Characteristics of the surface soil ecosystem: Linkage to understanding soil dynamic functions

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Why are there defaulters in eye health projects?

PURPOSE: To identify barriers to attendance for eye examination of schoolchildren. METHODS: Cross-sectional study. Students in grades 1-4 in elementary school in Guarulhos (Brazil) were screened and referred for ophthalmic examination in 2006. Facilities offered in this project were: examination arranged during weekends, free transportation, spectacle donation and two different opportunities for exam. A questionnaire was applied, by interview, to a sample consisted of students' parents attended in a community project who missed the first call and attended the recall, to identify the reasons for non-attendance. RESULTS: The sample consisted of 767 parents or guardians, corresponding to an equal number of schoolchildren. Personal characteristics of the students: 49.2% male and 50.8% female, 60.2% of them had never received previous ophthalmologic evaluation. Reported reasons for no-show to the project: parents had not received appropriate orientation (35.6%), loss of working day (20.6%), illness (12.4%), had another appointment (10.0%). The need for eyeglasses was higher in the recall. CONCLUSIONS: A significant number of parents did not take their children for ophthalmological exams, even when a second opportunity was offered in projects with transportation facilities, free exams performed during weekends and spectacle donation. The main causes of absenteeism were lack of awareness and work. For 87.1% of the absenteeism cases, the difficulties could be overcome via improved structuring of the first call. A recall increases attendance coverage of target population by only 15.2% (59.3 to 74.5%). Notably, the eye exam campaign was the first exam for most of the absent students

Development of a Facial Recognition System with Email Identification Message Relay Mechanism

Attendance records play a vital role in the educational sector. It is so vital that students are not allowed to sit for examinations if they do not meet the class attendance benchmark. But students, instead of making sure they attend classes regularly, devise cunny ways of committing attendance fraud. This unpleasant trend has made it necessary to develop systems that can take accurate class attendance records and minimize fraud. The use of biometrics to develop attendance taking systems is becoming quite popular. One of such biometrics is The Face. In this paper, a facial recognition algorithm known as Fisherfaces or Fisher Discriminant Analysis (FDA) which is not sensitive to substantial variation in facial look and illumination is used to develop the facial recognition attendance taking system. The system implemented has a training database of Ten (10) students. Ten (10) facial images of each student are taken with different composures, looks and under different levels of illumination. Tests on nine (9) students in the database yielded accuracies of as low as 70% and as high as 90%. This validates the proof that the more the number of training facial image in the database, the higher the accuracy of Fisherfaces approach. The simple mail transfer protocol (SMTP) was interfaced with the database to send identification messages (name of student identified with time and date of identification) to the email address of the administrator (in this case the lecturer) in realtime to effectively monitor the attendance. The result was found capable of eliminating attendance fraud

Automatic Home Appliance Switching Using Speech Recognition Software and Embedded System

In most homes, electrical appliances are controlled and operated manually, this could be difficult and challenging to do when tiredness, handicap, morphological variations (height, aging etc.) and inadequate skill stands in the way as impediment. This study aims to implement a better and more flexible means of controlling home appliances by means of an automated switching mechanism using speech recognition technique. Acoustic signals picked by a microphone controlled by a speech recognition application generate digital signals that are passed to a microcontroller, which in turn dispatches commands that operate the relays to which the appliances in the home are connected. The goal of using speech command to automate the switching of home appliances was achieved and proved to be a more convenient means of switching home appliances

Problem Based Learning to Improve HOTS of High School Students

This research aimed to improve the high-order thinking ability of students by applying PBL model in Environment Pollution of 10th MIA 3 graders of SMA Negeri 2 Sukoharjo. This study was a classroom action research followed the Kemmis and Mc. Taggart's, and conducted in two cycles, from April to May 2016. Each cycle consisted of 4 stages: planning, acting, observing, and reflecting. The participants were 31 students (18 female and 13 male students) of 10th MIA 3 graders of SMA Negeri 2 Sukoharjo. Data was obtained using essay test on the high-order thinking ability, interview, observation sheet on the implementation of PBL syntax, observation sheet on affective and psychomotor aspects of students. Essay test of high-order thinking ability includes: analyzing (C4), evaluating (C5), and creating (C6) based on Bloom's revised taxonomy. Data analysis was descriptively. The target of research was the improvement of students' high-order thinking ability in every aspect more than 23% from based line to the end of research cycle. The result shows that the PBL model in environment pollution material is able to improve the high-order thinking ability of students by ≥23% from based line to the end of research cycle. The increase of percentage gain in each aspect of high-order thinking ability from pre-cycle to cycle II was as follows: 1) the analyzing aspect increased by 25.16%, 2) the evaluating aspect increased by 26.66%, and 3) the creating aspect increased by 23.95%

An Improved Iris Segmentation Technique Using Circular Hough Transform

It is quite easy to spoof an automated iris recognition system using fake iris such as paper print and artificial lens. False Rejection Rate (FRR) and False Acceptance Rate (FAR) of a specific approach can be as a result of noise introduced in the segmentation process. Special attention has not been paid to a modified system in which a more accurate segmentation process is applied to an already existing efficient algorithm thereby increasing the overall reliability and accuracy of iris recognition. In this work an improvement of the already existing wavelet packet decomposition for iris recognition with a Correct Classification Rate (CCR) of 98.375% is proposed. It involves changing the segmentation technique used for this implementation from the integro-differential operator approach (John Daugman’s model) to the Hough transform (Wilde’s model). This research extensively compared the two segmentation techniques to show which is better in the implementation of the wavelet packet decomposition. Implementation of the integro-differential approach to segmentation showed an accuracy of 91.39% while the Hough Transform approach showed an accuracy of 93.06%. This result indicates that the integration of the Hough Transform into any open source iris recognition module can offer as much as a 1.67% improved accuracy due to improvement in its preprocessing stage. The improved iris segmentation technique using Hough Transform has an overall CCR of 100%

Ipomea asarifolia (Desr), A Potential Cover Crop for Soil Fertility Improvement in The Sudan Savanna Region, Nigeria

The effect of Ipomea asarifolia on physico - chemical properties of the soils at Usmanu Danfodiyo University, Sokoto main campus, in the Sudan Savanna of Nigeria was investigated. The study determined the effect of the plant on some physical and chemical properties of soils, found out the nutrient retention ability of the plant in the soils and the variation of the effect with distance within the plants’ canopy. A total of 48 samples were collected from four different sites within Usmanu Danfodiyo University main Campus; VC complex area, University stadium area, Behind new library area and opposite IBB centre area and four distances from the plant (control, plant base, 0.5 m and 1 m from the plant base). Samples were collected for use in a randomized complete block design (RCBD) experiment with three replicates. Soil pH, Organic C, CEC, total N, available P, K, Ca and Mg concentrations were determined, particle size analysis was also carried out. The results were subjected to analysis of variance (ANOVA), where significant F values were obtained, the means were separated by Duncan multiple range tests (DMRT). The difference among the sites and the distances were found to be statistically significant (P VC complex area > New library area > IBB centre area. On the other hand, the effect on all the parameters was found to decrease with distance from the plant with the base of the plant having the highest organic C, CEC, total N, available P and exchangeable K, Ca and Mg; 6.83 g kg-1, 5.00 cmol kg-1, 0.42 g kg-1, 10.82 mg kg-1 and 0.26, 0.50 and 0.97 cmol kg-1 respectively, while the control soils had the least values; 3.46 g kg-1, 4.00 cmol kg-1, 0.12 g kg-1, 7.43 mg kg-1, 0.21, 0.38, and 0.45 cmol kg-1 respectively. The effect was attributed to the accumulation of organic matter around the plant and its ability to prevent erosion by both water and wind thus retaining nutrients making it a suitable cover crop for soil fertility improvement

Defective Morphogenesis and Functional Maturation in Fetal Islet-Like Cell Clusters From OLETF Rat, A Model of NIDDM

A failure in the compensate proliferation of pancreatic β-cells, as the primary pathogenic event, has been reported in OLETF rat, a model of NIDDM. The aim of the present study is to define whether the β-cell defect is attributed to the fetal stage islet development, if so, whether the defect involves down regulation of PDX-1 protein expression. Morphological changes, β-cell function, and the expression of PDX-1 protein were examined in the cultured fetal islet-like cell clusters (ICCs) from OLETF rats along with their diabetes-resistant control counterpart LETO rats in the presence of 5.5 or 11.1mM glucose for 48, 72, 96, and 120-hr, respectively. We have observed four abnormalities in the ICCs of OLETF rats. First, a defective morphogenesis was noted during the 72 to 120-hr ICC culture, a period characterized by a dramatic increase in both β-cell and non-β-cell (α,σ, and PP) populations in control rats. This defective morphogenesis was demonstrated by a growth retardation of epithelial stratification and poor development of both β-cell and non-β-cell masses along with a parallel decline in relevant islet hormone contents. Second, a functional defect was characterized by failure to response to glucose during the 96 to 120- hr-cultured ICCs. Third, the ultrastructural analysis revealed a significant reduction in the number of secretory granules. Four, Western blot analysis showed a significant decrease of PDX-1 protein expression in the OLETF ICCs cultured in 11.1mM glucose for 48 to 72-hr and in 5.5mM glucose for 120-hr. Therefore, we concluded that during the fetal stage of islet development, OLETF rats exhibit both morphological and functional defects

DESIGN OF A DROWNING RESCUE ALERT SYSTEM

Dating back in time, drowning has been a significant ground for death worldwide; it accounts for the third cause of unplanned death globally, with about 1.2 million cases yearly. Characteristically it affects swimmers, accident victims, children and recreational seeking individuals. Although there have been various provisions put in place from drowning in some countries, it still accounts for the primary cause of unplanned death. Eradication rather than cure has been able to minimize the number of individuals who drown generally, except in developing nations, who lack adequate educational facilities and enforcement of safety measures on the dangers of drowning, thereby making the burden of drowning to escalate. The proposed drowning rescue system aims to curb deaths from drowning by observing the rise and fall of the heart rate and blood pressure of a swimmer or non-swimmer in water and if endangered, sends signals from the wearable device attached to the wrist of the victim who maybe undergoing a neardrowning experience to the receiver or rescuer who could be a lifeguard, parent or neighbour, in order to enable the rescuer render immediate help

Mitigating Threats in a Corporate Network with a Taintcheck-Enabled Honeypot

Conventional network security tools such as Intrusion Detection Systems (IDS), Intrusion Prevention Systems (IPS), anti-virus, antispyware and anti-malware integrated with firewalls generate a lot of false positives that make computer network system administration cumbersome. This paper proposes a novel mechanism comprising of taintcheck for dynamic analysis of buffer overflow attack using synthetic exploit and hybrid honeypot for scanning, detecting, identifying attackers and signature generation. In this framework, Noah’s attack detection is used as a template. Upon testing, the practicality of the proposed framework was found to be more effective than other conventional network security tools as it effectively and comprehensively mitigates against threats and reported zero-day attacks with fewer false positives