Life Sciences Commons^™

The Precautionary Principle: A Cautionary Note, Robert C. Jones

Animal Sentience

The precautionary principle regarding animal sentience is often used in decision-making about human actions that may cause harm to nonhuman animals. Birch (2017) develops an account of the precautionary principle requiring two pragmatic rules for its implementation. I support Birch's proposal but offer a cautionary note about relying on precautionary principles if one's ultimate goal is to emancipate animals from human domination.

Will The Precautionary Principle Broaden Acceptance Of Animal Sentience?, Simon Leadbeater

Animal Sentience

Birch uses existing practice to develop a formal Animal Sentience Precautionary Principle (ASPP), which he hopes will become more widely adopted and improve animal welfare outcomes. Birch considers the assumption that all animals are sentient to be extreme. Despite its merits, Birch’s ASPP remains human-centred.

A Preliminary Investigation Into The Welfare Of Lobsters In The Uk, Gemma Carder

Animal Sentience

The welfare of invertebrates is overlooked and their needs are not understood. It is assumed that they do not experience pain and suffering. Studies on decapod crustaceans challenge this assumption. Research has focused on distinguishing between nociception (the ability to detect a harmful stimulus and to react to it reflexively) and pain (an aversive feeling or emotional experience). Findings indicate that decapod crustaceans can experience pain, which supports a case for protecting their welfare. I have investigated the current husbandry conditions of a globally consumed decapod crustacean, the lobster, as housed in tanks inside food outlets in the UK. Housing …

Assessing Negative And Positive Evidence For Animal Pain, Robert W. Elwood

Animal Sentience

Jonathan Birch suggests that we should take one well-conducted study that produces results consistent with the idea of pain as being sufficient to invoke the animal sentience precautionary principle. Here, I consider how to balance negative and positive results from such studies using examples from my own work. I also consider which criteria of pain might provide strong inference about pain and which may prove to be weaker.

Operationalizing Fear Through Understanding Vigilance, Ralph Adolphs

Animal Sentience

Beauchamp’s target article raises important questions about the features that often accompany fear. How reliable an indicator of fear is vigilance? Is it constitutive, cause, or consequence of fear? These questions force us towards a clearer definition of “fear.”

Fear And Loathing On The Landscape: What Can Foraging Theory Tell Us About Vigilance And Fear?, Burt P. Kotler, Joel S. Brown

Animal Sentience

We discuss fear and vigilance from the perspective of foraging theory. Rather than focusing on proximate indicators of fear, we suggest that fear is an adaptation for assigning a cost to activities that incur a risk of injury or death. We use theory to provide definitions for fear and vigilance and then use that theory to compare them. We agree that there are limits to the reliability of vigilance as an indicator of fear, but we arrive at this conclusion differently.

Methodological Suggestions For Inferring Fear From Vigilance, Julie A. Teichroeb

Animal Sentience

I suggest some methods for data-collection and analysis that may help researchers infer fear from vigilance.

Botanist And Plant Exploration On The Pacific Coast Of North America: A Bibliography, James P. Smith Jr

Botanical Studies

No abstract provided.

A Chronicle Of Economic Botany, James P. Smith Jr

Botanical Studies

No abstract provided.

Collection And Preparation Of Vascular Plant Specimens, James P. Smith Jr

Botanical Studies

No abstract provided.

The Subfamilies & Tribes Of The Grasses Of The United States: Evolving Concepts, James P. Smith Jr

Botanical Studies

No abstract provided.

The Spaghetti Tree, James P. Smith Jr

Botanical Studies

No abstract provided.

Engineered Peptides For Applications In Cancer-Targeted Drug Delivery And Tumor Detection, R. Soudy, N. Byeon, Y. Raghuwanshi, S. Ahmed, A. Lavasanifar, Kamaljit Kaur

Pharmacy Faculty Articles and Research

Cancer-targeting peptides as ligands for targeted delivery of anticancer drugs or drug carriers have the potential to significantly enhance the selectivity and the therapeutic benefit of current chemotherapeutic agents. Identification of tumor-specific biomarkers like integrins, aminopeptidase N, and epidermal growth factor receptor as well as the popularity of phage display techniques along with synthetic combinatorial methods used for peptide design and structure optimization have fueled the advancement and application of peptide ligands for targeted drug delivery and tumor detection in cancer treatment, detection and guided therapy. Although considerable preclinical data have shown remarkable success in the use of tumor targeting …

Skeletal Stiffening In An Amphibious Fish Out Of Water Is A Response To Increased Body Weight, Andy J. Turko, Dietmar KüLtz, Douglas S. Fudge, Roger P. Croll, Frank M. Smith, Matthew R. Stoyek, Patricia A. Wright

Biology, Chemistry, and Environmental Sciences Faculty Articles and Research

Terrestrial animals must support their bodies against gravity, while aquatic animals are effectively weightless because of buoyant support from water. Given this evolutionary history of minimal gravitational loading of fishes in water, it has been hypothesized that weight-responsive musculoskeletal systems evolved during the tetrapod invasion of land and are thus absent in fishes. Amphibious fishes, however, experience increased effective weight when out of water – are these fishes responsive to gravitational loading? Contrary to the tetrapod-origin hypothesis, we found that terrestrial acclimation reversibly increased gill arch stiffness (∼60% increase) in the amphibious fish Kryptolebias marmoratus when loaded normally by gravity, …

2017 Weed Science Research Report – White Section, Ndsu Weed Science, Dept. Of Plant Sciences

Plant Sciences Weed Science Reports

The Weed Science team at North Dakota State University conduct field research in the State of North Dakota. This specific document provides environmental, indexes, abbreviations and collaborators in 2017.

Plant Domestication, James P. Smith Jr

Botanical Studies

No abstract provided.

Economically Important Plants Arranged Systematically, James P. Smith Jr

Botanical Studies

No abstract provided.

Vascular Plants Of Trinidad Head, Humboldt County, California, James P. Smith Jr

Botanical Studies

No abstract provided.

Vascular Plants Of The Horse Mountain Serpentines Humboldt County, California, James P. Smith Jr, John O. Sawyer Jr.

Botanical Studies

No abstract provided.

Checklist Of The Vascular Plants Of The Kangaroo Lake Area Siskiyou County, California, James P. Smith Jr

Botanical Studies

No abstract provided.

A Checklist Of The Vascular Plants Of The Deadfall Lakes Area, Trinity County, California, James P. Smith Jr

Botanical Studies

No abstract provided.

Dichotomous Keys - Their Structure And Use, James P. Smith Jr

Botanical Studies

No abstract provided.

Grasses Of The United States: Number Of Genera And Taxa By State, James P. Smith Jr

Botanical Studies

No abstract provided.

Publication Dates Of Selected Vascular Plant Families, James P. Smith Jr

Botanical Studies

No abstract provided.

California Vascular Plants: A Numerical Conspectus As Seen In Six Standard Floras, James P. Smith Jr

Botanical Studies

No abstract provided.

Public Perception Of Environmental Programs In The Sierra Gorda Biosphere Reserve, Landa De Matamoros, Queretaro, Mexico, Danielle Marie Salisbury

Bard Center for Environmental Policy

Biological or ecological corridors have recently been sought out as a solution to biodiversity loss due to habitat fragmentation. In eastern Mexico, the Mexican and German governments are collaborating to connect fragmented landscapes and Natural Protected Areas (NPAs) over five states across a Madrean Pine-Oak biodiversity hotspot through the implementation of the Ecological Corridor of the Sierra Madre Oriental (CESMO). One of the ways the CESMO is accomplishing its conservation goals is by extending environmental programs that are currently in place within NPAs to other areas within the corridor, but outside of NPA borders. However, the success of the corridor …

Duration Of Periconceptual Folic Acid Supplementation In Women Booking For Antenatal Care, Shona Cawley, Laura Mullaney, Rachel Kennedy, Maria Farren, Daniel Mccartney, Michael J. Turner

Articles

Objective: To provide accurate estimates of the commencement time, duration and dosage of folic acid (FA) supplementation taken by Irish women in the periconceptional period. The study also aimed to establish the factors associated with optimal FA supplementation practices. Design: Cross-sectional observational study. Women’s clinical and sociodemographic details were computerised. Maternal weight and height were measured before calculating BMI. Detailed FA supplementation questionnaires were completed under the supervision of a trained researcher. Setting: A large university maternity hospital, Republic of Ireland, January 2014–April 2016. Subjects: Women (n 856) recruited at their convenience in the first trimester. Results: While almost all …

Exploring Smoking, Mental Health And Smoking-Related Disease In A Nationally Representative Sample Of Older Adults In Ireland: A Retrospective Secondary Analysis, Annette Burns, Judith Strawbridge, Luke Clancy, Frank Doyle

Articles

Objective

Smoking is the leading preventable cause of death among individuals with mental health difficulties (MHD). The aim of the current study was to determine the impact of smoking on the physical health of older adults with MHD in Ireland and to explore the extent to which smoking mediated or moderated associations between MHD and smoking-related diseases.

Methods

Cross-sectional analysis of a nationally representative sample of 8175 community-dwelling adults aged 50 and over from The Irish Longitudinal Study on Ageing (TILDA) was undertaken. Multivariate adjusted logistic regression models were used to assess the association between MHD, smoking (current/past/never) and smoking-related …

Autonomic Modulation In Older Women: Using Resistance Exercise As A Countermeasure, Hayden Gerhart, Yu Lun Tai, Curtis Fennell, Xian Mayo, J. Derek Kingsley

Health & Human Performance Faculty Publications

It is unclear if resistance training (RT) can be used to alter declines in autonomic modulation associated with aging. Young women (YW; range 18–25 yrs) and older women (OW; range 50–72 yrs) were compared at baseline. Only OW underwent supervised RT 2 days a week for 12-weeks. Baseline and post-training measurements included heart rate variability (HRV) and complexity (Sample Entropy) to assess autonomic modulation. The 12-weeks of RT consisted of 9 exercises performing 3 sets of 8–12 repetitions. At baseline, group differences in maximal strength, and autonomic modulation were evaluated with a one-way ANOVA with BMI as a covariate. In …

Is Initial Post-Disturbance Regeneration Indicative Of Longer-Term Trajectories?, Nathan S. Gill, Daniel Jarvis, Thomas T. Veblen, Steward T.A. Pickett, Dominik Kulakowski

Geography

The ability to estimate and model future vegetation dynamics is a central focus of contemporary ecology and is essential for understanding future ecological trajectories. It is therefore critical to understand when the influence of initial post-disturbance regeneration versus stochastic processes dominates long-term post-disturbance ecological processes. Often, conclusions about post-disturbance dynamics are based upon initial regeneration in the years immediately after disturbances. However, the degree to which initial post-disturbance regeneration indicates longer-term trends is likely to be contingent on the types, intensities, and combinations of disturbances, as well as pre-disturbance ecosystem structure and composition. Our relatively limited understanding of why initial …