The demand for fresh drinking water is sky rocketing with the world's increasing population, urbanization and various industrial growth. However, toxic heavy metals and metalloids like arsenic is contaminating the drinking water. Arsenic is poisonous, carcinogenic and mutagenic for millions of population. We hereby proposing in-house fabricated novel hollow fiber membranes using polyphenylsulfone (PPSU) and pore-forming agent polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP) along with increased concentrations of bio-inspired hydrophilic additive polydopamine (PDA) for removal of arsenic-V from the drinking water. The crystallinity of PDA was interpreted by X-ray diffraction. The morphology, topology and membrane surface chemistry of fabricated membranes were evaluated by scanning electron microscopy, atomic force microscopy, thermogravimetric analysis, fourier transform infrared spectroscopy and x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. The results indicated that, for the PDA-contained membranes overall performance was increased in terms of membrane hydrophilic characteristics and rejection efficacy. A 3 wt% of PDA in PPSU/PVP (PDA-3) executed enhanced arsenate (As-V) removal as high as 87.15% with flux of 31.80 L/m2h, which was higher than the neat membrane (PDA-0) as 67.70% with flux of 15.07 L/m2h for 5 mL/L arsenic-V aqueous solution at 0.2 MPa transmembrane pressure. Improved antifouling properties were observed from PDA-contained hollow fiber membranes, as evidenced by the improved flux recovery ratio and superior thermal stability. The mechanical properties (tensile strength) of pristine and PDA-contained membranes was also investigated.

A natural polymer-based iron oxide (Fe3O4) nanocomposite was prepared through a sonochemical-assisted precipitation method. Characterization studies such as X-ray diffractometer, scanning electron microscopy, and transmission electron microscopy have revealed that the synthesized nanocomposites are homogenously distributed, having an average size of ~49 nm with a cubical spinel structure. The toxic 1-amino-nitrobenzene was initially treated with a sonophotochemical process in the presence of synthesized nanocomposites, resulting in lower efficiency, whereas with the addition of oxidants, the efficiency enhanced significantly. The parametric effects with respect to the initial solution pH, nanocomposites dose, 1-amino-nitrobenzene concentration, and oxidant concentration were studied, and it was found that an approximately 75% removal efficiency of 1-amino-nitrobenzene was achieved within 120 min. Further, the performance of the catalyst on the oxidation of 1-amino-nitrobenzene with sodium persulfate was also investigated, and it was found that a 95% removal efficiency was attained.

Abstract Cadmium pollution in drinking water from industrial wastewater is a global environmental concern that poses a significant health hazards for living organisms in the ecosystem. Hence, it was planned to prepare by phase inversion method to remove cadmium (Cd2+) ions from aqueous solution. The nano-TiO2 and nano-SiO2 were chemically modified with –NH2 groups on the surface, which was achieved using 3-Aminopropyltriethoxysilane (APTES). The constant concentration of 1.0 wt.% of nano-TiO2, nano-SiO2, aminated nano-TiO2, and aminated nano-SiO2 was maintained in the modified membranes. The Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM), Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM), water uptake, contact angle, antifouling capabilities and heavy metal ion removal studies were performed for all fabricated membranes. The effect of amine-functionalized nano-TiO2 and nano-SiO2, on the membrane performance, was studied with reference to the membrane morphology, topography and membrane hydrophilic properties. By introducing aminated nano-TiO2 and nano-SiO2 in to a virgin PSf membrane, the membrane's permeability, hydrophilicity, and antifouling ability were significantly improved. The membranes were also screened for their possible application for cadmium rejection, which showed a maximum rejection of 75.6% for Cd2+ metal ions. This membrane material is highly potential for effective removing of cadmium heavy metal present in aqueous body.

In the present work, hollow fiber ultrafiltration membranes were fabricated by incorporating intensified dosages of nano-aluminum oxide (nano-Al2O3; 0.6 wt%, 1.0 wt% and 1.5 wt%) into cellulose acetate (CA)/polyphenylsulfone (PPSU) and cellulose acetate phthalate (CAP)/PPSU by non-solvent induced phase separation (NIPS) process. The topological structures and the morphologies were investigated using atomic force microscope (AFM) and scanning electron microscope (SEM). The crystalline and morphological structures of the nanoAl2O3 were investigated using X-ray diffraction (XRD) and transmission electron microscope (TEM) respectively. Fourier transform infra-red spectroscope (FTIR) and x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) analysis have been carried out to validate the dosages of nano-Al2O3, CA and CAP on PPSU membranes. The membrane's surface charge measurement of 1.5 wt% of nano-Al2O3 in CA/PPSU (ALCA-1.5) was scrutinized by zeta potential analysis. Membranes removed more arsenate oxide as the removal rate from membranes ALCA-1.5 and 1.0 wt% of nano-Al2O3 in CA/PPSU (ALCA-1) was 98.67% and 94.89% with retention permeabilities of 88.41 L/m2h bar and 53.53 L/m2h bar respectively from laboratory prepared 1 ppm of aqueous arsenic solution with pH in the range 6.8 +/- 0.2 at 1 bar transmembrane pressure. In addition, membrane's antifouling analysis was performed using laboratory prepared 0.8 g/L (Bovine Serum Albumin) BSA as standard protein solution.

With the proliferation of automated services in recent years, the demand for reliable communication among the devices and machine-human interactions has increased like never before. In general, the amount of information that is exchanged for mission-critical applications is tiny for service categories such as ultra reliable and low latency communication (URLLC) and massive machine-type communications (mMTC). To handle short packet transmission, sparse vector coding (SVC) was recently proposed where the packet information is embedded into the positions of the sparse vector. In this paper, to further improve the performance of SVC in terms of reliability, maximal ratio transmission (MRT) is employed. The distinctive feature of the proposed scheme to that of conventional SVC is that the composite of weighted MRT coefficients with sparse vector is transmitted over the channel. Simulated results under realistic international telecommunication union (ITU) channel models suggest that by exploiting spatial diversity at the transmitter side, the block error rate (BLER) can be reduced with the increased number of antennas. In brief, MRT-aided SVC transmission can be a key enabler for reliable communication and a practical choice for beyond 5G (B5G) communication systems.

Arsenic contamination is continuously threatening the safety of drinking water in many parts of the world. The consumption of chronic arsenic contaminated drinking water can cause serious health related issues. Therefore, the synthesis of novel materials is very much essential for the selective removal of arsenic from aqueous solution. In the present investigation, the effect of increased concentrations (0.6, 1.0 and 1.5 wt%) of binary zinc -magnesium oxide (ZnO-MgO) on cellulose acetate (CA)/polyphenylsulfone (PPSU) and cellulose acetate phthalate (CAP)/PPSU hollow fiber membranes for arsenic removal was performed. As used ZnO-MgO was characterized by using x-ray diffraction (XRD), transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and particle size distribution. Fabricated hollow fiber membranes were characterized using scanning electron microscopy (SEM), atomic force microscopy (AFM), zeta potential, fourier transform infrared (FTIR), x-ray photoelectron spectrophotometer (XPS), thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) and antifouling studies. The results revealed that, there is significant enhancement in the overall performance of the ZnO-MgO containedmembranes. An enhancement of arsenic removal properties was demonstrated from 0.6 wt% of ZnO-MgO in CAP/PPSU (ZMCAP-0.6) membrane was 81.31% with the retention permeability of 69.58 L/m(2)h bar respectively. Similarly, 1 wt% of ZnO-MgO in CA/ PPSU (ZMCA-1) was found to be 78.48% and 198.47 L/m(2)h bar respectively using 1 ppm laboratory prepared aqueous arsenic solution (pH 6.8 +/- 0.2) at 1 bar transmembrane pressure. In addition, improved antifouling properties was noticed with an increased flux recovery ratio and enhanced thermal stability from ZnO-MgO contained membranes. Therefore, as fabricated ZnO-MgO contained membranes provided enhanced arsenic removal tendency without compromising the retention permeability.

Arsenic is one of the highly dangerous metalloid present in the polluted water, it's effective and economical removal is one of the major challenges to the researchers. It was planned to prepare hollow fiber membranes using polyphenylsulfone (PPSU) as a polymer, cellulose acetate (CA) and cellulose acetate phthalate (CAP) as additives with increased dosages (0.6, 1 and 1.5 wt%) of zirconium oxide (ZrO2) nanoparticle. The fabricated hollow fiber membranes were characterized by SEM, AFM, zeta potential, ATR-FTIR and XPS to analyze the membrane's morphologies (cross-section and surface), topography, surface charge and assessment of different functional groups. As used ZrO2 was characterized by TEM and XRD to analyze the morphology and crystallinity. The positron annihilation lifetime spectroscopy (PALS) analysis was carried out for neat and ZrO2 contained membranes, to study the expansion of free-volume in membrane morphology. Leaching studies of the used zirconium with respect to different pH from the ZrO2 contained hollow fiber membrane was also examined. The enhancement of membrane hydrophilicity was confirmed by contact angle, porosity, water uptake and pure water permeability measurements. Membranes prepared by 1 wt% of ZrO2 in PPSU/CA (PZCA-1) and 0.6 wt% of ZrO2 in PPSU/CAP (PZCAP-0.6) were proved to be efficient as arsenic removal membranes (i.e. PZCA-1 as 87.24% and PZCAP-0.6 as 70.48% and permeability of 89.94 L/m(2)h bar and 70.59 L/m2h bar respectively) using lab-prepared 1 ppm standard arsenic solution at pH range of 6.8 +/- 0.2. Also, there is a decrease in the arsenic removal tendency was observed with the excessive dosages of ZrO2, which is due to the concentration polarization on surfaces of the membranes. Antifouling behavior of the prepared hollow fiber membranes was also studied using bovine serum albumin (BSA).

Industrial wastewater often contains xenobiotics such as heavy metals, dyes and proteins, yet there is a lack of efficient cleaning methods. Therefore, here we fabricated hollow fiber membranes using polyphenylsulfone containing 1, 3 and 5 wt% of cellulose acetate and cellulose acetate phthalate by non-solvent induced phase separation. Membrane morphology was characterized by field emission scanning electron microscopy. The hydrophilicity of the membranes was measured by contact angle, water uptake and porosity measurement. The thermal miscibility of the membrane with additives was assessed by thermogravimetric analysis. Hollow fiber membranes were tested for separation of azo dyes, e.g., reactive orange 16 and reactive black 5, and of proteins: bovine serum albumin, egg albumin and pepsin. Results show increasing rejection of dyes and proteins with the content of cellulose acetate and cellulose acetate phthalate. Water permeability was 41.26 L/m(2) h bar for the polyphenylsulfone membrane, 64.47 L/m(2) h bar for the polyphenylsulfone/5 wt% cellulose acetate membrane and 72.60 L/m(2) h bar for the polyphenylsulfone/5 wt% cellulose acetate phthalate membrane.

Cellulose acetate (CA) and cellulose acetate phthalate (CAP) were used as additives (1 wt%, 3 wt%, and 5 wt%) to prepare polyphenylsulfone (PPSU) hollow fiber membranes. Prepared hollow fiber membranes were characterized by surface morphology using scanning electron microscopy (SEM), surface roughness by atomic force microscopy (AFM), the surface charge of the membrane was analyzed by zeta potential measurement, hydrophilicity by contact angle measurement and the functional groups by fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR). Fouling resistant nature of the prepared hollow fiber membranes was evaluated by bovine serum albumin (BSA) and molecular weight cutoff was investigated using polyethylene glycol (PEG). By total organic carbon (TOC), the percentage rejection of PEG was found to be 14,489 Da. It was found that the hollow fiber membrane prepared by the addition of 5 wt% of CAP in PPSU confirmed increased arsenic removal from water as compared to hollow fiber membrane prepared by 5 wt% of CA in PPSU. The removal percentages of arsenic with CA-5 and CAP-5 hollow fiber membrane was 34% and 41% with arsenic removal permeability was 44.42 L/m2h bar and 40.11 L/m2h bar respectively. The increased pure water permeability for CA-5 and CAP-5 hollow fiber membrane was 61.47 L/m2h bar and 69.60 L/m2 h bar, respectively.

Colorectal cancer is the third most common type of cancer and third topmost cause of cancer death in the world. Majority of the colorectal cancer is sporadic (65-80%) with a family history of the disease (15-30%). Only five percent is due to hereditary mutations in major genes. Tumorigenesis of colorectal cancer is due to chromosome instability, microsatellite instability and CpG island methylator phenotype involve various tumor suppressor genes and proto-oncogenes in the deoxyribonucleic acid. Chromosome instability proceeds by two ways, aneuploidy through which loss/gain of whole chromosomes and gain or loss of regions of the chromosome. The loss of function of a gene occurs in the first stage of cancerogenesis, in addition a change of methylation pattern of many key genes can develop colorectal cancer. The paper depicts the incidence rate, mortality rate, risk factors and prevention of colorectal cancer.

Vehicular Ad hoc NETwork (VANET) is a latest technology that enables vehicles to communicate with infrastructure and with vehicle. It comes under the sub class of Mobile Ad hoc NETwork (MANET). In VANET all participating nodes are highly moving. VANET has two type of communication vehicle to infrastructure (V2I) and vehicle to vehicle (V2V). Each vehicle equipped with on board unit (OBUs) that gives the service of communicating with road side unit (RSUs). Main motivation behind VANET is to provide safety from accident and avoid the accident To manage the traffic VANETs play an important role for Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS). VANET has high mobility compare to MANET. Due to high mobility, routing is biggest challenge. In this paper, reliability tuple estimation protocol (RTEP) is proposed for unicast routing protocol in VANET. R-Tuple plays a vital role in selecting reliable route between source and target vehicle. R-Tuple has three parameter range, direction and speed of the vehicle. Reliable route is selected based on these parameters.