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Durian seed flour contains starch consisted of amylose and amylopectin like tapioca flour, so it can be utilized as a filler in meatball production. The purposes of this research were to evaluate the nutrient content and quality of durian seed flour, the best level of durian seed flour addition to the meatball production, and the quality of beef meatball during storage in room temperature and refrigerator. Complete randomized design (CRD) was used with 3 treatments and 3 replications. The treatments used different filler ingredients consisted of: 1) 100% tapioca, 2) 50% tapioca + 50% durian seed flour, and 3) 100% durian seed flour utilization. The results showed that durian seed flour could affect the protein levels and hardness of beef meatballs. In the organoleptic test, the addition of durian seed flour had no effect on the appearance of the color, flavor, aroma, and texture. The meatballs with 100% durian seed flour had the lowest hardness. The protein content of the meatballs with 100% durian seed flour was the highest. The used of 50% durian seed flour gave the best effect to beef meatball during storage. Meatball could be stored up to 8 h in room temperature while refrigerator could keep it longer up to 12 d. It was concluded that the addition 50% durian seed flour may substitute tapioca flour as filler ingredient of beef meatball.

In this research, a novel aluminum alloy and metal matrix composite was designed and developed for self healing purpose. Tin at varying weight percentages (5, 10, 15 & 20 wt%) was alloyed into aluminum along with other alloying elements to form a new set of metal alloy and 5 wt% of SiC particles was dispersed to the above said combinations to develop new sets of composite materials. Optical microscope of the developed set of samples reveals a modification in the grain structure with dispersion of tin element and with respect to increment of tin content the hardness value tends to decrease. Investigated the effect of wire electric discharge machining (WEDM) process parameters such as Pulse On time (PON), Pulse Off time (POFF), wire feed rate (WFR) along with the material elemental composition parameters Sn wt% and SiC wt% using Taguchi coupled Grey Relational Analysis. On behalf of the above said parameters a L32 orthogonal array based experimental design was finalized and based on the experimental studies single and multi criteria based optimization was conceded. Significance of each processing parameters over the output responses Material Removal Rate (MRR) and surface roughness (Ra) was examined through ANOVA method. Machine learning techniques was used and Neural Network models was developed to predict the MRR and Ra values and the experimental confirmations identified the effectiveness of the developed models.

The increasing of population have enhanced the generation of waste in Malaysia, a country of which highly depends on landfill as a method to dispose solid waste. However, one of the problems closely related to landfill is leachate which can potentially contaminated the nearby surface water, groundwater and soil. In Malaysia, food waste is a major waste composition which can lead to generation of leachate due to their high moisture content. Citrus fruit wastes classified as one of food waste which become a concern because of its potential to create environmental pollution. Leachate from citrus fruit is acidic, high BOD and COD, high turbidity, total suspended solid and high nutrient such as nitrogen and phosphorus. These characteristic may interfere the effectiveness in wastewater treatment. Meanwhile, high nitrogen and phosphorus can lead to eutrophication. Therefore, citrus leachate needs to be treated properly in order to reduce their impacts towards the environment. The method used for citrus leachate treatment is membrane process. Membrane process had been proven their effectiveness and had been used in many applications. The previous membrane composition is used but the suitability on citrus waste is needed to investigate. The MWCO of newly developed flat sheet membrane is determined in order to study the performance of the membrane in citrus fruit waste leachate treatment.The referenced publication has been retracted because the ideas, design of the study, data, and the text of this manuscript are an unauthorized reproduction of a previously published article with the same title published in the International Journal of Scientific and Research Publication. Given the extent of the overlap and the failure to properly credit the original source this article has been retracted. In addition, it was published without knowledge or consent from a co-author listed on the paper, Malini Rajie, her name was added without her permission.

Nearly 50% of India's population depends on variants of pit-toilet systems for human waste disposal. Nitrate contamination of groundwater by pit-toilet leachate is a major environmental concern in the country as it sources a major proportion (50–80%) of potable water from aquifers. Therefore, minimizing nitrate contamination of groundwater due to leachate infiltration from pit-toilet systems is essential. Batch and column experiments demonstrated the capability of bentonite-enhanced sand (BES) specimens to reduce nitrate concentrations in synthetic solutions (initial NO3-N concentration = 22.7 mg/L, C/N = 3) by about 85–90% in 10 to 24 hour by a heterotrophic denitrification process. Based on the laboratory results, it is recommended that use of a BES-permeable reactive barrier layer at the base of pit-toilets will facilitate heterotrophic denitrification and mitigate nitrate contamination of the underlying aquifer.

The use of pit-toilets has severely contaminated the groundwater with nitrate ions in Mulbagal town, Karnataka, India. This paper examines the potential of nitrate ions in the pit-toilet effluents to transform to N2O and to escape to atmosphere from 16 wards of Mulbagal town. Anaerobic conditions prevailing in the pit-toilet convert 25 % of the available N to ammonium ions. Only 3-33 % of ammonium ions transform to nitrate ions in the pit-toilet and escape with the effluent. During migration to aquifer, only 4.5 % of available nitrate concentration in the effluent transforms to N-2 and N2O gases in the 1.5-m-thick saturated zone underlying the pit-toilet; 36-55 % of the gases comprise N2O and the remainder of N-2. Further only 18 % of N2O formed escapes to atmosphere, while the remainder is retained in soil solution. Calculations show that 9.88 x 10(13) molecules of N2O/cm(2) would be cumulatively released from 16 wards of Mulbagal town, over an area of 4.9 km(2).

In this paper, an approximate analytical method to solve the non-linear differential equations in an immobilized enzyme film is presented. Analytical expressions for concentrations of substrate and product have been derived for all values of dimensionless parameter. Dimensionless numbers that can be used to study the effects of enzyme loading, enzymatic gel thickness, and oxidation/ reduction kinetics at the electrode in biosensor/biofuel cell performance were identified. Using the dimensionless numbers identified in this paper, and the plots representing the effects of these dimensionless numbers on concentrations and current in biosensor/biofuel cell are discussed. Analytical results are compared with simulation results and satisfactory agreement is noted.

This study aims to increase the retrieval efficiency of proposed image retrieval system on the basis of color content. A new idea of feature extraction based on color perception histogram is proposed. First, the color histogram is constructed for HSV image. Secondly, the true color and grey color components are identified based on hue and intensity. The weight for true and grey color components is calculated using NBS distance. An updated histogram is constructed using weighted true and grey color values. The color features extracted from the updated histogram of query image and for all the images in image database are compared with existing color histogram based technique by using multiple similarity measures. Experimental results show that proposed image retrieval based on the color perception histogram gives higher retrieval performance in terms of high average precision and average recall with less computational complexity.

Nitrate contamination of groundwater arises from anthropogenic activities, such as, fertilizer and animal manure applications and infiltration of wastewater/leachates. During migration of wastewater and leachates, the vadose zone (zone residing above the groundwater table), is considered to facilitate microbial denitrification. Particle voids in vadose zone are deficient in dissolved oxygen as the voids are partially filled by water and the remainder by air. Discontinuities in liquid phase would also restrict oxygen diffusion and therefore facilitate denitrification in the vadose/unsaturated soil zone. The degree of saturation of soil specimen (S (r)) quantifies the relative volume of voids filled with air and water. Unsaturated specimens have S (r) values ranging between 0 and 100 %. Earlier studies from naturally occurring nitrate losses in groundwater aquifers in Mulbagal town, Kolar District, Karnataka, showed that the sub-surface soils composed of residually derived sandy soil; hence, natural sand was chosen in the laboratory denitrification experiments. With a view to understand the role of vadose zone in denitrification process, experiments are performed with unsaturated sand specimens (S (r) = 73-90 %) whose pore water was spiked with nitrate and ethanol solutions. Experimental results revealed 73 % S (r) specimen facilitates nitrate reduction to 45 mg/L in relatively short durations of 5.5-7.5 h using the available natural organic matter (0.41 % on mass basis of sand); consequently, ethanol addition did not impact rate of denitrification. However, at higher S (r) values of 81 and 90 %, extraneous ethanol addition (C/N = 0.5-3) was needed to accelerate the denitrification rates.

The interaction of five crown ethers, 15-crown-5, 18-crown-6, benzo-15-crown-5, dibenzo-l8-crown-6, and dibenzo-24-crown-8 with 2, 3, 5, 6 - tetracyano pyrazine has been studied by spectroscopic methods. The association constants and thermodynamic parameters of the 1:1 complexes formed by donor ethers with the acceptor have been evaluated. There is an indication that oxygens of the ethers and aryl part of the ether act cooperatively in binding of the acceptor.

Rechargeable lithium-ion batteries of today operate by an electrochemical process that involves intercalation reactions that warrants the use of electrode materials having very specific structures and properties. Further, they are limited to the insertion of one Li per 3D metal. One way to circumvent this intrinsic limitation and achieve higher capacities would be the use of electrode materials in which the metal-redox oxidation state could reversibly change by more than one unit. Through the discovery of conversion or displacement reactions, it is possible to reversibly change by more than one unit. Further, the need for materials with open structures or good electronic ionic conductivity is eliminated, thus leading to a new area in materials for lithium ion battery. In this paper, we present a review enlightens new reaction schemes and their potential impact on applications.

Cancer of uterine cervix is one of the leading cancers among women in both developed and developing countries. Optical spectroscopy methods mostly Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) and fluorescence have widely been used to diagnose cervix cancer using cells as well as tissues. Raman spectra of normal and malignant tissues were recorded in fingerprint region. Normal cervix tissues are characterized by strong, broad amide I, broader amide III and strong peaks at 853 and 938 cm−1 which can be attributed to structural proteins such as collagen. Prominent features of malignant tissue spectra with respect to normal tissue are—relatively weaker and sharper amide I, minor red shift in ΔCH2 and sharper amide III which indicate the presence of Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA), lipids and non-collagenous proteins. In order to develop highly objective discrimination methods, very elaborate data analysis was carried out using Principal Components Analysis (PCA). Standard sets for normal and malignant were prepared and tested retrospectively and prospectively. Several parameters such as (scores of factor, Mahalanobis distance and spectral residuals) were explored for discrimination and very clean clustering of normal and malignant spectra was achieved. A multiparametric approach (limit test) combining all the above discrimination parameters was also considered, in order to develop unambiguous discrimination. This analysis has produced very high, 99.5%, sensitivity and specificity. Results obtained in this study thus validate Raman spectroscopy methods for discrimination of normal and malignant tissues in cervical cancers.

Optical spectroscopy methods are fast emerging as potential alternatives for early diagnosis of cancer. A Raman spectroscopy method for discrimination of normal and malignant oral tissues has been developed by us earlier. It is necessary to evaluate and establish the validity of the approach before it can be routinely used. In the present study, our Raman spectroscopy investigations are extended further to evaluate the efficacy of the technique to discriminate between normal, inflammatory, premalignant, and malignant conditions in oral tissue. Spectral profiles of normal, malignant, premalignant, and inflammatory conditions show pronounced differences between one another. Spectra of normal tissues can be attributed mainly to lipids whereas pathological tissue spectra are dominated by proteins. Principal components analysis (PCA) of the spectral data sets belonging to the four different categories showed that scores of factors differentiated between normal and all pathological conditions but gave only poor discrimination among the three pathological states. PCA combined with multiparameter limit tests allow match/mismatch criteria to be applied to test samples when pathologically certified calibration sets are available in each class. It is shown that by this method all the four tissue types could be discriminated and diagnosed correctly. The biochemical differences between normal and pathological conditions of oral tissue are also discussed from spectral differences of the different classes of spectra.

Satisfaction of the teachers is the prerequisite for establishing a healthy organisational structure in a college. The teachers can render job effectively and satisfactorily only if good management and leadership exist in their institutions. Therefore, in this context, the research work was undertaken to evaluate the teachers’ opinions on organisational authority and to find out whether the different categories of the teachers significantly differ among themselves with reference to their authority. Primary data were obtained from 240 teachers by adopting multistage stratified random sampling technique. The analysis of the opinions of the teachers on the organizational authority reveals that the teachers have satisfied opinions on functional head but they did not have satisfied opinion on management. Hence, the management of the colleges should often organise get-together programmes and offer incentives to create good organizational climate in order to impart high quality education to the students’ community by the satisfied teachers.

A cross-sectional study on organizational factors that influences job stress was carried out among Medical Laboratory Technologists (MLT) in Klang Valley's Hospitals. There were three organizational factors that were measured, interpersonal factor, job condition and career development. A total of 249 respondents participated in this study, 126 were from the private hospitals and 123 from the government hospitals. The prevalence of stress was found higher in the private hospitals with the percentage of 16.7% compared to the government hospitals of 15.4%. All three organizational factors were significantly associated with job stress (interpersonal factor p0.001, job condition p0.001 and career development p0.001). Management team in hospitals as well as the laboratory managers should introduce stress prevention programmes to assist MLTs in stress management.

This paper aims to improve the effectiveness of retrieving images on the basis of color content. The paper is organized as follows. Firstly, a mean based technique with reduced feature vector is proposed. Secondly, a new idea to extract the features of an image based on the measure of central tendency is proposed. The proposed mean based technique is compared with existing color averaging techniques for retrieval speed and memory requirement. Finally the proposed mean based technique is compared with the measures of central tendency for retrieval efficiency. The proposed CBIR techniques are tested on generic image database and indexed image database. Experimental results shows that proposed method based on the measures of central tendency gives better performance in terms of higher precision and recall values with less computational complexity.

Earlier studies have indicated that variability in size, surface texture and charge greatly influence the contaminant removal process in granular media. Based on surface characteristics of montmorillonite, it is anticipated that small addition of this clay would increase adhesion sites for bacterial growth and extracellular polymer production in the slow sand filter and thereby enhance its contaminant removal ability. Experiments were performed by permeating groundwater contaminated with pathogens (total coliform and E. Coli) and inorganic contaminants through the bentonite amended slow sand filter (BASSF). Surprisingly, the BASSF retained inorganic contaminants besides pathogens. Water-leach tests (pH of water leachate ranged from 2 to 9) with spent BASSF specimen indicated that the inorganic contaminants are irreversibly adsorbed to a large extent. It is considered that the combined effects of enhanced-organic matter mediated adhesion sites and increased hydraulic retention time enables the BASSF specimen to retain inorganic contaminants. It is envisaged that BASSF filters could find use in treating contaminated groundwater for potable needs at household and community level.

Environmental journals with a focus on anthropogenic hazards deal with the science of the problem and/or practices to mitigate them. The ICE journal Environmental Geotechnics is more exclusive as its predominant focus is on the interactions of geological materials with water/atmosphere/waste/chemicals from a science and engineering perspective. The focus on geological materials brings an important dimension to the fore as the nature/type of geological materials varies with geography that, in turn, would have a strong bearing on the materials’ interactions. To obtain meaningful solutions, numerical models and laboratory experiments must adopt local geological and geochemical settings rather than use non-specific site information. The relevance of a regional approach in addressing geoenvironmental engineering problems is illustrated using two examples from an Indian context.

To assess the efficacy of conventional Raman spectroscopy in combination with discriminating parameters, Mahalanobis distance, spectral residuals, and "limit test" methodology in differentiation of normal and malignant ovarian tissues.Ovarian cancer is the second most common cancer among women and the leading cause of death among gynecologic malignancies. Initial laparotomy and subsequent frozen section analysis can influence the surgical management of ovarian cancers. Although frozen section pathology is sensitive and specific enough, interpretation is often subjective, time consuming, and requires highly skilled personnel. Raman spectroscopy is sensitive to biochemical variations in the samples, rapid, more objective, and amenable to multivariate statistical tools. It can therefore be an ideal tool for discrimination between normal and malignant ovarian tissues.72 Spectra from eight normal and seven malignant ovarian tissues were recorded by conventional near-infrared (NIR) Raman spectroscopy (excitation wavelength of 785 nm). Spectral data were analyzed by principal components analysis (PCA) and other discriminating parameters such as Mahalanobis distance, spectral residuals, and a multiparametric limit test approach.A mean malignant spectrum exhibits a broader amide I band, a stronger amide III band, a minor blue shift in the delta CH2 band, and a hump around 1480 cm(-1) compared to a normal spectrum. The normal spectra show relatively stronger peaks around the 855 and 940 cm(-1) region. Scores of factor 1 as well as Mahalanobis distance and spectral residuals gave good classification among the tissue types. The limit test approach provided unambiguous and objective discrimination.The findings of this study demonstrate the efficacy of conventional Raman spectroscopy and our statistical methodologies in discrimination of normal from malignant ovarian tissues. Prospectively, by evaluating the models and developing suitable fiberoptic probes, this technique could be useful in diagnosis during initial laparotomy.

Direct bromination of a wide range of aromatic compounds possessing electron-donating groups, such as methoxy, hydroxy or amino groups, have been carried out by two-phase electrolysis. This electrochemical method results in high yields (70–98%) of monobromo compounds and usually with high regioselectivity (>95%) for the para position.

Effect of nickel and aluminium was studied on aflatoxin and lipid production by two strains ofAspergillus flavus in a sucrose—asparagine—salts medium. Inclusion of aluminium in the medium established an inverse relationship between aflatoxin and lipid production. At lower concentrations aluminium stimulated aflatoxin production, whereas at higher concentrations it stimulated total lipid production. Nickel at higher concentrations resulted in an increase in total aflatoxin production. However, no definite correlation was observed between total aflatoxin and total lipid production when nickel was included in the medium. *** DIRECT SUPPORT *** A00FP116 00002

The interaction of benzo-15-crown-5, dibenzo-18-crown-6 and dibenzo-24-crown-8 with 2-dicyanoethylene 1,3-indane dione in CH 2 Cl 2 has been described in terms of the formation of 1 : 1 molecular complexes. The magnitude of association constants and thermodynamic parameters indicate cooperative interactions of oxygens with the acceptors. The 1 H and 13 C NMR spectra of the complexes show that π-π interactions are a major source of ground state stabilization in these complexes.

The interaction of four crown ethers, benzo-15-crown-5, dibenzo-18-crown-6, dicyclohexyl-18-crown-6 and dibenzo-24-crown-8 with three nitrofluorenones has been studied using electronic absorption, infrared, 1 H NMR and 13 C NMR spectral methods. It is shown that association constants of 1 :1 complexes vary linearly with the number of oxygen's in the ethers. The molecular binding properties are discussed collectively in terms of association constants, charge transfer transition energies, intensities of these bands, enthalpies of complexation and electron affinities of the acceptors. Evidence has been presented that the dominant contributions to charge transfers arise from π — π interaction. Possible overlap structures have been proposed based on infrared, and NMR spectra of the complexes.