Springer Science and Business Media LLC

Forecasting the quantity of municipal solid waste generation is an essential task for sustainable solid waste management and strategy implementation. The estimation of future waste generation rates can help to motivate for analyzing gaps in existing waste management and better planning strategies. Improper management and unsafe disposal of solid waste create a threat to the environment and human health. Hence, a sound forecasting of solid waste generation is very crucial for planning and management accordingly. Artificial intelligence is an excellent and new application of soft computing which is used as a forecasting tool. The main objective of this study is to apply ANN time series model along with autoregressive technique to forecast the monthly solid waste generation in Kolkata. For the same, data related to the monthly solid waste generation was gathered from 2010 to 2017. Total data of 96 months were divided into three categories, i.e., 70%, 15%, and 15% for training, validation, and testing, respectively. The model was evaluated based on performance value of mean square error, root mean square error, and regression coefficient. The ANN structure of 1-19-1 was considered as optimized model for solid waste forecasting because it has the lowest mean square error and the highest regression coefficient. The applied time series model forecasts that Kolkata will generate about 5205 MT/day municipal solid waste in 2030 which will add more than 1000 MT/day waste with the existing rate of generation. The present study helps in estimating and allocating essential resources that need in future for sound solid waste management and preparing alternative strategies to reach the sustainable goals.

Since their discovery, extracellular vesicles have gained considerable scientific interest as a novel drug delivery system. In particular, outer membrane vesicles (OMVs) play a critical role in bacteria–bacteria communication and bacteria–host interactions by trafficking cell signalling biochemicals (i.e. DNA, RNA, proteins). Although previous studies have focused on the use of OMVs as vaccines, little work has been done on loading them with functional nanomaterials for drug delivery. We have developed a novel drug delivery system by loading OMVs with gold nanoparticles (AuNPs). AuNPs are versatile nanoparticles that have been extensively used in disease therapeutics. The particles were loaded into the vesicles via electroporation, which uses an electric pulse to create a short-lived electric field. The resulting capacitance on the membrane generates pores in the lipid bilayer of the OMVs allowing AuNPs (or any nanoparticle under 10 nm) inside the vesicles. Closure of the pores of the lipid membrane of the OMVs entraps the nanoparticles as cargo. Transmission electron microscopy was used to confirm the loading of AuNPs inside the OMVs and dynamic light scattering (DLS) and cryogenic scanning electron microscopy (cryo-SEM) verified the size and integrity of the OMVs. This is the first report to load nanoparticles into OMVs, demonstrating a potential method for drug delivery.

In this study, we present the optimization of end plates to produce uniform pressure and low content on the gas diffusion layer in polymer membrane fuel cell. For this purpose the end plates and the influence of parameters on the gas diffusion layer pressure has been investigated. Parameters studied are the thickness of the end plate, the depth of the bipolar plates groove and the clamping pressure applied to the end plates. After defining their values in the Abaqus finite element software, mechanical analysis has been carried out to examine the stress distribution on the gas diffusion layer and the results have been extracted. By extracting the results of the analysis and importing into the Adaptive Network-based Fuzzy Inference Systems in MATLAB software, a numerical relationship between the influential values and the outputs is extracted. By investigating these relationships and defining the objective function, we investigate the algorithm required for the equation and uniformity of stress distribution on the gas diffusion layer. In this research, the bee algorithm has been used and it has been evaluating the effective parameters of the optimum fuel cell state. After final review of the results, the suggested optimum state of the bee algorithm is the thickness of the end plate 12 mm, the depth of the bipolar plate groove is 0.1077 mm and the clamping pressure is 11.0199 MPa.

The square grid deformation approach is generally employed to forming processes solved with the aid of slip-line field in which a ductile body is supposed to be made with arrays of square grids of finite sizes before the deformation process. After the application of the load, as the deformation occurs, square grids are deformed. The square grid deformation has three utilities—(1) visualization of actual deformation process, (2) prediction of trajectory at any point and (3) computation of strain. The theory of square grid deformation mathematics was originally developed by Hill considering the linear formation of the lip. The present work develops a new mathematical approach for deformation of square grids considering a parabolic lip formation when a rigid wedge is gradually indented to a ductile block of semi-infinite size.

After the first successful large-scale demonstration of eleven self-driving vehicles at the DARPA Urban Challenge in 2007, research results from the competing teams found their way into advanced driver systems (ADAS) that support typical driving tasks like adaptive cruise control and semi-automated parking. However, as of today, SAE Level 4 vehicles are not commercially available yet, which would allow the driver to be inattentive for longer periods. Hence, SAE Level 3, which represents partial automation yet continuously monitored by a human operator, may provide a step towards a viable SAE Level 4 product especially for commercial freight logistics. However, large amounts of data from such freight operations is needed to study the unique challenges in such use cases. In this paper, we present the system and software architecture of an end-to-end data logging solution, which is capable of recording large volumes of high-quality data. The system is installed in a commercial truck that is in daily operation by a logistics company and hence, the recorded data is only accessible remotely (i.e., over-the-air). We report about the fail-safe system design, initial findings from over one year of operation, as well as our lessons learned. During its first year of operation, the truck was used for 210 days by the logistics company, out of which 193 days were logged resulting in more than 4.5 TB of data from five cameras, two GNSS–IMU sensors, and six on-board vehicle controller area networks (CAN) busses. We demonstrate the value of the proposed end-to-end approach for traffic and driver behavior research by analyzing the uploaded data in the cloud to spot critical events such as unexpected harsh braking maneuvers caused by lane merging operations.

Azolla filiculoides (AF) biomass has been tested for its performance as a biosorbent agent toward removing reactive black 5 (RB5) dyes from polluted water. The morphology and structure of the AF was characterized using several advanced techniques. To understand the mechanism of the RB5 biosorption by AF, isotherm, kinetic, and thermodynamic analyses were performed. In addition, the biosorption capacity of AF was tested under various environmental conditions such as solution pH (3–11), biosorbent dosage (0.5–8.0 g/L), contact time (up to 150 min), initial pollutant concentration (25–200 mg/L), and solution temperature (273–333 K). The results demonstrated that the biosorption process of RB5 dye onto AF was quite rapid as the biosorption equilibrium status was attained within 60 min of reaction initiation. A negative effect on the removal efficiencies was noted with increase in the pH values from 3 to 11, while the removal efficiency increase by double with the AF dose increase from 0.5 to 2.0 g/L. The kinetic study revealed that the biosorption trend conformed to the kinetic reaction of the pseudo-second-order. The determined parameters of the thermodynamic studies demonstrated the endothermic and spontaneous of the biosorption nature. Complete compatibility of the biosorption isotherm process with the Langmuir model, with regards to this model the maximum biosorption capacity reached to 41.73 mg/g under the optimized conditions (pH = 3, biosorbent dose = 4 g/L, initial concentration = 25 mg/L, and room temperature). The biosorption process occurred through both physical interactions and chemical reactions between the pollutant molecules and the biosorbent reaction sites. Our study thus revealed that AF biomass is a cheap and excellent agent with potential for application in the abatement of RB5 dye concentration in wastewater with acidic pH.

Present article reports on reduced graphene oxide (rGO) modified poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene) polystyrene sulfonate (PEDOT: PSS) based transparent conducting electrodes for flexible optoelectronic applications. PEDOT: PSS samples embedded with different rGO concentrations i.e. 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 wt% were prepared and later on, bar coated on polyethylene terephthalate substrate using a 30 μm wire size bar. Various parameters including sheet resistance, bending test (outside and inside bending), optical transmittance etc. were estimated. Our analysis indicates that the samples with 1 wt% rGO possess improved results i.e. low sheet resistance (315 ± 8 Ω/sq.) and high transmittance (~ 74%). Additionally, the sample shows low electrical resistance variation up to 12% (maximum increase) during outward bending and 9% (maximum decrease) during inward bending of the sample for bending curvature from 20 to 100 m−1.

Bio-catalysts are non-toxic, metal-free, abundant, and efficient materials with less waste generation that decrease the environmental pollution. Nano-ovalbumin is a biodegradable phosphoglyco protein with isoelectric point (pI) of 4.5, molecular weight of 44.5 kDa containing 385 residues of amino acids. Nano-ovalbumin can be used as a non-toxic heterogeneous and eco-friendly catalyst for promotion of organic compounds. Quinazolinones have many biological and medicinal activities such as anticonvulsant, antitumor, anticancer, hypnotic/sedatives, antimalarial, antibacterial, antioxidant, antimicrobial, antifungal, cytotoxic, antiproliferative, and inhibitory activities on α-glucosidase. In this research, nano-ovalbumin was ready by a new, easy, inexpensive and convenient protocol from egg white and used as a heterogeneous biocatalyst in the synthesis of 2,3-dihydroquinazolin-4(1H)-ones via two-component reaction of 2-aminobenzamide with aldehyde or ketone. This eco-friendly catalyst carried out the reaction in green conditions and with good to excellent yields. The structure of products were determined by Fourier Transform-Infrared (FT-IR), 1H-Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (1H-NMR) and their physical properties were compared with those reported in others work.

This paper illustrates application of a locally produced geogrid material for strength improvement of expansive subgrade soil. Samples of black, soft soil predominating the study area were collected from south western parts of Modjo town, inside the rift valley region of central parts of Ethiopia. X-Ray diffraction as well as index property tests were executed to identify and categorize the expansiveness of the highly plastic soft soil. The effects of two locally manufactured geogrid reinforcement materials; namely, polypropylene (PP) and high density polyethylene (HDPE) on the California bearing ratio (CBR) values of the expansive soil have been investigated. The test results indicated that the use of the geogrid reinforcement can significantly improve the bearing capacity of weak subgrade soil. The soaked CBR of the untreated soil sample, which was about 2.98%, was able to be raised to 10.16% and 7.48% by the application of PP and HDPE type of geogrid respectively, that were placed at 0.35H from the top of specimen. The research demonstrated the potential of using locally produced geogrid material for the improvement of weak subgrade soil.