Relationships between selected characteristics of Tennessee broiler producers, their production operations and their use of recommended management practices

The purposes of the study were: (1) to characterize Tennessee broiler producers and their farming operations; (2) to identify practices they were using; (3) to study factors influencing practice adoption and (4) to characterize Tennessee broiler contracts in terms of type and content. Extension agents interviewed 123 randomly selected broiler growers in the Fall of 1982, in a state-wide survey. Analysis of variance and Chi-square statistics were used to determine relations between six dependent variables and 30 independent variables. Dependent variables included: mean house capacity; mean years having grown broilers; main source of income; future plans; mean total Extension contacts; and mean percent of total practices used. Independent variables included: 15 recommended management practices and 15 characteristics, including six used as dependent variables plus nine others. Regarding characteristics of broiler growers and their opera-tions, it was found that: (1) mean broiler house capacity was 31,500 birds; (2) growers had produced broilers a mean of nearly 11 years; (3) one-half of the growers gave poultry as a major source of income; (4) almost all growers planned to continue at the same or increased size of operation; (5) most had one or more Extension con-tacts in 1981; (6) nearly all used conventional type of housing and most used a combination of ventilation types; and (7) most used shavings and/or sawdust for litter, and put used litter on land. Highly significant and significant relations included the following: 1. For mean house capacity: poultry as a major source of income; type of ventilation; use of fogger for cooling; type of feeder; water medicator; and three recommended management practices (i.e. check thermostat, add feed to trays, and use milk solution with viral vaccine). 2. For mean years having grown broilers: main source of income; total house capacity; type of feeders; type of waterers; type of litter; and four recommended management practices (i.e. clean waterers daily and between growouts, check house three times daily, mow grass around houses). 3. For main source of income: total house capacity; years grown broilers; total Extension contacts; used foggers for cooling; type of waterers and had water medicators; dead bird disposal; types of litter; use of litter; and use of six recommended management practices (i.e. clean waterers between growouts; check thermostat for accuracy; clean waterers daily; add feed to trays three times daily; check each house three times daily; and use milk solution with viral vaccine. 4. For future plans: type of housing; type of waterers; and keep mortality records. 5. For total Extension contacts: main income source; house capacity; type feeders; growouts on same litter; use of litter; and one recommended practice (i.e. check each house three times daily). 6. For mean percent of total practices used: total house capacity; type housing; use of foggers for cooling; and feeder type. Regarding broiler contracts, it was seen that contractors tended to make most decisions, giving growers improved economic security in return. The economic reward built into the broiler contracts and resulting constant supervision seemed to be the major factor influencing producers to use recommended practices, since growers\u27 payments were based on feed conversion adjusted for mortality and condemnation. Implications and recommendations also were included

Neuro-Identification of Some Commonly Used Volatile Organic Compounds Using Electronic Nose

Electronic nose system comprising of three Figaro sensors (TGS2602, TGS832 and TGS816)  arrayed in a chamber interfaced through  PICO ADC11/10 card to a computer system loaded with artificial neural network (ANN) was used to identify three  volatile organic compounds (Formaldehyde, Acetone and Chloroform). The back propagated ANN had four layers having positive linear, logsigmodal, logsigmidal  and tansigmodal transfer functions  with 10, 20, 20, 1 neurons, respectively. 60% of the acquired data was used for training and 20% each for testing and validation.TGS832 had the highest average sensitivity (1.3639 volts) while TGS816 had the least (0.0420 volts) for formaldehyde with similar trend for chloroform and acetone. Sensors’ sensitivities were significantly different from the control at p < 0.05. Mean square error of 0.0006, 0.0001 and 0.0003(R2:0.996, 0.997 and 0.996) were obtained for the ANN training of formaldehyde, chloroform and acetone respectively. Validation run gave correct identification of the VOCs. Key Words: Sensors, Neurons, Normalization, Electronic nose, Data car

Effects of Shade on Microclimate, Canopy Characteristics and Light Integrals in Dry Season Field-Grown Cocoa (Theobroma cacao L.) Seedlings

Effect of shade regimes on gradients of microclimate, canopy extent (leaf area index: LAI) and light integrals in dry season field-grown cocoa (cacao) seedlings was investigated in a rainforest zone of Nigeria. The shade regimes tested were: unshaded/open-to-sun, dense shade and moderate shade. Shade intensity affected solar radiation transmission through cacao canopy, photosynthetic active radiation (PAR) and canopy light attenuation (extinction coefficient, k). Intensity of transmitted radiation below the canopy from incident radiation was highest for open-to-sun, followed by moderate and dense shade, respectively. The temporal trend of intercepted radiation showed that intercepted radiation increased from December to May, and, the values were highest for open-to-sun, followed by moderate and dense shade. The ratio of transmitted (Io) to incident (I) radiation (IO/I) was higher for open sun. Significant differences were found between open-to-sun (unshaded) and moderate and dense shade intensity for value of canopy extinction coefficient (k). The association of growing degree days (GDD), and, total leaf number (TLN) and leaf area index (LAI), were characterized by high coefficient of determination (R2) for the respective open, dense and moderate shade treatments. Inverse of the slope of the regression of relationship between estimated thermal time (°Cdays) and corresponding total leaf number (TLN) denotes leaf appearance rate (phyllochron, in °Cdays/leaf). Rate of leaf appearance was faster in open sun compared with to that in moderate or dense shade intensity. Characteristics of the cacao canopy development were measured by leaf area index (LAI), a parameter which affects the intercepted photosynthetic active radiation (PAR). Higher LAI was obtained in no shade (open sun) compared to that in moderate or dense shade treatments. Unshaded plants had a higher radiation use efficiency (RUE) and RUE values were significantly higher compared to the other two treatments. Low light intensity and LAI for under-storey cacao had negative implications for growth and biomass development. Air temperatures within the cacao field were highest for open sun cacao, followed by moderate and dense shade, respectively; the values increased from December to April, with peak values seen in April

NDM 1 Gene Carrying Gram negative Bacteria Isolated from Rats Captured from some Poultry Houses in Nigeria

The New Delhi metallo-beta lactamase (NDM-1) bearing pathogens pose serious public health threat because they are usually resistant to virtually other useful antibiotics. Constant monitoring and prompt detection of such pathogens are keys to effective prevention and control of their spread among other animal and human pathogens. In this study, we screened 56 Gram negative bacteria comprising: 3 isolates of Enterobacter ludwigii, 30 Pseudomonas aeruginosa, 22 Proteus mirabilis, and 1 Aeromonas caviae isolated from oral cavity and rectum of rats captured from commercial poultry houses in Ibadan, Oyo State, Nigeria that were resistant to at least three of or all of: ceftazidime, ceftriaxone, amikacin and cefepime at 32μg/mL breakpoint for the presence of bla NDM-1, using PCR assay. The bacteria isolates were identified based on standard bacteriological procedures and by 16S PCR identification method. The isolates were screened to find out the possible role of rats in the dissemination and the public health importance of the species to poultry and ultimately to humans. A total of 5.4% (3/56) of the Gram negative bacteria from rats screened from the studied area carried the NDM-1 gene. The results from this work indicated that rat may serve as agent for disseminating the gene to poultry and human pathogens. Rat control within the poultry houses and human households should be given important consideration to achieve effective prevention and control of spread of these organisms that may be of public health importance.Key words: Rats, poultry, New Delhi metallo-beta lactamase (NDM-1)

Nonconvex Separable Programming Problem for Optimal Raw Material Mix in Flexible Polyurethane Foam Production

Nonconvex Separable Programming (NSP)  for selecting optimal raw material mix for flexible polyurethane foam production (FPFP) was developd. With unit cost function () as objective function;,Density(P1); compression set (P2); elongation(P3); hardness-index(P4) and tensile strength (P5) and other boundary conditions as constraints, an NSP foam raw material mix problem was defined and solved. Twelve existing formulation were used for validation .The cost and physical properties were determined and compared to the existing products using t-test. The optimal raw material mix 1.00, 0.4366, 0.0398, 0.0066, 0.0115, 0.0026, 0.0046 kg of polyol, toluene-di-isocynate, water, amine, silicone-oil, stannous-octoate and methylene-chloride respectively, were significantly different from  the existing formulations. The validated values of P1, P2, P3, P4, P5 from optimally formulated foams were 23.83kgm-3, 8.6%, 159.35%, 143.19N, and 117.33kNm-2, respectively and conformed to standard. The associated costs per metric tonne of the optimal mixes were lower than that of existing mixes.   Keywords: Polyurethane foam, Optimal-mix, Separable  programming , nonconvex, elongation

Effect of Job Status, Gender, and Employees’ Achievement Motivation Behavior on Work Performance: a Case Study of Selected Local Government Employees in Ekiti State, Nigeria

This study investigated the effect of job status, gender, and employees’ achievement motivation behavior on work performance. Two hundred and seven (207) local government employees’ opinions were sampled using the achievement motivation questionnaire and the perceived work performance questionnaire. Seven hypotheses were developed and tested using 2 x 2 x 3 Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) statistics. Results confirmed that job status [F (2,206) =5.05, p05]. A significant interaction effect of gender and job status; gender and level of achievement motivation behavior; and job status and level of achievement motivation behavior were also found on work performance. However, there was no significant interaction effect that existed between gender, job status, and the level of achievement motivation behavior on work performance [F(2,206)=.217, p>.05]. Findings were discussed in the light of available literature and it is recommended that efforts should be made to discourage discriminative behavior among sexes while also closing gaps in level managers’ hierarchies and categorizations. This is particularly in terms of derivable incentives, benefits, and pay on their jobs to have a significant impact on the work performance of employees

Growth Response and Feed Utilization of Clarias gariepinus Fingerlings Fed with Bambara Groundnut as protein source

A 56-day feeding trial was conducted to evaluate the use of Bambara groundnut as plant protein to replace Fish meal (FM) dietary animal protein in Clarias gariepinus. A diet with 100% FM (control diet A) as sole protein source was compared to diets with 25%, 50%, 75% and 100% of Bambara Groundnut Meal (BGM) replacement for diets B, C, D and E respectively. The experimental feeds were fed to replicate groups of fingerlings at 5% body weight twice daily. The effect of varied inclusion of BGM was evaluated on the growth performance and feed utilization by the experimental fish species. At the end of the study, the highest percentage weight gain (188.30±25.56), specific growth rate (0.82±0.69) and utilization of feed conversion rate (9.75±1.26) were recorded with fish fed the diet D. The result showed that growth performance and feed utilization were  better in 75% BGM inclusion than 100% FM, although there was no significant difference (P<0.05) between fish fed diets A, B, C and D. The findings showed that bambara groundnut meal was accepted and digested by the experimental fish as the conventional fish meal. Conclusively, substitution of FM with 75%, 25% and 50% BGM did not compromise growth performance and feed utilization by the fish. However, maximum recommended levels of fish meal replacement by Bambara groundnut meal in diets for Clarias gariepinus can be established at 25%- 75% total protein. Keywords: Growth response, Feed utilization, Bambara groundnut, Clarias gariepinu

Experimental investigation of hydrodynamic slug mitigation potential of an intermittent absorber

The need to handle hydrodynamic slugs in a more efficient way becomes important as oil and gas activities shift deep offshore. This study describes the use of a vessel coupled to the pipeline-riser system upstream of the first stage separator for hydrodynamic slug attenuation. The experiments were carried out in a 2″ pipeline-riser system which comprises of a 40 m long horizontal pipe connected to a 11 m high vertical riser followed by a 3 m horizontal topside section. Air and water were used as experimental fluids. Bifurcation maps and slug attenuation index (SAI) have been used to quantify increase in oil production and the slug attenuation potential of this concept. The device was observed to reduce the pressure fluctuations characterising hydrodynamic slug flow up to 22%. The device also provides additional benefits of stabilising the flow at higher valve opening (choke setting) and lower pressure compared to traditional choking. This in practice translates to increase in oil production. Special case of hydrodynamic slugs which exhibit overchoking induced slugging (OIS) was also observed to be relatively attenuated by the introduction of the absorber

Soft Computing Approaches to Stock Forecasting: A Survey

Soft computing techniques has been effectively applied in business, engineering, medical domain to solve problems in the past decade. However, this paper focuses on censoring the application of soft computing techniques for stock market prediction in the last decade (2010 - todate). Over a hundred published articles on stock price prediction were reviewed. The survey is done by grouping these published articles into: the stock market surveyed, input variable choices, summary of modelling technique applied, comparative studies, and summary of performance measures. This survey aptly shows that soft computing techniques are widely used and it has demonstrated widely acceptability to accurately use for predicting stock price and stock index behavior worldwide