Populationen av frilevande och herrelösa hundar i Europa, bakgrund och lämpliga åtgärder

Dogs play an important role in many aspects of our society, they are used to keep us company and for practical reasons. The number of dogs in Europe is increasing and in 2019 it was estimated that it existed 87 510 000 dogs and that 24 % of all households in Europe owned a dog. It is not clear how many stray dogs that it exists in Europe but several countries report that the problem with stray dogs still exist and some countries are experiencing an increase in the stray dog population. Dogs can potentially spread virus and cause discomfort for people living in their vicinity. The dog is the underlying cause to of the deaths caused by rabies in 99 % of all cases in humans. The purpose of this study was to investigate the underlying factors for the existence increase of free-living and stray dogs in Europe and to look closer at what measures that can be taken to improve the situation with both long-term and short-term solutions in mind. Information was gathered through existing literature. The results indicate that there are several reasons behind the population increasing of stray dogs in Europe. The country’s economy and the lack of knowledge among the authorities about the problem are underlying reasons as well as the knowledge and economy of dog owners. There are several solutions to the problem, such as castration, education and promoting responsible ownership to mention some. Cultural differences and economy are two aspects that need to be taken in consideration when choosing an appropriate strategy

Characterisation and computational modelling of retinal stem cells in medaka (Oryzias latipes)

The central functional unit of the vertebrate eye is the retina, composed of neural retina (NR), retinal pigmented epithelium (RPE), and non-visual retina (NVR). In amphibians and fish, the retina grows throughout life via different pools of stem cells (SCs). In this work, I combined experimental and computational approaches to elucidate SC dynamics in the three retinal tissues of the teleost fish medaka (Oryzias latipes). I developed a cell centred agent based model to recapitulate post-embryonic growth of the NR and RPE. By accounting for 3D tissue geometry and continuous growth, the model reconciled conflicting hypotheses, demonstrating that competition between SCs is not mutually exclusive with lifelong coexistence of multiple SC lineages. To understand how NR and RPE regulate their proliferative output to coordinate growth rates, I developed quantitative methods to compare experiment and simulation. I tested the experimental data against simulations implementing two modes of feedback between cell proliferation and organ growth. Thus, I identified that the NR acts upstream to set the growth pace by sending an inductive growth signal, while the RPE responds downstream to this signal. Leveraging the model, I showed that NR SCs compete for niche space, but tissue geometry biases cells at certain positions to win this competition. Further, NR SCs modulate division axes and proliferation rate to change organ shape and retinal topology. Motivated by model predictions, I experimentally characterised the large SC population of the RPE, which consisted of both cycling and non-cycling quiescent cells. Putative sister cells exhibited similar temporal dynamics in local clusters, indicating that quiescence was the major mechanism for regulating proliferative output in the RPE. Finally, I experimentally showed that the NVR grows post-embryonically from a primordium, and shared all known markers for NR SCs in the same spatial distribution. Unlike NR and RPE, the NVR lacked a dedicated niche, instead proliferative cells were distributed throughout the tissue. Lineage tracing revealed a continuous relationship between RPE, NVR, and NR. Thus, the SCs of NR and RPE, and all cells of the NVR displayed plastic multipotency capable of generating all retinal tissues. By taking advantage of the positive feedback loop between experiment and simulation, this work shines a new light into a fundamental problem – growth coordination of different SC populations in a complex vertebrate organ

A retrospective study on students’ and teachers’ perceptions of the reflective ability clinical assessment

© 2016, American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy. All rights reserved. Objective. To evaluate student and teacher perceptions of the utility of the Reflective Ability Clinical Assessment (RACA) in an undergraduate pharmacy curriculum at an Australian university. Methods. A mixed-method study comprising the administration of a 7-item student survey on a 6-point Likert-type scale and a 45-minute focus group/phone interview with teachers. Results. Student (n=199) and teaching staff respondents (n=3) provided their perceptions of the implementation of the new educational tool. Student responses showed significant positive correlations between self-directed learning, counseling skills, relevance to future practice, and performance in an oral examination. Seven key themes emerged from the teacher interviews. Conclusion. The study revealed both students and teachers perceive the RACA as an effective educational tool that may enhance skill development for future clinical practice

Group size and social needs of cats and dogs : scientific support for regulations revision

The population of dogs and cats in Sweden is constantly increasing and this requires that the legislation is up to date to reinsure a high welfare standard for our pets. The Swedish board of agriculture is planning a revision of the regulation regarding dogs and cats. This review aims to provide scientific support for potential modifications in the legislation with a focus on group size, social needs and resource allocations for both dogs and cats. The results show that cats are comfortable living both in single- and group housing depending on their background and both species require a stable group composition. Although the social needs of cats are difficult to establish due to the lack of scientific investigations the results indicate that the needs can be provided by their owners. The dog is more dependent on having company, but dogs are also more influenced by their owners than by the company of another dog. Resource based needs are more distinct for cats who among other things require different levels to reside and individual sleeping spaces. There was little evidence of any similar needs among dogs and further research is needed to provide information of both resource requirements and the potential need to regulate exercise or activation needs of dogs. There was no evidence for a specific limitation in group sizes of either species and further research is needed to establish if a modification of the current limitations in the regulation is needed

Reflective practice and its implications for pharmacy education

Pharmacy students require critical-thinking and problem-solving skills to integrate theory learned in the classroom with the complexities of practice, yet many pharmacy students fall short of acquiring these skills.1-2 Reflective practice activities encourage learning from the student's own experiences and those of others, and offer a possible solution for the integration of knowledge-based curricula with the ambiguities of practice, as well as enhance communication and collaboration within a multidisciplinary team. Although reflective practices have been embraced elsewhere in health professions education, their strengths and shortcomings need to be considered when implementing such practices into pharmacy curricula. This review provides an overview of the evolution of theories related to reflective practice, critically examines the use of reflective tools (such as portfolios and blogs), and discusses the implications of implementing reflective practices in pharmacy education

Extracting and Re-rendering Structured Auditory Scenes from Field Recordings

International audienceWe present an approach to automatically extract and re-render a structured auditory scene from field recordings obtained with a small set of microphones, freely positioned in the environment. From the recordings and the calibrated position of the microphones, the 3D location of various auditory events can be estimated together with their corresponding content. This structured description is reproduction-setup independent. We propose solutions to classify foreground, well-localized sounds and more diffuse background ambiance and adapt our rendering strategy accordingly. Warping the original recordings during playback allows for simulating smooth changes in the listening point or position of sources. Comparisons to reference binaural and B-format recordings show that our approach achieves good spatial rendering while remaining independent of the reproduction setup and offering extended authoring capabilities

Fast Modal Sounds with Scalable Frequency-Domain Synthesis

International audienceAudio rendering of impact sounds, such as those caused by falling objects or explosion debris, adds realism to interactive 3D audiovisual applications, and can be convincingly achieved using modal sound synthesis. Unfortunately, mode-based computations can become prohibitively expensive when many objects, each with many modes, are impacted simultaneously. We introduce a fast sound synthesis approach, based on short-time Fourier Tranforms, that exploits the inherent sparsity of modal sounds in the frequency domain. For our test scenes, this "fast mode summation" can give speedups of 5-8 times compared to a time-domain solution, with slight degradation in quality. We discuss different reconstruction windows, affecting the quality of impact sound "attacks". Our Fourier-domain processing method allows us to introduce a scalable, real-time, audio processing pipeline for both recorded and modal sounds, with auditory masking and sound source clustering. To avoid abrupt computation peaks, such as during the simultaneous impacts of an explosion, we use crossmodal perception results on audiovisual synchrony to effect temporal scheduling. We also conducted a pilot perceptual user evaluation of our method. Our implementation results show that we can treat complex audiovisual scenes in real time with high quality

Efficient 3D Audio Processing on the GPU

International audienceAudio processing applications are among the most computeintensive and often rely on additional DSP resources for realtime performance. However, programmable audio DSPs are in general only available to product developers. Professional audio boards with multiple DSPs usually support specific effects and products while consumer "game-audio" hardware still only implements fixed-function pipelines which evolve at a rather slow pace. The widespread availability and increasing processing power of GPUs could offer an alternative solution. GPU features, like multiply-accumulate instructions or multiple execution units, are similar to those of most DSPs [3]. Besides, 3D audio rendering applications require a significant number of geometric calculations, which are a perfect fit for the GPU. Our feasibility study investigates the use of GPUs for efficient audio processing

ECHO & NarSYS - An accoustic modeler and sound renderer

International audienceComputer graphics simulations are now widely used in the field of environmental modelling, for example to evaluate the visual impact of an architectural project on its environment and interactively change its design. Realistic sound simulation is equally important for environmental modelling. At iMAGIS, a joint project of INRIA, CNRS, Joseph Fourier University and the Institut National Polytechnique of Grenoble, we are currently developing an integrated interactive acoustic modelling and sound rendering system for virtual environments. The aim of the system is to provide an interactive simulation of global sound propagation in a given environment and an integrated sound/computer graphics rendering to obtain computer simulated movies of the environment with realistic and coherent soundtracks