Emergency Conditions in Horses: Opinions and Decision Making of Livery Yard Owners

Objective: The aim of this study was to evaluate equine livery yard owners’ opinions of emergency conditions, and to identify factors influencing emergency decision making in the horse.Background: There is limited data on horse owners’ opinions and decision making in emergency conditions.Evidentiary value: An online questionnaire was distributed to UK livery yard owners accredited with the British Horse Society. There were 104 survey participants, who represented experienced owners with responsibility for care of a number of horses.Methods: The questionnaire consisted of open and closed questions on participants’ demographics, their experiences and opinions of the most common equine emergency conditions, and emergency decision making. Descriptive data analysis included frequency ranking and categorisation of free text responses.Results: The majority of respondents had kept horses for more than 10 years (97%), and reported previous experience of emergency conditions (99%), predominantly colic (96%) and wounds (92%). Participants considered that the most common emergency conditions were colic (98%), wounds (49%) and fractures (22%), and the most concerning conditions were colic (94%), lameness (36%) and wounds (21%). Factors believed to be important in emergency decision making were: degree of pain, likelihood of condition resolving, and severity of disease.Conclusion: This study highlights the importance of colic and wounds as emergency conditions in the horse, and describes factors considered important in emergency decision making.Application: The outcomes identify where research and clinical resources should be targeted to improve emergency care for horses. The results were used to inform a survey of the wider horse population

Cross-sectional study of horse owners’ knowledge, and opinions on recognising colic in the horse

BackgroundColic is the most common emergency problem in the horse. An owner’s ability to recognise colic and seek assistance is a critical first step in determining case outcome.ObjectivesThe aim of this study was to assess horse owners’ knowledge and opinions on recognising colic.Study designCross‐sectional study.MethodsAn online questionnaire was distributed to horse owners with open and closed questions on their knowledge of normal clinical parameters in the horse, confidence and approach to recognising colic (including assessment through case scenarios), and their demographics. Descriptive and chi squared statistical analyses were performed.ResultsThere were 1564 participants. Many respondents either did not know or provided incorrect estimates for their horse’s normal clinical parameters: only 45% (n = 693/1540) gave correct normal values for heart rate, 45% (n = 694/1541) for respiratory rate and 67% (n = 1028/1534) for rectal temperature. Knowledge of normal values was statistically associated with participants’ educational qualifications (

Encoding reversible hierarchical structures with supramolecular peptide-DNA materials

Creating soft materials with the tunable hierarchical structures observed in nature remains an enormous challenge. Synthetic hierarchical systems have been reported, yet strategies to reversibly modulate their structure and function are scarce. We report on the programmable self-assembly of peptide-DNA brush copolymers into supramolecular architectures that can be tuned with changes in temperature, pH, or addition of a soluble trigger. A fiber to bundle transition occurs upon mixing peptides bearing complementary oligonucleotides. These hierarchical structures can be reversed using the programmable nature of DNA-DNA interactions. The ability to encode the final assemblies in the composition of both amino acid and DNA building blocks provides a strategy for constructing a unique class of reconfigurable supramolecular materials

Study of the Fusion-Fission Process in the 35Cl+24Mg^{35}Cl+^{24}Mg Reaction

Fusion-fission and fully energy-damped binary processes of the $^{35}$Cl+$^{24}$Mg reaction were investigated using particle-particle coincidence techniques at a $^{35}$Cl bombarding energy of E$_{lab}$ $\approx$ 8 MeV/nucleon. Inclusive data were also taken in order to determine the partial wave distribution of the fusion process. The fragment-fragment correlation data show that the majority of events arises from a binary-decay process with a relatively large multiplicity of secondary light-charged particles emitted by the two primary excited fragments in the exit channel. No evidence is observed for ternary-breakup processes, as expected from the systematics recently established for incident energies below 15 MeV/nucleon and for a large number of reactions. The binary-process results are compared with predictions of statistical-model calculations. The calculations were performed using the Extended Hauser-Feshbach method, based on the available phase space at the scission point of the compound nucleus. This new method uses temperature-dependent level densities and its predictions are in good agreement with the presented experimental data, thus consistent with the fusion-fission origin of the binary fully-damped yields.Comment: 30 pages standard REVTeX file, 10 eps Figures; to be published at the European Physical Journal A - Hadrons and Nucle

We haven't got a seat on the bus for you or All the seats are mine: Narratives and career transitions in professional golf

In this article we explore how the stories an athlete tells throughout life in sport affect her career transition experiences. We base our enquiry on a social constructionist conception of narrative theory which holds that storytelling is integral to the creation and maintenance of identity and sense of self. Life stories were gathered through interviews with two professional women golfers (Christiana and Kandy) over a six‐year period. Through a narrative analysis of structure and form we explored each participant’s stories of living in and withdrawing from professional golf. We suggest Christiana told monological performance‐oriented stories which, while aligning with the culture of elite sport, resulted in an exclusive athletic identity and foreclosure of alternative selves and roles. On withdrawal, Christiana experienced narrative wreckage, identity collapse, mental health difficulties and considerable psychological trauma. In contrast, Kandy told dialogical discovery‐oriented stories which, while being in tension with the dominant performance narrative, created and sustained a multidimensional identity and self. Her stories and identity remained intact, authentic and continuous on withdrawal from tournament golf and she experienced few psychological problems

Impact ionization in GaAs: a screened exchange density functional approach

Results are presented of a fully ab-initio calculation of impact ionization rates in GaAs within the density functional theory framework, using a screened-exchange formalism and the highly precise all-electron full-potential linearized augmented plane wave (FLAPW) method. The calculated impact ionization rates show a marked orientation dependence in {\bf k} space, indicating the strong restrictions imposed by the conservation of energy and momentum. This anisotropy diminishes as the impacting electron energy increases. A Keldysh type fit performed on the energy-dependent rate shows a rather soft edge and a threshold energy greater than the direct band gap. The consistency with available Monte Carlo and empirical pseudopotential calculations shows the reliability of our approach and paves the way to ab-initio calculations of pair production rates in new and more complex materials.Comment: 11 pages, 4 figures, Submitted to Phys. Rev.

Edge overload breakdown in evolving networks

We investigate growing networks based on Barabasi and Albert's algorithm for generating scale-free networks, but with edges sensitive to overload breakdown. the load is defined through edge betweenness centrality. We focus on the situation where the average number of connections per vertex is, as the number of vertices, linearly increasing in time. After an initial stage of growth, the network undergoes avalanching breakdowns to a fragmented state from which it never recovers. This breakdown is much less violent if the growth is by random rather than preferential attachment (as defines the Barabasi and Albert model). We briefly discuss the case where the average number of connections per vertex is constant. In this case no breakdown avalanches occur. Implications to the growth of real-world communication networks are discussed.Comment: To appear in Phys. Rev.

Ultrasound investigation of the fetal cerebral ventricles

Peer Reviewe

Integrating fluctuations into distribution of resources in transportation networks

We propose a resource distribution strategy to reduce the average travel time in a transportation network given a fixed generation rate. Suppose that there are essential resources to avoid congestion in the network as well as some extra resources. The strategy distributes the essential resources by the average loads on the vertices and integrates the fluctuations of the instantaneous loads into the distribution of the extra resources. The fluctuations are calculated with the assumption of unlimited resources, where the calculation is incorporated into the calculation of the average loads without adding to the time complexity. Simulation results show that the fluctuation-integrated strategy provides shorter average travel time than a previous distribution strategy while keeping similar robustness. The strategy is especially beneficial when the extra resources are scarce and the network is heterogeneous and lowly loaded.Comment: 14 pages, 4 figure