Vitamin A Status of Women and Children in Yaoundé and Douala, Cameroon, is Unchanged One Year after Initiation of a National Vitamin A Oil Fortification Program.

Vitamin A (VA) fortification of cooking oil is considered a cost-effective strategy for increasing VA status, but few large-scale programs have been evaluated. We conducted representative surveys in Yaoundé and Douala, Cameroon, 2 years before and 1 year after the introduction of a mandatory national program to fortify cooking oil with VA. In each survey, 10 different households were selected within each of the same 30 clusters (n = ~300). Malaria infection and plasma indicators of inflammation and VA (retinol-binding protein, pRBP) status were assessed among women aged 15-49 years and children aged 12-59 months, and casual breast milk samples were collected for VA and fat measurements. Refined oil intake was measured by a food frequency questionnaire, and VA was measured in household oil samples post-fortification. Pre-fortification, low inflammation-adjusted pRBP was common among children (33% <0.83 µmol/L), but not women (2% <0.78 µmol/L). Refined cooking oil was consumed by >80% of participants in the past week. Post-fortification, only 44% of oil samples were fortified, but fortified samples contained VA concentrations close to the target values. Controlling for age, inflammation, and other covariates, there was no difference in the mean pRBP, mean breast milk VA, prevalence of low pRBP, or prevalence of low milk VA between the pre- and post-fortification surveys. The frequency of refined oil intake was not associated with VA status indicators post-fortification. In sum, after a year of cooking oil fortification with VA, we did not detect evidence of increased plasma RBP or milk VA among urban women and preschool children, possibly because less than half of the refined oil was fortified. The enforcement of norms should be strengthened, and the program should be evaluated in other regions where the prevalence of VA deficiency was greater pre-fortification

The Interdependence of Attention, Memory, and Performance Based Reward

Attention is frequently described as a distinct process with distinct effects, and many researchers have suggested that it has a distinct place in the brain. And yet attention is necessarily entangled with the systems required to complete experimental tasks. Perceptual experiments entangle attentional effects with the properties of perceptual neurons, experiments with transient stimuli entangle the effects of memory with attention, and the early experiments on attention in primates entangled the effects of attention and reward. The purpose of the present thesis, therefore, was to disentangle the effects of attention from the effects of memory and reward on orientation judgements across ten experiments. In all experiments, participants were required to make an orientation judgement from memory of a grating (Chapter 2) or Gabor (Chapters 3 & 4) that appeared briefly on the display. Chapter 2 presents five experiments combining a manipulation of spatial attention using an exogenous luminance cue that was 100%, 80%, or 50% valid with a manipulation of memory consolidation using sequential and simultaneous presentation of two circular gratings. Valid cuing improved performance only when two stimuli appeared together and improved it to the level of performance on uncued sequential trials, whereas invalid cueing always reduced performance. Further, mixture model fitting results indicated that non-predictive cues improved performance by reducing guessing and predictive cues improved performance by increasing precision. These results suggest that, when the demand on memory is greater than a single stimulus, attention is a bottom-up process that prioritizes stimuli for consolidation, thus attention and memory are dependent and synergistic, and that the mechanism by which spatial attention affects precision may be dependent on how we implicitly monitor our environment for statistical regularities. Predictive cues communicate importance about a spatial location and reward is another mechanism that communicates importance, and this is what motivated the experiments presented in Chapter 3. Chapter 3 presents four experiments combining a manipulation of spatial attention via a 50% valid luminance cue with a manipulation of performance-based reward that was communicated to participants by either sound, time, or points. The reward received could be either finely or coarsely related to participant errors and this was manipulated between subjects. Sound and time were ineffective at communicating the reward distribution, but when participants were awarded points, valid cuing improved performance and kurtosis was increased on valid trials only when rewards were finely related to their performance suggesting a dependent relation between reward and attention. One explanation for these results is that reward increases vigilance and attention increases visual search efficiency. The experiment presented in Chapter 4 evaluates this hypothesis. Viewing time was fixed by requiring participants to fixate at the target location to control its offset. We found that under these conditions the effects of cueing and reward were eliminated. Taken together, these results provide evidence that it is not possible to fully disentangle the effects of attention from the system(s) used to perform the task suggesting that spatial attention is not a separate mechanism unto itself, but a property of perception

Barking at Emotionally-Laden Words: The Role of Attention

It has long been held that processing at the single word level during reading is automatic. However, research has recently begun to emerge that challenges this view. The literature surrounding the processing of emotion while recognizing printed words is limited, but some findings in the processing of emotion in faces suggest that negative stimuli (especially threat stimuli) promote quick and accurate processing. The purpose of the present experiments is to investigate whether negative emotionally-laden words are afforded priority processing in visual word recognition compared to positive emotionally-laden words. Two experiments are reported that manipulated the lexicality and valence of the target and distractor stimuli (Experiments 1 & 2), the validity of a spatial pre-cue (Experiments 1 & 2), and the presence of a distractor item (Experiment 2). Participants were asked to determine whether the target stimulus spelled a word or not. Response times on valid trials were faster compared to invalid trials, response times to negative emotionally-laden words were slower compared to positive emotionally-laden words, and the presence of a distractor item encouraged better focus on the target stimuli in the absence of any evidence that the valence of the distractor itself was processed. These results are consistent with the hypothesis that visual word recognition is not automatic given that processing benefited from the accurate direction of spatial attention. Furthermore, negative emotionally-laden words benefited equally compared to positive emotionally-laden words and therefore provide no evidence of automatic processing

Mobility, functionality and functional mobility: A review and application for canine veterinary patients

Mobility is an essential aspect of a dog’s daily life. It is defined as the ability to move freely and easily and deviations from an animals’ normal mobility capabilities are often an indicator of disease, injury or pain. When a dog’s mobility is compromised, often functionality (ability to perform activities of daily living; ADL), is also impeded, which can diminish an animal’s quality of life. Given this, it is necessary to understand the extent to which conditions impact a dog’s physiological ability to freely move around their environment to carry out ADL, a concept termed functional mobility. In contrast to human medicine, validated measures of canine functional mobility are currently limited. The aim of this review is to summarise the extent to which canine mobility and functionality are associated with various diseases and how mobility and functional mobility are currently assessed within veterinary medicine. Future work should focus on developing a standardised method of assessing functional mobility in dogs, which can contextualise how a wide range of conditions impact a dog’s daily life. However, for a true functional mobility assessment to be developed, a greater understanding of what activities dogs do on a daily basis and movements underpinning these activities must first be established

Concerns and research priorities for Scottish farmed salmon welfare – An industry perspective

The intensification of Scottish salmon farming has been associated with increasing demands for the monitoring and safeguarding of farmed salmon welfare. Continued growth of farm productivity, while avoiding adverse effects on salmon welfare, will require the development of effective welfare assessment tools. This paper reports on a survey of the Scottish salmon farming industry, which was conducted to understand current salmon welfare concerns and priorities for research. As part of a broader aim for further developing tools for on-farm salmon welfare assessment, a total of 61 individuals working in the Scottish salmon farming industry took part. This survey intentionally focused on industry stakeholders to provide insights into current practices and challenges associated with monitoring and assessing salmon welfare. Participants were recruited through authors' industry contacts, online advertisements, and searches of company websites. In terms of production stages, survey participants believed that the seawater rearing stage is a major area of concern, largely due to the challenges presented by sea lice. Gill health and environmental challenges, mainly relating to water quality, were two other highly ranked welfare concerns. Methods to monitor salmon welfare during husbandry practices, where disturbances and contact with the salmon is unavoidable (particularly during crowding, grading, and interventions), were emphasised as a priority. Although these were identified as the major concerns, the survey indicated that there are other significant welfare concerns specific to each production stage that also require consideration. Participants highlighted non-invasive, remote, and animal-based welfare measures as important areas for further development for on-farm welfare assessments. Behavioural measures were identified as having the potential to make a major contribution in this context. This survey presents the first collection of opinions from professionals employed across the Scottish salmon farming industry regarding the current overall state of farmed salmon welfare. This study upholds the importance of using an integrated approach to welfare assessments, and that behavioural measures could play an important role in ensuring these assessments benefit both salmon welfare and farm productivity

Unravelling selection signatures in a single dog breed suggests recent selection for morphological and behavioural traits

Strong selection has resulted in substantial morphological and behavioral diversity across modern dog breeds, which makes dogs interesting model animals to study the underlying genetic architecture of these traits. However, results from between-breed analyses may confound selection signatures for behavior and morphological features that were coselected during breed development. In this study, we assess population genetic differences in a unique resource of dogs of the same breed but with systematic behavioral selection in only one population. We exploit these different breeding backgrounds to identify signatures of recent selection. Selection signatures within populations were found on chromosomes 4 and 19, with the strongest signals in behavior-related genes. Regions showing strong signals of divergent selection were located on chromosomes 1, 24, and 32, and include candidate genes for both physical features and behavior. Some of the selection signatures appear to be driven by loci associated with coat color (Chr 24; ASIP) and length (Chr 32; FGF5), while others showed evidence of association with behavior. Our findings suggest that signatures of selection within dog breeds have been driven by selection for morphology and behavior. Furthermore, we demonstrate that combining selection scans with association analyses is effective for dissecting the traits under selection

Unravelling selection signatures in a single dog breed suggests recent selection for morphological and behavioral traits

Strong selection has resulted in substantial morphological and behavioral diversity across modern dog breeds, which makes dogs interesting model animals to study the underlying genetic architecture of these traits. However, results from between-breed analyses may confound selection signatures for behavior and morphological features that were coselected during breed development. In this study, we assess population genetic differences in a unique resource of dogs of the same breed but with systematic behavioral selection in only one population. We exploit these different breeding backgrounds to identify signatures of recent selection. Selection signatures within populations were found on chromosomes 4 and 19, with the strongest signals in behavior-related genes. Regions showing strong signals of divergent selection were located on chromosomes 1, 24, and 32, and include candidate genes for both physical features and behavior. Some of the selection signatures appear to be driven by loci associated with coat color (Chr 24; ASIP) and length (Chr 32; FGF5), while others showed evidence of association with behavior. Our findings suggest that signatures of selection within dog breeds have been driven by selection for morphology and behavior. Furthermore, we demonstrate that combining selection scans with association analyses is effective for dissecting the traits under selection

The effect of the climatic housing environment on the growth of dairy-bred calves in the first month of life on a Scottish farm

SIMPLE SUMMARY: The climatic environment within calf housing can have an effect on calf health, but also on growth and performance. Calves have a lower threshold environmental temperature (lower critical temperature, LCT), below which can impact on the calf’s ability to maintain its core body temperature. This can cause the calf to partition more of its available energy into heat production and less into growth. The LCT decreases as the calf gets older. This year-long study followed 299 dairy-bred calves on one farm in Scotland from birth until approximately 28 days of age, and looked at the proportion of time for which the temperature was below the LCT for the individual calf, as well as the daily liveweight gain (DLWG; kg/d) of the calves during this time. For their first 6–14 days of life the calves were individually housed, and then subsequently group housed. Air temperature (°C), relative humidity (%), and wind speed (m/s) were recorded every hour of every day throughout the study, and calves were weighed regularly so that DLWG could be calculated. The study demonstrated that calves that spent a high proportion of their time below their LCT had a lower DLWG compared to calves that spent a low proportion of their time below their LCT. ABSTRACT: Calf housing is naturally thermodynamic, with interactions between various elements such as wind speed, air temperature, and humidity. This study investigated the effect of the proportion of time for which calves were exposed to effective environmental temperatures below their lower critical temperature (LCT) on their daily liveweight gain (DLWG) within their first month of life. This study used the naturally occurring climatic environment, whereas other such studies have been conducted under climatically controlled conditions. Air temperature (°C), relative humidity (%), and wind speed (m/s) were recorded within the calf housing from birth until approximately 28 days of age, with calves being health-scored and weighed at regular intervals. Calves were housed from birth until 6–14 days old in individual hutches, and then moved into group housing igloo pens. Whilst individually housed, calves that spent less than 32% of their time below their LCT had a DLWG of 0.06 ± 0.34 kg/d (mean ± SE) compared to calves that spent more than 97% of their time below their LCT, which had a DLWG of −0.19 ± 0.045 kg/d. When group housed, calves that spent less than 1% of their time below their LCT had a DLWG of 0.59 ± 0.18 kg/d, whereas calves that spent more than 28% of their time below their LCT had a DLWG of 0.53 ± 0.23 kg/d. The proportion of time for which calves were exposed to effective environmental temperatures below their LCT had a significant effect on DLWG when calves were individually housed. Therefore, exposure to effective environmental temperatures below the LCT can be detrimental to the growth of the calf in the early stages of its life