Pharmacological evaluation of crude methanolic extract of Kalanchoe pinnata leaves

Medicinal plants play a crucial role in maintaining human health. Kalanchoe pinnata has been used for treatment of different ailments like infections, rheumatism, and inflammation. Data showed that Kalancho pinnata methanolic extract (100 or 1000 μg/ml) significantly inhibited growth of shoots (hypocotyls) and roots (radicals) of rice compared to control after 3 or 7 days treatment. Further, the Kalancho pinnata methanolic extract (50–1000 μg/ml) exhibited antioxidant properties and scavenged free radicals in dose-dependent manner compared with a standard antioxidant (ascorbic acid). Kalancho pinnata methanolic extract also possesses antifungal property that inhibited approximately 76% and 51% growth of Aspergillus flavous and Aspergillus niger, respectively, using the extract at 200 μg/ml.     

Determination of pesticide residues in muscle of Cyprinus carpio from River Ravi

The levels of dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT), dichlorodiphenyldichloroethylene (DDE), endosulfan, endosulfan sulfate, carbofuran, and cartap were determined in muscles of Cyprinus Carpio sampled from 10 different sites of River Ravi between Shahdara to Balloki Headworks to assess level of contamination of these pesticides by GC-ECD (gas chromatograph equipped with electron capture detector) method. All fish samples were found contaminated with different concentrations of DDT, DDE, endosulfan, and carbofuran. DDT and DDE concentrations were higher than maximum residue limits (MRL) in food standards, while endosulfan sulfate and cartap were not detected. These findings indicate that pesticide concentrations in fish muscles decreased in the order: DDT > DDE > carbofuran > endosulfan. Furthermore, the sampling sites after Degh fall and beyond Hudiara Nulla Fall river sampling sites were more polluted. It is proposed that constant monitoring programs are needed to assess potential exposure risks.     

Potential histopathological and molecular changes in rat vas deferens inhaled by Boswellia papyrifera and Boswellia carterii

Boswellia papyrifera and Boswellia carterii released from smoke contaminate indoor environment and consequently adversely affect humans as evidenced by respiratory disturbances. The aim of this study was to determine the effects of these plants on pathological and biochemical changes in vas deferens of albino rats. Animals were administered 4 g/kg body weight B. papyrifera and B. carterii daily for 120 days along with controls. Significant changes were observed in epithelial cell types and some cells showed signs of degeneration. The ultrastructural studies revealed marked changes in cytoplasmic organelles. Microvilli were missing and lysosomes were found in the cytoplasm. In addition, all treated groups plasma fructose and other biochemical parameters were decreased indicating reduced energy necessary for motility and contractility of spermatozoa. Many spermatozoa were disorganized and agglomerated. Data suggest that smoke from these plants adversely affects vas deferens.     

Improving seabed classification from Multi-Beam Echo Sounder (MBES) backscatter data with visual data mining

Multi-Beam Echo Sounders are often used for classification of seabed type, as there exists a strong link between sonar backscatter and sediment characteristics of the seabed. Most of the methods for seabed classification from MBES backscatter create a highly-dimensional data set of statistical features and then use a combination of Principal Component Analysis and k-means clustering to derive classes. This procedure can be time consuming for contemporary large MBES data sets with millions of records. This paper examines the complexity of one of most commonly used classification approaches and suggests an alternative where feature data set is optimised in terms of dimensionality using computational and visual data mining. Both the original and the optimised method are tested on an MBES backscatter data set and validated against ground truth. The study found that the optimised method improves accuracy of classification and reduced complexity of processing. This is an encouraging result, which shows that bringing together methods from acoustic classification, visual data mining, spatial analysis and remote sensing can support the unprecedented increases in data volumes collected by contemporary acoustic sensors.     

Recent trends in treatment technologies of emerging contaminants

In the recent years a group of contaminants, known collectively as emerging contaminants (ECs), have attracted considerable attention due to their widespread in the environment, and lack of knowledge on their impacts on ecosystem and human health. This review gives an overview on the sources, impacts, and conventional treatment technologies of ECs and an in-depth review of the literature on the state-of-the-art treatment technologies and their performance in the removal of ECs from water sources and drinking water. A careful statistical analysis of the number of publications on the different treatment technologies of ECs was performed to identify the hot spots in this research area. Conventional treatment technologies are not able to remove ECs sufficiently. The discharge of raw or partially treated wastewater is the main source of ECs in the environment. The research in recent years is focusing on using advanced treatment process (AOPs), followed by adsorption and membrane technologies. From a technical point of view, AOPs surpass other treatment technologies as they can completely eradicate ECs without the generation of side products. Developing efficient, green, and cost-effective materials to be used as adsorbents, photocatalysts, membranes, or membrane fillers, is one of the main research trends nowadays. Combined AOPs based on exploiting solar light, ultrasound and electrochemistry are gaining growing interest and show high potential for the treatment of ECs.     

Configuration influence in relation to fluid flow of venturi system

Due to its simplicity and accurately measuring the flow rate, the venturi system is a special kind of pipe that is widely used in various applied fluid mixtures. One of the venturi system's important applications is ejectors devices that accurately facilitate adding air to water to sustain oxygen demand target levels in many waterworks engineering systems. This study aims to improve venturi system measurement accuracy through experimental investigation and analytical analysis for the venturi system conditional configuration parameters effect on target aeration operational efficiency. In the experiment work, different runs are implemented to characterize the performance of such aerators by describing the impact of venturi characteristics and configurations, including water flow rate, air inlets orifices diameters, inlet velocities, throat lengths, inlet angles, outlets angles, and outlet diameters on aeration efficiency. Results show that the venturi air vent diameter is an important governing parameter for determining aeration performance value. Additionally, an indicated increase in aeration performance with an increasing throat length to its diameter ratio. Meanwhile, the results revealed a varying noted effect of the venturi system characteristics and configurations on aeration performance. Moreover, the equations that relate venturi system configuration and Reynolds numbers with the aeration operational performance are developed to facilitate the target accurate aeration efficiency estimation.     

Porous media grain size distribution and hydrodynamic forces effects on transport and deposition of suspended particles

The effects of porous media grain size distribution on the transport and deposition of polydisperse suspended particles under different flow velocities were investigated. Selected Kaolinite particles(2–30 μm) and Fluorescein(dissolved tracer) were injected in the porous media by step input injection technique. Three sands filled columns were used: Fine sand,Coarse sand, and a third sand(Mixture) obtained by mixing the two last sands in equal weight proportion. The porous media performance on the particle removal was evaluated by analysing particles breakthrough curves, hydro-dispersive parameters determined using the analytical solution of convection–dispersion equation with a first order deposition kinetics, particles deposition profiles, and particle-size distribution of the recovered and the deposited particles. The deposition kinetics and the longitudinal hydrodynamic dispersion coefficients are controlled by the porous media grain size distribution. Mixture sand is more dispersive than Fine and Coarse sands. More the uniformity coefficient of the porous medium is large, higher is the filtration efficiency. At low velocities, porous media capture all sizes of suspended particles injected with larger ones mainly captured at the entrance.A high flow velocity carries the particles deeper into the porous media, producing more gradual changes in the deposition profile. The median diameter of the deposited particles at different depth increases with flow velocity. The large grain size distribution leads to build narrow pores enhancing the deposition of the particles by straining.     

Investigation of activated carbon/ethanol for low temperature adsorption cooling

Commercially available adsorption cooling systems use water/silica gel, water/zeolite and ammonia/ chloride salts working pairs. The water-based pairs are limited to work above 0°C due to the water high freezing temperature, while ammonia has the disadvantage of being toxic. Ethanol is a promising refrigerant due to its low freezing point (161 K), nontoxicity, zero ozone depletion, and low global warming potential. Activated carbon (AC) is a porous material with high degree of porosity (500–3000 m²/g) that has been used in wide range of applications. Using Dynamic Vapour Sorption (DVS) test facility, this work characterizes the ethanol adsorption of eleven commercially available activated carbon materials for cooling at low temperature of ?15°C. DVS adsorption results show that Maxsorb has the best performance in terms of ethanol uptake and adsorption kinetics compared to the other tested materials. The Maxsorb/ethanol adsorption process has been numerically modeled using computational fluid dynamics (CFD) and simulation results are validated using the DVS experimental measurements. The validated CFD simulation of the adsorption process is used to predict the effects of adsorbent layer thickness and packing density on cycle uptake for evaporating temperature of ?15°C. Simulation results show that as the thickness of the Maxsorb adsorbent layer increases, its uptake decreases. As for the packing density, the amount of ethanol adsorbed per plate increases with the packing density reaching maximum at 750 kg/m³. This work shows the potential of using Maxsorb/ethanol in producing low temperature cooling down to ?15°C with specific cooling energy reaching 400 kJ/kg.