Remote Working and Mental Health during the First Wave of COVID-19 Pandemic

We use longitudinal data from the SHARE survey to estimate the causal effect of remote working during the COVID-19 pandemic on mental health of senior Europeans. We face endogeneity concerns both for the probability of being employed during the pandemic and for the choice of different work arrangements conditional on employment. Our research design overcomes these issues by exploiting variation in the technical feasibility of remote working across occupations and in the legal restrictions to in-presence work across sectors. We estimate heterogeneous effects of remote working on mental health: we find negative effects for respondents with children at home and for those living in countries with low restrictions or low excess death rates due to the pandemic. On the other hand, the effect is positive for men and for respondents with no co-residing children

Benthic foraminifera as indicators of hydrologic and environmental conditions in the Ross Sea (Antarctica)

This study, present data on benthic foraminiferal assemblages from four box cores collected in different areas of the Ross Sea during the 2005 oceanographic cruise in the framework of the Italian Antarctic Research National Programme (PNRA)

Knowledge, attitudes and practices about vaccination in Trentino, Italy in 2019

Vaccination is among the most important areas of progress in the worldwide history of public health. However, a crescent wave of anti-vaccine groups has grown in Western countries, especially in Italy, in the last two decades. Our aim was to evaluate adult's hesitancy and knowledge about vaccines and related diseases in Trentino-Alto Adige -the Italian region with the lowest vaccination coverages

Can an Enrichment Programme with Novel Manipulative and Scent Stimuli Change the Behaviour of Zoo-Housed European Wildcats? A Case Study

© 2023 The Authors. Published by MDPI. This is an open access article available under a Creative Commons licence. The published version can be accessed at the following link on the publisher’s website: https://doi.org/10.3390/ani13111762Objects and semiochemicals may be used as enrichment in zoos. Domestic cats release Fraction 3 of Facial Pheromone (F3) by rubbing the muzzle to convey relational and territorial information. We aimed to evaluate whether and how the introduction of novel objects and scent stimuli could change the behaviour of one group (N = 5 subjects) of adult European wildcats (Felis silvestris silvestris) hosted at Parco Natura Viva-Garda Zoological Park, Italy. We assessed the behavioural changes following the introduction of novel objects (blocks and rags) and scent (synthetic F3) via observations over four experimental conditions (baseline, rags, F3 rags, blocks) using continuous focal animal sampling. Our results showed that no behavioural differences were found between the different conditions and the baseline, except for the condition with blocks when significantly less exploration was observed. Between conditions, wildcats performed significantly less individual explorative, affiliative, and agonistic behaviours, but more individual inactivity, when exposed to rags after F3 administration. Our findings suggest that the enrichment programme did not substantively affect the behaviour of the zoo-housed wildcats. However, the behavioural differences recorded between conditions suggest that, while novel objects introduced as visual stimuli (blocks) do not affect the wildcat behaviour, novel manipulative objects (rags) might impact their behaviour. Moreover, the changes in affiliative and agonistic behaviours displayed during the condition with exposure to rags sprayed with F3 suggest that such semiochemical could play an appeasement role within this study group.This study received no external funding. Publication fees were covered by the University of Wolverhampton’s Research Investment Fund scheme—phase 4 (Biosciences Research Project)

Group Reunion in Zoo European Wildcats Using Cat Appeasing Pheromone (CAP) and Gradual Release of the Animals in the Exhibit—A Case Study

The union or reunion of animals with social groups can be a challenging situation, and little has been published about it when solitary species are concerned. Therefore, the aim of the present study was two-fold: (1) to advocate the need for systematic publications about strategies and the outcomes of reunion episodes in zoos and other facilities; and (2) to describe the behaviour of European wildcats (Felis silvestris silvestris) during one such episode, in which a female cat was reintroduced into her family social group using a gradual reunion procedure and cat appeasing pheromone (CAP) (spot-on). The study comprised three periods: the pre-reunion period (10 days, 20 sessions per wildcat), the post-reunion period (A, 5 days, 10 sessions per wildcat; B, 5 days, 10 sessions per wildcat) and the late-reunion period (5 days, 10 sessions per wildcat). In the postreunion periods, all wildcats were together in the enclosure and were spotted with CAP pheromone. Per period, we collected data on individual and social behaviours. Individual behaviours, such as attention and self-grooming, were performed more in the pre-reunion than in the post-reunion period. Regarding social behaviours, we found that agonistic behaviours were performed more in the pre-reunion than in the post-reunion period. We observed behavioural changes over the course of the study, with behavioural patterns of the late-reunion periods resembling those of the pre-reunion period

Group Reunion in Zoo European Wildcats Using Cat Appeasing Pheromone (CAP) and Gradual Release of the Animals in the Exhibit—A Case Study

The union or reunion of animals with social groups can be a challenging situation, and little has been published about it when solitary species are concerned. Therefore, the aim of the present study was two-fold: (1) to advocate the need for systematic publications about strategies and the outcomes of reunion episodes in zoos and other facilities; and (2) to describe the behaviour of European wildcats (Felis silvestris silvestris) during one such episode, in which a female cat was reintroduced into her family social group using a gradual reunion procedure and cat appeasing pheromone (CAP) (spot-on). The study comprised three periods: the pre-reunion period (10 days, 20 sessions per wildcat), the post-reunion period (A, 5 days, 10 sessions per wildcat; B, 5 days, 10 sessions per wildcat) and the late-reunion period (5 days, 10 sessions per wildcat). In the post-reunion periods, all wildcats were together in the enclosure and were spotted with CAP pheromone. Per period, we collected data on individual and social behaviours. Individual behaviours, such as attention and self-grooming, were performed more in the pre-reunion than in the post-reunion period. Regarding social behaviours, we found that agonistic behaviours were performed more in the pre-reunion than in the post-reunion period. We observed behavioural changes over the course of the study, with behavioural patterns of the late-reunion periods resembling those of the pre-reunion perio

Preliminary Results on the Evaluation of Factors Influencing Evapotranspiration Processes in Vineyards

The paper summarizes the preliminary results from the analysis of data collected during the 2008 and 2009 vegetative seasons in a northern Italy vineyard (Vitis vinifera L., Barbera variety) and the simulations carried out in the same period with the land surface model UTOPIA. The aim of the work is to study the influence of the meteorological factors on the plant conditions. We collected a set of standard and advanced meteorological, physiological and physical data and we investigated the performance of UTOPIA in describing the different components of the energy and hydrological processes (in particular the evapotranspiration), with a special focus on the vegetation and soil. The comparison between observed data and UTOPIA simulations showed satisfactory results for the soil variables (RRMSE ranging between 15% and 40%, and correlation coefficients of 0.9). Net radiation and sensible heat fluxes RRMSE (30% and 63% respectively) suggest that both the calibration of the vegetation parameters (including the influence of the grass among vine rows) and the availability of more specific measurements are very important