Effect of 3 dietary phytogenic products on production performance and coccidiosis in challenged broiler chickens

A pen trial using 1,080 male Ross 308 broiler chicks (6 treatments with 6 replicates each) was conducted to examine the effects of 3 dietary phytogenic products on avian coccidiosis. The dietary treatments included (1) a negative control (NC), (2) a positive control (PC) without feed additive, (3) Narasin at 0.7 kg/t (COCC), (4) PHYT1 (oregano) at 2.0 kg/t, (5) PHYT2 (combination of Curcuma, saponins, and inulin) at 1.0 kg/t, and (6) PHYT3 (Quillaja) at 1.0 kg/t. Treatments 2 through 6 were challenged with a mixture of Eimeria acervulina, Eimeria maxima, and Eimeria tenella at d 15 via feed. Standard performance parameters and coccidial lesion scoring (d 22) were conducted. One week after coccidial challenge, chicks BW of the COCC treatment and the NC were higher than all other treatments. Body weights on d 39 were 2.47 (NC), 2.34 (PC), 2.51 (COCC), 2.35 (PHYT1), 2.39 (PHYT2), and 2.41 kg (PHYT3) with an SEM of 0.033. For the entire trial period, Narasin yielded a significantly better FCR in comparison with the PC and PHYT3. Overall mean lesion score was 0.54 (NC), 0.91 (PC), 0.50 (COCC), 0.81 (PHYT 1), 1.02 (PHYT 2), and 1.13 (PHYT 3) with an SEM of 0.122. It was concluded that all 3 phytogenic products were not effective at the used dosage in alleviating the negative effects observed in coccidiosis-challenged bird

Pulling and Stretching a Molecular Wire to Tune its Conductance

A scanning tunnelling microscope is used to pull a polythiophene wire from a Au(111) surface while measuring the current traversing the junction. Abrupt current increases measured during the lifting procedure are associated to the detachment of molecular sub-units, in apparent contradiction with the expected exponential decrease of the conductance with wire length. \textit{Ab initio} simulations reproduce the experimental data and demonstrate that this unexpected behavior is due to release of mechanical stress in the wire, paving the way to mechanically gated single-molecule electronic devices

Bandgap engineering of sol-gel synthesized amorphous Zn1-xMgxO films

Amorphous Zn1-xMgxO (alpha-Zn1-xMgxO) ternary alloy thin films across the full compositional range were synthesized by a low-cost sol-gel method on quartz substrates. The amorphous property of the alpha-Zn1-xMgxO films was verified by x-ray diffraction, and atomic force microscopy revealed a smooth surface with sub-nanometer root-mean square roughness. The current phase segregation issue limiting application of crystalline Zn1-xMgxO with 38% \u3c x \u3c 75% was completely eliminated by growing amorphous films. Optical transmission measurements showed high transmissivity of more than 90% in the visible and near infrared regions, with optical bandgap tunability from 3.3 eV to more than 6.5 eV by varying the Mg content

Deep-ultraviolet photodetectors from epitaxially grown NixMg1-xO

Deep-ultraviolet (DUV) photodetectors were fabricated from high quality NixMg1-xO epitaxially grown by plasma-assisted molecular beam epitaxy on an approximately lattice matched MgO \u3c 100 \u3e substrate. A mid-range Ni composition (x=0.54) NixMg1-xO film was grown for DUV (lambda(peak) \u3c 300 nm) photoresponse and the film was characterized by reflected high-energy electron diffraction, Rutherford backscattering spectroscopy, x-ray diffraction, and optical transmission measurements. Photoconductive detectors were then fabricated by deposition of symmetric interdigitated contacts (10 nm Pt/150 nm Au) with contact separations of 5, 10, and 15 mu m. The detectors exhibited peak responsivities in the DUV (lambda(peak) approximate to 250 nm) as high as 12 mA/W, low dark currents (I-dark \u3c 25 nA), and DUV:visible ejection ratio of approximately 800:1

Sum-over-states vs quasiparticle pictures of coherent correlation spectroscopy of excitons in semiconductors; femtosecond analogues of multidimensional NMR

Two-dimensional correlation spectroscopy (2DCS) based on the nonlinear optical response of excitons to sequences of ultrafast pulses, has the potential to provide some unique insights into carrier dynamics in semiconductors. The most prominent feature of 2DCS, cross peaks, can best be understood using a sum-over-states picture involving the many-body eigenstates. However, the optical response of semiconductors is usually calculated by solving truncated equations of motion for dynamical variables, which result in a quasiparticle picture. In this work we derive Green's function expressions for the four wave mixing signals generated in various phase-matching directions and use them to establish the connection between the two pictures. The formal connection with Frenkel excitons (hard-core bosons) and vibrational excitons (soft-core bosons) is pointed out.Comment: Accepted to Phys. Rev.

Electronic structure study by means of X-ray spectroscopy and theoretical calculations of the "ferric star" single molecule magnet

The electronic structure of the single molecule magnet system M[Fe(L)2]3*4CHCl3 (M=Fe,Cr; L=CH3N(CH2CH2O)2) has been studied using X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, X-ray absorption spectroscopy, soft X-ray emission spectroscopy, and density functional calculations. There is good agreement between theoretical calculations and experimental data. The valence band mainly consists of three bands between 2 eV and 30 eV. Both theory and experiments show that the top of the valence band is dominated by the hybridization between Fe 3d and O 2p bands. From the shape of the Fe 2p spectra it is argued that Fe in the molecule is most likely in the 2+ charge state. Its neighboring atoms (O,N) exhibit a magnetic polarisation yielding effective spin S=5/2 per iron atom, giving a high spin state molecule with a total S=5 effective spin for the case of M = Fe.Comment: Fig.2 replaced as it will appear in J. Chem. Phy