Effect of pheasant breeders management on eggs' fertility

The pheasant is the most common game bird in Italian countryside. The Italian pheasants' population can be considered as the result of different sub-species hybridisation (Cocchi et al., 2000). The evolution of pheasant farming methods has led to house breeding colonies in single family (1 male with 5-7 females) battery cages (Meriggi, 1992). The traditional housing facilities for breeding colonies were outdoor pens with a covered area, in the same pen different families were housed (Manetti, 1987)

Characteristics of reared game pheasant (Phasianus colchicus)'s egg

Chemical and physical characteristics of game pheasant (Phasianus colchicus)’s egg were studied and compared with domesticfowl (Gallus gallus domesticus)’s egg. The birds were housed in individual cages in a environmentally controlled room(T=18÷20°C; 16L:8D) and fed ad libitum standard breeder diet. A sample of thirty eggs was analysed for each phase of thelaying period (beginning, peak and end). The following chemico-physical parameters: egg, albumen, yolk and shell weight;yolk colour; egg and shell dry matter (DM); shell thickness (blunt end, pointed end and middle part) were measured. Theprotein, lipid, and cholesterol content was evaluated; the fatty acid (FA) profile analysed. We observed: egg weight averageof 34.5g ; a high proportion of yolk (37%) in the whole egg (Y/E), consequently, a high lipid content of 13.9%; a protein contentDM of 44.3%; the fatty acid composition was similar to that of chicken egg and the oleic acid (36.4%) was the majorproportion of the total fatty acids, as in the domestic fowl. The rearing pheasant’s egg has a high nutritive concentration, dueto high ratio yolk/whole egg, with biological and nutritional characteristics similar to domestic fowl’s egg

Effects of Lactobacillus acidophilus D2/CSL on laying hen performance

In order to evaluate the effects of dietary addition of probiotic strain Lactobacillus acidophilus D2/CSL on hen performance and egg quality, 160 commercial Hy-Line Brown pullets, 17 weeks old, were divided in control group (C) (N=80) and treated group (T) (N=80), with 4 alternate replicates of 20 animals each per group. C was fed with a "standard diet", whereas the T group received the same diet with an inclusion of 1x109 CFU kg-1 of Lactobacillus acidophilus D2/CSL (freeze dried cells). The experimental trial lasted 39 weeks after one week of acclimatization. Hen performance and egg quality (egg production, FCR, egg specific gravity, shell thickness, Haugh Units) were recorded. The results show a higher overall egg production (P<0.01) and better FCR (Kg feed intake/Kg saleable eggs) (P<0.05) in the T birds, but no statistically significant differences were observed in egg weight. The eggs from the T birds were characterized by a higher specific gravity (ESG) (P<0.01) and albumen viscosity (Haugh Units) (P<0.05). No significant differences in egg shell thickness were recorded. In conclusion, Lactobacillus acidophilus D2/CSL improved some important parameters in laying hen performance and egg quality

Wearable Health Technology for Preoperative Risk Assessment in Elderly Patients: The WELCOME Study

Preoperative identification of high-risk groups has been extensively studied to improve patients’ outcomes. Wearable devices, which can track heart rate and physical activity data, are starting to be evaluated for patients’ management. We hypothesized that commercial wearable devices (WD) may provide data associated with preoperative evaluation scales and tests, to identify patients with poor functional capacity at increased risk for complications. We conducted a prospective observational study including seventy-year-old patients undergoing two-hour surgeries under general anesthesia. Patients were asked to wear a WD for 7 days before surgery. WD data were compared to preoperatory clinical evaluation scales and with a 6-min walking test (6MWT). We enrolled 31 patients, with a mean age of 76.1 (SD ± 4.9) years. There were 11 (35%) ASA 3–4 patients. 6MWT results averaged 328.9 (SD ± 99.5) m. Daily steps and 2 as recorded using WD and were associated with 6MWT performance (R = 0.56, p = 0.001 and r = 0.58, p = 0.006, respectively) and clinical evaluation scales. This is the first study to evaluate WD as preoperative evaluation tools; we found a strong association between 6MWT, preoperative scales, and WD data. Low-cost wearable devices are a promising tool for the evaluation of cardiopulmonary fitness. Further research is needed to validate WD in this setting

The Third Fermi Large Area Telescope Catalog of Gamma-ray Pulsars

We present 294 pulsars found in GeV data from the Large Area Telescope (LAT) on the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope. Another 33 millisecond pulsars (MSPs) discovered in deep radio searches of LAT sources will likely reveal pulsations once phase-connected rotation ephemerides are achieved. A further dozen optical and/or X-ray binary systems co-located with LAT sources also likely harbor gamma-ray MSPs. This catalog thus reports roughly 340 gamma-ray pulsars and candidates, 10% of all known pulsars, compared to $\leq 11$ known before Fermi. Half of the gamma-ray pulsars are young. Of these, the half that are undetected in radio have a broader Galactic latitude distribution than the young radio-loud pulsars. The others are MSPs, with 6 undetected in radio. Overall, >235 are bright enough above 50 MeV to fit the pulse profile, the energy spectrum, or both. For the common two-peaked profiles, the gamma-ray peak closest to the magnetic pole crossing generally has a softer spectrum. The spectral energy distributions tend to narrow as the spindown power $\dot E$ decreases to its observed minimum near $10^{33}$ erg s$^{-1}$, approaching the shape for synchrotron radiation from monoenergetic electrons. We calculate gamma-ray luminosities when distances are available. Our all-sky gamma-ray sensitivity map is useful for population syntheses. The electronic catalog version provides gamma-ray pulsar ephemerides, properties and fit results to guide and be compared with modeling results.Comment: 142 pages. Accepted by the Astrophysical Journal Supplemen

Supplement: "Localization and broadband follow-up of the gravitational-wave transient GW150914" (2016, ApJL, 826, L13)

This Supplement provides supporting material for Abbott et al. (2016a). We briefly summarize past electromagnetic (EM) follow-up efforts as well as the organization and policy of the current EM follow-up program. We compare the four probability sky maps produced for the gravitational-wave transient GW150914, and provide additional details of the EM follow-up observations that were performed in the different bands

Proceedings of the Fifth Italian Conference on Computational Linguistics CLiC-it 2018

On behalf of the Program Committee, a very warm welcome to the Fifth Italian Conference on Computational Linguistics (CLiC-­‐it 2018). This edition of the conference is held in Torino. The conference is locally organised by the University of Torino and hosted into its prestigious main lecture hall “Cavallerizza Reale”. The CLiC-­‐it conference series is an initiative of the Italian Association for Computational Linguistics (AILC) which, after five years of activity, has clearly established itself as the premier national forum for research and development in the fields of Computational Linguistics and Natural Language Processing, where leading researchers and practitioners from academia and industry meet to share their research results, experiences, and challenges