Reduction in livestock losses following placement of livestock guarding dogs and the impact of herd species and dog sex

Livestock guarding dogs have been placed on South African farms by the not-for-profit organisation, Cheetah Outreach Trust, since 2005, and have been proven to be an efficient form of non-lethal predator control against jackal, caracal, leopards, cheetahs and other predators found in South Africa. However, the impact that herd species (sheep, goat, cattle or mixed) or the sex of the dog may have on the observed reduction in livestock losses following placement of a livestock guarding dogs has not been investigated. To address this, the reduction in livestock losses following placement of an Anatolian livestock guarding dogs was measured in two South African provinces over a nine year period and data simultaneously collected on herd type and dog sex. Dogs comprised of 78 males and 49 females. Farms consisted of 68 sheep, 37 goats, 23 cattle, and two exotic game farms. Effectiveness was measured as the difference between farmer-reported livestock losses before and after the placement of a dog and was calculated as percentage change in stock loss after introduction of a livestock guarding dog according herd species and dog sex. This study determined the impact of herd type or dog sex on the difference between livestock loss before versus after livestock guarding dog s placement. This study indicates that the use of this breed of livestock guarding dog is an effective means of reducing perceived livestock losses due to predation, regardless of dog sex, and may be used with equal effectiveness with a range of herd species

eHealth and ethics: theory, teaching, and practice.

The use of information and communication technologies (ICT) is increasing rapidly in many spheres of contemporary life in Europe. The ethical use of ICT in all areas of its application is of growing importance. This is especially evident in the field of healthcare. The regional, national, and Europe-wide electronic aspects of health services and systems are related fundamentally to these two developments. This chapter explores the relevance of ethics to eHealth generally. It outlines two main contrasting ideas that have influenced ethical thought: Kantian ethics and consequentialism. It investigates the ways in which teaching and practice for ICT professionals and trainees can be enhanced and extended to increase the awareness of ethical issues in eHealth. It takes as examples two technological applications that are in increasing use in the eHealth field: electronic health records and radio frequency identification devices. The chapter ends with a brief discussion and conclusions about how this ethical awareness can be expanded beyond ICT professionals to other stakeholder groups, and to other eHealth technologies or applications

Applied ethics and eHealth: principles, identity, and RFID.

The social and ethical implications of contemporary technologies are becoming an issue of steadily growing importance. This paper offers an overview in terms of identity and the field of ethics, and explores how these apply to eHealth in both theory and practice. The paper selects a specific circumstance in which these ethical issues can be explored. It focuses particularly on radio-frequency identifiers (RFID). It ends by discussing ethical issues more generally, and the practice of ethical consideration

Pursuing perspectives on ambient intelligence.

This paper takes a broad perspective on ambient, intelligent technologies in the context of contemporary European society at the turn of the 21st century. The underlying ideas and expectations of ambient intelligence in a period when Europe focuses progressively on the various social, economic, and ethical challenges facing the Information Society are discussed. The use of information and communication technologies in different organizational and economic settings are explored, with an illustrative focus on eHealth. It is particularly argued that more space, effort and facilities need to be created for a public social and ethical debate among European‟s citizens with regard to information and communication technologies development

Quasi-uniformity of Minimal Weighted Energy Points on Compact Metric Spaces

For a closed subset $K$ of a compact metric space $A$ possessing an $\alpha$-regular measure $\mu$ with $\mu(K)>0$, we prove that whenever $s>\alpha$, any sequence of weighted minimal Riesz $s$-energy configurations $\omega_N=\{x_{i,N}^{(s)}\}_{i=1}^N$ on $K$ (for `nice' weights) is quasi-uniform in the sense that the ratios of its mesh norm to separation distance remain bounded as $N$ grows large. Furthermore, if $K$ is an $\alpha$-rectifiable compact subset of Euclidean space ($\alpha$ an integer) with positive and finite $\alpha$-dimensional Hausdorff measure, it is possible to generate such a quasi-uniform sequence of configurations that also has (as $N\to \infty$) a prescribed positive continuous limit distribution with respect to $\alpha$-dimensional Hausdorff measure. As a consequence of our energy related results for the unweighted case, we deduce that if $A$ is a compact $C^1$ manifold without boundary, then there exists a sequence of $N$-point best-packing configurations on $A$ whose mesh-separation ratios have limit superior (as $N\to \infty$) at most 2

The information society and its consequences: lessons from the past.

Without doubt the year 1976 was an important year for the discussion on Computers and Society. In that year Joseph Weizenbaum’s Computer Power and Human Reason was published and IFIP’s TC 9 on Computers and Society was founded. In this contribution we want to give a short overview of the history since then and answer the question “what lessons can be learned from the past twenty-five years?” Following a review of the vigorous debate on the development of computers in society that has taken place during that period, four main questions are raised: 1. Is the Information Society a new phenomenon or is it a question of emphasis? 2. Has the development led to a new revolution as never seen before, as many scientists and policy makers would have us believe? 3. What are, in a general sense, the consequences of this evolving information society? 4. Can information technology be controlled, and if so, what are the main instruments of control

Putting identifiers in the context of eHealth: introduction of a model.

eHealth is becoming an increasingly noteworthy domain in terms of public sector exploitation of information and communications technologies. Appro-priately identifying the users of electronic health systems is a major contem-porary challenge. The appropriate identification of eHealth systems’ and ser-vices’ users is one of its core areas of concern. This paper develops a particular problem statement that relates to the notion of identifiers in eHealth, outlines its conceptual background, and defines a set of solutions to the problem outlined. It lists a variety of use cases or examples against which the issues can be tested (these are further explored in a parallel paper [13]), and proposes some possibilities for future work. In particular, the paper de-scribes the results of a 2007 workshop that explored all of these notions. While the paper bases its orientations in a general European framework, the main examples and illustrations used by the authors come from experiences in the Netherlands

eHealth: legal, ethical and governance challenges: an overview.

eHealth is moving steadily towards greater deployment and implementation worldwide. Some of its greatest challenges lie in the three fields of law, ethics, and governance. This paper outlines a number of key issues due to be highlighted by contributors to a 2011 book. While the book focuses on the European scene, it is set in the international context

Coplanar back contacts for thin silicon solar cells

The type of coplanar back contact solar cell described was constructed with interdigitated n(+) and p(+) type regions on the back of the cell, such that both contacts are made on the back with no metallization grid on the front. This cell construction has several potential advantages over conventional cells for space use namely, convenience of interconnects, lower operating temperatures and higher efficiency due to the elimination of grid shadowing. However, the processing is more complex, and the cell is inherently more radiation sensitive. The latter problem can be reduced substantially by making the cells very thin (approximately 50 micrometers). Two types of interdigitated back contact cells are possible, the types being dependent on the character of the front surface. The front surface field cell has a front surface region that is of the same conductivity type as the bulk but is more heavily doped. This creates an electric field at the surface which repels the minority carriers. The tandem junction cell has a front surface region of a conductivity type that is opposite to that of the bulk. The junction thus created floats to open circuit voltage on illumination and injects carriers into the bulk which then can be collected at the rear junction. For space use, the front surface field cell is potentially more radiation resistant than the tandem junction cell because the flow of minority carriers (electrons) into the bulk will be less sensitive to the production of recombination centers, particularly in the space charge region at the front surface