Earticle

Diagnosis of appendicitis is an area of interest in clinical research since long. Specifically speaking, accurate diagnosis of acute appendicitis is important since it needs subsequent surgical operations and particularly if the patient is a pregnant woman or a child. However, after ultrasonography, medical expert's naked-eye examination is finally done, which is being practiced till date. Although developing full automatic appendicitis diagnosing software is a far reach goal to achieve since there are still many techniques and theories yet to be developed, but an automatic appendix extracting software can definitely developed in near future, which is now the interest of study of many researchers. In this paper, a method is proposed to extract appendix automatically from a ultrasound image. The proposed method uses various image processing techniques with morphological features of appendix. The advantages of Cubic Spline interpolation for extracting fascia area and subsequently applying K- Means clustering for extraction of appendix from the image is being discussed in this paper. Experimental result shows the appendix extracted through this method is acceptable to medical expert.

Self-hygiene is considered one of the most essential self-management skills necessary for children with disabilities to acquire and perform independently. With this in mind, we developed an Android-based mobile application intended to teach children how to eliminate parasites. To assess its effectiveness, three children with developmental disabilities were tested prior to and after playing the game. The results indicated that the children’s knowledge of health behaviors and health-related self-efficacy improved after playing the game. Implications for health education and management are discussed.

Bio-fertilizers play a significant and complex role in plant growth of forestry species, which have been proved in the present study. In the present investigation various bio–fertilizers were applied alone and in combination. The growth and biomass response of T. grandis were enhanced due to inoculation of bio- fertilizers. This was primarily due to amelioration of soil pH, organic matter per cent, phosphorus, nitrogen and other nutrients which were assimilated by plants with higher capacity in the presence of microbial inoculants. In neutral pH range (6.5 to 7.5), the bio-fertilizers were found to be more effective. In the case of organic matter effects of bio-fertilizers were found to be more effective with the increase of organic matter in soil. The results revealed that soil organic matter and pH plays an important role in determining plant growth and survival. The bio-fertilizers, which are now in use world wide in integrated plant nutrition system to ameliorate soil condition showed better response for teak in this study.

This paper proposes a fingerprint sensor cell and driver architecture based on a charge integration scheme. The fingerprint sensor cell uses an active output voltage feedback (AOVF) integrator as a capacitance-to-voltage converter. A multiple integration scheme is suggested to improve signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and amplify the sensing signal, which enables a simple and robust fingerprint sensor driver architecture. A prototype fingerprint sensor array of 1x64 is implemented with an AOVF integrator. The performances of the proposed fingerprint sensor were simulated with standard 0.35μm CMOS technology. By simulations, the proposed fingerprint sensor senses even sub-femto farad differences and has large sensing voltage range.

In today's faced paced life, diseases and medical problems which were only confined to the elderly are slowly becoming common among the younger lot. These medical problems which are induced due to factors such as behavioural habits, eating habits, environmental factors, allergies and the lifestyle of individuals are termed as lifestyle diseases. Male fertility has slowly been degrading due to this. It has been a surge of cases of fertility and mortality degradation of semen which are correlated to the unhealthy and undisciplined lifestyles of the individuals. Studies have been conducted in the past to analyze the scenario through medical and clinical tests. Non-medical behavioural and lifestyle aspects were studied and analyses were based on it. It was found out that non medical aspects also effect male fertility and there is an correlation between the two. In this paper the seminal quality is determine with the help of clustering techniques and validate using different classification techniques.

The main purpose of this research is to explore risk factors for suicide attempts of Korean elderly persons who are aged 61 and over. Using data from 2011 Elderly Living Condition Survey database, this study focuses on the effects of social quality on suicide attempts. Social quality is estimated by social unkindness, which is operationalized through having experiences of feeling hurt by others’ unkind words or actions. Analysis results show that age, area of residence, ADL functional score, geriatric depression score, communication frequency with children, communication frequency with friends or neighbors, and having experiences of feeling hurt by others’ unkind words or actions are significant predictors. Key findings are that those with experiences of feeling hurt by social unkindness have far higher probability of attempting suicide. This implies that, for those who are exposed and vulnerable to social unkindness, without improving unkind social quality, it is not possible to get lowering those suicide attempts. Based on the analysis results, to prevent suicide attempts among older persons, improvement in social quality through encouraging members of society to activate an act of kindness with each other is needed. Policy makers should take this into account when developing policies to deter suicide attempts among the elderly persons.

The advent of the information age and the rapid development of IT skills have led to the construction of massive databases, thus the current research focus is shifting to the efficient utilization of these vast volumes of stored information. Among the data mining algorithms that have been applied to this problem, neural networks can be used with various types, qualities, distributions, or volumes of data and they have high predictive power. Thus, neural networks are known to be the most useful and extensible algorithms, whereas logistic analysis has many constraints. In addition, neural networks obtain better results when the assumptions of linear discriminant analysis cannot be satisfied. The present study evaluated a multilayer perceptron (MLP) and radial-basis function network (RBFN), and their performance levels were compared with logistic regression based on cross-validation using the same data. The experiments showed that MLP delivered better performance than other methods in medical diagnostic applications where numerical data are used. MLP also performed better with the heart disease dataset using finely specified data types compared with the diabetes dataset using simple data types.

For sensorineural hearing loss, auditory perception can be activated by electrical stimulation of a nervous system via electrode implanted into cochlea or auditory nerves. As the tonotopic map of the human auditory nerve has not been absolutely identified, the recording of its signal with electrode is desirable to determine the map. This paper proposes a 16-channel analog front-end for auditory nerve signal detection. Its channel consists of an AC coupling circuit, a 4th-order Gm-C lowpass filter (LPF), and a single-slope analog-to-digital converter (ADC). While blocking DC level, the AC coupling circuit transfers only AC signal. The Gm-C LPF is designed with operational transconductance amplifiers (OTAs) using floating-gate technique for small Gm. The channel-wise single-slope ADC is used because it has the small area and low power consumption. Experiment results show the prototype chip fabricated in 0.35-μm CMOS process has the bandwidth of 0.1 ~ 6.95 kHz with the gain of 19.9 dB, the effective resolution of 7.7 bits and the power consumption per a channel of 12 μW.

This paper presents improvements of the health information management system in Republic of Macedonia, specifically in Gynecology for early detection of cervical cancer and breast cancer, integrating a new model that does not have a single process out of the portal (nothing will be done manually, all processes will be initiated by the portal). All processes will be performed within the existing integrated portal, with all the standards that are used in health care and process modeling. My proposed module reduces morbidity and mortality among women. It provides optimal access and use of health information of patients in Gynecology portal for early detection of breast and cervical cancer. The family doctor gynecologist will have a comprehensive knowledge in real time which of his patients completed or not the preventive visits. With this, the gynecologist can influence, motivate and contribute to those patients who have not attended the visits to realize the same. The processes that will be presented will be thoroughly and effectively implemented for the best functioning of the Preventive measures in Gynecology, from calling the patients to diagnosing the cancer. The module Prevention will call all women for visit, access to preventive information, make preventive referrals, etc. The institution for preventive visit will make preventive report for each patient visited, it will also make preventive appointments, the register of cancer will be updated for each patient diagnosed with cancer, etc.

The purpose of this study is to develop a natural functional material with insecticidal properties and antimicrobial activity for the application of emotional robot development for the early treatment use of children with autism spectrum disorder. As a part of the study, I investigate the antimicrobial activity of silk fabrics dyed with jasmine tea and jasmine petal tea extracts. Bacteria used for the test of antimicrobial activity were Staphylococcus aureus ATCC 6538 and Klebsiella pneumoniae ATCC 4352. The presence of phenol, known as an antimicrobial component, was measured from jasmine tea and jasmine petal tea extracts. UV-Vis analysis and FT-IR analysis were also employed. Silk fabrics dyed with jasmine tea extracts appeared to have significant antimicrobial activity of 99.9% for S. aureus, regardless of dyeing concentration. On K. pneumoniae, silk fabrics dyed with stock solution and onehalffold diluted solution of jasmine tea extracts presented significantly high antimicrobial activity of 99.9%. In contrast, no antimicrobial activity was observed from all silk fabrics dyed with jasmine petal tea extracts, regardless of the type of bacteria. On S. aureus following 20 hours of irradiation, silk fabrics dyed with jasmine tea extracts presented high antimicrobial activity of 93.3%, regardless of dyeing concentration. On K. pneumoniae after 20 hours of irradiation, only the silk fabric dyed with a stock solution of jasmine tea extracts appeared to have any antimicrobial activity (40.6%). On S. aureus after dry cleaning, silk fabrics dyed with jasmine tea extract had significantly higher antimicrobial activity of 99.9%, identical to its effectiveness before dry cleaning, regardless of the dyeing concentration. On K. pneumoniae after dry cleaning, silk fabrics dyed with stock solution and onehalffold diluted solution of jasmine tea extracts had significantly higher antimicrobial activity of 99.9%, identical to their effectiveness before dry cleaning. The total phenol content was higher in the jasmine tea than in the jasmine petal tea. From the results of UV-Vis analysis, the ethanol extraction solution of jasmine tea and jasmine petal tea had absorption maximums of λmax at 272㎚ and 277㎚ (λmax of tannin is 272285 nm), respectively. From the results of FT-IR analysis, jasmine tea and jasmine petal tea showed three main common absorption bands in the 1750-700 ㎝-1 range: 16151606, 15181507, and 10431030㎝- 1. Therefore, it was able to be determined that the form of tannin obtained in jasmine tea and jasmine petal tea is a kind of hydrolyzable tannin.

Computed torque controller (CTC) is one of the types of feedback linearization nonlinear controller. This controller works very well in certain positions. However this controller has many advantages in certain conditions but it has challenges in uncertainty. The main challenge in CTC is fluctuations in uncertainties. In this research low pass filter is used to reduce the fluctuations in CTC. To improve the result of this controller intelligent CTC is recommended based on fuzzy logic engineering. In this research fuzzy logic theory is used to tune the new low pass filter CTC coefficients. The process of setting of integral intelligent Computed Torque Controller can be determined as an optimization task. Over the years, use of intelligent strategies for tuning of these controllers has been growing. This research is used to reduce or eliminate the computed torque controller problem based on low pass filter and fuzzy logic theory to control of flexible robot manipulator system and testing of the quality of process control in the simulation environment of MATLAB/SIMULINK Simulator.

Characterization of date palm cultivars is a complex task using morphological traits alone since morphological markers are dependent on plant developmental stage and influenced by the environment. However, DNA fingerprinting can complement and enhance the discriminatory power of morphological traits. The study was conducted to investigate genetic diversity amongst fourteen cultivars of date palm (Phoenix dactylifera L.) from Nigeria and Saudi Arabia using microsatellite markers. The aim was to determine the genetic and geographical patterns of Nigeria and Saudi Arabia date palms. Molecular study conducted using six microsatellite markers employed on fourteen cultivars, ten from Nigeria and four from Saudi Arabia, revealed 83.3% polymorphism which indicated high genetic diversity among the cultivars studied. The amplified products ranged in size from 127 to 304 bp. A total of 42 alleles with an average of seven alleles per locus were scored. Two of the markers, MpdCIR025 and MpdCIR050, distinctively characterized six cultivars. This study indicated that variation observed among the cultivars followed a geographical pattern. However, this study was not able to show any alleles that might be linked to gender in date cultivars. Inclusion of more molecular markers in such a study might provide more accurate differentiation and possibly gender discrimination in date palm.

The present paper deals with the numerical study on the ecological model which comprises the commensal and the host with limited resources. The trajectories of this model with multiple constraints are illustrated. The wide range values are considered for the parameters in this model. The dominance reversal time of the host species over the commensal species and vice versa are traced. The interactions between the species are identified.

Malariaparasitemia is used for measuring the degree of infection by detecting the plasmodium (commonly known as the malaria parasite) in the blood of an infected patient. The most commonly used method of malarial diagnosis is counting the number of malaria-infected red blood cells in a Giemsa-stained blood smear by using a microscope. This method requires expert knowledge and is prone to inter-investigator variability. Therefore, a number of studies have been conducted on automated classification techniques that can measure malarial infection rapidly and accurately. In order to detect malaria parasites by analyzing plasmodium-infected blood smear images, conversion processing is required to make the images insensitive to the luminance contrast of microscopy and staining intensity. This paper aims to identify a grayscale conversion method optimal for plasmodium-infected blood smear images by comparing the performances of various grayscale conversion methods. The grayscale conversion methods selected for the comparison are colorimetric conversion, luma coding, conversion using the green channel only, and principal component analysis (PCA)-based conversion. We used 20 malaria-infected red blood cells and 20 normal red blood cells to compare the performances of these methods by obtaining thearea under the receiver operating curve (AUC) as the minimum histogram intra-class variance value for each cell image. With the AUC value of 0.9225, the PCA-based grayscale conversion method outperformed all other methods.

A wireless body sensor system (WBSS) provides diverse healthcare services by attaching sensors to the arms, abdomen, and feet of a user and by swiftly obtaining the user’s movement and health-related information. In order to overcome the battery limitations of sensors and the variations in wireless channels in such WBSSs, much research is being conducted. This paper aims to propose a new packet transmission power control (TPC) mechanism that judges wireless channel conditions using acceleration values and inhibits packet transmission when the channel is unstable, thereby reducing energy consumption. The TPC mechanism proposed in this paper was able to save energy efficiently while not increasing the delay time much when the channel condition changed.

This paper proposes an automatic lung lobe segmentation method in a supervised way. The lung image is given as input and the lung image is segmented using iterative threshold method. Then fissure information is enhanced using log supportive filter. Then Fissure locations are extracted using Vector training and matching process. Finally the lung lobes are segmented and marked as individual lobes. The main modules of this proposed method are Iterative threshold based lung segmentation, Fissure enhancement, fissure detection and Lung lobe segmentation. This proposed method can be used to find the missing fissures and unclear fissures also. This proposed method is working based on training of fissure information and detection is done according to the trained vectors. The proposed method segments the lung lobes with high performance and high speed.

The traditional blood pressure measurement method so called Kortokoff method has to apply strong air pressure on patient’s artery that could give severe damage on artery, and has the problem that method cannot measure the blood pressure in a series or continuously. But recent engineering technology can give new solutions that can solve the problems by using digital sensors and microcomputer. In this paper, we proposed a kind of non-Kortokoff method that can get the blood pressure from patient’s digitalized arterial pulse waveform analysis without air pressure on patient’s artery. This method can check patient’s blood pressure in a series through converting the continuous arterial pulse waveform into the absolute systolic and diastolic values with pre-defined blood pressure mapping equation from experiments. The experimental results showed that the proposed non-Kortokoff blood pressure measurement method has very good accuracy over 95% compare to commercial tonometers in continuous measurement. Also, the proposed non-Kortokoff blood pressure measurement method can be designed and implemented as a small device since it has no mechanical air pressure compartment, and applied on the u-Healthcare service areas very effectively such as a digital blood pressure checker for usual life blood pressure monitoring along with the medical device for home and hospitals.

This study was done to identify the relationship of perceived health status, stress, pain and quality of sleep and to identify predictors of sleep quality for elderly people for each gender. Prevalence of sleep disturbance was 74.8% (male elders and 81.6% (female elders). Female elders were significantly lower perceived health status score (t=2.19, p=.029), higher stress score (t=2.93, p=.004), higher pain score (t=-4.04, p<.001), than male elders. In multiple regression analysis, perceived health status, stress, spouse with or without were significant predictors and accounted for 17.6% of male elders’ sleep quality. For female elders, stress was significant predictor and accounted for 12.0%. Findings of this study provide a comprehensive understanding of sleep quality and related factors for elders in Korea. Also, these results could be used in developing sleep promotion program.

The extracted and dried green micro algae by using solvents Acetone, Ethanol and Chloroform assy is tested to know its efficiency against four bacterial strains under the cultured condions by adopting the standard agar disc diffusion technique. These agar plates are incubated at 37°C for 24 hour duration with four test bacterial strains in 10ml each of Acetone,Ethanol and Chloroform with extracted green micro algae. These extracts exhibits optimal effects on inhibitory efficiency. The observed highest inhibition zone zone is 13mm in Chlorella Vulgaris extracted with Ethanol against klebsilla sp.,. The peroformed preliminary phytochemical analysis of this dried algal sample as per the Harborne methode reveals that this assay withhold some of the valuble bioactive compounds. It is flavanoids, tannin, phenolic compounds, terpenes, cardiac glycosides, saponins and carbohydrates. The substanical evidence of the presence of these seven bioactive compounds revealed that Chlorella vulgar is having major role as a useful precarusor to obtain various bioactive compounds. This algael specices exhibits its maximum inhibition property with Klebsilla sp. This enables to discover some of new derivatives with more investigation about its feasilbility of finding new drugs by the application of procdures adopted in drug discovery and designing. The drugs derived from these algae species will find some specific application to curtile the growth of the bacterias which results the control of Vector infections without any side effects in a more specific manner.

This paper describes the IT convergence system using a difference image, an erosion operation and a mobile application for the measurement of the dripping speed of the medical liquid in a drip chamber, which can estimate the remaining time using image processing from video frame information based on Android technology. The video frames were first made using a smartphone camera and we calculated the difference image between the n image and the (n+1) image and then changed into binary images using the threshold value. At this point, it is very important to find an optimal threshold value to recognize the dripping of the liquids. After that, we applied the erosion operation with threshold to detect the handshaking error of the smartphone camera. As a result, the user can adjust the dripping speed according to the doctor’s prescription, exactly like watching the progress bar of a mobile application. The experiment results show that our method using image processing technique accurately measures the dripping speed for a wide range of speeds that are sufficient for ordinary practice.

Microalgae biofuels may provide a viable alternative to fossil fuels which has received considerable interest now a days, but if microalgae biofuel production is to be economically viable and sustainable to mitigate the energy crises. Although there is much excitement about the potential of microalgae biofuels, much work is still required in the field. So further optimization of growth conditions are needed to make a different sources which provide cost-effective and sustainable means of native microalgae growth for biofuel production. This paper shows that the optimization of environmental condition i.e. Temperature, pH and light period for the growth of native microalgae sp. for biofuel production and validation of experimental model by using response surface methodology (RSM).

The advances in mobile devices, frameworks and u-computing have given rise to a vast range of new services for RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) technology. In this paper, we propose a U-healthcare Enterprise Application Framework for interchanging the infor-mation on mobile devices in the RFID-based distributed computing environment. We de-scribe the requirements of u-healthcare Enterprise Application Framework, mobile applica-tions development architectures and EPC global network which is RFID-based network envi-ronment. It include an architectures and scenarios how to construct the u-healthcare enter-prise applications using the proposed Enterprise Application Framework by changing the contents of the Application Layer.