Pain scoring of horses; concordance among animal health personnel

Att identifiera och gradera smärta är inte en självklarhet ens vid bedömning av människor, som i de flesta fall kan beskriva sin egen smärta. Bedömning av smärta hos djur innebär ytterligare svårigheter, då de inte kan kommunicera verbalt och ofta döljer sin smärta, vilket gör att hjälpmedel såsom smärtskalor är nödvändigt. För att en smärtskala ska vara användbar och tillförlitlig måste olika användare komma fram till liknande, eller helst samma, bedömning av samma individ och tillfälle. Detta kandidatarbete syftar till att undersöka graden av samstämmighet olika yrkeskategorier av djurhälsopersonal uppnår vid smärtbedömning av häst. En kvantitativ studie utfördes med 16 filmer av 8 hästar och 18 studiedeltagare från tre olika yrkeskategorier. Studien visar att samstämmigheten inom yrkeskategorierna veterinärer, djursjukskötare och djursjukskötarstudenter, vid smärtbedömning av hästar med hjälp av smärtskalan the Equine Pain Scale, var måttlig till god baserat på Landis och Koch (1977) skala. Vidare visade studien en signifikant skillnad i smärtbedömning mellan yrkeskategorier, där yrkeskategorin veterinärer smärtbedömde signifikant lägre än de andra två kategorierna. Det är troligt att faktorer såsom utbildning, yrkeslivserfarenhet, språk, val av smärtskala och urvalet av studiedeltagare inverkat på studieresultatet. Till författarnas kännedom finns inte studier att hitta som undersöker samstämmigheten mellan olika yrkeskategorier vid smärtbedömning av häst, dock hittades flertalet studier från humansjukvården som påvisade signifikanta skillnader vid smärtbedömning korrelerat med bland annat bedömarens specialistutbildning inom ett sjukvårdsområde. Då studiematerialet var begränsat kan inga generella slutsatser dras, det behövs fler studier och forskning inom detta ämne då veterinärer och djursjukskötare har ett tätt samarbete i arbetslivet, och samstämmighet underlättar och förbättrar samarbete och patientsäkerhet.Identification of pain and pain rating can be a challenge in humans, who in many cases are able to describe their pain and its localisation. Pain assessment in animals’ present further difficulties as they do not communicate verbally, and often tend to hide their pain, which necessitate the use of objective tools such as pain scales. For a pain scale to be useful and reliable, different users of the same scale should reach similar, or preferably the same, result in the same assessment situation. The aim of this bachelor’s thesis is to explore the inter-observer reliability of pain assessment of horses, based on the observers’ profession in animal health care. A quantitative study was performed using 16 film clips of 8 horses and 18 observers from three different professions. The study shows that the inter-observer reliability within the professions veterinary, veterinary nurse and veterinary nurse student, using the pain scale The Equine Pain Scale, was moderate to good based on the Landis and Koch (1977) agreement measures for categorical data. Furthermore, the study presented a significant difference in pain scoring between the professions, with the group of veterinarians scoring significantly lower than the other two professions. It is likely that factors such as education, training, professional experience, language, choice of pain scale and sample selection influenced the results. To the authors knowledge no previous studies exploring the reliability of pain scoring of horses between professions could be found, but a number of studies within human healthcare shows significant differences in pain assessment based on for instance specialist training in a specific field. As the study material was limited, no general conclusions can be drawn. Further research within the subject is needed, as veterinarians and veterinary nurses have a close working relationship and reliability improves and facilitates the working relationship and accurate treatment of the patients. Keywords: horse, equine, pain scale, reliability, animal healt

Biofuel production in Europe - Potential from lignocellulosic waste

The objective of this study is to analyze the biofuel potential in Europe from lignocellulosic waste (wood waste and paper and cardboard waste). Ethanol from fermentation and Fischer-Tropsch (FT) diesel from gasification are the two biofuels considered. As those biofuels are not yet commercially available, the optimal locations of the production plants have to be determined. The analysis is carried out with a geographic explicit model that minimizes the total cost of the biofuel supply chain. A mixed integer linear program is used for the optimization. The results show that ethanol production plants are selected in a majority of the studied cases. Ethanol plants are mainly set up in areas with a high heat demand and/or high electricity or heat price, whereas FT diesel production plants are set up in areas where the heat demand is low all year round. A high cost for emitting CO2 as well as high transport fossil fuel prices favor the selection of FT diesel over ethanol production plants. With a CO2 cost of 100 Euros/tCO2 applied, the biofuel production from waste can potentially meet around 4% of the European transport fuel demand

CHP or biofuel production in Europe?

In this study, the opportunity to invest in combined heat and power (CHP) plants and second-generation biofuel production plants in Europe is investigated. To determine the number and type of production plants, a mixed integer linear model is used, based on minimization of the total cost of the whole suply chain. Different policy scenarios are studied with varying values of carbon cost and biofuel support. The study focuses on the type of technology to invest in and the CO2 emission substitution potential, at constant energy prices. The CHP plants and the biofuel production plants are competing for the same feedstock (forest biomass), which is available in limited quantities. The results show that CP plants are preferred over biofuel production plants at high carbon costs (over 50 EUR/tCO2) and low biofuel support (below 10 EUR/GJ), whereas more biofuel production plants would be set up at high biofuel support (over 15 EUR/GJ), irrespective of the carbon cost. Regarding the CO2 emission substitution potential, the highest potential can be reached at a high carbon cost and low biofuel support. It is concluded that there is a potential conflict of interest between policies promoting increased use of biofuels, and policies aiming at decreased CO2 emissions

User-Friendly Multimedia Authoring with Pachyderm

This session will focus on the products and process of using the open-source Pachyderm authoring tool to produce interactive multimedia presentations. Presenters from the library, museum and developer communities will present Pachyderm projects, discuss the training process and learning curve and demonstrate a new, feature rich version of the authoring software. The session will conclude with a Q&A session and audience discussion

Cost optimization of biofuel production – The impact of scale, integration, transport and supply chain configurations

This study uses a geographically-explicit cost optimization model to analyze the impact of and interrelation between four cost reduction strategies for biofuel production: economies of scale, intermodal transport, integration with existing industries, and distributed supply chain configurations (i.e. supply chains with an intermediate pre-treatment step to reduce biomass transport cost). The model assessed biofuel production levels ranging from 1 to 150 PJ a−1 in the context of the existing Swedish forest industry. Biofuel was produced from forestry biomass using hydrothermal liquefaction and hydroprocessing. Simultaneous implementation of all cost reduction strategies yielded minimum biofuel production costs of 18.1–18.2 € GJ−1 at biofuel production levels between 10 and 75 PJ a−1. Limiting the economies of scale was shown to cause the largest cost increase (+0–12%, increasing with biofuel production level), followed by disabling integration benefits (+1–10%, decreasing with biofuel production level) and allowing unimodal truck transport only (+0–6%, increasing with biofuel production level). Distributed supply chain configurations were introduced once biomass supply became increasingly dispersed, but did not provide a significant cost benefit (<1%). Disabling the benefits of integration favors large-scale centralized production, while intermodal transport networks positively affect the benefits of economies of scale. As biofuel production costs still exceeds the price of fossil transport fuels in Sweden after implementation of all cost reduction strategies, policy support and stimulation of further technological learning remains essential to achieve cost parity with fossil fuels for this feedstock/technology combination in this spatiotemporal context

Combining expansion in pulp capacity with production of sustainable biofuels – Techno-economic and greenhouse gas emissions assessment of drop-in fuels from black liquor part-streams

Drop-in biofuels from forest by-products such as black liquor can help deliver deep reductions in transport greenhouse gas emissions by replacing fossil fuels in our vehicle fleet. Black liquor is produced at pulp mills that can increase their pulping capacity by upgrading some of it to drop-in biofuels but this is not well-studied. We evaluate the techno-economic and greenhouse gas performance of five drop-in biofuel pathways based on BL lignin separation with hydrotreatment or black liquor gasification with catalytic synthesis. We also assess how integrated biofuel production impacts different types of pulp mills and a petroleum refinery by using energy and material balances assembled from experimental data supplemented by expert input. Our results indicate that drop-in biofuels from black liquor part-streams can be produced for ~80 EUR2017/MWh, which puts black liquor on the same footing (or better) as comparable forest residue-based alternatives. The best pathways in both production routes have comparable costs and their principal biofuel products (petrol for black liquor gasification and diesel for lignin hydrotreatment) complement each other. All pathways surpass European Union's sustainability criteria for greenhouse gas savings from new plants. Supplementing black liquor with pyrolysis oil or electrolysis hydrogen can improve biofuel production potentials and feedstock diversity, but better economic performance does not accompany these benefits. Fossil hydrogen represents the cheaper option for lignin hydrotreatment by some margin, but greenhouse gas savings from renewable hydrogen are nearly twice as great. Research on lignin upgrading in industrial conditions is recommended for reducing the presently significant performance uncertainties

Power-to-gas and power-to-liquid for managing renewable electricity intermittency in the Alpine Region

Large-scale deployment of renewable energy sources (RES) plays a central role in reducing CO2 emissions from energy supply systems, but intermittency from solar and wind technologies presents integration challenges. High temperature co-electrolysis of steam and CO2 in power-to-gas (PtG) and power-to-liquid (PtL) configurations could utilize excess intermittent electricity by converting it into chemical fuels. These can then be directly consumed in other sectors, such as transportation and heating, or used as power storage. Here, we investigate the impact of carbon policy and fossil fuel prices on the economic and engineering potential of PtG and PtL systems as storage for intermittent renewable electricity and as a source of low-carbon heating and transportation energy in the Alpine region. We employ a spatially and temporally explicit optimization approach of RES, PtG, PtL and fossil technologies in the electricity, heating, and transportation sectors, using the BeWhere model. Results indicate that large-scale deployment of PtG and PtL technologies for producing chemical fuels from excess intermittent electricity is feasible, particularly when incentivized by carbon prices. Depending on carbon and fossil fuel price, 0.15−15 million tonnes/year of captured CO2 can be used in the synthesis of the chemical fuels, displacing up to 11% of current fossil fuel use in transportation. By providing a physical link between the electricity, transportation, and heating sectors, PtG and PtL technologies can enable greater integration of RES into the energy supply chain globally

Possibilities for CO2 emission reduction using biomass in European integrated steel plants

Iron and steel plants producing steel via the blast furnace-basic oxygen furnace (BF-BOF) route constitute among the largest single point CO2 emitters within the European Union (EU). As the iron ore reduction process in the blast furnace is fully dependent on carbon mainly supplied by coal and coke, bioenergy is the only renewable that presents a possibility for their partial substitution. Using the BeWhere model, this work optimised the mobilization and use of biomass resources within the EU in order to identify the opportunities that bioenergy can bring to the 30 operating BF-BOF plants. The results demonstrate competition for the available biomass resources within existing industries and economically unappealing prices of the bio-based fuels. A carbon dioxide price of 60 € t−1 is required to substitute 20% of the CO2 emissions from the fossil fuels use, while a price of 140 € t−1 is needed to reach the maximum potential of 42%. The possibility to use organic wastes to produce hydrochar would not enhance the maximum emission reduction potential, but it would broaden the available feedstock during the low levels of substitution. The scope for bioenergy integration is different for each plant and so consideration of its deployment should be treated individually. Therefore, the EU-ETS (Emission Trading System) may not be the best policy tool for bioenergy as an emission reduction strategy for the iron and steel industry, as it does not differentiate between the opportunities across the different steel plants and creates additional costs for the already struggling European steel industry

Undressing the moves - an ethnographic study of lap-dancers and lap-dancing club culture

The lap-dancing club phenomenon is relatively new in the UK and as a result, in the last decade, it has aroused much public debate. Despite this, the study of this industry here in the UK has been neglected, with the body of research confined to the U.S and Canada. In spite of gaining some academic attention abroad, the literature, which has emerged from the research, suggests a narrow field of interest, concerned with exploitation, risk and dancer motivation. Further to this, there has also been a tendency to address dancer-customer interaction; the relationship between dancers has been ignored. Finally, the general approach of researchers has been to stress the negative implications of a lap-dancing career on the dancers; reflected in the deviant and implicit anti-sex work/exploitation frameworks which have dominated academic thinking in this field of study. Through the use of ethnographic methods the research on which this thesis is based redresses these issues. The data for this research was generated in a UK lap-dancing club using extensive participant observation, estimated at over 2000 hours, along with in-depth interviews to supplement the core findings. The main focus of study was on the relationships between dancers and the culture with which they mutually engage. Through this exploration, some of the key areas of academic interest including dancer motivation, risk and exploitation were directly or implicitly challenged. Further to this, through delving into the relationship between dancers, an understanding of the way in which these relationships are used to cultivate and reinforce dancer status roles in the club was developed. In relation to this, a dancer hierarchy has been identified, comprising of three stages: new girl, transition and old school. Finally, the lap-dancing club culture, which is not only signified by some of the duties of the job, but also by the „social‟ and „emotional‟ rituals with which dancers mutually engage, is also addressed. Although the negative implications of lap-dancing club culture are acknowledged, the social fulfilment and subcultural attachment dancers have to their occupation is also emphasised. This research therefore starts to shift our understanding of the lap-dancing club phenomenon and reconstruct it within a UK context.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceEconomic and Social Research CouncilGBUnited Kingdo