Evidence-based swine welfare: Where are we and where are we going?

Behavior, ethology and welfare Animal welfare is not a term that arose in science to express a scientific concept; rather, it arose in Western civilization to express ethical concern regarding the treatment of animals. There are three schools of welfare, and which school an individual subscribes to will often influence the philosophical definitions of welfare to which they subscribe. The first school is a feeling based school, which would include some reference to the importance of ascertaining what an animal feels in terms of pleasure, suffering, distress, and pain. The second school is a functioning-based school in which there is a focus on the fitness and health of animals. The third school is a nature-based school that values the natural behaviors of animals under natural conditions. The idea of feelings being important for welfare was developed by Duncan 1 and Duncan and Dawkins,2 and then the suggestion was made that, in fact, feelings were the only thing that mattered.3 ln turn, because of these various schools of thought, animal welfare researchers are still unable to agree on one animal welfare definition, but the measures that can be used to help assess how an animal is coping within defined parameters have been agreed upon. Animal welfare is an issue that involves several scientific disciplines that are part of the animal sciences, which include performance, physiology, anatomy, health, and behavior.4 Perhaps the discipline that has been most closely associated with welfare is the study of animal behavior, known as ethology.4 The term applied ethology is often used to designate the subdiscipline of studying the behavior of animals that are managed in some way by humans. Gonyou4 noted, Applied ethology involving agricultural species has become so closely associated with the scientifi,c study of animal welfare that some use the terms behavior, ethology and welfare as virtual synonyms. 4 The objective of this paper will be to discuss three case studies using pig behavior that may be used on farm by a swine practioner

The Effects of Dietary Omega 3 Fatty Acids on Commercial Broiler Behavior from Hatch to Market Weight

The objective of this experiment was to investigate how different dietary omega-3 sources affect commercial broiler behavior from hatch to market weight. One hundred and twenty male 308 Ross broiler chicks were enrolled into the study. Three dietary treatments were compared; Control, Flaxseed-and Fish-oil. Fifteen pens were randomly selected and onefocal-bird was watched continually for three periods of time. One behavior, two postures,and an unknown category were collected. Week by dietary treatment interaction was not significant for any broiler behaviors (P ≥ 0.49). There was no dietary treatment effect observed for any broiler behaviors (P≥ 0.32). There was no observed difference for percentage of time spent at the feeder between week 1 and 4 (P =0.14). However, there was a difference for percentage of time spent active (P \u3c 0.0001), inactive (P = 0.0004) and unknown (P = 0.01) between week 1 and 4. Within the context of this work, the selected omega-3 dietary sources did not affect broiler behavior between weeks 1 and 4. Independent of dietary treatment, broilers increased the percentage of time spent inactive by week 4 of the study

The Effects of Dietary Omega 3 Fatty Acids on Commercial Broiler Lameness and Bone Integrity from Hatching to Market

The objective of this experiment was to investigate how different dietary ω-3 sources affect lameness and bone integrity of commercial broiler chickens from hatching to finishing.One hundred and twenty male Ross308broiler chicks were assigned to three dietary treatments; control, flaxseed oil and fish oil for 4 consecutive weeks. From week 1 to 4, broilers were visually assigned a lameness score (2 non-lame to 5 non-ambulatory) anda bone integrity score (score 2 normal bones to 5 bird was non-ambulatory and was removed from the trial).There were no observed differences for the dietary treatmentand week interaction for lameness or bone integrity (P= 1.00). There wasno observed lameness or bone integrity differences (P≥0.93) between dietary treatments. There were no observed differences for lameness (P= 0.92) and bone integrity differences(P= 1.00) over the four consecutive weeks. In conclusion, regardless of dietary treatment, birds in this study were not lame and had normal bone integrity

Characterization of the lying and rising sequence in lame and non-lame sows

peer-reviewedThis study aimed to identify possible differences in the lying and standing sequence between lame and non-lame gestating sows. A total of 85 stall-housed sows (average parity 0.9 ± 1.14; range 0–4) were scored for walking lameness on a 3-point scale (1 = normal to 3=severely lame) while moving to a separate gestation stall for recording of one lying-standing event on days 30, 60 and 90 of gestation. A video camera was positioned on the adjacent stall so sows’ profiles were visible. Observations ceased when the sow laid-down and stood-up, or 2.5 h elapsed from recording commencement. From videos, postures and movements that occurred during lying-standing sequences were identified. Time (seconds) from kneeling to shoulder rotation (KSR), shoulder rotation to lying (SRHQ), total time to lie (TLIE); latency to lie (LATENCY; minutes) and number of attempts to successfully lie were recorded. Also, time taken from first leg fold to sit (TLS), time from sit to rise (TSR), and total time to rise (TRISE) were recorded. Sows were re-classified as non-lame (score 1) and lame (scores ≥ 2). Data were analyzed using mixed model methods with gestation day, and lameness as fixed effects and sow the random effect. On average, sows took 14.3 ± 1.39 s for KSR, 7.7 ± 0.79 s for SRHQ, 21.0 ± 1.37 s for TLIE and 63.6 ± 5.97 min for LATENCY. Furthermore, sows took 8.8 ± 2.80 s for TLS, 5.95 ± 1.73 s for TSR, and 10.3 ± 2.02 s for TRISE. There were no associations between lameness status or gestation day with time required for or the likelihood of performing the different movements of the lying and standing sequences (P >  0.05). Except for lame sows tending to sit more while transitioning from lying to standing than non-lame sows (P =  0.09). Seven different lying and 4 different standing combination deviation from the normal sequences, albeit each combination was infrequent and did not allow for statistical analysis. However, all together, deviations from the normal lying and standing sequence accounted for 22.7 % and 35 % of total observations; respectively. Under the conditions of this study, lameness did not influence the time taken or the likelihood of performing different movements and/or postures during normal lying-standing sequences. However, this could be due to lameness recorded here not being severe enough to affect the sequences. The observed deviations suggest that there is variation in the way sows lie and stand although more research is necessary to understand which factors contribute to such variation.National Pork Boar

Specific versus General Principles for Constitutional AI

Human feedback can prevent overtly harmful utterances in conversational models, but may not automatically mitigate subtle problematic behaviors such as a stated desire for self-preservation or power. Constitutional AI offers an alternative, replacing human feedback with feedback from AI models conditioned only on a list of written principles. We find this approach effectively prevents the expression of such behaviors. The success of simple principles motivates us to ask: can models learn general ethical behaviors from only a single written principle? To test this, we run experiments using a principle roughly stated as "do what's best for humanity". We find that the largest dialogue models can generalize from this short constitution, resulting in harmless assistants with no stated interest in specific motivations like power. A general principle may thus partially avoid the need for a long list of constitutions targeting potentially harmful behaviors. However, more detailed constitutions still improve fine-grained control over specific types of harms. This suggests both general and specific principles have value for steering AI safely

The state of the Martian climate

60°N was +2.0°C, relative to the 1981–2010 average value (Fig. 5.1). This marks a new high for the record. The average annual surface air temperature (SAT) anomaly for 2016 for land stations north of starting in 1900, and is a significant increase over the previous highest value of +1.2°C, which was observed in 2007, 2011, and 2015. Average global annual temperatures also showed record values in 2015 and 2016. Currently, the Arctic is warming at more than twice the rate of lower latitudes

Effects of antiplatelet therapy on stroke risk by brain imaging features of intracerebral haemorrhage and cerebral small vessel diseases: subgroup analyses of the RESTART randomised, open-label trial

Background Findings from the RESTART trial suggest that starting antiplatelet therapy might reduce the risk of recurrent symptomatic intracerebral haemorrhage compared with avoiding antiplatelet therapy. Brain imaging features of intracerebral haemorrhage and cerebral small vessel diseases (such as cerebral microbleeds) are associated with greater risks of recurrent intracerebral haemorrhage. We did subgroup analyses of the RESTART trial to explore whether these brain imaging features modify the effects of antiplatelet therapy

A plasmid DNA-launched SARS-CoV-2 reverse genetics system and coronavirus toolkit for COVID-19 research

The recent emergence of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), the underlying cause of Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19), has led to a worldwide pandemic causing substantial morbidity, mortality, and economic devastation. In response, many laboratories have redirected attention to SARS-CoV-2, meaning there is an urgent need for tools that can be used in laboratories unaccustomed to working with coronaviruses. Here we report a range of tools for SARS-CoV-2 research. First, we describe a facile single plasmid SARS-CoV-2 reverse genetics system that is simple to genetically manipulate and can be used to rescue infectious virus through transient transfection (without in vitro transcription or additional expression plasmids). The rescue system is accompanied by our panel of SARS-CoV-2 antibodies (against nearly every viral protein), SARS-CoV-2 clinical isolates, and SARS-CoV-2 permissive cell lines, which are all openly available to the scientific community. Using these tools, we demonstrate here that the controversial ORF10 protein is expressed in infected cells. Furthermore, we show that the promising repurposed antiviral activity of apilimod is dependent on TMPRSS2 expression. Altogether, our SARS-CoV-2 toolkit, which can be directly accessed via our website at https://mrcppu-covid.bio/, constitutes a resource with considerable potential to advance COVID-19 vaccine design, drug testing, and discovery science

Genome-Wide Association Identifies Nine Common Variants Associated With Fasting Proinsulin Levels and Provides New Insights Into the Pathophysiology of Type 2 Diabetes

OBJECTIVE: Proinsulin is a precursor of mature insulin and C-peptide. Higher circulating proinsulin levels are associated with impaired β-cell function, raised glucose levels, insulin resistance, and type 2 diabetes (T2D). Studies of the insulin processing pathway could provide new insights about T2D pathophysiology. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS: We have conducted a meta-analysis of genome-wide association tests of ∼2.5 million genotyped or imputed single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and fasting proinsulin levels in 10,701 nondiabetic adults of European ancestry, with follow-up of 23 loci in up to 16,378 individuals, using additive genetic models adjusted for age, sex, fasting insulin, and study-specific covariates. RESULTS: Nine SNPs at eight loci were associated with proinsulin levels (P < 5 × 10−8). Two loci (LARP6 and SGSM2) have not been previously related to metabolic traits, one (MADD) has been associated with fasting glucose, one (PCSK1) has been implicated in obesity, and four (TCF7L2, SLC30A8, VPS13C/C2CD4A/B, and ARAP1, formerly CENTD2) increase T2D risk. The proinsulin-raising allele of ARAP1 was associated with a lower fasting glucose (P = 1.7 × 10−4), improved β-cell function (P = 1.1 × 10−5), and lower risk of T2D (odds ratio 0.88; P = 7.8 × 10−6). Notably, PCSK1 encodes the protein prohormone convertase 1/3, the first enzyme in the insulin processing pathway. A genotype score composed of the nine proinsulin-raising alleles was not associated with coronary disease in two large case-control datasets. CONCLUSIONS: We have identified nine genetic variants associated with fasting proinsulin. Our findings illuminate the biology underlying glucose homeostasis and T2D development in humans and argue against a direct role of proinsulin in coronary artery disease pathogenesis

The Third Fermi Large Area Telescope Catalog of Gamma-ray Pulsars

We present 294 pulsars found in GeV data from the Large Area Telescope (LAT) on the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope. Another 33 millisecond pulsars (MSPs) discovered in deep radio searches of LAT sources will likely reveal pulsations once phase-connected rotation ephemerides are achieved. A further dozen optical and/or X-ray binary systems co-located with LAT sources also likely harbor gamma-ray MSPs. This catalog thus reports roughly 340 gamma-ray pulsars and candidates, 10% of all known pulsars, compared to $\leq 11$ known before Fermi. Half of the gamma-ray pulsars are young. Of these, the half that are undetected in radio have a broader Galactic latitude distribution than the young radio-loud pulsars. The others are MSPs, with 6 undetected in radio. Overall, >235 are bright enough above 50 MeV to fit the pulse profile, the energy spectrum, or both. For the common two-peaked profiles, the gamma-ray peak closest to the magnetic pole crossing generally has a softer spectrum. The spectral energy distributions tend to narrow as the spindown power $\dot E$ decreases to its observed minimum near $10^{33}$ erg s$^{-1}$, approaching the shape for synchrotron radiation from monoenergetic electrons. We calculate gamma-ray luminosities when distances are available. Our all-sky gamma-ray sensitivity map is useful for population syntheses. The electronic catalog version provides gamma-ray pulsar ephemerides, properties and fit results to guide and be compared with modeling results.Comment: 142 pages. Accepted by the Astrophysical Journal Supplemen