Effects Of Feeding Metabolites From Lactobacillus Plantarum Strains On Lipid Metabolism, Gut Morphology And Growth Performance Of Broiler Chickens

Four experiments were conducted to study the effects of feeding metabolite combinations produced from six strains of L. plantarum on the performance of broiler chickens. The inhibitory activity of different combinations of metabolites produced by locally isolated L. plantarum against various pathogens was studied in the first experiment. Sixty-three combinations of metabolites obtained from 6 strains of L. plantarum: UL4, TL1, RS5, RI11, RG14 and RG11 were equally and homogenously mixed. The inhibitory activity was then determined against 5 selected indicators, which are E. coli, L. monocytogenes, S. typhimurium, Vancomycin resistant enterococci (VRE) and Pediococcus acidilactici. The inhibitory activity was measured based on the diameter of inhibitory zone. Four combinations with the highest inhibitory scores were identified. The combination of four strains RS5, RI11, RG14 and RG11 has given the highest score, followed by the combinations of TL1, RG14 and RG11 strains, combinations of TL1, RI11 and RG11 strains, and combinations of TL1, RS5, RI11 and RG14 strains. These results indicate that different combinations of metabolites had different antibacterial activity, which could be used in food and feed industries. Combinations of different metabolites further enhance the antimicrobial activity. Four combinations of metabolites with the highest inhibitory activity were used in the following experiment to study the performance of broiler chickens. A total of 432 day-old male Ross broiler chicks were raised to 42 days of age in deep litter system. Each pen consisted of 12 chicks and was randomly allocated to the open house with wood shavings litter. The birds were vaccinated (IB-ND live vaccine, Fort Dodge, USA) against infectious bronchitis (IB) and Newcastle disease (ND). The birds were also vaccinated with IBD vaccine (MyVac UPM93, Malaysia) against infectious bursal disease (IBD) on day 14. Wing band was applied to all of the birds for identification. Water and feed were provided ad libitum. The feed intake and body weight were recorded weekly. The starter and finisher diets were offered to the birds from 0 - 21 and 22 - 42 days of age, respectively. The dietary treatments consisted of: (i) corn-soybean based diet without antibiotic (-ve control) diet; (ii) basal diet with neomycin and oxytetracyclin (+ve control); (iii) basal diet supplemented with 0.3% metabolite combinations of L. plantarum RS5, RI11, RG14 and RG11 (Com3456); (iv) basal diet supplemented with 0.3% metabolite combinations of L. plantarum TL1, RG14 and RG11 (Com256); (v) basal diet supplemented with 0.3% metabolite combinations of L. plantarum TL1, RI11 and RG11 (Com246); (vi) basal diet supplemented with 0.3% metabolite combinations of L. plantarum TL1, RS5, RG14 and RG11 (Com2456). Greater final body weight (BW), weight gain (WG), average daily gain (ADG), volatile fatty acids (VFA) and lower feed conversion ratio (FCR) were significantly (p<0.05) found in the birds fed with the 4 metabolite combinations.Supplementation of metabolites combination also increased faecal lactic acid bacteria (LAB) population, villi height of small intestine and lowered plasma and meat cholesterol and faecal Enterobacteriaceae (ENT) population. In the third experiment, the effect of feeding different dosages of Com3456 obtained from the second experiment on the performance of broiler chickens was studied. A total of 504 day-old male Ross broiler chicks were grouped into 7 treatments and offered with different diets: (i) standard corn-soybean based diet (negative control); (ii) standard corn-soybean based diet + neomycin and oxytetracycline (positive control); (iii) standard corn-soybean based diet + 0.1% metabolite combination of L. plantarum RS5, RI11, RG14 and RG11 strains (Com3456); (iv) standard corn-soybean based diet + 0.2% of Com3456; (v) standard corn-soybean based diet + 0.3% of Com3456 (vi) standard corn-soybean based diet + 0.4% of Com3456 and (vii) standard corn-soybean based diet + 0.5% of Com3456. Supplementation of Com3456 with different dosages improved growth performance, reduced ENT and increased LAB count, lowered plasma and meat cholesterol, and increased villi height of small intestine and volatile fatty acids (VFA). Nevertheless, abdominal fat deposition was not affected by Com3456 metabolites. Only slight increase of antibody titers against Newcastle disease, infectious bronchitis and infectious bursal disease was found in those birds supplemented with the metabolites. Treatment with 0.2% Com3456 had the best results with minimal cost, especially in terms of growth performance, FCR and plasma and meat cholesterol reduction among other dosages. These results indicate that 0.2% is optimum dosages to be included in the diets of broiler chickens in order to replace antimicrobial growth promoters (AGP).In the last experiment, the very low-density lipoprotein (VLDL) lipid profiles, intestinal LAB count and bile salts deconjugation of LAB were studied. The results showed that metabolite combinations supplemented in broilers feed reduced free cholesterol and cholesterol esters in VLDL particles and increased LAB count in digesta of small intestine. The results also suggest that LAB are able to deconjugate bile salts and lead to the increase of cholesterol utilization for synthesizing new conjugated bile salts. These properties of metabolite combinations in the diets of broiler chickens contribute to the reduction of cholesterol in plasma and meat

Spatio-temporal Analysis of Urban Built-up Land in the Hanoi Metropolitan Area (Vietnam) using Remotely Sensed Images

Rapid and unplanned urbanization leads to temperature rise, urban vegetation decrease, and built-up land increase, forming an urban heat island. It is, therefore, the change of built-up land plays an important role in surface urban heat island studies. This study aims to analyze spatio-temporal changes of urban built-up land in the Hanoi Metropolitan Area (HMA), Vietnam, using Landsat remotely sensed images acquired in 1996 and 2016. Landsat time-series images were first pre-processed preprocessed to account for sensor, solar, atmospheric, and topographic effects. Urban built-up land was then extracted based on an NDBI based continuous built-up index (BUc). Spatio-temporal changes of built-up land were finally analyzed by means of Geographic Information System (GIS). It was found that the urban built-up land area had increased from 4063.1 hectares in 1996 to 7163.2 hectares in 2016 which account for 13.3% and 23.4% of the total area, respectively. The built-up land area had increased by about 10.1% of the total area in 20 years. On average, 0.5% of the urban built-up area increases each year. The urban built-up land tends to expand to the west, southwest, and south of the HMA. These findings demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method for spatio-temporal analysis of built-up land in urban areas using remotely sensed images

Analysis of Spatial Dependence of Ore-Forming Elements Using Geostatistics and Moran Correlogram

The spatial dependence of data obtained from the geochemical prospecting process can provide useful information for evaluating mineralization potential. This study proposes two approaches to study the spatial dependence of ore-forming elements. To reduce the influence of extreme values and outliers, a semi-variogram was first used to study spatial variability and degree of spatial dependence of geochemical data using Cressie robust semi-variogram estimator. The Moran spatial correlogram was then employed to describe spatial heterogeneity and to test for the presence of spatial autocorrelation in geochemical data. The Moran’s I statistics is strongly sensitive to positively skewed distribution, therefore, geochemical data were Box-Cox transformed before computing spatial correlograms. Results from a case study of Ag and Au elements in Jiurui Copper districts (southeast China) have shown that moderate spatial dependence was found for both of the Au and Ag variables, the maximum spatial variability was 20 km for Au and 10 km for Ag, respectively. The degree of spatial dependence among geochemical data decreases as distances increase. These findings demonstrate that the spatial dependence of ore-forming elements can be effectively measured using geostatistics and Moran correlogram

Evaluation of Multi-Precipitation Products for Multi-Time Scales and Spatial Distribution During 2007-2015

Recently, several precipitation products are released with the improved algorithm to strengthen the performance of precipitation construction and monitoring. These data play a key role in a wide range of hydrological models, water resources modeling and environmental researches. Especially in developing countries like Vietnam, it is challenging to gather data for long-term time series at scales of daily and sub-daily due to the very coarse density of observation station. In order to overcome the problem of data scarcity, this study aims to evaluate the performance of newest multiple precipitation products including Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM 3B42 V7), Climate Prediction Center (CPC) MORPHing Version 1.0 (CMORPH_V1.0), European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) reanalysis systems (ERA-Interim), Climate Research Unit Time series Version 4.0.1 (CRU TS 4.0.1) and Asian Precipitation-Highly-Resolved Observational Data Integration Towards Evaluation of Water Resources version 2 (APHRODITE) in comparison with measured precipitation for multiple time scales (daily, monthly, seasonal and annual), taking the VuGia-ThuBon (VG-TB) as a pilot basin where climate regime is complex. Seven continuous and four dichotomous statistics are applied to evaluate the precipitation estimates qualitatively at multiple time scales. In addition, specifically, evaluation of spatial distribution of multiple time scales is implemented. The results show lower precipitation estimates in areas of high elevation and higher precipitation estimates over the areas of plain and coastal in comparison with measured precipitation for all considered precipitation data. More importantly, ERA-Interim well captures rain events of heavy rain (50.0-100 mm/day). CMORHPH_V1.0 better reproduces the rain events with little overestimation of light rain (0.6-6 mm/day) than the others. For zero rain events (0-0.6 mm/day), TRMM 3B42 V7 gives the best performance. Furthermore, the cumulative distribution function of APHRODITE well matches the distribution of measured precipitation. All precipitation products completely fail to capture the rain events of extremely heavy rain. More importantly, a formula is proposed to scale and adjust the merged satellite precipitation at a sub-daily scale

A case study: Institutional Factors Affecting Lecturers’ Research Engagement in A University in Mekong Delta region, Vietnam

This case study investigated institutional factors affecting university lecturers’ research engagement in a multidisciplinary higher education institution in the Mekong Delta region, Vietnam. The study employed the interpretive qualitative case study approach with the use of three data collection tools (document analysis, surveys, and recorded semi-structured interviews). In this paper, the authors presented the findings of document analysis and the recorded semi-structured interviews. The findings indicated that institutional factors affecting lecturers’ research engagement in this studied university included governmental policies, funding and structure, resources, teaching loads, leadership and research environment. The paper suggested some recommendations to foster the lecturers’ research engagement in this university

Adaptation To Salinity Intrusion For Rice Farming Household In The Vietnamese Mekong Delta

Agriculture has considerably been affected due to the increased salinity in recent years in the Vietnamese Mekong Delta (VMD). The saline intrusion has increasingly caused problems to irrigation management, making it impossible to sustain the desired crop productivity. Rice farming are actually the most vulnerable as they have limited adaptive capacities and are more dependent on water for food production and other economic activities. This paper aims to understand how rice farming households responded to impacts of saline intrusion in the VMD, focusing the adaptive capacity and adaptation to saline intrusion at household level. The study showed that most rice farming households perceived the impacts of saline intrusion on their production activities, but only a few households prepared for adaptation options. Their decisions were not based on long-term saline intrusion impacts because households made decisions and changed farming practices due to economic factors and government policy support. The environment factors such as saline intrusion always came after economic and government policy factors. Government policy strongly affected production conditions of rice farming households through building irrigation, dyke and sluice gate systems. It means that change of production activities of rice farming households much more depended on government programs and development goals. Thus, households have fewer choices of production diversification away from rice farming