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Illustrated fiction is one of the narrative media that came into the arena of literature during the 18th century because of the technological advancements that occurred during this period. Illustrated editions of literary creations became more popular during the late18th century until the last decades of the 19th century. During this period, an illustrated edition of fictional works was in higher demand than the prose editions. However, the emergence of various adaptations of literary creations, such as films and graphical representation that came into command at the end of the 19th century and 20th century replaced the popularity of illustrated fiction. Khaled Hosseini, one of the beloved writers of the 21st century has documented the sufferings of Afghan society in his three novels; The Kite Runner (2003), A Thousand Splendid Suns (2007), and And the Mountains Echoed (2013). His works explore the sufferings of common people under the dark shadows of war and violence and spread the rays of peace and humanity. His latest work, Sea Prayer, published on 18 September 2018, Illustrated by Dan Williams, is also deals with the perennial problems faced by the human race in the modern world; war, violence, and refugee life. Written in the form of a letter from a father to son, on the eve of their journey to find their new home, the work describes the traumatic condition of the Syrian refugees and the glory of pre-war Syria. Thus, Hosseini urges the readers to reflect on the dilemmata faced by the Syrian society during the period of war and to hold their hands together to bring peace in Syria and all over the world.

Background: Oxidative stress and inflammation are the predominant cause of chronic diseases, including multiple forms of cancers. Prevention of oxidative stress and inflammation is considered to be a target for preventing these disorders due to their significant roles in various degenerative diseases. Various natural products and plant extracts prevent the process of free radical- induced damages. Objectives: The present study evaluated the biological properties of Thottea siliquosa, belonging to the family Aristolochiaceae, which is a traditionally used Ayurvedic plant. Methods: Antioxidant assays carried out were DPPH, FRAP, hydrogen peroxide scavenging, and hemolysis inhibition assay; nitric oxide and lipoxygenase inhibition assays were used for anti-inflammatory studies. Anticancer activity was evaluated using human endometrial and breast cancer cells by MTT assay. Bioactive compounds present in T. siliquosa were identified by LCMS and each was docked with various cancer targets, including EGFR, VEGFR, GST, COX2, and Lipooxygenase. Results: The results of the present study showed antioxidant properties of the methanolic crude extract of T. siliquosa as DPPH radical scavenging (110.40 ± 4.5 μg/mL), FRAP capacity (41.1 ± 6.2), and peroxide scavenging (233.4 ± 14.2 μg/mL). Besides, anti-inflammatory properties were also evident in terms of nitric oxide radical scavenging (28.76± 3.9 μg/mL) and lipoxygenase inhibition (39.2 ± 3.2 μg/mL) assays. In silico analysis confirmed the inhibitory potential of the bioactive compounds of T. siliquosa against cancer drug targets such as EGFR, VEGFR, and inflammatory enzymes cyclooxygenase as well as lipooxygenase. Further, the anticancer activity of the extract has been identified against human endometrial and breast cancer cells. The possible mechanism of anticancer action of the extract is mediated through the apoptosis induction mechanism acting through increased caspase and APAF-1 expressions. Conclusion: The study thus concludes that T. siliquosa showed significant antioxidant, anti-inflammatory and anticancer properties. Further studies together with a bioassay-guided fractionation may identify possible bioactive compounds.

Multistimuli-responsive nanomedicines present great potential for cancer therapy, as they can be featured as simple, selective, and smart carriers that can release their payload on-demand. In this study, we prepared a multifunctional polymeric vesicular nanocarrier (PVN) based on robust and triple stimuli-responsive micelles that could encapsulate chemotherapeutic drugs (doxorubicin (DOX)) and photothermal agents (IR780 iodide) for combined chemo-photothermal therapy. The size of the PVNs was stable and uniform (∼100 nm), and its DOX and IR780 loading were high: 26.5 and 16.4 wt %, respectively. Further in vitro investigations suggested that the DOX/IR780 coloaded PVNs presented controlled drug release kinetics upon costimulation with specific endogenous stimuli. Upon laser irradiation, DOX/IR780 coloaded PVNs exhibited prominent photothermal cytotoxicity toward murine colon cancer (CT-26) cells. Intracellular uptake assays indicated that DOX/IR780 coloaded PVNs could be readily uptaken by CT-26 cells, resulting in the release of DOX within the cytoplasm of the cells in response to laser irradiation.

Australia is one of the major producers and exporter of agricultural products. Annually, Australian agriculture produces approximately 151 Tg CO2 equivalent emissions. The use of fossil fuels in crop cultivation, harvesting and transportation are considered as the primary source of these greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Moreover, agronomic management and crop residues left in the field also contribute to these GHG emissions. Alternative waste management practices include the use of crop residues and agro-wastes as feedstocks for bioenergy production. Anaerobic digestion is considered as sustainable environmental technology to convert industrial sugarcane residues to carbon dioxide (CO2) - neutral biogas. The biogas thus produced can be used to produce heat, electricity and upgrade to biomethane for vehicle use. The produced biomethane can replace the diesel consumption associated with GHG emission in cane transport. Sugarcane is one among the most cultivated crop in the world. Australia alone produced nearly 33.5 million tonnes of cane in 2018 (FAO 2018). These large production of sugarcane lead to an increase in crop residues and agro-wastes from the sugarcane industry. In this study, an investigation regarding the anaerobic co-digestion of crop residues and agro-wastes from sugarcane industry viz, sugarcane trash (SCT) or sugarcane bagasse (SCB) with chicken manure (CM) was investigated in a batch experiment at 37 °C. In spite of various researches conducted till date about co-digestion of lignocellulosic waste with manure, no research data was available regarding the effect of feed ratio on co-digestion of SCT/SCB with CM. This research gap was investigated in this study. In addition to this, steam explosion pre-treatment of SCT/SCB was included to investigate how the pre-treatment influence methane yield among different feed ratios of SCT/SCB with CM. At first, SCT and SCB were subjected to steam explosion pre-treatment (steam impregnation at 130 °C for 5 minutes followed by steam explosion). Later, two sets of biochemical methane potential (BMP) tests were conducted at an Inoculum to Substrate Ratio (ISR) of 2. Co-digestion of untreated and steam exploded SCT or SCB with CM was investigated at feed ratios of 75:25, 50:50 and 25:75 on volatile solids (VS) basis. Assays with 100% untreated and steam exploded SCT or SCB were also included. Chemical analysis revealed that the steam explosion improved the VS content in pre-treated biomass compared with untreated biomass. The increase in VS was 1.6% and 5.7% in SCT and SCB, respectively. On the other hand, a slight reduction in total solids (TS) of nearly 4% and 1% were observed in the case of SCT and SCB, respectively. BMP results showed that the steam explosion had a profound effect on the methane production rates and yields, especially for SCB than SCT. Methane (CH4) yields of 201.8 and 199 ml CH4/gVSadded were obtained during the mono-digestion of untreated SCT and SCB, respectively. The corresponding values for 100% steam-exploded SCT and SCB were 207.5 and 225.6 ml/gVSadded, respectively. In comparison to mono-digestion, the co-digestion of SCB or SCT with CM did not improve the methane yields. Nevertheless, pre-treatment improved the methane production rates and yields of pre-treated biomass than untreated biomass. Among the studied feed ratios, best methane yields of 206.5 ml/gVSadded were obtained when steam-exploded SCT was co-digested with CM at 75:25 ratio. However, methane yields decreased with an increase in the amount of CM added. SCB also showed a similar trend. The best methane yield of 199.5 ml/gVSadded was obtained when steam-exploded SCB was co-digested with CM at 75:25 ratio. Among the tested feed ratios, all co-digestion mixtures except for 75:25 and 50:50 ratios of untreated SCT to CM showed synergistic effects. The best synergistic effect of 18.57% was observed when untreated SCB was co-digested with CM at 25:75 ratio. Kinetic modelling results confirmed that the steam explosion pre-treatment improved the methane production rates and yields by increasing the hydrolysis rate constant values. However, a higher hydrolysis rate constant was noticed for SCT than SCB. The highest hydrolysis rate constant of 0.16 d-1 was achieved at feed ratios of 50:50 and 25:75 of pre-treated SCT:CM. Interestingly, more than 75% of methane in pre-treated assays was produced by Day 11. The study thus suggests that the steam explosion can improve the methane production rates, yields and productivity of SCT and SCB. However, the use of CM as co-substrate did not improve the methane yields when compared to the mono-digestion of SCT or SCB, but a positive synergism was evident in most of the co-digestion feed ratios.

Background and AimOxidative stress and inflammation are the predominant cause of chronic diseases including cancers, thereby making it as an essential target for preventing these disorders. Various natural products and plants have been shown to prevent the process of free radical induced damages. The present study evaluated the biological properties of Thottea siliquosa, belonging to the family Aristolochiaceae, which is a traditionally used Ayurvedic plant.Experimental ProcedureAntioxidant assays carried out were DPPH, FRAP, hydrogen peroxide scavenging and hemolysis inhibition assay; nitric oxide and lipoxygenase inhibition assays were used for anti-inflammatory studies. Anticancer activity was done using human endometrial and breast cancer cells by MTT assay.Results and ConclusionThe results of the present study showed antioxidant properties for the methanolic crude extract of T. siliquosa as DPPH radical scavenging (110.40± 4.5μg/mL), FRAP capacity (41.1± 6.2), peroxide scavenging (233.4± 14.2 μg/mL) etc. In addition, anti-inflammatory properties are also evident in terms of nitric oxide radical scavenging (28.76± 3.9 μg/mL) and lipoxygenase inhibition (39.2± 3.2 μg/mL) assays. Further, the anticancer activity of these extract has been identified against human endometrial and breast cancer cells. Further studies together with a bioassay guided fractionation may identify possible bioactive compounds.HighlightsThottea siliquosa is a traditional Ayurvedic medicineT. siliquosa exhibits significant anti-inflammatory and anticancer propertiesPolyphenolic compounds may be responsible for the bioactivities of T. siliquosaT. siliquosa may be a source for novel bioactive components

The solar photovoltaic cells received special attention during the past few years due to their rapid renewability consideration, particularly in international airports because of sustainability and high cost of fossil fuel. The present study aims to evaluate the feasibility performance of a novel 12 MWp capacity solar photovoltaic (PV) power plant at Doncaster Sheffield Airport, UK and to develop a mathematical model to provide a greater understanding of glare from solar panels and subsequently outline methods to avoid its effects. SISIFO and Global Solar Atlas software (GSA) simulations were used to obtain the results. Results reported that the proposed plant produced average energy of 1,034.31 MWh monthly and 12,411.69 MWh annually. The maximum electricity production was observed in May, June, and July as 1,772.71, 1,872.32, and 1,818.25 MWh, with 20.51, 21.67, and 21.04% of Capacity Utilization Factor (CUF), respectively. The average energy yield per month was achieved as 2585.74 kWh/kWp with an average performance ratio of 82.59%. Results also showed that 12 MWp PV plant at DSA reduced an average CO2 emission of 10,562,270 kg (11,642.90 tons) annually. The results revealed that glaring is very unlikely to occur throughout the year; however, winter period produced the lowest trajectory of reflected light. Overall, the proposed solar plant at Doncaster Sheffield airport (DSA) was found to be feasible and generates almost double electricity of overall energy demand (6,951.55 MWh) at Doncaster Sheffield airport. However, it is recommended that the excessive produced energy during summer could be transfer into the national grid, which would be returned during the winter season to facilitate PV plant.

The goal of our project is to attain improved travel information and electronic ticketing using smart cards. The smart cards are similar to that of an ATM, so that they can be recharged and can be reused often. Smart cards are secure portable storage devices used for several applications especially security related ones involving access to the system’s database. This looks into current trends in smart card technology and highlights what is likely to happen in the future. The smart card has a microprocessor or memory chip embedded in it that, when coupled with a reader, has the processing power to serve many different applications. The smart cards are user- friendly and so it can be used for Public Transport Networks (PTNs).It can also be noted as a service-oriented architecture. Railways are the important key aspect for the development of the Indian revenue. Many people are in need of train transportation than any other means of transportation because a number of people may travel at the same time. So people may prefer smart cards for the traveling purpose instead of booking the tickets. The existing fare booking system can be replaced by smart cards.

TnT is an efficient statistical Parts-of-speech (POS) Tagger based on Hidden Markov Model. TnT stands for Trigrams‘n’Tags. Viterbi algorithm is used for finding the best tag sequence for a given observation sequence of words. TnT performs well on known word sequences. But, the performance degrades with increase in the number of unknown words. In this paper, we propose a method to overcome this performance degradation using fuzzy rules. Fuzzy rule based model is designed to provide TnT with sufficient information about the tag of unknown words without degrading the performance of TnT. When TnT with fuzzy rule based learning encounters an unknown word, the TnT generates a set of possible tags for the given word, based on the fuzzy rules matched by the word. If the word does not match any fuzzy rule, then the model depends upon the probability distribution of the suffix. This approach guarantees that the performance of TnT will only be improved from its normal performance.