Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Annual Review Of The World Pheasant Association, 2009/2010, World Pheasant Association

Galliformes Specialist Group and Affiliated Societies: Reports and Other Materials

Chairman of Trustees' report.Tim Lovel

Treasurer's report for the year ended April 30, 2010, Ian Hoggarth

WPA around the world highlights from the chapters

Overview of the year's conservation activities, Philip J. K. McGowan

Making the Most of Resources

The IUCN-SSC/WPA Galliformes Specialist Group: A global network of technical excellence,Peter J. Garson and Ilse Storch

Highlights from the European Conservation Breeding Group, Heiner Jacken

Rejuvenating the United Kingdom Gaillformes census

Keeping count of Europe's Galliformes,Siro Serena

Developing conservation science leaders, Huw Lloyd

Planning to save our most threatened species, Philip J. K. McGowan

Just how important are Galliformes to humans? …

Understanding Events Through Analysis Of Social Media, Amit P. Sheth, Hemant Purohit, Ashutosh Sopan Jadhav, Pavan Kapanipathi, Lu Chen

Kno.e.sis Publications

Users are sharing vast amounts of social data through social networking platforms accessible by Web and increasingly via mobile devices. This opens an exciting opportunity to extract social perceptions as well as obtain insights relevant to events around us. We discuss the significant need and opportunity for analyzing event-centric user generated content on social networks, present some of the technical challenges and our approach to address them. This includes aggregating social data related to events of interest, along with Web resources (news, Wikipedia pages, multimedia) related to an event of interest, and supporting analysis along spatial, temporal, thematic, and sentiment …

Mobicloud - Making Clouds Reachable: A Toolkit For Easy And Efficient Development Of Customized Cloud Mobile Hybrid Applications, Ashwin Manjunatha, Ajith Harshana Ranabahu, Amit P. Sheth, Krishnaprasad Thirunarayan

Kno.e.sis Publications

The advancements in computing have resulted in a boom of cheap, ubiquitous, connected mobile devices, as well as seemingly unlimited, utility style, pay as you go computing resources, commonly referred to as Cloud computing. However, taking full advantage of this mobile and cloud computing landscape, especially for the data intensive domains, has been hampered by the many heterogeneities that exist in the mobile space, as well as the Cloud space. Our research attempts to exploit the capabilities of the mobile and cloud landscape by introducing MobiCloud, an online toolkit to efficiently develop Cloud-mobile hybrid (CMH) applications. We define a CMH …

Nominal Schemas For Integrating Rules And Ontologies, Frederick Maier, Adila A. Krisnadhi, Pascal Hitzler

Computer Science and Engineering Faculty Publications

We propose a description-logic style extension of OWL DL, which includes DL-safe variable SWRL and seamlessly integrates datalog rules. Our language also sports a tractable fragment, which we call ELP 2, covering OWL EL, OWL RL, most of OWL QL, and variable restricted datalog.

What About The Children? Benjamin And Arendt: On Education, Work, And The Political, Jules Simon

Selected Works Temporary Series

This article is a rough draft of an article that I contributed to an edited volume of articles dealing with progressive education theory. I reflect on articles that Hannah Arendt and Walter Benjamin wrote that deal with educational reform and innovation, both political in nature.

Scale: A Scalable Framework For Efficiently Clustering Transactional Data, Hua Yan, Keke Chen, Ling Liu, Zhang Yi

Kno.e.sis Publications

This paper presents SCALE, a fully automated transactional clustering framework. The SCALE design highlights three unique features. First, we introduce the concept of Weighted Coverage Density as a categorical similarity measure for efficient clustering of transactional datasets. The concept of weighted coverage density is intuitive and it allows the weight of each item in a cluster to be changed dynamically according to the occurrences of items. Second, we develop the weighted coverage density measure based clustering algorithm, a fast, memory-efficient, and scalable clustering algorithm for analyzing transactional data. Third, we introduce two clustering validation metrics and show that these domain …

What Is The Taxonomic Identity Of Minnesota Wolves?, L. David Mech

United States Geological Survey, Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center: Publications

The taxonomic identity of the historical and current wolf (Canis lupus L., 1758 or Canis lycaon Schreber, 1775 or their hybrids) population in Minnesota (MN) and the Great Lakes region has been, and continues to be, controversial. So too does its legal status under the U.S. Endangered Species Act. This review summarizes the morphological and genetic information about that population and concludes that historically the MN population consisted of a gray wolf (C. lupus) in the west and an eastern type (Canis lupus lycaon or C. lycaon) in the east with intergrades or hybrids between …

From Questions To Effective Answers: On The Utility Of Knowledge-Driven Querying Systems For Life Sciences Data, Amir H. Asiaee, Prashant Doshi, Todd Minning, Satya S. Sahoo, Priti Parikh, Amit P. Sheth, Rick L. Tarleton

Kno.e.sis Publications

We compare two distinct approaches for querying data in the context of the life sciences. The first approach utilizes conventional databases to store the data and intuitive form-based interfaces to facilitate easy querying of the data. These interfaces could be seen as implementing a set of 'pre-canned' queries commonly used by the life science researchers that we study. The second approach is based on semantic Web technologies and is knowledge (model) driven. It utilizes a large OWL ontology and same datasets as before but associated as RDF instances of the ontology concepts. An intuitive interface is provided that allows the …

Sensor Discovery On Linked Data, Josh Pschorr, Cory Andrew Henson, Harshal Kamlesh Patni, Amit P. Sheth

Kno.e.sis Publications

There has been a drive recently to make sensor data accessible on the Web. However, because of the vast number of sensors collecting data about our environment, finding relevant sensors on the Web is a non-trivial challenge. In this paper, we present an approach to discovering sensors through a standard service interface over Linked Data. This is accomplished with a semantic sensor network middleware that includes a sensor registry on Linked Data and a sensor discovery service that extends the OGC Sensor Web Enablement. With this approach, we are able to access and discover sensors that are positioned near named-locations …

Sensor Data And Perception: Can Sensors Play 20 Questions, Cory Andrew Henson

Kno.e.sis Publications

Currently, there are many sensors collecting information about our environment, leading to an overwhelming number of observations that must be analyzed and explained in order to achieve situation awareness. As perceptual beings, we are also constantly inundated with sensory data, yet we are able to make sense of our environment with relative ease. Why is the task of perception so easy for us, and so hard for machines; and could this have anything to do with how we play the game 20 Questions?

A Qualitative Examination Of Topical Tweet And Retweet Practices, Meenakshi Nagarajan, Hemant Purohit, Amit P. Sheth

Kno.e.sis Publications

This work contributes to the study of retweet behavior on Twitter surrounding real-world events. We analyze over a million tweets pertaining to three events, present general tweet properties in such topical datasets and qualitatively analyze the properties of the retweet behavior surrounding the most tweeted/viral content pieces. Findings include a clear relationship between sparse/dense retweet patterns and the content and type of a tweet itself; suggesting the need to study content properties in link-based diffusion models.

50 Years For The Uk College Of Medicine, F. Douglas Scutchfield Md

Preventive Medicine and Environmental Health Presentations

No abstract provided.

About Fish, Humane Society Institute For Science And Policy

Aquaculture Collection

Although a number of fish species have been studied in their freshwater life stages, further research on the behavior and habitat requirements of ocean-going fish is required. While fishes have historically been regarded as more “primitive” than other vertebrate groups, Rodriguez et al concluded that several memory and learning systems of bony fishes are noticeably similar to those of reptiles, birds, and mammals. When animals as small and under appreciated as fish display complex mating systems, parental care, and demonstrate the ability to traverse significant distances using olfactory and celestial cues, it is clear that previously established definitions of intelligence …

About Turkeys, The Humane Society Of The United States

Agribusiness Collection

John James Audubon, a well-known bird expert and nature enthusiast, described wild turkeys as birds of great beauty. The history and origin of wild turkeys is uncertain, yet many share Audubon’s sentiment that the wild turkey is “one of the most interesting of the birds indigenous to the United States of America.” Today, wild turkeys can be found throughout the nation. Following the selection of the bald eagle as the American symbol, Benjamin Franklin remarked that the turkey was more “respectable”, and a “true original native”.

About Chickens, The Humane Society Of The United States

Agribusiness Collection

The chicken is the world’s most numerous domesticated bird, with over 52 billion farmed worldwide in 2008, rivaling the dog as the most ubiquitous domestic animal globally. These birds have fascinated scholars and researchers since the dawn of Western civilization, and recent studies are beginning to reveal the depths of their complexity and cognitive ability. According to Andrew F. Fraser, professor of veterinary surgery at Memorial University of Newfoundland, and Donald M. Broom, professor of animal welfare at University of Cambridge: “Those who have studied the behaviour of the domestic fowl in detail…, especially those who have looked at feral …

An Hsi Report: Food Safety And Cage Egg Production, Humane Society International

HSI REPORTS

Governments have begun legislating against cage egg production and a growing number of major food retailers, restaurant chains, and foodservice providers worldwide are switching to cage-free eggs. Extensive scientific evidence strongly suggests this trend will improve food safety. All fifteen scientific studies published in the last five years comparing Salmonella contamination between caged and cage-free operations found that those confining hens in cages had higher rates of Salmonella, a leading cause of food poisoning worldwide. This has led prominent consumer advocacy organizations, such as the Center for Food Safety, to oppose the use of cages to confine egg-laying hens.

Laboratory Rodent Welfare: Thinking Outside The Cage, Jonathan P. Balcombe

Laboratory Experiments Collection

This commentary presents the case against housing rats and mice in laboratory cages; the commentary bases its case on their sentience, natural history, and the varied detriments of laboratory conditions. The commentary gives 5 arguments to support this position: (a) rats and mice have a high degree of sentience and can suffer, (b) laboratory environments cause suffering, (c) rats and mice in the wild have discrete behavioral needs, (d) rats and mice bred for many generations in the laboratory retain these needs, and (e) these needs are not met in laboratory cages.

Toward Genuine Rodent Welfare: Response To Reviewer Comments, Jonathan P. Balcombe

Laboratory Experiments Collection

I’m grateful to the editors for soliciting critiques of my commentary and for the opportunity to respond. Because one of the respondents (Patterson-Kane, 2010/this issue) does not take issue with the main points of my article, whereas the other (Blanchard, 2010/this issue) does, I focus my remarks here mostly on Blanchard’s critique.

Noncompliance With Public Health Service (Phs) Policy On Humane Care And Use Of Laboratory Animals: An Exploratory Analysis, Leah M. Gomez, Kathleen Conlee, Martin Stephens

Laboratory Experiments Collection

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is a major biomedical research-funding body in the United States. Approximately 40% of NIH-funded research involves experimentation on nonhuman animals (Monastersky, 2008). Institutions that conduct animal research with NIH funds must adhere to the Public Health Service (PHS) care and use standards of the Office of Laboratory Animal Welfare (OLAW, 2002a). Institutions deviating significantly from the PHS’s animal care and use standards must report these incidents to the NIH’s OLAW. This study is an exploratory analysis of all the significant deviations reported by animal-research facilities to OLAW during a 3-month period. The study identifies …

Do Zoos And Aquariums Promote Attitude Change In Visitors? A Critical Evaluation Of The American Zoo And Aquarium Study, Lori Marino, Scott O. Lilienfeld, Randy Malamud, Nathan Nobis, Ron Broglio

Zoos and Aquariums Collection

Modern-day zoos and aquariums market themselves as places of education and conservation. A recent study conducted by the American Zoo and Aquarium Association (AZA) (Falk et al., 2007) is being widely heralded as the first direct evidence that visits to zoos and aquariums produce long-term positive effects on people’s attitudes toward other animals. In this paper, we address whether this conclusion is warranted by analyzing the study’s methodological soundness. We conclude that Falk et al. (2007) contains at least six major threats to methodological validity that undermine the authors’ conclusions. There remains no compelling evidence for the claim that zoos …

Integrated Pest Management (Ipm) For Vertebrates: Do We Need To Broaden This Concept?, John Hadidian

Ecology Collection

The concepts and practices of Integrated Pest Management (IPM) are historically grounded in programs aimed at insects and disease-causing organisms affecting agriculture. When applied to vertebrates, IPM concepts have most often been used in rodent control programs. Still, IPM is a powerful model that arguably can, and should, apply to conflicts with any “pest” or problem-causing organism. It may be time to examine contemporary IPM approaches and their relation to traditional vertebrate pest control more closely. Vertebrate IPM should encompass not only the development of sound and practical steps to shape decision-making and actions, but a dialogue about ethics as …

Ignoring Nature: Why We Do It, The Dire Consequences, And The Need For A Paradigm Shift To Save Animals, Habitats, And Ourselves, Marc Bekoff, Sarah Bexell

Ecology Collection

The article discusses the importance of biodiversity and on how people protect animals and habitats. It describes the conservation psychology and conservation social work. It suggests that there will be fewer people who will actually be able to make a positive difference in the relationships with animals and ecosystems.

Octopuses (Enteroctopus Dofleini) Recognize Individual Humans, Roland C. Anderson, Jennifer A. Mather, Mathieu Q. Monette, Stephanie R.M. Zimsen

Sentience Collection

This study exposed 8 Enteroctopus dofleini separately to 2 unfamiliar individual humans over a 2-week period under differing circumstances. One person consistently fed the octopuses and the other touched them with a bristly stick. Each human recorded octopus body patterns, behaviors, and respiration rates directly after each treatment. At the end of 2 weeks, a body pattern (a dark Eyebar) and 2 behaviors (reaching arms toward or away from the tester and funnel direction) were significantly different in response to the 2 humans. The respiration rate of the 4 larger octopuses changed significantly in response to the 2 treatments; …

Squid Dances: An Ethogram Of Postures And Actions Of Sepioteuthis Sepioidea Squid With A Muscular Hydrostatic System, Jennifer A. Mather, Ulrike Griebel, Ruth A. Byrne

Sentience Collection

A taxonomy of the movement possibilities for any species, within the constraints of its neural and skeletal systems, should be one of the foundations of the study of its behaviour. Caribbean reef squid, Sepioteuthis sepioidea, appear to have many degrees of freedom in their movement as they live in a three-dimensional habitat and have no fixed skeleton but rather a muscular hydrostatic one. Within this apparent lack of constraints, there are regularities and patterns of common occurrences that allow this article to describe an ethogram of the movements, postures and positions of squid. Squid have a combination of bent, …

Vigilance And Antipredator Responses Of Caribbean Reef Squid, Jennifer A. Mather

Sentience Collection

Antipredator responses, especially those of open-ocean squid, have been seldom studied in the natural environment. Sepioteuthis sepioidea, observed by snorkellers near the shore in early morning/late afternoon, produced an average of eight moves of over 1m per hour, apparently mostly antipredator behaviours. Close approaches by herbivorous parrotfish elicited no response in 74% of encounters; otherwise, squid produced agonistic zebra stripes or startle-mantle-dots skin patterns. Predatory bar jack fish caused flight but not zebra displays, and squid usually paled and fled quickly (66%) from snapper. The speed of approach was the best predictor for flight and display responses to snapper, …

Male Territoriality In A Social Sciurid, Cynomys Gunnisoni: What Do Patterns Of Paternity Tell Us?, J. L. Verdolin, C. N. Slobodchikoff

Veterinary Science and Medicine Collection

In many social sciurids, male territoriality confers significant mating advantages. We evaluated resident male paternity in Gunnison’s prairie dogs (Cynomys gunnisoni), a colonial ground-dwelling sciurid, where males and females cooperatively defend territories. Contrary to findings reported for other social sciurids, our results show that territorial resident males do not gain significant reproductive advantages. Resident males sired the majority of offspring from their respective territories only 10.5% of the time. A single non-resident male sired equal or greater number of offspring than any single resident male 71.2% of the time. While adult males were more likely to sire a greater number …

Behavior Of A Solitary Sociable Female Bottlenose Dolphin (Tursiops Truncatus) Off The Coast Of Kent, Southeast England, Sonja Eisfeld, Mark P. Simmonds, Laura R. Stansfield

Ethology Collection

This article provides a report of the behavior of a solitary sociable dolphin studied on the southeast coast of England in 2007. This is the first study of its kind in which behavior of such a nonhuman animal was systematically studied. By the time of this study, this young female was highly interactive with people in the water. People accompanied the dolphin for 18.4% of the 100 hr of observation, and their presence changed her behavior. The study recorded 39 different behaviors; feeding and resting behaviors declined in frequency in the presence of people. In addition, the dolphin exhibited behavior …

Quality Prevails Over Identity In The Sexually Selected Vocalisations Of An Ageing Mammal, Elodie F. Briefer, Elisabetta Vannoni, Alan G. Mcelligott

Ethology Collection

Background: Male sexually selected vocalisations generally contain both individuality and quality cues that are crucial in intra- as well as inter-sexual communication. As individuality is a fixed feature whereas male phenotypic quality changes with age, individuality and quality cues may be subjected to different selection pressures over time. Individuality (for example, morphology of the vocal apparatus) and quality (for example, body size and dominance status) can both affect the vocal production mechanism, inducing the same components of vocalisations to convey both kinds of information. In this case, do quality-related changes to the acoustic structure of calls induce a modification of …

Identification Of Parelaphostrongylus Odocoilei (Nematoda: Protostrongylidae) First-Stage Larvae In The Feces Of Gray Wolves (Canis Lupus) By Molecular Methods, Heather M. Bryan, Kathrin A. Sim, Chris T. Darimont, Paul C. Paquet, Brent Wagner, Violeta Muñoz-Fuentes, Judit E. Smits, Nell B. Chilton

Parasitology Collection

First-stage nematode larvae with a dorsal-spine (DSL) were detected in five of 1,565 fecal samples from gray wolves (Canis lupus) collected in British Columbia, Canada, between 2005 and 2008. Molecular techniques were used to identify the DSL because it was not possible to determine their species identity using morphologic characters. The DSL were identified as Parelaphostrongylus odocoilei based on the results of single-strand conformation polymorphism (SSCP) analyses and DNA sequencing of the ribosomal DNA first and second internal transcribed spacers. Finding DSL of P. odocoilei in the feces of gray wolves was unexpected because P. odocoilei adults are parasites of …

Practical Considerations In Regenerative Medicine Research: Iacucs, Ethics, And The Use Of Animals In Stem Cell Studies, Susan Vandewoude, Bernard E. Rollin

Biomedicine and Animal Models in Research Collection

The intent of US federal laws mandating IACUC review of animal-related activities was to satisfy contemporary socioethical concerns by introducing deliberations about ethics and animal welfare into the research process when animals are used. These laws and the system they chartered have worked well for the most part in providing opportunities for consideration of animal welfare as a vital part of animal research. As a result, investigators today are far less naïve about the ethical issues raised by research on animals and typically more sympathetic about the need for such consideration. As evidence of this growing awareness, the literature on …