Pig farmers’ willingness to pay for management strategies to reduce aggression between pigs

When deciding whether to invest in an improvement to animal welfare, farmers must trade-off the relative costs and benefits. Despite the existence of effective solutions to many animal welfare issues, farmers’ willingness to pay for them is largely unknown. This study modelled pig farmers’ decisions to improve animal welfare using a discrete choice experiment focused on alleviating aggression between growing/finishing pigs at regrouping. Eighty-two UK and Irish pig farm owners and managers were asked to choose between hypothetical aggression control strategies described in terms of four attributes; installation cost, on-going cost, impact on skin lesions from aggression and impact on growth rate. If they did not like any of the strategies they could opt to keep their current farm practice. Systematic variations in product attributes allowed farmers’ preferences and willingness to pay to be estimated and latent class modelling accounted for heterogeneity in responses. The overall willingness to pay to reduce lesions was low at £0.06 per pig place (installation cost) and £0.01 per pig produced (running cost) for each 1% reduction in lesions. Results revealed three independent classes of farmers. Farmers in Class 1 were unlikely to regroup unfamiliar growing/finishing pigs, and thus were unwilling to adopt measures to reduce aggression at regrouping. Farmers in Classes 2 and 3 were willing to adopt measures providing certain pre-conditions were met. Farmers in Class 2 were motivated mainly by business goals, whilst farmers in Class 3 were motivated by both business and animal welfare goals, and were willing to pay the most to reduce aggression; £0.11 per pig place and £0.03 per pig produced for each 1% reduction in lesions. Farmers should not be considered a homogeneous group regarding the adoption of animal welfare innovations. Instead, campaigns should be targeted at subgroups according to their independent preferences and willingness to pay

Lithium and GSK3-β promoter gene variants influence white matter microstructure in bipolar disorder

Lithium is the mainstay for the treatment of bipolar disorder (BD) and inhibits glycogen synthase kinase 3-β (GSK3-β). The less active GSK3-β promoter gene variants have been associated with less detrimental clinical features of BD. GSK3-β gene variants and lithium can influence brain gray matter structure in psychiatric conditions. Diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) measures of white matter (WM) integrity showed widespred disruption of WM structure in BD. In a sample of 70 patients affected by a major depressive episode in course of BD, we investigated the effect of ongoing long-term lithium treatment and GSK3-β promoter rs334558 polymorphism on WM microstructure, using DTI and tract-based spatial statistics with threshold-free cluster enhancement. We report that the less active GSK3-β rs334558*C gene-promoter variants, and the long-term administration of the GSK3-β inhibitor lithium, were associated with increases of DTI measures of axial diffusivity (AD) in several WM fiber tracts, including corpus callosum, forceps major, anterior and posterior cingulum bundle (bilaterally including its hippocampal part), left superior and inferior longitudinal fasciculus, left inferior fronto-occipital fasciculus, left posterior thalamic radiation, bilateral superior and posterior corona radiata, and bilateral corticospinal tract. AD reflects the integrity of axons and myelin sheaths. We suggest that GSK3-β inhibition and lithium could counteract the detrimental influences of BD on WM structure, with specific benefits resulting from effects on specific WM tracts contributing to the functional integrity of the brain and involving interhemispheric, limbic, and large frontal, parietal, and fronto-occipital connections

Gene Expression Profiling of Preovulatory Follicle in the Buffalo Cow: Effects of Increased IGF-I Concentration on Periovulatory Events

The preovulatory follicle in response to gonadotropin surge undergoes dramatic biochemical, and morphological changes orchestrated by expression changes in hundreds of genes. Employing well characterized bovine preovulatory follicle model, granulosa cells (GCs) and follicle wall were collected from the preovulatory follicle before, 1, 10 and 22 h post peak LH surge. Microarray analysis performed on GCs revealed that 450 and 111 genes were differentially expressed at 1 and 22 h post peak LH surge, respectively. For validation, qPCR and immunocytochemistry analyses were carried out for some of the differentially expressed genes. Expression analysis of many of these genes showed distinct expression patterns in GCs and the follicle wall. To study molecular functions and genetic networks, microarray data was analyzed using Ingenuity Pathway Analysis which revealed majority of the differentially expressed genes to cluster within processes like steroidogenesis, cell survival and cell differentiation. In the ovarian follicle, IGF-I is established to be an important regulator of the above mentioned molecular functions. Thus, further experiments were conducted to verify the effects of increased intrafollicular IGF-I levels on the expression of genes associated with the above mentioned processes. For this purpose, buffalo cows were administered with exogenous bGH to transiently increase circulating and intrafollicular concentrations of IGF-I. The results indicated that increased intrafollicular concentrations of IGF-I caused changes in expression of genes associated with steroidogenesis (StAR, SRF) and apoptosis (BCL-2, FKHR, PAWR). These results taken together suggest that onset of gonadotropin surge triggers activation of various biological pathways and that the effects of growth factors and peptides on gonadotropin actions could be examined during preovulatory follicle development

Indirect Genetic Effects and Housing Conditions in Relation to Aggressive Behaviour in Pigs

Indirect Genetic Effects (IGEs), also known as associative effects, are the heritable effects that an individual has on the phenotype of its social partners. Selection for IGEs has been proposed as a method to reduce harmful behaviours, in particular aggression, in livestock and aquaculture. The mechanisms behind IGEs, however, have rarely been studied. The objective was therefore to assess aggression in pigs which were divergently selected for IGEs on growth (IGEg). In a one generation selection experiment, we studied 480 offspring of pigs (Sus scrofa) that were selected for relatively high or low IGEg and housed in homogeneous IGEg groups in either barren or enriched environments. Skin lesion scores, a proxy measure of aggression, and aggressive behaviours were recorded. The two distinct IGEg groups did not differ in number of skin lesions, or in amount of reciprocal fighting, both under stable social conditions and in confrontation with unfamiliar pigs in a 24 h regrouping test. Pigs selected for a positive effect on the growth of their group members, however, performed less non-reciprocal biting and showed considerably less aggression at reunion with familiar group members after they had been separated during a 24 h regrouping test. The enriched environment was associated with more skin lesions but less non-reciprocal biting under stable social conditions. Changes in aggression between pigs selected for IGEg were not influenced by G×E interactions with regard to the level of environmental enrichment. It is likely that selection on IGEg targets a behavioural strategy, rather than a single behavioural trait such as aggressiveness

QCD and strongly coupled gauge theories : challenges and perspectives

We highlight the progress, current status, and open challenges of QCD-driven physics, in theory and in experiment. We discuss how the strong interaction is intimately connected to a broad sweep of physical problems, in settings ranging from astrophysics and cosmology to strongly coupled, complex systems in particle and condensed-matter physics, as well as to searches for physics beyond the Standard Model. We also discuss how success in describing the strong interaction impacts other fields, and, in turn, how such subjects can impact studies of the strong interaction. In the course of the work we offer a perspective on the many research streams which flow into and out of QCD, as well as a vision for future developments.Peer reviewe

The central role of the chemokine receptor, CXCR4, in haemopoietic stem cell transplantation: will CXCR4 antagonists contribute to the treatment of blood disorders?

Recent clinical trials have used CXCR4 antagonists for the rapid mobilization of CD34(+) haemopoietic stem/progenitor cells (HSC/HPC) from the bone marrow to the blood in patients refractory to granulocyte-colony-stimulating factor (G-CSF). These antagonists not only mobilize non-cycling cells with a higher proportion of repopulating cells, but also enhance CD34(+) cell mobilization when used in combination with G-CSF. Here, we review the importance of CXCR4 and its ligand CXCL12 in haemopoiesis, and the potential roles of CXCR4 antagonists in the clinical HSC transplant setting