Effect of Fungal Treatment on the Nutritive Value of Wheat Straw and its Use in the Diet of Dairy Cattle

Experiments were conducted to study the growth ability and potential of some Pleurotus fungi to biodegrade wheat straw and to determine the effect of fungal treatment on the nutritive value of straw and its use in the diet of dairy cow. The results showed that there is a potential application of the fungi on wheat straw. Among the six cultures of Pleurotus, P-41, P-21, P-60 and P-31 had a significantly (P<0.05) higher growth ability on wheat straw. Supplementation of wheat straw with 1 or 2% urea nitrogen did not enhance the colonisation and growth rate of the fungi. Fungal treatment decreased NDF and ADF, increased the CP and nutrient digestibility of wheat straw. However, the cultures P-30, P-41 and P-60 showed significantly (P<0.05) higher ability to degrade the cell wall components of the straw and improved the IVDMD, IVOMD and in sacco degradability. Treatment of wheat straw with Pleurotus (P-41) either before (FTWS) or after mushroom production (SPWS) resulted in a significantly (P<0.05) higher amount of nutrient intake (DMI, OMI and DOMI) when fed to bulls. The digestibility of DM and OM increased by more than 10% unit in the treated straw as compared to the untreated wheat straw. In comparison to the untreated straw, feeding fungal treated wheat straw resulted in a higher ruminal pH and ammonia nitrogen concentration that indicated an improvement in rumen fermentation. Improvement of nutritive value was higher in FTWS than the SPWS. In a feeding trial, four diets containing 0, 10, 20 and 30% fungal (P-41) treated wheat straw was fed to lactating cows. They showed similar intake of DM, OM, DOM, CP, TDN and NEL• All diets resulted in similar milk yield and milk composition, but the diets that contained 20 and 30% treated straw produced a significantly (P<0.05) higher body weight gain. However, the best animal performance and feed efficiency were obtained when the treated straw was included at 20% of the total diet or 40% of the roughage. When two diets containing 30% of untreated or fungal treated wheat straw were fed to late lactating cows, higher nutrient digestibility and intake of DM, OM, CP and ME were observed in the cows fed treated straw. There was 13% increase in FCM yield by cows fed treated straw. Daily body weight gain was 2.7 times in the treated straw diet as compared to the untreated straw group. Improvement in the animal performance reflects the availability of more digestible organic matter and energy from the wheat straw treated with the fungus

Health Care Expenditure and GDP in Oil Exporting Countries: Evidence From OPEC Data, 1995-2012

BACKGROUND: There is a large body of literature examining income in relation to health expenditures. The share of expenditures in health sector from GDP in developed countries is often larger than in non-developed countries, suggesting that as the level of economic growth increases, health spending increase, too. OBJECTIVES: This paper estimates long-run relationships between health expenditures and GDP based on panel data of a sample of 12 countries of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), using data for the period 1995-2012. PATIENTS & METHODS: We use panel data unit root tests, cointegration analysis and ECM model to find long-run and short-run relation. This study examines whether health is a luxury or a necessity for OPEC countries within a unit root and cointegration framework. RESULTS: Panel data analysis indicates that health expenditures and GDP are co-integrated and have Engle and Granger causality. In addition, in oil countries that have oil export income, the share of government expenditures in the health sector is often greater than in private health expenditures similar developed countries. CONCLUSIONS: The findings verify that health care is not a luxury good and income has a robust relationship to health expenditures in OPEC countries

Multilateralism, human rights and the 1970s: insights from Ireland's role in the development of the human rights field

The Ireland v United Kingdom case concerns the treatment of detainees by British security forces in Northern Ireland and the implementation of internment or detention without trial, introduced in Northern Ireland in 1971. By reading human rights ‘as a language’ and ‘an endless semantic battlefield’, we explore how the Irish Government in the Ireland v United Kingdom case sought to use the European Convention of Human Rights strategically to secure its own political assessment towards internment and the controversial interrogation methods as a legal outcome before a regional human rights institution. In this sense, the Irish legal team re-described and reframed the Irish Government’s political position on the use of internment and of interrogation methods in the language of Convention and according to concepts developed within the European Commission of Human Rights jurisprudence. We focus on two strategic moves that the Irish legal team pursued at the admissibility and merits stages of the European Commission of Human Rights proceedings, namely, submitting a wider range of allegations, alongside article 3 allegations, as an administrative practice and advocating for the hearing of expert testimony on the use of the interrogation methods (the ‘five techniques’). We explore these strategic moves in order to illustrate the semantic battlefield in operation and the potential limits of the strategic use of human rights as a language

Professional bodies and continuing professional education

This chapter focuses on the role of professional bodies in relation to continuing professional development (CPD) in two different professional spheres - further education and legal services. Similarities and differences between these two areas, and in particular the approaches to continuing professional development, are highlighted. The chapter concludes by identifying commonalities and differences in the trajectories, circumstances and regimes of the professions. We consider whether there are key features of CPD that should be common to all professions or whether models of CPD are contingent and dependent on circumstances. We propose a model that covers emerging factors in the conception of CPD. We argue that these findings have applicability to professions and their professional bodies more widely, as well as employers of professionals

Ensuring the Cultural Rights of Kurdish Minority in Türkiye: Necessity, Challenges, Solutions

Being in non-dominant position and forming one of the largest ethnic groups numerically in Türkiye (previously Turkey), Kurds constitute an ethnic minority. The main argument of this article is that neglecting and disrespecting the cultural rights (CRs) of this group has led to transformation of a social challenge to a political one which ultimately resulted in a security challenge through an armed movement by P.K.K. in the 1980s. Employing a descriptive-analytical method to analyse the content, the present article aims at investigating the necessity of, challenges to and solutions for ensuring CRs of Kurdish minority. It appears that ensuring the cultural rights of Kurdish minority in Türkiye is a pressing necessity particularly for preserving cultural diversity as the common heritage of humanity and maintaining national, regional and international peace and security. Furthermore, the main challenges with which ensuring CRs of Kurds in Türkiye is facing are weak international belief in cultural rights, lack of sufficient national and international monitoring bodies and effective enforcing mechanisms, and dominance of Kemalism as the founding ideology of Republic of Türkiye. Accordingly, the solutions for eliminating these challenges can be strengthening the foundations and developing the sources of cultural rights of ethnic minorities, activating the national and international monitoring bodies and criminalising certain examples of violations of cultural rights and predicting effective sanctions. No article has been written on the necessity of, challenges to and solutions for ensuring the CRs of Kurdish minority in Türkiye in a single piece. Addressing these factors from the perspective of CRs as human rights, this article contributes in filling the existing gap in literature in this regard

Main determinants of catastrophic health expenditures: a Bayesian logit approach on Iranian household survey data (2010)

BACKGROUND: During recent decades, increase in both health care expenditures and improvement of the awareness as well as health expectations have created some problems with regard to finance healthcare expenditures so that the issue of health financing by households has been determined as a major challenge in health sector. According to the definition by the World Health Organization, catastrophic health expenditure is considered if financial contribution for health service is more than 40 of income remaining after subsistence needs have been met. OBJECTIVES: The purpose of our study was determination of Main factors on catastrophic health expenditures in Iranian households. PATIENTS & METHODS: In this study, using an econometrics Bayesian logit model, determinants of the appearance of catastrophic health expenditure based on household budget data collected in 2010 were evaluated. RESULTS: Among Iranian households, the following groups were more likely to encounter with unsustainable health expenditures: rural households, households with the numbers of the elderly more than 65 years, illiterate householders, unemployed householders, households with some unemployed persons, households in upper rank and households with larger equivalent household size were higher than the average of community could significantly predict catastrophic health expenditures. CONCLUSIONS: About 2.1 of households were faced with catastrophic health expenditures in 2010. Thus, the implemented policies could not make considerable and significant change in improving justice in financing in health systems

Fairness of Financial Contribution in Iranian Health System: Trend Analysis of National Household Income and Expenditure, 2003-2010

BACKGROUND: Social systems are dealing with the challenge of achieving fairness in the distribution of financial burden and protecting the risk of financial loss. The purpose of this paper is to present a trend analysis for the indicators related to fairness in healthcare's financial burden in rural and urban population of Iran during the eight years period of 2003 to 2010. METHODS: We used the information gathered by statistical center of Iran through sampling processes for the household income and expenditures. The indicators of fairness in financial contribution of healthcare were calculated based on the WHO recommended methodology. The indices trend analysis of eight-year period for the rural, urban areas and the country level were computed. RESULTS: This study shows that in Iran the fairness of financial contribution index during the eight-year period has been decreased from 0.841 in 2003 to above 0.827 in 2010 and The percentage of people with catastrophic health expenditures has been increased from 2.3 to above 3.1. The ratio of total treatment costs to the household overall capacity to pay has been increased from 0.055 to 0.068 and from 0.072 to 0.0818 in urban and rural areas respectively. CONCLUSION: There is a decline in fairness of financial contribution index during the study period. While, a trend stability of the proportion of households who suffered catastrophic health expenditures was found

Effect of harvesting frequency and maturity stage of Jerusalem artichoke forage on yield, chemical composition and in vitro fermentation of the tubers and forage

Aim of study: To evaluate the effect of maturity stage and harvesting frequency of Jerusalem artichoke (JA) forage on the nutritional quality of the tubers and forages.Area of study: The plant cultivation and laboratory experiments were carried out in Karaj (Alborz, Iran) and Tehran (Tehran, Iran), respectively.Material and methods: Forages were harvested every 60, 90 and 120 days during the growing season (four, three and two harvests per year, respectively). Tubers were harvested just once, at the end of the growing season, from plots with four, three and two forage cuts per year. Biomass production, chemical composition and in vitro ruminal fermentation of the forages and tubers were assessed.Main results: Compared to 90 and 120 days, the forages harvested every 60 days contained the highest (p&lt;0.05) yearly dry matter (DM) biomass (27.16 t/ha), crude protein (98.6 to 145 g/kg DM), organic matter digestibility (0.607 to 0.691) and microbial biomass production (350 to 369 g/kg DM). Compared to 60 and 90 days, harvesting JA forage every 120 days caused the tubers with the higher (p&lt;0.05) water-soluble carbohydrates (WSC), in vitro digestibility and DM yield (7.63 t/ha). Jerusalem artichoke forages and tubers contained the low phenolics (4.93 to 13.2 g/kg DM) and nitrate (1.12 to 3.19 g/kg DM). Overall, the best harvesting interval of JA forage to achieve tubers with the highest yearly yield, WSC and digestibility was every 120 days, while the highest nutritive value and yield of the forages were observed with harvesting JA every 60 days.Research highlights: The best harvesting interval of JA forage to obtain the highest yearly DM, protein and energy biomass from both tubers and forage was every 60 days

Stability Assessment of Salt Cavern Roof Beam for Compressed Air Energy Storage in South-Western Ontario

Due to the intermittent nature of renewable energy sources, application of energy storage systems is an important part of the development in support of clean technologies. Compressed Air Energy Storage (CAES) plants can provide utility scale storage by compressing air into a reservoir during off-peak period and generating electricity by expanding the air when energy demand is high. CAES is a proven technology that offers various services to the power network and provides flexible load management; however, site selection is a critical step during the design process of a plant. Salt deposits are recognized as potentially suitable geological layers for a compressed air energy storage system. In south-western Ontario, salt beds of the Salina Group of the Michigan basin provide suitable salt deposits for the excavation of storage caverns. Only two salt beds of the Salina Group are thick enough for excavation of a cavern, these are known as the unit A2 and unit B salt beds. In the case of an underground storage system, stability and serviceability of the storage cavern must be investigated using geomechanical models. Geomechanical issues may cause serious damage to the cavern, which could stop the system from functioning. The stability of the cavern roof layer has been investigated using voussoir beam theory. This method has been widely used to model rock mass behavior around underground openings. The results of the analytical solution have been validated against an existing case and verified by using a Universal Distinct Element Code (UDEC). The stress distribution within roof beams is investigated and upper and lower limits of roof size have been determined. Based on the findings from numerical analyses, assumptions of the voussoir method iv oversimplify the problem and cause inaccurate results. Hence, the selected iterative solution has been modified using a nonlinear approach. The updated procedure significantly enhanced the consistency of the results obtained from analytical solution with numerical models. To demonstrate validity of the modifications, a systematic parametric study has been included by using a wide range of beam parameters. The impact of creep behavior of the roof beam was examined by adding the deformation due to steady state creep to the elastic response of the beam. Also, the effect of the pressure difference around the cavern roof has been examined to determine maximum and minimum pressure inside the cavern with respect to size of the roof layer

Production, quality control, biodistribution assessment and preliminary dose evaluation of [177Lu]-tetra phenyl porphyrin complex as a possible therapeutic agent

;Devido às propriedades interessantes do ;177;Lu e da avidez tumoral das tetrafenil porfirinas (TPP), desenvolveu-se a ;177;Lu-tetrafenil porfirina como composto terapêutico potencial. ;177;Lu de atividade específica de 2,6-3 GBq/mg foi obtido por irradiação de amostra de Lu;2;O;3; com fluxo térmico de nêutrons de 4 × 10;13; n.cm;-2;.s;-1;. Sintetizou-se a tetrafenil porfirina e marcou-se com ;177;Lu. A pureza radioquímica do complexo foi estudada usando método de Cromatografia Instantânea de Camada Delgada ( ITLC). A estabilidade do complexo foi checada na formulação final e no ser humano por 48 h. A biodistribuição do composto marcado em órgãos vitais de ratos do tipo selvagem foi estudada por mais de 7 dias. A dose absorvida para cada órgão humano foi calculada pelo método da Dose Médica de Radiação Interna (MIRD). Estudo farmacocinético comparativo detalhado foi efetuado para o cátion ;177;Lu e para o [;177;Lu]-TPP. O complexo foi preparado com pureza radioquímica >;97±1% e atividade específica de 970-1000 MBq/mmol. Os dados de biodistribuição e os resultados dosimétricos mostraram que todos os tecidos receberam uma dose absorvida aproximadamente insignificante devido à rápida excreção do complexo pelo trato urinário. O [;177;Lu]-TPP pode ser um agente interessante de direcionamento do tumor devido à baixa captação pelo fígado e pela dose bem baixa absorvida, de, aproximadamente, 0,036 do corpo humano total.;Due to interesting therapeutic properties of ;177;Lu and tumor avidity of tetraphenyl porphyrins (TPPs), ;177;Lu-tetraphenyl porphyrin was developed as a possible therapeutic compound. ;177;Lu of 2.6-3 GBq/mg specific activity was obtained by irradiation of natural Lu;2;O;3;sample with thermal neutron flux of 4 × 10;13; n.cm;-2;.s;-1;. Tetraphenyl porphyrin was synthetized and labeled with ;177;Lu. Radiochemical purity of the complex was studied using Instant thin layer chromatography (ITLC) method. Stability of the complex was checked in final formulation and human serum for 48 h. The biodistribution of the labeled compound in vital organs of wild-type rats was studied up to 7 d. The absorbed dose of each human organ was calculated by medical internal radiation dose (MIRD) method. A detailed comparative pharmacokinetic study was performed for ;177;Lu cation and [;177;Lu]-TPP. The complex was prepared with a radiochemical purity: &gt;;97±1% and specific activity: 970-1000 MBq/mmol. Biodistribution data and dosimetric results showed that all tissues receive approximately an insignificant absorbed dose due to rapid excretion of the complex through the urinary tract. [;177;Lu]-TPP can be an interesting tumor targeting agent due to low liver uptake and very low absorbed dose of approximately 0.036 to the total body of human