Using a runway paradigm to assess the relative strength of rats' motivations for enrichment objects

Laboratory animals should be provided with enrichment objects in their cages; however, it is first necessary to test whether the proposed enrichment objects provide benefits that increase the animals’ welfare. The two main paradigms currently used to assess proposed enrichment objects are the choice test, which is limited to determining relative frequency of choice, and consumer demand studies, which can indicate the strength of a preference but are complex to design. Here, we propose a third methodology: a runway paradigm, which can be used to assess the strength of an animal’s motivation for enrichment objects, is simpler to use than consumer demand studies, and is faster to complete than typical choice tests. Time spent with objects in a standard choice test was used to rank several enrichment objects in order to compare with the ranking found in our runway paradigm. The rats ran significantly more times, ran faster, and interacted longer with objects with which they had previously spent the most time. It was concluded that this simple methodology is suitable for measuring rats’ motivation to reach enrichment objects. This can be used to assess the preference for different types of enrichment objects or to measure reward system processes

The social nature of serial murder: The intersection of gender and modernity

The literature on the aetiology of serial killing has benefited from analyses which offer an alternative perspective to individual/psychological approaches and consider serial murder as a sociological phenomenon. The main argument brought to bear within this body of work identifies the socio-economic and cultural conditions of modernity as enabling and legitimating the motivations and actions of the serial killer. This article interrogates this work from the standpoint of a gendered reading of modernity. Using the Yorkshire Ripper case, it emphasizes how in addition to the political economy, gender relations and masculinity shape the dynamics of serial murder and its representation

Revisiting the Yorkshire Ripper Murders: Interrogating Gender Violence, Sex Work, and Justice

Between 1975 and 1980, 13 women, 7 of whom were sex workers, were murdered in the North of England. Aside from the femicide itself, the case was infamous for police failings, misogyny, and victim blaming. The article begins with a discussion of the serial murder of women as a gendered structural phenomenon within the wider context of violence, gender, and arbitrary justice. In support of this, the article revisits the above case to interrogate police reform in England and Wales in the wake of the murders, arguing that despite procedural reform, gendered cultural practices continue to shape justice outcomes for victims of gender violence. In addition, changes to prostitution policy are assessed to highlight how the historical and ongoing Othering and criminalization of street sex workers perpetuates the victimization of this marginalized group of women

Lithospheric geometry of the Wopmay orogen from a Slave craton to Bear Province magnetotelluric transect

Two‐dimensional inversions of lithospheric‐probing magnetotelluric (MT) data at a total of 20 sites acquired along an approximately east–west 300‐km‐long profile across the Wopmay orogen in the Northwest Territories, Canada, provide electrical resistivity models of the boundary between the Archean Slave craton and the adjacent Proterozoic Bear Province. An analysis of distortion effects and structural dimensionality indicates that the MT responses are primarily one‐dimensional or only weakly two‐dimensional with a depth‐independent geoelectric strike angle of N32°E, consistent with regional structural geology. The regional‐scale model, generated from the longer period responses from all of the sites along the profile, reveals significant lateral variations in the lithospheric mantle. Resistive cratonic roots are imaged to depths of ∼200 km beneath both the Slave craton and the Hottah terrane of the Bear Province. These are separated by a less resistive region beneath the Great Bear magmatic zone, which is speculatively interpreted as a consequence of a decrease in the grain size of olivine in the Wopmay mantle, caused by localized shearing, compared to its neighboring cratonic roots. Focused two‐dimensional models, from higher frequency responses at sites on specific sections of the profile, reveal the resistivity structure at crustal depths beneath the region. These suggest that the root of the Slave craton crosses beneath the Wopmay orogen, and that the Wopmay fault zone does not penetrate into the lower crust. A comparison of these results with those obtained during the Lithoprobe project farther south shows striking along strike variations in the conductivity structure associated with the Wopmay orogen

Rats' interactions with enrichment objects are naturally rewarding : A study of object preference and reward processes

EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

Rats' interactions with enrichment objects are naturally rewarding : A study of object preference and reward processes

EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo