A Computer Control System for Home Appliances

In this paper, we present a system to control home appliances from a computer. The system is designed for controlling the ON/OFF mode of different home appliances such as light, fan, TV, air-condition and so on. The appliances are connected to a computer through a programmed PIC16F73 microcontroller. An USB interface is used to connect the microcontroller with a computer. The program for the PIC16F73 has been written in micro C language. All the commands are carried out from a software layout running on a computer to control the home appliances

Analysis of Marketing Efficiency, Value Addition and Spatial Co-Integration of Mozambique Tilapia (Oreochromis mossambicus) Fish in Some Selected Areas of Bangladesh

A study was undertaken to examine the value chain, value addition, marketing cost & margin, marketing efficiency and market integration of tilapia fish in selected areas of Bangladesh during the month of June-July 2013. The objectives of the study were to estimate costs and margins and to test market integration of tilapia fish. Primary and secondary data were used for this study. The higher marketing cost was incurred by paiker and the lowest by retailer. On the other hand, retailers earned the highest net marketing margins. Chain II was found the most efficient chain. Analysis of market integration shows that tilapia fish market in Bangladesh was well integrated. The findings of the study revealed that the marketing of tilapia was a profitable business and some recommendations were provided for the improvement of tilapia marketing in the country. Keywords: Value addition, marketing cost & margin, marketing efficiency and spatial co-integratio

Bengali Fake Review Detection using Semi-supervised Generative Adversarial Networks

This paper investigates the potential of semi-supervised Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs) to fine-tune pretrained language models in order to classify Bengali fake reviews from real reviews with a few annotated data. With the rise of social media and e-commerce, the ability to detect fake or deceptive reviews is becoming increasingly important in order to protect consumers from being misled by false information. Any machine learning model will have trouble identifying a fake review, especially for a low resource language like Bengali. We have demonstrated that the proposed semi-supervised GAN-LM architecture (generative adversarial network on top of a pretrained language model) is a viable solution in classifying Bengali fake reviews as the experimental results suggest that even with only 1024 annotated samples, BanglaBERT with semi-supervised GAN (SSGAN) achieved an accuracy of 83.59% and a f1-score of 84.89% outperforming other pretrained language models - BanglaBERT generator, Bangla BERT Base and Bangla-Electra by almost 3%, 4% and 10% respectively in terms of accuracy. The experiments were conducted on a manually labeled food review dataset consisting of total 6014 real and fake reviews collected from various social media groups. Researchers that are experiencing difficulty recognizing not just fake reviews but other classification issues owing to a lack of labeled data may find a solution in our proposed methodology

Human Behavior-based Personalized Meal Recommendation and Menu Planning Social System

The traditional dietary recommendation systems are basically nutrition or health-aware where the human feelings on food are ignored. Human affects vary when it comes to food cravings, and not all foods are appealing in all moods. A questionnaire-based and preference-aware meal recommendation system can be a solution. However, automated recognition of social affects on different foods and planning the menu considering nutritional demand and social-affect has some significant benefits of the questionnaire-based and preference-aware meal recommendations. A patient with severe illness, a person in a coma, or patients with locked-in syndrome and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) cannot express their meal preferences. Therefore, the proposed framework includes a social-affective computing module to recognize the affects of different meals where the person's affect is detected using electroencephalography signals. EEG allows to capture the brain signals and analyze them to anticipate affective toward a food. In this study, we have used a 14-channel wireless Emotive Epoc+ to measure affectivity for different food items. A hierarchical ensemble method is applied to predict affectivity upon multiple feature extraction methods and TOPSIS (Technique for Order of Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution) is used to generate a food list based on the predicted affectivity. In addition to the meal recommendation, an automated menu planning approach is also proposed considering a person's energy intake requirement, affectivity, and nutritional values of the different menus. The bin-packing algorithm is used for the personalized menu planning of breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks. The experimental findings reveal that the suggested affective computing, meal recommendation, and menu planning algorithms perform well across a variety of assessment parameters

Antioxidant Potential and Brine Shrimp Lethality bioassay of Spilanthes acmella Flower Extract

The current research study has been carried out to explore the antioxidant activity and brine shrimp lethality bioassay of different fractions from the flower extract of Spilanthes acmella. Besides, this experiment was also assessed to find out the proximate analysis and phytochemical screening by following the perfect protocol. To fractionate by soxhletion using sequential extraction techniques powdered flower of the plant were treated with different solvents including n-hexane, chloroform, ethanol and water. For the evaluation of antioxidant activity, total antioxidant capacity determination, determination of total phenolic content and total Flvonoids contents by aluminium tricholoride method were used. In addition, ascorbic acid and gallic acid was used as a standard antioxidant compound in these studies. Concerning the proximate analysis, moisture content, total ash value, acid insoluble ash and water soluble ash value were found 8.6%, 3.76%, 3.30%, 3.20% respectively. To evaluate cytotoxicity, the brine shrimp lethality bioassay was used. For phytochemical screening different extract of those solvents were utilized that disclosed the presence of alkaloids, flavonoids, phenolic compounds, Tannins, amino acids on different fractions but the absence of reducing sugar and saponins. The results of all assay showed that all the extracts of Spilanthes acmella flower possess significant antioxidant activity. In brine shrimp lethality bioassay, ethanol extract of flower effect to brine shrimp nauplii and exhibiting highest toxicity having LC50 value 1.20 μg/ml as compared to standard dimethyl sulfoxide (LC50 1.31 µg/ml). These evaluations suggest that Spilanthes acmella flowers might be a better source of antioxidants and possess important cytotoxic effect

Spherical and Rod-shaped Gold Nanoparticles for Surface Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy

Raman Spectroscopy offers an in-situ, rapid, and non-destructive characterization tool for chemical analysis of diverse samples with no or minimal preparation. However, due to the inherent weak signal of conventional Raman spectroscopy, surface plasmon resonance features of noble metal nanoparticles have been utilized to conduct Surface Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy (SERS) in detecting trace label contaminants in foods and foodstuffs. In this effort, we synthesized gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) by reduction of chloroauric acid (HAuCl4) with sodium citrate dehydrate. We prepared different sizes of AuNPs at a fixed temperature (100 oC) but with varying pHs of 4 and 8. The as-synthesized AuNPs were characterized by UV-Vis spectroscopy, dynamic light scattering (DLS), and Field Emission Scanning Electron Microscopy (FE-SEM). FE-SEM micrographs revealed spherical AuNPs with an average diameter of approx. 55 nm and rod-shaped AuNPs with an average length of approx. 170 nm for sample synthesis at pH 8 and 4, respectively. The effectiveness of the as-prepared AuNPs for SERS is tested by detecting Rhodamine 6G diluted at a trace level. This study suggests that plasmonic nanoparticles coupled with SERS have great potential for broad applications in detecting other trace amounts of hazardous chemicals in foods and foodstuffs.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figure

Workplace Violence Among Health Care Professionals in Public and Private Health Facilities in Bangladesh

Objectives: The main objectives of this study were to examine the prevalence of workplace violence (WPV), its associated factors and explore the experiences of healthcare workers. Methods: A hospital-based cross-sectional study design used a nationally representative sample of 1,081 healthcare workers covering eight administrative divisions of Bangladesh. Logistic regression analysis was employed to estimate the adjusted effect of independent factors on WPV among healthcare workers. Results: Of the participants, 43% (468) experienced some form of WPV. Of those, 84% reported experiencing nonphysical violence, and 16% experienced physical violence in the past year. About 65% of victims claimed no action was taken to investigate the incident, and 44% reported no consequence for perpetrators. Four factors: being married (AOR = 1.63; CI: 1.12–2.39); public sector healthcare worker (AOR = 2.74; CI:1.99–3.76); working in an emergency department (AOR = 2.30; CI:1.03–5.12); and undertaking shift work (AOR = 1.52; CI: 1.10–2.11) were found to be significantly associated with WPV. One-third of the participants were worried about violence in their workplace. Conclusion: WPV is highly prevalent among healthcare workers in Bangladesh. Formal guidelines for reporting and managing WPV are urgently needed at the individual, hospital, and national levels

Initiation of Liver Transplantation in Bangladesh: Report on the First Two Successful Cases

Liver transplantation (LT) is the treatment of choice for patients with end-stage liver disease (ESLD). Chronic liver disease due to many causes is prevalent in a significant percentage of the Bangladeshi population. Until recently, liver transplantation facilities were not available, and ESLD patients were dying without treatment. Liver transplantation is a complex procedure that requires integrated and organized approach by a multidisciplinary team. The initiation of liver transplantation in Bangladesh has faced many difficulties. These difficulties have been encountered and overcome in phases. We have successfully performed the first two living-donor liver transplantations (LDLTs) in Bangladesh. The recipient of the first LDLT was a 42-year man with cryptogenic cirrhosis, and the second one was a male of 35 years, suffering from HBV cirrhosis. Both the recipients and donors are doing well and relishing the prospect of a normal life. These two successful liver transplantations are milestones in the development of liver transplantation services in Bangladesh