Quantification of crustal geotherms along with their error bounds for seismically active regions of India: A Matlab toolbox

Determination of the thermo-mechanical structure of the crust for seismically active regions using available geophysical and geological data is of great importance. The most important feature of the intraplate earthquakes in the Indian region are that the seismicity occurs within the entire crust. In Latur region of India an earthquake occurred in the upper crust. In such situations, quantifying the uncertainties in seismogenic depths becomes very important. The stochastic heat conduction equation has been solved for different sets of boundary conditions, an exponentially decreasing radiogenic heat generation and randomness in thermal conductivity. Closed form analytical expressions for mean and variance in the temperature depth distribution have been used and an automatic formulation has been developed in Matlab for computing and plotting the thermal structure. The Matlab toolbox presented allows us to display the controlling thermal parameters on the screen directly, and plot the subsurface thermal structure along with its error bounds. The software can be used to quantify the thermal structure for any given region and is applied here to the Latur earthquake region of India.     

Beyond utilitarian factors: User experience and travel company website successes

Travel websites are extensively used by travelers for their travel bookings, yet little is known about the hedonic effectiveness of such experiences for the customer. The end users of these websites are customers who may not always be sophisticated information system (IS) users. Further, traditional utility based measures of customer evaluation are dated with respect to the interactive nature of the technology in use and the hedonic benefits that may result from the use of the technology. The evaluation of IS needs to include hedonic measures facilitated by the interactive technology in addition to the traditional utility based measures. We propose and test an evaluation model for retail travel websites that combines the traditional utility based measures with hedonic measures which collectively create a more comprehensive measure for the IS evaluation of consumer focused websites. Thus rooted in theory, the model extends DeLone and McLean’s model of IS Success by adding the construct of User Experience. The model was tested on a sample of 255 customers of travel websites targeted at the Indian market. The results indicate that both utility based and hedonic measures are important factors for customer IS (travel website in this study) evaluation. The larger implications for theory and practice of IS evaluation are explained.     

Association Mechanism and Conformational Changes in Trypsin on Its Interaction with Atrazine: A Multi- Spectroscopic and Biochemical Study with Computational Approach

Atrazine (ATR) is a herbicide globally used to eliminate undesired weeds. Herbicide usage leads to various adverse effects on human health and the environment. The primary source of herbicides in humans is the food laced with the herbicides. The ATR binding to trypsin (TYP) was investigated in this study to explore its binding potential and toxicity. In vitro interaction of ATR with TYP was studied using multi-spectroscopic methods, molecular docking, and enzyme kinetics to explore the mechanism of binding for the TYP-ATR system. The TYP-ATR complex revealed binding constants (10³ M⁻¹), suggesting a moderate binding. The free energy for the TYP-ATR complexes was negative, suggesting a spontaneous interaction. Thermodynamic parameters enthalpy (ΔH) and entropy (ΔS) obtained positive values for the TYP-ATR system suggesting hydrophobic interactions in the binding process. Micro-environmental and conformational changes in TYP molecules were induced on interaction with ATR. Reduced catalytic activity of TYP was observed after interaction with ATR owing to the changes in the secondary structure of the TYP.     

外加压凹槽式机械密封热分析

用ANSYS软件建立外加压凹槽式静压型机械密封的有限元分析模型,求解并分析动、静环在稳定运行过程中的温度场。利用热实体单元,添加位移约束,并引入温度场的计算结果计算密封动、静环的热应力和热变形,分析其影响因素。结果表明,动、静环密封端面在靠近内径处均产生高温,静环凹槽根部温度梯度最大;静环在内径处变形量最大而动环变形量最大处则距内径为6.5 mm(即凹槽的内侧)。     

An Artificial Nocturnal Flower via Humidity‐Gated Photoactuation in Liquid Crystal Networks

Beyond their colorful appearances and versatile geometries, flowers can self‐shape‐morph by adapting to environmental changes. Such responses are often regulated by a delicate interplay between different stimuli such as temperature, light, and humidity, giving rise to the beauty and complexity of the plant kingdom. Nature inspires scientists to realize artificial systems that mimic their natural counterparts in function, flexibility, and adaptation. Yet, many of the artificial systems demonstrated to date fail to mimic the adaptive functions, due to the lack of multi‐responsivity and sophisticated control over deformation directionality. Herein, a new class of liquid‐crystal‐network (LCN) photoactuators whose response is controlled by delicate interplay between light and humidity is presented. Using a novel deformation mechanism in LCNs, humidity‐gated photoactuation, an artificial nocturnal flower is devised that is closed under daylight conditions when the humidity level is low and/or the light level is high, while it opens in the dark when the humidity level is high. The humidity‐gated photoactuators can be fueled with lower light intensities than conventional photothermal LCN actuators. This, combined with facile control over the speed, geometry, and directionality of movements, renders the “nocturnal actuator” promising for smart and adaptive bioinspired microrobotics.     

Suitability of Different Food Grade Materials for the Encapsulation of Some Functional Foods Well Reported for Their Advantages and Susceptibility

Functional foods find a very important place in the modern era, where different types of cancer, diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, etc. are on a high. Irrespective of the abundance of bioactive components in different fruits and vegetables, their low solubility in aqueous solution, vulnerability to destruction in different environmental and gastrointestinal conditions and a low intestinal absorption becomes a concern. Because it is quite difficult to commercialize non food materials for the food encapsulation purposes due to their safety concerns in the human body, scientists in the recent times have come up with the idea of encapsulating the different bioactive components in different food grade materials that are able to safeguard these bioactive components against the different environmental and gastrointestinal conditions and ensure their safe and targeted delivery at their absorption sites. Different food grade encapsulation materials including various oligosaccharides, polysaccharides (starch, cyclodextrins, alginates, chitosan, gum arabic, and carboxymethyl cellulose) and proteins and their suitability for encapsulating various bioactive components like flavonoids (catechins, rutin, curcumin, hesperetin, and vanillin), nonflavonoids (resveratrol), carotenoids (β-carotene, lycopene, and lutein), and fatty acids (fish oil, flaxseed oil, and olive oil) of high medical and nutritional value are reviewed here.     

Enhancement of properties of recycled coarse aggregate concrete using bacteria

Due to rapid construction, necessity for raw materials of concrete, especially coarse aggregate, tends to increase the danger of early exhaustion of the natural resources. An alternative source of raw materials would perhaps delay the advent of this early exhaustion. Recycled coarse aggregate (RCA) plays a great role as an alternative raw material that can replace the natural coarse aggregate (NCA) for concrete. Previous studies show that the properties of RCA concrete are inferior in quality compared to NCA concrete. This article attempts to study the improvement of properties of RCA concrete with the addition of bacteria named as Bacillus subtilis. The experimental investigation was carried out to evaluate the improvement of the compressive strength, capillary water absorption, and drying shrinkage of RCA concrete incorporating bacteria. The compressive strength of RCA concrete is found to be increased by about 20% when the cell concentration of B. subtilis is 10⁶ cells/ml. The capillary water absorption as well as drying shrinkage of RCA are reduced when bacteria is incorporated. The improvement of RCA concrete is confirmed to be due to the calcium carbonate precipitation as observed from the microstructure studies carried out on it such as EDX, SEM, and XRD.     

Impacts of Refining and Antioxidants on the Physico-Chemical Characteristics and Oxidative Stability of Watermelon Seed Oil

Compositional analyses of seeds from two cultivars (Mateera and Sugar baby) was performed to evaluate their suitability as oilseeds. Watermelon seeds and kernels contained 21.9–25.5 % and 38.9–46.9 % oil of exceptionally high quality. The crude oil was expelled with a screw press and then refined to obtain a odor free and colorless oil. The moisture content, unsaponifiable matter content, refractive index, and specific gravity were within the narrow ranges. Refining influenced the color, acid value, saponification value, peroxide value, and free fatty acid contents. Linoleic acid (C18:2) was the principal fatty acid constituting 64.5–67.2 % of the total fatty acids. Oxidative stability increased with the addition of tocopherols, butylated hydroxyl anisole (BHA), and tert-butyl hydroxyl quinine (TBHQ). The high amount of polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA) along with physicochemical properties were similar to soybeans, sunflower and other common vegetable oils, suggesting the suitabilty of watermelon seed oil for industrial production.     

Fabrication of innovative charkha for pashmina spinning and its impact assessment

Pashmina, a finest natural animal fiber is utilized for preparation of world famous Kashmiri pashmina shawls by traditional practices. Hand spinning is one of the important processing step, wherein fibers are converted into a fine yarn on a traditional spinning wheel (yander). The task is usually carried out by women folk. It is a laborious process resulting in a lot of physical stress affecting the efficiency of artisans. An innovative charkha has been fabricated to reduce the physical stress and its effect on the spinning efficiency and remuneration of artisans over traditional one was evaluated. The study revealed that innovative charkha was efficient in terms of time consumed for spinning by 73.50% over traditional one besides decreasing physical drudgery. In terms of income, there was an increase of 146% over traditional one for same period of time without deteriorating the quality of yarn.