Carcass yield and edible component parts of ostriches raised under an intensive system in Malaysia (Hasil karkas dan bahagian yang boleh dimakan daripada burung unta yang dipelihara dalam sistem intensif di Malaysia)

Abstrak Burung unta dari baka African Black telah dinilai dari segi hasil karkas dan bahagian-bahagian yang boleh dimakan. Ternakan ini dipelihara dalam sistem pemeliharaan intensif dan disembelih pada umur 11-14 bulan. Berat badan seekor ternakan hidup 88.2-90.7 kg manakala berat karkas tanpa bahagian dalaman 53-57% daripada berat hidup. Paha, drumstik dan belakang ialah bahagian utama yang membekalkan daging dan menyumbangkan 29.5-31.4 kg daging seekor, iaitu 33.1-34.7% daripada berat hidup. Bahagian leher yang biasanya tidak diasingkan daging dengan tulangnya, menyumbang 2.0-2.4% daripada berat badan. Bahagian dalaman yang boleh dimakan termasuk hati, jantung, tembolok kosong, buah pinggang dan hempedal; kesemuanya menyumbang 5.3-5.8% daripada berat hidup. Perbezaan antara jantina dalam hasil karkas dan bahagian yang boleh dimakan adalah kecil, tidak konsisten dan juga tidak nyata secara statistik. Abstract African Black ostriches raised under an intensive system were evaluated for carcass yield and edible component parts at slaughter ages of 11-14 months. The ostriches weighed 88.2-90.7 kg/bird and yielded eviscerated carcasses in the order of 53-57% of live weight. The thigh, drumstick and back were the main meat-yielding parts, providing 29.5-31.4 kg meat/bird which accounted for 33.1-34.7% of live weight. The neck which is usually not deboned, contributed 2.0-2.4% of live weight. The edible offal including the liver, heart, empty gizzard, kidney and spleen accounted for 5.3-5.8% of live weight. Between sexes, differences in yields of carcass and other edible component parts were small, inconsistent and not significant

Evaluation on the effects of sex on growth and carcass characteristics of broilers.

Abstract Three experiments were carried out to determine the quantitative effects of sex on growth and carcass characteristics of Arbor Acre broiler chicken strain. In experiment I, birds were raised in straight-run groups while birds in sexsegregated groups were employed in experiment II. Individually-raised birds were investigated in experiment III. In terms of the various properties of growth performance studied, males were generally superior to females whether raised in mixed or sex-segregated groups or individually. Superiority in body weight, feed intake and feed conversion ratio ranged between 5.8-22%, 3.4-12.2% and 1.3-14.6%, respectively, over the ages of 22-46 days. At all ages under study, males were superior to females in body weight and feed intake. There was a trend of increased superiority with increasing age for body weight and feed conversion ratio. Differences in mortality rate and percentage of carcass yield between sexes were small and not significant while female birds showed indications of higher abdominal fat content than males, particularly at a young age of 22 days

Students’ Performance Prediction in Higher Education Using Multi-Agent Framework-Based Distributed Data Mining Approach: A Review

An effective educational program warrants the inclusion of an innovative construction that enhances the higher education efficacy in such a way that accelerates the achievement of desired results and reduces the risk of failures. Educational decision support system has currently been a hot topic in educational systems, facilitating the pupil result monitoring and evaluation to be performed during their development. In this literature survey, the authors have discussed the importance of multi-agent systems and comparative machine learning approaches in EDSS development. They explored the relationship between machine learning and multiagent intelligent systems in literature to conclude their effectiveness in student performance prediction paradigm. They used the PRISMA model for the literature review process. They finalized 18 articles published between 2014-2022 for the survey that match the research objectives

A review on data stream classification

At this present time, the significance of data streams cannot be denied as many researchers have placed their focus on the research areas of databases, statistics, and computer science. In fact, data streams refer to some data points sequences that are found in order with the potential to be non-binding, which is generated from the process of generating information in a manner that is not stationary. As such the typical tasks of searching data have been linked to streams of data that are inclusive of clustering, classification, and repeated mining of pattern. This paper presents several data stream clustering approaches, which are based on density, besides attempting to comprehend the function of the related algorithms; both semi-supervised and active learning, along with reviews of a number of recent studies

Smart Cane: Assistive Cane for Visually-impaired People

This paper reports on a study that helps visually-impaired people to walk more confidently. The study hypothesizes that a smart cane that alerts visually-impaired people over obstacles in front could help them in walking with less accident. The aim of the paper is to address the development work of a cane that could communicate with the users through voice alert and vibration, which is named Smart Cane. T he development work involves coding and physical installation. A series of tests have been carried out on the smart cane and the results are discussed. This study found that the Smart Cane functions well as intended, in alerting users about the obstacles in frontComment: 6 page

Swarm Intelligence Optimization Algorithms: A Review

Swarm Intelligence, of late, has gradually become an exciting area of research interest to many researchers in science and engineering. The primary reason for this interest is because swarm intelligence exploits the miraculous cum harmonious working of nature in ensuring order, preservation, conservation, longevity and sustenance of plants and animals in the ecosystem. As a result, researchers that believe that mimicking nature is key to solving diverse problems in engineering, technology and science has developed a number of swarm intelligence techniques. This paper presents a review of some recently developed swarm intelligence algorithms that have been successfully applied to solve a number of optimization problems with special emphasis on their application areas, strengths and observable weaknesses. This study aims to assist researchers in their choice of algorithm to solve optimization problems

A systematic review on prevention of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus infection by pre-admission screening: the cost effectiveness and practicality

Background: Methicillin Resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) is a common source of nosocomial infection, which is spreading through the community and hospitals across the countries. The performance of screening program really needs major effort related to laboratory capacity and ethical consideration, among other costly components. Significant literature research was conducted to review the cost, effectiveness and practicality of different methods of pre-admission MRSA screening in the hospital setting. A systematic literature review was conducted with search strategy using the PubMed Medline, Scopus and the Science Direct databases. The relevant data was abstracted from all studies based on various countries which in line with the finalized eligibility criteria. Results: PCR method was reported to have high sensitivity with low turnaround time as compared to culture method. A review of selected studies found the increasing annual costs of screening from standard culture, chromogenic agar to rapid PCR. In the meantime, other studies reported the total costs for labor and materials was lower for rapid PCR screening compared to culture methods. The culturing method offers a high level of variability due to time consumption and additional costs. Whereas PCR was reported as advantageous in term of saving time to identify MRSA positive patients, which involved isolation, thus increase the effectiveness of screening programs. It can pick up false negative results by conventional methods in the early condition of disease. Conclusion: Most studies verified that PCR is the most accurate method for detection of MRSA with Xpert MRSA having the best performance. Otherwise, oxacillin agar screen was revealed as a good alternative method to PCR. Targeted screening on high risk patients using rapid PCR may be the best choice to be implemented, in order to balance the economic and practicality of screening. We recommend that further clinical studies should be done to provide a sharp evidence of MRSA screening

The preferable test documentation using IEEE 829

During software development, testing is one of the processes to find errors and aimed at evaluating a program meets its required results. In testing phase there are several testing activity involve user acceptance test, test procedure and others. If there is no documentation involve in testing the phase the difficulty happen during test with no solution. It because no reference they can refer to overcome the same problem. IEEE 829 is one of the standard to conformance the address requirements. In this standard has several documentation provided during testing including during preparing test, running the test and completion test. In this paper we used this standard as guideline to analyze which documentation our companies prefer the most. From our analytical study, most company in Malaysia they prepare document for Test Plan and Test Summary

African buffalo optimization algorithm based t-way test suite generation strategy for electronic-payment transactions

The use of meta-heuristics in Combinatorial Interaction Testing (CIT) is becoming more and more popular due to their effectiveness and efficiency over the traditional methods especially in authenticating electronic payment (e�payment) transactions. Concomitantly, over the past two decades, there has been a rise both in the development of metaheuristics and their application to diverse theoretical and practical areas including CIT in e-payments. In the implementa�tion of t-way strategies (the t is used to represent the interaction strength), mixed results have been reported; some very exciting but, in other cases, the perfor�mance of metaheuristics has been, to say the least, below par. This mixed trend has led many researchers to explore alternate ways of improving the effectiveness and efficiency of metaheuristics in CIT, hence this study. It must be emphasized, however, that available literature indicates that no particular metaheuristic testing strategy has had consistent superior performance over the others in diverse testing environments and configurations. The need for effectiveness, therefore, necessi�tates the need for algorithm hybridization to deploy only the component parts of algorithms that have been proven to enhance overall search capabilities while at the same time eliminating the demerits of particular algorithms in the hybridiza�tion procedure. In this paper, therefore, a hybrid variant of the African Buffalo Optimization (ABO) algorithm is proposed for CIT. Four hybrid variants of the ABO are proposed through a deliberate improvement of the ABO with four algo�rithmic components. Experimental procedures indicate that the hybridization of the ABO with these algorithmic components led to faster convergence and greater effectiveness superior to the outcomes of existing techniques, thereby placing the algorithm among the best when compared with other methods/techniques