Validation of a behavioral observation tool to assess pig welfare.

Accurately measuring and monitoring of animal behavior is an important factor when assessing on-farm animal welfare. First we developed a feasible and simple method aiming at consistently on-farm measuring of pig's behavior. This test should cover a broad range of welfare-related pig behavior. The reaction towards a novel object, startling, tail and ear biting, play and aggressive behavior, stereotypies, coughing, sneezing, skin lesions, defecation, urination and cleanliness of body and pen are included. The development of accurate measures of on-farm behavior first requires the reliability assessment of the procedure. Therefore, the methodology was tested in a first part by three observers scoring simultaneously and independently pre-defined behavioral characteristics of 108 group-housed fattening pigs. The inter-observer repeatability of the measures was calculated using intraclass correlation coefficients, which ranged from 0.7 to 1. In a second part, the objective was to validate the behavioral characteristics against salivary cortisol, urinary epinephrine and norepinephrine and production traits. Salivary cortisol concentrations significantly increased in ear-bitten pigs and in pigs with tail lesions. Growth rate significantly dropped when cortisol levels rose. An age effect was also found. The percentage of animals approaching the novel object is positively correlated with the urinary epinephrine concentration. Pigs defecating during the test showed significantly higher epinephrine levels. Urinary norepinephrine concentration decreased significantly with age. Faster growing animals and animals with tail lesions showed significantly higher levels of norepinephrine. Pen dirtiness and number of animals per pen were associated with higher norepinephrine concentrations. Finally, barrows had higher norepinephrine concentrations than sows.

Familial correlates of social anxiety in children and adolescents.

Retrospective studies suggest a relationship between parental rearing practices and social phobia. The present study investigated whether socially anxious children perceive their current parental rearing as rejecting, overprotective, and lacking emotional warmth, and as emphasizing the importance of other's opinion, and de-emphasizing social initiatives and family sociability. Furthermore, we examined whether parents of socially anxious children report to rely on such rearing practices, and suffer themselves from social fears. A regression analysis as well as extreme group comparisons were applied. Little support was found for the presumed role of the assessed family rearing aspects in the development of social anxiety in children. Solely family sociability (children's and mothers' report) and children's perception of overprotection of the mother predicted social anxiety in the regression analysis. Given the influence of the mentioned rearing practices, social anxiety of the mother still significantly predicted social anxiety of the child. In the extreme group comparisons, differences in the expected direction were found between socially anxious and normal children on parental rejection, emotional warmth, and family sociability. However, the lack of differences between socially anxious and clinical control children suggests that these variables do not form a specific pathway to social fears.