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The study evaluates the potential of different vegetable wastes namely, composite vegetable waste (CVW), potato waste (PW), sweet potato waste (SPW) and yam waste (YW) as an alternative feedstock for the production of renewable sugars. Thermal assisted chemical pretreatment followed by enzymatic saccharification yielded maximum sugars (0.515 g/g CVW, 0.56 g/g PW, 0.57 g/g SPW and 0.56 g/g YW) with total carbohydrate depolymerization of 95.01%, 88.30%, 90.32% and 88.59% respectively. Obtained sugars were valorized into bioethanol through fermentation using S. cerevisiae by optimizing the pH and temperature. The highest ethanol yield of 251.85 mg/g was obtained from SPW at 35°C followed by YW (240.98 mg/g), PW (235.4 mg/g) and CVW (125.6 mg/g) at pH 5.0. Utilizing the abundantly available vegetable wastes as a renewable feedstock for reducing sugars and subsequent bioethanol production will influence the economics and sustainability of the process positively in circular biorefinery format.

Over the years, the commercial buildings sector has emerged as one of India’s fastest-growing sector and the commercial space is expected to grow four fold between 2015 and 2030. Due to the absence of thermal comfort regulations in India, designers frequently overdesign cooling systems in accordance with international norms, leading to unsustainable practises and energy wastage. The conventional building construction in India’s warm and humid climate make people uncomfortable due to heat gains, forcing the use of cooling equipment that require a lot of energy. Use of passive design options in the building envelope is thought to be a viable strategy for lowering energy usage. The different effects of building exterior components and passive design solutions on the indoor thermal environment can be effectively integrated using the criterion of thermal comfort. A new thermal discomfort index based on adaptive comfort using the numerical method and trapezoidal rule is established and used as a basis of comparison to assess the relative performance of building envelopes. In comparison to the reference building envelope in warm, humid climate, the research shows that careful attention to building envelope design with consideration of various passive options can improve the indoor thermal environment by 5.82 °C, reduce thermal discomfort by 80.75 percent and save energy up to 77 percent.

The acaricidal activity of acetone and ethanol extracts of 12 plant species was evaluated using the contact method on Rhipicephalus turanicus (Acari: Ixodidae) ticks at an initial concentration of 20% (200 mg/mL). Eight of the 12 plants had mortality greater than 50% and the acetone extracts had better acaricidal activity than the ethanol extracts. The acetone extract of Calpurnia aurea (leaves and flowers) had the highest corrected mortality (CM) of 92.2% followed by Schkuhria pinnata (whole plant) with a CM of 88.9%, Ficus sycomorus (bark and stems) 86.7% and Senna italica subsp. arachoides (roots, leaves and fruits) 83.3%. Selected extracts were tested at five different concentrations using the adult immersion test. From dose–response assays, EC₅₀ values of 61.82 mg/mL, 115.21 mg/mL and 161.02 mg/mL were obtained for the acetone extracts of S. pinnata (whole plant), S. italica subsp. arachoides (roots, leaves and fruits) and C. aurea (leaves and flowers) respectively. The ethanol extract of Monsonia angustifolia (whole plant) had the highest CM of 97.8% followed by S. pinnata (whole plant) with a CM of 86.7%, C. aurea (leaves and flowers) 81.1% and Cleome gynandra (leaves) 77.8%. There is potential for the development of environmentally benign botanicals as natural acaricides against R. turanicus.

European physical journal special topics 228(2), 261-623 (2019). doi:10.1140/epjst/e2019-900045-4 Published by Springer, Berlin ; Heidelberg

Objective The current guidelines suggest alcohol septal ablation (ASA) is less effective in hypertrophic obstructive cardiomyopathy (HOCM) patients with severe left ventricular hypertrophy, despite acknowledging that systematic data are lacking. Therefore, we analysed patients in the Euro-ASA registry to test this statement. Methods We compared the short-term and long-term outcomes of patients with basal interventricular septum (IVS) thickness <30 mm Hg to those with ≥30 mm Hg treated using ASA in nine European centres. Results A total of 1519 patients (57±14 years, 49% women) with symptomatic HOCM were treated, including 67 (4.4%) patients with IVS thickness ≥30 mm. The occurrence of short-term major adverse events were similar in both groups. The mean follow-up was 5.4±4.3 years and 5.1±4.1 years, and the all-cause mortality rate was 2.57 and 2.94 deaths per 100 person-years of follow-up in the IVS <30 mm group and the IVS ≥30 mm group (p=0.047), respectively. There were no differences in dyspnoea (New York Heart Association class III/IV 12% vs 16%), residual left ventricular outflow tract gradient (16±20 vs 16±16 mm Hg) and repeated septal reduction procedures (12% vs 18%) in the IVS <30 mm group and IVS ≥30 mm group, respectively (p=NS for all). Conclusions The short-term results and the long-term relief of dyspnoea, residual left ventricular outflow obstruction and occurrence of repeated septal reduction procedures in patients with basal IVS ≥30 mm is similar to those with IVS <30mm. However, long-term all-cause and cardiac mortality rates are worse in the ≥30 mm group.