Abrasion phenomena in twill tencel fabric

The abrasion characteristics of Tencel fabrics were evaluated by Martindale abrasion and laundering, and the breakdown mechanism of fibers was surveyed by scanning electron microscopy. The fabric was subjected to pad‐dry‐cure treatment with two different types of modified dimethyloldihydroxyethylene urea resins (Reaktant DH and Reaktant FC). Although the degree of dry abrasion varied with different resins, the damage exhibited by individual fibers differed little from untreated to resin‐treated; the major mechanism of abrasion was through friction, and the mechanism of fiber failure was multiple splitting and transverse cracking. In untreated Tencel, the characteristic feature of wet abrasion was massive fibrillation, and in crosslinked fabrics, the wet abrasion mechanism was through fiber slippage and slicing action, although in the Reaktant FC‐treated fabric, the wet abrasion mechanism was more through slicing than through fiber splitting. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 102: 1391–1398, 2006     

A new technique for the construction of confusion component based on inverse LA-semigroups and its application in steganography

The present article introduced a novel idea for information hiding namely steganography. We have used new notions for the construction of the nonlinear component for block cipher based on inverse LA-semigroups. This nonlinear component fundamentally provides confidentiality in the proposed steganographic algorithm. The construction of the algorithm is fundamentally twofold. Firstly, we have constructed a novel scheme to design confusion component namely substitution box (S-box). Secondly, we have utilized the anticipated nonlinear component in digital steganography. The suggested algorithm is tested for different standard digital images. The authentication of the proposed algorithm is confirmed through statistical analysis.

     

Nutratherapeutics approach against cancer: tomato‐mediated synthesised gold nanoparticles

In this study, an eco‐friendly biosynthesis of stable gold nanoparticles (T‐GNPs) was carried out using different concentrations of tomato juice (nutraceuticals) as a reducing agent and tetrachloroauric acid as a metal precursor to explore their potential application in cancer therapeutics. The synthesis of T‐GNPs was monitored by UV‐visible absorption spectroscopy, which unveiled their formation by exhibiting the typical surface plasmon absorption maxima at 522 nm. The size of T‐GNPs was found to be 10.86 ± 0.6 nm. T‐GNPs were characterised by dynamic light scattering, zeta potential, transmission electron microscopy analysis and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy. T‐GNPs were further investigated for their anti‐cancer activity against human lung carcinoma cell line (A ₅₄₉) and human cervical cancer cell line wherein the IC₅₀ values were found to be 0.286 and 0.200 mM, respectively. T‐GNPs inhibited the growth of cancer cells by generating ROS and inducing apoptosis. T‐GNPs were found highly effective by virtue of their size, metallic property and capping molecules. Thus, this study opens up the prospects of using nutraceutical (tomato juice) as nutratherapeutic agent (T‐GNPs) against critical diseases like lung cancer and cervical cancer.Inspec keywords: gold, nanoparticles, particle size, cancer, ultraviolet spectra, visible spectra, electrokinetic effects, transmission electron microscopy, Fourier transform infrared spectra, cellular biophysics, spectrochemical analysis, nanomedicine, nanofabricationOther keywords: tomato‐mediated synthesised gold nanoparticles, tomato juice, reducing agent, tetrachloroauric acid, cancer therapeutics, UV‐visible absorption spectroscopy, surface plasmon absorption, dynamic light scattering, zeta potential, transmission electron microscopy analysis, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, human lung carcinoma cell line, anticancer activity, human cervical cancer cell line, nutratherapeutic agent, lung cancer, Au     

Conformational transition of Poly (vinylbenzyltrimethylammonium chloride) (PVBTMAC) brush in the presence of Hofmeister anions

This study pertains to the conformational changes of Poly (vinylbenzyltrimethylammonium chloride) (PVBTMAC) brush onto SiO₂-coated resonator; which was further incorporated by using quartz crystal microbalance with dissipation (QCM-D) in the presence of Hofmeister series of anions as a function of ionic strength. Gradual shrinkage of highly extended PVBTMAC followed by loose inhomogeneous layer was on account of change in frequency (?f) and dissipation (??D) at low ionic strength. On the contrary, the increase in ionic strength collapses chains and dense homogenous layer is formed. The chaotropic anions comparativley bring drastic change in frequency unlike kosmotropic anions. This is because weakly hydrated chaotropic anions form strong ion pair with weakly hydrated trimethyl ammonium group on the PVBTMAC brush and as a result strong counter ion condensation was observed on polymer chain. Thus, the apparent mass associated with PVBTMAC chains increases that accounts for large change in ?f.     

A Reliable Stochastic Numerical Analysis for Typhoid Fever Incorporating With Protection Against Infection

In this paper, a reliable stochastic numerical analysis for typhoid fever incorporating with protection against infection has been considered. We have compared the solutions of stochastic and deterministic typhoid fever model. It has been shown that the stochastic typhoid fever model is more realistic as compared to the deterministic typhoid fever model. The effect of threshold number T* hold in stochastic typhoid fever model. The proposed framework of the stochastic non-standard finite difference scheme (SNSFD) preserves all dynamical properties like positivity, bounded-ness and dynamical consistency defined by Mickens, R. E. The stochastic numerical simulation of the model showed that increase in protection leads to low disease prevalence in a population.     

Prediction of postpartum depression using machine learning techniques from social media text

Early screening of mental disorders plays a crucial role in diagnosis and treatment. This study explores how data‐driven methods can leverage the information available on social media platforms to predict postpartum depression (PPD). A generalized approach is proposed where linguistic features are extracted from user‐generated textual posts on social media and categorized as general, depressive, and PPD representative using multiple machine learning techniques. We find that techniques used in our study exhibit strong predictive capabilities for PPD content. Holdout validation showed that multilayer perceptron outperformed other techniques such as support vector machine and logistic regression used in this study with 91.7% accuracy for depressive content identification and up to 86.9% accuracy for PPD content prediction. This work adopts a hierarchical approach to predict PPD. Therefore, the reported PPD accuracy represents the performance of the model to correctly classify PPD content from non‐PPD depressive content.     

Optimal path planning in cluttered environment using RRT*-AB

Rapidly exploring Random Tree Star (RRT*) has gained popularity due to its support for complex and high-dimensional problems. Its numerous applications in path planning have made it an active area of research. Although it ensures probabilistic completeness and asymptotic optimality, its slow convergence rate and large dense sampling space are proven problems. In this paper, an off-line planning algorithm based on RRT* named RRT*-adjustable bounds (RRT*-AB) is proposed to resolve these issues. The proposed approach rapidly targets the goal region with improved computational efficiency. Desired objectives are achieved through three novel strategies, i.e., connectivity region, goal-biased bounded sampling, and path optimization. Goal-biased bounded sampling is performed within boundary of connectivity region to find the initial path. Connectivity region is flexible enough to grow for complex environment. Once path is found, it is optimized gradually using node rejection and concentrated bounded sampling. Final path is further improved using global pruning to erode extra nodes. Robustness and efficiency of proposed algorithm is tested through experiments in different structured and unstructured environments cluttered with obstacles including narrow and complex maze cases. The proposed approach converges to shorter path with reduced time and memory requirements than conventional RRT* methods.     

Mechanism of crosslinking Tencel woven fabric for superior easy‐care properties and analysis using fluorescence microscopy

A crosslinking treatment to impart easy‐care properties to Tencel fabric has been investigated, using dimethyloldihydroxyethylene urea (Reaktant DH) as crosslinking agent and magnesium chloride hexahydrate as catalyst. Nonconventional treatment techniques such as “flash curing,” “moist curing,” “pad‐batch‐cure,” and “pad‐dry‐dry steam cure” are used to facilitate better penetration of crosslinking monomer into the fiber interior. Easy‐care properties of Tencel fabrics using these techniques are evaluated and compared with those treated with resin monomer using conventional pad‐dry‐cure process. Analysis of treated fabric using a fluorescent labeling technique and image analysis shows that nonconventional techniques significantly improve the penetration of crosslinking agent. The results further suggest that these techniques can be used to improve abrasion resistance and fabric handle of Tencel woven fabric. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 101: 2154–2161, 2006