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Italian Journal of Pediatrics Jun 2020In internationally adopted children disorders of linear growth, puberty development, thyroid function, and bone metabolism are frequently reported. It is important that... (Review)
Review
In internationally adopted children disorders of linear growth, puberty development, thyroid function, and bone metabolism are frequently reported. It is important that these children receive careful auxological and endocrinological evaluations and follow-up.Pediatricians and other healthcare providers should be aware that auxological and endocrinological problems are common in newly arrived international adoptees.
Topics: Adoption; Child; Child, Adopted; Endocrine System Diseases; Growth Disorders; Humans; International Cooperation
PubMed: 32522220
DOI: 10.1186/s13052-020-00832-5 -
Primates; Journal of Primatology Nov 2022Though uncommon, adoption of orphaned infants has been observed in both wild and captive non-human primates. In two groups of wild bonnet macaques (Macaca radiata), we...
Though uncommon, adoption of orphaned infants has been observed in both wild and captive non-human primates. In two groups of wild bonnet macaques (Macaca radiata), we observed five instances of infants being cared for after they lost their mothers at a pre-weaning age (< 6 months). Orphaned infants had one or more caregivers (juvenile, subadult, and adult female or male) involved in carrying, grooming, hugging, and protecting them. Adoption did not appear to be related to the age/sex class of the infant, or directly to the mother's rank. Although the dominance rank of the mother of an orphaned infant did not have a direct effect on orphan survivorship, it determined the number of caregivers available to the orphaned infant, and infant survivorship was positively related to the number of caregivers of the orphaned infant. Thus, survivorship was likely a function of the mother's sociality. Two other infants born to high-ranking mothers were also adopted by more individuals and survived longer than the infants of low-ranking mothers.
Topics: Male; Female; Animals; Macaca radiata; Grooming; Social Behavior
PubMed: 36100815
DOI: 10.1007/s10329-022-01017-w -
PloS One 2018The environmental and health impacts of reliance on solid fuels and traditional cookstoves in low-income countries have motivated the promotion of household cooking...
BACKGROUND
The environmental and health impacts of reliance on solid fuels and traditional cookstoves in low-income countries have motivated the promotion of household cooking energy systems that use cleaner burning fuels and cookstoves that lead to reduced exposure to harmful pollutants. Little is known about adoption and use of such systems from the users' perspective.
METHODS
We explored the facilitators and barriers to adoption and use of a private sector marketed household cooking energy system that uses sustainably produced biomass pellets and the cleanest burning fan micro-gasification stove currently available. We conducted 48 in-depth qualitative interviews in Gisenyi, Rwanda with decision-makers and cooks in 16 households that adopted the improved cookstove system and 8 non-adopter households.
RESULTS
Reported facilitators and barriers to adoption and non-adoption, as well as use and non-use were complex, and in some cases, contradictory. Some adopters noted that cleanliness and low smoke production were major facilitators to adoption and use, while other adopters and non-adopters said the cookstoves blackened and damaged cooking pots and produced excessive smoke. Our findings suggest that correct use of the stove mediates user experience. Cost was likewise reported as a facilitator among some adopters and a barrier among other adopters and non-adopters. Peer influence played a significant role as both a barrier and a facilitator to adoption and transcended other factors. Positive peer influence describing the cleanliness, affordability, and efficiency of the cookstove system encouraged adoption and use, while negative comments by peers regarding excessive smoke and damaged cooking pots discouraged adoption. Commentaries by some participants suggest that inadequate training and instruction may be primary causes of the discrepancies.
CONCLUSION
Cost, cleanliness, communication among peer networks, and adequate training and instruction are important factors associated with the adoption and use of improved cookstoves and should be prioritized in the implementation of improved cookstove programs.
Topics: Africa; Air Pollution, Indoor; Cooking; Culture; Decision Making; Family Characteristics; Household Articles; Humans; Marketing; Rural Population; Rwanda; Smoke
PubMed: 30296300
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0203775 -
Heliyon Dec 2023Compliance with feed safety standards and practices on the farm promotes sustainable livestock production and can positively affect the environment and human health....
Compliance with feed safety standards and practices on the farm promotes sustainable livestock production and can positively affect the environment and human health. This study aims to examine farmers' on-farm adoption of feed safety practices and determine the differences in adoption according to the socio-economic characteristics of farmers. An online survey was conducted to collect the study data. The study participants consisted of 442 livestock farmers in Riyadh region, Saudi Arabia. The study findings revealed that farmers highly adopted categories of feed purchasing (77.9 %) and feed mixing and distribution (75.05 %), whereas they were considered as a moderate level adoption regarding feed storing (70.9 %). The cluster analysis results showed two main patterns of adoption- "high adopters" and "moderate adopters"-based on the average level of adoption for 25 feed safety practices examined. The cluster of "high adopters" accounted for 59.9 % of the sample and had higher average adoption in all practices examined. The findings revealed that there are significant differences between the two segments of farmers, corresponding to gender, membership in livestock association, extension contact, raising sheep, and feeding system. This study proposes the regular monitoring of farms to ensure strict adherence to feed safety regulations, with the implementation of awareness and capacity development initiatives pertaining to feed safety concerns.
PubMed: 38125446
DOI: 10.1016/j.heliyon.2023.e22838 -
Scientific Reports Sep 2020The urban-rural divide is increasing in modern societies calling for geographical extensions of social influence modelling. Improved understanding of innovation...
The urban-rural divide is increasing in modern societies calling for geographical extensions of social influence modelling. Improved understanding of innovation diffusion across locations and through social connections can provide us with new insights into the spread of information, technological progress and economic development. In this work, we analyze the spatial adoption dynamics of iWiW, an Online Social Network (OSN) in Hungary and uncover empirical features about the spatial adoption in social networks. During its entire life cycle from 2002 to 2012, iWiW reached up to 300 million friendship ties of 3 million users. We find that the number of adopters as a function of town population follows a scaling law that reveals a strongly concentrated early adoption in large towns and a less concentrated late adoption. We also discover a strengthening distance decay of spread over the life-cycle indicating high fraction of distant diffusion in early stages but the dominance of local diffusion in late stages. The spreading process is modelled within the Bass diffusion framework that enables us to compare the differential equation version with an agent-based version of the model run on the empirical network. Although both model versions can capture the macro trend of adoption, they have limited capacity to describe the observed trends of urban scaling and distance decay. We find, however that incorporating adoption thresholds, defined by the fraction of social connections that adopt a technology before the individual adopts, improves the network model fit to the urban scaling of early adopters. Controlling for the threshold distribution enables us to eliminate the bias induced by local network structure on predicting local adoption peaks. Finally, we show that geographical features such as distance from the innovation origin and town size influence prediction of adoption peak at local scales in all model specifications.
PubMed: 32934332
DOI: 10.1038/s41598-020-72137-w -
Journal of Dairy Science Jun 2020Precision dairy monitoring involves the use of technologies to measure physiological, behavioral, and production indicators on individual animals to detect events of... (Review)
Review
Precision dairy monitoring involves the use of technologies to measure physiological, behavioral, and production indicators on individual animals to detect events of interest. Estrus, disease, and calving detection are common applications, although estrus detection is the most tested and used. Many precision dairy monitoring technologies (PDMT) are commercially available and are being used in research and on farms. As a result, a common question from researchers and producers alike is, "what PDMT should I buy?" The answer to this question is inherently complicated because it depends on many factors, some of which researchers have yet to explore. The objective of this paper is to examine the less quantitively researchable aspects of PDMT adoption and use on-farm. This will be done through 3 lists of 5, determined from published theory and my own experience. First, the 5 main factors that influence adoption of an innovation: (1) relative advantage, (2) compatibility, (3) complexity, (4) trialability, and (5) observability. Each of these factors is at play to a different extent in the 5 adopter categories: (1) innovators, (2) early adopters, (3) early majority, (4) late majority, and (5) laggards. From my experience and research, the top PDMT are those that improve (1) farm efficiency; (2) farm economics; (3) decision-making; (4) animal welfare; and (5) producer happiness. Implementing PDMT on a farm is an enormous and potentially expensive decision. As this part of the industry continues to progress, the potential for different PDMT is endless. Sound research and producer feedback are imperative to ensuring that PDMT continue to improve and become more widely adopted.
Topics: Animal Husbandry; Animals; Cattle; Dairying; Female
PubMed: 32331894
DOI: 10.3168/jds.2019-17148 -
Royal Society Open Science Feb 2021Individual animals across many different species occasionally 'adopt' unrelated, orphaned offspring. Although adoption may be best explained as a by-product of adaptive...
Individual animals across many different species occasionally 'adopt' unrelated, orphaned offspring. Although adoption may be best explained as a by-product of adaptive traits that enhance parental care or promote the development of parental skills, one factor that is possibly important for the likelihood of adoption is the history of cooperative interactions between the mother, adopted offspring and adopter. Using 652 h of behavioural samples collected over four months, we describe patterns of allogrooming and food sharing before and after an instance of non-kin adoption between two adult female common vampire bats () that were captured from distant sites (340 km apart) and introduced to one another in captivity. The first female died from an illness 19 days after giving birth. The second female groomed and regurgitated food to the mother more often than any other group member, then groomed, nursed and regurgitated food to the orphaned, female pup. The substantial increase in alloparental care by this female after the mother's death was not observed among the 20 other adult females that were present in the colony. Our findings corroborate previous reports of non-kin adoption in common vampire bats and are consistent with the hypothesis that non-kin adoption can be motivated, in part, by a history of cooperative interactions.
PubMed: 33972872
DOI: 10.1098/rsos.201927 -
Neuropsychology Nov 2017Human cognition has long been known to be under substantial genetic control. With the complete mapping of the human genome, genome-wide association studies for many... (Review)
Review
OBJECTIVE
Human cognition has long been known to be under substantial genetic control. With the complete mapping of the human genome, genome-wide association studies for many complex traits have proliferated; however, the highly polygenic nature of intelligence has made the identification of the precise genes that influence both global and specific cognitive abilities more difficult than anticipated.
METHOD
Here, we review the latest developments in the genomics of cognition, including a discussion of methodological advances in the genetic analysis of complex traits, and shared genetic contributions to cognitive abilities and neuropsychiatric disorders.
RESULTS
A wealth of twin and family studies have provided compelling evidence for a strong heritable component of both global and specific cognitive abilities, and for the existence of "generalist genes" responsible for a large portion of the variance in diverse cognitive abilities. Increasingly sophisticated analytic tools and ever-larger sample sizes are now facilitating the identification of specific genetic and molecular underpinnings of cognitive abilities, leading to optimism regarding possibilities for novel treatments for illnesses related to cognitive function.
CONCLUSIONS
We conclude with a set of future directions for the field, which will further accelerate discoveries regarding the biological pathways relevant to cognitive abilities. These, in turn, may be further interrogated in order to link biological mechanisms to behavior. (PsycINFO Database Record
Topics: Adoption; Cognition; Educational Status; Endophenotypes; Genome-Wide Association Study; Genomics; Humans; Intelligence; Multifactorial Inheritance; Quantitative Trait Loci; Twin Studies as Topic
PubMed: 29376674
DOI: 10.1037/neu0000412 -
Animals : An Open Access Journal From... Apr 2022Millions of animals are adopted from animal shelters in the United States each year, although some are returned post-adoption, which can decrease both the animals'...
Millions of animals are adopted from animal shelters in the United States each year, although some are returned post-adoption, which can decrease both the animals' chances of future adoptions and the owners' willingness to adopt again. In this study, we investigated the impact of adopter expectations for ownership and animal behavioral problems on post-adoptive dog returns at a large animal shelter in South Carolina. Between June-September 2021, 132 dog adopters completed a survey about their expectations for ownership through Qualtrics. Twenty-nine adopters returned their dogs to the shelter within three months of adoption, with a median length of ownership of eight days. Owners completed follow-up questionnaires about their perceptions of adoption and dog behavior at two days, two weeks, and four months post-adoption. Categorical principal component analysis revealed three factors pertaining to adopters' expectations for ownership. Independent -tests showed returning owners had significantly higher expectations for dog behavior and health ( = -2.32, = 0.02) and the human-dog bond compared with non-returning owners ( = -2.36, = 0.02). Expectations for ownership responsibilities did not differ between the groups. Two-thirds of adopters experienced dog behavioral problems post-adoption, although training difficulty decreased significantly between two days and four months ( = 5.22, = 0.01) and nonsocial fear decreased between two weeks and four months post-adoption ( = 10.17, = 0.01). Shelters may benefit from utilizing adoption counselling to ensure adopters understand the potential for dog behavioral problems in the early stages of ownership and develop appropriate expectations for the human-dog relationship. Post-adoption behavioral support may also help some owners to overcome behavioral difficulties as their dogs adapt to the new environment.
PubMed: 35565480
DOI: 10.3390/ani12091053