Diversity of Fish Species in the Sibam River, Pekanbaru, Riau

Sibam River is one of black water rivers in Riau. It was inhabit by numerous fish species, but information on these fish is almost none. To understand the diversity of fish in that river, a study has been conducted from May to July 2015. There were 5 sampling areas, in the upstream (St I and II), middle (St III and IV) and downstream (St V) of the river. The fish was sampled using net (mesh size 0.5 cm inch), scoop net (mesh size 0.5 cm) and electrofishing. Data were then analyzed to find out the diversity (H'), evenness (E) and dominance (C) indexes. The fish sampled were identified based on Saanin (1984) and Kottelat (1993). The fish species present were consisted of 5 order, 16 families, 30 genus, and 41 species. The highest fish abundance was found in the ST III, and the most common species was Bagrichthys macracanthus. Osteochilus hasselti and Rasbora argyrotaenia were distributed evenly along the river, as they were found in each sampling area (Fi 100%). In the St I, II and V, the Diversity index values were high, while those in the St III and IV were medium. In all study areas the uniformity index values were high, while the dominance indexes were low

Early Experiences with Percutaneous Endoscopic Gastrostomy in Pondok Indah Hospital

Background: Percutaneous endoscopic gastrostomy (PEG) is only recently being introduced in Indonesia with limited clinical experience. Clinical study of patients underwent PEG is very limited. This study was aimed to evaluate clinical profile of patients underwent PEG in a private hospital in Jakarta. Method: A retrospective study was done to patients underwent PEG in Pondok Indah hospital, Jakarta using medical record. Clinical data collected were patients\u27 demographics, diagnosis of underlying disease, indication for PEG insertion, and follow-up visits. Results: Ten cases were found between 2000 and 2008, six among them were men. All but one cases aged more than 50 years. Ninety percents of the patients had cerebrovascular disorder as their primary diagnosis and 60% of the main indication was dysphagia. Conclusion: No procedure-related major complications and death has occurred. This procedure was safe and potentially be offered to more widely clinical settings

Genetic Diversity and Relationships of Tea Germplasm Collection Based on Leaf Morphology Character and Yield Components

Tea (Camellia sinensis (L.) O. Kuntze) is a cross-pollinated plant that has self-incompatible character. Assembly of superior clones through artificial pollination requires information of genetic relationships between accessions as a reference for parental lines selection. The study was aimed to determine the genetic diversity and relationships of 49 tea clones based on leaf morphology and yield components. The research was conducted at Pasir Sarongge experimental garden, Cianjur, West Java, from April to November 2015. The observed morphological characters were leaf length and width, leaf area, leaf angle, number of vein leaf, and internode between first and second leaves. Meanwhile, yield components were pecco number, pecco weight (p+3), banji bud number, banji bud weigth (b+1), and yield. The data were then used for descriptive analysis and grouping using UPGMA method based on dissimilarity matrix by XL-STAT software version 2009. The research showed that 49 clones observed here have variability on yield, leaf area, number of banji bud, and pecco number with coefficient of diversity 27.77%–51.83%. On the other hand, result of cluster analysis divided tea clones into four groups. The first group consisted of 34 clones with morphological characteristics similar to sinensis type (narrow leaves and low productivity). Group II comprised 12 clones with morphological characteristics (wide leaf) and productivity (high) similar to assamica type. Group III and IV, each contained one clone, and have similarity to assamica. The most far genetic relationships was found between group I and II (55.59%), while the closest one observed between group III and IV (5.76%)

Morphological Characterization of Etlingera Elatior (Jack) Explorated in Sukabumi, West Java, Indonesia

Etlingera elatior (Jack), local Honje, is an underutilized species in Zingiberaceae family which is potentially used as resources of secondary metabolite compound for medicines, cosmetics, bio-insecticides and antioxidant needs. The recent research and report for this species in Indonesia, particularly its genetic diversity, pharmaceutical utilization as medicines, and conservation effort, still have limited access. Less attention and interest for this species will threat the existence of this potential species. Morphological characterization and study of genetic diversity is needed to increase its value and conservation efforts. This research aims to obtain the accessions as elder resources for plant development and the accessions which able to be used as medium compound. This research used descriptive explorative survey by choosing area based on altitude; low, medium, and high lands in Sukabumi District, West Java. Approximately 20 accessions of plant were collected from each location. Morphological character was observed according to Descriptor list of Zingiberacea and modified for Etlingera elatior (Jack). The exploration obtained 39 accessions of Honje and they were morphologically characterized. These 39 Honje accessions showed large genetic diversity with value of phenotypic variances are larger than two standard deviations in almost all agronomic characters. Cluster analysis between Honje accessions was showed in dendogram output with Eucidean coefficient by 3.30. TIN001 accession had the furthest genetic relationship with REN001 and REN002 thus these accessions are potential to be used as the mother in breeding program of Honje

Standardized approaches for clinical sampling and endpoint ascertainment in tuberculous meningitis studies [version 2; peer review: 2 approved]

Tuberculous meningitis (TBM), the most severe manifestation of tuberculosis, has poorly understood immunopathology and high mortality and morbidity despite antituberculous therapy. This calls for accelerated clinical and basic science research in this field. As TBM disproportionally affects poorer communities, studies are often performed in resource-limited environments, creating challenges for data collection and harmonisation. Comparison of TBM studies has been hampered by variation in sampling strategies, study design and choice of study endpoints.  Based on literature review and expert consensus, this paper provides firstly, practical recommendations to enable thorough diagnostic, pathophysiological and pharmacokinetic studies using clinical samples, and facilitates better data aggregation and comparisons across populations and settings. Secondly, we discuss clinically relevant study endpoints, including neuroimaging, functional outcome, and cause of death, with suggestions of how these could be applied in different designs for future TBM studies

Diabetes is associated with genotypically drug-resistant tuberculosis.

Diabetes is associated with failure of tuberculosis (TB) treatment, but it is unclear whether this is related to genotypic drug resistance of the infecting mycobacteria. We used whole genome sequencing (WGS) to examine 1365 known drug resistance mutations in 896 Mycobacterium tuberculosis isolates from TB patients that were screened for diabetes using HbA1c testing as part of the TANDEM project [1]. Ethical approval was received from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and institutional review boards in Indonesia and Peru. In Peru we selected all available M. tuberculosis isolates from TANDEM patients (44 with and 445 without diabetes), and in Indonesia we selected all available isolates from diabetic patients (n=115) plus a subset of isolates from non-diabetic patients (n=292) from the same clinics, during the same time period, frequency-matched by age. We used TB Profiler version 0.3.8 [2] to determine M. tuberculosis lineage and drug resistance. A phylogeny was constructed using PhyML version 3.0 [3], and the minimum pairwise distance for isolates was calculated separately for patients with and without diabetes, stratified by country. We examined if diabetes was associated with genotypic drug resistance against individual drugs or with MDR-TB for the two countries separately and combined, with multilevel multivariable logistic regression, taking into account the country of origin and adjusting for age, gender, HIV-infection, previous TB treatment, and M. tuberculosis lineag