Examination of the impact and effectiveness of herd health and welfare assessment in im-proving animal welfare on organic dairy farms, using qualitative interviews.

During winter 2002-03, 15 organic dairy farms in SW England participated in a herd health and welfare assessment and benchmarking study. A second assessment was carried out on 14 of the original 15 farms and on 14 new farms during winter 2003-04. The effectiveness of the herd health and welfare as-sessments and benchmarking in delivering animal health and welfare improvements was investigated by means of qualitative research interviews. The inter-views were conducted between August and November 2004. The average length of interview was one hour and fifteen minutes. Five common themes were iden-tified and headed ‘Sensitivities and misgivings’; ‘Ac-ceptability of scoring methodology and indicators assessed’; ‘Raised awareness and motivation to im-prove’; ‘Veterinary support and herd health planning’ and ‘Value of assessment and benchmarking’. It was apparent that farmers, who took part voluntarily in the study, took the results of the herd health and welfare assessments very seriously and were clearly motivated by the process. The main focus for change was related to housing issues. The main constraints to welfare improvement were a shortage of finance to affect change beyond relatively simple alterations and a lack of information on the identification of changes likely to improve animal welfare in given situations

The Ariadne's Clew Algorithm

We present a new approach to path planning, called the ``Ariadne's clew algorithm''. It is designed to find paths in high-dimensional continuous spaces and applies to robots with many degrees of freedom in static, as well as dynamic environments --- ones where obstacles may move. The Ariadne's clew algorithm comprises two sub-algorithms, called SEARCH and EXPLORE, applied in an interleaved manner. EXPLORE builds a representation of the accessible space while SEARCH looks for the target. Both are posed as optimization problems. We describe a real implementation of the algorithm to plan paths for a six degrees of freedom arm in a dynamic environment where another six degrees of freedom arm is used as a moving obstacle. Experimental results show that a path is found in about one second without any pre-processing

Noticing the self: Implicit assessment of self-focused attention using word recognition latencies

Self-focused attention is difficult to measure. Two studies developed an implicit measure of self-focus based on word recognition latencies. Self-focused attention activates self-content, so self-focused people should recognize self-relevant words more quickly. Study 1 measured individual-differences in self-focused attention. People scoring high in private self-consciousness recognized self-relevant words more quickly. Study 2 manipulated objective self-awareness with a writing task. People who wrote about distinctive self-aspects (high self-awareness) recognized self-relevant words more quickly compared to people who wrote about a neutral topic (low self-awareness) and people who did no writing (control). The discussion considers implications for future research on self-focused attention

Experimental Combat-Stress Model in Rats: Histological Examination of Effects of Amelogenesis-A Possible Measure of Diminished Vagal Tone Episodes

Developmental defects of enamel-stress histomarker rings (accentuated striae) may be a potential measure of diminished vagal tone in research on extreme stress such as exposure to combat. To develop an animal model of this measure, we examined the enamel of rat incisors which erupt continuously. We examined incisors from 15 stressed-colony rats and 7 control-rats for these histomarkers using the Visible Burrow System (VBS). VBS was developed to study combat stress in rats. No stress rings were found in any of the rat incisors examined. In contrast to humans, rats have likely evolved to prioritize incisor strength during combat stress. Studies of amelogenesis during combat stress in other rodents with continuously growing incisors are warranted. Laboratory animals such as rabbits or marmosets may be especially suitable, since they less frequently use their incisors for self defense

Enhancing the employability of Brunel students: Assessment and evaluation of a Level 1 multidisciplinary project based teaching activity in the School of Engineering and Design

The Level 1 Multidisciplinary Project (MDP) is a weeklong project that takes place in the last week of Term 1. It involves first year undergraduate students from across the School subject areas of Electronic and Computer Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Civil Engineering and Design. The project is designed to be a teaching activity that removes the barrier of academic ability by involving a non‐discipline technical element, the primary emphasis being on the development of key transferable skills and the utilisation of problem solving skills that students have begun to develop in their first term at university. Each year around 450 students take part in MDP and they are put into mixed discipline groups of 8 or 9 students tasked with designing, building and demonstrating Lego Mindstorms and BASIC Stamp micro‐controlled vehicles to tackle an obstacle course. This report presents an analysis of responses from students to an online survey set up to evaluate the MDP. The survey was created using the online ‘SurveyMonkey’ website and was made live on 30th March 2011. The survey consisted of 15 questions, including tick box style quantitative questions along with some text based qualitative questions. There was also a request for contact details to be provided, if students would be happy to be contacted for a follow‐up discussion. The aim of the survey was to obtain feedback from students in each subject area, in each academic year group that has taken part in the MDP in the School of Engineering and Design. The survey was designed to try and assess student experiences and recollections of the project activity, to evaluate how the MDP has evolved over the four years it has taken place and inform the continued development of the MDP in future academic years. Information about the survey was sent by email to all students that have participated in the MDP since it was introduced in the 2007/2008 academic year (approximately 1700 students). The emails were written by Dr David Smith who is responsible for the running of the MDP and Dr Jo Cole who is involved in the co‐ordination of the MDP, inviting students to complete the online questionnaire. This report is broken into sections, giving an overview of the survey results as a whole, before looking at key observations in the data by year and by subject area. The survey questions are given in Appendix A with summary charts of the tick box responses given in Appendix B and the raw data from all questions provided by SurveyMonkey in Appendix C. Key points raised in the follow‐up one to‐one email and phone discussions are then presented, with full transcripts of the questions and answers from these discussions given in Appendix D, along with feedback from the professional bodies that accredit the different undergraduate courses taking part in the MDP and the view of the Brunel Placement and Careers Office. A list of conclusions is then given, drawn up to reflect the aspects of the MDP that need improvement, to be used as input to the development of the MDP for the coming academic year. Collation of the survey data, follow‐up discussions with students and initial preparation of this report were conducted by Dianna Reid, with funding provided by the Brunel Academic Practice and Development Unit as part of a 2011 Learning and Teaching Innovation Fund award under project code 2LA026

One Child\u27s Story of School-experienced Isolation and Rejection

Abstract For twelve years of school, a tiny girl endured isolation and rejection from her peers most likely due to a physical abnormality. As the girl remembers, the educators in a small, rural school district did little to support her as she was ostracized by her classmates and encourage other children to practice compassion. At times, the educators even participated in the rejection of the child. This is the story of a tiny, brown-eyed little girl who experienced isolation and rejection time and time again. Keywords: isolation, rejection, bullying, abus

Does Corticothalamic Feedback Control Cortical Velocity Tuning?

The thalamus is the major gate to the cortex and its contribution to cortical receptive field properties is well established. Cortical feedback to the thalamus is, in turn, the anatomically dominant input to relay cells, yet its influence on thalamic processing has been difficult to interpret. For an understanding of complex sensory processing, detailed concepts of the corticothalamic interplay need yet to be established. To study corticogeniculate processing in a model, we draw on various physiological and anatomical data concerning the intrinsic dynamics of geniculate relay neurons, the cortical influence on relay modes, lagged and nonlagged neurons, and the structure of visual cortical receptive fields. In extensive computer simulations we elaborate the novel hypothesis that the visual cortex controls via feedback the temporal response properties of geniculate relay cells in a way that alters the tuning of cortical cells for speed

A New Library Career

After working as a public and school library director for two decades, the challenge of reference and research work in an academic library is exciting and daunting for a mid-career librarian. She quickly realizes that constantly comparing fondly remembered library experiences with new professional challenges must transition into embracing what lays ahead and learning new skills. To successfully serve an academic library patron population, the variety of knowledge and information expertise is different and expanded, but the time-honored aptitude of treating library visitors well and carefully ascertaining their information needs remains the same

Neural Mechanisms for Information Compression by Multiple Alignment, Unification and Search

This article describes how an abstract framework for perception and cognition may be realised in terms of neural mechanisms and neural processing. This framework — called information compression by multiple alignment, unification and search (ICMAUS) — has been developed in previous research as a generalized model of any system for processing information, either natural or artificial. It has a range of applications including the analysis and production of natural language, unsupervised inductive learning, recognition of objects and patterns, probabilistic reasoning, and others. The proposals in this article may be seen as an extension and development of Hebb’s (1949) concept of a ‘cell assembly’. The article describes how the concept of ‘pattern’ in the ICMAUS framework may be mapped onto a version of the cell assembly concept and the way in which neural mechanisms may achieve the effect of ‘multiple alignment’ in the ICMAUS framework. By contrast with the Hebbian concept of a cell assembly, it is proposed here that any one neuron can belong in one assembly and only one assembly. A key feature of present proposals, which is not part of the Hebbian concept, is that any cell assembly may contain ‘references’ or ‘codes’ that serve to identify one or more other cell assemblies. This mechanism allows information to be stored in a compressed form, it provides a robust mechanism by which assemblies may be connected to form hierarchies and other kinds of structure, it means that assemblies can express abstract concepts, and it provides solutions to some of the other problems associated with cell assemblies. Drawing on insights derived from the ICMAUS framework, the article also describes how learning may be achieved with neural mechanisms. This concept of learning is significantly different from the Hebbian concept and appears to provide a better account of what we know about human learning

Spatiotemporal adaptation through corticothalamic loops: A hypothesis

The thalamus is the major gate to the cortex and its control over cortical responses is well established. Cortical feedback to the thalamus is, in turn, the anatomically dominant input to relay cells, yet its influence on thalamic processing has been difficult to interpret. For an understanding of complex sensory processing, detailed concepts of the corticothalamic interplay need yet to be established. Drawing on various physiological and anatomical data, we elaborate the novel hypothesis that the visual cortex controls the spatiotemporal structure of cortical receptive fields via feedback to the lateral geniculate nucleus. Furthermore, we present and analyze a model of corticogeniculate loops that implements this control, and exhibit its ability of object segmentation by statistical motion analysis in the visual field