Effect of feeding Carica papaya (Papita) fruits on blood lipid profile of albino rabbits

Effect of feeding ripe and unripe papaya fruit pulps were investigated on blood lipid profile of normal male adult albino rabbits by giving them pulps separately at the dose of 15 and 30g per day along with standard diet over a period of six weeks. As compared to controls both fruit pulps resulted in highly significant (p<0.001) and consistent lowering of serum cholesterol, low density lipoprotein cholesterol and triglycerides and elevation in phospholipids and high density lipoprotein cholesterol levels at 1,3 and 6 weeks of fruit pulp feeding indicating a dose dependent effect. Observations clearly support medicinal value ofC. Papaya in the management of atherosclerosis, fatty liver, ischaemic changes and consequential myocardial infarction.     

Spelling performance of English consonants among students whose first language is Arabic

The purpose of the present study was to examine the influence of some aspects of the Arabic phonological system on spelling English words. In Study 1, the spelling performance of Arabic students from grades four and six was compared with English students in cognate phoneme pairs which exist across both languages (/d/ and /t/), and pairs in which only one of the phonemes exists in Arabic (/b/ and /p/, /f/ and /v/) using a spelling test which contained words with the target phonemes. The findings showed that the Arabic participants performed similarly to the English participants on the phonemes /t/ and /d/, but they tended to spell the phonemes /b/, /p/, /f/, and /v/ using their cognate pairs more often than the English participants did. In Study 2, the spelling performance of Arabic students was compared across grades 4, 6, 8, and 10 for the same target phonemes. The analyses showed no difference between the Arabic participants in how often they confused the target phonemes with their cognate pairs across the different grade levels, except for the phonemes /p/ and /v/, for which the effect size was small. The findings of this study demonstrate the importance of phonology in spelling, as well as the influence of the first language on spelling in a second language. They also indicate that Arabic students continue to be dependent on phonological processes when spelling English words even as they grow older.     

Hardy-weinberg equilibrium and the foundations of evolutionary genetics 3. Incorporating Mutation and Migration

The year 2008 marked the 150th anniversary of the debut of the concept of natural selection as a mechanism of adaptive evolution through the reading of papers by Darwin and Wallace to the Linnaean Society. It also marked the 100th anniversary of the enunciation of the principle defining the inertial state of populations from a genetic viewpoint through the independent publication of papers on the topic by G H Hardy and W Weinberg. In this series, we examine the significance of the Hardy-Weinberg Equilibrium as a basic model of population genetics that forms the foundation for evolutionary genetics. In Part 3 of this series, we begin to relax some of the assumptions of the basic model underlying the Hardy-Weinberg Equilibrium, and analyse the situations where either mutation or migration occur in an otherwise ideal large population.     

Vignettes of Haeckel’s Contributions to Biology

Ernst Haeckel was a very versatile and complete biologist, equally at home with imaginative leaps of conceptualization, serious natural history in the wild, and meticulous experimentation in embryology. His work shaped the development of a holistic evolutionary perspective that brought ecology, ontogeny, phylogeny, and biogeography together into a unified explanation of the patterns of diversity seen in the living world. He, along with Darwin and Mendel, was perhaps one of the three most consequential biologists of the nineteenthcentury, in many ways the golden age of biology.     

Metabolic studies on effect of fiber: Effect on digestibility of energy related nutrients

Dietary fiber alone or coupled with other factors affects the utilization of nutrients. In the present investigation, response of 4 men consuming diets at 3 levels of energy and neutral detergent fiber (NDF) was studied. Pooled ANOVA for 3 experiments with 4 subjects showed significant differences between the experiments within the subject (P< .01) for digestibility of fat, carbohydrate, nitrogen and NDF. Results indicate that habitual NDF intakes of about 40 grams per day have digestibility of 49% and that amount and source of fiber modify the fat digestibility.     

Componential Model of Reading (CMR): Validation Studies

The three current models of identifying learning disabilities: discrepancy model, RtI, and Componential Model of reading are discussed in terms of their utility.     

The influence of context,timing, and duration of risk experiences for the passage from childhood to midadulthood

This study investigated the long-term effects of social disadvantage on academic achievement and on subsequent attainments in adulthood. The study drew on data collected for over 30,000 individuals born 12 years apart, following their development from birth to adulthood. The pathways that link social disadvantage to individual development across the life course were analyzed in a developmental-contextual systems model. The results showed that the influence of risk factors associated with socioeconomic disadvantage depended on the developmental stage of the individual, the experience of long-term or continuous disadvantage, and the overall sociohistorical context. Early risk had a moderate influence on the formation of individual competences. The greatest risk was associated with persisting and accumulating experiences of socioeconomic disadvantage throughout childhood and adolescence. Material conditions improved for the later-born cohort, yet pervasive social inequalities existed that affected outcomes during childhood and were consequently reflected in adult attainment.     

Effect of integrating IoT courses at the freshman level on learning attitude and behaviour in the classroom

Education and Information Technologies - As a technology the effect of the Internet of Things (IoT) is so strong that it has changed the way of living. The transition is also apparent in the field...     

Gender Differences in the Use and Effectiveness of Personal Response Devices

The use of personal response devices (or “clickers”) in the classroom has increased in recent years. While few quantitative studies on the effectiveness of clickers have been published, it is generally reported that clickers have been well-received by the students who use them. Two separate populations (Winter 2006 and Spring 2006) of engineering students were given clickers to use during a general chemistry class. Clicker use was compared to student grades for each course. During both terms, a higher percentage of female students than male students “actively participated” in the lectures, where active participation was defined as answering more than 75% of the clicker questions over the course of the term. Active male students earned final grades about 10 points higher than non-active male students. Active female students, however, scored only about 5 points higher than non-active female students. Student learning was assessed by comparing performance on exam questions and clicker questions with similar content. Students who answered clicker questions correctly were 11–13% more likely to answer the corresponding exam questions correctly than were students who did not answer the clicker question. In this paper, we demonstrate the effectiveness of clicker use in the classroom and examine gender differences associated with this use.