The goal of this study was to determine if anxiety, aggression, and fear-related behaviors are more common in pruritic dogs with atopic dermatitis than nonpruritic, healthy dogs. One hundred forty-one pruritic dogs >1 yr of age with a clinical diagnosis of atopic dermatitis and a >3 mo history of pruritus were recruited. Dog owners completed a behavioral survey (canine behavioral assessment and research questionnaire) and a pruritus scale (pruritus visual analog scale). Pruritic, atopic dogs showed significant increases in fear- and anxiety-related behaviors as well as aggression compared with a large control group of healthy dogs. Stranger-directed aggression, owner-directed aggression, familiar-dog aggression, dog-directed fear, nonsocial fear, touch sensitivity, excitability, and attention-seeking behaviors were all increased in the study group. Trainability was decreased in the study group. Chronically pruritic dogs experience fear and anxiety and are more likely to display aggression. This is an important welfare issue for these animals. Early recognition of the behavioral derangements that can be associated with chronic pruritic skin disease could allow early intervention with a multidisciplinary approach for these patients, thus improving patient and owner quality of life and long-term treatment outcomes.

High Impact Practices (HIPs) encompass a variety of educational opportunities proven to increase student engagement and persistence in their collegiate studies, but do they also lead to increased self-efficacy? By combining the literature of HIPs with Social Cognitive Theory (SCT) the authors present a combined assessment methodology - tested in an undergraduate sociology class during the COVID-19 Pandemic - that includes high impact assignments, reflective practices, and a pre/post-self-efficacy survey, giving students a more comprehensive practice which provides tools to empower learners to connect collegiate and personal experiences to their professional goals.

Widespread digitalization of the modern society - the emergence of digital devices, the introduction of Internet of Things, the development of Big Data processing and other technologies result in new challenges. Not only industrial and corporate automation that has already been considerably covered by the legislation initiatives but also the digitalization of everyday life has started to constitute a critical infrastructure in the modern society. This largely happens because digital devices substituting traditional technologies owned by citizens are incorporated into corporate, financial and state business processes. For instance, citizens’ devices are becoming the source of primary data for energy and utility companies. More opportunities for the direct interaction of automation solutions between themselves resulting in a controversial synergy effect have been emerging recently. The article addresses specifics of citizens’ digital infrastructure in the light of critical infrastructure, in particular the necessity and special aspects of legal and regulatory framework and possible development trends of this functionality.

Dramatical changes in society’s infrastructure require new conceptual approaches towards the research of socioeconomic phenomena. Nowadays, environment surrounding people experience qualitative changes; it has become possible to use full information on the history of objects. It is essential to develop a conceptual framework enabling to thoroughly describe the interaction of an individual and a socioeconomic environment that is changed by digital technologies. In this article, it is suggested to use the concept of socioeconomic technology in the context of exploration of digitalization processes. These include the Internet of things, big data processing, widespread implementation of personal tools to process and share information etc. The concept of socioeconomic technology allows tying up new technologies with the needs of an individual and society as well as with phenomena emerging in socioeconomic infrastructure. The suggested approach may be used at the development and implementation of the Internet of things, of global communication infrastructure, of technologies for processing and storage of data, and for the research of other aspects of society’s digitalization. Today it is possible to research different directions for the development of consumption sphere and technologies taking into account the emergence of virtual properties of objects. Virtual properties result for example in multiple ways to implement things, in the possibility to store and use the full history of major objects surrounding an individual. Conceptual framework suggested in this article allows holistically addressing the issues of commercial efficiency and socioeconomic management in the age of digitalization.

High electric permittivity materials (HPM) have been used to improve transmit efficiency and receive sensitivity in targeted regions. In this work we demonstrate improvements in the entire b rain by designing and implementing an integrated HPM shell for a head coil with 8-channel transmit and 30-channel receive arryas. The coil with HPM insert provides gains of approximately55% in transmit efficiency and 20% in SNR compared to an identical coil withou t the insert.

Abstract This article argues that writing programs have an opportunity to create a new playing field in their online composition courses. A playing field that conceives of students and content differently than does a typical iteration of an online course (a course that traditionally migrates materials and practices from a f2f context and reimagines them for an online setting). The focus of this article emphasizes how readers can use user-centered design in their online courses to accommodate all students with varying learning styles. Readers will gain a better understanding of how significant user-centered design can be for maintaining student enrollments, promoting learning and avoiding attrition. Further readers will understand that specific moves made by the instructor will have very real repercussions on whether or not a course, or even elements of a course, are accessible by all.

Veterinary behavior has been recognized as an important component of modern practice and a valuable aspect of the core curriculum in veterinary education, yet a lack of behavior courses and clinical offerings for students exists in veterinary colleges and schools. The purpose of this study was to explore graduating veterinary students' perception of preparedness for “day-1” of practice and the factors of the veterinary behavior curriculum which influenced that perception. An Internet survey was completed by 366 graduating veterinary students at 30 different Association of American Veterinary Medical College member institutions. The effects of responses were analyzed using logistic regression and reported as odds ratio. Gender, presence of a boarded-certified behaviorist on faculty, year behavior courses were introduced into the curriculum, contents of behavior courses, and length of teachings were compared against students' perception of preparedness. Most students (76.9%) felt their veterinary clinical behavior curriculum should prepare them for “day-1” but only 26.8% felt prepared. Adequate instruction in recognizing abnormal behavior; preventing, diagnosing, and treating behavior problems; instruction by a diplomate of the American College of Veterinary Behaviorists; introduction of behavior courses into year 1; and a course consisting of at least 2 weeks significantly increased the perception of preparedness among students. A stronger emphasis on veterinary behavior into every veterinary curriculum would benefit not only the graduating veterinarians and the alumni that employ them but also the overall quality of veterinary education.

Abstract The purpose of this pilot study was to determine if Rhea americana chicks could be trained to walk voluntarily across a scale to be weighed. If the chicks were trainable, the following questions would be investigated: the amount of time required to teach the chicks to walk voluntarily across a scale; the feasibility of this process in the production setting; and whether training chicks to walk voluntarily across a scale would lead to increased weight gain when compared with chicks weighed using traditional methods. The hypotheses were that chicks could be trained to walk voluntarily across the scale; the process would be feasible in a production setting; and trained chicks would experience an increased weight gain and decreased mortality compared with chicks weighed in the traditional manner. Thirty-five chicks were included in the study and randomly separated into 2 groups matched for hatch date and breeder group. Chicks in the control group were weighed in the traditional manner by being picked up and placed in a bucket on the scale. Chicks in the treatment group were trained to walk down a chute and onto a scale. Weighing occurred every other day for both the control and treatment groups. Training Rhea americana chicks to walk voluntarily across a scale required only 2 people and less than 1 minute per chick per day for 5 days for the treatment group, suggesting this training method would be feasible to implement. There was no difference in percentage weight gain or mortality between the control and treatment groups.

Abstract This article explores the challenges online teachers face in establishing a teaching persona. While many online teachers believe that they create and control their teaching presence, drawing on transactional distance theory and relational distance theory, this paper argues that such an assumption can result in increased distance between teacher and students. This increased distance makes it more difficult for online students to accurately sense who their teacher is. Problematically, this sense of who the teacher is can be a powerful element to help online students succeed within the course. To help students to perceive, more clearly, who the teacher of the course is, the article recommends frequent and varied communication between teacher and students, the utilization of multimodal communication methods to provide differing opportunities for students to make meaning, for teachers to share who they are with students, and to proactively encourage the formation of relationships between course participants through course design.