1,721,218 research outputs found
New animal-based measures to assess welfare in dromedary camels
Full text linkReliable and measurable animal-based measures (ABMs) are essential for assessing animal welfare. This study aimed at proposing ABMs for dromedary camels identifying their possible associations with management. Data were collected at a permanent camel market; a total of 76 pens and 528 camels were evaluated. ABMs were collected for each welfare principle (i.e., good feeding, good housing, good health, appropriate behavior), while resources or management-based measures were collected at three levels of investigations (animal, herd, or caretakers). Associations were calculated by generalized linear models. Body condition score and thirst index (ABMs of good feeding) resulted negatively associated with short caretaker’s experience, dirty bedding, limited shaded space, feeding and water space, and space allowance (P < 0.05). Resting behaviors and restricted movements (ABMs of good housing) were associated with short caretaker’s experience, dirty bedding and water, rationed water distribution, water points in the sun, and presence of hobbles (P < 0.05). Disease, injury, and pain induced by management procedures (ABMs of good health) were negatively associated with short caretaker’s experience, presence of hobbles, limited space allowance and shaded space, dirty bedding, and feeding and watering practices (e.g., frequency of distribution, resource quality, location of the troughs; P < 0.05). Response to approaching test and aggressivity (ABMs of Appropriate behavior) were negatively associated with limited space allowance, shaded, feeding and water space, and rationed water distribution (P < 0.05). Overall, the proposed ABMs seems to be appropriate indicators of welfare consequences in camels being able to identify factors related to housing and management practices that may impair or improve camel welfare
Old World camels in a modern world – a balancing act between conservation and genetic improvement
No full textOld World camels have served humans in cross-continental caravans, transporting people and goods, connecting different cultures and providing milk, meat, wool and draught since their domestication around 3000–6000 years ago. In a world of modern transport and fast connectivity, these beasts of burden seem to be out-dated. However, a growing demand for sustainable milk and meat production, especially in countries affected by climate change and increasing desertification, brings dromedaries (Camelus dromedarius) and Bactrian camels (Camelus bactrianus) back onstage and into the focus of animal breeders and scientists. In this review on the molecular genetics of these economically important species we give an overview about the evolutionary history, domestication and dispersal of Old World camels, whereas highlighting the need for conservation of wild two-humped camels (Camelus ferus) as an evolutionarily unique and highly endangered species. We provide cutting-edge information on the current molecular resources and on-going sequencing projects. We cannot emphasise enough the importance of balancing the need for improving camel production traits with maintaining the genetic diversity in two domestic species with specific physiological adaptation to a desert environment
The use of multilevel models to evaluate sources of variation in reproductive performance in dairy cattle in Reunion Island
No full textSources of variation in measures of reproductive performance in dairy cattle were evaluated using data collected from 3207 lactations in 1570 cows in 50 herds from five geographic regions of Reunion Island (located off the cast coast of Madagascar). Three continuously distributed reproductive parameters (intervals from calving-to-conception, calving-to-first-service and first-service-to-conception) were considered, along with one Binomial outcome (first-service-conception risk). Multilevel models which take into account the hierarchical nature of the data were used to fit all models. For the overall measure of calving-to-conception interval, 86% of the variation resided at the lactation level with only 7, 6 and 2% at the cow, herd and regional levels, respectively. The proportion of variance at the herd and cow levels were slightly higher for the calving-to-first-service interval (12 and 9%, respectively) - but for the other two parameters (first-service-conception risk and first-service-to-conception interval), >90% of the variation resided at the lactation level. For the three continuous dependent variables, comparison of results between models based on log-transformed data and Box-Cox-transformed data suggested that minor departures from the assumption of normality did not have a substantial effect on the variance estimates. For the Binomial dependent variable, five different estimation procedures (penalised quasi-likelihood, Markov-Chain Monte Carlo, parametric and non-parametric bootstrap estimates and maximum-likelihood) yielded substantially different results for the estimate of the cow-level variance
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Full text linkWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Full text linkWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
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