La adición de enzimas a dietas basadas en maíz y harina de soya y el desempeño productivo y la composición de la canal de guineas (Numida me/eagris) de engorde.

Recent studies have demonstrated the benefits of supplementation of broiler chick diets based on corn and soybean meal with enzymes such as amylases and proteases. However, these benefits cannot necessarily be extrapolated to the commercial production of other species of domestic animals. The objective of this study was to determine the effects of diet fortification with Avizyme® (AV) on guinea broiler growth performance and processing yields. Six hundred guinea keets, randomly assigned to four treatments with 10 replications of 15 birds per pen, were reared under a three-phase feeding regime until market age (84 d) in a conventional poultry house. Treatments consisted of diets containing 0 (control), 0.025,0.050, and 0.075% of AV. Birds and feed were weighed weekly until 84 d of age to determine body weight (BW), feed intake (Fl), and feed conversion ratio (FCR). Dead and culled birds (CB) were remo ved and weighed daily. At 84 d, 50 birds per treatment were processed to evaluate carcass composition. The weights of carcass (CW), fat pad (FP) and carcass parts were obtained and yields were calculated as a percentage of live BW. No differences in BW, mortality, CB and CW were found among treatments. The yields of car cass, breast, drumsticks, thighs, and FP were similar for all dietary treatments evaluated. Results at 35, 63 and 84 d were mixed, but in general birds fed diets containing AV exhibited lower (P < 0.01) Fl and FCR than control birds. At 84 d, birds fed 0.025% AV diets had lower (P < 0.01) Fl and FCR than controls. These data suggest that supplementation with corn and soybean meal-based diets with at least 0.025% of AV improves FCR of guinea broilers without affecting BW at market age nor carcass composition.Estudios recientes han demostrado los beneficios de la suplementación con enzimas como amilasas y proteasas en dietas para pollos de engorde basadas en maíz y harina de soya. Sin embargo, estos beneficios no necesariamente pueden ser extrapolados a la producción comercial de otras especies de animales domésticos. El objetivo de este estudio fue determinar los efectos de la fortificación dietética con Avizyme® (AV) sobre el crecimiento y rendimiento de procesado de guineas de engorde. Seiscientos pollos de guineas de engorde, asignados al azar a cuatro tratamientos con 10 repeticiones de 15 aves por jaula, se criaron bajo un régimen de alimentación trifásica hasta la edad de mercado (84 d) en un galpón de cría convencional. Los tratamientos consistieron en dietas que contenían 0 (Control), 0.025, 0.050 y 0.075% de AV. Semanalmente se pesó el alimento y las ares, hasta alcanzar los 84 d de edad, para determinar el peso corporal (PC), consumo de alimento (CA) y la razón de conversión de alimento (RCA). Las aves muertas y rezagadas (AR) se remo vieron y se pesar on diariamente. A los 84 d de edad, se procesaron 50 aves por tratamiento para evaluar las características de la canal, obteniéndose los pesos de la canal (PCN),grasa abdominal (GA) y partes de la canal; los rendimientos se calcularon como un porcentaje del peso vivo. No se observaron diferencias entre tratamientos para PC, mortalidad, AR ni PCN. Los rendimientos de canal, pechuga, muslos, caderas y GA fueron similares para todos los tratamientos evaluados. Los resultados para CA a los 35, 63 y 84 d de edad fueron mixtos, pero en general las aves suplementadas con AV exhibieron menor (P < 0.01) CA y RCA que las guineas control. A los 84 d, las aves alimentadas con la adición dietética de 0.025% de AV obtuvieron menores CA y RCA (P < 0.01) que las aves control. Estos datos sugieren que la adición de al menos un 0.025% de AV a dietas a base de soya y maíz mejora la conversión de alimento de gallinas de guinea de engorde sin afectar el PC a la edad de mercado ni la composición de la canal

Inclusión de un producto fermentado de pescado en la dieta de guineas (Numida meleagris): desempeño productivo y calidad de la carcasa

Guinea fowl (Numida meleagris) is a poultry species suitable for use in meat production to expand and diversify the local poultry industry because of its advantages of high consumer acceptance, resistance to common poultry diseases, and tolerance to poor management conditions. However, the poor feed conversion of this species increases feed costs and limits production. To reduce feed costs it is imperative to find locally available feedstuffs of low cost but with adequate nutritional value. The use of a fermented fish by-product meal (FFBPM) as a protein source in guinea diets could satisfy these criteria and reduce feed costs. This study with 180 birds was undertaken to evaluate the effects of the inclusion of a FFBPM in guinea diets on productive performance and carcass quality. Treatments consisted of FFBPM inclusion at levels of 0 (control), 5, and 10% in each of the starter, grower, and finisher diets. Feed and birds were weighed at 0, 35, 63, and 84 d to determine body weight (BW) and feed conversion. At 84 d, half the birds of each treatment were processed for evaluating carcass composition and determining yields of carcass and major cuts. Fasted live body weights, and plucked and dressed carcass weights were recorded and yields calculated. No significant differences in BW were observed among treatments at 0,63, and 84 d. At 35 d, BW was lower (P < 0.05) in birds with a 10% FFBPM inclusion. Feed conversion at 35 d was also higher with 10% FFBPM and lower in control birds, whereas those receiving 5% FFBPM did not differ from those of the other treatments. Birds fed 10% FFBPM showed significantly lower live, plucked, and dressed weights than those of the control and those fed 5% FFBPM. No differences among treatments were observed in yields of dressed carcass, major cuts, and the proportions of flesh, skin, and bone. However, the percentage of abdominal fats was significantly lower in birds fed a 10% FFBPM than in birds of the control and in those fed the 5% FFBPM level. The results of this study indicate that the inclusion of up to 5% FFBPM in guinea diets has no detrimental effect on bird performance and carcass quality. Thus, FFBPM could be a valuable feed ingredient to supply part of the dietary protein requirements of guinea fowl. La crianza de guinea (Numida meleagris) es una alternativa viable para aumentar la producción local de carne de aves debido a su buena aceptación por el consumidor, resistencia a enfermedades y tolerancia a condiciones de manejo adversas. Sin embargo, la pobre conversión alimenticia de estas aves aumenta los costos de alimentación, limitando su producción. Para reducir dichos costos es necesario utilizar ingredientes poco costosos pero de valor nutricional adecuado. La utilización de un subproducto fermentado de pescado (SPFP) como fuente de proteína en dietas de guinea podría satisfacer estos requisitos y reducir los costos de alimentación. El propósito de esta investigación fue evaluar el efecto de la inclusión de SPFP en dietas de guineas sobre el desempeño productivo y la calidad de la carcasa. Los tratamientos consistieron en la inclusión de 0, 5 y 10% SPFP en las dietas de iniciación, crecimiento y terminación. Se pesó el alimento y las aves a los 0, 35, 63 y 84 d para determinar el peso corporal y la conversión alimenticia. A los 84 d, se procesaron 90 aves para evaluar la calidad de la carcasa y determinar el rendimiento de la misma y sus componentes principales. Se midió su peso vivo en ayuno, peso desplumado y peso listo para cocinar y se calcularon los rendimientos. No se observaron diferencias significativas en peso corporal entre los tratamientos a los 0, 63 y 84 d. A los 35 d el peso corporal fue menor (P < 0.05) en aves a las que se les suministró un 10% SPFP. La conversión alimenticia a los 35 d fue mayor en aves a las que se les suministró 10% SPFP y menor en las aves control, mientras la de aquellas a las que se les suministró 5% SPFP fue similar a la del resto de los tratamientos. Las aves con 10% SPFP registraron un peso vivo, desplumado y listo para cocinar más bajo (P < 0.05) que las aves control y aquéllas con 5% SPFP. No se encontraron diferencias en el rendimiento de la carcasa, cortes principales ni en la proporción de carne, hueso y piel. Sin embargo, el porcentaje de grasa abdominal fue menor (P < 0.05) para las aves a las que se les suministró 10% SPFP y mayor en aves del grupo control. Los resultados de este experimento indican que la inclusión de hasta 5% SPFP en la dieta no tiene efectos detrimentales sobre el desempeño productivo y la calidad de carcasa. El SPFP podría ser un recurso alimentario útil para suplir parcialmente los requisitos proteicos de la guinea

A Hybrid Regression System Based on Local Models for Solar Energy Prediction

The aim of this study is to predict the energy generated by a solar thermal system. To achieve this, a hybrid intelligent system was developed based on local regression models with low complexity and high accuracy. Input data is divided into clusters by using a Self Organization Maps; a local model will then be created for each cluster. Different regression techniques were tested and the best one was chosen. The novel hybrid regression system based on local models is empirically verified with a real dataset obtained by the solar thermal system of a bioclimatic house

Analysis of Ostwald ripening in Ni-rich Ni–Ti alloys by diffusion couples

"The coarsening kinetics of gamma' precipitates in Ni-rich Ni-Ti alloys are studied using a Ni-11-5 wt% Ti and pure Ni diffusion couple. The formed concentration gradient allowed to study the aging process at 1023 K (750 degrees C) in Ni-rich Ni Ti alloys with Ti content from 8-62 to 11-15 wt% Ti. In general, during the coarsening of gamma' precipitates, the experimental coarsening kinetics do not fit well to the LSW or TIDC theoretical models and anomalous behaviour of coarsening rate constant (k(r)) associated with gamma' volume-fraction is confirmed at high values.

Simplified method based on an intelligent model to obtain the extinction angle of the current for a single-phase half wave controlled rectifier with resistive and inductive load

With the aim of calculating the extinction angle of the current of a single-phase half wave controlled rectifier with resistive and inductive load, present work shows a method to obtain a regression model based on intelligent methods. This type of circuit is a typical non-linear case of study that requires a hard work to solve it by hand. To create the intelligent model, a dataset has been obtained with a computational method for the working range of the circuit. Then, with the dataset, to achieve the final solution, several methods of regression were tested from traditional to intelligent types. The model was verified empirically with electronic circuit software simulation, analytical methods and with a practical implementation. The advantage of the proposed method is its low computational cost. Then, the final solution is very appropriate for applications where high computational requirements are not possible, like low-performance microcontrollers or web applications

An intelligent fault detection system for a heat pump installation based on a geothermal heat exchanger

The heat pump with geothermal exchanger is one of the best methods to heat up a building. The heat exchanger is an element with high probability of failure due to the fact that it is an outside construction and also due to its size. In the present study, a novel intelligent system was designed to detect faults on this type of heating equipment. The novel approach has been successfully empirically tested under a real dataset obtained during measurements of one year. It was based on classification techniques with the aim of detecting failures in real time. Then, the model was validated and verified over the building; it obtained good results in all the operating conditions ranges

A Novel Hybrid Intelligent Classifier to Obtain the Controller Tuning Parameters for Temperature Control

This study presents a novel hybrid classifier method to obtain the best parameters of a PID controller for desired specifications. The study presents a hybrid system based on the organization of existing rules and classifier models that select the optimal expressions to improve specifications. The model achieved chooses the best controller parameters among different closed loop tuning methods. The classifiers are based on ANN and SVM. The proposal was tested on the temperature control of a laboratory stove

Special issue SOCO12

The eight papers included in this special issue represent a selection of extended contributions presented at the 7th International Conference on Soft Computing Models in Industrial and Environmental Applications, SOCO 2012 held in Ostrava, Czech Republic, 5th–7th September 2012, and organized by the BISITE and the GICAP research groups

Episodic molecular outflow in the very young protostellar cluster Serpens South

The loss of mass from protostars, in the form of a jet or outflow, is a necessary counterpart to protostellar mass accretion. Outflow ejection events probably vary in their velocity and/or in the rate of mass loss. Such `episodic´ ejection events have been observed during the Class 0 protostellar phase (the early accretion stage), and continue during the subsequent class I phase that marks the first one million years of star formation. Previously observed episodic-ejection sources were relatively isolated; however, the most common sites of star formation are clusters. Outflows link protostars with their environment and provide a viable source of turbulence that is necessary for regulating star formation in clusters, but it is not known how an accretion-driven jet or outflow in a clustered environment manifests itself in its earliest stage. This early stage is important in establishing the initial conditions for momentum and energy transfer to the environment as the protostar and cluster evolve. Here we report that an outflow from a very young class 0 protostar, at the hub of the very active and filamentary Serpens South protostellar cluster, shows unambiguous episodic events. The 12CO (J=2-1) emission from the protostar reveals 22 distinct features of outflow ejecta, the most recent having the highest velocity. The outflow forms bipolar lobes --- one of the first detectable signs of star formation --- which originate from the peak of 1-mm continuum emission. Emission from the surrounding C18O envelope shows kinematics consistent with rotation and an infall of material onto the protostar. The data suggest that episodic accretion-driven outflow begins in the earliest phase of protostellar evolution, and that the outflow remains intact in a very clustered environment, probably providing efficient momentum transfer for driving turbulence. Fil: Plunkett, Adele L. . Yale University. Astronomy Department.; Estados UnidosFil: Arce, Héctor G.. Yale University. Astronomy Department.; Estados UnidosFil: Mardones, Diego . Universidad de Chile. Departamento de Astronomía; ChileFil: van Dokkum, Pieter . Yale University. Astronomy Department.; Estados UnidosFil: Dunham, Michael M. . Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics; Estados UnidosFil: Fernandez Lopez, Manuel. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico La Plata. Instituto Argentino de Radioastronomia (i); ArgentinaFil: Gallardo, José. Joint ALMA Observatory; ChileFil: Cordero, Stuartt A. . Joint ALMA Observatory; Chil

The Fourteenth Data Release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey: First Spectroscopic Data from the extended Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey and from the second phase of the Apache Point Observatory Galactic Evolution Experiment

The fourth generation of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS-IV) has been in operation since July 2014. This paper describes the second data release from this phase, and the fourteenth from SDSS overall (making this, Data Release Fourteen or DR14). This release makes public data taken by SDSS-IV in its first two years of operation (July 2014-2016). Like all previous SDSS releases, DR14 is cumulative, including the most recent reductions and calibrations of all data taken by SDSS since the first phase began operations in 2000. New in DR14 is the first public release of data from the extended Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (eBOSS); the first data from the second phase of the Apache Point Observatory (APO) Galactic Evolution Experiment (APOGEE-2), including stellar parameter estimates from an innovative data driven machine learning algorithm known as "The Cannon"; and almost twice as many data cubes from the Mapping Nearby Galaxies at APO (MaNGA) survey as were in the previous release (N = 2812 in total). This paper describes the location and format of the publicly available data from SDSS-IV surveys. We provide references to the important technical papers describing how these data have been taken (both targeting and observation details) and processed for scientific use. The SDSS website (www.sdss.org) has been updated for this release, and provides links to data downloads, as well as tutorials and examples of data use. SDSS-IV is planning to continue to collect astronomical data until 2020, and will be followed by SDSS-V.Comment: SDSS-IV collaboration alphabetical author data release paper. DR14 happened on 31st July 2017. 19 pages, 5 figures. Accepted by ApJS on 28th Nov 2017 (this is the "post-print" and "post-proofs" version; minor corrections only from v1, and most of errors found in proofs corrected