A numerical study on nonlinear DPL model for analyzing heat transfer in tissue during thermal therapy

In the present paper, therapeutic treatment of infected tumorous cells has been studied through mathematical modeling and simulation of heat transfer in tissues by using a nonlinear dual-phase lag bioheat transfer model with Dirichlet boundary condition. The components of volumetric heat source in this model such as blood perfusion and metabolism are assumed experimentally validated temperature-dependent function, which gives more accurate temperature distribution in tissues through this model. We have used the finite difference and RK (4, 5) techniques of numerical methods to solve the proposed problem and obtained the exact solution in a particular case. After comparison, we got a good agreement between them. We have used dimensionless quantities throughout this paper. The effect of relaxation and thermalization time with respect to dimensionless temperature distribution has been analyzed in the treatment process.     

Structure-Activity Relationship Explorations and Discovery of a Potent Antagonist for the Free Fatty Acid Receptor 2

Free fatty acid receptor 2 (FFA2) is a sensor for short-chain fatty acids that has been identified as an interesting potential drug target for treatment of metabolic and inflammatory diseases. Although several ligand series are known for the receptor, there is still a need for improved compounds. One of the most potent and frequently used antagonists is the amide-substituted phenylbutanoic acid known as CATPB ( 1 ). We here report the structure-activity relationship exploration of this compound, leading to the identification of homologues with increased potency. The preferred compound 37 (TUG-1958) was found, besides improved potency, to have high solubility and favorable pharmacokinetic properties.     

Spray dryer processed graphene oxide/reduced graphene oxide for high-performance supercapacitor

This study deals with the utility of mini spray dryer process to improve the dispersibility, of graphene oxide(GO) and its application for high-performance supercapacitor. Initially, the neutral solution of GO was obtained using the modified Hummer's method. After this, the prepared GO solution was processed by mini spray dryer to obtain a more purified, lighter, and dispersed form of GO which is named as spray dryer processed GO (SPGO). The SPGO thus obtained showed excellent dispersibility behavior with various solvents, which is not found in case of conventional oven drying. Furthermore, utility of SPGO and its reduced form (r-SPGO) for supercapacitor applications have been investigated. Results obtained from the cyclic voltammetry(CV) analysis, impedance, and charge-discharge behavior of supercapacitor fabricated using r-SPGO shows enhanced features. Therefore, the simple spray dried GO and its reduced form, that is, r-SPGO can be utilized as a potential candidate for the supercapacitor application. Herein, as synthesized SPGO exhibited the specific capacitance of 12.07 and 37.6 F/g with PVA-H₃PO₄ and 1 mol/L H₃PO₄, respectively, at a scan rate of 5 mV/s. On the other hand, reduced form of SPGO, that is, r-SPGO showed the specific capacitance of 27.16 and 230 F/g with PVA-H₃PO₄ and 1 mol/L H₃PO₄, respectively.     

Assessment of toxic content in Balanites aegyptiaca seed cake and use of enzymatic-catalysed biodiesel in diesel engine

The present study deals with the estimation of toxic phorbol esters in Balanites aegyptiaca seed cake and to evaluate the performance and combustion characteristics of different blends of biodiesel in a diesel engine. The seeds were manually collected from arid regions of Rajasthan, India and the oil extracted from the powdered kernel with Solvent extraction process. The extracted oil processed by enzymatic catalytic reactions are carried out at optimum operating conditions such as the molar ratio of 8:1 (methanol:oil), reaction temperature at 40°C for 4?h reaction time and xylanase 1% based on oil weight. The total conversion rate of extracted oil to methyl ester by enzymatic reactions yields up to 98.3%. The toxic content of seed cake was determined by high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC, Shimadzu). The performance and combustion parameters such as BP, BTE and CP decreased, whereas BSFC and DP increased with biodiesel blends.     

A mathematical model and solution methods for rail freight transportation planning in an Indian food grain supply chain

This paper addresses the rail transportation of food grains undertaken by Food Corporation of India (FCI) to meet the requirements of the food security programme called Public Distribution System (PDS). The research focuses on improving the allocation of railway rakes transporting food grains to a set of storage warehouses. A penalty factor based approach is adopted to represent the considerations in transportation planning and three penalty factors such as rake penalty factor, weekly penalty factor and capacity utilization penalty factor are introduced for the purpose. The single source - multiple destination problem is formulated and solved using exact method to minimize the sum of these three penalty factor values, termed total penalty. Further, a heuristic named optimum rake allocation algorithm is developed and tested using a set of 35 problem instances. The proposed heuristic is found to be highly efficient in terms of solution quality and computation time. A case study of FCI Kerala Region is also carried out to validate the formulated model and the proposed heuristic. The work provides valuable insights into the practical issues encountered in rail freight transportation planning and proposes an effective solution methodology to address them.     

The Couette flow of a conducting Jeffrey fluid when the walls are lined with deformable porous material

The paper deals with the flow, past a deformable porous channel bounded by finite deformable porous layer with moving rigid parallel plates. Transverse magnetic field is also applied and incorporated in the momentum equation. The coupled nonlinear equations are transformed to ordinary differential equations (ODEs) with suitable choice of similarity transformation. Further, these sets of nonlinear ODEs are solved analytically and are used to get results for the flow phenomena. The effects of the porous layer thickness and the drag on the flow phenomena are discussed graphically. It is observed that rigid velocity decreases with increasing in the drag, whereas the decrease in the deformable is noted. It is clear to see that the retards in solid displacement are shown with enhancing viscosity parameter η.     

Biodegradation kinetic modeling of acrylic acid-grafted polypropylene during thermophilic phase of composting

Iranian Polymer Journal - This work aims at modelling and characterizing the kinetics of biodegradation of acrylic acid-grafted polypropylene. Different films of acrylic acid-grafted polypropylene...     

Thermo-mechanical interactions in a functionally graded elastic material with voids and gravity field

International Journal of Mechanics and Materials in Design - Present research is concerned with the study of two-dimensional disturbances in a non-homogeneous, isotropic, thermoelastic medium with...