How can gender considerations be better integrated into animal health emergency preparedness and response?

Global and national authorities have not historically approached animal health emergencies through a gendered lens. Yet these events almost certainly have gendered dimensions, such as differential engagement of women or men depending on their culturally accepted or assigned roles for animal care; risk of exposure to zoonoses; and access to emergency resources during response and recovery. Despite the role that gender seems to play with respect to animal health emergencies, little research has been conducted to better understand such dynamics, and little policy has been promulgated to address it in a way that optimizes response while ensuring equitable outcomes. This piece summarizes 3 key themes that emerged from a panel discussion on gender and animal health emergencies at the World Organisation for Animal Health Global Conference on Emergency Management in April 2023. These themes were differential gendered exposure to pathogens; a lack of equitable gender representation in animal health decision-making; and enhancement of pathways for recognizing gender in national and international actions in preparing for, detecting, and responding to animal health emergencies. Beyond increasing opportunities for women to engage in leadership, the animal health and veterinary communities will benefit from connecting practitioners with gender experts to develop more integrative approaches to emergency preparedness and management. Animal health professionals should also advocate for further research to elucidate gender-specific dynamics in human populations in the context of animal emergencies and the promulgation of evidence-based policies. Such transformative efforts will lead to better outcomes for all people who depend on and provide care for animals

SEIS: Insight's Seismic Experiment for Internal Structure of Mars.

By the end of 2018, 42 years after the landing of the two Viking seismometers on Mars, InSight will deploy onto Mars' surface the SEIS (Seismic Experiment for Internal Structure) instrument; a six-axes seismometer equipped with both a long-period three-axes Very Broad Band (VBB) instrument and a three-axes short-period (SP) instrument. These six sensors will cover a broad range of the seismic bandwidth, from 0.01 Hz to 50 Hz, with possible extension to longer periods. Data will be transmitted in the form of three continuous VBB components at 2 sample per second (sps), an estimation of the short period energy content from the SP at 1 sps and a continuous compound VBB/SP vertical axis at 10 sps. The continuous streams will be augmented by requested event data with sample rates from 20 to 100 sps. SEIS will improve upon the existing resolution of Viking's Mars seismic monitoring by a factor of ∼ 2500 at 1 Hz and ∼ 200 000 at 0.1 Hz. An additional major improvement is that, contrary to Viking, the seismometers will be deployed via a robotic arm directly onto Mars' surface and will be protected against temperature and wind by highly efficient thermal and wind shielding. Based on existing knowledge of Mars, it is reasonable to infer a moment magnitude detection threshold of M w ∼ 3 at 40 ∘ epicentral distance and a potential to detect several tens of quakes and about five impacts per year. In this paper, we first describe the science goals of the experiment and the rationale used to define its requirements. We then provide a detailed description of the hardware, from the sensors to the deployment system and associated performance, including transfer functions of the seismic sensors and temperature sensors. We conclude by describing the experiment ground segment, including data processing services, outreach and education networks and provide a description of the format to be used for future data distribution.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (10.1007/s11214-018-0574-6) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users

‘Do i care?’ young adults' recalled experiences of early adolescent overweight and obesity: a qualitative study

<p>Objective: Individual behaviour change to reduce obesity requires awareness of, and concern about, weight. This paper therefore describes how young adults, known to have been overweight or obese during early adolescence, recalled early adolescent weight-related awareness and concerns. Associations between recalled concerns and weight-, health- and peer-related survey responses collected during adolescence are also examined.</p> <p>Design: Qualitative semi-structured interviews with young adults; data compared with responses to self-report questionnaires obtained in adolescence.</p> <p>Participants: A total of 35 participants, purposively sub-sampled at age 24 from a longitudinal study of a school year cohort, previously surveyed at ages 11, 13 and 15. Physical measures during previous surveys allowed identification of participants with a body mass index (BMI) indicative of overweight or obesity (based on British 1990 growth reference) during early adolescence. Overall, 26 had been obese, of whom 11 had BMI99.6th centile, whereas 9 had been overweight (BMI=95th–97.9th centile).</p> <p>Measures: Qualitative interview responses describing teenage life, with prompts for school-, social- and health-related concerns. Early adolescent self-report questionnaire data on weight-worries, self-esteem, friends and victimisation (closed questions).</p> <p>Results: Most, but not all recalled having been aware of their overweight. None referred to themselves as having been obese. None recalled weight-related health worries. Recollection of early adolescent obesity varied from major concerns impacting on much of an individual's life to almost no concern, with little relation to actual severity of overweight. Recalled concerns were not clearly patterned by gender, but young adult males recalling concerns had previously reported more worries about weight, lower self-esteem, fewer friends and more victimisation in early adolescence; no such pattern was seen among females. Conclusion: The popular image of the unhappy overweight teenager was not borne out. Many obese adolescents, although well aware of their overweight recalled neither major dissatisfaction nor concern. Weight-reduction behaviours are unlikely in such circumstances.</p&gt

A Broadly Applicable Strategy for Entry into Homogeneous Nickel(0) Catalysts from Air-Stable Nickel(II) Complexes

A series of air-stable nickel complexes of the form L[subscript 2]Ni(aryl) X (L = monodentate phosphine, X = Cl, Br) and LNi(aryl)X (L = bis-phosphine) have been synthesized and are presented as a library of precatalysts suitable for a wide variety of nickel-catalyzed transformations. These complexes are easily synthesized from low-cost NiCl[subscript 2]·6H[subscript 2]O or NiBr[subscript 2]·3H[subscript 2]O and the desired ligand followed by addition of 1 equiv of Grignard reagent. A selection of these complexes were characterized by single-crystal X-ray diffraction, and an analysis of their structural features is provided. A case study of their use as precatalysts for the nickel-catalyzed carbonyl-ene reaction is presented, showing superior reactivity in comparison to reactions using Ni(cod)[subscript 2]. Furthermore, as the precatalysts are all stable to air, no glovebox or inert-atmosphere techniques are required to make use of these complexes for nickel-catalyzed reactions.National Institute of General Medical Sciences (U.S.) (GM63755)National Science Foundation (U.S.). Graduate Research Fellowshi

Music-induced analgesia in chronic pain: efficacy and assessment through a primary-task paradigm

Research into music-induced analgesia, the ability of music to affect the perception of pain, has under-represented the non-acute, chronic pain population. This longitudinal study aimed to investigate the impact of music listening on chronic pain. To extend traditional questionnaire-based approaches to pain assessment, a computerised visual search task was used before and after music listening as an objective measure of pain-related cognitive processing difficulties. Twenty-three participants (chronic pain sufferers or age and gender matched controls) listened to music for 28 days. Questionnaire-based results indicated that music listening consistently reduced pain intensity, unpleasantness and anxiety levels in the short-term. However there were no long-term or cumulative changes in pain relief or anxiety, with participant ratings at baseline comparable to those at 28 days. Visual search task performance demonstrated that chronic pain sufferers showed pain-related cognitive processing inhibitions on the target deviations demanding the greatest processing capacity. This suggests that though music-induced analgesia was demonstrated through reduced pain ratings, chronic pain continued to interfere with cognitive processing. Durability of music-induced analgesia is therefore likely to be time-limited and hindered by pain-related attentional disruption, reduced engagement and low absorption levels. Explanations for these results and suggestions for alternative objective monitors of music listening interventions are offered

Custom Integrated Circuits

Contains reports on six research projects.U.S. Air Force - Office of Scientific Research (Grant AFOSR-86-0164)U.S. Navy - Office of Naval Research (Contract N00014-80-C-0622)National Science Foundation (Grant ECS-83-10941

Custom Integrated Circuits

Contains reports on seven research projects.U.S. Air Force - Office of Scientific Research (Contract F49620-84-C-0004)National Science Foundation (Grant ECS81-18160)Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Contract NOO14-80-C-0622)National Science Foundation (Grant ECS83-10941

Custom Integrated Circuits

Contains reports on six research projects.U.S. Air Force - Office of Scientific Research (Contract F49620-84-C-0004)Analog Devices, Inc.Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Contract N00014-80-C-0622)National Science Foundation (Grant ECS83-10941