Animal Health Planning and Animal Health Plans - Concepts, principles and practicalities

In the United Kingdom it is mandatory for organic livestock farms to have an animal health plan as a document providing evidence of active management of disease and building positive health (Anon 2006). Many organisations, both organic and non organic, (e.g. BCVA, Defra Compendium of UK Organic Standards, Soil Association, RSPCA Freedom Food, NDFAS, FAWL) develop, describe and use animal health planning as a part of their strategy (see Box 1). Currently, it is the presence of a regularly updated health plan document that serves as evidence that this is in place. The benefits of health plans, including animal welfare improvement, financial gain and increased farm efficacy have all been highlighted in various publications (Sibley 2000, Gray & Hovi 2001, Dobbs 2005, Lovatt 2004). It has frequently been suggested that, through good stockmanship and appropriate use of veterinary medicinal products, health planning can improve the smooth running of a farm. An animal health plan should be an active tool for animal health and welfare planning. However, as organic certification and several farm assurance schemes require a health plan there is a danger that they become seen as something to be policed when in fact they should being used as a forum for advice. In order to fulfil this challenge a health plan must therefore be farm specific and relate to farm specific issues

An Iris-Like Mechanism of Pore Dilation in the CorA Magnesium Transport System

AbstractMagnesium translocation across cell membranes is essential for numerous physiological processes. Three recently reported crystal structures of the CorA magnesium transport system revealed a surprising architecture, with a bundle of giant α-helices forming a 60-Å-long pore that extends beyond the membrane before widening into a funnel-shaped cytosolic domain. The presence of divalent cations in putative intracellular regulation sites suggests that these structures correspond to the closed conformation of CorA. To examine the nature of the conduction pathway, we performed 110-ns molecular-dynamics simulations of two of these structures in a lipid bilayer with and without regulatory ions. The results show that a 15-Å-long hydrophobic constriction straddling the membrane-cytosol interface constitutes a steric bottleneck whose location coincides with an electrostatic barrier opposing cation translocation. In one of the simulations, structural relaxation after the removal of regulatory ions led to concerted changes in the tilt of the pore helices, resulting in iris-like dilation and spontaneous hydration of the hydrophobic neck. This simple and robust mechanism is consistent with the regulation of pore opening by intracellular magnesium concentration, and explains the unusual architecture of CorA

Older people’s experiences of mobility and mood in an urban environment : A mixed methods approach using electroencephalography (EEG) and interviews

There are concerns about mental wellbeing in later life in older people as the global population becomes older and more urbanised. Mobility in the built environment has a role to play in improving quality of life and wellbeing, as it facilitates independence and social interaction. Recent studies using neuroimaging methods in environmental psychology research have shown that different types of urban environments may be associated with distinctive patterns of brain activity, suggesting that we interact differently with varying environments. This paper reports on research that explores older people’s responses to urban places and their mobility in and around the built environment. The project aim was to understand how older people experience different urban environments using a mixed methods approach including electroencephalography (EEG), self-reported measures, and interview results. We found that older participants experience changing levels of “excitement”, “engagement” and “frustration” (as interpreted by proprietary EEG software) whilst walking between a busy built urban environment and an urban green space environment. These changes were further reflected in the qualitative themes that emerged from transcribed interviews undertaken one week post-walk. There has been no research to date that has directly assessed neural responses to an urban environment combined with qualitative interview analysis. A synergy of methods offers a deeper understanding of the changing moods of older people across time whilst walking in city settings

Mechanistic insights into allosteric regulation of the A2A adenosine G protein-coupled receptor by physiological cations.

Cations play key roles in regulating G-protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs), although their mechanisms are poorly understood. Here, 19F NMR is used to delineate the effects of cations on functional states of the adenosine A2A GPCR. While Na+ reinforces an inactive ensemble and a partial-agonist stabilized state, Ca2+ and Mg2+ shift the equilibrium toward active states. Positive allosteric effects of divalent cations are more pronounced with agonist and a G-protein-derived peptide. In cell membranes, divalent cations enhance both the affinity and fraction of the high affinity agonist-bound state. Molecular dynamics simulations suggest high concentrations of divalent cations bridge specific extracellular acidic residues, bringing TM5 and TM6 together at the extracellular surface and allosterically driving open the G-protein-binding cleft as shown by rigidity-transmission allostery theory. An understanding of cation allostery should enable the design of allosteric agents and enhance our understanding of GPCR regulation in the cellular milieu

Searching for transit timing variations in transiting exoplanet systems

Searching for transit timing variations in the known transiting exoplanet systems can reveal the presence of other bodies in the system. Here we report such searches for two transiting exoplanet systems, TrES-1 and WASP-2. Their new transits were observed with the 4.2m William Herschel Telescope located on La Palma, Spain. In a continuing programme, three consecutive transits were observed for TrES-1, and one for WASP-2 during September 2007. We used the Markov Chain Monte Carlo simulations to derive transit times and their uncertainties. The resulting transit times are consistent with the most recent ephemerides and no conclusive proof of additional bodies in either system was found.Comment: To appear in the Proceedings of the 253rd IAU Symposium: "Transiting Planets", May 2008, Cambridge, MA. 4 pages, 3 figures, 1 tabl

Planning for better animal health and welfare, Report from the 1st ANIPLAN project workshop, Hellevad, October 2007

’Minimising medicine use in organic dairy herds through animal health and welfare planning’, ANIPLAN, is a CORE-Organic project which was initiated in June 2007. The main aim of the project is to investigate active and well planned animal health and welfare promotion and disease prevention as a means of minimising medicine use in organic dairy herds. This aim will be met through the development of animal health and welfare planning principles for organic dairy farms under diverse conditions based on an evaluation of current experiences. This also includes application of animal health and welfare assessment across Europe. In order to bring this into practice the project also aims at developing guidelines for communication about animal health and welfare promotion in different settings, for example, as part of existing animal health advisory services or farmer groups such as the Danish Stable School system and the Dutch network programme. The project is divided into the following five work packages, four of which comprise research activities with the other focused on coordination and knowledge transfer, through meetings, workshops and publications. These proceedings represent our first results in terms of presented papers and discussions at our first project workshop in Hellevad Vandmølle as well as a review of Animal Health Planning in UK. The content of the workshop proceedings reflect the aim and starting points of all work packages, both in terms of analyses prior to the workshop, and developments during the workshop emanating from group work. Besides a general introduction to the project and the ideas of the project, Christoph Winckler provides an overview of the use of animal based parameters based on the results of the WelfareQuality project. Christopher Atkinson and Madeleine Neale presented concepts, principles and the practicalities of Animal Health Planning and Animal Health Plans based on UK experiences. Pip Nicholas from The University of Wales, Aberystwyth produced a report reviewing the current use of animal health and welfare planning. The entire document is included in these workshop proceedings. This was supplemented through presentations from all countries regarding animal health and welfare planning processes and research. These are summarised together with the concepts developed through dialogue at the workshop in the paper by Nicholas, Vaarst and Roderick. Finally, the Danish Stable School principles were presented by Mette Vaarst followed by discussion on different approaches of communication in farmer groups and at the individual level between farmers and advisors. One important outcome from this workshop is a set of preliminary principles for a good health planning process. We concluded through group discussions followed by a plenary session that a health planning process should aim at continuous development and improvement, and should incorporate health promotion and disease handling, based on a strategy where the current situation is evaluated and form basis for action, which is then reviewed in a new evaluation. It is important that any health plan is farm specific and based on farmer ownership, although an external person(s) should be involved, as well as external knowledge. The organic principles should form the framework for any action (meaning that a systems approach is needed), and the plan should be written. The good and positive aspects on each farm – things that other farmers potentially can learn from. The work and studies in dairy farms within the project will be based on these principles and comprise evaluation and review using animal based parameters as well as finding ways of communication with farmers about animal health and welfare

The case for Zero Trust Digital Forensics

It is imperative for all stakeholders that digital forensics investigations produce reliable results to ensure the field delivers a positive contribution to the pursuit of justice across the globe. Some aspects of these investigations are inevitably contingent on trust, however this is not always explicitly considered or critically evaluated. Erroneously treating features of the investigation as trusted can be enormously damaging to the overall reliability of an investigation's findings as well as the confidence that external stakeholders can have in it. As an example, digital crime scenes can be manipulated by tampering with the digital artefacts left on devices, yet recent studies have shown that efforts to detect occurrences of this are rare and argue that this leaves digital forensics investigations vulnerable to accusations of inaccuracy. In this paper a new approach to digital forensics is considered based on the concept of Zero Trust, an increasingly popular design in network security. Zero Trust describes the practitioner mindset and principles upon which the reliance on trust in network components is eliminated in favour of dynamic verification of network interactions. An initial Definition of Zero Trust Digital Forensics will be proposed and then a specific example considered showing how this strategy can be applied to digital forensic investigations to mitigate against the specific risk of evidence tampering. A definition of Zero Trust Digital Forensics is proposed, specifically that it is ‘a strategy adopted by investigators whereby each aspect of an investigation is assumed to be unreliable until verified’. A new principle will be introduced, namely the ‘multifaceted verification of digital artefacts’ that can be used by practitioners who wish to adopt a Zero Trust Digital Forensics strategy during their investigations. A qualitative review of existing artefact verification techniques is also conducted in order to briefly evaluate the viability of this approach based on current research efforts

Assessing Inequalities in Wellbeing at a Neighbourhood Scale in Low-Middle-Income-Country Secondary Cities and Their Implications for Long-Term Livability

Correction: FEB 15 2022 DOI10.3389/fsoc.2022.856609To ensure future sustainability, cities need to consider concepts of livability and resident wellbeing alongside environmental, economic and infrastructure development equity. The current rapid urbanization experienced in many regions is leading to sustainability challenges, but also offers the opportunity to deliver infrastructure supporting the social aspects of cities and the services that underpin them alongside economic growth. Unfortunately, evidence of what is needed to deliver urban wellbeing is largely absent from the global south. This paper contributes to filling this knowledge gap through a novel interdisciplinary mixed methods study undertaken in two rapidly changing cities (one Thai and one Kenyan) using qualitative surveys, subjective wellbeing and stress measurements, and spatial analysis of urban infrastructure distribution. We find the absence of basic infrastructure (including waste removal, water availability and quality) unsurprisingly causes significant stress for city residents. However, once these services are in place, smaller variations (inequalities) in social (crime, tenure) and environmental (noise, air quality) conditions begin to play a greater role in determining differences in subjective wellbeing across a city. Our results indicate that spending time in urban greenspaces can mitigate the stressful impacts of city living even for residents of informal neighborhoods. Our data also highlights the importance of places that enable social interactions supporting wellbeing-whether green or built. These results demonstrate the need for diversity and equity in the provision of public realm spaces to ensure social and spatial justice. These findings strengthen the need to promote long term livability in LMIC urban planning alongside economic growth, environmental sustainability, and resilience.Peer reviewe