82 research outputs found
How might we increase physical activity through dog walking?: A comprehensive review of dog walking correlates
No full textBackground: Physical inactivity and sedentary behaviour are major threats to population health. A considerable proportion of people own dogs, and there is good evidence that dog ownership is associated with higher levels of physical activity. However not all owners walk their dogs regularly. This paper comprehensively reviews the evidence for correlates of dog walking so that effective interventions may be designed to increase the physical activity of dog owners.Methods: Published findings from 1990-2012 in both the human and veterinary literature were collated and reviewed for evidence of factors associated with objective and self-reported measures of dog walking behaviour, or reported perceptions about dog walking. Study designs included cross-sectional observational, trials and qualitative interviews.Results: There is good evidence that the strength of the dog-owner relationship, through a sense of obligation to walk the dog, and the perceived support and motivation a dog provides for walking, is strongly associated with increased walking. The perceived exercise requirements of the dog may also be a modifiable point for intervention. In addition, access to suitable walking areas with dog supportive features that fulfil dog needs such as off-leash exercise, and that also encourage human social interaction, may be incentivising.Conclusion: Current evidence suggests that dog walking may be most effectively encouraged through targeting the dog-owner relationship and by providing dog-supportive physical environments. More research is required to investigate the influence of individual owner and dog factors on 'intention' to walk the dog as well as the influence of human social interaction whilst walking a dog. The effects of policy and cultural practices relating to dog ownership and walking should also be investigated. Future studies must be of a higher quality methodological design, including accounting for the effects of confounding between variables, and longitudinal designs and testing of interventions in a controlled design in order to infer causality
Factors associated with daily walking of dogs
No full textBackground: Regular physical activity is beneficial to the health of both people and animals. The role of regular exercise undertaken together, such as dog walking, is a public health interest of mutual benefit. Exploration of barriers and incentives to regular dog walking by owners is now required so that effective interventions to promote it can be designed. This study explored a well-characterised cross-sectional dataset of 276 dogs and owners from Cheshire, UK, for evidence of factors associated with the dog being walked once or more per day. Results: Factors independently associated with daily walking included: number of dogs owned (multiple (vs. single) dogs negatively associated); size (medium and possibly large dogs (vs. small) positively associated); and number of people in the household (more people negatively associated). Furthermore, a number of factors related to the dog-owner relationship and the dog's behaviour were associated with daily walking, including: having acquired the dog for a hobby (positively associated); dog lying on furniture (positively associated); dog lying on laps (negatively associated); growling at household members (negatively associated); and playing chase games with the dog (negatively associated). Conclusions: These findings are consistent with the hypothesis that the strength and nature of the human-dog relationship incentivises dog walking, and that behavioural and demographic factors may affect dog walking via this mechanism. Future studies need to investigate how dog demographic and behavioural factors, plus owner behavioural factors and perceptions of the dog, influence the dog-human relationship in respect to the perceived support and motivation a dog can provide for walking
Identifying temporal variation in reported births, deaths and movements of cattle in Britain-8
No full text<p><b>Copyright information:</b></p><p>Taken from "Identifying temporal variation in reported births, deaths and movements of cattle in Britain"</p><p>BMC Veterinary Research 2006;2():11-11.</p><p>Published online 30 Mar 2006</p><p>PMCID:PMC1440854.</p><p>Copyright © 2006 Robinson and Christley; licensee BioMed Central Ltd.</p>incorporate the standard errors around the parameter estimate with error bars indicating the 95% confidence interval
Identifying temporal variation in reported births, deaths and movements of cattle in Britain-7
No full text<p><b>Copyright information:</b></p><p>Taken from "Identifying temporal variation in reported births, deaths and movements of cattle in Britain"</p><p>BMC Veterinary Research 2006;2():11-11.</p><p>Published online 30 Mar 2006</p><p>PMCID:PMC1440854.</p><p>Copyright © 2006 Robinson and Christley; licensee BioMed Central Ltd.</p>incorporate the standard errors around the parameter estimate with error bars indicating the 95% confidence interval
Identifying temporal variation in reported births, deaths and movements of cattle in Britain-5
No full text<p><b>Copyright information:</b></p><p>Taken from "Identifying temporal variation in reported births, deaths and movements of cattle in Britain"</p><p>BMC Veterinary Research 2006;2():11-11.</p><p>Published online 30 Mar 2006</p><p>PMCID:PMC1440854.</p><p>Copyright © 2006 Robinson and Christley; licensee BioMed Central Ltd.</p>unconnected symbols) (c) Residuals after accounting for the 3-point moving average (d) 53-point moving average (raw weekly data shown as unconnected symbols)
Participatory evaluation of chicken health and production constraints in Ethiopia
No full textChicken production has a major role in the economy of developing countries and backyard production is particularly important to women. Several programmes, in Ethiopia and elsewhere, have attempted to improve chicken production as a means to reduce poverty. A key constraint to chicken production identified by farmers is disease. This study used participatory rural appraisal methods to work with chicken-keepers in order to prioritise chicken diseases, place these within the context of other production constraints, and to explore perceptions of disease risk factors and biosecurity measures. The study, focused on Debre Zeit, Ethiopia, included 71 poultry keepers (41 backyard and 30 semi-intensive chicken producers). Although women played an important role in backyard production systems, semi-intensive farms were more likely to be controlled by men. Participants identified 9 constraints to production: 7 of 8 groups of backyard producers and 15/31 semi-intensive producers ranked diseases as the most important constraint to chicken production. In contrast to previous reports, farmers in both groups had considerable knowledge of diseases and of factors affecting disease risk. Both groups, but particularly semi-intensive producers, highlighted access to feed as a constraint. Many of the challenges faced by both groups were associated with difficulty accessing agricultural and veterinary inputs and expertise. Whilst many of the constraints identified by farmers could be viewed as simply technical issues to be overcome, we believe it is important to recognise the social factors underpinning what are, in reality, relatively modest technical challenges. The low involvement of women in semi-intensive production needs to be recognised by poultry development schemes. Provision needs to be made to allow access to inputs for a wide range of business models, particularly for those, such as women, who have limited access to the capital to allow them to make the jump from backyard to semi-intensive producer, and require support to slowly build up a flock into a profitable venture
Comparing diagnoses from expert systems and human experts
No full textThis paper discusses a comparison of one heuristic and two Bayesian belief network based expert systems used to aid veterinarians in the process of differential diagnoses of equine diseases where coughing is the presenting clinical sign. Each implementation infers the likelihood of the presence of a number of diseases based on information on the presence or absence of certain clinical signs. The Bayesian belief network approaches are similar except that one includes the use of prior information in the form of disease prevalence estimates. Both are implemented using the Hugin software package. The three approaches were compared using test cases and the lists of resulting diagnoses were examined for agreement using a measure of concordance. The results indicated a difference between the heuristic approach which used the rule-based scoring mechanism and the Bayesian systems. There was, however, little difference between the diagnoses produced by the two Bayesian implementations, indicating that the incorporation of prevalence data makes little difference in diagnostic systems of this type. The findings were also compared with those of clinical experts. The analysis indicated that clinicians were not always in agreement. Moreover, using the same set of test cases the experts were more in agreement with the Bayesian approaches than with the heuristic approach
Predictive trend mining for social network analysis
No full textThis thesis describes research work within the theme of trend mining as applied to social network data. Trend mining is a type of temporal data mining that provides observation into how information changes over time. In the context of the work described in this thesis the focus is on how information contained in social networks changes with time. The work described proposes a number of data mining based techniques directed at mechanisms to not only detect change, but also support the analysis of change, with respect to social network data. To this end a trend mining framework is proposed to act as a vehicle for evaluating the ideas presented in this thesis. The framework is called the Predictive Trend Mining Framework (PTMF). It is designed to support "end-to-end" social network trend mining and analysis. The work described in this thesis is divided into two elements: Frequent Pattern Trend Analysis (FPTA) and Prediction Modeling (PM). For evaluation purposes three social network datasets have been considered: Great Britain Cattle Movement, Deeside Insurance and Malaysian Armed Forces Logistic Cargo. The evaluation indicates that a sound mechanism for identifying and analysing trends, and for using this trend knowledge for prediction purposes, has been established
Predicting the Unpredictable: the Changing Epidemiology of Dictyocaulus viviparus in Great Britain.
No full textDisease caused by the bovine lungworm, Dictyocaulus viviparus, is a cause of significant morbidity and mortality in dairy herds across the world. Subclinical infections are associated with reduced milk production in dairy cattle and growth rate deviations in beef calves whereas clinical outbreaks can be unpredictable and expensive.
Current estimates for lungworm prevalence across Great Britain are unknown but have risen significantly since the 1970s. This has been associated with more cases in adult cattle and the disease emerging into more northern regions of England and Scotland. The objectives of this thesis were to quantify and understand changes in lungworm epidemiology which have occurred over the past 40 years, understand the relative role that farm management factors and climate (change) have had on the changing prevalence of the disease and to predict future changes which may occur under climate change conditions.
Chapter 2 investigates the spatiotemporal distribution of lungworm cases reported to the Veterinary Investigation and Diagnosis Analysis (VIDA) database from 1974 – 2014. There has been a significant increase in the diagnostic rate of lungworm across Great Britain from 0.97 cases per 1,000 submissions in 1980 to 4.04 cases per 1,000 submissions in 2014, with a dramatically increased rate in Scotland. Moreover, the number of cases in adult cattle has increased since the 1980s. Chapter 3 describes the novel use of an existing D.viviparus ELISA in dairy herds, with an improved test sensitivity of 66.7% and specificity of 95.5% under field conditions. Chapter 4 subsequently made use of this test in a cross - sectional survey of UK dairy farmers, which improved our understanding of farm management practices associated with an increased risk of D.viviparus presence. Chapter 5 quantifies the influence of climatic conditions, building a mathematical model, which predicts the development, survival and migration of infective D.viviparus larvae on pasture. It was validated using a longitudinal study and showed that pasture infectivity occurred 46 days prior to a peak in antibody response (95% confidence intervals 38 – 52 days). The model demonstrated that the climate was conducive to increased D.viviparus transmission in Scotland from 1995 onwards. Under future climate change predictions, by 2055, the majority of England is predicted to have a climate not conducive to D.viviparus transmission. Exceptions to this are in Scotland and the southwest of England, which are predicted to remain hotspots for the disease until at least 2095.
In the past, researchers have largely attempted to explain the changes observed in lungworm epidemiology from farm management factors. However, the findings presented here suggest that climate (change) can account for most of the changes observed and may have already had a significant impact on the epidemiology of D.viviparus across Great Britain. Future global changes in livestock farming will continue to threaten the stability of the disease landscape. Mathematical models such as the one described here, can forecast heightened disease risk periods and will be useful in the design of sustainable control measures for lungworm diseas
Ecology of Mosquito Vectors in Relation to Avian Malaria in Zoological Gardens in the United Kingdom
No full textAvian malaria is one of the most serious diseases in penguins under human care and could become a severe threat to the conservation of vulnerable wild populations. It is caused by the Haemosporidia parasites of the genus Plasmodium and needs a mosquito vector for its transmission. We captured mosquitoes during two years in Chester Zoo (Cheshire) and one year in Flamingo Land (Yorkshire); both zoos house Humboldt penguins (Spheniscus humboldti). The mosquito temporal and spatial abundance across the seasons and sites were analysed. It was found that Culex pipiens, the principal avian malaria vector in Europe, was the most abundant species. There was a peak in the mosquito abundance during the summer as expected, but it was at different months between sites and years. The abundance of mosquitoes also varied among sampling areas; one area in Chester Zoo captured a greater proportion of mosquitoes than the others in both years, and in Flamingo Land, we also found an area with consistent high catches. Blood-fed mosquitoes were captured and analysed to identify the host on which they had fed. Different proportions of blood-fed mosquitoes were captured by areas and months; more were collected during the summer and in certain areas that not in all cases were related to a high abundance of un-fed mosquitoes. Most of these mosquitoes were Culex pipiens and Culiseta annulata; it was confirmed that the first one prefers to feed on birds and the second one on non-human mammals. However, many Culex pipiens fed on humans, which alert us about the possible nuisance for visitors and the potential transmission risk of zoonotic diseases. A partially identified Culicinae mosquito, likely to be Culex pipiens, and an Anopheles maculipennis s. l. fed on penguins; so, they could be involved in avian malaria transmission. It was found that mosquitoes travel variable distance after feeding and therefore, the control measures against mosquitoes should cover more than the areas of immediate concern. The environmental variables were analysed to understand the drivers of the diverse mosquito captures. The temperature was the most important variable related to mosquito abundance, and the dense vegetation, proximity to mosquito oviposition sites and closeness to animal exhibits were also significant. Therefore, the temperature could guide actions for mosquito control and avian malaria prevention and avoiding those surrounding features near the penguin exhibits could prevent high densities of mosquitoes. Many aspects of avian malaria epidemiology are uncertain so, through an online survey, the knowledge of the staff in zoos and wildlife parks about the disease was gathered. It was found that avian malaria had affected penguins in more than half of the answering institutions, involving mainly Humboldt and African penguins (Spheniscus demersus) with high lethality rates; therefore, efforts on preventive actions are encouraged. Avian malaria parasites were found in Culex pipiens mosquitoes and their saliva, wild birds and penguins, suggesting that the transmission process happens locally. Mosquito populations are dynamic, and the biosurveillance of their populations is needed to better understand their role as disease vectors and to implement effective control measures at the right time, assisting in this way the prevention of avian malaria in captive penguins
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