Using low temperature plasma for surface modification of polyester fabric: dyeing and printing improvement

Using plasma as a green and fast method for surface modification of textiles was considered by many researchers. In this study, polyester fabric was treated with cold plasma for different times between 1 and 5?min. Untreated and treated fabrics were bleached and dyed with jet and thermosol method and was printed with inkjet and silk screen method. The scanning electron microscope (SEM), FT-IR spectroscopy and X-Rite reflection spectrophotometer were used to analyze the results. The results show that despite the fact that the plasma treatment of polyester fabric results in a reduction in the whiteness of the fabric, it has a higher whiteness after the bleaching of the plasma treated fabric compared with the untreated fabric. The results also show that, plasma treatment causes increasing the color absorption in continuous and non-permanent dyeing methods. Also, it should be mentioned that, the increase of color absorption in the continuous method is appreciably higher than the non-continuous method. Moreover, plasma treatment increases the absorption of color in polyester printing. By increasing the time of plasma treatment, the color absorption increased. Under the same conditions of printing, the penetration and diffusion of the color in the plasma treated fabric is lower than the untreated one.     

Regularized Estimation of Retinal Vascular Oxygen Tension From Phosphorescence Images

The level of retinal oxygenation is potentially an important cue to the onset or presence of some common retinal diseases. An improved method for assessing oxygen tension in retinal blood vessels from phosphorescence lifetime imaging data is reported in this paper. The optimum estimate for phosphorescence lifetime and oxygen tension is obtained by regularizing the least-squares (LS) method. The estimation method is implemented with an iterative algorithm to minimize a regularized LS cost function. The effectiveness of the proposed method is demonstrated by applying it to simulated data as well as image data acquired from rat retinas. The method is shown to yield estimates that are robust to noise and whose variance is lower than that obtained with the classical LS method.     

Oxidative stability of flax and hemp oils

Oxidative stability of flax and hemp oils, and of flax and hemp oils stripped of their minor components, was evaluated in the dark at 60°C and under fluorescent light at 27°C. Several analytical methods were used to assess the oxidative stability of oils. Oil extracts were also investigated for their scavenging of 1,1-diphenyl-2-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) radical and for their total phenolic contents. The results indicate that bioactive constituents of these edible oils play a major role in their oxidative stability. However, the FA composition of the oils and their total content of tocopherols as well as the type of pigments present contribute to their stability. Nonstripped flax and hemp oils were more stable than their corresponding stripped counterparts. Furthermore, nonstripped hemp oil had a higher oxidative stability than nonstripped flax oil as evidenced by scavenging of DPPH radical and consideration of total phenolic contents.     

A hybrid genetic algorithm–adaptive network-based fuzzy inference system in prediction of wave parameters

An important issue in application of fuzzy inference systems (FISs) to a class of system identification problems such as prediction of wave parameters is to extract the structure and type of fuzzy if–then rules from an available input–output data set. In this paper, a hybrid genetic algorithm–adaptive network-based FIS (GA–ANFIS) model has been developed in which both clustering and rule base parameters are simultaneously optimized using GAs and artificial neural nets (ANNs). The parameters of a subtractive clustering method, by which the number and structure of fuzzy rules are controlled, are optimized by GAs within which ANFIS is called for tuning the parameters of rule base generated by GAs. The model has been applied in the prediction of wave parameters, i.e. wave significant height and peak spectral period, in a duration-limited condition in Lake Michigan. The data set of year 2001 has been used as training set and that of year 2004 as testing data. The results obtained by the proposed model are presented and analyzed. Results indicate that GA–ANFIS model is superior to ANFIS and Shore Protection Manual (SPM) methods in terms of their prediction accuracy.     

Absence of volatile N-nitrosamines in cooked nitrite-free cured muscle foods

Nitrite-free cured pork systems were prepared using the preformed cooked cured-meat pigment (CCMP) and sodium ascorbate. Absence of volatile N-nitrosamines in cooked nitrite-free systems was confirmed using a gas chromatography-thermal energy analyzer (GC-TEA) methodology. Similar results were obtained when cod, cod surimi or mixtures containing pork with 15 or 50% cod or cod surimi were used. However, counterpart samples cured with sodium nitrite (156 ppm) and sodium ascorbate (550 ppm) produced N-nitrosodimethylamine at 1·0 ppb levels or less. Results demonstrate that nitrite-free curing of meat and meat/fish systems containing the preformed CCMP is successful in yielding products devoid of volatile N-nitrosamines.     

Effect of Plasma Pretreatment Followed by Nanoclay Loading on Flame Retardant Properties of Cotton Fabric

In this research work the effect of plasma treatment with nitrogen gas followed by nanoclay treatment on flame retardancy of cotton fabrics is studied. The flame retardancy of the samples was characterized by limiting oxygen index and the char yield. The thermal decomposition behaviors, the chemical structures and morphologies of the fabrics were investigated using thermo gravimetric analysis, Fourier transform infrared and scanning electron microscopy, respectively, and a possible flame retardant mechanism is discussed. It shows that, nitrogen plasma pretreatment has synergistic effect on nanoclay for improving the flame retardant properties of cotton samples.     

Influence of Alyssum homolocarpum seed gum on the stability and flow properties of O/W emulsion prepared by high intensity ultrasound

This study introduces Alyssum homolocarpum seed gum, as a natural stabilizer for O/W emulsions. The droplets characteristics, flow properties and physical stability of ultrasonically prepared corn oil-in-water emulsions were investigated at various gum concentrations. The results indicated that for the freshly prepared emulsions, the mean diameter of droplets decreased significantly with an increase in gum concentration from 0.25% to 0.75%. Storage of emulsions for a period of 4 weeks resulted in an increase in the size of droplets, being substantially greater for the samples containing 0.25 and 0.5% gum and negligible for those prepared with 0.75 and 1.0% gum. Similar trend was observed for the specific surface area of droplets but in the opposite direction. Optical microscopy demonstrated that increasing the proportion of gum up to 0.75% reduced the extent of flocculation and coalescence and enhanced monodispersity. Newtonian and non-Newtonian shear-thinning flow behaviors were observed for emulsions prepared with 0.25% gum concentration and those containing higher concentrations respectively. Accordingly, faster creaming was found to be associated with the emulsions prepared with low gum concentration.     

Antioxidative phenolic constituents of skins of onion varieties and their activities

The antioxidant activity of phenolic constituent of skin and selected flesh of different coloured onions (Pearl, Red, Yellow and White) were determined. The green shoot obtained after sprouting of the red onion was also analyzed to study the changes in the phenolic constituents during germination. For the first time, all tests were carried out separately for the free, esterified and insoluble-bound phenolic constituents of onion samples. The content of phenolics extracted from onion skins was approximately six times higher than that of their flesh counterparts. Among onion varieties, pearl onion skin showed the highest phenolic content (26.4 mg quercetin eq/g freeze dried sample). A similar trend was observed for free radical scavenging activity of the tested samples. Extracts from edible part of onion showed lower activity in all antioxidant tests carried out. The HPLC–MS analysis showed that quercetin 3,4′-diglucoside, quercetin, and kaempferol were the predominant phenolics in all onion extracts tested.     

Encapsulation of food ingredients

Microencapsulation is a relatively new technology that is used for protection, stabilization, and slow release of food ingredients. The encapsulating or wall materials used generally consist of starch, starch derivatives, proteins, gums, lipids, or any combination of them. Methods of encapsulation of food ingredients include spraydrying, freeze‐drying, fluidized bed‐coating, extrusion, cocrystallization, molecular inclusion, and coacervation. This paper reviews techniques for preparation of microencapsulated food ingredients and choices of coating material. Characterization of microcapsules, mechanisms of controlled release, and efficiency of protection/ stabilization of encapsulated food ingredients are also presented.