Human Handlers Research Articles (Page 3)

For some time, equine-assisted therapy (EAT), i.e., the use of horse-related activities for therapeutic reasons, has been recognised as a useful approach in the treatment of many mental health issues such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression, and anxiety. However, despite the interest in EAT, few scientific studies have focused on understanding the complex emotional response that horses seem to elicit in human riders and handlers. In this work, the potential use of affect recognition techniques based on physiological signals is examined for the task of assessing the interaction between humans and horses in terms of the emotional response of the humans to this interaction. Electroencephalography (EEG), electrocardiography (ECG), and electromyography (EMG) signals were captured from humans interacting with horses, and machine learning techniques were applied in order to predict the self-reported emotional states of the human subjects in terms of valence and arousal. Supervised classification experiments demonstrated the potential of this approach for affect recognition during human-horse interaction, reaching an F1-score of 78.27% for valence and 65.49% for arousal.

Does attachment security to a human handler influence the behavior of dogs who engage in animal assisted activities?

Canicross is a popular canine and human cross-country sport. The purpose of this study was to identify the most common injuries, their severity, risk factors and the recovery. An internet-based retrospective survey design was used to examine the characteristics of injuries, demographic and competition information and associations with injury rate. A total of 160 surveys were received and indicated that at the time of the survey 21.9% of dogs (35/160) had experienced at least one injury. Lacerations, abrasions and punctures were the most common injury type (22/49), most frequently occurring in the footpads of the forelimb (13/16). The majority of dogs (38/49) recovered from their injuries. Sixty-nine out of 147 of the human handlers experienced injuries while competing; ankle injuries (25/69) and bruises, cuts and grazes (20/69) were the most common injuries. Risk factors for injuries were being a purebred Labrador, dogs running with another dog and additionally competing in agility. Labradors, dogs running with another dog and dogs also participating in agility competitions were at higher risk for injury. Injuries of the footpads of the forelimb were the most common injuries in dogs. Most dogs had a complete recovery from their injuries. This is the first study that gives us insight into injuries occurring in dogs and handlers competing in canicross. This will help making recommendations for this sport as well as enable veterinarians to understand the risks and injuries.

In this paper I take up the call to expand the boundaries of social and physical landscapes in order to recognise the creative agencies of human and non‐human actors. In doing so, I wish to draw attention to the ways in which relations between both individuals and collectives combine to shape multi‐dimensional sociality in particular places. The place in question is a crocodile farm in tropical Australia. It is a curious place in that it was fostered by modes of objectification which serve to commoditise and conserve crocodiles at a species level with little attention to individuality. However, the particularity of crocodiles at the farming level compels their human handlers to make concessions to their demands. Crocodiles, by their refusals, attachments and individualities, elicit attention to their needs, which translates into practices and structures that are often at odds with profitability. In this way it is as much social processes as it is practicalities of producing skins which affect the farmed landscape and the beings it produces, creating a nexus of multispecies place‐making where individuals matter.

Stranger danger? An investigation into the influence of human-horse bond on stress and behaviour

Host-associated microbial dynamics are influenced by dietary and immune factors, but how exogenous microbial exposure shapes host-microbe dynamics remains poorly characterized. To investigate this phenomenon, we characterized the skin, rectum, and respiratory tract-associated microbiota in four aquarium-housed dolphins daily over a period of 6weeks, including administration of a probiotic during weeks 4 to 6. The environmental bacterial sources were also characterized, including the animals' human handlers, the aquarium air and water, and the dolphins' food supply. Continuous microbial exposure occurred between all sites, yet each environment maintained a characteristic microbiota, suggesting that the majority of exposure events do not result in colonization. Small changes in water physicochemistry had a significant but weak correlation with change in dolphin-associated bacterial richness but had no influence on phylogenetic diversity. Food and air microbiota were the richest and had the largest conditional influence on other microbiota in the absence of probiotics, but during probiotic administration, food alone had the largest influence on the stability of the dolphin microbiota. Our results suggest that respiratory tract and gastrointestinal epithelium interactions with air- and food-associated microbes had the biggest influence on host-microbiota dynamics, while other interactions, such as skin transmission, played only a minor role. Finally, direct oral stimulation with a foreign exogenous microbial source can have a profound effect on microbial stability. IMPORTANCE These results provide valuable insights into the ecological influence of exogenous microbial exposure, as well as laying the foundation for improving aquarium management practices. By comparing data for dolphins from aquaria that use natural versus artificial seawater, we demonstrate the potential influence of aquarium water disinfection procedures on dolphin microbial dynamics.

The present study was undertaken to isolate and characterize STEC and ETEC from diarrhoeic calves and humans in Asom, India. Out of the 134 presumptive Escherichia coli isolates picked from 80 diarrhoeic calves, 31 isolates could be serotyped into 23 different serogroups; and out of 19 strains of E. coli from human beings, 13 strains could be serotyped into 10 different serogroups. O157 from cattle and O131 from humans were the frequently encountered serogroups. The virulence gene profile of the STEC and ETEC isolates showed that the prevalence of stx2 gene and the emergence of multi drug resistant STEC and ETEC isolates in high proportion indicates that they may act as an important reservoir posing a possible threat to public health and may complicate future therapeutic options.

Uncovering the origins of dog–human eye contact: dingoes establish eye contact more than wolves, but less than dogs

Endemic New Zealand grass grub Costelytra zealandica is a pest of introduced pasture that uses phenol as a sex pheromone. The pheromone could be used to monitor and manage grass grub populations, but the irritating properties and toxicity of phenol for human handlers, as well as the possible ecotoxicological effects, pose obstacles to the deployment of the pheromone. This study aimed to limit the use of phenol by dose-response studies and investigation into alternative attractants and synergists to phenol. No difference in trap catch was seen across the range of 1-100 mg of phenol, while rates below this (0.001-0.1 mg) caused a large drop in catches. Our results indicated that 1 mg loading in lures was enough to indicate beetle presence over 1 week. 4-Hydroxybenzaldehyde and p-cresol proved unattractive in this study, both as single attractants and as synergists with phenol. Phenyl acetate, phenyl benzoate and diphenyl carbonate all formed phenol under hydrolytic conditions to act as successful propheromones, while phenyl acetate was found to be as attractive as phenol on its own. This study described several ways to reduce or avoid the use of phenol in the field while maintaining lure effectiveness. © 2017 Society of Chemical Industry.

Long-term unmanned vehicle operation requires autonomy capable of replanning activities responsive to changing vehicle and environment conditions. For unmanned aircraft systems, human handlers perform refueling/recharge and maintenance activities between flights, so the period of autonomy is typically limited to one flight. This paper investigates flight planning for a solar-energy-harvesting seaplane designed for persistent ocean surveillance without the need for human handling over a potentially long-term mission. A multiflight planner is introduced to generate energy-aware plans for persistent ocean surveillance. A novel heuristic is proposed to solve an asymmetric, nonmetric, negative-cost traveling salesman problem. Heuristic admissibility is demonstrated under specific conditions, and the characteristics of optimal multiflight plans are analyzed over a series of surveillance missions.

Introduction: Snuff is one of the many products of tobacco. It is prepared by certain processes that involve fermentation and aging. Microorganisms have been found to play important roles in these processes of snuff production. Snuff has been recommended by physicians as a better substitute for cigarettes. Methods: The microbial contamination of locally-prepared snuff sold in Eke-Awka Market, Anambra State was studied with a view to determining their suitability for use. The bacteria were isolated using nutrient agar, cetrimide agar and mannitol salt agar as the growth media while potato dextrose agar was the growth medium for the isolation of the fungi. Results: The bacterial counts ranged between 3.0 × 10 2 cfu/g and 6.7 × 10 2 cfu/g while the fungal counts were between 1.0 × 10 2 cfu/g and 4.6 × 10 2 cfu/g. The bacteria were identified as Corynebacterium bovis , Micrococcus luteus , Staphylococcus aureus , Staphylococcus epidermidis , Bacillus subtilis and Pseudomonas aeruginosa while the fungi were Aspergillus niger , Rhizopus stolonifer , Alternaria alternata , Geotrichum candidum , Penicillium italicum and Aspergillus flavus . Staphylococcus aureus occurred most frequently (28.57%) among the bacteria in the samples while Aspergillus niger had the highest frequency of occurrence (25.00%) among the fungal isolates. Conclusions: These microorganisms which may have entered the snuff from the air, soil, dust, storage containers and human handlers are known to cause diseases of man. Snuff should therefore be processed, packaged and handled hygienically to avoid its contamination with these organisms and the health risk they pose to the users.

Population bottlenecks, inbreeding, and artificial selection can all, in principle, influence levels of deleterious genetic variation. However, the relative importance of each of these effects on genome-wide patterns of deleterious variation remains controversial. Domestic and wild canids offer a powerful system to address the role of these factors in influencing deleterious variation because their history is dominated by known bottlenecks and intense artificial selection. Here, we assess genome-wide patterns of deleterious variation in 90 whole-genome sequences from breed dogs, village dogs, and gray wolves. We find that the ratio of amino acid changing heterozygosity to silent heterozygosity is higher in dogs than in wolves and, on average, dogs have 2-3% higher genetic load than gray wolves. Multiple lines of evidence indicate this pattern is driven by less efficient natural selection due to bottlenecks associated with domestication and breed formation, rather than recent inbreeding. Further, we find regions of the genome implicated in selective sweeps are enriched for amino acid changing variants and Mendelian disease genes. To our knowledge, these results provide the first quantitative estimates of the increased burden of deleterious variants directly associated with domestication and have important implications for selective breeding programs and the conservation of rare and endangered species. Specifically, they highlight the costs associated with selective breeding and question the practice favoring the breeding of individuals that best fit breed standards. Our results also suggest that maintaining a large population size, rather than just avoiding inbreeding, is a critical factor for preventing the accumulation of deleterious variants.

Quantifying Search Dog Effectiveness in a Terrestrial Search and Rescue Environment

The objective of the present study was to investigate the epidemiological and genetic relationships of classical enterotoxins of S. aureus in goat's raw milk, meat and food handlers in Toukh city in Qaluobia governorate, Egypt. A total of 100 goat, s raw milk and meat samples (50 of each) were collected from randomly distributed herds in streets for buying milk and in public markets for peddler meat. Hand and nasal swabs were collected from milkers and butchers (30 of ech). All samples were subjected for bacteriological examination for isolation and identification of S. aureus. Isolates were underwent reversed passive latex agglutination technique for detection of enterotoxigenic S. aureus. A multiplex PCR assay could successfully amplify the diagnostic DNA bands of 270bp, 165bp, 69bp and 306bp of genes for staphylococcal enterotoxins A, B, C, and D respectively. PCR was applied on the serologically identified 16 (20.25%) isolates out of 79 S. aureus which isolated from the examined goat's food samples and human handlers by using one universal forward and reverse primers, specific for each individual toxin gene. None of the samples was positive for SEE indicating the zoonotic and genetic relationships.

Milk and dairy products are frequently implicated in food-borne infections caused by Staphylococcus aureus and infected animals may contaminate bulk milk. In addition, human handlers, milking equipment, the environment, the udder and the teat skin of dairy animals are possible sources of bulk milk contamination. The main objective of this study was to identify and prioritize the sources of S. aureus contamination of bulk milk and raw milk cheese, and secondly to investigate the diversity of strains involved in bovine mastitis, and test the controversial hypothesis of cross-infection between humans and animals. Four farms manufacturing cheese from raw milk with a total of 135 dairy cows were selected. Bacteriological analyses were performed on quarter milk samples, swabs of udders and teats, the milking machine, bulk milk, cheeses, swabs taken from staff members’ hands and nasal cavities. Typing of S. aureus isolates was carried out using the Multiple Locus Variable Tandem Repeat Analysis [MLVA] including five genes [clfA, clfB coa, fnb and SAV1078] combined with the investigation of the presence of staphylokinase gene [sak]. A total of 537 isolates were genotyped. The genotyping results confirmed that most intramammary infections in each farm were due to a prevalent genotype. The majority of genotypes present on the teat skin were also isolated from quarter milk samples. These isolates are the main sources of the contamination of bulk milk and cheese. The identity of certain genotypes characterized in both humans and animals was sometimes associated with the presence of the sak gene and suggests the existence of cross-contamination and also the occasional involvement of human handlers in the contamination of milk and cheeses.

The microbiological quality and antibiotic susceptibility of bacterial isolates from fish and poultry feeds used in Imo State, South Eastern Nigeria was studied between January and July, 2015. A total of 13 different feeds comprising 3 fish feeds and 10 poultry feeds were collected from different marketers Imo State and examined bacteriologically by culture technique. Seven genera of bacteria: <i>Staphylococcus</i> species, <i>Bacillus</i> species, <i>Campylobacter jejuni, Listeria</i> species, <i>Proteus mirabilis, Escherichia coli</i>, and <i>Salmonella</i> species, as well as 2 genera of fungi: <i>Aspergillus</i> species and <i>Penicillinum</i> species were isolated from the feeds. Statistical analysis of the data showed significant difference (p < 0.05) in the bacteriological and mycological quality between local and industrial processed feeds. There was no significant difference (p > 0.05) in the bacteriological and mycological quality between fish and poultry feeds. Antibiotic susceptibility test revealed that Ciprofloxacin exhibited the highest antibacterial effects (grow inhibition) on most of the bacterial isolates than other antibiotics used. This study has revealed that fish and poultry feeds are potential sources of microbial infections for fish and poultry as well as human handlers and consumers of fish and poultry products in Imo State. The Government and public health operators in the State should educate the population on protective measures and also carry out routine supervision and regulation of production and use of these products.

The authors introduce the fundamental building blocks for a cyber-enabled, computer-mediated communication platform to connect human and canine intelligence to achieve a new generation of Cyber-Enhanced Working Dog (CEWD). The use of monitoring technologies provides handlers with real-time information about the behavior and emotional state of their CEWDs and the environments they're working in for a more intelligent canine-human collaboration. From handler to dog, haptic feedback and auditory cues are integrated to provide remote command and feedback delivery. From dog to handler, multiple inertial measurement units strategically located on a harness are used to accurately detect posture and behavior, and concurrent noninvasive photoplethysmogram and electrocardiogram for physiological monitoring. The authors also discuss how CEWDs would be incorporated with a variety of other robotic and autonomous technologies to create next-generation intelligent emergency response systems. Using cyber-physical systems to supplement and augment the two-way information exchange between human handlers and dogs would amplify the remarkable sensory capacities of search and rescue dogs and help them save more lives.

BackgroundMethicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) has emerged recently worldwide in production animals, particularly pigs and veal calves, which act as reservoirs for MRSA strains for human infection. The study determined the prevalence of MRSA and other resistant strains of S. aureus isolated from the anterior nares of pigs and human handlers on pig farms in Trinidad.MethodsIsolation of S. aureus was done by concurrently inoculating Baird-Parker agar (BPA) and Chromagar MRSA (CHROM) with swab samples and isolates were identified using standard methods. Suspect MRSA isolates from Chromagar and BPA were subjected to confirmatory test using Oxoid PBP2 latex agglutination test. The disc diffusion method was used to determine resistance to antimicrobial agents.ResultsThe frequency of isolation of MRSA was 2.1% (15 of 723) for pigs but 0.0% (0 of 72) for humans. Generally, for isolates of S. aureus from humans there was a high frequency of resistance compared with those from pigs, which had moderate resistance to the following antimicrobials: penicillin G (54.5%, 51.5%), ampicillin (59.1%, 49.5%), and streptomycin (59.1%, 37.1%), respectively. There was moderate resistance to tetracycline (36.4%, 41.2%) and gentamycin (27.2%, 23.7%) for human and pig S. aureus isolates, respectively, and low resistance to sulfamethoxazole-trimethoprim (4.5%, 6.2%) and norfloxacin (9.1%, 12.4%), respectively. The frequency of resistance to oxacillin by the disc method was 36.4 and 34.0% from S. aureus isolates from humans and pigs, respectively. Out of a total of 78 isolates of S. aureus from both human and pig sources that were resistant to oxacillin by the disc diffusion method, only 15 (19.2%) were confirmed as MRSA by the PBP'2 latex test kit.ConclusionsThe detection of MRSA strains in pigs, albeit at a low frequency, coupled with a high frequency of resistance to commonly used antimicrobial agents in pig and humans could have zoonotic and therapeutic implications. Finally, the diagnostic limitation of using CHROMagar and testing for oxacillin resistance by the disc diffusion method alone to determine MRSA strains without performing confirmatory tests cannot be overemphasized because the possibility of overdiagnosis of MRSA infections cannot be ignored.

Formaldehyde is an organic compound with the formula CH2O and it is the simplest aldehyde, with systematic name methanol. The aim of this investigation was to sensitize embalming laboratory users of the impending danger associated with overexposure to forty percent (40%) formaldehyde vapour (the active component of embalming fluid) on the lungs. Twenty adult male albino rats were used for this investigation. The animals were divided into five (A, B, C, D, and E) groups. Animals in group B, C, D and E were respectively exposed to forty percent( 40%) formaldehyde for ten(10), fifteen(15), twenty(20) and twenty five(25) days while animals in group A which serve as control group were not exposed to forty percent (40%) formaldehyde at all. At different stages of the experiment, the animals in each of the group were decapacitated and the thoracic cage cut open to expose the lungs. The lung tissue was processed for light microscopic investigation adopting the Haematoxylin and Eosin (H and E) staining procedure. The histopathological observation in this study showed that exposure to forty percent (40%) formaldehyde induced changes in the histology of the lungs. The observed changes were duration dependent. So forty percent (40%) formaldehyde may be able to have greater marked effect at a prolonged exposure. These findings suggests that forty percent (40%) formaldehyde vapour may be remarkably toxic on the rat lung tissue and advocate for precautionary measure for human handlers while handling this chemical especially in the histopathology unit for fixation and embalming purposes.

FIGHTING POWER, Feeling Power In theatre of unconditional War on Terror declared by U.S. after 9/11 attacks on its homeland, few spectacles can rival raid on Osama bin Laden's living quarters in Pakistan in May of 2011. Although this paramilitary drama seemed to embroil exclusively human actors, news quickly spread through global media that one member of elite team of U.S. Navy seals that descended on bin Laden's Abbottabad compound was canine. Cairo, a Belgian Malinois whose tracking sense proved vital in deadliest manhunt of early twenty-first century, emerged from U.S. mission a national hero thanks to his zealous part in sniffing founder of al-Qaeda. Dogs have become visibly embedded in groundwork and fantasy of a state of security that, radiating out from U.S. Department of Homeland Security, is today global in its means and effects. Other Military Working Dogs (mwds) besides Cairo have figured prominently in a post-9/11 order of security. Perhaps most notorious are those German shepherds shown with their human handlers in trophy photographs taken by American soldiers at Abu Ghraib, poised to unleash their powers of psychic and physical terror on Iraqi prisoners. MWDs and police dogs are now routinely referred to in idiom of security as K9s, an abbreviated homophone for canines that places them in technological series with other weaponry like M-16 family of combat rifles or UH-60 series of Black Hawk helicopters used in raid on bin Laden's compound. That is, security dogs are fetishized as optimally efficient fighting machines whose performance is augmented by sleek layers of combat gear supplied by military outfitters like K9 Storm, a Canadian-based company in business of cladding new dogs of war. Alongside valorization of dogs' fighting power in service of global policing and security, in what follows I begin tracing a particular genealogy of biopower in which it is not only dogs' powers of detecting and detaining but simultaneously their feeling power, and more specifically their capacity for loving attachment, that is cultivated as an instrument of unconditional security. This particular genealogy of feeling power sparks much thornier, speculative question of how we might think of other species as subjects of, and to, governmentality, a question prompted by participatory spirit that seems to animate other species' involvements in modern states of war and peace. (1) Cairo's role in bin Laden raid, for instance, appeared to be more than that of a K9 machine expertly trained to follow orders but, rather, to be that of a keen, self-motivated animal subjectively identified with spirit of mission. The genealogy of feeling power that I set out to trace through modern dog stories nests inside--even as it complicates--the remarkable history of governmentality that Foucault traces in his College de France lectures, where he distinguishes regimes of sovereign and disciplinary power from biopolitical apparatuses of security that begin to emerge in Europe in eighteenth century (Security). Foucault links rise of police and security to a form of political reason concerned with management of (human) population at level of its species existence, a biopolitical model of government whose techniques he traces back to early pastoral power of Church. In Foucault's analysis, figure of a human shepherd is metaphorical of an art of government that caringly ministers to a flock of sheep, itself metaphorical for population as a new subject of State biopower (Security 11). Yet there is no mention in his lectures of role sheepdogs literally and historically play in pastoral economies, where they function as prosthetic strong-arm of a shepherd. (2) This omission in his study of pastoral power is doubtless due, first, to fact that Foucault treats the sheep-fold (130) solely as a political metaphor and, second, to Foucault's view that pastoral power in its secular, state form does not require (law) enforcement since governmentality operates by inculcating very conduct of conduct, that is, self-conduct of subjects who govern themselves. …