A Case for Eustress in Grazing Animals

Herbivores grazing in extensive systems are exposed to a series of challenges, rooted in the inherent spatial and temporal variability of their environment that potentially constrain their health, nutrition, and welfare. Nevertheless, in this review, we argue that challenges induced by some biotic (e.g., vegetation) and abiotic (e.g., terrain) factors may also be viewed as “positive” sources of stress or eustress, since they present complex problems, that when solved successfully elicit a greater degree of behavioral plasticity and adaptability in grazing animals. Chemically and structurally diverse landscapes require animals to display complex behaviors and exhibit adaptive capabilities, like building a balanced and safe diet or finding shelter, which ultimately lead to positive emotional states. Thus, maintaining or enhancing the diversity occurring in natural systems represent a management approach that can be used to improve welfare and prepare the animal for an efficient adaptation to future, and potentially unknown, environmental challenges

Protein phosphorylation plays a major rol in streptomyces differenciation

Comunicaciones a congreso

Vivienda obrera minera en Cartagena-La Unión

The mining “boom” experienced during the XIX century in Cartagena caused a great demographic increase. Population that needs new housing moves to there in a desperate search of new incomes. New villages rose such as “El Estrecho de San Gines” and “El Beal”, and the building of new houses in old zones such as La Unión was increased drastically. Negligible houses were built with similar characteristics, always constructed with poor materials due to lower incomes. Even in the case of the poorest miners, dwelling in caves very close to the mine, homes knowing as “casas-cueva”. Meanwhile a rich highborn people, the owners of the mines, built new and luxury houses, influenced by the modernist architecture wave that rules in Europe. A deep investigation through every plane in the municipal archive of La Unión made locate old planes possible, these planes together with searches over the remainders that nowadays are able to find confirms the main features of the houses built during the objective epoch

Response to a Salmonella Typhimurium challenge in piglets supplemented with protected sodium butyrate or Bacillus licheniformis : effects on performance, intestinal health and behavior

Salmonella spp. is one of the worldwide leading causes of food-borne illnesses for which the inclusion of probiotics or organic acids in animal feeds can be useful control methods. Experimental models are utilized to test the efficacy of strategies against pathogens, but they exhibit limitations which may preclude finding sensible evaluation parameters. The objective of this work is to evaluate the efficacy of 2 different feed additives; a Bacillus licheniformis based probiotic and a protected sodium butyrate (SB) salt, using an experimental model of salmonellosis and, second, to explore if behavior analysis can be used as a sensible evaluation tool for additives evaluation. A total of 78 piglets weaned at 24 d, 8.3 kg BW, were used. Seventy-two were placed in 3 rooms of 8 pens (3 animals/pen) with evenly distributed treatments (n = 8): CON, control group with plain diet; PRO, plain diet with 1 kg/t of Proporc (10 9 cfu of B. licheniformis /kg of feed), and BUT, plain diet with 3 kg/t of Gustor BP70 (2.1 g of partially protected SB salt/kg of feed). Remaining piglets (n = 6) were separated and used as a challenge negative control. The experiment lasted 16 d. After 1 wk of adaptation, animals were challenged with 5 × 10 8 cfu of Salmonella Typhimurium. One pig per pen was euthanized and sampled at d 4 and 8 post-inoculation (PI). There were no significant differences among treatments for ADFI, ADG, G:F, rectal temperature, fecal consistency, pH, ammonia, short-chain fatty acids and lactic acid concentrations, cytokine TNF-α, Pig-MAP acute-phase proteins and histological parameters. However, both products were equally able to reduce colonization and shedding of Salmonella (P = 0.016 for PRO and BUT vs. CON). In addition, PRO treatment had a positive effect on behavioral displays, particularly exploring (P < 0.05 vs. CON), feeding (P < 0.05 vs. CON and BUT) and other active behaviors (P < 0.05 vs. CON and BUT) in the morning period (0830 to 1030 h). In the afternoon (1400 to 1600 h), the challenge effect was most significant. Pigs were less active after the challenge (P < 0.001), with a decrease in positive contacts (P = 0.004), exploration (P < 0.001) and feeding behaviors (P < 0.001) on d 3 PI, in comparison with before the challenge. Accordingly, many lying conducts increased at d 3 PI (P < 0.05). In conclusion, both treatments had positive effects against Salmonella, and behavior analysis appears to be a sensible tool to be considered

Comportement, conduite et bien-être animal

This work outlines the general principles and recommendations on the raising of domestic animals applied to the Southern countries, especially tropical regions. These recommendations are important in a context of intensification of farms (dairy, poultry, etc.) and changes in conventional farming. They address the

LA BAJA ADHERENCIA AL TRATAMIENTO ANTIPSICÓTICO: ACTUACIÓN DE ENFERMERÍA.

Thanks to the availability of new antipsychotic treatments, the fight against schizophrenia has obtained promising results. But, to date, there are still a percentage of people who do not adhere to the treatment. Obviously, all this leads to a recurrence of the disorder and to an increase of the hospital admissions. According to the Ministry of Health figures, from 4 to 12% of patients take the treatment exactly as prescribed, while the others prefer not to take any medication, both, because they think they do not need them or because they experience side-effects. We deem necessary good treatment compliance, as it may be the most important factor to improve the control rates psychotic illnesses. For this reason, the implementation by nurses of education programs to motivate patients to comply (in acute, subacute or outpatient psychiatric units) is deemed to be of high importance to improve patient adherence to treatments.Gracias a la aparición de nuevos tratamientos dirigidos a la patología psicótica, se ha experimentado un gran avance en la lucha contra la Esquizofrenia, pero a pesar de ello, sigue existiendo actualmente un alto porcentaje de pacientes diagnosticados de este Trastorno Mental que no cumplen con el tratamiento, con las consiguientes recaídas y nuevos ingresos. Según datos del Ministerio de Sanidad, aproximadamente de un 4 a 12% de los pacientes con Trastornos Mentales, siguen de forma rigurosa su tratamiento farmacológico; el resto prefiere no ingerir fármaco alguno, ya sea porque cree no necesitarlos o porque dejan de tomarlos después de sufrir síntomas indeseables a causa de los efectos colaterales, por lo que creemos que el principal factor de contribución para el control efectivo de este tipo de enfermedades es la adherencia del paciente al tratamiento y la concienciación de la necesidad del mismo. De ahí que la puesta en marcha por equipos profesionales de Enfermería de programas, de aceptación, conocimiento y manejo de fármacos antipsicóticos, ya sean desde las unidades de agudos, subagudos, o cualesquiera de los diferentes dispositivos extrahospitalarios, son vitales para asegurar un mínimo de cumplimiento terapéutico

Perioperative stress response in dogs undergoing elective surgery : variations in behavioural, neuroendocrine, immune and acute phase responses

The aim of this trial was to describe the behavioural, neuroendocrine, immune and acute phase stress responses in dogs undergoing elective surgery in normal, clinical practice conditions. Sixteen dogs were submitted to elective orchiectomy or ovariohysterectomy using a standardised surgical protocol. Each animal was confined to the Intensive Care Unit during pre- and post-surgery and perioperative behavioural, neuroendocrine, immune and acute phase responses were studied. Behavioural categories, cortisol, prolactin, white blood cell, C-reactive protein and haptoglobin variation were evaluated. Values at different times were compared with basal values shown by the dog in its usual environment. Communicative and explorative behaviours showed high occurrence pre-surgery and were inhibited post-surgery. Decreases in post-surgery activity, interactive behaviours and changes in waking/sleeping patterns were observed. The most sensitive marker of psychological stress, cortisol, in comparison with basal values, showed a significant increase both during pre- and post-surgery confinement in the ICU cage. Prolactin values were characterised by a significant decrease early into the post-surgery period. The immune response was characterised by long-term neutrophilia and monocytosis, but by short-term lymphopaenia and eosinopaenia, limited to the early post-operative period. With regard to the acute phase response, both C-reactive protein and haptoglobin showed a long-term increase, post-surgery. Changes in behavioural, haematological and biochemical markers showed that perioperative stress represents a major challenge to dog welfare

CUIDAR A LOS CUIDADORES: ATENCIÓN FAMILIAR.

The primary care of a psychiatric patient represents a real challenge for the family environment, this situation causes that many of the families that play the caregiver role experience stressing and overwhelming feelings that can directly evoke physical and mental problems causing several types of emotional distress. In this communication named “Taking care of the caregivers: Family Care” we will make reference to the situation that emerges after the hospitalization of one of the family members in a psychiatric emergency unit and a thought about the actions that the psychiatrical nurses can and should take. This family atention includes a series of actions with a common goal: to be with the family in the disease process, to inform about the cares that have to be given to the patient, to clarify the doubts and adjust their expectances among a warm and kind family-nurse realtionship. The principal objective is the aproaching to the patient family as the primary attention focus by means of instruments that can help this aproach, the knowledge of the family structure, the most probable stressing factors and definitely to treat the whole family in a hospital scenario in order to detect the posible disfunctions.El cuidado de la persona que padece alguno de los diferentes Trastornos Mentales plantea una serie de desafíos importantes en el entorno familiar. Esto hace que muchas de las familias que desempeñan el rol de cuidador experimenten situaciones estresantes y de sobrecarga, situaciones que a menudo afectan a la salud física y mental, produciendo todo tipo de desajustes emocionales. En el presente trabajo haremos referencia a la situación familiar que se produce tras el ingreso de uno de sus miembros en una Unidad de Agudos y una reflexión sobre las actuaciones que Enfermería en Salud Mental puede y debe realizar. Esta atención a familias, incluye una serie de acciones destinadas a acompañar en el proceso de enfermedad, informar sobre los cuidados, clarificar dudas y reajustar expectativas, todo esto en un clima de acercamiento familia-enfermera. El objetivo principal sería por lo tanto el acercamiento a la familia como unidad de atención, utilizando instrumentos que ayuden a abordar y conocer la estructura familiar, los factores estresores y en definitiva el tratar a la familia en el contexto hospitalario, detectando posibles disfunciones desadaptativas

A low energy core-collapse supernova without a hydrogen envelope

The final fate of massive stars depends on many factors, including mass, rotation rate, magnetic fields and metallicity. Theory suggests that some massive stars (initially greater than 25-30 solar masses) end up as Wolf-Rayet stars which are deficient in hydrogen because of mass loss through strong stellar winds. The most massive of these stars have cores which may form a black hole and theory predicts that the resulting explosion produces ejecta of low kinetic energy, a faint optical display and a small mass fraction of radioactive nickel(1,2,3). An alternative origin for low energy supernovae is the collapse of the oxygen-neon core of a relatively lowmass star (7-9 solar masses) through electron capture(4,5). However no weak, hydrogen deficient, core-collapse supernovae are known. Here we report that such faint, low energy core-collapse supernovae do exist, and show that SN2008ha is the faintest hydrogen poor supernova ever observed. We propose that other similar events have been observed but they have been misclassified as peculiar thermonuclear supernovae (sometimes labelled SN2002cx-like events(6)). This discovery could link these faint supernovae to some long duration gamma-ray bursts. Extremely faint, hydrogen-stripped core-collapse supernovae have been proposed to produce those long gamma-ray bursts whose afterglows do not show evidence of association with supernovae (7,8,9).Comment: Submitted 12 January 2009 - Accepted 24 March 200