Although major progress has been made during the last 50 years in understanding the causes of, and devising methods to minimise, neonatal mortality and morbidity in farm animals, almost all of this progress has been made without an explicit animal welfare focus. Nevertheless, knowledgeable intervention at birth now markedly reduces the total amount of animal welfare compromise that would otherwise occur. In assessing the degree of welfare compromise in other contexts three orientations are apparent. These emphasise biological function, affective state and natural living. In the present paper the significance of these orientations in an assessment of welfare compromise in newborn lambs, kids, calves, deer calves, foals and piglets, conducted previously, is examined. It is concluded that: 1) it was appropriate to emphasise biological function during the research which improved the management of newborns, but this emphasis was not sufficient to characterise the nature and degree of welfare compromise the newborn might experience; 2) a focus on affective state, and particularly on noxious sensations, more appropriately allowed an initial assignment of different degrees of compromise caused by neonatal breathlessness, hypoxia, hunger, sickness and pain; and 3) the notion that farm animals should be left to fend for themselves in a natural state at the time of birth when knowledgeable intervention would markedly reduce neonatal suffering contradicts our duty to care for the animals in our control. Finally, on-farm assessments of neonatal welfare compromise would be possible, but they would need to allow for the prevalence and severity of each condition, which can vary widely depending on the species and local circumstances.

Two experiments were conducted to determine whether maximum eye temperature, measured using infrared thermography (IRT), could be a non-invasive technique for detecting responses of cattle to handling procedures. Experiment one used six crossbred heifers randomly assigned to two groups in a crossover design and subjected to i) being hit with a plastic tube on the rump and ii) being startled by the sudden waving of a plastic bag. Experiment two used 32 crossbred bulls randomly assigned to three treatments: i) control, restraint only; ii) electric prod, two brief applications of an electric prod or, iii) startled, as in experiment one, accompanied by shouting. Exit speed (m s−1) was recorded on release from the restraint. Maximum eye temperature was recorded continuously pre- and post-treatment. In experiment one, eye temperature dropped rapidly between 20 and 40 s following both treatments and returned to baseline between 60 and 80 s following hitting and between 100 and 120 s following startling. In experiment two, eye temperature dropped between 0 and 20 s, following both treatments, and returned to baseline by 180 s, following startling plus shouting, but did not return to baseline for five minutes following electric prod. Exit speed tended to be faster following the electric prod. In conclusion, IRT detected responses that were due possibly to fear and/or pain associated with the procedures and may therefore be a useful, non-invasive method for assessing aversiveness of handling practices to cattle.

Ear posture, or the frequency of postural changes, may reflect various emotional states of animals. In adult sheep (Ovis aries), the ‘forward’ ear posture has been associated with negative experiences whereas the ‘plane’ posture has been associated with positive ones. This study aimed to see whether ear postures related to the experience of pain in lambs. The ear behaviour of four to eight week-old lambs (n = 44) was measured before and after tail-docking using a rubber ring. Each lamb was docked and its behaviour recorded while in the company of an observer lamb of similar age; each acted once as focal (docked) lamb and once as observer within the same pair. Lambs were docked in one of two rounds, so that half were docked in their first exposure to the test environment and half in their second exposure. Tail-docking was associated with an increase in the proportion of time spent with ears backward and decreases in the proportion of time spent with ears plane and forward (mean [± SEM]: Backward: pre 0.12 [± 0.04], post 0.56 [± 0.04]; Plane: pre 0.55 [± 0.05], post 0.19 [± 0.05]; Forward: pre 0.27 [± 0.04], post 0.18 [± 0.04]). There was also a significant increase in the number of changes between ear postures after docking (pre 5.63 [± 0.66], post 9.11 [± 0.66]). Over both periods, female lambs held their ears asymmetrically for longer than males (mean of ranks [± SEM] [raw proportion of time]: Females 52.14 [± 3.44] [0.09 (± 0.01)], males 37.54 [± 3.40] [0.05 (± 0.01)]). This is the first study to demonstrate changes in the ear posture of lambs associated with the negative experience of pain. Ear posture is a non-invasive indicator of physical pain in lambs and may be useful for evaluating potential welfare compromise.

Recent developments related to quantitative analysis of the electroencephalogram (EEG) have allowed the experience of pain to be assessed more directly than has hitherto been possible. Variables derived from the EEG of animals anaesthetised using our minimal anaesthesia model respond to noxious stimulation in a manner similar to those from conscious animals. This methodology has been used in a variety of applications including the evaluation of analgesic options for painful husbandry procedures and investigation of developmental aspects of the perception of pain. We have now applied the minimal anaesthesia model to the question of the slaughter of calves by ventral-neck incision. A series of studies evaluated the magnitude of EEG response to the noxious stimulus of ventral-neck incision and the physiological mechanisms that underlie this response. We also investigated the EEG effects of stunning by non-penetrating captive bolt and the ability of such stunning to ameliorate the response to ventral-neck incision. The results demonstrate clearly, for the first time, that the act of slaughter by ventral-neck incision is associated with noxious stimulation that would be expected to be painful in the period between the incision and subsequent loss of consciousness. These data provide further support for the value of stunning in preventing pain and distress in animals subjected to this procedure. We discuss the development of the minimal anaesthesia model and its adaptation for use in the investigation of slaughter by ventral-neck incision as well as considering the contributions of these studies to the ongoing development of international policy concerning the slaughter of animals.

The purpose of this research is to understand the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the legal information profession within law firm libraries in Britain and Ireland. As the pandemic only began the year before commencing this research, few studies had been conducted on the topic, thereby a clear opening for this study emerged. This study uses a survey research strategy comprised of a mixed methods research approach. Desk research in the form of a literature review opens the study. A questionnaire and 5 semi-structured interviews were subsequently conducted. To understand the impact of the pandemic on the legal information profession within law firm libraries, the research objectives break the topic down into 4 areas that give insight into the consequences of the pandemic. The research found that A) working from home was the major impact faced due to the lockdown in spring 2020; B) use and spending on print resources declined; C) the role of legal information professionals has not significantly changed; and D) future legal information professionals will need to upskill due to technological developments and improve the image of the profession. Owing to the recent outset of the COVID-19 pandemic, it is important to compare the findings of this research to similar future studies to determine the validity of the results.

The interplay of philosophical ambitions and technical reality have given birth to rich and interesting approaches to explain the oft-claimed special character of mathematical and logical knowledge. Two projects stand out both for their audacity and their innovativeness. These are logicism and proof-theoretic semantics. This dissertation contains three chapters exploring the limits of these two projects. In both cases I find the formal results offer a mixed blessing to the philosophical projects.

Chapter 1. Is a logicist bound to the claim that as a matter of analytic truth there is an actual infinity of objects? If Hume’s Principle is analytic then in the standard setting the answer appears to be yes. Hodes’s work pointed to a way out by offering a modal picture in which only a potential infinity was posited. However, this project was abandoned due to apparent failures of cross-world predication. I re-explore this idea and discover that in the setting of the potential infinite one can interpret first-order Peano arithmetic, but not second-order Peano arithmetic. I conclude that in order for the logicist to weaken the metaphysically loaded claim of necessary actual infinities, they must also weaken the mathematics they recover.

Chapter 2. There have been several recent results bringing into focus the super-intuitionistic nature of most notions of proof-theoretic validity. But there has been very little work evaluating the consequences of these results. In this chapter, I explore the question of whether these results undermine the claim that proof-theoretic validity shows us which inferences follow from the meaning of the connectives when defined by their introduction rules. It is argued that the super-intuitionistic inferences are valid due to the correspondence between the treatment of the atomic formulas and more complex formulas. And so the goals of proof-theoretic validity are not undermined.

Chapter 3. Prawitz (1971) conjectured that proof-theoretic validity offers a semantics for intuitionistic logic. This conjecture has recently been proven false by Piecha and Schroeder-Heister (2019). This chapter resolves one of the questions left open by this recent result by showing the extensional alignment of proof-theoretic validity and general inquisitive logic. General inquisitive logic is a generalisation of inquisitive semantics, a uniform semantics for questions and assertions. The chapter further defines a notion of quasi-proof-theoretic validity by restricting proof-theoretic validity to allow double negation elimination for atomic formulas and proves the extensional alignment of quasi-proof-theoretic validity and inquisitive logic.

Abstract prepared by Will Stafford extracted partially from the dissertation.

E-mail: stafford@flu.cas.cz

URL: https://escholarship.org/uc/item/33c6h00c

Painted portraits on wood and cloth were common in the ancient world and prized as authentic and lifelike images. Affordable, portable, and desirable, they were an important form of representation, but rarely survive in the archaeological record outside Egypt. This article approaches the study of painted portraiture in a way that does not necessitate the survival of the images themselves. It analyzes evidence for the use, reuse, and imitation of painted portraits in the catacombs of 4th-c. Rome by examining the remains of settings and attachments for portraits, the shadows left by them on walls, and portraits in other media which imitate panel paintings. The article considers why painted portraits were so effective in funerary contexts and what connection they may have had to domestic portraiture. It also explores the development of panel portrait imitation through the phenomenon of the “square nimbus.”

Non-affective psychotic disorders have been associated with an increased risk of developing dementia. However, research in this area remains limited, highlighting the need for an up-to-date systematic review and meta-analysis of the evidence. We aimed to systematically review and quantify the risk of dementia associated with psychotic disorders. We searched four electronic databases for longitudinal studies investigating non-affective psychotic disorders and subsequent dementia. We used random-effects meta-analyses to pool estimates across studies and assessed risk of bias for each study. Non-affective psychotic disorders were associated with increased risk of all-cause dementia; pooled risk ratio (RR) = 2.52, 95% confidence interval (CI) (1.67–3.80), I2 = 99.7%, n = 12,997,101; 11 studies, with high heterogeneity between studies. Subgroup analyses indicated stronger associations in studies with shorter follow-up periods, conducted in non-European countries, published after 2020, and where ≥60% of the sample were female. The risk was higher in people aged <60 years at baseline, in typical and late-onset psychotic disorders versus very late-onset psychosis, in broader psychotic disorders vs schizophrenia, and in prospective vs retrospective studies. Associations remained after excluding low quality studies (pooled RR = 2.50, 95% CI (1.71–3.68), I2 = 99.0%). Our review finds a substantial association between psychotic disorders and subsequent dementia. Our findings indicate that psychotic disorders are a potentially modifiable risk factor for dementia and suggest that individuals with psychotic disorders need to be closely monitored for cognitive decline in later life. Further research is needed to investigate the mechanisms underlying the association between psychotic disorders and dementia.

Long-term exploration of the Groningen gas field in the Netherlands led to induced seismicity. Over the past nine years, an increasingly sophisticated Ground Motion Model (GMM) has been developed to assess the site response and the related seismic hazard. The GMM output strongly depends on the shear-wave velocity (VS), among other input parameters. To date, VS model data from soil profiles (Kruiver et al., Bulletin of Earthquake Engineering, 15(9): 3555–3580, 2017; Netherlands Journal of Geosciences, 96(5): s215–s233, 2017) have been used in the GMM. Recently, new VS profiles above the Groningen gas field were constructed using ambient noise surface wave tomography. These so-called field VS data, even though spatially limited, provide an independent source of VS to check whether the level of spatial variability in the GMM is sufficient. Here, we compared amplification factors (AF) for two sites (Borgsweer and Loppersum) calculated with the model VS and the field VS (Chmiel et al., Geophysical Journal International, 218(3), 1781–1795, 2019 and new data). Our AF results over periods relevant for seismic risk (0.01–1.0 s) show that model and field VS profiles agree within the uncertainty range generally accepted in geo-engineering. In addition, we compared modelled spectral accelerations using either field VS or model VS in Loppersum to the recordings of an earthquake that occurred during the monitoring period (ML 3.4 Zeerijp on 8 January 2018). The modelled spectral accelerations at the surface for both field VS and model VS are coherent with the earthquake data for the resonance periods representative of most buildings in Groningen (T = 0.2 and 0.3 s). These results confirm that the currently used VS model in the GMM captures spatial variability in the site response and represents reliable input for the site response calculations.