Nutritional Status of Three Tribal Populations of Jharkhand State in Relation to Environmental Conditions

The present study was carried out to find out the nutritional status  of three tribal populations- Santhal,  Ho and Bhumij,  inhabiting  in  different   environmental   conditions  i.e.  industrialized   and  dense  forested   regions  of Jharkhand State. The Population inbabiting in industrialized  region  have  least  calorific intake (Santhal-  1967.&#x0D; 25 K.Cal: Ho- 2003.20 K.Cal. and Bhumij-1942. 11   K.Cal) than the population of dense forested  region (2553.&#x0D; 30   K.Cal.  Ho-2426.86   K.Cal.  and  Bhumij   2008.18  K.Cal.}.   No  doubt,  industrialization  provides    better opportunities to earn money but its major portion is wasted  on the elevation  of so called standard of living and the Theka  (Wine shop)  besides,  immigration  among  tribal  also  resulted   in  changed  nutritional  as  well  as calorific intake.  The  diet of these  tribal populations is inadequate as  per Indian standards.  The deficiency  in diet  is  both  qualitative  and  quantitative,  as  a  result  population suffers  from  a large  number  of  nutritional disorders  like anemia, night blindness, bigot spot etc. on the basis of the study it is suggested that a short term training programme should be launched at Panchayat level  to provide  knowledge of balanced  diet or essential nutrients  of the food as per requirements of Men, Women and children.</jats:p

All in the mind? Ethical identity and the allure of corporate responsibility

This paper develops a critique of the concept of ‘ethical identity’ as this has been used recently to distinguish between ‘cynical’ and ‘authentic’ forms of corporate responsibility. Taking as our starting point Levinas’ demanding view of responsibility as ‘following the assignation of responsibility for my neighbour’, we use a case study of a packaging company—PackCo—to argue that a concern with being seen and/or seeing oneself as responsible should not be confused with actual responsibility. Our analysis of the case points first to the allure of programmes of strategic corporate responsibility and the ways in which, through identification, they can provide a tacit form of moral sanction to managers in their aggressive pursuit of profit. It then contrasts the responses of different managers to negative staff feedback to illustrate the difference between managers’ attempts to defend their identity of being ‘responsible’ managers, and responsible conduct itself. The paper concludes that a potent danger of programmes of corporate responsibility is that they allow managers to deceive not just others, but also themselves in relation to the exercise of responsibility

The Ser/Thr Phosphatase PP2A Regulatory Subunit Widerborst Inhibits Notch Signaling

Drosophila Enhancer of split M8, an effector of Notch signaling, is regulated by protein kinase CK2. The phosphatase PP2A is thought to play an opposing (inhibitory) role, but the identity of the regulatory subunit was unknown. The studies described here reveal a role for the PP2A regulatory subunit widerborst (wdb) in three developmental contexts; the bristle, wing and the R8 photoreceptors of the eye. wdb overexpression elicits bristle and wing defects akin to reduced Notch signaling, whereas hypomorphic mutations in this PP2A subunit elicit opposite effects. We have also evaluated wdb functions using mutations in Notch and E(spl) that affect the eye. We find that the eye and R8 defects of the well-known Nspl mutation are enhanced by a hypomorphic allele of wdb, whereas they are strongly rescued by wdb overexpression. Similarly, ectopic wdb rescues the eye and R8 defects of the E(spl)D mutation, which affects the m8 gene. In addition, wdb overexpression also rescues the bristle defects of ectopically expressed M8, or the eye and R8 defects of its CK2 phosphomimetic variant M8-S159D. The latter finding suggests that PP2A may target M8 at highly conserved residues in the vicinity of the CK2 site, whose phosphorylation controls repression of Atonal and the R8 fate. Together, the studies identify PP2A-Wdb as a participant in Notch signaling, and suggest that M8 activity is controlled by phosphorylation and dephosphorylation. The conservation of the phosphorylation sites between Drosophila E(spl) and the HES/HER proteins from mammals, reptiles, amphibians, birds and fish raises the prospect that this mode of regulation is widespread

Comparative analysis of the transcriptome across distant species

The transcriptome is the readout of the genome. Identifying common features in it across distant species can reveal fundamental principles. To this end, the ENCODE and modENCODE consortia have generated large amounts of matched RNA-sequencing data for human, worm and fly. Uniform processing and comprehensive annotation of these data allow comparison across metazoan phyla, extending beyond earlier within-phylum transcriptome comparisons and revealing ancient, conserved features(1-6). Specifically, we discover co-expression modules shared across animals, many of which are enriched in developmental genes. Moreover, we use expression patterns to align the stages in worm and fly development and find a novel pairing between worm embryo and fly pupae, in addition to the embryo-to-embryo and larvae-to-larvae pairings. Furthermore, we find that the extent of non-canonical, non-coding transcription is similar in each organism, per base pair. Finally, we find in all three organisms that the gene-expression levels, both coding and non-coding, can be quantitatively predicted from chromatin features at the promoter using a 'universal model' based on a single set of organism-independent parameters.</p