Feed Restriction Modulates the Fecal Microbiota Composition, Nutrient Retention, and Feed Efficiency in Chickens Divergent in Residual Feed Intake

Publication histroy: Accepted - 23 October 2018; Published - 19 November 2019.There is a great interest to understand the impact of the gut microbiota on host’s nutrient use and FE in chicken production. Both chicken’s feed intake and gut bacterial microbiota differ between high and low-feed efficient chickens. To evaluate the impact of the feed intake level on the feed efficiency (FE)-associated variation in the chicken intestinal microbiota, differently feed efficient chickens need to eat the same amount of feed, which can be achieved by feeding chickens restrictively. Therefore, we investigated the effect of restrictive vs. ad libitum feeding on the fecal microbiome at 16 and 29 days posthatch (dph), FE and nutrient retention in chickens of low and high residual feed intake (RFI; metric for FE). Restrictively fed chickens were provided the same amount of feed which corresponded to 85% of the ad libitum fed group from 9 dph. FE was determined for the period between 9 and 30 dph and feces for nutrient retention were collected on 31 to 32 dph. From the 112 chickens (n = 56 fed ad libitum, and n = 56 fed restrictively), 14 low RFI and 15 high RFI ad libitum fed chickens, and 14 low RFI (n = 7 per sex) and 14 high RFI restrictively fed chickens were selected as the extremes in RFI and were retrospectively chosen for data analysis. Bray-Curtis dissimilarity matrices showed significant separation between time points, and feeding level groups at 29 dph for the fecal bacterial communities. Relevance networking indicated positive associations between Acinetobacter and feed intake at 16 dph, whereas at 29 dph Escherichia/Shigella and Turicibacter positively and Lactobacillus negatively correlated to chicken’s feed intake. Enterobacteriaceae was indicative for low RFI at 16 dph, whereas Acinetobacter was linked to high RFI across time points. However, restrictive feeding-associated changes in the fecal microbiota were not similar in low and high RFI chickens, whichmay have been related to the higher nutrient retention and thus lower fecal nutrient availability in restrictively fed high RFI chickens. Thismay also explain the decreased RFI value in restrictively fed high RFI chickens indicating improved FE, with a stronger effect in females.This project (ECO-FCE) has received funding from the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme for research, technological development and demonstration under grant agreement No. 311794

Crime seriousness and participation in restorative justice: The role of time elapsed since the offense

Restorative justice policies and programs aimed at facilitating victim- offender mediation (VOM) are part of many criminal justice systems around the world. Given its voluntary nature and potential for positive outcomes, the appropriateness and feasibility of VOM after serious offenses is subject to debate in the literature. In light of this discussion, this study first aimed to unravel the prevalence of serious offenses in cases registered for VOM and examined whether crime seriousness predicts whether mediated contact is reached between victims and offenders. Second, it tested the hypothesis that victims of increasingly serious, harmful crimes are more willing to participate when more time has elapsed since the offense in contrast to victims of less serious, harmful crimes. We analyzed 199 cases registered for VOM in the Netherlands and coded the perceived wrongfulness, harmfulness, and average duration of incarceration of an offense as 3 distinct indicators of crime seriousness in these cases. The findings revealed that cases registered for VOM (a) are, in terms of the incarceration duration, on average more serious than all offenses in the population, and (b) resulted in mediated contact (or not) independently of the 3 seriousness indicators. In addition, empirical support was found for the hypothesis that victims' willingness to participate in VOM increased over time after more harmful offenses, whereas it decreased when offenses inflicted less harm. These findings suggest that when VOM programs operate irrespectively of the time elapsed after crime, mediated contact between parties may be as likely after minor and serious offenses

Dehumanization and self-reported proclivity to torture prisoners of war.

Several authors have argued that dehumanization may be the psychological process that underlies people's willingness to torture outgroup members. In the current research, we directly examined this question among Christian participants, with Muslims as the target outgroup. Across two studies, we found that to the extent that Christians dehumanized Muslims, they were more likely to self-report the willingness to torture Muslim prisoners of war. We also found that perceiving Muslims as a threat moderated the relationship between dehumanization and the self-reported proclivity to torture. These findings support the propositions made by previous authors on the role of dehumanization in torture, war and genocide

Monitoren moet zicht geven op groep jeugdige cyberdaders

Volgens zelfrapportageonderzoek plegen maar weinig jongeren cyberdelicten. Idem de geregistreerde jeugdcriminaliteit. Maar voor een completer beeld is volgens Sven Zebel, Peter de Vries, Margo Karemaker en Elze Ufkes monitoren hard nodig. Pas dan weten we meer van de omvang van cybercriminaliteit door jongeren – en wat hun profiel is