Animal Categories Research Articles

Spot the odd one out: do snake pictures capture macaques' attention more than other predators?

Detecting and identifying predators quickly is key to survival. According to the Snake Detection Theory (SDT), snakes have been a substantive threat to primates for millions of years, so that dedicated visual skills were tuned to detect snakes in early primates. Past experiments confronted the SDT by measuring how fast primate subjects detected snake pictures among non-dangerous distractors (e.g., flowers), but did not include pictures of primates' other predators, such as carnivorans, raptors, and crocodilians. Here, we examined the detection abilities of N = 19 Tonkean macaques (Macaca tonkeana) and N = 6 rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta) to spot different predators. By implementing an oddity task protocol, we recorded success rates and reaction times to locate a deviant picture among four pictures over more than 400,000 test trials. Pictures depicted a predator, a non-predator animal, or a simple geometric shape. The first task consisted of detecting a deviant picture among identical distractor pictures (discrimination) and the second task was designed to evaluate detection abilities of a deviant picture among different distractor pictures (categorization). The macaques detected pictures of geometric shapes better and faster than pictures of animals, and were better and faster at discriminating than categorizing. The macaques did not detect snakes better or faster than other animal categories. Overall, these results suggest that pictures of snakes do not capture visual attention more than other predators, questioning previous findings in favor of the SDT.

Hedonic analysis of the price of mangalarga marchador horses sold at auctions

The objective was to identify sets of relevant atributes for pricing Mangalarga Marchador horses at auctions and to estimate a hedonic pricing function. We analyzed 452 horses at 20 auctions. The studied variables were characteristics intrinsic to the animals and attributes that influence sale price, which were identified through generalized linear and logistic model analysis. For each additional prize and additional bid, the prices decreased by R$ 2110.00 and R$ 549.00 respectively. The individual’s maternal grandsire positively or negatively affected prices, from R$ - 86.70 to R$ + 35.50. Non-pregnant females were penalized in price by R$ 110.00 compared to non-castrated males. A bay coat added R$ 215.00 to prices when compared to chestnut animals. Online auctions added R$ 20.10 to prices and virtual auctions penalized prices by R$ 617.00. The gray coat devalues a sale by 48% and Seller 3 decreasing by 18%. We conclude that auction type, number of prizes, share sold, animal category, coat, seller, number of bids, and maternal grandsire influenced the prices of Mangalarga Marchador horses, and that coat and seller that influenced the probability of the animal being sold.

Allometric-kinetic model predictions of concentration ratios for anthropogenic radionuclides across animal classes and food selection

Protection of the environment from radiation fundamentally relies on dose assessments for non-human biota. Many of these dose assessments use measured or predicted concentrations of radionuclides in soil or water combined with Concentration Ratios (CRs) to estimate whole body concentrations in animals and plants, yet there is a paucity of CR data relative to the vast number of potential taxa and radioactive contaminants in the environment and their taxon-specific ecosystems. Because there are many taxa each having very different behaviors and biology, and there are many possible bioavailable radionuclides, CRs have the potential to vary by orders-of-magnitude, as often seen in published data. Given the diversity of taxa, the International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP) has selected 12 non-human biota as reference animals and plants (RAPs), while the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) uses the non-taxon specific categories of terrestrial, riparian, and aquatic animals. The question we examine here, in part, is: are these RAPs and categorizations sufficient to adequately protect all species given the broad diversity of animals in a region? To explore this question, we utilize an Allometric-Kinetic (A-K) model to calculate radionuclide-specific CRs for common animal classes, which are then further subcategorized into herbivores, omnivores, carnivores, and invertebrate detritivores. Comparisons in CRs among animal classes exhibited only small differences, but there was order of magnitude differences between herbivores, carnivores, and especially detritivores, for many radionuclides of interest. These findings suggest that the ICRP RAPs and the DOE categories are reasonable, but their accuracy could be improved by including sub-categories related to animal dietary ecology and biology. Finally, comparisons of A-K model predicted CR values to published CRs show order-of-magnitude variations, providing justification for additional studies of animal assimilation across radionuclides, environmental conditions, and animal classes.

Safety and efficacy of a feed additive consisting of manganese(II)-betaine complex for all animal species (Biochem Zusatzstoffe Handels- und Produktionsges. mbH).

Following a request from the European Commission, EFSA was asked to deliver a scientific opinion on the safety and efficacy of manganese(II)-betaine complex as a nutritional feed additive for all animal species and categories. Based on the tolerance study performed in chickens, the FEEDAP Panel concluded that the additive is safe for chickens for fattening when used up to the maximum proposed level of manganese in feed; this conclusion was extrapolated to all animal species and categories at the corresponding maximum manganese levels in complete feed (100 mg Mn/kg feed for fish and 150 mg Mn/kg feed for all other animal species). The FEEDAP Panel concluded that the use of additive in animal nutrition does not represent a concern for consumer safety or for the environment. The additive is irritant to the eyes, but not irritant to skin. Owing to the presence of nickel the additive is considered to be a dermal and respiratory sensitiser. The Panel concluded that the additive is efficacious as a nutritional additive for all animal species under the proposed conditions of use.

Gamma-interferon assay for the ancillary diagnosis of bovine tuberculosis in dairy cattle in urban and adjacent areas of Dhaka city, Bangladesh.

Bovine tuberculosis (bTB) is an infectious disease of cattle, mainly caused by Mycobacterium bovis. This study aimed to evaluate the efficacy of the interferon-gamma (IFN-γ) assay and single-intradermal comparative tuberculin test (SICTT) in detecting bTB. In an earlier study, 150 positive, 83 inconclusive, and 480 negative animals from 24 cattle herds were screened using SICTT. From these groups, 125 positive, 17 inconclusive, and six negative animals were subsequently verified using the IFN-γ assay. Single-intradermal comparative tuberculin test outcomes were interpreted according to standard guidelines, whereas blood samples were collected and stimulated with purified protein derivatives. Sandwich enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay was used to measure secreted IFN-γ. Concordant and Bayesian latent class analyses were performed to evaluate test performance. Results from the IFN-γ assay revealed that 83.2%, 64.7%, and 16.67% of the animals were positive in the SICTT-positive, inconclusive, and negative animal categories, respectively. Sensitivity (SE) and specificity (SP) of SICTT were 83.9% (95% confidence interval [CI]: 77.4-90.1) and 95.7% (95% CI: 86.9-99.7), respectively. Sensitivity and SP for the IFN-γ assay were 78.9% (95% CI: 71.9-85.4) and 83.9% (65.9-95.9), respectively. The use of both tests in parallel increases the SE of bTB detection (~94%), compared with SICTT alone. Use of the IFN-γ assay with SICTT in parallel, predominantly on cattle demonstrating an inconclusive SICTT outcome, boosts bTB detection rate in low resource settings.

SAWIT: A small-sized animal wild image dataset with annotations

Computer vision has found many applications in automatic wildlife data analytics and biodiversity monitoring. Automating tasks like animal recognition or animal detection usually require machine learning models (e.g., deep neural networks) trained on annotated datasets. However, image datasets built for general purposes fail to capture realistic conditions of ecological studies, and existing datasets collected with camera-traps mainly focus on medium to large-sized animals. There is a lack of annotated small-sized animal datasets in the field. Small-sized animals (e.g., small mammals, frogs, lizards, arthropods) play an important role in ecosystems but are difficult to capture on camera-traps. They also present additional challenges: small animals can be more difficult to identify and blend more easily with their surroundings. To fill this gap, we introduce in this paper a new dataset dedicated to ecological studies of small-sized animals, and provide benchmark results of computer vision-based wildlife monitoring. The novelty of our work lies on SAWIT (small-sized animal wild image dataset), the first real-world dataset of small-sized animals, collected from camera traps and in realistic conditions. Our dataset consists of 34,434 images and is annotated by experts in the field with object-level annotations (bounding boxes) providing 34,820 annotated animals for seven animal categories. The dataset encompasses a wide range of challenging scenarios, such as occlusions, blurriness, and instances where animals blend into the dense vegetation. Based on the dataset, we benchmark two prevailing object detection algorithms: Faster RCNN and YOLO, and their variants. Experimental results show that all the variants of YOLO (version 5) perform similarly, ranging from 59.3% to 62.6% for the overall mean Average Precision (mAP) across all the animal categories. Faster RCNN with ResNet50 and HRNet backbone achieve 61.7% mAP and 58.5% mAP respectively. Through experiments, we indicate challenges and suggest research directions for computer vision-based wildlife monitoring. We provide both the dataset and the animal detection code at https://github.com/dtnguyen0304/sawit.

Quantifying H2 emissions under different nutritional mitigation strategies and its impact on improving the prediction of enteric methane emissions of ruminants

Stoichiometric models that predict methane (CH4) production of ruminants assume that the amount of hydrogen gas (H2) produced during fermentation in the rumen equals the amount of H2 consumed by electron sinks in the rumen and thus that H2 should not be emitted into the environment. However, some studies have demonstrated that H2 emissions occur under practical conditions. In addition, the H2 emissions increase when nutritional mitigation strategies are used. Hence, this study hypothesized that considering H2 emission would improve the prediction of enteric CH4 emission, especially when using mitigation strategies that induce high variation in the H2 emission. The objective of this study was to develop and evaluate the performance of CH4 emission prediction models using H2 emission as an explanatory variable. A database of CH4 and H2 emission (mean treatment data) from ruminants (dairy cattle, growing cattle and sheeps) was built to develop mixed-effects models at three levels of complexity: level 1 - H2 production/yield, DMI, or both; level 2 - level 1 explanatory variables plus chemical composition of the diet (i.e. CP, EE, NDF, OM, or PCO); and level 3 - level 2 explanatory variables plus animal metabolic weight (BW0.75, kg). When all animal categories were grouped, including H2 production improved the performance of CH4 production prediction only in level 1 models for the electron-receptor mitigation strategy, reducing the root mean square of prediction error (RMSPE) by 18 %. For dairy cattle and sheep, dry matter intake was not a significant explanatory variable in level 1 or 2 models. For growing beef cattle, for all mitigation strategies together and the inhibitor-mitigation strategy alone, including H2 production reduced RMSPE by 13 % and 27 %, respectively. Overall, H2 production was included in 60 % of level 1 models and 100 % of level 2 and 3 models, which best predicted CH4 production. Thus, including H2 emission does improve prediction of enteric CH4 emission, especially when mitigation strategies that induce variation in the H2 are used.

Environmental and behavioral effects on pregnancy rate of Nellore cows synchronized to fixed-time artificial insemination protocol: multivariate analysis

The aim of the study was to evaluate the influence of behavioral reactivity, body condition score (BCS), corral temperature (CT), difficulty and time of insemination on pregnancy rate of Nellore females raised in the Pantanal area and submitted to a fixed-time artificial insemination (FTAI) protocol. Thus, 167 females, kept in an extensive grazing system were evaluated. The variables recorded were BCS, escape velocity (EV), CT, insemination difficulty (ID), chute behavior (CB), insemination time (IT) and pregnancy rate. Initially, Fisher's Exact Test was performed to verify differences between expected and observed for BCS, CB, EV, ID, IT and CT, in which the influence of each variable on pregnancy rate was individually analyzed and it was not significant influence of these variables was observed (P<0.05). Subsequently, the result of the pregnancy diagnosis (success = 1 and failure = 0) was used to study the probability of pregnancy. Multivariate analysis was used to assess the influence of several characteristics together on the conception rate, creating different evaluation scenarios. In none of the scenarios extracted from the cluster analysis was there a statistically relevant influence on the number of pregnancies. Under the conditions in which the study was conducted, there was no influence of corral temperature, reactivity, time and difficulty of insemination, body condition score and animal category on pregnancy rate of bovine females submitted to a FTAI protocol.

Safety and efficacy of a feed additive consisting of iron(II)-betaine complex for all animal species (Biochem Zusatzstoffe Handels- und Produktionsges. mbH).

Following a request from the European Commission, the EFSA Panel on Additives and Products or Substances used in Animal Feed (FEEDAP Panel) was asked to deliver a scientific opinion on the safety and efficacy of iron(II)-betaine complex as a nutritional feed additive for all animal species. Based on the results of a tolerance study carried out in chickens the FEEDAP Panel concluded that the additive is safe for chickens for fattening when used up to the current maximum authorised levels of iron in feed; this conclusion was extrapolated to all animal species and categories at the respective maximum iron levels in complete feed authorised in the European Union. The FEEDAP Panel concluded that the use of the iron(II)-betaine complex in animal nutrition at the maximum iron levels authorised for the animal species poses no concern to the safety of consumers. The additive is not a skin irritant, but it is an irritant to the eyes. Due to the traces of nickel, the additive is considered to be a respiratory and skin sensitiser. Regarding the safety for the environment, the use of the additive in feed for terrestrial animals, land-based and sea cages aquaculture is considered safe under the proposed conditions of use. Based on the deposition of iron in edible tissues/organs in chickens for fattening, the FEEDAP Panel concluded that the additive is a source of bioavailable iron, comparable to the standard inorganic iron source, and therefore, the additive is efficacious in meeting the birds iron requirements. This conclusion can be extrapolated to all animal species and categories.

Eating E.T.: Carnism and Speciesism

This article takes as its point of departure an event in which a plant-based version of the space alien, the Extra-Terrestrial (‘E.T.’), from the science fiction film bearing its name, was barbecued and served as a meal to participants at a conference. The soy dish produced different reactions: some laughed, while others seemed appalled. These different sentiments provide the basis for a broad green cultural criminology analysis of the traditions of meat-eating, tracing its role in human history and in the barbecue. The purpose of this is to explore why humans treat different categories of animals so differently. To understand the reactions the meal produced, the article addresses two contrasting aspects of the human–non-human animal relationship—‘carnism’ and ‘pet-keeping’—and contemplates these in relation to the reactions to eating E.T. The goal is to expand on the study of the human–animal relationship, particularly speciesism—understood as ideology and practice that legitimise and produce animal abuse through the analytical concept categorical discriminatory speciesism.

Qualitative and quantitative monitoring of antibiotics on dairy cattle farms in relation to animal welfare indicators

Antimicrobial resistance is a growing concern for the scientific community and the public, so many countries have stepped up monitoring to tackle it and promote correct antimicrobial use. The welfare assessment protocol for dairy cows used by the Italian National Reference Centre for Animal Welfare (CReNBA) recommends lowering the use of antibiotics, so this study assessed the effects of the introduction of the welfare score on antimicrobial use and animal welfare between 2015 and 2018. For this study, 23 dairy farms in northern Italy (Piedmont) were enrolled. Data on animal categories (calf, heifer and cow) and antimicrobial use were extrapolated from mandatory farm registers. The antimicrobial animal-defined daily dose (ADDD) and the ADDD per year (ADDD/year) were calculated. Each farm was evaluated with the CReNBA welfare assessment protocol for dairy cows. An increase was recorded for 2018 regarding the number of reared animals (especially adult cows) and in the welfare (2015: 71.44% ± 7.84% vs. 2018: 76.18% ± 6.40%; p < 0.05) and biosecurity score (2015: 44.42 ± 11.87 vs 2018: 60.49 ± 11.13; p ≤ 0.01). The mean ADDD/y was lower for 2018 (3.04 ± 1.3 vs. 3.61 ± 1.5; p = 0.01), despite the extensive use of beta-lactams and cephalosporins. Most farms with high welfare scores showed a lower ADDD/y in both years. The correlation between higher levels of animal welfare and lower antimicrobial consumption suggests that drug use can be reduced improving animal well-being on the farm. Further reductions may be achieved by strengthening synergism between public health agencies and farm veterinarians.

Categorisation of cats: Managing boundary felids in Aotearoa New Zealand and Britain

Abstract Management of domestic and wild animals is an integral part of conservation and is often based on how an animal is categorised. For example, feral cats are often killed, while valued companion cats and native wildcats are protected. Drawing on qualitative research and using the concept of boundary‐work, this paper examines the complex categorisation and management of cats within conservation in Britain and Aotearoa, New Zealand (NZ). We examine how, both in theory and in practice, valued companion and wildcats are distinguished from unprotected feral cats, and in‐between categories of stray and hybrid cats. We demonstrate that stakeholders draw boundaries between cat categories differently. These differences in boundary‐drawing reflect the inherent blurriness of category boundaries, practical challenges and, importantly, differences in values, in particular whether priority is placed on the life of the cat or the cat's potential victim, particularly native or game birds. This can mean that laws outlining protections for specific categories of animals have limited effect if, in practice, those encountering cats draw boundaries differently. This paper also reports on important differences between the two case studies. In NZ, even cat advocates support the humane killing of unambiguously feral cats while this is less true in Britain. Furthermore, due to the nature of the contexts, conservationists in NZ are more inclined to assume that ambiguous cats are feral whereas conservationists in Britain are more inclined to assume that they are wildcats. This paper demonstrates that values not only shape people's perceptions and treatment of animals but also how they draw boundaries between them. This finding may have important implications for understanding other controversies in conservation and animal management. Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog.

Partitioning of the genetic trends of French dairy sheep in Mendelian samplings and long-term contributions

The genetic trend of milk yield for 4 French dairy sheep breeds (Lacaune, Basco-Béarnaise, Manech Tête Noire, and Manech Tête Rousse) was partitioned in Mendelian sampling trends by categories of animals defined by sex and by selection pathways. Five categories were defined, as follows: (1) artificial insemination (AI) males (after progeny testing), (2) males discarded after progeny testing, (3) natural mating males, (4) dams of males, and (5) dams of females. Dams of males and AI males were the most important sources of genetic progress, as observed in the decomposition in Mendelian sampling trends. The yearly contributions were more erratic for AI males than for dams of males, as AI males are averaged across a smaller number of individuals. Natural mating males and discarded males did not contribute to the trend in terms of Mendelian sampling, as their estimated Mendelian sampling term is either null (natural mating males) or negative (discarded males). Overall, in terms of Mendelian sampling, females contributed more than males to the total genetic gain, and we interpret that this is because females constitute a larger pool of genetic diversity. In addition, we computed long-term contributions from each individual to the following pseudo-generations (one pseudo-generation spanning 4 years). With this information, we studied the selection decisions (selected or not selected) for females, and the contributions to the following generations. Mendelian sampling was more important than parent average to determine the selection of individuals and their long-term contributions. Long-term contributions were greater for AI males (with larger progeny sizes than females) and in Basco-Béarnaise than in Lacaune (with the latter being a larger population).

Impact of breed, body score and animal category on the pregnancy rate of bovine females under IATF management

This study evaluate the impact of the reuse of the intravaginal progesterone implant (DIP), the body condition score and the racial composition on the pregnancy rate of Nelore and Angus heifers (F1) and Nelore cows of different categories submitted to different protocols of TAI, from a database of 3,093 females submitted to the same hormonal induction protocol and from the mating season of a commercial farm in the north of Minas Gerais. The racial com- position influenced the pregnancy rate of heifers, with rates of 55.11% for Nellore heifers and 64.36% for ½ Angus, showing that the ½ Angus breed has 1.55 times more chances of successful gestation compared to the breed Nellore. There is no effect of the progesterone implant until the third use on the pregnancy rate of the heifers evaluated. The increase of one unit in the body condition score on the scale of 1 to 5 implies 1.9109 or 91.09% times more success in pregnancy. The category of calving cows did not significantly affect the pregnancy rate in the evaluated herd, with pregnancy rates of 58.1%, 62.8%, 77.7% and 62.9% for primiparous, early primiparous, secondary and multiparous, respectively. The introduction of ½ Angus heifers to explore the effects of heterosis and complementarity between breeds is a viable alternative. Cows, when well managed in the postpartum period, obtain pregnancy rates higher than that observed in the national average.

Clostridioides difficile in Pigs and Dairy Cattle in Northern Italy: Prevalence, Characterization and Comparison between Animal and Human Strains.

It has been observed that novel strains of Clostridioides difficile can rapidly emerge and move between animal and human hosts. The aim of this study was to investigate the prevalence of C. difficile in pigs and dairy cattle in northern Italy and to characterize and compare C. difficile animal strains with those from patients from the same geographical area. The C. difficile strains were isolated from animals from farms and slaughterhouses (cross-sectional studies) and from neonatal animals with enteric disorders in routine diagnostic investigations (passive surveillance). Samples positive for C. difficile were found in 87% of the pig farms and in 40% of the cattle farms involved in the cross-sectional studies, with a 20% prevalence among suckling piglets and 6.7% prevalence in neonatal calves, with no significant difference between animals with and without diarrheal symptoms. The prevalence of C. difficile in older animal categories was significantly lower. This result suggests that young age is an important risk factor for C. difficile colonization. In cross-sectional studies at slaughterhouses, in both the heavy pigs and dairy cows examined, only 2% of the intestinal content samples were positive for C. difficile and no contamination was found on the surface of the carcasses. Considering passive surveillance, the prevalence rates of positive samples were 29% in piglets and 1.4% in calves. Overall, 267 strains of animal origin and 97 from humans were collected. In total, 39 ribotypes (RTs) were identified, with RT 078 and RT 018 being predominant among animals and humans, respectively. Several RTs overlapped between animals and patients. In particular, RT 569 was identified as an emergent type in our country. Resistance to erythromycin and moxifloxacin was widely diffused among C. difficile strains, regardless of origin. This study supports C. difficile as a pathogen of one-health importance and highlights the need for a collaborative approach between physicians and veterinarians to control and prevent infections that are able to cross species and geographical barriers.

Haematological values in cattle reared in humid and subhumid tropics of Mexico.

The objective of this study was to determine some factors that influence the haematological values of cattle reared in the humid and subhumid tropics of Mexico. Whole blood samples were taken from 1355 crossbred cattle in the years 2017 to 2019. Haematocrit (HTC, %), total plasma protein (TPP, g/dL) and peripheral eosinophils count (PEOS, × 103/µL) were determined manually, and the main haematological variables were recorded with an automatic analyser. The statistical analysis considered as classification variables age, sex, season (cold, dry and rainy), year (2017, 2018 and 2019) and origin of the cattle. The mean of the haematological parameters was determined along with the confidence limits (CL) of the different categories of animals according to age. Calves younger than 1-year-old presented higher levels of HTC, red blood cell count (RBC), haemoglobin (HGB), red blood cell distribution width (RDW), platelet number (PLT), white blood cell count (WBC) and lymphocyte count (LYMF) than animals older than 2years of age. However, they showed the lowest mean cell volume (MCV) and TPP values. In cows, the highest levels of PEOS, granulocytes (GRAN), MCV and medium cells (MID) were observed and the lowest HTC, RBC, RDW and WBC levels. Intervals were determined with the 1st quartile (Q1) or lower confidence interval (90% CI) as the minimum values and the 3rd quartile (Q3) or upper confidence interval (90% CI) as the maximum values. The haematological parameters of cattle reared in the Southeast of Mexico are significantly affected by age, sex and environmental conditions.

Whole blood transcriptome analysis of lactating Murrah buffaloes divergent to contrasting genetic merits for milk yield

Functional genome profiling of Murrah buffaloes (Bubalus bubalis) was performed for milk-production trait by whole blood transcriptome analysis comparing RNA-seq data assembled from high and low milk producing multiparous (5 -6 parity) animals. These buffaloes reflected the genetic merit inherited as daughters born to extremely high- and low-end bulls evaluated under a progeny testing scheme and ranked by the estimated breeding value. The average standard milk yield (SMY) over the 305 d during the parity was recorded as 2909.50L ± 492.63 and 1869.57 ± 189.36L in high- and low-performance buffaloes, respectively. The “reference” assembly data was assembled from transcriptome libraries of a group of buffaloes (n=16), comprising of animals in different physiological states. Replicates selected within each category of the high and low genetic merit animals showed a correlation coefficient of high order (R2=0.98) while comparing with the `reference' assembly. The sequence data of selected buffaloes, mapped over the Mediterranean water buffalo genome, revealed differentially expressed genes (DEGs) distinctly depicted via heat maps and volcano plots obtained for two categories of animals, determining more than 25,000 genes via the Cufflink analysis. DEGs included 83 down-regulating and 142 up-regulating genes (p&amp;lt;0.05, FDR&amp;lt;0.05). Functional classification of the DEGs revealed a fine networking of biological processes, primarily cell signaling, cell proliferation, cell differentiation, RNA splicing, fat metabolism, and inflammasome generation. These processes are regulated by transcription factors and binding proteins covered under the network of TNF alpha signaling, NF-kappa B signaling and MAPK PI3K-AKT signaling pathways/ cascade emerged as main biological pathways. Emerged pathways revealed remarkably intricate tuning of metabolic and cell development processes converging into milk production in buffaloes. Segregated patterns of gene expression obtained for high and low milk producing buffaloes using the non-invasive method of whole blood transcriptome analysis has emerged as a promising resource comprising gene network and protein -protein interactions, primarily involved in lactation. Synergism of transcription factors and binding proteins promoting epigenetic regulation at all development stages of mammary tissue induce mammogenic and lactogenic responses for subsequent milk secretion under optimum feeding management. These findings may help improve breeding strategies to achieve the desired milk yield in Murrah buffaloes.

Category Flexibility in Emotion Learning.

Learners flexibly update category boundaries to adjust to the range of experiences they encounter. However, little is known about whether the degree of flexibility is consistent across domains. We examined whether categorization of social input, specifically emotions, is afforded more flexibility as compared to other biological input. To address this question, children (6-12 years; 32 female, 37 male; 7 Hispanic or Latino, 62 not Hispanic or Latino; 8 Black or African American, 14 multiracial, 46 White, 1 selected "other") categorized faces morphed from calm to upset and animals morphed from a horse to a cow across task phases that differed in the distribution of stimuli presented. Learners flexibly adjusted both emotion and animal category boundaries according to distributional information, yet children showed more flexibility when updating their category boundaries for emotions. These results provide support for the idea that children-who must adjust to the vast and varied emotional signals of their social partners-respond to social signals dynamically in order to make predictions about the internal states and future behaviors of others.

Why are human animacy judgments continuous rather than categorical? A computational modeling approach.

The concept of animacy is often taken as a basic natural concept, in part I because most cases seem unambiguous. Most entities either are or are not animate. However, human animacy judgments do not reflect this binary classification. They suggest that there are borderline cases, such as virus, amoeba, fly, and imaginary beings (giant, dragon, god). Moreover, human roles (professor, mother, girlfriend) are consistently recognized as animate by far less than 100% of human judges. In this paper, I use computational modeling to identify features associated with human animacy judgments, modeling human animacy and living/non-living judgments using both bottom-up predictors (the principal components from a word embedding model) and top-down predictors (cosine distances from the names of animate categories). The results suggest that human animacy judgments may be relying on information obtained from imperfect estimates of category membership that are reflected in the word embedding models. Models using cosine distance from category names mirror human judgments in distinguishing strongly between humans (estimated lower animacy by the measure) and other animals (estimated higher animacy by the measure). These results are consistent with a family resemblance approach to the apparently categorical concept of animacy.

Patterns of cognitive performance in old adult community sample from Nigeria

AbstractBackgroundPatterns of cognitive impairments were studied in old adult sample in a view to understanding the roles of modifiable risk factors on cognition.MethodTwo hundred participants (115 males; age: 60‐74) were recruited. Domains of cognitive performance were measured with the UDS Version 3.ResultResult showed significant difference between diabetic (DG) and non‐diabetic (NDG) groups on Craft Story immediate, Benson recognition, category fluency animal and total category score with DG performing significantly better than NDG. Significant differences were found between hypertensive (HG) and non‐hypertensive (NHG) groups on number span forward Total correct and number span forward Length of correct. On the other hand, we showed significant interaction of depression and dementia history on Benson design recognition with participants that reported depression and history of dementia performing significantly worse than other groups. Depressive group (DPG) differed significantly from non‐depressive group (NDPG) on category fluency animal and total category fluency. Significant interaction effects were found on depression and history of dementia on category fluency (animal and vegetable) and total category score with participants reporting depression and positive history of dementia performing significantly worse on the measures. However, participants reporting history of dementia performed significantly better than non‐history participants on MoCA test. Further, we showed significant differences among 3 divisions of occupation: skilled (SK), semi skilled (SMK) and unskilled (USK) on craft story immediate (: SK = 25.79; SMK = 19.23; USK = 24.77), delayed (: SK = 20.27; SMK = 14.84; USK = 19.72), number span forward (total correct and length of correct), number span backward (total correct, length of correct and total aggregate score) with skilled occupation performing significantly better that the other two. The same were found for category fluency (animal and vegetable) and Control Oral Word Association Test.ConclusionOur findings suggest the important roles of diabetes, occupation and interaction of depression and dementia history on some domains of cognitive performance and the need to modify these variables for healthy cognition in old adults.