Modern Studies Research Articles

Elucidating the distinctive regulatory effects and mechanisms of active compounds in Salvia miltiorrhiza Bunge via network pharmacology: Unveiling their roles in the modulation of platelet activation and thrombus formation

Salvia miltiorrhiza Bunge. (DS), as an important traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), has a long history of usage for promoting blood circulation and removing blood stasis. Modern studies have shown that the chemical components of DS have many biological activities such as cardiovascular protection, anti-arrhythmia, anti-atherosclerosis, improvement of microcirculation, protection of myocardium, inhibition and removal of platelet aggregation. Nevertheless, the action mechanism of DS as well its active compounds on platelet activation has not been fully uncovered. This study aimed to find out the potential targets and mechanisms of DS in the modulation of platelet activation and thrombosis, using network pharmacology and biological experimental. These compounds with anti-thrombotic activity in DS, cryptotanshinone (CPT), isoeugenol (ISO) and tanshinone IIA (TSA), together with the corresponding targets being Src, Akt and RhoA are screened by network pharmacology. We confirmed that ISO, CPT and TSA dose-dependently inhibited platelet activation in vitro, mainly by inhibiting agonist-induced clot retraction, aggregation and P-selectin and ATP release. The western blot findings indicated that ISO, CPT, and TSA led to reduced levels of p-Akt and p-ERK in activated platelets. Additionally, ISO and TSA were observed to decrease p-cSrc expression while increasing RhoA expression. ISO, CPT, and TSA demonstrated a potential to restrict the advancement of carotid arterial thrombosis in vivo. We confirm that ISO, CPT and TSA are the key anti-thrombotic active compounds in DS. These active compounds exhibit unique inhibitory effects on platelet activation and thrombus formation by modulating the Akt/ERK and cSrc/RhoA signaling pathways.

Phytochemical Profiling for Leaf, Stem, Roots, and Seeds of Withania somnifera (L.) Dunal

Background: Withania somnifera (L.) Dunal, belonging to the Solanaceae family and commonly known as Ashwagandha, is a traditional Ayurvedic herb renowned for its adaptogenic properties. It plays a significant role in various classical Ayurvedic formulations and proprietary medicines. Traditionally, the roots of the plant are utilized over the aerial parts, such as leaves and stems. In recent years, a global increase in the use of Ashwagandha roots has been spurred by several modern pharmacological studies supporting its benefits. Methods: This study examined different parts of the herb, including leaves, stems, roots, and seeds, using methods like phytochemical analysis, thin layer chromatography (TLC) analysis, high-performance thin layer chromatography (HPTLC) phytochemical profiling, UV-visible spectral analysis, and 1H nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) profiling. Results: The findings indicated that phytosterols, triterpenoids, and alkaloids were predominantly found in the leaves and stems, with lower concentrations in the roots and seeds. Ethanol extracts were particularly rich in total flavonoids, whereas aqueous extracts contained higher levels of phenolic compounds. High-performance thin layer chromatography fingerprinting varied for each part of the herb, effectively separating pigment-based components such as chlorophyll at 366 nm in the aerial parts. The 1H NMR spectra showed distinct metabolite profiles for each part of the plant. Conclusions: The analytical methods proposed in this study offer enhanced quality control and evaluation for the medicinal use of W. somnifera roots and its aerial components.

Combating plastic pollution in international law: <i>lex lata</i> and <i>lex ferenda</i>

INTRODUCTION. Global plastic production has increased from 1.5 million tons in 1950 to 390 million tons in 2021, of which only 9 % was recycled, 19 % was incinerated, almost 50 % was disposed of in landfills and 22 % was dumped in landfills, where this waste could be openly burned or released back into the environment. Plastics have changed the global economy and the lives of billions of people for the better. However, their use comes with significant environmental and social costs. Plastic waste negatively affects human health and the environment. The life cycle of plastics covers the entire spectrum of activities, from raw material extraction, production, distribution, use, to disposal as waste, and environmental problems can arise at any stage of the plastic life cycle. Most plastic degrades very slowly in the environment. There are currently a number of international commitments to reduce marine litter and plastic waste, particularly from land-based sources, and several applicable international agreements and soſt law instruments related to trade in plastics or reducing impacts on marine life. However, none of the international documents provides a global, mandatory, specific and measurable target to reduce plastic pollution. In this regard, many states, as well as commercial actors and civil society, are calling for the adoption of a global instrument to regulate marine pollution from litter and plastics. In this article, significant attention is paid to the analysis of a future treaty aimed at combating plastic pollution.MATERIALS AND METHODS. This study is based on the analysis of a large volume of materials, including international legal acts, advisory acts, as well as modern doctrinal studies by Russian and foreign authors. The methodological basis of the study was general scientific (method of logical and system analysis, dialectical method, methods of deduction and induction) and special scientific (historical-legal, comparative-legal, formal legal methods, method of legal modeling and forecasting) methods of cognition.RESEARCH RESULTS. In the course of the study, various international acts of a mandatory and recommendatory nature were analyzed, the doctrinal positions set out in the scientific literature, put forward by domestic and foreign legal scholars, were summarized, and the main problems of combating plastic pollution were identified.DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS. Within the framework of this article, an attempt has been made to give answers to the following questions: to what extent the problem of plastic pollution is an important challenge for modern international law, whether current international law effectively regulates the problem of plastic pollution, what should be the content of a new treaty on plastic and what are the positions of states on its content.

Poor outcomes for trial-ineligible patients receiving polatuzumab for relapsed/refractory diffuse large B-cell lymphoma in routine care: An Australian Lymphoma and Related Diseases Registry project.

Polatuzumab vedotin (Pola) is an approved therapy in combination with rituximab and bendamustine for relapsed or refractory diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (RR-DLBCL) based on positive results of the landmark phase II randomised G029365 trial. However, trial results for many approved novel therapies in RR-DLBCL have not been replicated in routine care cohorts, as RR-DLBCL patient populations are heterogeneous and trial eligibility is increasingly restrictive. We evaluated outcomes from pola±bendamustine and rituximab in patients with RR-DLBCL enrolled in a compassionate access program with no alternative treatment options identified via the Australasian Lymphoma and Related Diseases Registry according to their eligibility for the original phase II published study. Of 58 eligible patients, 74% met the criteria deeming them ineligible for the G029365 original study at the time of pola's commencement. Median progression-free survival and overall survival in our cohort were 2.3 and 3.5 months, respectively. In contrast to the landmark trial cohort, more of our patients ceased therapy prior to completion, the majority due to progressive disease and only 8/58 received any subsequent treatment. Dismal outcomes in this Australian real-world population demonstrate trial eligibility is challenging to meet, and newer treatments can be difficult to deliver in routine care. Clinically applicable results from therapeutic studies require trial cohorts to reflect representative clinical populations wherever possible, and more research is required to address the benefit of novel agents in the increasing majority who are ineligible for modern studies.

Integrated UPLC/Q-TOF-MS/MS Analysis and Network Pharmacology to Reveal the Neuroprotective Mechanisms and Potential Pharmacological Ingredients of Aurantii Fructus Immaturus and Aurantii Fructus.

Aurantii Fructus (AF) and Aurantii Fructus Immaturus (AFI) have been used for thousands of years as traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) with sedative effects. Modern studies have shown that Citrus plants also have protective effects on the nervous system. However, the effective substances and mechanisms of action in Citrus TCMs still remain unclear. In order to explore the pharmacodynamic profiles of identified substances and the action mechanism of these herbs, a comprehensive approach combining ultra-high-performance liquid chromatography with quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectrometry (UPLC/Q-TOF-MS/MS) analysis and network pharmacology was employed. Firstly, UNIFI 2.1.1 software was used to identify the chemical characteristics of AF and AFI. Secondly, the SwissTargetPrediction database was used to predict the targets of chemical components in AF and AFI. Targets for neuroprotection were also collected from GeneCards: The Human Gene Database (GeneCards-Human Genes|Gene Database|Gene Search). The networks between targets and compounds or diseases were then constructed using Cytoscape 3.9.1. Finally, the Annotation, Visualization and Integrated Discovery Database (DAVID) (DAVID Functional Annotation Bioinformatics Microarray Analysis) was used for GO and pathway enrichment analysis. The results showed that 50 of 188 compounds in AF and AFI may have neuroprotective biological activities. These activities are associated with the regulatory effects of related components on 146 important signaling pathways, derived from the KEGG (KEGG: Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes), such as neurodegeneration (hsa05022), the Alzheimer's disease pathway (hsa05010), the NF-kappa B signaling pathway (hsa04064), the hypoxia-inducible factor (HIF)-1 signaling pathway (hsa04066), apoptosis (hsa04210), the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) tyrosine kinase inhibitor resistance signaling pathway (hsa01521), and others, by targeting 108 proteins, including xanthine dehydrogenase (XDH), glutamate ionotropic receptor NMDA type subunit 2B (GRIN2B), and glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase (G6PD), among others. These targets are thought to be related to inflammation, neural function and cell growth.

CoNeS: Conditional neural fields with shift modulation for multi-sequence MRI translation

Multi-sequence magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) has found wide applications in both modern clinical studies and deep learning research. However, in clinical practice, it frequently occurs that one or more of the MRI sequences are missing due to different image acquisition protocols or contrast agent contraindications of patients, limiting the utilization of deep learning models trained on multi-sequence data. One promising approach is to leverage generative models to synthesize the missing sequences, which can serve as a surrogate acquisition. State-of-the-art methods tackling this problem are based on convolutional neural networks (CNN) which usually suffer from spectral biases, resulting in poor reconstruction of high-frequency fine details. In this paper, we propose Conditional Neural fields with Shift modulation (CoNeS), a model that takes voxel coordinates as input and learns a representation of the target images for multi-sequence MRI translation. The proposed model uses a multi-layer perceptron (MLP) instead of a CNN as the decoder for pixel-to-pixel mapping. Hence, each target image is represented as a neural field that is conditioned on the source image via shift modulation with a learned latent code. Experiments on BraTS 2018 and an in-house clinical dataset of vestibular schwannoma patients showed that the proposed method outperformed state-of-the-art methods for multi-sequence MRI translation both visually and quantitatively. Moreover, we conducted spectral analysis, showing that CoNeS was able to overcome the spectral bias issue common in conventional CNN models. To further evaluate the usage of synthesized images in clinical downstream tasks, we tested a segmentation network using the synthesized images at inference. The results showed that CoNeS improved the segmentation performance when some MRI sequences were missing and outperformed other synthesis models. We concluded that neural fields are a promising technique for multi-sequence MRI translation.

Testing and refinement of elemental proxies in tropical lakes from the Indian subcontinent

AbstractThe conventional approach of using modern values of lake hydrochemistry and sediment composition as key parameters for identifying proxies for environmental reconstruction is complicated by regional climate, catchment geology, lake morphometry and anthropogenic input. In contrast to modern studies from lakes in the north‐temperate regions, reliable proxy indicators for past environmental change from tropical lake systems are still lacking. In this study, we compare new surface geochemical and mineralogical data from the Manasbal Lake, Kashmir (India), with other lakes situated in climatically and geomorphologically distinct regimes with varying degrees of pollution (Tso Moriri in north‐western Himalaya and Lonar in central India). We characterise external (e.g., geology and weathering), internal (e.g., lake water mixing and evaporation) factors and human activities influencing sediment composition and spatial distribution of proxies in each of these lakes to evaluate the usefulness of some of the commonly used proxies, as well as ascertain conditions where they might be applicable. Our results show that (i) morphometric parameters (such as lake size, water depth and catchment vs. lake area) variably influence the spatial distribution of sediments and proxies on the lake bottom highlighting the limitations of using single cores for long‐term palaeoclimate reconstruction; (ii) hydrochemical proxies (such as Na+/Na++Ca2+ and Mg/Ca) can delineate endogenic (Lonar and Tso Moriri lakes) versus allogenic (Manasbal Lake) influence on modern sediment characteristics; (iii) the compilation of heavy metal data (e.g., Fe, Zn, Mn, Cr and Ni) from all three lake basins with varying degrees of pollution highlights the limitations of using them to characterise weathering conditions in these basins; and (iv) human impact must be precluded before using the most promising endogenic minerals (calcite, aragonite, gypsum and pyrite) as palaeoenvironmental/palaeoclimate indicators.

Institutional factors influencing productivity in medieval England: A case study of tin, lead and silver mining

AbstractThis paper fills a gap in recent literature on productivity and regional development by examining the determinants of productivity in primary industries in English regions during the Middle Ages. It provides a comprehensive review of relevant literature on the tin, lead and silver mining industries in Medieval England. Modern studies of productivity typically focus on technology, labour skills, unionization and regional economic infrastructure as key determinants of productivity growth and focus on high‐technology manufacturing industries This study of medieval mining, however, focuses on extractive industries in which advanced technologies played only a limited role. The paper shows that alternative factors contributed to the productivity of medieval mining including royal policy, the location of deposits and fluctuations in demand. Technology, investment in training and worker activism had, in contrast, little impact.

Multicomponent structure of conflictive in modern English fictional discourse

The current paper presents an overview of the multicomponent structure of conflictives as discursive constructs in modern English fictional discourse from the standpoint of pragmalinguistics, semiotics, multimodal discourse theory and paradigmatic and syntagmatic approach to the analysis of linguisticunits. The article elucidates the results of a linguosemiotic study of interpersonal conflicts in modern fictional discourse realized through the analysis of different multimodal semiotic modes, which collectively construct the meaning, communicated in conflict situations. This constructing is proceeded with the help of conflictives as emergent discursive constructs. Verbal, nonverbal and graphic semiotic resources are involved in this process at different stages of conflict communication. As a result of the multifaceted study of conflictives in modern English fictional discourse, the peculiarities of its multimodal and multicomponent structure have been revealed. Moreover, the detailed study of the successive stages of conflict development in fictional discourse involving the MDA method, linguosemiotic analysis, pragmatics and communicative linguistics allowed for singling out a conflictive as a discursive construct which in its form coincides with a certain phase of conflict communicative process, and structurally corresponds to the concept of a communicative act.The research also aims to establish a link between different approaches to the interpretation of conflict communication development and methods of their research in modern linguistic studies. The multimodal nature of conflictives comprises several modes of multimodality which are represented at least in onemode structure of conflictives constructed in a definite phase of the conflict communicative process. These patterns of meaning multiplication through different semiotic modes collectively construct the meaning, communicated and interpreted in the situations of interpersonal conflicts in modern Englishfiction discourse. Besides, the multicomponent structure of conflictives also includes its deep and surface elements involved in the process of construction and interpretation of these meanings. The obtained results show the decoding potential of interpreting conflict interpersonal communication at differentlevels of linguistic analysis to achieve the corresponding aims.

Identification of solar halo terms in observations recorded in historical Korean documents

AbstractWe investigate solar halo terms in observations recorded in the Crown Prince Sohyeon’s Donggung‐Ilgi (Seventeenth century) and identify their equivalent terminologies in modern atmospheric optics. We refer to related historical Korean and Chinese materials (e.g. Pungun‐Gi, Observation Log for Wind and Clouds, for 6 December 1748), analyse the distributions of each term according to the sun elevation and consult modern studies on halo simulations. Then, we compare our findings with the results of previous works. This study will contribute to the understanding of halo events recorded in historical East Asian documents.

Diagnostic and prognostic value of biomarkers in atopic dermatitis for assessing its endotypes, phenotypes, and treatment efficacy

Atopic dermatitis is a highly heterogeneous disease that usually requires a tailored approach to therapy. Recent studies have described a variety of biomarkers linked to diverse pathophysiological aspects of atopic dermatitis. Furthermore, they have provided encouraging evidence supporting high clinical importance of these biomarkers as promising tools for personalized diagnosis, assessment of disease severity, and monitoring of treatment efficacy. This review aims to provide a comprehensive summary of research progress on atopic dermatitis biomarkers, their diagnostic and prognostic value, as well as the benefits they might potentially offer not only for determining the disease endotype, but also for developing novel management strategies. The implementation of easily accessible and simple methods to measure atopic dermatitis biomarkers into clinical practice is an ambitious task for allergologists and dermatologists. A detailed overview of currently available data will allow us to identify the most important trajectories for future research in this area that will promote the concept of personalized atopic dermatitis therapy, reduce the disease burden, and improve the quality of life of patients.

Protective effects of an alcoholic extract of Kaempferia galanga L. rhizome on ethanol-induced gastric ulcer in mice

Ethnopharmacological relevanceThe rhizome of Kaempferia galanga L., a medicinal and edible Plant, was widely distributed in many Asian and African counties. It has been traditionally used to treat gastroenteritis, hypertension, rheumatism and asthma. However, there is a lack of modern pharmacology studies regarding its anti-gastric ulcer activity. Aim of the studyThe objective of this study is to investigate the protective effects of an extract from K. galanga L. rhizome (Kge) and its active components kaempferol and luteolin on ethanol-induced gastric ulcer. Materials and methodsThe kge was prepared by ultrasonic-assisted extraction, and the contents of kaempferol and luteolin were determined by HPLC. The mice were randomly divided into seven groups: blank control (0.5 % CMC-Na; 0.1 mL/10 g), untreatment (0.5 % CMC-Na; 0.1 mL/10 g), Kge (100, 200 and 400 mg/kg), kaempferol (100 mg/kg) and luteolin (100 mg/kg) groups. The mice were treated intragastrically once daily for 7 days. At 1 h post the last administration, the mice in all groups except the blank control group were intragastrically administrated with anhydrous alcohol (0.1 mL/10 g) once to induce gastric ulcer. Then, fasting was continued for 1 h, followed by sample collection for evaluation by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay and real-time reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction assay. ResultsThe contents of kaempferol and luteolin in Kge were determined as 3713 μg/g and 2510 μg/g, respectively. Alcohol induced severely damages with edema, inflammatory cell infiltration and bleeding, and the ulcer index was 17.63 %. After pre-treatment with Kge (100, 200 and 400 mg/kg), kaempferol and luteolin, the pathological lesions were obviously alleviated and ulcer indices were reduced to 13.42 %, 11.65 %, 6.54 %, 3.58 % and 3.85 %, respectively. In untreated group, the contents of Ca2+, myeloperoxidase, malondialdehyde, NO, cyclic adenosine monophosphate and histamine were significantly increased, while the contents of hexosamine, superoxide dismutase, glutathione peroxidase, and prostaglandin E2 were significantly decreased; the transcriptional levels of IL-1α, IL-1β, IL-6, calcitonin gene related peptide, substance P, M3 muscarinic acetylcholine receptor, histamine H2 receptor, cholecystokinin 2 receptor and H+/K+ ATPase were significantly increased when compared with the blank control group. After pre-treatment, all of these changes were alleviated, even returned to normal levels. Kge exhibited anti-gastric ulcer activity and the high dose of Kge (400 mg/kg) exhibited comparable activity to that of kaempferol and luteolin. ConclusionThe study showed that K. galanga L., kaempferol, and luteolin have protective effects against ethanol-induced gastric ulcers. This is achieved by regulating the mucosal barrier, oxidative stress, and gastric regulatory mediators, as well as inhibiting the TRPV1 signaling pathway and gastric acid secretion, ultimately reducing the gastric ulcer index.

A Solicitous Science

Three visions of anthropology collided in San Cristóbal de las Casas, Chiapas in the 1950s. Infrastructural improvements, indigenista politics, and increased US social science funding intensified research on Indigenous Chiapas. The scene drew together imperial travelers, modernist ethnographers, and Mexican development administrators. Among them was Danish explorer-archaeologist Frans Blom, who struggled to establish his estate as a reputationally redeeming fieldwork institute. This article parses how some modernist anthropologists distanced themselves from Blom’s imperial legacy, while others pressed his ideas of cultural continuity into implicit, controversial claims for their centrality to ancient and modern Maya studies writ large.

Studying Disaster in Late Antiquity

This introduction frames a collection of four papers, originally presented at the 13th Shifting Frontiers in Late Antiquity conference, that examine late antique episcopal responses to disaster, typically military defeats caused by the barbarians. To contextualize what follows, this essay begins by introducing various ways disaster researchers define disaster, as well as the related concepts of hazard and vulnerability. The paper also examines several terminological and methodological challenges associated with the application of modern disaster studies to the ancient world. Importantly, disasters cannot be separated from their social context. Indeed, thinking of disasters as social phenomena encourages historians to look beyond the disaster events themselves, to consider why and how those in power reacted (or failed to react) and what the experience was like for the individuals who lived through them. Finally, this essay serves as an argument against the simplistic association of the period of Late Antiquity with disaster.

Degrees of generalized Kloosterman sums

Abstract The modern study of the exponential sums is mainly about their analytic estimates as complex numbers, which is local. In this paper, we study one global property of the exponential sums by viewing them as algebraic integers. For a kind of generalized Kloosterman sums, we present their degrees as algebraic integers.

Дореволюционная женская литература в России и Китае

The aim of the research is to identify similarities and differences in women’s literature in Russia and China during the pre-revolutionary period (up to 1917 and 1911 respectively) through a comparative analysis. The scientific novelty of the research lies in the fact that although there is a significant amount of works in Russian and Chinese literary studies dedicated to the phenomenon of women’s literature, these works mainly focus on the 20th and 21st centuries. Scholars have not paid sufficient attention to the study of women’s literature during the pre-revolutionary period. In addition, a comparative analysis of common features and differences between Russian and Chinese women’s literature in modern literary studies has not been thoroughly explored. As a result, the research indicates that the similarities between Russian and Chinese women’s literature during the pre-revolutionary period manifest themselves in the following aspects: the socio-cultural conditions of the formation and development of women’s creative work (unfavorable conditions), the social background of female authors (privileged classes), the predominant genre (poetry), themes (women’s issues), the literary image (women), and the characteristic features of women’s literature during the specified period (introverted thinking, autobiographism, and introspection). Additionally, the results confirm differences in the following aspects: forms of women’s participation in the literary process, the level of openness to cultural activities among female authors, the process of professionalization of literary work, and the influence of foreign culture.

Exploring the Potential Role of Massa Medicata Fermentata in Alcoholic Liver Injury Disease Based on Network Pharmacology and Animal Experiments.

ALD is a chronic liver disease caused by chronic excessive alcohol consumption, for which there are no drugs with better efficacy. Ancient literature and modern studies have shown that Massa Medicata Fermentata (MMF) has a hangover effect and ameliorates hepatic inflammation, so we believe that MMF has a potential role in the treatment of alcoholic liver disease. UPLC-Q-Orbitrap HRMS was used to characterize the chemical constituents in MMF. The database was utilized to collect targets for the components and diseases, and cross-targeting analysis of the targets was performed. PPI, KEGG, GO enrichment analysis and molecular docking were performed using the core cross-targeting information to preliminarily validate the mechanism of action of MMF on disease. Finally, animal validation was carried out using male KM mice of the alcoholic liver injury model. MMF could play a role in the therapeutic prevention of alcoholic liver disease through the core targets AKT1, TNF, TP53, IL6 and CASP3 to regulate cancer pathways, lipid, and atherosclerosis, targeting IL-17 signaling, TNF signaling pathway, and hepatitis C, which was confirmed by animal pharmacodynamic experiments. This study serves as a rationale to support MMF in the treatment of ALD and meets the urgent need for clinical treatment of ALD. At the same time, it broadens the scope of clinical application of MMF.

ARDaC Common Data Model Facilitates Data Dissemination and Enables Data Commons for Modern Clinical Studies.

Modern clinical studies collect longitudinal and multimodal data about participants, treatments and responses, biospecimens, and molecular and multiomics data. Such rich and complex data requires new common data models (CDM) to support data dissemination and research collaboration. We have developed the ARDaC CDM for the Alcoholic Hepatitis Network (AlcHepNet) Research Data Commons (ARDaC) to support clinical studies and translational research in the national AlcHepNet consortium. The ARDaC CDM bridges the gap between the data models used by the AlcHepNet electronic data capture platform (REDCap) and the Genomic Data Commons (GDC) data model used by the Gen3 data commons framework. It extends the GDC data model for clinical studies; facilitates the harmonization of research data across consortia and programs; and supports the development of the ARDaC. ARDaC CDM is designed as a general and extensible CDM for addressing the needs of modern clinical studies. The ARDaC CDM is available at https://dev.ardac.org/DD.

Social Entrepreneurship In The New Economy Among The Younger Generation

Purpose: This essay aims to reconstruct young people's understanding of and attitude towards social entrepreneurship as a field of endeavour critical to developing crucial competencies in the New Economy. The study also aims to describe young people's perceptions of their willingness to participate in society and the current economy as agents.
 Design/methodology/approach: a diagnostic study (based on a so-called task catalogue) was carried out with a group of more than 500 students in Indonesian vocational high schools, senior high schools, and private schools, as well as three workshops with students from particular school types.
 Findings: According to the study, students are aware of the possibilities of engaging in social activism through broadly construed social entrepreneurship and third sector involvement. It was also proven that they are well cognizant of the opportunities and requirement for action in this regard. The materials that students have discussed transfer into skills required in the New Economy.
 Research limitations/implications: A lot of variables that could influence teenage behaviour must be taken into account in modern study. These difficulties will undoubtedly merit consideration throughout the formulation and creation of the research's tools in further in-depth studies.
 Practical implications: Young people's social entrepreneurship is constantly evolving, and even though its focus shifts (from shared management activities to civic engagement and social solidarity activities), it always refers to collaborative efforts on the cusp of economic and social reality. Young people's attitude towards carrying out duties that are beneficial to society is also evolving. Young people view them as a chance to address both societal issues and the difficulties posed by the postmodern world's transformations.
 Social implications: Young people are more conscious and involved citizens as well as more responsible future members of the New Economy thanks to the competencies they have acquired.
 Originality/value: The paper reconstructs the tools, strategies, and perspectives of young people towards the agency opportunities provided by social entrepreneurship. The knowledge that was gathered was examined in light of the project's competency-based competence issues.

Ants of Kamchatka: checklist, DNA-barcoding and key (Hymenoptera, Formicidae)

Kamchatka is a remote volcanic peninsula in the sub-arctic Far East of Russia. Its myrmecofauna has been scientifically addressed several times. However, previous species lists are contradictory in part and a modern study seems to be lacking. Based on literature review, I conclude that 12 species and 4 genera (Camponotus, Formica, Leptothorax and Myrmica) of ants may be native to Kamchatka. Of those, 9 were found in the field, 3 having a Holarctic, 3 a trans-Palearctic and 3 an East Palearctic distribution. Most species diversity was found at mid-elevations, in pine shrubs and mixed forests, while deciduous forests and open habitats at lower altitudes were surprisingly species poor. DNA-barcoding was performed for 57 specimens/9 species. Genetic diversity (COI) was low for 8/9 species, with the exception of Leptothorax acervorum, for which all samples were of a different haplotype and 2 haplogroups were identified. For the encountered Holarctic and trans-Palearctic species, closely related haplotypes (<0.7% raw distance) occur in Europe and/or North America. Some Formica ants were morphologically atypical, with workers partially resembling those of F. fusca, while gynes identified as F. lemani. Morphometric analysis and DNA-barcoding suggested that all these specimens belong to a single species, F. lemani. Standard images for all specimens and an illustrated key to the worker caste are provided.