Modeling the Interaction of Coronavirus Membrane Phospholipids with Photocatalitically Active Titanium Dioxide.

The outbreak of viral infectious diseases urges airborne droplet and surface disinfection strategies, which may rely on photocatalytic semiconductors. A lipid bilayer membrane generally encloses coronaviruses and promotes the anchoring on the semiconductor surface, where, upon photon absorption, electron-hole pairs are produced, which can react with adsorbed oxygen-containing species and lead to the formation of reactive oxygen species (ROSs). The photogenerated ROSs may support the disruptive oxidation of the lipidic membrane and pathogen death. Density functional theory calculations are employed to investigate adsorption modes, energetics, and electronic structure of a reference phospholipid on anatase TiO2 nanoparticles. The phospholipid covalently bound on TiO2, engaging a stronger adsorption on the (101) than on the (001) surface. The energetically most stable structure involves the formation of four covalent bonds through phosphate and carbonyl oxygen atoms. The adsorbates show a reduction of the band gap compared with standalone TiO2, suggesting a significant interfacial coupling.

Big Data acquired by Internet of Things-enabled industrial multichannel wireless sensors networks for active monitoring and control in the smart grid Industry 4.0.

Smart Grid Industry 4.0 (SGI4.0) defines a new paradigm to provide high-quality electricity at a low cost by reacting quickly and effectively to changing energy demands in the highly volatile global markets. However, in SGI4.0, the reliable and efficient gathering and transmission of the observed information from the Internet of Things (IoT)-enabled Cyber-physical systems, such as sensors located in remote places to the control center is the biggest challenge for the Industrial Multichannel Wireless Sensors Networks (IMWSNs). This is due to the harsh nature of the smart grid environment that causes high noise, signal fading, multipath effects, heat, and electromagnetic interference, which reduces the transmission quality and trigger errors in the IMWSNs. Thus, an efficient monitoring and real-time control of unexpected changes in the power generation and distribution processes is essential to guarantee the quality of service (QoS) requirements in the smart grid. In this context, this paper describes the dataset contains measurements acquired by the IMWSNs during events monitoring and control in the smart grid. This work provides an updated detail comparison of our proposed work, including channel detection, channel assignment, and packets forwarding algorithms, collectively called CARP [1] with existing G-RPL [2] and EQSHC [3] schemes in the smart grid. The experimental outcomes show that the dataset and is useful for the design, development, testing, and validation of algorithms for real-time events monitoring and control applications in the smart grid.

Dynamics of water conveying zinc oxide through divergent-convergent channels with the effect of nanoparticles shape when Joule dissipation are significant.

AIM OF STUDY: The shape effects of nanoparticles are very significant in fluid flow and heat transfer. In this paper, we discuss the effects of nanoparticles shape in nanofluid flow between divergent-convergent channels theoretically. In this present study, various shapes of nanoparticles, namely sphere, column and lamina in zinc oxide-water nanofluid are used. The effect of the magnetic field and joule dissipation are also considered. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY: The system of nonlinear partial differential equations (PDEs) is converted into ordinary differential equations (ODES). The analytical solutions are successfully obtained and compared with numerical solutions. The Homotopy perturbation method and NDsolve method are used to compare analytical and numerical results respectively. CONCLUSION: The results show that the lamina shape nanoparticles have higher performance in temperature disturbance and rate of heat transfer as compared to other shapes of nanoparticles.

Isolation, characterization and prevention of various microbial strains in NIC unit and PIC unit.

The health of the hospital associated persons, particularly those dealing directly with insertion of devices, are serious cause of concern for hospitals. In this study, the most prevalent organism on the surface of medical devices in PICU were CoNS (16.66%) and Staphylococcus aureus (16.66%), while in NICU the most prevalent organism was Klebsiella spp. (11.25%) among Entero-bacteriaceae group followed by Acinetobacter baumannii (10%), Escherichia coli (2.5%), CoNS (6.25%), S. aureus (6.25%) and Enterococcus faecalis (6.25%). The most common species identified from blood specimen of clinical samples shows the maximum presence of Candida sp. (60/135) followed by A. baumannii (21/135), Klebsiella Pneumoniae (20/135), Enterococci (12/135), Burkholderia cepacia complex (8/135), S. aureus (6/135), E. coli (5/135), Pseudomonas aeruginosa (3/135). Different antibiotics have been used against these micro-organisms; but Cotrimoxazole, Vancomycin have been found more effective against CoNS bacteria, Clindamycin, Tetracycline for S. aureus, Nitofurantoin for Acinetobacter, and for E. faecalis, A. baumanii, and Klebsiella, erythromycin, Colistin, and Ceftriaxone have been found more effective respectively.

QoSRP: A Cross-layer QoS Channel-Aware Routing Protocol for the Internet of Underwater Acoustic Sensor Networks.

Quality of service (QoS)-aware data gathering in static-channel based underwater wireless sensor networks (UWSNs) is severely limited due to location and time-dependent acoustic channel communication characteristics. This paper proposes a novel cross-layer QoS-aware multichannel routing protocol called QoSRP for the internet of UWSNs-based time-critical marine monitoring applications. The proposed QoSRP scheme considers the unique characteristics of the acoustic communication in highly dynamic network topology during gathering and relaying events data towards the sink. The proposed QoSRP scheme during the time-critical events data-gathering process employs three basic mechanisms, namely underwater channel detection (UWCD), underwater channel assignment (UWCA) and underwater packets forwarding (UWPF). The UWCD mechanism finds the vacant channels with a high probability of detection and low probability of missed detection and false alarms. The UWCA scheme assigns high data rates channels to acoustic sensor nodes (ASNs) with longer idle probability in a robust manner. Lastly, the UWPF mechanism during conveying information avoids congestion, data path loops and balances the data traffic load in UWSNs. The QoSRP scheme is validated through extensive simulations conducted by NS2 and AquaSim 2.0 in underwater environments (UWEs). The simulation results reveal that the QoSRP protocol performs better compared to existing routing schemes in UWSNs.

Levels of Organotin Compounds in Selected Fish Species from the Arabian Gulf.

In the present work, data on the levels of hazardous Organotin compounds in eight commercially important fish species, caught from Arabian Gulf, has been reported. Highest levels of tributyltin (TBT) (98.5 ng/g dry weight) were detected in Epinephelus Tauvina whereas minimum (43.7 ng/g) were found in Acanthoparagus Bifasciatus. Highest levels of triphenyltin (TPT) were detected in Lethrinus Miniatus (107.5 ng/g) whereas lowest were encountered in Acanthoparagus Bifasciatus (64.9 ng/g). Highest value of total butyltin compounds (∑BT) were found in emperors (Lethrinus Miniatus) (228.4 ng/g) whereas minimum was found in Acanthoparagus Bifasciatus (126.4 ng/g). Similarly highest value of total phenyltin compounds (∑PT) was encountered in Epinephelus Tauvina (281.9 ng/g) followed closely by Acanthoparagus Bifasciatus (281.7 ng/g). In addition, the estimated daily intake (EDI) of the local population from consumption of these fish was also evaluated. Highest EDI was found to be 10.8 ng/kg bw/day for epinephelus microdan. The data are also compared internationally.

Levels of heavy metals in popular cigarette brands and exposure to these metals via smoking.

The levels of selected heavy metals in popular cigarette brands sold and/or produced in Saudi Arabia were determined by graphite furnace-atomic absorption spectrometry (GFAAS). Average concentrations of Cadmium and Lead in different cigarette brands were 1.81 and 2.46 µg g⁻¹ (dry weight), respectively. The results obtained in this study estimate the average quantity of Cd inhaled from smoking one packet of 20 cigarettes to be in the range of 0.22-0.78 µg. Results suggest that the quantity of Pb inhaled of smoking one packet of 20 cigarettes is estimated to be 0.97-2.64 µg. The concentrations of Cd and Pb in cigarettes were significantly different between cigarette brands tested. The results of the present study were compared with those of other regional and international studies.

Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in vegetables and fruits produced in Saudi Arabia.

Popular varieties of vegetables were collected from major cities of Saudi Arabia and analyzed for polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH) contents. Eight important PAH congeners were analyzed. Total PAH contents of the root vegetables like potato and carrot showed higher values (11 µg kg(-1)), whereas turnip showed relatively lower contents at 9.26 µg kg(-1). For the fruit vegetables, all the peels were found to be more contaminated than cores. For leafy vegetables, maximum PAH level was shown by cabbage (8.34 µg kg(-1)), which turned out to be more than any of the cores of fruit vegetables. Among individual PAH congeners, anthracene showed higher levels in all vegetables. For benzo(a)anthracene, maximum concentration (2.21 ± 1.75 µg kg(-1)) was encountered in turnip cores. Highest benzo(e)pyrene concentration was found in potato (2.90 ± 1.10 µg kg(-1)) followed by turnip (2.10 ± 1.09 µg kg(-1)). Benzo(b)fluoranthene and benzo(k)fluoranthene showed relatively lower levels in all samples studied. Human exposure to PAH by consumption of these vegetables is estimated, by using typical Saudi intake rates. The study revealed that cumulative dietary exposure of Saudi population to PAHs ranges from 0.20 to 0.85 µg p(-1) d(-1).