2editor's note-july-dec.2017.pmd


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FROM THE EDITOR

ISSN 0115-7809 Print/ISSN 2012-0818 Online

Irene M. V illaseñor, Ph.D.

                                                                         Editor-in-Chief

Welcome again to Science Diliman! In this second issue of Science Diliman for
2017, we present four articles and one short communication with rather diverse
topics. The layman’s abstracts will make the technical papers more comprehensible
to non-specialists.

In the f irst ar ticle, Engineers Tanguilig and Danao studied the aerodynamic
performance of a cut-out hollow pipe blade prof ile in small horizontal axis wind
turbines, which have the potential to replace conventional blades with aerofoil
prof iles. Initial results show poor aerodynamic characteristics, and improvements
thereof will be investigated again.

According to the website of the Department of Health, schistosomiasis, caused by
the Schistosoma japonicum, is still endemic in 12 regions, affecting about 12 million
Filipinos. The intermediate host of this parasitic fluke is a snail, which is the object
of morphometric and genetic studies by a group of doctors and biologists, with
Chua as principal author. Preliminary results show the presence of four haplotypes
of the snail.

The paper by Cabarrubias et al. shifts the topic from animals to plants, specif ically
hibiscus. The group of agricultural scientists characterized 57 hibiscus hybrid
progenies to select hybrids with unique morphological traits, such as the color and
size of flowers, among others. Another research on plants, specif ically herbal
products, was conducted by a group of chemists. The quality and safety of herbal
products are very impor tant, which make the research of De Vera et al. on trace
metal analysis timely. Results show that most herbal products they tested contained
trace metals that were below the maximum limits in herbal products. Another
paper on medicinal plants by Singson and Hernandez measured the ability of plants
to inhibit the activity of angiotensin-converting enzyme, which is one mechanism
to lower blood pressure.

Allow me to thank the authors and reviewers for their contributions in making
Science Diliman a CHED Journal Incubation Grant recipient for 2017-2019, on top
of being selected for coverage in the Web of Science Emerging Sources Citation

Index.