Even though the anion exchange membrane fuel cells have many advantages, the stability of their electrocatalysts for oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) has remained remarkably poor. We report here on the ultrathin twisty PdNi-alloy nanowires (NWs) exhibiting a very low reaction overpotential with an E 1/2 ∼ 0.95 V versus RHE in alkaline media maintained over 200 K cycles, the highest ever recorded for an electrocatalyst. The mass activity of the used NWs is >10 times higher than fresh commercial Pt/C. Therein, Ni improves the Pd d-band center for a more efficient ORR, and its leaching continuously regenerates the surface active sites. The twisty nanowire morphology imparts multiple anchor points on the electrode surface to arrest their detachment or coalescence and extra stability from self-entanglement. The significance of the NW morphology was further confirmed from the high-temperature durability studies. The study demonstrates that tailoring the number of contact points to the electrode-surface may help realize commercial-grade stability in the highly active electrocatalysts.

PurposeThe underlying research is an attempt to discover the factors responsible for influencing customer purchase intention towards solar water heaters.Design/methodology/approachSix dimensions have been considered to assess customer purchase intention towards a solar water heater. The primary data involves the responses collected from 695 respondents belonging to the north region of India using a convenience sampling technique. Structural equation modeling analysis has been employed to examine the dimensions' impact on customer purchase intention.FindingsThe results concluded that dimensions such as increasing energy prices, product knowledge and experience, financial support and subsidies, perceived cost, have a positive influence on customers' purchase intention of solar water heater except for the dimension of “solar water heater aesthetics”.Research limitations/implicationsDue to the limited sample size, findings cannot be generalized for the large-scale population. Moreover, this study is only confined to the assessment of particular factors that are affecting the purchase intention of customers confined to solar water heaters only.Practical implicationsThe present study will provide an advantage to organizations that are in the process of implementing solar energy products into working. Moreover, this research will also assist policymakers regarding the formulation of policies on solar energy products. An undue advantage of this would be the increasing adoption of a solar water heater by understanding the factors that impact customer purchase intention.Originality/valueConsiderably, this research, by filling up the gap in the existing studies, will empirically contribute to the customer purchase intention towards SWHs. Additionally, the results of the study will also endow an additive advantage to the existing firms.

The inherent advantages of microwave imagining (MWI) being noninvasive and nonionizing for cancer detection, has attracted the attention of researchers in this area. Therefore, the present research article proposes an UWB (ultrawideband) stacked MSA (Micro-strip antenna) for MWI of skin cancer. The proposed research work precisely focuses on the diagnosis of skin cancer in human forearm using the designed MSA in mono-static radar based configuration to collect S parameter data and process it to form an image of the scanned body area. The proposed UWB SAMPA (stacked aperture coupled micro-strip patch antenna) has three layered stacked aperture coupled geometry with a defected ground structure with dimensions 36 Â 30 Â 4.85 mm 3 . A simulated and measured bandwidth of 6.23 GHz (6.14 to 12.37 GHz) and 5.28 GHz (5.72 to 11 GHz) are observed and a gain of 6.3 and 6.4 dB is reported respectively.The in vitro detection of skin cancer is done by fabricating a bio mimic of human forearm with same electrical properties as that of human skin. The proposed SAMPA is used to collect S parameter data from the scan of forearm phantom. This data is then processed in beamforming algorithms to create a 2D dielectric profile of the scanned forearm area. The multiply Delay and Sum with Coherent factor (CF-DMAS) beam forming algorithm is utilized for reconstruction of the 2D image of the cancerous effected area along with its locations and size in MATLAB. The proposed MWI procedure is validated experimentally with the prototype of proposed SAMPA and a human forearm phantom after simulations in CST MWS. The proposed SAMPA is also safe for the human exposure, as it has simulated specific absorption rate (SAR) on the forearm phantom of 1.013 and 1.09 at frequency 7.04 and 8.67 GHz respectively. K E Y W O R D Smicrowave imaging, multiply delay and sum with coherent factor, skin cancer, stacked aperture coupled micro strip antenna

Present investigation describes the first total synthesis of a proline-rich cyclic peptide segetalin E (8) by solution phase technique. The chemical structure of the compound was elucidated by FT-IR, 1H-NMR, 13C-NMR, FAB-MS spectral data and elemental analyses. The newly synthesized peptide was subjected to pharmacological screening and found to exhibit high cytotoxicity against Dalton's lymphoma ascites (DLA) and Ehrlich's ascites carcinoma (EAC) cell lines with IC50 values of 3.71 and 9.11 microM, in addition to good anthelmintic activity against earthworms M. konkanensis and P. corethruses at a dose of 2 mg/mL.

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