The menace of plastic which is polluting the ocean has emerged as a global problem. It is well-known to everyone that the ultimate end for most of the plastic debris is the ocean. The distribution of ...plastic rubbish in the oceans is strongly influenced by hydrodynamic properties of water. The continuous break down of plastic objects, as a consequence of thermal, chemical and biological processes along with various environmental factors, results into microplastics (MPs). The microplastics are those particles which are deriving pallets of plastic, having length of less than 5 mm or 0.2 in. Nowadays microplastics are everywhere in the waters all around the world. The high dispersion pattern of oceanic currents takes away microplastics in the entire ocean even to remote areas, like the Polar Regions. Microplastics are difficult to remove from the ocean and the ingestion of these particles by several consumers of different trophic levels like benthos, birds, and fishes is a threat to the diverse food webs and ecosystems. Different scientific investigations have ascertained that a significant concentration of MPs are present in various marine ecosystems globally including the Polar region (both Arctic and Antarctic), and in the upcoming future, the condition is expected to get worse. The objective of this review is to establish a baseline evidence for the availability of microplastics in the polar region. For this reason, the state of the art of knowledge on microplastics in Polar Regions was studied.
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•Microplastics are an emergent pollutant present almost every part of the planet.•Effect of MPs on the biota of polar areas has been reported in various studies.•Microplastics studies in Antarctic are limited as compared to Arctic.•Pristine & fragile ecosystems of poles are needs to be protected and preserved.•Establishment of standard methodologies for monitoring of MP is highly recommended.
•Hydraulic nature of bricks with low shrinkage and high mechanical strength.•Geochemical composition showed siliceous nature of monumental bricks.•Mineralogical analyses showed firing temperature ...~900 °C under oxidising conditions.•The monumental bricks showed use of traditional indigenous production techniques.
The historical monumental bricks dated 14–18th century CE of Haryana region of the Indian subcontinent were examined to assess their geochemical characteristics, and to understand the raw materials and production technique used in the brick manufacturing.The results showed that the bricks were foundhydraulic in naturewith low shrinkage and high mechanical and physico-sintering properties, containing high concentration of silica and low concentration of calcium.The combined results of applied methods (XRF, XRD, FTIR, TGA, and SEM) suggest that the bricks werefired at temperatures around 900 °C,underoxidising conditionsthrough traditional brick manufacturing technology.The observed variability in the bricks corresponds to different construction phases of monumental structures.These results also revealed thegeochemicalnature of raw materials and durability of monumental bricks, subjected to various types of weathering phenomena in aggressive environments of the Yamuna River basin. This reference work hasanimportant scientific value for the restoration and conservation of historical monuments with respect to longevity and durability of brick masonry.
Active and stable metal-free heterogeneous catalysts for CO₂ fixation are required to reduce the current high level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, which is driving climate change. In this work, ...we show that defects in nanosilica (E′ centers, oxygen vacancies, and nonbridging oxygen hole centers) convert CO₂ to methane with excellent productivity and selectivity. Neither metal nor complex organic ligands were required, and the defect alone acted as catalytic sites for carbon dioxide activation and hydrogen dissociation and their cooperative action converted CO₂ to methane. Unlike metal catalysts, which become deactivated with time, the defect-containing nanosilica showed significantly better stability. Notably, the catalyst can be regenerated by simple heating in the air without the need for hydrogen gas. Surprisingly, the catalytic activity for methane production increased significantly after every regeneration cycle, reaching more than double the methane production rate after eight regeneration cycles. This activated catalyst remained stable for more than 200 h. Detailed understanding of the role of the various defect sites in terms of their concentrations and proximities as well as their cooperativity in activating CO₂ and dissociating hydrogen to produce methane was achieved.
A variety of g–C3N4–based metal-free photocatalysts for H2 generation including structurally manipulated g-C3N4, g–C3N4–doped with non-metallic elements and molecules, hetero-junctions of g-C3N4 with ...carbonaceous materials, polymers as well as SiC and g–C3N4–based iso-type or homo-junctions are considered. Innumerable strategies have been attempted to enhance H2 evolution rate of g–C3N4–derived metal-free photocatalysts compared to pure g-C3N4. Furthermore, challenges in this area are yet to be tackled to resolve the issues low efficiency, low stability and dependence on noble metal co-catalysts for increasing the product yield and reduction in redox capability by narrowing the band gap. This review attempts to cover the latest developments, especially in the area of graphitic carbon nitride (g–C3N4)–based metal-free photocatalysts for H2 generation.
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Nucleic acid G-quadruplex structure (G4) Interacting Proteins DataBase (G4IPDB) is an important database that contains detailed information about proteins interacting with nucleic acids that forms ...G-quadruplex structures. G4IPDB is the first database that provides comprehensive information about this interaction at a single platform. This database contains more than 200 entries with details of interaction such as interacting protein name and their synonyms, their UniProt-ID, source organism, target name and its sequences, ∆T
, binding/dissociation constants, protein gene name, protein FASTA sequence, interacting residue in protein, related PDB entries, interaction ID, graphical view, PMID, author's name and techniques that were used to detect their interactions. G4IPDB also provides an efficient web-based "G-quadruplex predictor tool" that searches putative G-quadruplex forming sequences simultaneously in both sense and anti-sense strands of the query nucleotide sequence and provides the predicted G score. Studying the interaction between proteins and nucleic acids forming G-quadruplex structures could be of therapeutic significance for various diseases including cancer and neurological disease, therefore, having detail information about their interactions on a single platform would be helpful for the discovery and development of novel therapeutics. G4IPDB can be routinely updated (twice in year) and freely available on http://bsbe.iiti.ac.in/bsbe/ipdb/index.php.
A survey on question answering systems with classification Mishra, Amit; Jain, Sanjay Kumar
Journal of King Saud University. Computer and information sciences,
July 2016, 2016-07-00, 2016-07-01, Letnik:
28, Številka:
3
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
Question answering systems (QASs) generate answers of questions asked in natural languages. Early QASs were developed for restricted domains and have limited capabilities. Current QASs focus on types ...of questions generally asked by users, characteristics of data sources consulted, and forms of correct answers generated. Research in the area of QASs began in 1960s and since then, a large number of QASs have been developed. To identify the future scope of research in this area, the need of a comprehensive survey on QASs arises naturally. This paper surveys QASs and classifies them based on different criteria. We identify the current status of the research in the each category of QASs, and suggest future scope of the research.
Dengue is considered as a major health issue which causes a number of deaths worldwide each year; tropical countries are majorly affected by dengue outbreaks. It is considered as life threatening ...issue because, since many decades not a single effective approach for treatment and prevention of dengue has been developed. Therefore, to find new preventive measure, we used immunoinformatics approaches to develop a multi-epitope based subunit vaccine for dengue which can generate various immune responses inside the host. Different B-cell, T
cell, and T
cell binding epitopes were predicted for structural and non-structural proteins of dengue virus. Final vaccine constructs consisting of T
and T
cell epitopes and an adjuvant (β-defensin) at N-terminal of the construct. Presence of B-cell and IFN-γ inducing epitopes confirms the humoral and cell mediated immune response developed by designed vaccine. Designed vaccine was not found allergic and was potentially antigenic in nature. Modeling of tertiary structure and the refined model was used for molecular docking with TLR-3 (immune receptor). Molecular docking and dynamics simulation confirms the microscopic interactions between ligand and receptor. In silico cloning approach was used to ensure the expression and translation efficiency of vaccine within an expression vector.
Pure air and water are essential requirements for sustainability of human civilization and wildlife on earth. However, due to illicit industrial practices of waste disposal, the presence of harmful ...effluents has increased in both air and water bodies which are harmful to both humans and wildlife. Heterogeneous photocatalysis can be a promising measure for the removal of these pollutants from both water and air. TiO2 is a highly investigated photocatalyst for such a purpose but it suffers from few demerits which hamper its practical application. Commercially available TiO2 (Degussa P25) has low photocatalytic efficiency owing to its low surface area (50 m2/g) and porosity and it is difficult to separate it from the reaction mixture which makes it less reusable. In order to overcome these limitations a variety of materials have been used as catalytic supports for TiO2. Among these clays have gained immense attention since they are cheap, highly available in the earth’s crust and possess thermal, chemical and mechanical stability. Clays provide TiO2 with the high surface area, porosity, high number of surface active sites which makes TiO2/clay nanocomposites highly active photocatalyst than pure TiO2. The review represents different methodologies for TiO2/clay synthesis and the impact of clay on the physical and photocatalytic activity of TiO2. Also, the role of different clay supports for TiO2 and comparison of their effect on the photocatalytic activity of TiO2 has been covered.
To characterize the epidemiologic profiles of prediabetes mellitus (preDM), diabetes mellitus (DM), and hypertension (HTN) in Qataris using the nationally representative 2012 Qatar STEPwise Survey.
A ...secondary data analysis of a cross-sectional survey that included 2,497 Qatari nationals aged 18-64 years. Descriptive and analytical statistical analyses were conducted.
Prevalence of preDM, DM, and HTN in Qataris aged 18-64 years was 11.9% (95% confidence interval CI 9.6%-14.7%), 10.4% (95% CI 8.4%-12.9%), and 32.9% (95% CI 30.4%-35.6%), respectively. Age was the common factor associated with the three conditions. Adjusted analyses showed that unhealthy diet (adjusted odds ratio (aOR) = 1.84, 95% CI 1.01-3.36) was significantly associated with preDM; that physical inactivity (aOR = 1.66, 95% CI 1.12-2.46), central obesity (aOR = 2.08, 95% CI 1.02-4.26), and HTN (aOR = 2.18, 95% CI 1.40-3.38) were significantly associated with DM; and that DM (aOR = 2.07, 95% CI 1.34-3.22) was significantly associated with HTN. Population attributable fraction of preDM associated with unhealthy diet was 7.7%; of DM associated with physical inactivity, central obesity, and HTN, respectively, was 14.9%, 39.8%, and 17.5%; and of HTN associated with DM was 3.0%.
One in five Qataris is living with either preDM or DM, and one in three is living with HTN, conditions that were found to be primarily driven by lifestyle factors. Prevention, control, and management of these conditions should be a national priority to reduce their disease burden and associated disease sequelae.
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