Domestic Animal Welfare at the Zoo: The Impact of an Animal Visitor Interaction Program on Chickens

Many modern zoos strive to create connections between guests and animals through animal visitor interaction (AVI) programs. However, there has been relatively little research into the effect of AVI programs on the welfare of program animals. Previous research has revealed three factors that may affect AVI program animal welfare: species differences, handling and transport, and the provision of choice and control. We assessed the effects of an AVI program designed with these factors in mind on the behavior of a flock (N = 16) of zoo-housed domestic chickens (Gallus gallus). Behavioral data were collected on program days and on non-program (control) days, and we considered the time leading up to the program, the program itself, and the time immediately following the program. When comparing flock behavior on program days to control days, we found no differences in behavioral indicators of welfare during the time leading up to the program and during the program. Rates of aggression, however, were significantly greater after the program had concluded compared to the same time period on matched control days, but still occurred infrequently. Additionally, we recorded the spatial location of each animal while the program occurred and found that the chickens did not spend significantly more or less time in the feeding zone as visitor participation increased, although there were individual differences within the flock. We conclude that the relatively small behavioral changes seen were not indicative of a change in welfare and consider those results in the context of the program design.

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Topics, Trends, and Sentiments of Tweets About the COVID-19 Pandemic: Temporal Infoveillance Study

Journal of Medical Internet Research ◽

10.2196/22624 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 22 (10) ◽

pp. e22624 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Ranganathan Chandrasekaran ◽

Vikalp Mehta ◽

Tejali Valkunde ◽

Evangelos Moustakas

Keyword(s):

Health Care ◽

English Language ◽

Latent Dirichlet Allocation ◽

Data Sets ◽

Data Set ◽

Time Period ◽

Combining Data ◽

Social Media Platforms ◽

And Control ◽

The Impact

Background With restrictions on movement and stay-at-home orders in place due to the COVID-19 pandemic, social media platforms such as Twitter have become an outlet for users to express their concerns, opinions, and feelings about the pandemic. Individuals, health agencies, and governments are using Twitter to communicate about COVID-19. Objective The aims of this study were to examine key themes and topics of English-language COVID-19–related tweets posted by individuals and to explore the trends and variations in how the COVID-19–related tweets, key topics, and associated sentiments changed over a period of time from before to after the disease was declared a pandemic. Methods Building on the emergent stream of studies examining COVID-19–related tweets in English, we performed a temporal assessment covering the time period from January 1 to May 9, 2020, and examined variations in tweet topics and sentiment scores to uncover key trends. Combining data from two publicly available COVID-19 tweet data sets with those obtained in our own search, we compiled a data set of 13.9 million English-language COVID-19–related tweets posted by individuals. We use guided latent Dirichlet allocation (LDA) to infer themes and topics underlying the tweets, and we used VADER (Valence Aware Dictionary and sEntiment Reasoner) sentiment analysis to compute sentiment scores and examine weekly trends for 17 weeks. Results Topic modeling yielded 26 topics, which were grouped into 10 broader themes underlying the COVID-19–related tweets. Of the 13,937,906 examined tweets, 2,858,316 (20.51%) were about the impact of COVID-19 on the economy and markets, followed by spread and growth in cases (2,154,065, 15.45%), treatment and recovery (1,831,339, 13.14%), impact on the health care sector (1,588,499, 11.40%), and governments response (1,559,591, 11.19%). Average compound sentiment scores were found to be negative throughout the examined time period for the topics of spread and growth of cases, symptoms, racism, source of the outbreak, and political impact of COVID-19. In contrast, we saw a reversal of sentiments from negative to positive for prevention, impact on the economy and markets, government response, impact on the health care industry, and treatment and recovery. Conclusions Identification of dominant themes, topics, sentiments, and changing trends in tweets about the COVID-19 pandemic can help governments, health care agencies, and policy makers frame appropriate responses to prevent and control the spread of the pandemic.

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The Impact of Family Involvement on the R&D Intensity of Publicly Traded Firms

Family Business Review ◽

10.1177/0894486510396870 ◽

2011 ◽

Vol 24 (1) ◽

pp. 62-70 ◽

Cited By ~ 109

Author(s):

Fernando Muñoz-Bullón ◽

Maria J. Sanchez-Bueno

Keyword(s):

Family Involvement ◽

Risk Taking ◽

Time Horizon ◽

Family Firms ◽

Publicly Traded ◽

Time Period ◽

Resource Endowment ◽

Negative Effect ◽

And Control ◽

The Impact

This study examines the impact of family involvement in ownership and control on firms’ R&D intensity, relying on panel data on publicly held firms in Canada over the 2004 to 2009 time period. The literature on the link between family firms and R&D is unclear: although some characteristics may promote R&D intensity in family firms, others factors may have a negative effect. Thus, the authors propose a theoretical framework whereby differences in R&D intensity between family and nonfamily firms are explained based on key conditions, including time horizon, agency costs, resource endowment, or risk-taking behavior. The findings of this study show that publicly traded family firms in Canada record lower R&D intensity compared with nonfamily firms and, therefore, support one side of the previous literature over the other.

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Corporate Structure and Corporate Change in a Local Economy: The Case of Bristol

Environment and Planning A Economy and Space ◽

10.1068/a160879 ◽

1984 ◽

Vol 16 (7) ◽

pp. 879-900 ◽

Cited By ~ 9

Author(s):

K Bassett

Keyword(s):

Multinational Corporations ◽

Manufacturing Sector ◽

Local Economy ◽

Corporate Structure ◽

Corporate Growth ◽

Time Period ◽

Corporate Change ◽

Local Impacts ◽

And Control ◽

The Impact

In this paper, I focus upon the role of large multinational corporations in the restructuring of local economies, using Bristol as a study area. In the first part of the paper, I concentrate upon the impact of the current recession on the city's manufacturing sector. The major local employers are identified and the pattern of corporate ownership and control discussed. An attempt is then made to trace out the impacts of different forms of corporate change during the period 1978–1982. In the second part of the paper, I concentrate on one large multinational corporation which has long associations with the Bristol area, and trace some of the local impacts of different phases of corporate growth over a longer time period. This paper is only a preliminary to a deeper and more wide-ranging analysis of the local economy, and, in the conclusions, I identify various lines of further inquiry.

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The Impact of Interpretive Messaging and Animal Handling on Visitors’ Perceptions of Animal Welfare and Empathic Reactions

Journal of Interpretation Research ◽

10.1177/10925872211042936 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 109258722110429

Author(s):

Matthew J. Minarchek ◽

Jeffrey C. Skibins ◽

Jerry F. Luebke

Keyword(s):

Animal Welfare ◽

Free Choice ◽

Control Language ◽

Handling Practices ◽

Animal Handling ◽

And Control ◽

The Impact ◽

Animal Programs ◽

Animal Care

Zoos are increasingly turning to ambassador animal programs to address animal welfare issues and visitors’ empathic responses. However, little is known, if or how, animal handling practices and interpretation impact attendees’ perceptions of animal welfare and/or empathy. To evaluate these effects, eight ambassador animal program videos were created employing varying combinations of animal handling (traditional/free choice), interpretive messaging (traditional/empathy-based), and choice and control language (present/absent). Online questionnaires ( N = 1,185) were used to assess participants’ environmental and empathic predispositions before viewing and perceptions of animal welfare and empathic reactions immediately after viewing a video. Results revealed that empathic reactions were moderately correlated with perceptions of animal welfare ( r = .53, p < .001) and mean empathic responses were higher for free choice handling and empathic messaging videos versus traditional handling and messaging. Programming recommendations are discussed that can improve visitors’ perceptions of animal care and elicit strong empathic reactions.

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Topics, Trends, and Sentiments of Tweets About the COVID-19 Pandemic: Temporal Infoveillance Study (Preprint)

10.2196/preprints.22624 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Ranganathan Chandrasekaran ◽

Vikalp Mehta ◽

Tejali Valkunde ◽

Evangelos Moustakas

Keyword(s):

Health Care ◽

English Language ◽

Latent Dirichlet Allocation ◽

Data Sets ◽

Data Set ◽

Time Period ◽

Combining Data ◽

Social Media Platforms ◽

And Control ◽

The Impact

BACKGROUND With restrictions on movement and stay-at-home orders in place due to the COVID-19 pandemic, social media platforms such as Twitter have become an outlet for users to express their concerns, opinions, and feelings about the pandemic. Individuals, health agencies, and governments are using Twitter to communicate about COVID-19. OBJECTIVE The aims of this study were to examine key themes and topics of English-language COVID-19–related tweets posted by individuals and to explore the trends and variations in how the COVID-19–related tweets, key topics, and associated sentiments changed over a period of time from before to after the disease was declared a pandemic. METHODS Building on the emergent stream of studies examining COVID-19–related tweets in English, we performed a temporal assessment covering the time period from January 1 to May 9, 2020, and examined variations in tweet topics and sentiment scores to uncover key trends. Combining data from two publicly available COVID-19 tweet data sets with those obtained in our own search, we compiled a data set of 13.9 million English-language COVID-19–related tweets posted by individuals. We use guided latent Dirichlet allocation (LDA) to infer themes and topics underlying the tweets, and we used VADER (Valence Aware Dictionary and sEntiment Reasoner) sentiment analysis to compute sentiment scores and examine weekly trends for 17 weeks. RESULTS Topic modeling yielded 26 topics, which were grouped into 10 broader themes underlying the COVID-19–related tweets. Of the 13,937,906 examined tweets, 2,858,316 (20.51%) were about the impact of COVID-19 on the economy and markets, followed by spread and growth in cases (2,154,065, 15.45%), treatment and recovery (1,831,339, 13.14%), impact on the health care sector (1,588,499, 11.40%), and governments response (1,559,591, 11.19%). Average compound sentiment scores were found to be negative throughout the examined time period for the topics of spread and growth of cases, symptoms, racism, source of the outbreak, and political impact of COVID-19. In contrast, we saw a reversal of sentiments from negative to positive for prevention, impact on the economy and markets, government response, impact on the health care industry, and treatment and recovery. CONCLUSIONS Identification of dominant themes, topics, sentiments, and changing trends in tweets about the COVID-19 pandemic can help governments, health care agencies, and policy makers frame appropriate responses to prevent and control the spread of the pandemic.

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Design and Control Method of Switchable On- or Off-Ramp for Urban Highway

Journal of Advanced Transportation ◽

10.1155/2020/7375416 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 2020 ◽

pp. 1-10

Author(s):

Yugang Liu ◽

Hongbo Yi ◽

Jiali Li ◽

Bin Chen ◽

Hongtai Yang

Keyword(s):

Traffic Flow ◽

Control Method ◽

High Volume ◽

Main Road ◽

Time Space ◽

Time Period ◽

Total Travel Time ◽

Short Time ◽

And Control ◽

The Impact

High volume of traffic is loaded on urban highway during peak hours as well as the ramp connecting main road and auxiliary road of highway. Once the demand exceeds the capacity of the ramp, congestion may happen on both main road and the auxiliary road. To deal with this problem, an new urban highway ramp, switchable ramp (SR) that can switch between on and off condition, is proposed in this paper. A macroscopic time-space discrete model is built in this paper to model this process by dividing the studied time period into short time periods and the studied road segment into small sections. The impact of the type of ramp on upstream and downstream traffic flow is analyzed. A segment of urban highway in Chengdu, China, is used as a case study. The traffic flow data in peak hours is collected and used. Mathematical analysis proves that the SR system proposed in this paper can reduce the total travel time (TTT) in the studied area. Results show that the SR system is more useful when the traffic volume is high.

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Suppressed, but Not Forgotten

Swiss Journal of Psychology ◽

10.1024/1421-0185/a000033 ◽

2011 ◽

Vol 70 (1) ◽

pp. 5-11 ◽

Cited By ~ 8

Author(s):

Beat Meier ◽

Anja König ◽

Samuel Parak ◽

Katharina Henke

Keyword(s):

Memory Trace ◽

Thought Suppression ◽

Test Phase ◽

Indirect Test ◽

Final Test ◽

Test Experiment ◽

And Control ◽

Cue Words ◽

The Impact

This study investigates the impact of thought suppression over a 1-week interval. In two experiments with 80 university students each, we used the think/no-think paradigm in which participants initially learn a list of word pairs (cue-target associations). Then they were presented with some of the cue words again and should either respond with the target word or avoid thinking about it. In the final test phase, their memory for the initially learned cue-target pairs was tested. In Experiment 1, type of memory test was manipulated (i.e., direct vs. indirect). In Experiment 2, type of no-think instructions was manipulated (i.e., suppress vs. substitute). Overall, our results showed poorer memory for no-think and control items compared to think items across all experiments and conditions. Critically, however, more no-think than control items were remembered after the 1-week interval in the direct, but not in the indirect test (Experiment 1) and with thought suppression, but not thought substitution instructions (Experiment 2). We suggest that during thought suppression a brief reactivation of the learned association may lead to reconsolidation of the memory trace and hence to better retrieval of suppressed than control items in the long term.

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Research Participation Experiences of Informants of Suicide and Control Cases

Crisis ◽

10.1027/0227-5910/a000025 ◽

2010 ◽

Vol 31 (5) ◽

pp. 238-246 ◽

Cited By ~ 9

Author(s):

Paul W. C. Wong ◽

Wincy S. C. Chan ◽

Philip S. L. Beh ◽

Fiona W. S. Yau ◽

Paul S. F. Yip ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Ethical Issues ◽

Research Participation ◽

Self Report ◽

Initial Contact ◽

Psychological Autopsy ◽

Autopsy Study ◽

The People ◽

And Control ◽

The Impact

Background: Ethical issues have been raised about using the psychological autopsy approach in the study of suicide. The impact on informants of control cases who participated in case-control psychological autopsy studies has not been investigated. Aims: (1) To investigate whether informants of suicide cases recruited by two approaches (coroners’ court and public mortuaries) respond differently to the initial contact by the research team. (2) To explore the reactions, reasons for participation, and comments of both the informants of suicide and control cases to psychological autopsy interviews. (3) To investigate the impact of the interviews on informants of suicide cases about a month after the interviews. Methods: A self-report questionnaire was used for the informants of both suicide and control cases. Telephone follow-up interviews were conducted with the informants of suicide cases. Results: The majority of the informants of suicide cases, regardless of the initial route of contact, as well as the control cases were positive about being approached to take part in the study. A minority of informants of suicide and control cases found the experience of talking about their family member to be more upsetting than expected. The telephone follow-up interviews showed that none of the informants of suicide cases reported being distressed by the psychological autopsy interviews. Limitations: The acceptance rate for our original psychological autopsy study was modest. Conclusions: The findings of this study are useful for future participants and researchers in measuring the potential benefits and risks of participating in similar sensitive research. Psychological autopsy interviews may be utilized as an active engagement approach to reach out to the people bereaved by suicide, especially in places where the postvention work is underdeveloped.

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