Arbeitszeitbedarf für die Bewirtschaftung von Milchviehausläufen

As existing figures on working-time requirements for outdoor runs in cattle husbandry are often out of date or insufficiently detailed for individual use and in particular as few reliable work-economics data are available for ecological forms of farming, figures on working-time requirements and influencing variables for dung removal and spreading of litter in outdoor runs in cattle and pig farming were recorded as a subproject within the framework of the KTBL-KU 2005 project. This report presents the results for dairy cattle husbandry. The calculations are based on an outdoor run area of 6 m2 per cow. Each outdoor run cleaning operation takes between 0.1 and 1.3 MPmin per cow, depending on the method used and the herd size. If the run is spread with litter, these tasks take between 0.1 and 0.7 MPmin per operation per cow. The working time requirement for outdoor run maintenance breaks down into the sub-tasks of cleaning, spreading of litter (if carried out) and, depending on the method, inspection (scraper). Major savings can be expected from process and organisational optimisation

Arbeitszeitbedarf in der ökologischen Schweinehaltung – ein Vergleich von zwei Stallsystemen

Up-to-date information on the working-time requirement in pig husbandry and in ecological pig husbandry in particular which reflects the changed basic conditions in agricultural practice is extremely rare in the literature. In the Agroscope Reckenholz- Tänikon ART project Working-Time Requirement in Pig Husbandry according to the EU Eco-Regulation carried out within the framework of the “Calculation Documents” work programme of the Association for Technology and Structures in Agriculture (KTBL), current key figures were provided. Housing systems and work processes used in pig husbandry vary substantially. For this reason, two examples commonly used in practice are compared in this article: outdoor climate housing with two-space pens, and a Pig Port 3. Dung removal and litter spreading in the pen and run of the two-space pens is performed with the aid of a mobile unit, whilst manual processes are used in some cases in the Pig Port 3. Feeding is automatic, and roughage is made available in the outdoor run. For a livestock population of 520 fattening places in the two-space pens and 500 fattening places in the Pig Port, an annual working-time requirement of 2.6 and 2.8 MPh per fattening place, respectively, is to be reckoned on

Dihydropyrimidine dehydrogenase testing prior to treatment with 5-Fluorouracil, Capecitabine, and Tegafur

$\bf Background:$ 5-Fluorouracil (FU) is one of the most commonly used cytostatic drugs in the systemic treatment of cancer. Treatment with FU may cause severe or life-threatening side effects and the treatment-related mortality rate is 0.2–1.0%. $\bf Summary:$ Among other risk factors associated with increased toxicity, a genetic deficiency in dihydropyrimidine dehydrogenase (DPD), an enzyme responsible for the metabolism of FU, is well known. This is due to variants in the DPD gene (DPYD). Up to 9% of European patients carry a DPD gene variant that decreases enzyme activity, and DPD is completely lacking in approximately 0.5% of patients. Here we describe the clinical and genetic background and summarize recommendations for the genetic testing and tailoring of treatment with 5-FU derivatives. The statement was developed as a consensus statement organized by the German Society for Hematology and Medical Oncology in cooperation with 13 medical associations from Austria, Germany, and Switzerland. $\bf Key Messages:$ (i) Patients should be tested for the 4 most common genetic DPYD variants before treatment with drugs containing FU. (ii) Testing forms the basis for a differentiated, risk-adapted algorithm with recommendations for treatment with FU-containing drugs. (iii) Testing may optionally be supplemented by therapeutic drug monitoring

Evidence for a causal-mechanistic role for positive appraisal style in stress resilience

Stress resilience is the maintenance of mental health despite adversity. We have predicted that a tendency to appraise stressors in a realistic to slightly unrealistically positive fashion (positive appraisal style, PAS) is prospectively associated with more resilient outcomes; that PAS is a proximal and integrative resilience factor, mediating the pro-resilience effects of other protective factors (e.g., social support); and that PAS is modifiable, with changes in PAS leading to corresponding changes in resilience. In two independent observational samples (N=132 and N=1034), we find PAS to predict resilience over three and more years and to mediate the positive effects of social support. Analyzing the effects of a multi-component intervention (N=232) that targets a broad set of resilience factors, we find that the intervention increases PAS and that this prospectively mediates the intervention-induced increases in resilience. This establishes PAS as a proximal and plastic resilience factor with likely causal effects on resilience

Comparative investigation of appraisal style measures in their predictive potential for stress resilience and implications for predictive modeling of resilience

Appraisal refers to the evaluation of stimuli or situations with respect to an individual’s goals and needs. Stimuli or situations that are appraised as a threat to one’ goals and needs (‘stressors’) induce stress responses (‘stress’). Stressor appraisal occurs on various dimensions, of which the magnitude or cost of a potential adverse outcome, the probability of the outcome, and an individual’s coping potential are the most important. Individuals show subjective biases on each of these dimensions, which can range from extremely unrealistically negative to extremely unrealistically positive. Positive appraisal style (PAS) is an integrative construct. Individuals with a PAS have an average tendency to appraise stressors in a realistic to mildly unrealistically positive fashion across the different stressor appraisal dimensions; hence, they typically avoid both negative and also delusionally positive appraisals. Positive appraisal style theory of resilience (PASTOR) posits that this global bias is key for stress resilience, as it enables individuals to generate stress responses when needed but also to avoid unnecessary and over-shooting stress responses that will exhaust one’s resources and prevent resource replenishment during times of severe or lasting stressor exposure. We here use data from three prospective-longitudinal studies to compare recently validated self-report instruments for PAS with existing measures of appraisal biases in single dimensions in their relative predictive potential for resilience, using regularized regression methodology. We find that one PAS instrument, reflecting a tendency to produce general positive appraisal contents (PASS-content), and an optimism instrument, supposed to reflect a positive appraisal bias on the probability dimension, are consistent predictors of resilience over long time frames and superior in this quality to the other instruments (measures of positive appraisal processes, self-efficacy, and control). Generally, our results confirm the important role of appraisal biases in resilience. Item and nomological network analyses further indicate that the PASS-content instrument may more closely reflect individual differences in appraisal than the optimism instrument and thus be well suited for mechanistically interpretable prediction models based on well-defined psychological constructs. By contrast, the optimism instrument may reflect differences in life perspectives in addition to differences in appraisal. This makes the instrument less mechanistically interpretable; however, it may be better suited for clinical prediction models aiming at individual-level prognosis on the basis of maximized explained variance