Babasaheb Bhimrao Ambedkar University (BBAU) is a Central University in Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh. The university is named after Babasaheb Ambedkar, social reformer, polymath and the architect of the Indian Constitution. The university was established on 10 January 1996. The university has a satellite campus at Amethi too, which was established in 2016.
Zero-reference low-light image enhancement (LLIE) remains challenging due to the strong coupling between illumination degradation and spatially varying degradation, where uniform enhancement strategies often amplify unreliable regions and introduce artifacts. In this work, we propose a lightweight enhancement network combining multi-polynomial mixture tone mapping with reliability-guided adaptive fusion. A lightweight reliability estimation module predicts a pixel-wise reliability map, which dynamically guides a gated adaptive fusion mechanism to selectively enhance informative regions while suppressing low-confidence responses. To ensure stable and controlled luminance refinement, a pixel-wise adaptive curve (PWAC) module performs progressive, spatially varying intensity adjustment. Furthermore, a multi-polynomial mixture tone mapping module with spatial gating flexibly adjusts luminance characteristics across diverse illumination conditions. Operating exclusively on the luminance channel in the HSV color space preserves chromatic consistency. Despite these adaptive mechanisms, the proposed model remains lightweight with only 10,386 parameters and 0.686 GFLOPs, achieving 119.4 FPS for 256 & times; 256 images on an NVIDIA RTX 4060. Extensive experiments on five unpaired real-world benchmark datasets (VV, DICM, LIME, MEF, NPE) demonstrate consistent improvements over five state-of-the-art zero-reference methods (Zero-DCE, Zero-DCE++, Zero-DiDCE, SGZ, DSCNet), achieving the lowest average BRISQUE of 13.33 and competitive average NIQE of 3.57 among compared lightweight zero-reference methods.
Liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) is a versatile fuel but is incredibly combustible. Thus, its leakage detection/sensing is of prime importance for the safety of living beings and the environment. This paper reports the synthesis of manganese (III) oxide (Mn2O3)/ cadmium sulphide (CdS) composite nanomaterial using p-type Mn2O3 and n-type CdS nanomaterials via the hydrothermal method. Characterization of prepared materials was done by powder X-ray diffraction (PXRD), field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM), energy-dispersive X-ray (EDX) spectroscopy, high resolution-transmission electron microscopy (HR-TEM), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), ultraviolet-visible (UV-Vis) spectroscopy, Mott-Schottky (M-S), and Fourier-transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy. PXRD analysis confirmed a cubic crystal structure with a crystallite size of 24.18 nm. The surface morphology and elemental composition were revealed by FESEM and EDX, respectively. HR-TEM and M-S analysis confirm the formation of a heterojunction in the nanocomposite phase. XPS spectroscopy revealed the chemical composition of the surface element of Mn2O3/CdS nanomaterial. UV-Vis spectroscopy determined that the nanocomposite’s optical band gap is 2.02 eV, which lies between 1.9 eV (Mn2O3) and 2.25 eV (CdS). FTIR analysis confirmed that the constituents Mn2O3 and CdS are successfully integrated in the composite Mn2O3/CdS nanomaterial, which has a hygroscopic character. The optimized Mn2O3/CdS was explored for the first time in the designing of a thin-film LPG sensor. The evaluated sensing parameters revealed that the designed sensor using Mn2O3/CdS exhibited the highest sensor response (1.6) and the lowest response time (7.79 s) and recovery time (10.84 s) as compared to constituent nanomaterials (Mn2O3 and CdS) at 5000 ppm. The developed sensor exhibits strong selectivity toward LPG, promising repeatability, and long-term stability. The effect of humidity on the designed sensor was also studied. The designed sensor outperforms in terms of material, recovery, and response times.
This study offers a comprehensive mapping of geoscience research from 2000 to 2024, using an integrated bibliometric and topic modelling methodology. Using a carefully chosen set of 4513 Scopus-indexed journal articles, Latent Dirichlet Allocation identified 15 coherent research themes. These encompass fundamental fields such as mineral resource exploration, tectonic structure analysis, and climate change, as well as emerging domains including machine learning, spatial data analysis, digital information systems, and geoscience education. The results show that scientific productivity has steadily increased, particularly since 2010, and that the global collaboration network has expanded. The United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, and China were among the most important contributors. Belgium and Norway, on the other hand, had high citation efficiency despite publishing fewer articles. Patterns of topic co-occurrence and keyword clustering indicate that computational tools and traditional geoscientific methods are converging. This comprehensive analysis underscores the dynamic and interdisciplinary nature of contemporary geoscience, offering fresh perspectives on research deficiencies, shifting priorities, and the discipline’s structural evolution. The findings facilitate informed decision-making for researchers, institutions, and policymakers, underscoring the importance of technology-driven, collaborative strategies to address complex environmental and geological challenges.
Nanomaterials and nanoparticles represent a rapidly expanding technological domain with applications across biomedical, environmental, and industrial sectors. In the present study, zinc oxide nanoparticles (KpZnO NPs) and cerium mixed ZnO nanocomposites were synthesized via a green route using the aqueous fruit extract of Kigelia pinnata. Two nanocomposite formulations were prepared, consisting of 5 mol % cerium with 95 mol % zinc salt (KpCe@ZnO-5) and 10 mol % cerium with 90 mol % zinc salt (KpCe@ZnO-10). The phytochemicals of the aqueous extract of fruit played important role in formation and stabilization of nanoparticles. The synthesized nanomaterials were subjected to comparative structural, morphological, and properties analyses, including antibacterial activity evaluation against the pathogenic strains Staphylococcus aureus and Pseudomonas aeruginosa. Comprehensive characterization was performed using UV-visible spectroscopy, FTIR, XRD, SEM, EDS, HRTEM, BET, 1H NMR, and XPS. Structural analyses using Match software, the Crystallography Open Database (COD), and Chemcraft confirmed the composition and lattice structures (hexagonal, triclinic, and tetragonal) of the synthesized materials. The antibacterial efficacy of KpZnO, KpCe@ZnO-5, and KpCe@ZnO-10 was assessed through well diffusion, time-kill, and biofilm inhibition assays. In addition, the humidity sensing performance of the nanocomposites was evaluated. The results demonstrated that pure KpZnO exhibited superior antibacterial activity compared to the cerium mixed nanocomposites, whereas KpCe@ZnO-10 showed enhanced humidity sensing performance. Overall, the synthesized nanomaterials offer a cost-effective and environmentally benign approach for multifunctional applications.
Abstract Objective The study aimed to evaluate the hypoxia-induced brain injury and neuroprotective effects of pyrimidine and its derivative, arylvinylpyrimidine (AVP), in the freshwater catfish, Heteropneustes fossilis. Methods Adult and healthy fish, H. fossilis, were exposed to varying durations (2, 4, 6, 8, 12, 16 h) of hypoxia (2 mg/L dissolved oxygen; DO) to find the critical threshold duration for significant brain injury. The same was assessed via TTC (2,3,5-triphenyltetrazolium chloride) staining and formazan quantification. Based on the development of TTC negative regions and fish survival, eight hours was determined as the critical exposure point. Neuroprotection with pyrimidine and AVP was studied with different experimental groups: control, hypoxia-only, positive control, pre-treatment, and post-treatment with pyrimidine or AVP. The mitigation scale was assessed using TTC staining and formazan quantification. Golgi-Cox staining used for neuronal spine morphometry. Results Hypoxia induced a progressive increase in TTC negative regions, with 8 h marking a threshold for widespread brain damage and significant formazan depletion. Post-treatment with pyrimidine and AVP led to substantial recovery of mitochondrial function and a reduction in TTC-negative regions (AVP post-treatment showing the highest efficacy). Golgi-Cox staining revealed that hypoxia caused significant dendritic spine shortening and density loss. Post-treatment restored spine length and density, with AVP demonstrating superior neuroprotection. In contrast, pre-treatment showed limited protection against hypoxia induced brain injury, including reductions in neuronal length and dendritic spine integrity. Conclusion Pyrimidine and especially its derivative AVP exhibit neuroprotective properties against acute hypoxia-induced brain damage in H. fossilis. These findings highlight their therapeutic potential in mitigating environmental hypoxic stress in aquatic vertebrates and offer promising insights into hypoxia-related neuropathology.
