ALBERT

Description: Genetics of micronutrients and their relationships with grain yield and other traits have a direct bearing on devising effective strategies for breeding biofortified crop cultivars. A line x tester study of 196 hybrids and their 28 parental lines of pearl millet (Pennisetum glaucum (L.) R.Br.) showed large genetic variability for Fe and Zn with predominantly additive gene action and no better-parent heterosis. Hybrids with high levels of Fe and Zn densities, involved both parental lines having significant positive general combining ability (GCA), and there were highly significant and high positive correlations between performance per se of parental lines and their GCAs. There was highly significant and high positive correlation between the Fe and Zn densities, both for performance per se and GCA. Fe and Zn densities had highly significant and negative, albeit weak, correlations with grain yield and highly significant and moderate positive correlation with grain weight in hybrids. These correlations, however, were non-significant in the parental lines. Thus, to breed hybrids with high Fe and Zn densities would require incorporating these micronutrients in both parental lines. Also, simultaneous selection for Fe and Zn densities based on performance per se would be highly effective in selecting for GCA. Breeding for high Fe and Zn densities with large grain size will be highly effective. However, combining high levels of these micronutrients with high grain yield would require growing larger breeding populations and progenies than breeding for grain yield alone, to make effective selection for desirable recombinants.

Description: Background: No previous studies have examined marital status of patients with epilepsy and epilepsy-related factors on perceived and enacted stigmas in Iran. In the present study, marital status of patients with epilepsy (PWE's) in Birjand city in the east of Iran was investigated. Methods: A multicenter cross-sectional study was conducted to identify factors contributing to the marital status of PWE's in a cross-sectional study with 471 participants. Diagnosis of epilepsy in participants (374 cases) was confirmed by at least two neurologists. Results: Marriage rate of PWE's was 27.3% (n = 102 patients) and divorce rate was 54.8% (n = 205 patients). Divorce rate in women was significantly higher than in men (62.6% vs. 46.4%; P 〈 0.05), and there were no significant differences between the different types of epilepsy (P 〉 0.05). Conclusions: The stigma of epilepsy has impacts on marital status of PWE's. The PWE's suffering from the enacted stigma of epilepsy are significantly more likely to get divorced in comparison with other patients.

Description: Near Field Communication (NFC) standard covers communication protocols and data exchange formats.NFC technology is one of radio-frequency identification (RFID) standards. In Japan, Felicacard is a popular way to identify the unique ID. We developed the attendance management system(AMS) as the Android application which works in the smart tablet with NFC. Generally, the AMS inthe university is fixed to the wall and each student touches or slides his/her own card to the dedicatedequipment. Because a teacher can use his/her own smart tablet and/or smartphone, the attendancerecords are viewed anytime and anywhere. Moreover, we developed the collecting system betweenPC and some tablets by using Android beam. Any personal data are encrypted and the file can betransferred over the NFC Bluetooth Handover between PC Linux and smart tablet. By the miningof the collected records, early discovery for chronic non-attenders are extracted in educational affairssection. In this paper, a registration system on the cloud campus system by using the personal smartphonewith NFC is developed. The system enables to introduce the university courses that are opento the general public.

Description: The aim of the paper was to estimate the accuracy of the metrology of an installed indirect on-line sensor system based on the automated California Mastitis Test (CMT) with focus on the prior established device-dependent variation. A sensor calibration was implemented. Therefore, seven sensors were tested with similar trials on the dairy research farm Karkendamm (Germany) on two days in July 2011 and January 2012. Thereby, 18 mixed milk samples from serial dilutions were fourfold recorded at every sensor. For the validation, independent sensor records with corresponding lab somatic cell score records (LSCS) in the period between both trials were used (n = 1,357). From these records for each sensor a polynomial regression function was calculated. The predicted SCS (PSCS) was obtained for each sensor with the previously determined regression coefficients. Pearson correlation coefficients between PSCS and LSCS were established for each sensor and ranged between r = 0.57 and r = 0.67. Comparing the results with the correlation coefficients between the on-line SCS (OSCS) and the LSCS (r = 0.20 to 0.57) for every sensor, the calibration showed the tendency to improve the installed sensor system.

Description: Background: Diagnosis of psoriatic arthritis (PsA), in a period of 12 months from the onset of the first articular episode, permits of identifying the early form defined as "early PsA". The recognition of the disease in this phase leads to better outcome.The aim of this study was to identify peculiar clinical and/or laboratory findings that could be useful for the diagnosis of "early PsA". Methods: Thirty-five patients with early onset of arthritis were observed. The following data were collected for each patient: family and personal history, physical examination, tender and swollen joint counts (TJC, SJC), tender entheseal count, presence of dactylitis and low back pain (LBP), and laboratory tests.Among the 35 total patients, 24 showed skin and/or nail psoriasis or a family history of psoriasis.The remaining 11 patients showed absence of concomitant or previous psoriasis and/or familiarity for psoriasis. The comparison between the two groups showed that patients with psoriasis had a significant presence of LBP, dactylitis and enthesitis than patients with psoriasis.DiscussionThe study confirms that the distinctive clinical findings of PsA is psoriasis, but also LBP, dactylitis and enthesitis have a relevant role in early identification. A low number of SJC and TJC are frequently observed in early phases of PsA than in other forms of early arthritis. These aspects could be mostly helpful when psoriasis is not detected or can follow arthritis in absence of familiar positivity, making difficult PsA diagnosis.In conclusion, careful medical history, clinical examination and first-level laboratory investigations are useful to characterize early phases of PsA.

Description: [hangul choseong filler]: To evaluate real life experience on the effect of Belimumab in patients with active SLE. Methods: Twenty patients with muscleskeletal symptoms were evaluated three were discontinued for different reasons and seventeen completed eight injections of Belimumab during a six month period. A fatigue score was also evaluated at the same time. Results: A marked reduction of disease activity and fatigue score was observed in the patient group. Conclusions: Belimumab is a novel form of therapy for patients with active SLE to be added to the standard of care particularly in patients with joint and skin symptoms.

Description: In an effort to produce skilled and competent graduates, Indonesia University of Education with its motto of "producing knowledgeable, educated and religious human-beings", considers the development of required scientific attitudes, good behaviour, and strong religious values of students as an integral and important component needed to develop students' noble character and their intellectual ability. Developing such qualities requires innovative teaching and learning techniques which are enjoyable and able to motivate students. In this paper, the author seeks to answer four(4) questions: 1. How can one plan a research-based instruction for an Islamic education seminar course? 2. What are the steps considered in research-based instruction for a seminar course? 3. How is the evaluation of research-based instruction in an Islamic education seminar course? And 4. What are the weaknesses and strength of the research based instruction model in regard to facilitating an Islamic education seminar? To establish an appropriate answer to these questions, the author has used a descriptive-qualitative approach. The data have been obtained through observation, interviews and a study of relevant documents. The findings reveal that the implementation of an instruction research-based model is appropriate and applicable in the teaching of Islamic education seminar course. The study concludes that instruction research based model has the capacity to engage students and it is able to improve their problem solving skills in daily life.

Description: The present study examined the predictors of psychological strengths and subjective well-being for dealing with academic stress perceived by university engineering students. Sample of 400 Malaysian (N = 180 boys and N = 220 girls) age varies 18 to 25 years and 400 Indian students (N = 240 boys and N = 160 girls) age varies 18 to 25 years from public universities were participated. Quantitative method was used for data analysis. Findings shows that gender, religiosity and socioeconomic status are significantly influencing psychological strengths and subjective well-being of both Indian and Malaysian students. Findings also revealed that parental involvement and problem solving coping styles were significantly predicting psychological strengths and subjective well-being among both countries participants. Findings of the current study provide the insight for the educators, and parents dealing with adolescents.

Description: Security testing is a process of determining risks present in the system states and protects them from vulnerabilities. But security testing does not provide due importance to threat modeling and risk analysis simultaneously that affects confidentiality and integrity of the system. Risk analysis includes identification, evaluation and assessment of risks. Threat modeling approach is identifying threats associated with the system. Risk-driven security testing uses risk analysis results in test case identification, selection and assessment to prioritize and optimize the testing process. Threat modeling approach, STRIDE is generally used to identify both technical and non-technical threats present in the system. Thus, a security testing mechanism based on risk analysis results using STRIDE approach has been proposed for identifying highly risk states. Risk metrics considered for testing includes risk impact, risk possibility and risk threshold. Risk threshold value is directly proportional to risk impact and risk possibility. Risk-driven security testing results in reduced test suite which in turn reduces test case selection time. Risk analysis optimizes the test case selection and execution process. For experimentation, the system models namely LMS, ATM, OBS, OSS and MTRS are considered. The performance of proposed system is analyzed using Test Suite Reduction Rate (TSRR) and FSM coverage. TSRR varies from 13.16 to 21.43% whereas FSM coverage is achieved up to 91.49%. The results show that the proposed method combining risk analysis with threat modeling identifies states with high risks to improve the testing efficiency.

Description: The quality of underwater image is poor due to the properties of water and its impurities. The properties of water cause attenuation of light travels through the water medium, resulting in low contrast, blur, inhomogeneous lighting, and color diminishing of the underwater images. This paper proposes a method of enhancing the quality of underwater image. The proposed method consists of two stages. At the first stage, the contrast correction technique is applied to the image, where the image is applied with the modified Von Kries hypothesis and stretching the image into two different intensity images at the average value with respects to Rayleigh distribution. At the second stage, the color correction technique is applied to the image where the image is first converted into hue-saturation-value (HSV) color model. The modification of the color component increases the image color performance. Qualitative and quantitative analyses indicate that the proposed method outperforms other state-of-the-art methods in terms of contrast, details, and noise reduction.