Pattern of earlobe attachment among the Ika ethnic group in Delta State, Nigeria

Objective: The aim of this study is investigating the distribution of earlobe attachment among the Ika ethnic group, in Delta State, Nigeria. Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted in Ika speaking communities in Delta State, Nigeria. The sample consists of 384 subjects (192 males and 192 females) and the participants were categorized in accordance of sexual category with age ranges from 18 to 60 years. Data was collected by visual observation and the data obtained was analyzed with the aid of Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) Version 21.0. A p-value less than 0.05 was considered as statistically significant. Results: The males portrayed the highest frequency distribution of attached earlobe while the females showed more of free earlobe. There is no significant gender difference in the pattern of earlobe attachment (p =.46). Free earlobe manifested among the 39-48years age range with the highest frequency distribution and the least by age interval within 59years and above. The attached earlobe displayed age differences in distribution with the highest frequency from 49-58 age range and the least by age range 59years and above. There is a remarkable age variation in earlobe attachment (p =.001). Conclusion: The attached earlobe is more predominant than the free or unattached earlobe among the Ikas in Delta State, Nigeria. The association between age and pattern of earlobe attachment is significant and there is no significant gender variation in the pattern of earlobe attachment.

Vanilla democracy: Sexuality, parenthood, and kinship in Greece

This article analyzes how parenthood gets established as a defined sexual category predicated on the exclusion of imagined deviance. Examining the Greek state's policies on reproduction, public discourses over non-heterosexual kinship, and the LGBT movement’s claims for the institutional recognition of same-sex parenthood, I analyze the circulation of sexual concepts and ideas through the cultural notion of parenthood, their imbrication with policies on family and reproduction, and their connection to broader national, political, and reproductive imaginaries. Through a careful reading of the “Greek case,” a nation where same-sex couples can now enter a civil partnership, but who nevertheless lack any legal recognition of same-sex parenting, I argue that political attachments to parenthood have implications for understanding other forms of institutionalized reproduction, including the academic re/production of scholarship on kinship and sexuality, labor law, and the reproduction of state authority.

Mobilizing Genre

This chapter considers the sexuality effects of a film released on the cusp of the transition to sound and which redeploys the codes of a nearly exhausted genre, the flapper film. While several scholars have read The Wild Party (dir. Dorothy Arzner, Paramount Lasky, 1929) in terms of its lesbian subtext, a mode of interpretation shaped by a representational regime that postdates the film’s release, this chapter traces how the visual erotics mobilized across the entire film render such scenes sexually legible. “Mobilizing Genre” argues that the site through which lesbian possibilities are paradoxically screened—that is, both projected and hidden from view—is the sexualized and kinetic body of the feminine flapper. In failing to anchor same-sex desire definitively to any one sexual category, The Wild Party’s sexual kinesthetics demonstrate the centrality of same-sex desire to female spectatorship in Hollywood cinema, and its intimate and productive relation to new erotic discourses of both homo- and heterosexuality.

Lipid profile and cholesterol of pork with the use of glycerin in feeding

The aim of this work was to evaluate the effects of adding different levels of glycerin in the feeding on the lipid profile and cholesterol of the meat of finishing pigs. The experiment was arranged in a completely randomized design (CRD) with factorial 5x2, being five levels of glycerin in the diet and two genders. Sixty (60) swine of the Topigs genetics (30 barrows and 30 gilts) were used; they presented initial average weight of 79.3+4.0kg and were finished with the weight of 106.2+4.5kg. The levels of glycerin utilized were 0, 50, 100, 150 and 200g/kg in the natural matter. The analyses of lipid and cholesterol profile were conducted in the muscles longissimus dorsi(loin) andsemimembranosus (ham) on the left side of the carcasses. Interaction occurred between the levels of crude glycerin in the diet and the sexual category for the profile of fatty acids and cholesterol. On the loin the meat of the barrows presented higher means of C16:0, C16:1, C20:3ω3, C18:1ω9c, Total of saturated (SFA) and monounsaturated (MUFA) fatty acids. On the ham, increased means were found for the fatty acids C18:1ω9c, MUFA, activity of ∆9-desaturaseC18 and ElongaseC16-18in barrows. The sows' meat presented higher proportions of polyunsaturated fatty acids and of the series ω6 for both the cuts. The amount of cholesterol in the sows' meat presented increase according to the level of glycerin in the meat. The barrows' meat presented indices of atherogenicity greater than the gilts. The levels of glycerin altered the lipid profile and cholesterol content according to the sexual category, promoting a distinct effect on the loin and ham.

“But I’m attracted to women”

This paper examines the understudied and stigmatized sexual category of “bisexuality” as it emerges in the discourse of bisexuals at a California university. Building on the concepts of performance and “doing” identity presented by Butler (2006 [1990]), Goffman (1990 [1959]), and West and Zimmerman (1987), an outline is offered for how bisexuals, who are made invisible by the hetero/homo binary, may build an intelligible social performance of their identity and sexuality. Utilizing methods from within sociocultural linguistics (i.e., “the broad interdisciplinary field concerned with the intersection of language, culture, and society” [Bucholtz & Hall 2005: 586]), this paper uses ethnographic observations and video-recorded social interaction in order to analyze how bisexuality is performed in social contexts, with a focus on its performance in discourse. The paper closes with a critique of the ways that normativity operates alongside efforts at social resistance and an exploration of the relationship between different layers of sexuality.

PENGGUNAAN PROTOZOA SARCOCYSTIS SINGAPORENSIS (APICOMPLEXA: SARCOCYSTIDAE) UNTUK PENGENDALIAN TIKUS SAWAH RATTUS ARGENTIVENTER

The use of protozoan Sarcocystis singaporensis (Apicomplexa: Sarcocystidae) for control rice field rat Rattus argentiventer. Rats are still a number-one-pest in field rice of various areas in Indonesia. Biological control using microparasite Sarcocystis singaporensis (Apicomplexa: Sarcocystidae) is a highly host-specific protozoan for controlling the rats. The objective of this research was to study the use of protozoa parasite S. singaporensis against rodent pest Rattus argentiventer. The design of experiment was Factorial Randomized Complete Design with ten treatments and four replications. The first factor was sporocyt doses of S. singaporensis (control; 1 x 105; 2 x 105; 3 x 105; 4 x 105), while the second factor was rats sexual category (male and female). The results showed that dose of sporocysts S. singaporensis was significantly different but rats’ sexual category has no effect on the treatments. The highest mortalities was on dose 4 x 105 (100%) at 12.08 days, food consumption decreased two to four days before rats died, weight of rats decreased because of the infection of S. singaporensis.