The behaviour of commercial broilers in response to a mobile robot

1. Modern broiler production, in increasingly large sheds holding upwards of 50.000 birds, controls indoor climate based on a handful of fixed location sensors, often well above the bird occupied zone. Significant deviations within a shed from the optimal climate conditions for the birds are common, but installing a higher density grid of fixed sensors is not cost effective. A robotic platform, moving through the flock of birds, collecting detailed spacial information on a wide range of climate parameters at bird level, will enable accurate decisions to optimise the climate in large sheds being made in real time. 2. A preliminary study investigated the feasibility of running a mobile robotic platform among a flock of broiler chickens for an entire 6-week cycle. Bird behaviour in response to the robot was also studied

Real-time modelling of indoor particulate matter concentration in poultry houses using broiler activity and ventilation rate

Measuring particulate matter concentration in poultry houses remains as a difficult task, primarily because aerosol analysers are expensive, require specialist knowledge to operate and are labour intensive to maintain. However, it is well known that high concentrations of particulate matter causes health and welfare problems with livestock, farm workers and people living in the vicinity of the farm premises. In this work, a data-based mechanistic model is developed to relate broiler activity and ventilation rate with indoor particulate matter concentration. For six complete growing cycles, in a U.K. commercial poultry farm, broiler activity was monitored using a camera-based flock monitoring system (eYeNamic®) and ventilation rate was measured. Indoor particulate matter concentration was continuously monitored by measuring size-segregated mass fraction concentrations with the aerosol analyser DustTrakTM. A discrete-time multi-input single-output time-invariant parameters Transfer Function model was developed to determine the particulate dynamics within each day of the growing cycle in the poultry house using broiler activity and ventilation rate as inputs. This model monitored indoor particulate matter concentration with an average accuracy of RT2=(51±26)%. A dynamic linear regression modelling with time-variant parameters improved average accuracy with RT2=(97.7±1.3)%. It forecasted one sample-ahead the indoor particulate matter concentration level, using a time window of 14 samples, with a mean relative prediction error, MRPE=(4.6±3.2)%. Thus, dynamic modelling with time-variant parameters has the potential to be part of a control system to manage in real-time indoor particulate matter concentration in broiler houses.status: publishe

Effect of transportation duration of 1-day-old chicks on postplacement production performances and pododermatitis of broilers up to slaughter age

This experiment studied the effect of transportation duration of 1-d-old chicks on dehydration, mortality, production performance, and pododermatitis during the growout period. Eggs from the same breeder flock (Ross PM3) were collected at 35, 45, and 56 wk of age, for 3 successive identical experiments. In each experiment, newly hatched chicks received 1 of 3 transportation duration treatments from the hatchery before placement in the on-site rearing facility: no transportation corresponding to direct placement in less than 5 min (T00), or 4 (T04) or 10 h (T10) of transportation. The chicks were housed in 35-m2 pens (650 birds each) and reared until 35 d old. Hematocrit and chick BW were measured on sample chicks before and after transportation. During the growout period, bird weight, feed uptake, and feed conversion ratio were measured weekly until slaughter. Transportation duration affected BW; T00 groups had a significantly higher BW than T04 and T10 transported birds but this effect lasted only until d 21. No clear effect on hematocrit, feed uptake, feed conversion ratio, or mortality was observed for birds transported up to 10 h. The decrease in weight in T10 birds was associated with less severe pododermatitis. Increasing age of the breeder flock was correlated with reduced egg fertility and hatchability, and also with higher quality and BW of hatched chicks. Chicks from older breeders also exhibited reduced mortality during the growout period

Lentiviral gene therapy with IGF2-tagged GAA normalizes the skeletal muscle proteome in murine Pompe disease

Pompe disease is a lysosomal storage disorder caused by deficiency of acid alpha-glucosidase (GAA), resulting in glycogen accumulation with profound pathology in skeletal muscle. We recently developed an optimized form of lentiviral gene therapy for Pompe disease in which a codon-optimized version of the GAA transgene (LV-GAAco) was fused to an insulin-like growth factor 2 (IGF2) peptide (LV-IGF2.GAAco), to promote cellular uptake via the cation-independent mannose-6-phosphate/IGF2 receptor. Lentiviral gene therapy with LV-IGF2.GAAco showed superior efficacy in heart, skeletal muscle, and brain of Gaa−/− mice compared to gene therapy with untagged LV-GAAco. Here, we used quantitative mass spectrometry using TMT labeling to analyze the muscle proteome and the response to gene therapy in Gaa−/− mice. We found that muscle of Gaa−/− mice displayed altered levels of proteins including those with functions in the CLEAR signaling pathway, autophagy, cytoplasmic glycogen metabolism, calcium homeostasis, redox signaling, mitochondrial function, fatty acid transport, muscle contraction, cytoskeletal organization, phagosome maturation, and inflammation. Gene therapy with LV-GAAco resulted in partial correction of the muscle proteome, while gene therapy with LV-IGF2.GAAco resulted in a near-complete restoration to wild type levels without inducing extra proteomic changes, supporting clinical development of lentiviral gene therapy for Pompe disease. Significance: Lysosomal glycogen accumulation is the primary cause of Pompe disease, and leads to a cascade of pathological events in cardiac and skeletal muscle and in the central nervous system. In this study, we identified the proteomic changes that are caused by Pompe disease in skeletal muscle of a mouse model. We showed that lentiviral gene therapy with LV-IGF2.GAAco nearly completely corrects disease-associated proteomic changes. This study supports the future clinical development of lentiviral gene therapy with LV-IGF2.GAAco as a new treatment option for Pompe disease.</p

Bicaudal D2, Dynein, and Kinesin-1 Associate with Nuclear Pore Complexes and Regulate Centrosome and Nuclear Positioning during Mitotic Entry

Mammalian Bicaudal D2 is the missing molecular link between cytoplasmic motor proteins and the nucleus during nuclear positioning prior to the onset of mitosis

Determination of nitrogen dioxide, sulfur dioxide, ozone, and ammonia in ambient air using the passive sampling method associated with ion chromatographic and potentiometric analyses

Concentrations of nitrogen dioxide (NO2), sulfur dioxide (SO2), ozone (O3), and ammonia (NH3) were determined in the ambient air of Al-Ain city over a year using the passive sampling method associated with ion chromatographic and potentiometric detections. IVL samplers were used for collecting nitrogen and sulfur dioxides whereas Ogawa samplers were used for collecting ozone and ammonia. Five sites representing the industrial, traffic, commercial, residential, and background regions of the city were monitored in the course of this investigation. Year average concentrations of ≤59.26, 15.15, 17.03, and 11.88 μg/m3 were obtained for NO2, SO2, O3, and NH3, respectively. These values are lower than the maxima recommended for ambient air quality standards by the local environmental agency and the world health organization. Results obtained were correlated with the three meteorological parameters: humidity, wind speed, and temperature recorded during the same period of time using the paired t test, probability p values, and correlation coefficients. Humidity and wind speed showed insignificant effects on NO2, SO2, O3, and NH3 concentrations at 95% confidence level. Temperature showed insignificant effects on the concentrations of NO2 and NH3 while significant effects on SO2 and O3 were observed. Nonlinear correlations (R2 ≤ 0.722) were obtained for the changes in measured concentrations with changes in the three meteorological parameters. Passive samplers were shown to be not only precise (RSD ≤ 13.57) but also of low cost, low technical demand, and expediency in monitoring different locations