Recognition Of Choice Research Articles

A Reexamination of the Relationship between Training Practices and Welfare in the Management of Ambassador Animals.

There is an ethical need to document and develop best practices for meeting ambassador animals' welfare needs within the context of meeting zoo and aquarium program objectives. This is because ambassador animals experience direct and frequent contact with humans. This paper rigorously synthesizes behavioral research and theory, contemporary practices, and personal experiences to offer key concepts that can be applied to meet ambassador animal welfare needs. These key concepts include addressing an animal's recognition of choice and control, the use of the most positive and least intrusive effective interventions when training animals to participate in programming, and an overall reduction in aversive strategy use. Our model for increasing ambassador animal welfare focuses on seven main areas of concern, including the following: choosing the most suitable animal for the program; choosing the human with the right skills and knowledge for the program; using the most positive, least intrusive, effective training methods; developing a strong trusting relationship between trainer and animal; developing a comprehensive enrichment program; the need for institutional support; and creating opportunities for animals to practice species-appropriate behaviors. Our model will provide guidelines for improved ambassador animal welfare that can be refined with future research.

Biogeographies: Transcending anthropocentrism in the Anthropocene

Biogeographies: Transcending anthropocentrism in the Anthropocene

Are reasons for care-giving related to carers' care-related quality of life and strain? Evidence from a survey of carers in England.

In England, choice and control is promoted for service users in relation to social care services. Increased choice and control has also been promoted for unpaid carers, although this is still relatively underdeveloped. There is limited recognition of carers’ choice in terms of the decision of whether to provide care. Alongside the promotion of choice and control, there has also been a focus on quality of life as an outcome of social care for care‐recipients and their carers. Although it is known that carer choice (in terms of the decision of whether or not to provide care) is related to increased burden and poorer psychological health, there is limited evidence of the relationship between reasons for caring and care‐related quality of life (CRQoL) and subjective strain in England. In this study, 387 carers were surveyed across 22 English local authorities between June 2013 and March 2014. Multiple regression analysis explored the relationship between carer‐reported reasons for caring and CRQoL and strain, whilst controlling for individual characteristics (e.g. age). Reasons for caring were important predictors of CRQoL and strain. Where people were carers because social services suggested it or the care‐recipient would not want help from anyone else, this was related to lower CRQoL. By contrast, where carers took on care‐giving because they had time to care, this was significantly associated with better CRQoL. Carers reported greater strain where they provided care because it was expected of them. These findings are relevant to policy and practice because they indicate that, while social care systems rely on carers, the limiting of carers’ choice of whether to provide care is related to worse outcomes. Increased awareness of this relationship would be beneficial in developing policy and practice that improves the QoL of care‐recipients and also their carers.

Household Financial Status and Gender Perspectives in Determining the Financial Impact of Foot and Mouth Disease in Lao PDR.

The socioeconomic impacts of foot and mouth disease (FMD) during 2011-12 outbreaks on large ruminant smallholders in Laos were investigated, including examination of data on gender, household financial status and farmer husbandry practices. A mix of participatory tools and survey questionnaires at the village and household level, respectively, were conducted, involving individual farmer interviews (n=124) and group meetings with village elders to establish criteria for classification of household financial status as being 'poor, medium or well off' according to rice sufficiency, assets and household incomes. FMD-attributable financial losses were determined by inclusion of losses due to: mortality, morbidity and costs of treatments. The estimated mean financial losses due to FMD were USD 436 (±92) in the 'poor' and USD 949 (±76) in the 'well off' household categories (P<0.001), being 128% and 49% of income from the sale of large ruminants, respectively. Variation in financial losses reflected differences in morbidity, farmer husbandry practices including frequency of observation of animals and thus recognition of FMD and choice of treatments. Of concern were adverse financial impacts of treatment especially where antibiotics were used; delays in reporting of FMD cases after observation of signs (mean of 2days); admission that 10% of farmers had sold FMD-affected livestock; and that 22% of respondents claimed their large ruminants were cared for by females. The findings confirm that FMD has the most severe financial impact on poorer households and that females have a significant role in large ruminant production. It is recommended that livestock extension activities promote the benefits of prevention rather than treatment for FMD and encourage participation of women in biosecurity and disease risk management interventions including rapid reporting and regulatory compliance, particularly with animal movement controls and other biosecurity practices that reduce the negative impacts of FMD on regional food security and poverty reduction in rural communities.

Providing high-quality care in North Carolina nursing homes.

Quality in North Carolina's nursing facilities is intertwined in multiple dimensions of person-centered care, evidence-based practice, innovation, pursuit of continued excellence, meaningful relationships, and recognition of choice and autonomy. By striving to excel in their role of providing skilled nursing care for medically related acuity, North Carolina's nursing facilities have been a contributor to the growth of the long-term care continuum, enabling North Carolina to have an extensive and well-developed system of skilled care and home- and community-based service models.

Pancreatic trauma: an analysis of 148 cases

Objective To explore the early diagnosis, option of the surgical procedures, preven-tion and treatment of the complications in patients with pancreatic trauma.Methods All patients with pancreatic trauma during the past 20 years were studied retrospectively in respect of sex, age, cause of injury, grade by AAST, style of operation, therapeutic efficacy, complications and factors for death etc.Statistical analysis was made with Chi-square test.Results In all 148 cases of the present series, 132 underwent surgical interventions including simple suture or external drainage alone, distal pancre-atectomy, distal pancreaticojejunostomy or other internal drainage, diverticularization, Whipple's pro-cedure, and Damage Control Surgery (DCS) etc.Postoperative morbidity was 27.83% with a signifi-cant difference of the incidence of pancreatic fistula between pancreas grade Ⅲ-Ⅴ injuries and grade Ⅰ-Ⅱ(P＜0.01).The mortality rate was 11.49%.The cause of the deaths was mainly massive bleed-ing due to severe associated injuries(76.47%).Among various grades, the difference of the mortality was not significant (P＞0.05).Conclusion To improve the survival rate, it is important to control massive hemorrhage from associated injuries precedes dealing with pancreas trauma.Selection of surgi-cal procedures should be based on whether the main duct is injured.The removing of devitalized tis-sue, adequate external and internal drainage are essential for treatment of pancreatic injuries.Early recognition of pancreatic injury and correct choice of surgical procedures may obviously decrease the in-cidence of postoperative complications. Key words: Wound and injury; Pancreatic injury; Operation; Complication

Prevenção da transmissão vertical do HIV: atitude dos obstetras em Salvador, Brasil

to evaluate the attitudes and knowledge of obstetricians from public maternities in Salvador city (PMS) about the recommendations from the Health Ministry (HM) for the prophylaxis of vertical transmission of HIV (VTH) and antiretroviral therapy in pregnant women. The influence of working conditions, availability for quick testing and antiretroviral therapy has also been evaluated concerning the application of these recommendations. a transversal study from August to November 2005, involving 129/152 (85%) of the obstetricians from all the PMS. The instrument used was a structured and self-explanatory anonymous questionnaire, with questions on the population characteristics, working conditions and availability of material, knowledge and attitudes related to HIV counseling and testing, and proceedings with the patients (use of AZT, recognition of risk factors, choice and management of type of delivery and puerperal care). 69% of the obstetricians stated they knew integrally the HM recommendations, 90.7% agreed with the compulsory request of quick testing for HIV; 63.6% chose the caesarean section as the type of delivery; 38% were against normal delivery; 37.5% recommended isolation of positive serum patients and 58.1% indicated tubal ligation. Most of them (90%) mentioned the existence of factors unfavorable to the recommendations applicability, and among those factors, the most pointed were the inadequate way the pre-natal admission was done and the lack of information at that occasion. Even though the quick testing was available, only one third of the interviewees stated that the result was always available in due time. some attitudes related to the assistance to the pregnant women with HIV were incompatible with the HM recommendations. According to the interviewees, the inadequacy of the pre-natal plus the non-availability of quick testing, influence negatively the applicability of VTH prophylaxis recommendations.

‘It's something for you both to think about’: choice and decision making in nuchal translucency screening for Down's syndrome

Policies and practices around antenatal screening services have long been the subject of debate in a sociological context. However, existing research has largely overlooked the way in which the policies and practices that underpin antenatal screening services are enacted through talk between pregnant women and their health professionals. This paper focuses on one such policy, that of informed choice. It uses data from 14 tape-recorded pre-screening consultations with community midwives, forming part of a newly introduced nuchal translucency screening programme, to examine how the issue of choice is topicalised and discussed. It concludes that, whilst there is clear evidence that midwives are at pains to explicitly invoke the issue of decision making, there are other more subtle factors in the interactional presentation of screening tests that serve to undermine whether and how a recognition of choice is received by pregnant women.

SILENCE, ITS USE AND ABUSE: A VIEW FROM SELF PSYCHOLOGY

This article seeks to explore the use and abuse of silence in the therapeutic process. A review of its many meanings will be illustrated by brief excerpts from case material, demonstrating that silence is a fertile mode in which the self may be enriched and strengthened. Silence can be understood as the source of quiet growth in which distortions of the self can be reflected upon and then transformed through greater recognition of opportunity and choice. It is the intention of this note to stimulate discussion of silence from the view point of other theories, as well.

Information Improvement Bounds

Recognition of the fundamental choice or decision aspects of an system design problem provides a framework for systematic analysis of the system alternatives in terms of their respective perceived consequences. One aspect of such an analysis is explored in this paper-the development of a priori bounds on the magnitude of possible improvement through introduction of appropriate information. This general problem is considered from two viewpoints. In the first, the familiar expected value of perfect information calculation is adapted to provide improvement bounds for seeking by an individual selecting an system. An obvious application here is determination of the maximum value of any an accountant might acquire before deciding which accounting system to employ. In the second, improvement bounds are established for acquisition and transmittal to a (perhaps separate) decision maker. An obvious application here is the maximum value of any an accountant might provide some specific decision maker. A single period, single decision, model of system choice is formulated in the first section. Expected value of perfect calculations are developed for this particular model in the second section. Some of these results are then specialized to a quadratic formulation in the third section, and, finally, the issue of specialization to more complex evaluation functions is addressed in the fourth section.