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A. Anderson Collections; Natural History Museum
No full textAlexander Anderson, a Scottish surgeon and botanist, served as superintendent at the St. Vincent Botanical Garden, which was established in 1765 and was the first Botanical Garden in the Caribbean and probably the first in the Americas. The garden flourished under Anderson’s direction (from 1785) until shortly before his death in 1811. Prior to his move to the Americas, Anderson worked briefly at the Chelsea Physic Garden, under William Forsyth’ guidance, where most probably he has built up his gardening and horticulture knowledge.When Anderson arrived at the St. Vincent Botanical Garden, there were ca. 60 plant species growing and by his death, it was over 1,300. This reflects Anderson’s activities with exploration, plant introduction, propagation and consequently, distribution of the plant species. Anderson travelled around the West Indies region, including the north South America and while collecting the plant specimens, Anderson also gathered information, particularly on traditional knowledge about the plant specimens, mostly by asking (and probably also by observing) the indigenous and enslaved people and recorded the traditional uses. He catalogued the plants into broad categories of use (e.g. economic, medicinal, exotics and ornamentals, valuable woods) and also listed fruits. This information certainly contributed towards the development of colonial botanical science and to medical knowledge.This dataset was assembled as part of the project entitled: “Unearthing the contribution of indigenous and enslaved African knowledge systems to the Saint Vincent Botanical Garden under Dr Anderson [1785-1811])”. This project was funded by the ‘Hidden histories of environmental science’ programme, a cross-council collaboration between the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) and the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) to understand how the future of modern environmental science can be informed by the past. The project was a collaboration involving Winchester University, Natural History Museum, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, Linnean Society, Antonio Carluccio Foundation and The Museum Detox Interpretation Team.There is no list of the dried plant specimens that Anderson sent to Joseph Banks and that are now at the NHM. As a result, the search and cataloguing of Anderson’s dried specimens housed at the Natural History Museum (BM) is an on-going task. The data set currently comprises ca.190 specimens collected by Anderson in the Caribbean and Guiana, of which 25 are type specimens
The Impact of a Walnut-Rich Breakfast on Cognitive Performance Throughout the Day in Healthy Young Adults
No full textObjectives: A healthy diet is essential for optimal brain health. A number of food bioactives have been linked to cognitive benefits, including phytonutrients and essential fatty acids. Here we investigated the benefits of a walnut-rich breakfast, which contained flavonoids and omega-3s, to see whether consumption of these bioactives might lead to significant cognitive improvements throughout the day. Methods: A double-blind, crossover intervention study compared the effects of a breakfast containing 50g walnuts, with a nut-free, macronutrient-matched control. Participants were 32 healthy, young adults aged 18 to 30. Cognition, mood, blood, and EEG measures were recorded at baseline and 2, 4, and 6 hours postprandially. Only the cognitive data are reported here. All cognitive data were analyzed using linear mixed modeling (LMM) with baseline performance included as a covariate. Bonferroni corrected pairwise comparisons were used to investigate significant treatment effects. Results: Compared to the control breakfast, the walnuts elicited significantly faster reaction times throughout the day on tasks measuring inhibition and task switching aspects of executive function. Memory recall results were mixed; slightly worse performance was observed at 2 hours following the walnut breakfast, but this was later reversed with walnuts outperforming control at 6 hours. Conclusions: The findings provide evidence for reaction time benefits following a walnut-rich breakfast, with effects lasting throughout the day. The results concur with previous literature that suggests executive function effects are commonly observed in young adults following flavonoid supplementation. The memory recall effect at the final time point is consistent with previously observed benefits for both omega-3 fatty acids and flavonoids and may indicate that walnuts offer neuroprotection following long periods of cognitive demand, or that memory benefits depend upon the slower absorption of omega-3s or the delayed appearance of flavonoid metabolites. Walnuts are therefore beneficial to cognitive function in young adults after only a single, acute intake, but further investigation of precise mechanisms is needed. The study was funded by the California Walnut Commission, USA and pre-registered at clinicaltrials.gov
A systematic review of the effectiveness of community-based interventions aimed at improving health literacy of parents/carers of children
Get PDFAim:The aim of this systematic review was to examine the effectiveness of community-based health literacy interventions in improving the health literacy of parents.Methods:A systematic review of six databases – MEDLINE, PsycINFO, CINAHL, Cochrane Library, Embase, and Education Source – was conducted to identify relevant articles. Risk of bias was assessed using version two of the Cochrane risk of bias tool for randomised controlled trials or the Cochrane collaboration risk of bias in non-randomised studies of interventions. The study findings were grouped and synthesised following the synthesis without meta-analysis framework.Results:Eleven community-based health literacy interventions for parents were identified. Study design included randomised controlled trials (n = 4), non-randomised studies with comparison group (n = 4), and non-randomised studies without a comparison group (n = 3). Interventions were delivered digitally, in person or a combination of the two. The risk of bias was high in over half the studies (n = 7). The main findings of the studies showed some potential for both in person and digital interventions to increase parental health literacy. Studies were heterogeneous preventing a meta-analysis.Conclusion:Community-based, health literacy interventions have been identified as potential methods for enhancing parental health literacy. Due to the small number of included studies and their potential for bias, these results must be interpreted with caution. This study emphasises the need for additional theory and evidence-based research on the long-term effects of community interventions
Large language models show human-like content biases in transmission chain experiments
Get PDFAs the use of Large Language Models (LLMs) grows, it is important to examine if they exhibit biases in their output. Research in Cultural Evolution, using transmission chain experiments, demonstrates that humans have biases to attend to, remember, and transmit some types of content over others. Here, in five pre-registered experiments with the same methodology, we find that the LLM chatGPT-3 shows biases analogous to humans for content that is gender-stereotype consistent, social, negative, threat-related, and biologically counterintuitive, over other content. The presence of these biases in LLM output suggests that such content is widespread in its training data, and could have consequential downstream effects, by magnifying pre-existing human tendencies for cognitively appealing, and not necessarily informative, or valuable, content
A Pamphlet War:Colonialism versus Radical Nationalism in the Ionian Islands, 1848-1864
No full textIn the early 1850s the vice chancellor of the Ionian University wrote a pamphlet supporting British colonial rule in the Ionian Islands, a British protectorate. He soon found himself embroiled in a vitriolic pamphlet war with an Ionian radical. This paper contextualises and scrutinises their pamphlets, producing a nuanced reading that augments our understanding of some of the tensions between mid-nineteenth-century British imperialism and Hellenic radical nationalism. It asks what can be added to current debates by elucidating the motivations and historical contingencies of certain individuals and their articulation of colonial subjectivities and power dynamics. It shows that the networks that formed the British world-system often depended on the principal protagonists and their overlapping interests, egos, alliances and antipathies and ways in which they expressed themselves in the press. It argues that a critical reading of their publications and personal histories complicates conventional narratives of ‘oppressive coloniser’ versus 'radical nationalist’ and demonstrates that in the Ionian context divisions were not so clear-cut
Challenges and tensions for Student Academic Engagement practices in contemporary UK Higher Education
No full textTechnical Ecstasy:Phenomenological Perspectives of Metal Music Production
No full textThis chapter explores the direct experiences of renowned record producers, working with Metal music, to construct an in-depth understanding of the genesis, and development, of recorded Metal music. Technological democracy has changed the experience of making Metal records, affording creative flexibility and control that would historically have been out of reach; technologically and financially. Multitrack technologies and fragmented production processes are also examined. Framed by the experiences of producers that have shaped the recording careers of artists such as Black Sabbath and Judas Priest, this chapter links the direct experiences of record-making to musical, socio-cultural, and technological development