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The meat industry has received great attention in Mongolia, having over 70 million livestock, and is important to the nation’s economy. Systematic microbiological testing of carcasses has not been mandatorily regulated in all abattoir premises, and the efficacy of the introduction of the Good Hygiene Practice and Hazard Analysis Critical Control Points (HACCP) to some plants has not yet been tested microbiologically in Mongolia. Therefore, samples were collected from two establishments: plant A with an HACCP certificate from a third party and plant B without an HACCP certificate. The rates and levels of the total bacterial count (TBC) as overall hygiene indicators, the Enterobacteriaceae count (EBC) as fecal contamination indicators, and the Staphylococcus spp. count (SC) as personal hygiene indicators were determined on different parts of beef carcasses. The contamination rates in most parts were lower in plant A than in plant B (e.g., TBC in the rump and flank: 103–105 and 105–107, in plant A vs. 104–106 and 105–108 in plant B, respectively). Plant A also had a lower EBC and SC (p < 0.001). Furthermore, 2 out of 100 beef carcasses (2%) were positive for enterohemorrhagic Escherichia coli as a foodborne pathogen indicator in plant A.

Galicia is the Spanish region most affected by wildfires, and these wildfire patterns are the object of intense research. However, within Galicia, the mountain areas have certain socioeconomic and ecological characteristics that differentiate them from the rest of the region and have thus far not received any specific research attention. This paper proposes an analysis of the spatial wildfire patterns in the core Galician mountain systems in terms of the frequency, ratio of affected area, suppression time, and extension. The contiguity relations of these variables were examined in order to establish neighbour interactions and identify local concentrations of wildfire incidences. Furthermore, a spatial econometric model is proposed for these dependent variables in terms of a set of land cover (coniferous, transitional woodland–shrub) and land use (agricultural, industrial), complemented by population density, ecological protection, and common lands. The relevance of these parameters was studied, and it was found amongst other results, that economic value (agricultural and/or industrial) mitigates wildfire risk and impact, whereas ecological protection does not. In terms of land cover, conifers reduce the frequency and affected area of wildfires, whereas transitional land has a mixed effect, mitigating suppression time and extension but increasing the wildfire frequency. Suggestions for policy improvements are given based on these results, with a particular emphasis on the need for coordination of local policies in order to take into account the neighbour dependencies of wildfire risk and impact.

This study aimed to prove that deep learning can be effectively used for identifying various equine facial expressions as welfare indicators. In this study, a total of 749 horses (healthy: 586 and experiencing pain: 163) were investigated. Moreover, a model for recognizing facial expressions based on images and their classification into four categories, i.e., resting horses (RH), horses with pain (HP), horses immediately after exercise (HE), and horseshoeing horses (HH), was developed. The normalization of equine facial posture revealed that the profile (99.45%) had higher accuracy than the front (97.59%). The eyes–nose–ears detection model achieved an accuracy of 98.75% in training, 81.44% in validation, and 88.1% in testing, with an average accuracy of 89.43%. Overall, the average classification accuracy was high; however, the accuracy of pain classification was low. These results imply that various facial expressions in addition to pain may exist in horses depending on the situation, degree of pain, and type of pain experienced by horses. Furthermore, automatic pain and stress recognition would greatly enhance the identification of pain and other emotional states, thereby improving the quality of equine welfare.

Wildfires in Galicia have various temporal and spatial trends. This temporal and spatial behavior must therefore be studied and taken into account in order to design more efficient forest policies. Since both factors are inhomogeneous, it was proposed to study them using a Gini index decomposition. The number of fires and the affected forest area were studied in terms of the months and the forest districts, which serve as basic temporal and spatial elements. The objective of this methodology is to know the months in which the fires are most concentrated throughout the administrative geographical districts of the various provinces of Galicia, and the elasticity of each month with respect to the global concentration. It is also used to know the temporal inequality in each forest district of Galicia and its contribution to the global index. To apply this methodology, monthly data are taken from 2006 to 2015 for each of the Galician forest districts. It is found that there is a high spatial concentration of fires in the autumn and winter months, and a much lower one in the remaining months. On the other hand, most districts register a great temporal inequality in the occurrence of fires. Tentative suggestions of how the forest policy in Galicia could be improved by taking into account both these spatial and temporal patterns are discussed.

The current debate about a possible change of paradigm from a single universe to a multiverse scenario could have deep implications on our view of cosmology and of science in general. These implications therefore deserve to be analyzed from a fundamental conceptual level. We briefly review the different multiverse ideas, both historically and within contemporary physics. We then discuss several positions within philosophy of science with regard to scientific progress, and apply these to the multiverse debate. Finally, we construct some key concepts for a physical multiverse scenario and discuss the challenges this scenario has to deal with in order to provide a solid, testable theory.

Clostridium (C.) perfringens was isolated from 25 (11.1%) of 225 sampled horses and from 16 (35.56%) of 45 farms. All of the samples were negative for cpe, etx, itx, NetF genes and cpa gene were detected in 100% (25 of 25) of the samples that were positive for C. perfringens. cpb and cpb2 were detected in 40.0% (10 of 25) and 60.0% (15 of 25) of the samples that were positive for C. perfringens, respectively. Of the 25 C. perfringens isolates, 15 (60%) were type A and 10 (40%) were type C. Type C was observed on all the farms where the foals’ deaths occurred. None of the isolates were positive for type B, type D, or type E. The MIC Evaluator strips antimicrobial susceptibility test showed meropenem (96%), ampicillin (92%), amoxicillin/clavulanic acid (84%), and tetracycline (8%) sensitivity.