Fabrication of highly porous poly (ɛ-caprolactone) fibers for novel tissue scaffold via water-bath electrospinning

A non-toxic route was used for the preparation of silver nanoparticles using tryptophan (Trp) as reducing/stabilizing agent in the presence of cetyltrimethyl ammonium bromide (CTAB). Role of water soluble neutral polymer poly(vinylpyrrolidone) (PVP) has been studied on the growth of yellow colour silver nanoparticle formation. The synthesized nanostructures were characterized by UV–Visible absorption spectroscopy, transmission electron microscopy (TEM) by observing the size and distribution of silver nanoparticles. As the reaction proceeded, particles grew up to about 10 and 20 nm in the presence and absence of PVP, respectively, as determined by TEM. The formed nanoparticles showed the highest absorption plasmon band at 425 nm. Rate of silver sol formation increases with the [Trp], [CTAB] and [PVP], reaching a limiting value and then decreases with the increase in concentrations of these reagents. It was observed that nanoparticles are spherical, aggregated and poly dispersed in the absence and presence of PVP, respectively. On the basis of kinetic data, a suitable mechanism is proposed and discussed for the silver sol formation.     

Computational investigations of the coupling between transient flame dynamics and thermo-acoustic instability in a self-excited resonance combustor

Combustion instability due to thermo-acoustic interactions is a critical combustion problem that requires a thorough understanding because of its adverse impact on stable and reliable operation of combustors in high-speed propulsion devices like gas turbines and rockets. This work conducts computational investigations of the coupling between the transient flame dynamics such as the ignition delay and local extinction and the thermo-acoustic instability developed in a self-excited resonance combustor to gain deep insights into the mechanisms of thermo-acoustic instability. A 2D modelling framework that employs different flamelet models (the steady flamelet model and the flamelet/progress variable approach) is developed to enable the examination of the effect of the transient flame dynamics caused by the strong coupling of the turbulent mixing and finite-rate chemical kinetics on the occurrence of thermo-acoustic instability. The models are validated by using the available experimental data for the pressure signal. Parametric studies are performed to examine the effect of the occurrence of the transient flame dynamics, the effect of artificial amplification of the Damköhler number, and the effect of neglecting mixture fraction fluctuations on the predictions of the thermo-acoustic instability. The parametric studies reveal that the occurrence of transient flame dynamics has a strong influence on the onset of the thermo-acoustic instability. Further analysis is then conducted to localise the effect of a particular flame dynamic event, the ignition delay, on the thermo-acoustic instability. The reverse effect of the occurrence of the thermo-acoustic instability on the transient flame dynamics in the combustor is also investigated by examining the temporal evolution of the local flame events in conjunction with the pressure wave propagation. The above observed two-way coupling between the transient flame dynamics (the ignition delay) and the thermo-acoustic instability provides a plausible mechanism of the self-excited and sustained thermo-acoustic instability observed in the combustor despite the fact that the results are obtained from 2D simulations. The same analysis is expected to be extensible to fully 3D simulations.     

Two-nozzle electrospinning of (MWNT/PU)/PU nanofibrous composite mat with improved mechanical and thermal properties

Composite nanofibrous mat composed of neat polyurethane (PU) and multiwalled carbon nanotubes/polyurethane (MWNT/PU) nanofibers have been fabricated by one-step angled two-nozzle electrospinning. The morphological, thermal, and mechanical properties of the electrospun nanofibers were evaluated. The diameters of electrospun neat PU and composite nanofibers ranged from 239 to 1058 nm. The two-nozzle electrospun (MWNT/PU)/PU composite nanofibers showed curly, and randomly-oriented fibers with interfiber bonding, and were generally bigger in size than single-nozzle electrospun nanofibers. The tensile strength of the neat PU composite nanofiber mat obtained from two-nozzle electrospinning was 25% higher than that obtained from neat PU single-nozzle electrospinning. The incorporation of MWNTs in the composite nanofiber increased the tensile strength by as much as 64% without reducing elongation, made the composite nanofiber more thermally stable, and improved the melting zone. The present results showed that side-by-side angled two-nozzle electrospinning can improve the quality of the electrospun nanofibers that could have potential application in different fields such as filtration, protective clothing and tissue engineering.     

Antibacterial tourmaline nanoparticles/polyurethane hybrid mat decorated with silver nanoparticles prepared by electrospinning and UV photoreduction

In this study, tourmaline (TM) nanoparticles (NPs) were incorporated in a polyurethane (PU) matrix by electrospinning and silver (Ag) nanoparticles in the form of wire-like structure were further decorated on the TM/PU nanofibrous mat by photoreduction under ultraviolet light irradiation. The incorporation of TM NPs has increased the conductivity of the solution, thus forming thinner fiber diameters compared to neat PU, but with improved tensile strength. Wire-like, agglomerated Ag NPs were decorated on the TM/PU matrix, and exhibited high bactericidal activity depending on the Ag content. The present antibacterial Ag/TM/PU hybrid mat has potential application in water treatment.     

Accelerated in vitro durability testing of nonvascular Nitinol stents based on the electrical potential sensing method

In this paper, we report an evaluation of the performance of a new stent durability tester based on the electrical potential sensing method through accelerated in vitro testing of six different nonvascular Nitinol stents simulating physiological conditions. The stents were subjected to a pulsatile loading of 33 Hz for a total of 62,726,400 cycles, at constant temperature and pressure of 35±0.5 °C and 120±4 mmHg, respectively. The electrical potential of each stent was measured in real-time and monitored for any changes in readings. After conducting test-to-fracture tests, the stents were visually checked, and by scanning electron microscopy. A sudden electrical potential drop in the readings suggests a fracture has occurred, and the only two instances of fracture in our present results were correctly determined by our present device, with the fractures confirmed visually after the test. The excellent performance of our new method shows good potential for a highly reliable and applicable in vitro durability testing for different kinds and sizes of metallic stents.     

A critical remark on “Fixed point theorems for occasionally weakly compatible mappings”

In the present paper, we show that under contractive conditions, the existence of a common fixed point and occasional weak compatibility are equivalent conditions. We also show that contractive conditions employed by Jungck and Rhoades [Fixed point theorems for occasionally weakly compatible mappings, Fixed Point Theory 7(2) (2006) 287–296; Fixed Point Theory 9 (2008) 383–384 (erratum)] do not provide a nontrivial setting for the application of occasional weak compatible mappings. Finally, we improve the results of Jungck and Rhoades by employing a proper setting.     

An Exact Solution of Perfect Fluid in Isotropic Coordinates, Compatible with Relativistic Modeling of Star

We present a spherically symmetric solution of the general relativistic field equations in isotropic coordinates for perfect fluid, compatible with a super dense star modeling. The solution is well behaved for all the values of u lying in the range 0<u≤0.12. Further, we have constructed a super-dense star model with all degree of suitability and by assuming the surface density ρ _b =2×10¹⁴ g/cm³. Corresponding to u=0.12, the resulting well behaved model has maximum mass M=0.912M _Θ with radius R _b ≈11.27 km and Moment of inertia 0.97×10⁴⁵ gm?cm². The good matching of our results for Vela pulsars show the stoutness of our model.     

A robust image watermarking technique using SVD and differential evolution in DCT domain

In this paper we applied differential evolution (DE) algorithm to balance the tradeoff between robustness and imperceptibility by exploring multiple scaling factors in image watermarking. First of all, the original image is partitioned into blocks and the blocks are transformed into Discrete Cosine Transform (DCT) domain. The DC coefficients from each block are collected to construct a low-resolution approximation image and apply Singular Value Decomposition (SVD) on this approximation image. After that watermark is embedded by modifying singular values with the singular values of the watermark. The role of DE algorithm is to identify the best multiple scaling factors for embedding process in order to achieve the best performance in terms of robustness without compromising with the quality of the image. To enhance the security, watermark is scrambled by Arnold transform before embedding. Experimental results show that the proposed scheme maintains a satisfactory image quality and watermark can still be identified from a seriously distorted image.     

Recurrent Extensions of Real-Valued Self-Similar Markov Processes

Potential Analysis - Let X = (Xt,t ≥?0) be a self-similar Markov process taking values in $\mathbb {R}$ such that the state 0 is a trap. In this paper, we present a necessary and...