Abattoir-Based Measures to Assess Swine Welfare: Analysis of the Methods Adopted in European Slaughterhouses

The assessment of swine welfare requires feasible, reliable, and reasonable indicators. On-farm evaluation of pig welfare can provide valuable information to veterinarians and farmers. However, such protocols can result expensive and time-consuming. With this regard, an interest in the appraisal of swine welfare at abattoir has grown over the recent years. In particular, the use of certain lesions collected directly from slaughtered animals to determine the welfare status of pigs has been evaluated by several authors. In the present review, the different methods developed to score lesions collected directly from the body and the viscera of animals slaughtered in European abattoirs (“abattoir-based measures”) are presented. The text specifically focuses on the methods currently available in the literature for the scoring of body, pluck and gastric lesions during post-mortem activities. Moreover, the strengths and weaknesses of abattoir-based measures schemes are discussed. To conclude, the future perspectives of the assessment of pig welfare at the slaughterhouse are described, appealing for a benchmarking system that can be systematically used by veterinarians and other professional figures involved in the process.

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Present and Future Life

Harvard Theological Review ◽

10.1017/s0017816000025542 ◽

1978 ◽

Vol 71 (1-2) ◽

pp. 1-15 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

John Hick

Keyword(s):

The Body ◽

Post Mortem ◽

Life After Death ◽

Body Experiences ◽

The Future ◽

To Come ◽

High Level ◽

Christian Message ◽

Curious Feature ◽

Forward Looking

It is a curious feature of the present time that a boom in secular interest in the idea of a life after death seems to be matched by a recession in high level theological interest in that possibility. There is today a wave of popular non-religious concern about death and about a post-mortem existence, expressed in parapsychology, occultism, thanatology, and talk of mediumship, reincarnation, out-of-the-body experiences and the reports of those who have been revived after having been clinically dead. And yet at the same time some of the best Christian thinking today is inclined to deemphasize the idea of the life to come, even to the point of virtually abandoning it as an element in the Christian message. It is true that there is much talk of the future (sometimes with a capital F), and of Christian hope and of the radically eschatological character of the gospel. For example, Jürgen Moltmann has said that “From first to last, and not merely in the epilogue, Christianity is eschatology, is hope, forward looking and forward moving. …” But when we read on we find that the hope of which he speaks is, in so far as it has any content, a this-worldly hope and that ‘the life everlasting’ has been reduced to a penumbra of mythic imagery.

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Guidelines for porcine models of human bacterial infections

Laboratory Animals ◽

10.1177/0023677218789444 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 53 (2) ◽

pp. 125-136 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Louise K Jensen ◽

Nicole L Henriksen ◽

Henrik E Jensen

Keyword(s):

Infectious Diseases ◽

Bacterial Infections ◽

Infected Animal ◽

Present Review ◽

Post Mortem ◽

Crucial Importance ◽

Lack Of Information ◽

The Future

During the last 10 years the number of porcine models for human bacterial infectious diseases has increased. In the future, this tendency is expected to continue and, therefore, the aim of the present review is to describe guidelines for the development and reporting of these models. The guidelines are based on a review of 122 publications of porcine models for different bacterial infectious diseases in humans. The review demonstrates a substantial lack of information in most papers which hampers reproducibility and continuation of the work that was established in the models. The guidelines describe overall principles related to the inoculum, the animal, the infected animal and the post-mortem characterization that are of crucial importance when porcine models of infectious diseases are developed, validated and reported.

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Revaluations through Dance: Friedrich Nietzsche's Thought in Isadora Duncan's Speech The Dance of the Future

Dance Research ◽

10.3366/drs.2019.0273 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 37 (2) ◽

pp. 206-219

Author(s):

Meindert E. Peters

Keyword(s):

Twentieth Century ◽

The Body ◽

Eternal Recurrence ◽

Early Twentieth Century ◽

Starting Point ◽

The Future ◽

The Mind

Friedrich Nietzsche's influence on Isadora Duncan's work, in particular his idea of the Dionysian, has been widely discussed, especially in regard to her later work. What has been left underdeveloped in critical examinations of her work, however, is his influence on her earlier choreographic work, which she defended in a famous speech held in 1903 called The Dance of the Future. While commentators often describe this speech as ‘Nietzschean’, Duncan's autobiography suggests that she only studied Nietzsche's work after this speech. I take this incongruity as a starting point to explore the connections between her speech and Nietzsche's work, in particular his Thus Spoke Zarathustra. I argue that in subject and language Duncan's speech resembles Nietzsche's in important ways. This article will draw attention to the ways in which Duncan takes her cues from Nietzsche in bringing together seemingly conflicting ideas of religion and an overturning of morality; Nietzsche's notion of eternal recurrence and the teleology present in his idea of the Übermensch; and a renegotiation of the body's relation to the mind. In doing so, this article contributes not only to scholarship on Duncan's early work but also to discussions of Nietzsche's reception in the early twentieth century. Moreover, the importance Duncan ascribes to the body in dance and expression also asks for a new understanding of Nietzsche's own way of expressing his philosophy.

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A Rapture of the Nerds? A Comparison between Transhumanist Eschatology and Christian Parousia

Forum Philosophicum ◽

10.35765/forphil.2019.2402.15 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 24 (2) ◽

pp. 343-367

Author(s):

Roberto Paura

Keyword(s):

Human Brain ◽

Point Theory ◽

The Body ◽

Christian Theology ◽

Human Beings ◽

Human Species ◽

The Future ◽

The Creation ◽

The Universe

Transhumanism is one of the main “ideologies of the future” that has emerged in recent decades. Its program for the enhancement of the human species during this century pursues the ultimate goal of immortality, through the creation of human brain emulations. Therefore, transhumanism offers its fol- lowers an explicit eschatology, a vision of the ultimate future of our civilization that in some cases coincides with the ultimate future of the universe, as in Frank Tipler’s Omega Point theory. The essay aims to analyze the points of comparison and opposition between transhumanist and Christian eschatologies, in particular considering the “incarnationist” view of Parousia. After an introduction concern- ing the problems posed by new scientific and cosmological theories to traditional Christian eschatology, causing the debate between “incarnationists” and “escha- tologists,” the article analyzes the transhumanist idea of mind-uploading through the possibility of making emulations of the human brain and perfect simulations of the reality we live in. In the last section the problems raised by these theories are analyzed from the point of Christian theology, in particular the proposal of a transhuman species through the emulation of the body and mind of human beings. The possibility of a transhumanist eschatology in line with the incarnationist view of Parousia is refused.

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Basic Concepts and Definitions of Allergology

Journal of Immunology and Allergy ◽

10.37191/mapsci-2582-6549-1(1)-004 ◽

2019 ◽

Author(s):

Zoran Vrucinic

Keyword(s):

Immune Reaction ◽

The Body ◽

The Other ◽

Specific Response ◽

Other Hand ◽

Medical Vocabulary ◽

The Future ◽

Basic Concepts ◽

Basic Insight ◽

Insight Into

The future of medicine belongs to immunology and alergology. I tried to not be too wide in description, but on the other hand to mention the most important concepts of alergology to make access to these diseases more understandable, logical and more useful for our patients, that without complex pathophysiology and mechanism of immune reaction,we gain some basic insight into immunological principles. The name allergy to medicine was introduced by Pirquet in 1906, and is of Greek origin (allos-other + ergon-act; different reaction), essentially representing the reaction of an organism to a substance that has already been in contact with it, and manifested as a specific response thatmanifests as either a heightened reaction, a hypersensitivity, or as a reduced reaction immunity. Synonyms for hypersensitivity are: altered reactivity, reaction, hypersensitivity. The word sensitization comes from the Latin (sensibilitas, atis, f.), which means sensibility,sensitivity, and has retained that meaning in medical vocabulary, while in immunology and allergology this term implies the creation of hypersensitivity to an antigen. Antigen comes from the Greek words, anti-anti + genos-genus, the opposite, anti-substance substance that causes the body to produce antibodies.

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Interfacing cells with organic transistors: a review of in vitro and in vivo applications

Lab on a Chip ◽

10.1039/d0lc01007c ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 21 (5) ◽

pp. 795-820

Author(s):

Andrea Spanu ◽

Laura Martines ◽

Annalisa Bonfiglio

Keyword(s):

Organic Transistors ◽

Future Perspectives ◽

The Past ◽

The Future

This review focuses on the applications of organic transistors in cellular interfacing. It offers a comprehensive retrospective of the past, an overview of the latest innovations, and a glance on the future perspectives of this fast-evolving field.

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Report on CLEF 2019

ACM SIGIR Forum ◽

10.1145/3458553.3458571 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 53 (2) ◽

pp. 108-118

Author(s):

Martin Braschler ◽

Linda Cappellato ◽

Fabio Crestani ◽

Nicola Ferro ◽

Gundula Heinatz Bürki ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Standard Test ◽

Future Perspectives ◽

Research Papers ◽

Test Collections ◽

Lessons Learnt ◽

Wide Range ◽

The Future ◽

20Th Anniversary

This is a report on the tenth edition of the Conference and Labs of the Evaluation Forum (CLEF 2019), held from September 9--12, 2019, in Lugano, Switzerland. CLEF was a four day event combining a Conference and an Evaluation Forum. The Conference featured keynotes by Bruce Croft, Yair Neuman, and Miguel Martínez, and presentation of peer reviewed research papers covering a wide range of topics in addition to many posters. The Evaluation Forum consisted to nine Labs: CENTRE, CheckThat, eHealth, eRisk, ImageCLEF, LifeCLEF, PAN, PIR-CLEF, and ProtestNews, addressing a wide range of tasks, media, languages, and ways to go beyond standard test collections. CLEF 2019 marked the 20th anniversary of CLEF, which was celebrated with a dedicated session and a book on the lessons learnt in twenty years of evaluation activities and the future perspectives for CLEF. CLEF 2019 also introduced the Industry Days to further extend the reach and impact of CLEF.

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Insights into how environment shapes post-mortem RNA transcription in mouse brain

Scientific Reports ◽

10.1038/s41598-021-92268-y ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 11 (1) ◽

Author(s):

Raphael Severino Bonadio ◽

Larissa Barbosa Nunes ◽

Patricia Natália S. Moretti ◽

Juliana Forte Mazzeu ◽

Stefano Cagnin ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Lipid Metabolism ◽

Mouse Brain ◽

Molecular Mechanisms ◽

Cell Communication ◽

Rna Degradation ◽

The Body ◽

Biological Processes ◽

Post Mortem ◽

Gene Expression Alterations ◽

Upregulated Genes

AbstractMost biological features that occur on the body after death were already deciphered by traditional medicine. However, the molecular mechanisms triggered in the cellular microenvironment are not fully comprehended yet. Previous studies reported gene expression alterations in the post-mortem condition, but little is known about how the environment could influence RNA degradation and transcriptional regulation. In this work, we analysed the transcriptome of mouse brain after death under three concealment simulations (air exposed, buried, and submerged). Our analyses identified 2,103 genes differentially expressed in all tested groups 48 h after death. Moreover, we identified 111 commonly upregulated and 497 commonly downregulated genes in mice from the concealment simulations. The gene functions shared by the individuals from the tested environments were associated with RNA homeostasis, inflammation, developmental processes, cell communication, cell proliferation, and lipid metabolism. Regarding the altered biological processes, we identified that the macroautophagy process was enriched in the upregulated genes and lipid metabolism was enriched in the downregulated genes. On the other hand, we also described a list of biomarkers associated with the submerged and buried groups, indicating that these environments can influence the post-mortem RNA abundance in its particular way.

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