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Past research on interspecies communication has shown that animals can be trained to use Augmentative Interspecies Communication (AIC) devices, such as soundboards, to make simple requests of their caretakers. The recent uptake in AIC devices by hundreds of pet owners around the world offers a novel opportunity to investigate whether AIC is possible with owner-trained family dogs. To answer this question, we carried out two studies to test pet dogs ability to recognise and respond appropriately to food-related, play-related, and outside-related words on their soundboards. One study was conducted by researchers, and the other by citizen scientists who followed the same procedure. Further, we investigated whether these behaviours depended on the identity of the person presenting the word (unfamiliar person or dogs owner) and the mode of its presentation (spoken or produced by a pressed button). We find that dogs produced contextually appropriate behaviours for both play-related and outside-related words regardless of the identity of the person producing them and the mode in which they were produced. Therefore, pet dogs can be successfully taught by their owners to associate words recorded onto soundboard buttons to their outcomes in the real world, and they respond appropriately to these words even when they are presented in the absence of any other cues, such as the owners body language.

A fracture is defined as a break in bone or cartilage. High impact experiences or traumatic events are often the cause of acute fractures while an increased load to the bone over time is usually the cause of a stress or fatigue fracture. Stress fractures are the most common type of fracture in military trainees. They are more common in military trainees compared to the general public and have a similar occurrence in athletes. The aim of this systematic review was to identify and evaluate research reporting on modifiable risk factors for fractures in military personnel undergoing training. A systematic search was conducted in the EBSCO, PubMed, and ProQuest databases following the Reporting of Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses guidelines. Methodological quality of the research was determined using the Critical Appraisal Stills Programme toolkit or AXIS approaches depending on the type of research conducted. Of 10,008 identified articles, 20 articles met the inclusion but failed to meet the exclusion criteria. Four main modifiable risk factors for stress fractures in military trainees were identified. These were little to no exercise history such as <7 hours per week or exercise or <7 months of resistance training (11 studies); low BMI of <18.5 (10 studies); poor current fitness test results in 1.5mile run, max push ups and max sit ups (8 studies); and being a current or ex-smoker increased risk (cigarette) (6 studies). To reduce the risk of stress fractures in military trainees', strength and conditioning coaches should design programs to address training history, BMI and low fitness prior to, and during training. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]