Exact solutions of some general nonlinear wave equations in elasticity

A similarity analysis of a nonlinear wave equation in elasticity is studied; in particular, one with anharmonic corrections. The symmetry transformation give rise to exact solutions via the method of invariants. In some cases, graphical figure of the solutions are presented. Furthermore, we consider some cases wherein the velocities of the longitudinal and transversal plane waves are variable. Finally, a brief discussion on how a symmetry analysis on a perturbation of the elasticity equation can be pursued.     

Tackling HIV through robust diagnostics in the developing world: current status and future opportunities

Over the last thirty years, the world has seen HIV circulate the globe, affecting 33 million people to date and killing 2 million people a year. The disease has affected developed and developing countries alike, and in the U.S., remains one of the top ten leading causes of death. Many regions of the world are highly impacted by this disease, including sub-Saharan Africa, South and South-East Asia, and Eastern Europe. Fortunately, multilateral, global efforts, along with successful developments in diagnostic tools and anti-retroviral drugs (ARVs) have successfully curbed the spread of HIV over the last ten years. In spite of this fact, access to HIV treatment and preventive healthcare is varying and limited in developing countries. A lack of healthcare infrastructure, financial support, and healthcare workers are some logistical factors that are responsible. HIV stigmatization, discrimination, and inadequate education pose additional social challenges that are hindering countries from advancing in HIV prevention. This review focuses on current technological tools that are used for HIV diagnosis and ongoing research that is aimed at addressing the conditions in low-resource settings. Recent developments in microfluidic applications and mobile health technologies are promising approaches to building a compact, portable, and robust device that can provide information-rich, real-time diagnoses. We also discuss the role that governments, healthcare workers, and even researchers can play in order to increase the acceptance of newly introduced devices and treatments in rural communities.     

Graphene and Carbon Nanotube-based Electrochemical Sensing Platforms for Dopamine

Dopamine (DA) is an important neurotransmitter, which is created and released from the central nervous system. It plays a crucial role in human activities, like cognition, emotions, and response to anything. Maladjustment of DA in human blood serum results in different neural diseases, like Parkinson's and Schizophrenia. Consequently, researchers have started working on DA detection in blood serum, which is undoubtedly a hot research area. Electrochemical sensing techniques are more promising to detect DA in real samples. However, utilizing conventional electrodes for selective determination of DA encounters numerous problems due to the coexistence of other materials, such as uric acid and ascorbic acid, which have an oxidation potential close to DA. To overcome such problems, researchers have put their focus on the modification of bare electrodes. The aim of this review is to present recent advances in modifications of most used bare electrodes with carbonaceous materials, especially graphene, its derivatives, and carbon nanotubes, for electrochemical detection of DA. A brief discussion about the mechanistic phenomena at the electrode interface has also been included in this review.     

An Edge-Supported Blockchain-Based Secure Authentication Method and a Cryptocurrency-Based Billing System for P2P Charging of Electric Vehicles

The popularity of electric vehicles (EVs) is constantly increasing, as they use relatively greener, sustainable energy. However, it is a fact that the charging stations for EVs are yet to meet the demand. It could be a great solution if a peer-to-peer (P2P) charging system could be initiated by anyone who wants to make their garage’s charge points publicly available for commercial purposes, named a home charging station (HCS). In this work, our idea is to bring interested charging stations under a network of nodes and a blockchain-based management system, where the blockchain is responsible for ensuring the authenticity of both the charging stations and charge receiver. A cryptocurrency-based payment system has also been proposed to ensure transactions’ security, integrity, transparency, and immutability. A reputation management system is applied to maintain the quality of service. Miners with high processing power are used to alleviate lagging during block creation, supported by edge servers. The proposed system has been implemented by using virtual machines. A theoretical analysis is presented to assess the compatibility and possible cost requirements to implement the system in a real-world scenario.     

Fabrication of PEGylated Chitosan Nanoparticles Containing Tenofovir Alafenamide: Synthesis and Characterization

Tenofovir alafenamide (TAF) is an antiretroviral (ARV) drug that is used for the management and prevention of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). The clinical availability of ARV delivery systems that provide long-lasting protection against HIV transmission is lacking. There is a dire need to formulate nanocarrier systems that can help in revolutionizing the way to fight against HIV/AIDS. Here, we aimed to synthesize a polymer using chitosan and polyethylene glycol (PEG) by the PEGylation of chitosan at the hydroxyl group. After successful modification and confirmation by FTIR, XRD, and SEM, TAF-loaded PEGylated chitosan nanoparticles were prepared and analyzed for their particle size, zeta potential, morphology, crystallinity, chemical interactions, entrapment efficacy, drug loading, in vitro drug release, and release kinetic modeling. The fabricated nanoparticles were found to be in a nanosized range (219.6 nm), with ~90% entrapment efficacy, ~14% drug loading, and a spherical uniform distribution. The FTIR analysis confirmed the successful synthesis of PEGylated chitosan and nanoparticles. The in vitro analysis showed ~60% of the drug was released from the PEGylated polymeric reservoir system within 48 h at pH 7.4. The drug release kinetics were depicted by the Korsmeyer–Peppas release model with thermodynamically nonspontaneous drug release. Conclusively, PEGylated chitosan has the potential to deliver TAF from a nanocarrier system, and in the future, cytotoxicity and in vivo studies can be performed to further authenticate the synthesized polymer.     

Molecular Characterization of Bacterial Isolates from Soil Samples and Evaluation of their Antibacterial Potential against MDRS

Some soil microbes, with their diverse inhabitance, biologically active metabolites, and endospore formation, gave them characteristic predominance and recognition among other microbial communities. The present study collected ten soil samples from green land, agricultural and marshy soil sites of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan. After culturing on described media, the bacterial isolates were identified through phenotypic, biochemical and phylogenetic analysis. Our phylogenetic analysis revealed three bacterial isolates, A6S7, A1S6, and A1S10, showing 99% nucleotides sequence similarity with Brevibacillus formosus, Bacillus Subtilis and Paenibacillus dendritiformis. The crude extract was prepared from bacterial isolates to assess the anti-bacterial potential against various targeted multidrug-resistant strains (MDRS), including Acinetobacter baumannii (ATCC 19606), Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) (BAA-1683), Klebsiella pneumoniae (ATCC 13883), Pseudomonas aeruginosa (BAA-2108), Staphylococcus aureus (ATCC 292013), Escherichia coli (ATCC25922) and Salmonella typhi (ATCC 14028). Our analysis revealed that all bacterial extracts possess activity against Gram-negative and Gram-positive bacteria at a concentration of 5 mg/mL, efficiently restricting the growth of E. coli compared with positive control ciprofloxacin. The study concluded that the identified species have the potential to produce antimicrobial compounds which can be used to control different microbial infections, especially MDRS. Moreover, the analysis of the bacterial extracts through GC-MS indicated the presence of different antimicrobial compounds such as propanoic acid, oxalic acid, phenol and hexadecanoic acid.     

Bestimmung von Corticosteroiden im Blut durch Doppelmarkierung und Messung von 14C und 3H in der Gasphase

Ohne ZusammenfassungAuszug aus der Dissertation Reinhard Ködding, Technische Hochschule München 1961.     

Extractives of Milletia ovalifolia

Isolation of lanceolatin B, the flavanones 1 and 2, the flavones 3 and 4 and the dibenzoylmethane 5 from M. ovalifolia is reported. The structures were assigned from spectral data and confirmed by synthesis.     

Series solution of unsteady free convection flow with mass transfer along an accelerated vertical porous plate with suction

The problem of unsteady free convection flow is considered for the series solution (analytic solution). The flow is induced by an infinite vertical porous plate which is accelerated in its own plane. The series solution expressions for velocity field, temperature field and concentration distribution are presented. The influence of important parameters is seen on the velocity, temperature, concentration, skin friction coefficient and temperature gradient with the help of graphs and tables. Convergence is also properly checked for different values of the important parametes for velocity field, temperature and concentration with the help of ħ-curves.