Early Detection of Potato Leaf Diseases using Convolutional Neural Network

Potato is the most important tuber crop in the world, with over 125 countries farming it. Potato, after rice and wheat, is the crop consumed by a billion people worldwide virtually every day. However, due to different fungal and bacterial illnesses, the quality and quantity of the potato crop is deteriorating. Early disease detection is difficult due to differences in environmental conditions, plant type, and plant disease symptoms. Several machine learning algorithms have been developed in recent study to recognize potato leaf diseases. In this work, a multi-layer deep learning model for detecting potato leaf disease is constructed. The features of the potato leaves are recovered from the image of the potato plant in the first layer using the image segmentation approach. A new deep learning technique based on a convolutional neural network [CNN] was created at the second level to detect fungal and bacterial infections in potatoes. The dataset for leaf disease contains 12000 photos gathered in real time and from the database. The proposed deep learning approaches identified potato diseases with 99.76% accurac

Atomic water channel controlling remarkable properties of a single brain microtubule: Correlating single protein to its supramolecular assembly

Microtubule nanotubesarefoundineverylivingeukaryoticcells;theseareformedbyreversible polymerizationofthetubulinprotein,andtheirhollow fibersare filledwithuniquelyarrangedwater molecules.Herewemeasuresingletubulinmoleculeandsinglebrain-neuronextractedmicrotubule nanowirewithandwithoutwaterchannelinsidetounraveltheiruniqueelectronicandopticalproperties for the firsttime.Wedemonstratethattheenergylevelsofasingletubulinproteinandsinglemicrotubule madeof40,000tubulindimersareidenticalunlikeconventionalmaterials.Moreover,thetransmittedac powerandthetransient fluorescencedecay(singlephotoncount)areindependentofthemicrotubule length.Evenmoreremarkableisthefactthatthemicrotubulenanowireismoreconductingthanasingle proteinmoleculethatconstitutesthenanowire.Microtubule's vibrationalpeakscondensetoasinglemode thatcontrolstheemergenceofsizeindependentelectronic/opticalproperties,andautomatednoise alleviation,whichdisappearwhentheatomicwatercoreisreleasedfromtheinnercylinder.Wehave carriedoutseveraltrickystate-of-the-artexperimentsandidentified theelectromagneticresonancepeaksof singlemicrotubulereliably.Theresonantvibrationsestablishedthatthecondensationofenergylevelsand periodicoscillationofuniqueenergyfringesonthemicrotubulesurface,emergeastheatomicwatercore resonantlyintegratesallproteinsarounditsuchthatthenanotubeirrespectiveofitssizefunctionslikea singleproteinmolecule.Thus,amonomolecularwaterchannelresidinginsidetheprotein-cylinderdisplays an unprecedentedcontrolingoverningthetantalizingelectronicandopticalpropertiesofmicrotubule

Improving Surveillance Using Cooperative Target Observation

The Cooperative Target Observation (CTO) problem has been of great interest in the multi-agents and robotics literature due to the problem being at the core of a number of applications including surveillance. In CTO problem, the observer agents attempt to maximize the collective time during which each moving target is being observed by at least one observer in the area of interest. However, most of the prior works for the CTO problem consider the targets movement to be Randomized. Given our focus on surveillance domain, we modify this assumption to make the targets strategic and present two target strategies namely Straight-line strategy and Controlled Randomization strategy. We then modify the observer strategy proposed in the literature based on the K-means algorithm to introduce five variants and provide experimental validation. In surveillance domain, it is often reasonable to assume that the observers may themselves be a subject of observation for a variety of purposes by unknown adversaries whose model may not be known. Randomizing the observers actions can help to make their target observation strategy less predictable. As the fifth variant, we therefore introduce Adjustable Randomization into the best performing observer strategy where the observer can adjust the expected loss in reward due to randomization depending on the situation

Clinical Profile and Outcome of Patients Presenting with Mushroom Poisoning in a Tertiary Care Center of Eastern Nepal

Introduction: Accidental mushroom poisoning is constantly seen and regularly reported from all over world. Exact magnitude of problem and its clinical profile in Nepal is not well known. This study was done to evaluate clinical profile and treatment outcome of patients presenting with mushroom poisoning in the department of internal medicine, BPKIHS, Dharan. 
 Methods: It is a prospective observational study conducted in department of internal medicine, BPKIHS, Dharan from 1st January 2008 to 31st December 2009. Informed consent was taken. All the patients were subjected to necessary laboratory investigation. They were followed up at 1 week and 1 month after discharge. 
 Results: All together 60 patients were analyzed. Majority of subjects 56 (93.3%) were from rural areas. Vomiting and diarrhea were the two most common presentations seen in 56 (93.3%) subjects. The latent period for the symptoms were > 6 hours in 4 (6.7%) and < 6 hours in 56 (93.3%) subjects. Fulminant hepatic failure was seen in 6 (10%) subjects and among them 4 (66.7%) expired. After admission 3 (5%) subjects developed GI bleeding. Average duration of hospital stay was 4.6 days. In follow up recovery was complete in all subjects who survived the acute phase of poisoning. 
 Conclusions: Especially in patients coming during rainy season mushroom poisoning should be considered in the differential diagnosis of acute gastroenteritis. Mortality is high in subjects with FHF whereas recovery is complete in subjects who survived the acute phase. Keywords: fulminant hepatic failure; gastroenteritis; mushroom poisoning; wild mushrooms

Novel biotinylated lipid prodrugs of acyclovir for the treatment of herpetic keratitis (HK): Transporter recognition, tissue stability and antiviral activity

Purpose: Biotinylated lipid prodrugs of acyclovir (ACV) were designed to target the sodium dependent multivitamin transporter (SMVT) on the cornea to facilitate enhanced cellular absorption of ACV. Methods: All the prodrugs were screened for in vitro cellular uptake, interaction with SMVT, docking analysis, cytotoxicity, enzymatic stability and antiviral activity. Results: Uptake of biotinylated lipid prodrugs of ACV (B-R-ACV and B-12HS-ACV) was significantly higher than biotinylated prodrug (B-ACV), lipid prodrugs (R-ACV and 12HS-ACV) and ACV in corneal cells. Transepithelial transport across rabbit corneas indicated the recognition of the prodrugs by SMVT. Average Vina scores obtained from docking studies further confirmed that biotinylated lipid prodrugs possess enhanced affinity towards SMVT. All the prodrugs studied did not cause any cytotoxicity and were found to be safe and non-toxic. B-R-ACV and B-12HS-ACV were found to be relatively more stable in ocular tissue homogenates and exhibited excellent antiviral activity. Conclusions: Biotinylated lipid prodrugs demonstrated synergistic improvement in cellular uptake due to recognition of the prodrugs by SMVT on the cornea and lipid mediated transcellular diffusion. These biotinylated lipid prodrugs appear to be promising drug candidates for the treatment of herpetic keratitis (HK) and may lower ACV resistance in patients with poor clinical response. © 2013 Springer Science+Business Media New York