UWB-based early breast cancer existence prediction using artificial intelligence for large data set

Breast cancer is the most often identified cancer among women and the main reason for cancer-related deaths worldwide. The most effective methods for controlling and treating this disease through breast screening and emerging detection techniques. This paper proposes an intelligent classifier for the early detection of breast cancer using a larger dataset since there is limited researcher focus on that for better analytic models. To ensure that the issue is tackled, this project proposes an intelligent classifier using the Probabilistic Neural Network (PNN) with a statistical feature model that uses a more significant size of data set to analyze the prediction of the presence of breast cancer using Ultra Wideband (UWB). The proposed method is able to detect breast cancer existence with an average accuracy of 98.67%. The proposed module might become a potential user-friendly technology for early breast cancer detection in domestic use

Biopiracy <i>versus </i>one-world medicine – from colonial relicts to global collaborative concepts

Background: Practices of biopiracy to use genetic resources and indigenous knowledge by Western companies without benefit-sharing of those, who generated the traditional knowledge, can be understood as form of neocolonialism.Hypothesis: : The One-World Medicine concept attempts to merge the best of traditional medicine from developing countries and conventional Western medicine for the sake of patients around the globe.Study design: Based on literature searches in several databases, a concept paper has been written. Legislative initiatives of the United Nations culminated in the Nagoya protocol aim to protect traditional knowledge and regulate benefit-sharing with indigenous communities. The European community adopted the Nagoya protocol, and the corresponding regulations will be implemented into national legislation among the member states. Despite pleasing progress, infrastructural problems of the health care systems in developing countries still remain. Current approaches to secure primary health care offer only fragmentary solutions at best. Conventional medicine from industrialized countries cannot be afforded by the impoverished population in the Third World. Confronted with exploding costs, even health systems in Western countries are endangered to burst. Complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) is popular among the general public in industrialized countries, although the efficacy is not sufficiently proven according to the standards of evidence-based medicine. CAM is often available without prescription as over-the-counter products with non-calculated risks concerning erroneous self-medication and safety/toxicity issues. The concept of integrative medicine attempts to combine holistic CAM approaches with evidence-based principles of conventional medicine.Conclusion: To realize the concept of One-World Medicine, a number of standards have to be set to assure safety, efficacy and applicability of traditional medicine, e.g. sustainable production and quality control of herbal products, performance of placebo-controlled, double-blind, randomized clinical trials, phytovigilance, as well as education of health professionals and patients

The roles of a university in sustaining telecentre implementation: The case of Kg. Oran, Perlis

This report is based on a case study of a typical rural village in Malaysia, Kampong Oran in Perlis, with the aim to present and propose numerous roles that can be effectively deployed by institutions of higher learning to the rural areas as part of the initiative to bridge the digital divide. This effort can also be seen as a social responsibility coming from academic institutions in extending their knowledge and expertise to reach the under served communities in the rural and remote areas of the country, in line with the government’s Rural Transformation Program that was launched recently.The idea is to bring the experts and knowledgeable people as well as students in numerous disciplines to be within reach of the less educated, largely poor and less fortunate community using information, communication and technology as a platform.The advent of ICT and pervasiveness of the internet has made it possible for rural communities, including Kampong Oran, to reap the benefits of the information explosion. This is made possible through the implementation of a telecentre within the vicinity of a local mosque, a place of worship and congregations of the largely Malay community in the area.However, despite the ICT access and opportunity to gain information, due to over-abundance of information readily available, it is difficult to fine-tune and focus those information that are of interest to the community. This has made the tasks of getting the IHL support to match against the interests of the community even harder. Therefore the case study in which this report is based on was conducted to identify the community requirements in their implementation of the telecentre, to identify the roles of the IHL in order to make the matching possible, and ultimately to propose a model of IHL collaboration vis-à-vis implementation of the telecentre. Methods of data gathering included the administration of questionnaires in the form of surveys to members of the community by means of a purposive sampling in a community gathering event commemorating an ICT Open Day.Apart from this, interviews were also conducted to members of the village management committee, mosque community, and selected individuals representing members of the community. Students were also deployed to assist the researchers as informants and formed part of their course project.The purpose is to identify the community profile and demography, ICT knowledge and skills, requirements of the telecentre, as well as the community’s information needs. On the roles of the IHL, series of brainstorming sessions were conducted amongst the members of the research team, ITU-UUM officials and fellows to identify the strengths and domain areas of UUM.The intention is to propose the types of info-mediation, content development, and value creation that can be applied to benefit the community of Kampong Oran based on their information needs. In terms of information needs, results of this study found that the top five most popular information needs identified by the community are Education, Healthcare, Current News/Sports, Religion, and Information Sources.A model of IHL Collaboration in Telecentre Implementation was created to represent the interplay between the roles of the IHLs and the community information needs through the implementation of the telecentre.It is the hope that this model would contribute to other similar rural communities in the country that is in need of intellectual engagement in terms of advisory services, local content development, and socio-economic value creation that would enable ever-lasting sustainability of their existing telecentre

Prospect and potential of Burkholderia sp. against Phytophthora capsici Leonian: a causative agent for foot rot disease of black pepper

Foot rot disease is a very destructive disease in black pepper in Malaysia. It is caused by Phytophthora capsici Leonian, which is a soilborne pathogenic protist (phylum, Oomycota) that infects aerial and subterranean structures of many host plants. This pathogen is a polycyclic, such that multiple cycles of infection and inoculum production occur in a single growing season. It is more prevalent in the tropics because of the favourable environmental conditions. The utilization of plant growth-promoting rhizobacteria (PGPR) as a biological control agent has been successfully implemented in controlling many plant pathogens. Many studies on the exploration of beneficial organisms have been carried out such as Pseudomonas fluorescens, which is one of the best examples used for the control of Fusarium wilt in tomato. Similarly, P. fluorescens is found to be an effective biocontrol agent against the foot rot disease in black pepper. Nowadays there is tremendous novel increase in the species of Burkholderia with either mutualistic or antagonistic interactions in the environment. Burkholderia sp. is an indigenous PGPR capable of producing a large number of commercially important hydrolytic enzymes and bioactive substances that promote plant growth and health; are eco-friendly, biodegradable and specific in their actions; and have a broad spectrum of antimicrobial activity in keeping down the population of phytopathogens, thus playing a great role in promoting sustainable agriculture today. Hence, in this book chapter, the potential applications of Burkholderia sp. to control foot rot disease of black pepper in Malaysia, their control mechanisms, plant growth promotion, commercial potentials and the future prospects as indigenous PGPR were discussed in relation to sustainable agriculture

Reducing the environmental impact of surgery on a global scale: systematic review and co-prioritization with healthcare workers in 132 countries

Abstract Background Healthcare cannot achieve net-zero carbon without addressing operating theatres. The aim of this study was to prioritize feasible interventions to reduce the environmental impact of operating theatres. Methods This study adopted a four-phase Delphi consensus co-prioritization methodology. In phase 1, a systematic review of published interventions and global consultation of perioperative healthcare professionals were used to longlist interventions. In phase 2, iterative thematic analysis consolidated comparable interventions into a shortlist. In phase 3, the shortlist was co-prioritized based on patient and clinician views on acceptability, feasibility, and safety. In phase 4, ranked lists of interventions were presented by their relevance to high-income countries and low–middle-income countries. Results In phase 1, 43 interventions were identified, which had low uptake in practice according to 3042 professionals globally. In phase 2, a shortlist of 15 intervention domains was generated. In phase 3, interventions were deemed acceptable for more than 90 per cent of patients except for reducing general anaesthesia (84 per cent) and re-sterilization of ‘single-use’ consumables (86 per cent). In phase 4, the top three shortlisted interventions for high-income countries were: introducing recycling; reducing use of anaesthetic gases; and appropriate clinical waste processing. In phase 4, the top three shortlisted interventions for low–middle-income countries were: introducing reusable surgical devices; reducing use of consumables; and reducing the use of general anaesthesia. Conclusion This is a step toward environmentally sustainable operating environments with actionable interventions applicable to both high– and low–middle–income countries

Chromodomain helicase DNA-binding proteins and neurodevelopmental disorders

The significance of epigenomic regulation is now established in the etiology of neurodevelopmental disorders (NDDs). Epigenomic regulatory processes include chromatin remodeling as a major regulator of gene expression in development. Chromatin remodeling is an enzymatic process carried out by large multi-unit protein complexes, of which the chromodomain helicase DNA-binding proteins comprise one of four recognized major protein families, named the chromodomain helicase DNA-binding (CHD) family. There are nine CHD proteins (CHD1-9) encoded by nine correspondingly named CHD genes. Remarkably, five of the nine CHDs are already recognized to be causative of autosomal dominant syndromic NDD. In this review, we discuss the contribution of all CHDs to NDDs. And, we specifically focus on molecular studies involving CHD8 of which several have been recently published and scarcely reviewed. The widespread nature of downstream targeting for CHD8, as well as the finding of autosomal dominant disease for the majority of CHDs in general, implicates this family of chromatin remodelers as major players in NDD causation

Impact of Bt-cotton on soil microbiological and biochemical attributes

Transgenic Bt-cotton produces Bt-toxins (Cry proteins) which may accumulate and persist in soil due to their binding ability on soil components. In the present study, the potential impacts of Bt- and non-Bt genotypes of cotton on soil microbial activity, substrate use efficiency, viable microbial population counts, and nutrient dynamics were studied. Two transgenic Bt-cotton genotypes (CIM-602 CIM-599) expressing cry1 Ac gene and two non-Bt cotton genotypes (CIM-573 and CIM-591) were used to evaluate their impact on biological and chemical properties of soil across the four locations in Punjab. Field trials were conducted at four locations (Central Cotton Research Institute-Multan, Naseer Pur, Kot Lal Shah, and Cotton Research Station-Bahawalpur) of different agro-ecological zones of Punjab. Rhizosphere soil samples were collected by following standard procedure from these selected locations. Results reveled that Bt-cotton had no adverse effect on microbial population (viable counts) and enzymatic activity of rhizosphere soil. Bacterial population was more in Bt-cotton rhizosphere than that of non-Bt cotton rhizosphere at all locations. Phosphatase, dehydrogenase, and oxidative metabolism of rhizosphere soil were more in Bt-cotton genotypes compared with non-Bt cotton genotypes. Cation exchange capacity, total nitrogen, extractable phosphorous, extractable potassium, active carbon, Fe and Zn contents were higher in rhizosphere of Bt-cotton genotypes compared with non-Bt cotton genotypes. It can be concluded from present study that the cultivation of Bt-cotton expressing cry1 Ac had apparently no negative effect on metabolic, microbiological activities, and nutrient dynamics of soils. Further work is needed to investigate the potential impacts of Bt-cotton on ecology of soil-dwelling insects and invertebrates before its recommendation for extensive cultivation

Workers’ Remittances and Growth Linkages in Pakistan

Remittances are considered as the cash inflows to the economy and areimperative international source of revenue for most of the lessdeveloped countries (LDCs). For data analysis, the Ordinary least squareestimation technique was employed to the time series data for the years1981 to 2010. This research comes with the conclusion that level ofGDP is positively associated with the worker’s remittances and thefindings also support the optimistic view of remittances. It is suggestedthat govt. should take serious steps and proper measures to utilize theworkers’ remittances so, that the economy will be on the right tracktowards the development

Comparative evaluation of different carrier-based multi-strain bacterial formulations to mitigate the salt stress in wheat

The application of liquid bacterial consortia to soil under natural conditions may fail due to various environmental constraints. In this study, the suitability and efficiency of compost, biogas slurry, crushed corn cob, and zeolite as carriers to support the survival of plant growth-promoting rhizobacteria (PGPR) and improve the performance of multi-strain bacterial consortia to mitigate the effects of salinity stress on wheat under pot conditions were evaluated. The survival of strains of Pseudomonas putida, Serratia ficaria, and Pseudomonas fluorescens labelled with gusA was evaluated for up to 90 days. Seeds coated with different carrier-based formulations of multi-strain consortia were sown in pots at three different salinity levels (1.53, 10, and 15 dS m−1). Results showed that salinity stress significantly reduced wheat growth, yield, gas exchange, and ionic and biochemical parameter values, but the 1-aminocyclopropane-1-carboxylate (ACC) deaminase-containing multi-strain consortium used mitigated the inhibitory effects of salinity on plant growth and yield parameters. However, carrier-based inoculation further improved the efficacy of multi-strain consortium inoculation and significantly (P < 0.05) increased the growth, yield, and physiological parameters value of wheat at all salinity levels. On the basis of the observed trends in survival and the outcomes of the pot trials, the inoculation of multi-strain consortia in compost and biogas slurry carriers resulted in more successful wheat growth under salinity stress compared to that in the rest of the treatments tested

Underwater characterizations of monolithic piezoceramic and 1–3 composite using a self-designed transducer

Underwater characterizations of (Pb0.94Sr0.04)(Zr0.52Ti0.48)O3 (PZT) and PZT/araldite-F 1–3 composite were carried out through a self-designed transducer. Disc-shaped samples of bulk PZT and PZT/araldite-F composite were first characterized in air and then were assembled in the transducer individually. The transducer’s underwater voltage receiving sensitivity (Sh) and transmitting voltage response (Sv) were investigated in the frequency range of 10–200 kHz (well below thickness mode resonance) using a calibrated projector and receiver method with pulse technique. Results revealed that the transducer made with composite sample exhibited better (Sh) values (−214 dB ref 1 V/µPa) due to ~295% higher piezoelectric voltage coefficient gh (30 × 10−3 Vm/N) of the composite compared to PZT. In addition, the transducer with the PZT sample showed better Sv values (80 dB ref 1 µPa/1 V at 1 m) due to the presence of planar mode peaks in the frequency range of 10–200 kHz. These results indicate that the monolithic piezoceramic can exhibit underwater Sv response in both planar and thickness resonance modes owing to the admittance peaks in these frequency regions