Search results

The rapid technological growth, changes in consumer demands, products’ built-in obsolescence, presence of more non-repairable parts, shorter lifespan, etc., lead to the generation of e-waste at an unprecedented rate. Although a number of research proposals and business products to manage e-waste exist in the literature, they lack in many aspects such as incomplete coverage of product’s life cycle, access control, payment channels (in few cases), incentive mechanisms, scalability issues, and missing experimental validation. The purpose of this paper is to introduce a novel blockchain-based e-waste management system aiming to mitigate the above-mentioned downsides and limitations of the existing proposals.

This paper proposes a robust and reliable e-waste management system by leveraging the power of blockchain technology, which captures the complete life cycle of e-products commencing from their manufacturing as new products to their disposal as e-waste and their recycling back into raw materials.

While the use of blockchain technology increases accountability, transparency and trust in the system, the proposal overcomes various challenges and limitations of the existing systems by providing seamless interactions among various agencies.

This paper presents a prototype implementation of the system as a proof-of-concept using solidity on the Ethereum platform and this paper performs experimental evaluations to demonstrate its feasibility and effective performance in terms of execution gas cost and transaction throughput.

The purpose of this paper is to estimate the market demand and compare the average market margins for six broad categories of fresh produce in different retail formats across five select cities of the country. It also tries to qualitatively understand the supply chain management practices of these retailers across cities.

Registered retail outlets were selected randomly from online sources. Market potential was estimated as the average sales of each category of fresh produce. Personal interviews were conducted with the market players in order to collect qualitative data about their supply chain management practices.

Potatoes, onions and tomatoes are the largest consumed category of fresh produce across cities. Consumers in Tier 1 and Tier 2 cities exhibit different buying behavior and preferences. Large retailers and small retailers coexist in the cities. Marketing margins of retail formats are not uniform across cities.

The study did not capture the reasons for the differences observed in consumer preferences and buying behavior across cities. The study has taken into consideration only registered neighborhood stores in the study locations.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, the paper is first of its kind which has attempted to estimate the categorywise market potential of fresh produce across study cities.

The purpose of this study is to consider the dynamics of Casson–Walters-B alongside gyrotactic microorganisms through the investigation of antibacterial and antiviral mechanisms using silver nanoparticles (AgNPs). The Casson fluid and Walters-B flow from the penetrable plate to the boundary layer (BL) in this analysis. The antiviral and antibacterial mechanisms of AgNPs were separately examined in this study.

The physical phenomenon of this problem was analyzed with partial differential equations (PDEs). These PDEs were changed into ordinary differential equations (ODEs) to further explain the significance of pertinent control parameters. The set of equations is solved numerically by implementing the spectral relaxation method (SRM). SRM is a numerical technique that uses the basic techniques of Gauss-Seidel. The SRM first decouples and linearizes the coupled nonlinear set of ODEs.

In this finding, it is found that the thermal radiation parameter produces higher temperatures within the BL to cause blockage in viral replications. It is found in this study that the magnetic parameter assisted in disinfection by lowering the antiviral and antibacterial mechanisms within the momentum BL. This is evident from the reduction in the velocity and momentum BL as the Casson and Walters-B parameters increase.

This paper is unique because it examined the antiviral and antibacterial mechanisms by using AgNPs. Prior to the authors’ understanding, no study of this type was conducted in the past. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, no other study in the past has examined the mechanisms of antiviral and antibacterial separately within the BL. Also, the simultaneous flow of Casson (honey) and Walters-B fluids were considered flowing through the vertical porous plate to the BL.

This paper investigates a numerical treatment to steady mixed convection in a lid-driven square cavity with arc-shaped moving wall or lid. The horizontal walls are thermally insulated. The vertical left wall is kept isothermally at high temperature, while the right arc-shaped moving wall is kept isothermally at low temperature.

Finite difference method in Cartesian coordinates with the upwind scheme is used in numerical solution. The irregular curved boundary has been treated by invoking non-uniform mesh grid with the ability to generate boundary fitted nodes. Jensen’s formulas of Neumann’s boundary condition have derived for the non-uniform mesh grid. The arc-shaped moving wall is considered as a segment of a rotating cylinder; thus, the studied pertinent parameters are the rotational speed of the arc-shaped wall in both aiding and opposing directions ω = −1,000-1,000, the arc-wall radius Ro = 0.5099-1.534 which is governed by its center (X₀, Y₀) = (1.1, 0.5)-(2.45, 0.5) and the Rayleigh number Ra = 10³ − 10⁶.

The results have shown that for low Rayleigh numbers, the rotational speed enhances heat transfer irrespective to the direction of rotation, while for high Rayleigh numbers, the aiding anticlockwise rotation (negative ω) enhances the heat transfer, while the opposing clockwise rotation (positive ω) manifests a retardation effect on the heat transfer. For a motionless arc-wall, its radius is ineffective for aiding heat transfer, while for non-zero arc-shaped wall speed, the heat transfer is an increasing function of its radius.

The arc-shaped moving wall has never been investigated until now. Therefore, the originality of this paper is due to studying the mixed convection in a lid-driven cavity with moving arc-shaped wall and inspecting the effect of its curvature and rotational speed in both directions on the flow and thermal fields.

The purpose of the paper was to assess the functional properties vegetable gourds & the validated health claims so as to help the future researchers to locate the gaps. However, emphasizing on the scientifically available reports was required to make information available in a nutshell to the health-conscious consumers, as well as the researcher from the area of functional foods and nutrition.

The paper is a mini-review of scientific findings in different studies on gourd vegetables. The approach to information collection was finding the research gaps and potential areas for future work with a nutritional perspective.

Ash gourd, bitter gourd and bottle gourd have been extensively studied, and several health benefits and functional components have been reported, while ridge gourd, snake gourd and pointed gourd have been sparsely studied for their therapeutic benefits and the validation thereof; hence, there lies a scope for researchers.

The scarcity of scientific reports compared to the traditional usage and folkloric beliefs was a limitation.

Understanding the nutritional potential of gourd vegetables from scientific reports may influence both the work areas and consumers in the appropriate direction.