Persistence of Problematic Sexual Behaviors in Children

The purpose of this study was to identify personal and family predictors and correlates of persistence of problematic sexual behaviors (PSB) in children. Participants were the families of 49 children (ages 4–11 years) referred by Child Protective Services in 4 administrative districts of Quebec. Caregivers completed interviews and questionnaires twice at a 1-year interval. Results showed that 43% of children persisted with PSB. When age was controlled, greater exposure to sexualized behaviors in the family proved both a correlate and a predictor of PSB persistence in children 12 months later.\ud Externalizing problems and somatic complaints emerged as correlates of PSB as well. Maltreatment subtypes did not predict PSB persistence

Livestock trade networks for guiding animal health surveillance

BACKGROUND: Trade in live animals can contribute to the introduction of exotic diseases, the maintenance and spread endemic diseases. Annually millions of animals are moved across Europe for the purposes of breeding, fattening and slaughter. Data on the number of animals moved were obtained from the Directorate General Sanco (DG Sanco) for 2011. These were converted to livestock units to enable direct comparison across species and their movements were mapped, used to calculate the indegrees and outdegrees of 27 European countries and the density and transitivity of movements within Europe. This provided the opportunity to discuss surveillance of European livestock movement taking into account stopping points en-route. RESULTS: High density and transitivity of movement for registered equines, breeding and fattening cattle, breeding poultry and pigs for breeding, fattening and slaughter indicates that hazards have the potential to spread quickly within these populations. This is of concern to highly connected countries particularly those where imported animals constitute a large proportion of their national livestock populations, and have a high indegree. The transport of poultry (older than 72 hours) and unweaned animals would require more rest breaks than the movement of weaned animals, which may provide more opportunities for disease transmission. Transitivity is greatest for animals transported for breeding purposes with cattle, pigs and poultry having values of over 50%. CONCLUSIONS: This paper demonstrated that some species (pigs and poultry) are traded much more frequently and at a larger scale than species such as goats. Some countries are more vulnerable than others due to importing animals from many countries, having imported animals requiring rest-breaks and importing large proportions of their national herd or flock. Such knowledge about the vulnerability of different livestock systems related to trade movements can be used to inform the design of animal health surveillance systems to facilitate the trade in animals between European member states. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12917-015-0354-4) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users

Exploring pig trade patterns to inform the design of risk-based disease surveillance and control strategies

An understanding of the patterns of animal contact networks provides essential information for the design of risk-based animal disease surveillance and control strategies. This study characterises pig movements throughout England and Wales between 2009 and 2013 with a view to characterising spatial and temporal patterns, network topology and trade communities. Data were extracted from the Animal and Plant Health Agency (APHA)’s RADAR (Rapid Analysis and Detection of Animal-related Risks) database, and analysed using descriptive and network approaches. A total of 61,937,855 pigs were moved through 872,493 movements of batches in England and Wales during the 5-year study period. Results show that the network exhibited scale-free and small-world topologies, indicating the potential for diseases to quickly spread within the pig industry. The findings also provide suggestions for how risk-based surveillance strategies could be optimised in the country by taking account of highly connected holdings, geographical regions and time periods with the greatest number of movements and pigs moved, as these are likely to be at higher risk for disease introduction. This study is also the first attempt to identify trade communities in the country, information which could be used to facilitate the pig trade and maintain disease-free status across the country in the event of an outbreak

Dynamical Patterns of Cattle Trade Movements

Despite their importance for the spread of zoonotic diseases, our understanding of the dynamical aspects characterizing the movements of farmed animal populations remains limited as these systems are traditionally studied as static objects and through simplified approximations. By leveraging on the network science approach, here we are able for the first time to fully analyze the longitudinal dataset of Italian cattle movements that reports the mobility of individual animals among farms on a daily basis. The complexity and inter-relations between topology, function and dynamical nature of the system are characterized at different spatial and time resolutions, in order to uncover patterns and vulnerabilities fundamental for the definition of targeted prevention and control measures for zoonotic diseases. Results show how the stationarity of statistical distributions coexists with a strong and non-trivial evolutionary dynamics at the node and link levels, on all timescales. Traditional static views of the displacement network hide important patterns of structural changes affecting nodes' centrality and farms' spreading potential, thus limiting the efficiency of interventions based on partial longitudinal information. By fully taking into account the longitudinal dimension, we propose a novel definition of dynamical motifs that is able to uncover the presence of a temporal arrow describing the evolution of the system and the causality patterns of its displacements, shedding light on mechanisms that may play a crucial role in the definition of preventive actions

Dynamical Patterns of Cattle Trade Movements

Despite their importance for the spread of zoonotic diseases, our understanding of the dynamical aspects characterizing the movements of farmed animal populations remains limited as these systems are traditionally studied as static objects and through simplified approximations. By leveraging on the network science approach, here we are able for the first time to fully analyze the longitudinal dataset of Italian cattle movements that reports the mobility of individual animals among farms on a daily basis. The complexity and inter-relations between topology, function and dynamical nature of the system are characterized at different spatial and time resolutions, in order to uncover patterns and vulnerabilities fundamental for the definition of targeted prevention and control measures for zoonotic diseases. Results show how the stationarity of statistical distributions coexists with a strong and non-trivial evolutionary dynamics at the node and link levels, on all timescales. Traditional static views of the displacement network hide important patterns of structural changes affecting nodes' centrality and farms' spreading potential, thus limiting the efficiency of interventions based on partial longitudinal information. By fully taking into account the longitudinal dimension, we propose a novel definition of dynamical motifs that is able to uncover the presence of a temporal arrow describing the evolution of the system and the causality patterns of its displacements, shedding light on mechanisms that may play a crucial role in the definition of preventive actions

Erosion of the Geodetic Hills Fossil Forest, Axel Heiberg Island, Northwest Territories

Studies on the erosion of the Geodetic Hills Fossil Forest on the east side of Axel Heiberg Island, Northwest Territories have indicated that erosion by wind averaged a depth of 1.3 cm for the period 1988 to 1992. The fossil wood and leaf litter tend to dry on exposure, resulting in shrinkage and fragmentation - sometimes in less than a year. Frost, especially at the boundaries of polygons, repeatedly compresses and disrupts the fossil-bearing strata. Erosion by water takes place as rills on the sides of hills. Solifluction displaces surface sediment on the sides of the hills in the range of 6 to 45 cm per year. In the last few years the physical disruption of stumps, tree trunks and forest mat has been caused mainly by people: by walking on the site, by excavating it, and by flying over and landing helicopters on it. Natural processes - including wind, freezing and thawing, rainfall, and wandering animals - also cause damage. In 1992, 62 stumps recorded in the 1988 survey (ca. 10% of the total) could not be relocated. There are problems in accounting for this discrepancy, because only a few stumps are known to have been removed by investigators for study, and it seems unlikely (although it is possible) that others may have been removed by unknown visitors. Some of the "missing" stumps may still be present, but disturbance in the surface sediment caused by scientific excavation or wind-driven accretion have made them untraceable. Vestigial stumps may simply have weathered away in the period between surveys, and finally some of the losses may be accounted for by errors in the initial surveying. Since preservation is important both for long-term scientific interpretation and for public access, the site should be better managed. The authors advocate that the site be managed by the Canadian Parks Service as an annex to Ellesmere Island National Park Reserve.Key words: fossil forest, Axel Heiberg Island, wood, leaf litter, erosion, preservationDes études sur l'érosion de la forêt fossile des collines géodésiques du côté est de l'île Axel Heiberg dans les Territoires du Nord-Ouest ont révélé que l'érosion éolienne était d'en moyenne 1,3 cm au cours de la période allant de 1988 à 1992. Le bois et la couche de feuilles mortes fossiles ont tendance à sécher s'ils sont exposés aux éléments, ce qui aboutit au retrait et à la fragmentation - parfois en moins d'un an. Le gel, en particulier aux limites des polygones, comprime et disloque les strates fossilifères de façon répétée. L'érosion hydrique se produit sous forme de rigoles sur les pentes des collines. La solifluxion déloge les sédiments de surface sur les pentes des collines à une vitesse de 6 à 45 cm par an. Au cours des dernières années, la perturbation physique des souches, des troncs d'arbre et du tapis forestier a été causée principalement par les humains: piétinement et excavation du site, survols et atterrissages des hélicoptères. Les processus naturels - y compris le vent, le gel et dégel, les précipitations et le déplacement des animaux - causent également des dommages. En 1992, 62 souches consignées dans le relevé de 1988 (environ 10 p. cent du total) n'ont pu être retrouvées. On a de la difficulté à expliquer cet écart, car on sait que quelques souches seulement ont été enlevées par les chercheurs pour effectuer leurs travaux, et il semble peu probable (bien que ce soit possible) que d'autres souches aient été enlevées par des visiteurs inconnus. Il se peut que certaines des souches «absentes» soient toujours présentes, mais la perturbation des sédiments de surface causée par des excavations scientifiques ou l'accrétion éolienne fait qu'elles sont impossibles à retracer. Des souches résiduelles ont peut-être tout simplement été détruites par les éléments durant les périodes entre les relevés, et finalement, certaines des pertes peuvent être expliquées par des erreurs dans le relevé initial. Vu que la conservation est importante à la fois pour l'interprétation scientifique à long terme et pour l'accès du public, le site devrait être mieux géré. Les auteurs recommandent que la gestion en soit remise au Service canadien des parcs, en tant qu'annexe à la réserve de parc national de l'île-d'Ellesmere.Mots clés: forêt fossile, île Axel Heiberg, bois, couche de feuilles mortes, érosion, conservatio

Creating Guidance for Canadian Dataverse Curators: Portage Network’s Dataverse Curation Guide

Purpose: This paper introduces the Portage Network’s Dataverse Curation Guide and the new bilingual curation framework developed to support it. Brief Description: Canadian academic institutions and national organizations have been building infrastructure, staffing, and programming to support research data management. Amidst this work, a notable gap emerged between requirements for data curation in general repositories like Dataverse and the requisite workflows and guidance materials needed by curators to meet them. In response, Portage, a national network of data experts, organized a working group to develop a Dataverse curation guide built upon the Data Curation Network’s CURATED workflow. To create a bilingual resource, the original CURATE(D) acronym was modified to CURATION—which has the same meaning in both French and English—and steps were augmented with Dataverse-specific guidance and mapped to three conceptualized levels of curation to assist curators in prioritizing curation actions. Methods: An environmental scan of relevant deposit and curation guidance materials from Canadian and international institutions identified the need for a comprehensive Dataverse Curation Guide, as most existing resources were either depositor-focused or contained only partial workflows. The resulting Guide synthesized these guidance materials into the CURATION steps and mapped actions to various theoretical levels of data repository services and levels of curation. Resources: The following documents are supplemental to the Dataverse Curation Guide: the Portage Dataverse North Metadata Best Practices Guide, the Scholars Portal Dataverse Guide, and the Data Curation Network CURATED Workflow and Data Curation Primers.</jats:p

Spatial and temporal investigations of reported movements, births and deaths of cattle and pigs in Sweden

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Livestock movements can affect the spread and control of contagious diseases and new data recording systems enable analysis of these movements. The results can be used for contingency planning, modelling of disease spread and design of disease control programs.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Data on the Swedish cattle and pig populations during the period July 2005 until June 2006 were obtained from databases held by the Swedish Board of Agriculture. Movements of cattle and pigs were investigated from geographical and temporal perspectives, births and deaths of cattle were investigated from a temporal perspective and the geographical distribution of holdings was also investigated.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Most movements of cattle and pigs were to holdings within 100 km, but movements up to 1200 km occurred. Consequently, the majority of movements occurred within the same county or to adjacent counties. Approximately 54% of the cattle holdings and 45% of the pig holdings did not purchase any live animals. Seasonal variations in births and deaths of cattle were identified, with peaks in spring. Cattle movements peaked in spring and autumn. The maximum number of holdings within a 3 km radius of one holding was 45 for cattle and 23 for pigs, with large variations among counties. Missing data and reporting bias (digit preference) were detected in the data.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The databases are valuable tools in contact tracing. However since movements can be reported up to a week after the event and some data are missing they cannot replace other methods in the acute phase of an outbreak. We identified long distance transports of cattle and pigs, and these findings support an implementation of a total standstill in the country in the case of an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease. The databases contain valuable information and improvements in data quality would make them even more useful.</p

The differential contribution of maternal and paternal values to social competence of preschoolers

Multivariate analyses were conducted to clarify the nature of the influences of parental values on social behaviours of kindergarteners in the context of sociodemographic variables and sex of participants. This study included 217 mothers and 172 fathers from the same families, who completed a socio-demographic questionnaire and a new Q-sort that assesses parental values on Individualism (IND)/Collectivism (COL) and Horizontal (HOR)/Vertical (VER) continuums.To test the hypothesis of an association between parental values and children’s behaviours, teachers also provided information about each child’s social competence, anger-aggression, and anxiety-withdrawal in kindergarten using the Social Competence and Behavior Scale. Parents shared a greater proportion of IND/COL than VER values and mothers were more likely to emphasise IND and COL values than fathers. Mothers within IND and COL groups had more socially competent kindergartners as reported by teachers. Considering the mixed results found in the literature regarding sex differences in parenting and behaviours of children, the present results suggested that examining more closely the system of parental values might offer valuable avenues for uture research on early childhood socialisation

Survival and dispersal of a defined cohort of Irish cattle

An understanding of livestock movement is critical to effective disease prevention, control and prediction. However, livestock movement in Ireland has not yet been quantified. This study has sought to define the survival and dispersal of a defined cohort of cattle born in Co. Kerry during 2000. The cohort was observed for a maximum of four years, from January 1, 2000 to December 31, 2004. Beef and dairy animals moved an average 1.31 and 0.83 times, respectively. At study end, 18.8% of the beef animals remained alive on Irish farms, including 6.7% at the farm-of-birth, compared with 48.6% and 27.7% for dairy animals respectively. Beef animals werae dispersed to all Irish counties, but mainly to Cork, Limerick, Tipperary and Galway. Dairy animals mainly moved to Cork, Limerick, and Tipperary, with less animals going to Galway, Meath and Kilkenny. The four-year survival probability was 0.07 (male beef animals), 0.25 (male dairy), 0.38 (female beef), and 0.72 (female dairy). Although there was considerable dispersal, the number of moves per animal was less than expected