A study on four feeding strategies of 100% organic origin for piglets concerning performance, health status, losses and economy in organic agriculture

Organic agriculture is defined as a low-external-input-system but piglets’ necessity for high quality diets seems to contradict low-external-input feeding strategies. Hence, a total of 361 piglets was tested from day 14 – 63 post natum concerning performance, health status, losses and diet costs by means of four feeding strategies of 100% organic origin: (i) high-external-input diet, (ii) medium-external-input diet, (iii) lowexternal-input diet, each with grass-clover-silage as roughage source, and (iv) above mentioned low-external-input diet with straw replacing grass-clover-silage. The highexternal-input-diet achieved the significantly highest live weight gain; all other strategies were similar at a lower level. There were no differences in health status and loss rates between the four strategies. Low-input-strategies were economical at best in producing a standardized 20 kg piglet. A verification of the results is necessary with a higher number of piglets for a final recommendation

Depression and delirium in cardiac surgery patients

Depression is common in persons with cardiac disease, and there is a well-known association between depression and increased cardiovascular morbidity and mortality. Preoperative depression has been associated with postoperative delirium (POD) after general surgery but the association between depression and POD in persons undergoing cardiac surgery is sparsely studied. Postoperative delirium affects a large proportion of patients undergoing cardiac surgery. Delirium phenotypes are commonly divided into hyper- and hypoactive, where hypoactive symptoms (reduced motor activity and withdrawal) often are overlooked due to their discreet character. To our knowledge, there are no studies describing patients’ experiences of hypoactive delirium after cardiac surgery. Although the association between depression and mortality after coronary artery bypass grafting has been confirmed, the association between preoperative depression and long-term survival after cardiac surgery is sparsely studied. The overall aim of this thesis was to contribute to the understanding of the association between depression and delirium, as well as depression and mortality in patients undergoing cardiac surgery. Study I was a systematic literature review and meta-analysis including cohort studies reporting odds ratios (ORs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) for POD after cardiac surgery in patients with preoperative depression compared to patients without depression. ORs and 95% CIs for POD were calculated using random-effects models. Seven studies were included with a combined study population of 2066 patients. The pooled prevalence of POD was 26% and preoperative depression was present in 9% of the total study population. All studies showed a positive association between preoperative depression and POD. Patients with depression had a pooled OR of 2.31 (95% CI 1.37–3.90) for POD. Study II was a population-based cohort study including 1120 persons undergoing cardiac surgery from 2013–2016. Preoperative depression was defined by the Patient Health Questionnaire-9, and baseline characteristics were contained in the Swedish Cardiac Surgery Registry. POD was evaluated by assessing medical records. The association between preoperative depression and POD was determined through multivariable logistic regression analysis. A total of 162 patients (14,5%) reported depressive symptoms preoperatively. The incidence of POD was 26%. The overall adjusted odds of delirium were 2.19 times higher in patients with depressive symptoms compared to controls (95% CI 1.43–3.34). Study III was a qualitative descriptive semi-structured interview study aiming to describe cardiac surgery patients' experiences of hypoactive delirium. Twelve cardiac surgery patients with hypoactive symptoms of delirium were purposefully selected. The data were analyzed by qualitative content analysis with an inductive, latent approach. Two themes based on eight sub-themes emerged: “Dream or reality in parallel worlds” included disturbing experiences of existing in parallel realities with cognitive effects, residual nightmares, and illusions that occasionally persisted after hospital discharge. “Managing the state of hypoactive delirium” included experiences of intellectually dealing with hypoactive delirium with assumptions of causes and cures, and through interactions like communicating with others. The delirium experienced by the participants was considerably more extensive than what had been documented in their medical journals, an indication that hypoactive delirium is overlooked. Study IV was a population-based cohort study investigating the same study cohort as in Study II. The vital status at end of the study was collected from the Swedish Cardiac Surgery Registry on December 15, 2022. During a mean follow-up of 7.2 years (maximum 9.2 years), there were 36 deaths in 1129 person-years (PYs) in the depressed group, compared to 160 deaths in 6889 PYs in the non-depressed group. In the adjusted analysis, self-reported depressive symptoms were associated with worse long-term survival (HR=1.66; 95% CI, 1.09-2.54) compared with no reported depressive symptoms. The absolute survival differences (% and 95% CI) between the non-depressed and the depressed patients were -1.9 (-3.9–0.19), -5.7 (-11– -0.01), and -9.7 (-19– -0.4) after one, five, and eight years, respectively. In conclusion, depression is a significant, independent risk factor for POD and worse longterm survival after cardiac surgery. Depression screening is important to identify patients at risk, and delirium assessment tools should be used to detect all kinds of POD

Dissipative Visco-plastic Deformation in Dynamic Fracture: Tip Blunting and Velocity Selection

Dynamic fracture in a wide class of materials reveals "fracture energy" $\Gamma$ much larger than the expected nominal surface energy due to the formation of two fresh surfaces. Moreover, the fracture energy depends on the crack velocity, $\Gamma=\Gamma(v)$. We show that a simple dynamical theory of visco-plasticity coupled to asymptotic pure linear-elasticity provides a possible explanation to the above phenomena. The theory predicts tip blunting characterized by a dynamically determined crack tip radius of curvature. In addition, we demonstrate velocity selection for cracks in fixed-grip strip geometry accompanied by the identification of $\Gamma$ and its velocity dependence.Comment: 4 pages, 1 figures; presentation improved, refs. changed, figure omitte

Vergleich von vier Fütterungsstrategien für Öko-Ferkel

Organic agriculture is defined as a low-external-input-system but the piglets’ supposed requirement for high quality diets seems to contradict low-external-input feeding strategies. Hence, a total of 361 piglets was tested from day 14 – 63 post natum concerning performance, health status, and losses by means of four feeding strategies of 100 % organic origin: (i) high-external-input diet, (ii) medium-external-input diet, (iii) low-external-input diet, each with grass-clover-silage as roughage source, and (iv) above mentioned low-external-input diet with straw replacing grass-clover-silage. The high-external-input-diet achieved the significantly highest live weight gain; all other strategies were similar at a lower level. There were no differences in health status and loss rates between the four strategies. A verification of the results is necessary with a higher number of piglets before communicating a final recommendation

How to reach ‘hard-to-reach’ older people for research: The TIBaR model of recruitment

Recruiting older persons with diverse health statuses as participants in research projects is a challenge for health researchers, particularly because persons with health impairments and in socially disadvantaged living conditions are difficult to reach. This article presents a step model for gaining access to older people who are difficult to contact. The step model is based on the literature and a qualitative analysis of documentation, field notes and memos that stem from the recruitment processes of two studies from the German research consortium ‘Autonomy despite multimorbidity in old age’, both of which also included older persons who would qualify as ‘hard-to-reach’. The analysis followed the method of Grounded Theory and aimed to understand the social process of ‘recruitment’. Four steps of the recruitment process were identified that had been applied – intentionally or unintentionally – in both of the projects, i.e., the qualitative as well as the quantitative projects: 1. build up Trust, 2. offer Incentives, 3. identify individual Barriers and 4. be Responsive (TIBaR). The step model provides information for facilitating access to various target groups for qualitative as well as quantitative research designs. However, its implementation requires time, financial resources, flexibility and appropriately qualified staff members.Peer Reviewe

Party politics at the water's edge:Contestation of military operations in Europe

This paper contributes to current debates on the politicization of international politics by examining party-political contestation of peace and security missions. It is guided by two inter-related questions, (a) to what extent deployment decisions are contested amongst political parties and (b) what drives such contestation. We examine data from a new data set on parliamentary votes on deployment decisions in France, Germany, Spain, and the United Kingdom and from the Chapel Hill Expert Survey. Against conventional wisdom and in an effort to address the often-overlooked role of political parties, we find that military deployments have been systematically contested amongst political parties across Europe. Further, we find that contestation is driven by the left/right axis, as opposed to newer cleavages captured here by the so-called gal/tan axis. We also find evidence that patterns of contestation depend on parties' positions in government or opposition, a factor we relate to bureaucratic and international pressures on the parties in office, and to political opportunities for opposition parties

The Party Politics of Legislative:Executive Relations in Security and Defence Policy

The move from territorial defence to ‘wars of choice’ has influenced the domestic politics of military interventions. This paper examines the extent to which both the substance and the procedure of military interventions are contested among political parties. Regarding the substance, our analysis of Chapel Hill Expert Survey data demonstrates that across European states political parties on the right are more supportive of military missions than those on the left. On the decision-making procedures, our case studies of Germany, France, Spain and the United Kingdom show that political parties on the left tend to favour strong parliamentary control whereas those on the right tend to prefer an unconstrained executive, although with differences across countries. These findings challenge the view that ‘politics stops at the water’s edge’ and contribute to a better understanding of how political parties and parliaments influence military interventions

Embodiment in 18th Century Depictions of Human-Machine Co-Creativity

Artificial intelligence has a rich history in literature; fiction has shaped how we view artificial agents and their capacities in the real world. This paper looks at embodied examples of human-machine co-creation from the literature of the Long 18th Century (1650–1850), examining how older depictions of creative machines could inform and inspire modern day research. The works are analyzed from the perspective of design fiction with special focus on the embodiment of the systems and the creativity exhibited by them. We find that the chosen examples highlight the importance of recognizing the environment as a major factor in human-machine co-creative processes and that some of the works seem to precede current examples of artificial systems reaching into our everyday lives. The examples present embodied interaction in a positive, creativity-oriented way, but also highlight ethical risks of human-machine co-creativity. Modern day perceptions of artificial systems and creativity can be limited to some extent by the technologies available; fictitious examples from centuries past allow us to examine such limitations using a Design Fiction approach. We conclude by deriving four guidelines for future research from our fictional examples: 1) explore unlikely embodiments; 2) think of situations, not systems; 3) be aware of the disjunction between action and appearance; and 4) consider the system as a situated moral agent

Comparison of Reference Management Systems

The document offers a comparison of five literature management programmes - Zotero, Citavi, Mendeley, EndNote and JabRef. Versions as of 10/2021 were tested. The following criteria are taken into account: General and installation, import / export variants, data entry and editing, display and search, citation and bibliography, cooperation, knowledge organisation, special features and support. The comparison concludes with an overall assessment of strengths and weaknesses and provides target group-specific selection recommendations