Theoretical Referents in Knowledge Organization: A Domain Analysis of the Knowledge Organization Journal

Aiming at contributing to the epistemological characterization of the area of knowledge organization, our goal is to analyze the KO journal, since its creation in 1993, as a knowledge domain, from a nuclear community of the most productive and greater impact authors, analyzing the dialogue among citing authors and cited ones, and also the co-citations established by the citing authors. We worked with a corpus of 310 articles published between 1993 and 2011 produced by a total of 360 authors. The relatively more productive authors, a group geographically concentrated in Europe (37%), North America (44%) and Asia (19%), is clearly explained by the historical European origin of the ISKO and by an increasing North American presence along the years. Of the 33 most cited authors, 22 were co-cited in at least 6 works, which suggests that they are the theoretical referential nucleus of the area, in the studied journal. Finally, we observe that the area reveals theme cohesion and coherence in its production, enabling us to clearly visualize its theoretical referential nucleus and to confirm the role performed by the KO magazine as a catalyzing agent of international theoretical construction in the area.

Knowledge and use of wild edible plants in rural communities along Paraguay River, Pantanal, Brazil

Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)

Environmental conservation and the Cerrado Biome: investigating knowledge and attitudes of Bauru residents

In today’s context of environmental degradation, environmental issues have increasingly become a focus of global discussion. Although many researchers emphasize the importance of knowledge and information in promoting environmental protection, research involving people’s notions about and attitudes toward the environment and establishing their connection with such knowledge is scarce. This lack of research led to the following inquiry: Is it possible to relate conservation actions and concern about a biome – in this case, the Cerrado – to the population’s level of knowledge about the environment in which they live? This research presents results from an investigation conducted in a representative population sample in Bauru, where there are fragments of a Cerrado Legal Reserve. The sampling approach used was probabilistic; it is based on random laws and can be submitted to statistical methods. The total sample (450 people) was divided into 90 people per Bauru region, 45 people female and 45 males. Each gender group was divided into three age groups: the first from 16 to 30 years, the second from 31 to 55 years and the third above 56 years. Through the questionnaire, we collected the following data from respondents: personal data such as salary, gender, age, level of education, notions/actions and intentions related to environmental conservation and general knowledge about the Cerrado. The result of the chi-square analysis is consistent with this finding, as it is less than 0.05, demonstrating a significant association between these two variables.