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Plered region is located in around Purwakarta area, west java, Indonesia. Plered is famous as ceramic product especially ceramic tiles, decorative ceramics, tableware and roof tiles. This paper investigated the manufacturing of porous ceramic from Plered and evaluated the mechanical properties especially bending strength. The investigation include the controlling of porosity using pore former during manufacturing, investigation of chemical composition and evaluated the fracture strength using bending test. Evaluation of porosity ceramic product use an archimedes method and scanning electron microscopy and the bending strength of porous ceramic using three point bending test. The porous ceramic was tailored by using compaction process and sintering process at temperature of 1250 C, the pore former (rice starch) was added on the material ceramic to control of porosity. The bending strength use standard ASTM C1161-13 which sample has cross section of 6x8 mm2 and 90 mm long. The results show that the porosity increases with the number of pore formers in a mixture of clay, the porosity of sinter ceramic was 7 vol%,12 vol%, 17 vol% at using pore former 5 wt%, 15 wt% and 25 wt % respectively. The bending strength of sinter ceramic was declined with increasing porosity. The bending strength of sintered ceramic was 58 MPa, 49.5 MPa and 34.7 MPa at porosity of 7 vol%, 9 vol% and 14 vol% respectively.

Electrodeposition is considered an easy and cost effective technique for the manufacture of alloy layers. Various properties for coatings can be achieved by selecting various electrodeposition parameters. These materials have the advantage of corrosion resistance but relatively expensive. They will need alternative materials that can easily obtained and replace these materials. This paper discusses the process of coating stainless steel AISI 304 and copper with Ni. Electric current and coating time is used in the electroplating coating process of Ni to Ni thickness supported by ultrasonic batch. AISI 304 stainless steel and copper coated using nickel (Ni) with variable time and fixed electric current parameters. The electric current used 1.5 ampere, the time of plating process of 60 seconds, 120 seconds, and 180 seconds. The composition of nickel electrolyte solutions using nickel sulfate 300 gr/L, nickel chloride 30 gr/L, and sour borax 30 gr/L with brighteners added one (I) 15 mL and brighteners two (II) 1 mL. Measurement of thickness is done by using optical microscope assisted by imageraster software. The best process used 1.5 amperes of electric current and time of 180 seconds. The value of copper thickness is 26.50 (μm) using ultrasonic batch.

The current use of AZ31 in biomedical implants continues to be developed. The effect of SBF (Simulated Body Fluid) solution in AZ31 corrosion tests has not been widely used on AZ31 material which has been subjected to heat treatment, immersion test and weight loss as a reference for observing the effect of SBF on AZ31 material. Pitting corrosion can be clearly seen on the AZ31 surface. The corrosion rate can be minimized at 250°C treatment, held for 2 hours at 2.263 mm / y. Treatment 200°C was held for 1 hour and had the smallest weight loss of 0.1216 gr. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Competing Interests: Conflicts of interest: none declared.

The adaptability of epigenetics offers a compelling research avenue, notably in the context of Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus (T2DM) biomarkers and provides a nuanced approach to managing biological systems for diagnosis. However, challenges such as DNA degradation during methylation studies are prominent, especially with cell-free DNA (cfDNA) which is present in small quantities in plasma, calling for innovative solutions. To tackle these challenges, four methodological approaches have been identified: firstly, selecting an appropriate DNA extraction method and enhancing DNA yield through amplification; secondly, adapting bisulfite modification techniques to minimize DNA degradation; thirdly, utilizing tools capable of working with minimal DNA quantities; and lastly, employing bisulfite-free methylation techniques. A particularly promising approach is the use of Methylated CpG Tandem Amplification and Sequencing (MCTA-Seq) combined with fragmentation analysis. MCTA-Seq, especially when targeting the CGCGCGG motif sequence associated with T2DM, is an underexplored area. In addressing the dearth of the exploration, our in-silico analysis identified 66 genes with the CGCGCGG motif sequence that contribute to the pathophysiology of T2DM. Further analysis revealed five potential target genes for T2DM screening: EP300, SRC, PPARG, CREBBP, and NCOR2. The method can also be integrated into fragment analysis, notable for its ability to differentiate between long and short DNA segments effectively. Such a distinction is a valuable asset in future diagnostic methodologies, particularly relevant in the analysis of cfDNA, where high precision and sensitivity are essential. However, it is crucial to validate these genes with clinical studies to confirm their relevance and effectiveness in T2DM diagnosis., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2024 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Background: The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on tuberculosis control in high-burden countries has not been adequately assessed. We aimed to estimate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the national tuberculosis programme in Indonesia, in association with indicators of human development and health-system capacity across all 514 districts in 34 provinces., Methods: We did a nationwide longitudinal analysis to compare tuberculosis case notification, treatment coverage, and mortality rates in Indonesia before (2016-19) and during (2020-21) the COVID-19 pandemic. The following outcomes were assessed: the district-level quarterly reported tuberculosis case notification rate (number of all reported tuberculosis cases per 100 000 population), treatment coverage (proportion of tuberculosis patients who started treatment), and all-cause mortality rate in patients with tuberculosis (number of reported deaths per 100 000 population). District-level data on COVID-19 incidence and deaths, health-system capacity, and human development and sociodemographics were also analysed. Multilevel linear spline regression was done to assess quarterly time trends for the three outcomes., Findings: During the COVID-19 pandemic, the tuberculosis case notification rate declined by 26% (case notification rate ratio 0·74, 95% CI 0·72-0·77) and treatment coverage declined by 11% (treatment coverage ratio 0·89, 95% CI 0·88-0·90), but there was no significant increase in all-cause mortality (all-cause mortality rate ratio 0·97, 95% CI 0·91-1·04) compared with the pre-pandemic period. In the second year of the pandemic, we observed a partial recovery of the case notification rate from Q1 to Q4 of 2021, a persistent decrease in treatment coverage, and a decrease in the all-cause mortality rate from Q2 of 2020 to Q4 of 2021. The multivariable analysis showed that the reduction in the tuberculosis case notification rate was associated with a higher COVID-19 incidence rate (adjusted odds ratio 3·1, 95% CI 1·1-8·6, for the highest compared with the lowest group) and fewer GeneXpert machines for tuberculosis diagnosis (3·1, 1·0-9·4, for the lowest compared with the highest group) per 100 000 population. The reduction in tuberculosis treatment coverage was associated with higher COVID-19 incidence (adjusted odds ratio 11·7, 95% CI 1·5-93·4, for the highest compared with the lowest group), fewer primary health centres (10·6, 4·1-28·0, for the lowest compared with the middle-high group), and a very low number of doctors (0·3, 0·1-0·9, for the low-middle compared with the lowest group) per 100 000 population. No factors were shown to be significantly associated with all-cause mortality., Interpretation: The COVID-19 pandemic adversely and unevenly affected the national tuberculosis programme across Indonesia, with the greatest impacts observed in districts with the lowest health-system capacity. These disruptions could lead to an escalation in tuberculosis transmission in the coming years, warranting the need for intensified efforts to control tuberculosis and strengthen local health systems., Funding: Wellcome Africa Asia Programme Vietnam., Translation: For the Bahasa translation of the abstract see Supplementary Materials section., Competing Interests: Declaration of interests We declare no competing interests., (Copyright © 2023 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an Open Access article under the CC BY 4.0 license. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.)

Determination of halal food is essential in ensuring the tranquillity of consumers, especially Muslims. Halal products mean they are free from prohibited ingredients according to Islamic law. One ingredient that is prohibited is food products containing pork and its derivatives. An accurate verification method with a fast result is necessary to meet this requirement for halal food. DNA quantification of pork is now believed to be able to make accurate and quick decisions, as DNA acts as a reservoir or biological characterization of all living things, including pigs, according to specific characteristics of molecular and connection settings. Various DNA-based methods developed include PCR, biosensor and CRISPR methods. This review discussed various DNA-based Keywords: biosensor, CRISPR, detection, DNA, pork, PCR methods, including PCR, biosensor and CRISPR, to detect pork content in food. Among these methods, CRISPR is considered the easiest, fastest and most accurate. Therefore, it is important to develop this method further in the future. In this article, we provide a short review on DNA-based methods for detection of pork content in food products., Competing Interests: The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (© 2023 The Authors.)

Rural tourism is an important income generation method for farmers post-pandemic. However, few studies have focused on how pandemic fatigue has affected their willingness to participate in rural tourism development. We conducted a quasi-experiment to test these effects using data from two Chinese villages. Shanlian village, which was more severely affected by COVID-19, was the experimental group, while Huashu village was set as the control group. Our results reveal that both physical and mental fatigue hinder farmers' intention to engage in rural tourism. Further, there were significant interaction effects between physical and mental fatigue on the farmers' participation in rural tourism. For farmers with low physical fatigue, the higher their mental fatigue, the less willing they were to participate in rural development. Conversely, for the higher physical fatigue group, farmers with low levels of mental fatigue were still more willing to participate in rural tourism development. These findings reduce the current research gap concerning the relationship between pandemic fatigue and farmers' participation in rural tourism and indicate that practitioners and policymakers should consider farmers' fatigue management as an important factor for the sustainability of rural tourism during the ongoing COVID-19 crisis.

Botulinum toxin serotype A is a prominent therapeutic enzyme, for both clinical and cosmetic uses. Since this protein is produced by bacteria, it exhibits an allergenic effect when subjected to human therapy. Protein mutagenesis is one method to improve the characteristics of protein. However, in silico study is needed to give suggestion of which amino acid should be mutated. Hence, a lot of money and time can be saved. This study initially screened which residue of the Botulinum toxin serotype A is B-cell epitopes both linearly and conformationally. By overlapping the B-cell epitopes with the excluded conserve sequence, seven residues were allowed to be mutated. There were two proposed muteins showing a reduction in the antigenicity probability: Δ E 147, E510F, T1062F, Δ E 1080, N1089M and Δ Q 1090; and ΔE147 , E510F, T1062F, E1080W, N1089M and Δ Q 1090. Molecular dynamics simulation of the 3D proposed muteins indicated an increase of flexibility in both muteins compared to that in the native protein. Both muteins have lower antigenicity. In addition, they are similar in structure, stability and functionality compared to the native protein.

Background: Indonesia's progress on reducing maternal and newborn mortality rates has slowed in recent years, predominantly in rural areas. To reduce maternal and newborn mortality, access to quality and skilled care, particularly at the facility level, is crucial. Yet, accessing such care is often delayed when maternal and newborn complications arise. Using the "Three Delays" model originated by Thaddeus and Maine (1994), investigation into reasons for delaying the decision to seek care, delaying arrival at a health facility, and delaying the receiving of adequate care, may help in establishing more focused interventions to improve maternal and newborn health in this region., Methods: This qualitative study focused on identifying, analyzing, and describing illness recognition and care-seeking patterns related to maternal and newborn complications in the Jayawijaya district of Papua province, Indonesia. Group interviews were conducted with families and other caregivers from within 15 villages of Jayawijaya who had either experienced a maternal or newborn illness or maternal or newborn death., Results: For maternal cases, excessive bleeding after delivery was recognized as a danger sign, and the process to decide to seek care was relatively quick. The decision-making process was mostly dominated by the husband. Most care was started at home by birth attendants, but the majority sought care outside of the home within the public health system. For newborn cases, most of the caregivers could not easily recognize newborn danger signs. Parents acted as the main decision-makers for seeking care. Decisions to seek care from a facility, such as the clinic or hospital, were only made when healthcare workers could not handle the case within the home. All newborn deaths were associated with delays in seeking care due to caretaker limitations in danger sign identification, whereas all maternal deaths were associated with delays in receiving appropriate care at facility level., Conclusions: For maternal health, emphasis needs to be placed on supply side solutions, and for newborn health, emphasis needs to be placed on demand and supply side solutions, probably including community-based interventions. Contextualized information for the design of programs aimed to affect maternal and newborn health is a prerequisite.

Background: Dengue fever is a mosquito-borne virus belonging to the family Flaviviridae. It is an old virus that has re-emerged globally over the past 20 years and now causes a global burden of 50 million infections per year across approximately 100 countries. Despite this, there is no safe vaccine available, and therapy is largely supportive. Its pathogenesis is multifaceted and currently still poorly understood, leading to a lack of disease-specific therapy. Propolis is a natural antiviral and anti-inflammatory product derived from the saps of plants and mixed with the saliva of honeybees. Propoelix™ is a uniquely potent and water-soluble extract of propolis containing high concentrations of anti-inflammatory compounds like caffeic acid phenethyl ester., Objective: The primary objective is to determine the effectiveness of a unique propolis extract (Propoelix™) on the clinical course of patients with dengue hemorrhagic fever (DHF). The secondary objective is to examine the effect of Propoelix™ on tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α) levels in patients with DHF., Methods: A double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled trial was conducted at the Department of Internal Medicine, Gatot Soebroto Central Army Hospital in Jakarta, Indonesia, from May 2012 to July 2013. Sixty-three patients who met the inclusion criteria were enrolled in the trial. Patients were randomized to receive either two capsules of Propoelix™ 200 mg three times a day or placebo daily for 7 days. Clinical and laboratory variables of both groups, including the anti-inflammatory marker TNF-α, were investigated. Patients were deemed technically fit for discharge if their platelet counts had recovered and exceeded 100,000/μL but were all observed as inpatients for 7 days., Results: There were 31 patients in the Propoelix™ treatment group and 32 patients in the placebo group. Platelet counts in the Propoelix™-treated group showed a trend toward a faster recovery by day 3 of admission and became statistically significant by day 6 (101.42±48.79 vs 80.78±43.35 [10(3)/mL], P=0.042) and day 7 (146.67±64.68 vs 107.84±57.22 [10(3)/mL], P=0.006). Patients treated with Propoelix™ had a significantly greater decline in TNF-α levels on day 7 of therapy compared with patients in the placebo group (P=0.018). They also had a significantly shorter length of hospitalization compared with those in the placebo group (4.69±0.78 days vs 5.46±1.16 days, P=0.012)., Conclusion: Propoelix™ appears to hasten the improvement in platelet counts and TNF-α levels and shortens the duration of hospitalization in patients with DHF.

A new, simple and sensitive solid-phase spectrometry (SPS) that is easily applicable to the on-site analysis of targeted chemical components in water at μg dm(-3) or sub-μg dm(-3) levels is proposed in this study. The main features of the SPS are the simplicity of operation, high sensitivity and applicability to real samples without the need for any pretreatment procedures. A portable spectrophotometer, consisting of an LED light source, a grating and a CCD, was used for the solid-phase light measurements. The universal applicability of the proposed system to on-site analysis was evaluated by determining phosphate, chromium(VI) and iron(II) in natural water.

Objective: The purpose of this study was to determine the baseline motorcycle riders' perception-response times (PRTs) in an expected object braking task and to determine the significant difference between PRTs of older and younger riders., Methods: Fifty-nine participants sat on their motorcycles in exactly the same way as they would when riding and then they awaited activation of the taillights of the passenger car (parked) in front of them. PRTs of the motorcyclists were transcribed from the camcorder when the riders hit the brakes as quickly as possible following the activation of the car's brake lights., Results: Results of PRT were calculated by taking the average of both male and female older and younger riders. The study demonstrates that the mean and standard deviation of the motorcycle baseline PRTs are 0.44 and 0.11 s, respectively. Riders' age and gender were not found to be significant variables for PRT., Conclusion: The mean of baseline perception-reaction time of motorcycle riders is smaller than that of passenger car drivers. If traffic facilities are designed based on passenger car drivers' simple perception-reaction times where drivers are generally more alert (for example, in traffic signal design), they can provide the required PRT for motorcyclists. This suggests that the utilization of more powerful brake lights on motorcycles could be highly effective for preventing rear-end motorcycle collisions.

The oxidation of Cr(III) at naturally-occurring concentration levels, i.e., µg dm(-3) or lower levels, by free chlorine during the chlorination process of tap water was studied using an improved solid-phase spectrophotometric method, which can be directly applicable to the specific determination of Cr(VI) at µg dm(-3) or lower levels. The effect of the pH on the oxidation kinetics was investigated under three different pH conditions. The results showed that free chlorine oxidized the Cr(III) to Cr(VI), following the pseudo-first-order kinetics with half lifetimes of 3.0, 3.3 and 14.4 h at pH 5.0, 7.0 and 8.0, respectively, if the hypochlorite concentration was maintained at 4 mg Cl dm(-3)., (2011 © The Japan Society for Analytical Chemistry)

A simple and sensitive solid-phase spectrophotometry procedure was improved for the microdetermination of Cr(VI). A 0.06 cm3 portion of a cation exchanger, Muromac AG 50W-X2, was used to concentrate the target Cr(VI) in a 20 cm3 water sample, and resin beads were introduced in a flow cell of 1.5 mm diameter and having a 10 mm light path length for measurements using a UV-visible spectrophotometer. Three lenses were used for focusing the incident light beam and for recovering light scattered by the solid phase in the cell. The sensitivity achieved was higher by a factor of 277 compared with that of the solution method, and the detection limit was 0.014 microg dm(-3). The recovery on spiked real water samples by the standard addition method was 96-101%. Favorable working and performance characteristics made it possible to directly determine sub-microg dm(-3) amounts of Cr(VI) in natural water samples.

A novel on-line oxidation method of ultra-trace Cr(III) dissolved in natural water has been developed using a flow electrolysis cell. This method was successfully applied to the determination of the total Cr concentration by flow injection-solid phase spectrophotometry using diphenylcarbazide as a coloring agent. With the applied potential of 1.35 V (vs. Ag/AgCl) and the flow rate of 0.80 cm(3) min(-1), Cr(III) was quantitatively oxidized to Cr(VI) at room temperature. The total Cr concentration of sub-microg dm(-3) in 3 - 4 samples could be determined within 1 h using an aqueous sample volume of 7.1 cm(3). The analytical values of the total Cr concentration in natural water were in good agreement with those obtained by ICP-MS. The detection limit of the proposed method was 0.014 microg dm(-3) (3sigma, n = 7). This method could be applied to the specific determination of Cr(III) and Cr(VI) in river water samples.