While the production and consumption of nanomaterials are growing exponentially, research on the environmental effects and health risks is still in its early stage. The purpose of this research was to investigate the biological effects of hydrothermally synthesized zirconium dioxide nanoparticles (n-ZrO2). Physiochemical properties of the nanoparticles were confirmed by XRD, FTIR, UV-visible, SEM and EDX. Toxicity was observed on Swiss Albino mice after the oral gavage with four different concentration 0, 250,500, 1000 mg/kg. After one week administration period all the mice were sacrificed to study the biochemical parameters and histopathological change in the liver, kidney, spleen and stomach. Reproductive toxicity of the n-ZrO2 was investigated on the human spermatozoa after the 60 and 120 min incubation time at different concentration. Effects on microorganism also were examined using four types of bacterial strains. The results showed a significant variation in ALT, AST, ALP, creatinine and histopathological change in the organ at high concentration. Viability and motility of the human sperm significantly declined in the test groups. It could be speculated on the basis of results that n-ZrO2 have the oxidative nature and production of the free radicals which are the responsible of this toxic nature of the zirconium dioxide nanoparticles. These finding of this biological study will also be useful to define and elaborate the further adverse effects of the n-ZrO2.

El papel que juegan las bibliotecas en la formación académica de los estudiantes universitarios de nuestro país, comienza a tener en la actualidad una importancia central en las líneas de investigación de diversas instituciones de educación superior y entre los especialistas e investigadores, no solamente de la disciplina de la Bibliotecología sino también de otros campos del saber enriqueciendo y complementando con ello, los diversos enfoques teóricos-metodológicos bajo los cuales se ha abordado esta temática. Llevados de este interés, el presente artículo se deriva de una reciente investigación realizada en estudiantes de nuevo ingreso en dos universidades del estado de Tabasco, México, una de carácter pública y otra privada con el objetivo de conocer la relevancia e impacto que tienen las bibliotecas en los procesos de enseñanza y aprendizaje de la comunidad universitaria.

In the current semiconductor technology evolution, reliability is a major concern especially for the applications like banking, defense, medical, etc. To enhance the reliability, redundancy techniques are most commonly used by means of either in hardware, software, time or information. Once the correctly designed circuit is manufactured, there must a testing procedure to check there are no flaws. Here, the importance of hardware redundancy to enhance the reliability and testing to verify the designs are explored. This study mainly deals with exhaustive single stuck-at fault coverage of majority voters (MV) of triple modular redundancy (TMR) configuration. In total, there are eight different majority voters of TMR configuration are analyzed and a minimal test set is obtained in each voter circuits. In this paper, theoretical study conveys that the majority voter circuits namely MV4, MV5, MV5, MV6, MV7 and MV8 produce a minimal test covering all faults.

Increase in Electric power demand and green energy concepts made the Electric power sector to integrate renewable energy sources. This situation provokes Thermal power producers (TPP) to influence the market during the unavailability of renewable energy resources. Therefore an intelligent bidding strategy is framed by the TPP to maximize their benefit by utilizing the security constraint violations and wind power uncertainty. The intelligent strategic bidding model of TPP is proposed in this paper. It is modelled as a two level optimization problem. It is considered as an oligopoly market and the Cournot quantity model is applied to the problem. The power producers benefit function is a highly non concave function resulting in many local maxima. As a result, a more global soft computing optimization technique, using Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO), is applied to determine the intelligent optimal bidding parameter for TPP. The modified IEEE 30 bus system is used as test system. The results show that how the TPP can influence the wind integrated electric power market. This model of analysis helps an independent system operator to take wise decisions to run the market in an unbiased manner.

Growth and leaves production from Pittocaulon praecox (Asteraceae) were compared in two sites with different opening vegetation degree, measuring number and length of leaves during annual cycle, adding branch growth and leaves production biomass. We found that trees in higher covered site (closed) produced more leaves amount and are taller than the recorded in lower covered site (open). Differences can be related with the solar radiation incidence, environmental and soil humidite and herbivorous and edaphic microarthopods acidity, that are different in each site. We conclude that vegetation cover have influence in the growth and production of leaves of P. praecox.