Effect of management system and dietary yeast autolysate on the performance, slaughter and carcass characteristics of partridges (Alectoris chukar)

This study was conducted to determine the effects of management system (a floor housing (FH) versus a free-range housing (FRH) system) and dietary yeast autolysate (Saccharomyces cerevisiae) (1% versus 2% dietary supplement) on the performance, slaughter and carcass characteristics of partridges (Alectoris chukar). A total of 480 (240 for each management system) one-day-old male partridge chicks were randomly allocated to a control group and the two dietary groups per production system, each containing 80 chicks. Each dietary group was then divided into five replicate groups of 16 chicks. The study lasted 112 days. In terms of growth performance, partridges reared under FRH management system had a lower average daily live weight gain (ADG), a significantly higher feed intake (FI), and feed conversion ratio (FCR) compared to the control group. However, partridges fed diets with yeast autolysate had a significantly higher ADG, lower FI, and an improved FCR compared to the control group overall. The gizzard, leg, and wing percentages of the partridges reared in the FRH system were found to be significantly higher than those of partridges reared in the FH system, while the breast and abdominal fat percentages were found to be lower. Dietary supplementation with yeast autolysate significantly increased the cold carcass yield and breast percentage when compared to the control group, while wing and abdominal fat percentages were decreased. In general, best performance was observed in the dietary supplementation group of 1% yeast autolysate in terms of growth and carcass parameters. When considering the fact that partridges are gamebirds, that housing poultry in cage production systems has been prohibited in recent years and that there are positive effects associated with using yeast autolysate as a prebiotic, it is recommended that a free-range production system should be used for partridge breeding, with the addition of 1% yeast autolysate to the diet of the birds.Keywords: Carcass attributes, gamebird, growth, housing syste

Effects of gender and dietary date palm extract on performance, carcass traits, and antioxidant status of Japanese quail

This research examined effects of gender and dietary inclusion of date palm extract (DPE) on growth, carcass characteristics, oxidative status and serum characteristics of Japanese quail. One thousand chicks were allocated to five replicates of treatment and gender groups composed of 20 chicks. The treatments were a basal diet and four groups augmented with 0.25%, 0.50%, 0.75%, and 1.00% DPE. The interaction of gender and treatment was significant for bodyweight (BW) at 42 days, average daily bodyweight gain (BWG), feed intake (FI), weights of most carcass components, and the serum profile. Females had better performance to 42 days than males (P <0.05). In addition, females had higher hot and cold carcass weights, breast percentage, liver percentage, intestine percentage, total protein, albumin, triglyceride (TRIG), total antioxidant status (TAS), total oxidant status (TOS), and oxidative stress indexes (OSIs) (P <0.001). Males had higher percentages of hot carcass, cold carcass and heart, and their levels of cholesterol (CHOL), high-density lipoprotein (HDL), alanine aminotransferase (ALT), and aspartate aminotransferase (AST) values were greater than females (P <0.001). Birds fed 0.50% DPE grew faster, were more efficient, and had heavier live and carcass weights at 42 days than those fed the basal diet. However, treatment effects and their interaction with gender on growth, feed intake and the serum profile were unremarkable compared to the gender main effect. Dietary augmentation with 0.50% DPE might enhance the performance of quail between 14 and 42 days old

An approach to represent time series forecasting via fuzzy numbers

This paper introduces a new approach for estimating the uncertainty in the forecast through the construction of Triangular Fuzzy Numbers (TFNs). The interval of the proposed TFN presentation is generated from a Fuzzy logic based Lower and Upper Bound Estimator (FLUBE). Here, instead of the representing the forecast with a crisp value with a Prediction Interval (PI), the level of uncertainty associated with the point forecasts will be quantified by defining TFNs (linguistic terms) within the uncertainty interval provided by the FLUBE. This will give the opportunity to handle the forecast as linguistic terms which will increase the interpretability. Moreover, the proposed approach will provide valuable information about the accuracy of the forecast by providing a relative membership degree. The demonstrated results indicate that the proposed FLUBE based TFN representation is an efficient and useful approach to represent the uncertainty and the quality of the forecast

An enhanced fuzzy linguistic term generation and representation for time series forecasting

This paper introduces an enhancement to linguistic forecast representation using Triangular Fuzzy Numbers (TFNs) called Enhanced Linguistic Generation and Representation Approach (ElinGRA). Since there is always an error margin in the predictions, there is a need to define error bounds in the forecast. The interval of the proposed presentation is generated from a Fuzzy logic based Lower and Upper Bound Estimator (FLUBE) by getting the models of forecast errors. Thus, instead of a classical statistical approaches, the level of uncertainty associated with the point forecasts will be defined within the FLUBE bounds and these bound can be used for defining fuzzy linguistic terms for the forecasts. Here, ElinGRA is proposed to generate triangular fuzzy numbers (TFNs) for the predictions. In addition to opportunity to handle the forecast as linguistic terms which will increase the interpretability, ElinGRA improved forecast accuracy of constructed TFNs by adding an extra correction term. The results of the experiments, which are conducted on two data sets, show the benefit of using ElinGRA to represent the uncertainty and the quality of the forecast

Stopping Power Calculations of Compounds by Using Thomas-Fermi-Dirac-Weizsäcker Density Functional

Electronic stopping power of compounds was calculated by using the Thomas-Fermi-Dirac-Weizsäcker density functional. Bragg's rule was employed to determine stopping power of compounds from the elemental stopping power results. Calculations were done for Be, B, O, and Si ions in Al 2 O 3 , SiO 2 , and CO 2 targets by using the Thomas-Fermi-Dirac-Weizsäcker density functional. The obtained results were compared with other ThomasFermi based theoretical calculations and show that using Thomas-FermiDirac-Weizsäcker density functional in stopping power calculations yields reasonably accurate results in especially light systems (with respect to the number of electrons in the system)

Subclinical immune reactions to viral infections may correlate with child and adolescent diagnosis of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder: A preliminary study from Turkey

Background: Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is one of the most common neuro-developmental disorders of childhood and  adolescence. Studies focusing on the relationship of infectious agents and ADHD are scarce. It is also known that cerebellar injury may lead to  hyperactive behavior. This study aimed to evaluate the relationship  between viral agents of cerebellitis and the diagnosis of ADHD.Methods: The study group was formed of 60 consecutive ADHD patients and 30 healthy children. IgG levels for VZV; HSV-1, CMV, Measles, Mumps, Rubella and EBV were evaluated.Results: Males were significantly higher among patients with ADHD (65% vs. 40%, p=0.025). Patients with ADHD displayed significantly higher positivity for measles IgG (80% vs. 60%, p=0.044). When patients with ADHD were classified according to their pubertal status, adolescents with ADHD displayed higher positivity for mumps (100% vs. 74.4%, p=0.043). Most of the patients were diagnosed with ADHD-Combined or  Hyperactive/Impulsive Subtypes (56.6%) while 43.3% were diagnosed with ADHD-predominantly inattentive type. When patients with subtypes of ADHD were compared in terms of seropositivity, it was found that patients with ADHD-Combined/ Hyperactive-Impulsive subtypes had significantly elevated reactions for Rubella (100% vs. 88.5%, p=0.044).Conclusion: Although limited to a single center and may be prone to sampling biases, our results may support the notion that immune reactions may be related with ADHD among children and adolescents. Further,  prospective studies from multiple centers are needed to support our  findings and establish causality.Key words: ADHD, infection, immunology, measles, rubella, mumps, Ig

Potential of cottonseed oil as fish oil replacer in European Sea Bass feed formulation

Triplicate groups of 20 European sea bass (35 g) were fed five diets in which the added lipid was 100% fish oil (FO), 40% (CSO40), 60% (CSO60), 80% (CSO80) and 100% (CSO100) refined cottonseed oil (CSO), for a period of 120 days. Overall fish growth, feed conversion ratio and protein utilization were unaffected by dietary treatment, but hepatosomatic and visceral fat indexes increased with increasing dietary CSO. Fillet fatty acid composition of total lipids reflected the fatty acids in the test diets. The monounsaturated fatty acids were significantly higher in fillet of fish fed diet FO, CSO40 and CSO60 compared to other treatments while saturated and polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA) were not affected by the dietary treatment. Some fatty acids (18:0, 18:1n-9, 20:5n-3 and 22:6n-3) were present in higher concentration in fillet lipid than in the CSO100 dietary lipid indicating accumulation in fillet relative to test diets. Retention of n-3 LC-PUFA within the fillet was increasingly inefficient among fish fed increasing levels of FO. Thus, this study suggests that CSO can be considered as a relatively effective substitute for fish oil in European sea bass (35 g) in terms of growth performances and feed efficiency as far as fish meal is present in the diet

Approximate Entropy in Electromyography during Muscle Fatigue

Muscle fatigue (MF) is a phenomenon that involves the decline of one’s ability to perform physical action. The early detection of MF is important in the field of ergonomics, sports, occupational work, and human-computer interaction, as MF affects performance and may cause injury. Since MF is not a quantitative value, existing researches in this field are mostly based on different measurable parameters. Electromyography is among the most commonly used signals in analysing MF. The main purpose of this paper is to analyse MF during isometric contractions. For this purpose Discrete Wavelet Transform (DWT) is used to divide each signal to get sub-band frequencies. Approximate Entropy (ApEn) is applied to each sub-band. In the next step, each band is segmented into three sections. Finally, a comparison between the first segment and last segment is performed to evaluate MF