Bali, one of Indonesia island, is a region inhabited by a large number and varied banana (Musa spp; Musaceae). Many varieties of banana have been utilized by local peoples since long time ago as traditional medicine, edible material, used in traditional ceremony and others. However, information regarding the knowledge on ethnobotany of banana in Bali remains scattered and is not documented well. The purpose of this study was to evaluate and document the ethnobotanic values of bananas in Bali. Ethnobotanic data was collected through focus group discussion (FGD), surveys and interviews from 9 study sites (1 city and 8 regencies) with one or two villages represented each site. Ethnobotanical value of banana was determined by Local User’s Value Index (LUVI) with Pebble Distribution Method (PDM). Subsequently, data obtained was analysed using simple statistic description. Results showed that as many as 44 varieties of banana in Bali were documented. Local peoples have been utilizing banana in their daily life for ritual as indicated by higher LUVI (0.4867), followed by food (0.3), medicine (0.1533), and other (0.06). On the basis of testimony of respondents, indigenous knowledge of peoples in Bali about banana is vertically transmitted from parents to their children (98%). This study provided a valuable information of how the local peoples manage and conserve the banana and its nature.

Proflavine, an acridine dye, is a known DNA intercalating agent. In the present study, we show that proflavine alone on photoillumination can generate reactive oxygen species (ROS). These proflavine-derived ROS cause damage to proteins, and this effect is enhanced when the divalent metal ion Cu (II) is included in the reaction. Bathocuproine, a specific Cu (I) sequestering agent, when present in the reaction mixture containing Cu (II), was found to inhibit the protein degradation, showing that Cu (I) is an essential intermediate in the reaction. The effect of several scavengers of ROS such as superoxide dismutase, sodium azide, potassium iodide, and thiourea were examined on the protein damaging reaction. Potassium iodide was found to be the most effective in inhibiting protein damage followed by sodium azide and thiourea. Our results indicate the involvement of superoxide, singlet oxygen, triplet oxygen, and hydroxyl radicals in proflavine-induced damage to proteins.

The mammary gland contains adult stem cells that are capable of self-renewal and are likely target for neoplastic transformation leading to breast cancer. In this study, we developed a cell culture derived from the mammary glands of cynomolgus monkeys (Macaca fascicularis)(MfMC) and furthermore identified the expression of markers for stemness and estrogenreceptor-associated activities. We found that the primary culture can be successfully subcultured to at least 3 passages, primarily epithelial-like in morphology, the cultured cells remained heterogenous in phenotype as they expressed epithelial cell markers CD24, CK18, and marker for fibroblast S1004A. Importantly, the cell population also consistently expressed the markers of mammary stem cells (ITGB1 or CD29 and ITGA6 or CD49f), mesenchymal stem cells (CD73 and CD105) and pluripotency (NANOG, OCT4, SOX2). In addition to this, the cells were also positive for Estrogen Receptor (ER), and ER-activated marker Trefoil Factor 1, suggesting an estrogen responsiveness of the culture model. These results indicate that our cell culture model is a reliable model for acquiring a population of cells with mammary stem cell properties and that these cultures may also serve as a reservoir from which more purified populations of stem cell populations can be isolated in the future.

Snakebite envenomation in Indonesia is a health burden that receives no attention from stakeholders. The high mortality and morbidity rate caused by snakebite in Indonesia is estimated from regional reports. The true burden of this issue in Indonesia needs to be revealed even starting from a small part of the country. Medical records from a Hospital in Bondowoso Regency were the data source of the snakebite cases. Three spatial statistical summaries were applied to analyze the spatial pattern of snakebite incidents. The comparison between statistical functions and the theoretical model of random distributions shows a significant clustering pattern of the events. The pattern indicates that five subdistricts in Bondowoso have a substantial number of snakebite cases more than other regions. This finding shows the potential application of spatial statistics for the snakebite combating strategy in this area by identifying the priority locations of the snakebite cases.

Physico-stimulant like audible sound is one of the new promising methods for enhancing microalgae growth rate. Here, microalgae Haematococcus pluvialis was cultivated with the addition of audible sound with titles “Blues for Elle” and “Far and Wide.” The objective of this research was to evaluate the effect of audible sound to the growth and productivity of microalgae. The experiment has been conducted by exposing the audible sound for 8 h in 22 days to microalgae cultivation. The result showed that microalgae H. pluvialis treated by the music “Blues for Elle” shows the highest growth rate (0.03 per day), and 58% higher than the one without audible sound. The average number of cells in stationary phase is 0.76 × 104 cells/mL culture and the productivity is 3.467 × 102 cells/mL/day. The pH of microalgae medium slightly decreases because of proton production during photosynthesisprocess. The kinetic rate constant (kapp) is 0.078 per day, reaction half-life (t1/2) is 8.89 days, and catalytic surface (Ksurf) is 1.66 × 10−5/day/cm2. In conclusion, this audible sound is very useful to stimulate microalgae growth rate, especially H. pluvialis.

Methylmercury has been generally known as a toxic heavy metal for both human and environment. Bacterial-based bioremediation of heavy metal is suggested as an ecofriendly and low-cost bioremediation process. There was limited information regarding the role of lactic acid bacteria (LAB) as detoxification agent for methylmercury addressed for human body. West Sekotong, West Lombok, Indonesia, is one of the newly developed artisanal and small-scale gold mining site with high mercury contamination level. This present study was aimed to isolate the human origin methylmercury-resistant LAB and further evaluate their ability to absorb methylmercury. Methylmercury absorption assay was conducted in broth media. The remaining and absorbed methylmercury was measured using the gas chromatography flame ionization detector. A total of 56 methylmercury-resistant LAB isolates were isolated from 37 feces and 19 breast milk samples from 19 volunteers in West Sekotong. Of them, 10 isolates were further selected based on several basic probiotic characteristics and subjected to methylmercury removal assay. The selected isolates showed different methylmercury absorption ability ranged between 17.375 and 51.597 μg/g of wet mass of cell after incubated for 24 hours. Two isolates from feces showing the best removal activity were identified as Enterococcus durans and one isolates from breast milk as Enterococcus faecium based on the sequences of 16s rDNA.

The effects of salinity on the polyisoprenoid alcohol content and composition of the salt-secreting mangrove species Avicennia marina and Sonneratia alba and the non–salt-secreting species Bruguiera gymnorrhiza and Kandelia obovata were studied. The seedlings of mangroves were grown for 5 months under 0% and 3% salt concentrations. The occurrence, content, and distribution of four mangrove seedlings were analyzed by two-dimensional thin layer chromatography. The structural groups of the polyprenols and dolichols in the leaves and roots were classified into two types (I and II). In type I, dolichols predominated over polyprenols (more than 90%), whereas in type II, the occurrence of both polyprenols and dolichols was observed. Polyprenols were not detected in the leaves of A. marina and B. gymnorrhiza under 0% salt (control), but were detected in small amounts in K. obovata leaves; however, significant amounts were found in the 3% salinity group. This finding in A. marina, B. gymnorrhiza, and K. obovata leaves implies a change to the structural group: under 0% salt concentrations, the groups are classified as type I, but become type II under 3% salt concentrations. The occurrence of ficaprenol (C50–55) was found only in the leaves of the non–salt-secreting species B. gymnorrhiza and K. obovataunder 3% salinity and not in the salt-secreting species A. marina or S. alba. It is noteworthy that the polyisoprenoid type in the roots of the four species showed no change under salinity; the two salt-secreting species A. marina and S. alba contained type I under 0% and 3% salt concentrations. On the other hand, type II polyisoprenoids were identified in the non–salt-secreting species B. gymnorrhiza and K. obovata under 0% and 3% salinity conditions. This finding suggested that polyisoprenoids play a protective role against salinity in the mangrove leaves of both salt-secreting and non–salt-secreting species.

Monitoring at every growth of rice plants is an important information for determining the grain pro-duction estimation of rice. Monitoring must to be have timely work on the rice plant development. However, timely monitoring and the high accuracy of information is a challenge in remote sensing based on rice agriculture monitoring and observation. With increased quality of synthetic aperture radar (SAR) systems utilizing polarimetric information recently, the development and applications of polarimetric SAR (PolSAR) are one of the current major topics in radar remote sensing. The ad-vantages provided by PolSAR data for agricultural monitoring have been extensively studied for applications such as crop type classification and mapping, crop phenology monitoring, productivity assessment based on the sensitivity of polarimetric parameters to indicators of crop conditions. Freeman and Durden successfully decomposed fully PolSAR data into three components: Single bounce, double bounce, and volume scattering. The three-component scattering provide features for distinguishing between different surface cover types. These sensitivities assist in the identification of growing phase. The observed growing phase development in time series, reflected in the consistent temporal trends in scattering, was generally in agreement with crop phenological development stages. Supervised classification was performed on repeat-pass Radarsat-2 images, with an overall classification accuracy of 77.27% achieved using time series Fine beam data. The study demonstrated that Radarsat-2 Fine mode data provide useful information for crop monitoring and classification of rice plants.

Spatial modelling using multi-scale grid system is adopted to determine the threshold and distribution pattern of regional carrying capacity. Water-provisioning service is used as a quantitative approach. Closed system was applied in which it was based solely on the potential of existing resources in the region without taking in to account the flow of material in or out of the system. Steps being taken include the distribution of water demand – of land and domestics – and supply; and the determination of carrying capacity status based on the threshold of water-provisioning services. A grid system with 5″×5″ resolution is used to accommodate the various sets and scale, of data. The result shows, 82.29% of Sumedang Regency; 68.43% of Cimahi City; 61.29% of Bandung City; 60.51% of Bandung Barat Regency; and 57.34% of Bandung Regency are still able to fulfil the demands of the population.

Oil palm is widely known as one of vegetable oil sources and the main comodity in Indonesian agriculture because of the benefits in non-food and food industries. Ganoderma boninense attack results in considerable losses to agriculture. Chemical control creates a harmful effect on health and the environment. Biocontrol is required to take over the function of chemical control. This study aimed to select bacteria that produce bioactive compounds as biofungicide against G. boninense pathogenic fungi and identify bacteria producing biofungicide using molecular method. The stages of bacterial isolate selection were performed through the selected hemolysis and isolate tests in the antagonistic test. Bacteria were extracted using ethyl acetate and their extract activity were tested. Analysis of bioactive compounds was conducted using thin layer chromatography (TLC) and the identification was based on 16S rRNA gene. The result of bacterial pathogenic test was obtained from two selected bacterial isolates namely 11B LB and 11B MD. Both bacterial isolates showed antagonistic effects by forming an inhibitory zone against G. boninense growth with percentage of inhibitor of 81 and 75%. Activity test of bacterial extract showed that crude extract of bacterial isolate 11B MD had the highest inhibitor activity that is 88.34%. TLC analysis proved that the active extract of bacteria containing metabolite compounds had Rf value of 0.1, 0.28, and 0.38. Isolate bacteria 11B MD was identified as Pseudomonas aeruginosa.