Consensus-based reporting standards for diagnostic test accuracy studies for paratuberculosis in ruminants

The Standards for Reporting of Diagnostic Accuracy (STARD) statement was developed to encourage complete and transparent reporting of key elements of test accuracy studies in human medicine. The statement was motivated by widespread evidence of bias in test accuracy studies and the finding that incomplete or absent reporting of items in the STARD checklist was associated with overly optimistic estimates of test performance characteristics. Although STARD principles apply broadly, specific guidelines do not exist to account for unique considerations in livestock studies such as herd tests, potential use of experimental challenge studies, a more diverse group of testing purposes and sampling designs, and the widespread lack of an ante-mortem reference standard with high sensitivity and specificity. The objective of the present study was to develop a modified version of STARD relevant to paratuberculosis (Johne’s disease) in ruminants. Examples and elaborations for each of the 25 items were developed by a panel of experts using a consensus-based approach to explain the items and underlying concepts. The new guidelines, termed STRADAS-paraTB (Standards for Reporting of Animal Diagnostic Accuracy Studies for paratuberculosis), should facilitate improved quality of reporting of the design, conduct and results of paratuberculosis test accuracy studies which were identified as “poor” in a review published in 2008 in Veterinary Microbiology

Passion in the Workplace: Empirical Insights from Team Sport Organisations

Although sport management scholars have focused on a fairly wide number of psychologically-related constructs in the workplace, passion has not been part of this research agenda. The present study is the first attempt to fill this gap by exploring employees’ passion in the workplace setting of sport organisations. It does so by applying for the first time the dualistic model of passion developed by Vallerand et al. (2003), which measures two distinct types of passion: harmonious and obsessive. Online survey data were gathered from administrative employees in the United Kingdom’s football industry, responsible for either business-related functions or the clubs’ social agenda (N=236) in order to measure the passion experienced by individuals guided by different institutional logics. The particular instrument has two components: harmonious and obsessive passion towards the job. Besides the passion scales, the survey contained measures related to demographic variables (e.g., age, gender and education), to employment position in the organisation and to previous job experience. Data were statistically analysed in Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) and analysis of variance, using SPSS and Amos 18.0. To determine the effect of contextual variables on the passion for the job, t-test and ANOVA were also used. Both groups of employees are passionate about their job. They remain harmoniously passionate throughout their career and show low level of obsessive passion. The type of work activities influences both levels of harmonious and obsessive passion experienced by personnel within sport organisations with employees responsible for the social agenda being slightly more harmoniously and obsessively passionate compared to those responsible for the business agenda. Vallerand et al.’s (2003) dualistic model of passion has been adapted to measure passion at workplace within sport organisations. The particular working environment that forms these organisations attracts and/or facilitates employees to experience a positive work–life balance

Global environmental law : context and theory, challenge and promise

Few issue areas exemplify the centrifugal forces that prompted the emergence of global law scholarship better than the environment. With its propensity to blur or transcend conventional distinctions between national and international, public and private, and formal and informal, environmental governance offers a consummate case study to test the promise and perils of global law. In this article, we situate global environmental law in the broader debate about lawmaking and application beyond the nation state, tracing the evolution and elusive boundaries of this nascent field. Our survey allows us to identify conceptual ambiguities and missed opportunities in the literature on global environmental law, including challenges to its normativity and legitimacy. From there, however, we proceed to outline a twofold opportunity for the global environmental law project: an opportunity to enrich environmental law with more diverse and inclusive practices; and an opportunity for collaborative self-reflexivity by the scholars and practitioners of environmental law as these not only interpret and apply, but through their work actively shape the content of the law

Treatment of bipolar disorder: a complex treatment for a multi-faceted disorder

Background: Manic-depression or bipolar disorder (BD) is a multi-faceted illness with an inevitably complex treatment. Methods: This article summarizes the current status of our knowledge and practice of its treatment. Results: It is widely accepted that lithium is moderately useful during all phases of bipolar illness and it might possess a specific effectiveness on suicidal prevention. Both first and second generation antipsychotics are widely used and the FDA has approved olanzapine, risperidone, quetiapine, ziprasidone and aripiprazole for the treatment of acute mania. These could also be useful in the treatment of bipolar depression, but only limited data exists so far to support the use of quetiapine monotherapy or the olanzapine-fluoxetine combination. Some, but not all, anticonvulsants possess a broad spectrum of effectiveness, including mixed dysphoric and rapid-cycling forms. Lamotrigine may be effective in the treatment of depression but not mania. Antidepressant use is controversial. Guidelines suggest their cautious use in combination with an antimanic agent, because they are supposed to induce switching to mania or hypomania, mixed episodes and rapid cycling. Conclusion: The first-line psychosocial intervention in BD is psychoeducation, followed by cognitive-behavioral therapy. Other treatment options include Electroconvulsive therapy and transcranial magnetic stimulation. There is a gap between the evidence base, which comes mostly from monotherapy trials, and clinical practice, where complex treatment regimens are the rule

The foraging ecology of non-breeding Wrybills (Anarhynchus frontalis) in the Firth of Thames : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science in Ecology at Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand

The Firth of Thames in the North Island of New Zealand is one of the most important wintering sites for Wrybills (Anarhynchus frontalis), second only to the Manukau Harbour. Together these two estuarine areas support approximately 85% of the entire Wrybill population between late summer and early spring each year. While the breeding biology and ecology on their braided river breeding grounds in the South Island have been well documented, the foraging ecology of Wrybills in their non‐breeding habitats has not been deeply studied. Wrybills possess a uniquely shaped bill considered to be an adaptation to their life on the South Island braided rivers during their breeding months. However, despite this they use their bill very effectively on the tidal flats of their winter habitats. In this thesis I studied the foraging ecology of Wrybills in the western Firth of Thames, with a focus on the factors affecting their low‐tide feeding distribution, and how diet and intake rates varied with foraging mode. The distribution of foraging Wrybills was correlated with a number of environmental variables (sediment type, sediment softness, water content, and polychaete abundance and biomass). Foraging Wrybills showed a preference for areas of tidal flat close to shore with soft sediment and high polychaete biomass. Wrybills exhibited different foraging modes that were used in areas with different environmental conditions. Birds fed (1) visually, walking slowly and obtaining most of their biomass intakes from large polychaete worms, (2) by tactile means, capturing mainly small worms or (3) a combination of the visual and tactile methods. Visual feeding tended to occur in drier, sandier sediments and tactile in wetter, muddier areas close to shore. Despite proportionately different intakes of large and small polychaete worms across the different foraging modes, the total biomass intake rates were similar. In addition to polychaete captures, tactile foragers in particular frequently took mouthfuls of sediment, an action which raised the possibility that they may be feeding on surficial biofilm. Stable isotope analysis of Wrybill faeces, blood and feathers revealed some evidence of biofilm feeding in Wrybills at the Firth of Thames