Jockey Falls, Injuries, and Fatalities Associated With Thoroughbred and Quarter Horse Racing in California, 2007-2011.

BackgroundDespite the popularity of the horse racing industry in the United States and the wide recognition that horse racing is one of the most hazardous occupations, little focused research into the prevention of falls by and injuries to jockeys has been conducted.PurposeTo describe the incidence rates and characteristics of falls and injuries to Thoroughbred and Quarter Horse racing jockeys in the state of California.Study designDescriptive epidemiology study.MethodsData on race-day falls and injuries were extracted from jockey accident reports submitted to the California Horse Racing Board from January 2007 to December 2011. Denominator data, number of jockey race rides, were obtained from commercial and industry databases. Jockey fall, injury, and fatality incidence rates and ratios in Thoroughbred and Quarter Horse flat races were estimated using Poisson regression. Characteristics of falls and injuries are described and compared.ResultsIn Thoroughbred races, 184 jockey injuries occurred from 360 reported jockey falls, 180,646 race rides, 23,500 races, and 3350 race meetings. In Quarter Horse races, 85 jockey injuries occurred from 145 jockey falls, 46,106 race rides, 6320 races, and 1053 race meetings. Jockey falls occurred at a rate of 1.99 falls per 1000 rides in Thoroughbred races, with 51% of falls resulting in jockey injury, and 3.14 falls per 1000 rides in Quarter Horse races, with 59% of falls resulting in jockey injury. The majority of falls occurred during a race, with catastrophic injury or sudden death of the horse reported as the most common cause in both Thoroughbred (29%) and Quarter Horse (44%) races. During the period studied, 1 jockey fatality resulted from a fall. Jockey fall rates were lower but injury rates were comparable to those reported internationally.ConclusionOn average, a licensed jockey in California can expect to have a fall every 502 rides in Thoroughbred races and every 318 rides in Quarter Horse races. While jockey fall rates were lower, injury rates were similar to those in other racing jurisdictions. The high proportion of jockey falls caused by horse fatalities should be further investigated

Celebrity privacy and benefits of simple history

© Cambridge University Press 2006 and Cambridge University Press, 2009. Introduction: Is personal revelation the right of the subject alone or can others tell the story even without consent? The question lies at the heart of recent celebrity privacy cases. When Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones claimed their wedding party had been intercepted by underground paparazzi with the photographs to be published in Hello!, their complaint was not that they should be let alone completely. Indeed they had contracted with OK! to give the public account of their celebration with carefully vetted authorised pictures. Yet they claimed their privacy was implicated and the equitable action for breach of confidence was the way to protect this; a claim partly and with some reservations accepted by the courts, which refused an interlocutory injunction but subsequently allowed damages for the unauthorised publication (at the time suggesting the injunction should have been awarded). When Naomi Campbell found herself the subject of an article in the Mirror revealing details of her treatment for a drug addiction, with covertly taken photographs in support, her essential complaint was that the story had been obtained and published without her knowledge or approval (although conceding that her own previous false accounts meant she was in no position to prevent telling about her addiction). Further, the House of Lords left her the option in finding her confidence breached

A focus group study of student attitudes to lectures

This paper reports on the findings from focus groups, conducted at Macquarie University, on the attitudes of computing students to lectures. Students felt that two things were vital for a good lecture: (1) that the lecturer goes beyond what is written in the lecture notes; (2) that the lecture is interactive, by which students meant that the lecturer asks if students understand concepts and adjusts the delivery accordingly, and also the lecturer answers the students' questions. The students in the focus groups also discussed what makes for a bad lectures: (1) lecturers reading straight from slides; (2) lecturers who 'blame the students', by saying that students don't work hard enough and are too lazy to turn up to lectures; and (3) lecturers who cover the material too slowly or too quickly. The most prominent reason given for not attending lectures was the timetabling of lectures in such a way that students had too few classes in one day to make the sojourn to university worthwhile. Any university seeking to improve attendance at lectures should perhaps look as much to improving its timetabling practices as it does to improving the practices of its individual lecturers. © 2009, Australian Computer Society, Inc

Heating Up at the Plate: Relationships between Temperature, Climate Type in Place of Birth, and MLB Batting Performance

This study seeks to determine whether long-term heat acclimatization affects batting performance of Major League Baseball players based upon the climate in which a player was born. Each player with at least one at-bat from 1980–2018 was linked to a climate class and subdivision based on the Köppen-Geiger climate classification of their place of birth, and the ambient temperature at game time was determined for each game that took place. Games played in temperatures at least one standard deviation below and above the mean were categorized as cold- and hot-weather games, respectively. Common baseball metrics such as batting average, slugging percentage, and isolated power were calculated and aggregated based on climate class, climate subdivision, and temperature category. Differences in batting performance were assessed using the ANOVA and Tukey-Kramer tests. It was found that players from cold-winter climates hit for significantly less power in hotter temperatures than players from some other climates

Trends in illegal wildlife trade: Analyzing personal baggage seizure data in the Pacific Northwest.

This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.The illegal import of wildlife and wildlife products is a growing concern, and the U.S. is one of the world’s leading countries in the consumption and transit of illegal wildlife and their derivatives. Yet, few U.S. studies have analyzed the illegal wildlife trade (IWT) on a national or local scale. Moreover, to our knowledge, no studies have specifically examined the trends associated with IWT moving through personal baggage. This work aimed to better understand the magnitude of illegal wildlife importation into U.S. ports of entry by determining trends associated with illegal wildlife products from personal baggage seizures, using the Pacific Northwest (PNW) as a specific case study. To identify the most influential factors determining the numbers and types of personal baggage seizures into PNW, we analyzed 1,731 records between 1999 and 2016 from the Fish and Wildlife Service’s (FWS) Law Enforcement Management Information System (LEMIS) database. We found five significant contributors: taxonomic classification of wildlife, categorical import date, wildlife product, source region, and the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) status. While wildlife seizures across taxonomic categories have generally decreased in the PNW since 2008, other findings provide a reason for concern. More specifically, mammals were identified as the largest animal group of seized wildlife, and temporal trends indicate increases in seizures for this and several other taxonomic groups. Many of the seizures originated from overseas, with East Asia serving as the largest source. Our PNW case study can be a model for how large-scale geographical seizure data can be used to inform about the major factors that have historically and presently contribute to IWT, with conservation implications globally.ECU Open Access Publishing Support Fun

Global shifts in mammalian population trends reveal key predictors of virus spillover risk.

Emerging infectious diseases in humans are frequently caused by pathogens originating from animal hosts, and zoonotic disease outbreaks present a major challenge to global health. To investigate drivers of virus spillover, we evaluated the number of viruses mammalian species have shared with humans. We discovered that the number of zoonotic viruses detected in mammalian species scales positively with global species abundance, suggesting that virus transmission risk has been highest from animal species that have increased in abundance and even expanded their range by adapting to human-dominated landscapes. Domesticated species, primates and bats were identified as having more zoonotic viruses than other species. Among threatened wildlife species, those with population reductions owing to exploitation and loss of habitat shared more viruses with humans. Exploitation of wildlife through hunting and trade facilitates close contact between wildlife and humans, and our findings provide further evidence that exploitation, as well as anthropogenic activities that have caused losses in wildlife habitat quality, have increased opportunities for animal-human interactions and facilitated zoonotic disease transmission. Our study provides new evidence for assessing spillover risk from mammalian species and highlights convergent processes whereby the causes of wildlife population declines have facilitated the transmission of animal viruses to humans

Collaboration between Science and Religious Education teachers in Scottish Secondary schools

The article reports on quantitative research that examines: (1) the current practice in collaboration; and (2) potential for collaboration between Science and Religious Education teachers in a large sample of Scottish secondary schools. The authors adopt and adapt three models (conflict; concordat and consonance) to interrogate the relationship between science and religion (and the perceived relation between these two subjects in schools) (Astley and Francis 2010). The findings indicate that there is evidence of limited collaboration and, in a few cases, a dismissive attitude towards collaboration (conflict and concordat and very weak consonance). There is, however, evidence of a genuine aspiration for greater collaboration among many teachers (moving towards a more robust consonance model). The article concludes by discussing a number of key factors that must be realised for this greater collaboration to be enacted

Relationship Between Historical Lameness, Medication Usage, Surgery, and Exercise With Catastrophic Musculoskeletal Injury in Racehorses

Background: The rate of catastrophic musculoskeletal injuries (CMI) in racehorses is high in the United States compared to other countries. Few modifiable risk factors related to lameness, medication, and surgery history have been identified.Objective: To detect management factors that increase risk of CMI by comparing medical histories between horses that sustained, and horses that did not sustain, a CMI.Study design: Case-control.Methods: Racehorse necropsy data (May 2012-June 2013) were obtained through the California Horse Racing Board Postmortem Program. Attending veterinarians of Thoroughbreds (TB) and Quarter Horses (QH) that experienced CMI, and of three matched control horses, were invited to complete an online veterinary medical history survey. We investigated associations between CMI and lameness, medication, surgery, and exercise history using multivariable logistic regression.Results: There were 146 TB (45 cases, 101 controls) and 17 QH (11 cases, 6 controls) surveys completed. TB cases were more likely to show signs of lameness within the 3 months prior to death compared to controls. A high proportion of both cases (64.3%) and controls (76.8%) were administered medications, but unraced TB case horses were more likely to have been administered systemic medications compared to those that previously raced. TB cases were more likely to have raced with greater intensity during their career, but had eased off in the month preceding CMI. For QHs, there was insufficient power to detect significant differences between cases and controls that showed signs of lameness, or that were administered medications. Surgery history was not associated with CMI.Main limitation: Insufficient power to detect small effect sizes.Conclusions: The study provides information that can be used to aid in identification of horses at high risk for catastrophic injury, and management factors that can be modified to reduce the risk for all horses

A region segmentation method to measure multiple features using a tactile scanning probe

Coordinate measuring machines (CMMs) have been widely used in industry to precisely measure parts for inspection or quality control. One of the main barriers to using a CMM touch-trigger probe is the cumbersome programming work required to identify the probing points and for scan path planning. In this paper, we propose a practical data-segmentation method to continuously measure multiple features of the workpiece using a scanning probe. This approach takes advantage of the fast data-capture capability of the scanning probe and, subsequently, the point dataset is segmented using the information extracted from the CAD model of the part. This methodology does not require tedious programming and all desired measurement results can be obtained from a single scan. The principle of the method is presented, and the feasibility of the method is experimentally verified on a bridge-type Hexagon DEA Global CMM equipped with a Leitz LSP-X1 probe. The proposed method avoids manual operation errors and generates more sampling points than traditional methods; therefore, theoretically providing lower measurement uncertainty. The test results also indicate that the new method using a scanning probe is easy to implement and can save more than 90% measurement time in comparison with a conventional touch-trigger method