Triclopyr 3, 5, 6-trichloro-2-pyridinyl clean-up procedure from soil, sediment and water samples using SPE-HPLC-VWD

Triclopyr is a post emergence herbicide used to control woody plants. After application, the excess amount will enter the soil and water bodies and it is present in ppb level thus making extraction very difficult. The extraction of triclopyr 3, 5, 6-trichloro-2-pyridinyl residue from soil, sediment and water samples under different solid phase extraction (SPE) sorbent efficiency was studied for better recovery. Four different SPE sorbents i.e.: Oasis HLB, Water Sep-Pak, Cromabond (cation/anion PS-H+ /OH-), Isolute ENV+ and a series of solvent i.e. potassium dihydrogen phosphate (KH2PO4 0.1M), sodium hydroxide (NaOH 0.2M), potassium hydroxide (KOH 0.5 & 0.6M), ammonium acetate, methanol and water were used as extraction solution. Sample clean-up performance was evaluated using high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC, Agilent 1220 infinity LC) with variable wavelength detector (VWD) 290 nm. Cromabond®H+/OHcolumn with 0.6 M KOH was the most suitable for the clean-up in view of the overall feasibility of the analysis. The highest recovery was 89.32%

Short Communication: Heritability Estimation of Birth Weight of Swamp Buffalo in Sabah, Malay

Data on birth weight of Swamp buffalo calves that were born between 2015 and 2017 were collected and analyzed for this study. The objective was to estimate the effect of heritability and to evaluate the influence of environmental factors on the birth weight of swamp buffalo calves. The heritability was estimated using parent-offspring regression method while the environmental factors were measured using linear regression analysis. The average birth weight for swamp buffalo calves was 31.5 ± 5.33kg. It was significantly (p<0.05) affected by the age of dam and the year of birth but the body weight of the dam and the sex of calves did not significantly (p>0.05) influence the birth weight. The heritability of birth weight was estimated to be 0.29, which is low. Therefore, environmental and herd management factors seem to play a larger role in birth weight than genetics. The low estimated heritability obtained from this work indicates that improvement through selection may not be feasible

Systemic Modelling of Design Error Causation in Social Infrastructure Projects

Design errors contribute significantly to cost and schedule growth in social infrastructure projects and to engineering failures, which can result in accidents and loss of life. Despite considerable research that has addressed their error causation they still remain prevalent in projects. This paper develops a conceptual model of the underlying conditions that contribute to design errors in social infrastructure projects. A systemic model of design error causation is then propagated. The research suggests that a multitude of strategies should be adopted in congruence to prevent design errors from occurring and so ensure that safety and project performance are ameliorated

Effect of shackling, electrical stunning and halal slaughtering method on stress-linked hormones in broilers

The objective of this study was to evaluate the effect of shackling and halal slaughter with head-only electrical stunning (ES) using water bath or no stunning (NS) on plasma levels of adrenaline (AD), noradrenaline (NAD) and corticosterone (CORT) levels of broiler chickens. Male and female broiler chickens (Cobb 500) 38 days old from a commercial farm in Johore, Malaysia, were placed in plastic crates (0.80 × 0.60 × 0.31 m) at 10 birds per crate, and transported for 2.5 hours in an open truck. The ambient temperature during transportation was 25 to 27 °C. Upon arrival at a commercial processing plant, a total of 50 male broiler chickens (2.2 - 2.5 kg) were randomly selected from the flocks that were delivered, transferred to different five crates (10 birds per crate) and held in a lairage for 2 to 3 h. Blood samples were collected at various points, namely after lairaging (P1) (first sampling point for both ES and NS chickens, regarded as basal values), shackling (P2) (second sampling point for both ES and NS chickens), stunning (P3) (third sampling point for ES chickens), and ventral neck incision in stunned (P4) (fourth sampling point for ES chickens) and no stun (P5) (third sampling point for NS chickens). Ten birds were sampled at each sampling point (50 birds in total). Both stunned and no stun birds were shackled. Results show that shackling (P2) did not significantly affect the AD, NAD and CORT levels. However, electrical stunning elevated both the AD and CORT levels significantly, but not NAD. Neck cut had negligible effect on the AD and NAD in NS and ES broilers, but significantly increased CORT compared with the basal CORT value. In conclusion, the study demonstrated that head-only electrical stunning using a water bath might elevate AD and CORT. The study concluded that, as measured by AD and NAD, slaughter with or without stunning may not induce a physiological stress response in broilers.Keywords: corticosterone, adrenaline, noradrenaline, primary processing, poultr

Mangosteen peel can reduce methane production and rumen biohydrogenation in vitro

Mangosteen peel (MP), an agricultural by-product of tropical countries, has been reported to contain condensed tannins and saponins, which can affect rumen microbes to reduce enteric methane emission. In the present study, the effects of mangosteen peel on in vitro ruminal fermentation, gas production, methane production, fatty acid biohydrogenation, and microbial population were investigated. Results showed that MP at medium and high levels (25 % and 50 % replacing alfalfa) were able to reduce (P <0.05) in vitro methane production without affecting volatile fatty acid (VFA) production and the pH of the substrate. The lowering effect of MP on methane production was because of suppression of the rumen microbial populations, especially total protozoa and total methanogens. MP at the higher level (50%) reduced (P <0.05) the amounts of biohydrogenation for linoleic acid (C18:2n-6), α-linolenic acid (C18:3n-3) and the total C18 unsaturated fatty acids (UFA) owing to the reduction of the Butyrivibrio fibrisolvens population, that is, the most important rumen microorganism involved in the biohydrogenation process. In conclusion, mangosteen peel has potential to be used in ruminant livestock feeds, with the advantage of reducing ruminal methane production and biohydrogenation, without adverse effects on ruminal pH and VFA production.Keywords: agricultural by-product, saponins, condensed tannins, gas production, volatile fatty acid, microbial quantificatio

Probiotic administration of Litopenaeus vannamei: Is there any negative effect on the fatty acid profile of meat?

It has been found that appropriate probiotic applications increased growth performance and disease resistance in shrimp. Bacillus subtilis has been suggested as a potent probiotic in improving growth performance and enhancing immune response in white shrimp, Litopenaeus vannamei. The aim of this work was to evaluate the possible effect of B. subtilis administration on the meat fatty acid profile of white shrimp, L. vannamei. Two groups of shrimps received B. subtilis strains L10 and G1 from the B. subtilis-supplemented feed (10^5 and 10^8 CFU g^-1) while two other groups received it from the rearing water (10^5 and 10^8 CFU ml^-1). One group received no B. subtilis and served as control. According to the results, there was no significant difference between the muscle fatty acid profiles of shrimps administrated by probiotic and control group. This study showed that B. subtilis administration, in either diets or water, did not have any negative effect on fatty acid profiles of L. vannamei meat

What Goes Up, Shouldn't Come Down: Learning from Construction and Engineering Failures

Design errors can severely jeopardize safety and contribute to failures in construction and engineering projects. Such failures can have devastating economic, environmental and social consequences. Significant efforts have been made to reduce the incidence of failures through learning from previous disasters and events by modifying building and engineering codes and standards accordingly. Design errors, however, remain an innate feature of construction and engineering projects. Most errors are identified during construction and require rework, but there is always a potential for some to remain undetected and contribute to failure, and as a result potentially contribute to accidents and loss of life. This paper examines the circumstances and issues that contributed to a series of construction and engineering failures, to enable development of a systemic learning framework to contain and reduce design errors and potential failures and accidents

Electroencephalographic responses to neck cut and exsanguination in minimally anaesthetized goats

Conscious animals typically experience sensory (nociception) and emotional pain, whereas unconscious animals that were minimally anesthetized would experience minimal emotional pain. To determine whether ‘silencing’ the emotional component through a minimally anesthetized model would minimize stress response, and thus improve animal welfare, this study aimed at comparing changes in electroencephalographic (EEG) activities associated with possible noxious stimuli following neck-cut slaughter in conscious non-anesthetized versus minimally anaesthetized Boer cross-bred goats. Ten bucks were randomly assigned to two groups of five animals each, and subjected to neck-cut slaughter when fully conscious (HS) or under minimal anaesthesia (AS) and exsanguinated. The anaesthesia was induced with propofol (5 mg/kg) administered to effect by rapid injection into a cephalic vein and maintained with halothane in 100 % oxygen. Changes in the root mean square (RMS) for each of alpha, beta, delta and theta waves, median frequency (F50) and total power of the EEG (Ptot) were compared in each group before and after neck cut and between groups following treatments. Electroencephalographic parameters did not differ between goats that were fully conscious or slaughtered under minimal anaesthesia. These findings showed that the noxious stimuli from neck cut were present in both conscious and minimally anaesthetized goats. Most importantly, the presence of emotional pain and nociception did not affect the extent of electroencephalographic responses significantly compared with animals that were experiencing nociception only.Keywords: brain activity, propofol-halothane anaesthetic, noxious stimuli, slaughte

Determination of fibernolytic enzyme activities of white rot fungi isolated from oil palm fronds

Oil palm fronds (OPF) is widely used as the source of roughage for the farm animals. However, the full potential of OPF as animal feed is limited by their high lignin content which limits the rumen microbe’s access to the cellulose and hemicellulose. White rot fungi (WRF) are a group of fungi belonging to basidiomycete phylum and are commonly found in decaying woody plant. They possess the ability to degrade lignin. This experiment aims to identify the phylum of the best lignin decaying fungi based on their enzymes activity. In this experiment, 11 fungi species were isolated from decaying oil palm fronds. They are labelled as WR1, WR 2, WR3, WR4, WR5, WR6, WR7, WR8, WR9, WR10 and WR11. Their fibernolytic enzyme activities which includes laccase, manganese peroxidase, lignin peroxidase, avicelase, carboxylmethylcellulase and xylanase are analysed using the solid state fermentation method. It is was found that 5 fungi species which are the WR1, WR2, WR4, WR7 and WR10 produced the highest ratio of lignin degrading enzyme to cellulose and hemicellulose degrading enzyme. The fungi are then analysed under microscope to determine the phylum of the fungi. From the observation, the fungi are identified to belong to the phylum basidiomycetes due to presence of clamp connection