The health of Indigenous Australians is worse than that of other Australians. Most of the determinants of health are preventable and the poor health outcomes are inequitable. The Australian Government recently pledged to close that health gap. One possible way is to improve the priority setting process to ensure transparency and the use of evidence such as epidemiology, equity and economic evaluation.The purpose of this research was to elicit the perceptions of Indigenous and non-Indigenous decision-makers on several issues related to priority setting in Indigenous-specific health care services. Specifically, we aimed to:1. identify the criteria used to set priorities in Indigenous-specific health care services;2. determine the level of uptake of economic evaluation evidence by decision-makers and how to improve its uptake; and3. identify how the priority setting process can be improved from the perspective of decision-makers.We used a paper survey instrument, adapted from Mitton and colleagues’ work, and a face-to-face interview approach to elicit decision-makers’ perceptions in Indigenous-specific health care in Victoria, Australia. We used mixed methods to analyse data from the survey. Responses were summarised using descriptive statistics and content analysis. Results were reported as numbers and percentages.The size of the health burden; sustainability and acceptability of interventions; historical trends/patterns; and efficiency are key criteria for making choices in Indigenous health in Victoria. There is a need for an explicit priority setting approach, which is systematic, and is able to use available data/evidence, such as economic evaluation evidence. The involvement of Indigenous Australians in the process would potentially make the process acceptable.An economic approach to priority setting is a potentially acceptable and useful tool for Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Services (ACCHS). It has the ability to use evidence and ensure due process at the same time. The use of evidence can ensure that health outcomes for Indigenous peoples can be maximised – hence, increase the potential for ‘closing the gap’ between Indigenous and other Australians. The health status of Indigenous Australians is well below that of other Australians. The life expectancy gap is about 10.6 years, and the burden of disease is more than twice that of other Australians . The ‘heIn the Australian health care system, the majority of Indigenous health care services are publicly funded. These services are provided in two ways: through the universally available health care services, referred to here as ‘mainstream services’; and through other services specifically targeting Indigenous Australians due to access issues that they face, referred to as ‘Indigenous-specific health care services’ ,7,8. IndMainstream services  are funded by the states/territories through hospitals and public health services. Other mainstream services, such as community, pharmaceutical and primary health care, are directly funded by the Australian Government through Medicare and the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme. Indigenous Australians are expected to utilise the universally available mainstream health care services. Due to access issues, however, they are often unable to do so. Indigenous-specific health care services are therefore meant to target Indigenous Australians as one way to address access issues.The Australian Government mainly funds Aboriginal-specific services, and states/territories are expected to match that funding depending on the agreements entered into with the Commonwealth Government during the annual Council of Australian Governments (COAG) meetings. The delivery of the Indigenous-specific health care services is underpinned by the Framework Agreements ,10. ThesIn Victoria, for example, Indigenous health funding submissions normally go through two key separate funding categories. The first is through the ‘whole of government’ funding such as housing, correctional services, employment and others. This submission goes through the head of the Ministerial Task Force on Indigenous Affairs. The second submission involves the mainstream pool of programs in which Indigenous health is treated as part of the mainstream population. When such a submission goes through the mainstream programs, it is treated as part of the departmental structure. In either case, the funding submission has to be backed by evidence. This evidence may be in the form of epidemiology data, economic evaluation evidence, or political incentives. Once the funding has been secured, the decision-makers then allocate it to specific services based on implicit reasons/criteria behind the government priority setting process. This is one of the reasons it is important to understand the government process of priority setting. Priority setting can be defined as a non-market-based process of making choices in the face of scarcity .Scarcity is a fundamental economic concept, which is defined as the shortage that arises from the demand for a good or service ,12. FromPriority setting is multi-disciplinary and it is influenced by economics, ethics, epidemiology, political science, and other disciplines. Its approaches can be loosely grouped into: 1) implicit priority setting, where the choices and the reasons or criteria for such choices may not be clearly and publicly known; and 2) explicit priority setting, where the choices and the criteria for such choices are clearly and publicly known. However, in practice due to the complex nature of priority setting, the decision-makers may use both approaches interchangeably -18. PrioWhile the need for priority setting is widely accepted, the preferred approach is strongly contested. Carter and colleagues have noted that the key points of contention in priority setting include ,22: the An assessment of explicit priority setting attempted in several countries such as the United Kingdom, New Zealand and Sweden by Sabik and Lie yielded mixed results . They foThe key challenge however, is how explicit priority setting should be implemented in Australian Indigenous health. Shiell and Mooney argue that establishing a statement of the broad principles or criteria that should guide the health system and the trade-offs that the citizens are prepared to make between the stated principles in Indigenous health could be the starting point . This woThe purpose of this research was to elicit the perceptions of Indigenous and non-Indigenous decision-makers on several issues related to priority setting in Indigenous-specific health care services. Specifically the objectives of this study were to:1. identify the criteria being used to set priorities in Indigenous-specific health care services;2. determine the level of uptake of economic evaluation evidence by decision-makers and how to improve its uptake; and3. identify how the priority setting process can be improved from the perspective of decision-makers.We undertook a descriptive cross-sectional survey of the key decision-makers involved in Indigenous-specific health care services to elicit their perceptions, views and values on a range of issues associated with priority setting in Victoria.A ‘snowball’ process was used to identify all participants and their extended associations, through previous acquaintances, involved in resource allocation and/or priority setting in Indigenous-specific health care services ,32. A quParticipants of this study involved two groups of decision-makers in the state of Victoria: staff from the then Department of Human Services (DHS) a state-level government funding agency; and Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) and/or their representatives from various ACCHS, the providers of comprehensive primary health care services to Indigenous community members.Twenty-four participants from the DHS participated in the survey and we made every attempt to identify all decision-makers involved in Aboriginal-specific health care services throughout the state. Almost all the regions were represented. The DHS sample is a government agency which is primarily involved in the funding of the services for both Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians in Victoria. They are not involved in the delivery of Indigenous-specific health care services.We surveyed 26 respondents from the ACCHS, who are mainly providers of comprehensive primary health care services to Indigenous peoples in their communities. All ACCHS in Victoria were contacted and requested to participate in the survey. The key decision-maker in ACCHS is the CEO with the help of his/her deputies. However, the ACCHS Board have to approve their plans. The ACCHS are funded by the Department of Human Services (DHS), the Commonwealth Office of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health (OATSIH) and from non-government organisations (NGO). Thus, ACCHS often have to deliver services according to the criteria prescribed by the funder such as the DHS. Where the ACCHS have freedom to choose how to spend the funding, ACCHS criteria may be different from those of the DHS.By choosing the DHS and ACCHS, we aimed to identify whether there was consistency in the criteria/principles that guide priority setting based on the perspectives of the funder and provider. Given that both groups of respondents aim to achieve the same objective – improve the health outcomes of Indigenous Australians in Victoria – can improvement in resource allocation and priority setting necessarily lead to improvement in health outcomes?Other groups such as hospitals, general practitioners (GPs), community pharmacists, community health services and Commonwealth workers were excluded because most of them are not involved in the delivery of a significant amount of Indigenous-specific services.Overall, 67% (26/39) of the DHS respondents were Directors and the rest were senior executives – heads of units. As for those from the ACCHS sector, 65% (24/37) of the ACCHS staff who agreed to participate were mainly CEOs and the rest were senior executives, deputy CEOs and managers of the health services. None of the DHS respondents identified themselves as Indigenous people, compared to 58% of ACCHS respondents. Of the DHS respondents, 46% had served for more than two years in their respective positions, compared to nearly 50% of ACCHS respondents.To identify participants for this study, a ‘snowball’ sampling process was used until all the participants involved in priority setting in Aboriginal-specific health care service from the organisations were identified. Snowballing is a tool for selecting participants from extended associations, through previous acquaintances, to find people involved in Indigenous-specific health care services ,32. The In the DHS, we started by approaching the Director of Public Health who had a working relationship with us. He in turn identified other potential respondents. For ACCHS respondents, we contacted the CEO of the Victorian Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisation (VACCHO) for permission to contact its member organisations. This ensured that potential participants felt encouraged to participate in the study. Letters were then sent out via email inviting them to participate and this was followed by a phone call around a week later to arrange a face-to-face meeting. After the face-to-face meeting, they were asked to identify potential participants, whom we then approached. This process was continued until we had exhausted all potential participants.We used a paper-based survey instrument, which was adapted from the previous work done by Mitton and colleagues ,33-36 foThe questions and modified answers were subsequently piloted with staff and students in the School of Population Health, The University of Melbourne. Based on the pilot study, we simplified some of the questions.The second modification involved face-to-face delivery of the questionnaire. Initially, we intended to use an email questionnaire, but the pilot study indicated that, although simplified, some questions were still technical and may have required explanations and so face-to-face administration of the questionnaire was chosen. In addition, a list of definitions was provided to the respondents together with the questionnaire, prior to the face-to-face meeting.Respondents were required to tick the answers in the questionnaire that they used as a basis for setting priorities, and add any other concepts or terms that where missing from the list. If a respondent had mentioned some terms that were not amongst the ones we had identified from the literature, we asked the respondents to explain what they meant when they used that term.We interviewed respondents between December 2007 and March 2008. The questionnaire was sent out in advance to the participants. Following this, face-to-face meetings were arranged with each participant to administer the questionnaire. This allowed clarification of the key concepts by the researcher during the administration of the questionnaire and enhanced accurate elicitation of the views . This alPersonal data of decision-makers were collected, such as their Aboriginality, role in their respective organisations and length of service, involvement in priority setting and/or resource allocation, and any exposure to health economics. Other data involved current priority setting process, assessment of the process and how the process could be improved Table  33]..33].Closed-ended and open-ended responses were analysed using content analysis, “a research technique for the objective, systematic, and quantitative description of manifest content of communications” -39. For Whilst there may have been difference in the weights participants attached to their responses, particular where there were multiple answers to a question, this was not undertaken. Instead, equal weighting was given to all the responses from each interviewee. This aligned with the aim of the study, which was to identify criteria used for decision making in Indigenous health, and not to necessarily give weight to specific criteria. For each sample, the frequency each criteria was cited was determined to reflect the level of use in priority setting by that group.The focus of the study was also on examining the similarities and differences in responses between decision makers on whether they were a ‘funder’ or ‘provider’. Therefore, whilst the position or rank of each participant within their organisation could have influenced the participant’s responses, this was not taken into account as weighting answers was not done. Instead the aggregated responses were examined as a means of comparing the different criteria used by funders and providers and their assessment of the process of priority setting overall.Results of the closed-ended questions were reported using descriptive statistics and open ones were also reported using descriptive statistics but augmented by quotations where possible and appropriate. The final score for each sample involved the number of times (n) or proportion (%) of participants who gave a particular response. The criteria that the majority of the decision-makers cited were considered the likely bases for decision-making.Results from this study indicate that the perspective taken by the DHS staff when setting priorities is that of the whole population, requiring equity considerations, whereas the ACCHS focus mainly on the Indigenous population. For these reasons, the objectives Table , criteriWith respect to the sources of data currently used in decision-making Table , ACCHS rThe DHS respondents identified the following as key criteria for priority setting across and within programs. These included: size of the burden; feasibility/sustainability; equity; and acceptability as important criteria Table . For exa“… for me the most important issues would be the equity … and the size of the health burden would be an issue but not the overriding factor.”The ACCHS on the other hand, revealed that the size of the health burden and the acceptability of the priority setting process were the key criteria for priority setting both across and within the programs Table . The impFurther, for the ACCHS, equity is not an issue since the communities they may be responsible for could be considered fairly homogenous. They considered efficiency and impact of the services on the community members as priority issues. They were also concerned with mechanisms of making the funds go the furthest, since the communities under their jurisdictions have multiple needs, which can be interpreted as the need for economic evaluation evidence and need for mechanisms that ensure that resources can be moved easily across and within programs.On the question of what constitutes benefit from interventions, we asked respondents to indicate outcomes they would like to see delivered by health care services to Indigenous Australians. Respondents from both samples indicated that benefits should not only include individual health gain , but other benefits such as community health gain, equity and cultural security. Cultural security is defined as “the delivery of health services is of such a quality that no one person is afforded a less favourable outcome simply because they hold a different cultural outlook” . The IndAbout 73% of the DHS respondents reported that the resource allocation process did not work well. As for the ACCHS respondents, the majority (58%) reported that the priority setting process worked well. ACCHS respondents were particularly interested in the criteria that the funding agencies use for allocating resources. One respondent said:“I would be happy to know what reasons the funders use to select programs/services to fund. Most importantly, I would like to know the reasons why they have not funded some of our activities.”Respondents identified several key challenges that they face when they undertake priority setting. The DHS respondents reported that the lack of good quality data (58%) and lack of expertise 54%) were the key issues they were faced with  when the resources are being allocated would improve the priority setting process  featured significantly from ACCHS respondents as a means to increase the use of economic evaluation evidence. The DHS respondents also indicated that up-skilling of staff in health economics and/or more training of health economists (58%) would improve the uptake of economic evaluation evidence. Having a longer-term view, together with better communication strategy and more education on the credibility of economic evaluation, would improve the uptake of economic evidence. One respondent said:“The trouble with academics is that they take too long to get results to us. When you ask them for some information, they tell you that results for an economic evaluation will take two years to be produced. By then priorities will have changed.”The primary purpose of this study was to identify, codify and better understand the current process of setting priorities and allocating resources in Indigenous-specific health care services. In particular, identifying the criteria used by decision-makers, assessing and improving the priority setting process, particularly the uptake of economic evaluation evidence in priority setting, were the key objectives of this study. We interviewed key decision-makers in Indigenous-specific health from both the government and Indigenous community sector.McDonald and Ollerenshaw identified about 13 interconnected factors or criteria for priority setting , which aThe findings from this study also build on work by Mitton and colleagues identifying criteria that have been used in Canada, Uganda and other parts of the world. They have all identified similar criteria, albeit with some variations in intensities. Social justice principles were also identified by ACCHS respondents in our study and these results were consistent with the above studies. To establish the intensities of these criteria would be the next step of research.One other key issue in priority setting involves the choice between explicit and implicit priority setting. Results from the survey indicate that respondents favoured the key steps that decision-makers should follow when undertaking explicit priority setting, as identified by Shiell and Mooney . Some ofThis survey also indicated that one of the key sources of data that should be used for priority setting is the Indigenous community. This finding is consistent with the model used by Fredericks and colleagues to engage women in a meaningful manner in setting priorities for the Women’s Health Strategy . FurtherOn assessing the process of decision-making in Indigenous health, most respondents revealed that it is not performing as well as they would like it to be. Four key issues were identified. First, when priorities are being set, there is need for a systematic and explicit transparent process. These results confirmed one of the steps emphasised by Shiell and Mooney .Second, there is need for a timely and better “strength of evidence” base, especially in the form of economic evaluation results. However, the uptake of economic evaluation evidence required the up-skilling of staff in health economics and/or more training of health economists. Further, not many decision-makers suggested an area where health economics is a priority.Third, the majority of the respondents from both the DHS and ACCHS indicated that they needed a mechanism for shifting resources (a decision rule) within programs, which aids decision-making at the margin, and not just the use of the concept of total need. For example, once the DHS funding allocations have been approved, each portfolio or unit funds its own activities in Indigenous health, often in a prescriptive manner. Making decisions across programs rarely happens and resource shifts between programs are very restricted, except in a few areas such as funding from the ‘Home and Community Access’ program and the Medicare funding for GP services. These are the main areas where the organisations have liberty to move resources across programs, implying that certain priority setting criteria may be applicable to the DHS but not to ACCHS. This reflected the poor uptake of economic evaluation evidence and the need for an economic approach for priority setting.Indeed one of the key contributions of this paper, given the Framework Agreements principles of joint priority setting is comparing priority setting processes (and links) between two different organisations which work together to achieve the same aim – improving the health of Indigenous Australians given the limited resources. The linkage is in ensuring that the health service provider is guided by the same criteria that guide the funding agency. The funder ought to focus on outcomes when allocating resources and the service provider should also focus on outcomes when setting priorities . This haFourth, depending on the nature of the problem being addressed, the views of the community might be better taken into consideration rather than relying on only those of the bureaucracy. Involving Indigenous representatives in the priority setting process would enhance acceptability, support and adoption of the results. This was also demonstrated in our study and similar results were identified when women participated in a priority setting exercise for the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health strategy .Our approach to eliciting the perceptions of the decision-makers involved the use of a hard copy questionnaire and it has been used extensively around the world. Our approach is adapted from the work done by Mitton and colleagues in Canada, Australia and the UK ,43-47, tWe were aware of the fundamental issue with surveys, which involves the presumption that a specific moral theory underlies the interview questions, and that the respondents are bound by that theory ,50. HoweWe conclude that in order for the health of Indigenous Australians to be improved, decisions made by both the funders and the providers should be explicit and take into account what the returns from investments entail. For priority setting process in Indigenous health to improve, funding agencies need to align their funding criteria with the priority setting criteria of the providers. Specifically, both funding agencies and providers should focus on outcomes and make use of economic evaluation evidence when undertaking priority setting processes. This would allow the decision-making process to be systematic, transparent, and to take a longer-term view. Furthermore, there is a need for involvement of the Indigenous representatives to enhance acceptability, support and adoption of the results.The results from this study are likely to inform the debate on the appropriateness of the existing criteria for priority setting, not only in Australia but other countries, given the scarcity of the resources. This will likely strengthen the need for economic evaluation evidence and will also generate discussion on the relative importance of such evidence. Further, by identifying ways to elicit Indigenous peoples’ views in the priority setting process, these results will emphasise and further explain the role of Indigenous values in determining priorities and choices for closing the health gap. It will also highlight the need to take into account the views of both Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians All these factors will potentially ensure that the choices made by decision-makers will maximise the health of Indigenous peoples and contribute to the closing of the health gap between Indigenous and other Australians.The authors declare that they have no competing interests.MEO: Developing and initiating the idea for writing manuscript, Data collecting, cleaning and analysis, drafting manuscript. MK, IPA and CMD: Advising on methodology and direction of constructing manuscript. Correcting the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.


The Animal Welfare Indicators (AWIN) project developed a practical welfare assessment protocol for lactating dairy goats in intensive husbandry systems, using animal-based indicators that cover the whole multidimensional concept of animal welfare. The strict collaboration between scientists and stakeholders resulted in an easy-to-use protocol that provides farmers or veterinarians with comprehensive but clear feedback on the welfare status of the herd in less than three hours. The protocol, which highlights key points and motivates farmers to achieve improvements, has received much attention from interested parties.Within the European AWIN project, a protocol for assessing dairy goats’ welfare on the farm was developed. Starting from a literature review, a prototype including animal-based indicators covering four welfare principles and 12 welfare criteria was set up. The prototype was tested in 60 farms for validity, reliability, and feasibility. After testing the prototype, a two-level assessment protocol was proposed in order to increase acceptability among stakeholders. The first level offers a more general overview of the welfare status, based on group assessment of a few indicators , with no or minimal handling of goats and short assessment time required. The second level starts if welfare problems are encountered in the first level and adds a comprehensive and detailed individual evaluation , supported by an effective sampling strategy. The assessment can be carried out using the AWIN Goat app. The app results in a clear visual output, which provides positive feedback on welfare conditions in comparison with a benchmark of a reference population. The protocol may be a valuable tool for both veterinarians and technicians and a self-assessment instrument for farmers. The relevance of animal welfare in animal production systems has been increasing over the last decades, due to both economic and ethical reasons. Several examples are reported by  supportiFurthermore, consumers have been focusing their attention on animal welfare as it is acknowledged to be a food quality attribute, like nutritional, safety, and organoleptic properties, but also as an ethical concern ,4.®, with the aim of developing on-farm welfare assessment schemes. The output of this project consists of welfare assessment protocols for species with very high economic relevance, i.e., cattle, pigs, and poultry. Because welfare assessment for other farmed species  was not addressed, the Animal Welfare Indicators (AWIN) project was funded by the EC in 2011. These species are reared with broadly different systems, ranging from very intensive to pasture-based systems, and different production settings, ranging from intensive milk production to extensive meat production or working animals. For goats, the protocol was developed for lactating adult dairy goats kept under intensive or semi-intensive production systems, because they represent the largest animal category in the most widespread goat farming systems in Europe [In response to this demand, assurance schemes for high-quality animal products, in terms of health, safety, and respect for animal welfare , have inn Europe . Furthern Europe ,9.This paper describes the approach and the methodology followed to develop the protocol and presents the AWIN welfare assessment protocol for lactating dairy goats in intensive or semi-intensive production systems developed in the frame of the AWIN project by a team of researchers in Portugal and Italy.The following steps were achieved in order to develop the welfare assessment protocol: (1) selection of a set of candidate welfare indicators; (2) stakeholder consultation; (3) prototype testing; and (4) development of a sampling strategy.etc.) [Welfare indicators should be valid, reliable, and practically feasible in the field ,11. Two etc.) . Resourcetc.) . Howeveretc.)  emphasiz®: (1) Good feeding ; (2) Good housing ; (3) Good health ; and (4) Appropriate behavior . As a result of this review, at least one indicator for each welfare criterion was selected to be included in the prototype protocol. Some indicators  seemed to be promising for providing information on more than one welfare criterion.As a starting point, a group of experts reviewed the relevant scientific literature to select promising animal-based indicators to be included in the protocol . IndicatAWIN scientists developed a research action plan to address the lack of knowledge regarding the validity, reliability, and feasibility of single promising indicators where this was not reported in the literature . The valhttp://www.questionari.unimi.it/awin/), which was available for 15 months on the AWIN project website and other institutional sites . The stakeholders were asked to express their feeling about the needs of farmed dairy goats and about the most suitable indicators to identify them. Furthermore, stakeholder opinions were collected during two meetings held at two national goat conferences, where attendees were asked to fill out a questionnaire . In each meeting, the importance of using animal-based indicators for welfare assessment was initially discussed, and the ongoing studies on validity, reliability, and feasibility were presented. After this, the attendees answered a questionnaire on: (a) the goals of a goat welfare assessment tool; (b) who (role/profession) should perform the assessment; (c) what unintended outcomes should be avoided; and (d) the acceptable length of time for on-farm welfare assessment. Furthermore, the participants ranked, according to their perceived importance, the indicators within each criterion, and provided tentative prevalence of the indicators at farm level, and the highest prevalence they would consider acceptable.To develop the welfare assessment protocols, stakeholders’ perception of the selected indicators was taken into consideration. The purpose of involving the stakeholders was to increase the acceptability of the project outcomes through stimulation of a multidisciplinary dialogue, and to identify solutions to potential barriers to the subsequent application of the protocols in practice. Stakeholders’ opinion and farmers’ experience were crucial for the successful implementation of the protocols. Thirty-six people from different European and non-European countries  answered an online survey translated into five languages . Part of the results of these surveys has already been published .From the abovementioned process, a list of 25 welfare indicators was generated and included in a prototype protocol. For each of these indicators, specific interactive learning material was prepared and used to provide a common training to the assessors. The learning material consisted of a PowerPoint file starting with a brief description of the indicator, followed by a detailed explanation of the assessing and scoring procedures. Pictures and video-clips were given as examples in order to simulate on-farm conditions and therefore improve the understanding and assessment of the indicator. At the end of the learning process, the level of knowledge was tested to determine if the assessors were ready to perform the farm visits. This preliminary phase was followed by a one-week training period, which included both theoretical and practical sessions, in order to reach an agreement among assessors. The assessment was repeated until all the assessors agreed on the evaluation of each indicator.etc.), in order to test the feasibility of the selected indicators in different farming conditions. In order to check inter-observer reliability, 20 farms out of the 60 in assessment were selected by convenience to be visited by two trained assessors at the same time. Inter-observer reliability was excellent for all indicators included in the protocol, either collected at group level  or at individual level (index of concordance ranging from 80.27% to 100%) [In Portugal, farms for prototype testing were randomly selected from a national database of Direcção-Geral de Alimentação e Veterinária, whereas in Italy farms were selected with the support of the S.A.T.A.  of the Lombardy region, where the majority of intensive dairy goat farms are concentrated. Because in Portugal small, intensive dairy farms are very rare, only those with more than 50 adult goats were considered. Italian farms are smaller than Portuguese ones, so small farms (<50 adult goats) were also recruited. On the contrary, very large farms are rare in Italy; therefore, this category was tested only in Portugal. In both countries, farms mainly housed cosmopolitan breeds (Saanen and Alpine) and their crossbreeds. Some local breeds were also present . Most farms kept goats permanently indoors in straw litter. Goats were fed by Total Mixed Ration and water was always available. In all farms kids were removed after birth. The prototype was tested in 60 intensive dairy goat farms  with different sizes  and characteristics  by the same observer. Investigations on the correlation of animal-based welfare indicators between two consecutive farm visits highlighted an overall consistency of all the indicators included in the final protocol [In order to facilitate collection and analysis of data collected during on-farm inspections, a digitalized data collection system was used, starting from Open Data Kit (ODK), a free and open-source set of tools that manages mobile data collection solutions, developed by the University of Washington’s Department of Computer Science and Engineering . This syFor the development of a practical welfare assessment scheme, it is necessary to develop a sampling strategy that makes the protocol feasible in terms of time and costs. For this reason, preliminary observations were carried out on the whole herd in four goat farms , in order to determine the optimal sampling strategy on the number of pens to be assessed . FurtherThe final protocol derives from the results of the literature review , the resAfter prototype testing, seven indicators were excluded from the final protocol due to very low prevalence , scarce reliability , low validity (cleanliness), or low feasibility  ,20,21,22A two-level approach was chosen to increase feasibility and acceptability among stakeholders without losing scientific validity. The protocol offers, at the first level, a quick screening, consisting of a selection of robust, feasible, and, in some cases, multi-criteria animal-based indicators, which can be readily applied and require no handling of the animals. Depending on the outcome of the first level welfare assessment, a second level, consisting of a more comprehensive and in-depth assessment, may be recommended. At the second level, animals are often handled, but the welfare assessment is still feasible.®  from outside the pen and continues inside the pen. The different indicators should be collected following a pre-established fixed order , to avoiOnly one pen has to be assessed in the first-level welfare assessment protocol, even in farms with multiple pens. The time needed for this assessment is approximately 90 min. In order to increase the sensitivity of the assessment , the penAt the end of the first level data collection, a clear and immediate output for the farmers is generated see  by a speAfter applying the protocol, the farm manager is asked to answer a questionnaire. The aim of the questionnaire is to gather general information about the farm characteristics, housing structures, management procedure, and main productive and reproductive data . It is mandatory that the farm manager is interviewed at the end of data collection, to avoid the assessor being influenced by the farm manager’s attitude during the collection of the indicators. The answers to the questionnaire are not included in the outcome, but they can be used for identifying risk factors and understanding the underlying reasons for any welfare problem that may arise from the protocol application .Several conditions were set to establish whether a farm needs a deeper welfare assessment.First of all, performance of the second-level assessment is recommended whenever there is noncompliance with the local legislation on animal protection and welfare.The second level is also recommended when the first-level assessment suggests the presence of some possible welfare issues . Specifically, the second-level welfare assessment is suggested when the result of the assessment for some previously selected welfare indicators  shows that the within-farm proportion of animals is lower than the proportion of animals observed in the worst 5% of the reference population, or when no goats touch the assessor during the 300 s of the “latency to the first contact test.”In this second level, 18 indicators have to be evaluated. Eleven of them are collected following the same methodology described in the first-level protocol, whereas seven have to be evaluated on individual animals.In this level, if more than one pen is present, more pens should be evaluated. If there are between two and seven pens, at least two pens should be assessed. If there are more than seven pens, at least three pens should be assessed and, if more than 11 pens are present , at least 25% of the pens have to be assessed and the assessment will require two or more days. As the presence of two assessors is always required for the second step, during group assessment the two assessors will evaluate one pen each.For the evaluation of indicators on individual animals, goats need to be restrained and handled, although disturbance to the animals is kept to a minimum. The location for individual examination of goats may vary, depending on the farm characteristics: if goats can be restrained at the feeding rack in their home pen, this is preferable, although the assessment should not be performed during feeding time. If this is not possible, animals can be inspected in the milking parlor. The choice of where to assess the animals should be previously agreed with the farmer. The individual assessment is carried out by two assessors at the same time: one assessor will evaluate the front  and the other the rear part  of the goats.As in the first level, the different indicators should be collected following a pre-established fixed order .The time needed for assessing one or two pens at the same time is approximately 90 min, as in the first level. For individual assessment, approximately 30–45 s per goat are required. Assuming a 50% prevalence of the indicators in the population (the worst possible condition), the number of goats to be assessed is determined on the basis of the number of lactating goats on the farm, in order to have 10% accuracy and a 95% (suggested sample) or 90% IC (minimum sample) . If, in The protocol describes how to report data and how to visually represent the results, highlighting positive conditions . For theQualitative Behavior Assessment is displayed as a separate output  and could be considered a valuable tool when discussing the general demeanor of the animals with the farmer. Currently, the reference population displayed in the outputs refers to data collected during the AWIN project.The AWIN welfare assessment protocol for goats responds to the initially stated requirements of validity, reliability, and feasibility. All the indicators included in the final protocol were selected based on studies in which their validity and reliability proprieties were established, as was discussed throughout this manuscript. The final protocol includes indicators that cover all the welfare principles and criteria. The indicators excluded were removed because they did not meet the validity, reliability, and feasibility standards needed for their inclusion in a robust welfare assessment scheme. However, no important welfare implication is expected due to their exclusion, because other valid indicators covering the same principles and criteria were retained and, when necessary, they were improved in order to cover all welfare aspects.In particular, the on-farm feasibility of this protocol is a distinctive feature compared to previous welfare assessment projects  and it hAnother stakeholders’ request was that the protocol should not be used as a means of controlling the farmers, but rather as an advisory tool, useful to give assistance on how to improve animal management and welfare . This re® project, which was set up mainly for classification of farms into four welfare categories (from not classified to excellent) [® output is a numerical value for each welfare criteria, which summarizes the scores deriving from many indicators [This approach is different from that used in the previous Welfare Qualitycellent) . The Weldicators  and assiA present limitation of the AWIN protocol is the fact that the reference population is currently based only on 60 farms in two countries. The application of the protocol to a larger number of farms in different countries will allow for updating the reference population in order to have a more reliable benchmark for comparison. In line with the AWIN approach, the reference population should constantly evolve and, consequently, statistical data should be updated, including welfare assessments performed on as many farms as possible using the same common protocol, with the aim of giving an actual picture of the welfare status of goats in intensive farms across Europe.The AWIN welfare assessment protocol for dairy goats is designed to enable comparisons among similar production and management systems and is intended to assess goat welfare in order to guide its improvement throughout Europe and elsewhere in the world. It is meant to be comprehensive, but not complex.The AWIN welfare assessment protocol can also be a valuable tool for farmers who wish to improve the profitability of their dairy farms, pinpointing or preventing issues related to health and welfare that may compromise the status of the herd and its productivity.The positive feedback that it this protocol is receiving from stakeholders suggests that high acceptability can be expected. This may lead to the adaptation and application of the protocol in different countries and farming conditions. The results will allow for further refining and updating of the reference population in a relatively short period of time.


A key facet of professional development is the formation of professional identity. At its most basic level, professional identity for a scientist centers on mastery of a discipline and the development of research skills during doctoral training. To develop a broader understanding of professional identity in the context of doctoral training, the Carnegie Initiative on the Doctorate (CID) ran a multi-institutional study from 2001 to 2005. A key outcome of the CID was the development of the concept of ‘stewards of the discipline’. The Interdisciplinary Program in Neuroscience (IPN) at Georgetown University participated in CID from 2003 to 2005. Here, we describe the IPN and highlight the programmatic developments resulting from participation in the CID. In particular, we emphasize programmatic activities that are designed to promote professional skills in parallel with scientific development. We describe activities in the domains of leadership, communication, teaching, public outreach, ethics, collaboration, and mentorship. Finally, we provide data that demonstrate that traditional metrics of academic success are not adversely affected by the inclusion of professional development activities in the curricula. By incorporating these seven ‘professional development’ activities into the required coursework and dissertation research experience, the IPN motivates students to become stewards of the discipline. A key facet of early professional development is the formation of a professional identity. At its core, professional identity for a scientist during graduate training centers on: 1) scholarship built from understanding of a discipline, 2) mastery of the literature, and 3) the acquisition of research skills. However, regardless of ultimate career path, there are a variety of additional skills and best practices that, when instilled early during the training period, may be beneficial to the practitioner and also serve to both preserve and grow the research field.From 2001 through 2005, the Carnegie Initiative on the Doctorate (CID) implemented a study to examine a broader understanding of professional identity. The goal was to focus on doctoral training as an instrument for producing ‘stewards of the discipline’ . Thus, aThe Interdisciplinary Program in Neuroscience (IPN) at Georgetown University (GU) was one of 15 neuroscience doctoral programs chosen for participation in the CID. The IPN aims to produce neuroscientists with a comprehensive and well-rounded education in an inherently multi-disciplinary field, which encompasses cellular, molecular, systems, and cognitive approaches. Although dissertation research constitutes the core of doctoral training, participation in the CID became the vehicle for initiating a series of discussions and programmatic changes that have led the program to include the broader development of professional identity as a core component of graduate education.Although the majority of doctoral trainees in neuroscience and other biomedical sciences conduct post-doctoral research after the completion of the degree , 3, onlyRecognizing these facts, the IPN emphasizes the benefits of professional skill development for its students regardless of their anticipated future career direction. This approach is consistent with the increased attention placed on the development of professional skills among scientists. For example, doctoral fellowships and training grants from the National Institutes of Health  require training in the ethical conduct of research , with caThe IPN began matriculating students in the fall of 1994, and was thus just shy of a decade old when it joined CID in 2003. More than 50 faculty members, drawn from 11 departments across both the main campus and medical center at GU, are a part of the IPN. As of 2014, the program has 44 enrolled students and has graduated more than 110 alumni. The IPN has matriculated an average of nine students per year over the past decade; 89% of students that matriculated since 2006 entered thesis research. In addition, approximately 12 post-doctoral fellows actively contribute to the program through teaching in courses and in the laboratory. The female to male ratio of the student body is 1.75:1 and under-represented minorities make up 20% of the program. IPN students matriculate with diverse prior experiences, with educational backgrounds ranging from neuroscience, biology, and psychology to engineering, mathematics, and physics. Some students enter immediately after completing a bachelor's degree, whereas others have Master's degrees and/or full-time research experience.Teaching) to provide all students with a strong foundation in neuroscience before they initiate core coursework in the fall. Although some may view this diversity as a challenge, we consider it a strength. We have found that a diversity of experience in a given cohort of students allows them to serve as resources for each other during the first-year coursework and provides for diverse approaches to problem solving.The IPN's interdisciplinary and interdepartmental program reflects the current state of neuroscience as an innately diverse field. Accordingly, the IPN requires that students build a broad base of knowledge. Because students have diverse backgrounds when they matriculate, we offer a yearly summer course  and presentations of the data from these surveys to faculty in program leadership.One example of a student-driven curricular change is the refinement of ‘Critical Readings in Neuroscience’. Originally, this was a literature-based course not directly related to the content of other first-year courses. IPN students recommended linking the critical readings to the topics being concurrently covered in the core neuroscience course. As such, the course now focuses on developing skills to understand and evaluate primary literature with a reading list that mirrors the topics discussed in the neuroscience core course.IPN students also actively participate in the Executive Committee, which sets policy for the IPN, and is otherwise composed of elected faculty members. The student body elects a voting student member of the Executive Committee. The addition of a voting student member to the Executive Committee required amending the program bylaws, and was approved by a three-fifths majority of faculty. This vote by the faculty underscores the value and trust placed in student input. This responsibility led to students drafting an IPN student government constitution, which details the responsibilities of the elected student officers.Fostering leadership in IPN students has had effects that extend beyond our program. IPN students are leaders in other areas of student governance and administration. The three presidents of GU's Medical Center Graduate Student Organization (MCGSO) from 2012 to 2014 have been IPN students. Moreover, recognizing a need within the student body for more educational experiences regarding grant writing and review, IPN students designed and implemented a student grant program run through the MCGSO .The active and extensive leadership roles assumed by IPN students form a common thread, tying together the multiple aspects of stewardship discussed in this manuscript. In this way, our students have been a major driving force behind the development, implementation, and refinement of the majority of the initiatives outside of core program requirements.A steward of the discipline must conduct high-quality science and effectively communicate results to the larger scientific community. Regardless of general writing ability, repeated practice and feedback are necessary to master the specific rhetorical conventions of a field ; for thiWith respect to written communication, research papers and grant proposals are formal components of coursework, beginning in the first year. Students are introduced to research papers through class discussions that examine the structure of a scientific paper; through this process, students learn effectively communicate written results. Submission of at least one first-author paper is a requirement for graduation. Writing development culminates with the doctoral dissertation.The majority of faculty in academic medicine report that ‘effective writing of grants and publications’ is their highest career development need . BecauseStudents write a second proposal in the spring, in the form of an NIH fellowship application. The proposal is reviewed in a student-driven study section modeled after NIH's grant review process. Participating as a grant reviewer allows students to reflect on the decisions they make in their own grant writing. Finally, the second-year comprehensive exams take the format of a grant proposal that is orally defended to a panel of faculty.Development of oral communication skills is also a recurring theme throughout students’ time in the program. Students present in journal clubs and participate in discussions with seminar speakers throughout their time in the program. Moreover, in a required skills and ethics course (taken during their second semester), poster presentation skills are discussed and student presentations are critiqued by a public speaking coach.Students are also required to present their rotation research projects to the program after each rotation during their first year, and annually during thesis research. Students are given formal feedback on their presentations  through a rubric completed by members of their thesis committee. Rubrics were implemented to increase the frequency of feedback, and because the use of rubrics has been associated with higher achievement and deeper learning by students . IPN stuThe vital role of communication extends beyond simply conveying newly generated knowledge, and includes conveying existing knowledge of the field in the classroom and in outreach settings, two facets of professional development that we discuss below.A key component of stewardship is integrating knowledge into the current framework of the discipline, and conserving and transforming that knowledge by conveying it to colleagues, students, and laypeople. This is at the heart of effective teaching. Although teaching is not mandatory for students in the IPN, as of 2014, 84% of the thesis students participated in teaching. Time commitments ranged from several hours a semester, to course directorship (50 or more hours per semester). Once a semester, the IPN sponsors an evening discussion session led by a rotating group of faculty members to discuss pedagogical issues, identify areas of concern, and to provide oversight and support to student teaching.To assess attitudes and opinions regarding student teaching, we conducted a survey of IPN training faculty who had mentored at least one thesis student between 2003 and 2013. We obtained responses from 35 faculty members (response rate: 87.5%). More than 90% of respondents agreed that PhD students should have opportunities to gain teaching experience as part of their doctoral training, and more than 90% agreed that PhD thesis students in their lab were welcome to spend time teaching, assuming it does not interfere with the progression of their research. Recognizing the importance of teaching as a component of scholarship, 88% of respondents felt that teaching in an area related to thesis research is a good way for students to enhance their overall scholarship, and 70% felt that having a teaching portfolio developed as a graduate student would provide a competitive advantage when seeking jobs. These attitudes are reinforced by the finding that teaching experience is associated with improved research skills . BecauseThe teaching opportunity that has the most formal structure is ‘Drugs, the Brain, and Behavior’, an elective course for undergraduate and MS students; we have previously described this course in detail . AlthougIPN students also take on leadership roles in several courses that are part of the core curriculum; these opportunities began during CID participation and have continued to grow since that time. For example, senior students co-teach a summer course to prepare incoming students for the first-year curriculum and promote early interaction between incoming students, senior graduate students, and faculty. The experience concludes with a series of hands on ‘boot camp’ sessions in which students conduct experiments to gain an understanding of methods and explore neuroanatomy in human and animal specimens. More than 40 students have taught in this course over the past 4 years.Because the core course in neuroscience is team-taught, integrating information across faculty and modules can pose a challenge for students encountering the information for the first time. To address this concern, a student-taught, mandatory (one credit) recitation session meets weekly and includes review sessions prior to exams. It focuses on reviewing information taught in the core course and setting it in the broader framework of neuroscience. Three students led this course between 2011 and 2014.A key theme of all of these opportunities is the hands-on involvement of the IPN graduate students in teaching, with an emphasis on responsibility, pedagogy, and complementary teaching styles. This training, which remains rare in PhD programs , 20, 21,As a steward of the discipline, a scientist must convey information not only to students and colleagues, but also to the general public. As the Royal Society recognized in 1985, ‘Almost all public policy issues have scientific or technological implications. Everybody, therefore, needs some understanding of science, its accomplishments, and its limitations’ . Public Interestingly, participation in public outreach has also been shown to be positively correlated with higher research productivity . RecogniSome examples of student-driven public outreach follow. IPN students and faculty regularly participate in Brain Awareness Week (BAW), a global campaign to increase public awareness of the progress and benefits of brain research. The IPN has participated in BAW since its founding by The Dana Alliance for Brain Initiatives in 1996. However, after participating in CID, there was an increased emphasis and value placed on BAW participation. This is reflected in monetary support for BAW activities by the program that began after CID participation.In 2012, the IPN hosted 100 seventh and eighth graders and in 2014, the IPN hosted 115 seventh graders for lab tours and demonstrations about the brain and neuroscience. These activities illustrated various concepts in anatomy, sensation, perception, and attention. When surveyed after the 2012 session, the graduate students who participated in BAW thought it was successful. All graduate student participants indicated that they would be willing to participate the following year, and all rated the day as either ‘successful’ or ‘highly successful’ on a Likert-like scale ranging from completely unsuccessful to highly successful. Moreover, the perception of graduate students that participated as group leaders (and thus visited multiple stations with their students) was that the activities were age-appropriate (59% of responses), informative (63% of responses), and entertaining (68% of responses).A second outreach activity is ‘Hot Topics in Health Science’; a public seminar series developed by IPN graduate students in conjunction with the District of Columbia Public Libraries. During these regularly scheduled library programs, a graduate student, post-doctoral fellow, or faculty member presents a current issue in health science to a lay audience. Seminar topics have ranged from ‘Food for Thought: How Your Diet Can Help You Get the Most Out of Your Brain’ to ‘Pandemic Flu: Birds, Pigs, and Planes’. To ensure that the series’ goals are being met, each seminar is video- and audio-recorded, both for review by the speaker as well as for dissemination via podcast. Underscoring the ability of presenters to effectively translate these topics for a lay audience, surveys showed that more than 90% of the audience felt there was an appropriate level of detail and more than 80% felt the seminars were ‘useful’ or ‘very useful’.In addition to conveying information to lay, student, and peer audiences, stewardship requires the consideration of the impact of knowledge, and more broadly, ongoing research, on society at large. This is one of the many areas of study of the burgeoning field of neuroethics.Ethical issues in science range from the responsible conduct of research (RCR) to how research has an impact on society. Through a combination of coursework, discussion groups, and publication opportunities, IPN students are able to engage with faculty, peers, and outside community members to explore a variety of ethical issues. All IPN students are required to participate in ethics training.Oral and Written Communication section); this course also engages students in discussions regarding the RCR, scientific ethics, and ethical dilemmas inherent to the scientific community. This is particularly important given increasing reports of compromised ethics in conducting research and reporting of results . This document highlights areas that should be discussed, including expectations of the mentor and mentee in terms of: time commitment, publications, student responsibility, independence, and benchmarks of productivity. Its use is encouraged, particularly during the stage when students and faculty are evaluating each other as a potential fit for this role. This questionnaire was developed through a series of discussions at the annual retreats, and is an indirect result of CID participation. Feedback from both the faculty and students has been extremely positive, indicating that it aids in broaching topics that can often be awkward to approach, such as the availability of funding for the student.Perhaps the most important type of mentoring that occurs during graduate training is between a student and his or her thesis advisor(s) . Poor men=8) of molecular biologists; although difficult to generalize with such small samples, the authors found that these junior mentors reported gains in research productivity and quality, interpersonal skills (including mentoring skills and communication skills), socio-emotional benefits, and increased understanding of the responsibilities of a faculty member .An especially valuable type of student–faculty collaboration developed as an outgrowth of the CID: teaching partnerships in which faculty and students worked together to design lectures, assignments, exams, and even full courses, with several student–faculty pairs teaching classes for the program. In a typical year, approximately 25 students and 10 faculty members participate in team-teaching. This shared activity improved the pedagogical skills of both students and faculty, and introduced the faculty to novel teaching technologies and strategies such as the use of iClickers and SmartBoards. In addition, it allowed faculty to discover how effective the students are as teachers, raising appreciation for the value of having students engage deeply in classroom teaching. These attitudes are reflected in the faculty survey on student-teaching . Because many of the program reforms we describe were implemented during the participation in CID (2003–2005), the effects of these programs should be detectable in students that entered after its completion. For the post-CID period, we only included students who matriculated between 2006 and 2008 because students entering in 2009 onward have not graduated as of 2014. As we have described, the IPN curriculum underwent major revisions during CID participation; thus, we have collapsed all pre-CID data for analysis.H=1.2, P=0.57). The median years to degree does not differ significantly from those reported in the most recent Society for Neuroscience Committee on Neuroscience Departments and Programs (CNDP) survey (As shown in ) survey  .As shown in In line with reports from others , the aboWe have highlighted here seven professional skills which the IPN strives to develop in its students: leadership, oral and written communication, teaching, public outreach, ethics, collaboration, and mentorship. We have described these foci, which emerged largely from the IPN's participation in the CID, as well as their benefits to the students and faculty. Through a variety of formalized activities, as well as by fostering a community that values these traits, we encourage IPN students to become stewards of the discipline, not only by generating new knowledge, but also by integrating that knowledge into the current framework of the discipline and conserving and transforming the knowledge by conveying it to colleagues, students, and laypeople.


Environmental stressors undoubtedly influence organismal biology, specifically the endocrine system that, in turn, impact cattle at the systems physiology level. Despite the significant advances in understanding the genetic determinants of the ideal dairy or beef cow, there is a grave lack of understanding of the systems physiology and effects of the environmental stressors that interfere with the endocrine system. This is a major problem because the lack of such knowledge is preventing advances in understanding gene-environment interactions and developing science-based solutions to these challenges. In this review, we synthesize the current knowledge on the nature of the major environmental stressors, such as climate , nutrition  and management . We summarize the impact of each one of these factors on cattle at the systems level, and provide solutions for the challenges. Systems physiology is a scientific discipline combining theoretical, computational, and experimental studies to increase our understanding of the physiology of living creatures. UnderstThe environmental factors of climate, nutrition, and management are considered major stressors on animal health and production. Those external factors or stimuli are transduced by different receptors and may result in epigenetic changes in the absence of any changes in gene sequence in cattle. Although it is well known that phenotypes are influenced by both the genotype and the environment, major gaps still exist in the current understanding of mechanisms by which environmental factors modulate phenotype, development and disease within an organism. For example, the level of feeding of sires was shown to affect milk production in daughters, and dieIn order to maximize production, modern farming practices call for intensive management of livestock. Management practices such as handling, weaning, housing conditions and transportation are essential to the well-being and production efficiency of cattle but are also major stressors which can cause a decrease in their productivity. Increased cortisol concentrations have been shown to increase anxiety-related activity,7, disea2 per animal) results in an acute rise in plasma cortisol concentration that is detrimental to growth. Bulls housed at 4.2 m2 per animal had depressed interferon-gamma production when compared to those housed at 2.7 and 1.2 m2 per animal[Stress caused by housing can result from a number of identifiable housing conditions or structure including ventilation, cooling, flooring, animal density, and regrouping of the animals. Insufficient ventilation and cooling systems can aggravate stress induced by exposure to extreme heat or cold. The impact of extreme heat or cold can vary widely depending on the stage of life and reproductive status of animals. Housing bulls in high density situations  above that is considered the thermo-neutral zone, which has adverse effects on the animal’s performance such as on a cow’s reproductive system and normal estrous cycle. In a study to determine factors needed to measure the degree of stress that the environment places on the performance of an animal, it was concluded that patterns could be distinguished using the temperature-humidity index alone: However, the accuracy was vastly improved when wind speed and solar radiation were quantified and added to the equation. For daiCows stalled in refrigerated barns had serum cortisol concentrations lower than those of cattle housed outside demonstrating that heat stress can impact reproduction by inhibiting the release of LH by the anterior pituitary. White eConsidering the frequent occurrence of many of the environmental stressors discussed, simply attempting to avoid all of these stress-inducing situations is not an option. Stressors do not activate the HPA axis when the animal does not perceive the conditions as stressful. TherefoAuthors declare that they have no competing interests in this study.All authors have designed the study together. TLB, LC, GFC, CGH, KM, AMM, and BEV contributed equally for this study. DK, EM and LC have revised the synthesis, and made the final revisions. LC drew the figure. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.


Oecophylla smaragdina) are arboreal ants that are known to form mutualistic complexes with their host trees. They are eusocial ants that build elaborate nests in the canopy in tropical areas. A colony comprises of multiple nests, usually on multiple trees, and the boundaries of the colony may be difficult to identify. However, they provide the ideal model for studying group living in invertebrates since there are a definite number of nests for a given substrate, the tree. Here, we briefly examine the structure of the nests and the processes involved in the construction and maintenance of these nests. We have described the spatial arrangement of weaver ant nests on trees in two distinct tropical clusters, a few hundred kilometres apart in India. Measurements were made for 13 trees with a total of 71 nests in the two field sites. We have considered a host of biotic and abiotic factors that may be crucial in determining the location of the nesting site by Asian weaver ants. Our results indicate that tree characteristics and architecture followed by leaf features help determine nest location in Asian weaver ants. While environmental factors may not be as influential to nest arrangement, they seem to be important determinants of nest structure. The parameters that may be considered in establishing the nests could be crucial in picking the evolutionary drivers for colonial living in social organisms.Asian weaver ants ( Polyrhachis and Dendromyrmex, use larval silk in the construction of nests. The term “weaver ants” typically refers to two closely-related extant species, both belonging to the genus Oecophylla. African weaver ants (Oecophylla longinoda) are found in sub-Saharan Africa, while Asian weaver ants (Oecophylla smaragdina) are found in Australasia. A number of studies have been made on weaver ants from the time they were first described [Weaver ants are eusocial insects, belonging to the family Formicidae and order Hymenoptera, that have a unique nest-building behavior. A number of ant species, belonging to different genera such as escribed –6 with aescribed –6, interescribed , 8, and escribed –13.Oecophylla smaragdina, is widely distributed across the Indian subcontinent and south-east Asia extending up to Australia, very little research has been done on them, especially in India. However, since they are an excellent model for studying eusociality, there have also been studies on their chemical ecology [Even though the Asian weaver ant,  ecology –16, popu ecology , 6, bree ecology , 16. Som ecology , 17, beh ecology , 19, and ecology . Out of  ecology , 21, somWeaver ants build elaborate nests, varying in size, by weaving together leaves of the host plant using the silk produced by their larvae. For this reason, the aspect of sociality in weaver ants is considered amongst the most refined within hymenopterans . These eO. smaragdina. In particular, we ask if 1) tree characteristics (tree structure and leaf size), 2) environmental variables , and 3) nest characteristics (nest size and relative position), could help determine the nest architecture and arrangement in Asian weaver ants.Here, we look at one such system involving Asian weaver ants in an attempt to understand their interactions with the host plant and the environment. This interaction was studied through investigations of nest structure, construction, and arrangement. The aim of this study was twofold—1) to understand the structure of weaver ant nests as well as the processes involved in their construction, and 2) to determine if the location of each weaver ant nest is influenced by one or more biotic and abiotic parameters. The focus here is on the specific variables that could affect the habitat use and local distribution of We hypothesise that tree characteristics and leaf features could be crucial to the selection of nesting sites by Asian weaver ants. Fruit trees could be involved in mutualistic complexes with weaver ants, especially in tropical areas, with the latter utilizing plant resources in return for defense against invertebrate or vertebrate visitors. We also predict that environmental factors could be determinants of nest structure while tree features are crucial predictors of nest architecture in Asian weaver ants.The study was conducted outside protected areas in Karnataka and Tamil Nadu and research permits were not required for the study. Since the methods used were non-invasive and protected species were not sampled, animal ethics committee approval was not required. No human or vertebrate animal subjects and/or tissue were involved in this study.Asian weaver ant nests were surveyed across two distinct urban locations in southern India that are approximately 350 km apart. Nest surveys were conducted at various locations inside the University of Agricultural Sciences (UAS) campus in the city of Bangalore as well as the Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IITM)  campus in Chennai. A majority of the sampling inside the UAS campus was done within the National Center for Biological Sciences (NCBS) complex , where four trees and 31 nests were surveyed. Extensive observational studies for nest structure and construction were made on some of these nests. At IITM, nine trees and 40 nests were surveyed across the campus. In total, 13 trees and 71 nests were surveyed. Both locations are areas of high-intensity use by humans as well as other vertebrates. However, despite being urban locations, both sites have large swathes of contiguous, undisturbed native vegetation.For each nest, 1) its distance from the ground, 2) the distance from the trunk, 3) the distance to nearest neighbours, 4) the nest size in number of leaves, 5) the general size , and use (“yes” if in use and “no” if abandoned), and 6) the angle and position with reference to the compass North, were recorded. In addition, environmental variables such as 1) the ambient temperature outside the nest, 2) wind intensity, 3) wind direction, 4) luminosity, and 5) humidity, for each nest were noted. Such abiotic factors tend to vary depending on the geography of the location, season, time of day, and a number of other conditions. This issue of variability was addressed by ensuring that all data was collected within the same season and at the same time of day for each site. Covariates related to the tree such as 1) tree species, 2) canopy size, 3) trunk height, 4) tree height, 5) leaf size (length and breadth at the widest ends), and 6) leaf shape, were noted, as well. The trunk was defined to be the portion of the tree until the point of first branching. Girth at breast height (GBH) was not considered since these are canopy ants and the canopy size with tree height and trunk height seemed to be more relevant factors. The latitude and longitude for each tree and nest were recorded using a GPS. Measurements were made using a Beetech ultrasonic distance meter, measuring tape, ladder, measured collapsible pipes, compass, and protracter. Enviromental variables were measured using a GPS, Kestrel weathermeter, luxmeter, and sensitive thermometer (at NCBS)/resistance thermometer (at IITM), respectively. Additionally, photographs were taken for each nest wherever possible and of the positions on the tree.To study the nest structure and construction, scissors were used to make incisions, forceps of varying sizes and lengths to pry and observe, measuring tape for measuring lengths of the incisions made, and a clock for timing the duration taken for repair. We studied the process of nest construction by observing 1) the stitching of nests when just starting, 2) the mechanisms of extending nests that are already built, and 3) the process of maintenance. Maintenance was observed by damaging a few nests and noting the response. This was done only on weaver ant nests in the NCBS campus.Oecophylla smaragdina) is a dominant arboreal ant that is widely distributed across tropical Australasia [O. smaragdina workers weave leaves of the host plant with silk from their larvae [Oecophylla longinoda), neotropical America (Camponotus senex), and Australasia (Oecophylla smaragdina).The Asian weaver ant  if two queens are found, which is very difficult given that each colony has multiple nests and that the number of nests in a colony is highly variable, and 2) through behavioral experiments on ants that are thought to be from different colonies.In addition to nest building, the workers are also involved with foraging, exploring, and patrolling the area surrounding the nest, as well as caring for the queen and maintenance of the nest. A large fraction of a nest, and consequently a colony, is immobile at a given time. This could be a measure to conserve energy since the construction and maintenance of the nest is a huge investment of time and energy by the weaver ants.In order to identify the primary factors that influence the local arrangment of weaver ant nests on the trees, two statistical techniques were used, namely: Principal Component Analysis (PCA) , 30 and n) from the original sample. Then a classification tree is fit to each bootstrap sample resulting in n trees. The resulting set of trees is diverse since 1) the trees are unstable and change with learning data resulting in n trees that are different from each other, and 2) the splitting variables are randomly selected in each split resulting in a ‘random forest’ of trees. The RF algorithm produces two qualitative measures . The RF analysis was performed using the ‘randomForest’ library. R was also used for all the exploratory data analyses. Python version 2.7.6 was used for the visualization along with the Mayavi  toolkit.Oecophylla build nests by weaving together the leaves from the host plants using silk produced by their larva [The workers of ir larva , 4, 5. TA nest made from a single leaf was constructed by folding the leaf and stitching the leaf edges and tips together using the silk, which is typically white in color. Nests made of more leafs were stitched in a similar fashion, with leaves kept adjacent to each other such that their edges touched each other, but typically did not involve any folds in the leaves. In smaller trees with branches close to each other, the weaver ants used the available leaves on multiple branches close to each other such that some leaves on one branch were touching those on another, and stitched the leaves adjacent to each other. They did not require additional leaves to be brought for the sake of nest construction in such cases. There seemed to be very few chambers within the nest, if at all, from the nests observed. The really large nests were not accessible and hence the internal structure for these could not be discerned.The nest structure was studied by dismantling eight abandoned nests and using six active nests from which the weaver ants were eliminated to the extent possible. Nest structure was also observed in nests as they were being constructed or repaired. The nests ranged in size from ones made with a single leaf to those constructed with tens or hundreds of leaves Figs  and 9. Tr2 = 0.5, p<0.0001). There was also a positive correlation between the position of the nest and the nest size. For instance, both the distance of the nest from the ground  and the trunk of the tree  seemed to correlate positively with nest size in number of leaves.The nest size, in terms of the number of leaves used in the construction, emerged as an important factor in nest arrangement. Further, nest size seemed to be positively correlated with tree characteristics such as the canopy radius . In Oecophylla smaragdina’s nest distribution and arrangement, as well as the processes that determine resource selection in such invertebrates, the main aim of this study was to test some common hypotheses corresponding to weaver ants and habitat selection by them. This study has helped identify the important determinants of nest structure and arrangement, by showing that tree characteristics significantly influence choice of nest location in weaver ants. Since the leaves of the host plant are used in the construction of the nest by Asian weaver ants, we hypothesised that leaf characteristics such as size and shape could be important factors in nest location and arrangement. Our results from PCA seem to corroborate this hypothesis (Given the lack of information about pothesis . While cFrom the 3-D modeling , we coulThe process of determining the key factors that drive the selection of locations for nests is challenging and complex, especially in social insects such as weaver ants . This isGiven such a context, the spatial arrangment of the nests can be highly informative about the types of biological and environmental pressures that can determine the life history of the organism. Thus, if one were to consider the habitat used as the realized niche and the habitat available as the potential niche, a crucial question is: why do weaver ants use certain micro-habitats and not others? Our results show that tree structure plays an important role in the size and position of nests on a tree, and some environmental variables could also be crucial to the arrangement of these nests.Of the parameters considered, tree features such as the canopy radius, distance of the nest from the trunk, tree type, tree height and the position of the nest on the tree emerged as important factors, along with environmental factors such as the temperature near the nest. Leaf features such as size and shape were also shown to be factors that were crucial to nest arrangement. This helped understand how socially-living organisms interact with their environment and other organisms, and organize themselves in configurations that might protect them from factors detrimental to their fitness, such as predation-risk and proximity to resources.


Our ability to make sense of information on the potential intentions and dispositions of others is of paramount importance for understanding their communicative intent, and for judging what an appropriate reaction might be. Thus, anything that impinges on this ability has the potential to cause significant social impairment, and compromise an individual’s level of functioning. Both bipolar disorder and schizophrenia are known to feature theory of mind impairment. We conducted a theoretical review to determine the extent and types of theory of mind impairment in bipolar disorder, and evaluate their relationship to medication and symptoms. We also considered possible mediatory mechanisms, and set out to discover what else could be learnt about the impairment in bipolar disorder by comparison to the profile of impairment in schizophrenia. The literature established that in bipolar disorder (i) some form of theory of mind impairment has been observed in all mood states, including euthymia, (ii) the form of theory of mind assessed and task used to make the assessment influence the impairment observed, and (iii) there might be some relationship to cognitive impairment, although a relationship to standard clinical variables was harder to establish. What also became clear in the literature on bipolar disorder itself was the possible relationship of theory of mind impairment to history of psychotic symptoms. Direct comparative studies, including patients with schizophrenia, were thus examined, and provided several important directions for future research on the bases of impairment in bipolar disorder. Particularly prominent was the issue of whether theory of mind impairment could be considered a candidate endophenotype for the psychoses, although current evidence suggests that this may be premature. The differences in impairment across schizophrenia and bipolar disorder may, however, have genuine differential effects on social functioning and the likely success of remediation. Similarly, we ask whether it is present in both bipolar I disorder and bipolar II disorder and consider whether it can be detected in related “high-risk” or “sub-syndromal” populations. We also examine the evidence for such impairments in pediatric samples. We then assess methodological factors that may have confounded previous research, such as the type of assessment used and demographic influences. Here, we also highlight the seemingly varying scale of the problem and its breadth across different types of theory of mind. In the final section of part one, we seek to establish what the antecedents of impaired theory of mind are in bipolar disorder and what the symptom correlates of these deficits are. Medication effects are also considered. In achieving our initial aim, the hope is to generate information for clinicians who work with this patient group to help improve clinical outcomes .per se, nor to make narrative comparisons between the separate literatures on theory of mind in the two disorders. Rather the purpose of this part of this paper is to establish the significance of data studies that have directly and quantitatively compared theory of mind abilities in the two disorders. Given the poorly understood origin of theory of mind deficits in bipolar disorder, we evaluate the possibility that a link to psychosis should be an important line of enquiry   . While td < 0.8) , 30, 31,d < 0.8) . Purcelld < 0.8) , 53. Elsd < 0.8) . Studiesd < 0.8) ] and a sd < 0.8) , 55), a d < 0.8) . Neverthd < 0.8) .In the current Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders classification system , the sevWhile differential theory of mind impairment have not yet been demonstrated based on categorization of bipolar disorder according to severity of mania, links have been found between theory of mind impairment and the severity of certain aspects of hypomania, e.g., mood lability. Specifically, the study by Terrien et al. used the “Yoni task” to assess the ability of healthy adults to attribute cognitive and emotional mental states on the basis of verbal cues and gaze direction . In the In this section, we have seen that there is a reasonable level of evidence to indicate that theory of mind impairment is a feature of all mood states in bipolar disorder, although robust differential patterns across the various subtypes are not yet supported. That is not necessarily to say that there are no such effects, at this early stage in the literature it may simply be that there has not yet been enough research. What are now needed are more systematic, well-controlled investigations. However, given the existence of any evidence of mood-state-related impairments, heterogeneity needs to be taken into account in future research . IdeallyJust as for the heterogeneity of mood states associated with bipolar disorder, the tasks used to assess theory of mind are heterogeneous in both content and form. To some extent, this has been a necessary evil, since theory of mind is not a unitary construct , 48. HenDiffering processing demands are also relevant to the inconsistent impairments according to the tasks used to index the ability to make mental state inferences. For example, in one study, while patients with Bipolar 1 Disorder showed impairments on a first-order false-belief task, the Hinting Task, and the Faux Pas Test, only impaired performance on the Faux Pas Test persisted when patients later transitioned into euthymia . SimilarA second distinction used to explain task-dependent theory of mind impairments is that of decoding vs. reasoning. Whereas decoding more closely approximates the perception of mental state cues, the latter places higher demands on domain-general cognitive resources, such as working memory and executive function . This paIn this section, we have seen that the results of prior literature on theory of mind impairments in bipolar disorder cannot be taken at face value without considering the influence of methodological choices such as (i) the level of complexity of theory of mind being assessed and (ii) the generic cognitive demands of the task used for assessment. In particular, some tasks are not able to detect the subtle impairments that might present in euthymic patients . TherefoIn the previous section, it was suggested that the cognitive demand of different theory of mind tasks might influence the patterns of deficits observed in bipolar disorder. Indeed, a relationship between cognitive demand and theory of mind may not be surprising given the inherent overlap between neurocognition and social cognition . So, whaWe next turn to consider clinical correlates of theory of mind impairments in bipolar disorder. Here, the evidence is patchy, inconsistent, and incomplete, although currently available evidence does not favor reliable links with basic clinical variables . The onlN = 12 and N = 15, respectively). Yet similar patterns have emerged in larger datasets from symptomatic patients. In a study by Cusi et al., performance on the Reading the Mind in the Eyes Task did not correlate with any social domain on the Social Adjustment Self-Report Scale in a mixed sample of Bipolar 1 Disorder patients with varying levels of depressive symptoms , carbamazepine (N = 6), and sodium valproate (N = 4). However, these three sub-groups did not differ in either cognitive or affective theory of mind performance (Post hoc analyses by Van Rheenen et al. also failed to detect an influence on theory of mind performance according to whether a patient was on vs. off antipsychotics, antidepressants, mood stabilizers, or benzodiazepines (As lamented by others , only a formance . Post hoazepines . Elsewheazepines . A more azepines . Medicatazepines . Furtherazepines , 72. HowIn this section, we have seen evidence that theory of mind impairment often co-exists alongside cognitive impairments, particularly those relating to executive functions. Furthermore, some of these cognitive impairments correlate with, or predict, the degree of theory of mind impairment. Thus, there is now a sufficient evidence base to warrant further investigation to flesh out our understanding of the relationship between the two, and how the mechanism of effects fits together , 10. ForIt has been recognized for some time now that establishing a clear pattern of theory of mind deficits in bipolar disorder may have profound implications for the clinical management of patients. Difficulties in understanding the mental state of others can result in the misreading of social cues, resulting in a reduced ability to accurately comprehend social interactions . Patientper se. For that the interested reader is referred to works elsewhere (In terms of the type of symptoms within bipolar disorder that might associate with theory of mind impairments, there have been a number of suggestions, including impulsivity , 32 and lsewhere –103.One of the most prominent issues among studies, comparing performance on theory of mind tasks across bipolar disorder and schizophrenia, is the question of whether the impairments are of equal magnitude. The use of traditional theory of mind tests, such as the Reading the Mind in the Eyes and the Faux Pas Tests, provides some evidence that the impairments observed in schizophrenia might be greater than those in patients with bipolar disorder , 105. HoA second explanation for the variable support for theory of mind impairments being greater for schizophrenia than for bipolar disorder is that as mentioned above, these simple tests lack ecological validity , which hGiven that patients with schizophrenia are sometimes more impaired than patients with bipolar disorder, the question becomes what is driving these differences? In cross-diagnosis theory of mind studies, differences between the patients with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder with respect to various basic clinical factors often occur, including substance abuse  and numbMatching for level of positive symptoms at the recruitment rather than statistical analysis stage has further facilitated evaluation of theory of mind impairment according to disorder. When this approach was adopted, patients with schizophrenia still showed a greater theory of mind impairment than patients with bipolar disorder , implyinThus, there may be two co-existing patterns of results, namely a symptom-specific relationship between theory of mind impairment and certain positive symptoms that are independent of diagnosis, and another unidentified cause of the differences. As to what the likely cause is of this other unidentified contribution to the differences, there are a number of candidates. Attributional style has been explored in patients with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, and while both groups showed evidence of hostile socio-cognitive biases, theory of mind impairment on the Hinting Task was still greater in patients with schizophrenia than those with bipolar disorder, thus ruling attribution style out as a possible mediator . EmotionAnother potential mediator of differences in theory of mind performance worthy of consideration is the differences in cognitive impairment between these two patient groups –119. ThiIn the literature focusing exclusively on bipolar disorder, moves to link the experience of psychosis with increased theory of mind impairment, although derived from a strong rationale, have not yet been particularly productive. Bora et al. found no impact of history of psychosis on performance of the Hinting Task when comparing 26 patients with such a history to 17 patients with no past history, but at the time of testing the patients were euthymic . Howevernon-social cognition being accepted as candidate endophenotypes for bipolar disorder and schizophrenia (In the first part of this review, we considered whether theory of mind impairment could be a trait marker for bipolar disorder across different mood states. Here, the question is could a theory of mind impairment go one step further, and serve as a useful cognitive endophenotype of proneness to psychosis? There are certainly examples of ophrenia , 122, anophrenia . It remaophrenia . Future ophrenia , 123.non-social cognitive remediation may be better suited for bipolar disorder (Despite the uncertain nature of the association of theory of mind impairment across the two affective and non-affective psychoses, given the potential for socio-cognitive deficits to impact on social and occupational function, their comparison remains important, because it may partly explain differences in outcome between the disorders . For thidisorder . Howeverdisorder , level odisorder . It can disorder . So, theThis theoretical review has attempted to synthesize the existing data examining the ability of people with bipolar disorder to deduce the feelings and intentions of other minds via “theory of mind,” and what has been learned from the comparative study vs. the abilities of people with schizophrenia. In drawing the literature together, a number of themes were identified. In part one, these included the generalizability of impairments across different presentations of bipolar disorder, changes in impairment according to the type of theory of mind and the task used for assessment, the influence of cognitive impairment and relationship to illness variables, and the prominent suggestion of a relationship to history of psychotic symptoms. Then in part two, the prominent themes included a smaller theory of mind impairment in patients with bipolar disorder vs. schizophrenia, the relationship to differences in symptoms and cognitive impairments between the disorders, and the likely consequences of the differences in theory of mind impairment for the clinical management of patients with bipolar disorders vs. schizophrenia.Due to many of the complexities discussed during this theoretical review, our understanding of theory of mind impairment in bipolar disorder is not yet complete or consolidated, and further research will be required before our knowledge reaches the advanced state of the literature relating to schizophrenia. However, currently available data suggest the following trends. First, although consistent differences in impairment between the mood states remain elusive, there is convincing evidence that theory of mind is impaired in some way across the mood states, and into the supposedly asymptomatic state of euthymia. It may, therefore, be considered a trait rather than state impairment, i.e., one that is an enduring correlate of bipolar disorder. Given that the structural neuroanatomical abnormalities associated with bipolar disorder include regions crucial for the mediation of theory of mind, e.g., medial prefrontal cortex , this isAlthough this review was wide-ranging, it has highlighted a number of pertinent gaps in the field, and has identified a number of possible future directions. A more comprehensive understanding of theory of mind impairments in bipolar disorder will be of great clinical utility in devising improved psychological or cognitive therapies that assist patients with everyday life skills. While early studies of bipolar disorder have not yet established a clear relationship between these impairments and functional outcome, it is known from other patient populations that impaired theory of mind is a crucial factor underlying poor life skills, poor social cognition, and some aspects of psychosis. Based on this wider evidence set, a phenomenon with this potential impact is deserved of further study. Ultimately, if a lack of relationship between theory of mind impairment and functional outcome was perpetuated by increasingly sophisticated methods, the question of interest then becomes what other factor is protecting patients with bipolar disorder against the potential for theory of mind impairment to compromise functional outcome. As to the question of what should be done about theory of mind impairments in bipolar disorder, by understanding the cognitive mechanisms that underlie theory of mind impairment, reformulations as to how to remediate these skills are facilitated. There is certainly optimism about possible remediation in the literature on theory of mind in bipolar disorder , 35, jusDr. RM conducted the literature review and drafted the manuscript. Prof. AY subsequently provided invaluable comments and direction on that manuscript.The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.