scholarly journals Recumbency as an Equine Welfare Indicator in Geriatric Horses and Horses with Chronic Orthopaedic Disease

Animals ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (11) ◽  
pp. 3189
Author(s):  
Zsofia Kelemen ◽  
Herwig Grimm ◽  
Mariessa Long ◽  
Ulrike Auer ◽  
Florien Jenner

Recumbency is a prerequisite for horses achieving rapid eye movement (REM) sleep and completing a full sleep cycle. An inability to lie down due to environmental insecurities or pain results in REM sleep deficiency, which can cause substantial impairment of welfare and health. Therefore, the present study used wearable automated sensor technology on 83 horses housed in an animal sanctuary to measure and compare the recumbency, locomotion, and standing time budgets of geriatric horses with and without chronic lameness to younger adult sound and lame horses. Recumbency times ranged from 0 to 319 min per day with an overall mean of 67.4 (±61.9) minutes; the time budget for locomotion was 19.1% (±11.2% s.d.) and for standing 75.6% (±13.1 s.d.). Interestingly, neither age nor lameness due to chronic orthopedic disease had a significant influence on recumbency times in this study. Eight horses showed symptoms of REM deficit. These horses had significantly shorter lying times (7.99 ± 11.4 min) and smaller locomotion time budgets than the other horses enrolled in this study (73.8 ± 61.8 min), indicating a general compromise of well-being. Thus, wearable sensor technology can be used to identify horses with low recumbency times at risk for REM sleep deficiency and to assess and monitor equine welfare objectively.

Animals ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 850
Author(s):  
Ulrike Auer ◽  
Zsofia Kelemen ◽  
Veronika Engl ◽  
Florien Jenner

Horses’ behavior can provide valuable insight into their subjective state and is thus a good indicator of welfare. However, its complexity requires objective, quantifiable, and unambiguous evidence-based assessment criteria. As healthy, stress-free horses exhibit a highly repetitive daily routine, temporal quantification of their behavioral activities (time budget analysis) can assist in equine welfare assessment. Therefore, the present systematic review aimed to provide an up-to-date analysis of equine time budget studies. A review of the literature yielded 12 papers that fulfilled the inclusion criteria: assessment of equine time budgets for eating, resting and movement for a minimum of 24 continuous hours. A total of 144 horses (1–27 years old), 59 semi-feral and 85 domesticated horses, are included in this review. The 24 h time budgets for foraging or eating (10–6.6%), resting (8.1–66%), lying (2.7–27.3%), and locomotion (0.015–19.1%) showed large variance between studies, which can largely be attributed to differences in age and environmental conditions. Management interventions in domesticated horses (ad libitum access to food, increased space, decreased population density) resulted in time budgets similar to their (semi-)feral conspecifics, emphasizing the importance of environmental conditions and the ability of time budgets to assist in monitoring horses’ welfare.


2000 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 151-158 ◽  
Author(s):  
José Luis Cantero ◽  
Mercedes Atienza

Abstract High-resolution frequency methods were used to describe the spectral and topographic microstructure of human spontaneous alpha activity in the drowsiness (DR) period at sleep onset and during REM sleep. Electroencephalographic (EEG), electrooculographic (EOG), and electromyographic (EMG) measurements were obtained during sleep in 10 healthy volunteer subjects. Spectral microstructure of alpha activity during DR showed a significant maximum power with respect to REM-alpha bursts for the components in the 9.7-10.9 Hz range, whereas REM-alpha bursts reached their maximum statistical differentiation from the sleep onset alpha activity at the components between 7.8 and 8.6 Hz. Furthermore, the maximum energy over occipital regions appeared in a different spectral component in each brain activation state, namely, 10.1 Hz in drowsiness and 8.6 Hz in REM sleep. These results provide quantitative information for differentiating the drowsiness alpha activity and REM-alpha by studying their microstructural properties. On the other hand, these data suggest that the spectral microstructure of alpha activity during sleep onset and REM sleep could be a useful index to implement in automatic classification algorithms in order to improve the differentiation between the two brain states.


Author(s):  
Melanie K. T. Takarangi ◽  
Deryn Strange

When people are told that their negative memories are worse than other people’s, do they later remember those events differently? We asked participants to recall a recent negative memory then, 24 h later, we gave some participants feedback about the emotional impact of their event – stating it was more or less negative compared to other people’s experiences. One week later, participants recalled the event again. We predicted that if feedback affected how participants remembered their negative experiences, their ratings of the memory’s characteristics should change over time. That is, when participants are told that their negative event is extremely negative, their memories should be more vivid, recollected strongly, and remembered from a personal perspective, compared to participants in the other conditions. Our results provide support for this hypothesis. We suggest that external feedback might be a potential mechanism in the relationship between negative memories and psychological well-being.


2019 ◽  
Vol 29 (6) ◽  
pp. 147-170

The article provides a comparison of the concept of homo œconomicus with the core theses of René Descartes’ moral philosophy. The first section draws on the work of the contemporary Western philosopher Anselm Jappe in which Descartes’ philosophy is held to be the cornerstone of the established view and current scientific definitions of homo œconomicus as the fundamental and indispensable agent of capitalistic relations. As opposed to this “common sense” position in the modern social sciences, the second section of the article builds upon Pierre Bourdieu’s Anthropologie économique (2017) to demystify the notion of homo œconomicus. The article then examines some aspects of modern philosophical anthropology that show odd traces of Descartes’ thinking and that are regularly applied in economic science as well as in the critique of economic thinking as such. These are the concepts of mutuality, giving, exchange and generosity, and they are regarded as central to the philosopher’s moral doctrine.The author concludes that the philosophical doctrine of generosity has very little in common with the bourgeois ideology of utility which implies an instrumental relationship between subjects: in Caretesian moral philosophy the Other is neither an object of influence nor a means to achieve someone’s personal goals nor a windowless monad. Generosity certainly has its economic aspects, but these do not include accumulating wealth in the bourgeois sense. It is more in the realm of the aristocratic practice of making dispensations. All throughout his life Decartes may be viewed as exhibiting a peculiar kind of nobility in which the desire to give, endow and sacrifice outweighs any selfish interest. The vigorous pursuit of well-being gives way to a quest for the leisure required to pursue intellectual activity, and care for oneself does not preclude attending to and loving the Other, whatever form it may take.


Author(s):  
Andries C. Hauptfleisch

Unsubsidised private retirement resorts in South Africa developed during the last three decades present residents with many challenges. There is no existing generally accepted knowledge base or guidelines to serve this sensitive market. The research objective was to establish which elements are experienced by residents of retirement resorts as satisfactory and which as problematic. A literature study was also undertaken. Quantitative as well as qualitative data were obtained by means of structured questionnaires, interviews and a seminar. The results reported pertain to eight resorts in the east of Pretoria, four in Bloemfontein and two in Knysna. The study is currently being extended to other centres. The quantitative data is arranged in order of the priorities set by the biggest group (Pretoria), with the other groups in comparison. So the research was based on the sourcing of quantitative and qualitative data, as well as on descriptive evaluations. The results offer insightful knowledge and guidelines towards establishing an optimal profile for the development of long-term sustainable private retirement resorts. The implications and value of this study are that both developers of retirement resorts and prospective residents are provided with guidelines to better equip them to evaluate a specific retirement resort with regard to the sustainable well- being of residents long-term.


Nutrients ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (8) ◽  
pp. 2648
Author(s):  
Shila Minari Hargreaves ◽  
Eduardo Yoshio Nakano ◽  
Heesup Han ◽  
António Raposo ◽  
Antonio Ariza-Montes ◽  
...  

This study aimed to evaluate the general quality of life (QoL) of Brazilian vegetarians. A cross-sectional study was conducted with Brazilian vegetarian adults (18 years old and above). Individuals were recruited to participate in a nationwide online survey that comprised the WHOQOL-BREF as well as sociodemographic and characterization questions related to vegetarianism. The WHOQOL-BREF is composed of 24 items which are divided into four domains (domain 1: physical health; domain 2: psychological well-being; domain 3: social relationships; and domain 4: environment), plus two general items which were analyzed separately, totaling 26 items. The answers from the questionnaire were converted into scores with a 0–100 scale range, with separate analyses for each domain. Results were compared among groups based on the different characteristics of the vegetarian population. A total of 4375 individuals completed the survey. General average score results were 74.67 (domain 1), 66.71 (domain 2), 63.66 (domain 3) and 65.76 (domain 4). Vegans showed better scores when compared to the other vegetarians, except in domain four, where the statistical difference was observed only for semi-vegetarians (lower score). Individuals adopting a vegetarian diet for longer (>1 year) showed better results for domains one and two, with no difference for the other domains. Having close people also adopting a vegetarian diet positively influenced the results for all domains. On the other hand, it was not possible to distinguish any clear influence of the motivation for adopting a vegetarian diet on the scores’ results. Adopting a vegetarian diet does not have detrimental effects on one’s QoL. In fact, the more plant-based the diet, and the longer it was adopted, the better the results were.


2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jing Guang ◽  
Halen Baker ◽  
Orilia Ben-Yishay Nizri ◽  
Shimon Firman ◽  
Uri Werner-Reiss ◽  
...  

AbstractDeep brain stimulation (DBS) is currently a standard procedure for advanced Parkinson’s disease. Many centers employ awake physiological navigation and stimulation assessment to optimize DBS localization and outcome. To enable DBS under sedation, asleep DBS, we characterized the cortico-basal ganglia neuronal network of two nonhuman primates under propofol, ketamine, and interleaved propofol-ketamine (IPK) sedation. Further, we compared these sedation states in the healthy and Parkinsonian condition to those of healthy sleep. Ketamine increases high-frequency power and synchronization while propofol increases low-frequency power and synchronization in polysomnography and neuronal activity recordings. Thus, ketamine does not mask the low-frequency oscillations used for physiological navigation toward the basal ganglia DBS targets. The brain spectral state under ketamine and propofol mimicked rapid eye movement (REM) and Non-REM (NREM) sleep activity, respectively, and the IPK protocol resembles the NREM-REM sleep cycle. These promising results are a meaningful step toward asleep DBS with nondistorted physiological navigation.


Hand ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 155894472110146
Author(s):  
Francisco R. Avila ◽  
Rickey E. Carter ◽  
Christopher J. McLeod ◽  
Charles J. Bruce ◽  
Davide Giardi ◽  
...  

Background Wearable devices and sensor technology provide objective, unbiased range of motion measurements that help health care professionals overcome the hindrances of protractor-based goniometry. This review aims to analyze the accuracy of existing wearable sensor technologies for hand range of motion measurement and identify the most accurate one. Methods We performed a systematic review by searching PubMed, CINAHL, and Embase for studies evaluating wearable sensor technology in hand range of motion assessment. Keywords used for the inquiry were related to wearable devices and hand goniometry. Results Of the 71 studies, 11 met the inclusion criteria. Ten studies evaluated gloves and 1 evaluated a wristband. The most common types of sensors used were bend sensors, followed by inertial sensors, Hall effect sensors, and magnetometers. Most studies compared wearable devices with manual goniometry, achieving optimal accuracy. Although most of the devices reached adequate levels of measurement error, accuracy evaluation in the reviewed studies might be subject to bias owing to the use of poorly reliable measurement techniques for comparison of the devices. Conclusion Gloves using inertial sensors were the most accurate. Future studies should use different comparison techniques, such as infrared camera–based goniometry or virtual motion tracking, to evaluate the performance of wearable devices.


Sensors ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (3) ◽  
pp. 885 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zhongzheng Fu ◽  
Xinrun He ◽  
Enkai Wang ◽  
Jun Huo ◽  
Jian Huang ◽  
...  

Human activity recognition (HAR) based on the wearable device has attracted more attention from researchers with sensor technology development in recent years. However, personalized HAR requires high accuracy of recognition, while maintaining the model’s generalization capability is a major challenge in this field. This paper designed a compact wireless wearable sensor node, which combines an air pressure sensor and inertial measurement unit (IMU) to provide multi-modal information for HAR model training. To solve personalized recognition of user activities, we propose a new transfer learning algorithm, which is a joint probability domain adaptive method with improved pseudo-labels (IPL-JPDA). This method adds the improved pseudo-label strategy to the JPDA algorithm to avoid cumulative errors due to inaccurate initial pseudo-labels. In order to verify our equipment and method, we use the newly designed sensor node to collect seven daily activities of 7 subjects. Nine different HAR models are trained by traditional machine learning and transfer learning methods. The experimental results show that the multi-modal data improve the accuracy of the HAR system. The IPL-JPDA algorithm proposed in this paper has the best performance among five HAR models, and the average recognition accuracy of different subjects is 93.2%.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document