Statistical Comparative Study of the Gamma Dose Rate and Associated Risk Assessment in Rural and Urban Areas of Durg District,Chhattisgarh, India

Radiochemistry - The gamma dose rates in rural and urban areas of Durg were compared. The statistical study was made to compare the outdoor and indoor gamma dose rates for the rural and urban...     

Lightweight Cryptography: A Solution to Secure IoT

In Internet of Things (IoT), the massive connectivity of devices and enormous data on the air have made information susceptible to different type of attacks. Cryptographic algorithms are used to provide confidentiality and maintain the integrity of the information. But small size, limited computational capability, limited memory, and power resources of the devices make it difficult to use the resource intensive traditional cryptographic algorithms for information security. In this scenario it becomes impertinent to develop lightweight security schemes for IoT. A thorough study on the lightweight cryptography as a solution to the security problem of resource-constrained devices in IoT has been presented in this work. This paper is a comprehensive attempt to provide an in-depth and state of the art survey of available lightweight cryptographic primitives till 2019. In this paper 21 lightweight block ciphers, 19 lightweight stream ciphers, 9 lightweight hash functions and 5 variants of elliptic curve cryptography (ECC) has been discussed i.e. in total 54 LWC primitives are compared in their respective classes. The comparison of the ciphers has been carried out in terms of chip area, energy and power, hardware and software efficiency, throughput, latency and figure of merit (FoM). Based on the findings it can be observed that AES and ECC are the most suitable for used lightweight cryptographic primitives. Several open research problems in the field of lightweight cryptography have also been identified.

     

Community Trolling: An Active Learning Approach for Topic Based Community Detection in Big Data

Community detection plays an important role in creation and transfer of information. Active learning has been employed recently to improve the performance of community detection techniques. Active learning provides a semi-automatic approach in a selective sampling of data. Based on this, a community trolling approach for topic based community detection in big data is proposed. Community trolling selectively samples the data relevant to the current context from polluted big data using active learning. Fine-tuned data is then used to study community and its sub-communities. Community trolling as a precursor to community detection leads to a reduction of the huge unreliable dataset into a reliable dataset and results in the better prediction of community elements such as important topics and important entities. Finally, the effectiveness of approach was evaluated by implementing it on a real world Tumbler dataset. The results illustrate that community trolling provides a richer dataset resulting in more appropriate communities.     

Modeling of Cadmium Removal from Domestic Wastewater in Constructed Wetlands Using STELLA Simulation Program

A mathematical model was developed to simulate cadmium removal from wastewater in free water surface (FWS) and subsurface flow (SF) constructed wetlands using STELLA simulation program. The model simulated the accumulation of cadmium in soil (Cds), uptake by plants (Cdp), and residual concentration in effluent (Cdww_eff). The model was calibrated using one-half of the experimental data for the adjustment of the coefficients and the remaining data for model verification. The comparison of simulated and experimental values of Cds, Cdp, and Cdww_eff showed good agreement. The results indicated that the developed mathematical model could be useful for predicting the fate of cadmium when treating domestic effluents in constructed wetlands.     

Preparation and composition of chhana whey powders using membrane processing techniques

Chhana is a traditional Indian product used widely in the confectionery industry. It is produced from cow's milk by a combination of heat and acid coagulation. Chhana whey contains about 6% milk solids yet the vast majority is wasted which leads to pollution problems. This study describes the chemical composition and various options for utilisation of chhana whey using membrane processes. Chhana whey powder containing 956 g kg^?1 total solids, 750 g kg^?1 lactose, 21 g kg^?1 protein. 60 g kg^?1 fat, 65 g kg^?1 ash was produced following concentration of chhana whey by reverse osmosis. Chhana whey protein concentrate powders containing 270, 350, 400 and 580 g kg^?1 protein were produced following ultrafiltration or diafiltration of chhana whey.     

Synthesis and characterization of clinopyroxene based glasses and glass-ceramics along diopside (CaMgSi2O6)-jadeite (NaAlSi2O6) join

The crystallization behavior and mechanical characterization of glasses based upon the compositions along diopside (CaMgSi₂O₆)-jadeite (NaAlSi₂O₆) join has been investigated. Six glasses were obtained by the melt-quenching technique. Structural and thermal behaviors of these glasses were investigated by density and molar volume, infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and dilatometry. The crystallization behavior of glasses was investigated by using differential scanning calorimetry (DSC). Sintering and crystallization behavior of the glass-ceramics were investigated under non-isothermal heating conditions up to temperatures of 850 °C. Mechanical characterization of glasses was investigated by using the measurement of Vickers indentation hardness and elastic constants such as Young's modulus (E), shear modulus (G), bulk modulus (K) and Poisson's ratio (ν). These data of the glasses were correlated with the structure of glasses, nature and role played by glass forming cations.     

Performance evaluation of a diesel engine fueled with methyl ester of castor seed oil

In this investigation, castor methyl ester (CME) was prepared by transesterification using potassium hydroxide (KOH) as catalyst and was used in four stroke, single cylinder variable compression ratio type diesel engine. Tests were carried out at a rated speed of 1500 rpm at different loads. Straight vegetable oils pose operational and durability problems when subjected to long term usages in diesel engines. These problems are attributed to high viscosity, low volatility and polyunsaturated character of vegetable oils. The process of transesterification is found to be an effective method of reducing vegetable oil viscosity and eliminating operational and durability problems. The important properties of methyl ester of castor seed oil are compared with diesel fuel. The engine performance was analysed with different blends of biodiesel and was compared with mineral diesel. It was concluded that the lower blends of biodiesel increased the break thermal efficiency and reduced the fuel consumption. The exhaust gas temperature increased with increasing biodiesel concentration. The results proved that the use of biodiesel (produced from castor seed oil) in compression ignition engine is a viable alternative to diesel.     

Insight into adsorption kinetics and isotherms for adsorption of methylene blue using gum rosin alcohol/psyllium-based green adsorbent

Present work focused on synthesis of green hydrogel polymer of gum rosin alcohol/psyllium crosslinked poly (acrylic acid) [(GrA-Psy)-cl-PAA] under vacuum condition. Use of both psyllium and gum rosin alcohols as backbones could lessen the burden on the environment, as more natural aspect is drawn in the hydrogel polymer. The various reaction parameters for the synthesis of hydrogel polymer were systematically optimized as a function of percentage swelling. The optimized ecofriendly hydrogel polymer was characterized using XRD, FTIR, FE-SEM and TGA techniques, which supported the successful formation of crosslinked three-dimensional network structures. (GrA-Psy)-cl-PAA was further studied as an adsorbent for the removal of methylene blue dye from an aqueous solution. Adsorption parameters such as the amount of adsorbent and pH were optimized to obtain the maximum percentage of dye removal. Kinetics of the adsorption process was analyzed using pseudo-first-order, pseudo-second-order and Elovich kinetic models. Adsorption kinetics followed pseudo-second-order model (non-linear) for all the concentrations studied. Non-linear forms of Langmuir, Freundlich and Dubinin-Kaganer-Radushkevich isotherm models were studied for the adsorption process and it was observed that it goes well with both Langmuir and Freundlich isotherms. Thermodynamic parameters were also evaluated which indicated that the adsorption process was exothermic and spontaneous. Furthermore, the candidate polymer retained a reusability tendency for two consecutive cycles of adsorption/desorption. Thus, the synthesized novel material was taken as a potential to act as green adsorbent in treatment of industrial wastewater.     

A secure image encryption algorithm based on fractional transforms and scrambling in combination with multimodal biometric keys

Multimedia Tools and Applications - In today’s digital world, security is a preeminent element in the transmission of digital images. In this paper, image encryption algorithm is proposed...     

Fiber-Optic Polarizer Using Resonant Tunneling through a Multilayer Overlay

We demonstrate an in-line fiber-optic polarizer using resonant tunneling through a leaky multilayer overlay for the first time. Polarization extinction ratio (PER) ? 27 dB with an insertion loss (IL) ? 3 dB has been demonstrated experimentally with scope of further improvement. A simple planar waveguide model is developed to analyze the device whose predictions match very well with the experimental results. It is further shown that by properly selecting the device parameters one can achieve PER ? 68 dB with IL ? 0.2 dB for λ = 0.6328 μm and PER ? 80 dB with IL ? 1.2 dB for λ = 1.3 μm.