Fish lack the brains and the psychology for pain

Debate about the possibility of fish pain focuses largely on the fish’s lack of the cortex considered necessary for generating pain. That view is appealing because it avoids relatively abstract debate about the nature of pain experience and subjectivity. Unfortunately, however, that debate cannot be entirely avoided. Subcortical circuits in the fish might support an immediate, raw, “pain” experience. The necessity of the cortex only becomes obvious when considering pain as an explicitly felt subjective experience. Attributing pain to fish only seems absurd when pain is considered as a state of explicit knowing

Exploring financial literacy education strategies based on small- and micro-enterprise business practices

Purpose: This study explored the nature of business practices of small- and micro-enterprises within the South African context to propose recommendations for financial literacy education strategies. Design/methodology/approach: The data collection technique used for this qualitative study included semi-structured in-depth interviews with a case study of 10 small- and micro-enterprise owners who collectively trade within five of the nine South African provinces. Findings/results: Small- and micro-enterprises do not need to differ significantly because the respective business practice themes identified are relevant within both contexts. Both category enterprises make use of a cash basis system, generally have inventory management systems in place and do not have sophisticated financial planning practices. The micro-enterprises studied do not have business plans or accurate pricing strategies and cash management is a concern. The small-enterprise participants generally did not show interest in competitors and their enterprises had more sophisticated bookkeeping practices in place than micro-enterprises. Practical implications: Financial literacy education strategies for the owners should focus on providing guidance on tax matters, significance of business plans and how to prepare them, debtors management strategies, inventory management strategies, and a basic bookkeeping system that evolves from the cash basis of accounting to the accrual basis of accounting. It should also aim to educate owners on the importance of financial planning and risk management. Originality/value: This research provides an evidence-based description of the characteristics of South African small- and micro-enterprises, which could prove valuable in developing future owner financial literacy education programmes as well as other support strategies targeted at this audience.</p

Reasons to Be Skeptical about Sentience and Pain in Fishes and Aquatic Invertebrates

The welfare of fishes and aquatic invertebrates is important, and several jurisdictions have included these taxa under welfare regulation in recent years. Regulation of welfare requires use of scientifically validated welfare criteria. This is why applying Mertonian skepticism toward claims for sentience and pain in fishes and aquatic invertebrates is scientifically sound and prudent, particularly when those claims are used to justify legislation regulating the welfare of these taxa. Enacting welfare legislation for these taxa without strong scientific evidence is a societal and political choice that risks creating scientific and interpretational problems as well as major policy challenges, including the potential to generate significant unintended consequences. In contrast, a more rigorous science-based approach to the welfare of aquatic organisms that is based on verified, validated and measurable endpoints is more likely to result in “win-win” scenarios that minimize the risk of unintended negative impacts for all stakeholders, including fish and aquatic invertebrates. The authors identify as supporters of animal welfare, and emphasize that this issue is not about choosing between welfare and no welfare for fish and aquatic invertebrates, but rather to ensure that important decisions about their welfare are based on scientifically robust evidence. These ten reasons are delivered in the spirit of organized skepticism to orient legislators, decision makers and the scientific community, and alert them to the need to maintain a high scientific evidential bar for any operational welfare indicators used for aquatic animals, particularly those mandated by legislation. Moving forward, maintaining the highest scientific standards is vitally important, in order to protect not only aquatic animal welfare, but also global food security and the welfare of humans

The development and validation of a scoring tool to predict the operative duration of elective laparoscopic cholecystectomy

Background: The ability to accurately predict operative duration has the potential to optimise theatre efficiency and utilisation, thus reducing costs and increasing staff and patient satisfaction. With laparoscopic cholecystectomy being one of the most commonly performed procedures worldwide, a tool to predict operative duration could be extremely beneficial to healthcare organisations. Methods: Data collected from the CholeS study on patients undergoing cholecystectomy in UK and Irish hospitals between 04/2014 and 05/2014 were used to study operative duration. A multivariable binary logistic regression model was produced in order to identify significant independent predictors of long (> 90 min) operations. The resulting model was converted to a risk score, which was subsequently validated on second cohort of patients using ROC curves. Results: After exclusions, data were available for 7227 patients in the derivation (CholeS) cohort. The median operative duration was 60 min (interquartile range 45–85), with 17.7% of operations lasting longer than 90 min. Ten factors were found to be significant independent predictors of operative durations > 90 min, including ASA, age, previous surgical admissions, BMI, gallbladder wall thickness and CBD diameter. A risk score was then produced from these factors, and applied to a cohort of 2405 patients from a tertiary centre for external validation. This returned an area under the ROC curve of 0.708 (SE = 0.013, p  90 min increasing more than eightfold from 5.1 to 41.8% in the extremes of the score. Conclusion: The scoring tool produced in this study was found to be significantly predictive of long operative durations on validation in an external cohort. As such, the tool may have the potential to enable organisations to better organise theatre lists and deliver greater efficiencies in care