Getting creative in everyday life: Investigating arts and crafts hobbyists' information behavior

While there has been increasing interest in how creative professionals find information to drive creative outputs, previous information behavior research has largely ignored how arts and crafts hobbyists look for information sources in their everyday lives. To fill this literature gap, we conducted interviews and observations with arts and crafts hobbyists to find out how they conceive potential DIY projects. The findings highlight three themes: the dearth of human sources, the prevalence of domain-specific information, and the use of self-curated information. In addition to empirical results, this work also broadens the understanding of information behavior in an arts and crafts context by studying populations beyond professional artists

Overview of cattle diseases listed under category C, D or E in the animal health law for wich control programmes are in place within Europe

13 páginas, 5 figuras, 3 tablas.The COST action “Standardising output-based surveillance to control non-regulated diseases of cattle in the European Union (SOUND control),” aims to harmonise the results of surveillance and control programmes (CPs) for non-EU regulated cattle diseases to facilitate safe trade and improve overall control of cattle infectious diseases. In this paper we aimed to provide an overview on the diversity of control for these diseases in Europe. A non-EU regulated cattle disease was defined as an infectious disease of cattle with no or limited control at EU level, which is not included in the European Union Animal health law Categories A or B under Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2020/2002. A CP was defined as surveillance and/or intervention strategies designed to lower the incidence, prevalence, mortality or prove freedom from a specific disease in a region or country. Passive surveillance, and active surveillance of breeding bulls under Council Directive 88/407/EEC were not considered as CPs. A questionnaire was designed to obtain country-specific information about CPs for each disease. Animal health experts from 33 European countries completed the questionnaire. Overall, there are 23 diseases for which a CP exists in one or more of the countries studied. The diseases for which CPs exist in the highest number of countries are enzootic bovine leukosis, bluetongue, infectious bovine rhinotracheitis, bovine viral diarrhoea and anthrax (CPs reported by between 16 and 31 countries). Every participating country has on average, 6 CPs (min–max: 1–13) in place. Most programmes are implemented at a national level (86%) and are applied to both dairy and non-dairy cattle (75%). Approximately one-third of the CPs are voluntary, and the funding structure is divided between government and private resources. Countries that have eradicated diseases like enzootic bovine leukosis, bluetongue, infectious bovine rhinotracheitis and bovine viral diarrhoea have implemented CPs for other diseases to further improve the health status of cattle in their country. The control of non-EU regulated cattle diseases is very heterogenous in Europe. Therefore, the standardising of the outputs of these programmes to enable comparison represents a challenge.Peer reviewe

Influences of Feeding Strategies on AA and MAA Carboxylated Latexes

Semibatch, power feed, and shot-addition feeding strategies were employed to synthesize carboxylated latex under acidic conditions, using emulsion polymerization. As a source of carboxyl groups, acrylic (AA) or methacrylic acid (MAA) was used. The distribution of carboxyl groups between feeding strategies were investigated using rheology, potentiometric/conductometric titrations, transmission electron microscopy, and FT-IR spectroscopy. Upon alkalization, particle swelling was observed using dynamic light scattering. With increasing pH, both the AA- and MAA-based latexes showed significant increase in hydrodynamic diameter as a consequence of the dissociation state of carboxyl groups. However, only MAA-based latexes exhibit very pronounced increase in viscosity and storage modulus, and were therefore characterized as gels. The effect of feeding strategies was found to be more pronounced with the MAA functionalized latexes. By employing mentioned three procedures, significant differences in the rheological behavior of the neutralized dispersions were detected

Marteiliosis in mussels: a rare disease?

Among 1280 cultured and wild adult Mediterranean mussels, Mytilus galloprovincialis, collected over a 1-year surveillance period from the Slovene Adriatic Sea, 0.3% were histologically positive for the presence of Marteilia spp. The infection was concentrated in winter. Employing the molecular methods of PCR, cloning, DNA restriction and sequencing, only Marteilia refringens type M was detected in all the infected mussels. Although all life-cycle stages of M. refringens severely infected digestive glands, only sporadic disruption of epithelial cells of digestive tubules and focal destruction of digestive tubules were observed in the infected mussels. This was the first detection of M. refringens in M. galloprovincialis from the Slovene Adriatic Sea with the lowest prevalence reported to date. In addition, our results highlight the need for sequencing to complement the established PCR-RFLP analysis for correct parasite typing