In vitro ruminal fermentation, nutritional evaluation and antioxidant activity of some forest shrubs of North West Tunisia for goats

Chemical composition and characteristics of in vitro fermentation were determined for two shrubs (Genista aspalathoides and Rhamnus alaternus) collected from north western Tunisia. The primary and secondary chemical composition was determined and in vitro fermentation parameters were measured in 100 ml glass syringes for 48 hours to determine gas production. There are significant differences in chemical and wall composition for the two shrubs studied (p < 0.05). Rhamnus alaternus is richer in secondary metabolites (59.2 mg GAE / g DM) than Genista aspalathoides and has the highest content of crude protein (CP). Genista aspalathoides had the lowest anti-radical activity since it has the highest levels of secondary metabolites, so it is the most digestible species with the highest value of gas production after 24 hours incubation and released more methane than Rhamnus alaternus. Keywords: Shrub, Chemical composition, in vitro fermentation, antioxidant activity, methan

A new CP-approach for a parallel machine scheduling problem with time constraints on machine qualifications

International audienceThis paper considers the scheduling of job families on parallel machines with time constraints on machine qualifications. In this problem, each job belongs to a family and a family can only be executed on a subset of qualified machines. In addition, machines can lose their qualifications during the schedule. Indeed, if no job of a family is scheduled on a machine during a given amount of time, the machine loses its qualification for this family. The goal is to minimize the sum of job completion times, i.e. the flow time, while maximizing the number of qualifications at the end of the schedule. The paper presents a new Constraint Programming (CP) model taking more advantages of the CP feature to model machine disqualifications. This model is compared with two existing models: an Integer Linear Programming (ILP) model and a Constraint Programming model. The experiments show that the new CP model outperforms the other model when the priority is given to the number of disqualifications objective. Furthermore, it is competitive with the other model when the flow time objective is prioritized

Draft Genome Sequence of Aneurinibacillus migulanus NCTC 7096

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This project was funded by the Government of Kuwait (to F.N.A.) and the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme under grant agreement 245268 (ISEFOR; to L.B. and S.W.). Further support came from the SwissBOL project, financed by the Swiss Federal Office for the Environment (grant holder L.B.) and the Sciex–Scientific Exchange Programme NMS.CH (to L.L. and L.B.).Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Hippocampal place cells encode global location but not connectivity in a complex space

Flexible navigation relies on a cognitive map of space, thought to be implemented by hippocampal place cells: neurons that exhibit location-specific firing. In connected environments, optimal navigation requires keeping track of one’s location and of the available connections between subspaces. We examined whether the dorsal CA1 place cells of rats encode environmental connectivity in four geometrically identical boxes arranged in a square. Rats moved between boxes by pushing saloon-type doors that could be locked in one or both directions. Although rats demonstrated knowledge of environmental connectivity, their place cells did not respond to connectivity changes, nor did they represent doorways differently from other locations. Place cells coded location in a global reference frame, with a different map for each box and minimal repetitive fields despite the repetitive geometry. These results suggest that CA1 place cells provide a spatial map that does not explicitly include connectivity

Ammonia-Nitrogen Recovery from Synthetic Solution using Agricultural Waste Fibers

In this study, modification of Empty Fruit Bunch (EFB) fibers as a means to recover ammonianitrogen from a synthetic solution was investigated. Methods: The EFB fiber was modified using sodium hydroxide.Adsorption-desorption studies of ammonia nitrogen into the modified EFB fiber were investigated Findings: Theincrease in adsorption capacity was found to be proportional with the increase of pH up to 7, temperature and ammoniaconcentration. The maximum adsorption capacity is 0.53-10.89 mg/g. The attachment of ammonia nitrogen involves ionexchange-chemisorption. The maximum desorption capacity of 0.0999 mg/g. Applications: This study can be used as abaseline for designing a low cost adsorbent system for ammonia nitrogen recovery drainage and industrial wastewater aswell as EFBs-palm oil mill effluent composting