Indian Institute of Ecology and Environment

House object detection plays a pivotal role in enabling intelligent home automation, surveillance, and assistive technologies. The proposed model architecture integrates advanced modules—including convolutional layers, feature fusion blocks, and optimized detection heads—facilitating accurate multi-class localization. A robust data augmentation pipeline was employed using techniques like blur, grayscale conversion, and CLAHE to improve generalization. Experimental evaluation on the custom HomeObjects-3K dataset comprising 404 validation images with 3,466 object instances demonstrated strong detection performance. The model achieved an overall precision of 0.734, recall of 0.683, mAP@0.5 of 0.729.Notably photo frame (mAP@0.5: 0.876), sofa (0.878), and table (0.841) were detected with high accuracy.

Transition metal-activated peroxymonosulfate (PMS) processes are extensively studied for pollutant degradation, with phenyl methyl sulfoxide (PMSO) commonly used as a probe for detecting high-valent metal species. However, recent studies have attributed PMSO oxidation to reactive oxygen species generated from PMS self-decomposition, raising concerns about the probe’s specificity. This study systematically evaluated PMSO oxidation under varying pH conditions to reassess its reliability. The results showed that the PMSO degradation and methyl phenyl sulfone (PMSO2) formation increased significantly with rising pH. This pH-dependency, intrinsic to the PMS/PMSO system, indicates potential interference from PMS itself. Multiple analytical approaches indicate that 1O2 and O2•- generated from PMS self-decomposition make negligible contributions, whereas PMS itself is the primary oxidant converting PMSO to PMSO2. Kinetic studies revealed that SO52– primarily drives PMSO oxidation via nucleophilic attack, with a rate constant of 10.44 M–1s–1, far exceeding that of HSO5– (0.037 M–1 s–1). Theoretical calculations further confirmed that PMSO is relatively resistant to nucleophilic attack by SO52–, making it a comparatively reliable sulfoxide probe in acidic and neutral PMS systems. These findings highlight the limitation of PMSO as a high-valent metal probe under alkaline conditions and offer guidance for probe selection in future studies.

Estuarine surface fronts, where freshwater outflow and saline tidal inflow converge, may play a critical yet understudied role in microplastic (MP) accumulation. This study presents compelling evidence of strong convergence of MP at a small-scale surface front near the Eastern Johor Strait (EJS), a typical urbanized coast in Southeast Asia, revealing an estuary tidal intrusion front as a recurrent hotspot that concentrates MP at levels comparable to known estuarine frontal systems. Significantly elevated levels of floating microplastics (150.5 ± 19.8 MP pieces/L) were detected at the surface front compared to other surface water samples along the coast (p < 0.001; 9.2 ± 4.8 MP pieces/L). Hydrodynamic simulations demonstrate that the dynamic interplay between freshwater and seawater are the key mechanisms governing this process. The resulting convergence zones effectively trap buoyant plastics, forming quasi-persistent accumulation zones. Specifically, during ebb tide, parallel outflows from the Johor River and inner EJS amplify frontal convergence, actively trapping floating plastics at the salinity boundary. These findings highlight estuarine surface fronts as influential and previously underquantified systemic pathways influencing MP circulation and retention at marginal seas. Recognizing these traceable accumulation hotspots at ocean boundaries is an urgent priority, offering opportunities for targeted mitigation, particularly in high-leakage regions.

The widespread occurrence of antibiotics in the natural aquatic environment requires urgent remediation. The promising oxidation processes typically generate hydroxyl radicals (·OH) with the addition of chemical oxidants; however, they suffer from limited removal efficacy due to excessively undesired depletion of ·OH by coexisting environmental substances. Hence, this study proposed to address the above challenges by the oriented generation of singlet oxygen (1O2) from oxygen molecules (O2). Guided by DFT calculation, the adsorption capacity and subsequential activation of O2 were promoted through doping O on FeS2 (FeS2-O), leading to the oriented production of 1O2 with a 46.87-fold higher exposure than ·OH, with visible-light irradiation-trigged photogenerated electrons to facilitate the activation process. The FeS2-O/O2 system exhibited a remarkedly enhanced remediation efficiency of antibiotics, with a 6.62-fold increase in kinetic constant compared to pristine FeS2. In addition, 1O2-mediated antibiotic remediation demonstrated robust performance across various water qualities, with a great potential to reduce ecotoxicological risks. We developed an external oxidant-free technique for the directed production of 1O2 from O2 to effectively degrade and detoxify antibiotics in aquatic environments, providing new insights for natural water remediation.

Covid-19 brought an unprecedented and challenging time all over the globe. With the unpreparedness and lack of awareness regarding the global pandemic, it soon became an international concern. From loss of lives to loss of livelihood, the pandemic had a huge impact on global citizens and various nation-states. Unlike any other crisis, Covid-19 too pushed the government and its people to restructure and reform their framework, especially in the face of such an unprecedentedly adverse situation. This article highlights the need of a crisis response framework and formulation of agile public policy during such a global catastrophe. Taking the novel coronavirus as the epicentre demanding a rapid response formulation of Government of India, the article delineates upon strategic intervention of the government towards Covid-19 and the need of a crisis response framework for the future.

The article analyzes the price dynamics of organic vegetables in Lithuania during the period of 2014 - 2016. A comparative analysis of the prices of organic vegetables (potatoes, carrots, onions) was carried out as well as a comparative analysis of Lithuanian and imported vegetables, the trends of organic potato and vegetable price dynamics were estimated. The research carried out has revealed that lowest price of organic potato during the research period was in spring and winter. Potatoes of new harvest during summer (1.23 EUR/kg) and autumn (1.25 EUR/kg) seasons are higher. Price difference between Lithuanian and imported organic carrots and potatoes during different seasons is insignificant; significant fluctuations have been recorded only in Lithuanian and imported carrots in all period and potatoes in 2015. The most expensive vegetables were organic carrots, the average price of which in 2014 was 1.38 EUR/kg. During the research period the average price of organic potatoes was 1.21 EUR/kg, i.e. 2.5 of times more than the conventional carrots (0.47 EUR/kg). Prices of the imported vegetables were higher than the prices of Lithuanian ones. In the analysed period the price of imported carrots (1.98 EUR/kg) was on average 1.5 times higher than the price of Lithuanian carrots (1.31 EUR/kg), imported organic onions (2.33 EUR/kg) were up to 57% more expensive than Lithuanian onions (1.33 EUR/kg). Germany has a wider supply of organic products. The price of potatoes in Germany using the analyzed period has risen in 51%. In 2016, the price of potatoes in Germany was 34% higher than in Lithuania. During the entire research period the price of organic carrots in Lithuania was higher than in Germany. In 2016, onions in Germany were 16% more expensive.

The inhibitory effect of SO2 on side reactions of NH3-SCR over olivine was thoroughly investigated.

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Additional informationNotes on contributorsM Jagadesh KumarM Jagadesh Kumar (SM'99) was born in Mamidala, Nalgonda District, Andhra Pradesh, India. He received the MS and PhD degrees in electrical engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, India. From 1991 to 1994, he performed post-doctoral research in modeling and processing of high-speed bipolar transistors with the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, ON, Canada. While with the University of Waterloo, he also did research on amorphous silicon TFTs. From July 1994 to December 1995, he was initially with the Department of Electronics and Electrical Communication Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, India, and then joined the Department of Electrical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, India, where he became an Associate Professor in July 1997 and a Full Professor in January 2005. His research interests are in VLSI device modeling and simulation for nanoscale applications, integrated-circuit technology, and power semiconductor devices. He has published extensively in the above areas with more than 115 publications in refereed journals and conferences and has filed five patent applications. His teaching has often been rated as outstanding by the Faculty Appraisal Committee, IIT Delhi.Dr Kumar is a Fellow of Institution of Electronics and Telecommunication Engineers (IETE), India. He has been awarded the 29th IETE Ram Lal Wadhwa Gold Medal for distinguished contribution in the field of semi-conductor device design and modeling. He is an editor of IEEE Transactions on Electron Devices. He is also on the editorial board of (i) Recent Patents on Nanotechnology, (ii) Journal of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology and (iii) IETE Journal of Research as a subject area Honorary Editor for Electronic Devices and Components. He has reviewed extensively for different journals including IEEE Trans on Electron Devices, IEEE Trans on Device and Materials Reliability, IEE Proc on Circuits, Devices and Systems, Electronics Letters and Solid-state Electronics. He was Chairman, Fellowship Committee, The Sixteenth International Conference on VLSI Design, January 4–8, 2003, New Delhi, India. He was Chairman of the Technical Committee for High Frequency Devices, International Workshop on the Physics of Semiconductor Devices, December 13–17, 2005, New Delhi, India.

Abstract Software maintenance is usually the most expensive phase of the software life‐cycle. Program understanding and impact‐of‐change analysis are two of the major activities during this phase. In this paper, we describe attributed program dependency graphs (APDGs), a model to store information derived from the program source code and ease construction of tools for software maintenance. We show how the model can be used for interactive view generation and doing two kinds of impact‐of‐change analysis—incremental and comparison‐oriented. Incremental change analysis uses APDGs and a Rule Base to provide a way for the user to analysis the effect of proposed well‐defined changes. Comparison‐oriented change analysis allows a user to generate structural semantic differences between two versions of a subsystem after an arbitrary sequence of changes. We also introduce SCAN, a prototype collection of loosely integrated tools based on the APDG model and describe our experiences with the system.