Can family structure and contact with natural resources influence young people's knowledge about medicinal plants? An approach in the Northeast of Brazil.

BACKGROUND: Individuals develop crucial survival knowledge in the juvenile phase, including understanding medicinal plants. The family context or contact with resources can influence this dynamic knowledge. By investigating the influence of these factors on young people's understanding of medicinal plants, we aimed to enhance our understanding of the knowledge-building process. METHODS: The study was conducted in three communities in the State of Alagoas, Brazil: Lagoa do Junco, Serrote do Amparo, and Brivaldo de Medeiros. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with young people aged between 11 and 19 to assess their knowledge of medicinal plants. We used a generalized linear mixed model (GLMM) with the number of therapeutic targets and known medicinal species (knowledge proxy) as response variables. As predictors, we included the number of individuals per family unit and the gender distribution within the famimunícpily (family context proxy), as well as dependence on the use (contact proxy). Location (city) was added as a fixed effect to the model. We investigated how knowledge of medicinal plants correlates with the practice of collecting these species. RESULTS: We did not identify a relationship between the number of individuals per household, gender distribution within the family, and the frequency of medicinal plant use with knowledge about these species. However, we observed a positive, albeit weak, correlation between knowledge of medicinal species and the number of species collected. CONCLUSION: These results highlight the importance of investigating how young people acquire knowledge about medicinal plants, emphasizing the complex interactions between humans and nature, and providing a basis for future research.

Global citizenship identity mediates the relationship of knowledge, cognitive, and socio-emotional skills with engagement towards global issues.

The UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) provide a unified framework to address interconnected global issues, emphasizing the need for collective action across all sectors of society to achieve a sustainable future for all. In this paper, we empirically investigate how knowledge (awareness of global issues), cognitive skills (critical inquiry), and socio-emotional skills (cognitive empathy) relate to engagement towards global issues, and whether global citizenship identification mediates these relationships. Mediation analysis of data from 249 participants revealed that both awareness of global issues and cognitive empathy directly predict higher engagement levels. In contrast, no direct effect of critical inquiry was observed. Global citizenship identification significantly mediated the relationships between all three predictors and engagement: accounting for 70.7% of the effect of critical inquiry, 39.9% of the effect of awareness, and 33.6% of the effect of cognitive empathy. Our findings highlight that global citizenship identification plays a crucial role in translating knowledge and skills into active engagement. The results highlight the potential effectiveness of identity-based interventions in fostering more engaged communities and advancing efforts toward achieving the SDGs.

Traditional ethnobotanical knowledge of important local plants in Sudhnoti, Azad Kashmir, Pakistan.

This research purpose was focused to document the traditional ethnobotanical knowledge (TEK) associated with important wild plants and indigenous communities residing in mountainous zone of District Sudhnoti of Azad Jammu and Kashmir, Pakistan and to determine their conservation status with suggestions and recommendations to protect and propagate the rare and endangered wild flora of the area for sustainable use. The data regarding traditional ethnomedicines (TEMs) and phytogeography with conservation analysis of wild plants were collected via structured and semi structured interviews of 150 participants belonging to various professions and of both genders. Prior consent and permission were obtained from family heads and from all the participants, and the data were shared with all the informants through the local female translator guide. To validate the collected data, various microstatistical tools, such as the informant consensus factor (ICF), fidelity level (FL) and data matrix ranking (DMR) were used. The relative frequency of citations (RFC) and rank order of popularity (ROP) were also calculated to determine and authenticate the relative importance of TEMs which may be further studied in future research and used for drug discovery. In the present study, 150 locally important plants belonging to 69 families were documented, and the Rosaceae was the most dominant and prevalent family. The results indicated that many locally important plants have multiple uses such as food, medicine, fodder, shelter, ornamental and fuel. The TEMs obtained from these plants have been known to be useful for curing various infirmities such as flu, renal disorders, fever, malaria, cough, migraine, whooping cough, influenza, skin rashes, allergies, stomach aches, wounds and bruises, diabetes, tumours and joint pains. The ICF analysis revealed that renal calculus, malaria, fever, whooping cough, rheumatoid arthritis and arthritis were prevalent infirmities of the mountainous area. The FL analysis indicated the popularity of these plants used in various TEMs and among these Artemisia maritima and Berberis lycium were the most common. The DMR indicated that Pinus roxburghii was the most common species being used for multipurpose by the indigenous communities. The highest use value index was found for Indigofera linifolia. The relative frequency of citations was calculated to determine the importance of plants in traditional ethnomedicine, highlighting Morus nigra, Pinus wallichiana, and Rosa indica as significant species. The Jaccard index indicated a high level of novelty in the research which can be exploited for neo-drug discovery and drug development. In conclusion, this study has successfully documented the ethnobotanically and ethnomedicinally important plants in District Sudhnoti, Azad Jammu and Kashmir, Pakistan. The findings of this research contribute to the preservation and documentation of cultural heritage, as well as provide a foundation for further studies in ethnobotany, ethnopharmacology and biodiversity conservation efforts for sustainable provision of wild flora to the indigenous communities which will also assist in combating drasting climatic changes.

An epistemology of empathy and modern methods of social research: Intimations of the mind and early Chicago sociology.

Empathic qualitative methods have become emblematic of early Chicago sociology. Yet methods were not formalized through the early 20th century and empathy was not in usage as a term. Only at mid-20th century did methodological formalization in sociology begin to occur, and an additional quarter-century passed before writing about empathy in sociological methods began to crystallize. Nevertheless, a portion of early Chicago sociologists, assimilating pragmatist thought, established a framework for the deployment of empathic acumen. Because empathy involves understanding others, it is argued that it is central to the study of social life. The article contends that understanding empathy must be as central to the social scientist's knowledge as it is to the effective deployment of research methods: a competent quest to generate knowledge about social life is premised on empathy. To heighten awareness of empathy, an epistemology is necessary. To this end, the article examines empathy as situated by a set of organizational and historical conditions that account for its origin and ascendance as a prescriptive characteristic of sociological work. The author draws attention to the significance of suffering and suggests that its religious precepts are transmuted for the conditions under which sociology develops in turn-of-the-century Chicago.

Revolutionizing pharmaceutical innovation: Unveiling the impact of endogenous knowledge spillover in China.

Modern medical technology innovation is a critical safeguard for human health, while a significant number of developing nations are confronted with the challenge of biopharmaceutical technological advancement. To investigate the possible routes of technological advancement, we investigated the impact of the endogenous knowledge spillover effect on firm innovation endeavors. Our research involves a theoretical two-stage R&D game model that is built around the characteristics of pharmaceutical organizations. Theoretical studies elucidated the impact as well as the probable mechanism of the spillover effect. To verify the theoretical study, we conducted econometric analysis using data from the pharmaceutical sector of Chinese enterprise listed on the A-share market. The study's findings indicate that endogenous knowledge spillovers impede organizations' innovation endeavors. This phenomenon may be attributed to the existence of the patent race paradigm and high concentration of enterprises' R&D endeavors in specific areas. Additional examination of heterogeneity demonstrates that private firms, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), and non-high-tech enterprises experience a larger adverse impact from the spillover effect. Hence, we suggest implementing "loser's subsidies", reallocating R&D resources, and making modifications to competition policies as measures to enhance the innovation performance of biopharmaceutical markets. These policies will facilitate the technical advancement of medicines in developing nations.

[Constructing an indexing template for ancient acupuncture medical cases based on knowledge element theory].

Ancient acupuncture medical cases not only possess historical literary value but also hold significant clinical importance. To enhance the utilization of ancient acupuncture medical cases and to guide the excavation of acupuncture theory and its clinical application, this study constructs an indexing template for "Ancient Acupuncture Medical Cases" based on the knowledge element theory and the fine-grained indexing requirements of ancient acupuncture texts. This template includes two levels, 7 categories, 28 knowledge element data, 31 semantic types, and 15 semantic relationships. These element data construct the interconnections of knowledge in ancient acupuncture medical cases, serving as a basis for fine-grained indexing of acupuncture medical case literature.

Narratives of contingency and practices of comparing in the emergence of German molecular genetics (1958-1968).

This article explores the emergence of molecular approaches in German genetic research during the 1958-1968 decade as a period of contingency and alternative possibilities. We introduce "Narratives of Contingency" as an analytical framework to examine how scientists construct a specific narrative - linking past experiences with expectations of future conditions - in order to outline and navigate pathway-decisions in the present. We apply this framework to Hans-Jörg Rheinberger's developmental model of molecular genetics and illustrate how the stages he identifies - the direction of the field, institutional developments, and epistemological demarcations - were already central themes in the comparative practices underlying narratives of contingency in this early period. Narratives of contingency can thus serve as a systematic framework for analyzing the processes through which new scientific fields, institutions, and epistemic horizons emerge, and possibly also for identifying historically plausible fork moments or alternative pathways not taken.

Diversity of ethnomycological knowledge and mushroom foraging culture in a small nation: case of Lithuania.

BACKGROUND: Even in mycophilic nations, mushroom foraging and use traditions may vary from region to region, making it part of cultural diversity and a source of traditional knowledge even in modern and changing societies. The main objective of our study was to investigate mushroom foraging and use traditions in major ethno-regions of Lithuania, to record and analyse whether and how biogeographical and ethno-cultural features influence these traditions, what is their biocultural significance, and whether they persist in the face of societal and environmental change. METHODS: The study conducted a survey among 106 respondents from eleven administrative units of Lithuania, representing four ethno-regions (Zemaitija, Suvalkija, Dzukija and Aukstaitija, the latter divided into North and East). The age of the respondents ranged from 32 to 97 years (mean 70 years, median 68 years). Each respondent was asked six questions about mushroom species and mushroom foraging. The interviews were accompanied by 50 photographs of different mushroom species. The similarity between mushroom foragers' preferences in ethno-regions and the sets of mushroom species used for food and medicine was tested using cluster analysis. Clustering was carried out using Sørensen distances and the method of cluster mean linkage method. RESULTS: The number of mushroom species recognised per respondent was quite similar, with the lowest number of mushroom species recognised in Zemaitija and the highest in Eastern Aukstaitija. Species of no economic or other importance were not well recognised in any of the regions. The number of names applied to mushroom species varied from region to region and did not coincide with the popularity of mushrooms among mushroom pickers. The number of mushroom species used for food was also similar between regions, except for Dzukija, which had the lowest number of species collected. Nine mushroom species were identified by respondents as medicinal mushrooms, the most popular being Amanita muscaria and Inonotus obliquus. When analysing the similarity of mushroom species collected for food and medicine, it was found that ethno-regions clustered into three distinct groups. Two groups depended on the prevailing forest types, while Zemaitija formed a separate cluster defined only by local traditions. CONCLUSIONS: The work represents the largest study of ethnomycological tradition in Lithuania, covering major ethno-regions. We have found that ethnomycological knowledge and tradition are not influenced by any long-term historical events, ethnicity or religion, but rather by the prevailing forest types and regional ethno-culture. Knowledge of edible mushrooms is considered to be inherited from the older generation and is conservative regarding the changes in the set of species consumed and mushroom-related gastronomy. This is also reflected in the safety of mushroom consumption, as mushroom poisoning was very rare among the respondents. Economically insignificant mushrooms are not distinguished and overlooked by traditional mushroom pickers who are not a good source of information on rare or otherwise noteworthy species. However, from a biocultural point of view, mushrooms and mushroom-related traditions remain important for linguistic diversity, traditional knowledge systems and their transmission.

Tracing gender variation in traditional knowledge: participatory tools to promote conservation in a Quilombola community in Brazil.

BACKGROUND: Based on participatory research tools and analysis with a gender focus, we aim to identify the knowledge associated with native plants of the Atlantic Forest in one Quilombola community whose territory is juxtaposed with a protected area, in South Brazil. METHODS: Through the perception of the residents of the Quilombola community of São Roque, we classified the availability, harvesting intensity, abundance, and importance of fourteen plants native to the Atlantic Forest found in their territory. These fourteen plants were selected after initial interviews with a free listing of plants done with all adults (44 people), followed by plant collection and identification. A participatory workshop was built with the community to collect data through three activities: four-cell tool, environment matrix, and importance matrix. To identify the gender nuances in the knowledge within this community, all activities were separated into two groups based on the gender of the 22 participants (9 women and 13 men) and the researchers. RESULTS: The species Pau-pra-tudo (Picrasma crenata), Quina (Coutarea hexandra), and Cipó-milome (Aristolochia triangularis) were similarly classified as important by both groups, which indicates the cultural and environmental relevance associated with them regardless of gender. The perceptions of other species were expressed differently between the groups, showing the variance of the ecological knowledge and the relationship between the sociocultural contexts of gender and the knowledge manifested. The final part of the workshop was a lecture given by two community experts about herbal medicines based on forest species found in the territory. CONCLUSIONS: Based on the multiple forms of results recorded in the workshop, we discuss the demand for inclusion of the traditional community in land management plans of environmental agencies, highlighting how individual characteristics, such as gender, can fill gaps in data about local biodiversity.

A Conceptual Map of Knowledge Transfer in Occupational Therapy Clinical Practice in Central South Africa.

Introduction: Empirical evidence has confirmed that all types of knowledge (propositional, procedural, personal, and client) contribute to evidence-based practice (EBP) and should be transferred in clinical practice to inform quality service delivery. However, it is unclear how the integration of the types of knowledge that are transferred in clinical practice manifests. Given this gap in understanding, the current research sought to build a conceptual map of knowledge transfer in clinical practice in central South Africa. Method: A qualitative approach was followed, and data to build the conceptual map was obtained from a scoping review that explored the landscape of knowledge transfer in occupational therapy clinical practice, nine semistructured interviews with occupational therapists working in central South Africa, and a Q Method survey. Results: The conceptual map-building process delivered a multidimensional, multidirectional conceptual map consisting of four concepts (theory and research, practice experience, patient-therapist relationship, and patient's voice in clinical practice) and four types of knowledge (propositional, procedural, personal, and client). The results show the integration of the types of knowledge and confirm that knowledge transfer in clinical practice is a complex and ongoing process. Conclusion: The conceptual map, a first of its kind in South Africa, presents empirical evidence of knowledge that is created and transferred in clinical practice in central South Africa. The conceptual map might provide a framework for collaboration amongst all stakeholders, such as patients, occupational therapists, and academics, to produce practice guidelines and occupational outcome measures to support evidence-based clinical practice.

Nanhai Jigui Neifa Zhuan: exploration of and research on hygiene, medicine and health care knowledge in ancient India.

BACKGROUND: The famous Tang Dynasty monk Yi Jing travelled to ancient India in 671 AD, visited more than 30 regions and returned to China in 695 AD. He wrote Nanhai Jigui Neifa Zhuan, which he completed in 691 AD. It describes the basic rules, namely 'Inner Dharma' (Neifa,) that Buddhist sites and monks should follow in their daily lives. Additionally, the author provided an overview of ancient Indian Buddhist medicine, covering aetiology, diagnosis, medication, acupuncture, health preservation and other aspects, which exhibited distinct characteristics. METHODS: This article first delves into the original text of Nanhai Jigui Neifa Zhuan by reading it thoroughly and extracts core chapters related to hygiene, medicine and health care. Later, the extracted information is meticulously classified and organised. Lastly, through a systematic literature review, keywords search, data screening and comparative analysis, an in-depth and comprehensive exploration and analysis of Nanhai Jigui Neifa Zhuan is conducted within the domains of hygiene, medicine and health care. RESULTS: Nanhai Jigui Neifa Zhuan emphasizes the importance of personal hygiene for ancient Indian monks and introduces the basic theories of ancient Indian medicine. It compares ancient Indian and Chinese medicinal materials, highlighting their respective roles in treating different diseases. Furthermore, it briefly discusses the storage and processing of ancient Indian medicinal materials, poisoning and toxicology, and ancient Indian health preservation ideologies. CONCLUSION: A comprehensive and in-depth study of traditional ancient Indian medicine, including Buddhist medicine and Ayurveda, and its application in the religious environment and communities of the Tang Dynasty (618-907 AD) aids in understanding the treatment methods and health practices of ancient Indian medicine. Additionally, it facilitates a deeper understanding of the similarities, differences and exchange between Chinese and Indian medicine, thereby opening up new horizons for future research.

Disentangling the roles of age and knowledge in early language acquisition: A fine-grained analysis of the vocabularies of infant and child language learners.

The words that children learn change over time in predictable ways. The first words that infants acquire are generally ones that are both frequent and highly imageable. Older infants also learn words that are more abstract and some that are less common. It is unclear whether this pattern is attributable to maturational factors (i.e., younger children lack sufficiently developed cognitive faculties needed to learn abstract words) or linguistic factors (i.e., younger children lack sufficient knowledge of their language to use grammatical or contextual cues needed to figure out the meaning of more abstract words). The present study explores this question by comparing vocabulary acquisition in 53 preschool-aged children (M = 51 months, range = 30-76 months) who were adopted from China and Eastern Europe after two and half years of age and 53 vocabulary-matched infant controls born and raised in English speaking families in North America (M = 24 months, range = 16-33 months). Vocabulary was assessed using the MB-CDI Words and Sentences form, word frequency was estimated from the CHILDES database, and imageability was measured using adult ratings of how easily words could be pictured mentally. Both groups were more likely to know words that were both highly frequent and imageable (resulting in an over-additive interaction). Knowledge of a word was also independently affected by the syntactic category that it belongs to. Adopted preschoolers' vocabulary was slightly less affected by imageability. These findings were replicated in a comparison with a larger sample of vocabulary-matched controls drawn from the MB-CDI norming study (M = 22 months, range = 16-30 months; 33 girls). These results suggest that the patterns of acquisition in children's early vocabulary are primarily driven by the accrual of linguistic knowledge, but that vocabulary may also be affected by differences in early life experiences or conceptual knowledge.

Local ecological knowledge and perception as a strategy in the management of ecosystem services.

In designing and implementing initiatives to conserve biodiversity and ensure the flow of ecosystem services, it is crucial to understand the perspectives of communities living near protected areas. Improving conservation efforts may depend on analyzing socio-ecological factors and their impact on Local Ecological Knowledge (LEK) and perceptions of ecosystem services. We employed participatory methodologies with 80 farmers from agrarian settlements adjacent to protected areas in the Cerrado biome, Brazil, we quantified LEK and assessed perceptions of ecosystem services using an adaptation of the Q-methodology. We collected data on thirteen socio-ecological variables, including age, gender, farm size, education, engagement with conservation initiatives, and interactions with protected areas and Legal Reserves. Using artificial intelligence in a Random Forest (RF) modelling approach, we identified the most influential variables on LEK and perceptions. Our findings demonstrate that engagement in nature conservation and restoration initiatives, along with the use of native areas (protected and managed areas) significantly influence LEK levels within the farmers' communities. Farmers with full participation, from conception to implementation and evaluation of the initiatives, had a significantly higher LEK level (28.5 ± 13.0) compared to farmers without participation in those initiatives (11.4 ± 5.9). Farmers who used the cerrado for leisure and education (28.2 ± 21.2) had significantly higher LEK levels compared to farmers who do not attend or use the cerrado areas (13.5 ± 8.9) and those using areas of native vegetation for cattle raising (12.8 ± 6.8). These results highlight that, in addition to farmers' participation in conservation and restoration initiatives, the sustainable use of natural areas is fundamental to strengthen their local knowledge of ecosystem functioning. Furthermore, we found that the type of agroecosystem present on farms strongly? shapes farmers' perceptions of ecosystem services. Farmers perceive different ecosystem services depending on land use, indicating the need for tailored interventions for the planning and management of conservation areas. Farmers practicing soybean monoculture had significantly lower perception scores on ecosystem services (-5.1 ± 3.8) than to the other four evaluated groups. Overall, the study highlights the critical role of incorporating local knowledge and perceptions for the design of effective management strategies to increase ecosystem services provision and biodiversity conservation in areas adjacent to protected areas.

Data-free knowledge distillation via generator-free data generation for Non-IID federated learning.

Data heterogeneity (Non-IID) on Federated Learning (FL) is currently a widely publicized problem, which leads to local model drift and performance degradation. Because of the advantage of knowledge distillation, it has been explored in some recent work to refine global models. However, these approaches rely on a proxy dataset or a data generator. First, in many FL scenarios, proxy dataset do not necessarily exist on the server. Second, the quality of data generated by the generator is unstable and the generator depends on the computing resources of the server. In this work, we propose a novel data-Free knowledge distillation approach via generator-Free Data Generation for Non-IID FL, dubbed as FedF2DG. Specifically, FedF2DG requires only local models to generate pseudo datasets for each client, and can generate hard samples by adding an additional regularization term that exploit disagreements between local model and global model. Meanwhile, FedF2DG enables flexible utilization of computational resources by generating pseudo dataset locally or on the server. And to address the label distribution shift in Non-IID FL, we propose a Data Generation Principle that can adaptively control the label distribution and number of pseudo dataset based on client current state, and this allows for the extraction of more client knowledge. Then knowledge distillation is performed to transfer the knowledge in local models to the global model. Extensive experiments demonstrate that our proposed method significantly outperforms the state-of-the-art FL methods and can serve as plugin for existing Federated Learning methds such as FedAvg, FedProx, etc, and improve their performance.

Individual differences in categorization development: The mediation of executive functions and factual knowledge, the case of food.

Cognitive mechanisms underpinning categorization development are still debated, either resulting from knowledge accretion or an increase in cognitive control. To disentangle the respective influence of accumulated factual knowledge and executive functions (inhibition, working memory, and cognitive flexibility) on (a) the development of categorization abilities in the food domain and (b) differences in this development by child characteristics (i.e., food neophobia), we conducted two experiments. The first experiment assessed 4-6-year-old children's (n = 122) ability to taxonomically categorize food at the superordinate level of categorization. The second experiment tested 3-6-year-old children's (n = 100) ability to cross-categorize the same food according to two different relationships alternatively (i.e., taxonomic and thematic). Results indicate that accumulated factual knowledge and executive functions mediated both the effect of age and the effect of food neophobia on categorization performance. Notably, the specific executive functions involved may vary depending on the categorization abilities tested, whereas world knowledge was always a prerequisite. Overall, this research highlights the complex interplay between accumulated factual knowledge, executive functions, and child characteristics in shaping the development of categorization abilities. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).