Harnessing Wisdom for Managing Watersheds: Honey Bee Perspective on Innovations, Institutions and Policies for Marginal Environments

Participatory approaches for watershed management are now considered essential for sustainable natural resources management and yet there is very little opportunity for intellectual participation by the people. This requires understanding of the local knowledge systems and their institutional context. In this paper, we provide an overview of the conceptual framework which can facilitate such participation. The full report being published separately includes case studies of farmers’ innovations in natural resources management.

Pathogenesis, diagnosis and management of diabetic foot ulcers: a systematic review

Diabetic foot ulcers lead to substantial morbidity and impair quality of life with high treatment costs and enormous economic losses. Diabetic foot ulcers readily become chronic; all too often these wounds do not heal primarily. Treatment of chronic wounds should be essentially directed against the main etiologic factors responsible for the wound. There are different treatment approaches for wound healing in diabetic foot ulcers. If treatment is based on the pathological cause, it may give better results and it must be cost effective too. Hydrogel dressing, platelet rich plasma, placenta extract gel, vacuum dressing are newer modalities in diabetic foot management

Yttrium Enhanced Glass-Forming Ability of Zr-Based Metallic Glasses

Thermodynamic behavior of Zr56-xCo28Al16Yx (0, 2, 7, 10) bulk metallic glass-forming alloys has been studied using an analytical approach where some of the key thermodynamic quantities such as ΔH, ΔS and ΔG has been estimated using a hyperbolic temperature dependence of specific heat difference ΔCp in the supercooled liquid region. The study is focused on understanding the effect of Yttrium-doping on the thermodynamics of the alloys in the supercooled region and on the glass-forming ability of these alloys. The analytical approach has been found to give estimates of ΔG in a wide supercooled liquid region in excellent agreement with the experimental results. Estimated ΔG values are found to be minimum for Y concentration of 7 and 10% which is consistent with the observed high GFA for these compositions. Fundamental elemental properties such as atomic size, electronegativity, the heat of mixing have been found to play an important role in governing the thermodynamics of the alloys in the supercooled liquid region

Yttrium Enhanced Glass-Forming Ability of Zr-Based Metallic Glasses

803-810Thermodynamic behavior of Zr56-xCo28Al16Yx (x = 0, 2, 7, 10 at. %) bulk metallic glass-forming alloys has been studied using an analytical approach where some of the key thermodynamic quantities such as ΔH, ΔS and ΔG have been estimated using a hyperbolic temperature dependence of specific heat difference ΔCp in the supercooled liquid region. The study is focused on understanding the effect of yttrium (Y) doping on the thermodynamics of the alloys in the supercooled region and on the glass-forming ability (GFA) of these alloys. The analytical approach has been found to give estimates of ΔG in a wide supercooled liquid region which is in excellent agreement with the experimental results. Estimated ΔG values are found to be minimum for Y concentration of 7% and 10% which is consistent with the observed high GFA for these compositions. Fundamental elemental properties such as atomic size, electronegativity, the heat of mixing have been found to play an important role in governing the thermodynamics of the alloys in the supercooled liquid region

Weaving indigenous agricultural knowledge with formal education to enhance community food security : school competition as a pedagogical space in rural Anchetty, India

In communities from the remote rural regions of Anchetty, young learners’ informal learning experiences often come through interactions with local agriculture and the environment in which they and their families work and learn. These informal learning experiences are essential to what are otherwise called ‘indigenous knowledge systems’. For primary school students in Anchetty, the ways in which they engage in learning community-based agricultural knowledge are challenged by school-based formal education processes. Using a school competition as a pedagogical strategy for integrative space, this paper supports and explores the meaning and characteristics of indigenous agricultural knowledge (IAK)

Taking nature for granted …

A voice of creative farmers, artisans, pastoralists and other grassroots innovator

Conserving Diversity of Sustainable Development: The Case of Plants of Insecticidal and Veterinary Medicine Importance

The debate on north-south relations, sustainable development and maintenance of biodiversity has assumed renewed seriousness in the light of current controversy on intellectual property rights. While the right of the nations have been taken into account, rights of the poor people who have produced or maintained much of the ecological knowledge have not been adequately acknowledge. The paper provides list of several hundred plants which have been used for veterinary medicine or plant protection purposes by the local people in India and elsewhere. Our continuing work on documentation of local technical innovations and ecological knowledge systems indicates considerable potential for building upon peoples’ knowledge for developing sustainable technologies. We recognize the need for cataloguing this knowledge more systematically so that inter-disciplinary screening can take place for extending in some cases the frontier of science. Institutional arrangements will need to be made so that the producers and preservers of this knowledge are not denied fair returns from the local resource or a local practice when it is commercialized. We also argue that the descriptors of germplasm used in various gene banks need to be modified to acknowledge and catalogue the cultural and ecological knowledge of the people associated with a given local crop variety or an animal breed. It is also hoped that systematic research on plant-derived pesticides might help in reducing and in due course eliminating the hazardous chemical pesticides. A strong case is made for redefining the framework for conservation of bio-diversity so that stakes and insights of local people become the basic building block of future developmental strategies and interventions.

Deploying diode laser in periodontics: An evidence-based review

Lasers have completely changed the concept of dental treatment since three and half decades of 20th century. After the invention of ruby laser by Maiman in 1960, laser has become the most magnetizing technology in dentistry. Diode Lasers have been used in initial periodontal therapy, surgery, and also in implant treatment. In many countries Laser has become a part of the dental armamentarium. The included articles were searched from PubMed, Trip Database, Google scholar and Cocharane database. The purpose of this review article is to critically analyze the effectiveness of diode laser on soft and hard tissue in the field of Periodontics