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The purpose of this paper is to investigate the health and medicinal importance of bush tea (Athrixia phylicoides DC) and special tea (Monsonia burkeana Planch. ex Harv), two of Southern African indigenous herbal teas.

The two herbal teas, A. phylicoides and M. burkeana were extracted individually and in combined ratios for analysis. The phenolic content was determined and the different phenolic compounds were identified using thin-layer chromatography (TLC) and high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). The anti-diabetic activity of the teas was determined by evaluating the inhibition of both α-amylase and α-glucosidase in vitro. The anti-proliferative activity was measured on human cervical cancer (HeLa) cell line using the MTT (3-(4,5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl)2,5-diphenyltetrazolium) assay.

Gallic acid, chlorogenic acid and quercetin were identified to be present in significant quantities by TLC. The HPLC quantified the presence of catechin (1.567 mg/g) and chlorogenic acid (1.862 mg/g) in special tea while chlorogenic acid (1.288 mg/g) was present in bush tea. Bush tea and special tea expressed significant levels of phenolic content and high antioxidant activities. Special tea (S100) expressed high inhibition of α-amylase, α-glucosidase and HeLa cell line proliferation when compared to bush tea (B100).

Both bush tea and special tea could provide an alternative for treatment and management of both diabetes and cervical cancer. However, future studies are needed to investigate their synergistic effect with a wide range of other commercial herbal teas.

Increasingly, interest in and the uptake of herbal infusions has advanced, namely, owing to their bioactive properties and potential links to health. Given this, the purpose of the present review was to collate evidence from human trials for five popular herbal infusions.

The systematic review comprised ten human trials (560 participants), investigating inter-relationships between herbal infusions consumption and health. Only human studies involving German chamomile (Matricaria chamomilla L. Asteraceae), ginger (Zingiber officinale Roscoe Zingiberaceae), lemon balm (Melissa officinalis L. Lamiaceae), peppermint (Mentha x spicata L. Lamiaceae)/spearmint (Mentha spicata L. Lamiaceae) and rosehip (Rosa canina L. Rosaceae) teas were included in the present paper.

Most herbal infusions serve as a good source of flavonoids and other polyphenols in the human diet. Studies included in this paper indicate that herbal infusions (1-3 cups tended to be drank daily; infusion rates up to 15 min) could benefit certain aspects of health. In particular, this includes aspects of sleep quality and glycaemic control (German chamomile), osteoarthritic stiffness and hormone control (spearmint), oxidative stress (lemon balm) and primary dysmenorrhea (rosehip).

Ongoing research is needed using homogenous herbal infusion forms, brewing rates and volumes of water to further reinforce these findings. In the meantime, herbal infusions could provide a useful supplementary approach to improving certain aspects of well-being.

The present paper collates evidence from human trials for five popular herbal infusions.

Exoskeletons are mechanical structures that humans can wear to increase their strength and endurance. The purpose of this paper is to explain how exoskeletons can be used to improve performance across five phases of manufacturing.

Multivocal literature review, encompassing scientific literature and the grey literature of online reports, etc., to inform comprehensive, comparative and critical analyses of the potential of exoskeletons to improve manufacturing performance.

There are at least eight different types of exoskeletons that can be used to improve human strength and endurance in manual work during different phases of production. However, exoskeletons can have the unintended negative consequence of reducing human flexibility leading to new sources of musculoskeletal disorders (MSD) and accidents.

Findings are relevant to function allocation research concerned with manual production work. In particular, exoskeletons could exacerbate the traditional trade-off between human flexibility and robot consistency by making human workers less flexible.

The introduction of exoskeletons requires careful health and safety planning if exoskeletons are to improve human strength and endurance without introducing new sources of MSD and accidents.

The originality of this paper is that it provides detailed information about a new manufacturing technology: exoskeletons. The value of this paper is that it provides information that is comprehensive, comparative and critical about exoskeletons as a potential alternative to robotics across five phases of manufacturing.

To further develop research methodologies for multi-species ethnographic fieldwork, based on researcher's experiences with multi-species fieldwork in private wildlife conservancies in South Africa and inspired by San tracking techniques.

Reflections on methodological lessons learnt during multi-species ethnographic fieldwork in South Africa. The approach is rather “Maanenesque” in telling various types of tales of the field. These tales also implicitly show how all-encompassing ethnographic fieldwork and its accompanying reflexivity are; there is never time for leisure in ethnographic fieldwork.

That developing fieldwork methodologies in multi-species ethnographic research confronts researchers with the explicit need for and training in multi-sensory methods and interpretations, inspired by “the art of tracking” of the San.

Comes up with a concrete suggestion for a sequence of research methods for multi-species ethnography based on the trials and tribulations of a multi-species ethnographer's experiences in South Africa and inspired by San tracking techniques.

The overarching aim of this project is to understand the role women tourism social entrepreneurs (TSEs) play in contributing to regenerative practices in Canada.

Semi-structured interviews were carried out with women food TSEs with snowball sampling. This paper challenges the assumption that the masculine experience is the human experience. Accordingly, this research is informed by a feminist ethic of care lens to recognise the important role of Canadian women TSEs. Methodologically, the authors employed the strategies of a constructivist grounded theory to guide the analysis (Charmaz, 2011). This process involved carefully engaging in a close line by line reading of the transcripts, developing codes based on the authors’ dealings with the data including summarising, synthesising and sorting the data (Charmaz, 2011).

The analysis revealed three categories: (1) Adopting a regenerative mindset and enhancing well-being, (2) Supporting the consumption of real food and (3) Educating communities for regenerative and just futures. The analysis revealed the importance of women TSEs in adopting a regenerative and caring mindset to enhance the well-being of their communities and beyond.

The study focusses on the learnings from 11 entrepreneurs from Canada. There is a scope to expand the discussion with more interviews. The impact of this pandemic on the small businesses resulted in affecting the researchers’ participation by presenting some unique challenges in participant recruitment. Maybe the studies in the near future will focus on grounding the research papers based on other sexual orientations and indigenous social entrepreneurs.

The authors hope future studies centre diversity and attend to the role of women in their communities to better under the diverse contributions. The work presented here is part of a broader study on the role and impact of women TSEs and so only reveals the tip of the Canadian iceberg. Forthcoming studies will attend to some of the gender-specific barriers faced by women TSEs and the supports required particularly in the wake of COVID-19. The authors hope other scholars continue to build on this work, adopting feminist approaches to enhance our understanding of the role women play in contributing to just, caring and regenerative futures.

Contributing to Higgins-Desbiolles and Monga's (2021) in-depth case study using an ethic of care to examine an Australian events business supporting homeless individuals, the analysis of the 11 in-depth interviews with Canadian TSE provides evidence of alternative ways women are delivering social value. Using an ethic of care lens has elicited the impacts created by the informants and the ripple effects particularly in light of regenerative practices which are crucial in the tourism sector as borders and destinations reopen to tourism as noted by Ateljevic (2020).

There are few studies in the tourism social entrepreneurship literature that recognise the agency and centres the vocies of women. Kimbu and Ngoasong (2016) made a call for more research to understand how women engage in social entrepreneurial activities and benefit their local communities. There are limited analyses on regenerative tourism in practice in the scholarly literature. To respond to this gap the authors examine the regenerative practices of women TSEs in Canada.