Publications

Cadherins and the immunoglobulin (Ig) proteins give rise to a multitude of surface receptors, which function as diverse cell adhesion molecules (CAMs) or signal-transducing receptors. These functions are often interdependent, and rely on a high degree of specificity in homophilic binding as well as heterophilic interactions. The Drosophila receptor Dscam is an exceptional example of homophilic binding specificity involved in a number of ...

Most of us agree that animals should have a life that is worth living. Most of us agree that animals should be treated good, and consider animals as sentient beings. This is formulated under the EU treaty of Amsterdam and Lisbon; in which we should pay full regard to their welfare requirements. For our moral consideration, an animals capacity to feel (experience) appears more important than its capacity to think (agency). Sentience is therefore ...

Seven human-animal relations (or animal categories) can be distinguished. These can be located in a cartesian plane with two axes, a horizontal axis with the amount of veterinary costs considered reasonable, and a vertical axis with a proxy of how problematic the death of the animal is. The way people relate to animals is a strong predictor of whether animals are given names, numbers, or whether they remain anonymous. In general, animals in the ...

Due to scale enlargement in animal agriculture, farmers face difficulties to adequately attend to the well-being of each of their individual animals. To address these difficulties, much recent animal science research focusses on developing and assessing so-called ‘smart farming’ or ‘Precision Livestock Farming’ (PLF) technologies. These technologies, which principally involve on-farm sensors and data-processing software, are promised to extend ...

Not only meat producing animals are killed in agriculture. Also in the dairy and egg industry enormous numbers of animals are killed, although their deaths are not strictly necessary to produce milk or eggs. These deaths are a side effect of current economic realities and are considered unavoidable collateral damage. We will discuss other cases such as culling during disease control, and euthanasia of aged sports animals and animals in shelters. ...

It is common practice that some or all animals in a group of animals, e. g. a herd, are tested for their health status by using a diagnostic test to investigate whether the herd is infected by a disease. Several obstacles complicate the estimation of herd prevalence on the basis of test results of the animals. First, diagnostic tests are often imperfect, resulting in a misclassification of the animal's disease status. It is well known how to ...

Economic pressures continue to mount on modern-day livestock farmers, forcing them to increase herds sizes in order to be commercially viable. The natural consequence of this is to drive the farmer and the animal further apart. However, closer attention to the animal not only positively impacts animal welfare and health but can also increase the capacity of the farmer to achieve a more sustainable production. State-of-the-art precision livestock ...