Optimisation of laboratory arsenic analysis for groundwaters of West Bengal,India and possible water testing strategy

Regular monitoring of arsenic (As) in groundwater is crucial from public health perspectives as millions of people are suffering due to use of contaminated aquifer water for drinking purposes. The routine analyses, especially in developing nations, are mostly done in localised government/non-government laboratories with limited resources, having the target of analysing large number of samples in each run. Thus apart from analytical sensitivity, cost-effectiveness of the method and eco-friendliness of the experimental operation are key surreptitious factors. This demands optimisation of total As measurement methods and finding a method that gives ‘optimum benefit’ considering all these factors together. The present study therefore evaluates four common As (total) measurement methods [iodometric-colorimetric method, silver diethyl dithiocarbamate method, molybdenum blue method and hydride generation atomic absorption spectrophotometric (HG-AAS) method] practised in the Bengal Delta Plain, in view of their analytical sensitivity, related environmental hazard and experimental costs. It was found that the HG-AAS method is analytically more sensitive, whereas the iodometric-colorimetric method and the molybdenum blue method are better choices in terms of eco-friendliness and cost-effectiveness, respectively. However, when all three factors (analytical reliability, environmental hazard and cost) are considered simultaneously, the molybdenum blue method was found to be placed first in the ‘optimum performance rank’ list. It was also found that both environmental hazard and cost play a more crucial role than analytical reliability, although this is case specific and would differ from place to place around the globe. Finally based on the results, we have hypothesised a water testing strategy for developing countries such as India where the molybdenum blue method can be adapted as a screening method and later the HG-AAS method can be used to precisely identify the groundwater samples with As concentration below the WHO drinking water guideline value of 10 μg/L.     

Dynamical behaviour of a delayed three species predator–prey model with cooperation among the prey species

Nonlinear Dynamics - In this paper we have discussed about the dynamics of three species (two preys and one predator) delayed predator–prey model with cooperation among the preys against...     

LC–QTOF–MS-based metabolite profiling and evaluation of α-glucosidase inhibitory kinetics of Coccinia grandis fruit

Coccinia grandis is an important food crop of the Cucurbitaceae family, widely used for culinary purposes in India. It is reported to possess hypoglycemic, hypolipidemic and antioxidant activities. The current study was aimed to explore the inhibition kinetics as well as major constituents of the active fraction of C. grandis against α-glucosidase. The kinetic study was performed through spectrophotometric assay, with p-nitrophenyl-α-d -glucopyranoside as a substrate with varying concentrations. An in vitro antioxidant study was performed by DPPH assay. In addition, UPLC–QTOF–MS analysis was carried out for metabolite profiling of the bioactive fraction of C. grandis. The results showed that the difference between the α-glucosidase inhibitory activity of the ethyl acetate fraction of C. grandis (EFCG) (IC₅₀ 2.43 ± 0.27 mg/ml), and standard inhibitor, acarbose (2.08 ± 0.19 mg/ml), was not statistically significant at a P-value of 0.05. The enzyme kinetics confirmed the inhibition mode in a mixed manner. The EFCG also showed the highest antioxidant activity (101.74 ± 1.95 μg/ml) among all of the fractions. A significant correlation between antioxidant and α-glucosidase inhibitory activity of EFCG was observed. The LC–QTOF–MS study of the EFCG putatively identified 35 metabolites, which may be responsible for its antioxidant and α-glucosidase inhibitory properties. Thus, C. grandis fruits can serve as a functional food to address diabetes-related disorders associated with α-glucosidase.     

Results on rotation symmetric bent functions

In this paper we analyze the combinatorial properties related to the Walsh spectra of rotation symmetric Boolean functions on even number of variables. These results are then applied in studying rotation symmetric bent functions. For the first time we could present an enumeration strategy for all the 10-variable rotation symmetric bent functions.     

On non-negligible bias of the first output byte of RC4 towards the first three bytes of the secret key

In this paper, we show that the first byte of the keystream output of RC4 has non-negligible bias towards the sum of the first three bytes of the secret key. This result is based on our observation that the index, where the first byte of the keystream output is chosen from, is approximately twice more likely to be 2 than any other value. Our technique is further used to theoretically prove Roos’s experimental observation (A class of weak keys in the RC4 stream cipher, 1995) related to weak keys.     

Understanding correlation effects for ion conduction in polymer electrolytes

Polymer electrolytes typically exhibit diminished ionic conductivity due to the presence of correlation effects between the cations and anions. Microscopically, transient ionic aggregates, e.g., ion-pairs, ion-triplets, or higher order ionic clusters, engender ionic correlations. Employing all-atom simulation of a model polymer electrolyte comprising of poly(ethylene oxide) and lithium iodide, the ionic correlations are explored through construction of elementary functions between pairs of the ionic species that qualitatively explains the spatio-temporal nature of these correlations. Furthermore, commencing from the exact Einstein-like equation describing the collective diffusivity of the ions in terms of the average diffusivity of the ions (i.e., the self-terms) and the correlations from distinct pairs of ions, several phenomenological parameters are introduced to keep track of the simplification procedure that finally boils down to the recently proposed phenomenological model by Stolwijk and Obeidi (SO) [Stolwijk, N. A.; Obeidi, S. Phys. Rev. Lett. 2004, 93, 125901]. The approximation parameters, which can be retrieved from simulations, point to the necessity of additional information in order to fully describe the correlation effects apart from the mere fraction of ion-pairs that apparently accounts for the correlations originating from only the nearest neighbor structural correlations. These parameters are close to, but are not exactly unity, as assumed in the SO model. Finally, as an application of the extended SO model, one is able to estimate the dynamics of the free and non-free ions as well as their fractions from the knowledge of the single particle diffusivities and the collective diffusivity of the ions.     

Finitely additive and measurable stochastic games

We consider two-person zero-sum stochastic games with arbitrary state and action spaces, a finitely additive law of motion and limit superior payoff function. The players use finitely additive strategies and it is shown that such a game has a value, if the payoff function is evaluated in accordance with the theory of strategic measures as developed by Dubins and Savage. Moreover, when a Borel structure is imposed on the problem, together with an equicontinuity condition on the law of motion, the value of the game is the same whether calculated in terms of countably additive strategies or finitely additive ones.Research done under the auspices of the Santa Fe Institute Economics Research Program which includes grants from Citicorp/Citibank, Research Corp., the Alex C. Walker Foundation and the Russell Sage Foundation and by grants to SFI from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the National Science Foundation (PHY-8714918), and the U.S. Department of Energy (ER-FG05-88ER25054).     

Basic Theory in Construction of Boolean Functions with Maximum Possible Annihilator Immunity

So far there is no systematic attempt to construct Boolean functions with maximum annihilator immunity. In this paper we present a construction keeping in mind the basic theory of annihilator immunity. This construction provides functions with the maximum possible annihilator immunity and the weight, nonlinearity and algebraic degree of the functions can be properly calculated under certain cases. The basic construction is that of symmetric Boolean functions and applying linear transformation on the input variables of these functions, one can get a large class of non-symmetric functions too. Moreover, we also study several other modifications on the basic symmetric functions to identify interesting non-symmetric functions with maximum annihilator immunity. In the process we also present an algorithm to compute the Walsh spectra of a symmetric Boolean function with O(n²) time and O(n) space complexity. We use the term “Annihilator Immunity” instead of “Algebraic Immunity” referred in the recent papers [3–5, 9, 18, 19]. Please see Remark 1 for the details of this notational change     

Mechanical properties of nanodiamond-reinforced polymer-matrix composites

Poly(vinyl alcohol)-matrix reinforced with nanodiamond (ND) particles, with ND content up to 0.6 wt%, were synthesized. Characterization of the composites by transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and small angle X-ray scattering (SAXS) reveal uniform distribution of the ND particles with no agglomeration in the matrix. Differential scanning calorimetry reveals that the crystallinity of the polymer increases with increasing ND content, indicating a strong interaction between ND and PVA. Nano-indentation technique was employed to assess the mechanical properties of composites. Results show that even small additions of ND lead to significant enhancement in the hardness and elastic modulus of PVA. Possible micromechanisms responsible for the enhancement of the mechanical properties are discussed.     

Determination of semimicro amounts of calcium in the presence of other alkaline-earth metals

Cyclam tetraacetic acid (CTA) is used to determine semimicro quantities of calcium in the presence of other alkaline-earth metals in natural and synthetic water samples. End-point detection is achieved amperometrically with Zn(en)(2+)(3) as the indicator. Magnesium and barium do not interfere. In the presence of strontium, two distinct end-points are obtained when its concentration is comparable with that of the calcium. If the concentrations are substantially different, calcium and strontium appear to be titrated together.