Customized Semantic Segmentation for Enhanced Disease Detection of Maize Leaf Images

Maize leaf images are affected by various diseases. Though many image processing techniques are available to identify diseased segment of a diseased maize leaf image proper methodology to segment every chunk in the leaf as disease, shadow, healthy and background using a single methodology is still in search of. So, a single line of attack is availed using Semantic Segmentation for diseased maize Leaf images through which every pixel in an image is equated to a class. Initially multiple classes in the maize leaf images are Labeled and trained. ImagedataStore and PixelLabelDatastore are used to distinguish original images and trained images. With different classes defined and trained using the Semanticseg model and later applying semantic segmentation to the diseased maize leaf images they are segmented into various classes such as healthy, diseased, shadow and background. The shadows and background are difficult to handle and with this segmentation the exact pixel count of various classes are displayed. The output of semantic segmentation is a maize Leaf image where each pixel is equated to a particular class whereas in normal CNN the output is not an image but a class

A NOVEL MULTIPHASE BIDIRECTIONAL FLY-BACK CONVERTER TOPOLOGY IS APPLIED TO INDUCTION MOTOR DRIVE

Hybrid Electric Vehicle (HEV) is an emerging technology in the modern world because of the fact that it mitigates environmental pollutions and at the same time increases fuel efficiency of the vehicles. Bi-directional Fly – back Converter controls electric drive of HEV of high power and enhances its performance which is the reflection of the fact that it can generate Constant voltages. For hybrid electric vehicles, the batteries and the drive dc link may be at different voltages. The batteries are at low voltage to obtain higher volumetric efficiencies, and the dc link is at higher voltage to have higher efficiency on the motor side. Therefore, a power interface between the batteries and the drive’s dc link is essential. This power interface should handle power flow from battery to motor, motor to battery, external gen-set to battery, and grid to battery. This paper proposes a multi-power-port topology which is capable of handling multiple power sources and still maintains simplicity and features like obtaining high gain, wide load variations, lower output-current ripple, and capability of parallel-battery energy due to the modular structure. The scheme incorporates a transformer winding technique which drastically reduces the leakage inductance of the coupled inductor. The development and testing of a bidirectional fly-back dc–dc converter for hybrid electric vehicle is described in this paper. Simple hysteresis voltage control is used for dc-link voltage regulation. The simulation results are presented, and modeling the circuit by using MATLAB/SIMULINK Platform

A comparative study to assess the parental prespective of behavioral problems prevalent among boys and girls in selected community area at Namakkal district

A large member of children suffer from behavioral problems at one time or the other during their growing up year behavioral problems are important determinants of school children ant later success in the labor market. This study use a comparative descriptive design on a sample of 120 children in age group of 6-12 year hailing from an equal number of boys and girls to examine the prevalence of behavioral problem in related to certain socio demographic variables as well as parent characteristic, based on considered choice after review of child behavior check list was used in the study Objectives: to compare the behavioral problem among boys and girls, to find out the association between the behavioral problem and background variable, among boys and girls. Methodology: The investigator proposed to compare the behavioral problems among boys and girls (i.e.) group1 and group 2, therefore the research design used in the study was comparative descriptive design in nature. The total population of olapalayam community is 1228. In this boys and girls age group is between 6-12yrs. This setting is geographical proximity and investigator familiarity with the setting, the selection of setting was done based on feasibility of conducting the study and availability of sample. By using a convenience, sampling non-probability technique was used to select the sample for the study. Behavioral problem checklist by MURPHY.J.MICHAEL, (1995) was used as a questionnaire it consists of two section, they are section A (demographic variables) and section B (behavioral problem checklist) the result shows that Inferential and descriptive statistics were used to analyze the values. The obtained’ value was higher than the table value. Conclusion: This study shows that boys have more behavioral problems than girls do

Protective Effect of Abutilon indicum L. (Malvaceae) Against Cisplatin Induced Nephrotoxicity in Rats

Cisplatin (CDDP) is an effective antineoplastic agent in the treatment of solid malignant tumors. But, Its clinical use is limited because of various side effects including sensorineural hearing loss. Several agents have been proposed to reduce these side effects.  The present study reported that the etanolic extract of Abutilon indicum scavenge superoxide and hydroxyl radicals, resulting in a reduction of lipid peroxidation. The purpose of the present study was to evaluate EEAI's efficacy as a protective agent against cisplatin-induced ototoxicity. Albino wistar rats were used in this study and were divided into five treatment groups: 1) animals administered 2% v/v aqueous tween 80 solution (5ml/kg, p.o) – control sroup(Group I), 2) animals administered 2% v/v aqueous tween 80 solution (5ml/kg, p.o) + 6 mg/kg via the                                               i.p route of Cisplatin (Group II), 3) animals received Cystone (5ml/kg, p.o) [Standard] (Group III), 4) animals received 200 mg/kg EEAI suspended in 2% v/v aqueous tween 80 solution, p.o + 6 mg/kg, i.p of cisplatin (Group IV), 5) animals received 400 mg/kg EEAI suspended in 2% v/v aqueous tween 80 solution, p.o 6 mg/kg, i.p of cisplatin (Group V). The protective effect of EEAI on CDDP-induced nephrotoxicity was evaluated. Nephrotoxicity was evaluated by means of measurement of serum BUN and creatinine and histopathological examination of the kidney. There were significant differences in serum BUN and creatinine levels between control Group and cisplatin treated Groups. The result suggested that EEAI at 200 and 400mg/kg administered 7 days before cisplatin treatment significantly prevented the increase of serum creatinine, blood urea nitrogen, uric acid, total proteins, total cholesterol, alkaline phosphatase, and albumin concentrations and markedly decreased cisplatin-induced renal damage as confirmed by biochemical assays and histopathological studies. In the present study, Key words:Antioxidants, Cisplatin, nephrotoxiciity, Abutilon indicu

PROTECTIVE EFFECT OF ABUTILON INDICUM L. (MALVACEAE) AGAINST ACETAMINOPHEN INDUCED NEPHROTOXICITY IN RATS

Acetaminophen overdose can cause nephrotoxicity with oxidative stress as one of the possible mechanisms. The effects of ethanolic extract of Abutilon Indicum[200 mg per kg of body weight (mg/kg) and 400 mg/kg] on Acetaminophen induced nephrotoxicity were evaluated. Rats were divided into five groups containing 6 rats each. The control group received distilled water while other groups were treated with extract alone (400 mg/kg), Acetaminophen alone (750 mg/kg), 750 mg/kg Acetaminophen+200 mg/kg extract (Acetaminophen+ 200-extract), and 750 mg/kg Acetaminophen+400 mg/kg extract (Acetaminophen+400-extract), respectively, for seven consecutive days. The EEAI was given orally concurrent with oral administration of Acetaminophen Treatment with EEAI at doses of 200 and 400 mg/kg prevented the Acetaminophen-induced nephrotoxicity and oxidative impairments of the kidney, as evidenced by a significantly reduced (P<0.05) level of Serum creatinine, BUN, serum alkaline phosphatase, Serum uric acid, serum total proteins and total cholesterol. The nephroprotective effects of EEAI were confirmed by a reduced intensity of renal cellular damage, as evidenced by histological findings. Moreover, EEAI administered at 400 mg/kg was found to show greater protective effects than that at 200 mg/kg. In conclusion, EEAI has a protective role against Acetaminophen-induced nephrotoxicity and the process is probably mediated through its antioxidant properties.Key words: Antioxidants, Cisplatin, nephrotoxiciity, Abutilon indicu

Association of influenza infection and vaccination with cardiac biomarkers and left ventricular ejection fraction in patients with acute myocardial infarction

Aims: The aim of this study was to examine the association of influenza infection and vaccination with extent of cardiac damage during acute myocardial infarctions (AMIs) as measured by serum biomarkers and left ventricular ejection function (LVEF) in patients. Methods: Post-hoc analysis was performed on data from a prospective case-control study of influenza and AMI, conducted in a tertiary care hospital in Sydney, Australia. We included 275 cases of AMI, aged ≥ 40 years admitted to the cardiology during the study period. Results: Mean and median CK-MB levels were significantly higher among unvaccinated group compared to vaccinated group (p value < 0.05). Troponin levels were also higher among unvaccinated group compared to vaccinated group; although not statistically significant. Troponin and CKMB values were not statistically different among influenza positive cases and influenza negative cases. Large size infarcts were less frequent among vaccinated cases compared to unvaccinated cases (25% vs 35.5%) and were more frequent among influenza positive cases compared to influenza negative cases (35.3% vs 31.5%), however differences were not statistically significant. LVEF was lower among vaccinated cases compared to unvaccinated cases (62.5% vs. 52.8%) and influenza positive cases compared to influenza negative cases (58.8% vs 55.4), however differences were not significant. Conclusion: Lower CKMB levels among vaccinated groups showed that influenza vaccine may have a protective effect against large infarcts, therefore influenza vaccination should be recommended for high risk groups. The study suggests an association of larger infarcts with influenza infection, but larger studies are required to confirm this

Intracellular nucleic acid delivery by the supercharged dengue virus capsid protein

© 2013 Freire et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.Supercharged proteins are a recently identified class of proteins that have the ability to efficiently deliver functional macromolecules into mammalian cells. They were first developed as bioengineering products, but were later found in the human proteome. In this work, we show that this class of proteins with unusually high net positive charge is frequently found among viral structural proteins, more specifically among capsid proteins. In particular, the capsid proteins of viruses from the Flaviviridae family have all a very high net charge to molecular weight ratio (> +1.07/kDa), thus qualifying as supercharged proteins. This ubiquity raises the hypothesis that supercharged viral capsid proteins may have biological roles that arise from an intrinsic ability to penetrate cells. Dengue virus capsid protein was selected for a detailed experimental analysis. We showed that this protein is able to deliver functional nucleic acids into mammalian cells. The same result was obtained with two isolated domains of this protein, one of them being able to translocate lipid bilayers independently of endocytic routes. Nucleic acids such as siRNA and plasmids were delivered fully functional into cells. The results raise the possibility that the ability to penetrate cells is part of the native biological functions of some viral capsid proteins.This work was supported by Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia – Ministério da Educação e Ciência (FCT-MEC, Portugal) [PTDC/QUI-BIQ/112929/2009], by the European Union [projects FP7-PEOPLE IRSES (MEMPEPACROSS) and FP7-HEALTH-F3-2008-223414 (LEISHDRUG)], by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (SAF2011-24899), the Generalitat de Catalunya (2009 SGR 492), by the Brazilian Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnoloógico (CNPq), Fundação Carlos Chagas Filho de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado do Rio de Janeiro (FAPERJ), and the National Institute of Science and Technology in Dengue (INCT-Dengue). JMF also acknowledges FCT-MEC for Ph.D. fellowship SFRH/BD/70423/2010