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Fe2O3: Ni (1–9 mol.%) nanoparticles (NPs) were synthesized using the co-precipitation method and calcined at 500∘C for 12 h. The crystallite size, phase, crystallinity, and structural parameters were analyzed via powder X-ray diffraction. The Bragg reflections confirmed that the synthesized NPs crystallize in a pure hexagonal crystal structure with space group R-3c. Surface morphology analysis revealed agglomerated NPs of irregular sizes and shapes. Energy Dispersive X-ray Analysis confirmed the presence of Fe, O, and Ni elements, as well as the purity of the sample. Both the direct band gap energy and crystallite size decreased with increasing dopant concentration. Detailed studies were conducted on the photoluminescence and anticancer properties. The CIE coordinates indicated a color tuning from blue to green in the visible region. CIE coordinates and CCT values ranging between 2860 to 9547 k demonstrated that the synthesized nanophosphor material meets the requirements of display technology. Additionally, anticancer properties were investigated using HeLa cells and compared with the standard drug cisplatin for biomedical applications. Electrochemical investigations revealed super capacitance values ranging from 93.43 to 149.13 F/g at a scan rate of 10 mV/s with increasing Ni2+ concentration. Therefore, the synthesized Ni2+-doped hematite NPs show great promise in display technology, the biomedical field, and as supercapacitors in energy storage devices.

The current study reports the synthesis of Fe2O3 NPs by the co-precipitation method and the evaluation of the anticancer activity and X-ray/gamma absorption study. PXRD analysis confirmed the formation of monophase trigonal-shaped NPs, and the average crystal size is computed using both Scherrer equation and W-h plot and found to be 45 nm and 54 nm respectively. The direct energy gap is computed from the Wood-Taucs plot and found to be 1.76 eV. FTIR analysis confirmed the functional groups present in NPs. Surface morphology studies confirmed by SEM and EDAX analysis confirmed the chemical composition. Anti-cancer studies verified the efficacy of Fe2O3 NPs in cell viability and cell death when compared with Cisplatin. Finally, a NaI(Tl) detector is used to evaluate Mass attenuation co-efficient of the X-ray and gamma radiation shielding characteristics. Shielding requirements are comparable to those for lead. Thus, the synthesized Fe2O3 nanoparticles can be used for anticancer activities, particularly in tailored drug delivery systems, and radiation shielding instead of toxic lead shielding.

Formation of a compound nucleus and production of its evaporation residue are hindered by quasi-fission process. It reduces the evaporation residue cross section since it takes place before the target and projectile combines to form a composite nucleus. We study the quasifission barriers (Bqf) for 14 fusion reactions in the formation of superheavy element 298Og within the framework of the di-nuclear system model. In particular, the influence of entrance channel parameters on quasifission barriers has been investigated. We notice that the quasifission barriers decreases with an increase in angular momentum and fusion barrier height. We constructed semi-empirical formulae for Bqf as a function of mean fissility. The fusion reaction 48Ca+250Cf poses larger Bqf. The larger evaporation cross section is observed for this fusion reaction for 3n evaporation channel with the cross-section of 0.81pb. Similarly, a smaller evaporation cross-section of about 0.033pb is observed for 51Cr+247Pu fusion reaction for 4n evaporation channel with both projectile and target being deformed, unlike to the previous reaction with spherical projectile and deformed target.

Accelerating levels of human-elephant conflicts (HEC) have become a topic of major concern in conservation efforts of endangered Asian elephants (Elephas maximus) throughout their range. Wayanad plateau (WP) is a key summer habitat of Asian elephants in the Brahmagri-Nilgiri Eastern Ghats elephant landscape (Nilgiris), harbouring the largest breeding population in Asia. With the increase in human population density and consequent forest loss, HEC amplified in frequency and intensity in Wayanad. We assessed the drivers of HEC in a temporal and spatial context by integrating questionnaire surveys, compensation claims for crop loss, and individual identification of crop-raiding elephants. The ordinal regression analysis showed that season and proximity to the forest boundary were the major drivers of conflict. The pattern of conflict is spatially heterogeneous, and there is peak crop depredation during the jackfruit and mango season (MayS-September), followed by paddy season (September-December). The conflict has resulted in the removal of jackfruit and mango trees from farmlands and stopped cultivation of several crops that attract elephants. This has impacted rural food supply, economic well-being, local biodiversity, and human-elephant coexistence. We discuss effective and locally appropriate conflict mitigation and management strategies which can apply in human-dominated landscapes.

The need to make clean water accessible and affordable for low-income countries is crucial. This study examines the suitability of various clays for Ceramic Pot Water Filters production and groundwater treatment for effective microbe and fluoride removal. For this study, three clays were collected from different geographical locations in Ethiopia,i.e., Hosaenna Clay, Babawuha Clay, and Leku Clay. Organic additives such as sawdust and eragrostis tef husks were used to increase the porosity of the Ceramic Pot Water Filters. The Atterberg limit and particle size distribution tests revealed that BC and HC have moderate to high plasticity and mouldability, making them suitable for CPWF production. The clay chemical composition, phase analysis, and thermal properties were determined using XRF, XRD, and TGA/DTA. The turbidity, fluoride level, total dissolved solids, and pH of the groundwater decreases, from 13 to 0.45 NTU, from 3.4 to 0.053 mg/100 mL, from 1245 to 360 mg/l, and from 8.4 to 7.3, respectively; all of which are within the acceptable range of WHO drinking water standards. Microbial removal tests show that the CPWFs removed 99.3%–100% of total coliform bacteria and 98.48%–100% of fecal coliform bacteria from groundwater. Therefore, this work paves the way to fabricate a clay-based ceramic water filter for low-income countries to provide affordable household groundwater treatment technology for microbial and excess fluoride removal.

Cave-dwelling bats widely use anthropogenic structures such as temples in south Asia as roosting and nursery sites. Such roosts are constantly under threat, even more so after the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite the importance of such roosts, there is no detailed understanding of what makes temples favorable for bats and the critical factors for their persistence. Here we relate temple microhabitat characteristics and land use around ancient temples (>400 years) to bat species richness and abundance in the Tamiraparani river basin of south India. Temples were selected for sampling along the river basin based on logistics and permission to access them. We counted bats at the roost in the mornings and late afternoons from inside the temples. Temple characteristics such as dark rooms, walkways, crevices, towers, and disturbances to the roosts were recorded. Based on European Space Agency land use classifications, we recorded land use such as crops, trees, scrub, grassland, urban areas, and water availability within a 5 km radius of the temple. Generalized Linear Mixed Models were used to relate the counts in temples with microhabitats and land use. We sampled 59 temples repeatedly across 5 years which yielded a sample of 246 survey events. The total number of bats counted was 20,211, of which Hipposideros speoris was the most common (9,715), followed by Rousettus leschenaultii (5,306), Taphozous melanopogon (3,196), Megaderma lyra (1,497), Tadarida aegyptiaca (303), Pipistrellus sp. (144) and Rhinopoma hardwickii (50). About 39% of the total bats occurred in dark rooms and 51% along walkways. Species richness and total abundance were related to the availability of dark rooms and the number of buildings in the temple. Land use elements only had a weak effect, but scrub and grassland, even though they were few, are critical for bats. We conclude that retaining undisturbed dark rooms with small exits in temples and other dimly lit areas and having natural areas around temples are vital for bat conservation.

The present work is aimed at facilitating conservation efforts of a rare species of sea urchin (Colobocentrotus atratus) reported nearly eight decades after its initial description by Bell (1887) and later by Clarke (1925) from the coastal waters of south Andaman Islands. Recently, during a three years study (2011-14) on the macrobenthic epifauna along the south Andaman coast, five live specimens of C. atratus were recorded from Kodiyaghat (11031'532''N; 092043'457'' E), south Andaman Islands. Available information shows that this species has reappeared in the south Andaman Islands seventy nine years after the citation by Sastry (1994) collected in the year 1935. The disappearance of this species from the literature in the intermittent years and a sparse population in coastal reaches of south Andaman Islands at present suggest that this species makes a candidate taxa for inclusion in the list of ‘endangered’ or ‘vulnerable’ Indian marine species following IUCN Red List criteria to Wild species.

Dielectric permittivity and relaxation dynamics of binary and ternary mixture of stearic acid on various concentration and their thermodynamic effects are studied. The static dielectric constant (ε0), dielectric permittivity (ε′) and dielectric loss (ε′′) are found by bilinear calibration. The relaxation time (τ), dielectric strength (Δε) and the excess permittivity (εE) are found. The thermodynamic parameters such as enthalpy (ΔH), entropy (ΔS) and Gibb’s free energy (ΔG) are evolved. The significant changes in dielectric parameters are due to the intramolecular and intermolecular interactions in response to the applied frequency. The permittivity spectra of stearic acid–alcohol in the frequency range of 10MHz to 30GHz have been measured using picoseconds Time Domain Reflectometry (TDR). The dielectric parameters (ε0, ε′, ε′′) are found by bilinear calibration method. Influence of temperature in intermolecular interaction and the relaxation process are also studied. The FT-IR spectral analysis reveals that the conformation of functional groups and formation for hydrogen bonding are present in both binary and ternary mixtures of stearic acid.

The semi-arid districts of Tirunelveli and Tuticorin in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu consist of numerous wetlands in the form of irrigation tanks, interconnected by an ancient network of canals, and fed by the rivers originating from the Western Ghats. While these irrigation tanks have socio-economic and cultural significance, very little is known of their ecological importance. These tanks have the potential to harbor good populations of resident and wintering waterbirds but no studies have been done to confirm this. A survey was carried out in 230 irrigation tanks of various sizes in the two districts from November 2008 to January 2011. A total of 83 waterbird species were recorded. Indian Pond Heron Ardeola grayii occurred in most of the surveyed tanks. Large concentrations of wintering waterfowl such as Eurasian Wigeon Anas penelope, Northern Pintail Anas acuta, Garganey Anas querquedula were recorded in tanks closer to the coast. Based on our survey, six sites with large waterbird concentrations have been identified, one of which is Vagaikulam, an active heronry currently under threat from tree felling. These sites along with associated wetlands are important for the long term conservation of waterbirds in the region.

The asymmetric unit of the title molecular salt, C6H10N22+·2H2PO3−, contains half of a benzene-1,2-diaminium cation and a phosphite anion, the complete cation being generated by a crystallographic mirror plane. In the crystal, N—H...O hydrogen bonds generate R22(9) and R22(8) ring motifs and O—H...O hydrogen bonds generate an R22(8) ring motif. Overall, these generate a three-dimensional framework. The crystal structure also features π–π interactions [centroid-to-centroid distance = 3.8642 (7) Å].

The asymmetric unit of the title organic salt, C5H7N2+·C6H3N2O5−, comprises two 2-aminopyridinium cations and two 2,4-dinitrophenolate anions. The cations are protonated at the pyridine N atoms, while the anions are deprotonated at hydroxyl O atoms. In the crystal, bifurcated N—H...O hydrogen bonds generate two R12(6), two R21(6), and one R21(4) ring motifs. Adjacent anions and cations are linked by N—H...O hydrogen bonds into infinite chains along [110]. Weak C—H...O contacts and π–π interactions further link the components, forming a complex three-dimensional supramolecular network.

Skin cancer is a terrifying disorder that affects all individuals. Due to the significant increase in the rate of melanoma skin cancer, early detection of skin cancer is now more critical than ever before. Malignant melanoma is one of the most serious forms of skin cancer, and it is caused by abnormal melanocyte cell growth. In recent years, skin cancer predictive categorization has become more accurate and predictive due to multiple deep learning algorithms. Malignant melanoma is diagnosed using the Recurrent Convolution Neural Network‐Long Short‐Term Memory (RCNN‐LSTM), which is one of the deep learning classification approaches. Using the International Skin Image Collection and the RCNN‐LSTM, the data are categorized and analyzed to gain a better understanding of skin cancer. The method begins with data preprocessing, which prepares the dataset for classification. Additionally, the RCNN is employed to extract the features that are vital to the prediction process. The LSTM is accountable for the final step, classification. There are further factors to examine, such as the precision of 94.60%, the sensitivity of 95.67%, and the F1‐score of 95.13%. Other benefits of the suggested study include shorter prediction durations of 95.314, 122.530, and 131.205 s and lower model loss of 0.25%, 0.19%, and 0.15% for input sizes 10, 15, and 20, respectively. Three datasets had a reduced categorization error of 5.11% and an accuracy of 95.42%. In comparison to previous approaches, the work discussed here produces superior outcomes. Research Highlights: Recurrent convolutional neural network (RCNN) deep learning approach for optimizing time prediction and error classification in early melanoma detection. It extracts a high number of specific features from the skin disease image, making the classification process easier and more accurate.To reduce classification errors in accurately detecting melanoma, context dependency is considered in this work. By accounting for context dependency, the deprivation state is avoided, preventing performance degradation in the model.To minimize melanoma detection model loss, a skin disease image augmentation or regularization process is performed in this work. This strategy improves the accuracy of the model when applied to fresh, previously unobserved data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Deep learning (DL) is a cutting-edge image-processing technology that includes various satellite image sources being processed to analyze, enhance, and classify. This article covers a multilayer DL framework that classifies different types of vegetation and land cover using IRS p6 satellite images from many time scales and sources. The core of the design is an ensemble of supervised NNs and unsupervised neural networks (NNs) for optical imaging categorization and incomplete data restitution due to mists, reflections, and other natural effects that affect images. In this article, we contrast the traditional densely integrated multilayer perceptron (MLP) with the most popular method in remote sensing field random forest as the basic supervised NN architecture with convolutional NNs (CNNs). In general, utilizing the aforementioned procedure reduced accuracy and required longer computation times to train the model which produced 94.3%. The hyperparameters to adjust are the number of neurons, input layer, optimizer, number of epochs, filter size, and iterations. The second stage involves adjusting the number of layers. Some other conventional algorithms are lacking in this. The accuracy might be impacted by many layers. To overcome that, applying the Adam optimizer will produce a higher accuracy level of 96.72% with faster computation time and less memory management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The widespread use of triclosan as an antimicrobial agent has led to its presence in the aquatic environment and potential effects on aquatic organisms. In this study, we used reversed-phase high-performance chromatography to quantify triclosan in marine snail (Conus hyaena) and algal biofilm from the Versova Creek in India. Triclosan was found in the range of 1.97-11.8 ng/g wet weight in marine snails and 1.7-7.2 ng/g wet weight in algal biofilm. The mean bioaccumulation factor based on water (BAFw 6.51) and sediment (BAFs 3.15) for Conus sp. and water (BAFw 4.61) and sediment (BAFs 2.2) for algal biofilm in the Versova Creek showed that triclosan is accumulative in both the organisms and reflects its trophic transport. Bioaccumulation of TCS is majorly from water than the sediment matrices. A comparison of accumulation potential between carnivores and primary producers revealed, higher accumulation in euryphagic carnivores. This is the first report of triclosan bioaccumulation in coastal organisms (marine snail and algal biofilm) from India. Our findings suggest that marine snail and algal biofilm can serve as a biomarker for triclosan exposure and can be used for future monitoring of triclosan pollution in the environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Triclosan (TCS) [5-chloro-2-(2, 4-dichloro phenoxy) phenol] is a broad-spectrum antibacterial biocide used widely in pharmaceutical and personal care products and regarded as an emerging pollutant. Presence of this compound in nanogram to microgram levels at different sediment-water matrices has a severe impact on almost all aquatic organisms. Therefore, it is important to develop a sensitive and specific detection method for quantification and continuous monitoring of TCS in the natural system, which facilitates for development of management strategies. The present study describes the development of simple rapid, sensitive, selective and reproducible method of using the RP-HPLC for the estimation of Triclosan in natural samples including water and sediment. In present work a simple, sensitive and specific method has been developed by using an oyster BDS premium C18 column having 5 µm particle size and 200 mm × 4.6 mm in length and gradient mode, with a mobile phase containing acetonitrile and HPLC grade water in the ratio of 80:20 (pH 2.5, adjusted with orthophosphoric acid). The flow rate was 1.5mL/min with injection volume of 20µL and eluate were monitored by a UV-VIS detector at 280 nm. The method is linear (0.001-16 ppm) and the regression equation obtained was y = 12.176x+0.6497 (R2 =0.9994). The method was validated for linearity, precision, accuracy, ruggedness and the recoveries from samples were between 85% and 95%. The limit of detection and limit of quantification was 0.01 and 0.04 µg/L, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]