Survival and development of embryos of Gallus gallus domesticus treated with inorganic bromide

The range of bromide (Br-) in groundwater sources surveyed in South Africa is 0 - 18.4 mg/L. The research aimed to establish chicken embryo sensitivity to a range of Br- treatments (mg/L) injected into fertilised Ross-308 eggs in three phases: (1) five eggs injected with 10 mg Br-/L; (2) 45 eggs divided into groups and injected with 0, 1 and 5 mg Br-/L; (3) 148 eggs divided into groups injected with 0, 0.01, 0.05, 0.5, and 1 mg Br-/L. Incubation was at standard conditions. Breakout analysis was done at various stages of incubation. The mass of the embryo and of the heart, liver and brain was measured at Day 20. Statistical analysis used Statistical Analyses System® software FREQ procedure to determine the chi-square goodness-of-fit test for percentages of live or dead embryos within and between treatments. The GLM procedure was applied to test for differences in relative organ mass (g) between treatments using F-test. The results showed: (1) 10 mg Br-/L is toxic; (2) Br- is lethal to embryos at concentrations >1 mg/L and toxic at 1 mg/L; and (3) embryo survival was significantly negatively correlated (R2 = -0.92) with increasing Br- concentrations. Concentrations >0.5 mg Br-/L showed greater risk on differential development. Concentrations >0.01 mg Br-/L showed potentially severe effects on developing embryos. The heart showed the greatest relative growth response followed by the brain. The no observed adverse effect level target water quality range (NOAEL-TWQR) in developing chicken embryos was 0 - 0.01 mg/L.Keywords: Bromine, embryo model, halogens, maximum residue level, toxicity, water qualit

Effect of zinc nanoparticles on embryo and chicken growth, and the content of zinc in tissues and faeces

The hypothesis was that owing to their high bioavailability, zinc oxide nanoparticles (NanoZnO) can effectively replace (Zn) salts and reduce Zn excretion with faeces. The objective of this study was to investigate the effects of NanoZnO on the development of chicken embryos, the growth of broiler chickens, and Zn excretion with faeces. At day 1 of incubation, 120 eggs were randomly divided between a control group (not injected) and groups injected with a hydrocolloid of NanoZnO in increasing concentrations (50, 100, 500 mg/L). At day 19 of incubation, no differences were observed in the bodyweight, but 100 and 500 mg/L affected liver and heart weights, indicating that high levels of NanoZnO may induce differential organ development. In the subsequent experiment, 308 chickens were randomly divided into six groups. The control diet was supplemented with 55 mg Zn/kg (standard level), the 0 group received no Zn supplement, and groups fed NanoZnO received 25%, 50%, 75%, and 100% of the standard level. The 100% replacement of ZnO with NanoZnO increased the chickens’ bodyweight compared with the standard level of ZnO, but to the same level as the diet without ZnO supplementation. Furthermore, NanoZnO did not reduce the content of Zn in faeces, which was only significantly lower in the group without ZnO supplementation in comparison with other groups. The results indicate that the replacement of ZnO with NanoZnO had no negative effects on chicken growth. Compared with ZnO, NanoZnO did not reduce Zn excretion with faeces. Keywords: broiler, development, excretion, mineral, nanonutritio

Multi-laboratory efforts for the standardization of performance assessment of diffuse optics instruments - The BitMap Exercise

A multi-laboratory exercise, involving 29 diffuse optical instruments, aimed at performance assessment of diffuse optics instruments on standardized protocols is presented. The overarching methodology and future actions will also be discussed

A multi-laboratory comparison of photon migration instruments and their performances – the BitMap Exercise

Performance assessment and standardization are indispensable for instruments of clinical relevance in general and clinical instrumentation based on photon migration/diffuse optics in particular. In this direction, a multi-laboratory exercise was initiated with the aim of assessing and comparing their performances. 29 diffuse optical instruments belonging to 11 partner institutions of a European level Marie Curie Consortium BitMap1 were considered for this exercise. The enrolled instruments covered different approaches (continuous wave, CW; frequency domain, FD; time domain, TD and spatial frequency domain imaging, SFDI) and applications (e.g. mammography, oximetry, functional imaging, tissue spectroscopy). 10 different tests from 3 well-accepted protocols, namely, the MEDPHOT2, the BIP3, and the nEUROPt4 protocols were chosen for the exercise and the necessary phantoms kits were circulated across labs and institutions enrolled in the study. A brief outline of the methodology of the exercise is presented here. Mainly, the design of some of the synthetic descriptors, (single numeric values used to summarize the result of a test and facilitate comparison between instruments) for some of the tests will be discussed.. Future actions of the exercise aim at deploying these measurements onto an open data repository and investigating common analysis tools for the whole dataset