Role of Mothers’ Nutritional Knowledge, Nutritional Factors on The School Performance

A cross sectional study was carried out to investigate the effects of mothers’ nutritional knowledge, health and nutritional factors and socio-economic parameters on school performance among class five students of University Laboratory School, Dhaka. All of the eighty students were selected for this study. This study found there is a strong relationship between mother’s knowledge score and school performance. It was found that mothers’ knowledge score was responsible for 91.1 percent change in school performance. The mean BMI of the mothers was 20.44. We found that the school performance measured by class roll number of the students is significantly related with mothers BMI. There was an imperfect negative association between socio-economic parameters and school performance. But the relationship between the school performances with socio-economic parameters was strongly significant. This study also observed the relationship between Individual Dietary Diversity Score (IDDS) of respondent and marks achieved in class 4 final exam. It is alarming that consumption percentage were low for eggs (30) and milk and milk products (37.5), but majority of the students who consumed milk and milk products (63.3%) and eggs (66.7%) got the highest marks

Ag-IoT for crop and environment monitoring: Past, present, and future

CONTEXT: Automated monitoring of the soil-plant-atmospheric continuum at a high spatiotemporal resolution is a key to transform the labor-intensive, experience-based decision making to an automatic, data-driven approach in agricultural production. Growers could make better management decisions by leveraging the real-time field data while researchers could utilize these data to answer key scientific questions. Traditionally, data collection in agricultural fields, which largely relies on human labor, can only generate limited numbers of data points with low resolution and accuracy. During the last two decades, crop monitoring has drastically evolved with the advancement of modern sensing technologies. Most importantly, the introduction of IoT (Internet of Things) into crop, soil, and microclimate sensing has transformed crop monitoring into a quantitative and data-driven work from a qualitative and experience-based task. OBJECTIVE: Ag-IoT systems enable a data pipeline for modern agriculture that includes data collection, transmission, storage, visualization, analysis, and decision-making. This review serves as a technical guide for Ag-IoT system design and development for crop, soil, and microclimate monitoring. METHODS: It highlighted Ag-IoT platforms presented in 115 academic publications between 2011 and 2021 worldwide. These publications were analyzed based on the types of sensors and actuators used, main control boards, types of farming, crops observed, communication technologies and protocols, power supplies, and energy storage used in Ag-IoT platforms

Design architectures of the CMOS power amplifier for 2.4 GHz ISM band applications: An overview

Power amplifiers (PAs) are among the most crucial functional blocks in the radio frequency (RF) frontend for reliable wireless communication. PAs amplify and boost the input signal to the required output power. The signal is amplified to make it sufficiently high for the transmitter to propagate the required distance to the receiver. Attempted advancements of PA have focused on attaining high-performance RF signals for transmitters. Such PAs are expected to require low power consumption while producing a relatively high output power with a high efficiency. However, current PA designs in nanometer and micrometer complementary metal–oxide semiconductor (CMOS) technology present inevitable drawbacks, such as oxide breakdown and hot electron effect. A well-defined architecture, including a linear and simple functional block synthesis, is critical in designing CMOS PA for various applications. This article describes the different state-of-the art design architectures of CMOS PA, including their circuit operations, and analyzes the performance of PAs for 2.4 GHz ISM (industrial, scientific, and medical) band applications

Paddynet: An organized dataset of paddy leaves for a smart fertilizer recommendation system

The dataset of Leaf Color Chart (PaddyNet) is publicly unavailable. As far as the author's knowledge, this is the first dataset about paddy leaves based on LCC. This dataset has been generated by collecting images from a particular location such as Sajiali, Dogachia and Shyamnagar at Jashore, Bangladesh. This dataset contains 4 categories of Aman paddy leaves. The leaf images were captured by smart phones. There are 560 images of Aman paddy leaves. The data collection procedure was carried out according to the guidelines of Bangladesh Agricultural Research Institute (BARI). We meticulously categorized the entire dataset with regard to the LCC level and validated the data with the assistance of domain specialists. Hence, the images are analyzed and categorized with standards. The dataset is utilized for recognizing Leaf Color Chart level which will help of farmers recommending nitrogen fertilizer in their paddy fields

Modification of Nutrient Requirements for a Four Crop-Based Cropping System to Increase System Productivity, Maintain Soil Fertility, and Achieve Sustainable Intensification

Sustainable and resilient cropping intensity is now a global focus to address the food demand and nutrition security of the growing population. For sustainable intensification, maintaining soil fertility is a key concern. The nutrient management for the recently developed four crop-based cropping system in Bangladesh has not yet been studied. Hence, field experiments were conducted on the nutrient management of the four crop-based cropping system [Aus (pre-monsoon rice), Aman (monsoon rice), lentil, and mungbean] in calcareous soil in Bangladesh during the years of 2016/17 and 2017/18 to determine the appropriate fertilizer management package to improve crop productivity and sustain soil fertility. The experiment had six treatments assigned in a randomized complete block design with three replications. The treatments included T1 = control (without synthetic fertilizer), T2 = 50% recommended dose of fertilizer (RDF), T3 = 75% RDF, T4 = 100% RDF, T5 = 125% RDF, and T6 = farmers’ practice (FP). The results revealed that the 125% RDF significantly contributed to higher yields of all four crops. The rice equivalent yield (REY) was the highest for the fertilizer management of 125% RDF, which was 45.5%, 9.4%, and 12.2% higher than the control (T1), 100% RDF (T4), and FP, respectively. Considering the uptake of nutrients (N, P, K, S, Zn, and B) by the crops in the cropping system, the 125% RDF was superior to the other treatments. The nutrient management practices had a positive influence on the apparent nutrient recovery (ANR) efficiency of the cropping system. The fertilizer management of 125% RDF was also economically more profitable due to the increment in the cost–benefit ratio of 26.8%, 4.4%, and 4.9% over the control, 100% RDF, and FP, respectively. The results indicate that the current fertilizer recommendations and FP for aus, aman, lentil, and mungbean are not adequate for the change from the three crop to the four crop-based pattern, and an increased dose of fertilizer is required to increase the yield of each individual crop as well as the total system’s productivity. The fertilizer use efficiency is also higher for 125% RDF than the 100% RDF and FP indicating that to sustain the soil fertility in the four crop-based system, the current RDF and FP are not sufficient. This finding will help intensive cropping areas in preventing nutrient deficiencies that would lead to a reduction in the crop yield

Palmitoleate Protects against Zika Virus-Induced Placental Trophoblast Apoptosis

Zika virus (ZIKV) infection in pregnancy is associated with the development of microcephaly, intrauterine growth restriction, and ocular damage in the fetus. ZIKV infection of the placenta plays a crucial role in the vertical transmission from the maternal circulation to the fetus. Our previous study suggested that ZIKV induces endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress and apoptosis of placental trophoblasts. Here, we showed that palmitoleate, an omega-7 monounsaturated fatty acid, prevents ZIKV-induced ER stress and apoptosis in placental trophoblasts. Human trophoblast cell lines (JEG-3 and JAR) and normal immortalized trophoblasts (HTR-8) were used. We observed that ZIKV infection of the trophoblasts resulted in apoptosis and treatment of palmitoleate to ZIKV infected cells significantly prevented apoptosis. However, palmitate (saturated fatty acid) did not offer protection from ZIKV-induced ER stress and apoptosis. We also observed that the Zika viral RNA copies were decreased, and the cell viability improved in ZIKV-infected cells treated with palmitoleate as compared to the infected cells without palmitoleate treatment. Further, palmitoleate was shown to protect against ZIKV-induced upregulation of ER stress markers, C/EBP homologous protein and X-box binding protein-1 splicing in placental trophoblasts. In conclusion, our studies suggest that palmitoleate protects placental trophoblasts against ZIKV-induced ER stress and apoptosis

Palmitoleate Protects against Zika Virus-Induced Placental Trophoblast Apoptosis

Zika virus (ZIKV) infection in pregnancy is associated with the development of microcephaly, intrauterine growth restriction, and ocular damage in the fetus. ZIKV infection of the placenta plays a crucial role in the vertical transmission from the maternal circulation to the fetus. Our previous study suggested that ZIKV induces endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress and apoptosis of placental trophoblasts. Here, we showed that palmitoleate, an omega-7 monounsaturated fatty acid, prevents ZIKV-induced ER stress and apoptosis in placental trophoblasts. Human trophoblast cell lines (JEG-3 and JAR) and normal immortalized trophoblasts (HTR-8) were used. We observed that ZIKV infection of the trophoblasts resulted in apoptosis and treatment of palmitoleate to ZIKV-infected cells significantly prevented apoptosis. However, palmitate (saturated fatty acid) did not offer protection from ZIKV-induced ER stress and apoptosis. We also observed that the Zika viral RNA copies were decreased, and the cell viability improved in ZIKV-infected cells treated with palmitoleate as compared to the infected cells without palmitoleate treatment. Further, palmitoleate was shown to protect against ZIKV-induced upregulation of ER stress markers, C/EBP homologous protein and X-box binding protein-1 splicing in placental trophoblasts. In conclusion, our studies suggest that palmitoleate protects placental trophoblasts against ZIKV-induced ER stress and apoptosis

Heterozygosity for ADP-ribosylation factor 6 suppresses the burden and severity of atherosclerosis.

Atherosclerosis is the root cause of major cardiovascular diseases (CVD) such as myocardial infarction and stroke. ADP-ribosylation factor 6 (Arf6) is a ubiquitously expressed GTPase known to be involved in inflammation, vascular permeability and is sensitive to changes in shear stress. Here, using atheroprone, ApoE-/- mice, with a single allele deletion of Arf6 (HET) or wildtype Arf6 (WT), we demonstrate that reduction in Arf6 attenuates atherosclerotic plaque burden and severity. We found that plaque burden in the descending aorta was lower in HET compared to WT mice (p˂0.001) after the consumption of an atherogenic Paigen diet for 5 weeks. Likewise, luminal occlusion, necrotic core size, plaque grade, elastic lamina breaks, and matrix deposition were lower in the aortic root atheromas of HET compared to WT mice (all p≤0.05). We also induced advanced human-like complex atherosclerotic plaque in the left carotid artery using partial carotid ligation surgery and found that atheroma area, plaque grade, intimal necrosis, intraplaque hemorrhage, thrombosis, and calcification were lower in HET compared to WT mice (all p≤0.04). Our findings suggest that the atheroprotection afforded by Arf6 heterozygosity may result from reduced immune cell migration (all p≤0.005) as well as endothelial and vascular smooth muscle cell proliferation (both p≤0.001) but independent of changes in circulating lipids (all p≥0.40). These findings demonstrate a critical role for Arf6 in the development and severity of atherosclerosis and suggest that Arf6 inhibition can be explored as a novel therapeutic strategy for the treatment of atherosclerotic CVD