placed on the subjects' wrist, chest and ankle. A feature set based on time domain characteristics of the acceleration signal recorded by acceleration sensors is proposed for the classification of twelve physical activities. Nine subjects performed twelve different types of physical activities, including sitting, standing, walking, running, cycling, Nordic walking, ascending stairs, descending stairs, vacuum cleaning, ironing clothes and jumping rope, and lying down (resting state). Their ages were 27.2 ± 3.3 years and their body mass index (BMI) is 25.11 ± 2.6 Kg/m2. Classification results demonstrated a high validity showing precision (a positive predictive value) and recall (sensitivity) of more than 95% for all physical activities. The overall classification accuracy for a combined feature set of three sensors is 98%. The proposed framework can be used to monitor the physical activities of a subject that can be very useful for the health professional to assess the physical activity of healthy individuals as well as patients.
Given the rapidly increasing use of metal oxide nanoparticles in agriculture as well as their inadvertent addition through sewage sludge application to soils, it is imperative to assess their ...possible toxic effects on soil functions that are vital for healthy crop production. In this regard, we designed a lab study to investigate the potential toxicity of one of the most produced nanoparticles, i.e. zinc oxide nanoparticles (nZnO), in a calcareous soil. Microcosms of 80 g of dry-equivalent fresh soils were incubated in mason jars for 64 days, after adding 100 or 1000 mg of biogenically produced nZnO kg
soil. Moreover, we also added rice-straw derived biochar at 1 or 5% (w: w basis) hypothesizing that the biochar would alleviate nZnO-induced toxicity given that it has been shown to adsorb and detoxify heavy metals in soils. We found that the nZnO decreased microbial biomass carbon by 27.0 to 33.5% in 100 mg nZnO kg
soil and by 39.0 to 43.3% in 1000 mg nZnO kg
soil treatments across biochar treatments in the short term i.e. 24 days after incubation. However, this decrease disappeared after 64 days of incubation and the microbial biomass in nZnO amended soils were similar to that in control soils. This shows that the toxicity of nZnO in the studied soil was ephemeral and transient which was overcome by the soil itself in a couple of months. This is also supported by the fact that the nZnO induced higher cumulative C mineralization (i.e. soil respiration) at both rates of addition. The treatment 100 mg nZnO kg
soil induced 166 to 207%, while 1000 mg nZnO kg
soil induced 136 to 171% higher cumulative C mineralization across biochar treatments by the end of the experiment. However, contrary to our hypothesis increasing the nZnO addition from 100 to 1000 mg nZnO kg
soil did not cause additional decrease in microbial biomass nor induced higher C mineralization. Moreover, the biochar did not alleviate even the ephemeral toxicity that was observed after 24d of incubation. Based on overall results, we conclude that the studied soil can function without impairment even at 1000 mg kg
concentration of nZnO in it.
Growth and development of cereal crops are linked to weather, day length and growing degree-days (GDDs) which make them responsive to the specific environments in specific seasons. Global temperature ...is rising due to human activities such as burning of fossil fuels and clearance of woodlands for building construction. The rise in temperature disrupts crop growth and development. Disturbance mainly causes a shift in phenological development of crops and affects their economic yield. Scientists and farmers adapt to these phenological shifts, in part, by changing sowing time and cultivar shifts which may increase or decrease crop growth duration. Nonetheless, climate warming is a global phenomenon and cannot be avoided. In this scenario, food security can be ensured by improving cereal production through agronomic management, breeding of climate-adapted genotypes and increasing genetic biodiversity. In this review, climate warming, its impact and consequences are discussed with reference to their influences on phenological shifts. Furthermore, how different cereal crops adapt to climate warming by regulating their phenological development is elaborated. Based on the above mentioned discussion, different management strategies to cope with climate warming are suggested.
•Six ecological network research focuses were discovered across riparian zones.•In the riparian zone, residents affect the ecological networks more than workers.•The downstream areas are influenced ...the most by environmental literacy indexes.•New rules are required to promote ecological networks from various streams equitably.
Environmental illiteracy threatens the functioning mechanisms of ecological networks worldwide, yet many people remain dubious about their existence. The knowledge deficit model suggests that giving the public (local people and government personnel) additional information would alleviate distrust. There is limited evidence indicating that environmental literacy metrics (ELMs) influence ecological network indicators (ENIs) such as plant cover, habitat, exotics, regeneration, erosion, and stressors throughout the drawdown zone (upstream, midstream, and downstream) within dams and reservoirs, despite widespread implementation to enhance riparian zone conservation. This study tackles this knowledge gap by using multivariate statistical methods to assess ENIs on the covered area of 58,000 km2 in 327 transects through a field-based approach inside China's Three Gorges Reservoir area (TGRA) in 2019. The bar graph results showed the largest lack of information about ELMs (e.g., knowledge, attitude, and behavior) from the general populace, and it had the biggest effect on the plant cover in the midstream and the least impact on regeneration in the upstream. The ELMs of local people influenced the ENIs most within the downstream, with coefficients of Pearson correlation in the range of −0.67 < r < 0.98. However, the ELMs (knowledge and behavior) of government personnel showed the greatest correlations with ENIs (−0.41 < r < 0.74) in the midstream, while attitude towards downstream. In comparison among ENIs, vegetation cover, grass exotics, gullying, longitudinal continuity, and farming systems were all-important ENIs within the TGRA. ENIs and ELMs varied substantially for each section of the drawdown zone, according to hierarchical approaches. These results educate decision-makers about the spatial variations in ENIs of riparian regions in dams and reservoirs, which need location-based initiatives to raise inclusive impact awareness among the Chinese public.
Nitric oxide (NO) is a vasodilator and antihypertensive agent as well as a universal anti-microbial factor killing bacteria, fungi and parasites without killing human cells provided that an ...appropriate dose level and treatment time are applied. Exogenous NO is often employed in inhalation therapies for treating pulmonary hypertension in children and adults. NO generation from air in high voltage electrical discharges is being developed for medical uses because it is technologically simple, economical and portable. The related literature is reviewed here. The plasma can be a thermal plasma, where the temperature is of the order of 10,000 K, or it can be a non-thermal plasma, where the electron temperature is very high but the average gas temperature can vary over a wide range from close to room temperature to thousands of degrees above room temperature. The plasma temperature has significant effects on the chemical composition of the treated gas. These effects are explained based on the chemical reaction mechanism. Further, NO generated by electrical discharges is usually contaminated with nitrogen dioxide and sometimes with ozone and particulate matter. The techniques that have been successfully hybridized with the electrical discharge devices or that can potentially be hybridized for the purification of NO are also reviewed. Recent successful testing of electrical discharge-based NO generators for inhalation therapy on animal models in the US and routine use of them in Russia and east Europe for wound decontamination and fast heeling suggests that the technique has a great potential for applications in future.
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•The oxygen evolution reaction (OER) is a crucial electrochemical reaction of water-splitting system.•Cobalt-based bimetallic zeolitic imidazole frameworks (ZIFs) and their ...derivatives are extensively utilized.•Only cobalt-based bimetallic ZIFs used as electrocatalysts during OER are discussed.•Future prospects for bimetallic ZIF-derived carbon-based materials for OER electrocatalysis are discussed.
Oxygen evolution reaction (OER) is a crucial electrochemical reaction in metal-air batteries and water-splitting system. It is of utmost importance for these devices to achieve highly efficient clean energy production and storage. The zeolitic imidazolate frameworks (ZIFs) have received a lot of attention as a new type of crystalline porous materials due to their large surface area, high porosity, large pore volume, and easy functionalization as well as promising precursors to produce carbon-based electrocatalysts with high electrical conductivity. Cobalt-based bimetallic ZIFs with two distinct metal ions hold specific synergistic effects that demonstrate water oxidation performance and stability better than those of individual monometallic ZIFs. This review focuses on cobalt based bimetallic ZIFs; their advantages, synthesis and modification methods, derived compounds, synergistic effects, and activity of electrocatalysts during OER. We have summed up the application of bimetallic ZIFs and their derivatives in oxygen evolution reaction for the first time, that has sparked a lot of interest in this field. Finally, the future prospective of bimetallic ZIF-derived carbon-based materials for OER electrocatalysis is briefly discussed.
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