Does the taste matter? Taste and medicinal perceptions associated with five selected herbal drugs among three ethnic groups in West Yorkshire, Northern England

In recent years, diverse scholars have addressed the issue of the chemosensory perceptions associated with traditional medicines, nevertheless there is still a distinct lack of studies grounded in the social sciences and conducted from a cross-cultural, comparative perspective. In this urban ethnobotanical field study, 254 informants belonging to the Gujarati, Kashmiri and English ethnic groups and living in Western Yorkshire in Northern England were interviewed about the relationship between taste and medicinal perceptions of five herbal drugs, which were selected during a preliminary study. The herbal drugs included cinnamon (the dried bark of Cinnamomum verum, Lauraceae), mint (the leaves of Mentha spp., Lamiaceae), garlic (the bulbs of Allium sativum, Alliaceae), ginger (the rhizome of Zingiber officinale, Zingiberaceae), and cloves (the dried flower buds of Syzygium aromaticum, Myrtaceae). The main cross-cultural differences in taste perceptions regarded the perception the perception of the spicy taste of ginger, garlic, and cinnamon, of the bitter taste of ginger, the sweet taste of mint, and of the sour taste of garlic. The part of the study of how the five selected herbal drugs are perceived medicinally showed that TK (Traditional Knowledge) is widespread among Kashmiris, but not so prevalent among the Gujarati and especially the English samples. Among Kashmiris, ginger was frequently considered to be helpful for healing infections and muscular-skeletal and digestive disorders, mint was chosen for healing digestive and respiratory troubles, garlic for blood system disorders, and cinnamon was perceived to be efficacious for infectious diseases. Among the Gujarati and Kashmiri groups there was evidence of a strong link between the bitter and spicy tastes of ginger, garlic, cloves, and cinnamon and their perceived medicinal properties, whereas there was a far less obvious link between the sweet taste of mint and cinnamon and their perceived medicinal properties, although the link did exist among some members of the Gujarati group. Data presented in this study show how that links between taste perceptions and medicinal uses of herbal drugs may be understood as bio-cultural phenomena rooted in human physiology, but also constructed through individual experiences and culture, and that these links can therefore be quite different across diverse cultures

Optimized 3D Segmentation Algorithm for Shelly Sand Images

There is much to be gained from analysing and studying calcareous sediment, with applications ranging from the study of climate change, rock dating, and even building offshore oil rigs and wind farms. One way of performing this analysis is to obtain a µCT scan of the sediment, allowing scientists and engineers to automate much of their analysis using software. Many existing and prospective analysis techniques require handling individual grains. Thus, fast and effective segmentation is an essential first step for any such analysis. Segmentation is non-trivial; these scans hold a lot of information, exhibit ambiguous boundaries between objects, and many objects are hollow, making it even more difficult to apply traditional watershed segmentation. Addressing these issues, in this paper we propose an optimized 3D segmentation (O3DS) algorithm based on watersheds. We make use of branch recursion, partition the image by height prior to segmentation, artificially reducing the size of the largest connected objects. These and additional changes are extremely effective in optimizing performance; O3DS reduces the time to segment a 659x925x932 scan of sediment by 95.4% and produces better or comparable results when compared to similar implementation by our co-author

Phylobioactive hotspots in plant resources used to treat Chagas disease

Globally, more than six million people are infected with Trypanosoma cruzi, the causative protozoan parasite of the vector-borne Chagas disease (CD). We conducted a cross-sectional ethnopharmacological field study in Bolivia among different ethnic groups where CD is hyperendemic. A total of 775 extracts of botanical drugs used in Bolivia in the context of CD and botanical drugs from unrelated indications from the Mediterranean De Materia Medica compiled by Dioscorides two thousand years ago were profiled in a multidimensional assay uncovering different antichagasic natural product classes. Intriguingly, the phylobioactive anthraquinone hotspot matched the antichagasic activity of Senna chloroclada, the taxon with the strongest ethnomedical consensus for treating CD among the Izoceño-Guaraní. Testing common 9,10-anthracenedione derivatives in T. cruzi cellular infection assays demarcates hydroxyanthraquinone as a potential antichagasic lead scaffold. Our study systematically uncovers in vitro antichagasic phylogenetic hotspots in the plant kingdom as a potential resource for drug discovery based on ethnopharmacological hypotheses

Evidence for the absence of regularization corrections to the partial-wave renormalization procedure in one-loop self energy calculations in external fields

The equivalence of the covariant renormalization and the partial-wave renormaliz ation (PWR) approach is proven explicitly for the one-loop self-energy correction (SE) of a bound electron state in the presence of external perturbation potentials. No spurious correctio n terms to the noncovariant PWR scheme are generated for Coulomb-type screening potentia ls and for external magnetic fields. It is shown that in numerical calculations of the SE with Coulombic perturbation potential spurious terms result from an improper treatment of the unphysical high-energy contribution. A method for performing the PWR utilizing the relativistic B-spline approach for the construction of the Dirac spectrum in external magnetic fields is proposed. This method is applied for calculating QED corrections to the bound-electron $g$-factor in H-like ions. Within the level of accuracy of about 0.1% no spurious terms are generated in numerical calculations of the SE in magnetic fields.Comment: 22 pages, LaTeX, 1 figur

The Standard Model in Strong Fields: Electroweak Radiative Corrections for Highly Charged Ions

Electroweak radiative corrections to the matrix elements $<ns_{1/2}|{\hat H}_{PNC}|n'p_{1/2}>$ are calculated for highly charged hydrogenlike ions. These matrix elements constitute the basis for the description of the most parity nonconserving (PNC) processes in atomic physics. The operator ${\hat H}_{PNC}$ represents the parity nonconserving relativistic effective atomic Hamiltonian at the tree level. The deviation of these calculations from the calculations valid for the momentum transfer $q^{2}=0$ demonstrates the effect of the strong field, characterized by the momentum transfer $q^{2}=m_{e}^{2}$ ($m_{e}$ is the electron mass). This allows for a test of the Standard Model in the presence of strong fields in experiments with highly charged ions.Comment: 27 LaTex page

The second-order electron self-energy in hydrogen-like ions

A calculation of the simplest part of the second-order electron self-energy (loop after loop irreducible contribution) for hydrogen-like ions with nuclear charge numbers $3 \leq Z \leq 92$ is presented. This serves as a test for the more complicated second-order self-energy parts (loop inside loop and crossed loop contributions) for heavy one-electron ions. Our results are in strong disagreement with recent calculations of Mallampalli and Sapirstein for low $Z$ values but are compatible with the two known terms of the analytical $Z\alpha$-expansion.Comment: 13 LaTex pages, 2 figure

Best Practice in Research: Consensus Statement on Ethnopharmacological Field Studies - ConSEFS

BACKGROUND: Ethnopharmacological research aims at gathering information on local and traditional uses of plants and other natural substances. However, the approaches used and the methods employed vary, and while such a variability is desirable in terms of scientific diversity, research must adhere to well defined quality standards and reproducible methods OBJECTIVES: With ConSEFS (the Consensus Statement on Ethnopharmacological Field Studies) we want to define best-practice in developing, conducting and reporting field studies focusing on local and traditional uses of medicinal and food plants, including studies using a historical approach. METHODS: After first developing an initial draft the core group invited community-wide feedback from researchers both through a web-based consultation and a series of workshops at conferences during 2017. OUTCOMES: The consultation resulted in a large number of responses. Feedback was received via a weblink on the Journal of Ethnopharmacology's website (ca. 100 responses), other oral and written responses (ca. 50) and discussions with stakeholders at four conferences. The main outcome is a checklist, covering best practice for designing, implementing and recording ethnopharmacological field studies and historical studies. CONCLUSIONS: Prior to starting ethnopharmacological field research, it is essential that the authors are fully aware of the best practice in the field. For the first time in the field of ethnopharmacology a community-wide document defines guidelines for best practice on how to conduct and report such studies. It will need to be updated and further developed. While the feedback has been based on responses by many experienced researchers, there is a need to test it in practice by using it both in implementing and reporting field studies (or historical studies), and peer-review

The importance of chemosensory clues in Aguaruna tree classification and identification

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The ethnobotanical literature still contains few detailed descriptions of the sensory criteria people use for judging membership in taxonomic categories. Olfactory criteria in particular have been explored very little. This paper will describe the importance of odor for woody plant taxonomy and identification among the Aguaruna Jívaro of the northern Peruvian Amazon, focusing on the Aguaruna category <b><it>númi </it></b>(trees excluding palms). Aguaruna informants almost always place trees that they consider to have a similar odor together as <b><it>kumpají </it></b>– 'companions,' a metaphor they use to describe trees that they consider to be related.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>The research took place in several Aguaruna communities in the upper Marañón region of the Peruvian Amazon. Structured interview data focus on informant criteria for membership in various folk taxa of trees. Informants were also asked to explain what members of each group of related companions had in common. This paper focuses on odor and taste criteria that came to light during these structured interviews. Botanical voucher specimens were collected, wherever possible.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Of the 182 tree folk genera recorded in this study, 51 (28%) were widely considered to possess a distinctive odor. Thirty nine of those (76%) were said to have odors similar to some other tree, while the other 24% had unique odors. Aguaruna informants very rarely described tree odors in non-botanical terms. Taste was used mostly to describe trees with edible fruits. Trees judged to be related were nearly always in the same botanical family.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The results of this study illustrate that odor of bark, sap, flowers, fruit and leaves are important clues that help the Aguaruna to judge the relatedness of trees found in their local environment. In contrast, taste appears to play a more limited role. The results suggest a more general ethnobotanical hypothesis that could be tested in other cultural settings: people tend to consider plants with similar odors to be related, but say that plants with unique odors are unrelated to any other plants.</p

Comparison of 2D Optical Imaging and 3D Microtomography Shape Measurements of a Coastal Bioclastic Calcareous Sand

This article compares measurements of particle shape parameters from three-dimensional (3D) X-ray micro-computed tomography (μCT) and two-dimensional (2D) dynamic image analysis (DIA) from the optical microscopy of a coastal bioclastic calcareous sand from Western Australia. This biogenic sand from a high energy environment consists largely of the shells and tests of marine organisms and their clasts. A significant difference was observed between the two imaging techniques for measurements of aspect ratio, convexity, and sphericity. Measured values of aspect ratio, sphericity, and convexity are larger in 2D than in 3D. Correlation analysis indicates that sphericity is correlated with convexity in both 2D and 3D. These results are attributed to inherent limitations of DIA when applied to platy sand grains and to the shape being, in part, dependent on the biology of the grain rather than a purely random clastic process, like typical siliceous sands. The statistical data has also been fitted to Johnson Bounded Distribution for the ease of future use. Overall, this research demonstrates the need for high-quality 3D microscopy when conducting a micromechanical analysis of biogenic calcareous sand

Comparison of some chemical parameters of a naturally debittered olive (Olea europaea L.) type with regular olive varieties

Some olives grown in Karaburun peninsula in the west part of Turkey and mostly coming from Erkence variety lose their bitterness while still on the tree and are called Hurma among locals. This olive type does not require further processing to remove the bitter compounds. In this study, sugar, organic acid and fatty acid profiles of Hurma, Erkence (not naturally debittered) and Gemlik (commonly consumed as table olive) olives were determined throughout 8 weeks of maturation period for two consecutive harvest seasons, and the results were analysed by principal component analysis (PCA). PCA of sugar and organic acid data revealed a differentiation in terms of harvest year but not on variety. Hurma olive is separated from others due to its fatty acid profile, and it has higher linoleic acid content compared to others. This might be an indication of increased desaturase enzyme activity for Hurma olives during natural debittering phase.TUBITAK (TOVAG-110O780