Model Kebijakan Pengembangan Minimalisasi Limbah Sekam Padi Berbasis Lingkungan

Padi (Oryza Sativa) adalah satu tanaman yang banyak ditanam di Indonesia dan selama ini ditujukan untuk memperoleh beras, sedangkan produk yang lain seperti: sekam, dedak/bekatul, menir jerami I batang padi dianggap sebagai limbah. Hasil penggilingan padi gabah kering giling menghasilkan beras sebesar 60 — 66% sedangkan yang Iainnya berubah limbah adalah sekam, dedak/bekatul, menir. Salah satu limbah tersebut yang dapat dikembangkan untuk memperoleh nilai tambah adalah Sekam. Selama mi pemanfaatan sekam di Kabupaten Subang belum maksimal, masih terbatas pada bahan bakar dan campuran batu bata merah. Kondisi tersebut menyebabkan nilal jual sekam rendah. Selanjutnya sekam yang belum termanfaatkan secara maksimal juga limbah dan tanaman, makanan dan industri merupakan persoalan bagi Indonesia. Persoalan utama, saat sekarang sulit diperoleh sekam segar secara terus menerus karena tanaman musiman. Masalah limbah baik Iimbah pertanian, limbah pangan maupun limbah industri masih merupakan hal yang cukup rumit di Indonesia. Kemudian dengan analisis MDS (Multi Dimensional Scaling) persoalan aplikasinya dapat berlanjut secara maksimum. Atas dasar beberapa pilihan pemanfaatan Sekam maka dengan AHP (Analytical Hierarchy Process) dapat ditentukan model kebijakan pengembangan minimalisasi sekam dikawasan sentra padi Kabupaten Subang, sebagai bahan bakar mesin pengering dalam industri padi

The theory of manipulations of pure state asymmetry: basic tools and equivalence classes of states under symmetric operations

If a system undergoes symmetric dynamics, then the final state of the system can only break the symmetry in ways in which it was broken by the initial state, and its measure of asymmetry can be no greater than that of the initial state. It follows that for the purpose of understanding the consequences of symmetries of dynamics, in particular, complicated and open-system dynamics, it is useful to introduce the notion of a state's asymmetry properties, which includes the type and measure of its asymmetry. We demonstrate and exploit the fact that the asymmetry properties of a state can also be understood in terms of information-theoretic concepts, for instance in terms of the state's ability to encode information about an element of the symmetry group. We show that the asymmetry properties of a pure state psi relative to the symmetry group G are completely specified by the characteristic function of the state, defined as chi_psi(g)= where g\in G and U is the unitary representation of interest. For a symmetry described by a compact Lie group G, we show that two pure states can be reversibly interconverted one to the other by symmetric operations if and only if their characteristic functions are equal up to a 1-dimensional representation of the group. Characteristic functions also allow us to easily identify the conditions for one pure state to be converted to another by symmetric operations (in general irreversibly) for the various paradigms of single-copy transformations: deterministic, state-to-ensemble, stochastic and catalyzed.Comment: Published version. Several new results added. 31 Pages, 3 Figure

The Innofusion of Electronic Banking in Indonesia

Even though financial innovation plays an important role in the modern economy, surprisingly there have been few empirical literatures. In developing countries, electronic banking (e-banking), for example, received relatively little attention although has been deployed for years. Indonesia presents unique case of Asian tiger economies, especially after experiencing crisis, financial recession, and economic reform. This research address how e-banking being developed in Indonesia, how it diffused from time to time, what factors that drives and influences the e-banking implementation, how banks manage their e-banking, and what lessons can we learn from it. This study concludes by summarising the case of innofusion of electronic banking in Indonesia. Customers and competitors play an important role in influencing e-banking services adoption. There is also an indication that bigger and older banks are not as innovative and dynamic as their smaller and newer peers. Interestingly, the unavailability of legal protection does not discourage them to partner and cooperate with each other and probably true that it is only 'those' people who drive innovation among Indonesian banks

InterMEL: An international biorepository and clinical database to uncover predictors of survival in early-stage melanoma

We are conducting a multicenter study to identify classifiers predictive of disease-specific survival in patients with primary melanomas. Here we delineate the unique aspects, challenges, and best practices for optimizing a study of generally small-sized pigmented tumor samples including primary melanomas of at least 1.05mm from AJTCC TNM stage IIA-IIID patients. We also evaluated tissue-derived predictors of extracted nucleic acids’ quality and success in downstream testing. This ongoing study will target 1,000 melanomas within the international InterMEL consortium.Medicin

Conservatism correction for the market-to-book ratio and Tobin’s q

We decompose the market-to-book ratio into two additive components: a conservatism correction factor and a future-to-book ratio. The conservatism correction factor exceeds the benchmark value of one whenever the accounting for past transactions has been subject to an (unconditional) conservatism bias. The observed history of a firm's past investments allows us to calculate the magnitude of its conservatism correction factor, resulting in an average value that is about two-thirds of the overall market-to-book ratio. We demonstrate that our measure of Tobin's q, obtained as the market-to-book ratio divided by the conservatism correction factor, has greater explanatory power in predicting future investments than the market-to-book ratio by itself. Our model analysis derives a number of structural properties of the conservatism correction factor, including its sensitivity to growth in past investments, the percentage of investments in intangibles, and the firm's cost of capital. We provide empirical support for these hypothesized structural properties

New Approaches in the Differentiation of Human Embryonic Stem Cells and Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells toward Hepatocytes

Orthotropic liver transplantation is the only established treatment for end-stage liver diseases. Utilization of hepatocyte transplantation and bio-artificial liver devices as alternative therapeutic approaches requires an unlimited source of hepatocytes. Stem cells, especially embryonic stem cells, possessing the ability to produce functional hepatocytes for clinical applications and drug development, may provide the answer to this problem. New discoveries in the mechanisms of liver development and the emergence of induced pluripotent stem cells in 2006 have provided novel insights into hepatocyte differentiation and the use of stem cells for therapeutic applications. This review is aimed towards providing scientists and physicians with the latest advancements in this rapidly progressing field

Skeletal Muscle Phenotypically Converts and Selectively Inhibits Metastatic Cells in Mice

Skeletal muscle is rarely a site of malignant metastasis; the molecular and cellular basis for this rarity is not understood. We report that myogenic cells exert pronounced effects upon co-culture with metastatic melanoma (B16-F10) or carcinoma (LLC1) cells including conversion to the myogenic lineage in vitro and in vivo, as well as inhibition of melanin production in melanoma cells coupled with cytotoxic and cytostatic effects. No effect is seen with non-tumorigenic cells. Tumor suppression assays reveal that the muscle-mediated tumor suppressor effects do not generate resistant clones but function through the down-regulation of the transcription factor MiTF, a master regulator of melanocyte development and a melanoma oncogene. Our findings point to skeletal muscle as a source of therapeutic agents in the treatment of metastatic cancers