Health advantages of transition to batch management system in farrow-to-finish pig herds

Sow batch management systems have become more popular due to advantages in labour planning, piglet batch sizes, all-in all-out practices and health management. The present study investigated the potential health advantages of 10 selected farrow-to-finish pig herds before and after transition from a one week batch management system to a four or five week batch management system. Five different animal categories (gilts, sows, piglets, growers and finishers) were sampled at three time points (T0, T1 and T2) before and after transition to a four or five week batch management system. Different matrices of the animals were collected: blood, nasal swabs and faeces. Several economically important diseases were monitored through serology: Lawsonia intracellularis, Porcine Reproductive and Respiratory Syndrome virus (PRRSv), Mycoplasma hyopneumoniae, Actinobacillus pleuropneurnoniae; and PCR-testing: Pasteurella multocida dermonecrotic toxin (DNT) and Brachyspira species, especially the major pathogenic Brachyspira hyodysenteriae. Following serological analysis, the percentage of positive animals per category and sampling occasion were calculated. Health improvement based on serology was defined as the reduction in the percentage of positive animals for a specific disease in a specified animal category. All samples were negative for P. multocida DNT and B. hyodysenteriae. Little to no improvement could be observed for PRRSv. For L. intracellularis an improvement could be observed in piglets (71%) and growers (56%; P < 0.05). For both of the respiratory pathogens, M. hyopneumoniae and A. pleuropneumoniae, significant improvement was observed in finishers (34 and 24%, respectively). In growers, only M. hyopneumoniae showed a significant improvement (34%). In conclusion, the transition from a one week batch management system to a four or five week batch management system in the present herds resulted in a reduction of the percentage of seropositive animals for three of the monitored economically important diseases: L. intracellularis, M. hyopneumoniae and A. pleuropneumoniae

Social comparison and persuasion in health communications

Two basic social processes, persuasion and social comparison, have figured prominently in the development and implementation of health communications since the early 1950s. This chapter reviews relevant theory and evidence from basic persuasion and comparison research to demonstrate the centrality of the self-concept for understanding changes in personal belief, opinion, self-efficacy, and behavior change. Then, selective evidence and implications from health communications research are reviewed: Interventions using self-affirmation; gain-loss framing and graphic warning labels/fear appeals from the persuasion area; and interventions using normative provision, social comparison interventions, and support groups from the comparison area. In the final section, personalized, tailored health-communication approaches that capitalize on both persuasion and comparison paradigms are described. For intervention and public-policy purposes, it is recommended that communications that increase personal relevance, cognitive elaboration, and assimilation to health role-models have the strongest potential for creating lasting health behavior change

Less Support for the Death Penalty, Especially Among Democrats

The analysis in this report is based on telephone interviews conducted March 25-29 among a national sample of 1,500 adults, 18 years of age or older, living in all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia (525 respondents were interviewed on a landline telephone, and 975 were interviewed on a cell phone, including 567 who had no landline telephone). The survey was conducted by interviewers at Princeton Data Source under the direction of Princeton Survey Research Associates International. A combination of landline and cell phone random digitdial samples were used; both samples were provided by Survey Sampling International. Interviews were conducted in English and Spanish. Respondents in the landline sample were selected by randomly asking for the youngest adult male or female who is now at home. Interviews in the cell sample were conducted with the person who answered the phone, if that person was an adult 18 years of age or older

Modified SNR gap approximation for resource allocation in LDPC-coded multicarrier systems

The signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) gap approximation provides a closed-form expression for the SNR required for a coded modulation system to achieve a given target error performance for a given constellation size. This approximation has been widely used for resource allocation in the context of trellis-coded multicarrier systems (e.g., for digital subscriber line communication). In this contribution, we show that the SNR gap approximation does not accurately model the relation between constellation size and required SNR in low-density parity-check (LDPC) coded multicarrier systems. We solve this problem by using a simple modification of the SNR gap approximation instead, which fully retains the analytical convenience of the former approximation. The performance advantage resulting from the proposed modification is illustrated for single-user digital subscriber line transmission

The Creation of a “Safe Space” within the Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival

Research Paper for Women's Studies Seminar: Gender and Popular Music (WMST488R

Social Comparison Features in Physical Activity Promotion Apps: Scoping Meta-Review.

BACKGROUND: Smartphone apps promoting physical activity (PA) are abundant, but few produce substantial and sustained behavior change. Although many PA apps purport to induce users to compare themselves with others (by invoking social comparison processes), improvements in PA and other health behaviors are inconsistent. Existing literature suggests that social comparison may motivate PA for some people under some circumstances. However, 2 aspects of work that apply social comparison theory to PA apps remain unclear: (1) how comparison processes have been operationalized or harnessed in existing PA apps and (2) whether incorporating sources of variability in response to comparison have been used to tailor comparison features of apps, which could improve their effectiveness for promoting PA. OBJECTIVE: The aim of this meta-review was to summarize existing systematic, quantitative, and narrative reviews of behavior change techniques in PA apps, with an emphasis on social comparison features, to examine how social comparison is operationalized and implemented. METHODS: We searched PubMed, Web of Science, and PsycINFO for reviews of PA smartphone apps. Of the 3743 initial articles returned, 26 reviews met the inclusion criteria. Two independent raters extracted the data from these reviews, including the definition of social comparison used to categorize app features, the percentage of apps categorized as inducing comparison, specific features intended to induce comparison, and any mention of tailoring comparison features. For reference, these data were also extracted for related processes (such as behavioral modeling, norm referencing, and social networking). RESULTS: Of the included review articles, 31% (8/26) categorized app features as prompting social comparison. The majority of these employed Abraham and Michie\u27s earliest definition of comparison, which differs from versions in later iterations of the same taxonomy. Very few reviews specified what dimension users were expected to compare (eg, steps, physical fitness) or which features of the apps were used to induce comparison (eg, leaderboards, message boards). No review referenced tailoring of comparison features. In contrast, 54% (14/26) reviews categorized features for prompting behavioral modeling and 31% (8/26) referenced tailoring app features for users\u27 personal goals or preferences. CONCLUSIONS: The heterogeneity across reviews of PA apps and the absence of relevant information (eg, about dimensions or features relevant for comparison) create confusion about how to best harness social comparison to increase PA and its effectiveness in future research. No evidence was found that important findings from the broader social comparison literature (eg, that people have differing preferences for and responses to social comparison information) have been incorporated in the design of existing PA apps. Greater integration of the mobile health (mHealth) and social comparison literatures may improve the effectiveness of PA apps, thereby increasing the public health impact of these mHealth tools. INTERNATIONAL REGISTERED REPORT IDENTIFIER (IRRID): RR2-https://osf.io/nh4td/

Error performance prediction of randomly shortened and punctured LDPC codes

In this contribution, we show that the word error rate (WER) performance in the waterfall region of a randomly shortened and punctured low density parity check code can be accurately predicted from the WER performance of its finitelength mother code. We derive an approximate analytical expression for the mutual information (MI) required by a daughter code to achieve a given WER, based on the MI required by the mother code, which shows that the gap to the capacity of the daughter code grows the more the code is punctured or shortened. The theoretical results are confirmed by simulations (where the random shortening and puncturing pattern is either selected independently per codeword or kept the same for all codewords) for practical codes on both the binary erasure channel and the binary-input additive white Gaussian noise channel

Tenogenically induced allogeneic mesenchymal stem cells for the treatment of proximal suspensory ligament desmitis in a horse

Suspensory ligament injuries are a common injury in sport horses, especially in competing dressage horses. Because of the poor healing of chronic recalcitrant tendon injuries, this represents a major problem in the rehabilitation of sport horses and often compromises the return to the initial performance level. Stem cells are considered as a novel treatment for different pathologies in horses and humans. Autologous mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) are well known for their use in the treatment of tendinopathies; however, recent studies report a safe use of allogeneic MSCs for different orthopedic applications in horses. Moreover, it has been reported that pre-differentiation of MSCs prior to injection might result in improved clinical outcomes. For all these reasons, the present case report describes the use of allogeneic tenogenically induced peripheral blood-derived MSCs for the treatment of a proximal suspensory ligament injury. During conservative management for 4 months, the horse demonstrated no improvement of a right front lameness with a Grade 2/5 on the American Association of Equine Practitioners (AAEP) scale and a clear hypo-echoic area detectable in 30% of the cross sectional area. From 4 weeks after treatment, the lameness reduced to an AAEP Grade 1/5 and a clear filling of the lesion could be noticed on ultrasound. At 12 weeks (T-4) after the first injection, a second intra-lesional injection with allogeneic tenogenically induced MSCs and platelet rich plasma was given and at 4 weeks after the second injection (T-5), the horse trotted sound under all circumstances with a close to total fiber alignment. The horse went back to previous performance level at 32 weeks after the first regenerative therapy and is currently still doing so (i.e., 20 weeks later or 1 year after the first stem cell treatment). In conclusion, the present case report demonstrated a positive evolution of proximal suspensory ligament desmitis after treatment with allogeneic tenogenically induced MSCs