Dissemination of portable combining machine as appropriate technological adoption for corn farming in sloping region Study case: Gorontalo Province, Indonesia

Corn is vital crop cultivation in Gorontalo Province and becomes major export comodity from the agricultural sector. Most of corn farms are located in hilly and mountainous area known as sloping agriculture. The main aim of this study was to analyze the advantages of portable combine machine, peeling-thresher corn as appropriate technology, to support sloping agriculture, reduce cost production, and generate farmers income. This research was conducted in Tutuwoto village that involves two farmers group association (POKTAN) namely POKTAN Dusun Beringin and POKTAN Dusun Puncak. The POKTAN members stated that labour budget is the most expensive for corn production in their region. Dissemination of peeling-thresher machine is proven shorten of harvest and post-harvest steps in the current pattern. Results revealed that the technological input decreased 34.50% operational cost of harvest and post-harvest from Rp8,520,000 to Rp2,940,000. Furthermore, its application improved the farmers net profit 51.67% ha−1 and 85.01% ha−1 for own and loan capital respectively, in one growing season about 4 month. It is concluded that the proper equipment implemented in hilly farming reduces cost production and its implication redoubles revenue of the corn farmers.

Farmers’ institutional transformation in the shallot area of Malang District, Indonesia

The main problem in developing the shallot area in Malang District is the weak institutional consolidation of farmers. This article aims to formulate a strategy for the transformation of existing farmer institutions towards the institutionalization of farmer corporations in the shallot area. The research method was carried out with a case study approach through in-depth interviews with eight units of farmer group management, four farmer group associations, and one cooperative institution in two sample subdistricts, namely Ngantang and Pujon, in Malang District, East Java Province. The research was conducted in July 2019. The results showed that the institutional performance of the farmer group association was at a moderate level measured by the role and business activities, while the cooperative was at a less developed level in encouraging the development of competitive and sustainable shallot agribusiness areas. The institutional performance of farmer group associations and cooperatives has shown that they are starting to work, but the working mechanism is not yet effective. The strategy for the institutional transformation of association and cooperatives towards farmer corporations can be carried out by adding new structures to follow an integrated agribusiness, expanding the objectives to be achieved, adding new business activities, and strengthening horizontal and vertical through integrated agribusiness partnerships.

A simultaneous feature selection and compositional association test for detecting sparse associations in high-dimensional metagenomic data

Background: Numerous metagenomic studies aim to discover associations between the microbial composition of an environment (e.g. Gut, Skin, Oral) and a phenotype of interest. Multivariate analysis (MVA) is often performed in these studies without critical a priori knowledge of which taxa are associated with the phenotype being studied. Consequently, non-parametric MVA methods are applied directly to all taxa surveyed independent of noise. This approach typically reduces statistical power in settings where true associations among only a few taxa are obscured by high dimensionality (i.e. sparse association signals). At the same time, the inclusion of all taxa can confound the extraction of key biological insights. Further, low sample size and compositional sample space constraints exist in these data whereby beyond-study generalizability may be reduced if not properly accounted for. More powerful association tests that are interpretable and directly account for compositional constraints while detecting sparse association signals are needed.Methods: We developed Selection-Energy-Permutation (SelEnergyPerm), a non-parametric group association test with embedded feature selection. SelEnergyPerm directly accounts for compositional constraints by selecting parsimonious log ratio signatures from the set of all pairwise log ratios (PLR) between features (OTUs, taxa, etc.). To do this, network methods are used to rank, select, and maximize the between-group association of a candidate log ratio subset. This process is then repeated with an appropriate permutation testing design to simultaneously determine the significance of the selected signatures and association.Results: Simulation results show SelEnergyPerm selects small independent sets of log ratios that capture strong associations in a range of scenarios with small and large dimensional feature spaces. Additionally, our simulation results demonstrate SelEnergyPerm consistently detects/rejects associations in synthetic data with sparse, dense, or no association signals. We demonstrate the novel benefits of our method in four case studies utilizing publicly available 16S rRNA and whole-genome sequencing datasets.Conclusions: Tools to analyze complex high-dimensional metagenomic datasets with sparse association signals using robust PLR have not been sufficiently developed previously. We propose SelEnergyPerm, a novel framework for the discovery of phenotype-associated, metagenomic log ratio signatures for characterizing and understanding alterations in microbial community structure. SelEnergyPerm is implemented in R, available at https://github.com/andrew84830813/selEnergyPermR.

Features of the intestinal microbiota in children with intestinal parasitosis

The aim of the research is to study the features of the intestinal microbiota in children with parasitic invasions.Clinical and microbiological examination of 40 children aged from 9 months to 1 0 years with functional disorders of the intestine was carried out, in 20 of whom intestinal parasitoses were detected (15 of them — ascariasis, 5 — intestinal lambliosis) — the main group. The comparison group consisted of 20 other children with functional disorders of the intestine without intestinal parasitosis.All children underwent: assessment of the course of the ante-neonatal periods, the nature of feeding and clinical symptoms of intestinal parasitosis; triple study of feces for eggs of worms and protozoa in the enrichment environment of Turdyev, coprocytogram, biochemical analysis of feces, ultrasound of internal organs. To identify the quantitative content of the main groups of normobiota, species composition and spectrum of opportunistic bacteria and viruses, the method of gas chromatography-mass spectrometry of intestinal microbial markers was used.It was found that in children with intestinal parasitosis, already at the prenatal stage of the formation of the intestinal microbiota, risk factors were recorded that negatively affect the composition of the forming microbiota, associated with functional disorders of the digestive tract from the first days of life.The degree of deficiency of normobiota, as well as the spectrum of opportunistic bacteria in children with parasitic invasions, was greater: 14 types of bacteria in combination with herpes viruses versus 9 in the comparison group. Association Clostridium spp. — Herpes virus against the background of a deficiency of bifidobacteria and lactobacilli acts as a dominant association in the relationship with intestinal parasitosis.

Pemanfaatan Sampah Organik dalam Produksi Pupuk Bokashi di Gabungan Kelompok Tani Rinjani Kecamatan Singaran Pati Kota Bengkulu

The Use of Organic Waste in Bokashi Fertilizer Production at Farmers' Group Association of Rinjani in Singaran Pati District, Bengkulu City The continuous use of inorganic fertilizers by farmers results in disturbed soil fertility and nutrient deficiencies. So far, farmers' group association of Rinjani has also used inorganic fertilizers, which are quite expensive. Therefore, the purpose of this community service was to educate farmers on the farmers' group association of Rinjani on how to utilize organic waste from the surrounding environment to be processed into bokashi fertilizer. The ingredients used were leftover vegetables, fruits and dried leave. The Effective Microorganism 4 (EM4) was used as decomposer to speed up the composting process. The process of making bokashi fertilizer from vegetable and fruit waste was running smoothly. The bokashi obtained was very good. This was indicated by the characteristic of blackish brown color, crumb texture and has an odor like the smell of earth in general.

FARMERS EMPOWERMENT ON FOOD SECURITY PROGRAM IN ENGGAL MAJU FARMERS GROUP ASSOCIATION OF KEBUMEN REGENCY

Agriculture is a strategic sector in national development because it plays an important role infood availability and realizes food security. The Farmer's attitude is one of the determining aspects toinvolvement farmers in empowerment programs for food security. A research, aiming to describe thefarmer's attitude and analyze the farmer's attitudes and the influence factors that influence the farmer'sattitudes on the food security empowerment program. The research used mixed method, the number ofresearch respondents was 60 farmers members of the farmer's group association Enggal Maju KebumenDistrict, determined by cluster random sampling, and for qualitative data, the informants were selectedpurposively. The Farmer's attitude analyzed with descriptive analysis and the influence factors offarmers' attitude used multiple linear regression analysis. Farmer's attitude analyzed with descriptiveanalysis and the influence factors of farmer's attitude used multiple linear regression analysis. Theresult show that the farmer's attitudes in terms of cognitive, affective, and conative components towardthe objectives program were high, farmer's attitudes towards, the target, implementation, and benefits ofthe program were very highly classified. Farm size, personal experience, and the influence of the important people were a significant effect on the farmer's attitudes in food security empowermentprograms. The need to maximize the function of farmer’s groups, consistency of extension workers,agencies and heads of Gapoktan assist and guide farmers so that the sustainability of activities ismaintained

The effect of ABO blood group and antibody class on the risk of COVID-19 infection and severity of clinical outcomes

The COVID-19 pandemic has affected more than 100 million cases and caused immense burdens on governments and healthcare systems worldwide. Since its emergence in December 2019, research has been focused on treating the infected, identifying those at risk and preventing spread. There is currently no known biological biomarker that predicts the risk of infection. Several studies emerged suggesting an association between ABO blood group and the risk of COVID-19 infection. In this study, we used retrospective observational data in Bahrain to investigate the association between ABO blood group and risk of infection, as well as susceptibility to severe ICU-requiring infection. We found a higher risk associated with blood group B, and a lower risk with blood group AB. No association was observed between blood group and the risk of a severe ICU-requiring infection. We extended the analysis to study the association by antibodies; anti-a (blood groups B and O) and anti-b (blood groups A and O). No association between antibodies and both risk of infection or susceptibility to severe infection was found. The current study, along with the variation in blood group association results, indicates that blood group may not be an ideal biomarker to predict risk of COVID-19 infection.

Criminal Liability for Organization of Illegal Migration

The article discusses the criminal responsibility for illegally organizing migration, using a comparative documentary-based methodology. Constant changes in public life suggest the need to improve states' criminal policy in the field of establishing responsibility for organizing illegal migration, both nationally and internationally. An analysis of the provisions of international criminal law makes it possible to consider various legal approaches to the criminalization of acts in the field of migration. The document underpins the need to develop a unified approach to determining the characteristics of the crime in question, as it is transnational. It is concluded that, regardless of the different approaches of States to recognize illegal population migration, the organization of this illegal activity, in the presence of certain signs, should be recognized as a crime. At the same time, the organization of illegal migration is defined as the commission by a criminal group (association of criminal groups) of actions aimed at creating the conditions for the illegal movement of foreign nationals across the state border or their illegal presence in each country.