Synthesis and characterization of azo‐based acrylate polymers for use as nonlinear optical materials

In this work, high molecular weight azo polymers were synthesized by incorporating the azo monomer into a base polymer through their reactive functional groups. Copolymers of methyl methacrylate and methacrylic acid (with varying concentrations of carboxylic acid group) were synthesized. These were then reacted with epoxy‐terminated azo molecule by carboxylic acid–epoxy reaction. The functionalized systems show excellent film homogeneity and optical clarity. The series of copolymers were characterized using FTIR, NMR, UV–vis spectrometry, gel permeation chromatography, elemental analysis, thermogravimetric analysis, and differential scanning calorimetry. The polymer films coated on ITO glass slides were poled and their order parameters were calculated to check the stability of oriented dipoles. Temporal stability, checked up to 120 h under ambient conditions, was found to be excellent. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 103: 425–431, 2007     

Nanoarchitectonics of Nanoporous Carbon Materials from Natural Resource for Supercapacitor Application

Nanoarchitectonics of nanoporous carbon materials (NCMs) derived from natural resource; Areca Catechu Nut (ACN) with enhanced electrochemical supercapacitance properties is reported. ACN powder is chemically activated in a tubular furnace at 400?°C and the effect of activating agent sodium hydroxide (NaOH), zinc chloride (ZnCl₂) and phosphoric acid (H₃PO₄) on the textural properties, surface functional groups and electrochemical supercapacitance properties was thoroughly examined. We found that ACN derived NCMs are amorphous in nature comprising of macropores, micropores and hierarchical micro- and mesopore architecture depending on the activating agent. Surface area and pore volume are found in the range 25–1985 m² g^?1 and 0.12–3.42 cm³ g^?1, respectively giving the best textural properties for H₃PO₄ activated NCM. Nevertheless, despite the different chemical activating agent used, all the prepared NCMs showed similar oxygen-containing surface functional groups (carboxyl, carboxylate, carbonyl and phenolic groups). The H₃PO₄ activated NCM showed excellent supercapacitance properties giving a high specific capacitance of ca. 342 F g^?1 at a scan rate of 5 mV s^?1 together with the high cyclic stability sustaining capacitance retention of about 97% after 5000 charging/discharging cycles. Electrochemical supercapacitance properties have demonstrated that the ACN derived novel nanoporous carbon material would be a potential material in energy storage application.     

An asymmetric hybrid cryptosystem using hyperchaotic system and random decomposition in hybrid multi resolution wavelet domain

In this paper, an asymmetric hybrid cryptosystem utilizing four-dimensional (4D) hyperchaotic framework by means of coherent superposition and random decomposition in hybrid multi-resolution wavelet domain is put forward. The 4D hyperchaotic framework is utilized for creating permutation keystream for a pixel swapping procedure. The hybrid multi-resolution wavelet is formed by combining Walsh transform and fractional Fourier transform of various orders. The 4D hyperchaotic framework’s parameters and preliminary conditions alongside the fractional orders extend the key-space and consequently give additional strength to the proposed cryptosystem. The proposed cryptosystem has an extended key-space to avoid any brute-force attack and is nonlinear in nature. The scheme is validated on greyscale images. Computer-based simulations have been executed to validate the robustness of the proposed scheme against different types of attacks. Results demonstrate that the proposed cryptosystem along with offering higher protection against noise and occlusion attacks is also unassailable to special attack.

     

Reconfigurable Patch Antenna Design Using Pin Diodes and Raspberry PI for Portable Device Application

The modern wireless communication system requires high performance portable devices, thus designing of such communicating devices plays a major role. More particularly, meander shape is selected over the traditional shapes of microstrip patch antenna for the application of portable device antenna. Accordingly, in this paper, orthogonal meander architecture along with PIN diodes are proposed to achieve vertical and horizontal polarization. Further, to control switching of PIN diodes, Raspberry PI system is employed. In the proposed method, a novel meander-shaped antenna is designed and simulated using High-Frequency Structure Simulator-11 (HFSS-11) with an operating frequency of 2.4 GHz. However, the optimized design dimensions are used to fabricate the antenna and then the results are verified. This paper highlights the simulated and experimental results including, S-Parameter, radiation pattern, current distribution, co and cross polarization, path loss and impedance. Besides, the paper demonstrates the effect of cover on the antenna performance. Finally, the proposed meander shape reconfigurable antenna have validated as a portable device antenna from the obtained results for wireless communication applications.

     

Power analysis attack resilient block cipher implementation based on 1-of-4 data encoding

Side-channel attacks pose an inevitable challenge to the implementation of cryptographic algorithms, and it is important to mitigate them. This work identifies a novel data encoding technique based on 1-of-4 codes to resist differential power analysis attacks, which is the most investigated category of side-channel attacks. The four code words of the 1-of-4 codes, namely (0001, 0010, 1000, and 0100), are split into two sets: set-0 and set-1. Using a select signal, the data processed in hardware is switched between the two encoding sets alternately such that the Hamming weight and Hamming distance are equalized. As a case study, the proposed technique is validated for the NIST standard AES-128 cipher. The proposed technique resists differential power analysis performed using statistical methods, namely correlation, mutual information, difference of means, and Welch's t-test based on the Hamming weight and distance models. The experimental results show that the proposed countermeasure has an area overhead of 2.3× with no performance degradation comparatively.     

Stabilizing Energy Consumption in Unequal Clusters of Wireless Sensor Networks

In the past few decades, Energy Efficiency (EE) has been a significant challenge in Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs). WSN requires reduced transmission delay and higher throughput with high quality services, it further pays much attention in increased energy consumption to improve the network lifetime. To collect and transmit data Clustering based routing algorithm is considered as an effective way. Cluster Head (CH) acts as an essential role in network connectivity and perform data transmission and data aggregation, where the energy consumption is superior to non-CH nodes. Conventional clustering approaches attempts to cluster nodes of same size. Moreover, owing to randomly distributed node distribution, a cluster with equal nodes is not an obvious possibility to reduce the energy consumption. To resolve this issue, this paper provides a novel, Balanced-Imbalanced Cluster Algorithm (B-IBCA) with a Stabilized Boltzmann Approach (SBA) that attempts to balance the energy dissipation across uneven clusters in WSNs. BIBCA utilizes stabilizing logic to maintain the consistency of energy consumption among sensor nodes’. So as to handle the changing topological characteristics of sensor nodes, this stability based Boltzmann estimation algorithm allocates proper radius amongst the sensor nodes. The simulation shows that the proposed B-IBCA outperforms effectually over other approaches in terms of energy efficiency, lifetime, network stability, average residual energy and so on.     

Effect of an alkaline salt (papad khar) and its substitute (2:1 sodium carbonate:sodium bicarbonate) on acrylamide formation in papads

The formation of acrylamide in papads processed by flame roasting, frying and microwave roasting as a function of the alkaline salt, papad khar and its substitute, 2:1 sodium carbonate:sodium bicarbonate (w/w) at various concentrations was examined. Addition of papad khar and 2:1 sodium carbonate:sodium bicarbonate makes the product alkaline, which is known to be conducive for the formation of acrylamide. While a correlation was found between acrylamide content and pH with respect to fried and flame roasted papads, microwave roasting did not show any acrylamide formation at all the levels of alkaline salts tested in this study. Flame roasting generated higher levels of acrylamide as compared to frying. Use of microwave roasting is therefore recommended as a consumer-friendly, healthy and safe technology for processing papads.     

A study on degradation kinetics of ascorbic acid in drumstick (Moringa olifera) leaves during cooking

The kinetics of ascorbic acid degradation in drumstick (Moringa olifera) leaves as well as in pure ascorbic acid solutions at the initial concentrations present in drumstick leaves over a temperature range of 50–120 °C (isothermal temperature process) has been studied. The degradation kinetics of ascorbic acid was also evaluated in normal open‐pan cooking, pressure‐cooking and a newly developed and patented fuel‐efficient eco cooker (non‐isothermal heating process). The ascorbic acid degradation followed first‐order reaction kinetics where the rate constant increased with an increase in the temperature. The temperature dependence of degradation was adequately modelled by the Arrhenius equation. A mathematical model was developed using the isothermal kinetic parameters obtained to predict the losses of ascorbic acid from the time–temperature data of the non‐isothermal heating/processing method. The results obtained indicate the ascorbic acid degradation is of similar order of magnitude in all the methods of cooking. Copyright © 2005 Society of Chemical Industry     

Gharats (watermills): Indigenous device for sustainable development of renewable hydro-energy in Uttrakhand Himalayas

The Himalaya has a rich ancient tradition for tapping hydro-energy from the hill streams and rivers through the device of gharats (watermills). The present contribution encompasses the study on the energy consumption pattern of hill communities living in buffer zone of the Nanda Devi Biosphere Reserve, a world heritage site located in Garhwal Himalayas, India, The current status of gharats, the factors responsible for the neglect of this renewable energy device, initiatives taken for upgrading for their revival have been highlighted. Field and policy level opportunities and constraints associated with promotion of such hydro-energy in the study area by upgrading of traditional watermills are analysed and suitable options for removing impediments are suggested.