Reliability of an injury scoring system for horses

Background

The risk of injuries is of major concern when keeping horses in groups and there is a need for a system to record external injuries in a standardised and simple way. The objective of this study, therefore, was to develop and validate a system for injury recording in horses and to test its reliability and feasibility under field conditions.

Methods

Injuries were classified into five categories according to severity. The scoring system was tested for intra- and inter-observer agreement as well as agreement with a ''golden standard'' (diagnosis established by a veterinarian). The scoring was done by 43 agricultural students who classified 40 photographs presented to them twice in a random order, 10 days apart. Attribute agreement analysis was performed using Kendall''s coefficient of concordance (Kendall''s W), Kendall''s correlation coefficient (Kendall''s τ) and Fleiss'' kappa. The system was also tested on a sample of 100 horses kept in groups where injury location was recorded as well.

Results

Intra-observer agreement showed Kendall''s W ranging from 0.94 to 0.99 and 86% of observers had kappa values above 0.66 (substantial agreement). Inter-observer agreement had an overall Kendall''s W of 0.91 and the mean kappa value was 0.59 (moderate). Agreement for all observers versus the ''golden standard'' had Kendall''s τ of 0.88 and the mean kappa value was 0.66 (substantial). The system was easy to use for trained persons under field conditions. Injuries of the more serious categories were not found in the field trial.

Conclusion

The proposed injury scoring system is easy to learn and use also for people without a veterinary education, it shows high reliability, and it is clinically useful. The injury scoring system could be a valuable tool in future clinical and epidemiological studies.     

A review of the concept ‘management’ in relation to urban landscapes and green spaces: Toward a holistic understanding

The management of urban landscapes concerns existing urban open spaces such as public parks, playgrounds and residential green spaces. It involves many different actors and organizations and its practice is of importance for the sustainable development of cities. As a research field, it needs further theoretical development and common definitions. For example, the central term ‘management’ is seldom defined in the relevant literature regarding an urban landscape context, and public participation in management processes is unusual. This paper introduces urban landscape management as an overarching concept that brings together knowledge about management of urban landscapes from fields such as urban forestry, park management and landscape planning. Based on a literature review, a common understanding of management in an urban landscape context is proposed, including organizational and strategic aspects of managerial activities. Our approach is that urban landscapes are ultimately managed to provide user benefits. Urban landscape management can be viewed as a complex process that includes a number of different actors, elements and relationships, mutually affecting each other. This view supports future studies of urban landscape management and its role in sustainable urban development.     

Social Values of Forests and Production of New Goods and Services: The Views of Swedish Family Forest Owners

Forests are considered crucial assets for sustainable rural development, and contemporary forestry is an industry where production, environmental and social goals can—and should—be handled simultaneously. Swedish family forest owners (FFOs) are expected to both manage and conserve their forests for the benefit of the whole country, but there are contradictions between development and conservation and between traditional and alternative forms of utilization representing dilemmas in rural areas. Tensions between urban and rural areas, between demands on what to produce and protect, are often linked to the FFOs’ views on opportunities for forest management. The aim of this study is to identify and analyse the extent to which FFOs perceive that social values have the ability to generate “new” goods and services as a supplement or alternative to traditional forestry, and to suggest how the forests might be managed to render high social values. Fifty-seven interviews were conducted with FFOs (both resident and non-resident). The results indicate that regardless of where they reside, FFOs have a multifunctional view of their forests and forest management, that the social values attached to forests can play an important role in development of local recreation- and forest-based tourism activities, and in this respect they can enhance sustainable rural development. It is, however, not obvious who might start and develop these businesses, since there seems to be a lack of interest among the FFOs themselves.     

Medical CAT-scanning: X-ray absorption coefficients,CT-numbers and their relation to wood density

Summary This paper describes how X-ray absorption coefficients and CT-number in medical CAT-scanning can be calculated for dry and wet wood. A comparison with earlier recorded data for dry wood showed that the deviation between calculated and measured CT-numbers was not significant. Linear regression showed that wood density could be measured with an accuracy of ±4 kg/m³. Wood having the same green density but containing different amounts of water have different absorption coefficients and CT-numbers. A linear relationship between CT-numbers and density of wood containing water was developed. Wood density could be measured with an accuracy of ±13.4 kg/m³.     

The reactions of lignosulfonic acid with chlorosulfamic acid

Summary A commercial lignosulfonate preparation consumed a small amount of chlorosulfamic acid. The reaction was probably due to the presence of sulfite in the preparation and to some reactive lignin groups. About one tenth of these reactive groups seem to be stilbene groups. The structures of the other groups are unknown. Simple phenols did not react or reacted only slowly with chlorosulfamic acid.     

Effects of structural complexity enhancement on eastern red-backed salamander (Plethodon cinereus) populations in northern hardwood forests

Managing for stand structural complexity in northern hardwood forests has been proposed as a method for promoting microhabitat characteristics important to eastern red-backed salamanders (Plethodon cinereus). We evaluated the effects of alternate, structure-based silvicultural systems on red-backed salamander populations at two research sites in northwestern Vermont. Treatments included two uneven-aged approaches (single-tree selection and group-selection) and one unconventional approach, termed “structural complexity enhancement” (SCE), that promotes development of late-successional structure, including elevated levels of coarse woody debris (CWD). Treatments were applied to 2 ha units and were replicated two to four times depending on treatment. We surveyed red-backed salamanders with a natural cover search method of transects nested within vegetation plots 1 year after logging. Abundance estimates corrected for detection probability were calculated from survey data with a binomial mixture model. Abundance estimates differed between study areas and were influenced by forest structural characteristics. Model selection was conducted using Akaike Information Criteria, corrected for over-dispersed data and small sample size (QAIC_c). We found no difference in abundance as a response to treatment as a whole, suggesting that all of the uneven-aged silvicultural systems evaluated can maintain salamander populations after harvest. However, abundance was tied to specific structural habitat attributes associated with study plots within treatments. The most parsimonious model of habitat covariates included site, relative density of overstory trees, and density of more-decayed and less-decayed downed CWD. Abundance responded positively to the density of downed, well-decayed CWD and negatively to the density of poorly decayed CWD and to overstory relative density. CWD volume was not a strong predictor of salamander abundance. We conclude that structural complexity enhancement and the two uneven-aged approaches maintained important microhabitat characteristics for red-backed salamander populations in the short term. Over the long-term, given decay processes as a determinant of biological availability, forestry practices such as SCE that enhance CWD availability and recruitment may result in associated population responses.     

Balancing seed yield and breeding value in clonal seed orchards

Seed orchards should produce seeds that are both abundant and of high genetic value. This study suggests methods to achieve such a compromise and study their efficiency. The methods were applied on data obtained from 41 seed orchard clones of Scots pine from mid-Sweden. The value of the seed orchard crop was set as a function of its breeding value, the amount of seeds produced and their gene diversity, measured as the effective number of clones. The proportion of ramets of different clones that maximized this value was regarded as the optimum for deployment of the clones in a seed orchard. The results were compared with truncation selection for breeding value, truncation selection for clone benefit (the product of seed production and breeding value) and linear deployment (where ramets are deployed linearly in relation to breeding value). The influence of two parameters was studied: the relative importance of breeding value for seed value and the size of the penalty for reducing the value of the seed crop with respect to lost gene diversity. The conventional wisdom is to select the clones with the highest breeding values, but that turned out to be the most inferior alternative studied. Clone benefit truncation provided a good approximation to optimal benefit for cases, where the effective number was low and dependence of breeding value limited.     

Variation in effective number of clones in seed orchards

The effective number of clones (N _c) wasestimated for 255 conifer clonal seed orchards in Finland, Korea, andSweden, based on the variation in the number of ramets among clones. Themean census number of clones (N) varied from 70, in 13 KoreanPinus koraiensis seed orchards, to 139 in 176 Finnish Pinussylvestris seed orchards. The mean effective number of clones(N _c) was 66, with a range from 10 to 421. One fifthof the orchards had N _c between 10 and 40, and twothirds between 41 and 160. On average, the relative effective number ofclones (N _r =N _c/N) was 0.74, with a range from 0.2to almost 1.0. Thus, the census number of clones in a seed orchard isgenerally rather informative, but the effective number of clones is moreinformative. Many of these first-generation seed orchards wereestablished with an intention to have near-equal numbers of ramets foreach clone. The use of effective number of clones may be more importantin future seed orchards and genetically thinned seed orchards.