Drinking Behavior and Associated Factors among Middle School Students in Shanghai,China

The purpose of our study was to assess drinking status in middle school students and to understand the associated factors. The adjusted drinking rates were 50.9%, 39.8%, and 15.1% for lifetime, past-year, and current drinking, respectively.

Novel tracking method for the drinking behavior trajectory of pigs

Identifying and tracking the drinking behavior of pigs is of great significance for welfare feeding and piggery management. Research on pigs’ drinking behavior not only needs to indicate whether the snout is in contact with the water fountain, but it also needs to establish whether the pig is drinking water and for how long. To solve target loss and identification errors, a novel method for tracking the drinking behavior of pigs based on L-K Pyramid Optical Flow (L-K OPT), Kernelized Correlation Filters (KCF), and DeepLabCut (DLC) was proposed. First, the feature model of the drinking behavior of a sow was established by L-K OPT. In addition, the water flow vector was used to determine whether the animal drank water and to demonstrate the details of the movements. Then, on the basis of the improved KCF, the relocation model of the sow’s snout was established to resolve the problem of tracking loss in the snout. Finally, the tracking model of piglets’ drinking behavior was established by DLC to build the mapping association between the pig’s snout and the drinking fountain. By using 200 episodes of drinking water videos (30-60 s each) to verify the method proposed in this study, the results are explained that 1) according to the two important drinking water indexes, the Down (−135°, −45°) direction feature and the V2 (>10 pixels) speed feature, the drinking time could be accurate to the frame level, with an error within 30 frames;2) The overlapping precision (OP) was 95%, the center location error (CLE) was 3 pixels, and the speed was 300 fps, which were all superior to other traditional algorithms;3) The optimal learning rate was 0.005, and the loss value was 0.0 002. The method proposed in this study realized accurate and automatic monitoring of the drinking behavior of pigs, which could provide reference for other animal behavior monitoring.

Genetic parameters of drinking and feeding traits of wean-to-finish pigs under a polymicrobial natural disease challenge

Background:The pork industry faces unprecedented challenges from disease,which increases cost of production and use of antibiotics,and reduces production efficiency,carcass quality,and animal wellbeing.One solution is to improve the overall resilience of pigs to a broad array of common diseases through genetic selection.Behavioral changes in feeding and drinking are usually the very first clinical signs when animals are exposed to stressors such as disease.Changes in feeding and drinking behaviors in diseased pigs may reflect the way they cope with the challenge and,thus,could be used as indicator traits to select for disease resilience.The objectives of this study were to estimate genetic parameters of feeding and drinking traits for wean-to-finish pigs in a natural polymicrobial disease challenge model,to estimate genetic correlations of feeding and drinking traits with growth rate and clinical disease traits,and to develop indicator traits to select for disease resilience.Results:In general,drinking traits had moderate to high estimates of heritability,especially average daily water dispensed,duration,and number of visits(0.44 to 0.58).Similar estimates were observed for corresponding feeding traits(0.35 to 0.51).Most genetic correlation estimates among drinking traits were moderate to high(0.30 to 0.92)and higher than among feeding traits(0 to 0.11).Compared to other drinking traits,water intake duration and number of visits had relatively stronger negative genetic correlation estimates with treatment rate and mortality,especially across the challenge nursery and finisher(−0.39 and−0.45 for treatment rate;−0.20 and−0.19 for mortality).Conclusion:Most of the recorded drinking and feeding traits under a severe disease challenge had moderate to high estimates of heritability,especially for feed or water intake duration and number of visits.Phenotypic and genetic correlations among the recorded feeding traits under disease were generally low but drinking traits showed high correlations with each other.Water intake duration and number of visits are potential indicator traits to select for disease resilience because of their high heritability and had moderate genetic correlations with treatment and mortality rates under severe disease.

Frequent low dose alcohol intake increases gastric cancer risk: the Health Examinees-Gem (HEXA-G) study

Objective:Epidemiological studies indicate that alcohol increases gastric cancer(GC)risk,yet most studies have focused on heavy alcohol intake,leaving other factors understudied.A comprehensive investigation of the effects of the frequency and amount of alcohol intake may help elucidate the GC risk associated with drinking behavior.Methods:The Health Examinees-Gem(HEXA-G)study,a community-based large-scale prospective cohort study,enrolled Korean adults 40–69 years of age between the years 2004 and 2013.Incident GC cases were identified through linkage to Korea Central Cancer Registry data until December 31,2017.Self-reported questionnaires were used to survey alcohol consumption-related factors(duration,frequency,amount,and type of alcoholic beverages).The frequency and amount of alcohol consumption were combined to explore GC risk according to 4 drinking patterns:“infrequent-light”,“frequent-light”,“infrequent-heavy”,and“frequent-heavy”.We used Cox proportional hazard models to estimate the adjusted hazard ratios(HRs)and 95%confidence intervals(CIs),and investigate the relationship between alcohol intake and GC incidence.Results:A total of 128,218 participants were included in the analysis.During an average follow-up period of 8.6 years,462 men and 385 women were diagnosed with GC.In men,current drinkers showed a 31%greater risk of GC than non-drinkers(HR 1.31,95%CI 1.03–1.66),whereas no significant association was observed in women.In men,GC risk was associated with a higher frequency(P trend 0.02)and dose of ethanol intake in grams(P trend 0.03).In men,the“frequent-light”(≥5 times/week and<40 g ethanol/day)drinking pattern was associated with a 46%greater risk of GC(HR 1.46,95%CI 1.02–2.07)than the“infrequent-light”pattern(<5 times/week and<40 g ethanol/day).Conclusions:This study suggests that frequent intake of alcohol,even in low quantities per session,increases GC risk.Further research is warranted to evaluate the relationship between alcohol and GC in detail.

Npy deletion in an alcohol non-preferring rat model elicits differential effects on alcohol consumption and body weight

Neuropeptide Y（NPY） is widely expressed in the central nervous system and influences many physiological processes.It is located within the rat quantitative trait locus（QTL） for alcohol preference on chromosome 4.Alcohol-nonpreferring（NP） rats consume very little alcohol,but have significantly higher NPY expression in the brain than alcohol-preferring（P） rats.We capitalized on this phenotypic difference by creating an Npy knockout（KO） rat using the inbred NP background to evaluate NPY effects on alcohol consumption.Zinc finger nuclease（ZNF） technology was applied,resulting in a 26-bp deletion in the Npy gene.RT-PCR,Western blotting and immunohistochemistry confirmed the absence of Npy mRNA and protein in KO rats.Alcohol consumption was increased in Npy＋/- but not Npy-/- rats,while Npy-/- rats displayed significantly lower body weight when compared to Npy^（＋/＋） rats.In whole brain tissue,expression levels of Npy-related and other alcohol-associated genes,Npy1 r,Npy2r,Npy5 r,Agrp,Mc3 r,Mc4r,Crh and CrMr,were significantly greater in Npy-/- rats,whereas Pome and Crhr2 expressions were highest in Npy＋/- rats.These findings suggest that the NPY-system works in close coordination with the melanocortin（MC） and corticotropin-releasing hormone（CRH） systems to modulate alcohol intake and body weight.