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Neuroscience has revolved around brain structural changes, functional activity, and connectivity alteration in Parkinson’s Disease (PD); however, how the network topology organization becomes altered is still unclear, specifically in Parkinson’s patients with severe hyposmia. In this study, we have examined the functional network topological alteration in patients affected by Parkinson’s Disease with normal cognitive ability (ODN), Parkinson’s Disease with severe hyposmia (ODP), and healthy controls (HCs) using resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rsfMRI) data. We have analyzed brain topological organization using popular graph measures such as network segregation (clustering coefficient, modularity), network integration (participation coefficient, path length), small-worldness, efficiency, centrality, and assortativity. Then, we used a feature ranking approach based on the diagonal adaptation of neighborhood component analysis, aiming to determine a graph measure that is sensitive enough to distinguish between these three different groups. We noted significantly lower segregation and local efficiency and small-worldness in ODP compared to ODN and HCs. On the contrary, we did not find differences in network integration in ODP compared to ODN and HCs, which indicates that the brain network becomes fragmented in ODP. At the brain network level, a progressive increase in the DMN (Default Mode Network) was observed from healthy controls to ODN to ODP, and a continuous decrease in the cingulo-opercular network was observed from healthy controls to ODN to ODP. Further, the feature ranking approach has shown that the whole-brain clustering coefficient and small-worldness are sensitive measures to classify ODP vs. ODN, as well as HCs. Looking at the brain regional network segregation, we have found that the cerebellum and limbic, fronto-parietal, and occipital lobes have higher ODP reductions than ODN and HCs. Our results suggest network topological measures, specifically whole-brain segregation and small-worldness decreases. At the network level, an increase in DMN and a decrease in the cingulo-opercular network could be used as biomarkers to characterize ODN and ODP.

Phase change materials can be the most suitable way to enhance the thermal performance of a heat exchanger, and it is one of the important parameters for various developments in renewable energy and engineering applications for a sustainable future. At the time of phase change, the phase change material can store energy and release that stored energy in the form of heat. It is an eminent candidate for different engineering sectors, including thermal, electronics, civil, and textile. In this research, we used lauric acid as a phase change material and copper oxide, aluminium oxide as nanoparticles experimentally. The characterisation tests such as Thermogravimetric analysis, Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy, Ultraviolet-visible, Thermal Conductivity, X-Ray Diffraction, Field Emission Scanning Election Microscope were carried out on the phase change materials and nano phase change materials. The phase change materials are tested individually to analyse the heat transfer rate of the heat exchanger for a specific period of time at three different inlet temperatures. The thermal conductivity of the phase change material is improved by the addition of copper oxide and aluminium oxide nanoparticles to it. By adding Aluminium oxide and copper oxide nanoparticles to the lauric acid, the heat storage capacity is increased by 16.52%, 38.89% at 60°C, 17.75%, 41.33% at 70°C, and 22.67%, 46.17% at 80°C respectively. Copper oxide is the most suitable nanomaterial to improve the thermal conductivity of low thermal conductive phase change materials, since it has properties like high thermal conductivity, low thermal interface resistance, and high aspect ratio. The heat energy stored in phase change materials is increased due to the addition of nanoparticles. In future, a suitable optimization technique can be employed to predict the optimum nanoparticle weight percentage to get improved thermal performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]