Fuzzy transitivity and monotonicity of cardinality-based similarity measures

The interrelationship of notions is presented in fuzzy transitivity and monotonicity of fuzzy similarity measures. It is observed that the axiom of fuzzy transitivity may replace that of monotonicity in the definition of fuzzy similarity measures.     

Involvement of Phytochemical-Encapsulated Nanoparticles’ Interaction with Cellular Signalling in the Amelioration of Benign and Malignant Brain Tumours

Brain tumours have unresolved challenges that include delay prognosis and lower patient survival rate. The increased understanding of the molecular pathways underlying cancer progression has aided in developing various anticancer medications. Brain cancer is the most malignant and invasive type of cancer, with several subtypes. According to the WHO, they are classified as ependymal tumours, chordomas, gangliocytomas, medulloblastomas, oligodendroglial tumours, diffuse astrocytomas, and other astrocytic tumours on the basis of their heterogeneity and molecular mechanisms. The present study is based on the most recent research trends, emphasising glioblastoma cells classified as astrocytoma. Brain cancer treatment is hindered by the failure of drugs to cross the blood–brain barrier (BBB), which is highly impregnableto foreign molecule entry. Moreover, currently available medications frequently fail to cross the BBB, whereas chemotherapy and radiotherapy are too expensive to be afforded by an average incomeperson and have many associated side effects. When compared to our current understanding of molecularly targeted chemotherapeutic agents, it appears that investigating the efficacy of specific phytochemicals in cancer treatment may be beneficial. Plants and their derivatives are game changers because they are efficacious, affordable, environmentally friendly, faster, and less toxic for the treatment of benign and malignant tumours. Over the past few years, nanotechnology has made a steady progress in diagnosing and treating cancers, particularly brain tumours. This article discusses the effects of phytochemicals encapsulated in nanoparticles on molecular targets in brain tumours, along with their limitations and potential challenges.     

A Novel Image Encryption Scheme Based on Elliptic Curves over Finite Rings

Image encryption based on elliptic curves (ECs) is emerging as a new trend in cryptography because it provides high security with a relatively smaller key size when compared with well-known cryptosystems. Recently, it has been shown that the cryptosystems based on ECs over finite rings may provide better security because they require the computational cost for solving the factorization problem and the discrete logarithm problem. Motivated by this fact, we proposed a novel image encryption scheme based on ECs over finite rings. There are three main steps in our scheme, where, in the first step, we mask the plain image using points of an EC over a finite ring. In step two, we create diffusion in the masked image with a mapping from the EC over the finite ring to the EC over the finite field. To create high confusion in the plain text, we generated a substitution box (S-box) based on the ordered EC, which is then used to permute the pixels of the diffused image to obtain a cipher image. With computational experiments, we showed that the proposed cryptosystem has higher security against linear, differential, and statistical attacks than the existing cryptosystems. Furthermore, the average encryption time for color images is lower than other existing schemes.     

Thermolysis of symmetrical dithiobiurea and thioureidoethylthiourea derivatives

Microwave and thermal heterocyclization of N,N′‐disubstituted hydrazinecarbothioamide 1a,b and substituted thioureidoethylthioureas 2a–c as well as 1‐phenyl‐3[2‐(3‐phenylthio‐ureido)phenyl]thiourea 6 are reported. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Heteroatom Chem 14:535–541, 2003; Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI 10.1002/hc.10188     

Positron annihilation: a unique method for studying polymers

Positron annihilation is a unique technique for studying the local free volume of polymers. Employing the positron annihilation lifetime spectroscopy (PALS) the size and size distribution of subnanometer size holes which constitute the excess free volume may be studied. In combination with macroscopic volume data the fractional free volume and the number density of holes may be estimated. After presenting the principles of the method, some examples typically for the investigation of the free volume in polymers will be given. Moreover, the study of interdiffusion in demixed polymer blends and further applications are shortly reviewed