Digital Commons Network^™

Repeatability Of Foraging Behavior Following A Simulated Predation Attempt Depends On Color Morph, Sex, And Foraging Metric In Red-Backed Salamanders (Plethodon Cinereus), Brian P. Waldron, Marissa C. Ganzfried, Cari-Ann M. Hickerson, Carl D. Anthony

2022 Faculty Bibliography

Behavioral repeatability greatly affects the capacity of an individual to respond to varying environments. When multiple behaviors within individuals are repeatable and correlated across time or across contexts, it is termed a behavioral syndrome. However, not all behaviors exhibit the same level of repeatability, and relatively few studies have examined repeatability in amphibians. We examined the repeatability of foraging behavior in the Eastern Red-backed salamander (Plethodon cinereus), a color-polymorphic terrestrial salamander, following a simulated predation attempt. We tested several hypotheses: (1) Simulated predation would negatively affect foraging, increasing latency to feed and decreasing the number of prey items eaten in …

The Impact Of The Coronavirus Pandemic On Adolescent Mental Health: A Literature Review, Grace Murnane

Senior Honors Projects

The coronavirus pandemic, hereafter simply Covid-19, has pervaded and impacted in some way, shape or form the lives of everyone, globally. The disease itself can cause severe physical effects, but the indirect implications of quarantine and isolation have been shown to cause mental issues of concern among adolescents. Adolescents are at a unique point in their lives at which socialization is crucial for proper brain development. As such, this literature review will proceed with the goal of summarizing why adolescents need socialization, how Covid-19 has impeded that socialization, and the effects of a lack of socialization among that age group

Animal Models In Neuropsychiatry: Do The Benefits Outweigh The Moral Costs?, Carrie Figdor

Animal Models - Psychology

Animal models have long been used to investigate human mental disorders, including depression, anxiety, and schizophrenia. This practice is usually justified in terms of the benefits (to humans) outweighing the costs (to the animals). The author argues on utility maximization grounds that we should phase out animal models in neuropsychiatric research. The leading theories of how human minds and behavior evolved invoke sociocultural factors whose relation to nonhuman minds, societies, and behavior has not been homologized. Thus, it is not at all clear that we are gaining the epistemic or clinical benefits we want from this animal-based research

World Happiness Report 2022, John F. Helliwell, Richard Layard, Jeffrey D. Sacks, Jan-Emmanuel De Neve, Lara B. Atkin, Shun Wang

Happiness and Subjective Well-Being

This is the tenth anniversary of the World Happiness Report. From its first year, the report has had a large and growing readership – reaching over 9 million in 2021. It has been widely cited. But more important has been the message the Report has carried. The true measure of progress is the happiness of the people that happiness can be measured; and that we know a lot about what causes it. Given this knowledge, it is now possible for policy-makers to make people’s happiness the goal of their policies. And each of us can live a wiser life. We …

Pain Sentience Criteria And Their Grading, Eva Jablonka, Simona Ginsburg

Animal Sentience

On the basis of the target article by Crump and colleagues, we suggest a more parsimonious scheme for evaluating the evidence for sentience. Since some of the criteria used by Crump et al. are not independent and some are uninformative we exclude some criteria and amalgamate others. We propose that evidence of flexible learning and prioritization, in conjunction with relevant data on brain organization, is sufficient for assigning pain-sentience to an animal and we suggest a scoring scheme based on four criteria.

Truly Minimal Criteria For Animal Sentience, Mark Solms

Animal Sentience

The criteria for determining animal sentience proposed in the target article are sensible but they lack an explicit functional justification for the focus on pain. This commentary provides an abbreviated account of the most basic functional principles that underpin animal sentience and articulates some minimal criteria for determining its presence.

Crustacean Pain, Michael Tye

Animal Sentience

This commentary discusses the target article’s methodology, the relevance of the claim that crustaceans lack a neocortex to the thesis that they feel pain, and the evaluation of the results of some trade-off experiments done with hermit crabs.

No Need For Certainty In Animal Sentience, Yew Kwang Ng

Animal Sentience

This commentary supports Crump et al.’s (2022) point that where risks to welfare are severe, strong evidence of sentience is sufficient to warrant protecting welfare. Crump et al.’s eight criteria for sentience are also useful. Flexible decision-making (5) and flexible behaviour (6) are consistent with Ng (1995). The concession that the “no-need-for-sentience” proposition is unnecessary also strengthens the importance of the target article’s conclusions.

What Might Decapod Sentience Mean For Policy, Practice, And Public?, Richard Gorman

Animal Sentience

Crump et al. provide eight criteria for evaluating sentience in decapods, with scope for for application to other taxa. Their work has attracted the interest of policymakers. This commentary discusses the limitations of conceptual and legal acknowledgement of sentience in chainging practice and public attitudes. More work is needed. Social science may be able to help.

Fine-Tuning The Criteria For Inferring Sentience, Culum Brown

Animal Sentience

“Sentience” means the capacity to feel, and feelings are private affairs. Sentience is hence extremely difficult to quantify in nonhuman animals. We have no direct means of determining whether an animal is sentient. Thus we rely on a series of indirect measures or criteria which collectively provide some level of confidence about the probability that an animal is sentient. Crump et al. propose a modified framework based on 8 criteria for estimating the likelihood of sentience in a target taxon. Whereas I very much like their proposed framework, I would suggest a couple of amendments that may improve it further: …

Emotional Component Of Pain Perception In The Medicinal Leech?, Brian D. Burrell

Animal Sentience

Crump et al. have provided a series of criteria to assess animal sentience that is focused on the perception of pain, which is known to have both sensory and emotional components. They also provide a qualitative scoring system to assess data that address the eight criteria and apply this paradigm to decapod crustaceans. The criteria laid out have the potential to be applied to other invertebrates typically thought to have sensory response to tissue damage, but no emotional component to pain perception.

Generalizing Frameworks For Sentience Beyond Natural Species, Michael Levin

Animal Sentience

Crump et al. (2022) offer a well-argued example of an essential development: a rigorous framework for assessing sentience from the perspective of moral concern over an agent’s welfare. Current and forthcoming developments in bioengineering, synthetic morphology, artificial intelligence, biorobotics, and exobiology necessitate an expansion and generalization of this effort. Verbal reports (the Turing Test) and homology to human brains are utterly inadequate criteria for assessing the status of novel, unconventional agents that offer no familiar touchstone of phylogeny or anatomy. We must develop principled approaches to evaluating the sentience of (and thus, our responsibility to) beings of unfamiliar provenance and …

Sentience In Decapods: An Open Question, Mark Briffa

Animal Sentience

Crump et al.’s framework is a powerful tool designed to assist decisions on the ethical treatment of decapod crustaceans. However, the question of whether decapods are sentient (i.e., whether they feel), remains open, perhaps indefinitely. More optimistically, we might design experiments that distinguish among different levels of awareness, sometimes viewed as components of sentience. We should strike a balance between assuming that all organisms are sentient and making unnecessary anatomical assumptions about sentience. Refining current experiments may provide concrete insights about awareness in Decapoda and other taxa.

Unresolved Issues Of Behavioral Analysis In Invertebrates, Charles I. Abramson, Paco Calvo

Animal Sentience

Crump et al. (2022) provide a framework for determining the presence of sentience in organisms. Their target article is interesting and thought-provoking, but it does not consider the many unresolved issues related to behavioral analysis – especially when it concerns invertebrates. We feel that no real progress can be made until such fundamental issues as the need for a consistent definition of conditioning phenomena, the lack of a generally accepted behavioral taxonomy, and the use of cognitive terms to explain invertebrate behavior are examined critically.

Does The Sentience Framework Imply All Animals Are Sentient?, Kristin Andrews

Animal Sentience

The eight criteria proposed in Crump et al.’s framework for evaluating pain sentience in decapod crustaceans are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to markers that could increase confidence in an animal’s sentience more generally. Some of the commentaries have already pointed out that pain is only one kind of sentience (Souza Valente). It has also already been pointed out that there are other criteria for pain that could be usefully added to the framework’s eight (Burrell). This expansive thinking about criteria that can be used to increase confidence in sentience raisess the question: in an expansive …

Distinguishing Epistemic And Moral Grounds For Legal Protection, Carlos Montemayor

Animal Sentience

The criteria proposed by Crump et al. are based on various cognitive roles associated with sentience. A subset of them may be sufficient for certain kinds of welfare, but the presence of all of them should be considered as clearly sufficient for substantial kinds of legal protection based on their relation to capacities that we consider essential for moral standing in human beings.

Unconscious Humans, Autonomous Machines And The Difficulty Of Knowing Which Animals Are Sentient, Marian Stamp Dawkins

Animal Sentience

The framework proposed by Crump et al. still leaves much doubt about whether invertebrates such as crabs are sentient. For example, many complex behaviours - even in humans - occur without sentience. Also, simple machines could easily meet all of Crump et al.’s eight proposed criteria for sentience. Acknowledging the limitations of what we currently know about sentience is important both for formulating legislation correctly and for advancing scientific understanding of this most puzzling of biological phenomena.

Modernizing Medical Research To Benefit People And Animals, Jarrod Bailey, Carla Owen, Isobel Hutchinson

General - Animal Welfare

In the context of widespread public and political concern around the use of animals in research, we sought to examine the scientific, ethical, and economic arguments around the replacement of animals with New Approach Methodologies (NAMs) and to situate this within a regulatory context. We also analyzed the extent to which animal replacement aligns with British public and policymakers’ priorities and explored global progress towards this outcome. The global context is especially relevant given the international nature of regulatory guidance on the safety testing of new medicines. We used a range of evidence to analyze this area, including scientific papers; …

The Un-Iversalization Of Animal Welfare Law, Sabine Brels

Legislation and regulation

Advancing the protection of animal beings is becoming a universal mission in this early twenty-first century. A few years ago, animal welfare was knocking at the door of the United Nations (UN). Today, it is entering this door. Animal lawyers and protectionists are working to support the full inclusion of animal welfare concerns into the agenda of the UN and its organizations, and to create a new UN-iversal regime. The protection of animal beings, long a missing piece of the international law puzzle, seems likely soon to take its place as a UN objective, alongside protection of human beings and …

The Un-Iversalization Of Animal Welfare Law, Sabine Brels

Law

Advancing the protection of animal beings is becoming a universal mission in this early twenty-first century. A few years ago, animal welfare was knocking at the door of the United Nations (UN). Today, it is entering this door. Animal lawyers and protectionists are working to support the full inclusion of animal welfare concerns into the agenda of the UN and its organizations, and to create a new UN-iversal regime. The protection of animal beings, long a missing piece of the international law puzzle, seems likely soon to take its place as a UN objective, alongside protection of human beings and …

More Evidence Suggests That Vegetarianism Is Mostly Due To Genes, Harold Herzog

Herzog - Animal policy and attitudes

The relative influence of genes and environment on human behavior is one of the most persistent, interesting, and divisive issues in psychology. The human penchant for eating animals is a good example. Clearly, culture has a huge influence on the amount of flesh people consume. The average American, for example, consumes about 240 pounds of meat a year while per capita meat consumption in India is only 10 pounds per year. And your chances of being a vegetarian or vegan are nearly seven times higher if you live in India than in the United States (39% versus 6%). Further, cultures …

Is Time With Pets Good For Our Cardiovascular Health? The Surprising Results Of 129 Studies On Dogs’ Effect On Human Health., Harold Herzog

Herzog - Companion Animals and Health

https://www.wellbeingintlstudiesrepository.org/sc_herzog_comphealth/

The well-studied health benefits (of pet ownership) are claimed to be much greater than the research results actually support. For example, it is claimed that a beloved dog will lower a person’s blood pressure, reduce stress hormones, calm anxiety, and even make it easier to interact with other human beings. A recent systematic review indicate that the physiological effects of interacting with a pet may not be as strong as is commonly reported.

Operationalising One Health-One Welfare, Janice H. Cox

One Health

The World Health Organisation (WHO) describes One Health as an approach to designing and implementing programmes, policies, legislation and research in which multiple sectors communicate and work together to achieve better public health outcomes. WHO considers the ‘One Health’ approach to be “critical to addressing health threats in the animal, human and environment interface”.

Variation In Alkaloid Composition And Sequestration In Dendrobatid Poison Frogs, Katherine R. Waters

Masters Theses

No abstract provided.

Dairy Digest 2022 : A Hoofprint In Time, South Dakota State University Dairy Club

Dairy Digest

This is the 2022 Dairy Digest. The Diary Digest is published annually by the South Dakota State University Dairy Club. The Digest contains information and news about the activities and members of the SDSU Dairy Club for the academic year 2021 - 2022.

Ce 652 Syllabus: Treatment Planning, Rieko Miyakuni

Counselor Education Syllabi

This course is designed to assist mental health counselors in designing client-centered, individualized, and culturally sound treatment plans for a wide variety of clinical mental health disorders. Course content will include a strong focus on the diagnosis of mental health disorders based on criteria from the DSM-5, and the subsequent treatment planning and provision of evidence based clinical care. Students completing this course with a satisfactory evaluation will be familiar with evidence-based treatment as a philosophy of practice as well as interventions indicated for specific mental health disorders, and be able to create basic treatment plans that include evidence-based interventions …

Censorship Of The Marketplace Of Ideas: Why Critical Race Theory Bans In Public Schools Violate The First And Fourteenth Amendments, Maria Ignacia Araya

Nova Law Review

No abstract provided.

School Of Health And Consumer Sciences Free Communication Day: Research Abstracts, Spring 2022., Mary Beth Zwart, Elizabeth Droke, Hungling (Stella) Liu

Health and Nutritional Sciences Graduate Students Plan B Capstone Projects

This document contains Plan B abstracts presented by graduate students at the School of Health and Nutritional Sciences Free Communication Day: Research Dissemination held on May 3rd, 2022.

Project titles and presenter included:

• Development of Balanced Budget Bites and Feasibility Evaluation
  (Holly Hansen)
  
  
• The Effectiveness of Extracorporeal Shockwave Therapy on Reducing Pain and Improving Functionality in Athletes with Patellar Tendinopathy
  (Maranna Gunnerson)
  
  
• Community Perception of Small Town Outdoor Aquatic Facility: Case of the Huether Family Aquatic Center.
  (Logan Haak)
  
  
• The Gut Microbiome Profile of the American Indian and Alaska Native Population: A Narrative Review
  (Blair Groebner)
  
  
• The Prevalence of Myocarditis …

Species Effect On The Ecohydrology Of A Floodplain Forest In The Upper Mississippi, Claire Mchenry

Geology Honors Projects

The primary objective of this study is to understand how soil moisture is depleted underneath native and non-native Minnesotan tree species following a rain event. It is hypothesized that soil moisture will deplete more significantly and faster underneath drought intolerant, shallow rooted species native to Minnesota. This study also focuses on utilizing remote sensing techniques to calculate the soil moisture availability across a floodplain forest using Landsat 8 images to compare satellite-derived and field-recorded soil moisture values to assess the potential of these images to remotely estimate soil moisture in floodplains.

Hierarchical Classification Of Deep-Sea Videos, Lubomir Stanchev, Hanson Egbert

Computer Science and Software Engineering

This research is based on previous research that proposes the use of AI algorithms to automatically annotate deep-sea videos [1]. Regardless of whether a deep-sea video is annotated automatically or by a human expert, some frames are difficult to annotate because one or more objects may be ambiguous to interpret. For example, the Funiculina and Umbellula Lindahli are two types of sea pens that are difficult to distinguish. Similarly, an object may be easily identified as a fish, but the type of fish may be difficult to determine. For these types of circumstances, we propose a hierarchical classification algorithm that …