University of Winchester

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.3389/fvets.2025.1719226.].

While animal-derived ingredients continue to dominate pet food, mounting animal welfare and environmental pressures are starting to reshape the market-opening the door to plant-based and cultivated meat alternatives for dogs and cats. This study assessed the effective altruism case for more sustainable pet food options, using the scale, neglectedness, and tractability framework, and found strong alignment across all three dimensions. By 2018, at least 9% of farmed land animals were fed to companion dogs and cats globally, with more consumed by average dogs (13) than by average people (9) annually. A global transition to nutritionally sound vegan pet diets could spare seven billion farmed land animals and many billions of marine animals from slaughter and could feed 519 million additional people using food energy savings. Such a transition for dogs alone could eliminate 1.5 times the quantity of greenhouse gases produced annually by the UK and free up land larger than Mexico. Yet, sustainable pet food is a highly neglected issue in terms of funding, time, and talent. The issue appears tractable; 13-18% of dog and cat guardians would consider vegan pet diets if their concerns about them were addressed. Assuming only one dog or cat per guardian, at least 70 million dogs and 86 million cats worldwide could potentially be transitioned to vegan diets, with the true figures probably several times higher. Sustainable pet diets, therefore, represent a highly impactful yet overlooked opportunity to reduce farmed animal consumption, mitigate associated environmental impacts, and improve food security.

Purpose This paper outlines the approach of critical participatory action research (CPAR) and the extended case method (ECM) within an applied research context. The context for the research example explored is set within employee ownership. Design/methodology/approach CPAR is at the heart of this paper. The ECM is applied to underpin the approaches adopted. The approach to managing data is qualitative. Findings A journey of originality is presented within this paper, which focuses upon CPAR and ECM to provide a unique and alternative methodological thinking crucial for pushing the boundaries of research approaches in organisations. Originality/value Researchers can be encouraged by the stance adopted in the methodological positioning in combination with the participatory data approach and the action research methods underpinning the whole project, affording learning from the experience of complexity and difficulties encountered and shared. It is hoped that this approach will allow other such kindred forms of research to be developed.

The advanced manufacturing sector offers myriad career pathways, but students are often unaware of or underprepared for the workforce. A lowcost, open-source CNC milling machine affords K-14 schools with the opportunity to incorporate engineering, computer-aided design, and manufacturing into the classroom and provide students with hands-on experience and real-world skills. This paper describes the design and purpose of a low-cost CNC milling machine created by the U.S. National Science Foundation Hybrid Autonomous Manufacturing Moving from Evolution to Revolution Engineering Research Center. External K-14 educators then built and evaluated the machine to determine its feasibility to be used in classroom settings. Preliminary findings suggest that the low-cost CNC machine is a strong addition to K-14 instruction and helps prepare students for manufacturing career pathways.

The early life microbiome of an individual is a critical factor for long term health conditions, yet the influence of various feeding modes on microbial transmission patterns remains as a complex area for study. This study presents a secondary analysis of publicly available infant microbiome data, while proposing a novel quantitative ‘microbial seeding score’ to evaluate the direction and magnitude of earlylife microbiome colonization across feeding modes. Using genus-level microbiome data from a total of 67 infants obtained from HE_INFANTS_MFGM_2019 dataset, a microbial seeding score (S) was calculated to examine maternally associated taxa (Bacteroides, Bifidobacterium) with environmentally associated taxa (Enterococcus, Staphylococcus, Streptococcus, Klebsiella). Infants were grouped into breast milk (n=16), experimental infant formula (n=25), and standard infant formula (n=26) by feeding mode. Breast milk-fed infants indicated the highest mean seeding score (S = 0.391 ± 0.319), and experimental formulafed infants showed the intermediate mean seeding score (S = 0.352 ± 0.352). Standard formula-fed infants exhibited the lowest mean seeding score (S= 0.301 ± 0.309). Differences were not statistically significant (one-way ANOVA, p=0.676). However, there was a consistent decreasing trend in seeding scores observed across feeding modes. The main contribution of this work is methodological for introducing a simplified quantitative metric instead of reporting new empirical microbiome measurements. These findings suggest that the proposed seeding score in this study may capture exploratory patterns of variation in early microbial colonization, although differences were not statistically significant.

Abstract Constitutional transplants—the transference or borrowing of constitutional ideas, principles, and provisions between states—play an important role in the development of constitutions. That has certainly been the case in the development of Israeli constitution, helped by its unwritten nature, in which substantive constitutional law is created and amended by both judges and legislators. The chapter shows that judicial transplants played a crucial role in determining the constitutional status of the Basic Laws. Recently, an embryonic transplant of the unconstitutional amendment doctrine in relation to Basic Laws has gained ground in Israeli law, but the chapter shows that the idea that there is an unamendable core of the constitution has deep roots in Israeli law. The chapter then argues that the transplant of religious law into a state legal system should also be considered and analyzed as a type of constitutional transplantation. The chapter lastly argues and shows that recent proposals for constitutional amendments in Israel are an example of misleading transplants. The analysis offers a perspective relevant also for comparative analysis of other constitutions. It shows that constitutional transplantations can be judge-made, can even be unintentional, and can be the sum of actions by lawyers, judges, and legislators. Transplant by judges is no different from a transplant by legislators and no less legitimate. Judges must determine the constitutional questions which arise before them. Judicial borrowing of principles of democratic states is a legitimate tool among others in the judicial resolution of constitutional questions.

This chapter sets the tone for the rest of the book, introducing the dog and caregiver demographic in the UK as well as highlighting some of the problems facing them. In particular, the expectations of dog ownership versus the reality are explored alongside the strict regulations we place upon our dogs as a result.