An intelligent agriculture management system for rainfall prediction and fruit health monitoring

Contrary to popular belief, agriculture is becoming more data-driven with artificial intelligence and Internet-of-Things (IoT) playing crucial roles. In this paper, the integrated processing executed by various sensors combined as an IoT pack and driving an intelligent agriculture management system designed for rainfall prediction and fruit health monitoring have been included. The proposed system based on an AI aided model makes use of a Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) with long short-term memory (LSTM) layer for rainfall prediction and a CNN with SoftMax layer along with a few deep learning pre-trained models for fruit health monitoring. Another model that works as a combined rainfall predictor and fruit health recognizer is designed using a CNN + LSTM and a multi-head self-attention mechanism which proves to be effective. The entire system is cloud resident and available for use through an application.

AB0318 PREVALENCE OF SECONDARY SJOGREN’S SYNDROME IN PATIENTS WITH RHEUMATOID ARTHRITIS- A SINGLE CENTER STUDY FROM NORTHERN INDIA

Background

Sjogren’s syndrome (SS) is a systemic autoimmune disease characterized by lymphocytic infiltration of salivary and lacrimal glands leading to dry eyes and dry mouth. Sjogren’s syndrome either present alone (primary Sjogren’s syndrome) or sometimes can occur with other autoimmune diseases like rheumatoid arthritis, systemic lupus erythematosus, and scleroderma. In such instances, the condition is termed secondary Sjogren’s syndrome. SS may be a marker of more aggressive joint disease in patients with RA, and hence it is essential to characterize the symptoms in the RA cohort, which may help in the management and treatment of the disease.

Objectives

Primary Objective

The primary objective of the current study is to estimate the prevalence of secondary Sjogren’s syndrome in a cohort of patients with rheumatoid arthritis.

Secondary Objective

To compare the clinical characteristics in rheumatoid arthritis patients with Sjogren’s syndrome and in rheumatoid arthritis patients without Sjogren’s syndrome.

Methods

The study was conducted from 2016-2018 in a tertiary care hospital in the Department of Rheumatology, New Delhi, India. Patients with a rheumatologist-diagnosed RA were enrolled. There were 726 patients with rheumatoid arthritis. Patients were enquired about their symptoms. Out of 726, 193 had secondary Sjogren’s syndrome (26.58%). In patients without Sjogren’s syndrome, complete clinical data were available only for 377 patients hence the analysis on the comparison of clinical characteristics was limited to 377 patients. The other patients were excluded due to lack of the data required for the study.

Results

It was identified that out of 726 patients, 193 had symptoms of secondary Sjogren’s like dry eyes dry mouth, or both. It was found that in patients with secondary Sjogren’s syndrome (n=193), the mean age was significantly higher than those patients without secondary Sjogren’s syndrome (n=377) [52.58 ± 12.36 Vs. 48.42 ± 13.98, p=0.0005]. Similarly, the mean disease duration was significantly higher among RA patients with secondary SS than those without SS [10.76 ± 8.34 Vs. 6.81 ± 7.29, p<0.0001]. Similarly, co-morbidities like hypertension, diabetes mellitus, and hypothyroidism were more seen in patients with rheumatoid arthritis with Sjogren’s syndrome.

In a meta-analysis involving 18 studies1, it was identified that the prevalence of SS in RA was 19.5%. The differences in the prevalence of secondary SS in RA patients could be attributable to inter-ethnic variation, disease duration, and clinical scores employed in the studies. Similar to our study, Santhosh et al.2 reported that patients with secondary SS had a longer disease duration than those without secondary SS.

Conclusion

The prevalence of Sjogren’s syndrome among patients with rheumatoid arthritis in the North Indian cohort of patients with RA was 26.58%.

References

[1]Alani H, Henty JR, Thompson NL, Jury E, Ciurtin C. Systematic review and meta-analysis of the epidemiology of polyautoimmunity in Sjögren’s syndrome (secondary Sjögren’s syndrome) focusing on autoimmune rheumatic diseases. Scandinavian journal of rheumatology. 2018 Mar 4;47(2):141-54.

[2]Santosh K, Dhir V, Singh S, Sood A, Gupta A, Sharma A, Sharma S. Prevalence of secondary Sjögren’s syndrome in Indian patients with rheumatoid arthritis: a single-center study. International journal of rheumatic diseases. 2017 Jul;20(7):870-4.

Disclosure of Interests

None declared

Phytoremediation of crude oil-contaminated soil employing Crotalaria pallida Aiton

The purpose of the study was to evaluate the phytoremediation potentiality of a herb named Crotalaria pallida which are abundantly grown on crude oil-contaminated soil of oil field situated at upper Assam, India, so that this plant could be used to remediate hydrocarbon from contaminated soil. To evaluate the potentiality of the plant, a pot culture experiment was conducted taking 3 kg of rice field soil mixed with crude oil at a concentration of 10,000 (10 g/kg), 20,000 (20 g/kg), 30,000 (30 g/kg), 40,000 (40 g/kg), 50,000 (50 g/kg), 60,000 (60 g/kg), 70,000 (70 g/kg), 80,000 (80 g/kg), 90,000 (90 g/kg), and 100,000 (100 g/kg) ppm. Ten numbers of healthy seeds of C. pallida were sown in three pots of each concentration for germination, and after 15 days of germination, single healthy seedling in each pot was kept for the study. A control setup was also maintained without adding crude oil. The duration of the experiment was fixed for 6 months. The results showed that uptake of hydrocarbon by the plants was increased with increasing the concentration of crude oil in the soil up to 60,000 ppm. After that, uptake of hydrocarbon by the plants was found to be lower with increasing doses of crude oil concentration. Uptake of hydrocarbon by the shoot was found to be maximum, i.e., 35,018 ppm in 60,000 ppm concentration. Dissipation of total petroleum hydrocarbon (TPH) from the soil was also gradually increased with increasing concentration of crude oil in the soil up to 60,000 ppm. Maximum dissipation, i.e., 78.66 %, occurred in 60,000 ppm concentration of crude oil-mixed soil. The plant could not survive in 100,000 ppm concentration of crude oil-mixed soil. The results also demonstrated that there was a reduction in plant shoot and root biomass with an increase of crude oil concentration. Furthermore, results revealed that the shoot biomass was higher than root biomass in all the treatments.

Vermicomposting potentiality of Perionyx excavatus for recycling of waste biomass of Java citronella--an aromatic oil yielding plant

Laboratory investigation on vermicomposting efficacy of Perionyx excavatus for recycling of distillation waste biomass of java citronella (Cymbopogon winterianus Jowitt) was carried out in two seasonal trials i.e. summer and winter periods. The experiment was conducted in earthen pots using a mixture of citronella waste material and cowdung in the proportion of 5:1. A control treatment without earthworms was setup for comparison of the results. The vermicompost had shown 5.8 folds reduction in C/N ratio and 5.6 folds enhancement in ash content. The nutrient contents (N, P, K, Ca and Mg) in the vermicompost had increase in the range of 1.2 - 4.1 fold than the initial level. The FT-IR spectra of the vermicompost confirmed increase in nitrogen rich compounds and decrease in aliphatic/aromatic compounds as compared to the initial level of the biowaste materials. The vermicomposting process is influenced by seasonal variation and summer was more productive than winter.

Vermicomposting of distillation waste of citronella plant (Cymbopogon winterianus Jowitt.) employing Eudrilus eugeniae

Laboratory experiment on vermicomposting of distillation waste of java citronella (Cymbopogon winterianus Jowitt.) was carried out employing Eudrilus eugeniae, in two seasonal trials, covering summer and winter periods. Two vermicomposting treatments were conducted in earthen pots, one with citronella plant waste only (CW) and the other, a mixture of citronella waste and cowdung in the proportion 5:1 (CW+CD). Vermicomposting of citronella waste resulted reduction in C/N ratio (83.5-87.7%), enhancement of ash content and a number of macro and micronutrients. The FT-IR spectroscopy of the vermicompost revealed the reduction in aliphatic and aromatic compound as well as increase in amide group after the 105 days stabilization process. The vermicompost output was significantly enhanced in CW+CD treatment than CW treatment. Even, nutrient content of the vermicompost was also higher in CW+CD treatment than CW alone indicating the positive role of cowdung in improvement of quantity and quality.

Impact of paper mill effluent on growth and development of certain agricultural crops

The physico-chemical characteristics of paper mill industry effluent were measured and some were found to be above the permissible limits prescribed by Indian irrigation water standard. A study was conducted in pots to investigate the effects of different concentrations (10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80 and 100%) of paper mill effluent on growth and production of rice, mustard and peafor three years. The study reveals that the paper mill effluent has deleterious effect on the growth of crop at higher concentrations. However, at lower concentration (viz. 10 to 40% in rice, 10 to 50% in mustard and 10 to 60% in pea) of effluent, beneficial impact on general welfare of the crops was noticed. Growth and development was increased with increasing the concentration of the effluent up to 30% in rice, 40% in mustard and 50% in pea. Investigation showed that the growth and production of rice, mustard and pea was found maximum at a concentration of 30, 40 and 50% effluent respectively.

Central retinal vein occlusion due to herpes zoster as the initial presenting sign in a patient with acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS)

Central retinal vein occlusion (CRVO) due to herpes zoster has rarely been reported. Varicella zoster virus is a common opportunistic infection in patients with AIDS. This case report is about a 40-year-old man with herpes zoster ophthalmicus and central retinal vein occlusion of the right eye who is HIV-positive. Although the lesion resolved following treatment with intravenous acyclovir and oral steroid, the patient subsequently developed florid disc neovascularization and vitreous hemorrhage. The paper highlights CRVO as the initial presentation in an AIDS patient with herpes zoster ophthalmicus.