Dried persimmon (Diospyros kaki Thunb.) is one of the most popular fruit products in East Asia, but its properties and consumer acceptance strongly depend on the drying process and storage conditions that are used. The quality of dried persimmon depends on its physical (color, texture) and chemical (tannin levels, sugar content, the presence of white powder on the surface) properties, which are drastically affected by the decrease in moisture content and composition changes that occur during the drying process and storage. Therefore, in the present report, the changes in the physico-chemical properties of dried persimmon that occur during the drying process and its quality degradation during storage are reviewed for providing fundamental information on the production of high-quality dried persimmon and storage management.

In physiological condition, avian sperm can be stored within the sperm storage tubules of female reproductive tract and may able to fertilize eggs up to 15 weeks. The long-term viability and fertilizing ability of sperm is reduced when avian sperm are stored in vitro conditions. The motility, viability and fertilizing ability of avian sperm depends on in vitro storage conditions. Many factors can affect in vitro sperm motility, viability and fertilizing ability such as storage temperature, pH of extenders, osmolarity, sperm dilution rate, and seminal plasma. Researchers are trying to extend longevity of avian sperm during in vitro condition by applying the knowledge of in vivo sperm storage mechanism(s) and sperm biology. This paper reviews the sperm motility, viability and fertilizing ability of main poultry species stored in vitro conditions. This study will help to understand a scenario of in vitro avian sperm motility, viability and their fertilizing ability.

Genome-wide association study (GWAS) is a powerful approach to identify the genetic factors underlying the intraspecific phenotypic variations. Recent advances in DNA sequencing technology, including next generation sequencing has enabled us to easily genotype high density genome-wide SNPs. In addition, many accessions of various plant species have been widely collected in recent years. These genetic resources have made GWAS a markedly more popular approach for investigation of natural variations occurring in various traits using large populations. In addition to genotyping technology, advances in high-throughput phenotyping technologies have enabled us to acquire variation data on a large number of accessions characterized for various traits, including not only the field traits (e.g., yield and disease resistance) but also molecular traits (e.g., gene expression level and metabolite content). Thus, it is possible to expand the range of application of GWAS and enhance the detection power of genomic association. In this review, we summarize recent GWAS of various agronomic traits at field and molecular scale, following which we highlight the integration approach involving GWAS and high-throughput phenotyping technologies including transcriptome, ionome and metabolome.

Slope stability is always one of the greatest issues of concern in geotechnical engineering. In slope stability analyses, the residual strength of slip zones is one of the most important parameters for understanding the reactivation mechanisms and for evaluating the stability of slopes. The kinds of soils, the situations of the soils, and the test conditions are the three main aspects that affect the residual strength. Among the test conditions, the selection of the shear testing apparatus, the normal stress, the overconsolidation ratio, the shear rate, and the acceleration are the main critical factors that affect the residual strength of soils. This paper firstly presents a systematic literature review of the factors that influence the residual strength of soils under certain test conditions, which can help obtain the residual strength accurately and easily in a geotechnical research. The paper also summarizes the available indexes, such as the Atterberg limits, for determining the residual strength. Moreover, this paper highlights future research challenges with an aim to clarify the effect of acceleration on the residual strength in a wider range which has not been well researched, but which needs to be explored further.

Pythium species are soil-borne pathogens which can cause serious economic loss worldwide and threatening agricultural production. Traditional management methods like chemical fungicides are effective against Pythium spp. But as people pay more attention to human health and environmental issues, alternative methods that are ecofriendly and harmless to health are urgently needed. Currently, various approaches had been made including using natural extract, regulating planting conditions, using plant growth-promoting rhizobacteria and screening disease tolerance plants. Hereby, we review the recent achievements, particularly chemical and physical methods, biocontrol and host plant defense which can be used to control Pythium disease.

Sarcopenia is a degenerative phenomenon, common in elderly populations. As humans age, they are likely to experience skeletal muscle weakness and atrophy; however, unfortunately, there is still no effective treatment for sarcopenia. The health-promoting potential of plant-based foods is associated with the presence of bioactive components. This article reviews information on bioactive plant compounds which may affect skeletal muscle health, particularly with respect to therapeutic approaches to sarcopenia. In general, plant products can be categorized into two main groups, based on their general status in the human diet: inedible or edible. Investigations suggest that bioactive compounds from both groups show the potential to prevent the development of sarcopenia, in several ways, including anti-atrophy, prevention of oxidative damage, enhanced myogenesis, and anti-inflammatory activity. Each of these agents has been shown to suppress one or more of the signs of sarcopenia, and restore health to muscle, in the patient (in vivo) or in tissue culture (in vitro). The potential use of plant bioactive compounds as therapy for sarcopenia is worthy of further study.

Mechanized agriculture plays a key role in the overall socio-economic development in terms of food security, value addition, employment, poverty alleviation and export earnings. Due to the migration of agricultural labor in non-farm sectors and increasing climate vulnerability, it is a great challenge to keep pace of food production for the exponential growth of population, especially in the developing countries. Hence, the main aim of this study was to examine the present status and impact of modern rice harvesting practices over traditional manual harvesting. In order to investigate the interactions between modern rice harvesting technologies and benefits of use, we reviewed overall scenarios of rice harvesting in the world along with identified problems due to present practices and the benefit of using modern technologies including precision agriculture. The major findings of this study were as follows: agriculture in most of the developing countries were characterized by low productivity due to less practice of modern technologies, less management of modern technologies, inadequate control of repeated crop losses due to natural calamities. Identified problems in traditional manual rice harvesting were: labor crisis at peak harvesting period, high harvesting cost as the traditional method was labor intensive and high labor wages, delayed harvesting due to the unavailability of labors, more grain/yield losses owing to the over maturity. Furthermore, identified benefits in modern rice harvesting practices were to save harvesting time, cost and labor involvement with reducing grain/yield loss and human drudgery. The further benefits were enhancing the income through custom hire services and creating a new employment opportunity in technology operation and maintenance. The results indicated that adoption of appropriate rice harvesting technology in the developing countries is urgently needed to increase the cropping intensity, crop productivity and economic emancipation through less inputs of time, labor and cost.

The present article can be regarded as a compilation of various aspects related to the cultivation and utilization of Jatropha curcas in degraded lands, which may not be very suitable for other crops. The benefits of this plant are not limited to producing biodiesel, but expand to biogas and biobriquettes. So, all three phases of fuel (liquid, gas, solid) are possible outcomes from it. Aside from fuels, the byproduct seedcake resulting from pressing the seeds can be used as a good organic fertilizer that is comparable or even better than chicken manure. After detoxification, this seedcake can be valuable feed for livestock. Along with the positive expectations, the study is balanced by also addressing negative expectations when planting Jatropha curcas for commercial applications. A seeds sample of this plant was successfully germinated in indoor condition, after applying the shell cracking pre-treatment. Special attention is paid to the Sultanate of Oman as a country whose geographic location and vast desert lands may encourage large-scale investment in Jatropha curcas for boosting and diversifying the economy.

Lactobacillus plantarum, a lactic acid bacterium, produces organic acids, fatty acids, ammonia, hydrogen peroxide, diacetyl, and bacteriocin to survive in an unfavorable environment. Plantaricin, a class II bacteriocin produced by L. plantarum, is reported to be heterologous, and its ability to inhibit or kill pathogenic bacteria is very broad, with potential application as a bio-preservative. Plantaricin production is regulated by genetically organized operons, which also encode structural genes, immunity proteins, and secretion genes in plasmids or chromosomes. The mechanism of action against pathogenic bacteria depends on the characteristics of plantaricin. The most common bactericidal mechanisms are disruption of the cell wall integrity and inhibition of protein or nucleic acid synthesis. This review focuses on characterization of the heterologous mechanisms of plantaricin to inhibit and kill pathogenic bacteria and the future role of plantaricin for food preservation. With this review, we hope to contribute to innovation in food preservation, by promoting a better understanding of this natural resource.

The generally-accepted tadpole shrimp (notostracan) classification of Longhurst does not include information on the world richest Triops collection in Budapest, Hungary. Besides, his “Triops granarius” (an ‘Asian’ species in the broadest sense), which is ranging from Africa through Eurasia and even to Japan, has been regarded as a single cosmopolitan species with wide morphological variations. However, the morphological and molecular analyses conducted by me revealed that it was a hotchpotch of multiple species. If a regional endemic species has been misidentified as a broadly-distributed one (to sum up, this is the most problematic matter of Longhurst’s classification), then any zoogeographical results based on this would be far from the nature; and as such I opted to verify its species definition. Invasive alien species of tadpole shrimp Triops were first introduced into rice fields of Japan in the 1910s and have spread around Japan. The expansion of Triops has resulted in negative ecological and potential economic impact. Regarding their establishment or extinction patterns, I built a simple mathematical competition model among two self-fertile and one related sexual Triops species of Japan, incorporating reproductive interference. Intense reproductive interference drove the competition to sexual exclusion of self-fertile species. Nonetheless, even under intense reproductive interference, the Allee effect (which reduces the population growth rate of sexual species with low density) allowed self-fertile species to survive when the competition started with the lower densities; conversely sexual species to be left alive when the competition started with the higher densities.

Amylase is part of an enzyme group that hydrolyzes starch, and many amylases are commercially used for starch hydrolysis in several industrial processes. For industrial applications of amylases, the reaction conditions for starch hydrolysis also differ depending on each industrial use. There are various microbial amylases that have been isolated and developed, which have suitable enzymatic properties for each application. Especially, some microbial amylases included in "extremozymes" have been widely applied to each industrial process. The purpose of this review is to summarize the classification of amylases and the diversity of microbial α-amylases and their current industrial applications, and we would like to indicate the direction of research in screening and applications for novel types of amylases included in "extremozymes".

Crispness, crunchiness and crackliness are the essential qualities for food that is cellularly brittle. The relationship between acoustic sensations and perception of texture has been studied in cellular brittle foods. This article aims to review the progress of measuring acoustics in brittle food to predict human perception of sound/vibration. In doing so, the techniques used for sound/vibration recording, acoustic parameters related to food sensory properties, and the stimulus test of acoustic/vibration on human perception of food texture will be reviewed. Lastly, the mainstream direction of this field of research will be summarized. Additionally, prospective research for the future in this area of study is provided.

In plant-symbiotic bacteria, such as some mehylotrophic bacteria and rhizobia, a novel type of pyrroloquinoline quinone (PQQ)-dependent methanol dehydrogenase (MDH) was recently identified. This MDH, named XoxF encoded by the xox cluster, requires lanthanide (Ln) as a cofactor. Moreover, there is steady indication that these plant symbiotic bacteria strains possess some Ln-dependent cell functions: the strains are able to recognize Ln species under growth conditions, to uptake Ln species into the cell, and to regulate their Ln-dependent methanol metabolisms based on the particular Ln species present. In this review, we focus on the molecular mechanisms involved in Ln-dependent methanol metabolism and Ln-utilizing systems in the plant-symbiotic bacteria, and discuss the physiological roles of these Ln-dependent systems for the plant-symbiotic bacteria in the phyllosphere and rhizosphere.

This review article aims to summarize and analyze comprehensively the impacts of various environmental changes surrounding the paddy fields after the World War II on each component of the irrigation water requirement in the paddy field. And it will serve as an introduction to typical water management and irrigation planning for paddy field in Japan. As a result, it could be explained that many factors such as “separated irrigation and drainage canals”, “pipeline irrigation”, “well-drained field”, “a large-size lot”, “rotational use of paddy field”, “direct seeding”, and “urbanization” enhanced to increase the water requirement and decrease the reuse of irrigation water, which resulted in promoting to increase the total water demand for the paddy field. For this reason, it is difficult to reduce the irrigation water demand with the decrease of paddy field areas.

Tilapia breeds effortlessly in captivity, with this attribute which is considered as the “Achilles heel” of the species, because it predisposes pond systems to overcrowding and low weight at harvest. Efforts to mitigate this shortcoming include mono-sex culture using exogenous hormone to reverse the sex of sexually undifferentiated fish. This is premised on the fact that improvement in the growth by mono-sex culture will lead to shortened production times and a more uniform weight at harvest, which will ultimately benefit the producers. However, the use of exogenous hormones in aquaculture has recently raised concerns about the effect on farm workers, consumers and on the environment. Recently research has focused on the use of substances of plants origin which mimic the action of hormones as a potential approach to achieve sex reversal in fish. Pawpaw (Carica papaya) seed contains phytochemicals that hold great promise as a sex reversal and a reproductive inhibition agent in aquaculture. The purpose of this study was to conduct a systematic review of the relevant literature on the possibility of using a less harmful phytochemicals abundant in the plant to effect sex reversal of sexually undifferentiated tilapia.

COVID-19 pandemic has significantly impacted every part of human life, both economic and non-economic, including agriculture. As a country where many people still rely on agriculture, Indonesia faces a complicated situation if the pandemic continues because food production will be affected. Indonesia announced its first COVID-19 case in March 2020; in response to this, the government applied limitations on economic and non-economic activities. These actions slowed the commercial and industrial sectors, and many people lost their jobs, with middle- and low-income citizens being the hardest hit. The situation presents a high risk for food security due to the decrease in purchasing power and food supply chains not being able to run normally. This study aims to arrange food security strategies post-COVID-19 pandemic. This paper presents, to overcome the food-security issue after COVID-19 in Indonesia, emergency strategies such as controlling food price and providing subsidies for farmer are needed. And long term strategies such as making the food supply chain more effective and increasing food diversification also required. All people and parties need to participate in every relief program for any program to fight the COVID-19 pandemic to succeed.

Bioaerosols are aerosols with biological traces. Recently, based on analytical methods for obtaining biological information, it has been shown that bioaerosols play an important role in the climate change as well as the reproduction and spread of organisms across various ecosystems, they also have biological effects in organisms, including humans. In particular, the nature of bioaerosols has been determined by next-generation sequencing and scanning electron microscopy. Here, we provide a comprehensive overview of the sources of bioaerosols, the sampling methods and the technologies used for their investigation. Furthermore, this review discusses the preexisting knowledge about the major categories of biological aerosol particles. This review will provide information on bioaerosols for the beneficial application of this information in future works.

Monitoring photosynthesis is a fundamental process to improve the yield and quality of plants in a greenhouse. The CO₂ balance method is often employed to predict the photosynthetic rate of plants. We reviewed the essential parameters for predicting photosynthetic rates of plants canopy in greenhouses using the CO₂ balance method. Even in a naturally ventilated greenhouse, ventilation rate is an essential parameter for the CO₂ balance method, but it must be measured in real time as it fluctuates with weather conditions. We studied three types of ventilation rates (the tracer gas, heat balance, and water vapor balance methods). Comparing the measuring techniques of ventilation rate provided us an understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of each method. This knowledge can guide us to choosing the best method based on accuracy, device usage, practicality, and the installation budget. Most researchers have measured and controlled CO₂ concentrations in a greenhouse using an infrared gas analyzer and predicted the ventilation rates using the tracer gas method. This method is suitable for the measurement of low and closed ventilation. The estimated ventilation rate by the heat balance method is recommended for large ventilation openings. The water vapor balance method is sufficient for measuring the ventilation rate when there is a large quantity of water vapor due to plant transpiration. The reliability of this method depends on the accuracy of short-term transpiration measurements. Improved water vapor balance techniques can benefit various greenhouse applications with different ventilator configurations, owing to the flexibility and ease of use compared to those of other methods.

The island of Java is Indonesia’s largest rice production. However, the conversion of land into industrial areas and construction projects has contributed to the decline of rice production on the island. Therefore, it is necessary for the country to expand its agricultural site outside of Java island through the utilization of swampland. Indonesia has large areas of swampland, which have not made the most of it. The swampland farmers have never grown high quality of rice. Thus, the selection of high-quality rice is considered to increase rice production in the swampland. This article aims to discuss the rice cultivation of superior variety in the swamp to improve national food security. The result of this research showed that local farmers in the swamp area rarely adopt high-quality rice. In fact, local rice variety has low productivity and longer lifespan. Therefore, the use of the superior quality of rice is expected to boost rice production. Nevertheless, the Government of Indonesia has developed numbers of high-quality rice such as Inpara and Inpari, which are more adaptive in the swampland. The Inpara is more resistant to standing water for tidal swamps, while the Inpari is more suitable in lebak swamps (most of the year inundation). The use of Inpara and Inpari in swampland can increase rice production. The implications of rice cultivation of superior varieties increased productivity and crop index due to shorter rice life, resistance to pest and disease attacks, and tolerance of marginal environmental conditions. The use of superior variety can increase rice production, thus support food security in Indonesia.

Piano Key weir is a modified labyrinth weir that uses cantilevered up- and downstream overhangs in order to restrict its basis length. The small footprint on foundation of Piano Key weirs allows an easier placement on the crest of the existing dams such as concrete gravity dams and arch dams. The recent studies have shown that this new type of weir can provide more than four times as much discharge capacity as a traditional ogee-crested weir can at a defined hydraulic head and a constant width occupied by the structure on the dam. However, until now, there is not yet an empirical method that considered all of the published experimental data due to its geometric complexity. The aim of this present paper is to summarize the most pertinent information on Piano Key weir hydraulics in the preceding articles in order to provide a better understanding of how this innovative weir type operates and what the future researches which warrant further investigation are.

The coffee shell or pulp is the first by-product obtained from the processing of coffee. It represents approximately 40 to 50% of the coffee berry’s weight. Currently, in much of the industry, it is a waste product with a major environmental impact on the water and soil, flora and fauna, and a problem to nearby populations in terms of odor and proliferation of insects and pathogenic microorganisms. This is a review that compiles alternative uses of coffee pulp in agriculture, food and nutrition, medicine and biotechnology. In food and agriculture, for example, the pulp can be used as organic fertilizer to improve degraded soils, in the biological control of plant pathogens, as food or substrate for microorganisms and worms, as feed for chickens, sheep, goats, fish and other animals, and in the productions of foods and beverages for human consumption. In biotechnology, coffee pulp can be used in the cultivation of edible fungi, production of enzymes, substrate for caffeine degrading microorganisms and for microorganisms that produce natural fungicides. Although many of these applications have been proposed and studied, there are also several novel uses that are in the early stages of development; for example, the use of pulp bioactive compounds to make food supplements, or to increase dietary fiber contents in foods and beverages, as well as for the production of biocontainers and biopackaging, alternatives to plastics and their serious environmental impact.

Rice is an important source of food worldwide. However, the growth of weeds in paddy fields pose a major biological threat to higher rice productivity and quality. Various cultural, chemical, biological, and physical practices affect the growth and composition of weeds in paddy fields. In general, weeds can be effectively controlled through herbicides although the use of chemical-based weed control measures do not provide sustainable solution for the long term. This review highlights the different weed types and their effects on rice production as well as weed management methods that can be used to control the growth of weeds in rice fields. The major points are as follows: (1) there are several types of weeds found in rice (i.e., grassy, sedges and broad leaf), (2) weeds contribute to the rice crop losses and (3) there are a few methods applied for weed control. This review has found that it was beneficial to use biological method instead of using herbicide to control the weeds. This paper can contribute to the knowledge for increasing crop production and sustainable weed management.

Cyanide is a toxic substance that can be lethal to humans and is present in nature in several superior plants, called cyanogenic plants, with the capacity to generate significant amounts of cyanide (CN) from the cyanogenic glycosides (GCs) present in a natural state. Among the most important GCs are linamarin, lotraustralin, dhurrin and amygdalin. Cassava, sorghum, almonds, apricots, peaches, apples, cherries, alfalfa, bamboo, among others, are examples of these plants. The potential to generate CN varies with each plant. This paper reviews the literature related to the amounts of cyanide produced by these plants, their effects on humans, as well as their toxicological implications.