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The domestication of grasses took place some 8,000 to 10,000 years ago. Strains were gradually selected whose seeds remained attached to the fruiting head long enough for the crop to be harvested and these strains gave rise to the wheat and barley we know today. Wheat grain was ground between stones to a coarse flour and as early as the Roman period sieves were used to separate bran from the fine flour to allow a more palatable bread to be baked. Even when advanced to the watermill and windmill, stone‐grinding still left a proportion of the germ in the flour in a powdered state. We now know that this flour must have stored badly, soon gone rancid and lost its baking qualities due to the presence of oil from the fine particles of raw germ. With the advent of the roller‐mill in the nineteenth century came the possibility of removing the intact germ to produce a stable flour and to yield wheat germ which could be stabilised, safely stored and used in its own right as a nutritious food. The purpose of this article is to discuss the nature, source, applications and composition of wheat germ and in particular its nutritional value.

The aim of the paper is to analyze the process of “germ cell” formation by framing it as an opportunity for promoting organizational learning and transformation. The paper aims to specifically answer two research questions: Why does the “germ cell” have a pivotal role in organization’s transformation? and Which conditions facilitate the formation of the “germ cell” in the management of complex and uncertain problems?

The paper answers the research questions first by presenting the literature related to knowing and learning inside organizations, and second by introducing the concept of “germ cell” and connecting it with the metaphors of “waiting experiment” and “anchoring forward”. Finally, the paper analyzes the steps by which the “germ cell” is shaped, thus owing to the exploration of problematic situations, underpinning the “germ cell’s ” role to open perspectives for multiple applications and development. Two research interventions are presented by focusing on the construction of the “germ cell” moving from the problematic situations to promote organizational learning and change.

The paper describes the formation of the “germ cell” as a process that opens possibilities for subjects to recognize and reflect on the recurrent and taken-for-granted practices and concepts and give sense to them by making the inner contradiction and the ways for managing it visible.

The unfolding and challenging inceptive configuration of the germ cell sheds light on the discursive/conversational/language processes and the activities entangled in socio-material instrumentalities and environments in which people are involved.

Reducing fat intake or inhibiting fat absorption is a useful solution for blood lipid reduction. It is shown that there are some proteins in wheat germ with pancreatic lipase inhibiting properties that have hypolipidemic effects. This paper aims to evaluate the possible beneficial effects of a daily intake of 30 g of raw wheat germ in a population of Iranian hyperlipidemic subjects with their special dietary habits.

This experimental trial was conducted on 15 hyperlipidemic patients with the average age of 45.7±7 years. They were not on lipid‐lowering drugs for the previous three months. They were asked to consume 30 g of raw wheat germ each day for four weeks, and continue their normal diet (follow‐up period) for the following four weeks. Dietary records were taken for three days prior to the study and at the end of a four weeks intervention and follow‐up period. Data were analysed using repeated measurement analysis. If the statistical significance was detected, a paired‐t‐test was used.

The consumption of wheat germ for four weeks lowered the serum total cholesterol (p<0.002), triglyceride (p<0.001) and VLDL‐C (p<0.001). These levels were significantly increased after the follow‐up period, but they did not reach the baseline level. HDL‐C level was not significantly changed.

Consumption of wheat germ may lower the risk of CHD by reducing the serum lipids.

The paper evaluates the possible beneficial effects of a daily intake of 30 g of raw wheat germ in a population of Iranian hyperlipidemic subjects with their special dietary habits.

Our approach is largely historical, argument by example. We leave it to the theoreticians and empiricists to take the argument in a more technical direction.¹ Throughout, we suppose that germs are self-interested and they have a research question, for example, how might our species improve the chances of survival, the answer to which might potentially benefit germs (or, harm them by less).

An interesting address entitled “Food Poisoning, Facts and Fallacies,” was given by Dr. Andrew Rutherford, M.B., F.R.C.P., Lecturer in Pathology, Edinburgh Medical School, before the Edinburgh Rotary Club on September 27th. Dr. Rutherford observed that illness arising from alleged food poisoning had been attracting much notice in the Press, and to judge from current comment there was much confusion as to the facts. Newspaper writers in the last week or two had suggested that these outbreaks were too frequent, had asked the reason why, and had even thrown doubt on the policy of the Ministry of Health in relation to the recent outburst of paratyphoid fever in London. Not only that, but a distinguished chemist had apparently voiced, on this matter, the opinion that the prohibition of boric acid as a food preservative had brought “a definite risk to the community, because it limited the period during which food could be kept free from contamination.” All that was very disquieting, and demanded a clear statement of facts. Certain propositions could be stated straightaway, Dr. Rutherford said, which in his opinion were unassailable. Food poisoning attacks had not been more frequent of late than in former years. There had been actually fewer outbreaks this year than previously, and none at all in Scotland, but they had had more Press publicity. The causes were known and had been known for many years; they were specific disease producing germs which became implanted on food, fresh or stale. The illnesses brought about were neither new nor mysterious to pathologists in general or to the medical advisers of the Government. They had nothing whatsoever to do with the presence or absence of weak chemicals like boric acid as preservatives in food. And no chemist, however distinguished, could competently express an opinion on the broad question of food and food preservatives in relation to disease. That was the domain of physicians, pathologists, and public health experts, not of pure chemists. Referring in a few words to the subject of boric acid and its effect on the system, Dr. Rutherford said that boric acid, after being swallowed was passed out of the body through the kidneys Speaking as a practising physician and pathologist he was not at all sure that the continued swallowing of boric acid in small doses by human beings throughout a lifetime might not have something to do with those kidney breakdowns in middle life which were so damaging to individual health, and which they saw so much of both in hospital and in private practice. This point was not settled yet scientifically. He mentioned it as a caveat. It was known as a scientific medical fact that the prolonged use of food preserved with boric acid might lessen the weight of the body, by interfering with the digestion of the fats that were eaten in the food. The United States and Germany prohibited its use some years ago, following careful studies by medical scientists of its effects on the tissues and organs of the body. After discussing some of the common symptoms of illness caused through food poisoning, Dr. Rutherford said that the accepted idea was that the symptoms were caused by ptomaines—chemical substances produced in the decomposition of foods. They knew now that that notion was erroneous. Actual ptomaine poisoning in man was in fact exceedingly rare, and the vast majority of cases of so‐called food poisoning were due to living specific microbes—not chemical poisons—which in various ways might become implanted on food or drink. Small quantities of boric acid would neither prevent the access of these germs nor kill them if they were present. Intestinal bacteria, and their dwelling‐places, and their disease‐producing properties were then discussed at some length by the speaker. The Aertrycke bacillus was the organism, he said, most frequently met with in food poisoning cases in this country. Aertrycke struck down 703 persons in a British city in 1924. Mostly adult women, they had all eaten cream cakes distributed over the town from a large bakery. The evidence strongly suggested that cream left exposed in the bakehouse over a weekend had been contaminated by mice. The sources and habitats of these food poisoning organisms being understood, it could at once be grasped that infection might be spread in diverse ways without human intervention at all. It was easy to see how meat, veal, or milk might be inoculated with bacillus. It was equally clear that mice or rats might implant the Aertrycke germ on any food they might reach. But that was not all. The healthy human “carrier” was a most important factor in disseminations. Outbreaks of typhoid and paratyphoid—under natural conditions human diseases—were in this country nearly always traceable to “ carriers.” The recent paratyphoid in London was said to be due to cream. That meant in all likelihood that the cream (or milk) at some stage had been grossly contaminated by a human carrier of paratyphoid bacilli. The common house fly played an active part in hot weather in scattering intestinal bacteria about. He also was a “carrier,” but in a different sense. The “filthy feet of faecal feeding flies” were to blame for much illness of a gastroenteritis kind, and one fly could carry enough filth to poison a dozen or two people if it planted it in meat or milk. The position then was that many meats, fresh or not fresh, cooked or not, and drinks, might become charged with poisonous germs, and if the weather were hot, they would multiply exceedingly, cooking of course, was a great safeguard, except perhaps in Gaertner infection, whose poisons were heat resisting. Cold cooked food, of course, might be contaminated. Foods containing preservatives (e.g., sausages, pork pies, etc.), had often been associated with acute gastroenteritis. A preservative might keep food looking fresh and smelling fresh when it really was not. All the time dangerous microbes might be growing in it. Certainly boric acid would keep it “ free from taint,” but in doing so might mask a far greater danger than mere taint and staleness. Generally speaking, food was handled in this country with far too little regard to the possibilities of contamination by poisonous intestinal germs. Much stricter cleanliness than obtains at present was certainly necessary in the handling, storage, and cooking of food. The recent regulations dealing with preservatives tended to lessen and not to increase food poisoning outbreaks. The Meat Inspection Regulations and the Milk and Dairies Acts—irksome at times no doubt to traders—served a similar purpose. Whenever food was kept or cooked the utmost efforts should be made to prevent the access of flies, mice, or rats. Milk should be pasteurised, and cold storage taken advantage of. Employees who handled or cooked in large concerns like bakeries, hotels, restaurants, and clubs should be proved not to be carriers of the typhoid or food poisoning germs before they were taken on. Facilities for the thorough washing of hands—preferably with antiseptic soaps—before handling food, should be ample in all large kitchens. Much, of course, might be provided for in future public health legislation, but it was not his purpose to forecast that. Suffice it to say that the prohibition by the Government of preservatives in food— so far from being wrong or brought about too quickly— was a step in the right direction, and in that they had lagged far behind the U.S.A.—unusual for Britain. It was the sheerest nonsense to suggest that because boric acid or such like was absent food became tainted, and so caused poisoning. Weak boric acid never did and never would prevent infection by virulent germs present in food. If all the food not quite fresh which was daily consumed in the British Isles were poisonous the population would be decimated in one week of hot weather : for warm weather certainly favoured the breeding and spread of the food poisoning bacilli. It was to his mind almost monstrous to insinuate, as had been done widely in some sections of the Press, that the Ministry of Health had done wrong in putting a stop to the doctoring of food by chemicals. It made a detached observer conclude that misguided busybodies had been allowed far too much scope to spread an erroneous notion. For it was tantamount to saying that the scientific advisers of the Government had collectively been either in gross error or over‐enthusiastic; a proposition which was unthinkable.

This study examines children’s understanding of the causality, treatment, and prevention of the common cold. Using a standardized, developmentally‐based, semi‐structured interview (ASK), 800 children (43 per cent black, 38 per cent white, 18 per cent Hispanic; 48 per cent female) in kindergarten through sixth grade attending six public elementary/middle schools in New Haven, Connecticut, USA were asked open‐ended questions about the causality, treatment, and prevention of the common cold. Responses were scored for factual content. The study found that with increasing grade level, a greater percentage of students mentioned contagion and germs as causes of the cold, medicine as a means of treatment, and avoidance of casual contact as a means of prevention. Common misconceptions were identified across all grade levels. These misconceptions did not decrease as children acquired more factual information about colds. Additionally, these misconceptions did not appear to stem from developmental constraints in children’s ability to comprehend illness concepts, indicating that health education can and should begin early in school.

This paper presented the learning process of a group of primary mathematics teachers who participated in two iterations of lesson design, enactment and reflection in a Chinese Lesson Study.

An expansive learning theory was employed to examine the teachers’ learning process in lesson study (LS) on representing fractions on a number line. The evolution of a germ cell was utilized to feature the transformation of the object of activity from abstract to concrete through resolving contradictions among LS members. The videos of lesson planning, research lessons (RLs) and debriefing meetings were collected and analyzed to reveal the expansive learning process.

The analysis showed that the teachers expanded their learning through transforming the object from diffuse to concrete and expanded through consciously articulating the germ cell. The outcomes of object-oriented activity include improving the enacted lesson which promoted students’ conceptual understanding.

This study made a unique contribution to understanding the learning process of teachers in Chinese LS from the perspective of expansive learning.

Epidemiology is often described as “the basic science of public health” (Savitz, Poole & Miller, 1999; Syme & Yen, 2000). This description suggests both a close association with public health practice, and the separation of “pure” scientific knowledge from its application in the messy social world. Although the attainability of absolute objectivity is rarely claimed, epidemiologists are routinely encouraged to “persist in their efforts to substitute evidence for faith in scientific reasoning” (Stolley, 1985, p. 38) and reminded that “public health decision makers gain little from impassioned scholars who go beyond advancing and explaining the science to promoting a specific public health agenda” (Savitz et al., 1999, p. 1160). Epidemiology produces authoritative data that are transformed into evidence which informs public health. Those data are authoritative because epidemiology is regarded as a neutral scientific enterprise. Because its claims are grounded in science, epidemiological knowledge is deemed to have “a special technical status and hence is not contestable in the same way as are say, religion or ethics” (Lock, 1988, p. 6). Despite the veneer of universality afforded by its scientific pedigree, epidemiology is not a static or monolithic discipline. Epidemiological truth claims are embodied in several shifting paradigms that span the life of the discipline. Public health knowledges and practices, competing claims internal and external to epidemiology, and structural conditions (such as current political economies, material technologies, and institutions) provide important contexts in which certain kinds of epidemiological knowledge are more likely to emerge.

On Tuesday, March 20th, 1945, A. C. Thaysen, Ph.D., M.Sc., delivered a paper on Food Yeast: Its Nutritive Value and its Production from Empire Sources. The name “Food Yeast” signifies a special type of yeast which conforms to a certain standard both in appearance, taste, vitamin content and protein content. It could be rapidly made if sufficient sugar were available for the purpose. A source of nitrogen is equally necessary: the supply of this does not offer the same difficulties, since inorganic nitrogen, either in the form of sulphate of ammonia, or ammonia gas, is abundantly available, and can be transported fairly easily. The main difficulty is providing large supplies of sugar. The planning for large‐scale production of food yeast requires the selection of a locality in which there would be comparatively easy access to a cheap supply of the required sugar. Such places were West Indies, Middle East, India, Canada and Newfoundland. The selection of a suitable and palatable yeast which gave high yields from sugar was fairly easily accomplished, for several such types were already known. Food yeast made at a pilot plant in Teddington consisted of a light straw coloured flaky powder with a pleasant nutty or meaty taste. It had a protein content of 40 and 45 per cent., and the whole range of B vitamins in balanced proportions. Food yeast was readily miscible with water and it could be incorporated into flour to make a loaf or biscuit. In human nutrition food yeast has been tried by a number of workers both as a source of protein and as a potent supply of B vitamins. Full reports of all this work are not yet available, but it is known that food yeast has been beneficial in many cases. Supplies have now been despatched to various Colonial countries, where such deficiencies are frequently met with. It has also been sent to two liberated European countries. Reports on its effect will no doubt in due course become available. With the experience gained at the Teddington pilot plant it was decided to draw up a scheme for the large‐scale manufacture of food yeast in a part of the Colonial Empire where raw materials in the form of sugar or molasses would be available throughout the year. Jamaica was chosen as a suitable place, and the local association of Sugar Growers was invited to select one of their members to carry out the scheme. This association chose the West Indies Sugar Company and to their engineers fell the arduous task of designing a plant. This work has now been completed and the machinery needed has been made and despatched. It is hoped that actual operations will start in the summer of this year with a daily output of 12 tons of food yeast. In addition to this scheme, sponsored by the Colonial Office, the Indian Central Government have decided to construct a food yeast plant in India. The South African Government have taken preliminary steps in the same direction within its domains, and both the Australian and the New Zealand Governments are similarly engaged.

Intellectual capital creation is theorised in this conceptual paper as a dynamic process of collective knowing that is capable of being leveraged into market value. The tacit, intangible and socially unconscious nature of substantive parts of this dynamic process presents some daunting theoretical challenges. Adopting a broadly social constructionist epistemology and a pluralist ontology, the point of departure introduced here is the set of symmetric and reciprocal relations presupposed in Jürgen Habermas’ theory of communicative action. In this worldview, interaction, as distinct from individual action, becomes the germ‐cell or basic unit of theoretical analysis. The relations and validity claims built into the medium of communicative action, viewed here as the nexus of intellectual capital creation, are substantive and real phenomena; they are thus open to empirical investigation.