Dairy vs beef production - expert views on welfare of cattle in common food production systems.

Consumers' views and concerns about the welfare of farm animals may play an important role in their decision to consume dairy, meat and/or plants as their primary protein source. As animals are killed prematurely in both dairy and beef industries, it is important to quantify and compare welfare compromises in these two sectors before the point of death. Seventy world-leading bovine welfare experts based in 23 countries were asked to evaluate the likelihood of a bovine to experience 12 states of potential welfare concern, inspired by the Welfare Quality® protocol.

Physiological and behavioural responses of grazing dairy cows to an acute metabolic challenge.

Due to seasonal changes in the quality and quantity of herbage, the nutrient supply to grazing dairy cows is not always sufficient, which may increase their metabolic load. To investigate the temporal pattern of behavioural changes in relation to concomitant metabolic alterations, we subjected 15 multiparous early lactating Holstein dairy cows (24 (SD 7.4) days in milk) to a short-term metabolic challenge, which we provoked by abruptly withdrawing concentrate for 1 week.

Erratum: Segregation of information about emotional arousal and valence in horse whinnies.

This corrects the article DOI: 10.1038/srep09989.

Perception of emotional valence in horse whinnies.

Background: Non-human animals often produce different types of vocalisations in negative and positive contexts (i.e. different valence), similar to humans, in which crying is associated with negative emotions and laughter is associated with positive ones.

Segregation of information about emotional arousal and valence in horse whinnies.

Studying vocal correlates of emotions is important to provide a better understanding of the evolution of emotion expression through cross-species comparisons. Emotions are composed of two main dimensions: emotional arousal (calm versus excited) and valence (negative versus positive). These two dimensions could be encoded in different vocal parameters (segregation of information) or in the same parameters, inducing a trade-off between cues indicating emotional arousal and valence.

Hazard perception test for pedestrians.

Research Goal: This research was aimed to construct and develop a unique system for training of pedestrians - children, adults and older persons - to cross streets safely and especially to detect successfully on-road hazards as pedestrians. For this purpose, an interactive computerized program has been inspired by the format of the popular HPT (hazard perception test) for drivers.

Methods: The HPTP (hazard perception test for pedestrians) includes 10 pairs of video clips that were filmed in various locations but had a similar hazardous element.

Reading and doing arithmetic nonconsciously.

The modal view in the cognitive and neural sciences holds that consciousness is necessary for abstract, symbolic, and rule-following computations. Hence, semantic processing of multiple-word expressions, and performing of abstract mathematical computations, are widely believed to require consciousness. We report a series of experiments in which we show that multiple-word verbal expressions can be processed outside conscious awareness and that multistep, effortful arithmetic equations can be solved unconsciously.

Misjudging their own steps: why elderly people have trouble crossing the road.

Objective: The aim of this study was to test whether elderly individuals underestimate the time that it will take them to cross a street by comparing estimated with actual road-crossing time.

Background: In many developed countries, elderly people are overrepresented among pedestrian fatalities from motor vehicle accidents. There is surely more than one contributing factor to this phenomenon, and many have been offered.