Behavioral Adaptations of Nursing Brangus Cows to Virtual Fencing: Insights from a Training Deployment Phase.

Virtual fencing systems have emerged as a promising technology for managing the distribution of livestock in extensive grazing environments. This study provides comprehensive documentation of the learning process involving two conditional behavioral mechanisms and the documentation of efficient, effective, and safe animal training for virtual fence applications on nursing Brangus cows. Two hypotheses were examined: (1) animals would learn to avoid restricted zones by increasing their use of containment zones within a virtual fence polygon, and (2) animals would progressively receive fewer audio-electric cues over time and increasingly rely on auditory cues for behavioral modification.

Acceptable Risk of Sudden Incapacitation Among Safety Critical Transportation Workers: A Comprehensive Synthesis.

Objective: Identify a risk threshold for sudden incapacitation for safety critical positions in transportation industries supporting medical fitness for duty standards.

Methods: Systematic literature searches were performed examining acceptable risk criteria for medically related incapacitation using PubMed Central and Google Scholar databases. Websites for professional societies and national and international governmental agencies were also accessed.

Photosensitisation of livestock grazing Narthecium ossifragum: Current knowledge and future directions.

Photosensitisation diseases can cause production and animal welfare losses world-wide. In North-West Europe a photosensitisation disease complex known as 'plochteach', 'yellowses', 'saut' and 'alveld' occurs in lambs on extensive pastures containing bog asphodel (Narthecium ossifragum). Affected lambs develop lesions on the ears, face and sometimes the back, with erythema, oedema, ulceration and necrosis that can be followed by secondary infection and death.

Methodology to update the practice recommendations in the American College of Occupational and Environmental Medicine's Occupational Medicine Practice Guidelines, second edition.

Objective: To ensure that revisions to the second edition of the American College of Occupational and Environmental Medicine (ACOEM) guidelines are as valid and useful as possible.

Methods: The ACOEM Guideline Methodology Committee searched and synthesized the evidence-based medicine literature on systematic review and guideline development. The resulting process and tools were tested during guideline revision, and changes were made to the tools and process.

Employer benefit design considerations for the era of biotech drugs.

A growing number of employed persons in the United States live and work with potentially complex chronic conditions such as rheumatoid arthritis, multiple sclerosis, and cancer. Increasingly, many of the medications used to treat these serious conditions are costly, primarily because many of the newest drugs are high-cost biotechnology derived pharmaceuticals, referred to in this report as biotech drugs. The rapidly increasing use of new biotech medications for an expanding number of chronic and potentially disabling conditions of working-age adults has significant implications for US employers in the anticipated effect on worker productivity, human capital preservation, and health care costs.