Developing Recommendations for Cumulative Endpoints and Lifetime Use for Research Animals

Research animals are important for scientific advancement, and therefore, their long-term welfare needs to be monitored to not only minimize suffering, but to provide positive affective states and experiences. Currently, there is limited guidance in countries around the world on cumulative and experimental endpoints. This paper aims to explore current opinions and institutional strategies regarding cumulative use and endpoints through a scoping survey and review of current regulations and welfare assessment tools, and ultimately to provide recommendations for assessment of cumulative and lifetime use of research animals. The survey found that only 36% of respondents indicated that their institution had cumulative use endpoint policies in place, but these policies may be informal and/or vary by species. Most respondents supported more specific guidelines but expressed concerns about formal policies that may limit their ability to make case-by-case decisions. The wide diversity in how research animals are used makes it difficult for specific policies to be implemented. Endpoint decisions should be made in an objective manner using standardized welfare assessment tools. Future research should focus on robust, efficient welfare assessment tools that can be used to support planning and recommendations for cumulative endpoints and lifetime use of research and teaching animals.

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Using the Change4Life Disney Branded 10-minute Shake Ups During the COVID-19 ‘Lockdown’

10.31219/osf.io/q8jz4 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Emily Budzynski-Seymour ◽

James Steele ◽

Michelle Jones

Keyword(s):

Perceived Exertion ◽

Affective Responses ◽

Online Resources ◽

Future Research ◽

Affective States ◽

Perceived Effort ◽

Qualitative Feedback ◽

Bidirectional Relationship ◽

The Uk

Physical activity (PA) is considered essential to overall health yet it is consistently reported that children are failing to meet the recommended levels. Due to the bidirectional relationship between affective states and PA, affective responses are a potential predictor to long term engagement. Since late March 2020 the UK government enforced ‘lockdown’ measures to help control the spread of Coronavirus (COVID-19); however, this has impacted children’s PA. Using online resources at home to support PA is now common. The primary aim of this research was to investigate the use of the Change4Life 10-minute Shake Ups to support PA by examining the effects of Disney branding upon children’s (n=32) post activity affective responses and perceived exertion. The secondary was to investigate the effect of the lockdown on PA habits. Children had similar positive affective responses and perceived effort to activities; however, branding was considered to be a key contributing factor based upon qualitative feedback from parents. Children’s PA levels dropped slightly since ‘lockdown’ was imposed; though online resources have been utilised to support PA. The use of immersive elements such as characters and narrative in PA sessions, as well as utilising online resources during ‘lockdown’ appear potentially promising for future research.

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Using the Change4Life Disney Branded 10-minute Shake Ups During the COVID-19 ‘Lockdown’

10.31236/osf.io/ftv8y ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Emily Budzynski-Seymour ◽

Michelle Jones ◽

James Steele

Keyword(s):

Perceived Exertion ◽

Affective Responses ◽

Online Resources ◽

Future Research ◽

Affective States ◽

Perceived Effort ◽

Qualitative Feedback ◽

Bidirectional Relationship ◽

The Uk

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Towards a Positive Welfare Protocol for Cattle: A Critical Review of Indicators and Suggestion of How We Might Proceed

Frontiers in Animal Science ◽

10.3389/fanim.2021.753080 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 2 ◽

Author(s):

Linda J. Keeling ◽

Christoph Winckler ◽

Sara Hintze ◽

Björn Forkman

Keyword(s):

Animal Welfare ◽

Critical Review ◽

Affective State ◽

Future Research ◽

Affective States ◽

Validity And Reliability ◽

Short Term ◽

Positive Experiences ◽

Poor Welfare

Current animal welfare protocols focus on demonstrating the absence (or at least low levels) of indicators of poor welfare, potentially creating a mismatch between what is expected by society (an assurance of good animal welfare) and what is actually being delivered (an assurance of the absence of welfare problems). This paper explores how far we have come, and what work still needs to be done, if we are to develop a protocol for use on commercial dairy farms where the aim is to demonstrate the presence of positive welfare. Following conceptual considerations around a perceived “ideal” protocol, we propose that a future protocol should be constructed (i) of animal-based measures, (ii) of indicators of affective state, and (iii) be structured according to indicators of short-term emotion, medium-term moods and long-term cumulative assessment of negative and positive experiences of an animal's life until now (in contrast to the current focus on indicators that represent different domains/criteria of welfare). These three conditions imposed the overall structure within which we selected our indicators. The paper includes a critical review of the literature on potential indicators of positive affective states in cattle. Based on evidence about the validity and reliability of the different indicators, we select ear position, play, allogrooming, brush use and QBA as candidate indicators that we suggest could form a prototype positive welfare protocol. We emphasise that this prototype protocol has not been tested in practice and so it is perhaps not the protocol itself that is the main outcome of this paper, but the process of trying to develop it. In a final section of this paper, we reflect on some of the lessons learnt from this exercise and speculate on future perspectives. For example, while we consider we have moved towards a prototype positive welfare protocol for short-term affective states, future research energy should be directed towards valid indicators for the medium and long-term.

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Photoplethysmography in Normal and Pathological Sleep

Sensors ◽

10.3390/s21092928 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 21 (9) ◽

pp. 2928

Author(s):

Ramona S. Vulcan ◽

Stephanie André ◽

Marie Bruyneel

Keyword(s):

Brain Activity ◽

Future Research ◽

Signal Acquisition ◽

Home Based ◽

Circadian Rhythm Sleep Disorders ◽

Contact Sensor ◽

Signal Acquisition And Processing ◽

Technical Solutions ◽

Made In

This article presents an overview of the advancements that have been made in the use of photoplethysmography (PPG) for unobtrusive sleep studies. PPG is included in the quickly evolving and very popular landscape of wearables but has specific interesting properties, particularly the ability to capture the modulation of the autonomic nervous system during sleep. Recent advances have been made in PPG signal acquisition and processing, including coupling it with accelerometry in order to construct hypnograms in normal and pathologic sleep and also to detect sleep-disordered breathing (SDB). The limitations of PPG (e.g., oxymetry signal failure, motion artefacts, signal processing) are reviewed as well as technical solutions to overcome these issues. The potential medical applications of PPG are numerous, including home-based detection of SDB (for triage purposes), and long-term monitoring of insomnia, circadian rhythm sleep disorders (to assess treatment effects), and treated SDB (to ensure disease control). New contact sensor combinations to improve future wearables seem promising, particularly tools that allow for the assessment of brain activity. In this way, in-ear EEG combined with PPG and actigraphy could be an interesting focus for future research.

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Finding the heart of a Research-Practice Partnership: Politicized trust, mutualism, and use of research

Improving Schools ◽

10.1177/13654802211019914 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 136548022110199

Author(s):

Stephanie Lezotte ◽

Sharada Krishnamurthy ◽

Daniel Tulino ◽

Shelley Zion

Keyword(s):

Future Research ◽

Trust Building ◽

Collaborative Partnership ◽

Research Practice ◽

Community Based ◽

Community Based Organizations ◽

Problems Of Practice ◽

Research Alliances ◽

Use Of Research

The assumption that research is out-of-reach, irrelevant, or unusable for practitioners has been a theme echoed throughout academia. Research alliances such as Research-Practice Partnerships (RPP) attempt to alleviate this problem by having researchers, practitioners, and/or community-based organizations form a collaborative partnership that uses research to solve tangible problems of practice. Previous works have highlighted the complexities inherent with forming and maintaining these long-term partnerships including politics, trust building, time, and available resources. In this paper, we engage in reflective analysis of our own RPP around three key elements we believe are at the heart of RPPs: politicized trust, mutualism, and use of research. This paper illustrates successes and points of failure in each of these areas, which have been previously unconnected in RPP literature. We conclude with recommendations for school and university partners and future research on RPPs.

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Adolescents’ Perceptions of Gender Discrimination in India: Do Perceptions Differ for Boys and Girls?

Journal of Public Health International ◽

10.14302/issn.2641-4538.jphi-19-2995 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 2 (1) ◽

pp. 1-12 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Nitasha Chaudhary Nagaraj ◽

Amita Vyas ◽

Megan Landry ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Gender Roles ◽

Qualitative Analysis ◽

Youth Development ◽

Gender Discrimination ◽

Future Research ◽

Gender Inequity ◽

Northern India ◽

Depth Interviews ◽

Made In

Despite the gains India has made in recent decades, it remains a country with vast gender inequities. Gender sensitization and empowerment programs aimed at young people, precisely at the time when they are forming their gender attitudes, has the potential to diminish gender inequity in the long-term. This study represents data from 36 qualitative in-depth interviews conducted amongst adolescent boys and girls enrolled in grade 7 in northern India, in schools that serve under-resourced communities. The interviews asked questions related to positive youth development, gender roles, violence, and locus of control. The results of the qualitative analysis provide insights into how adolescents perceive gender discrimination in their families and communnites. The majority of expectations for boys revolved around physical labor, while, for girls, gender roles were primarily focused on stopping education early to get married and take care of the household and children. Many of the responses from both boys and girls on privileges/restrictions were related to daughters not being fully educated while sons often were. Furthermore, when comparing between boys and girls (attributes) and understanding superiority, many participants noted there is a clear preference of boys compared to girls. Girls also had higher proportion of violence codes compared to boys, perhaps because many girls felt they were hit more frequently than boys. The results of this qualitative analysis provide direction for both future research as well as the development of gender sensitization interventions specifically designed for adolescents.

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Physical and Psychological Benefits of Written Emotional Expression

European Psychologist ◽

10.1027/1016-9040/a000231 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 20 (4) ◽

pp. 242-251 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Éva Kállay

Keyword(s):

Mental Health ◽

Expressive Writing ◽

Mental Health Problems ◽

Cost Effective ◽

Health Problems ◽

Future Research ◽

Psychological Benefits ◽

Cost Effective Treatment ◽

Meta Analyses

Abstract. The last several decades have witnessed a substantial increase in the number of individuals suffering from both diagnosable and subsyndromal mental health problems. Consequently, the development of cost-effective treatment methods, accessible to large populations suffering from different forms of mental health problems, became imperative. A very promising intervention is the method of expressive writing (EW), which may be used in both clinically diagnosable cases and subthreshold symptomatology. This method, in which people express their feelings and thoughts related to stressful situations in writing, has been found to improve participants’ long-term psychological, physiological, behavioral, and social functioning. Based on a thorough analysis and synthesis of the published literature (also including most recent meta-analyses), the present paper presents the expressive writing method, its short- and long-term, intra-and interpersonal effects, different situations and conditions in which it has been proven to be effective, the most important mechanisms implied in the process of recovery, advantages, disadvantages, and possible pitfalls of the method, as well as variants of the original technique and future research directions.

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Chinese Medicine Protein and Peptide in Gene and Cell Therapy

Current Protein and Peptide Science ◽

10.2174/1389203719666180612082432 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 20 (3) ◽

pp. 251-264 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Yinlu Feng ◽

Zifei Yin ◽

Daniel Zhang ◽

Arun Srivastava ◽

Chen Ling

Keyword(s):

Chinese Medicine ◽

Cell Therapy ◽

Future Research ◽

The Past ◽

Promising Strategy ◽

Wide Range ◽

New Directions ◽

Gene And Cell Therapy ◽

Proteins And Peptides

The success of gene and cell therapy in clinic during the past two decades as well as our expanding ability to manipulate these biomaterials are leading to new therapeutic options for a wide range of inherited and acquired diseases. Combining conventional therapies with this emerging field is a promising strategy to treat those previously-thought untreatable diseases. Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) has evolved for thousands of years in China and still plays an important role in human health. As part of the active ingredients of TCM, proteins and peptides have attracted long-term enthusiasm of researchers. More recently, they have been utilized in gene and cell therapy, resulting in promising novel strategies to treat both cancer and non-cancer diseases. This manuscript presents a critical review on this field, accompanied with perspectives on the challenges and new directions for future research in this emerging frontier.

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Ketamine Treatment in Depression: A Systematic Review of Clinical Characteristics Predicting Symptom Improvement

Current Topics in Medicinal Chemistry ◽

10.2174/1568026620666200423094423 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 20 (15) ◽

pp. 1398-1414 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Darby J.E. Lowe ◽

Daniel J. Müller ◽

Tony P. George

Keyword(s):

Clinical Features ◽

Clinical Characteristics ◽

Bipolar Depression ◽

Antidepressant Effect ◽

Future Research ◽

Symptom Improvement ◽

Randomized Controlled ◽

Treatment Of Depression ◽

Future Direction

Ketamine has been shown to be efficacious for the treatment of depression, specifically among individuals who do not respond to first-line treatments. There is still, however, a lack of clarity surrounding the clinical features and response periods across samples that respond to ketamine. This paper systematically reviews published randomized controlled trials that investigate ketamine as an antidepressant intervention in both unipolar and bipolar depression to determine the specific clinical features of the samples across different efficacy periods. Moreover, similarities and differences in clinical characteristics associated with acute versus longer-term drug response are discussed. Similarities across all samples suggest that the population that responds to ketamine’s antidepressant effect has experienced chronic, long-term depression, approaching ketamine treatment as a “last resort”. Moreover, differences between these groups suggest future research to investigate the potential of stronger efficacy towards depression in the context of bipolar disorder compared to major depression, and in participants who undergo antidepressant washout before ketamine administration. From these findings, suggestions for the future direction of ketamine research for depression are formed.

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Soil and ecological division into districts of the Baikal region

Geodesy and Cartography ◽

10.22389/0016-7126-2018-940-10-54-64 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 940 (10) ◽

pp. 54-64 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

I.A. Belozertseva ◽

A.A. Sorokovoj

Keyword(s):

Baikal Region ◽

Soil Cover ◽

Soil Formation ◽

Forest Steppe ◽

Leading Role ◽

Soil Cover Structure ◽

Reflecting Surface ◽

Heat And Moisture ◽

Made In

On the basis of long-term researches of soils in the territory of Russia and Mongolia soil and ecological division into districts of the Baikal region is carried out. At division into districts the whole set of an environment of soil formation was considered. On the map of soil and ecological division into districts 13 mountain, mid-mountain, low-mountain taiga, foothill, hollow-valley, forest-steppe and steppe provinces reflecting surface device originality as the ratio of balance of heat and moisture forming a basis to zoning is shown against the background of difficult orography are allocated. In total 42 districts on lithologic-geomorphological features are allocated. In formation of distinctions of a soil cover of these provinces the leading role is played by bioclimatic factors and inside them the lithologic-geomorphological ones. In the view of structural approach of the district they are considered as territories with a certain natural change of several types of the soil cover structure caused by features of a relief and the parent rock. The map is made in the MapInfo program. It is revealed that on ill-defined width zoning of soils the vertical one which has a greater influence on soils of this region is imposed. Soils of the Baikal region are not similar to the soils located at the same latitude of the flat European territory of Russia. Zone soils of this territory are specific and original.

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