Search results for: mobile air pollution

Authors: Dorsa Rahi, Arghavan Tonkanbonbi, Soheila Manifar, Behzad Jafvarnejad

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Background and Aim: Intraoral manipulation is performed during endotracheal intubation for general anesthesia, which can traumatize the soft and hard tissue in the oral cavity and cause postoperative pain and discomfort. Dental trauma is the most common complication of intubation. This study aimed to assess the prevalence of dental complications due to intubation in patients hospitalized in Imam Khomeini Hospital during 2018-2019. Materials and Methods: A total of 805 patients presenting to the Cancer Institute of Imam Khomeini Hospital for preoperative anesthesia consultation were randomly enrolled. A dentist interviewed the patients and performed a comprehensive clinical oral examination preoperatively. The patients underwent clinical oral examination by another dentist postoperatively. Results: No significant correlation was found between dental trauma (tooth fracture, tooth mobility, or soft tissue injury) after intubation with the age or gender of patients. According to the Wilcoxon test and McNemar-Bowker Test, the rate of mobility before the intubation was significantly different from that after the intubation (P=0.000). Maxillary central incisors, maxillary left canine and mandibular right and left central incisors had the highest rate of fracture. Conclusion: Mobile teeth before the intubation are at higher risk of avulsion and aspiration during the procedure. Patients with primary temporomandibular joint disorders are more susceptible to post-intubation trismus.

Keywords: oral trauma, dental trauma, intubation, anesthesia

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Authors: B. Adebayo, A. A. Adebayo

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Adequate power generation and supply are enormous challenges confronting Nigeria state today. This is a powerful mechanism that drives industrial development and socio-economy of any nation. The present level of power generation and supply have become national embarrassment to both government and the citizens of Nigeria, where over 60% of the population have no access to electricity. This paper is set to review the abundant clean energy alternative sources available in abundance that are capable of boosting power generation. The clean energy sources waiting to be exploited include: nuclear, solar and wind energy. The environmental benefits of these sources of power generation are identified. Nuclear energy is a powerful clean energy source. However, Africa accounted for 20% of known recoverable reserve and uranium produces heat of 500,000 MJ/kg. Moreover, Nigeria receives average daily solar radiation of over 5.249 kWh/m2/day. Researchers have shown that wind speed and power flux densities varied from 1.5 – 4.1 m/s and 5.7 – 22.5 W/m2 respectively. It is a fact that the cost of doing business in Nigeria is very high, leading to winding up of the multi-national companies and then led to increase unemployment level. More importantly, readily available vast quantity of energy will reduce cost of running industries. Hence, more industries will come on board, goods, services, and more job creation will be achieved. This clean source of power generation is devoid of production of green house gases, elimination of environmental pollution, and reduced waste disposal. Then Nigerians will live in harmony with the environment.

Keywords: power, generation, energy, mix, clean, industrial

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Authors: Mario A. Blanco, Nicholas Burkhardt

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An important problem in satellite communication systems which operate in the Ka and EHF frequency bands consists of the overall degradation in link performance of mobile terminals due to various types of degradations in the link/channel, such as fading, blockage of the link to the satellite (especially in urban environments), intentional as well as other types of interference, etc. In this paper, we focus primarily on the interference problem, and we develop a very efficient and cost-effective solution based on the use of fountain codes. We first introduce a satellite communications (SATCOM) terminal uplink interference channel model that is classically used against communication systems that use spread-spectrum waveforms. We then consider the use of fountain codes, with focus on Raptor codes, as our main mitigation technique to combat the degradation in link/receiver performance due to the interference signal. The performance of the receiver is obtained in terms of average probability of bit and message error rate as a function of bit energy-to-noise density ratio, Eb/N0, and other parameters of interest, via a combination of analysis and computer simulations, and we show that the use of fountain codes is extremely effective in overcoming the effects of intentional interference on the performance of the receiver and associated communication links. We then show this technique can be extended to mitigate other types of SATCOM channel degradations, such as those caused by channel fading, shadowing, and hard-blockage of the uplink signal.

Keywords: SATCOM, interference mitigation, fountain codes, turbo codes, cross-layer

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Authors: Mehmet Balci, Sakir Tasdemir, Mustafa Altin, Ozlem Bozok

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Our globalizing world has become almost a small village and everyone can access any information at any time. Everyone lets each other know who does whatever in which place. We can learn which social events occur in which place in the world. From the perspective of education, the course notes that a lecturer use in lessons in a university in any state of America can be examined by a student studying in a city of Africa or the Far East. This dizzying communication we have mentioned happened thanks to fast developments in computer technologies and in parallel with this, internet technology. While these developments in the world, has a very large young population and a rapidly evolving electronic communications infrastructure Turkey has been affected by this situation. Researches has shown that almost all young people in Turkey has an account in a social network. Especially becoming common of mobile devices causes data traffic in social networks to increase. In this study, has been surveyed on students in the different age groups and at the Selcuk University Vocational School of Technical Sciences Department of Computer Technology. Student’s opinions about the use of internet and social media has been gotten. Using the Internet and social media skills, purposes, operating frequency, access facilities and tools, social life and effects on vocational education etc. have been explored. Both internet and use of social media positive and negative effects on this department students results have been obtained by the obtained findings evaluating from various aspects. Relations and differences have been found out with statistic.

Keywords: computer technologies, internet use, social network, higher vocational school

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Authors: Shobha U. Jadhav, R. S. Saler

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Onion is most Important Vegetable crop grown throughout the world. Onion suffers from pest and fungal diseases but the fungicides cause pollution and disturb microbial balance of soil. Under integrated fungal disease management programme cost effective and eco- friendly component like plant extract are used to control plant pathogens. Alternaria porri, Fusarium oxysporium, Stemphylium vesicarium are soil borne pathogens of onion. Effect of three different plant extract (Datura metel, Pongamia pinnata, Ipomoea palmata) at five different concentration Viz, 10,25,50,75 and 100 percentage on these pathogens was studied by food poisoning techniquie. Detura metal gave 94.73% growth of Alternaria porri at 10% extract concentraton and 26.31% growth in 100% extract concentration. As compared to Fusarium oxysporium, and Stemphylium vesicarium, Alternaria porri give good inhibitory response. In Pongamia pinnata L. at 10% extract concentration 84.21% growth and at 100% extract concentration 36.84% growth of Stemphylium vesicarium was observed. Stemphylium vesicarium give good in inhibitory response as compared to Alternaria porri and Fusarium oxysporium. Ipomoea palmata in 10% extract concentration 92% growth and in 100% extract concentration 40% growth of Fusarium oxysporium was recorded. Fusarium oxysporium give good inhibitory response as compared to Alternaria porri and, Stemphylium vesicarium.

Keywords: pathogen, onion, plant extract, Allium cepa L.

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Authors: Saeed Karimi, Ali Behbahaninia

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In this study, the design and optimization of combined cooling, heating, and power system (CCHP) for a sustainable building are dealt with. Sustainable buildings are environmentally responsible and help us to save energy also reducing waste, pollution and environmental degradation. CCHP systems are widely used to save energy sources. In these systems, electricity, cooling, and heating are generating using just one primary energy source. The selection of the size of components based on the maximum demand of users will lead to an increase in the total cost of energy and equipment for the building complex. For this purpose, a system was designed in which the prime mover (gas turbine), heat recovery boiler, and absorption chiller are lower than the needed maximum. The difference in months with peak consumption is supplied with the help of electrical absorption chiller and auxiliary boiler (and the national electricity network). In this study, the optimum capacities of each of the equipment are determined based on Thermo economic method, in a way that the annual capital cost and energy consumption will be the lowest. The design was done for a gas turbine prime mover, and finally, the optimum designs were investigated using exergy analysis and were compared with a traditional energy supply system.

Keywords: sustainable building, CCHP, energy optimization, gas turbine, exergy, thermo-economic

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Authors: Melissa Hachem, Lynda Bensefa-Colas, Isabelle Momas

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We evaluated the impact of the first lockdown restriction measures (March-May 2020) in the Paris area on (1) the variation of in-vehicle ultrafine particle (UFP) and black carbon (BC) concentrations between pre-and post-lockdown period and (2) the professional drivers working conditions and practices. The study was conducted on 33 Parisian taxi drivers. UFP and BC were measured inside their vehicles with DiSCmini® and microAeth®, respectively, on two typical working days before and after the first lockdown. The job-related characteristics were self-reported. Our results showed that after the first lockdown, the number of clients significantly decreased as well as the taxi driver's journey duration. Taxi drivers significantly opened their windows more and reduced the use of air recirculation. UFP decreased significantly by 32% and BC by 31% after the first lockdown, with a weaker positive correlation compared to before the lockdown. The reduction of in-vehicle UFP was explained mainly by the reduction of traffic flow and ventilation settings, though the latter probably varied according to the traffic condition. No predictor explained the variation of in-vehicle BC concentration between pre-and post-lockdown periods, suggesting different sources of UFP and BC. The road traffic was not anymore the dominant source of BC post-lockdown. We emphasize the role of traffic emissions on in-vehicle air pollution and that preventive measures such as ventilation settings will help to better manage air quality inside a vehicle in order to minimize exposure of professional drivers, as well as passengers, to air pollutants.

Keywords: black carbon, COVID-19, France, lockdown, taxis, ultrafine particles

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Authors: Petar Kurecic, Josipa Penic

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The paper represents a product of mentor-graduate student cooperation, developed at the graduate study of Business Economics, major Tourism. The analysis was made through the anonymous questionnaire filled by the respondents from Croatia. Following the latest threatening events and having in mind those yet to come, it can be concluded that no country can benefit from the tourism industry if at the same time does not develop its security system as an integral part of the standard tourist offer. Analyzing the trends in contemporary tourism, the safety and security issues became the decisive factors for the choice of a certain destination. Consequently, countries must not perceive security systems and measures as an unnecessary expense but as an essential element in organizing their tourist services. All hotels and respectable tourist agencies should have a crisis management, with detailed, thoroughly elaborated procedures for emergency situations. Tourists should be timely informed about the potential dangers and risks and the measures taken to prevent them, as well as on procedures for emergency situations. Additionally, it would be good to have mobile applications that would enable tourists to make direct emergency calls with instructions on behavior in crisis situations. It is also essential to implement and put into effect sophisticated security measures such as using surveillance cameras, controlling access to buildings, information exchange with colleagues and neighbors, reporting the suspicious occurrences to the security services, and training staff for crisis management. The security issue is definitely one of the crucial factors in the development of tourism in a certain country.

Keywords: security, security measures in tourism, tourism, tourist destinations

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Authors: Roxana Gheorghita, Gheorghe Gutt

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Environmental pollution due to non-degradation of packaging from the food and pharmaceutical industry is reaching increasingly alarming levels. The packaging used for food supplements is usually composed of successive layers of synthetic materials, conventional, glue, and paint. The situation is becoming more and more problematic as the population, according to statistics, uses food supplements more and more often. The solution can be represented by edible packaging, completely biodegradable, and compostable. The tested materials were obtained from biopolymers, agar, carrageenan, and alginate, in well-established quantities and plasticized with glycerol. Rosemary, thyme, and oregano essential oils have been added in varying proportions. The obtained films are completely water-soluble in hot liquids (with a temperature of about 80° C) and can be consumed with the product contained. The films were glossy, pleasant to the touch, thin (thicknesses between 32.8 and 52.8 μm), transparent, and with a pleasant smell, specific to the added essential oil. Tested for microbial evaluation, none of the films indicated the presence of E. coli, S. aureus, enterobacteria, coliform bacteria, yeasts, or molds. This aspect can also be helped by the low values of the water activity index (located between 0.546 and 0.576). The mechanical properties indicated that the material became more resistant with the addition of essential oil, the best values being recorded by the addition of oregano. The results obtained indicate the possibility of using biopolymer-based films with the addition of rosemary, thyme, and oregano essential oil, for wrapping food supplements, thus replacing conventional packaging, multilayer, impossible to sort and recycle.

Keywords: edible films, food supplements, oregano, rosemary, thyme

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Authors: Chaima Zoulikha Tabet Zatla, Nihel Dib, Sumeya Bedrane, Juan Carlos Hernandez Garrido, Redouane Bachir, Miguel Angel Cauqui, Jose Juan Calvino Gamez

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These last year's our planet has witnessed global warming, which is a serious threat to our lives; it has many causes, such as the CO₂ excess in the atmosphere that results from our activity, for the purpose of living in a neater and better environment, working and improving an eco-responsible energy system is a must. Valorization of biomass to produce biofuels is among the most compelling routes to decrease air pollution without considerable modification in current vehicle technology. Effective transformation of lignocellulosic biomass-derived compounds into liquid fuels and value-added chemicals is an economically viable solution. Presently, very competitive technics for the conversion of lignocellulosic biomass into platform chemicals, such as furfural and Hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF), are used. Furfural (C₅H₄O₂) is a major hemi cellulosic biomass-derived platform molecule. In our work, we focus on the valorization of lignocellulosic biomass derivative furfural that is transformed into biofuel through a hydrodeoxygenation reaction in general and involving a catalytic process. In order to get to this point, we are synthesizing and characterizing a series of catalysts with different amounts of Ru (0.5%, 1% and 2%) supported on alumina-silica mixed oxides with various molar ratios (Si/Al = 2.5; 5; 7; 10; 15). These catalysts will be characterized by numerous technics such as N₂ adsorption/desorption, Pyridine adsorption (acidity measure), FTIR, X-rays diffraction, AAS, TEM and SEM.

Keywords: furfural, ruthenium, silica-alumina, biomass, biofuel

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Authors: Sudha Shukla, Bablu Kumar, Gyan Prakash Gupta, U. C. Kulshrestha

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Air pollutants emitted from solid biofuels during cooking are the major contributors to poor air quality, respiratory problems, and radiative forcing, etc. in rural areas of most of developing countries. The present study reports the chemical characteristics and sources of ambient aerosols and traces gases during cooking and non-cooking hours emitted during biofuel combustion in a village in North-Central India. Fine aerosol samples along with gaseous species (Sox, NOx, and NH₃) were collected during September 2010-March 2011 at Khairatpur village (KPV) which is located in the Uttar Pradesh state in North-Central India. Results indicated that most of the major ions in aerosols and Sox, NOx, and NH₃ gases were found to be higher during cooking hours as compared to non-cooking hours suggesting that solid biofuel combustion is an important source of air pollution. Results of Principal Component Analysis (PCA) revealed that combustion of solid biofuel, vehicular emissions, and brick kilns were the major sources of fine aerosols and trace gases in the village. A health survey was conducted to find out the relation between users of biofuels and their health effects and the results revealed that most of the women in the village were suffering from diseases associated with biofuel combustion during cooking.

Keywords: ambient aerosols, biofuel combustion, cooking, health survey, rural area

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Authors: Essam Mansour

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The key purpose of this study is to show information-seeking behaviour of Kuwaiti Judges (KJs). Being one of the few studies about the information needs and information-seeking behaviour conducted in Arab and developing countries, this study is a pioneer one among many studies conducted in information seeking, especially with this significant group of information users. The authors tried to investigate this seeking behavior in terms of KJs' thoughts, perceptions, motivations, techniques, preferences, tools and barriers met when seeking information. The authors employed a questionnaire, with a response rate 77.2 percent. This study showed that most of KJs were likely to be older, educated and with a work experience ranged from new to old experience. There is a statistically reliable significant difference between KJs' demographic characteristics and some sources of information, such as books, encyclopedias, references and mass media. KJs were using information moderately to make a decision, to be in line with current events, to collect statistics and to make a specific/general research. The office and home were the most frequent location KJs were accessing information from. KJs' efficiency level of the English language is described to be moderately good, and a little number of them confirmed that their efficiency level of French was not bad. The assistance provided by colleagues, followed by consultants, translators, sectaries and librarians were found to be most strong types of assistance needed when seeking information. Mobile apps, followed by PCs, information networks (the Internet) and information databases were the highest technology tool used by KJs. Printed materials, followed by non-printed and audiovisual materials were the most preferred information formats KJs use. The use of languages, the recency of information and the place of information, the deficit role of the library to deliver information were at least significant barriers to KJs when seeking information.

Keywords: information users, information-seeking behaviour, information needs, judges, Kuwait

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Authors: M. Murmu, Govardhan, J. Satya Eswari

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Concrete is the most common and widely used building material. Concrete is basically made of aggregates, both fine and coarse, glued by a cement paste which is made of cement and water. Each one of these constituents of concrete has a negative environmental impact and gives rise to different sustainability issues. The current concrete construction practice is unsustainable because, not only it consumes enormous quantities of stones, sand, and drinking water, but also one billion tons a year of cement, which is not an environment friendly material. Preventing the reduction of natural resources and enhancing the usage of waste materials has become a challenge to the scientist and engineers. A number of studies have been conducted concerning the protection of natural resources, prevention of environmental pollution and contribution to the economy by using this waste material. This paper outlines the influence of Ground Granulated Blast furnace Slag (GGBS) as partial replacement of fine aggregate on mechanical properties of concrete. The strength of concrete is determined having OPC binder, replaced the fine aggregate with15%, 30%, 45% respectively. For this purpose, characteristics concrete mix of M25 with partial replacement of cement with GGBS is used and the strength of concrete cubes and cylinder have determined. The strength of concrete specimens has been compared with the reference specimen. Also X-ray diffraction (XRD) and scanning electron microscope (SEM) tests have been performed to examine the hydration products and the microstructure of the tested specimens. A correlation has been established between the developmental strength concrete with and without GGBS through analysis of hydration products and the microstructure.

Keywords: GGBS, sand, concrete, workability

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Authors: Suraj Nair, Aravindkumar Vijayalingam, Alexander Perzylo, Alois Knoll

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In the last decade robotics research and development activities have grown rapidly, especially in the domain of service robotics. Integrating service robots into human occupied spaces such as homes, offices, hospitals, etc. has become increasingly worked upon. The primary motive is to ease daily lives of humans by taking over some of the household/office chores. However, several challenges remain in systematically integrating such systems in human shared work-spaces. In addition to sensing and indoor-navigation challenges, programmability of such systems is a major hurdle due to the fact that the potential user cannot be expected to have knowledge in robotics or similar mechatronic systems. In this paper, we propose a cognitive system for service robotics which allows non-expert users to easily model system behaviour in an underspecified manner through abstract tasks and objects associated with them. The system uses domain knowledge expressed in the form of an ontology along with logical reasoning mechanisms to infer all the missing pieces of information required for executing the tasks. Furthermore, the system is also capable of recovering from failed tasks arising due to on-line disturbances by using the knowledge base and inferring alternate methods to execute the same tasks. The system is demonstrated through a coffee fetching scenario in an office environment using a mobile robot equipped with sensors and software capabilities for autonomous navigation and human-interaction through natural language.

Keywords: cognitive robotics, reasoning, service robotics, task based systems

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Authors: Chien-Hung Liu, Yu-Fen Chen

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This study used triangular laser probe and three-axial direction mobile platform for surface measurement, programmed it and applied it to real-time analytic statistics of different measured data. This structure was used to design a system integration program: using triangular laser probe for scattering or reflection non-contact measurement, transferring the captured signals to the computer through RS-232, and using RS-485 to control the three-axis platform for a wide range of measurement. The data captured by the laser probe are formed into a 3D surface. This study constructed an optical measurement application program in the concept of visual programming language. First, the signals are transmitted to the computer through RS-232/RS-485, and then the signals are stored and recorded in graphic interface timely. This programming concept analyzes various messages, and makes proper presentation graphs and data processing to provide the users with friendly graphic interfaces and data processing state monitoring, and identifies whether the present data are normal in graphic concept. The major functions of the measurement system developed by this study are thickness measurement, SPC, surface smoothness analysis, and analytical calculation of trend line. A result report can be made and printed promptly. This study measured different heights and surfaces successfully, performed on-line data analysis and processing effectively, and developed a man-machine interface for users to operate.

Keywords: laser probe, non-contact measurement, triangulation measurement principle, statistical process control, labVIEW

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Authors: Yue Sun, Yuan Wang

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Most of the earliest national industries in Wuhan are located along the Hanjiang River, and Qiaokou is considered to be a gathering place for Dahankou old industrial base. Zongguan Waterworks, Pacific Soap Factory, Fuxin Flour Factory, Nanyang Tobacco Factory and other hundred-year-old factories are located along Hanjiang River in Qiaokou District, especially the Gutian Industrial Zone, which was listed as one of 156 national restoration projects at the beginning of the founding of the People’s Republic of China. After decades of development, Qiaokou has become the gathering place of the chemical industry and secondary industry, causing damage to the city and serious pollution, becoming a marginalized area forgotten by the central city. In recent years, with the accelerated pace of urban renewal, Qiaokou has been constantly reforming and innovating, and has begun drastic changes in the transformation of old cities and the development of new districts. These factories have been listed as key reconstruction projects, and a large number of industrial heritage with historical value and full urban memory have been relocated, demolished and reformed, with only a few factory buildings preserved. Through the methods of industrial archaeology, image analysis, typology and field investigation, this paper analyzes and summarizes the spatial characteristics of industrial heritage in Qiaokou District, explores urban renewal from the perspective of industrial heritage protection, and provides design strategies for the regeneration of urban industrial sites and industrial heritage.

Keywords: industrial heritage, urban renewal, protection, urban memory

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Authors: Jianghao Hu, Hongyu Wang

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The effective and efficient human pose estimation algorithm is an important task for real-time human pose estimation on mobile devices. This paper proposes a light-weight human key points detection algorithm, Light-Weight Network for Real-Time Pose Estimation (LWPE). LWPE uses light-weight backbone network and depthwise separable convolutions to reduce parameters and lower latency. LWPE uses the feature pyramid network (FPN) to fuse the high-resolution, semantically weak features with the low-resolution, semantically strong features. In the meantime, with multi-scale prediction, the predicted result by the low-resolution feature map is stacked to the adjacent higher-resolution feature map to intermediately monitor the network and continuously refine the results. At the last step, the key point coordinates predicted in the highest-resolution are used as the final output of the network. For the key-points that are difficult to predict, LWPE adopts the online hard key points mining strategy to focus on the key points that hard predicting. The proposed algorithm achieves excellent performance in the single-person dataset selected in the AI (artificial intelligence) challenge dataset. The algorithm maintains high-precision performance even though the model only contains 3.9M parameters, and it can run at 225 frames per second (FPS) on the generic graphics processing unit (GPU).

Keywords: depthwise separable convolutions, feature pyramid network, human pose estimation, light-weight backbone

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Authors: D. S. Mohale, A. P. Dewani, A. S.tripathi, A. V. Chandewar

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Present work demonstrates the applicability of high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) with UV-Vis detection for the quantification of malondialdehyde as malondialdehyde-thiobarbituric acid complex (MDA-TBA) in-vivo in rats. The HPLC method for MDA-TBA was achieved by isocratic mode on a reverse-phase C18 column (250mm×4.6mm) at a flow rate of 1.0mLmin−1 followed by detection at 532 nm. The chromatographic conditions were optimized by varying the concentration and pH of water followed by changes in percentage of organic phase optimal mobile phase consisted of mixture of water (0.2% triethylamine pH adjusted to 2.3 by ortho-phosphoric acid) and acetonitrile in ratio (80:20v/v). The retention time of MDA-TBA complex was 3.7 min. The developed method was sensitive as limit of detection and quantification (LOD and LOQ) for MDA-TBA complex were (standard deviation and slope of calibration curve) 110 ng/ml and 363 ng/ml respectively. Calibration studies were done by spiking MDA into rat plasma at concentrations ranging from 500 to 1000 ng/ml. The precision of developed method measured in terms of relative standard deviations for intra-day and inter-day studies was 1.6–5.0% and 1.9–3.6% respectively. The HPLC method was applied for monitoring MDA levels in rats subjected to chronic treatment of levofloxacin (LEV) (5mg/kg/day) for 21 days. Results were compared by findings in control group rats. Mean peak areas of both study groups was subjected for statistical treatment to unpaired student t-test to find p-values. The p value was <0.001 indicating significant results and suggesting increased MDA levels in rats subjected to chronic treatment of LEV of 21 days.

Keywords: malondialdehyde-thiobarbituric acid complex, levofloxacin, HPLC, oxidative stress

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Authors: Parul Grover, K. A. Suri, Raj Kumar, Gulshan Bansal

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Background: Nyctanthes arbortristis Linn is traditionally used as anticancer herb in Indian system of medicine, but its introduction into modern system of medicine is still awaited due to lack of systematic scientific studies. Objective: The objective of the present study was to isolate and characterize anticancer phytoconstituents from N. arbortristis L. leaves based on bioactivity guided fractionation. Method: Different extracts of the leaves of the plant were prepared by Soxhlet extractor. Each extract was evaluated for anticancer activity against HL-60 cell lines. Chloroform and HA extract showed potent anticancer activity and hence were selected for fractionation. Fraction C1 from chloroform extract was found to be most potent amongst all when tested against three cell lines (HL-60, A-549, and HCT-116) and thus was selected for further fractionation and a pure compound CP-01 was isolated. RP-HPLC method has been developed for quantification of isolated compound by using Kinetex C-18 column with gradient elution at 0.7 mL/min using mobile phase containing potassium dihydrogen phosphate (0.01 M, pH 3.0) with acetonitrile. The wavelength of maximum absorption (λₘₐₓ) selected was 210 nm. Results: The structure of potent anticancer CP-01 was determined on the basis spectroscopic methods like IR, 1H-NMR, ¹³C-NMR and Mass Spectrometry and it was characterized as 1,1,2-tris(2’,4’-di-tert-butylbenzene)-4,4-dimethyl-pent-1-ene. The content of CP-01 was found to be 0.88 %w/w of chloroform extract and 0.08 %w/w of N.arbortristis leaves. Conclusion: The study supports the traditional use of N. arbortristis as anticancer herb & the identified compound CP-01 can serve as an excellent lead to develop potent and safe anticancer drugs.

Keywords: anticancer, HL-60 cell lines, Nyctanthes arbor-tristis, RP-HPLC

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Authors: Manisha Bal, B. C. Meikap

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Hydrogen chloride is the most common acid gas emitted by the industries. HCl gas is listed as Title III hazardous air pollutant. It causes severe threat to the human health as well as environment. So, removal of HCl from flue gases is very imperative. In the present study, submerged self-priming venturi scrubber is chosen to remove the HCl gas with water as a scrubbing liquid. Venturi scrubber is the most popular device for the removal of gaseous pollutants. Main mechanism behind the venturi scrubber is the polluted gas stream enters at converging section which accelerated to maximum velocity at throat section. A very interesting thing in case of submerged condition, venturi scrubber is submerged inside the liquid tank and liquid is entered at throat section because of suction created due to large pressure drop generated at the throat section. Maximized throat gas velocity atomizes the entered liquid into number of tiny droplets. Gaseous pollutant HCl is absorbed from gas to liquid droplets inside the venturi scrubber due to interaction between the gas and water. Experiments were conducted at different throat gas velocity, water level and inlet concentration of HCl to enhance the HCl removal efficiency. The effect of throat gas velocity, inlet concentration of HCl, and water level on removal efficiency of venturi scrubber has been evaluated. Present system yielded very high removal efficiency for the scrubbing of HCl gas which is more than 90%. It is also concluded that the removal efficiency of HCl increases with increasing throat gas velocity, inlet HCl concentration, and water level height.

Keywords: air pollution, HCl scrubbing, mass transfer, self-priming venturi scrubber

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Authors: Yongseok Hong, Kurt Louis Solis

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In the present study, a hybrid sorbent using the metal organic framework (MOF), UiO-66, and powdered activated carbon (pAC) is synthesized to remove cationic and anionic metals simultaneously. UiO-66 is an octahedron-shaped MOF with a Zr₆O₄(OH)₄ metal node and 1,4-benzene dicarboxylic acid (BDC) organic linker. Zr-based MOFs are attractive for trace element remediation in wastewaters, because Zr is relatively non-toxic as compared to other classes of MOF and, therefore, it will not cause secondary pollution. Most remediation studies with UiO-66 target anions such as fluoride, but trace element oxyanions such as arsenic, selenium, and antimony have also been investigated. There have also been studies involving mercury removal by UiO-66 derivatives, however these require post-synthetic modifications or have lower effective surface areas. Activated carbon is known for being a readily available, well-studied, effective adsorbent for metal contaminants. Solvothermal method was employed to prepare hybrid sorbent from UiO66 and activated carbon, which could be used to remove mercury and selenium simultaneously. The hybrid sorbent was characterized using FSEM-EDS, FT-IR, XRD, and TGA. The results showed that UiO66 and activated carbon are successfully composited. From BET studies, the hybrid sorbent has a SBET of 1051 m² g⁻¹. Adsorption studies were performed, where the hybrid showed maximum adsorption of 204.63 mg g⁻¹ and 168 mg g⁻¹ for Hg (II) and selenite, respectively, and follows the Langmuir model for both species. Kinetics studies have revealed that the Hg uptake of the hybrid is pseudo-2nd order and has rate constant of 5.6E-05 g mg⁻¹ min⁻¹ and the selenite uptake follows the simplified Elovich model with α = 2.99 mg g⁻¹ min⁻¹, β = 0.032 g mg⁻¹.

Keywords: adsorption, flue gas wastewater, mercury, selenite, metal organic framework

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Authors: Oladipo Oluwaseun Peter

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Daily consumption of crude oil is alarming as a result of increasing demand for energy. Waste generation tends to rise with the level of economic advancement of a nation. Hence, this project work researches how wastes which could pose toxic if left unattended to can be processed through biodigestion in order to generate biofuel which could serve as a good substitute for petroleum, a non renewable energy source, so as to reduce over-dependence on petroleum and to prevent environmental pollution. Anaerobic digestion was carried out on organic wastes comprising brewery spent grains, rice husks and poultry droppings in a plastic biodigester of 1000 liters volume using the poultry droppings as a natural inoculums source. The feed composition in ratio 5:3:2, spent grain, rice husks and poultry droppings were mixed with water in the ratio 1:6. Thus, 600 Kg of water was used to prepare the slurry with 100 Kg of feed materials. A plastic biodigester was successfully constructed, and the problem of corrosion and rusting were completely overcome as a result of the use of non-corroding materials of construction. A reasonable quantity of biogas, 33.63m3, was generated over a period of 60 days of biodigestion. The bioslurry was processed through two different process routes; evaporation and filteration. Evaporation process of analysis shows high values of 0.64%, 2.11% and 0.034% for nitrogen, phosphorous and potassium respectively, while filteration process gives 00.61%, 1.93% and 0.026% for nitrogen, phosphorous and potassium respectively.

Keywords: biodigestion, biofuel, digestion, slurry, biogas

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Authors: Majid Farsadrooh, Najmeh Sabbaghi, Seyed Mohammad Mostashari, Abolhasan Moradi

Abstract:

Phenolic compounds are chief environmental contaminants on account of their hazardous and toxic nature on human health. The preparation of sensitive and potent chemosensors to monitor emerging pollution in water and effluent samples has received great consideration. A novel and versatile nanocomposite sensor based on poly pyrogallol is presented for the first time in this study, and its electrochemical behavior for simultaneous detection of hydroquinone (HQ), catechol (CT), and resorcinol (RS) in the presence of nitrite is evaluated. The physicochemical characteristics of the fabricated nanocomposite were investigated by emission-scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM), energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS), and Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET). The electrochemical response of the proposed sensor to the detection of HQ, CT, RS, and nitrite is studied using cyclic voltammetry (CV), chronoamperometry (CA), differential pulse voltammetry (DPV), and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS). The kinetic characterization of the prepared sensor showed that both adsorption and diffusion processes can control reactions at the electrode. In the optimized conditions, the new chemosensor provides a wide linear range of 0.5-236.3, 0.8-236.3, 0.9-236.3, and 1.2-236.3 μM with a low limit of detection of 21.1, 51.4, 98.9, and 110.8 nM (S/N = 3) for HQ, CT and RS, and nitrite, respectively. Remarkably, the electrochemical sensor has outstanding selectivity, repeatability, and stability and is successfully employed for the detection of RS, CT, HQ, and nitrite in real water samples with the recovery of 96.2%–102.4%, 97.8%-102.6%, 98.0%–102.4% and 98.4%–103.2% for RS, CT, HQ, and nitrite, respectively. These outcomes illustrate that poly pyrogallol is a promising candidate for effective electrochemical detection of dihydroxybenzene isomers in the presence of nitrite.

Keywords: electrochemical sensor, poly pyrogallol, phenolic compounds, simultaneous determination

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Authors: Matthew Kostawich, Mohammed Elmorsy, Mohamed Sayed Sifat, Shoukry Shams, Mahmoud Elsaadany

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6G communication systems represent the nominal future extension of current wireless technology, where its impact is extended to touch upon all human activities, including medical, security, and entertainment applications. As a result, human needs are allocated among the highest priority aspects of the system design and requirements. 6G communications is expected to replace all the current video conferencing with interactive virtual reality meetings involving high data-rate transmission merged with massive distributed computing resources. In addition, the current expansion of IoT applications must be mitigated with significant network changes to provide a reasonable Quality of Service (QoS). This directly implies a high demand for Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) through mobile computing modules in future wireless communication systems. This article proposes the utilization of a Printed Ridge Gap Waveguide (PRGW) to host the wearable nodes. To the best of our knowledge, we propose for the first time a physical layer analysis within the context of a complete architecture. A thorough study is provided on the impact of the distortion of the guiding structure on the overall system performance. The proposed structure shows small latency and small losses, highlighting its compatibility with future applications.

Keywords: ridge gap waveguide, edge computing module, 6G, multimedia IoT applications

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Authors: Ahmed Salim, A. El Bouari, M. Tahiri, O. Tanane

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This research aims to develop and comprehensively characterize a cost-effective activated carbon derived from date residues, with a focus on optimizing its physicochemical properties to achieve superior performance in a variety of applications. The samples were synthesized via a chemical activation process utilizing phosphoric acid (H₃PO₄) as the activating agent. Activated carbon, produced through this method, functions as a vital adsorbent for the removal of contaminants, with a specific focus on methylene blue, from industrial wastewater. This study meticulously examined the influence of various parameters, including carbonization temperature and duration, on both the combustion properties and adsorption efficiency of the resultant material. Through extensive analysis, the optimal conditions for synthesizing the activated carbon were identified as a carbonization temperature of 600°C and a duration of 2 hours. The activated carbon synthesized under optimized conditions demonstrated an exceptional carbonization yield and methylene blue adsorption efficiency of 99.71%. The produced carbon was subsequently characterized using X-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis. Its effectiveness in the adsorption of methylene blue from contaminated water was then evaluated. A comprehensive assessment of the adsorption capacity was conducted by varying parameters such as carbon dosage, contact time, initial methylene blue concentration, and pH levels.

Keywords: environmental pollution, adsorbent, activated carbon, phosphoric acid, date Kernels, pollutants, adsorption

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Authors: M. Talebzadegan, S. Bina, I. Riazi

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The purpose of this paper is to present an active solar energy system to supply heating demands of the teaching staff dormitory of the Islamic Azad University of Ramhormoz. The design takes into account the solar radiations and climate data of Ramhormoz town and is based on the daily warm water consumption for health demands of 450 residents of the dormitory, which is equal to 27000 lit of 50-C° water, and building heating requirements with an area of 3500 m² well-protected by heatproof materials. First, heating demands of the building were calculated, then a hybrid system made up of solar and fossil energies was developed and finally, the design was economically evaluated. Since there is only roof space for using 110 flat solar water heaters, the calculations were made to hybridize solar water heating system with heat pumping system in which solar energy contributes 67% of the heat generated. According to calculations, the net present value “N.P.V.” of revenue stream exceeds “N.P.V.” of cash paid off in this project over three years, which makes economically quite promising. The return of investment and payback period of the project is 4 years. Also, the internal rate of return (IRR) of the project was 25%, which exceeds bank rate of interest in Iran and emphasizes the desirability of the project.

Keywords: Solar energy, Heat Demand, Renewable , Pollution

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Authors: Mohammad Bagher Heidari, Hefzollah Mohammadian

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TETRA (Terrestrial Trunked Radio) is a digital radio communication standard, which has been implemented in several different parts of the gas refinery ninth (phase 12th) by South Pars Gas Complex. Studies on possible impacts on the users' health considering different exposure conditions are missing. Objectives: To investigate possible acute effects of electromagnetic fields (EMF) of two different levels of TETRA hand-held transmitter signals on cognitive function and well-being in healthy young males. Methods: In the present double-blind cross-over study possible effects of short-term (2.5 h) EMF exposure of handset-like signals of TETRA (450 - 470 MHz) were studied in 30 healthy male participants (mean ± SD: 25.4 ±2.6 years). Individuals were tested on nine study days, on which they were exposed to three different exposure conditions (Sham, TETRA 1.5 W/kg and TETRA 10.0 W/kg) in a randomly assigned and balanced order. Participants were tested in the afternoon at a fixed timeframe. Results: Attention remained unchanged in two out of three tasks. In the working memory, significant changes were observed in two out of four subtasks. Significant results were found in 5 out of 35 tested parameters, four of them led to an improvement in performance. Mood, well-being and subjective somatic complaints were not affected by TETRA exposure. Conclusions: The results of the present study do not indicate a negative impact of a short-term EMF- effect of TETRA on cognitive function and well-being in healthy young men.

Keywords: TETRA (terrestrial trunked radio), electromagnetic fields (EMF), mobile telecommunication health research (MTHR), antenna

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Authors: Claudia Vergara, Oscar Valdes, Jaime Tapia, Leonardo Santos

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The poly(amidoamine) dendrimers (PAMAM) are a class of material introduced by D. Tomalia. Modifications of the PAMAM dendrimer with several functional groups have attracted the attention for new interesting properties and new applications in many fields such as chemistry, physics, biology, and medicine. However, in the last few years, the use of dendrimers in environmental applications has increased due to pollution concerns. In this contribution, we report the synthesis of three new PAMAM derivates modified with asparagine aminoacid supported in cellulose: PG0-Asn (PAMAM-asparagine), PG0-Asn-Trt (with trityl group) and PG0-Asn-Boc-Trt (with tert-butyl oxycarbonyl group). The functionalization of generation 0 PAMAM dendrimer was carried out by amidation reaction by using an EDC/HOBt protocol. In a second step, functionalized dendrimer was covalently supported to the cellulose surface and used to study the capture of uranyl ions from aqueous solution by fluorescence spectroscopy. The structure and purity of the desired products were confirmed by conventional techniques such as FT-IR, MALDI, elemental analysis, and ESI-MS. Batch experiments were carried out to determine the affinity of uranyl ions with the dendrimer in aqueous solution. Firstly, the optimal conditions for uranyl capture were obtained, where the optimum pH for the removal was 6, the contact time was 4 hours, the initial concentration of uranyl was 100 ppm, and the amount of the adsorbent to be used was 2.5 mg. PAMAM significantly increased the capture of uranyl ions with respect to cellulose as the starting substrate, reaching 94.8% of capture (PG0), followed by 91.2% corresponding to PG0-Asn-Trt, then 70.3% PG0-Asn and 24.2% PG0-Asn-Boc-Trt. These results show that the PAMAM dendrimer is a good option to remove uranyl ions from aqueous solutions.

Keywords: asparagine, cellulose, PAMAM dendrimer, uranyl ions

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Authors: Malik Shoeb Ahmad

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The aim of the present study is to carry out investigations on Class F fly ash obtained from NTPC thermal power plant, Dadri, U.P. (India) and electroplating waste sludge from Aligarh, U.P. (India) along with geofibre for its subsequent utilization in various geotechnical and highway engineering applications. The experimental studies such as California bearing ratio (CBR) tests were carried out to evaluate the strength of plain fly ash as well as fly ash-waste sludge mix reinforced with geofibre, as the CBR value is the vital parameters used in the design of flexible and rigid pavements. Results of the study show that the strength of the mix is highly dependent on the curing period and the sludge and geofibre content. The CBR values were determined for mix containing fly ash (83.5-93.5%), waste sludge (5-15%) and 1-2% geofibre. However, out of the various combinations of mixes the CBR value of the mix 88.5%FA+10%S+1.5%GF at 28 days of curing was found to be 53.52% when compared with the strength of plain fly ash. It has been observed that the fibre inclusion increases the strength of the plain fly ash and fly ash-waste sludge specimens by changing their brittle to ductile behavior. The TCLP leaching test was also conducted to determine the heavy metal concentration in the optimized mix. The results of TCLP test show that the heavy metal concentration in the mix 88.5%FA+10%S+1.5%G at 28 days of curing reduced substantially from 24 to 98% when compared with the concentration of heavy metals in the waste sludge collected from source. It has also been observed that the pH of the leachate of this mix is between 9-11, which ensures the proper stabilization of the heavy metals present in the mix. Hence, this study will certainly help in mass scale utilization of two industrial wastes viz., electroplating waste and fly ash, which are causing pollution to the environment to a great extent.

Keywords: Dadri fly ash, geofibre, electroplating waste sludge, CBR, TCLP

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Authors: Mary Elenor Adagio, John Roben Ambas, Ramilyn Bertolano, Julie Ann Garcia

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Ecological Solid Waste Management has been a long-time concern in both national and international spheres. The exponential growth of waste generation is not properly matched with a waste management system that is cost-effective. As a result, governments and their communities within inevitably resort to the old ways of opening dumpsites to serve as a giant garbage bin. However, due to the environmental and public health problems these unmanaged dumpsites caused, countries like the Philippines mandated the closure of these dumpsites and converted them into or opened new sanitary landfills. This study aims to determine how the transition from open dumpsites to Solid Waste Management Facilities improve the implementation of the Solid Waste Management Framework of the government pursuant to Republic Act 9003. To test the hypothesis that the mandatory closure of dumpsites is better in the management of wastes in local government units, a review of related literature on analysis reports, news, and case studies was conducted. The results suggest that advocating for the transition of dumpsites to sanitary landfills would not only prevent environmental risks caused by pollution but also reduce problems regarding public health. Although this transition can be effective, data also show that with a lack of funding and resources, many local government units still find it difficult to provide their solid waste management plans and to adapt to the transition to sanitary landfills.

Keywords: solid waste management, environmental law, solid waste management facilities, open dumpsites

Procedia PDF Downloads 153