Veterinary provision of analgesia for domestic cats (Felis catus) undergoing gonadectomy: a comparison of samples from New Zealand, Australia and the United Kingdom

AIM: To compare the use and provision of analgesia to cats undergoing gonadectomy by a sample of veterinarians in New Zealand, Australia and the United Kingdom. METHODS: Small animal veterinarians’ views and practices on provision of analgesia to cats at three different time phases (pre/intra-operatively, post-operatively and post-discharge) were gathered using an electronic questionnaire. Respondents were also asked to state the pharmacological agent(s) used and the dosage rate(s). Differences in provision of analgesia were assessed relative to the respondent using binary logistic regression. The effects of sex of the patient and time of provision were explored using McNewar’s Test and Cochran’s Q respectively. Differences between drug types used amongst countries was tested using a cross-tabulation. RESULTS: There were 717 responses to the survey. Of these 249 (34.7%) were from New Zealand, 269 (37.5%) were from the UK and 199 (27.8%) from Australia. The prevalence of analgesia provision declined across the three different time phases for spaying and castration (both p<0.001). Provision of analgesia for castration was less than for spaying at each of the pre/intra-operative (p=0.002), post-operative (p<0.001) and after discharge (p<0.001) phases. Post-operative provision of analgesia following both castration (p<0.001) and spaying (p<0.001) differed amongst countries of practice. Veterinarians in Australia and New Zealand were more likely to provide post-operative analgesia for both castration and spaying than those from the UK (p<0.001). Veterinarians from the UK more commonly used non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAID) in the pre/intra-operative phase (p<0.001) than veterinarians from either New Zealand or Australia. CONCLUSIONS AND CLINICAL RELEVANCE: Contemporary use of analgesics for cats appears focused on provision at clinic and may not address the effects of surgery beyond the first 24 hours. The UK, Australia and New Zealand clearly differ in the types of analgesia administered, possibly reflecting differing professional considerations of the risks associated with the use of NSAID. In the interests of animal welfare, pain relief should perhaps be provided or offered more frequently for owner administration

Understanding and optimising an identification/brief advice (IBA) service about alcohol in the community pharmacy setting

This is the final report of an evaluation into the identification/brief advice (IBA) service about alcohol in community pharmacy settings in the North West of England. Since 2007, almost 100 pharmacies in the North West have - at some point - been commissioned to provide an identification and brief advice (IBA) service for alcohol. This evaluation sought to understand how the service had been adapted for and implemented in the community pharmacy setting, and how its potential might be maximised. Its aims were: 1. To characterise, consolidate and optimise both the constant and variable elements of the pharmacy alcohol identification/brief advice (IBA) service in NHS Northwest, and 2. To inform planning for current and future pharmacy based services promoting safe consumption of alcohol. The evaluation was split into three main workstreams, supported by a preliminary scoping phase, and combined quantitative and qualitative methods: • Descriptive and comparative statistical analysis of pharmacy alcohol IBA data; • In-pharmacy work, including observation of staff engagement with customers, recording consultations between staff and customers, follow-up telephone interviews with customers, and group feedback interviews with pharmacy staff; • Stakeholder engagement through self-completion surveys, semi-structured interviews and a workshop. This report gives the background to the project, and details the methods, results and implications

Lying posture does not accurately indicate sleep stage in dairy cows

\ua9 2021 Elsevier B.V. Quality sleep is important for physical health and welfare in animals. However, we know little about dairy cow sleep, and how much they need. Practical techniques are needed to monitor sleep in cows to determine how different management practices affect their sleep and their welfare. It is impractical to use ‘gold standard’ electrophysiological - polysomnography (PSG) to identify sleep in cows. Previous work suggests lying postures are useful to identify sleep stages in calves, but the reliability of lying behaviour to identify these sleep stages in adult cows is uncertain. We compared the lying postures of adult dairy cows (deep bedded on straw or in a pasture) with PSG, to determine if lying postures could be used to accurately identify rapid eye movement (REM) and the different stages of non-REM (NREM) sleep. Lying in the typical “sleep” posture with the head turned and resting on the flank identified approximately 70 % of REM sleep in outdoor managed cows but was less accurate in indoor housed cows that showed REM sleep in numerous postures. Lying with the head still and low did not identify stages of NREM sleep in either group. Using the tucked ‘sleep posture’ to estimate total sleep would be an over estimation of REM sleep, but also an underestimation of total sleep as this posture would omit most NREM sleep. Lying postures are not useful indicators of sleep stages in dairy cows and additional research is required to identify efficacious alternative techniques

Heart rate and heart rate variability change with sleep stage in dairy cows

\ua9 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.Changes to the amount and patterns of sleep stages could be a useful tool to assess the effects of stress or changes to the environment in animal welfare research. However, the gold standard method, polysomnography PSG, is difficult to use with large animals such as dairy cows. Heart rate (HR) and heart rate variability (HRV) can be used to predict sleep stages in humans and could be useful as an easier method to identify sleep stages in cows. We compared the mean HR and HRV and lying posture of dairy cows at pasture and when housed, with sleep stages identified through PSG. HR and HRV were higher when cows were moving their heads or when lying flat on their side. Overall, mean HR decreased with depth of sleep. There was more variability in time between successive heart beats during REM sleep, and more variability in time between heart beats when cows were awake and in REM sleep. These shifts in HR measures between sleep stages followed similar patterns despite differences in mean HR between the groups. Our results show that HR and HRV measures could be a promising alternative method to PSG for assessing sleep in dairy cows

Machine learning prediction of sleep stages in dairy cows from heart rate and muscle activity measures

\ua9 2021, The Author(s). Sleep is important for cow health and shows promise as a tool for assessing welfare, but methods to accurately distinguish between important sleep stages are difficult and impractical to use with cattle in typical farm environments. The objective of this study was to determine if data from more easily applied non-invasive devices assessing neck muscle activity and heart rate (HR) alone could be used to differentiate between sleep stages. We developed, trained, and compared two machine learning models using neural networks and random forest algorithms to predict sleep stages from 15 variables (features) of the muscle activity and HR data collected from 12 cows in two environments. Using k-fold cross validation we compared the success of the models to the gold standard, Polysomnography (PSG). Overall, both models learned from the data and were able to accurately predict sleep stages from HR and muscle activity alone with classification accuracy in the range of similar human models. Further research is required to validate the models with a larger sample size, but the proposed methodology appears to give an accurate representation of sleep stages in cattle and could consequentially enable future sleep research into conditions affecting cow sleep and welfare

An electromagnetism-like metaheuristic for open-shop problems with no buffer

This paper considers open-shop scheduling with no intermediate buffer to minimize total tardiness. This problem occurs in many production settings, in the plastic molding, chemical, and food processing industries. The paper mathematically formulates the problem by a mixed integer linear program. The problem can be optimally solved by the model. The paper also develops a novel metaheuristic based on an electromagnetism algorithm to solve the large-sized problems. The paper conducts two computational experiments. The first includes small-sized instances by which the mathematical model and general performance of the proposed metaheuristic are evaluated. The second evaluates the metaheuristic for its performance to solve some large-sized instances. The results show that the model and algorithm are effective to deal with the problem

Factor IX San Dimas. Substitution of glutamine for Arg-4 in the propeptide leads to incomplete gamma-carboxylation and altered phospholipid binding properties.

DNA sequence analysis of the Factor IX gene from a hemophilia B patient (98% Factor IX antigen; less than 0.01 unit/ml clotting activity) has identified a point mutation in exon II. A guanine to adenine transition causes the substitution of a glutamine codon for an arginine codon at -4 in the propeptide of Factor IX. This variant, termed Factor IX San Dimas, circulates in the plasma as proFactor IX with a mutant 18-amino acid propeptide still attached. Like Factor IX Cambridge (Arg-1----Ser), Factor IX San Dimas is unable to express metal-induced epitopes recognized by conformation-specific polyclonal antibodies. Amino acid analysis of the alkaline hydrolysate indicates that purified Factor IX San Dimas contains a reduced number of gamma-carboxyglutamyl residues compared to Factor IX. However, this protein undergoes metal-induced quenching of the intrinsic fluorescence. In addition, Factor IX San Dimas is unable to interact with phospholipid vesicles. The absence of coagulant activity in Factor IX San Dimas can be attributed to impaired calcium-induced conformational changes and loss in the ability to bind phospholipid vesicles in the presence of calcium ions

Postdigital Dialogue

This article is a multi-authored experimental postdigital dialogue about postdigital dialogue. Fourteen authors were invited to produce their sections, followed by two author-reviewers who examined the article as a whole. Authors were invited to reflect on Petar Jandric’s book Learning in the age of digital reason (2017) or to produce completely new insights. The article also contains a summary of book symposium on Learning in the age of digital reason held at the 2017 American Educational Research Conference (AERA). The authors are tentatively confident that this article produces more knowledge than the arithmetic sum of its constituent parts. However, they are also very aware of its limits and insist that their conclusions are not consensual or homogenous. As traditional forms of research increasingly fail to describe our current reality, they present this article as an experiment and a possible starting point for developing new dialogical research approaches fit for our postdigital reality