bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Voices from other lands
Authors: Massarani Luisa
Published: January 2015

Since the early 1990s, research in public understanding of science has significantly increased and become more systematic and academic. However, most of papers published by the main journals in the field have as origin the English-speaking world of the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and New Zealand: for example, in this very journal, PUS, two-thirds of the empirical material come from these countries. This paper aims both to call attention to unheard voices, and make space for new ones, from other parts of the world, aiming to open space for new voices.
Great Transition Stories for Becoming a Global Eco-Civilization
Authors: Elgin Duane
Published: January 2015

The most difficult challenge facing humanity is not devising solutions to the energy crisis or climate crisis or population crisis; rather, it is bringing stories or narratives of the human journey into our collective awareness that empower us to look beyond a future of great adversity and to see a future of great opportunity. What visions of humanity’s journey are sufficiently compelling to transcend age-old differences and bring us together in a common venture of inhabiting the Earth in ways that are sustainable?
Conscious Immortality
Authors: Laszlo Ervin
Published: January 2015

Rationalist philosophy and modern science define as “real” only what can be physically experienced (things we can see, touch, taste, hear, or feel). But for countless centuries human beings existed first with an unconscious sense of belonging to a cosmos that changed in detail but not in its essential nature, and later, through universally accepted religious tenets, held an intuitive belief in the survival of each individual’s vital spirit after death. While not entirely definitive, sufficiently robust evidence now exists to suggest that human consciousness does not end with the death of the physical body. Recognition and widespread acceptance of such evidence could usher in an age of conscious immortality that would fundamentally alter human beings’ relations to one another and to nature, restoring to individuals the assurance needed to experience joy in living and in contributing to the well-being of others and the environment.
Evolving toward Conscious-Technology from the Global Situation with Collective Intelligence
Authors: Glenn Jerome C.
Published: January 2015

The increasing integration of our biology with technology and the increasing integration of artificial intelligence with the built environment could make a continuum of human consciousness and technology giving birth to a “Conscious-Technology” civilization. Although humanity has made great progress, the avoidance of new long-term threats is not guaranteed and will likely require global collective intelligence systems to help us make the decisions on the scale necessary for future survival and the continued human evolution.
Human and Robots Interaction
Authors: Mizuta Kazuo
Published: January 2015

The first industrial robot was set along the production line in Japan in 1969. Through the miracle recovery of the great economic growth in post-war Japan, more robots were developed. Today, we see robots operating in many environments other than indoor assembly lines. Meanwhile, robots truly have come of age as a result of amazing advances in programming (artificial intelligence) and sensor-information technology. In the future, we will find more super-intelligent humanoids coexisting with us, and cities will be structured as robot-friendly environments where not only humanoids but ubiquitous machines of all kinds with built-in computer, sensors, and actuators will enhance and supplement human existence in countless ways.
The Boundaries of the Human
Authors: Cordeiro José
Published: January 2015

Since the Big Bang, the universe has been in constant evolution and continuous transformation. First there were physical interactions, followed by chemical reactions, then biological processes, and finally now technological evolution. Biological evolution continues but it is just too slow to achieve the possibilities available today thanks to technological evolution. Natural selection with trial and error can now be supplemented by technical selection with engineering design. Humanity’s monopoly as the only advanced sentient life-form on the planet is coming to an end, supplemented by a number of posthuman incarnations, including enhanced humans, transhumans, robots, and cyborgs, as we approach a technological singularity. Thanks to the accelerating rate of technological change, humans are transcending biological limitations and crossing the traditional boundaries of what being human meant. Such radical changes have profound philosophical implications in what it is to be human and the interactions between humans with an increasingly modified environment. What is natural and what is not natural has a new meaning in transhumanism, because everything is still changing and evolving, not only biologically but also technologically. Reality is not static because humans and the rest of nature are dynamic, and both are changing continuously. Transhumanism transcends some static ideas of humanism as humans themselves evolve at an accelerating rate.
What Is Future Human Evolution About?
Authors: Chu Ted
Published: January 2015

Humanity’s evolutionary path should be placed in the context of cosmic evolution, an arrow of time from the Big Bang toward making the entire universe alive. The evolution of humanity can be seen in roughly three stages in terms of human capacity: its formation, utilization, and expansion. The future is unpredictable, but today, we are reaching the point of fully utilizing our existing capacity as a “super mammal” and are about to launch the third stage of augmenting and transforming our capabilities. We are developing technologies to enable this fundamental shift. We are facing increasing economic pressure to do it. But most importantly, we are developing a deeper reflection of our place in the universe to provide ideological clarity for our evolutionary future.
Global Consciousness
Authors: Halal William E.
Published: January 2015

This article outlines how the technology revolution, globalization, and other historic forces are likely to create a “mature” global order. Because such changes are transformative, they require nothing less than an equivalent transformation of world views. Global warming, climate change, sustainable energy, financial crises, water shortages, cyber warfare, terrorism, political gridlock, and other threats are so profound that they cannot conceivably be averted with anything less than a shift in consciousness. Humanity faces the unprecedented challenge of accepting responsibility for safeguarding life on the planet, or this transition will fail. In common language, the world must grow up or die.
Transformational Foresight
Authors: Catanzaro Frank
Published: January 2015

Transformational foresight as a new tool is developed and explored from the perspective of future human evolution. We briefly explore the technology-based alternatives and then focus on the human transpersonal direction for how we might evolve. A tool is proposed (currently under development by the Millennium Project Experimental Cybernode), the “Butterfly Delphi,” as a means of teaching/learning/implementing Transformational Foresight.
Future Human Evolution
Authors: Goux-Baudiment Fabienne
Published: January 2015

The very distant futures of the human species are of two kinds: those that can only be imagined, beyond any similarity to what we know today, and those we can get a glimpse of through a deep understanding of the meta-structures that guide our transformations. This article deals with the latter. We are keenly aware nowadays that we are crossing the chasm, and we do not want to just jump without an educated guess as to where we will land. What visions of the future can be offered that are soundly reasoned and well grounded enough to be credible? When futures studies combine foresight and macro-history with a bit of evolutionary anthropology, it becomes possible to catch some detailed glimpses of the far future and of the related developments in human evolution that such futures will demand. This article will guide the reader on such a journey. What are the most probable paths ahead and the crucial challenges humanity might face in a future not all that far away? Several alternative lines of evolution based on our knowledge of history are detailed. The first set (part 1) leads to a post-human evolution of three different varieties. The second set (part 2) explores the possible confrontation between artificial intelligences and human beings and challenges our ability to live in harmony with artificial beings such as robots.
A local level-set method for 3D inversion of gravity-gradient data
Authors: Lu Wangtao , Qian Jianliang
Published: January 2015

We have developed a local level-set method for inverting 3D gravity-gradient data. To alleviate the inherent nonuniqueness of the inverse gradiometry problem, we assumed that a homogeneous density contrast distribution with the value of the density contrast specified a priori was supported on an unknown bounded domain [Formula: see text] so that we may convert the original inverse problem into a domain inverse problem. Because the unknown domain [Formula: see text] may take a variety of shapes, we parametrized the domain [Formula: see text] by a level-set function implicitly so that the domain inverse problem was reduced to a nonlinear optimization problem for the level-set function. Because the convergence of the level-set algorithm relied heavily on initializing the level-set function to enclose the gravity center of a source body, we applied a weighted [Formula: see text]-regularization method to locate such a gravity center so that the level-set function can be properly initialized. To rapidly compute the gradient of the nonlinear functional arising in the level-set formulation, we made use of the fact that the Laplacian kernel in the gravity force relation decayed rapidly off the diagonal so that matrix-vector multiplications for evaluating the gradient can be accelerated significantly. We conducted extensive numerical experiments to test the performance and effectiveness of the new method.
Financialization of Popular Life and the Extractive Operations of Capital: A Perspective from Argentina
Authors: Gago Verónica
Published: January 2015

This article proposes expanding the concept of extractivism beyond the critique of the reprimarization of Latin American economies and their dependency on commodities. Thus it focuses on the modes of financial penetration of Argentina’s popular sectors during the past decade linked to a structural increase in consumption. First, the notion of “neoliberalism from below” is developed to understand the concrete forms of neoliberalism’s persistence in a neodevelopmentalist context. Then apparatuses of consumption and debt are conceptualized as drivers of new forms of value creation in the urban peripheries through a variety of informal economies, with blurred boundaries between the legal and the illegal, which can be read as a prototype of financialization’s arrival in these territories. It is there, the article hypothesizes, where capital extends its frontiers and where the necessity of a specific logistics connecting high finances with low finances can be seen.
Housing, Financialization, and Migration in the Current Global Crisis: An Ethnographically Informed View from Berlin
Authors: Bojadžijev Manuela
Published: January 2015

This article takes as a starting point a tenants’ initiative pursued predominantly by migrants in inner-city Berlin, the capital of a country considered to have profited from Europe’s debt and financial crisis of 2007–8. The two-year-long protest can be read within the framework of a series of public urban occupations during and after the crisis. This framing allows an investigation of how the dominance of finance in capitalism “hits the ground” and how frontiers of capital open up new territories to establish conditions for accumulation in the world’s cities. The article focuses on the political technologies that drive policy protocols of “integration” and “social diversity” and arrange the parameters of differential inclusion within which the business of privatization of real estate and social housing unfolds. It also asks how cultural, political, and social contestations develop in a society where few areas are unaffected by migration and mobility. In so doing, the article challenges an approach that assumes a national framework of analysis.
The Financialization Rush: Responding to Precarious Labor and Social Security by Investing in the Chinese Stock Market
Authors: Maso Giulia Dal
Published: January 2015

The article examines the distinctive features of Chinese financialization. It argues that in China “mass financialization” was strategically led by a state effort to compensate for the social outcomes that resulted when the communist model of collective work units (danwei) was dismantled subsequent to the opening economic reforms launched by Deng Xiaoping. Since the opening of the stock exchanges in Shenzhen (1990) and Shanghai (1992), a wave of “stock fever” (gupiaore) has swept the population. The article shows how the Chinese stock market offers a chance for further enrichment in the context of a shrinking welfare state and increasing individualization of society, while also functioning as a social space where individual investors can regroup in an ersatz of community belonging. Focusing on the disaggregated subjectivities left behind by the state-driven dismantling of the danwei, particularly the sanhu (literally “scattered investors”) as one of the most emblematic actors to have emerged during the whole process, the article provides an account of the current phase of Chinese mass financialization. It argues that this set of state interventions succeeded in strengthening the “myths of origin” of the contemporary Chinese regime; financialization acted as the ground upon which government slogans such as “To enrich is glorious,” “Richness is within range,” and “Dream a Chinese dream” were subsequently formulated.
Logistics Struggles in the Po Valley Region: Territorial Transformations and Processes of Antagonistic Subjectivation
Authors: Cuppini Niccolò , Frapporti Mattia , Pirone Maurilio
Published: January 2015

This article investigates the logistics of contemporary global capitalism from two primary vantage points: the grounded perspective of recent struggles in the logistics sector of northern Italy and a more general interpretation of contemporary spatial transformations. Starting with a few genealogical and theoretical vignettes, we argue that logistics plays a decisive role in contemporary processes of both the establishment of new and mobile forms of territoriality and the production of subjectivity. We hypothesize that these two productive aspects of logistics must be understood as crisscrossed and mutually interacting. The article further takes up the geographical question of scale and attempts to advance the development of analytical tools capable of grasping at once global flows and local peculiarities. With a view to northern Italy and beyond, we conclude by proposing a few conceptualizations: the terraqueous territory; the Po Valley as a form of regionalization; the cooperative system as a specific form of labor exploitation; and the new spaces of antagonistic subjectivation processes.
Coded Vanilla: Logistical Media and the Determination of Action
Authors: Rossiter Ned
Published: January 2015

Logistical media coordinate and control the movement of labor, people, and things situated along and within global supply chains. The combination of software and infrastructure holds a determining force in the production of subjectivity and the capacity for action. Algorithmic architectures of logistical media extract data and manage labor whose value is exploited as financial capital. Gamification techniques further extend the power of logistical media as technologies that govern knowledge production. Anonymity offers one possible strategy of withdrawal.
Agricultural Day Laborers in Southern Italy: Forms of Mobility and Resistance
Authors: Perrotta Domenico
Published: January 2015

This article analyzes migrant agricultural labor in southern Italy, focusing on migrants from Burkina Faso and Romania laboring in the regions of Puglia and Basilicata. The argument underlines the connections between mobility, willingness to work for low wages, and conflict in the workplace. The essay investigates, firstly, why migrants are willing to work for lower wages than established in collective agreements. Migrants’ deportability explains the situation to some extent, but it does not answer the question completely; EU citizens (such as Romanians) who are not deportable also settle for lower salaries. Other factors include competition within the job market between day laborers from different countries and with different legal statuses, the segregation of seasonal workers from the local population, and the impact of the caporalato (gang-master) system, an illegal form of mediation and labor organization. The essay analyzes, secondly, the conflicts instigated by the day laborers, from clashes in the workplace to larger-scale mobilizations, including the biggest strike ever organized by foreign day laborers in Italy, which took place in Nardò in 2011; in this instance, breaking the migrants’ segregation was a key factor. Paradoxically, Romanians, who enjoy greater freedom of movement, seem less willing to engage in clashes in the workplace than Burkinabés (natives of Burkina Faso), despite the latter’s more precarious legal position. The research for this article was conducted between 2010 and 2013, both through interviews with day laborers, labor contractors, agricultural business owners, and expert witnesses and through an ethnographic study of migrant accommodations.
Beyond China: Foxconn’s Assembly Plants in Europe
Authors: Sacchetto Devi , Andrijasevic Rutvica
Published: January 2015

This article shows that global production networks rely on a specific combination of economic and political elements and that labor composition in each production node is specific to the location and contingent on state regulations. The assembly and management of a differentiated labor force are keys to understanding how these networks are constructed. By focusing on the specific composition of the workforce inside the supply chain, we underline how the differences in each node of production are managed to hinder conflict in the workplace. We analyze how the new geography of production takes into account these differences within the context of three Foxconn factories.
Thinking through Death: The Politics of the Corpse
Authors: Finucci Valeria
Published: January 2015

This special issue of JMEMS addresses different ways of thinking through death and dying in the medieval and early modern period, including different philosophical and legal positions concerning the relationships between the body and its parts, corpses and burial sites, the bodies of saints and the bodies of criminals, the bodies of the dying confessing on their deathbeds and the bodies of suicides choosing to be buried with their souls unprepared. A new frame of knowledge becomes possible when we familiarize ourselves with the face of death. The six essays presented in this special issue do not revolt against the prospect of death, do not neglect what in the early modern period was called “the art of living and dying,” but perform their own version of the “dance of death” as they reconstruct in multifaceted layers the social and at times the political reality of dying present in an array of medieval and early modern European materials.
Body Politics: The Criminal Body between Public and Private
Authors: Terpstra Nicholas
Published: January 2015

The theatrical capital punishments of the early modern period blurred distinctions between private and public and between object and subject in their treatment of the prisoner’s body. Where did these rituals originate? Italian confraternities devised distinctive forms of offering spiritual comfort to the condemned through the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries that mediated new uses of the prisoner’s body in civic religious ritual, in literature, and in the justice system itself over the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Almost all changes of the later period were incremental adaptations that deliberately projected a continuity of tradition, with place, space, and ritual carrying critical symbolic resonances. Considering how confraternal comforting rituals employed the prisoner’s body as a sacramental object, as an artistic and literary object, and as a political object can peel back the early modern layering of new religious, cultural, and political meanings in execution rituals. Using the two cities of Florence and Bologna as examples of the process, this essay demonstrates that the layerings did not develop in a clear sequence, but accumulated in a paradoxical interrelation governed by local political conditions.
Women on the Edge: Madness, Possession, and Suicide in Early Modern Convents
Authors: Strocchia Sharon T.
Published: January 2015

This essay examines suicidal behaviors in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Catholic convents in light of the new attitudes toward voluntary death emerging across Europe between 1500 and 1700. Focusing on Italy, which housed the greatest number of enclosed religious women on the Continent, the essay probes the causal links between mental anguish, suicide, and forced professions. Despite challenges in quantifying convent suicide cases, it is clear that suicidal behaviors were not uncommon in Italian convents. Much was at stake from both a social and salvific standpoint when a “bride of Christ” killed herself or threatened to do so. Such willful deaths not only contravened basic religious precepts but also reneged on the promise to sacrifice oneself continuously for God, city, and family. Motivations for self-harm ranged from deep despair with convent life to madness and demonic possession, all of which were expressed in similar ways. Nuns also used suicide threats instrumentally to further their claims as spiritual aspirants singled out by the devil. Enlarging the scope of inquiry beyond Protestant Europe, the essay demonstrates the constitutive role Catholic nuns played in constructing new understandings of suicide in the early modern period.
Francesco Casoni and the Rhetorical Forensics of the Body
Authors: Martin John Jeffries
Published: January 2015

In early modern Europe, judges read the bodies of victims and suspects through a variety of lenses shaped by popular beliefs, Renaissance notions of physiognomy, and by the study of medicine, classical rhetoric, and natural law theory. This article explores the writings of Francesco Casoni (1500–1564) on these themes. Casoni emerges as critical of certain traditional assumptions and was deliberate in his rethinking about how judges might read the body, basing his ideas on the careful study of Cicero and Quintilian. Casoni became skeptical about the use of torture as part of the judicial process, eventually adopting the view that it was possible to convict an individual on the basis of indicia indubitata (compelling circumstantial evidence) alone. Attitudes about the body and torture in the sixteenth century must be examined in relation to a broad range of medical, theological, and judicial beliefs, which were far from consistent. But judges by necessity were forced to read the bodies of the accused for hints of guilt or innocence in the difficult process of carrying out their trials.
The Cursed and the Holy Body: Burning Corpses in the Middle Ages
Authors: Schmitz-Esser Romedio
Published: January 2015

This essay looks at the practice of burning corpses in the Middle Ages. Much research has concentrated on the later medieval period; however, the punishment of burning and its specific motivations and rationales for crimes such as heresy, witchcraft, and magic go back to much earlier centuries. Scrutinizing sources for the earliest burnings of heretics and witches up to the eleventh century shows that these burnings were mere lynchings and not the outcome of juridical processes administered by secular or clerical authorities. Not until the twelfth century did authorities assent to such punishments and eventually accept burning as a legal form of punishment. Rejecting a purely theological or symbolic view of the dead consigned to the flames as representing the punishments of hell, this article stresses the parallel between the saints and the cursed. If from a medieval standpoint body and soul maintained a bond after death, the relics of heretics must have seemed as frightening as those of the saints seemed blessed. The essay thus stresses the close relationship between saints and heretics through the exceptional characteristics attributed to their bodies.
Domesticating Cannibalism: Visual Rhetorics of Madness and Maternal Infanticide in Fifteenth-Century Italy
Authors: Presciutti Diana Bullen
Published: January 2015

This article examines a miracle, credited to the Dominican saint Vincent Ferrer, in which a “demented” wife and mother butchers and partially cooks her infant son. In the decades following Vincent’s 1455 canonization, artists like Colantonio and the Erri workshop approached the macabre narrative in very different ways. Beyond this iconographic instability, this essay argues that the unsettled status of the narrative—in both text and picture—enabled its use as a malleable vessel for articulating and projecting certain social anxieties. The Erri version, the primary focus of the article, emerges as a case study in pictorial indeterminancy: saintly power is both pivotal and marginalized; social class is both highlighted and obfuscated; cannibalism is both seen and unseen. These contradictions demonstrate the contested status of the social problems represented: female madness, child-killing, cannibalism, and, in a broader sense, the inability of men to assert control over the spaces of their domestic world.
Cells on film – the past and future of cinemicroscopy
Authors: Stramer Brian M. , Dunn Graham A.
Published: January 2015

Movie making is now a ubiquitous experimental tool that biologists use alongside more traditional techniques such as molecular biology and biochemistry. It is no longer just cell biologists, but scientists from many other disciplines, such as immunology and neuroscience, that utilise movies to dissect their processes of interest. When did filming become such a standard laboratory technique? Who developed the use of the movie as an experimental tool? The Wellcome Library has recently restored and digitized a number of original 16-mm films from two pioneering cinemicroscopists, Ronald Canti and Michael Abercrombie, which are now freely available to the scientific community. In light of these films, this Essay will give a brief history of the early cinemicroscopists and discuss what is driving the use of movies in the laboratory today.
Working memory training shows immediate and long-term effects on cognitive performance in children
Authors: Pugin Fiona , Metz Andreas J. , Stauffer Madlaina , Wolf Martin , Jenni Oskar G. , Huber Reto
Published: January 2015

Working memory is important for mental reasoning and learning processes. Several studies in adults and school-age children have shown performance improvement in cognitive tests after working memory training. Our aim was to examine not only immediate but also long-term effects of intensive working memory training on cognitive performance tests in children. Fourteen healthy male subjects between 10 and 16 years trained a visuospatial n-back task over 3 weeks (30 min daily), while 15 individuals of the same age range served as a passive control group. Significant differences in immediate (after 3 weeks of training) and long-term effects (after 2-6 months) in an auditory n-back task were observed compared to controls (2.5 fold immediate and 4.7 fold long-term increase in the training group compared to the controls). The improvement was more pronounced in subjects who improved their performance during the training. Other cognitive functions (matrices test and Stroop task) did not change when comparing the training group to the control group. We conclude that visuospatial working memory training in children boosts performance in similar memory tasks such as the auditory n-back task. The sustained performance improvement several months after the training supports the effectiveness of the training.
The Effect of Omission Fertilizer Application on Rubber Yield of PB 260
Authors: Wijaya Thomas , Ardika Risal , Saputra Jamin
Published: January 2015

Fertilizer application on mature rubber trees is sometimes neglected especially when the rubber price is low. The experiment to demonstrate the effect of fertilizer on rubber yiled was conducted for two years. The treatments impose were control, without fertilizer application, fertlizer application with straight fertilzer with general recommended dose and fertlizer applicakan with NPK tablet where the nutrient content were as much as 75%, 50%, 20% and 15% comapred with straight fertilizer. The experiment showed that the yiled was similar between control and fertilizer appplication during the first year observation, but at the secon year, continued fertilizer application gave better yield compared with control. The renewal bark thickness was also better in fertilizer appplication compared with control. The NPK tablet as much 75% Straight fertilizer gave he highest yield. This meant that NPK tablet is more efficent taken up by rubber tree comapred with straight fertilizer.
Fresh Water Fish Species D iversity in Matatila Reservoir Bundelkhand Region, District Jhansi UP, India
Authors: Sen Jag
Published: January 2015

The present study was aimed to investigate fish species diversity of Matatila Reservoir Bundelkhand region district Jhansi. Ichthyological study was conducted for twelve months (Feb.2013-Mar.2014). It was found to contain a total 27 species of fish fauna besides planktons, benthos and avian fauna. Various major carps, minor carps, cat fishes and weed fishes were identified. Endangered species like Notopterus chitala, Notopterus notopterus, Ompok bimaculatus and Eutropiichthys vacha were also observed.
Effect of Microbial Ino culants on the Nutrient Uptake and Yield of Beetroot (Beta vulgaris L.)
Authors: Kumar J , Rangaswamy E , Khanagoudar Shivabasu , Sreeramulu K
Published: January 2015

Comparative performance of Azotobacter chroococcum, Glucanobacter diazotrophicus tested both at 50 per cent and 75 percent recommended N showed that Glucanobacter diazotrophicus was more effective than Azotobacter chroococcum in improving the tuber yield and nutrient uptake. The total tuber yield per plot (8.53 kg), per hectare (38.61 tons) and nutrient uptake in plants (135.14-N, 28.96-P, 49.04-K, kg/ha) was maximum in combined inoculation of microbial inoculants viz., Azotobacter chroococcum, Glucanobacter diazotrophicus, Bacillus megaterium and Trichoderma harzianum, with 75 per cent N, P with full dose of K compared to control plants ( FYM alone T14). The combined effect of microbial inoculants helps in better uptake of nutrients, improved yields and also saves 25% of application of recommended dose of chemical fertilizers.
Seed Germinatio n Improvement in Two Threatened Medicinal Plants
Authors: Hussain Afrida , Jha Dhruva
Published: January 2015

Rauvolfia serpentina (L.) Benth. ex Kurz. and R. tetraphylla L. are threatened because of extensive utilization for their wide ranging medicinal applications. The seed mediated propagation is unsatisfactory due to dormancy and poor germination percentage. This however, decelerates the conservation strategy of these species. Thus, efforts were made in this study to break dormancy and improve germination of seeds of the two species for boosting conservation. The viability of R. serpentina and R. tetraphylla were found to be 67% and 82% respectively. Germination percentage of treated R. serpentina seeds showed improved germination percentage of 34.94% (H2O2) and 48.65% (GA3) over control (11.27%). The germination percentages of treated R. tetraphylla seeds were improved to 52.70% (KNO3) and 56.66% (GA3) as compared to untreated seeds (31.26%). Temperature also influenced the germination percentage and the highest germination percentage was obtained at 35oC and 30oC respectively in R. serpentina and R. tetraphylla. Results of the treatments indicate the presence of coat induced and non-deep physiological dormancy in both these species. The datas were statistically analyzed by analysis of variance (P<0.01).
Gastrointestinal Dise ases and Curcumin: Developments and Challenges
Authors: Bhullar Khushwant , Parmar Indu , Dhillon Gurpreet
Published: January 2015

Gastrointestinal (GI) diseases are substantial clinical and economic burdens accounting for extensive morbidity and mortality among humans worldwide. The incidence of many GI conditions, such as inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) and gastrointestinal infections
Association of Parental E ducation and Illness with Obesity and Blood Pressure in 13-16 Year Old Girls
Authors: Padechia Mansi , Mistry Khorshed , Sanwalka Neha
Published: January 2015

The aim of the current study was to estimate the prevalence of hypertension and obesity and its associations with parental (or grandparental)history of illness and parental education.
A cross-sectional study was conducted among 299 girls aged 13-16 years from Mumbai city, India. Anthropometry (weight, height, waist (WC) and hip circumference, mid-upper arm circumference) and blood pressure (BP) was measured. History of chronic illness in parents and grandparents was recorded. Parental education was also recorded.
The mean WC of the girls was 68±10 cm. WC was between 85th and 95th percentile in 14 (4.7%) girls and more than 95th percentile in 22 (7.4%) girls. The mean systolic BP of the girls was 110±11 mmHg and mean diastolic BP was 69±8 mmHg. Twelve (4%) girls had systolic BP and 48 (16.1%) girls had diastolic BP between 90th and 95th percentile whereas 38 (12.7%) girls had systolic BP and 23 girls (7.7%) had diastolic BP more than 95th percentile. There was a significant association between systolic BP and obesity (χ2 = 5.79, df = 2) and diabetes (χ2 =9.76, df=2) in grandmother (p<0.05). There was also a significant association of diastolic BP with prevalence of cardio-vascular disease in both parents (χ2 = 11.26, df =2) especially with that in mothers (χ2 =11.27, df = 2) (p<0.05). Systolic BP showed an association with mother education (χ2 = 18.81, df = 8) (p<0.05
Central obesity and hypertension is prevalent in school going girls in Mumbai city and show a significant association with prevalence of diseases in parents and grandparents.
Anthropometric Measureme nts, Dietary Intake and Lipid Profile of Hypertensive Young Adults (25-35 years): A Comparison Between Vegetarians and Non Vegetarians
Authors: Nande Prajakta
Published: January 2015

Increasing prevalence of hypertension is a major health concern.Dietary habits and food choices play an important role in maintaining lipid levels.The aim of this study was to investigate the impact of dietary habits on lipid profile of young adult hypertensive males. Two hundred vegetarians (V) and two hundred non vegetarians (NV) stage I hypertensive young adult men from age group 25-35 yrs. Anthropometric indices like weight, height, waist circumference (WC), hip circumference (HC) and mid-upper-arm circumference (MUAC) were measured. Body mass index (BMI) and waist hip ratio (WHR) were computed using standard equations. 24 hour’s food intake data for each subject was collected for consecutive 3 days and energy and energy yielding nutrients were computed. Total cholesterol (T-C), low density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C), high density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C) and triglyceride (TG) levels were estimated. Very low density lipoprotein cholesterol (VLDL-C) was computed using standard equation.Insignificant difference was noticed between V and NV for BMI, WC and HC. In contrast, MUAC of NV was found to be significantly higher than V. NV had higher mean daily intake of energy, protein and fat but low mean daily consumption of carbohydrate as compared to V.NV had higher mean values of systolic blood pressure (SBP) (p>0.05) and diastolic blood pressure (DBP) (0.01
0.05). TC, LDL-C and VLDL-C among NV correlated positively (p<0.01) with body weight (r 0.5340, 0.4841 and 0.5921, respectively). Stronger relationships existed between HDL-C and body weight among both groups. BP, BMI and MUAC were more among NV than V. V showed better lipid profile than NV. This could be attributed to higher intake of energy and fat among NV.
Evaluation of Hygienic an d Morbidity Status of Food Handlers at Eating Establishment in Coimbatore District, South India – An Empirical Study
Authors: Santhiya MT , Murugan S , Narayanan PM , Panneerselvam K
Published: January 2015

The purpose of the study is to assess the health status of food handlers working in food establishments in and around Coimbatore, South India, by conducting face to face interview using pre-tested questionnaire. Of the 163 food handlers responded, the majority of them were young in age 43 (26.4%) between 15-24 years and 35-44 years. Most of food handlers were cooks 44 (26.9%) and literate 126 (77.3%). Moreover the prevalence of morbidity was found to be 59 (36.2%), period prevalence was 111 (68.1%) and 5 (9.8%) were anemic. The study demonstrated that the food handlers in this region have lack of knowledge regarding the hygienic behaviour and safety food practices. The need of the hour is to educate and increase the knowledge of awareness among the food handlers regarding safe food handling practices. Also health examination of food handler must be done at regular interval of time.
Proximate, Mineral and An ti-nutrient Composition of Processed (Soaked and Roasted) Tamarind (Tamarindus indica) Seed nut
Authors: Akajiaku Linda , Nwosu Justina , Onuegbu Ngozika , Njoku Njideka , Egbeneke C
Published: January 2015

This work investigated the Proximate, Mineral and Anti-nutrient Composition of Tamarind (Tamarindus indica) seed nuts, which were processed by roasting at 100oC for 15 min and soaking for 14days to remove the seed coats. The proximate analysis of the roasted and soaked samples revealed the values of crude protein, moisture, crude fat, crude fiber, ash and carbohydrate contents present to be 22.57%, 8.00%, 6.80%, 6.30%, 4.55%, 56.24% and 22.16%, 10.5%, 7.05%, 6.15%, 4.05%, and 56.24% respectively. The minerals present were K (1440.00), Mg (268.00), P (94.40), Na (40.16) and Fe (15.28) for the roasted sample and K (480.00), Mg (220.00), P (99.20), Na (38.24) and Fe (15.56) for the soaked sample in mg/100 g. Calcium content was not detected in both samples. The phytochemical analysis showed that the soaked T. indica registered significant reduction in tannin, phytate, and saponin when compared to the roasted sample, while the roasted sample showed significant reduction in trypsin and hydrogen cyanide content when compared to the soaked sample. The alkaloid content in both samples was (3.4%) and showed no significant (P>0.05) difference. The utilization of tamarind seed nut in food processing will clearly reduce the over-dependence on common legumes for protein especially in the developing countries like Nigeria.
Microbiological Status of S oymilk- Fruit Juice Drink as Affected by Orange and Pineapple Juice Replacement
Authors: Agomuo J , Alaka I , Akajiaku Linda
Published: January 2015

The effect of orange and pineapple fruit juice replacement on microbiological status of soymilk- fruit juice drink was studied. Soybean seeds, fresh ripe orange and pineapple fruits were processed into soymilk, and fruit juices respectively. The orange and pineapple juices were blended at equal proportion to get mixed fruit juice (MFJ). MFJ was used to replace soymilk (SM) at 10%, 20%, 30%, 40% and 50% levels without addition of any chemical preservatives. The microbiological status of the soy-mixed fruit juice (SMFJ) was evaluated. Microbial examination showed that bacteria count was higher in SMFJ5 (50:50) (40 x 40-2Cfu/ml) and lower in MFJ (100% mixed fruit juice) (11 x 10-2Cful/ml). There was no coliform growth, suggesting absence of faecal contamination. Fungal growth was higher (24 x 10-2Cful/ml) at 40 % juice dilution. Microbes such as Bacillus sp, Staphiloccocus sp and Penicillin were isolated in the samples. The morphology of the microbes was ascertained thereby providing information for the preservation of the beverage and encouraging its processing.
Micronutrient, Genome Stabili ty and Degenerative Diseases: Nutrigenomics Concept of Disease Prevention - An Overview
Authors: Ray Subhasree
Published: January 2015

Diet is a key factor in determining genomic stability is more important than previously imagined because it impacts on all relevant pathways like exposure to dietary carcinogens, DNA repair, DNA synthesis, epigenetic damage and apoptosis. Recent research focuses into how a single micronutrient deficiency is leading to genomic instability and development of degenerative diseases in various stages of life.The study aimed at finding the nutrigenomic mechanism of how a marginal deficiency of any single micronutrient is interrupting in DNA repairing, methylation and synthesis by taking nutrient-nutrient and nutrient-gene interaction into consideration. It also focuses on how recommended dietary allowance is important in achieving DNA integrity and genome stability to prevent degenerative diseases.Exhaustive review of research papers in genome health nutrigenomicsis involved in this study to explore, assimilate and analyze data to understand the importance of micronutrient in maintaining methylation of CpG sequence and preventing DNA oxidation or uracil misincorporation in DNA to stop disease occurrence in individuals.The study finds a direct link between micronutrient deficiency and increased epigenomic damage, resulting into elevated risk for adverse health outcomes during various stages of life like infertility, tumor development and cancer. The overview study concludes with a vision for a paradigm shift in disease prevention strategy based on diagnosis and micro-nutritional intervention of genome or epigenome damage on an individual basis, i.e. personalized prevention of degenerative diseases in genome health clinic.
Fractionation and Some Cond itions on the Extract Ability of Tropical Almond (Terminalia catapa) Seed Protein
Authors: Adebowale O , Salaam H , Umar B , Komolafe O
Published: January 2015

The control variables involved in the extraction of seed protein from Terminalia catapa seed meal have being investigated. These include extraction time, pH, solid-solvent ratio. Protein and fractionated into albumin (4.25%), glutelin (3.57%), prolamin (8.96%) and globulin (6.35%). The extraction time (min) of 15, 30, 45 and 60 were used for fractionation of the seed protein. The results showed an increase in protein yield across the fractions with increasing extraction time; highest protein yield of 10.2% was recorded in prolamin at 60 mins. The pH dependent solubility profile revealed that the region of iso-electric point (minimum solubility) was at pH 8.0, the solubility reduced as the pH increased until it reached the iso-electric point which was followed by progressive increase in solubility with further increase in pH. The solid-solvent ratio of 1:5, 1:10, 1:20, 1:30 and 1:40 were used and the result shows that there was increase across the fraction with increasing solid-solvent ratio. Highest protein yield was recorded at ratio 1:40
Optimization of Roller S peed and Feed Rate of Mini Dhal Mill for Hulling Efficiency of Pigeonpea
Authors: Mathukia P , Sangani V , Mathukia R
Published: January 2015

Pigeonpea is mostly consumed in the form of splits, and it provides a good source of proteins. An abrasive carborundum roller cylindrical mill was generally used in small scale to dehusk and splits pulse grains to make dhal. The independent milling parameters of laboratory scale dhal mill were roller speed and feed rate. The oil treatments to the pigeonpea grains were given after pitting. The milling parameters were (i) roller speed (1000, 1200 and 1400 rpm) (ii) feed rate (50, 60, 70 and 80 kg/h). Two factor completely randomized design was used to optimize the hulling efficiency. Roller speed and feed rate showed significantly effect on the hulling efficiency. The maximum hulling efficiency of 73.53% was found with 1400 rpm roller speed and 60 kg/h feed rate. Dhal recovery was 63.18%.
Eating Patterns and Physical Activity in Older Adults Carpio Córdoba, Spain and Guadalajara Jalisco, Mexico
Authors: Leticia Padilla , Carlos Ruvalcaba
Published: January 2015

Aging is a complex phenomenon and obvious, old age in Mexico is compared to disability, vulnerability, complexity and discrimination in our country's life expectancy is not very long compared to other countries. "Diet is the most important to delay or accelerate the aging process component." Aim. Determine differences in eating patterns and physical activity in older adults in El Carpio Córdoba, Spain and Guadalajara Jalisco, Mexico. Methods. A descriptive, cross-sectional comparative study in 156 elderly residents of El Carpio Córdoba Spain and Guadalajara Jalisco Mexico 156 was performed. Results. The results suggest that differences in life expectancy at birth, feeding, toxic habits and sporting aspects. The differences in patterns of diet and physical activity detected in this study in adults over. Conclusion. The Carpio Córdoba, Spain and Guadalajara Jalisco, Mexico could have transcendent meaning in the movement of life expectancy at birth, it represents in Mexico a possibility for feeding programs and physical activity for older people in order to support them in style and quality of life when young people built a legacy of experience and deserve to live longer and with better quality of life. In Spain Carpio live longer, have a higher consumption of toxic habits and do more sports activities in Guadalajara Mexico.
The Palermo Protocol: Trafficking Takes it All
Authors: Einarsdóttir Jónína , Boiro Hamadou
Published: January 2015

The Palermo Protocol is the outcome of bargain and lobbying with global institutions, NGOs and government representatives embattling to enforce their interests. The outcome is the concept of trafficking that embraces the struggles against prostitution, slavery and child labour. This broad concept has allowed various local cultural practices and survival strategies of those who live under difficult conditions to become classified as trafficking. While such definition may facilitate fundraising there are adverse consequences to be considered. Firstly, hazardous conditions of children that obviously are not trafficking tend to become ignored. Second, the victims of “real” trafficking become invisible by the excessive number of children allegedly trafficked. Third, the broad definition of trafficking has contributed to criminalization of whole communities and consequent conflicts between NGOs engaged in anti-trafficking activities and the communities involved. Such a situation is not in the best interest of the children involved. Rather than spending huge amount of resources on the conventional anti-trafficking measures there is a need to address the root causes of whatsoever unacceptable condition a child is suffering from.