The Big Pet Diabetes Survey: Perceived Frequency and Triggers for Euthanasia

Current pet diabetes mellitus (DM) treatment necessitates the active daily involvement of owners and can be costly. The current study aimed to investigate the owner population which opts for euthanasia instead of DM treatment. A survey was designed using multiple feedback steps and made available online to veterinarians world-wide. A total of 1192 veterinarians completed the survey and suggested a median one in 10 diabetic pets are euthanased at diagnosis; a further median one in 10 within one year because of lack of success or compliance. Perceived most important motivating factors included “presence concurrent disease” (45% respondents); “costs” (44%); “animal age” (37%); “problems obtaining adequate control” (35%); “pet welfare” (35%); and “impact owner’s lifestyle” (32%). Cats in Canadian (odds ratio (OR) 2.7), Australian (OR 2.3), rural (OR 1.6) and mixed (OR 1.7) practices were more likely to be euthanased because of DM diagnosis, while cats presented to referral/university were less likely to be euthanased (OR 0.6). Dogs were more likely to be euthanased because of DM in Canadian (OR 1.8), rural (OR 1.8) and mixed (OR 1.6) practices. The survey results suggest that benefit exists in improved DM education with emphasis on offering a choice of treatment styles ranging from intense and expensive to hands-off and cheap

Race and sex: teachers' views on who gets ahead in schools?

The research reported here was part of a large study of the impact of age, disability, race and sex on the teaching profession in England. The basic question asked in this research was how do these factors interact with career aspirations and achievements of classteachers, promoted teachers and headteachers? There were three different data sources: a large postal survey drawn from diverse geographic regions across England with over 2000 respondents; face‐to‐face individual interviews with over 100 teachers in 18 case study schools from across all of the main regions of England; discussions with special interest groups of teachers. Not surprisingly, the answer to the above question was complex. Nonetheless, the paper's conclusion highlights some of the noteworthy themes across this broad sample of teachers from primary, secondary and special schools

Towards a unified approach to formal risk of bias assessments for causal and descriptive inference

Statistics is sometimes described as the science of reasoning under uncertainty. Statistical models provide one view of this uncertainty, but what is frequently neglected is the invisible portion of uncertainty: that assumed not to exist once a model has been fitted to some data. Systematic errors, i.e. bias, in data relative to some model and inferential goal can seriously undermine research conclusions, and qualitative and quantitative techniques have been created across several disciplines to quantify and generally appraise such potential biases. Perhaps best known are so-called risk of bias assessment instruments used to investigate the likely quality of randomised controlled trials in medical research. However, the logic of assessing the risks caused by various types of systematic error to statistical arguments applies far more widely. This logic applies even when statistical adjustment strategies for potential biases are used, as these frequently make assumptions (e.g. data missing at random) that can never be guaranteed in finite samples. Mounting concern about such situations can be seen in the increasing calls for greater consideration of biases caused by nonprobability sampling in descriptive inference (i.e. survey sampling), and the statistical generalisability of in-sample causal effect estimates in causal inference; both of which relate to the consideration of model-based and wider uncertainty when presenting research conclusions from models. Given that model-based adjustments are never perfect, we argue that qualitative risk of bias reporting frameworks for both descriptive and causal inferential arguments should be further developed and made mandatory by journals and funders. It is only through clear statements of the limits to statistical arguments that consumers of research can fully judge their value for any specific application.Comment: 12 page

Recent trends in UK insects that inhabit early successional stages of ecosystems

Improved recording of less popular groups, combined with new statistical approaches that compensate for datasets that were hitherto too patchy for quantitative analysis, now make it possible to compare recent trends in the status of UK invertebrates other than butterflies. Using BRC datasets, we analysed changes in status between 1992 and 2012 for those invertebrates whose young stages exploit early seral stages within woodland, lowland heath and semi-natural grassland ecosystems, a habitat type that had declined during the 3 decades previous to 1990 alongside a disproportionally high number of Red Data Book species that were dependent on it. Two clear patterns emerged from a meta-analysis involving 299 classifiable species belonging to ten invertebrate taxa: (i) during the past 2 decades, most early seral species that are living near their northern climatic limits in the UK have increased relative to the more widespread members of these guilds whose distributions were not governed by a need for a warm micro-climate; and (ii) independent of climatic constraints, species that are restricted to the early stages of woodland regeneration have fared considerably less well than those breeding in the early seral stages of grasslands or, especially, heathland. The first trend is consistent with predicted benefits for northern edge-of-range species as a result of climate warming in recent decades. The second is consistent with our new assessment of the availability of early successional stages in these three ecosystems since c. 1990. Whereas the proportion and continuity of early seral patches has greatly increased within most semi-natural grasslands and lowland heaths, thanks respectively to agri-environmental schemes and conservation management, the representation of fresh clearings has continued to dwindle within UK woodlands, whose floors are increasingly shaded and ill-suited for this important guild of invertebrates

Understanding Schools and Schooling. (Book Review)

A review of a book written by Clive Chitty (2002 with a useful focus on issues of equity and social justice, including prejudice, discrimination and bullying in secondary schools. Education policy makers need to explore the extent to which it is important to produce interested, motivated and socially balanced young adults. It is well researched and documented

Morphological and geographical traits of the British Odonata

Trait data are fundamental for many aspects of ecological research, particularly for modeling species response to environmental change. We synthesised information from the literature (mainly field guides) and direct measurements from museum specimens, providing a comprehensive dataset of 26 attributes, covering the 43 resident species of Odonata in Britain. Traits included in this database range from morphological traits (e.g. body length) to attributes based on the distribution of the species (e.g. climatic restriction). We measured 11 morphometric traits from five adult males and five adult females per species. Using digital callipers, these measurements were taken from dry museum specimens, all of which were wild caught individuals. Repeated measures were also taken to estimate measurement error. The trait data are stored in an online repository (https://github.com/BiologicalRecordsCentre/Odonata_traits), alongside R code designed to give an overview of the morphometric data, and to combine the morphometric data to the single value per trait per species data

Environment and Rural Affairs Monitoring & Modelling Programme - ERAMMP Year 1 Report 22: A Review of the contribution of species records held by Local Environmental Record Centres in Wales to ERAMMP Evidence Needs

I. Better use of Local Environmental Record Centre (LERC) data in delivering biodiversity objectives is stated explicitly in the Nature Recovery Action Plan for Wales. Consistent with this aspiration we carried out two quantitative assessments of LERC data to determine the availability of species records at the resolution required for ERAMMP and WFG (Indicator 44) evidence needs; <=1km. II. A comparison of the availability of 1km square records for section 7 reptiles, amphibians and mammals between LERC and NBN Atlas showed that LERC data were more numerous in every case and sometimes markedly so (on average 17 times as many 1km square records in LERC data). For these species the NBN Atlas tends to have a greater number of records available at 10 rather than 1km square resolution. III. An assessment of the contribution of LERC 1km square records to national trends modelling demonstrated that substantial benefits in increased species coverage and precision of modelled trends are likely to arise by including additional LERC data alongside surveillance scheme data already used for trends modelling. By combining datasets the number of species that could be modelled increased by 267% on average across all the taxonomic groups previously modelled. IV. The design of the new Wales-only Indicator 44 “status of biological diversity” is currently under consultation. Our results show that species coverage for this indicator will benefit from combining multiple datasets with the current analytical state-of-the-art for trends modelling. While results are always dependent on sufficient data, there would seem to be scope for exploring how an ecologically more comprehensive Indicator 44 could be developed in partnership with Wales LERC and others. V. Our assessment also suggests that exploiting the more numerous 1km square records for section 7 species will increase the chances of detecting legacy and future effects of management scheme interventions for biodiversity and resilience objectives. A strategy for extracting the most biodiversity understanding for time spent would most likely involve applying state-of-the-art spatio-temporal modelling in collaboration with the Wales LERC and surveillance schemes. VI. A key benefit of working more closely with LERC is their ability to identify recording gaps and to mobilise new recording effort among the interested public as well as scholarly recording societies. This kind of reactive engagement activity could also contribute to efficient risk-based surveillance but with the proviso that voluntary effort typically exhibits strong spatial bias and variation in recording quality. VII. Further evidence needs driven by recent legislation and policy in Wales are likely to become clearer as indicators for SoNaRR, in particular the resilience objective of SMNR evolve in the near future

We need to talk about nonprobability samples

In most circumstances, probability sampling is the only way to ensure unbiased inference about population quantities where a complete census is not possible. As we enter the era of ‘big data’, however, nonprobability samples, whose sampling mechanisms are unknown, are undergoing a renaissance. We explain why the use of nonprobability samples can lead to spurious conclusions, and why seemingly large nonprobability samples can be (effectively) very small. We also review some recent controversies surrounding the use of nonprobability samples in biodiversity monitoring. These points notwithstanding, we argue that nonprobability samples can be useful, provided that their limitations are assessed, mitigated where possible and clearly communicated. Ecologists can learn much from other disciplines on each of these fronts

Science lives: School choices and ‘natural tendencies’

An analysis of 12 semi-structured interviews with university-based scientists and non-scientists illustrates their life journeys towards, or away from, science and the strengths and impact of life occurrences leading them to choose science or non-science professions. We have adopted narrative approaches and used Mezirow's transformative learning theory framework. The areas of discussion from the result have stressed on three main categories that include ‘smooth transition’, ‘incremental wavering transition' and ‘transformative transition’. The article concludes by discussing the key influences that shaped initial attitudes and direction in these people through natural inclination, environmental inspirations and perceptions of science