Har grovfoder en ernæringsmæssig værdi for slagtesvin

I det økologiske husdyrhold skal dyrene have adgang til grovfoder. Grovfoderet skal ikke udgøre en bestemt andel af foderet, men være dagligt tilgængeligt for alle dyr. Grovfoderet tilfredsstiller dyrenes adfærdsmæssige behov mht. mæthed og rodeadfærd, og formodes at have en gavnlig virkning på deres sundhedstilstand. Ønsket om en øget økologisk svineproduktion påvirker økosystemets næringsstofbalance, hvorfor det er vigtigt at kende til svinenes bidrag hertil. Der er ikke særlig megen viden om, hvor godt svin udnytter grovfoder, fordi forskningen i mange år har været fokuseret på koncentrerede fodermidler, der giver maksimal foderudnyttelse og vækst. I projektet, som beskrives i det følgende, er der lavet nogle basale undersøgelser af, hvordan grovfoder nedbrydes i tarmkanalen, og hvor meget af energien og næringsstofferne i grovfoder der kan udnyttes af slagtesvin

Ultrafast all-optical demultiplexer based on monolithic Mach-Zehnder interferometer with integrated semiconductor optical amplifiers

A monolithically integrated and fully packaged Mach-Zehnder interferometer with semiconductor optical amplifiers (MZI-SOA) is demonstrated as polarisation-independent high-speed demultiplexer for up to 160 Gbit/s optical time division multiplexed (OTDM) data stream

Identification of common genetic risk variants for autism spectrum disorder

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a highly heritable and heterogeneous group of neurodevelopmental phenotypes diagnosed in more than 1% of children. Common genetic variants contribute substantially to ASD susceptibility, but to date no individual variants have been robustly associated with ASD. With a marked sample-size increase from a unique Danish population resource, we report a genome-wide association meta-analysis of 18,381 individuals with ASD and 27,969 controls that identified five genome-wide-significant loci. Leveraging GWAS results from three phenotypes with significantly overlapping genetic architectures (schizophrenia, major depression, and educational attainment), we identified seven additional loci shared with other traits at equally strict significance levels. Dissecting the polygenic architecture, we found both quantitative and qualitative polygenic heterogeneity across ASD subtypes. These results highlight biological insights, particularly relating to neuronal function and corticogenesis, and establish that GWAS performed at scale will be much more productive in the near term in ASD.Peer reviewe

Roughages for Growing Pigs, with Emphasis on Chemical composition, Ingestion and Faecal Digestibility

In 2 experiments, 10 gilts (30 kg initial liveweight) were given a basal diet with fresh or frozen/thawed clover-grass, clover-grass silage or whole-crop pea-barley silage. The faecal digestibility of gross energy (GE), DM, organic matter (OM), dietary fibre (DF) and CP were measured. The 3 roughages, leaves and stems of clover-grass and the basal diets were also tested for in vitro OM digestibility. Roughage intake was similar in both experiments and the average proportion of roughage ingested was 18-19% of DM. There were no differences between fresh and frozen/thawed clover-grass nutrient digestibility values. Glucose (cellulose) and xylose were the main constituents of the non-starch polysaccharides (NSP) in the roughages, with whole-crop pea-barley silage having the highest content. The faecal digestibility of NSP was significantly lower for diets based on whole-crop pea-barley silage than clover-grass silage. In both experiments, the GE, DM, OM and CP digestibility did not differ. Clover-grass leaves had higher in vitro OM digestibility than the stems