<p>Shiv Nadar University is a comprehensive, multidisciplinary, research-focused, and student-centric University offering a full range of academic programs at the undergraduate, postgraduate and doctoral level. With state-of-the-art infrastructure, the University comprises of academic wings, sophisticated labs, international standard sports facilities, amphitheaters, auditorium, conference rooms and smart classrooms. The University&rsquo;s goal is to become internationally recognized for the quality of its research and creative endeavors and their applicability to improving quality of life, generating new insights and expanding the boundaries of human knowledge creativity. Committed to excellence in teaching, research and service, the University aims to serve the higher education needs of India and the world beyond.</p>

Shiv Nadar University

(SoNS) School of Natural Sciences

We have revisited the study of the nanostructured lithium iron silicate-based cathode for a safe lithium-ion battery and to understand the reaction mechanism from the first cycle to the second cycle. Ex situ Mössbauer and X-ray absorption near edge structure spectroscopy (XANES) measurements have been carried out on electrodes charged at various voltages to investigate the electrochemical activity of the Fe3+/Fe4+ redox couple to confirm the existence of Fe4+ and its role in defining the structural and electrochemical properties. The first charge and discharge lead to a structural change, which results in a potential plateau shift after the first charge. To validate this understanding, ex situ synchrotron X-ray diffraction (SXRD) along with Rietveld refinement results and first-principles density functional theory-based analysis have been performed, which also support the change in the crystal structure of the material with cycling. The in situ electrochemical impedance spectroscopy demonstrates phase transformation in delithiated iron silicate as lithium concentration changes during the charging process, which has been correlated with change in the density of states calculated by density functional theory. Finally, a full-cell prototype has been demonstrated for the first time using a lithium iron silicate cathode as the cathode and graphite as the anode, and this full cell showed a capacity retention of 92\% after 50 cycles at a 1 C rate. Copyright © 2019 American Chemical Society.

World University root node

Physics

ACS Applied Energy Materials

Study of Higher Discharge Capacity, Phase Transition, and Relative Structural Stability in Li2FeSiO4 Cathode upon Lithium Extraction Using an Experimental and Theoretical Approach and Full Cell Prototype Study

Traditionally, lead and heavy metal containing inorganic oxides dominate the area of ferroelectricity. Although, recently, lightweight non-toxic organic ferroelectrics have emerged as excellent alternatives, achieving higher temperature up to which the ferroelectric phase can persist has remained a challenge. Moreover, only a few of those are single-component molecular ferroelectrics and were discovered upon revisiting their crystal structures. Here we report a novel phenanthroimidazole derivative, which not only displays notable spontaneous and highly stable remnant polarizations with a low coercive field but also retains its ferroelectric phase up to a record-high temperature of ∼521 K. Subsequently, the crystal undergoes phase transition to form non-polar and centrosymmetric polymorphs, the first study of its kind in a single-component ferroelectric crystal. Moreover, the compound exhibits a significantly high thermal stability. Given the excellent figures-of-merit for ferroelectricity, this material is likely to find potential applications in microelectronic devices pertaining to non-volatile memory. © The Royal Society of Chemistry 2019.

Center for Informatics

Chemistry

Fulltext

Chemical Communications

Record-high thermal stability achieved in a novel single-component all-organic ferroelectric crystal exhibiting polymorphism

The genetics of coat color variation remains a classic area. Earlier studies have focused on a limited number of genes involved in color determination; however, the complete set of trait determinants are still not well known. In this study, we used high-throughput sequencing technology to identify and characterize intricate interactions between genes that cause complex coat color variation in Changthangi Pashmina goats, producer of finest and costly commercial animal fiber. We systematically identified differentially expressed mRNAs and lncRNAs from black, brown and white Pashmina goat skin samples by using RNA-sequencing technique. A pairwise comparison of black, white and brown skin samples yielded 2479 significantly dysregulated genes (2422 mRNA and 57 lncRNAs). Differentially expressed genes were enriched in melanin biosynthesis, melanocyte differentiation, developmental pigmentation, melanosome transport activities GO terms. Our analysis suggested the potential role of lncRNAs on color coding mRNAs in cis and trans configuration. We have also developed online data repository as a component of the study to provide a central location for data access, visualization and interpretation accessible through http://pcd.skuastk.org/. © 2019, The Author(s).

Life Sciences

Scientific Reports

Comparative transcriptome analysis reveals the genetic basis of coat color variation in Pashmina goat

Present research efforts coupled with improved experimental techniques have provided voluminous genomic data. To convert this data into useful knowledge, novel tools for phenomenological and data driven modelling approaches are needed. This need has spurred initiation of a lot of rigorous efforts and has resulted in development of robust artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) based models. While these paradigms individually and in synergistic combinations have been employed in various bioinformatics applications, the viral biology discipline has particularly benefitted most. These methodologies can efficiently handle single dimensional sequence to higher dimensional protein structures, microarray data, image and text data, experimental data emanating from spectroscopy, etc. Our analysis deals with ML tools like support vector machines (SVM), neural networks, deep neural networks, random forest, and decision tree. Analysis and interpretations are provided along with ample illustrations of their relevance to real-life applications. AI and evolutionary computing based tools like Genetic Algorithms, Ant Colony optimization, Particle swarm optimization and their applicability to viral biology problems are also discussed. Hybrid combination of these tools with ML techniques have resulted in simultaneous selection of informative attributes and high performance classification. This hybrid methodology has been discussed in detail. In this chapter we describe the applications artificial intelligence and machine learning in virology. While there are AI has a multitude of tools, the focus would be on a specific aspect of Ai, known as evolutionary and heuristic computing. These are mainly employed as an alternative paradigm of optimization. They are mainly nature inspired algorithms. Although very simple and straightforward to use they have been deputed to solve several problems successfully in different domains of science and engineering. Machine learning on the other hand deals with a mountain of available data, recognize hidden patterns useful and interesting to upgrade it to structure and knowledge. We provide examples of the power of AI and Machine learning with the illustration of several examples from different subdomains of viral biology. We will also provide examples where the synergistic combination of AI and ML has a been found to be a very potent tool for solving several important problems in viral biology. © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019. All rights reserved.

Global Virology III: Virology in the 21st Century

Applications of artificial intelligence and machine learning in viral biology

Deinococcus radiodurans exhibits growth medium-dependent morphological variation in cell shape, but there is no evidence whether this phenomenon is observed in other members of the Deinococcaceae family. In this study, we isolated a red-pigmented, aerobic, Deinococcus indicus strain DR1 from Dadri wetland, India. This D. indicus strain exhibited cell-morphology transition from rod-shaped cells to multicell chains in a growth-medium-dependent fashion. In response to addition of 1\% casamino acids in the minimal growth medium, rod-shaped cells formed multi-cell chains. Addition of all 20 amino acids to the minimal medium was able to recapitulate the phenotype. Specifically, a combination of L-methionine, L-lysine, L-aspartate, and L-threonine caused morphological alterations. The transition from rod shape to multi-cell chains is due to delay in daughter cell separation after cell division. Minimal medium supplemented with L-ornithine alone was able to cause cell morphology changes. Furthermore, a comparative UPLC analysis of PG fragments isolated from D. indicus cells propagated in different growth media revealed alterations in the PG composition. An increase in the overall cross-linkage of PG was observed in muropeptides from nutrient-rich TSB and NB media versus PYE medium. Overall our study highlights that environmental conditions influence PG composition and cell morphology in D. indicus. Copyright © 2019 Chauhan, Srivastava, Ritzl, Yennamalli, Cava and Priyadarshini. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

Frontiers in Microbiology

Amino acid-dependent alterations in cell wall and cell morphology of deinococcus indicus DR1

Agriculture now is shifting in light of society's requirements. Where promising to provide as an instance, drinking water retention implanted area, which ensure superb services and products are very popular. Green houses have become for accomplishing those targets an answer; afterward back, problems that were tough can be prompted by a greenhouse for a technique for the farming. The increased section of these are discovered within the greenhouse setting states by which restraining the temperatures, and relative humidity (RH) would be the essential targets of technology. Accomplishing climate states that were proper to ensure that usage diminishing are the target of search for a significant long time. Programs in manage hypotheses are connected to manage the topics previously. The idea with the paper is to introduce an overview of control strategies that are diverse implemented in farming to manage rainwater setting requirements, revealing detriments and conditions of get a grip on levels that are to indicate a design approach according to outcome gained by assessments. © BEIESP.

International Journal of Recent Technology and Engineering

Green house control system: A research

In this work, we have developed novel multifunctional magnetic-polymeric nanoparticles (MMPNs) based ferrofluids by encapsulating oleylamine (OM)-coated hydrophobic superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles (SPIONs) inside the poly(lactic-co-glycolic acid) (PLGA) nanoparticles (NPs) individually, and along with two drugs such as curcumin (Cur, a chemotherapeutic drug (CHD)), and/or verapamil (Ver, a calcium channel blocker (CCB)). Herein, several parameters such as weighed amount (wt\%) of PLGA polymer (i.e., Resomer), stabilizer (i.e., polyvinyl alcohol (PVA)), organic solvents, amount of the SPIONs (in liquid suspension and powder forms), and amount of the drugs (i.e., Cur or/and Ver) are varied during the encapsulation process to optimize the formulation of PLGA NPs. The resulting polymeric NPs including empty PLGA NPs (i.e., without SPIONs/drugs), and MMPNs such as SPIONs-loaded PLGA NPs, Cur-SPIONs-loaded PLGA NPs, Ver-SPIONs-loaded PLGA NPs, and Cur-Ver-SPIONs-loaded PLGA NPs have displayed (i) hydrodynamic diameters and zeta potentials in the range of 280.8–287.3 nm, and −21 to – 26 mV, respectively, and (ii) better encapsulation efficiency for the SPIONs/Cur/Ver. In addition, the MMPNs have exhibited (i) magnetization values in the range of 7.6–9.5 emu/g with superparamagnetic behaviour, (ii) concentration based time-dependent temperature raise up-to 42 °C (minimum therapeutic temperature in magnetic fluid hyperthermia (MFH)/thermotherapy) with heating efficacies i.e., specific absorption rate (SAR) and intrinsic loss power (ILP) values ranging from 7 to 36 W/gFe and 0.1–0.4 nHm2/kg, respectively and (iii) better cytocompatibility. Finally, the SPIONs and dual-drugs (Cur &amp;Ver) co-loaded PLGA NPs have shown enhanced therapeutic efficacy in HepG2 cancer cells via combined therapies (i.e., thermotherapy and chemotherapy), as compared to the individual therapy (i.e., thermotherapy or chemotherapy) using the SPIONs/Cur/Ver loaded PLGA NPs. Thus, the as-prepared SPIONs/dual-drugs co-loaded PLGA NPs (i.e., MMPNs based ferrofluids) are potential therapeutic candidates for multi-modal treatment of cancer in vitro using thermotherapy and chemotherapy. © 2019 Elsevier B.V.

Journal of Molecular Liquids

Multifunctional magnetic-polymeric nanoparticles based ferrofluids for multi-modal in vitro cancer treatment using thermotherapy and chemotherapy

THz spectroscopy is an attractive technique to study the interaction of proteins in water as it is highly sensitive to water mediated interactions. GroEL, a barrel shaped chaperonin known for assisting protein folding, is studied using THz-TDS technique for varying concentrations. Results show significant decrease in absorption with increasing concentrations demonstrating the formation of more bound water due to the presence of GroEL complex. © 2019 IEEE.

International Conference on Infrared, Millimeter, and Terahertz Waves, IRMMW-THz

Study of Protein Water Interactions in GroEL Molecular Chaperonins using Terahertz Spectroscopy

Simultaneous superhydrophobic and visible range antireflective properties are demonstrated in hydrothermally grown ZnO nanorods (NRs) on chemically textured Si surfaces. A drastic transformation of Si micro-pyramids from hydrophobic to superhydrophobic is observed by securing the formation of polycrystalline ZnO NRs at surfaces, showing an increment of apparent contact angle from ∼102° to ∼157° and further explained in the light of a decrease in solid fractional surface area, according to the Cassie-Baxter model. Moreover, wurtzite phase of ZnO NRs is confirmed by the X-ray diffraction and Raman analysis. Such hierarchical structures further exhibit a large visible range antireflection (∼5\%), and correlated it to the variation in aspect ratio of Si pyramids in conjunction with the formation of graded refractive index. The combined superhydrophobic and large antireflection phenomena in the present dual-scale structures is believed to be useful for Si-based photovoltaic applications. © 2019 IOP Publishing Ltd.

Materials Research Express

Tailoring superhydrophobic ZnO nanorods on Si pyramids with enhanced visible range antireflection property

The large number of potential applications of ionic liquids (ILs) requires an understanding of their environmental impacts including their adverse effects on microorganisms living in soil and water. The molecular mechanism of toxic activities of these liquids is yet to be understood in detail. Any foreign molecules, interacting with an organism, have to encounter first the cellular membrane, which is predominantly composed of the lipid bilayer. In this work, multilamellar vesicles (MLV) of phospholipids have been used to shed light on the effect of an IL on the structure of a cellular membrane. The MLVs formed by the zwitterionic lipid, 1,2-dipalmitoyl-sn-glycero-3-phosphocholine (DPPC) are found to shrink as a consequence of interaction with an imidazolium-based IL, 1-decyl-3-methylimidazolium tetrafluoroborate ([DMIM] [BF 4 ]). The absorbed ILs significantly modify the surface charge of the MLVs. While these observations indicate a strong membrane-IL interaction, synchrotron-based small angle X-ray diffraction (SAXD) measurements provide a structural description of the interaction. SAXD and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy studies clearly reveal a disordering effect of the IL on the conformational organization of the lipid chains. The presence of the negatively charged lipid 1,2-dipalmitoyl-sn-glycero-3-phospho-l-serine sodium salt (DPPS) in MLVs plays an important role in disordering the chains in the membrane and inter-bilayer interactions. © 2018, European Biophysical Societies' Association.