The Singer

pages 5-1

Obesity prevalence and associated risk factors in outdoor living domestic horses and ponies

Reasons for performing study. The prevalence of obesity in companion animals, including horses and ponies has risen drastically in recent years and risk factors have been little investigated. Horses are unique amongst companion animals in that many are outdoor-living and forage independently on pasture; they also have a dual utility and companionship role. The body condition of wild and free-living equines is known to vary seasonally, yet previous estimates of the prevalence of obesity and associated risk factors in domestic animals do not consider this. Most previous studies were conducted during the summer months when pasture quality is greater and obesity prevalence is likely to be highest. In addition, many previous estimates do not use validated body condition scoring methods and rely on owner reporting.Objectives. To examine the prevalence and risk factors predictive of equine obesity at both the end of winter and the end of summer, in a domestic population of leisure horses with daily access to pasture. Using validated body condition scoring methods and a single, trained observer.Methods. Body condition and belly girth measurements were taken at the end of winter and during the summer in a population of leisure horses (n = 96) with outdoor pasture access for ≥6 h per day. Risk factor information was obtained by two owner questionnaires and analysed statistically using a mixed effects logistic regression model. The dependent variable was obese (BCS ≥ 7/9) or non-obese (BCS < 7/9). Risk factors associated with seasonal change in belly girth were also explored using a mixed effects linear regression model.Results. Obesity prevalence rose significantly from 27.08% at the end of winter to 35.41% during summer (p < 0.001). Breed was the risk factor most strongly associated with obesity (p < 0.001). Supplementary feed was not a strong predictor and there was no association with low intensity structured exercise. As winter BCS increased, the percentage seasonal change in belly girth decreased.Conclusions. Obesity prevalence differed between winter and summer in domestic equines. Supplementary feed and low intensity structured exercise in equines living outdoors for ≥6 h per day had limited or no effect on obesity levels. Seasonal variation in body condition was lower in obese equines.Potential relevance. It is important to consider season when studying equine obesity and obesity-associated disorders. Risk factor analysis suggests preventative measures may need to be breed specific. The metabolic implications of a lessened seasonal change in body condition in obese animals, warrants investigation

Higher Education for Refugees

Introductio

University Library-Community Partnership: The Basic Archives Workshop as a Joint Community Support and Collection Development Initiative

In Fall 2015, local historian Yvonne Giles approached staff in the Special Collections Research Center (SCRC) at the University of Kentucky Libraries about holding a basic archives workshop for clerks and secretaries of Lexington African American Baptist churches. Staff were excited to partner with Yvonne and held the first workshop for four participants in November 2015. The second workshop, given in early March 2016, attracted 15 participants from a wide variety of local organizations. A third workshop was held in June 2016. Giles and two SCRC staff (Ruth Bryan and Sarah Dorpinghaus) will discuss their individual and library-level reasons for suggesting, attending, hosting, and preparing the workshop; the content and assessment of the workshop; the successes and challenges of the workshop; and how the workshop is a win-win for both the UK Libraries and community participants

Timing, origin, and potential global connections of mid-Ediacaran phenomena in South Australia and eastern California

Mid-Ediacaran incised valleys in the Johnnie Formation of eastern California (the Johnnie valleys) and the Wonoka Formation of South Australia (the Wonoka canyons) are of interest for their unusually large scale and broad time concordance with the largest negative carbon-isotope anomaly in Earth history (the Shuram excursion) and the emergence of multicellular life (the Ediacara fauna). The Johnnie valleys and Wonoka canyons have been widely accepted as originating in a submarine setting at a continental margin. My new data suggest an alternative scenario: that both features were cut subaerially concomitant with sea-level lowering in excess of 200 m, and were subsequently drowned and filled by marine sediments. Critical evidence includes 1) the presence in the basal fill of both valley systems of polymictic conglomerate/breccia with a quartz sand matrix that is locally associated with stratified quartz sandstone, suggesting both local and far-traveled fill components; 2) multiple upward-fining, polymictic conglomerate-based cycles in the basal Wonoka canyon fill; 3) beds and blocks of giant ooid packstone-grainstone indicative of shallow marine sedimentation during the early stages of Johnnie valley filling; 4) the observed transition in the direction of paleoflow in the Wonoka from stratified boulder conglomerate to sandstone and siltstone event beds; and 5) regional restoration of the northern Flinders Ranges indicating that several deep canyons in the Wonoka are > 20 km inboard of the paleoshelf edge. Modern submarine canyons rarely incise that far into continental shelves. My new carbon isotopic data demonstrate negative carbon-13 (δ13C) values in the basal Johnnie valley fill, indicating that like the Wonoka canyons, the Johnnie valleys are bracketed by the Shuram excursion. Additionally, in South Australia, regional allochthonous salt breakout is observed at the same stratigraphic level as the canyon-cutting unconformity, with no evidence for triggering by regional crustal shortening or deep marine non-deposition. Clasts from diapiric breccia and the basal Wonoka canyon fill share sedimentologic, petrographic, and geochemical characteristics indicating the presence of diapiric contributions to the canyon fill, and that allochthonous salt and the canyons interacted dynamically at the Earth’s surface during the Ediacaran. Each of these observations is more consistent with the expectations of a subaerial rather than submarine setting. I hypothesize that the Johnnie valleys and Wonoka canyons were cut by a combination of fluvial incision and subaerial mass wasting, before being drowned. Sea-level lowering is thought to have been triggered by the ~580 Ma Gaskiers glaciation. My interpretation is based on high-resolution physical stratigraphic mapping supported by sub-meter scale 3-D drone imagery, geochemical analysis (δ13C, δ18O, δ26Mg, Mg/Ca), structural restoration, as well as sedimentologic and petrographic analysis. The overall interpretation has several implications for connections between mid-Ediacaran phenomena globally. Given that the Johnnie valleys and Wonoka canyons are stratigraphically bracketed by negative δ13C values putatively correlated with the Shuram excursion, my data suggest that the Shuram excursion may encompass rather than postdate the Gaskiers glaciation in eastern California and South Australia, and that the onset of the excursion may be diachronous at a global scale. My interpretation presents the first outcrop evidence for subaerial erosion and non-deposition as a mechanism capable of triggering appreciable salt breakout. The suggested occurrence of regional isolation and rapid environmental change closely precedes the emergence of the Ediacara fauna, and presents new context for the organisms and the sediments in which they are recorded

Learning Global Additive Explanations for Neural Nets Using Model Distillation

Interpretability has largely focused on local explanations, i.e. explaining why a model made a particular prediction for a sample. These explanations are appealing due to their simplicity and local fidelity. However, they do not provide information about the general behavior of the model. We propose to leverage model distillation to learn global additive explanations that describe the relationship between input features and model predictions. These global explanations take the form of feature shapes, which are more expressive than feature attributions. Through careful experimentation, we show qualitatively and quantitatively that global additive explanations are able to describe model behavior and yield insights about models such as neural nets. A visualization of our approach applied to a neural net as it is trained is available at https://youtu.be/ErQYwNqzEdc.Comment: Machine Learning for Health (ML4H) Workshop at NeurIPS 2018 arXiv:1811.0721

Dominance rank is associated with body condition in outdoor-living domestic horses (<i>Equus caballus</i>)

AbstractThe aim of our study was to explore the association between dominance rank and body condition in outdoor group-living domestic horses, Equus caballus.Social interactions were recorded using a video camera during a feeding test, applied to 203 horses in 42 herds. Dominance rank was assigned to 194 individuals. The outcome variable body condition score (BCS) was recorded using a 9-point scale. The variables age and height were recorded and considered as potential confounders or effect modifiers. Results were analysed using multivariable linear and logistic regression techniques, controlling for herd group as a random effect.More dominant (p=0.001) individuals generally had a higher body condition score (p=0.001) and this association was entirely independent of age and height. In addition, a greater proportion of dominant individuals fell into the obese category (BCS≥7/9, p=0.005).There were more displacement encounters and a greater level of interactivity in herds that had less variation in age and height, lending strength to the hypothesis that phenotypic variation may aid cohesion in group-living species. In addition there was a strong quadratic relationship between age and dominance rank (p<0.001), where middle-aged individuals were most likely to be dominant. These results are the first to link behavioural predictors to body condition and obesity status in horses and should prompt the future consideration of behavioural and social factors when evaluating clinical disease risk in group-living animals

Extraction and Evaluation of Statistical Information from Social and Behavioral Science Papers

With substantial and continuing increases in the number of published papers across the scientific literature, development of reliable approaches for automated discovery and assessment of published findings is increasingly urgent. Tools which can extract critical information from scientific papers and metadata can support representation and reasoning over existing findings, and offer insights into replicability, robustness and generalizability of specific claims. In this work, we present a pipeline for the extraction of statistical information (p-values, sample size, number of hypotheses tested) from full-text scientific documents. We validate our approach on 300 papers selected from the social and behavioral science literatures, and suggest directions for next steps

Assessing the seasonal prevalence and risk factors for nuchal crest adiposity in domestic horses and ponies using the Cresty Neck Score

BACKGROUND: Nuchal crest adiposity in horses and ponies has been associated with an enhanced risk of metabolic health problems. However, there is no current information on the prevalence of, and risk factors specific to, nuchal crest adiposity in horses and ponies. In addition, the cresty neck score has not previously been utilised across different seasons within a UK leisure population, it is not know whether nuchal crest adiposity shows the same seasonal trends as general obesity. RESULTS: A Cresty Neck Score (CNS, 0–5) was given to 96 horses with access to pasture (>6 h per day) at the end of winter and at the end of summer in order to obtain two prevalence estimates. Risk factors were assessed using the single outcome cresty neck/no cresty neck in either season (binary), from owner questionnaires and analysed using a mixed effects logistic regression model (outcome variable CNS <3 or CNS ≥3/5). Agreement between winter and summer scores was assessed using weighted Kappa methods. Winter CNS values were significantly higher than summer CNS values (p = 0.002) indicating a systematic bias. The prevalence of a CNS ≥ 3/5 was 45.83% at the end of winter, falling to 33.33% at the end of summer and was higher in ponies (<14.2 hh) than horses (≥14.2 hh) in both seasons. This may reflect a real winter increase in regional fat deposition, or an increased difficulty in obtaining an accurate estimate of regional adiposity in winter months. Breed was the strongest risk factor for CNS ≥3/5 in both seasons, with native UK breeds appearing to be most at risk (p < 0.001). In a separate, small validation study, the CNS showed good inter-observer reliability. CONCLUSIONS: The prevalence of a CNS ≥3/5 was higher at the end of winter than at the end of summer, which was the opposite pattern seasonal variation to that observed for general obesity. Further studies are required to investigate the potential influence of time of year upon CNS interpretation and studies utilising the CNS should consider potential seasonal variability in nuchal crest adiposity. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12917-015-0327-7) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users