KBS for Diagnosing Pineapple Diseases

Abstract: Background: The pineapple (A nanas comosus) is a tropical plant with an edible multiple fruit consisting of coalesced berries, also called pineapples, and the most economically significant plant in the Bromeliaceae family. Pineapples may be cultivated from a crown cutting of the fruit, possibly flowering in five to ten months and fruiting in the following six months.[5][6] Pineapples do not ripen significantly after harvest. In 2016, Costa Rica, Brazil, and the Philippines accounted for nearly one-third of the world's production of pineapples.[8] Pineapple damage is not taken quickly, it can lead to damage in the Pineapple. Objectives: The main goal of this expert system is to get the appropriate diagnosis of disease and the correct treatment. Methods: In this paper the design of the proposed Expert System which was produced to help Fruits Agricultural Specialist in diagnosing many of the Pineapple diseases such as : Phytophthora heart (top) rot, Base (butt) rot or Fruit let core rot (green eye, Pineapple Sprain, Turf Toe, Pineapple disease , Plantar Fasciitis, Warts, Bunion, Rheumatoid Arthritis, Gout, Heel Spur, Athlete's Pineapple , The proposed expert system presents an overview about Pineapple diseases are given, the cause of diseases are outlined and the treatment of disease whenever possible is given out. CLIPS Expert System language was used for designing and implementing the proposed expert system. Results: The proposed Pineapple diseases diagnosis expert system was evaluated by Agricultural students and they were satisfied with its performance. Conclusions: The Proposed expert system is very useful for Fruits Agricultural Specialist, patients with Pineapple problem and newly graduated Agricultural Specialist

Post Acceptance Model for Online Teleconsultation services: An Empirical Study in Malaysia

open access journalMost nations across the world are actively pursuing equal access to healthcare services. Teleconsultation technology is a substantial improvement in terms of an effective framework for the provision of healthcare services. However, a lack of understanding of people’s willingness towards the use of this technology has been observed. The goal of this study is to investigate the factors affecting the post-acceptance of teleconsultation services in Malaysia. This study developed a theoretical model which involves the combination of the second generation of Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT2) and Expectation Confirmation Theory (ECT), with the inclusion of several other constructs. An online survey was used to collect data from 154 university students and partial least squares (PLS) approach was used for data analysis. The research findings indicate that confirmation, performance, effort expectancy, usefulness, and satisfaction were the key factors that affect the post-acceptance of teleconsultation services. Furthermore, actual use, ease of use, technology readiness, and facilitating conditions did not impact participants' post intention in the continuous usage of teleconsultation facilities

Evaluation of Islamic websites’ content reliability

Internet is an open platform for anyone to publish and share information without being subjected to the authenticity of information. For Muslims, religious information crucially should be reliable due to the very reason that many Muslims consider the Internet as a source in getting Islamic knowledge. Unfortunately, the assessment on reliability of the information provided by the Internet is complex. The huge amounts of data available and lack of knowledge among Muslims contribute to the users’ incapability to recognize existences of unreliable information. Focusing on the reliability of information, this paper presents a software prototype, which uniquely automates and processes the reliability evaluation through inspections of references and scholars that are cited in the Islamic websites. Those references indicate that the Islamic websites derived their information from reliable religious sources

Students’ intention to use emotion-aware virtual learning environment: Does a lecturer’s interaction make a difference?

Purpose: This study explored students' perspective of using emotion aware Vertual Learning Environment (VLE) in Malaysia's higher education institutions. The purpose is to investigate the relationships among dimensions of Technology Readiness Index (TRI), attitude, intention to use VLE, and lecturer interaction. The outcomes concerned the emotions involved in the educational process of Malaysia's higher education institutions. Methodology: Quantitative data were collected via an online survey from 260 students. An empirical analysis was then conducted using structural equation modelling (Smart PLS) in two phases: (1) examining the direct effect of students' attitude on VLE adoption intention and (2) examining the indirect effect of constructs using lecturer interaction as a mediator. Findings: The findings revealed a significant mediating role of lecturer interaction on the relationship between attitude and intention to use VLE across the student cohort. Inhibitors, such as insecurity and discomfort, were less significant in affecting students' attitude towards emotion aware VLE. The results indicate that students are motivated to use VLE when lecturers understand their emotions and react accordingly. Significance: This is one of the studies pertaining to emotions in VLE and lecturer interaction in higher education institutions. The results facilitate an understanding of the pedagogical role of lecturer interaction as a practical learning motivation. It is of particular interest to curriculum and e-learning stakeholders looking to improve students' interactions with the VLE systems. Apart from extending the current literature, this study has significant practical implications for education management in higher learning institutions

Students' intention to use emotion-aware virtual learning environment: does a lecturer's interaction make a difference?

Purpose: This study explored students’ perspective of using emotion-aware Vertual Learning Environment (VLE) in Malaysia’s higher education institutions. The purpose is to investigate the relationships among dimensions of Technology Readiness Index (TRI), attitude, intention to use VLE, and lecturer interaction. The outcomes concerned the emotions involved in the educational process of Malaysia’s higher education institutions. Methodology: Quantitative data were collected via an online survey from 260 students. An empirical analysis was then conducted using structural equation modelling (Smart PLS) in two phases: (1) examining the direct effect of students’ attitude on VLE adoption intention and (2) examining the indirect effect of constructs using lecturer interaction as a mediator. Findings: The findings revealed a significant mediating role of lecturer interaction on the relationship between attitude and intention to use VLE across the student cohort. Inhibitors, such as insecurity and discomfort, were less significant in affecting students’ attitude towards emotion-aware VLE. The results indicate that students are motivated to use VLE when lecturers understand their emotions and react accordingly. Significance: This is one of the studies pertaining to emotions in VLE and lecturer interaction in higher education institutions. The results facilitate an understanding of the pedagogical role of lecturer interaction as a practical learning motivation. It is of particular interest to curriculum and e-learning stakeholders looking to improve students’ interactions with the VLE systems. Apart from extending the current literature, this study has significant practical implications for education management in higher learning institutions

The perception of Muslim users on reliability of Islamic websites

The Internet offers a new medium for Muslims to conduct da’wah (preaching) and it is a direct channel to obtain Islamic knowledge anywhere at any time. However, online content can be questionable unless there is a certain level of commitment to the recommendations stated in the literature. Similarly, Islamic websites should be reliable to Muslim users as a major source of Islamic knowledge. This paper reports the findings of a study conducted to measure Muslim users’ perceptions on the reliability of Islamic websites. Around 50 participants answered online open-ended questions, although only 40 returns were considered. Content analysis was used to analyze the data and revealed that the reliability of Islamic websites must be represented in the content, endorsement, interface, and references. In addition, respondents recommended for utilizing IT technology to ensure the reliability of Islamic websites and to make cross-cultural Islamic websites which reflect the various cultures of Muslims from different races and nations, as well as to deliver the message to non-Muslims in various languages. Respondents emphasized on the neutrality of the website when discussing the perceptions of madhahāb, the availability of endorsement from well-known scholars or Islamic organizations, and the agility and accessibility of user interface. They considered that citing appropriate references will enhance the reliability of the content. Since, Muslims are distributed around the world and they come from different nations and cultures, having multi-language option for the websites is considered as a good sign of reliability. Participants suggested an application or system that could evaluate and produce reports on the reliability of Islamic websites. Keywords: Islamic website, reliability, user perceptio

Comparative Study of SMOTE and Bootstrapping Performance Based on Predication Methods

Recently, there has been a renewed interest in smart health systems that aim to deliver high quality healthcare services. Prediction methods are very essential to support these systems. They mainly rely on datasets with assumptions that match the reality. However, one of the greatest challenges to prediction methods is to have datasets which are normally distributed. This paper presents an experimental work to implement SMOTE (Synthetic Minority Oversampling Technique) and bootstrapping methods to normalize datasets. It also measured the impact of both methods in the performance of different prediction methods such as Support vector machine (SVM), Naive Bayes, and neural network(NN) The results showed that bootstrapping with native bays yielded better prediction performance as compared to other prediction methods with SMOTE

Facile, polyherbal drug-mediated green synthesis of CuO nanoparticles and their potent biological applications

Copper oxide nanoparticles (CuO NPs) were synthesized using ayurvedic medicine septilin. The septilin-mediated CuO NPs were characterized using UV–Vis, fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscope (SEM), and transmission electron microscope (TEM). The average particle size of CuO NPs was 8 nm as evident from TEM. Minimum inhibitory concentration of CuO NPs against Escherichia coli, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), and Candida albicans was found in the range of 1–2.5 mg·mL−1. CuO NPs dose-dependently decreased the biofilm formation from 0.0315 to 2 mg·mL−1, at the highest dose of 2 mg·mL−1 of CuO NPs; 92.91%, 79.84%, and 71.57% decrease in biofilm was observed for P. aeruginosa, MRSA, and C. albicans, respectively. Down-regulation of biofilm upon treatment with nanoparticles (NPs) was also observed by SEM analysis. SEM analysis also showed the change in morphological structure, and deformities in bacterial and fungal cells upon treatment of NPs. Furthermore, the anticancer efficacy of NPs was assessed using colon cancer (HCT-116). The 3-(4,5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl)-2,5-diphenyltetrazolium bromide assay clearly showed the anticancer potential of NPs, as the concentration of CuO NPs increased, the number of viable cells decreased. The produced CuO NPs have promise for future investigations in many biological and therapeutic domains, including the treatment of microbial biofilm infections, as well as the inhibition of cancer cell growth