Editorial of Special Issue of National Identities: Alevism as an ethno-religious identity: Contested boundaries

No abstract for editorial but this is the opening paragraph: This special issue on Alevism and trans/national Alevi identity critically engages with the relationship between religion, ethnicity and national identity. The core issues are as follows: • how ethnicity and religion are conceptualised for a relatively invisible ethnic group in different national contexts; • how religion and ethnicity intersect when Alevism is both a faith and an ethnic identity, especially when conceptions of that identity are contested; • how identity is shaped through state policies within different national policy contexts and how etic definitions of minority communities are constructed by the state or other agencies with the power to impose them on the community in contrast to the emic or self-definitions of Aleviness from within the Alevi community; • how despite the fragmented, heterogeneous nature of Alevi communities, there is also a sense of a single, transnational imaginary community, at least for the purposes of political assimilation/integration and activism; • how education and other arenas of political, religious and cultural engagement at local, national and transnational levels create the possibilities, both positively and negatively, for future action/policy to situate minority ethnic communities

Medicinal plants grown in soil amended with struvite recovered from anaerobically pretreated poultry manure wastewater

ABSTRACT 3--P = 1:1:1, pH = 9.0) was tested as a slow release fertilizer on the growth of four medicinal plants including garden rocket (Eruca sativa), dill (Anethum graveolens), fennel (Foeniculum vulgare) and parsley (Petroselinum crispum) in a series of labscale greenhouse experiment. Pot trial tests indicated that rates of increase in fresh weights, dry weights and fresh heights of plants grown in soil fertilized with the recovered struvite were determined as 405%, 488%, and 51% for garden rocket; 154%, 191%, and 44% for dill; 152%, 379%, and 27% for fennel; 141%, 208%, and 22% for parsley, respectively, compared to the control pot. Results of a static bioassay test proved that the use of plants cultivated in MAP pots as the feeding material did not cause any acute toxicity symptoms or mortality in guppy fish (Lebistes reticulatus), and all survived and exhibited normal visual responses at the end of 170-h exposure. Findings of this study confirmed that the recovered struvite from UASB effluent provided a valuable slow release fertilizer for the agricultural use, resulting an edible multi-nutrient animal feed