Extracellular biosynthesis of functionalized silver nanoparticles by strains of Cladosporium cladosporioides fungus

In the present investigation, we report the extracellular biosynthesis of silver nanoparticles (AgNP) employing the fungus Cladosporium cladosporioides. The extracellular solution of C. cladosporioides was used for the reduction of AgNO(3) solution to AgNP. The present study includes time dependent formation of AgNP employing UV-vis spectrophotometer, size and morphology by employing TEM (transmission electron microscopy), structure from powder X-ray diffraction (XRD) technique and understanding of protein-AgNP interaction from Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR) spectroscopy. The AgNP were 10-100nm in dimensions as measured by TEM images.     

A Novel High Throughput Method to Investigate Polymer Dissolution

The dissolution behavior of polystyrene (PS) in biodiesel was studied by developing a novel high throughput approach based on Fourier‐transform infrared (FTIR) microscopy. A multiwell device for high throughput dissolution testing was fabricated using a photolithographic rapid prototyping method. The dissolution of PS films in each well was tracked by following the characteristic IR band of PS and the effect of PS molecular weight and temperature on the dissolution rate was simultaneously investigated. The results were validated with conventional gravimetric methods. The high throughput method can be extended to evaluate the dissolution profiles of a large number of samples, or to simultaneously investigate the effect of variables such as polydispersity, crystallinity, and mixed solvents.

     

Efficient simulation of multidimensional continuum and non-continuum flows by a parallelised unified gas kinetic scheme solver

We develop an efficient, parallel, gas-kinetic solver for computing both continuum and non-continuum flows over non-Cartesian geometries by utilising the unified gas kinetic scheme (UGKS). UGKS, however, requires the computationally expensive update of a six-dimensional phase space at each time step restricting its application to canonical, laminar problems and simple geometries. In this paper, we demonstrate that the applications of UGKS can be increased by parallelising it and combining it with a recently developed, Cartesian grid method (UGKS-CGM). We demonstrate that our Cartesian grid methodology as well as UGKS parallelization perform and scale well on a range of numerical test cases even for a very large number of cores. Finally, we demonstrate that the solver accurately computes canonical turbulence at low Knudsen numbers. These results demonstrate that the parallelised UGKS code can be utilised to effectively study the non-equilibrium effects of rarefaction on laminar and turbulent non-continuum flows.     

Small-angle neutron scattering of nanocrystalline terbium with random paramagnetic susceptibility

We report magnetic small-angle neutron scattering (SANS) data for the nanocrystalline rare earth metal Terbium in its paramagnetic state. Whereas critical scattering dominates at large momentum transfer, q, the (magnetic-) field response of the scattering at small q arises from the spatial nonuniformity of the paramagnetic susceptibility tensor. The finding of an interrelation between SANS and the susceptibility suggests a way for characterizing the nonuniform magnetic interactions in hard magnets by neutron scattering.     

Vibrational spectra and normal coordinate analysis on structure of chlorambucil and thioguanine

A normal coordinate analysis on chlorambucil and thioguanine has been carried out with a set of symmetry coordinates following Wilson’s F-G matrix method. The potential constants evaluated for these molecules are found to be in good agreement with literature values thereby confirming the vibrational assignments. To check whether the chosen set of vibrational frequencies contribute maximum to the potential energy associated with the normal coordinates of the molecule, the potential energy distribution has been evaluated.      

Aqueous Rechargeable Zn/ZnO Battery Based on Deposition/Dissolution Chemistry

Recently, a novel electrochemical regulation associated with a deposition/dissolution reaction on an electrode surface has been proven to show superiority in large-scale energy storage systems (ESSs). Hence, in the search for high-performance electrodes showcasing these novel regulations, we utilized a low-cost ZnO microsphere electrode to construct aqueous rechargeable batteries (ARBs) that supplied a harvestable and storable charge through electrochemical deposition/dissolution via a reversible manganese oxidation reaction (MOR)/manganese reduction reaction (MRR), respectively, induced by the inherent formation/dissolution of zinc basic sulfate in a mild aqueous electrolyte solution containing 2 M ZnSO₄ and 0.2 M MnSO₄.     

Landmarks in graphs

Navigation can be studied in a graph-structured framework in which the navigating agent (which we shall assume to be a point robot) moves from node to node of a “graph space”. The robot can locate itself by the presence of distinctively labeled “landmark” nodes in the graph space. For a robot navigating in Euclidean space, visual detection of a distinctive landmark provides information about the direction to the landmark, and allows the robot to determine its position by triangulation. On a graph, however, there is neither the concept of direction nor that of visibility. Instead, we shall assume that a robot navigating on a graph can sense the distances to a set of landmarks.

Evidently, if the robot knows its distances to a sufficiently large set of landmarks, its position on the graph is uniquely determined. This suggests the following problem: given a graph, what are the fewest number of landmarks needed, and where should they be located, so that the distances to the landmarks uniquely determine the robot's position on the graph? This is actually a classical problem about metric spaces. A minimum set of landmarks which uniquely determine the robot's position is called a “metric basis”, and the minimum number of landmarks is called the “metric dimension” of the graph. In this paper we present some results about this problem. Our main new results are that the metric dimension of a graph with n nodes can be approximated in polynomial time within a factor of O(log n), and some properties of graphs with metric dimension two.     

Synthesis and biological evaluation of a lipid A derivative that contains an aminogluconate moiety

A highly convergent strategy for the synthesis of several derivatives of the lipid A of Rhizobium sin-1 has been developed. The synthetic derivatives are 2-aminogluconate 3 and 2-aminogluconolactone 4, both of which lack C-3 acylation. These derivatives were obtained by the preparation of disaccharides in which the two amino groups and the C-3' hydroxy group could be modified individually with acyl or beta-hydroxy fatty acyl groups. Detailed NMR spectroscopy and MS analysis of 3 and 4 revealed that, even under neutral conditions, the two compounds equilibrate. The synthetic compounds lack the proinflammatory effects of Escherichia coli lipopolysaccharide (LPS), as indicated by an absence of tumor necrosis factor production. Although 3 and 4 were able to antagonize E. coli LPS, they were significantly less potent than the synthetic compound 2, which is acylated at C-3, and R. sin-1 LPS; these results indicate that the beta-hydroxy fatty acyl group at C-3 contributes to the antagonistic properties of R. sin-1 LPS. Based on a comparison of the biological responses of the synthetic lipid A derivatives with those of the R. sin-1 LPS and lipid A, the 3-deoxy-D-manno-octulosonic moieties appear to be important for the optimal antagonization of enteric LPS-induced cytokine production.     

Determination of specific surface area of uranium oxide powders using differential thermal analysis technique

The two step oxidation of UO_2+x and reduction of U₃O₈ powders observed during Differential Thermal Analysis (DTA) has been exploited to determine their Specific Surface Areas (SSAs). The results obtained by this method have been compared with the Braunauer, Emmett and Teller (BET) method and are found to be in good agreement in the SSA range of 2–4 m²/gm in the case of UO_2+x obtained from ADU route and 4–8 m²/gm in the case of AUC route. A precision of ±0.1 m²/gm is obtained. The maximum temperature of oxidation and reduction of these oxides are dependent upon their preparative routes such as Ammonium Diuranate (ADU) and Ammonium Uranyl Carbonate (AUC).