Effects of dietary supplementation of lysine and methionine in tempeh-based diet on growth performance and feed utilization of tiger grouper, Epinephelus fuscoguttatus juveniles

The potential of tempeh (TMP) with supplementation of methionine (Met) and lysine (Lys) as a substitute of fishmeal (FM) was evaluated based on the growth performance and feed utilization for tiger grouper (Epinephelus fuscoguttatus) juveniles. Three diets were formulated to replace FM with TMP at 0% (D1, control diet), 40% without essential amino acids (EAAs) supplementation (D2) and 40% with EAAs supplementation (D3, 0.5% of Met and 0.5% of Lys) and fed to triplicate groups of fish (22.90±0.48g) twice a day for 8 weeks. Weight gain (WG), specific growth rate (SGR) and feed intake (FI) of D1 group (114.31%, 1.59%, and 45.51 g fish-1 , respectively) were significantly higher than those fed with TMP-based diets (P<0.05). On the other hand, supplementation of EAAs in D3 was able to significantly improve the protein efficiency ratio (PER) and net protein utilization (NPU) (1.17% and 23.13%, respectively) compared to other diets (P<0.05). Supplementation of EAAs reduced whole-body lipid (P0.05) of the fish. In the present study, results indicated that supplementation of EAAs was only able to improve feed utilization (PER and NPU) but not in growth performance (WG and SGR) of E. fuscoguttatus fed on TMP-based diets

Effects of dietary supplementation of lysine and methionine in tempeh-based diet on growth performance and feed utilization of E. fuscoguttatus, Epinephelus fuscoguttatus juveniles

The potential of tempeh (TMP) with supplementation of methionine (Met) and lysine (Lys) as a substitute of fishmeal (FM) was evaluated based on the growth performance and feed utilization for tiger grouper (Epinephelus fuscoguttatus) juveniles. Three diets were formulated to replace FM with TMP at 0% (D1, control diet), 40% without essential amino acids (EAAs) supplementation (D2) and 40% with EAAs supplementation (D3, 0.5% of Met and 0.5% of Lys) and fed to triplicate groups of fish (22.90±0.48g) twice a day for 8 weeks. Weight gain (WG), specific growth rate (SGR) and feed intake (FI) of D1 group (114.31%, 1.59%, and 45.51 g fish-1, respectively) were significantly higher than those fed with TMP-based diets (P0.05) of the fish. In the present study, results indicated that supplementation of EAAs was only able to improve feed utilization (PER and NPU) but not in growth performance (WG and SGR) of E. fuscoguttatus fed on TMP-based diets

Synergized Mechanistic and Solar Photocatalysis Features of N-TiO2 Functionalised Activated Carbon

A TiO2 photocatalysts was successfully functionalised by employing nitrogen (N) as a dopant on activated carbon (AC) support as synergist. Two different types of activated carbon adopting namely Garcinia mangostana and palm shell as precursor were chosen as an activated carbon support. Thus the synthesized samples were examined for its physical and chemistry properties through advanced microscopic and spectroscopic techniques. The results revealed the contribution of adsorbent support through the rich surface area while doping of nitrogen contributed for effectively utilizing the incident photons by narrowing the band gap energy. The synergetic adsorption-photocatalytic activity was investigated by adopting batik dye, Remazol Brilliant Blue Dye (RBB) as model pollutant. Thus the N-TiO2 functionalised activated carbon demonstrated excellent adsorption-photocatalytic activity with 80% removal efficiency in 6 h. The synergism of adsorption photocatalysis portrayed the alternative for treating recalcitrant RBB a predominant dye found in batik textile industry wastewate

Airborne dispersion of droplets during coughing: a physical model of viral transmission

The Covid-19 pandemic has focused attention on airborne transmission of viruses. Using realistic air flow simulation, we model droplet dispersion from coughing and study the transmission risk related to SARS-CoV-2. Although most airborne droplets are 8-16 $\mu$m in diameter, the droplets with the highest transmission potential are, in fact, 32-40 $\mu$m. Use of face masks is therefore recommended for both personal and social protection. We found social distancing effective at reducing transmission potential across all droplet sizes. However, the presence of a human body 1 m away modifies the aerodynamics so that downstream droplet dispersion is enhanced, which has implications on safe distancing in queues. Based on median viral load, we found that an average of 0.55 viral copies is inhaled at 1 m distance per cough. Droplet evaporation results in significant reduction in droplet counts, but airborne transmission remains possible even under low humidity conditions

Autonomous Personal Mobility Scooter for Multi-Class Mobility-On-Demand Service

In this paper, we describe the design and development of an autonomous personal mobility scooter that was used in public trials during the 2016 MIT Open House, for the purpose of raising public awareness and interest about autonomous vehicles. The scooter is intended to work cooperatively with other classes of autonomous vehicles such as road cars and golf cars to improve the efficacy of Mobility-on-Demand transportation solutions. The scooter is designed to be robust, reliable, and safe, while operating under prolonged durations. The flexibility in fleet expansion is shown by replicating the system architecture and sensor package that has been previously implemented in the road car and golf cars. We show that the vehicle performed robustly with small localization variance. A survey of the users shows that the public is very receptive to the concept of the autonomous personal mobility device.Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology (SMART) (Future Urban Mobility research program)Singapore. National Research Foundatio

Length-weight relationships of the pond-cultured spotted barb (Puntius binotatus)

Length-weight relationship and relative condition factor of the pond-cultured spotted barb, Puntius binotatus were calculated to determine its growth and health conditions in order to evaluate the efficiency of present culture practice. The cultured fish were growing well in the ponds as they attained strong positive allometric growth as the b value was 3.356 (>3), and the linear relationship r2 value (0.96) was significant at level 0.01. Nevertheless, the relative condition value of the pond cultured fish (1.008) was lower than those of the wild fish caught from the Upper Kerian River and Serdang River. The fish from Upper Kerian River were in much better condition than the pond cultured fish. Such differences could be due to the gaps in the water quality between the ponds and the rivers. Further studies should be conducted to determine the optimum range of water parameters especially temperature, pH and total dissolved solution (TDS) level of the culture environment for this fish, in order to optimize its culture condition

A comparative analysis of the effect of low-cost fish and commercially compounded feed on growth performance and organoleptic quality of hybrid grouper (Epinephelus fuscoguttatus× Epinephelus lanceolatus) in cage farming in Kuala Penyu, Sabah, and nutritional costs

A 25-week feeding trial was conducted to assess the growth performance, organoleptic quality, and to estimate the viability of nourishing hybrid grouper (Epinephelus fuscoguttatus x Epinephelus lanceolatus) with low-cost fish (LCF) and commercially compound feed (CCF). A group of 3600 juvenile fish (182g) were released in four sea cages and fed with either LCF or CCF in duplicate. At the end of the trial, the hybrid grouper provided LCF attained a significantly higher (P0.05). Although technicalities of fish fed with LCF suggest that LCF is more efficient than CCF, feeding LCF to high-value fish is an unsustainable practice as LCF is usually obtained through trawling –a destructive fishing method for the marine ecosystem. Therefore, feeding with CCF without the use of LCF as the source of protein for its fishmeal will contribute to sustainable aquaculture. In order to convince the local farmers in Sabah to adopt the practice of feeding CCF, future research should focus on completing the species-specific diet formulation to promote optimum growth, and find ways to reduce the CCF local selling price

Electrochemical capacitance of a leaky nano-capacitor

We report a detailed theoretical investigation on electrochemical capacitance of a nanoscale capacitor where there is a DC coupling between the two conductors. For this ``leaky'' quantum capacitor, we have derived general analytic expressions of the linear and second order nonlinear electrochemical capacitance within a first principles quantum theory in the discrete potential approximation. Linear and nonlinear capacitance coefficients are also derived in a self-consistent manner without the latter approximation and the self-consistent analysis is suitable for numerical calculations. At linear order, the full quantum formula improves the semiclassical analysis in the tunneling regime. At nonlinear order which has not been studied before for leaky capacitors, the nonlinear capacitance and nonlinear nonequilibrium charge show interesting behavior. Our theory allows the investigation of crossover of capacitance from a full quantum to classical regimes as the distance between the two conductors is changed