Meat liking, animal welfare and consumer willingness to pay

Three products (beef, lamb and chicken) were used to assess the effect of information about animal welfare on meat liking. Each experiment was planned in three tests. In the first test the consumers were offered the product, and asked to taste it and rate their liking receiving no information (perceived liking). In the second test the subjects received the information concerning farming conditions and their effects on animal welfare. They were asked to read the information and give their liking expectation for that product (expected liking). In the third test consumers were given the product along with the information sheet. They were instructed to read the information before tasting the sample and express their liking score (actual liking). Consumers rated the products on a nine-point hedonic scale. Only for beef, a second-price sealed-bid auction was used to assess consumer willingness to pay (WTP) according to the level of welfare of the animals used in the production process. Results from the three experiments showed that expectations induced by the information on animal welfare affected quality perception. Thus, if expectations were negatively disconfirmed (the product was worse than expected), the assimilation model was generally applicable, which means that hedonic ratings moved towards the expectations when external information on animal welfare was given compared to tasting without information. In addition, consumers showed a WTP for beef paired with information higher than its actual commercial value (P<0.001). In conclusion, information about animal welfare can be a major determinant of animal-based food liking and consumer WTP

Effects of Chickpea in Substitution of Soybean Meal on Milk Production, Blood Profile and Reproductive Response of Primiparous Buffaloes in Early Lactation

This study aimed to evaluate the effects of the use of chickpea meal in substitution of soybean meal on plasma metabolites, reproductive response, milk yield and composition and milk coagulation traits of primiparous buffaloes in early lactation. Eighteen primiparous buffaloes were blocked by age, body weight and days in milk and equally allotted to two experimental groups from 10 to 100 days of lactation. The experimental diets consisted of the same forage integrated with two different isonitrogenous and isoenergetic concentrates containing either 210 g/kg of soybean meal or 371 g/kg chickpea. The use of chickpea meal had no negative effects on dry matter intake (p = 0.69), body condition score (p = 0.33) and milk yield (p = 0.15). Neither milk composition nor blood metabolites were influenced by dietary treatments (p > 0.05), but an increment of urea concentrations in milk (p 0.05) of the dietary treatment was highlighted on milk coagulation traits as well as buffalo reproductive responses. We concluded that soybean meal can be replaced by chickpea meal in the diet for primiparous dairy buffaloes in the early lactation period without impairing their productive and reproductive performance

Rainfall stochastic modeling for runoff forecasting

Rainfall fields estimation over a catchment area is an important stage in many hydrological application. In this context weather radars have several advantages since a single site is able to obtain coverage over a vast area with very high temporal and spatial resolution and the advent of weather radar systems with dual polarization capability allowed progress on radar rainfall estimation and its hydro-meteorological applications. For these applications of radar data it was necessary to remove the ground clutter contamination with an algorithm based on the backscattering signal variance of the differential reflectivity. The calibration of the GDSTM model (Gaussian Displacements Spatial-Temporal Model), a cluster stochastic generation model in continuous space and time, is presented. In this model storms arrive in a Poisson process in time with cells occurring in each storm that cluster in space and time. The model is calibrated, using data collected by the weather radar Polar 55C located in Rome, inside a square area of 132x132 km2, with the radar at the center. The GDSTM is fitted to sequences of radar images with a time interval between the PPIs scans of 5 minutes. A generalized method of moments procedure is used for parameters estimation. For the validation of the ability of the model to reproduce the internal structure of rain event a geomorphological rainfall-runoff model based on width function (WFIUH) was calibrated using data simulated and observed data. Several rainfall fields are generated with the stochastic model and then they are used as input of the WFIUH model so that the forecasted discharges can be compared to the observed ones

Activity Budgets and Forage Selection of Podolian Cattle, a Semiwild Bovine Breed

This study aimed to describe the behaviour of Podolian breed, a semiwild cattle breed kept in a natural environment (as either a small group of young bulls or cows within a family herd), and the interaction of these animals with the environment in terms of ingestion from natural pastures. Diurnal grazing behavioural pattern was monitored through continuous focal animal recording method. The activity budget of free-ranging animals was characterized by high locomotor and feeding activities. They exhibited a high degree of adaptability to the local phytocoenosis with high levels of ferns' and tree foliage intakes performed by cows and the selection of a diet more nutritious than pasture performed by young bulls. These results along with the low levels of agonistic interactions recorded in the two experiments suggest that extensive systems based on grazing allow social stability and provide a natural environment for the expression of cattle species-specific behaviour

Positive indicators of cattle welfare and their applicability to on-farm protocols

Most of the research on animal welfare has focused on the negative aspects of the matter including an array of stress categories, whereas little has been done about the positive states of well being. The present study aims to describe indicators of positive animal welfare suitable for on-farm assessment. Appropriate environmental stimulation favours good welfare and, in an adequately enriched environment, positive indicators of welfare such as play behaviour tend to be more common. In addition, animals are motivated to perform these behaviours only if their primary needs are satisfied. In cattle, beneficial effects of social licking have been observed with positive correlation between being licked vs. milk production and weight gain, respectively. Ruminants are gregarious and a high degree of synchronisation within the herd may indicate a positive welfare state, in particular for subordinate animals. They may be able to meet their basic feeding and resting requirements performing these behaviours when the competition for a particular resource is low, however their welfare state would be improved if they could choose when and where (i.e. along with the other members of the group) to perform such behaviours. Due to the reduced applicability (mainly young animals), low feasibility (time consuming) and lack of research on reliability, play behaviour, albeit of proven validity, does not appear to be suitable for a rapid implementation in a welfare assessment scheme. Social licking is rarely expressed and its detection may be time consuming and scarcely feasible. Although validity and reliability need more studies, behaviour synchrony seems to be a promising positive welfare indicator as the instantaneous scan sampling technique makes this indicator easily applicable. Recently, a new methodology called "qualitative assessment of animal behaviour" has been developed. The method relies on a number of terms which are freely generated by observers. Thus, when positive aspects are observed they can be rated on a quantitative scale. Because of its high inter- and intra-observer reliability, this method appears to be the most promising

Qualitative behaviour assessment of dairy buffaloes (Bubalus bubalis)

This study applies qualitative behaviour assessment (QBA) for the first time to dairy buffaloes, using three groups of observers with different cultural backgrounds and different levels of experience in animal behaviour observation and buffalo farming. Eight buffalo heifers aged 16–18 months were subjected to two isolation tests, one performed in the indoor part of their home environment, and one in a novel outdoor paddock. Animals were filmed individually for 2.5 min, and the resulting 16 video clips were shown to three observer panels, consisting of 11 applied animal behaviour scientists from 6 European countries, 11 Italian animal scientists with a background in buffalo farming but no experience in behavioural observation, and 14 Italian undergraduate animal science students with no particular experience. A free choice profiling method was used to instruct observers in QBA, and data for the three panels were analysed separately using Generalised Procrustes Analysis. All three panels showed significant inter-observer agreement (p < 0.001) and generated two main consensus dimensions characterised as ‘calm-agitated’ and ‘curious-shy’. There were significant correlations between buffalo scores provided by each of the three observer panels on both these dimensions (dim1: Kendall W = 0.96, n = 3, 2 = 43.28, p < 0.001; dim2: W = 0.68, n = 3, 2 = 30.73, p < 0.01). Buffaloes viewed in the familiar indoor pen were assessed by all three panels as more calm and less agitated (dimension 1) than animals viewed in the novel outdoor pen (Wilcoxon z = −2.52, p < 0.01, z = −2.52, p < 0.01, z = −2.38, p < 0.01 for Panels 1, 2, and 3, respectively). Scores on dimension 1 for the same animals viewed in either indoor or outdoor pen were correlated at r = 0.60 (p < 0.10), 0.74 (p < 0.05) and 0.71 (p < 0.05) for Panels 1, 2, and 3, respectively. Quantitatively, buffalo in the outdoor pen displayed longer bouts of running and higher frequencies of sniffing (both p < 0.05) than those in the indoor pen. Principal component analysis showed meaningful associations between qualitative and quantitative assessments, allowing qualitative dimensions to play a valuable role in interpreting the animals’ state. The main outcomes of this study are that QBA can be usefully applied to scientific studies of dairy buffalo, and that substantial differences in observer background do not appear to diminish the reliability of QBA

Patient-physician relationship in patients with psoriasis

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Evaluating North Sea Water Level Monitoring Network Considering Uncertain Information Theory Quantities

Information-theory provides, among others, conceptual methods to quantify the amount of information contained in a random variable, as well as methods to quantify the amount of information contained and shared among two or more variables. Although these concepts have been successfully applied in Hydrology and other fields, the valuation of these quantities is sensible to different parameters used to estimate the probabilities that underline the entropy concept. Typical examples are the bin size of histograms used to compute probabilities and the Kendall correlation coefficient used to estimate copula entropy. The selection of these parameters has subsequent effects on other Information Theory quantities such as Joint Entropy and Total Correlation, which are commonly used in optimization procedures for monitoring networks. The present research aims at introducing a method to take into consideration the uncertainty coming from these parameters in the evaluation of the North Sea’s water level network. The main idea is to represent entropy of random variables through their probability distribution, instead of considering entropy as a deterministic value. The method considers solving multiple scenarios of Multi-Objective Optimization in which, for a given set of stations, information content (Joint Entropy) is maximized and redundancy (Total Correlation) is minimized. These scenarios are generated with parameter sampling methods such as the Latin Hypercube. Results include probabilistic analysis of the chosen parameters on the resulting family of Pareto fronts, providing additional criteria on the selection of the final set of monitoring points and the elimination of redundant/non-informative points. Data used was the raw data available from the Dutch Ministry of Infrastructure and Environment. The resulting water level monitoring network will be compared to the one obtained by other methods that will be described in a report currently under preparation, which will be publicly available soon in the Deltares websit

Effects of gentling on behavior and meat quality of lambs

Within few hours after parturition lambs develop a strong and selective relationship with their mothers (Poindron and Le Neindre, 1980). In order to increase the amount of milk available for transformation, lambs often are prematurely separated from the ewes, thus inducing an early disruption of the mother-young relationship. A number of authors demonstrated that the lack of the maternal bond can inhibit the welfare state of the lambs (Sevi et al., 2001) and reduced animal welfare can have detrimental effects on meat quality in many animals species (Gregory, 1998) as well as in sheep (Napolitano et al., 2002a). A possible recover from conditions of poor animal welfare may be attained through the administration of gentle contacts by humans (Boivin et al., 2000) which may supply an additional social bond with members of a different animal species. The present study aims to verify the effect of artificial rearing on lamb welfare and meat quality, and assess the possibility to increase both by means of gentling

AMICO galaxy clusters in KiDS-DR3: weak-lensing mass calibration

We present the mass calibration for galaxy clusters detected with the AMICO code in KiDS DR3 data. The cluster sample comprises $\sim$ 7000 objects and covers the redshift range 0.1 < $z$ < 0.6. We perform a weak lensing stacked analysis by binning the clusters according to redshift and two different mass proxies provided by AMICO, namely the amplitude $A$ (measure of galaxy abundance through an optimal filter) and the richness $\lambda^*$ (sum of membership probabilities in a consistent radial and magnitude range across redshift). For each bin, we model the data as a truncated NFW profile plus a 2-halo term, taking into account uncertainties related to concentration and miscentring. From the retrieved estimates of the mean halo masses, we construct the $A$-$M_{200}$ and the $\lambda^*$-$M_{200}$ relations. The relations extend over more than one order of magnitude in mass, down to $M_{200} \sim 2 (5) \times 10^{13} M_\odot/h$ at $z$ = 0.2 (0.5), with small evolution in redshift. The logarithmic slope is $\sim 2.0$ for the $A$-mass relation, and $\sim 1.7$ for the $\lambda^*$-mass relation, consistent with previous estimations on mock catalogues and coherent with the different nature of the two observables.Comment: 19 pages, 16 figures, accepted by MNRA