Biosecurity Perspectives of Competition Organizers in Ontario, Canada
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Background: Biosecurity plays an important role in the prevention and control of infectious disease outbreaks in the equine population. With competition organizers responsible for upholding biosecurity requirements at competitions, it is important to understand the biosecurity landscape at these locations where Ontario horses commonly travel and interact in large group settings. Group settings are one of the risk factors for pathogen exposure. Objectives: The objective of this study was to develop an understanding of the perspectives, challenges and experiences of competition organizers of both sanctioned and unsanctioned events in Ontario, Canada regarding implementing equine biosecurity at competitions. Study Design: This study used a qualitative research approach in order to be able to best gather data regarding the lived experiences of competition organizers. Methods: Semi-structured, individual interviews were conducted virtually with 10 Ontario competition organizers in English disciplines (Eventing, Dressage, Hunter/Jumper). A reflexive thematic analysis using an inductive approach was used to analyze the interview data. Results: Interviews resulted in two major themes: (i) biosecurity at competitions is a balancing act among other important considerations and (ii) there is a disconnect between groups that play key roles in biosecurity at competitions. Main Limitations: The recruitment process also allowed for the possibility of introducing self-selection bias where some of the participants may have an existing interest in biosecurity, which may not be representative of all competition organizers. Individual interviews as well as the design of the interview guide also helped to mitigate the potential for social desirability bias. Conclusions: Biosecurity at equestrian competitions is a multifaceted issue that requires stakeholder input and buy-in to be successful. However, there is an overall willingness from competition organizers to work towards finding a path forward to improving biosecurity and maintaining equine health and welfare at competitions.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.002 | 0.003 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.023 | 0.007 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.004 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.002 | 0.003 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.007 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".