Analysis Of Traditional Knowledge Research Articles

Analysis of traditional knowledge in disaster prediction by text mining

Analysis of traditional knowledge in disaster prediction by text mining

Documentation and Consensus Analysis of Traditional Knowledge about Ethnoveterinary Medicinal Plants of Birbhum District, West Bengal (India)

Documentation and Consensus Analysis of Traditional Knowledge about Ethnoveterinary Medicinal Plants of Birbhum District, West Bengal (India)

Analysis of traditional knowledge about medicinal plants utilized in communities of Jirisan National Park (Korea)

Ethopharmaacological relevanceThe purpose of this study is to analyze and record traditional knowledge of medicinal plants utilized in communities of Jirisan National Park. Materials and methodsData was collected through participant observations and in-depth interviews with semi-structured questionnaires. Quantitative comparative analyses were accomplished through informant consensus factor (ICF), fidelity level (FL), and social network analysis (SNA). ResultsThe 1660 ethnomedicinal practices recorded from the communities were classified into 89 families, 215 genera, and 274 species. The representative families were Asteraceae (10.02%) followed by Fabaceae (8.7%), Araliaceae (7.2%), and Rosaceae (6.7%). On the whole, 34 kinds of plant-parts were used and prepared in 73 various ways by the people for medicinal purposes. The informant consensus factor (ICF) values in the ailment categories were physical pain (0.95), respiratory system disorders (0.91), veterinary ailments (0.90), nervous system disorders (0.89), and diabetes (0.88). In terms of fidelity levels, 48 plant species showed 100% of fidelities. The social network analysis (SNA) between ailments and the plant families within all communities of this study, most of plant families were located closer to the center of the network for the three ailments groups. Asteraceae, Poaceae, Fabaceae, Pinaceae and Rosaceae as depicted by the rectangular-shaped region, were positioned more closely within the center of the network figure and possess more versatility as a treatment for various ailments. ConclusionThe utilization of the social network analysis is used as a new tool for various interpretations to ethnomedicinal knowledge within a local community. Through this study, we are confident that the useful value of the social network analysis has been proven and the three dimensional relationships of these components will extend beyond the existing understanding of ethnomedicinal knowledge within local communities around the world.

Analysis of traditional knowledge in medicinal plants used by Yuan in Thailand

Ethnopharmacological relevanceWe studied traditional knowledge of medicinal plants use of the Yuan in northern Thailand, documenting and analysing traditional medical practices and its trend in the younger generations. Aim of the studyTo providing useful information for appropriate and sustainable management under the urbanization and other developments and use of natural resources in their communities. In addition, traditional medicinal plant used, and knowledge that leads to discovery of new medicines can be promoted. Materials and methodsTraditional medicinal plant knowledge of the Yuan in Lamphun province was studied from October 2009 through September 2011 in order to determine the important medicinal plant species and dominant use-categories in 5 villages. In each village, questionnaire interviews about medicinal plants uses were applied to 30 informants (5 informants per each of six stratified age groups). The relative importance of plant species was captured by calculation of use value (UV). Likewise, the dominant use-categories were determined by calculation of the informant agreement ratio (IAR). Correlations between informants’ age and number of medicinal plants known by them were determined with the coefficient of determination (R2). ResultsA total of 93 medicinal plant species in 82 genera and 49 families were recorded in the five villages. The most important species of medicinal plants were Aloe vera (L.) Burm.f., Andrographis paniculata Ness, Chromolaena odorata (L.) R.M.King and H.Rob., Jatropha podagrica Hook., and Thunbergia laurifolia Lindl. which had UVs of 1.02, 1.01, 0.75, 0.71, and 0.65, respectively. Likewise, the most dominant use-categories were injuries, which accounted for 0.91 of the IAR. The age of informants and medicinal plants reported by each of them were positively correlated (R2=0.96, p<0.01). ConclusionsMost of the Yuan's traditional medicinal plant knowledge is used for treating basic ailments. However we should be concerned that there is an imminent danger that it will be lost in the near future because their lifestyle was changing.

Ethnomedicinal plants used to treat bone fracture from North-Central Western Ghats of India

Ethnopharmacological relevanceNorth Central Western Ghats in India comprises rich bio-cultural diversity and is also home to varied ethnomedicinal practices. The study was taken up for documentation and analysis of traditional knowledge regarding the practice and use of plants in the treatment of bone fracture. This is an effort to preserve the vanishing wealth of traditional knowledge. Materials and methodsKey informants identified in a preliminary survey and collection of information was through semi structured, open ended interviews. The details on age, place of practice, experience of key informants and learning of practice, disease they treat and mode of diagnosis, storage and usage of plants were collected. The identity of plants and their information was confirmed through repeated guided transect walks in different seasons with the informants and focus group discussions. Identified plants were deposited at the herbaria of Regional Medical Research Centre, Belgaum. ResultsForty four key informants providing treatment for bone fracture in this region were identified. Thirty eight plant species belonging to 24 families have been documented in the present study. Highest number of species representation is found in families Euphorbiaceae and Fabaceae. The habit of the species showed that 45% of the herbal drugs were obtained from trees, followed by herbs, shrubs and climbers and majority of plants used were collected from wild (76%). The stem or stem bark (33%) was most commonly used plant part to prepare medicine. Twenty six formulations of 30 plant species were directly used in treating bone fracture, where Cissus quadrangularis has the highest use-value (0.14). Eleven plants were found to be administered for bone strengthening, pain relieving, inflammation reduction and speedy recovery and Gmelina arborea has the highest use value (0.27). ConclusionsThe results indicated the importance of traditional herbal practices in community for their health needs. Both conservational strategies and further validation studies are the need of the hour for better utilization and sustenance of the documented knowledge.

The consumption of wild and semi-domesticated edible plants in the Arribes del Duero (Salamanca-Zamora, Spain): an analysis of traditional knowledge

The collection and consumption of wild (including naturalized) and semi-domesticated (cultivated and reverted to wild status, and neglected cultivated plants for food) edible plants in the rural communities of the Arribes del Duero (western Spain), a highly heterogeneous Mediterranean agroecosystem, were analysed. Through semi-structured interviews with 80 informants, data on the gathering, preparation and consumption of 76 wild edible plant species were acquired. To analyze how traditional knowledge varies with the characteristics of the informants, we performed an ANCOVA. The “age” variable was found to have a significant effect. The most frequently cited species in the study area (i.e. Rubus ulmifolius, Foeniculum vulgare, Quercus ilex, Laurus nobilis, Origanum vulgare) are widely consumed in the Mediterranean region. Also, from a cluster analysis it was observed that the grouping succession this territory matches those of analysed areas of the Iberian southwest. Certain species have traditionally been consumed as an important supplement to the diet, particularly during food shortages (i.e. Rumex induratus, Chondrilla juncea). Several species are ethnobotanical novelties, among which are Erodium botrys and Astragalus pelecinus, whose immature fruits are eaten raw as a snack. Some ecological and cultural aspects of the gathering of wild plants for food are discussed.

The X-files of immunosuppression (or what’s stronger in transplant medicine, rationality or irrationality?)

Philosophers have a traditional analysis of knowledge that says: Knowledge= Properly Justified True Belief. Transplantation medicine, like most parts of medicine, is mainly based on this foundation. Still, important questions like which immunosuppression (IS) benefits a patient most, is still an unanswered (and will most likely stay so). However, to get knowledge on these questions ‘action’ has to be undertaken. Most philosophers have analyzed human action as a natural consequence of our beliefs interacting with our desires: Beliefs+ Desires= Action.

Popper and Reliabilism

Karl Popper attempted to give an account of scientific research as the rational pursuit of the truth about nature without any appeal to what he took to be the fictitious notion of non-demonstrative or inductive support. Deductive inference can be seen to be inference enough for science, he claimed, once we appreciate the power of data to refute theory. Many of the standard objections to Popper's account purport to show that his deductivism actually entails a radical scepticism about the possibility of scientific knowledge. Some of these objections appear unanswerable in the context of the traditional analysis of knowledge as justified true belief; but this is neither a conception of knowledge that Popper himself accepted nor one that is currently in fashion. Reliabilism, the view that knowledge is a true belief generated by a reliable method, is now a popular replacement for the traditional analysis and one that is closer to Popper's own conception of knowledge. My aim in this essay is to consider in brief compass the prospects of a reliabilist reading of Popper's account of science. Such a reading makes it possible to turn some of the standard objections and helps to show which of Popper's views should be accepted and which rejected.

Getting fromPtoQ: Valid Inferences and Heuristics

Epistemologists have known for two-and-a-half centuries that there are serious difficulties surroundingnon-demonstrativeinference. The best-known problem,theproblem of induction, was first diagnosed by Hume (1739) in theTreatise. In our own century, several more problems were added, e.g., by Hempel (1945)—the paradox of the ravens—and by Goodman (1955)—the “new,” or exacerbated, problem of induction. But an even greater blow lay ahead: within the decade after Goodman's problem appeared, Gettier (1963) was to publish his famous challenge to the traditional analysis of knowledge which, again, underscored how problematic inductive inferences are.

A note on defeasibility and skepticism

In response to the Gettier counter-examples, some philosophers have sought to add a condition to the traditional analysis of knowledge as justified true belief. Let us refer to any such fourth condition which requires that the agent stand in some epistemic relation to the problematic "essential" steps in the Gettier cases, as an epistemic fourth condition, and any fourth condition which requires simply that the step(s) possess a given property (generally, truth), independently of anyone's knowledge of it, as a metaphysical fourth condition. Thus a rough characterization of the fourth condition imposed by defeasibility analysts holds that X knows that p only if (iv) there is no true statement q, such that when q is added to the justification that p, the justification is defeated. We are mainly concerned here with arguing against any such metaphysical fourth condition because it leads to an unacceptable kepticism. It is not surprising that no one has seriously proposed an epistemic fourth condition. The Gettier case turns on the possibility that even with the best justification for a statement, it can still be false. Any fallibilist, who does not take logical certainty as requisite for justification in knowledge, will face Gettier problems no matter how strong the epistemic conditions he imposes. Nonetheless, we should note that an epistemic fourth condition can be combined with a denial of the importance of the Gettier problem over the range of cases where ideal justification and truth diverge. On one hand, if we accept p, where p is the conclusion inferred from q which is itself supported by evidence e, then one is accepting something that is true. If we want to draw other inferences from q, and e does not cover all possible tests, then we will naturally be accepting q only provisionally. We will continue to subject it (q) to further tests, wherein, presumably, we will discover its falsity. On the other hand, if no further tests are relevant to determining the truth of q, it is not easy to see what difference it makes that we accept it. We are quite used to our knowledge improving while

Gettier's Notion of Justification

One surprising feature of the literature surrounding Edmond Gettier's1 familiar challenge to the traditional definition of knowledge as justified true belief is the failure of writers to take into account in their discussion of Gettier's arguments the notion of justification of beliefs which he has in mind. For instance, David H. Sanford proposes to isolate a weak sense of justification, 'some objective relation which obtains between two propositions',2 and then goes on to give a 'solution' to the Gettier puzzles in terms of that notion. But the notion of justification he employs is, as will become clear below, not Gettier's notion. So although Sanford might help us see, by employing his notion of justification, why it is that the subjects of the Gettier examples do not know, he tells us little about the status of these examples as counter-examples to the traditional analysis of knowledge, and hence about the validity of Gettier's argument against the traditional analysis of knowledge. But inattention to Gettier's own perfectly coherent notion of justification is often a feature of discussions directly concerned with the force of Gettier's critique against the three term definition, and it is to these that I shall return in explicating what I take to be Gettier's notion of justification. It has become customary just to refer to Gettier's counter-examples as counter-examples to the justified true belief analysis of knowledge whereas Gettier actually specifies the general form of such analyses in the following way:

Richman on the Principle of Deducibility for Justification

In a recent paper Robert J. Richman joins a host of doubters who question Gettier's claim that knowledge is not justified true belief. Richman's scepticism of Gettier's counterexamples to the traditional analysis of knowledge stems from what he says are two basic defects in the examples. One defect is that Gettier employs the Principle of Deducibility for Justification (PDJ) which Richman argues is false. The second defect is based on “the obvious consideration that a belief which is justified on the basis of one set of facts or assumptions need not be justified on the basis of a different set.” I shall consider each of these alleged defects and argue that Richman has not shown that in fact they are defects and that Gettier's counterexamples (or a modified version of them) do in fact show that knowledge is not justified true belief.The Principle of Deducibility for Justification states that for any proposition P, if P entails Q and S correctly deduces Q from P and accepts Q as a result of this deduction, then Sis justified in believing Q.