Evaluation of Protein Concentration and Limiting Amino Acids Including Lysine and Met + Cys in Prestarter Diet on Performance of Broilers

Four experiments were conducted, in two stages, to evaluate protein and limiting amino acids' (lysine and methionine + cystine) levels in pre-starter diets on broilers’ performance. In each experiment of Stage 1, 640 new-born male Ross 308 cockerels were randomly allocated to eight dietary treatments with a 2 × 4 factorial arrangement. In experiment 1-1, two levels of crude protein (CP: 21% and 23.2%) and four levels of Lys (1.2, 1.3, 1.4, and 1.5%) and in experiment 1-2, two levels of CP (21 and 23.2%) and four levels of Met + Cys (0.85, 0.90, 0.95, and 1.00%) were used. In Stage 2, the optimum levels of Lys and Met + Cys obtained from Stage 1 (1.3 and 1.5% Lys, 0.90 and 1.00% Met + Cys in experiment 1-1 and 1-2, resp.) with two levels of CP (21 and 23.2%) were used in two separate simultaneous experiments with a 2 × 2 factorial arrangement for male and female birds. The levels of CP significantly influenced BWG and FCR in experiment 1-1. Dietary levels of Lys affect BWG (experiment 1-1) and FI (experiments 1-1 and 2-1) significantly. In experiments 1-2 and 2-2, the different levels of Met + Cys did not affect BWG, FI, and FCR of male or female broilers. The results of these experiments indicated that the optimal level of dietary protein and Lys were 23.2% and 1.5%, respectively. Diets with 1% Met + Cys caused optimal performance

Sustainability Assessment of Water Resource Systems Using a Novel Hydro-Economic Index (HSEI)

Sustainable management of water resources is an essential process for securing Earth’s present and future generation life. This study offers development of a new comprehensive framework and index for socio-economic evaluation of water resource systems. The hydrosocio-economic index (HSEI) is made of several economic, demographic, technology and communication, and health and sanitation factors at different temporal and spatial scales. The major foci of this research are estimation of HSEI and the analysis of their socioeconomic situation of those European countries with increasing renewable water per capita during 1998–2017 periods. The HSEI values for all of the studied European countries range from 0.480 to 0.521 based on the single and combined methods. According to the qualitative classification, the index values are classified in good level for all fourteen countries. The results show that the increase in renewable water per capita influences socioeconomic parameters in those countries. The result of this study will further support future investigation of selecting underlying factors that can be used as a criterion for the future planning and decision-making processes to form sustainable policies