Nutritional Profile and Medicinal Properties of Pumpkin Fruit Pulp

Having high nutritional value and low cultivation costs, pumpkin fruit makes a great candidate to be used by the food industry as a functional ingredient. To prolong its shelf life and widen the array of its potential uses in food products, drying and powdering have been applied, producing pumpkin flour. Several studies have been done to optimize the drying method of pumpkin in order to preserve or reduce the loss of its nutritional constituents and color changes during drying and storage. As vacuum freeze drying produces great quality pumpkin powder and best preserves the β-carotene and phenolic contents of the fruit, it is considered an expensive technique that could be inconvenient to be used in developing countries or for cost-reduction purposes. Air drying is a cheaper technique but results in less nutrient preservation than vacuum drying. This highlights the role of pretreatments in order to reduce the loss of nutrients and produce better quality pumpkin flour. Hot water blanching followed by metabisulfite pretreatment results in the best carotenoid stability and preservation of phenolic compounds in the produced powder. Incorporation of pumpkin powder in wheat bread could increase its nutritional value by increasing the levels of dietary fiber, pro-vitamin A β-carotene, calcium, iron, and zinc and by decreasing the carbohydrate and caloric contents

‘To Win the Energies of Intoxication for the Revolution’

This article discusses Walter Benjamin’s essay on Surrealism (1929) and focuses on three key elements any anthropological-materialist concept of politics has to address: (1) a profane illumination of the capitalist everyday life, (2) the problem of political representation, and (3) the interdependency of body politics and the (im)possible community of political acting. This article is a contribution to the ongoing debate on ‘what is anthropological materialism’ after Benjamin

Where the Past Was, There History Shall Be

As the proverb has it, ‘tradition is not to preserve the ashes but to pass on the flame’. Taking this image as a starting point, this paper is interested in non-conservative concepts of tradition and (dis)continuity. If the concept of tradition is normally associated with continuity, the concept of tradition poses the question of transmittability. Is there a continuous medium in which narrations, customs, rites or other material practices can be handed down from the past to the present? If the transmittability of tradition is not a given, a commodified object, but subject to historical change, the question of tradition and inheritance is inextricably linked to social and political struggles. The concept of tradition, however, has mostly been theorized by conservative thinkers. In this vein, traditional historical materialism viewed tradition as a counter-progressive retarding force. Walter Benjamin (1940), however, proposed a different concept of historical time and tradition. History is not based on a progressive flow of “homogeneous, empty time” but on disruptive constellations of the present and the past. The past is never fully gone; it can never be fully historicized. The medium in which the present is connected to all lost causes and struggles of those who literally and metaphorically lost their histories is called the “tradition of the oppressed.” Paradoxically, this medium is a discontinuum – its texture is woven out of struggles, empty-spots and disconnected elements which cannot be represented in one transmittable image or inscribed into one multifaceted yet coherent world-history. If the “tradition of all dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brains of the living” (Marx), then the tradition of the oppressed will also haunt all attempts to repress it completely and erase its experience in the linear continuum of “victor’s history.” But how are we to pass on an oppressed tradition? How can the tradition of the oppressed be recalled, actualized and “worked through”

The Messianic Without Messianism

This article discusses Walter Benjamin’s messianic thought. Far from being a theological concept proper or a secularized motif of Judeo-Christian religion, the messianic is a complex figure of thought addressing a dimension of profane life that is neither culture nor nature but a ‘weak power’ within history allowing for a messianic standstill of the self-totalizing and self-eternalizing progress of capitalist ‘real-history’. If the messianic is not about religion or political theology but concerns the profane order of the profane, how are we to conceive of it in a non-reductionist way? The underlying question of this article hence is: if the messianic is the theological name for something within the realm of the profane that is neither addressed by political philosophy nor life and social sciences, what is its relevance for a materialist understanding of history, historical time, and revolutionary politics?Cet article discute la pensée messianique de Walter Benjamin. Loin d’être une notion proprement théologique ou un motif sécularisé de religiosité judéo-chrétienne, l’élément messianique est une figure conceptuelle complexe, qui permet d’aborder une dimension de la vie profane qui n’est ni la nature, ni la culture. Il s’agit plutôt d’un « faible pouvoir » qui court à travers l’histoire, et permet d’opérer une pause dans l’ « histoire réelle », auto-totalisante et auto-éternalisante, du capitalisme. Si l’élément messianique ne concerne ni la religion, ni la théocratie, mais l’ordre profane du profane, comment pouvons-nous le concevoir d’une manière non-réductionniste ? La question sous-jacente à cet article est donc la suivante: Si l’élément messianique est le nom théologique donné à quelque chose qui se situe dans le domaine profane, et n’est pris en compte ni par la philosophie politique, ni par les sciences de la vie ou les sciences sociales, quelle peut être la pertinence d’une appréhension matérialiste de l’histoire, du temps historique, et des politiques révolutionnaires ?Abordar el pensamiento mesiánico de Walter Benjamin es el objetivo del presente artículo. Lejos de ser un concepto teológico adaptado o un motivo secularizado de la religión judeo-cristiana, lo mesiánico es una figura compleja del pensamiento capaz de conducir una dimensión de la vida profana que no es ni la cultura ni la naturaleza, sino una « débil fuerza » dentro de la historia que permite una parada mesiánica de lo que se auto-totaliza y auto-perpetúa como progreso de la « historia real » capitalista. Si lo mesiánico no incumbe la religión o la teología política, sino lo que afecta al profano orden de lo profano, ¿cómo podemos concebirlo sin reducirlo? La cuestión de fondo de este artículo puede formularse así : si lo mesiánico es el nombre teológico de algo dentro de la esfera de lo profano que no se rige ni por la filosofía política, ni por la vida o las ciencias sociales, ¿cuál es su importancia para una comprensión materialista de la historia, para el tiempo histórico y para las políticas revolucionarias

Nutritional Considerations of Vitamin D Deficiency and Strategies of Food Fortification

Vitamins and minerals are crucial for human health. Any deficiency can lead to major diseases; however, the most prevalent one is the vitamin D deficiency. Due to its high risk in the Middle East and Lebanon, besides its major effects, solutions to decrease this deficiency are taken nowadays. Vitamin D food fortification is the most popular solution taken now. Liposomes showed highest efficiency in vitamin D fortification. However, a study must be done in order to deduce the amounts needed in the targeted population. Therefore, before fortification starts, FDA regulations must be reviewed. Several foods succeeded in fortification with vitamin D and increasing its levels such as milk and cheddar cheese. Stability and flavors showed good results over fortification, while according to the odor, water sources showed more aroma depth than oil sources. The AOAC methods for vitamin D amount in fortified foods must be applied. Dietary 25(OH)D3 was 7.14-fold more effective at raising serum 25(OH)D than dietary vitamin D3

Superficial bladder cancer diagnosis — the deliberate choice between fluorescent diagnosis and optical biopsy

Bladder carcinoma in situ (CIS) is a potentially invasive tumor whose early detection is a key step to ensuring the preservation of the bladder, reducing mortality, and improving the quality of patients’ life. The early diagnosis of bladder cancer requires a sensitive technique that can detect the lesion to determine its stage and grade. ALA induced-PpIX makes it possible to detect tumors with 90% sensitivity. ALA hexyl ester (hALA) increases the sensitivity to 95%. Macroscopic techniques require a histological biopsy to define the tumor invasiveness. Imaging with Fibered Optic Confocal Fluorescence Microscopy allows the optical sectioning of examined tissues providing images with subcellular resolution after labeling with adequate fluorescent dye chosen based on the sensitivity of the used device. Available fluorescent agents are compatible with used devices; however, their toxicity and mutagenesis studies are unsatisfactory. During imaging, an optical fiber is introduced into the bladder via the urethra and placed in contact with the bladder wall. The distinction between the different types of epithelial cells is based on the cell size, morphology, and signal intensity. Although not fully adopted for clinical application, the FOCM represents a real asset that reduces invasiveness and complements the fluorescence-based endoscopy

Realism Today?

While much attention has been paid in recent years to philosophical realism—especially to speculative realism—and its implications for contemporary art, this roundtable purposefully aims to broaden the discussion to account for more “traditional” and art historical forms and modes of realism, which one can still find at the centers and margins of contemporary artistic and aesthetic debates. Without necessarily favoring or promoting any particular direction—be it mimetic, figurative, social or socialist, critical, or speculative—we are inquiring whether today the renewed interest in various modes of realism is simply another postmodern citation of what the Russian Formalists would have called an “automatized” and outdated historical device, or if it is an indication of the potential for a radical transformation of realism that is taking place at the crossroads of progressive art, culture, technology, and critical theory. We invited our respondents to reflect upon both the history and the present of realism, asking how its various revivals might be regarded as part of a long trajectory of “Western” art and aesthetics, and how such revivals might be triggered by discourses outside of contemporary art. If a new aesthetics of realism were possible, how would it differ from its multiple historical antecedents? Is realism in its various modes an obsolete artistic form or style of the past (like baroque painting or modernist collage) that as such is incompatible with the modes of production and the augmented social reality of late capitalism

Knowledge and awareness of stroke and associated factors in the Saudi general population: a cross-sectional study

IntroductionStroke is a major cause of death and disability globally and in Saudi Arabia as well. Prevention and management of stroke depend highly on raising knowledge and awareness about the disease.PurposeThe purpose of this study was to evaluate Saudi adult's knowledge and awareness about stroke and determine the associated factors.Materials and methodsA cross-sectional online survey was conducted in May–July 2022 among Saudi citizens. Assessments of stroke knowledge about risk factors, symptoms, and response to stroke symptoms were evaluated. Logistic regression was conducted to assess the association between the socio-demographic characteristics and knowledge.ResultsA total of 389 participants were enrolled with the majority (81.7%) being male participants. Less than half of the study subjects (43.3%) identified four out of five correct answers related to general knowledge about stroke. Almost all the participants were able to identify at least one risk factor associated with stroke. The majority of the participants (81.2%) believed that physical inactivity was the most common risk factor associated with stroke. Approximately three-quarters of participants considered difficulty speaking and understanding speech, followed by the sudden loss of consciousness as the most common stroke manifestation. Participants with a history of hypertension, dyslipidemia, and obesity had significantly higher odds of identifying at least one early stroke symptom (OR 2.271 [95% CI 1.402 3.677], 2.059 [95% CI 1.273 3.328], and 2.665 [95% CI 1.431 4.963], respectively).ConclusionOur study revealed that participants have good knowledge about stroke. Nonetheless, further efforts are required to raise awareness and educate the public to optimize and ensure better treatment outcomes

Tracking Control of Redundant Manipulators with Singularity-Free Orientation Representation and Null-Space Compliant Behaviour

This paper presents a suitable solution to control the pose of the end-effector of a redundant robot along a pre-planned trajectory, while addressing an active compliant behaviour in the null-space. The orientation of the robot is expressed through a singularity-free representation form. To accomplish the task, no exteroceptive sensor is needed. While a rigorous stability proof confirms the developed theory, experimental results bolster the performance of the proposed approach