Ewe Body Condition: Does Farmer Practice Meet Research Guidelines?

A group of sheep farmers in the Southland region of New Zealand were surveyed in the winter of 2011 to determine their current winter management practices and ewe performance. This followed a 3 year Sustainable Farming Fund project to investigate if there was a relationship between maintaining an even ewe body condition score (BCS) during pregnancy and the incidence of vaginal prolapse (bearings). The program included a series of workshops to help farmers improve their ewe winter management and it became apparent that the actual winter feeding practice and ewe performance was relatively unknown. The research was done to document current farmer winter feeding and management practices and subsequent whole flock reproductive performance

Learning through ICTS in the environmental justice movement: case studies from Scotland

The data for this article derives from research funded by an ESRC grant: award number RES-000-22-2301.Historically, social purpose adult education was linked with progressive struggles for social justice, equality and democracy, and its contribution waxed and waned depending on the vibrancy and demands of wider social forces in society. However, these forces have altered considerably over the past century. This is not the only important difference in today's context. Information and communication technologies (ICTs) are having an impact on the nature of social and political conflicts by creating new sites of struggle and new means of participation in social action. They also have a potential impact on the process of individual and social learning in movement activities. If social purpose adult education is to reassert itself as a resource for progressive social movements, it will have to reconnect with these struggles and adopt new ways of allying itself to their cause. In this paper we draw upon ongoing research into the environmental justice movement in Scotland, which focuses on the contribution of ICTs to learning and participation.div_MCaPAAgents for Environmental Justice and Scandrett, E (2003) Voices from the Grassroots, Edinburgh: Friends of the Earth Scotland. Agyeman, J., Bullard, R and Evans, B (2003) Just Sustainabilities: Development in an Unequal World, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Bayne, S (2006) 'Temptation, trash and trust: the authorship and authority of digital texts', E-Learning 3 (1) 16-26. Blumer, M (1995) 'Social movements', in Lyman S (ed) Social Movements: Critiques, Concepts, Case-Studies, London: MacMillan Press. Brunsting, S and Postmes, T (2002) 'Social movement participation in the digital age: predicting offline and online collective action', Small Group Research, 33 (5) 525-554. Colley, H., Hodkinson, P and Malcolm, J (2002) Non-formal learning: mapping the conceptual terrain. A Consultation Report, Leeds: University of Leeds Lifelong Learning Institute. Also available in the informal education archives: http://www.infed.org/archives/e-texts/colley_informal_learning.htm. Cook, J and Smith, M (2004) 'Beyond formal learning: informal community elearning', Computers and Education, CAL03 Special Issue, 43 (1-2), 35-47. Dunion, K (2003) Troublemakers: The Struggle for Environmental Justice in Scotland, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Elsdon, K with Reynolds, J and Stewart, S (1995) Voluntary Organisations: Citizenship, Learning and Change, Leicester: NIACE. Eyerman, R and Jamison, A (1991) Social Movements: A Cognitive Approach, Bristol: Polity Press. Foley, G (1999) Learning in Action, London: Zed Books/NIACE. Hall, B., Turray, T., Chow, W., Dragne, C and Parks, E (2005) Final Report - Social Movement Learning, Canada: Canadian Council for Learning. Lave, J and Wenger, E (1991) Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Sawchuk, P., Gawron, Z and Taylor, J (2002) 'E-learning and union mobilization', Journal of Distance Education, 17 (3) 80-96. Selwyn, N., Gorard, S and Furlong, J (2006) 'Adults' use of computers and the Internet for self-education', Studies in the Education of Adults, 38 (2) Autumn 141-159. Selwyn, N. (2003) 'Apart from technology: understanding people's non-use of information and communication technologies in everyday life', Technology in Society. 25 (1): 99-116. Scandrett, E O'Leary, T and Martinez, T (2005) 'Learning environmental justice through dialogue' in Proceedings of PASCAL Conference, Making Knowledge Work, Leicester: NIACE. Virilio, P. (2005) The Information Bomb. London: Verso Books. Wildermeersch, D and Jansen, T (1997) 'Strengths and limitations of social learning as a key concept for adult and continuing education in reflexive modernity', in Armstrong, P., Miller, N and Zukas, M (eds) Crossing Borders, Breaking Boundaries, 27th Annual SCUTREA Conference Proceedings, London: Birkbeck College.unpub567unpu

Challenging the current hypothesis that thrombosis is responsible for the post-COVID-19 condition

People with the post-COVID-19 condition suffer symptoms that persist beyond 12 weeks following acute COVID-19 infection. Fatigue, shortness of breath, and cognitive dysfunction (“brain fog”) are common. Scientists, clinicians, and patients debate the pathophysiology. One pathophysiological hypothesis is that prothrombotic changes associated with acute COVID-19 persist, causing clots that lead to symptoms. This theory, arising from a research team in South Africa and supported by a paper in Nature Medicine, has been widely disseminated on social media and entered the public narrative as a cause of the post-COVID-19 condition.We describe the development of this theory, examine the findings of a Cochrane review that critically appraises the “microclot” beliefs, and critically appraise the influential study relating clotting biomarkers to cognitive deficits. We conclude the inferences for the hypothesis are not based on evidence, unlicensed use of antithrombotic medication is not justified, and apheresis should not be considered outside of a well-designed clinical trial

Risk-based inspection as a cost-effective strategy to reduce human exposure to cysticerci of Taenia saginata in low-prevalence settings

Taenia saginata cysticercus is the larval stage of the zoonotic parasite Taenia saginata, with a life-cycle involving both cattle and humans. The public health impact is considered low. The current surveillance system, based on post-mortem inspection of carcasses has low sensitivity and leads to considerable economic burden. Therefore, in the interests of public health and food production efficiency, this study aims to explore the potential of risk-based and cost-effective meat inspection activities for the detection and control of T. saginata cysticercus in low prevalence settings

Acoustic cloak based on Bézier scatterers

[EN] Among the different approaches proposed to design acoustic cloaks, the one consisting on the use of an optimum distribution of discrete scatters surrounding the concealing object has been successfully tested. The feasibility of acoustic cloaks mainly depends on the number and shape of the scatterers surrounding the object to be cloaked. This work presents a method allowing the reduction of the number of discrete scatterers by optimizing their external shape, which is here defined by a combination of cubic Bézier curves. Based on scattering cancellation, a two-dimensional directional cloak consisting of just 20 Bézier scatters has been designed, fabricated and experimentally characterized. The method of fundamental solutions has been implemented to calculate the interaction of an incident plane wave with scatterers of arbitrary shape. The acoustic cloak here proposed shows a performance, in terms of averaged visibility, similar to that consisting of 120 scatterers with equal circular cross sections. The operational frequency of the proposed cloak is 5940 Hz with a bandwidth of about 110 Hz.J. Sanchez-Dehesa acknowledges the financial support by the Spanish Ministerio de Economia y Competitividad and the European Union Fondo Europeo para el Desarrollo Regional (FEDER) under Grant with Ref. TEC2014-53088-C3-1-R. Lu Zhimiao acknowledges the financial support from the program of China Scholarships Council (No. 201503170282), Wen Jihong, Cai Li and Lu Zhimiao acknowledge the support by National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos 51275519 and 11372346)Lu, Z.; Sanchis Martínez, L.; Wen, J.; Cai, L.; Bi, Y.; Sánchez-Dehesa Moreno-Cid, J. (2018). Acoustic cloak based on Bézier scatterers. Scientific Reports. 8. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-018-30888-7S8Cummer, S. A. & Schurig, D. One path to acoustic cloaking. New J. Phys. 9(3), 45 (2007).Cai, L.-W. & Sánchez-Dehesa Analysis of Cummer–Schurig acoustic cloaking. J. New J. Phys. 9(12), 450 (2007).Chen, H. & Chan, C. Acoustic cloaking in three dimensions using acoustic metamaterials. Appl. Phys. Lett. 91(18), 183518 (2007).Norris, A. N. Acoustic cloaking theory. Proc. R. Soc. A 464(2097), 2411–2434 (2008).Torrent, D. & Sánchez-Dehesa, J. Acoustic cloaking in two dimensions: a feasible approach. New J. Phys. 10(6), 063015 (2008).Zhang, S., Xia, C. & Fang, N. Broadband acoustic cloak for ultrasound waves. Phys. Rev. Lett. 106, 024301 Jan (2011).Popa, B.-I., Zigoneanu, L. & Cummer, S. A. Experimental acoustic ground cloak in air. Phys. Rev. Lett. 106, 253901 Jun (2011).Zigoneanu, L., Popa, B.-I. & Cummer, S. A. Design and measurements of a broadband two-dimensional acoustic lens. Nat. Mat 13, 352 (2014).Kan, W. et al. Broadband acoustic cloaking within an arbitrary hard cavity. Phys. Rev. Applied 3, 064019 Jun (2015).Scandrett, C. L., Boisvert, J. E. & Howarth, T. R. Acoustic cloaking using layered pentamode materials. J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 127(5), 2856–2864 (2010).Chen, Y. et al. Broadband solid cloak for underwater acoustics. Phys. Rev. B 95, 180104 May (2017).Alù, A. & Engheta, N. Achieving transparency with plasmonic and metamaterial coatings. Phys. Rev. E 72(1), 016623 (2005).Guild, M. D., Alu, A. & Haberman, M. R. Cancellation of acoustic scattering from an elastic sphere. J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 129(3), 1355–1365 (2011).García-Chocano, V. M. et al. Acoustic cloak for airborne sound by inverse design. Appl. Phys. Lett. 99(7), 074102 (2011).Sanchis, L. et al. Three-Dimensional Axisymmetric Cloak Based on the Cancellation of Acoustic Scattering from a Sphere. Phys. Rev. Lett. 110, 124301 Mar (2013).Andkjær, J. & Sigmund, O. Topology optimized for Airborne sound. ASME J. Vib. Acoust. 135(2), 041011 (2013).Guild, M. D. Acoustic Cloaking of Spherical Objects Unsing Thin Elastic Coatings. Univ. of Texas at Austin (2012).Guild, M. D., Haberman, M. R. & Alú, A. Plasmonic-type Acoustic cloak made of a bilaminate shell. Phys. Rev. B 86(10), 104302 (2012).Rohde, C. A. et al. Experimental demonstration of underwater acoustic scattering cancellation. Sci. Rep. 5, 13175 (2015).Popa, B.-I. & Cummer, S. A. Cloaking with optimized homogeneous anisotropic layers. Phys. Rev. A 79, 023806 Feb (2009).Urzhumov, Y., Landy, N., Driscoll, T., Basov, D. & Smith, D. R. Thin low-loss dielectric coatings for freespace cloaking. Opt. Lett. 38(10), 1606–1608 (2013).Andkjaer, J. & Sigmund, O. Topology optimized low-contrast all-dielectric optical cloak. Appl. Phys. Lett. 98(2), 021112 (2011).Climente, A., Torrent, D. & Sánchez-Dehesa, J. Sound focusing by gradient index sonic lenses. Applied Physics Letters 97(10), 104103 (2010).Håkansson, A., Sánchez-Dehesa, J. & Sanchis, L. Acoustic lens design by genetic algorithms Phys. Rev. B 70, 214302 Dec (2004).Håkansson, A., Cervera, F. & Sánchez-Dehesa, J. Sound focusing by flat acoustic lenses without negative refraction. Applied Physics Letters 86(5), 054102 (2005).Li, D., Zigoneanu, L., Popa, B.-I. & Cummer, S. A. Design of an acoustic metamaterial lens using genetic algorithms. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 132(4), 2823–2833 (2012).Prautzsch, H., Wolfgang Boehm, W. & Paluszny, M. Bézier and B-Spline Techniques. Springer Science & Business Media (2002).Andersen, P. R., Cutanda-Henríquez, V., Aage, N. & Sánchez-Dehesa, J. Viscothermal effects on an acoustic cloak based on scattering cancellation. Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Noise and Vibration Emerging methods (NOVEM 2018 ), 171971, June (2018).Golberg, D. Genetic Algorithms in Search, Optimization and Learning. Addison Wesley, Reading, MA (1989).Kirkpatrick, S., Gelatt, C. D. & Vecchi, M. P. Optimization by simulated annealing. Science 220(4598), 671–680 (1983).Sanchis, L., Cryan, M. J., Pozo, J., Craddock, I. J. & Rarity, J. G. Ultrahigh Purcell factor in photonic crystal slab microcavities Phys. Rev. B 76, 045118 Jul (2007).Karageorghis, A. & Fairweather, G. J. The method of fundamental solutions for axisymmetric acoustic scattering and radiation problems. J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 104(6), 3212–3218 (1998).Fairweather, G., Karageorghis, A. & Martin, P. The method of fundamental solutions for scattering and radiation problems. Engineering Analysis with Boundary Elements 27(7), 759–769 (2003).Seybert, A. F., Soenarko, B., Rizzo, F. J. & Shippy, D. J. A special integral equation formulation for acoustic radiation and scattering for axisymmetric bodies and boundary conditions. J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 80(4), 1241–1247 (1986)

Hiding in plain sight: discovery and phylogeography of a cryptic species of Trichinella (Nematoda: Trichinellidae) in wolverine (Gulo gulo)

Understanding parasite diversity and distribution is essential in managing the potential impact of para- sitic diseases in animals and people. Imperfect diagnostic methods, however, may conceal cryptic species. Here, we report the discovery and phylogeography of a previously unrecognized species of Trichinella in wolverine (Gulo gulo) from northwestern Canada that was indistinguishable from T. nativa using the stan- dard multiplex PCR assay based on the expansion segment 5 (ESV) of ribosomal DNA. The novel genotype, designated as T13, was discovered when sequencing the mitochondrial genome. Phylogenetic analyses of the mitochondrial genome and of 15 concatenated single-copy orthologs of nuclear DNA indicated a com- mon ancestor for the encapsulated clade is shared by a subclade containing Trichinella spiralis and Trichinella nelsoni, and a subclade containing T13 and remaining taxa: T12 + (T2 + T6) + [(T5 + T9) + (T 3 + T8)]. Of 95 individual hosts from 12 species of mammalian carnivores from northwestern Canada from which larvae were identified as T. nativa on multiplex PCR, only wolverines were infected with T13 (14 of 42 individuals). These infections were single or mixed with T. nativa and/or T6. Visual examination and motility testing confirmed that T13 is encapsulated and likely freeze-tolerant. We developed a new Polymerase Chain Reaction-Restriction Fragment Length Polymorphism which unequivocally distinguishes between T13 and T. nativa. We propose Trichinella chanchalensis n. sp. for T13, based on significant genetic divergence from other species of Trichinella and broad-based sampling of the Trichinella genome. Exploration of Alaskan and Siberian isolates may contribute to further resolution of a phylogeo- graphically complex history for species of Trichinella across Beringia, including Trichinella chanchalensis n. sp. (T13

Decisions at the end of life: have we come of age?

Decision making is a complex process and it is particularly challenging to make decisions with, or for, patients who are near the end of their life. Some of those challenges will not be resolved - due to our human inability to foresee the future precisely and the human proclivity to change stated preferences when faced with reality. Other challenges of the decision-making process are manageable. This commentary offers a set of approaches which may lead to progress in this field

Food Poverty and Christianity in Britain: A Theological Re-assessment

The Christian response to food poverty in Britain has generally been two-fold. Foodbanks have become synonymous with Christianity and exemplify its charitable ethos. However, Christian churches have also called for social justice so that people can buy food in the normal way. Both responses are theologically problematic. The idea of foodbank is borne of a privileged theology that celebrates charitable giving, despite the humiliation it invites on recipients. Although social justice approaches originate in human rights discourse, the location of these rights in food consumerism means that it is equally privileged. Drawing on contextual and liberation theology, as well as ideas from radical orthodoxy, I argue that food poverty is better understood when we assign epistemological privilege to the poor. This leads me to advocate an alternative Christian response to food poverty