Effects of ethyl alcohol analgesia on pig behavior during castration

Newborn piglets born on commercial farms undergo various procedures in their first days of life. These procedures can include tail docking, various injections, and castration. One of the most common and invasive is castration. Boar piglets are castrated to prevent unwanted sexual behavior, aggression, and boar taint. Boar taint occurs when intact males that have reached sexual maturity are slaughtered, causing an offensive odor and taste (Sutherland, 2015). Castration invokes a pain response, but it is most often performed without any anesthesia or analgesia. This is mostly due to the lack of a readily available and inexpensive analgesia. Lidocaine is a common analgesic that is expensive and must be administered by a veterinarian. Castration without pain relievers raises welfare concerns and it would be beneficial to find an inexpensive and readily available alternative.This study explores ethyl alcohol as a possible alternative. When injected into an area, ethyl alcohol performs alcohol neurolysis. This causes the demyelination of the neurons, leading to pain relief. In this experiment, boar piglets from 14 litters were assigned a treatment group. They were either injected with 1mL of saline solution (CON), injected with 1mL of ethyl alcohol (ETOH), or were injected with 1mL of lidocaine (LID). A gilt from each litter served as a handling control (SHAM). Each piglet was injected with their perspective treatment at 3 days of age. They were then subsequently castrated at 14 days of age. The SHAM was handled the same way as the boar piglets, but no incision was made.The piglets were recorded for 24 hours/day beginning one day prior to treatment and ending 14 days post-castration. The videos were used to evaluate the behavior of each piglet. The frequency of certain behaviors listed in an ethogram were recorded. The averages of each behavior performed by each treatment were analyzed for statistical significance.Overall, it was found that ethyl alcohol has similar effects as lidocaine. The ethyl alcohol and lidocaine appeared to cause some discomfort when injected as those treatments displayed higher incidences of rump scratching (P < 0.05) and stiffness. This is to be expected as the CON was only injected with saline and the SHAM was not injected at all.The frequencies of behaviors performed by the ETOH and LID post-castration were very similar. Ethyl alcohol appears to have the same effect on pain as lidocaine. Both significantly decreased the instances of pain related behaviors compared to the CON.More research needs to be conducted on ethyl alcohol as a possible analgesia for piglet castration. However, in this study, it does seem to reduce pain caused by castration and does so in a manner comparable to that of lidocaine. Based on this observation, ethyl alcohol is a good candidate for an inexpensive and effective analgesia

Environmental Management in Richmond, Virginia: A Case Study of Reedy Creek

This report analyzes the Reedy Creek restoration project through four distinct lenses and aims to achieve a fuller understanding of the factors influencing the project’s success or failure. We hope this report contributes to a greater appreciation of the complex and vast amount of decisions both cities and stakeholders make when complying with environmental regulations. Moreover, we hope to provide invaluable learning opportunities for future environmental projects undertaken in the City of Richmond. Paper prepared for the Environmental Studies Senior Seminar/Geography Capstone.Faculty Advisor: Dr. David Salisbur

Emily Candela in conversation with Huren Marsh

This session of the The Furniture History Society’s 45th Annual Symposium: Design 1900-Now was an interview I conducted with furniture designer Huren Marsh. The conversation covered Marsh’s experiences as a Jamaican designer who studied and works in England, British design education in the 1980s, and Marsh’s work as a designer, curator and educator, past and present. The conference was staged on the occasion of the opening of the new ‘Design 1900-Now’ galleries at the Victoria & Albert Museum (V&A), which include Huren Marsh’s Akuaba chair (1985). Emily Candela conducted early foundational research for the new galleries in 2016

Perceptual Differentiation of African American and European American Children Based on Gender and Ethnicity of Listeners

Thomas and Reaser (2004) demonstrated that adult speakers can be perceptually differentiated by listeners with respect to gender and ethnicity. They presented data from various studies with respect to adult speakers, but no data for child speakers. It follows that there are cues in the acoustic signal that support making distinctions amongst adult speakers. Following the onset of puberty, these acoustic parameters begin to emerge, enabling listeners to reliably identify speaker characteristics in adulthood (Berger, 2008). The question remains, at what point across the pubertal transition does perceptual accuracy meet the level for adult speakers? The goal of our research is to examine how the gender and ethnicity of the listener affects the accuracy with which they are able to identify these same aspects of a child speaker. Undergraduate students completed a language background questionnaire and then listened to audio recordings of European American and African American children producing /h-vowel-d/ words and sentences. The participants listened to four blocks of recordings: forward words, reverse words, forward sentences, and reverse sentences, containing items spoken by children of each ethnicity, age, and gender. The listeners identified which ethnicity and gender they believed the speaker to be, as well as how confident they were of their choice. We expect that minority (African American, Hispanic, Native American, Pacific Islander, and Asian American) and female participants will have greater accuracy for all speakers. We also anticipate that accuracy of identification will improve as the age of the speaker increases due to the changing of the voice as a result of puberty. The study will provide greater knowledge of how the age of a child speaker impacts the ability of the listener to identify the speaker’s gender and ethnicity. The implications can be informative for individuals who work with children and in speech-related professions

Understanding consumer perspectives of bio-based products:A comparative case study from Ireland and The Netherlands

The bioeconomy can support Europe’s transition to a low‐carbon economy and help to meet key international, European and member state sustainability targets through the provision of bio‐based products and energy derived from sustainably sourced biomass. A successful implemen‐ tation of a bio‐based economy in Europe will, however, require a profound transformation of our production and consumption patterns. Consumer behavior will play a major role in supporting the successful transition to a bio‐based economy. This paper uses a structured quantitative survey ap‐ proach to gain an understanding of consumer perspectives in relation to bio‐based products. Con‐ ducted among 18–75‐year‐old consumers in Ireland and the Netherlands, the study indicates that consumers in both countries have a relatively positive outlook regarding bio‐based products, with Irish consumers showing a slightly more positive outlook. The study finds that a larger majority of Irish consumers would prefer buying bio‐based products as opposed to fossil‐based products, while Irish consumers also have a slightly more positive impression than Dutch consumers that their con‐ sumer choices can be beneficial for the environment

METHYL PARATHION RESIDUES IN PROTECTIVE APPAREL FABRIC: EFFECT OF RESIDUAL SOILS ON DECONTAMINATION

This study evaluated the contribution of oily and particulate soil residue to pesticide residue removal. 100% cotton and 65% polyester/35% cotton, were artificially soiled with a standard soil. The fabrics were laundered with the same substrate fabric without soil. Initial methyl parathion contamination was not dependent on the soil level or fiber content of the fabric. Residues remaining after laundering were affected by soiling level. Pesticide residues were greater when the fabric had a heavy soil build-up even though the initial contamination had been lower. Based on these findings, protective apparel should be kept as clean as possible, with daily laundering, for the presence of soil residue affected decontamination of the fabrics

Distraction in Verbal Short-Term Memory: Insights from Developmental Differences

The contribution of two mechanisms of auditory distraction in verbal serial short-term memory—interference with the serial rehearsal processes used to support short-term recall and general attentional diversion—was investigated by exploiting differences in auditory distraction in children and adults. Experiment 1 showed that serial rehearsal plays a role in children’s as well as adults’ distractibility: Auditory distraction from irrelevant speech was greater for both children and adults as the burden on rehearsal increased. This pattern was particularly pronounced in children, suggesting that underdeveloped rehearsal skill in this population may increase their distractibility. Experiment 2 showed that both groups were more susceptible to changing- than steady-state speech when the task involved serial rehearsal—indicating that both groups suffer interference-by-process—but that children, but not adults, were also susceptible to any sort of sound (steady or changing) in a task thought to be devoid of serial rehearsal. The overall pattern of results suggests that children’s increased susceptibility to auditory distraction during verbal short-term memory performance is due to a greater susceptibility to attentional diversion; in this view, under-developed rehearsal-skill increases children’s distractibility by exacerbating their under-developed attentional control rather than by increasing interference-by-process

Healthy buildings for a healthy city: Is the public health evidence base informing current building policies?

Research has demonstrated that housing quality is a key urban intervention in reducing health risks and improving climate resilience, addressing a key ambition of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. Yet housing quality remains a problem even in high income countries such as England. In particular, hazards such as excess cold, excess heat and lack of ventilation leading to damp and mould have been identified as a major issue in homes. Research shows that these hazards can lead to a range of health conditions, such as respiratory and cardiovascular disease, infections and mental health problems. This article explores the use of public health research and evidence in policy to regulate new buildings in England to deliver improved public health, climate resilience and a reduced carbon footprint, in particular exploring the policy drivers and awareness of the public health evidence. Findings show that public health evidence is hardly referenced in policy and that the focus on other evidence bases such as on climate mitigation in building regulations results in both positive and negative impacts on health. This reflects a lack of a systems approach around urban interventions leading to weaknesses in standards regulating the private development sector. In conclusion, this paper recommends: 1. the consideration of health impact in future building regulations; 2. the integration and coordination of key policies covering various scales and phases of the development processes and 3. the better education of residents to understand advances in new energy performance technologies

Are Individual Differences in Auditory Processing Related to Auditory Distraction by Irrelevant Sound? A Replication Study

Irrelevant sounds can be very distracting, especially when trying to recall information according to its serial order. The irrelevant sound effect (ISE) has been studied in the literature for more than 40 years, yet many questions remain. One goal that has received little attention involves the discernment of a predictive factor, or individual difference characteristic, that would help to determine the size of the ISE. The current experiments were designed to replicate and extend prior work by Macken, Phelps, and Jones (Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 16, 139–144, 2009), who demonstrated a significant predictive relationship between the size of the ISE and a type of auditory processing called global pattern matching. The authors also found a relationship between auditory processing involving deliberate recoding of sounds and serial order recall performance in silence. Across two experiments, this dissociation was not replicated. Additionally, the two types of auditory processing were not significantly correlated with each other. The lack of a clear pattern of findings replicating the Macken et al. (Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 16, 139–144, 2009) study raises several questions regarding the need for future research on the characteristics of these auditory processing tasks, and the stability of the measurement of the ISE itself