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1.
Sensors (Basel) ; 21(15)2021 Jul 29.
Artigo em Inglês | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-34372371

RESUMO

Falls are unusual actions that cause a significant health risk among older people. The growing percentage of people of old age requires urgent development of fall detection and prevention systems. The emerging technology focuses on developing such systems to improve quality of life, especially for the elderly. A fall prevention system tries to predict and reduce the risk of falls. In contrast, a fall detection system observes the fall and generates a help notification to minimize the consequences of falls. A plethora of technical and review papers exist in the literature with a primary focus on fall detection. Similarly, several studies are relatively old, with a focus on wearables only, and use statistical and threshold-based approaches with a high false alarm rate. Therefore, this paper presents the latest research trends in fall detection and prevention systems using Machine Learning (ML) algorithms. It uses recent studies and analyzes datasets, age groups, ML algorithms, sensors, and location. Additionally, it provides a detailed discussion of the current trends of fall detection and prevention systems with possible future directions. This overview can help researchers understand the current systems and propose new methodologies by improving the highlighted issues.


Assuntos
Acidentes por Quedas , Qualidade de Vida , Acidentes por Quedas/prevenção & controle , Idoso , Algoritmos , Humanos , Aprendizado de Máquina , Estações do Ano
2.
Sensors (Basel) ; 21(9)2021 May 06.
Artigo em Inglês | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-34066614

RESUMO

The rapid development in wireless technologies is positioning the Internet of Things (IoT) as an essential part of our daily lives. Localization is one of the most attractive applications related to IoT. In the past few years, localization has been gaining attention because of its applicability in safety, health monitoring, environment monitoring, and security. As a result, various localization-based wireless frameworks are being presented to improve such applications' performances based on specific key performance indicators (KPIs). Therefore, this paper explores the recently proposed localization schemes in IoT. Initially, this paper explains the major KPIs of localization. After that, a thorough comparison of recently proposed localization schemes based on the KPIs is presented. The comparison includes an overview, architecture, network structure, performance parameters, and target KPIs. At the end, possible future directions are presented for the researchers working in this domain.

3.
Ecol Food Nutr ; 53(2): 119-41, 2014.
Artigo em Inglês | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-24564189

RESUMO

This comparative study investigated variations in food patterns across the seasons in rural Pakistan through assessing the changes in food variety, dietary diversity and calorie intake. It analyzed the situation using the primary information of 97 and 114 households surveyed in summer and winter respectively. Findings revealed a significant difference of households' food variety, dietary diversity and calorie intake across the seasons. In the winter, households' food basket was more diverse, showing 30%, 13%, and 8% rise in food variety, dietary diversity, and caloric intake, respectively, due mainly to the changes in food choices in winter. Rural households preferred to consume items from nutritious food groups (i.e., dried fruits and nuts, oilseeds, and locally preserved foods) during the severe cold weather. However, they did not substitute significantly the items from basic food groups (i.e., cereals, vegetables and legumes, tubers, and dairy products), with those belonging to nutritious groups. Based on findings, it is concluded that food variety, dietary diversity and calorie intake fluctuate across the seasons, therefore surveys of dietary patterns and calorie intake in one particular season may not be reliable, and food security status of households may not be generalized on the basis of one season survey.


Assuntos
Dieta , Ingestão de Energia , Comportamento Alimentar , Abastecimento de Alimentos , População Rural , Estações do Ano , Características da Família , Humanos , Paquistão
4.
Future Med Chem ; 16(4): 335-348, 2024 02.
Artigo em Inglês | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-38314616

RESUMO

Aim: Recently, thiadiazole-containing drugs have gained greater clinical relevance and are being explored for the development of new antidiabetic, antiurease and antimicrobial agents that target drug resistance. Methods & results: The authors disclose the synthesis of N-(5-[4-(trifluoromethyl)phenyl]-1,3,4-thiadiazol-2-yl)methanimine derivatives starting from 4-(trifluoromethyl)benzoic acid. All of the synthesized derivatives were evaluated for their biological potential in order to investigate the inhibitory activity against antidiabetic, antiurease and antibacterial profiles. Compounds 1, 2 and 9 showed excellent inhibitory activities due to the hydrogen bonding presence of -OH, -F and -CF3 substitutions attached with the phenyl ring. Conclusion: The present study provides potent antidiabetic, antiurease and antimicrobial agents that can be further optimized to discover novel antidiabetic, antiurease drugs.


Assuntos
Anti-Infecciosos , Tiadiazóis , Simulação de Acoplamento Molecular , Relação Estrutura-Atividade , Bases de Schiff/farmacologia , Tiadiazóis/farmacologia , Anti-Infecciosos/farmacologia , Hipoglicemiantes/farmacologia , Estrutura Molecular
5.
ACS Omega ; 8(42): 39110-39134, 2023 Oct 24.
Artigo em Inglês | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-37901557

RESUMO

Designing a multifunctional conducting hydrogel wound dressing of suitable mechanical properties, adhesiveness, self-healing, autolytic debridement, antibacterial properties, and radical scavenging ability, as well as retaining an appropriate level of moisture around the wound is highly desirable in clinical application for treating cutaneous wounds healing. Here, we designed a novel class of electroactive hydrogel based on thiol-functionalized silver-graphene oxide nanoparticles (GO/Ag/TGA) core polyaniline (PANI) shell GO/Ag/TGA/PANI nanocomposites. Thus, a series of physically cross-linked hydrogel based on GO/Ag/TGA/PANI and poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA) was prepared by freeze-thawing method. The hydrogel was characterized by XRD, UV, FTIR, TGA, TEM, SEM, Raman spectroscopy, cyclic voltammetry (CV), and four probes test. The hydrogel showed favorable properties such as excellent tensile strength, suitable gelation time (30-56 s), tunable rheological properties (G' ∼ 1 kPa), adhesiveness, and interconnected porous structure (freeze-dried). Besides this, the hydrogel also exhibits excellent exudate uptake capacity (10.4-0.2 g/g), high swelling ratio (72.4 to 93.5%), long-term antibacterial activity against multidrug-resistant (MDR) bacterial isolates, promising antioxidant (radical scavenging) efficiency, keeping the wound moisturized, prominent hemostatic efficiency, and fast self-healing ability to bear deformation. Interestingly, in vivo experiments indicated that electroactive hydrogels can significantly promote the healing rate of artificial wounds in rats, and histological analysis by H&E reveals higher granulation tissue thickness, collagen deposition, hair follicles, dermal papillary, keratinocytes, and marked increase (P < 0.05) in hydroxyproline at the wound site during 15 days of healing of impaired wounds. On the basis of vivo and vitro assay results, it is concluded that electroactive-hydrogel-attributed multifunctional properties may serve as suitable scaffold for treating chronic wound healing and skin regeneration.

6.
Nat Nanotechnol ; 18(9): 1005-1011, 2023 Sep.
Artigo em Inglês | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-37217765

RESUMO

The oxides of platinum group metals are promising for future electronics and spintronics due to the delicate interplay of spin-orbit coupling and electron correlation energies. However, their synthesis as thin films remains challenging due to their low vapour pressures and low oxidation potentials. Here we show how epitaxial strain can be used as a control knob to enhance metal oxidation. Using Ir as an example, we demonstrate the use of epitaxial strain in engineering its oxidation chemistry, enabling phase-pure Ir or IrO2 films despite using identical growth conditions. The observations are explained using a density-functional-theory-based modified formation enthalpy framework, which highlights the important role of metal-substrate epitaxial strain in governing the oxide formation enthalpy. We also validate the generality of this principle by demonstrating epitaxial strain effect on Ru oxidation. The IrO2 films studied in our work further revealed quantum oscillations, attesting to the excellent film quality. The epitaxial strain approach we present could enable growth of oxide films of hard-to-oxidize elements using strain engineering.

7.
Turk J Ophthalmol ; 52(5): 295-301, 2022 10 28.
Artigo em Inglês | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-36317741

RESUMO

Objectives: The aim of this study was to investigate the prevalence of symptoms of computer vision syndrome (CVS) and identify its associated risk factors among computer-using bank workers in Pakistan. Materials and Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted on computer-using bank workers. The data collection procedure included a self-administered questionnaire and comprehensive ocular health examination. The prevalence of CVS and its associated risk factors were investigated. The chi-square test was used to study the significance of the association of CVS with potential risk factors. Results: Of 127 participants, 95 (74.8%) were men. Most of the participants (n=53; 41.7%) were in the 30-40 years age group. A total of 101 participants (79.5%) reported any ocular symptom, with burning eyes being the most frequent ocular symptom (77.2%). General body fatigue was the most common non-ocular symptom of CVS (92.9%), followed by headache (83.5%). Out of 127 participants, 71 men and 30 women had some degree of CVS. Female participants had significantly higher risk of CVS than male participants (p=0.01). Total duration of computer use per day and duration of uninterrupted computer use were significantly associated with the occurrence of CVS (p=0.001 and p=0.008, respectively). No significant association was found between CVS and distance from computer screen (p=0.89), frequency of breaks (p=0.18), or font size (p=0.12). Conclusion: A high prevalence of CVS-related symptoms was observed among computer-using bank workers. Non-ocular symptoms associated with computer use were more common than ocular symptoms (92.9% vs. 77.2%).


Assuntos
Computadores , Feminino , Masculino , Humanos , Prevalência , Estudos Transversais , Paquistão/epidemiologia , Síndrome , Fatores de Risco
8.
Cureus ; 13(1): e12909, 2021 Jan 25.
Artigo em Inglês | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-33654594

RESUMO

INTRODUCTION:  In low-income and high hepatitis B and C virus burden countries like Pakistan, it is important to develop cheap yet efficient strategies in diagnosing as well as treating hepatitis. The aim of this study is to assess the sensitivity and specificity of serum hepatitis B surface antigen (HbsAg) via Rapid Immunoassay Chromatographic Test (RICT) for the screening of hepatitis B, compared to the gold standard laboratory-based method. METHODS:  The study was conducted in the Hepatology Clinic of Civil Hospital, Sukkur. All records of the clinic from June 1, 2018, to December 31, 2018, were accessed for identification of the records in which hepatitis B screening via RICT and then confirmatory polymerase chair reaction (PCR) by gene amplification with forward and reverse primers was done. RESULTS:  There were 151 samples in this study. There were 32 (94.1%) true-positive and three (5.8%) false-negative samples. There were two (2.5%) false-positive and 114 (97.4%) true-negative samples. The sensitivity of HbsAg detection via RICT for the screening of 1-1B V was 91.43%, specificity was 98.28% and the accuracy was 96.69%, compared to PCR. CONCLUSION: The RICT method has high sensitivity and specificity. In low-income and high-hepatitis B virus-burden countries like Pakistan, it serves as a very efficient screening tool that is easy to use, cheaper in cost, and gives rapid and accurate results.

9.
Foods ; 10(10)2021 Oct 11.
Artigo em Inglês | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-34681455

RESUMO

Adulteration of meat products is a delicate issue for people around the globe. The mixing of lard in meat causes a significant problem for end users who are sensitive to halal meat consumption. Due to the highly similar lipid profiles of meat species, the identification of adulteration becomes more difficult. Therefore, a comprehensive spectral detailing of meat species is required, which can boost the adulteration detection process. The experiment was conducted by distributing samples labeled as "Pure (80 samples)" and "Adulterated (90 samples)". Lard was mixed with the ratio of 10-50% v/v with beef, lamb, and chicken samples to obtain adulterated samples. Functional groups were discovered for pure pork, and two regions of difference (RoD) at wavenumbers 1700-1800 cm-1 and 2800-3000 cm-1 were identified using absorbance values from the FTIR spectrum for all samples. The principal component analysis (PCA) described the studied adulteration using three principal components with an explained variance of 97.31%. The multiclass support vector machine (M-SVM) was trained to identify the sample class values as pure and adulterated clusters. The acquired overall classification accuracy for a cluster of pure samples was 81.25%, whereas when the adulteration ratio was above 10%, 71.21% overall accuracy was achieved for a group of adulterated samples. Beef and lamb samples for both adulterated and pure classes had the highest classification accuracy value of 85%, whereas chicken had the lowest value of 78% for each category. This paper introduces a comprehensive spectrum analysis for pure and adulterated samples of beef, chicken, lamb, and lard. Moreover, we present a rapid M-SVM model for an accurate classification of lard adulteration in different samples despite its low-level presence.

10.
Saudi J Biol Sci ; 28(11): 6339-6351, 2021 Nov.
Artigo em Inglês | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-34759753

RESUMO

Zinc (Zn) is an essential micronutrient required to enhance crop growth and yield. In the arid - semiarid region, Zn deficiency is expected due to alkaline calcareous soil. Contrarily, Zn toxicity is also becoming an environmental concern due to increasing anthropogenic activities (metal smelting, copper industry, etc.). Therefore, balanced Zn application is necessary to save resources and achieve optimum crop growth and yield. Most scientists suggest biological approaches to overcome the problem of Zn toxicity and deficiency. These biological approaches are mostly environment-friendly and cost-effective. In these biological approaches, the use of arbuscular mycorrhizae fungi (AMF) symbiosis is becoming popular. It can provide tolerance to the host plant against Zn-induced stress. Inoculation of AMF helps in balance uptake of Zn and enhances the growth and yield of crops. On the other hand, maize (Zea mays L.) is an important cereal crop due to its multifarious uses. As maize is an effective host for mycorrhizae symbiosis, that's why this review was written to elaborate on the beneficial role of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF). The review aimed to glance at the recent advances in the use of AMF to enhance nutrient uptake, especially Zn. It was also aimed to discuss the mechanism of AMF to overcome the toxic effect of Zn. We have also discussed the detailed mechanism and physiological improvement in the maize plant. In conclusion, AMF can play an imperative role in improving maize growth, yield, and balance uptake of Zn by alleviating Zn stress and mitigating its toxicity.

11.
Sci Rep ; 11(1): 18468, 2021 09 16.
Artigo em Inglês | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-34531432

RESUMO

Zinc (Zn) deficiency can severely inhibit plant growth, yield, and enzymatic activities. Zn plays a vital role in various enzymatic activities in plants. Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) play a crucial role in improving the plant's Zn nutrition and mitigating Zn stress effects on plants. The current study was conducted to compare the response of inoculated and non-inoculated maize (YH 1898) in the presence of different levels of zinc under greenhouse conditions under a Zn deficient condition. There were two mycorrhizal levels (i.e., M + with mycorrhizae, M- without mycorrhizae) and five Zn levels (i.e., 0, 1.5, 3, 6, and 12 mg kg-1), with three replicates following completely randomized design. At the vegetative stage (before tillering), biochemical, physiological, and agronomic attributes were measured. The results showed that maize plants previously inoculated with AMF had higher gaseous exchange traits, i.e., a higher stomatal conductance rate, favoring an increased photosynthetic rate. Improvement in antioxidant enzyme activity was also observed in inoculated compared to non-inoculated maize plants. Moreover, AMF inoculation also played a beneficial role in nutrients availability and its uptake by plants. Higher Zn12 (12 mg Zn kg-1 soil) treatment accumulated a higher Zn concentration in soil, root, and shoot in AMF-inoculated than in non-inoculated maize plants. These results are consistent with mycorrhizal symbiosis beneficial role for maize physiological functioning in Zn deficient soil conditions. Additionally, AMF inoculation mitigated the stress conditions and assisted nutrient uptake by maize.


Assuntos
Micorrizas/patogenicidade , Solo/química , Zea mays/microbiologia , Zinco/deficiência , Micorrizas/metabolismo , Fotossíntese , Estômatos de Plantas/metabolismo , Zea mays/metabolismo , Zinco/análise
12.
Front Nutr ; 8: 647823, 2021.
Artigo em Inglês | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-34179055

RESUMO

Zinc (Zn) is a fundamental micronutrient required by all living organisms. Zn deficiency among children under 5 years, pregnant, and child-bearing women has been identified in developing countries such as Pakistan. Biofortified crops can increase micronutrient levels and decrease deficiencies. Meanwhile, consumer acceptance is essential, given that genetic alterations can occur during biofortification, resulting in changes in sensory traits and the quality of grains. Therefore, the present study focuses on the determining factors for consumer acceptance of Zn-biofortified wheat., an experimental survey was conducted to achieve the study's objectives. Qualitative and quantitative data were collected and analyzed from 203 respondents in the Punjab province. The results regarding sensory perceptions revealed that people attached great importance to the appearance of the chapati prepared with Zn-biofortified wheat. Therefore, they were willing to purchase Zn-biofortified wheat when asked to choose between the conventional wheat and the Zn-biofortified wheat. Moreover, the probit model illustrates that the level of education in the family and having young children aged under 5 years in the household positively impacted the acceptance of Zn-biofortified wheat among the participants. The findings suggest that there is significant scope for promoting Zn-biofortified wheat in the country. It is also imperative to ensure its availability across various regions so that households with weak purchasing power can buy and address their Zn deficiency. Furthermore, policymakers could introduce reforms targeting business communities for food management, keeping Zn-biofortified wheat in the priority stream.

13.
PLoS One ; 14(6): e0218177, 2019.
Artigo em Inglês | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-31194817

RESUMO

Brain-Computer Interfaces (BCIs) based on visual evoked potentials (VEPs) allow high communication speeds and accuracies. The fastest speeds can be achieved if targets are identified in a synchronous way (i.e., after a pre-set time period the system will produce a command output). The duration a target needs to be fixated on until the system classifies an output command affects the overall system performance. Hence, extracting a data window dedicated for the classification is of critical importance for VEP-based BCIs. Secondly, unintentional fixation on a target could easily lead to its selection. For the practical usability of BCI applications it is desirable to distinguish between intentional and unintentional fixations. This can be achieved by using threshold-based target identification methods. The study explores personalized dynamic classification time windows for threshold-based time synchronous VEP BCIs. The proposed techniques were tested employing the SSVEP and the c-VEP paradigm. Spelling performance was evaluated using an 8-target dictionary-supported BCI utilizing an n-gram word prediction model. The performance of twelve healthy participants was assessed with the information transfer rate (ITR) and accuracy. All participants completed sentence spelling tasks, reaching average accuracies of 94% and 96.3% for the c-VEP and the SSVEP paradigm, respectively. Average ITRs around 57 bpm were achieved for both paradigms.


Assuntos
Interfaces Cérebro-Computador , Potenciais Evocados Visuais , Adulto , Feminino , Humanos , Masculino , Inquéritos e Questionários , Adulto Jovem
14.
Materials (Basel) ; 12(17)2019 Aug 22.
Artigo em Inglês | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-31443524

RESUMO

Liquid exfoliated molybdenum disulfide (MoS2) nanosheets and polyaniline (PANI) nanoparticles are dispersed in polystyrene (PS) matrix to fabricate hybrid polymer composites with high dielectric and electromagnetic interference (EMI) shielding behavior. A phase-separated morphology is formed when PANI and MoS2 are incorporated into polystyrene (PS) matrix. An increasing concentration of MoS2 nanoparticles inside PS/PANI (5 wt %) polymer blend forms an interconnected network, resulting in high electrical conductivity and dielectric behavior, making them a suitable candidate for EMI shielding application. An increment in dielectric constant and loss, up to four and five orders of magnitude, respectively, is recorded at a maximum concentration of 1 wt % of MoS2 in PS/PANI-5 polymer blend at 100 Hz. The enhanced dielectric characteristics for PS/PANI/MoS2 composites are then theoretically evaluated for the estimation of EMI shielding effectiveness in the frequency range of 100 Hz to 5 MHz. The maximum dielectric constant and loss achieved for PS/PANI-5 wt %/MoS2-1 wt % are responsible for estimated shielding effectiveness of around 92 dB at 100 Hz. The increase in dielectric behavior and shielding effectiveness is probably due to the increased number of charged dipoles accumulated at the insulator-conductor interface.

15.
Microsc Res Tech ; 82(2): 92-100, 2019 Feb.
Artigo em Inglês | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-30511479

RESUMO

Climate change is the most realistic theory of this era. Sudden and drastic changes are happening on the earth and the survival of mankind is becoming questionable in the future. The plants play the key role in controlling the climate change. The study emphasizes on role of trees in the cop up or damaging the climate of this earth, whether they are medicinal trees or economically important trees. Due to the overgrazing and intense deforestation the climate is being affected hazardously. The global warming phenomenon is occurring due to the less availability of trees and more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. In total 20 plants were collected from across the Pakistan on the basis of their abundance and their key roles. Out of which seeds of eight plants were scanned through scanning electron microscope for correct authentication and importance of these medicinally important trees in mitigating the climate change. RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS: The role of forest sector in the climate's change mitigation. Medicinally and economically important tree species across Pakistan. By using SEM, Ultra seed sculpturing features as an authentication tool. To formulate some policies to stop or control deforestation.


Assuntos
Mudança Climática , Árvores/classificação , Árvores/crescimento & desenvolvimento , Microscopia Eletrônica de Varredura , Paquistão , Sementes/classificação , Sementes/ultraestrutura
16.
Brain Sci ; 8(4)2018 Mar 30.
Artigo em Inglês | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-29601538

RESUMO

A Brain-Computer Interface (BCI) provides a novel non-muscular communication method via brain signals. A BCI-speller can be considered as one of the first published BCI applications and has opened the gate for many advances in the field. Although many BCI-spellers have been developed during the last few decades, to our knowledge, no reviews have described the different spellers proposed and studied in this vital field. The presented speller systems are categorized according to major BCI paradigms: P300, steady-state visual evoked potential (SSVEP), and motor imagery (MI). Different BCI paradigms require specific electroencephalogram (EEG) signal features and lead to the development of appropriate Graphical User Interfaces (GUIs). The purpose of this review is to consolidate the most successful BCI-spellers published since 2010, while mentioning some other older systems which were built explicitly for spelling purposes. We aim to assist researchers and concerned individuals in the field by illustrating the highlights of different spellers and presenting them in one review. It is almost impossible to carry out an objective comparison between different spellers, as each has its variables, parameters, and conditions. However, the gathered information and the provided taxonomy about different BCI-spellers can be helpful, as it could identify suitable systems for first-hand users, as well as opportunities of development and learning from previous studies for BCI researchers.

17.
Annu Int Conf IEEE Eng Med Biol Soc ; 2018: 1939-1943, 2018 Jul.
Artigo em Inglês | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-30440778

RESUMO

In this paper we examined different ways to inform the user of the classification progress in our online SSVEPbased BCI speller. Different user feedback was given based on the distance from the classification threshold, separately calculated for each stimulus. We focused on the comparison of the accuracies and spelling times associated with each different feedback type. We tested eight different methods, one without feedback for comparison, and the two paradigms each (an increase and a decrease), for three varying parameters, during an online spelling task. The eighth method was a combination of the best performing feedback modalities. A 28 target speller was used for spelling the same word with different feedback methods. The level of comfort was assessed by the seven healthy participants, using a questionnaire. We found substantial decreases in spelling times; they were reduced to 12-77% of the no-feedback condition spelling times, for each of our subjects, with at least one of the parameters. However, this parameter, as expected, was different for each user. According to the personal fastest feedback methods, a combination of them was also used for spelling. These combined feedback methods usually resulted in a slower spelling than the individual best feedback, but still faster than without any feedback. Overall, the average spelling times with the different feedback methods were: no feedback, 95.09 s, increasing size, 62.94 s, decreasing size, 87.73 s, increasing contrast, 77.80 s, decreasing contrast, 124.37 s, increasing duty-cycle, 134.70 s, and decreasing dutycycle, 103.77 s.


Assuntos
Interfaces Cérebro-Computador , Eletroencefalografia , Potenciais Evocados Visuais , Voluntários Saudáveis , Humanos
18.
Materials (Basel) ; 11(11)2018 Nov 11.
Artigo em Inglês | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-30423876

RESUMO

ZnO/GO (Graphene Oxide) and SAN (Styrene Acrylonitrile)/PANI (Polyaniline)/FLG (Few Layers Graphene) nanocomposite coatings were produced by solution casting and sol-gel methods, respectively, to enhance corrosion resistance of ferrous based materials. Corrosive seawater and 'produced crude oil water' environments were selected as electrolytes for this study. Impedance and coating capacitance values obtained from Electrochemical Impedance Spectroscopy (EIS) Alternating Current (AC technique) showed enhanced corrosion resistance of nanocomposites coatings in the corrosive environments. Tafel scan Direct Current (DC technique) was used to find the corrosion rate of nanocomposite coating. SAN/PANI/FLG coating reduced the corrosion of bare metal up to 90% in seawater whereas ZnO/GO suppressed the corrosion up to 75% having the impedance value of 100 Ω. In produced water of crude oil, SAN/PANI/FLG reduced the corrosion up to 95% while ZnO/GO suppressed the corrosion up to 10%. Hybrid composites of SAN/PANI/FLG coatings have demonstrated better performances compared to ZnO/GO in the corrosive environments under investigation. This study provides fabrication of state-of-the-art novel anti corrosive nanocomposite coatings for a wide range of industrial applications. Reduced corrosion will result in increased service lifetime, durability and reliability of components and system and will in turn lead to significant cost savings.

19.
Asian Pac J Trop Med ; 10(5): 503-514, 2017 May.
Artigo em Inglês | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-28647189

RESUMO

OBJECTIVE: To report the indigenous people's uses of plants from a multidimensional perspective in a remote area where strong ethnobotanical cultural practices prevail. METHODS: An ethnobotanical survey was conducted in the field during 2014-2016. Ethnobotanical data were gathered from 182 informants through oral interviews and semi-structured questionnaires. The distribution of plants was explored using both descriptive and graphical methods. Further, a Multinomial Logit Specification was applied to find out the probability of the occurrence of diverse utilization of plants in multipurpose domains. RESULTS: The study identified 202 plant species distributed among 71 families and 156 genera. Ethnobotanical data indicate that there are more medicinal (36.96%) uses of plants as compared to all other use categories. The output from the Multinomial Logit Specifications (MLS) model reveals that perennial and non-woody plants are exploited more for medicinal and food uses than annual and woody plants. In the context of ethnomedicinal uses, aerial plant parts particularly leaves are more extensively used for the preparation of herbal recipes as compared to underground parts. CONCLUSIONS: The results of the study emphasize the need to create awareness among the local communities about the conservation status of plant species in order to maintain a sustainable resource of plant-derived materials into the future. The novel econometric approach employed in this study adds a new insightful methodology to the existing body of literature in the field of ethnobotany. We strongly recommend conservation measures, alongside phytochemical and pharmacological studies on the useful plant species identified in this study in order to ensure their sustainable and effective utilization.

20.
J Ethnobiol Ethnomed ; 10: 13, 2014 Jan 27.
Artigo em Inglês | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-24467739

RESUMO

BACKGROUND: This paper constitutes an important ethnobiological survey in the context of utilizing biological resources by residents of Kala Chitta hills of Pothwar region, Pakistan. The fundamental aim of this research endeavour was to catalogue and analyse the indigenous knowledge of native community about plants and animals. The study is distinctive in the sense to explore both ethnobotanical and ethnozoological aspects of indigenous culture, and exhibits novelty, being based on empirical approach of Multinomial Logit Specifications (MLS) for examining ethnobotanical and ethnozoological uses of specific plants and animals. METHODS: To document the ethnobiological knowledge, the survey was conducted during 2011-12 by employing a semi-structured questionnaire and thus 54 informants were interviewed. Plant and animal specimens were collected, photographed and properly identified. Distribution of plants and animals were explored by descriptive and graphical examination. MLS were further incorporated to identify the probability of occurrence of diversified utilization of plants and animals in multipurpose domains. RESULTS: Traditional uses of 91 plant and 65 animal species were reported. Data analysis revealed more medicinal use of plants and animals than all other use categories. MLS findings are also in line with these proportional configurations. They reveal that medicinal and food consumption of underground and perennial plants was more as compared to aerial and annual categories of plants. Likewise, medicinal utilization of wild animals and domestic animals were more commonly observed as food items. However, invertebrates are more in the domain of medicinal and food utilization. Also carnivores are fairly common in the use of medicine while herbivores are in the category of food consumption. CONCLUSION: This study empirically scans a good chunk of ethnobiological knowledge and depicts its strong connection with indigenous traditions. It is important to make local residents beware of conservation status of species and authentication of this knowledge needs to be done in near future. Moreover, Statistically significant findings impart novelty in the existing literature in the field of ethnobiology. Future conservation, phytochemical and pharmacological studies are recommended on these identified plants and animals in order to use them in a more sustainable and effective way.


Assuntos
Etnobotânica , Medicina Tradicional , Fitoterapia , Animais , Conservação dos Recursos Naturais , Humanos , Conhecimento , Paquistão
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