Escherichia coli,Salmonella spp., and Staphylococcus aureus susceptibility to antimicrobials of human and veterinary importance in poultry sector of India

In India, little attention has been paid on antimicrobial resistance (AMR) in the context of developing “One Health” approach. Hence, utilizing multi-disciplinary approach, we assess the AMR level and dynamics/pattern of multi-drug resistance (MDR) in Escherichia coli, Salmonella spp., and Staphylococcus aureus circulating over the different stages of poultry in India. A total of 342 isolates including E. coli (n = 143), Salmonella spp. (n = 104), and S. aureus (n = 95) were recovered from fecal (n = 80) and cecal (n = 80) samples of chicken, collected across the different poultry-retail shops and poultry-farms located at urban and rural areas of Rajasthan, India, respectively. High rates of AMR to drugs that are critically/highly important both in human and veterinary medicine were observed among all the isolates. Upward trends in AMR prevalence was observed in poultry-retail shops than in poultry-farms. Notably, >90% of all the isolates were MDR, of particular, pattern/prevalence of MDR was substantially varied across the poultry-farms vs. poultry-retail shops. Our results indicate AMR including MDR to be common in E. coli, Salmonella spp., and S. aureus distributed frequently in poultry. The study encourages the formulation of national policy, programmes and further research with a “One Health” approach that can benefits to the human/animal and the environment.     

A QoS Aware Resource Placement Approach Inspired on the Behavior of the Social Spider Mating Strategy in the Cloud Environment

Wireless Personal Communications - The efficient management of resource sharing plays a crucial role in the cloud execution environment. The constraints such as heterogeneity and dynamic nature of...     

Unification of Blockchain and Internet of Things (BIoT): requirements,working model,challenges and future directions

Wireless Networks - The Internet of Things (IoTs) enables coupling of digital and physical objects using worthy communication technologies and introduces a future vision where computing systems,...     

Ruthenium-containing MCM-22 and ITQ-2 as potential redox catalysts for benzhydrol oxidation

Journal of Porous Materials - About 5 wt% of ruthenium (Ru) was incorporated on layered zeolite frameworks, such as MCM-22 and ITQ-2, using the incipient wetness method. The well-dispersed...     

A spiral shaped regenerative microfluidic fuel cell with Ni‐C based porous electrodes

Microchannel geometry, electrode surface area, and better fuel utilization are important aspects of the performance of a microfluidic fuel cell (MFC). In this communication, a membraneless spiral‐shaped MFC fabricated with Ni as anode and C as a cathode supported over a porous filter paper substrate is presented. Vanadium oxychloride and dilute sulfuric acid solutions are used as fuel and electrolyte, respectively, in this fuel cell system. The device generates a maximum open‐circuit voltage of ~1.2 V, while the maximum energy density and current density generated from the fuel cell are ~10 mW cm^?2 and ~51 mA cm^?2, respectively. The cumulative energy density generated from the device after five cycles are measured as ~200 mW after regeneration of the fuel by applying external voltage. The spiral design of the fuel cell enables improved fuel utilization, rapid diffusive transport of ions, and in‐situ regeneration of the fuel. The present self‐standing spiral‐shaped MFC will eliminate the challenges associated with two inlet membrane‐less fuel cells and has the potential to scale up for commercial application in portable energy generation.     

Multifunctional plasmonic Ag-hematite nano-dendrite electro-catalysts for methanol assisted water splitting: Synergism between silver nanoparticles and hematite dendrites

Hydrogen is the most environment friendly fuel and has the largest energy density but still much away from being a viable technology due to the cost associated with its production on-site on-demand. However, hydrogen production via water splitting could become potential commercial technology by designing new catalyst materials with low cost, desired surface structures and properties that govern hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) activity and stability. Here, we report the methanol assisted electrochemical water splitting using silver nanoparticles decorated hematite (Ag-hematite) dendrite nanostructures. Ag-hematite nano-dendrites prepared via two different methods viz. chemical co-precipitation and hydrothermal treatment are analysed and compared for their potential applications towards methanol assisted water splitting. It is found that Ag-hematite nano-dendrites prepared by chemical precipitation method shows much better activity as compared to both the parent materials (i.e. Ag NPs and hematite nano-dendrites) as well as Ag-hematite nano-dendrites synthesized by hydrothermal treatment. A baseline study showing the influence of methanol concentration, catalyst, catalyst support, and operating mode has been established. The analysis of the system was carried out as a function of onset potentials and kinetic parameters, including the Tafel slopes and exchange current densities. The effect of electrochemical promotion was investigated to see if it can increase the efficiency and performance of H₂ production through electrochemical processes. The observed electro-catalytic enhancement could be attributed to the synergistic effect of hematite dendrites, larger surface area of dendrite structure leading to higher loading of Ag NPs on the surface of HDs. Moreover, the endurance study was performed to check the stability of the presented electrocatalyst in acidic medium under both dark and light illumination conditions which shows that the presented composite catalyst is stable for minimum 100 scans even under light illumination with no signs of photo-corrosion.     

Synergic effect of various amino acids and ferric oxide on hydrogen production

To overcome nitrogen and iron deficiency in the organic fraction of municipal solid waste, amino acids and ferric oxide were separately added in the feedstock to evaluate their effect on hydrogen production. Furthermore, synergic effect of amino acids and ferric oxide on hydrogen production was evaluated. The co-culture of E. coli and Enterobacter aerogenes was used in the present study. The amino acids were applied in the concentration range of 1.0, 2.5, 5.0, 7.5 and 10.0 g/L while ferric oxide was used in the concentration range of 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 100, 150, 200 and 500 mg/L. Modified Gompertz model was used to analyze cumulative hydrogen production (P), maximum hydrogen production rate (Rmax) and lag phases (λ). The results exhibited that the hydrogen production was positively affected by each amino acid at every concentration applied. Application of alanine resulted in the highest cumulative and volumetric hydrogen production of 685.4 ± 10.1 mL and 1.9561L_H2/L_substrate respectively which increased to 872.5 ± 10.1 mL and 2.492L_H2/L_substrate for ferric oxide addition along with alanine. COD removal and VFA generation were positively affected by the synergic effect of amino acid and ferric oxide.