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Fulltext A Low-Cost Information Monitoring System for Smart Farming Applications

Saqib M, Almohamad TA, Mehmood RM

Sensors (Basel), 2020 Apr 22;20(8).
PMID: 32331212 DOI: 10.3390/s20082367

A low-cost, low-power, and low data-rate solution is proposed to fulfill the requirements of information monitoring for actual large-scale agricultural farms. A small-scale farm can be easily managed. By contrast, a large farm will require automating equipment that contributes to crop production. Sensor based soil properties measurement plays an integral role in designing a fully automated agricultural farm, also provides more satisfactory results than any manual method. The existing information monitoring solutions are inefficient in terms of higher deployment cost and limited communication range to adapt the need of large-scale agriculture farms. A serial based low-power, long-range, and low-cost communication module is proposed to confront the challenges of monitoring information over long distances. In the proposed system, a tree-based communication mechanism is deployed to extend the communication range by adding intermediate nodes. Each sensor node consists of a solar panel, a rechargeable cell, a microcontroller, a moisture sensor, and a communication unit. Each node is capable to work as a sensor node and router node for network traffic. Minimized data logs from the central node are sent daily to the cloud for future analytics purpose. After conducting a detailed experiment in open sight, the communication distance measured 250 m between two points and increased to 750 m by adding two intermediate nodes. The minimum working current of each node was 2 mA, and the packet loss rate was approximately 2-5% on different packet sizes of the entire network. Results show that the proposed approach can be used as a reference model to meet the requirements for soil measurement, transmission, and storage in a large-scale agricultural farm.
Fulltext Shape effect on MHD flow of time fractional Ferro-Brinkman type nanofluid with ramped heating

Saqib M, Khan I, Shafie S, Mohamad AQ

Sci Rep, 2021 Feb 12;11(1):3725.
PMID: 33580116 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-020-78421-z

The colloidal suspension of nanometer-sized particles of Fe3O4 in traditional base fluids is referred to as Ferro-nanofluids. These fluids have many technological applications such as cell separation, drug delivery, magnetic resonance imaging, heat dissipation, damping, and dynamic sealing. Due to the massive applications of Ferro-nanofluids, the main objective of this study is to consider the MHD flow of water-based Ferro-nanofluid in the presence of thermal radiation, heat generation, and nanoparticle shape effect. The Caputo-Fabrizio time-fractional Brinkman type fluid model is utilized to demonstrate the proposed flow phenomenon with oscillating and ramped heating boundary conditions. The Laplace transform method is used to solve the model for both ramped and isothermal heating for exact solutions. The ramped and isothermal solutions are simultaneously plotted in the various figures to study the influence of pertinent flow parameters. The results revealed that the fractional parameter has a great impact on both temperature and velocity fields. In the case of ramped heating, both temperature and velocity fields decreasing with increasing fractional parameter. However, in the isothermal case, this trend reverses near the plate and gradually, ramped, and isothermal heating became alike away from the plate for the fractional parameter. Finally, the solutions for temperature and velocity fields are reduced to classical form and validated with already published results.
Fulltext The Efficacy of Little Lovely Dentist, Dental Song, and Tell-Show-Do Techniques in Alleviating Dental Anxiety in Paediatric Patients: A Clinical Trial

Abbasi H, Saqib M, Jouhar R, Lal A, Ahmed N, Ahmed MA, et al.

Biomed Res Int, 2021;2021:1119710.
PMID: 34124238 DOI: 10.1155/2021/1119710

Introduction: Dental anxiety is a common occurrence in patients undergoing dental treatments, especially in children. The success in paedriatric dental treatments and patient comfort depends on controlling the level of patient's anxiety in clinical settings. This study is aimed at evaluating the efficacy of different techniques applied for the reduction of dental anxiety in paediatric patients. Material and Methods. One hundred and sixty participants were divided into 4 groups; each group having 40 patients as follows: group I: mobile application "little lovely dentist," group II: YouTube® "dental video songs," group III "tell-show-do," and group IV "control." Dental prophylaxis treatments were provided to all the participants. Initial anxiety levels were noted during the patient's education phase by measuring heart rate with pulse oximeter and distress level with facial image scale, at the same time in each group, respectively. The postoperative anxiety was noted later with the same methods, after the application of anxiety reduction techniques. The data obtained were entered in the statistical package for the social sciences software, version 25. One-way ANOVA and paired t-test for matched groups were used to compare mean values of the 4 groups, in this study to determine their effectiveness. A p value of ≤0.05 was considered as statistically significant.
Results: The mean age of patients in group 1 was 6.8 ± 2.1 years, group 2: 8.15 ± 2.27 years, group 3: 7.5 ± 2.3 years, and group 4: 7.27 ± 1.68 years. The intragroup comparisons of heart rate and facial image scores have shown a significant difference in before and after dental treatment procedures. Marked reduction in heart rate and facial image scale scores were found in patients belonging to group 1 (mobile applications) and group 2 (dental video songs). An increase in heart rate and facial image scale scores was seen in group 3 (tell-show-do) and the control group.
Conclusion: The paediatric dental anxiety is a common finding in dental clinics. Behavior modification techniques like smartphone applications, "little lovely dentist," and "dental songs" can alleviate dental anxiety experienced by paediatric patients. The "tell-show-do" technique although most commonly used did not prove to be beneficial in the reduction of the anxiety levels.
Hydatigera taeniaeformis in urban rats (Rattus rattus) in Faisalabad, Pakistan

Alvi MA, Li L, Ohiolei JA, Qamar W, Saqib M, Tayyab MH, et al.

Infect Genet Evol, 2021 Aug;92:104873.
PMID: 33905888 DOI: 10.1016/j.meegid.2021.104873

Hydatigera taeniaeformis formerly referred to as Taenia taeniaeformis is a cestode of cats (definitive hosts) and rodents (intermediate hosts). The prevalence of the metacestode larval stage has been reported in rodents in many parts of the world even though the genetic polymorphisms or intraspecies variation is still understudied. Here, we report a prevalence of 22.09% (38/172) from an urban rodent population in Pakistan and a nucleotide diversity (cox1) of 0.00463 among the population. Infection was higher in male (27.85%) and adult (32.29%) rats than female and sub-adult/young rats. Interestingly, The median-joining network and phylogenetic construction comprising isolates from China, Japan, Kenya, Laos, Malaysia, Senegal, the United Arab Emirates, and countries in Europe demonstrated that Pakistani H. taeniaeformis are closer to Asian and African population than those of European origin. The results of the study will add-in preliminary data for H. taeniaeformis and will also contribute to understand the global molecular epidemiology and population structure of H. taeniaeformis.