Implementation of a LoRaWAN Based Smart Agriculture Decision Support System for Optimum Crop Yield

A majority of the population of developing countries is associated with agriculture directly or indirectly. The liaison of engineering technology and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) can build a bridge for farmers to enhance their skills regarding advancements through future generation agriculture trends. The next-generation trends include better soil preparation, intelligent irrigation systems, advanced methods of crop nutrient inspection, smart fertilizers applications, and multi-cropping practices. This work proposes a smart Decision Support System (DSS) that acquires the input parameters based on real-time monitoring to optimize the yield that realizes sustainability by improving per hectare production and lessening water seepage wastage in agribusiness. The proposed model comprises three basic units including an intelligent sensor module, smart irrigation system and controlled fertilizer module. The system has integrated sensors, cloud employing decision support layers, and networking based DSS to recommend cautions for optimum sustainable yield. The intelligent sensors module contains a temperature and humidity sensor, NPK sensor, soil moisture sensor, soil conductivity sensor, and pH sensor to transmit the statistics to the cloud over the internet via Long Range (LoRa) using Serial Peripheral Interface (SPI) communication protocol. Moreover, an android application has been developed for real-time data monitoring according to GPS location and node information (accessed remotely). Furthermore, the DSS contemplates the accessible information from sensors, past patterns, monitoring climate trends and creating cautions required for sustainable fertilizer consumption. The presented results and comparison validate the novelty of the design as it embraces smart irrigation with smart control and smart decision-making based on accurate real-time field data. It is better than existing systems as it transmits the data over the LoRa that is an open-source communication with long-range transmission ability up to several kilometres. The sensor nodes helped in advancing the yield of crops, which resulted in achieving inclusive and sustainable economic goals.

General and Paediatric Dentists’ Knowledge, Attitude and Practices Regarding the use of Silver Diammine Fluoride for the Management of Dental Caries: A National Survey in the Netherlands

Background: Silver Diammine Fluoride (SDF) is a topical medication used to arrest cavitated carious lesions non-invasively. The primary aim of this research was to investigate, and analyse the relationships between; knowledge, attitudes and practices (including barriers and facilitators) as they relate to SDF use for the management of dental caries by general dental practitioners (GDPs) and paediatric dentists (PDs) in the Netherlands. A secondary aim was to explore any differences between these groups.Methods: A sample of 600 Dutch GDPs (random selection from 9,777 registered) and all 57 registered PDs were invited to participate in this cross-sectional survey, consisting of four sections: 1) participant characteristics, 2) knowledge (through responses to summative questions), 3) attitudes (through agreements using 5-point Likert scale), and 4) practices, use, barriers and facilitators (through multiple choice questions). Results: Response rates were: GDPs 23% (n=140) and PDs 47% (n=27). Knowledge: out of 15 questions testing understanding of SDF, the mean correct answers were GDPs 6.7; SD 2.6 and PDs 7.4, SD 2.2 (no statistically significant differences). Mean overall attitude score showed positivity towards SDF use in both groups. Compared to GDPs, PDs were more likely to use SDF (p<0.001) and expected this to increase (p=0.03). The main barrier for users was parental acceptance (47%) and for non-users it was lack of knowledge (60%). The main facilitator for both users and non-users was gaining knowledge through courses and workshops, followed by written information leaflets about SDF for parents.Conclusions: Less than half knowledge questions about SDF were answered correctly. Despite low knowledge, attitude towards its use was positive. Practitioners believed that its use would be facilitated by professionals having more accessible information and training and by the availability of parent information leaflets. SDF was used more frequently by PDs than GDPs.

Evaluating a Social Media Campaign for a Parent Educational Video on Bronchiolitis

Bronchiolitis, or lower airway swelling, is a common cause of pediatric hospital admissions. Parents have expressed wishes for more information regarding bronchiolitis but had difficulty finding reliable information, suggesting the need for more effective and easily accessible information resources. Knowledge translation (KT) tools like videos provide research-based information and may be conveniently disseminated to large audiences through social media. The purpose of this project was to evaluate the effectiveness of a social media campaign to promote a video on bronchiolitis. A social media campaign was conducted from 14 October to 30 November 2019. User interactions were recorded for the Facebook and Twitter accounts, website, and YouTube of Evidence in Child Health to Enhance Outcomes (ECHO), Alberta Research Centre for Health Evidence (ARCHE), and Translating Emergency Knowledge for Kids (TREKK). Baseline metrics were collected from 1 August to 30 September 2019 and post-campaign metrics were collected from 1 December 2019 to 31 March 2020. Mean monthly changes, standard deviations, and percent changes between periods were generated for the baseline, campaign, and post-campaign periods. Overall, there was a visible increase in user interactions throughout the campaign period. There was an overall downward trend in user interactions following the campaign. These findings suggest that social media may be a useful method of KT tool dissemination when consistently used. The downward trend post-campaign highlights the need for further research to investigate methods to maintain continuous interaction following a campaign.

Web-Based Modernized Architecture Over Cloud Computing for Facial Extraction and Recognition

Web content is diverse and is regarded as the primary source of accessible information that can be accessed through reference links. Web facial images are one type of web content that relates to important web pages and is considered important information for individuals. This chapter proposes face recognition as a service architecture that is based on real-world images from the web. The proposed service is implemented as a service for other third parties via cloud computing; additionally, its architecture is built via cloud using virtual machines that can be expanded based on resource demands. Web crawlers crawl web pages and retrieve images for elastic cloud storage. The collected images are then used to remove human faces and prepare the face images for identification and identifying the matched face of the set through successive phases. This chapter used PCA for features extraction and KNN for identification. Experiments show that increasing the number of crawler instances improves crawling speed and improves face recognition accuracy by preferring Euclidean over other metrics.

A spatial stochastic model reveals the role of supercoiling in transcription regulation

In Escherichia coli, translocation of RNA polymerase (RNAP) during transcription introduces supercoiling to DNA, which influences the initiation and elongation behaviors of RNAP. To quantify the role of supercoiling in transcription regulation, we develop a spatially resolved supercoiling model of transcription, describing RNAP-supercoiling interactions, topoisomerase activities, stochastic topological domain formation, and supercoiling diffusion in all transcription stages. This model establishes that transcription-induced supercoiling mediates the cooperation of co-transcribing RNAP molecules in highly expressed genes. It reveals that supercoiling transmits RNAP-accessible information through DNA and enables different RNAP molecules to communicate within and between genes. It thus predicts that a topological domain could serve as a transcription regulator, generating substantial transcription bursting and coordinating communications between adjacent genes in the domain. The model provides a quantitative platform for further theoretical and experimental investigations of how genome organization impacts transcription.

bulkAnalyseR: An accessible, interactive pipeline for analysing and sharing bulk sequencing results

Motivation: Bulk sequencing experiments are essential for exploring a wide range of biological questions. To bring data analysis closer to its interpretation, and facilitate both interactive, exploratory tasks and the sharing of easily accessible information, we present bulkAnalyseR, an R package that offers a seamless, customisable solution for most bulk RNAseq datasets. Results: In bulkAnalyseR, we integrate state-of-the-art approaches, without relying on extensive computational support. We replace static summary images with interactive panels to further strengthen the usability and interpretability of data. The package enables standard analyses on bulk sequencing output, using an expression matrix as the starting point (with the added flexibility of choosing subsets of samples). In an interactive web-based interface, steps such as quality checking, noise detection, inference of differential expression and expression patterns, and biological interpretation (enrichment analyses and identification of regulatory interactions), can be customised, easing the exploration and testing of hypotheses. Availability: bulkAnalyseR is available on GitHub, along with extensive documentation and usage examples (https://github.com/Core-Bioinformatics/bulkAnalyseR).

Information provision of access to innovation infrastructure

Problem setting. Effective innovative development of the state is impossible without ensuring the proper functioning of innovation infrastructure and innovation processes. In turn, the innovation infrastructure must be accessible to users and have the ability to meet both logistical and information needs. In this aspect, an important issue that will be considered in this article is to ensure free access of participants in the innovation process to the established network of information and communication interaction and assistance. Analysis of recent researches and publications. V.V. Maloyvan, T.V. Pisarenko, T.K. Kvasha, N.V. Bereznyak, O.V. Prudka, S.V. Glibko, O.V. Rozgon, Yu. V. Georgievsky, Yu. V. Pasmor and O.M. Petukhova studied the issue of information support for access to innovation infrastructure. Target of research is to analyze the legal regulation of information support for access to innovation infrastructure; identification of existing problems and possible ways to solve them in order to increase the efficiency of the national innovation infrastructure. Article’s main body. The article discusses the state of information support of the National Innovation Infrastructure. The current legislation and powers of state authorities and other subjects of the innovation process in the field of information support are analyzed. Examples of information and communication provision of innovative infrastructure are considered. Conclusions are drawn regarding possible ways to increase the efficiency of the national innovation infrastructure. It is expedient to recognize the information and communication support of the innovation infrastructure as a necessary precondition for increasing the economic and scientific potential of the state. Innovation and investment actors seeking to increase their productivity need to navigate large amounts of information to make the most appropriate and justified decisions. This increases the importance of information and communication centers, platforms and other entities that can offer customers structured, relevant, verified and accessible information gathered in one place. Conclusions and prospects for the development. Particular attention should be paid to the need for the state to encourage the exchange of information at the regional and sectoral levels, which can be achieved by strengthening the role of local governments in providing local and regional innovation infrastructures (both by changing legislation and by conducting information campaigns and communication platforms); as well as by encouraging universities to more actively interact with society and business.

Low-Power Low-Area architecture of Probability Density Function Estimation for Histogram Equalization

Estimation of Probability Density Functions (PDFs) in view of accessible information is critical issue emerging in various fields, for example, broadcast communications, machine learning, information mining, design pattern recognition and Personal Computer (PC) vision. In this paper, the Look-Up Table–Carry Select Adder-PDF (LUT-CSLA-PDF) mehod is implemented to increase system performance. The LUT is one of the fast way to recognize a complex function in the digital logic circuit. In this work, The FPGA (field programmable gate array) analysis, LUT, slices, flip flops, frequency are improved as well as ASIC (application specified integrated chip) implementation analysis an area, power, delay, Area Power Product (APP), Area Delay Product (ADP) are enhanced in LUT-CSLA-PDF technique compared to conventional methods.

What Are the Psycho-Social and Information Needs of Adolescents and Young Adults Cancer Care Consumers with Intellectual Disability? A Systematic Review of Evidence with Recommendations for Future Research and Practice

People with intellectual disability have unmet health needs and experience health inequalities. There is limited literature regarding cancer care for children, adolescents, and young adults (AYA) with intellectual disability despite rising cancer incidence rates in this population. This systematic review aimed to identify the psycho-social and information support needs of AYA cancer care consumers with intellectual disability to generate recommendations for future research and cancer care service delivery enhancement. We searched eight databases yielding 798 articles. Following abstract and full-text review, we identified 12 articles meeting our inclusion criteria. Our three themes related to communication and accessible information; supports and system navigation, cancer service provider training, and reasonable adjustments. There was a lack of user-friendly, accessible information about cancer and screening programs available. Both paid and family carers are critical in accessing cancer supports, services, and screening programs for AYA with intellectual disability. Ongoing training should be provided to healthcare professionals regarding the importance of care screening for AYAs with intellectual disability. This review recommends that AYA with intellectual disability and their family carers be involved in developing tailored cancer services. This should focus on enabling inclusive screening programs, accessible consent, and challenging the enduring paternalism of support services via training and appropriate communication tools.

654 Fragility of functional/symptomatic endpoints to assess the efficacy of drugs for pulmonary arterial hypertension

Aims Drugs for pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) have historically been evaluated for their efficacy in improving functional capacity and decreasing symptoms. However, these measures of treatment effect are approximate and subject to substantial variability, and therapeutic choices based on them may be aleatory. Methods and results We reviewed the articles reporting the results of phase 3 PAH randomized controlled trials (RCTs) and calculated the fragility index (FI) for the outcomes exploring functional capacity and symptoms. The FI corresponds to the number of events that need to be added to the arm with the smallest number of events to make a significant result non-significant: the lower the FI, the fragile the trial with respect to the endpoint examined. For RCTs with non-significant results, we calculated the FI as the number of events that need to be removed from the investigational drug (ID) group to reach a P-value &lt;0.05. When possible, we also computed the FI for PAH hospitalization. Data about the rate of functional/symptomatic improvement were available for 22 (63%) of 35 RCTs (Table). The ID was superior to placebo or comparator with P &lt; 0.05 in 10 (45%) of these 22 studies. The median FI was 2 [interquartile range (IQR): 6.5], with 4 RCTs having a FI = 1 and only 2 &gt; 10 (Table). For the 12 RCTs in which the effect of the ID was neutral (P &gt; 0.05), the median FI was 6 (IQR 4.25) (Table). The hospitalization FI was determined for 17 (77%) of the 22 RCTs and was overall higher than the one for the functional/symptomatic outcome (median 6, IQR 8). Conclusions Accessible information about the effects of PAH drugs on functional capacity and/or symptoms is published for 6 in 10 RCTs, in which very few events in one arm could have flipped the results from non-significant to significant or, more remarkably, from significant to non-significant. The evidence supporting the reduction of PAH hospitalizations as a treatment goal appears to be more robust.