Classification of aflatoxin contaminated chili pepper using hyperspectral imaging and artificial neural networks

Many foods (such as hazelnut, pistachio nut, almond, corn, wheat, dried fig, and chili pepper) may include carcinogenic aflatoxins that threatens human health. Chili pepper is also prone to aflatoxin contamination during harvesting, production and storage periods. Although Turkey is the third largest chili pepper producer in the world, it has less than three percent international market share due to the high level of aflatoxin contamination in the chili pepper. Various chemical methods are used for detection of aflatoxin. Chemical methods used for detection of aflatoxin contamination give accurate results, but they are slow, expensive and destructive. In this study, intensity histograms of hyper spectral images of chili peppers are extracted under halogen illumination source and aflatoxin detection is made by artificial neural networks

Camera Sabotage Discovery for Video Surveillance Applications

Son yıllarda video gözetim uygulamaları için kullanılan kamera sayılarında kayda değer artış olmuştur. Bu kameraların amaçlandığı gibi çalışıyor olması anlamlı bilgi yakalaması önemlidir. Suç işleyecek kişiler kamera önünü kapatarak, boya püskürterek ya da kamera odağını bozarak görüntülerinin ve eylemlerinin kaydedilmesini engellemek yoluna başvurmaktadır. Kameraları gözleyen birisinin olmaması ya da dikkatinin dağınık olması sabotajın fark edilememesine neden olur ve sistem normal olarak çalışıyor ve kaydediyor olsa bile kayıtların kullanılamaz olmasına yolaçar. Bu bildiride, dalgacık alanında arkaplan çıkarımı yöntemi kullanılarak kamerada görüş azalması ve kamera önünün kapatılması durumlarının gerçek zamanlı kestirimi önerilmektedir. Ayrıca, sistemin gerçek hayat koşullarında daha güvenilir çalışması için bazı yöntemler de önerilmiştir

Yerinde (in situ) korunan yabani buğday türleri, eşlik eden bitkiler ve toprak özellikleri arasındaki ilişkiler

Karagöz, Alptekin ( Aksaray, Yazar )A comprehensive knowledge of the ecology and associating plant species of wheat progenitors is important for plant scientists. This study was designed as a case study to focus on the relation between 5 wild relatives of wheat (Aegilops spp. L. and Triticum spp. L.), their associated soil types and environmental and external variables in the Ceylanpınar State Farm of Şanlıurfa Province. The aim of the study was to explain the major physical factors affecting the existence of target species in the area. The following wild wheat species, which are all related with evalution of modern wheat were taken into consideration: Aegilops speltoides Tausch var. speltoides (goat grass), Aegilops speltoides Tausch var. ligustica (Savign.) Fiori (goat grass), Aegilops tauschii Coss. var. meyeri (Griseb. ex Ledeb.) (Tausch's goat grass) , Triticum monococcum L. ssp. aegilopoides (Link) Thell. (einkorn) and Triticum turgidum L. ssp. dicoccoides (Körn. ex Asch.& Graebn.) (emmer). Association was observed between the target species, Poaceae species and herbaceous plants, while no association was noticed with perennial plants. Strong association was observed between rockiness and emmer. Einkorn was associated with slightly stoniness and slight grazing while Ae. speltoides ligustica was related with very stony areas and excessive grazing.Buğdayın atalarının ekolojileri ve bunlara eşlik eden bitki türlerinin etraflıca bilinmesi, bitki bilimiyle uğraşan bilim adamları için önem taşımaktadır. Bu çalışma Şanlıurfa’nın Ceylanpınar Tarım İşletmesinde bulunan 5 yabani buğday (Aegilops spp. L. ve Triticum spp. L.) akrabası ile bunların bulundukları yerlerin toprak tipleri, çevresel ve dış değişkenlerine yoğunlaşmak üzere uygulanan bir vaka çalışması niteliğindedir. Çalışmanın amacı, alanda bulunan hedef türlerin mevcudiyetini etkileyen temel fiziki koşulların ortaya konmasıdır. Modern buğdayların evrimiyle ilişkili olan aşağıdaki beş yabani buğday türü araştırma materyalini oluşturmuştur: Aegilops speltoides Tausch var. speltoides (keçi otu), Aegilops speltoides Tausch var. ligustica (Savign.) Fiori (keçi otu), Aegilops tauschii Coss. var. meyeri (Griseb. ex Ledeb.) (Tausch keçi otu), Triticum monococcum L. ssp. aegilopoides (Link) Thell. (yabani siyez) ve Triticum turgidum L. ssp. dicoccoides (Körn. ex Asch.& Graebn.) (yabani gernik). Hedef türler ile Poaceae familyası türleri ve eşlik eden otsu bitki türleri arasında ilişki bulunurken, çok yıllık bitkilerde benzer bir ilişki gözlenmemiştir. Taşlılıkla yabani gernik arasında kuvvetli bir ilişki bulunmuştur. Yabani siyezde hafif taşlılık ve hafif otlatmayla, Ae. speltoides ligustica türünde de çok taşlılık ve aşırı otlatma ile ilişkili bulunmuştu

A new approach to aflatoxin detection in chili pepper by machine vision

Aflatoxins are the toxic metabolites of Aspergillus molds, especially by Aspergillus flavus and Aspergillus parasiticus. They have been studied extensively because of being associated with various chronic and acute diseases especially immunosuppression and cancer. Aflatoxin occurrence is influenced by certain environmental conditions such as drought seasons and agronomic practices. Chili pepper may also be contaminated by aflatoxins during harvesting, production and storage. Aflatoxin detection based on chemical methods is fairly accurate. However, they are time consuming, expensive and destructive. We use hyperspectral imaging as an alternative for detection of such contaminants in a rapid and nondestructive manner. In order to classify aflatoxin contaminated chili peppers from uncontaminated ones, a compact machine vision system based on hyperspectral imaging and machine learning is proposed. In this study, both UV and Halogen excitations are used. Energy values of individual spectral bands and also difference images of consecutive spectral bands were utilized as feature vectors. Another set of features were extracted from those features by applying quantization on the histogram of the images. Significant features were selected based on proposed method of hierarchical bottleneck backward elimination (HBBE), Guyon’s SVM-RFE, classical Fisher discrimination power and Principal Component Analysis (PCA). Multi layer perceptrons (MLPs) and linear discriminant analysis (LDA) were used as the classifiers. It was observed that with the proposed features and selection methods, robust and higher classification performance was achieved with fewer numbers of spectral bands enabling the design of simpler machine vision systems

Comparison of Endovenous Laser and Radiofrequency Ablation in Treating Varices in the Same Patient

Conclusion: EVLA procedure may be superior to RFA in certain respects

Evaluating the Effects of a Topical Preparation with Dexpanthenol, Silbiol, Undecylenic Acid, and Lidocaine on Palatal Mucosa Wound Healing in a Rat Model

Background:Postoperative complications occur after periodontal plastic surgeries, but an ideal treatment to overcome them has not been found yet.Aims:To evaluate the effects of topically applied Oral-norm gel on the healing of excisional wounds.Study Design:Animal experiment.Methods:Excisional wounds with a diameter of 3 mm were made in the center of the palatal mucosa of 63 Sprague Dawley rats. Seven animals were sacrificed at time 0. The remaining rats were divided into two groups: a test group in which the topical Oral-norm gel was applied three times a day and a control group in which nothing was applied. Seven animals in each group were sacrificed at 3, 7, 14, and 21 days. Mean wound surface area was measured photographically, while wound healing and width were evaluated microscopically.Results:The mean wound surface area decreased significantly after 3 days in both groups (p0.05).Conclusion:The Oral-norm gel has no positive healing effects in the palatal mucosa of rats

The impact of invasive prenatal testing on anxiety and sleep quality in pregnant women with a screen-positive result for aneuploidy

Purpose Prenatal anxiety has negative effects on pregnancy and neonate. Both screening tests and invasive diagnostic tests are associated with elevated anxiety level. But a normal fetal karyotype result could improve the anxiety level in high-risk patients. We hypothesized that patients who prefer follow-up without karyotyping may experience increased anxiety and sleep impairment until delivery. Our aim was to determine the effect of invasive diagnostic test decision on anxiety and sleep quality in women with a positive screening result. Methods 132 women were included for the study and three groups were described. The invasive group consisted of women who underwent invasive procedure after a screen-positive test result, the follow-up group consisted of women who preferred non-invasive follow-up after a screen-positive result and the control group consisted of women with screen-negative test results. Participants were evaluated with the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI) and the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) after genetic counseling. They were asked for completing the same questionnaires in the third trimester to establish the course of anxiety and sleep quality throughout pregnancy. Results STAI scores were significantly higher in both screen-positive groups than in the control group in the first evaluation (p < 0.001). STAI scores decreased in the invasive group and controls while PSQI scores did not significantly change during the course of the pregnancy. However, the anxiety level and sleep quality were worsened over time in the follow-up group. Conclusion Screen-positive women who preferred to follow up had higher anxiety level and worse sleep quality in the later stages of pregnancy. We concluded that invasive prenatal diagnostic tests could improve anxiety and sleep quality in pregnant women with a screen-positive result for aneuploidy

Gastrointestinal Stromal Tumor Mimicking Ovarian Tumor

Malignant gastrointestinal stromal tumors are rare mesenchymal tumors originating from the gastrointestinal tract. Making a differential diagnosis with gynecologic masses may be difficult in the preoperative period. The patient was a 45- year-old woman who presented to our clinic with a palpable mass filling the pelvis. The CA 125 value was 42.7 U/ml. She underwent right hemicolectomy, total omentectomy, total abdominal hysterectomy, bilateral salpingo-oophorectomy and bilateral pelvic and para-aortic lymph node dissection since the frozen section assessment of the biopsy from the right colon was reported as a tumoral mass probably originating from the ovary. Tumoral tissue showed diffuse cytoplasmic membraneous staining immunohistochemically with CD117, showed strong focal strong cytoplasmic staining with SMA. It was stained negative with desmin, S-100 and CD34. Molecular analysis of KIT gene was performed, we didn't detect mutations of exon 9 or 11. Surgical exploration of pelvic masses with undetermined origins should be performed in multidiciplinary hospitals including gynecological oncology and surgical oncology teams. Histopathological examinations should be performed by experienced pathologists

A Comparison of 1,470-nm Endovenous Laser Ablation and Radiofrequency Ablation in the Treatment of Great Saphenous Veins 10 mm or More in Size

Conclusions: EVLA using a 1,470-nm radial fiber is superior to RFA in the treatment of saphenous veins larger than 10 mm in diameter