Establishing a national strategy for the provision and use of e-books in UK academic libraries
This paper reports on the foundation of an e-Book Working Group, which has formulated a national strategy to facilitate the provision of e-books to the academic communities in the UK. The remit, activities and impact of this group are discussed. The paper draws upon a range of research projects into the publishing of e-books and their provision by university libraries that have been undertaken by the authors.
The subject gateway: experiences and issues based on the emergence of the Resource Discovery Network
Charts the history and development of the UK’s Resource Discovery Network, which brings together under a common business, technical and service framework a range of subject gateways and other services for the academic and research community. Considers its future relationship to other services, and position within the information ecology.
Habituation Protocols Improve Behavioral and Physiological Responses of Beef Cattle Exposed to Students in an Animal Handling Class
Simple Summary Students in agricultural programs have the opportunity to interact with animals during different teaching activities. However, students’ interactions with livestock may be distressing to the animals and can affect the students’ and animals’ safety. We investigate whether two human-animal habituation strategies, one with positive tactile stimulation and one without, would improve behavioral and physiological responses of beef heifers during a livestock handling class. Overall, heifers that received a habituation treatment had more positive behavior responses, and decreased physiological stress responses in comparison to heifers that were not exposed to habituation. Furthermore, the heifers exposed to the habituation with a positive tactile stimulation had the greatest improvements in behavior in comparison to control and non-stimulated heifers, exhibiting more positive behaviors when interacting with humans. Strategies to habituate cattle to human interaction with positive stimulation aligned with training humans that handle and interact with cattle on best practices and cattle behavior can improve behavior, reduce stress-related physiological responses and enhance safety for both humans and animals. Abstract Our objective was to determine the impact of different habituation protocols on beef cattle behavior, physiology, and temperament in response to human handling. Beef heifers were exposed to three habituation strategies: (1) tactile stimulation (brushing) in the working chute for seven consecutive days (STI; n = 18); (2) passage through the working chute for seven consecutive days (CHU; n = 19) and; (3) no habituation (CON; n = 19). Individual heifer respiratory rate (RR; n/min), internal vaginal temperature (VAGT; °C), and blood cortisol were measured. Further, behavior parameters were observed to generate a behavior score, and heifer interaction with students and their behavioral responses were recorded. Habituation with STI and CHU resulted in improved numerical behavioral scores compared to CON, and greater (p ≤ 0.05) handling latencies. Vaginal temperature was decreased in STI compared to CHU and CONT (p ≤ 0.05). Cortisol concentration did not differ among treatments, but decreased (p ≤ 0.05) from the start of the experiment to 14 days after treatment initiation. Both habituation protocols showed benefits, but heifers that received the positive tactile stimulation in the chute had the greatest behavior improvements. Furthermore, these heifers responded more calmly during student-animal interactions in class, which is beneficial for the students’ and animals’ safety.