Effect of Eucommia ulmoides Leaf Extract on Growth Performance, Carcass Traits, Parameters of Oxidative Stress, and Lipid Metabolism in Broiler Chickens

Eucommia ulmoides bark has been traditionally used as a Chinese medicine to attenuate stress, but the leaf, which is rich in polyphenols and polysaccharides, has been rarely used. This study aimed to investigate the effect of Eucommia ulmoides leaf extracts (EULEs) on oxidative stress and meat quality of broilers. A total of 252 broilers were randomly divided into 3 treatments and fed with a control basal diet (CON), or a diet containing 250 mg/kg or 1,000 mg/kg of EULE for 51 days. Results showed that dietary supplementation of 250 mg/kg EULE increased significantly the average daily gain of broilers in the early stage (1–21 days), while 250 mg/kg or 1,000 mg/kg of EULE decreased the feed conversion ratio in the whole period (P < 0.05). Supplementation of 250 mg/kg EULE reduced the level of MDA in the liver (P < 0.05), while 1,000 mg/kg EULE decreased the serum level of MDA (P < 0.05), and the HDL level in serum was increased by 250 mg/kg or 1,000 mg/kg EULE (P < 0.05). Additionally, 250 mg/kg EULE decreased abdominal fat ratio and serum triglyceride (TC) level in broilers, while 250 or 1,000 mg/kg of EULE reduced drip loss in breast muscle (P < 0.05), and 1,000 mg/kg EULE reduced the cooking loss in thigh muscle (P < 0.05). In conclusion, dietary supplementation of 250 mg/kg of EULE could attenuate oxidative stress and improve the growth performance and meat quality in broilers

Modelling and Forecast of Future Growth for Shandong’s Small Industrial Towns: A Scenario-Based Interactive Approach

The industrial small-town development process in Shandong is influenced by the urban agglomeration strategy and the regional collaborative production, thereby resulting in a challenge of growth boundary planning. How to build a growth forecast decision support system to help small industrial towns maintain sustainable development with limited trial and error costs is an essential topic in the current research of small town-related fields. Empirical analysis reveals that the growth factors of small towns differ from the factors of cities due to the other-organization planning management system and self-organization construction activities that coexist in small towns. Besides, due to the size of small towns, the impact of policy changes in small towns is more significant than in cities. Furthermore, as part of the regional production chain, small industrial towns are most vulnerable to uncertain external disturbances. Therefore, it is necessary to formulate different development scenarios according to possible disturbances and output corresponding development forecasts. The research aims to build a decision-making support system for Shandong’s small-town planning based on an urban modeling approach using geographic information technology and scenario planning. Considering the mutually driving effects of the objective environment and subjective policies of Shandong’s industrial towns, as well as the corresponding dynamic mechanisms and comparing the theoretical basis and limitations of the different modeling approaches, this essay constructs a model system based on a mathematical model and a system dynamics model. It is also an interactive model accompanied by applicable rules and factors so that initial information and relevant development goals can be inputted into the model system to simulate the influence of different policies and identify the small industrial town growth scenarios

A Quick Algorithm for Binary Discernibility Matrix Simplification using Deterministic Finite Automata

The binary discernibility matrix, originally introduced by Felix and Ushio, is a binary matrix representation for storing discernible attributes that can distinguish different objects in decision systems. It is an effective approach for feature selection, knowledge representation and uncertainty reasoning. An original binary discernibility matrix usually contains redundant objects and attributes. These redundant objects and attributes may deteriorate the performance of feature selection and knowledge acquisition. To overcome this shortcoming, row relations and column relations in a binary discernibility matrix are defined in this paper. To compare the relationships of different rows (columns) quickly, we construct deterministic finite automata for a binary discernibility matrix. On this basis, a quick algorithm for binary discernibility matrix simplification using deterministic finite automata (BDMSDFA) is proposed. We make a comparison of BDMR (an algorithm of binary discernibility matrix reduction), IBDMR (an improved algorithm of binary discernibility matrix reduction) and BDMSDFA. Finally, theoretical analyses and experimental results indicate that the algorithm of BDMSDFA is effective and efficient

3D Reconstruction of High Reflective Welding Surface Based on Binocular Structured Light Stereo Vision

The inspection of welding surface quality is an important task for welding work. With the development of product quality inspection technology, automated and machine vision-based inspection have been applied to more industrial application fields because of its non-contact, convenience, and high efficiency. However, challenging material and optical phenomena such as high reflective surface areas often present on welding seams tend to produce artifacts such as holes in the reconstructed model using current visual sensors, hence leading to insufficiency or even errors in the inspection result. This paper presents a 3D reconstruction technique for highly reflective welding surfaces based on binocular style structured light stereo vision. The method starts from capturing a fully lit image for identifying highly reflective regions on a welding surface using conventional computer vision models, including gray-scale, binarization, dilation, and erosion. Then, fringe projection profilometry is used to generate point clouds on the interested area. The mapping and alignment from 2D image to 3D point cloud is then established to highlight features that are vital for eliminating “holes”—large featureless areas—caused by high reflections such as the specular mirroring effect. A two-way slicing method is proposed to operate on the refined point cloud, following the concept of dimensionality reduction to project the sliced point cloud onto different image planes before a Smoothing Spline model is applied to fit the discrete point formed by projection. The 3D coordinate values of points in the “hole” region are estimated according to the fitted curves and appended to the original point cloud using iterative algorithms. Experiment results verify that the proposed method can accurately reconstruct a wide range of welding surfaces with significantly improved precision

The effect of adjuvant chemotherapy on survival in patients with residual nasopharyngeal carcinoma after undergoing concurrent chemoradiotherapy.

BACKGROUND:Guidelines from the U.S. National Comprehensive Cancer Network have recommended use of concurrent chemoradiotherapy (CCRT), followed by a 3-cycles combination of platinum and 5-fluorouracil chemotherapy as standard treatment for nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC). The benefits of CCRT for treatment of locally advanced NPC have been established. Whether platinum and 5-fluorouracil chemotherapy should be routinely added to locally advanced NPC after CCRT is still open to debate. Whether adjuvant chemotherapy provides an additional survival benefit for the subgroup of patients with residual nasopharyngeal carcinoma who have undergone CCRT is also unclear. This retrospective study was initiated to determine the survival benefit of adjuvant chemotherapy (AC) in residual NPC patients who have undergone concurrent chemoradiotherapy. METHODS:The retrospective study included 155 nasopharyngeal carcinoma patients who had local residual lesions after the platinum-based CCRT without or with AC. Kaplan-Meier analysis and the log-rank test were used to estimate overall survival (OS), failure-free survival (FFS), local relapse-free survival (LRFS) and distant metastasis-free survival (DMFS). RESULTS:Median follow-up was 47 months. Adjuvant cisplatin or nedaplatin plus 5-fluorouracil chemotherapy did not significantly improve 3-year OS, LRFS, FFS, and DMFS for patients with residual nasopharyngeal carcinoma after undergoing CCRT. The 3-year OS rates for the no-AC group and AC group were 71.6% and 73.7%, respectively (P= 0.44). The 3-year FFS rates for no-AC group and AC group were 57.5% and 66.9%, respectively ((P= 0.19). The 3-year LRFS rates for no-AC group and AC group were 84.7% and 87.9%, respectively ((P= 0.51). The 3-year DMFS rates for no-AC group and AC group were 71.4% and 77.4%, respectively ((P= 0.23). CONCLUSIONS:Since we did not find sufficient data to support significant survival in 3-year OS, LRFS, FFS, and DMFS, whether Adjuvant cisplatin or nedaplatin and 5-fluorouracil chemotherapy should be routinely added to residual nasopharyngeal carcinoma patients after undergoing CCRT remain uncertain

Effect of prognostic factors on survival in multivariable analyses.

<p>* Age, gender, cigarette smoking, alcohol use, T stage, N stage, rT stage, rN stage, AC cycles and treatment method in multivariate Cox mode.</p><p>Effect of prognostic factors on survival in multivariable analyses.</p

Kaplan-Meier survival curves for 155 patients with residual tumors after undergoing CCRT without or with AC.

<p>Overall survival (A), failure-free survival (B), local relapse-free survival (C), and distant metastasis-free survival (D). P values were calculated with the unadjusted log-rank test. CCRT = concurrent chemoradiotherapy; AC = adjuvant chemotherapy.</p

Characteristics of patients with residual tumor after completing CCRT.

<p>Abbreviations: CCRT = Concurrent Chemoradiotherapy; AC = Adjuvant chemotherapy.</p><p>*Two-sided x² test.</p><p>Characteristics of patients with residual tumor after completing CCRT.</p