Spotlight on Assistance Dogs-Legislation, Welfare and Research

Assistance dogs are a very diverse group of working dogs that are trained to assist humans with different types of disabilities in their daily lives. Despite these dogs' value for humankind, research on their welfare status, cognitive and behavioural capacities, selection criteria for the best fitting individuals, effective training and management practices, and genetic issues are so far lacking. This review highlights the need to address these topics and to promote progress in legal issues around assistance dogs. The topic of assistance dogs is approached comprehensively by outlining the current status of knowledge in three different dimensions: (1) the legal dimension, outlining important legal issues in the EU and Australia; (2) the welfare dimension; and (3) the dimension of research, covering assistance dog selection and training. For each of these three dimensions, we discuss potential approaches that can be implemented in the future in order to support assistance dog working performance, to protect the dogs' welfare, and to improve our knowledge about them. Additionally, there remain many legal issues, such as the presence of assistance dogs in public areas, the resolution of which would benefit both the assistance dog and the owner with disability

Entrainment characteristics of unsteady subsonic jets

The effectiveness of jet unsteadiness in enhancing flow entrainment was assessed. It was conducted that entrainment depends on the type and amount of jet unsteadiness. Apparently, the mere introduction of jet unsteadiness by small sinusoidal flow angle variations is insufficient to enhance entrainment but, it should be noted that the results were obtained at measuring stations which are all many nozzle widths downstream of the jet nozzle. Thus, no fully conclusive statement can be made at this time about the entrainment close to the nozzle. The high entrainment of the fluidically oscillated jet was caused by the high-frequency content of this square wave type of oscillation but more detailed measurements are clearly needed, in particular for the fluidically oscillated and the pulsed jets. Practical ejector application requires the proper trade-off between entrainment and primary nozzle thrust efficiency

How Information Systems can Support Heuristic Decision Making: A Pilot Study

To answer the long-standing question of how to construct information systems to support heuristic decision making, we propose a new model of decision support for tacit knowledge. The aim of proposing a new model of decision support for tacit knowledge is to advance a general model of how experts describe the tacit aspects of their decision making. Such a model has implications for the construction of explanations by artificial intelligence. In a pilot case study of shift work planning, we explore the use of heuristics by consultants to interpret the conditions, outputs, and quality of shift work and to generate recommendations for changes to the organisation of shift work in organisations. The proposed, full case study to follow this pilot study will evaluate a conceptual model of decision support to inform how heuristics can explain decisions made by human, and by extension, artificial intelligence agents

The identification of facial expressions of emotions in dogs (Canis familiaris) using a Facial Action Coding System

Objectively assessing animal emotions is challenging and requires the development of valid and reliable indicators of emotions. Emotional states are accompanied by behavioural expressions. If specific expressions reliably accompany specific emotional states across contexts, then those expressions have potential to serve as indicators of the emotional states. In human emotion research, particularly facial expressions have been studied extensively for this purpose and therefore may help infer animal emotions as well. This project was aimed at studying facial expressions of dogs exposed to situations that are likely to elicit positive anticipation and frustration. Both emotions can be triggered in situations related to the expectation of a reward: while positive anticipation can occur between signalling and delivery of a reward, it may turn into frustration when the reward remains inaccessible. In a series of studies, using the contingencies described, two contextual features were systematically varied – the expected reward type (food/toys) and the social context (non-social/social; i.e. whether the reinforcement was associated with a human or not). The main goal was to identify facial expressions that are consistently associated with either positive anticipation or frustration across contexts, as these expressions may serve as indicators of the respective emotional states. To measure dogs’ facial expressions, the Dog Facial Action Coding System (DogFACS) was used, which is the dog�specific adaptation of FACS, the gold standard for measuring facial expressions in human emotion research. Ears adductor was the only variable that was more common during positive anticipation, and it was consistently associated with this state across (reward and social) contexts. The antagonistic movement to the Ears adductor, Ears downward, as well as Ears flattener and Nose lick were more common during frustration across reward and social contexts. Despite the consistent association of those facial expressions with positive anticipation or frustration, none of them would have allowed consistent, correct designations of the associated emotional state when used as individual indicators. Diagnostic accuracy assessments showed that validity estimates of the Ears adductor varied greatly across contexts: whereas sensitivity was low and specificity high in a non-social context, it was the other way round in a social context. Similar to the Ears adductor, validity estimates of Ears downward showed an inverse pattern between contexts: while in the non-social context Ears downward was more sensitive than specific, this was the other way round in the social context. Accuracy estimates of Ears flattener were more consistent, despite some variation. Nose lick was the variable with the most stable accuracy measures across contexts. On their own, these facial expressions would not serve as highly reliable, robust, and valid indicators of positive anticipation or frustration in dogs. However, they may be potential candidates for the future development of indicators of these states, e.g. when combined with other facial or body expressions. Additional facial expressions that were associated with frustration were Blink, Tongue show, Lip corner puller, Jaw drop, and Lips part. However, although they were not affected by the expected reward type, they only accompanied frustration in a non-social context. Therefore, these facial expressions are less likely robust candidates for the development of indicators of frustration in dogs. The Upper lip raiser also accompanied frustration in non-social contexts, but it was influenced by the expected reward type and may therefore be more related to the associated motivational state. The last study of this thesis focussed exclusively on the Inner brow raiser, which is a facial expression that has received considerable attention related to its role in dog-human communication. When its production was compared between a social and a non-social context, it occurred more frequently in the non-social context, challenging the previous hypothesis of a communicative function. We also found the Inner brow raiser to be strongly associated with eye movements, which suggests a proximate mechanism behind this facial expression. In this project, facial expressions, an infrequently studied modality in animal (emotion) research, were identified that consistently accompanied either positive anticipation or frustration across different (reward and social) contexts in dogs. Although the Ears adductor was consistently associated with positive anticipation and Ears downward, Ears flattener, and Nose lick with frustration, they do not seem to constitute reliable, robust, and valid indicators of the respective emotions in their own. Nonetheless, they are potential candidates that provide a starting point for the future development of emotion indicators by systematically examining them in combination with other expressive behaviours. The introduction of diagnostic accuracy assessments is a pioneering approach to animal emotion research, providing novel methods to advance the evaluation of the validity of putative indicators of animal emotions

Evaluating the accuracy of facial expressions as emotion indicators across contexts in dogs

Facial expressions potentially serve as indicators of animal emotions if they are consistently present across situations that (likely) elicit the same emotional state. In a previous study, we used the Dog Facial Action Coding System (DogFACS) to identify facial expressions in dogs associated with conditions presumably eliciting positive anticipation (expectation of a food reward) and frustration (prevention of access to the food). Our first aim here was to identify facial expressions of positive anticipation and frustration in dogs that are context-independent (and thus have potential as emotion indicators) and to distinguish them from expressions that are reward-specific (and thus might relate to a motivational state associated with the expected reward). Therefore, we tested a new sample of 28 dogs with a similar set-up designed to induce positive anticipation (positive condition) and frustration (negative condition) in two reward contexts: food and toys. The previous results were replicated: Ears adductor was associated with the positive condition and Ears flattener, Blink, Lips part, Jaw drop, and Nose lick with the negative condition. Four additional facial actions were also more common in the negative condition. All actions except the Upper lip raiser were independent of reward type. Our second aim was to assess basic measures of diagnostic accuracy for the potential emotion indicators. Ears flattener and Ears downward had relatively high sensitivity but low specificity, whereas the opposite was the case for the other negative correlates. Ears adductor had excellent specificity but low sensitivity. If the identified facial expressions were to be used individually as diagnostic indicators, none would allow consistent correct classifications of the associated emotion. Diagnostic accuracy measures are an essential feature for validity assessments of potential indicators of animal emotion. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s10071-021-01532-1

Nonparametric double additive cure survival models: An application to the estimation of the non-linear effect of age at first parenthood on fertility progression

This article introduces double additive models to describe the effect of continuous covariates in cure survival models, thereby relaxing the traditional linearity assumption in the two regression parts. This class of models extends the classical event history models when an unknown proportion of the population under study will never experience the event of interest. They are used on data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (GSOEP) to examine how age at first birth relates to the timing and quantum of fertility for given education levels of the respondents. It is shown that the conditional probability of having further children decreases with the mother's age at first birth. While the effect of age at first birth in the third birth's probability model is fairly linear, this is not the case for the second child with an accelerating decline detected for women that had their first kid beyond age 30

New air conditioning design temperatures for Queensland, Australia

This paper presents results of a detailed analysis of meteorological data to determine air conditioning design temperatures dry bulb and wet bulb for hundreds of locations throughout Queensland, using the tenth-highest daily maximum observed per year. This is a modification of the AIRAH 1997 method that uses only 3:00pm records of temperature. In this paper we ask the reader to consider Australian Bureau of Meteorology official “climate summaries” as a benchmark upon which to compare various previously published comfort design temperatures, as well as the new design temperatures proposed in the present paper. We see some possible signals from climate change, but firstly we should apply all available historical data to establish outdoor design temperatures that will ensure that cooling plant are correctly sized in the near future. In a case-studies of Brisbane, we find that inner city temperatures are rising, that airport temperatures are not, and that suburban variability is substantially important

Appendix: Comprehensive design temperatures for Queensland.

Data and analysis for comprehensive design temperatures for 225 Queensland locations. Appendix supports the article 'New air conditioning design temperatures for Queensland, Australia' which is published along with the dataset, with permission