Recognition and Classification of Leaf Disease in Potato Plants

Farming is one of the most important lifelines of the country. A nation’s growth majorly depends on how advanced and effective their agricultural practices are in improving the crop yield. When a crop is grown many at times, farmers are unable to identify the health and wellbeing of the plant; they only recognize the problems when it becomes too late hence losing out on that year's expected yield. In this study, we have introduced a recognition and classification technique which is able to detect any ailments that the plant is suffering from at an early stage itself thus enabling the farmers to do the needful at a recoverable stage itself. To make the system as user-friendly as possible, we have provided a feature where the farmers are able to assess the health of the plant by providing a picture of the potato plants’ leaf

Silymarin protects liver against toxic effects of anti-tuberculosis drugs in experimental animals

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The first line anti-tuberculosis drugs isoniazid (INH), rifampicin (RIF) and pyrazinamide (PZA) continues to be the effective drugs in the treatment of tuberculosis, however, the use of these drugs is associated with toxic reactions in tissues, particularly in the liver, leading to hepatitis. Silymarin, a standard plant extract with strong antioxidant activity obtained from <it>S. marianum</it>, is known to be an effective agent for liver protection and liver regeneration. The aim of this study was to investigate the protective actions of silymarin against hepatotoxicity caused by different combinations of anti-tuberculosis drugs.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Male Wistar albino rats weighing 250–300 g were used to form 6 study groups, each group consisting of 10 rats. Animals were treated with intra-peritoneal injection of isoniazid (50 mg/kg) and rifampicin (100 mg/kg); and intra-gastric administration of pyrazinamid (350 mg/kg) and silymarin (200 mg/kg). Hepatotoxicity was induced by a combination of drugs with INH+RIF and INH+RIF+PZA. Hepatoprotective effect of silymarin was investigated by co-administration of silymarin together with the drugs. Serum biochemical tests for liver functions and histopathological examination of livers were carried out to demonstrate the protection of liver against anti-tuberculosis drugs by silymarin.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Treatment of rats with INH+RIF or INH+RIF+PZA induced hepatotoxicity as evidenced by biochemical measurements: serum alanine aminotransferase (ALT), aspartate aminotransferase (AST) and alkaline phosphatase (ALP) activities and the levels of total bilirubin were elevated, and the levels of albumin and total protein were decreased in drugs-treated animals. Histopathological changes were also observed in livers of animals that received drugs. Simultaneous administration of silymarin significantly decreased the biochemical and histological changes induced by the drugs.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The active components of silymarin had protective effects against hepatotoxic actions of drugs used in the chemotherapy of tuberculosis in animal models. Since no significant toxicity of silymarin is reported in human studies, this plant extract can be used as a dietary supplement by patients taking anti-tuberculosis medications.</p

Yeast expressed recombinant Hemagglutinin protein of Novel H1N1 elicits neutralising antibodies in rabbits and mice

Currently available vaccines for the pandemic Influenza A (H1N1) 2009 produced in chicken eggs have serious impediments viz limited availability, risk of allergic reactions and the possible selection of sub-populations differing from the naturally occurring virus, whereas the cell culture derived vaccines are time consuming and may not meet the demands of rapid global vaccination required to combat the present/future pandemic. Hemagglutinin (HA) based subunit vaccine for H1N1 requires the HA protein in glycosylated form, which is impossible with the commonly used bacterial expression platform. Additionally, bacterial derived protein requires extensive purification and refolding steps for vaccine applications. For these reasons an alternative heterologous system for rapid, easy and economical production of Hemagglutinin protein in its glycosylated form is required. The HA gene of novel H1N1 A/California/04/2009 was engineered for expression in Pichia pastoris as a soluble secreted protein. The full length HA- synthetic gene having α-secretory tag was integrated into P. pastoris genome through homologous recombination. The resultant Pichia clones having multiple copy integrants of the transgene expressed full length HA protein in the culture supernatant. The Recombinant yeast derived H1N1 HA protein elicited neutralising antibodies both in mice and rabbits. The sera from immunised animals also exhibited Hemagglutination Inhibition (HI) activity. Considering the safety, reliability and also economic potential of Pichia expression platform, our preliminary data indicates the feasibility of using this system as an alternative for large-scale production of recombinant influenza HA protein in the face of influenza pandemic threat

Reduction of Speckle Noise in SAR Image with the Application of DSF Filter

SAR (Synthetic Aperture Radar) is a mechanism of radar communication crafted for the object reconstruction with the inclusion of both two and three dimension. It is based on the motion of radar antenna over a target region. SAR has an enormous range of practicalities which includes earth observation applications, areas of natural resource management, etc. The former being covering areas in global monitoring, mapping, charting, and land use planning. The latter is its application in fields of forestry agriculture, water quality monitoring and wildlife habitat management. Being so well rounded in its functioning, there is a vital importance in retaining the necessitated information of the SAR imagery during its compression. The presence of inherent speckle noise demeans the quality of SAR. Multiple filters viz. the Lee or Frost filters, based on variation in adaptive filtering coefficient, have been utilised to restore the reflectivity of radar with the underlying assumption of the presence of multiplicative speckle noise in the image. However, due to the occurrence of strong scatters or the structural features (lines or edge) in processing windows, this type of speckle filtering is not as effective as the method proposed by this paper. This is an algorithm for the filtering using Directional Smoothing Filter (DSF). Thus, following noise removal and information preservation, the proposed method helps segue into high data transmission rates and archival ratios