An evaluation of UV protection imparted by cotton fabrics dyed with natural colorants

BACKGROUND: The ultraviolet properties of textiles dyed with synthetic dyes have been widely reported in literature. However, no study has investigated the ultraviolet properties of natural fabrics dyed with natural colorants. This study reports the Ultraviolet Protection Factor (UPF) of cotton fabrics dyed with colorants of plant and insect origins. METHODS: Three cotton fabrics were dyed with three natural colorants. Fabrics were characterized with respect to fabric construction, weight, thickness and thread count. Influence of fabric characteristics on Ultraviolet Protection Factor was studied. Role of colorant concentration on the ultraviolet protection factor was examined via color strength analysis. RESULTS: A positive correlation was observed between the weight of the fabric and their UPF values. Similarly, thicker fabrics offered more protection from ultraviolet rays. Thread count appears to negatively correlate with UPF. Dyeing with natural colorants dramatically increased the protective abilities of all three fabric constructions. Additionally, within the same fabric type UPF values increased with higher depths of shade. CONCLUSION: Dyeing cotton fabrics with natural colorants increases the ultraviolet protective abilities of the fabrics and can be considered as an effective protection against ultraviolet rays. The UPF is further enhanced with colorant of dark hues and with high concentration of the colorant in the fabric

A Cross-Sectional Study of Barriers to Personal Health Record Use among Patients Attending a Safety-Net Clinic

BACKGROUND: Personal health records (PHR) may improve patients' health by providing access to and context for health information. Among patients receiving care at a safety-net HIV/AIDS clinic, we examined the hypothesis that a mental health (MH) or substance use (SU) condition represents a barrier to engagement with web-based health information, as measured by consent to participate in a trial that provided access to personal (PHR) or general (non-PHR) health information portals and by completion of baseline study surveys posted there. METHODS: Participants were individually trained to access and navigate individualized online accounts and to complete study surveys. In response to need, during accrual months 4 to 12 we enhanced participant training to encourage survey completion with the help of staff. Using logistic regression models, we estimated odds ratios for study participation and for survey completion by combined MH/SU status, adjusted for levels of computer competency, on-study training, and demographics. RESULTS: Among 2,871 clinic patients, 70% had MH/SU conditions, with depression (38%) and methamphetamine use (17%) most commonly documented. Middle-aged patients and those with a MH/SU condition were over-represented among study participants (N = 338). Survey completion was statistically independent of MH/SU status (OR, 1.85 [95% CI, 0.93-3.66]) but tended to be higher among those with MH/SU conditions. Completion rates were low among beginner computer users, regardless of training level (<50%), but adequate among advanced users (>70%). CONCLUSIONS: Among patients attending a safety-net clinic, MH/SU conditions were not barriers to engagement with web-based health information. Instead, level of computer competency was useful for identifying individuals requiring substantial computer training in order to fully participate in the study. Intensive on-study training was insufficient to enable beginner computer users to complete study surveys

The interplay of crack hopping, delamination and interface failure in drying nanoparticle films

Films formed through the drying of nanoparticle suspensions release the build-up of strain through a variety of different mechanisms including shear banding, crack formation and delamination. Here we show that important connections exist between these different phenomena: delamination depends on the dynamics of crack hopping, which in turn is influenced by the presence of shear bands. We also show that delamination does not occur uniformly across the film. As cracks hop they locally initiate the delamination of the film which warps with a timescale much longer than that associated with the hopping of cracks. The motion of a small region of the delamination front, where the shear component of interfacial crack propagation is believed to be enhanced, results in the deposition of a complex zig-zag pattern on the supporting substrate

Intimal Hyperplasia in Balloon Dilated Coronary Arteries is Reduced by Local Delivery of the NO Donor, SIN-1 Via a cGMP-Dependent Pathway

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>To elucidate the mechanism by which local delivery of 3-morpholino-sydnonimine (SIN-1) affects intimal hyperplasia after percutaneous transluminal coronary angioplasty (PTCA).</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Porcine coronary arteries were treated with PTCA and immediately afterwards locally treated for 5 minutes, with a selective cytosolic guanylate cyclase inhibitor, 1 H-(1,2,4)oxadiazole(4,3-alpha)quinoxaline-1-one (ODQ) + SIN-1 or only SIN-1 using a drug delivery-balloon. Arteries were angiographically depicted, morphologically evaluated and analyzed after one and eight weeks for actin, myosin and intermediate filaments (IF) and nitric oxide synthase (NOS) contents.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Luminal diameter after PCI in arteries treated with SIN-1 alone and corrected for age-growth was significantly larger as compared to ODQ + SIN-1 or to controls (p < 0.01). IF/actin ratio after one week in SIN-1 treated segments was not different compared to untreated segments, but was significantly reduced compared to ODQ + SIN-1 treated vessels (p < 0.05). Expression of endothelial NADPH diaphorase activity was significantly lower in untreated segments and in SIN-1 treated segments compared to controls and SIN-1 + ODQ treated arteries (p < 0.01). Restenosis index (p < 0.01) and intimal hyperplasia (p < 0.01) were significantly reduced while the residual lumen was increased (p < 0.01) in SIN-1 segments compared to controls and ODQ + SIN-1 treated vessels.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>After PTCA local delivery of high concentrations of the NO donor SIN-1 for 5 minutes inhibited injury induced neointimal hyperplasia. This favorable effect was abolished by inhibition of guanylyl cyclase indicating mediation of a cyclic guanosine 3',5'-monophosphate (cGMP)-dependent pathway. The momentary events at the time of injury play crucial role in the ensuring development of intimal hyperplasia.</p

Estimation of hydraulic conductivity and its uncertainty from grain-size data using GLUE and artificial neural networks

peer reviewedaudience: researcher, professionalVarious approaches exist to relate saturated hydraulic conductivity (Ks) to grain-size data. Most methods use a single grain-size parameter and hence omit the information encompassed by the entire grain-size distribution. This study compares two data-driven modelling methods, i.e.multiple linear regression and artificial neural networks, that use the entire grain-size distribution data as input for Ks prediction. Besides the predictive capacity of the methods, the uncertainty associated with the model predictions is also evaluated, since such information is important for stochastic groundwater flow and contaminant transport modelling. Artificial neural networks (ANNs) are combined with a generalized likelihood uncertainty estimation (GLUE) approach to predict Ks from grain-size data. The resulting GLUE-ANN hydraulic conductivity predictions and associated uncertainty estimates are compared with those obtained from the multiple linear regression models by a leave-one-out cross-validation. The GLUE-ANN ensemble prediction proved to be slightly better than multiple linear regression. The prediction uncertainty, however, was reduced by half an order of magnitude on average, and decreased at most by an order of magnitude. This demonstrates that the proposed method outperforms classical data-driven modelling techniques. Moreover, a comparison with methods from literature demonstrates the importance of site specific calibration. The dataset used for this purpose originates mainly from unconsolidated sandy sediments of the Neogene aquifer, northern Belgium. The proposed predictive models are developed for 173 grain-size -Ks pairs. Finally, an application with the optimized models is presented for a borehole lacking Ks data

Patterning in Birthweight in India: Analysis of Maternal Recall and Health Card Data

National data on birthweight from birth certificates or medical records are not available in India. The third Indian National Family Health Survey included data on birthweight of children obtained from health cards and maternal recall. This study aims to describe the population that these data represent and compares the birthweight obtained from health cards with maternal recall data in terms of its socioeconomic patterning and as a risk factor for childhood growth failure.The analytic sample consisted of children aged 0 to 59 months with birthweight data obtained from health cards (n = 3227) and maternal recall (n = 16,787). The difference between the card sample and the maternal recall sample in the distribution across household wealth, parental education, caste, religion, gender, and urban residence was compared using multilevel models. We also assessed the ability of birthweight to predict growth failure in infancy and childhood in the two groups. The survey contains birthweight data from a majority of household wealth categories (>5% in every category for recall), both genders, all age groups, all caste groups, all religion groups, and urban and rural dwellers. However, children from the lowest quintile of household wealth were under-represented (4.73% in card and 8.62% in recall samples). Comparison of data across health cards and maternal recall revealed similar social patterning of low birthweight and ability of birthweight to predict growth failure later in life. Children were less likely to be born with low birthweight if they had mothers with over 12 years of education compared to 1-5 years of education with relative risk (RR) of 0.79 (95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.52, 1.2) in the card sample and 0.70 (95% CI: 0.59, 0.84) in the recall sample. A 100 gram difference in a child's birthweight was associated with a decreased likelihood of underweight in both the card (RR: 0.95; 95% CI: 0.94, 0.96) and recall (RR: 0.96; 95% CI: 0.96, 0.97) samples.Our results suggest that in the absence of other sources, the data on birthweight in the third Indian National Family Health Survey is valuable for epidemiologic research

The related-key analysis of feistel constructions

Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Volume 8540, 2015.It is well known that the classical three- and four-round Feistel constructions are provably secure under chosen-plaintext and chosen-ciphertext attacks, respectively. However, irrespective of the number of rounds, no Feistel construction can resist related-key attacks where the keys can be offset by a constant. In this paper we show that, under suitable reuse of round keys, security under related-key attacks can be provably attained. Our modification is substantially simpler and more efficient than alternatives obtained using generic transforms, namely the PRG transform of Bellare and Cash (CRYPTO 2010) and its random-oracle analogue outlined by Lucks (FSE 2004). Additionally we formalize Luck’s transform and show that it does not always work if related keys are derived in an oracle-dependent way, and then prove it sound under appropriate restrictions

Assessing Historical Fish Community Composition Using Surveys, Historical Collection Data, and Species Distribution Models

Accurate establishment of baseline conditions is critical to successful management and habitat restoration. We demonstrate the ability to robustly estimate historical fish community composition and assess the current status of the urbanized Barton Creek watershed in central Texas, U.S.A. Fish species were surveyed in 2008 and the resulting data compared to three sources of fish occurrence information: (i) historical records from a museum specimen database and literature searches; (ii) a nearly identical survey conducted 15 years earlier; and (iii) a modeled historical community constructed with species distribution models (SDMs). This holistic approach, and especially the application of SDMs, allowed us to discover that the fish community in Barton Creek was more diverse than the historical data and survey methods alone indicated. Sixteen native species with high modeled probability of occurrence within the watershed were not found in the 2008 survey, seven of these were not found in either survey or in any of the historical collection records. Our approach allowed us to more rigorously establish the true baseline for the pre-development fish fauna and then to more accurately assess trends and develop hypotheses regarding factors driving current fish community composition to better inform management decisions and future restoration efforts. Smaller, urbanized freshwater systems, like Barton Creek, typically have a relatively poor historical biodiversity inventory coupled with long histories of alteration, and thus there is a propensity for land managers and researchers to apply inaccurate baseline standards. Our methods provide a way around that limitation by using SDMs derived from larger and richer biodiversity databases of a broader geographic scope. Broadly applied, we propose that this technique has potential to overcome limitations of popular bioassessment metrics (e.g., IBI) to become a versatile and robust management tool for determining status of freshwater biotic communities