1 Abstract Since the industrial revolution, standardization has become a hybrid of technical design and political processes with major impact on markets, social welfare and economic activity. Standards are increasingly developed outside government regulatory venues in consortia and other forms of voluntary consensus bodies involving collaboration among private sector competitors, suppliers, cus...

Since the industrial revolution ushered in the economic benefits of similarity, standardization has become a hybrid of technical design and political processes with major impact on markets, social welfare, and economic activity. Standards increasingly develop outside government regulatory venues in consortia and other forms of voluntary consensus bodies involving collaboration among private sec...

The objective of the present study was to document current commercial practices during long haul transport (≥400 km) of cattle in Alberta through surveys delivered to truck drivers (6,152 journeys that transported 290,362 animals). The live beef export industry to the United States (89% of all journeys) had a large influence on long haul transport. This was particularly true for fat cattle goin...

Human beings with diminished decision-making capacities are usually thought to require greater protections from the potential harms of research than fully autonomous persons. Animal subjects of research receive lesser protections than any human beings regardless of decision-making capacity. Paradoxically, however, it is precisely animals' lack of some characteristic human capacities that is com...

Human beings may affect the welfare of fish through fisheries, aquaculture and a number of other activities. There is no agreement on just how to weigh the concern for welfare of fish against the human interests involved, but ethical frameworks exist that suggest how this might be approached. Different definitions of animal welfare focus on an animal’s condition, on its subjective experience of...

Human-cooperative robots (HCRs) are expected to benefit various industries, and many studies related to physical human-robot interactions have been conducted (Moore et al., 2003; Kim et al., 2005; Tsuji et & Tanaka, 2005); some HCRs have been gradually introduced in manufacturing and welfare fields. For instance, power-assist systems in manufacturing assist workers in carrying heavy modular par...

Past climatic changes were caused by a slowdown of the thermohaline circulation. We use results from experiments with three climate models to show that the expected cooling due to a slowdown of the thermohaline circulation is less in magnitude than the expected warming due to increasing greenhouse gas concentrations. The integrated assessment model FUND and a meta-analysis of climate impacts ar...

OBJECTIVES To aid public health policy in preventing severe social exclusion (like homelessness) and promoting social inclusion (like labour market participation), we aimed to quantify (unmet) health needs of an expectedly vulnerable population on which little was known about: single male welfare recipients (SIM-welfare). One of the main policy questions was: is there need to promote access to ...

In debates about the welfare of animals, different people have tended to emphasize different concerns. Some emphasize the basic health and functioning of animals, especially freedom from disease and injury. Others emphasize the "affective states" of animals – states like pain, distress and pleasure that are experienced as positive or negative. Others emphasize the ability of animals to live rea...