Engineered products have economic, environmental, and social impacts, which comprise the major dimensions of sustainability. This paper seeks to explore interactions between design parameters when social impacts are incorporated into the concept development phase of the systems design process. Social impact evaluation is increasing in importance similar to what has happened in recent years with environmental impact consideration in the design of engineered products. Concurrently, research into new airship design has increased. Airships have yet to be reintroduced at a large scale or for a range of applications in society. Although airships have the potential for positive environmental and economic impacts, the social impacts are still rarely considered. This paper presents a case study of the hypothetical introduction of airships in the Amazon region of Brazil to help local farmers transport their produce to market. It explores the design space in terms of both engineering parameters and social impacts using a discrete-event simulation to model the system. The social impacts are found to be dependent not only on the social factors and airship design parameters but also on the farmer-airship system, suggesting that socio-technical systems design will benefit from integrated social impact metric analysis.

This paper studies control function (CF) approaches in endogenous threshold regression where the threshold variable is allowed to be endogenous. We first use a simple example to show that the structural threshold regression (STR) estimator of the threshold point in Kourtellos, Stengos and Tan (2016, Econometric Theory 32, 827–860) is inconsistent unless the endogeneity level of the threshold variable is low compared to the threshold effect. We correct the CF in the STR estimator to generate our first CF estimator using a method that extends the two-stage least squares procedure in Caner and Hansen (2004, Econometric Theory 20, 813–843). We develop our second CF estimator which can be treated as an extension of the classical CF approach in endogenous linear regression. Both these approaches embody threshold effect information in the conditional variance beyond that in the conditional mean. Given the threshold point estimates, we propose new estimates for the slope parameters. The first is a by-product of the CF approach, and the second type employs generalized method of moment (GMM) procedures based on two new sets of moment conditions. Simulation studies, in conjunction with the limit theory, show that our second CF estimator and confidence interval for the threshold point together with the associated second GMM estimator and confidence interval for the slope parameter dominate the other methods. We further apply the new estimation methodology to an empirical application from international trade to illustrate its usefulness in practice.

The spatial distribution of in situ sessile organisms, including those from the fossil record, provides information about life histories, such as possible dispersal and/or settlement mechanisms, and how taxa interact with one another and their local environments. At Nilpena Ediacara National Park (NENP), South Australia, the exquisite preservation and excavation of 33 fossiliferous bedding planes from the Ediacara Member of the Rawnsley Quartzite reveals in situ communities of the Ediacara Biota. Here, the spatial distributions of three relatively common taxa, Tribrachidium, Rugoconites, and Obamus, occurring on excavated surfaces were analyzed using spatial point pattern analysis. Tribrachidium have a variable spatial distribution, implying that settlement or post-settlement conditions/preferences had an effect on populations. Rugoconites display aggregation, possibly related to their reproductive methods in combination with settlement location availability at the time of dispersal and/or settlement. Additionally, post-settlement environmental controls could have affected Rugoconites on other surfaces, resulting in lower populations and densities. Both Tribrachidium and Rugoconites also commonly occur as individuals or in low numbers on a number of beds, thus constraining possible reproductive strategies and environmental/substrate preferences. The distribution of Obamus is consistent with selective settlement, aggregating near conspecifics and on substrates of mature microbial mat. This dispersal process is the first example of substrate-selective dispersal among the Ediacara Biota, thus making Obamus similar to numerous modern sessile invertebrates with similar dispersal and settlement strategies.

This study provides the first focused investigation of rudist bivalves from the Upper Cretaceous of the Gulf Coastal Plain (GCP) in the southern US and previously undescribed specimens from the Flor de Alba Limestone Member of the Pozas Formation in Puerto Rico. Identified rudists from the GCP comprise the Monopleuridae, including Gyropleura, as well as Radiolitidae, including Biradiolites cardenasensi, Durania maxima, Guanacastea jamaicensis, Radiolites acutocostata, and Sauvagesia. Integrating rudist occurrences within well-established GCP biostratigraphy allows for extension of upper ranges of D. maxima and R. acutocostata into the late Campanian, and extension of the lower ranges of B. cardenasensis and G. jamaicensis into the early Campanian. Identified rudists from Puerto Rico comprise the Hippuritidae and include Barrettia monilifera, which supports the age of the Flor de Alba Limestone Member of the Pozas Formation as middle Campanian. Combined taxonomic, biostratigraphic, and paleobiogeographic analyses indicate there is no rudist fauna endemic to the GCP, and the region marks the northeastern range of the Caribbean genera Biradiolites, Durania, Guanacastea, Gyropleura, Radiolites, and Sauvagesia during the Campanian and Maastrichtian. The new occurrences help inform future updates of Late Cretaceous sea surface-current reconstructions for the Caribbean and Western Interior Seaway, USA.

The ability of dairy cows to discriminate between floors with a smooth epoxy resin surface or with surface-applied bauxite aggregates of mean diameters 0.5 mm, 1.2 mm or 2.5 mm (having coefficients of static friction of 0.35, 0.42, 0.49 and 0.74, respectively) was recorded when they were offered the opportunity to walk down paired floor surfaces to receive a food reward. Following training, one half of the cows were rewarded when they selected the floor with the greater friction and the other half were rewarded when they selected the floor with the least friction. The cows were able to distinguish between the different floor surfaces — even between surfaces with 0.5 mm and 1.2 mm aggregates, which humans found difficult to distinguish. Eight similar cows were then offered a choice of walking down passageways of paired floors with an equal reward at the end of each passageway. There were no consistent preferences for floor type, and when the reward was offered only on the side least favoured by each cow in the initial test, the random pattern of selection was still evident. A final choice test offered the cows the opportunity to traverse passageways of either wet concrete or concrete covered with excreta. All cows avoided the passageway with excreta completely, even when the reward was increased in this passageway and removed from the wet concrete passageway. This avoidance was attributed to the cows’ lack of contact with slurry, as they were at pasture for most of the day, in contrast to the cows used in previous work, which were housed in buildings with passageways covered in excreta and showed little avoidance behaviour of such passageways.

Guidelines for the housing of dairy cows do not address the provision of supplementary lighting in passageways, other than for inspection of the animals. Two experiments were conducted to investigate whether lighting passageways to various intensities influenced the locomotion of dairy cows. The first experiment compared the locomotion of dairy cows in a dark or lighted passageway as they walked back to their accommodation from milking. When the passageway was dark, the cows took shorter but more rapid steps - which probably increased their stability. In the second experiment, cows walked down a cubicle passageway to receive a food reward, with the light intensity in the building varying from 0-250 lux. Step length and stepping rate were recorded, as well as the angles of the cows’ leg joints (which were measured from video recordings). Once again, the cows increased their stepping rate in the dark, and this resulted in an increased walking rate, perhaps because they wished to return more rapidly to other members of their group and found the darkness aversive. In addition, the arcs of travel of the metacarpophalangeal joint and of the fore- and hindfeet angles to the floor were reduced in the dark, probably increasing the cows’ stability, and were greatest at 119 lux. The slowest walking rate was observed at 39 lux. Hence, the optimum illumination for dairy cow locomotion may lie approximately between 39 and 119 lux, as measured by our technique.

We conclude that during locomotion in dark passageways cows have to modify their walking behaviour significantly, so that the provision of at least a low level of lighting is desirable at night.

An experiment is described where 40 spring-calving dairy cows were allocated to be housed in a deep straw yard or a cubicle house from November to April, in order to examine the effects on behaviour, milk production and hoof health. Cows in straw yards spent longer lying down and feeding, except during oestrus when they increased their time spent standing proportionately more than cows in cubicles. In the straw yard cows spent longer in associative behaviour during oestrus and had fewer unsuccessful mounting attempts. There were no differences in milk production or composition but cows in the straw yard lost more weight after calving. Cows in the cubicles had a reduction in heel depth, which is a predisposing factor to lameness. It is concluded that a straw yard system for dairy cows allows greater opportunity to display normal behaviour, leads to better hoof health and provides acceptable levels of production.

Both the presence of slurry and dark conditions may deter dairy cows from using passageways in cubicle accommodation, thus restricting movement and normal behaviour. We attempted to train seven dairy cows to recognize the quantity of reward offered in a transparent tube containing molasses in a Y-maze. Only one cow failed to consistently select the aisle containing the larger reward. The cows were then individually offered the choice of traversing either a passageway with a 5cm-depth of cow excreta or a clean, dry passageway to collect their rewards. The quantity of the rewards on the two sides was varied between zero and 400ml of molasses to determine the price that the cows were prepared to pay for entering the aisle with excreta. Only two of the seven cows showed a clear avoidance of the passageway with excreta. There was a tendency (P < 0.1) for the cows to avoid the passageway with excreta only when it contained no reward and the clean passageway contained a reward of 400ml molasses. Otherwise, there was no clear avoidance of the passageway with excreta. We also investigated whether cows preferred to enter a lighted or unlighted passageway. All the cows, except one, showed a strong avoidance of the dark passage, even when it contained the largest reward and the lighted passage contained no reward. We conclude that dairy cows demonstrate only mild avoidance of passageways with excreta but strongly avoid passageways without lighting. Therefore, we suggest that passageways for dairy cows should be lit at all times.

Extensive sheep farming systems make an important contribution to socio-economic well-being and the ‘ecosystem services’ that flow from large areas of the UK and elsewhere. They are therefore subject to much policy intervention. However, the animal welfare implications of such interventions and their economic drivers are rarely considered. Under Defra project AW1024 (a further study to assess the interaction between economics, husbandry and animal welfare in large, extensively managed sheep flocks) we therefore assessed the interaction between profit and animal welfare on extensive sheep farms. A detailed inventory of resources, resource deployment and technical performance was constructed for 20 commercial extensive sheep farms in Great Britain (equal numbers from the Scottish Highlands, Cumbria, Peak District and mid-Wales). Farms were drawn from focus groups in these regions where participative research with farmers added further information. These data were summarised and presented to a panel of 12 experts for welfare assessment. We used two welfare assessment methods one drawn from animal welfare science (‘needs’ based) the other from management science (Service Quality Modelling). The methods gave complementary results. The inventory data were also used to build a linear programme (LP) model of sheep, labour and feed-resource management month-by-month on each farm throughout the farming year. By setting the LP to adjust farm management to maximise gross margin under each farm's circumstances we had an objective way to explore resource allocations, their constraints and welfare implications under alternative policy response scenarios. Regression of indicators of extensification (labour per ewe, in-bye land per ewe, hill area per ewe and lambs weaned per ewe) on overall welfare score explained 0.66 of variation with labour and lambs weaned per ewe both positive coefficients. Neither gross margin nor flock size were correlated with welfare score. Gross margin was also uncorrelated with these indicators of extensification with the exception of labour/ewe, which was negatively correlated with flock size and hence with gross margin. These results suggest animal welfare is best served by reduced extensification while greater profits are found in flock expansion with reduced labour input per ewe and no increase in other inputs or in productivity. Such potential conflicts should be considered as policy adjusts to meet the requirements for sustainable land use in the hills and uplands.

Animals under human management are often separated from conspecifics, which may lead to behaviour indicative of separation distress or grief. For the purposes of this paper, grief is considered as a biological response to separation, indicated by a bi-phasic ‘protest-despair’ behavioural response. It is reasonable to assume that only animals which are able to form complex social bonds can experience grief. Scientific experiments have suggested that some farm and laboratory animals experience distress or grief as a result of maternal separation and social isolation. However, little is known about whether the public believe that animals are capable of grief. Therefore, we surveyed 1,000 members of the public to establish what knowledge they have about grief in animals and to compare this to what we know in science. The survey revealed that 90% of the general public believed that some or all animals can experience grief, with 23% believing that all animals can grieve. They attributed grief more to companion animals and animals with higher level cognitive abilities than to farm animals and animals that may be feared. It is concluded that public belief about grief in animals extends beyond scientific evidence, and that educating people about scientific findings and management practices connected with grief and separation distress may improve the welfare of farm and laboratory animals.

The mining industry is an important source of noise for wildlife, and the eastern blue-tongued (EBT) lizard (Tiliqua scincoides) is an Australian animal that may be impacted. We analysed the behaviour of nine EBT lizards during and after exposure for 5 s to one of five combinations of mining machinery noise frequency and amplitude (frequency < or > 2 kHz, low [60-65 dB (A)] and high [70-75 dB (A)] amplitude, or a control treatment). Following exposure, lizards could leave the test chamber and enter an escape chamber, which led into a small hiding chamber. Chambers were monitored for 15 min after initial exposure. In the test chamber, lizards exposed to high frequency, high amplitude noise spent more time freezing, a typical stress response in reptiles, when compared with animals in all the other treatments. This was especially the case for lizards exposed to high frequency noise. In the hiding chamber, high frequency noise at high amplitudes decreased durations of head positioning to the right and downwards, suggesting a lateralised fear reaction, but decreased standing and freezing behaviours. We hypothesise that lizards have lateralised behaviour reactions to mining noise, with high frequency, high amplitude noise being the most detrimental. Our results demonstrate that acute exposure to mining noise had negative effects on EBT lizards’ behaviour and welfare, which may suggest a threat for lizards experiencing chronic mining noise in the wild, making the study of mining machinery noise in situ a research priority.

A survey of attitudes towards the welfare and rights of animals was conducted in universities in 11 European and Asian countries, to improve understanding of cultural differences that might impact on trade and international relations. Collaborators’ universities were recruited in each country to assist in the design, translation and administration of the survey via the internet in a convenient selection of the country's universities, providing 3,433 student responses from at least 103 universities. Respondents rated the acceptability of 43 major concerns about animals (focused on type of use, animal integrity, killing animals, animal welfare, experimentation on animals, changes in animal genotypes, the environment for animals and societal attitudes towards animals). Students from European countries had more concern for animal welfare than students from Asian countries, which may be partly explained by increased affluence of European students as there was a positive correlation between student expenditure and concern for animal welfare and rights. Southern and central European countries had most concern for animal rights and unnatural practices. Those in communist or former communist countries in Asia and Europe had most concern about killing animals and those in northern European countries the least. Regional similarities between neighbouring countries were evident in responses to animal issues and there were no differences between ethnic groups within a country. Thus, there were national and continental differences in European and Asian students’ attitudes to animals’ welfare and rights, which appear to arise as a result of the socio-political situation in regions rather than religious or other differences.

Horseshoe crabs as a group are renowned for their morphological conservatism punctuated by marked shifts in morphology associated with the occupation of non-marine environments and have been suggested to exhibit a consistent developmental trajectory throughout their evolutionary history. Here, we report a new species of horseshoe crab from the Ordovician (Late Sandbian) of Kingston, Ontario, Canada, from juvenile and adult material. This new species provides critical insight into the ontogeny and morphology of the earliest horseshoe crabs, indicating that at least some Palaeozoic forms had freely articulating tergites anterior to the fused thoracetron and an opisthosoma comprising 13 segments.