The present study investigated the operational feasibility of the recently developed Salmon Welfare Index Model (SWIM 1.0) designed for Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar L) in production cages. Ten salmon farms containing spring smolts were visited twice, first between May and June the first year in sea cages, and secondly 2-3 months later. On each farm the SWIM 1.0 assessments were carried out for the two cages assumed by the farmer to represent the best and worst welfare status. The applied welfare indicators (WIs) were water temperature, salinity, stocking density, lighting, disturbance, daily mortality rate, appetite, sea lice infestation ratio, condition factor, emaciation state, vertebral deformation, maturation stage, smoltification state, fin condition and skin condition. The effective time to carry out the welfare evaluation was about 1.5 h per farm. The results showed some marked differences between visits; relatively larger proportions of emaciated fish were sampled during the first compared to the second visit, and more homogeneous scores of skin and fin damage were found on the second visit. The overall welfare index scores were generally in accordance with the farmers’ ranking of the ‘best’ and the ‘worst’ sea cage during the first visit. Together, the findings of this study suggest that the SWIM model may be employed for documentation of animal welfare over the salmon marine production cycle. The results call attention towards re-assessment of some of the welfare indicators, improved sampling methods, and a more user-friendly interface. All-in-all, the current SWIM model is regarded as a promising candidate tool towards welfare assessment of farmed salmon.

Higher milk intake has been associated with a lower stroke risk, but not with risk of CHD. Residual confounding or reverse causation cannot be excluded. Therefore, we estimated the causal association of milk consumption with stroke and CHD risk through instrumental variable (IV) and gene-outcome analyses. IV analysis included 29 328 participants (4611 stroke; 9828 CHD) of the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC)-CVD (eight European countries) and European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition-Netherlands (EPIC-NL) case-cohort studies. rs4988235, a lactase persistence (LP) SNP which enables digestion of lactose in adulthood was used as genetic instrument. Intake of milk was first regressed on rs4988235 in a linear regression model. Next, associations of genetically predicted milk consumption with stroke and CHD were estimated using Prentice-weighted Cox regression. Gene-outcome analysis included 777 024 participants (50 804 cases) from MEGASTROKE (including EPIC-CVD), UK Biobank and EPIC-NL for stroke, and 483 966 participants (61 612 cases) from CARDIoGRAM, UK Biobank, EPIC-CVD and EPIC-NL for CHD. In IV analyses, each additional LP allele was associated with a higher intake of milk in EPIC-CVD (β = 13·7 g/d; 95 % CI 8·4, 19·1) and EPIC-NL (36·8 g/d; 95 % CI 20·0, 53·5). Genetically predicted milk intake was not associated with stroke (HR per 25 g/d 1·05; 95 % CI 0·94, 1·16) or CHD (1·02; 95 % CI 0·96, 1·08). In gene-outcome analyses, there was no association of rs4988235 with risk of stroke (OR 1·02; 95 % CI 0·99, 1·05) or CHD (OR 0·99; 95 % CI 0·95, 1·03). Current Mendelian randomisation analysis does not provide evidence for a causal inverse relationship between milk consumption and stroke or CHD risk.

Climate warming is occurring most rapidly in the Arctic, which is both a sentinel and a driver of further global change. Ecosystems and human societies are already affected by warming. Permafrost thaws and species are on the move, bringing pathogens and vectors to virgin areas. During a five-year project, the CLINF – a Nordic Center of Excellence, funded by the Nordic Council of Ministers, has worked with the One Health concept, integrating environmental data with human and animal disease data in predictive models and creating maps of dynamic processes affecting the spread of infectious diseases. It is shown that tularemia outbreaks can be predicted even at a regional level with a manageable level of uncertainty. To decrease uncertainty, rapid development of new and harmonised technologies and databases is needed from currently highly heterogeneous data sources. A major source of uncertainty for the future of contaminants and infectious diseases in the Arctic, however, is associated with which paths the majority of the globe chooses to follow in the future. Diplomacy is one of the most powerful tools Arctic nations have to influence these choices of other nations, supported by Arctic science and One Health approaches that recognise the interconnection between people, animals, plants and their shared environment at the local, regional, national and global levels as essential for achieving a sustainable development for both the Arctic and the globe.

The study of a turbulent premixed flame often involves analysing quantities conditioned to different iso-surfaces of a reactive scalar field. Under the influence of turbulence, such a surface is deformed and translated. To track the surface motion, the displacement speed ($S_d$) of the scalar field respective to the local flow velocity is widely used and this quantity is currently receiving growing attention. Inspired by the apparent benefits from a simple decomposition of $S_d$ into contributions due to (i) curvature, (ii) normal diffusion and (iii) chemical reaction, this work aims at deriving and exploring new evolution equations for these three contributions averaged over the reaction surface. Together with a previously obtained $S_d$-evolution equation, the three new equations are presented in a form that emphasizes the decomposition of $S_d$ into three terms. This set of equations is also supplemented with a curvature-evolution equation, hence providing a new perspective to link the flame topology and its propagation characteristics. Using two direct numerical simulation databases obtained from constant-density and variable-density reaction waves, all the derived equations and the term-wise decomposition relations are demonstrated to hold numerically. Comparison of the simulated results indicates that the thermal expansion weakly affects the key terms in the considered evolution equations. Thermal expansion can cause variations in the averaged $S_d$ and its decomposed parts through multiple routes more than introducing a dilatation term. The flow plays a major role to influence the key terms in all equations except the curvature one, due to a cancellation between negatively and positively curved surface elements.

The prevention of aggressive behaviours is a core priority for psychiatric clinical work, but the association between the diagnostic concepts used in psychiatry and aggression remains largely unknown.

In a community sample of 418 persons diagnosed with schizophrenia, subjective needs and perceived help was measured by the Camberwell Assessment of Need (CAN). The mean number of reported needs was 6.2 and the mean number of unmet needs 2.6. The prevalence of needs varied substantially between the need areas from 3.6% (‘telephone’) to 84.0% (‘psychotic symptoms’). The rate of satisfaction estimated as the percentage of persons satisfied with the help provided within an area varied between 20.0% (‘telephone’) and 80.6% (‘food’).

The need areas concerning social and interpersonal functioning demonstrated the highest proportion of unmet to total needs.

In a majority of need areas the patients received more help from services than from relatives, but in the areas of social relations the informal network provided substantial help. In general the patients reported a need for help from services clearly exceeding the actual amount of help received.

In a linear regression model symptom load (BPRS) and impaired functioning (GAF) were significant predictors of the need status, explaining 30% of the variance in total needs and 20% of the variance in unmet needs.

It is concluded that the mental health system fails to detect and alleviate needs in several areas of major importance to schizophrenic patients. Enhanced collaboration between the care system and the informal network to systematically map the need profile of the patients seems necessary to minimise the gap between perceived needs and received help.

Personality deviations and deficits in cognitive executive function are common among forensic populations. The present study on incarcerated offenders explored whether there are links between the two domains. Personality was assessed using the Temperament and Character Inventory (TCI). Neuropsychological performance, including visual working memory, attentional set-shifting and planning, were tested with the Cambridge Neuropsychological Test Automated Battery (CANTAB). Subjects with personality disorders scored high on harm avoidance, and low on self-directedness and cooperativeness. Personality disordered offenders did not differ from the comparison groups (offenders without personality disorder, and non-criminal controls) with regard to CANTAB measures of visual working memory (delayed matching to sample, spatial working memory) and planning (Stockings of Cambridge), but they made a larger number of errors on the attentional set-shifting task. Dimensional analysis of the personality and neuropsychological variables revealed significant associations between self-directedness and cooperativeness on the one hand, and attentional set-shifting on the other. Intellectually disabled, non-criminal individuals (marginal mental retardation) who performed poorly on attentional set-shifting also scored low on self-directedness and cooperativeness. The results indicate that poor development of certain personality traits may be associated with deficits in neuropsychological functioning.

White matter (WM) change plays an important role in age-related cognitive decline. In this review, we consider methodological advances with particular relevance to the role of WM in age-related changes in processing speed. In this context, intra-individual variability in processing speed performance has emerged as a sensitive proxy of cognitive and neurological decline while neuroimaging techniques used to assess WM change have become increasingly more sensitive. Together with a carefully designed task protocol, we emphasize that the combined implementation of intra-individual variability and neuroimaging techniques hold promise for specifying the WM-processing speed relationship with implications for normative and clinical samples. (JINS, 2014, 20, 1–6)

The effects of the time of sowing on growth and chemical composition of carrots grown from May to November were studied during 3 years.

Delaying sowing for 1 or 2 months after the beginning of May resulted in a reduction in the growth of both roots and foliage and gave roots with lower dry-matter content and glucose/fructose ratio but higher amounts of hexoses, total nitrogen and amino nitrogen in root dry matter. Sowing date had no influence on the concentration of sucrose, phosphorus, potassium, calcium and magnesium in root dry matter up to 137 days from sowing. Carotene decreased only after the last sowing. Sucrose concentration of the roots increased throughout the periods studied irrespective of the time of sowing. The longer the growing period the higher was the sucrose concentration. The concentration of hexoses decreased from the first harvest at 70 days to reach a constant level at about 130 days from sowing.

The results did not indicate the presence of a well-defined stage of biochemical maturity in the autumn when carrot roots are expected as most suitable for harvest and subsequent long-term storage.

Extended abstract of a paper presented at Microscopy and Microanalysis 2007 in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, USA, August 5 – August 9, 2007

A brief description of the QuantEYE instrument proposed as a focal plane instrument for OWL is given. This instrument is dedicated to the very high speed observation of many active phenomena with a photon counting capability of up to 1GHz. The system samples the beam in 10$\times$10 subpupils, each focused on a fast photon counting detector.