A multiprocessing platform for transient event detection

Thesis (M.S.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, 1995.Includes bibliographical references.by Umair A. Khan.M.S

Classification of Melanoma and Nevus in Digital Images for Diagnosis of Skin Cancer

Melanoma is considered a fatal type of skin cancer. However, it is sometimes hard to distinguish it from nevus due to their identical visual appearance and symptoms. The mortality rate because of this disease is higher than all other skin-related consolidated malignancies. The number of cases is growing among young people, but if it is diagnosed at an earlier stage, then the survival rates become very high. The cost and time required for the doctors to diagnose all patients for melanoma are very high. In this paper, we propose an intelligent system to detect and distinguish melanoma from nevus by using the state-of-the-art image processing techniques. At first, the Gaussian filter is used for removing noise from the skin lesion of the acquired images followed by the use of improved K-mean clustering to segment out the lesion. A distinctive hybrid superfeature vector is formed by the extraction of textural and color features from the lesion. Support vector machine (SVM) is utilized for the classification of skin cancer into melanoma and nevus. Our aim is to test the effectiveness of the proposed segmentation technique, extract the most suitable features, and compare the classification results with the other techniques present in the literature. The proposed methodology is tested on the DERMIS dataset having a total number of 397 skin cancer images: 146 are melanoma and 251 are nevus skin lesions. Our proposed methodology archives encouraging results having 96% accuracy

Planting Geometry and Herbicides for Weed Control in Rice: Implications and Challenges

Weeds are one of the major biological threats to higher rice productivity worldwide. Various cultural, biological, physical and chemical practices affect the composition and intensity of weeds in rice fields. Generally, weeds can be controlled through herbicides; nevertheless, chemical weed control is not a sustainable option on a long term. Various agronomic practices such as the use of tolerant cultivars, adjusting sowing time, tillage permutations and plant geometry may reduce the weed pressure in rice. Integrated approaches for weed management, emphasizing on the combination of management practices and scientific knowledge, may reduce the economic costs and improve weed control owing to the complexity of the weed community. The present chapter reveals the role of planting geometry and herbicides as weed management strategies in rice, and discusses the issue of herbicide resistance associated with chemical weed control. Moreover, the research and knowledge gaps in rice weed management through planting geometry and herbicides were also highlighted

Development of Phytocosmeceutical Microemulgel Containing Flaxseed Extract and Its In Vitro and In Vivo Characterization

Antioxidants from natural sources are extensively attaining consideration to avert the skin from damage and aging caused by free radicals. Flaxseed (Linum usitatissimum L.), a natural therapeutic agent, was meant to be explored cosmeceutical by quantifying its potential phytoconstituents and to be incorporated into a microemulgel for topical use. Hydroalcoholic fractions (both methanolic and ethanolic; 80%) flaxseed extracts were subjected to phytochemical screening by quantifying total phenolic content (TPC), total flavonoid content (TFC), and high-performance liquid chromatography-ultraviolet (HPLC-UV), and for biological activities through 2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) assay, tyrosinase inhibition assay, and sun protection factor (SPF). Ethanolic fraction was selected for further study by TPC (18.75 mg gallic acid equivalent/g) and TFC (1.34 mg quercetin equivalent/g). HPLC-UV analysis showed the existence of benzoic, quercetin, caffeic, vanillic, p-coumaric, gallic, cinnamic, syringic, and sinapic acids. Biological activities showed 87.00%, 72.00%, and 21.75 values for DPPH assay, tyrosinase inhibition, and SPF assays, respectively. An oil-in-water (OW) microemulsion containing the flaxseed extract, with 99.20 nm Zeta size, −19.3 Zeta potential and 0.434 polydispersity index was developed and incorporated in Carbopol-940 gel matrix to formulate an active microemulgel with 59.15% release in in vitro studies. The successfully formulated stable active microemulgel produced statistically significant effects (p < 0.05), in comparison to a placebo, on skin erythema, melanin, sebum, moisture, and elasticity, in a noninvasive in vivo study performed on 13 healthy human female volunteers. Other cosmeceutical products can also be formulated from flaxseed, making it a considerable candidate for further utilization in the pharmaceutical industry

Fine-grained sentiment analysis for measuring customer satisfaction using an extended set of fuzzy linguistic hedges

© 2020 The Authors. Published by Atlantis Press SARL. In recent years, the boom in social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter has brought people together for the sharing of opinions, sentiments, emotions, and experiences about products, events, politics, and other topics. In particular, sentiment-based applications are growing in popularity among individuals and businesses for the making of purchase decisions. Fuzzy-based sentiment analysis aims at classifying customer sentiment at a fine-grained level. This study deals with the development of a fuzzy-based sentiment analysis by extending fuzzy hedges and rule-sets for a more efficient classification of customer sentiment and satisfaction. Prior studies have used a limited number of linguistic hedges and polarity classes in their rule-sets, resulting in the degraded efficiency of their fuzzy-based sentiment analysis systems. The proposed analysis of the current study classifies customer reviews using fuzzy linguistic hedges and an extended rule-set with seven sentiment analysis classes, namely extremely positive, very positive, positive, neutral, negative, very negative, and extremely negative. Then, a fuzzy logic system is applied to measure customer satisfaction at a fine-grained level. The experimental results demonstrate that the proposed analysis has an improved performance over the baseline works

Mitigating Salt-Induced Damages in Wheat with Foliar-Applied Nigella sativa Seed Extract: A Comprehensive Study

Nigella sativa, a medicinal plant, known for its diverse bioactive compounds, including antioxidants and phytohormones, have shown potential in mitigating salt stress in various plant species. Amongst naturally occurring plant growth stimulants, it has attained enormous attention being rich in thymoquinineand carvacrol in seeds for scavenging free radicals. This research aimed to investigate the effect of Nigella sativa seed extract (NSE) as foliar spray (0, 50, 100 and 150g seeds per liter each) on wheat growth under salt stress (0mM, 75mM and 150mM). Results revealed that salinity decreased growth attributes and accumulation of photosynthetic pigments. On the other hand, salinity stress boosted the contents of malondialdehyde, hydrogen peroxide, glycinebetaine, leaf free proline, Na+ and Cl-. Foliar application of NSEameliorated the negative effects of salinity to considerable extent by enhancing growth traits, chlorophyll contents, glycinebetaine and prolineand decreased Na+, Cl-,malondialdehyde andhydrogen peroxide. This research provides valuable insights into the potential use of NSE as natural and sustainable solution to alleviate salt stress in wheat crop. These findings contribute to the development of eco-friendly strategies for enhancing crop resilience in saline environments, ultimately addressing the global challenge of food security in the face of increasing soil salinity

A Cross-Cultural Examination of Medicinal Plants Used in the Treatment of Lumpy Skin Disease in Bovine Herds in Sargodha, Punjab, Pakistan

Medicinal plants are being used for the treatment of various livestock ailments by the local peoples since earliest times. It is a recognized fact that plants are an important source of ethnoveterinary medicines. From the last decade, ethnoveterinary practices have gained tremendous importance due to the discovery of some effective ethnoveterinary products. Ethnoveterinary practices are more common in developing countries including Pakistan due to different socioeconomic factors. The studies showed that many medicinal plants used for the treatment of Lumpy skin disease (LSD). Ethno-pharmacological content was obtained from 200 people with knowledge and experience of using plants as medicines for this disease in different areas of Sargodha and Khushab, Punjab, Pakistan. The field study was carried out from January-2023 to June-2023. All the data was collected by evaluation and interviews by calculating Use value (UV). The result from this study shows that 20 medicinal plants that belong to fifteen families greatly represented by Family Meliaceae were significant in treating LSD. This study indicated that the ethno-medicinal practices and knowledge are still used in District Sargodha and Khushab plants that support health care and help in the improvement of alternative system of medicines. These results gave commencing information on the significance use of medicinal plants. It can be tested for use in the future that leading to new discoveries of medicines in the treatment of LSD and other diseases of cattle

Phytochemical Profiling of the Ethanolic Extract of Zaleya pentandra L. Jaffery and Its Biological Activities by In-Vitro Assays and In-Silico Molecular Docking

Zaleya pentandra L. jaffery is the only species of the genus Zaleya that grows in the Cholistan desert, Pakistan. It is a Xero-halophyte plant with high phenolic and flavonoid content. The present research was designed to investigate the phytochemical composition, biological activities, and in silico molecular docking of the ethanolic extract of Z. pentandra. The phytochemical evaluation was done through preliminary phytochemical testing, estimation of total bioactive content, and gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (GC–MS) analysis for the identification of volatile compounds. For the evaluation of biological activities, antioxidants, and enzyme inhibition (α-glucosidase, cholinesterase, and tyrosinase), antibacterial and antiviral assays were performed. GC–MS analysis revealed the presence of 29 tentative volatile compounds. The ethanolic extract of Z. pentandra contains high phenolic content (119.6 ± 0.12 mg GAE/g extract) and flavonoid content (45.5 ± 0.19 mg QE/g extract), which correlates with the strong DPPH, FRAP, and enzyme inhibition results. The ethanolic extract of Z. pentandra also showed dose-dependent antibacterial activity. Micrococcus luteus and Pseudomonas aeruginosa were found to be most susceptible, with 16 mm and 17 mm zone of inhibitions at a maximum dose of 20 mg/mL. Antiviral results showed that the ethanol extract has excellent activity against H9, IBV, and NDV viral strains. Additionally, in silico molecular docking was performed in order to determine the interaction and binding affinity between the enzymes and compounds identified by GC–MS. α-glucosidase, cholinesterase, and tyrosinase showed the highest binding affinity toward 1,2-benzenedicarboxylic acid, 2-hydroxy-n-(2-phenylethyl) benzamide, γ-sitosterol, and lactose. These findings can serve as a benchmark for anti-diabetic-, neuro-, and skin-protective uses of this plant and can be used for the isolation of pure bioactive compounds in the future

Knowledge, Attitude and Practices about Blood Donation among Undergraduate Medical Students in Karachi

Background: Blood donation is a major concern to the society as donated blood is lifesaving for individuals who need it. In Pakistan, the concept of voluntary blood donors is almost non-existent due to the absence of blood donor motivation and retention strategies. The healthy, active and receptive huge student population can be potential blood donor to meet the safe blood requirements. The objective of this study was to determine the knowledge, attitude and practices about blood donation among undergraduate medical students in Karachi. Methods: A cross sectional study was conducted in two public and one private medical college in Karachi from January to March 2012. A total of 600 medical students were interviewed with the help of structured questionnaire. Data analysis was performed in SPSS version 19. Multiple regressions were used to examine the effect of different independent variables on a single dependent variable to test the statistical significance at 95% confidence level. Results: The majority of participants (92%) had appropriate knowledge regarding the various aspects of blood donation. Attitude domain showed that around 42% of students were positive about blood donation. Around 50% of students showed willingness to donate blood. After adjusting for potential confounders, male gender was associated with appropriate knowledge, positive attitude and willingness for blood donation when compared against female gender. Conclusion: Good knowledge about blood donation practices is not transforming in donating blood. Interactive awareness sessions on blood donation should be organized during undergraduate years and opportunities for blood donation should be created for the students, which can greatly enhance the movement for voluntary non-remunerated blood donation-, to ensure good quality of blood and safe modern medical care.sch_pod2pub3848pub