Effects of Nano Chinese Herbal Medicine Feed Additive on Growth Performance, Meat Quality and Disease Resistance of Chickens

[Objectives] To explore the effects of nano compound Chinese herbal medicine feed additive on growth performance, meat quality and disease resistance of chickens. [Methods] Chickens were fed with nano compound Chinese herbal medicine feed additive developed by Hunan Polytechnic of Environment and Biology, including 120 chickens in the treatment group and 120 chickens in the control group (CK). The growth performance indices (body weight gain, feed to gain ratio and slaughter index), meat quality indices (pH value, color, drip loss, shear force) and disease resistance indices (morbidity and mortality) of the chickens in the treatment and CK groups were recorded and determined, respectively. [Results] The inclusion of 2% nano compound Chinese herbal medicine feed additive in the diet significantly increased the growth rate, reduced the feed-to-gain ratio and improved the meat quality of the chickens. Supplementing Chinese herbal medicine could increase the pH value and reduce the drip loss and shear force of chicken meat. At the same time, the body’s immune function, antioxidant level and resistance against diseases of the chickens fed with nano compound Chinese herbal medicine feed additive were improved. [Conclusions] The inclusion of nano compound Chinese herbal medicine feed additive in the diet can improve the growth performance, meat quality and disease resistance of chickens

A Rutile TiO2 Electron Transport Layer for the Enhancement of Charge Collection for Efficient Perovskite Solar Cells

Interfacial charge collection efficiency has demonstrated significant effects on the power conversion efficiency (PCE) of perovskite solar cells (PSCs). Herein, crystalline phase-dependent charge collection is investigated by using rutile and anatase TiO2 electron transport layer (ETL) to fabricate PSCs. The results show that rutile TiO2 ETL enhances the extraction and transportation of electrons to FTO and reduces the recombination, thanks to its better conductivity and improved interface with the CH3NH3PbI3 (MAPbI(3)) layer. Moreover, this may be also attributed to the fact that rutile TiO2 has better match with perovskite grains, and less trap density. As a result, comparing with anatase TiO2 ETL, MAPbI(3) PSCs with rutile TiO2 ETL delivers significantly enhanced performance with a champion PCE of 20.9% and a large open circuit voltage (V-OC) of 1.17V.</p

Scaling up capacity of stand-alone adsorption refrigeration tubes

On the basis of a validated model, a parametric study is conducted to understand the effects of operating parameters on the coefficient of performance (COP) and specific cooling power (SCP) of a stand-alone adsorption refrigeration tube (ART). It is revealed that the SCP obtained based on the model with the transient pressure process (TPP) boundary condition is approximately 20% higher than that obtained without the TPP. A scaling up solution of using multiple ARTs to produce continuous cooling is also proposed and discussed

A Liquid Metal-Enhanced Wearable Thermoelectric Generator

It is a key challenge to continuously power personal wearable health monitoring systems. This paper reports a novel liquid metal-enhanced wearable thermoelectric generator (LM-WTEG that directly converts body heat into electricity for powering the wearable sensor system. The gallium-based liquid metal alloys with room-temperature melting point (24~30 °C) and high latent heat density (about 500 MJ/m3) are used to design a new flexible finned heat sink, which not only absorbs the heat through the solid-liquid phase change of the LM and enhances the heat release to the ambient air due to its high thermal conduction. The LM finned is integrated with WTEG to present high biaxial flexibility, which could be tightly in contact with the skin. The LM-WTEG could achieve a super high output power density of 275 μW/cm2 for the simulated heat source (37 °C) with the natural convective heat transfer condition. The energy management unit, the multi-parameter sensors (including temperature, humidity, and accelerometer), and Bluetooth module with a total energy consumption of about 65 μW are designed, which are fully powered from LM-WTEG through harvesting body heat

Vibration Energy Harvesting from the Subwavelength Interface State of a Topological Metamaterial Beam

Topological metamaterial has been a research hotpot in both physics and engineering due to its unique ability of wave manipulation. The topological interface state, which can efficiently and robustly centralize the elastic wave energy, is promising to attain high-performance energy harvesting. Since most of environmental vibration energy is in low frequency range, the interface state is required to be designed at subwavelength range. To this end, this paper developed a topological metamaterial beam with local resonators and studied its energy-harvesting performance. First, the unit cell of this topological metamaterial beam consists of a host beam with two pairs of parasitic beams with tip mass. Then, the band structure and topological features are determined. It is revealed that by tuning the distance between these two pairs of parasitic beams, band inversion where topological features inverse can be obtained. Then, two sub-chains, their design based on two topologically distinct unit cells, are assembled together with a piezoelectric transducer placed at the conjunction, yielding the locally resonant, topological, metamaterial, beam-based piezoelectric energy harvester. After that, its transmittance property and output power were obtained by using the frequency domain analysis of COMSOL Multiphysics. It is clear that the subwavelength interface state is obtained at the band-folding bandgap. Meanwhile, in the interface state, elastic wave energy is successfully centralized at the conjunction. From the response distribution, it is found that the maximum response takes place on the parasitic beam rather than the host beam. Therefore, the piezoelectric transducer is recommended to be placed on the parasitic beam rather than host beam. Finally, the robustness of the topological interface state and its potential advantages on energy harvesting were studied by introducing a local defect. It is clear that in the interface state, the maximum response is always located at the conjunction regardless of the defect degree and location. In other words, the piezoelectric transducer placed at the conjunction can maintain a stable and high-efficiency output power in the interface state, which makes the whole system very reliable in practical implementation

Effects of Fermented Nano Chinese Herbal Medicines Replacing Antibiotics on Production Performance and Carcass Quality of Growing-Finishing Pigs

[Objectives] To study the effects of fermented nano Chinese herbal medicines replacing antibiotics on the production performance and carcass quality of growing-finishing pigs. [Methods] 200 healthy and disease-free Duroc-Landrace-Yorkshire (DLY) growing-finishing pigs with similar birth time (45 ± 2 d) and body weight of about 31.5 kg were randomly divided into group A (fed with non-antibiotic basal diet), group B (fed with antibiotic basal diet), group C (fed with non-antibiotic basal diet + 0.1% fermented nano Chinese herbal medicine preparation), group D (fed with non-antibiotic basal diet + 0.3% fermented nano Chinese herbal medicine preparation) and group E (fed with non-antibiotic basal diet + 0.5% fermented nano Chinese herbal medicine preparation). The experiment lasted for 90 d. At the end of the experiment, the production performance and carcass indicators were measured. [Results] Compared with group A, the final weight, average daily gain (ADG) and average daily feed intake (ADFI) of groups B, C, D and E were extremely significantly increased (P＜ 0.01), while the feed-to-gain ratio (F/G) was extremely significantly decreased (P＜ 0.01). Compared with group B, the ADG of group E was significantly increased (P＜0.05), while the F/G was significantly decreased (P＜ 0.05). Compared with group A, the slaughter rate and carcass length of pigs in groups B, C, D and E were extremely significantly increased (P＜0.01); compared with group B, the slaughter rate of groups D and E was extremely significantly increased (P＜0.01). [Conclusions] The fermented nano Chinese herbal medicine preparation has better effects in promoting growth are better than that of antibiotic additives, and it can significantly improve the carcass quality of growing-finishing pigs

Cochrane systematic reviews of Chinese herbal medicines: an overview.

our study had two objectives: a) to systematically identify all existing systematic reviews of Chinese herbal medicines (CHM) published in Cochrane Library; b) to assess the methodological quality of included reviews.We performed a systematic search of the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews (CDSR, Issue 5, 2010) to identify all reviews of CHM. A total of fifty-eight reviews were eligible for our study. Twenty-one of the included reviews had at least one Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) practitioner as its co-author. 7 reviews didn't include any primary study, the remaining reviews (n = 51) included a median of 9 studies and 936 participants. 50% of reviews were last assessed as up-to-date prior to 2008. The questions addressed by 39 reviews were broad in scope, in which 9 reviews combined studies with different herbal medicines. For OQAQ, the mean of overall quality score (item 10) was 5.05 (95% CI; 4.58-5.52). All reviews assessed the methodological quality of primary studies, 16% of included primary studies used adequate sequence generation and 7% used adequate allocation concealment. Of the 51 nonempty reviews, 23 reviews were reported as being inconclusive, while 27 concluded that there might be benefit of CHM, which was limited by the poor quality or inadequate quantity of included studies. 58 reviews reported searching a median of seven electronic databases, while 10 reviews did not search any Chinese database.Now CDSR has included large numbers of CHM reviews, our study identified some areas which could be improved, such as almost half of included reviews did not have the participation of TCM practitioners and were not up-to-date according to Cochrane criteria, some reviews pooled the results of different herbal medicines and ignored the searching of Chinese databases

The hierarchical sensitivity to social misallignment in decision making and uncertainty.

Social misalignment occurs when a person&rsquo;s attitudes and opinions deviate from those of others. We investigated how individuals&nbsp;react to social misalignment in risky (outcome probabilities are known) or ambiguous (outcome probabilities are&nbsp;unknown) decision contexts. During each trial, participants played a forced-choice gamble, and they observed the decisions&nbsp;of four other players after they made a tentative decision, followed by an opportunity to keep or change their initial decision.&nbsp;Behavioral and event-related potential data were collected. Behaviorally, the stronger the participants&rsquo; initial preference,&nbsp;the less likely they were to switch their decisions, whereas the more their decisions were misaligned with the majority, the&nbsp;more likely they were to switch. Electrophysiological results showed a hierarchical processing pattern of social misalignment.&nbsp;Misalignment was first detected binarily (i.e. match/mismatch) at an early stage, as indexed by the N1 component. During the&nbsp;second stage, participants became sensitive to low levels of misalignment, which were indexed by the feedback-related negativity.&nbsp;The degree of social misalignment was processed in greater detail, as indexed by the P3 component. Moreover, such&nbsp;hierarchical neural sensitivity is generalizable across different decision contexts (i.e. risky and ambiguous). These findings&nbsp;demonstrate a fine-grained neural sensitivity to social misalignment during decision-making under uncertainty.</p

The hierarchical sensitivity to social misalignment during decision-making under uncertainty

Social misalignment occurs when a person&#39;s attitudes and opinions deviate from those of others. We investigated how individuals react to social misalignment in risky (outcome probabilities are known) or ambiguous (outcome probabilities are unknown) decision contexts. During each trial, participants played a forced-choice gamble, and they observed the decisions of four other players after they made a tentative decision, followed by an opportunity to keep or change their initial decision. Behavioral and event-related potential data were collected. Behaviorally, the stronger the participants&#39; initial preference, the less likely they were to switch their decisions, whereas the more their decisions were misaligned with the majority, the more likely they were to switch. Electrophysiological results showed a hierarchical processing pattern of social misalignment. Misalignment was first detected binarily (i.e. match/mismatch) at an early stage, as indexed by the N1 component. During the second stage, participants became sensitive to low levels of misalignment, which were indexed by the feedback-related negativity. The degree of social misalignment was processed in greater detail, as indexed by the P3 component. Moreover, such hierarchical neural sensitivity is generalizable across different decision contexts (i.e. risky and ambiguous). These findings demonstrate a fine-grained neural sensitivity to social misalignment during decision-making under uncertainty.</p