Autism Spectrum Disorders are characterized by difficulties in communicating and cooperating with other people. Impairment in Theory of Mind (ToM), the ability to infer what another person is thinking, may contribute to these social deficits. The present study assesses the relationship between autistic traits and decision-making in a socioeconomic game environment that measures ToM and cooperation. We quantified participant strategy during game play with computer agents that simulated aspects of ToM or fixed strategy agents with static behaviors or heuristics. Individuals with higher Autism Quotient (AQ) scores cooperated less than subjects with low AQ scores with the ToM agents. In contrast, subjects with higher AQ scores cooperated more with fixed strategy agents. Additionally, subjects with higher AQ scores spent more time than low AQ subjects signaling cooperative intent in games with fixed strategy agents while spending less time signaling cooperation with adaptive agents, indicating a preference toward systemizing behaviors in the face of uncertainty. We conclude that individuals with high levels of autistic traits are less likely to utilize ToM as a cognitive strategy, even when it is beneficial, to achieve a desired outcome.
Chapter 2 presents a very different world of Tibetan medicine, operating in an urban Chinese context, within distinct governance structures and possibilities for efficacious practice. This chapter takes place at the Arura Group, a major Tibetan medical institution in Qinghai Province, China. Located in central Xining, Qinghai’s capital, Arura’s hospital serves a large and diverse patient base. In addition to clinical practice, Arura also runs a research institution, a Tibetan pharmaceutical factory, and a major cultural museum; Arura also supports the Tibetan Medical College within Qinghai’s medical school. In contrast with the single individuals fulfilling multiple social roles described in chapter 1, in chapter 2 one moves between departments within Arura, revealing distinct domains of expertise and professional jurisdiction. One witnesses translations across medical systems—Tibetan medicine, Chinese medicine, biomedicine—as well as a certain level of standardization of practice and greater economic investments in Tibetan medicine here than in a rural community in the Nepal Himalaya. Chapter 2 illustrates multiple levels of engagement between Tibetan medicine, the biomedical sciences, and commercial pharmaceutical production.
<i>Introduction</i>: To determine the outcomes of vaginal deliveries in three study hospitals in Lhasa, Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR), People's Republic of China (PRC), at high altitude (3650 m). <i>Methods</i>: Prospective observational study of 1121 vaginal deliveries. <i>Results</i>: Pre-eclampsia/gestational hypertension (PE/GH) was the most common maternal complication 18.9% (<i>n</i> = 212), followed by postpartum hemorrhage (blood loss ≥ 500 ml) 13.4%. There were no maternal deaths. Neonatal complications included: low birth weight (10.2%), small for gestational age (13.7%), pre-term delivery (4.1%) and low Apgar (3.7%). There were 11 stillbirths (9.8/1000 live births) and 19 early neonatal deaths (17/1000 live births). <i>Conclusion</i>: This is the largest study of maternal and newborn outcomes in Tibet. It provides information on the outcomes of institutional vaginal births among women delivering infants at high altitude. There was a higher incidence of PE/GH and low birth weight; rates of PPH were not increased compared to those at lower altitudes.
There is a growing interest in studies that document the relationship between science and medicine - as ideas, practices, technologies and outcomes - across cultural, national, geographic terrain. Tibetan medicine is not only known as a scholarly medical tradition among other Asian medical systems, with many centuries of technological, clinical, and pharmacological innovation; it also survives today as a complex medical resource across many Asian nations - from India and Bhutan to Mongolia, Tibet (TAR) and China, Buryatia - as well as in Western Europe and the Americas. The contributions to this volume explore, in equal measure, the impacts of western science and biomedicine on Tibetan grounds - i.e., among Tibetans across China, the Himalaya and exile communities as well as in relation to globalized Tibetan medicine - and the ways that local practices change how such “science” gets done, and how this continually hybridized medical knowledge is transmitted and put into practice. As such, this volume contributes to explorations into the bi-directional flows of medical knowledge and practice.
There is a growing interest in studies that document the relationship between science and medicine - as ideas, practices, technologies and outcomes - across cultural, national, geographic terrain. Tibetan medicine is not only known as a scholarly medical tradition among other Asian medical systems, with many centuries of technological, clinical, and pharmacological innovation; it also survives today as a complex medical resource across many Asian nations - from India and Bhutan to Mongolia, Tibet (TAR) and China, Buryatia - as well as in Western Europe and the Americas. The contributions to this volume explore, in equal measure, the impacts of western science and biomedicine on Tibetan grounds - i.e., among Tibetans across China, the Himalaya and exile communities as well as in relation to globalized Tibetan medicine - and the ways that local practices change how such "science" gets done, and how this continually hybridized medical knowledge is transmitted and put into practice. As such, this volume contributes to explorations into the bi-directional flows of medical knowledge and practice.
SUMMARY This article uses narrative ethnography centered on two individuals from Mustang, Nepal-their embodied experiences and subjectivities, including their understandings of birth and disability-to explore the ways that migration can alter senses of self and home, body and family, and what I call the realm of the possible. Although these stories emerge primarily through the voices of women, their narratives point toward a broader analysis about the relationship between place and well being, medicine and social change.
The incidence of major depression increases markedly during adolescence and early adulthood. There is therefore an increased need for effective emotion regulation (ER) capacities during this period. The present study explored the relative benefits of dispositional mindfulness compared to other commonly researched ER strategies, cognitive reappraisal, and expressive suppression, in a sample of youth with major depression presenting to a clinical service. Results demonstrated that mindfulness is distinct from these other ER strategies and is associated with lower cross-sectional levels of depression, anxiety, rumination and dysfunctional attitudes, and improved quality of life. Greater dispositional mindfulness also predicted greater recovery from these symptoms. It was concluded that a greater tendency to use mindfulness as an ER strategy is associated with positive mental health outcomes and better quality of life. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)
The incidence of major depression increases markedly during adolescence and early adulthood. There is therefore an increased need for effective emotion regulation (ER) capacities during this period. The present study explored the relative benefits of dispositional mindfulness compared to other commonly researched ER strategies, cognitive reappraisal, and expressive suppression, in a sample of youth with major depression presenting to a clinical service. Results demonstrated that mindfulness is distinct from these other ER strategies and is associated with lower cross-sectional levels of depression, anxiety, rumination and dysfunctional attitudes, and improved quality of life. Greater dispositional mindfulness also predicted greater recovery from these symptoms. It was concluded that a greater tendency to use mindfulness as an ER strategy is associated with positive mental health outcomes and better quality of life. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)
Sowa Rigpa is generally translated as 'the science of healing' and often used synonymously for 'Tibetan medicine'. Historically, Sowa Rigpa can be considered a borrowed term from Sanskrit, accompanied by an adopted sense of
Nascent medical students' first view into medical school orients them toward what is considered important in medicine. Based on ethnography conducted over 18 months at a New England medical school, this article explores themes which emerged during a first-year student orientation and examines how these scripts resurface across a four-year curriculum, revealing dynamics of enculturation into an institution and the broader profession. We analyze orientation activities as discursive and embodied fields which serve "practical" purposes of making new social geographies familiar, but which also frame institutional values surrounding "soft" aspects of medicine: professionalism; dynamics of hierarchy and vulnerability; and social difference. By examining orientation and connecting these insights to later, discerning educational moments, we argue that orientation reveals tensions between the overt and hidden curricula within medical education, including what being a good doctor means. Our findings are based on data from semi-structured interviews, focus groups, and participant-observation in didactic and clinical settings. This article answers calls within medical anthropology and medical education literature to recognize implicit values at play in producing physicians, unearthing ethnographically how these values are learned longitudinally via persisting gaps between formal and hidden curricula. Assumptions hidden in plain sight call for ongoing medical education reform.;
Abstract: The lack of affordable, available pediatric drug formulations presents serious global health challenges. This article argues that successful pharmacotherapy for children demands an interdisciplinary approach. There is a need to develop new medicines to address acute and chronic illnesses of children, but also to produce formulations of essential medicines to optimize stability, bioavailability, palatability, cost, accurate dosing and adherence. This, in turn, requires an understanding of the social ecologies in which treatment occurs. Understanding health worker, caregiver and patient practices, limitations, and expectations with regard to medicines is crucial to guiding effective drug development and administration. Using literature on pediatric tuberculosis as a reference, this review highlights sociocultural, pharmacological, and structural barriers that impede the delivery of medicines to children. It serves as a basis for the development of an intensive survey of patient, caregiver, and health care worker understandings of, and preferences for, pediatric formulations in three East African countries.
Directed by Craig Leeson. With David Attenborough, Sylvia Earle, Ben Fogle, Craig Leeson. A PLASTIC OCEAN begins when journalist Craig Leeson, searching for the elusive blue whale, discovers plastic waste in what should be pristine ocean. In this adventure documentary, Craig teams up with free diver Tanya Streeter and an international team of scientists and researchers, and they travel to twenty locations around the world over the next four years to explore the fragile state of our ...
The introduction begins with an ethnographic vignette that evokes the central questions of this book: How is efficacy determined? What is at stake in these transactions across science, culture, and meaning? This multi-sited ethnography focuses on the question of what it means to say that a medicine “works.” The author’s research on Tibetan medicine in Nepal and China suggests the issue of efficacy needs to be addressed in far broader terms than solely experiential or clinical perspectives on “what works” allows. Answers to these central questions—<i>What makes a medicine “work”? How are such assertions made, by whom, and to what ends?</i>—hinge on the varied social ecologies in which therapies are made and evaluated, practitioners are trained, and patients are treated. The introduction elaborates on these questions and concepts; provides background information on the field sites in question (Nepal and Tibetan regions in the People’s Republic of China) and the history and status of Tibetan medicine in these contexts; discusses the author’s research methodologies; and provides a chapter-by-chapter précis. The first three chapters focus on practitioners and Tibetan medicine as a <i>process</i>. Chapter 4 links ethnography that highlights Tibetan medicine as <i>process</i> to Tibetan medicines as <i>products.</i> The last three chapters focus on medicines and <i>materia medica—</i>their circulation as objects of sociocultural, medical, and economic value.
To Tibetans life does not begin at birth, but rather at conception. After death, a being’s consciousness… wanders in an intermediate realm until impelled by the forces of its own karma to enter a womb at the instant of conception. Gestation is a hazardous time when women try to consume foods and seek spiritual means to prevent any harm coming to their growing baby. Once born, the child must fight for survival against daunting odds. Infancy is fraught with more hazards than any other stage of the life course, and the infant mortality rate in Nubri is frightfully high. Nearly one in every four children born alive does not live to see his or her first birthday. (Childs 2004: 38)
Chapters 1 and 2 describe one day in two ethnographic sites. They show the scope of this ethnography and introduce key characters. They exemplify the book’s central arguments: that efficacy is a biophysical, socioeconomic, and political concept, articulated in specific social ecologies, and that modern “traditional medicine” is tied to global regimes of governance (conservation-development agendas, biomedicine, technoscience, and global pharma) and to localized <i>materia medica</i> and forms of practice. These chapters reveal that it is best to speak of Tibetan medicines (plural, not singular); there is too much diversity in the practices and perspectives to do otherwise. The ethnographic realities presented are distinct but also deeply interconnected. Chapter 1 tracks one day of an <i>amchi</i>, a practitioner of Tibetan medicine. Witnessing an <i>amchi</i> at home and at work shows how social ecologies shape experiences of efficacy and the healing life in a rural place. It also shows how simple dichotomies—tradition/modernity, rural/urban, local/global—are inadequate to describe the lifework of <i>amchi</i> and their patients. Although the protagonists travel only several miles, they move through many worlds and occupy many social and medical roles. This chapter analyzes the ways Tibetan medicine is practiced and supported within a national context that has not officially recognized this healing system. Chapter 1 emphasizes themes including identity, knowledge transmission, and interactions with conservation-development agendas.
A response from the author of the article on the research on collaborative event ethnography (CEE) organized by engaged anthropologists in Tibet, China is presented.
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