Taenia solium cysticercosis is a major public health problem in developing countries. Swine cysticercosis results in economic losses for pig farmers in disease endemic areas. Consumption of cysticercotic pork leads to taeniasis in humans. Eggs excreted in the faeces of T. solium carriers disseminate to humans and pigs through the faecal–oral route, thus maintaining the life cycle in endemic areas. An enzyme-linked immunoelectrotransfer blot (EITB) assay was developed using whole crude T. solium cysticercus antigens (WCA) for the diagnosis of swine cysticercosis. Sera from 30 swine with cysticercosis confirmed by magnetic resonance imaging were subjected to EITB assay. Sera from 50 swine that were raised in a government farm and not allowed to roam freely were included as negative controls. Two or more bands of 8, 11, 14, 24, 26 and 29 kDa were immunoreactive on blot with sera from all infected swine except two, and none from swine raised on the government farm. The overall sensitivity and specificity of EITB assay for diagnosis of swine cysticercosis were 93.3% and 100%, respectively. Hence, EITB assay based on WCA may be a suitable diagnostic tool for swine cysticercosis in endemic areas.

The mathematical model for the propagation of intense laser pulse in a plasma having Gaussian profile is investigated. The model has been formulated considering that the relativistic–ponderomotive nonlinearity dominates over other nonlinearities in the plasma. Model equation for self-compression and self-focusing properties of the laser pulse has been set up and solved by both semi-analytical and numerical methods. The result indicates that due to the effect of group velocity dispersion, diffraction of the laser pulse and the nonlinearity of medium, the pulse width parameter as well as beam width parameter of pulse gets focused at a different normalized distance, and hence the normalized intensity is also deferred at those points. Numerical simulation shows an oscillatory behavior of intensity during propagation in the plasma either having minimum beam radius (r0) or having minimum pulse duration (t0) depending on the normalized distance.

Functional response of all instars, adult males and females of the ladybird Coccinella septempunctata L. was studied against two species of aphids, namely Lipaphis erysimi (Kalt.) and Brevicoryne brassicae L., infesting mustard and cabbage crops, respectively. The predatory stages of C. septempunctata exhibited a type II response on both the prey species. The attack rate was highest (0.0192) with the lowest handling time (7.9 min) when the adult female consumed L. erysimi. There was a significant difference in the predicted values of consumption of L. erysimi by fourth instars, adult males and females compared with those of B. brassicae, indicating that the former prey is preferred over the latter one. The adult females prey upon significantly more numbers of aphids than the adult males.

Magnetically separable and reusable core-shell CoFe2O4-ZnO photocatalyst nanospheres were prepared via hydrothermal synthesis technique using glucose derived carbon nanospheres as template. The morphology and phase of core-shell hybrid structure of CoFe2O4-ZnO was assessed via TEM, and XRD. The UV-vis photocatalytic activity of the composite was assessed via measuring the degradation rate of modeled pollutant methylene blue in water. The magnetic composite showed high UV photocatalytic activity for the degradation of methylene blue. The photocatalytic activity was found to be ZnO shell thickness dependent. Thicker ZnO shells lead to higher rate of photocatalytic activity. Hybrid nanospheres recovered using external magnetic field demonstrated good repeatability of photocatalytic activity. These results promise the reusability of hybrid nanospheres for photocatalytic activity.

Multiferroics, the study of materials which possess ferromagnetic and ferroelectric ordering in a single phase, has become an area of prominent research. Moreover, this behavior has been extensively studied in materials which possess a perovskite crystal structure such as BiFeO3 and YMnO3. Due to their weak saturation magnetic moment, many rare-earth orthoferrites are currently of extreme interest. Utilizing a solid-state reaction between Y2O3 and Fe2O3 we have developed the rare-earth orthoferrite YFeO3 and conducted a bulk material study to determine this material’s availability for thin film multiferroic research. The absence of Y2O3 and Fe2O3 impurities was confirmed using Copper-Kα XRD. Examination of the dependence of the magnetization M on the temperature T was conducted to determine the reliability of multiferroic behavior across varying temperatures in conjunction with the investigation of the dependence of M on the electric field strength H. Results clearly display ferromagnetic behavior in our bulk material, providing ample evidence that our bulk material is an excellent candidate for thin film studies. Future studies on multiferroic YFeO3 thin films grown via pulsed laser deposition on Lanthanum Aluminate substrates will be conducted. Detailed data will be provided via XRD and SQUID to confirm magnetic properties while impurities are non-existent in our thin films.

Magnesium and titanium doped indium oxide (IMTO) thin films were grown using pulsed laser deposition technique. Magnesium was added to enhance the bandgap, whereas titanium was added to improve carrier concentrations and mobility of indium oxide films. The effect of growth temperature on structural, optical, and electrical properties were studied. It was observed that the optical transparency of the films strongly depends on growth temperature and increases with increase in growth temperature. The films grown at 600 °C showed optical transparency > 85%. We observed widening in bandgap of indium oxide by doping with magnesium and titanium. The bandgap of IMTO films increases with increase in growth temperature. The maximum bandgap of 3.9 eV was observed for film grown at 600 °C. It was observed that growth temperature strongly affects the electrical properties such as resistivity, carrier concentration, and mobility. The electrical resistivity and mobility of the films increases with increase in growth temperature. On the other hand, carrier concentration decreases with increase in growth temperature. Temperature dependence electrical resistivity measurements showed that films grown at low temperatures are semiconducting in nature, while films grown at high temperature showed transition from semiconducting to metallic behavior. These wide bandgap, highly transparent, and high mobility films could be used for photovoltaic applications.

With the aim of identifying effective dispersants that would yield stable, high solids loading (≥60 vol.%) suspensions of oxides, carbides, or nitrides in nonaqueous carriers such as paraffinic oils, a number of dispersants were evaluated, using in most cases A16SG grade alumina from Alcoa as the filler. Among those evaluated were some common dispersants, such as menhaden fish oil and oleic acid, and commercial dispersants not commonly used in ceramic processing, such as polymeric fatty esters and petroleum sulfonates. More importantly, a few dispersants were synthesized and evaluated. The latter dispersants contained straight or cyclic (benzenic) side chains located far from the head group on 18 carbon main-chain fatty acid molecules. Among these, the dispersants with a 5–10 carbon side chain or with a benzenic side chain yielded very fluid suspensions (≥60 vol.%) compared to those with long polymeric or oligomeric side chains, or with no side chains, or the commercial dispersants; in some cases, for the same solid loading, the suspension viscosities were an order of magnitude lower with the synthesized side chain dispersants. These results indicate that molecules with an optimum side chain length located sufficiently far from the head group and an optimum backbone (main chain) constitute the most effective dispersants for concentrated suspensions. By combining the advantages provided by wider particle size distributions and by these effective dispersants, suspensions highly concentrated (up to 74 vol.%), and yet processable and “flowing” paste-like have been prepared.

Highly concentrated solid-in-liquid suspensions find applications in a number of areas such as electronics, ceramics, paints, coatings, etc. Highly loaded, stable suspensions which exhibit desirable rheological characteristics (moderate viscosity, shear thinning behavior, thixotropy, and a small yield stress, for example), and which have high thermal or electrical conductivities are frequently sought after. We describe here some techniques which can be used to obtain such highly concentrated suspensions. These involve employing mixed size grades of particles and effective dispersants. For thermal paste applications, for example, compliant pastes of up to 78 vol. % solids with thermal conductivity values as high as 6 W/mK (hence, a few times greater than the values reported previously by others), low electrical conductivity, and moderate viscosity have been prepared by mixing different particle size grades of materials such as Al2O3, SiC, AlN, Al, and diamond. Effective dispersants, both commercial as well as those synthesized in our laboratory as novel variations of previously known molecular architectures, have been used to facilitate the achievement of these very high loading and stable suspensions.

Let N denote the set of natural numbers and let φ be a mapping from N into itself. Then the composition transformmation Cφ, on the weighted l2 space with weights a2n, where n ∈ N and 0 < a < 1 is defined by Cφf = f ∘ φ. If Cφ is a bounded operator, then it is called a composition operator. The adjoint of the composition operator Cφ, is computed, and it is used to characterise normal, unitary, isometric, and co-isometric composition operators. Not every invertible φ induces an invertible composition operator, as is shown by examples. At the end of this note all invertible composition operators are characterised.