Masterstrokes and markets: a bibliometric journey through art's value

KEAI COMMUNICATIONS CO., LTD.

 

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TIME ZONE MAP OF KEYWORDS

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CREDIT: MINGJUN GUO, XUERONG LI, YUNJIE WEI

The art market, blending culture and commerce, has long intrigued economists and enthusiasts. A new article offers a comprehensive bibliometric analysis over five decades, examining pricing mechanisms and efficiency metrics. It highlights the COVID-19 pandemic's role in accelerating digital transformations within the market. This analysis provides valuable insights for future research, offering a robust foundation for understanding the dynamic interplay between art, economics, and culture.

The art market, with its centuries-old history, has undergone significant transformations, especially in recent decades. Scholars have examined various aspects, from art pricing and artist branding to the implications of digital platforms and regulatory measures. Despite extensive research, gaps remain in understanding the full scope of market efficiency and the evolving dynamics influenced by technological advancements and global events. Due to these challenges, there is a pressing need for comprehensive studies that delve deeper into these areas, especially in light of recent shifts in market behavior and regulatory landscapes.

A recent review (DOI: 10.1016/j.dsm.2024.03.006) by researchers from the Academy of Mathematics and Systems Science at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, published in Data Science and Management on April 13, 2024, provides a thorough bibliometric analysis of the art market spanning the last 50 years. Utilizing big data and various analytical methods, the study maps out significant trends, influential works, and emerging themes within the art market.

The study utilized a comprehensive dataset from the Web of Science Core Collection, encompassing 912 pieces of literature on the art market from 1972 to 2021. Through descriptive statistical analysis and various bibliometric methods, including co-citation and co-word analysis, the researchers identified key trends and shifts in research focus. Notably, the study found a consistent annual increase in research interest in the art market, with significant shifts from hedonic art prices to topics such as artist brand management, digital art platforms, and anti-money laundering supervision. The analysis highlighted the substantial impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in expediting digital transformations within the art market. Additionally, the study revealed five primary research clusters: anonymous painting and artistic brands, hedonic art price indices, digital art platforms, anti-money laundering regulation, and market efficiency. Each cluster represents a critical area of focus within the field, providing a detailed roadmap for future research directions.

Dr. Yunjie Wei, a corresponding author from the Academy of Mathematics and Systems Science, stated, "Our findings illuminate the evolving priorities within art market research, particularly the growing importance of digital platforms and regulatory measures. This comprehensive analysis not only maps out past trends but also highlights critical areas for future exploration, offering valuable insights for scholars and practitioners alike."

The study's findings have significant implications for both academic research and practical applications within the art market. By identifying key trends and emerging areas of focus, it provides valuable insights for scholars and practitioners, including art dealers, auction houses, and regulatory bodies. These insights help navigate the complexities of digital transformation and regulatory compliance. The study underscores the necessity for ongoing monitoring and analysis to keep pace with the rapidly evolving art market landscape, ensuring that stakeholders remain informed and adaptive to new trends and regulatory demands.

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Media contact:

Name: Yajuan Zhao

Email: dsm@xjtu.edu.cn

Expert contact: weiyunjie@amss.ac.cn

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JOURNAL

Data Science and Management

DOI

10.1016/j.dsm.2024.03.006 

ARTICLE TITLE

Bibliometric analysis of the art market: from art price to market efficiency

 

If you feel unsafe in your neighborhood, a new study shows you are more likely to smoke

University of Houston report indicates perceptions of powerlessness also make it harder to quit smoking

UNIVERSITY OF HOUSTON

 

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MICHAEL J. ZVOLENSKY, UNIVERSITY OF HOUSTON HUGH ROY AND LILLIE CRANZ CULLEN DISTINGUISHED UNIVERSITY PROFESSOR OF PSYCHOLOGY, IS REPORTING HIGHER LEVELS OF SMOKING AND MORE SEVERE PROBLEMS QUITTING AMONG THOSE WHO FEEL THREATENED IN THEIR NEIGHBORHOODS.

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CREDIT: UNIVERSITY OF HOUSTON

Research from the University of Houston indicates that more people smoke – and have trouble quitting – in neighborhoods where they feel unsafe. High crime rates, low police presence or trust, and a history of neglect in these neighborhoods result in heightened neighborhood vigilance among residents to protect against personal harm. 

According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, the neighborhoods people live in have a major impact on their health and well-being, making them key non-medical drivers of care. Although non-medical drivers have increasingly been understood as clinically important factors in the onset, maintenance and relapse of substance use behavior, little research has evaluated neighborhood vigilance in terms of smoking. 

"High levels of neighborhood threat shape perceptions of powerlessness among residents, amplifying a general sense of mistrust, that can promote maladaptive coping behavior like smoking,” reports Michael J. Zvolensky, Hugh Roy and Lillie Cranz Cullen Distinguished University Professor of Psychology, in the journal Substance Use & Misuse.  

Zvolensky examined the role of neighborhood vigilance in terms of smoking abstinence expectancies and severity of problems when trying to quit among adults who smoke. Abstinence expectancies pertain to the expected personal consequences of refraining from smoking. 

“Neighborhood vigilance was also associated with more severe problems when trying to quit smoking. The current findings suggest neighborhood vigilance represents an important contextual factor involved in certain negative beliefs about abstinence and challenges in quitting.” 

Participants in this analysis included 93 adult smokers who were seeking cessation treatment. Of the group 64.5% identified as Black or African American, 30.1% identified as White, 3.2% identified as Other and 2.2% identified as Asian. The group answered questions about their own socio-demographic characteristics and their neighborhoods. 

“Generally consistent with prediction, greater levels of neighborhood vigilance were associated with negative abstinence smoking expectancies, including negative mood and harmful consequences,” said Zvolensky.  

Zvolensky said the study indicates a need to continue building theoretical knowledge and clinical intervention programming for smoking cessation that more directly focuses on social context factors like neighborhood vigilance. His team includes Bryce K. Clausen, Justin M. Shepherd and Brooke Y. Redmond, all from UH. 

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JOURNAL

Substance Use & Misuse

ARTICLE TITLE

Neighborhood Vigilance in Terms of Abstinence Expectancies for Smoking and Severity of Problems When Quitting

 

"Lost" birds list will aid in protecting species

CORNELL UNIVERSITY

 

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THE LOUISIADE PITTA IS ONE OF THE "LOST" SPECIES FOUND IN 2022 AND 2023 ON ROSSEL ISLAND, PAPUA NEW GUINEA. THERE HAD BEEN NO DEFINITE RECORD OF THIS BIRD SINCE 1898.

 

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CREDIT: PHOTO BY WANG BIN | CORNELL LAB OF ORNITHOLOGY | MACAULAY LIBRARY.

A group of scientists has released the first comprehensive list of birds that haven’t been seen in more than a decade, with the help of Macaulay Library at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology.

Their methods, and the global list of “lost” birds, have been published in the journal Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment.

“We started with the Macaulay Library because it is the richest depository of bird media, and we quicky found documentation for the vast majority of the world’s birds,” said lead author Cameron Rutt, a bird biologist with the American Bird Conservancy at the time of the research. “We also used data from iNaturalist and xeno-canto. We looked for species not represented at all with a recent image, video, or sound recording. A species would be considered ‘lost’ to science if there was no media of the bird within the past 10 years or more.”

The list was generated on behalf of the Search for Lost Birds at the American Bird Conservancy. This project is a global partnership among the American Bird Conservancy, Re:wild and BirdLife International. Repeating this data exercise every year or two will help capture new species approaching the 10-year benchmark without searchable media.

The study’s authors collated 42 million photos, videos and audio records – with more than 33 million from the Macaulay Library alone. Out of all the records, 144 species, 1.2% of all known bird species, qualified as lost.

Since this study was initiated, other lost birds have been rediscovered, including the black-naped pheasant-pigeon, which hadn’t been documented on a remote island of Papua New Guinea in more than 100 years. Currently the list stands at 126 species, the majority of which are threatened with extinction.

“We had several goals in mind here,” said study co-author Eliot Miller, then a postdoctoral researcher at the Cornell Lab. “We wanted to see if well-vetted public media databases would be comprehensive and trustworthy enough to document the presence or absence of species. Once absent species are identified, we can look for them and see if they need some kind of protection – this method helps identify research priorities for possible conservation action.”

Most of the undocumented species are concentrated in Asia, Africa and the scattered islands of Oceania. In some cases, species may be considered lost simply because their habitat is so remote that nobody has returned since the initial sightings. Only three species made the lost list in the continental United States: Eskimo curlew, Bachman’s warbler, and the ivory-billed woodpecker. Six native species are on the list from Hawaii.

“One of the things I learned from doing this is how many whimbrel and curlew relatives have likely gone extinct or seem to be heading in that direction,” Miller said. “It seems to be a group of birds that does not do well with people.”

A vital element of the project is tapping into local knowledge with on-site partners and helping fund expeditions to find the birds and assess their conservation needs. This knowledge will be crucial to the success of efforts to find species such as the Himalayan quail, Itombwe nightjar, Jerdon’s courser or the Bates’s weaver in Cameroon.

“A narrow slice of the world’s birds has fallen through the cracks,” said Rutt. “The coming years and decades will be critical if these birds are going to persist.”

This work was supported by the Constable Foundation and the American Bird Conservancy. It was conducted by scientists from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, American Bird Conservancy, BirdLife International, and Re:wild.

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JOURNAL

Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment

DOI

10.1002/fee.2778 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Data/statistical analysis

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Animals

ARTICLE TITLE

Global gaps in citizen-science data reveal the world's “lost” birds

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

17-Jun-2024

 

Frederick Douglass’ relationship with audiences illustrates ‘outsized impact’ of public speaking in politics, scholar says

UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS

LAWRENCE, KANSAS — The late 18th to the mid-19th century was the golden age of public speaking. Part education, part entertainment, being a good orator was critical — particularly in certain social circles.

For writer and reformer Frederick Douglass, public speaking was among the vehicles he used to tell his story of enslavement, to call for abolition and to defend Black Americans’ rights. 

A new scholarly article from Laura Mielke, “‘The Sea of Upturned Faces’: The Rhetorical Role of Audience in Frederick Douglass’s Constitutional Interpretation at Midcentury,” examines Douglass’ relationship as an orator with his audiences — both present and imagined — and how this give-and-take was present during a notable shift in his thinking. 

Mielke is the Dean’s Professor of English at the University of Kansas, where she also serves as interim chair of the Department of History. The article appeared in the journal MELUS (Multi-Ethnic Literature of the United States).

Douglass was acutely aware of his audiences, both those in the room and the audience that would read written accounts of his oration in newspapers and other publications. In fact, Douglass advised fellow anti-slavery organizers to make sure the venues for lecturers had the audience illuminated.

“I imagine how Douglass wanted to see his audience so that he was constantly gauging their reaction, shifting his delivery and his tactics based on what he saw,” Mielke said. “He could shift from fire to comedy, from condemnation to satire.” 

Mielke, whose scholarship has delved into the impact of theatre on the anti-slavery movement, said Douglass and his contemporaries understood how to leverage the art form’s popularity, even incorporating imitations of pro-slavery preachers and politicians.

“We can have a negative connotation with performance, but he was a talented performer,” Mielke said. “He knew it was important for him to perform — to capture imaginations — but also to counter the racist performances of popular theater,” Mielke said.

In her article, Mielke explores Douglass’ ideological transformation from seeing the U.S. Constitution as a pro-slavery document to seeing it as an anti-slavery document through the lens his relationships with his audiences. What has otherwise been described as Douglass’ personal and intellectual transformation, Mielke sees having taken place in the presence of his many live audiences, as well as other writers, thinkers, readers and activists.

“He had shifted from lectures that were primarily focused on his autobiography to lectures that are more about what he is reading, what others should read — the sense of it being a collective project,” Mielke said. “Thinking about audience and the way he was seeing audiences and they were seeing him led him down this road toward reinterpreting the Constitution.”

Particularly in a presidential election year, the term “political theatre” is a charged one. Yet the way candidates relate to and play off their audiences matters, even to those who aren’t present to witness it.

“Today it might be too easy for us to say politics are all about social media and the internet,” Mielke said. “I would suggest that public speaking still has an outsized impact on the American political scene.”

Case in point, the amount of coverage given to candidates’ audiences as well as the candidates themselves — not unlike newspaper coverage of Douglass in the 1800s. 

“Live public speaking and its reception are very powerful, even when we are encountering them in a written record,” Mielke said.

The written record of Douglass’ life is a particular area of interest for Mielke, who has been involved in KU’s observance of Douglass Day, a nationwide event during which volunteers transcribe documents related to Black history to make the content digitally accessible.

“I love participating in Douglas Day because I love looking at old documents and learning about history,” Mielke said. “But I also have a sense that if I'm going to do scholarship in the field of 19th century African American literature I should do something to help sustain it. Anything we can do to help sustain community around the preservation of that history and the dissemination of those documents is important.”
 

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DOI

10.1093/melus/mlae009 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Content analysis

ARTICLE TITLE

“‘The Sea of Upturned Faces’: The Rhetorical Role of Audience in Frederick Douglass’s Constitutional Interpretation at Midcentury"

 

New funding to support Wales’ development of pioneering marine energy technology

Grant and Award Announcement

SWANSEA UNIVERSITY

 

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A PHOTO OF THE PELAFLEX FLOATING WIND TURBINE.

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CREDIT: MARINE POWER SYSTEMS.

Innovate UK has awarded funding to further optimise a unique and flexible floating offshore wind platform for applications in the Celtic Sea, a collaboration involving Swansea University.

The funding will help establish the Launchpad project to ensure that, where possible, a local supply chain will support the fabrication, manufacture, and deployment of the platform, known as PelaFlex.

Led by Marine Power Systems, Swansea University’s Department of Mechanical Engineering will be working with Ledwood Mechanical Engineering, Tata Steel UK, ABP (Associated British Ports) Port Talbot, and the Port of Milford Haven on the project, which is worth over £800,000.

Launchpad will optimise PelaFlex's structural efficiency, paying particular attention to the challenging environment in the Celtic Sea while minimising the cost of materials and deployment. This includes using strip steel manufactured in Port Talbot, components fabricated by local suppliers, and assembly and rollout using existing ports in southwest Wales.

Swansea University will provide design input by applying the latest developments in structural design modelling, and Ledwood, based in Pembrokeshire, will provide feedback that will help maximise the extent to which local suppliers can support fabrication.

Input from Associated British Ports and the Port of Milford Haven will ensure that the platform can be assembled and deployed from those locations whilst minimising the investment required to do so.

The project will support Tata Steel UK’s vision to decarbonise Port Talbot’s steel production, one example being the production of green strip steel using an electric arc furnace. It will also help position the town as an industrial hub for the development and deployment of offshore wind.

Dr Will Harrison, Senior Lecturer in Mechanical Engineering at Swansea University, said: “It is a great opportunity to be working with MPS, Ledwood, Tata Steel, the Port of Milford Haven and ABP Port Talbot to deliver this exciting project. Each of the partners brings different and complementary expertise to this engineering challenge, and the project really showcases the potential of industry in South-West Wales. MPS has developed a world-class concept which we are really excited to help them optimise, using experience in computation techniques at Swansea University and to support local industry.”

Graham Foster, Chief Technology Officer at Marine Power Systems, commented: “We are really excited to receive support through Innovate UK. With the deployment of floating offshore wind in the Celtic Sea becoming a reality the time is absolutely right to work with local supply chain to optimise the detailed design of our technology and maximise its deliverability. A good example of that, is that we are confident that through this project we will be able to optimise our platform design to increase the amount of local steel used to fabricate it from around 10% to over 50%.”

Mark Davies of Ledwood Mechanical Engineering commented: “Launchpad represents another step forward for the emerging floating offshore wind industry. As a locally-based engineering company, we are pleased to be working with MPS, Tata Steel, the Port of Milford Haven, ABP Port Talbot and Swansea University to help build a local supply chain by capitalising on the skills, expertise and infrastructure that we have here in South-West Wales. This is an exciting time for us and we hope the region can take advantage of the opportunities that will soon emerge.”

WWIII

SwRI breaks ground on new hypersonic engine research facility

Institute will demonstrate faster methods of producing high-speed propulsion systems

SOUTHWEST RESEARCH INSTITUTE

 

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SOUTHWEST RESEARCH INSTITUTE (SWRI) TODAY CELEBRATED THE GROUNDBREAKING OF THE CENTER FOR ACCELERATING MATERIALS AND PROCESSES (CAMP), A NEW RESEARCH FACILITY THAT DEMONSTRATES FASTER METHODS OF PRODUCING HYPERSONIC ENGINES.

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CREDIT: SOUTHWEST RESEARCH INSTITUTE

SAN ANTONIO — June 17, 2024 —Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) today celebrated the groundbreaking of the Center for Accelerating Materials and Processes (CAMP), a new facility that will support research and development for tomorrow’s high-speed aerospace engines.

“This project will help ensure the U.S. is a leader in high-speed propulsion research and development,” said Dr. Barron Bichon, director of SwRI’s Materials Engineering Department. “SwRI is committed to advancing this vital technology on behalf of Texas and the nation.”

Market forces including growth in global defense, air travel, delivery and transportation needs are driving the demand for high-speed engines. Initial projects in the new CAMP facility will focus on demonstrating faster, more efficient techniques for manufacturing high-speed propulsion systems.

Once construction on the new two-story, 36,600 square-foot facility is complete, SwRI will begin evaluating new materials and processes designed to produce a high-speed engine in a considerably shorter amount of time than current production timelines.

“This new facility will see the development of innovative technology that reflects SwRI’s mission of serving humankind,” said Dr. Ben Thacker, vice president of SwRI’s Mechanical Engineering Division. “Advancing high-speed propulsion systems propels us toward a future with stronger defense capabilities and greater global connectivity.”

One of the CAMP facility’s initial projects will involve procuring and installing manufacturing process test equipment. Under a contract from the Office of the Secretary of Defense’s Manufacturing Science and Technology Program, SwRI engineers will demonstrate how the facility will reduce production times and costs. The Institute will invest $34 million in the construction of the CAMP facility.

For more information, visit https://www.swri.org/technical-divisions/mechanical-engineering.

 

AI shows how field crops develop

Tool developed at the University of Bonn should enable yield forecasts, among other things, in the future

UNIVERSITY OF BONN

 

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OF VARIOUS GROWTH STAGES (LEFT). IT CAN THEN, BASED ON A SINGLE INITIAL PHOTO OF ANOTHER FIELD, MODEL HOW THE CROP WILL DEVELOP (CENTER; THE IMAGES SHOW HOW THE VARIATION OF CERTAIN CROP PARAMETERS AFFECTS GROWTH).

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CREDIT: FIGURE: LUKAS DREES/UNIVERSITY OF BONN

Researchers at the University of Bonn have developed software that can simulate the growth of field crops. To do this, they fed thousands of photos from field experiments into a learning algorithm. This enabled the algorithm to learn how to visualize the future development of cultivated plants based on a single initial image. Using the images created during this process, parameters such as leaf area or yield can be estimated accurately. The results have been published in the journal Plant Methods.

Which plants should I combine in what ratio to achieve the greatest possible yield? And how will my crop develop if I use manure instead of artificial fertilizers? In the future, farmers should increasingly be able to count on computer support when answering such questions.

Researchers from the University of Bonn have now taken a crucial step forward on the path towards this goal: “We have developed software that uses drone photos to visualize the future development of the plants shown,” explains Lukas Drees from the Institute of Geodesy and Geoinformation at the University of Bonn. The early career researcher is an employee in the PhenoRob Cluster of Excellence. The large-scale project based at the University of Bonn intends to drive forward the intelligent digitalization of agriculture to help farming become more environmentally friendly, without causing harvest yields to suffer.

A virtual glimpse into the future to aid decision-making

The computer program now presented by Drees and his colleagues in the journal Plant Methods is an important building block. It should eventually make it possible to simulate certain decisions virtually – for instance, to assess how the use of pesticides or fertilizers will affect crop yield.

For this to work, the program must be fed with drone photos from field experiments. “We took thousands of images over one growth period,” explains the doctoral researcher. “In this way, for example, we documented the development of cauliflower crops under certain conditions.” The researchers then trained a learning algorithm using these images. Afterwards, based on a single aerial image of an early stage of growth, this algorithm was able to generate images showing the future development of the crop in a new, artificially created image. The whole process is very accurate as long as the crop conditions are similar to those present when the training photos were taken. Consequently, the software does not take into account the effect of a sudden cold snap or steady rain lasting several days. However, it should learn in the future how growth is affected by influences such as these – as well as an increased use of fertilizers, for example. This should enable it to predict the outcome of certain interventions by the farmer.

“In addition, we used a second AI software that can estimate various parameters from plant photos, such as crop yield,” says Drees. “This also works with the generated images. It is thus possible to estimate quite precisely the subsequent size of the cauliflower heads at a very early stage in the growth period.”

Focus on polycultures

One area the researchers are focusing on is the use of polycultures. This refers to the sowing of different species in one field – such as beans and wheat. As plants have different requirements, they compete less with each other in a polyculture of this kind compared to a monoculture, where just one species is grown. This boosts yield. In addition, some species – beans are a good example of this – can bind nitrogen from the air and use it as a natural fertilizer. The other species, in this case wheat, also benefits from this.

“Polycultures are also less susceptible to pests and other environmental influences,” explains Drees. “However, how well the whole thing works very much depends on the combined species and their mixing ratio.” When results from many different mixing experiments are fed into learning algorithms, it is possible to derive recommendations as to which plants are particularly compatible and in what ratio.

Plant growth simulations on the basis of learning algorithms are a relatively new development. Process-based models have mostly been used for this purpose up to now. These – metaphorically speaking – have a fundamental understanding of what nutrients and environmental conditions certain plants need during their growth in order to thrive. “Our software, however, makes its statements solely based on the experience they have collected using the training images,” stresses Drees.

Both approaches complement each other. If they were to be combined in an appropriate manner, it could significantly improve the quality of the forecasts. “This is also a point that we are investigating in our study,” says the doctoral researcher: “How can we use process- and image-based methods so they benefit from each other in the best possible way?”

the future growth of the plants using drone photos or other images from an early growth stage. 

CREDIT

Photo: Volker Lannert/University of Bon

Participating institutions and funding:

The University of Bonn and Forschungszentrum Jülich took part in the study. The work was funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG) as part of the German Excellence Strategy.

Publication: Lukas Drees, Dereje T. Demie, Madhuri R. Paul, Johannes Leonhardt, Sabine J. Seidel, Thomas F. Döring, Ribana Roscher: Data-driven Crop Growth Simulation on Time-varying Generated Images using Multi-conditional Generative Adversarial Networks; Plant Methods; https://doi.org/10.1186/s13007-024-01205-3, URL: https://plantmethods.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13007-024-01205-3

Media contact:

Prof. Dr. Ribana Roscher
Institute of Geodesy and Geoinformation, University of Bonn
Tel. +49 (0)228/7360854
Email: ribana.roscher@uni-bonn.de

Lukas Drees
Institute of Geodesy and Geoinformation, University of Bonn
Tel. +49 (0)228 7360854
Email: ldrees@uni-bonn.de

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JOURNAL

Plant Methods

DOI

10.1186/s13007-024-01205-3 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Computational simulation/modeling

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Not applicable

ARTICLE TITLE

Data-driven Crop Growth Simulation on Time-varying Generated Images using Multi-conditional Generative Adversarial Networks

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

15-Jun-2024

Ancient remedies for modern woes: TCM in the fight against African swine fever

 Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM)

HUAZHONG AGRICULTURAL UNIVERSITY

 

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DIFFERENT PATHWAYS ASSOCIATED WITH THE PROTECTIVE EFFECTS OF TRADITIONAL CHINESE HERBS AGAINST AFRICAN SWINE FEVER.

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CREDIT: ANIMAL DISEASES

Recent research reveals the potential of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) in combating African Swine Fever (ASF), a viral disease with near 100% mortality rate in pigs. The study explores TCM's antiviral properties and its role in enhancing immunity, offering a novel strategy in the face of limited effective treatments.

African Swine Fever (ASF) poses a grave threat to the swine industry, with the virus causing severe economic and agricultural disruptions since its emergence in China in 2018. The disease, transmitted by the African Swine Fever Virus (ASFV), has become endemic with a high mortality rate nearing 100%. Despite extensive efforts, the development of effective vaccines or treatments has been hindered by the virus's complex nature. This urgency calls for innovative approaches to manage and mitigate the impact of ASF on pig farming communities.

Researchers from Huazhong Agricultural University, in collaboration with the Hubei Jiangxia Laboratory, have published a comprehensive review (DOI: 10.1186/s44149-024-00122-1) in the journal Animal Diseases. The study delves into the advancements of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) in the prevention and control of ASF, highlighting the antiviral and immunoregulatory capabilities of herbal compounds.

The comprehensive review meticulously details the multifaceted approach of TCM in addressing ASF. It underscores the antiviral potential of various herbal extracts, such as berbamine hydrochloride from Berberis amurensis Rupr., which inhibits ASFV proliferation by interfering with early viral infection stages. Luteolin, found in common vegetables like broccoli, has demonstrated the ability to suppress the virus's replication cycle by modulating key signaling pathways. The study also highlights the role of TCM in immunomodulation, showcasing how certain herbal formulas can enhance the pigs' immune responses and potentially reduce the severity of ASF. The integration of such traditional knowledge with modern scientific methods presents a robust strategy to combat this devastating disease, illustrating the profound impact of TCM in contemporary veterinary medicine.

Dr. Qiang Zhang, a corresponding author and expert in veterinary medicine, emphasizes the importance of this research, stating, "TCM offers a unique perspective in managing diseases like ASF. Its multi-component, multi-target approach can potentially lead to more effective and safer treatments with less risk of resistance development."

The findings suggest that integrating TCM into modern pig farming practices could significantly bolster disease prevention and control measures. The use of herbal additives in feed and the development of TCM-based antiviral drugs present promising avenues. Moreover, this research could pave the way for a deeper understanding of TCM mechanisms, facilitating its integration with Western medicine and contributing to global health strategies against ASF and potentially other infectious diseases.

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References

DOI

10.1186/s44149-024-00122-1

Original Source URL

https://doi.org/10.1186/s44149-024-00122-1

Funding information

This study was funded by the Postdoctoral Fellowship Program of CPSF (Grant No. GZB20230245).

About Animal Diseases

Animal Diseases (ISSN 2731-0442, CN 42-1946/S) is a peer-reviewed, free open access academic journal sponsored by Huazhong Agricultural University. The journal promotes the One Health initiative and is committed to publishing high-quality innovated and prospective works in animal disease research/application that are closely related to human health. The founding chief editors are Drs. Huanchun Chen (Huazhong Agricultural University, China) and Zhen F. Fu (University of Georgia, USA). It has been indexed by ESCI in 2024.

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JOURNAL

Animal Diseases

DOI

10.1186/s44149-024-00122-1 

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Not applicable

ARTICLE TITLE

Advances in research on the efficacy of traditional Chinese herbal medicine in combating African swine fever