Integrating Telemedicine in Assisting Poison Center Service: Line Application

Objective: To characterize Line, a mobile chat application, usage in Ramathibodi Poison Center (RPC) for further improvement of toxicological consultation services. Materials and Methods: Retrospective data were retrieved from Line messages together with concurrently recorded cases in the RPC database for six months, between November 16, 2018 and May 15, 2019. Time of consultation, time to response, types of toxins, reasons for consultation, and delivered content were recorded. Results: Over six months, 12,686 consultations were made via the hotline with 1,181 cases that used Line as an adjunct with 1,301 conversations. Median response time was three minutes. The most common poisonings were pesticides with 525 contacts (40.4%), followed by pharmaceutical agents and animal toxins. Most requests were for treatment suggestions with 731 contacts (56.2%), followed by notifying case progression and substance or animal identification. Among 1,030 files sent by consultees, the most common were photos of substances and animals for identification. Among 997 responses, most RPC staff used Line as an adjunct for treatment suggestions at 659 times (66.1%), followed by substance or animal identification and providing diagnoses. Overall, 602 protocols were delivered. Conclusion: Ten percent of all consultations were accompanied by Line usage. Most contacts were about pesticides and for appropriate treatment. RPC also used Line to effectively deliver diagnoses and treatment and increase coverage nationally. Keywords: Telemedicine, Line, Application, Poison center

Community-Based Livestock Breeding: Coordinated Action or Relational Process?

Over the past decade, community-based breeding programs (CBBPs) have been promoted as a viable approach to improving smallholder livelihoods through a systematic livestock breeding. CBBPs aim to initiate systematic breeding at the community level, including an organized animal identification and recording of performance and pedigree data. To ensure the breeding programs' continuity, building capacities, and ownership among participants are essential to the approach. This study's purpose was to understand how CBBPs have evolved in specific institutional settings and which dynamics occur in the course of implementation. We addressed these questions in reflective conversations with six coordinators of a diverse sample of CBBPs: goats (Malawi, Uganda, and Mexico), sheep (Ethiopia), alpaca (Peru), and cattle (Burkina Faso). The interviews and analysis were guided by categories of the multi-level perspective. The respondents considered lack of funding and weak institutionalization as the main constraints on the CBBPs. While the idea of participation and localized ownership was at the center of the programs, linear paradigms of knowledge transfer prevailed. In all cases, the impulse to start a CBBP came from individual researchers, who relied on intermediaries, such as extension agents, for implementation. Personal relations and trust were seen as both a factor in the success and a positive outcome of CBBPs. We conclude that these findings have different implications depending on how rural development is conceptualized: proponents of the innovation systems perspective would call for stakeholders to further align their interests and coordinate their actions. Proponents of process-relational concepts, in contrast, would not consider the CBBP a product but a starting-point for initiators and participants to continuously discover new ways of collaboration and engagement.

A Smart Sensing System of Water Quality and Intake Monitoring for Livestock and Wild Animals

This paper presents a water intake monitoring system for animal agriculture that tracks individual animal watering behavior, water quality, and water consumption. The system is deployed in an outdoor environment to reach remote areas. The proposed system integrates motion detectors, cameras, water level sensors, flow meters, Radio-Frequency Identification (RFID) systems, and water temperature sensors. The data collection and control are performed using Arduino microcontrollers with custom-designed circuit boards. The data associated with each drinking event are water consumption, water temperature, drinking duration, animal identification, and pictures. The data and pictures are automatically stored on Secure Digital (SD) cards. The prototypes are deployed in a remote grazing site located in Tucumcari, New Mexico, USA. The system can be used to perform water consumption and watering behavior studies of both domestic animals and wild animals. The current system automatically records the drinking behavior of 29 cows in a two-week duration in the remote ranch.

Microsatellite DNA Analysis for Diversity Study, Individual Identification and Parentage Control in Pig Breeds in Poland

Swine DNA profiling is of high importance for animal identification and parentage verification. The aim of this study was to test a set of 14 microsatellite (STR) markers recommended by ISAG for parentage verification in Polish Landrace (PL, n = 900), Polish Large White (PLW, n = 482), Pulawska (PUL, n = 127), and Duroc pigs (DU n = 108). The studied breeds showed a medium level of genetic differentiation. The average value of heterozygosity and degree of polymorphism (PIC) were above 0.5 for the studied breeds, except for the DU breed (PIC = 0.477). The population inbreeding coefficient indicates an absence of inbreeding in the studied breeds (an average value of FIS = 0.007). The cumulative power of discrimination for all breeds reached high values close to 1.0, while the probability of identity (PID) was low, with PID values ranging between 10−9 (for DU) and 10−12 (for PLW). The cumulative exclusion probability for PE1 and PE2 showed that the parentage can be confirmed with a probability of from 92.75% to 99.01% and from 99.49% to 99.97%, respectively.

Langurs in the Aegean Bronze Age? A Review of a Recent Debate on Archaeoprimatology and Animal Identification in Ancient Iconography

Recently, an article was published in the journal Primates, in which an interdisciplinary team consisting of primatologists, a taxonomic illustrator, and an art historian/archaeologist suggested a new identification of the monkeys depicted in a wall painting from Room 6 of Building Complex Beta in the Bronze Age town of Akrotiri on the Cycladic island of Thera.1 Briefly summarised, Pareja et al. argued that the monkeys represented are to be identified as grey or Hanuman langurs (Semnopithecus spp.), a monkey genus native to the Indian subcontinent. With this, they diverged from the traditional identification as green monkeys/vervets/grivets of the genus Chlorocebus from Africa.2 It was claimed that the new identification as langurs provides (further) evidence for links between the Aegean and the Indus River Valley during the Bronze Age, with Mesopotamia as a likely intermediary region. According to the authors, the Cycladic artists could have seen langurs on their travels, and monkey iconography could have reached the Aegean via objects originating from these regions.

Influence of inbreeding and some environmental factors on calving intervals in N'Dama cattle of Southwest Nigeria

Records of 4184 N'Dama calves born between 1947 and 1984 at Fashola Stock Farm, Oyo State, Nigeria was used to compute inbreeding coefficient and determine its effects on calving intervals of cows. Only 273 of the 4184 calves (6.53%) were inbred with an average inbreeding coefficient of 9.71%, while five out of 293 sires had inbreeding coefficient of 9.25% and 43 out of 1849 dams had inbreeding coefficient of 9.95%. The inbreeding coefficient for the entire population was 0.63%, respectively 0.70% and 0.58% for male and female calves. The average calving interval was 445.34 ± 2.68 days within the herd while year of birth, parity of dam, age of dam and dam's age at first calving all significantly (P<0.05) impacted calving intervals of cows. Season of birth and inbreeding coefficient of dam did not exert statistical (P>0.05) influence on calving intervals of dams. Although the number of inbred animals in the population is relatively low, however the inbreeding level of these animals is high, which may be attributed to the fact that breeding policy on the farm was not strictly adhered to, and lack of proper and adequate registration system coupled with inconsistent animal identification system on the farm may be responsible for the inbreeding observed in the N'Dama population at Fashola Stock Farm.

Economic Cost of Traceability in U.S. Beef Production

Livestock traceability has increasingly become a focus for the USDA, the National Cattlemen's Beef Association, high-volume beef-exporting states, and other beef industry stakeholders. The focus on traceability within the United States (U.S.) began after several international animal disease outbreaks and continues to be of importance with highly infectious diseases spreading across the globe. Mitigating adverse future disease outbreaks and food safety events, as well as maintaining export markets through a positive international perception of U.S. beef has become a top priority. Implementing a national animal identification (ID) and traceability program would enable the industry to track and reduce the potential losses due to an outbreak or event. However, such a system comes at a cost, mainly to cow-calf producers. This study utilizes a partial equilibrium model to determine the impacts of a beef cattle animal ID and traceability system in the United States. Utilizing an economic model allows us to provide a comparison of how the various beef sectors would need to respond to offset the costs of a national animal ID and traceability program. Assuming no changes in domestic and international demand for U.S. beef, producers at the wholesale, slaughter, and feeder levels lose $475 million, $1,143 million, and $1,291 million, respectively, in a 10-year discounted cumulative producer surplus. A 17.7 and 1.9% increase in international and domestic beef demand would be required to completely offset the producer costs of CattleTrace, respectively.

DEVELOPMENT OF AN INTELLIGENT MACHINE FOR SORTING ANIMALS ACCORDING TO SPECIFIED CRITERIA

The Federal scientific Agroengineering center VIM has developed technical tools, algorithms and software for the intelligent automatic control system for milking animals “Stimul” on the “Herringbone” milking unit in three versions. The created system does not include automatic selection gates for effective management of zootechnical and veterinary services of animals. (Research purpose) The research purpose is in developing an intelligent machine for automatic sorting of animals for servicing and managing the herd according to specified characteristics. (Materials and methods) The article presents the development of control and management systems in dairy farming based on the conceptual principles of digital transformation. The digital control system is based on a multifunctional panel controller. The created control unit has a port for connecting to the RS 485 network and provides support for network functions via the Modbus Protocol. The programming of the control unit has been made in the SMLogix tool environment, which supports the FBD function block language. (Results and discussion) The article presents an intelligent machine for automatic sorting of animal flows for servicing and managing the herd according to specified characteristics with the unification of hardware, software modules and interface. The article describes the necessary parameters for the automatic remote animal identification system, the basic component of the control system of an intelligent machine for sorting animals according to specified characteristics. (Conclusions) The machine allows to automatically identify, sort and send animals to the specified areas for individual service.