Humane

W. Russell, R. L. Burch

R. Hubrecht, Elizabeth Carter

Simple Summary The 3Rs: Replacement, Reduction and Refinement, formulated by William Russell and Rex Burch, have become synonymous with the measures to improve the welfare of animals used in research and are now used as an ethical framework for improving laboratory animal welfare throughout the world. This introduction to a special issue on the 3Rs explains how a non-confrontational and scientific approach led to their development, and briefly summarizes their adoption around the world. Abstract In 1959, the Universities Federation for Animal Welfare (UFAW) Scholars Russell & Burch published the Principles of Humane Experimental Technique in which they laid out the principles of the Three Rs. However, the Three Rs owed much to others. It was UFAW and, in particular, UFAW’s Founder and Director, Major Charles Hume who identified the problem that needed to be tackled, and who developed the non-confrontational approach that was needed to both formulate the questions that needed answers and to obtain the answers from the research community. Russell & Burch’s work was also guided by an expert scientific and technical committee chaired by the Nobel Prize winner Sir Peter Medawar. This essay describes the history of the Three Rs using publications by the protagonists and others as well as material from UFAW’s archives. It describes the background to the employment of Russell & Burch, the methodology of Russell & Burch’s approach and the impact of their work up to the present day—where the Three Rs are incorporated in legislation throughout the world.

S. Talbot, Svenja Biernot, A. Bleich, R. M. van Dijk, Lisa Ernst, Christine Häger, S. Helgers, Babette Koegel, Ines Koska, A. Kuhla, Nina Miljanovic, Franz-Tassilo Müller-Graff, K. Schwabe, R. Tolba, B. Vollmar, N. Weegh, Tjark Wölk, F. Wolf, A. Wree, L. Zieglowski, H. Potschka, D. Zechner

In many animal experiments scientists and local authorities define a body-weight reduction of 20% or more as severe suffering and thereby as a potential parameter for humane endpoint decisions. In this study, we evaluated distinct animal experiments in multiple research facilities, and assessed whether 20% body-weight reduction is a valid humane endpoint criterion in rodents. In most experiments (restraint stress, distinct models for epilepsy, pancreatic resection, liver resection, caloric restrictive feeding and a mouse model for Dravet syndrome) the animals lost less than 20% of their original body weight. In a glioma model, a fast deterioration in body weight of less than 20% was observed as a reliable predictor for clinical deterioration. In contrast, after induction of chronic diabetes or acute colitis some animals lost more than 20% of their body weight without exhibiting major signs of distress. In these two animal models an exclusive application of the 20% weight loss criterion for euthanasia might therefore result in an unnecessary loss of animals. However, we also confirmed that this criterion can be a valid parameter for defining the humane endpoint in other animal models, especially when it is combined with additional criteria for evaluating distress. In conclusion, our findings strongly suggest that experiment and model specific considerations are necessary for the rational integration of the parameter ‘weight loss’ in severity assessment schemes and humane endpoint criteria. A flexible implementation tailored to the experiment or intervention by scientists and authorities is therefore highly recommended.

G. Anggadwita, Léo-Paul Dana, Veland Ramadani, Reza Yanuar Ramadan

PurposeIslamic boarding schools are education institutions that have been developing in Indonesia as places for the Indonesian people to learn and gain knowledge in the perspectives of the Islamic religion and Indonesian nationalism. This study aims to explore the potential of Islamic boarding schools as places to support and to empower the economy and to increase the participation of students in entrepreneurial activities by applying the Humane Entrepreneurship approach. This study identifies the humane entrepreneurship approach by analyzing the humane cycle and the enterprise cycle in the entrepreneurship activities occurring in a single case study of an Islamic boarding school.Design/methodology/approachThis article used a qualitative method with a case study approach through deep exploration and observation. In-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted with the key people in one of the Islamic boarding schools in Indonesia using a purposive sampling technique. Miles and Huberman (1984) technique was used for data analysis by grouping similar text segments into codes and categorizing them for further analysis.FindingsThe findings of this study indicate that the Islamic boarding school has implemented humane entrepreneurship through entrepreneurial-oriented activities as the main aspects of the humane cycle and the enterprise cycle. The implementation of humane entrepreneurship aims to achieve entrepreneurial growth, innovation and independence of the Islamic boarding school, as well as the development of the stakeholder's capabilities, knowledge and commitment. In addition, applying the spiritual approach, which is one of the important components of Islamic boarding schools, has proven to be effective in implementing humane entrepreneurship.Research limitations/implicationsThis study has several limitations. First, this study only focused on one Islamic boarding school in Indonesia. Second, there is still very little research in the field of humane entrepreneurship, so the concept itself is still considered to be relatively new. Therefore, further direction is needed for future research regarding the exploration and identification of any other factors that might influence humane entrepreneurship.Originality/valueThis study provides new insights on the implementation of humane entrepreneurship in Islamic boarding schools. This research covers the gap where the humane entrepreneurial approach can be applied not only in large organizations, but also in religious educational institutions. The spiritual approach and religious values as the principles of Islamic boarding schools have been proven to be effective in implementing humane entrepreneurship.

Mark Dingemanse, Andreas Liesenfeld

Informal social interaction is the primordial home of human language. Linguistically diverse conversational corpora are an important and largely untapped resource for computational linguistics and language technology. Through the efforts of a worldwide language documentation movement, such corpora are increasingly becoming available. We show how interactional data from 63 languages (26 families) harbours insights about turn-taking, timing, sequential structure and social action, with implications for language technology, natural language understanding, and the design of conversational interfaces. Harnessing linguistically diverse conversational corpora will provide the empirical foundations for flexible, localizable, humane language technologies of the future.