Marker-Assisted Breeding as Next-Generation Strategy for Genetic Improvement of Productivity and Quality: Can It Be Realized in Cotton?

The dawdling development in genetic improvement of cotton with conventional breeding program is chiefly due to lack of complete knowledge on and precise manipulation of fiber productivity and quality. Naturally available cotton continues to be a resource for the upcoming breeding program, and contemporary technologies to exploit the available natural variation are outlined in this paper for further improvement of fiber. Particularly emphasis is given to application, obstacles, and perspectives of marker-assisted breeding since it appears to be more promising in manipulating novel genes that are available in the cotton germplasm. Deployment of system quantitative genetics in marker-assisted breeding program would be essential to realize its role in cotton. At the same time, role of genetic engineering and in vitro mutagenesis cannot be ruled out in genetic improvement of cotton

Ultra high-density silicon nanowires for extremely low reflection in visible regime

We fabricated large-area, vertically aligned silicon nanowire (SiNW) arrays on Si substrates employing catalytic etching on a polystyrene nanosphere template. The density of SiNWs was as high as 10(10)/cm(2), and the bottom radii of SiNWs ranged between 30 and 60 nm. The reflection from the SiNW layer was approximately 0.1% over the spectral range of 300-800nm for SiNWs longer than 750 am. Effective medium theory was applied to explain this extremely low reflection, and it was confirmed that the incident light scatters randomly inside cone-like SiNWs, which lengthens the actual traveling path of light. (C) 2011 American Institute of Physics. [doi10.1063/1.3650266

Cued Click Points Graphical Images and Text Password along with Pixel based OTP Authentication

A graphical password uses images or representation of images as passwords. Human brain is easily remembering the Graphical image secret word compare to Text secret word. There are dissimilar graphical image secret word methods or graphical image secret word software’s are available in the market. The proposed work merges Cued click points, text and token based verification. The main objective of this proposal is to reduce the guessing attacks as well as encouraging users to select more random, and difficult to guess password. Well known security threats like brute force attacks and dictionary attacks can be successfully abolished using this method

A Modified Block Copolymer Nano-Patterning Method for High Density Sub-30 nm Polystyrene Nanosphere and Gold Nanomesh Formation

The use of self-assembled block copolymer structures to direct producing mesoscopic (1-100 nm) features requires potentially lower cost and can also be applied for large scale method as compared to conventional lithographic techniques, which may attracts many research interests. Here we demonstrate a simple, uniform, ease to control and efficient single step process to prepare polystyrene nanospheres based on the modified block copolymer nanopatterning with a diameter of 30 nm. The density of closely packed PS nanosphere was as high as 10(11)/cm(2). The formation of PS nanospheres was insensitive to the immersion temperature and time. The interiors of the resulting mask technique features have been developed to prepare large scale arrays of Au nanomesh on substrate at room temperature with lesser processing cost. Our result shows that the transmission rate of gold nanomesh was very similar to that of ITO. This technique provides an effective way to fabricate, control and reproduce plasmonic metal nanostructures with tunable surface plasmon resonances

An amorphous silicon random nanocone/polymer hybrid solar cell

This paper proposes and experimentally demonstrates an a-Si:H random nanocone/PEDOT:PSS/P3HT:PCBM hybrid solar cell to extend the absorption to near infrared and solve the difficulty of carrier transport through organic-inorganic interface. The internal electrical field inside a-Si:H random nanocone force holes move to the anode and electrons move to the cathode. The insertion of a layer of PEDOT:PSS conducting polymer between organic-inorganic interface could cause electrons and holes to partially recombine, thus establishing an electrically connected a-Si:H and P3HT:PCBM bulk heterojunction, which enables carriers transport through organic-inorganic interfaces efficiently. As compared to conventional polymer solar cells, the open-circuit voltage of hybrid solar cells was increased from 0.51 to 0.78 V. Additionally, the power conversion efficiency was increased from 1.73% to 2.22%, which demonstrates approximately 28% enhancement, indicating that the hybrid structure could largely increase the efficiency of polymer solar cells. (C) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved