Review on Using of Housefly Maggots (Musca domestica) in Fish Diets

The main animal protein ingredient in fish diets is most often fishmealbecause of its nutritional quality. However, the limited availabilityand increasingly cost of fishmeal has lead to investigations of eitherlowering or replacing the fishmeal content with more economic proteinsources of animal and/or plant origin. The research for appropriate andcheap cost alternative sources of protein to use in commercial fish dietswill be the most important factor in intensive fish culture development.Insect meals are healthy and nutritious alternatives to fish meal dueto their rich nutritional values, particularly protein, fat and minerals.Housefly maggots (Musca domestica) meal is also rich in B complexvitamins, trace elements and phosphorus. From the results of previousstudies, Housefly maggots meal can be used successfully to replacethe fish meal portion partially or completely in the fish diets. Also,the results observed that not physiological stressful was introduced inthe fish by feeding Housefly maggots meal diets. This indicates thatHousefly maggots meal were well utilized by the fish thus resulting ingood growth of fish. In other study, observed a best growth performancewith fish feeding on diets containing maggot’s meal compared with fishfeeding on fishmeal diet. This indicates the high nutritional quality andfish acceptance of maggot’s meal

COSTS OF CORONARY ARTERY BYPASS GRAFTING AND PERCUTANEOUS CORONARY INTERVENTION IN TEXAS

Background: Coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) surgery and percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) procedures have been associated with substantial financial costs in Texas. The annual hospital charges in 2016 for CABG surgeries and PCI procedures in Texas were $3.6 billion and$4.1 billion, respectively. Recently, these two procedures have become a target for bundled payment initiatives. Due to the lack of information about the demographics and variations associated with CABG and PCI episode payments for commercially insured patients, more research needs to be conducted to understand the magnitude of payments and the drivers of variation in payments in Texas. Objective: This study aimed to fill the gap by examining CABG and PCI medical costs through episode payment models. The first objective was to estimate both CABG and PCI episode payment variations in patient demographics for a large sample of the commercially insured population in Texas. The second objective was to examine the payment components that drive variability in 90-day episode payments across Texas. Methods: The study design was a retrospective cohort study of commercially insured patients 18 years of age and older undergoing CABG surgeries and PCI procedures in Texas regions for the years 2014 to 2018. Using Optum Clinformatics® DataMart (CDM): administrative claims data. For this study, the average 90-day episode payment for patients undergoing CABG surgeries and PCI procedures were first calculated and then assessed if there were wide demographic variations in the payments. The total 90-day payment was derived as the sum of the procedure and hospitalization payment and the payment associated with post-discharge utilization. All dollars were adjusted to 2018 values. Multiple linear regression models were used to identify factors impacting the 90-day total episode payments. After that, the variation in payments and the primary drivers of payment variations were identified. Hospitals and regions were divided into quartiles based on the mean episode payment for CABG surgeries and PCI procedures. Total episode payments were subdivided into five payment components (index procedure, professional services, post-acute care, readmission, and pharmacy) to investigate which components drove variability significantly by comparing them across high- and lowcost quartiles. Results: A total of 999 CABG episodes and a total of 2691 PCI episodes were identified. The mean (SD) 90-day episode payments at patient level for CABG surgeries and PCI procedures were $81,330 ($47,382) and $53,842 ($44,603), respectively. Certain patient factors, including age, patient region, comorbidities, type of insurance, length of stay, and readmission stage had effects on 90-day episode payments. The average 90-day payment at the hospital level in the highest- and in the lowest-payment quartiles ranged from $106,148 to$61,028, representing a difference of $45,121 (74$74,510 to $33,696, representing a difference of$40,814 (121%) for PCI procedures. The index procedure was the primary driver of 90-day CABG episode payment variation of 49%, while both the index procedure and the post-acute care were relatively similar sources of 90-day PCI episode payment variation of 37% and 36%, respectively. Conclusions: Payment variations existed widely in 90-day episode payments for commercially insured patients undergoing CABG surgeries and PCI procedures across Texas. Focusing on reducing readmissions and targeting the index payment component, which has contributed to a large proportion of episode payment variations, might be a potentially effective approach when developing initiatives to reduce CABG- and PCI-related costs and improve efficiency

Review on Using of Macro Algae (seaweeds) in Fish Nutrition

Currently, the search is on for alternative sources of feed ingredients, the main reasons being escalated cost and uncertainty of constant supply of common feed ingredients. The importance of algae as a potential substitute protein source for cultured fish feeding has been documented in recent years. Seaweeds are receiving consideration for their high protein value, essential amino acid content, vitamins and trace metals in fish feeding. As well as marine macro algae could be a potential low-cost source of protein for fish. Moreover, the economic comparison of feed cost indicated that increasing level of fresh and dried gut weed in alternative feeding treatments, commercial feed used for fish growth was reduced leading to significantly reduction of feed cost. Use macro algae (seaweed) in fish diets may improves growth parameters, feed efficiency, physiological activity, carcass quality, disease resistance and reduced stress response. This review describes effects of use macro algae (seaweed) in diets on growth performance of fish

Effect of Feeding on Fresh (wet) Housefly Maggots (Musca domestica) with or without Artificial Diet on Water Quality and Growth Rates of African Catfish (Clarias gariepinus Burchell, 1822) Fry under Laboratory Conditions

No or little information on the use fresh (wet) housefly maggots (Musca domestica) in African catfish (Clarias gariepinus) fry feeding. Therefore, this study was conducted to investigate the effect of feeding on fresh (wet) housefly maggots with or without artificial diet on water quality, growth performance, survival percentage and feed utilization of African catfish fry under laboratory conditions. Housefly maggots produced from a mixture of poultry droppings and foods wastes, it was used to replace artificial feed at 0, 50 and 100% levels. Catfish were fed artificial diet alone (Feed 1), fresh (wet) housefly maggots alone (Feed 2), and 50% fresh housefly maggots with 50% artificial diet (Feed 3) were prepared and tested on triplicate groups of African catfish fry (initial weight of 0.25±0.02 g) for 60 days. Results showed that final weight (g/fish) was significantly highest (P£0.05) in fish fed feed 3 (6.03±0.08), followed by fish fed feed 2 (4.62±0.27), followed by fish fed feed 1 (3.15±0.68). Specific growth rate (%/day) was also significantly highest in fish fed feed 3 (5.31±0.10), followed by fish fed feed 2 (4.86±0.03), followed by fish fed feed 1 (4.18±0.24). The same trend was observed with total weight gain, percentage weight gain, daily growth rate and relative growth rate. Feed intake and protein intake were significantly highest (P£0.05) in fish fed feed 3 and fish fed feed 2, followed by fish fed feed 1. While, feed conversion ratio (FCR) and protein efficiency ratio were not significantly (P>0.05), but the improvement in FCR recorded in catfish fry fed feed 3 and feed 2 under the experimental conditions. Survival percentage was within the range 55–75%, with insignificant differences (P>0.05) among treatments. The water quality parameters such as temperature, pH, dissolved oxygen, total ammonia, nitrite and nitrate were not significantly (P>0.05) among the treatments and were tolerable for fish culture. Accordingly, use of the 50% fresh (wet) housefly maggots with 50% artificial diet in African catfish fry feeding had positive effect on growth performance and reduce of the feed cost

Safety of Antipsychotic Medication in Individuals Diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD)

Background: Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a lifelong neurodevelopmental condition which presents in childhood. In the UK, risperidone is the only antipsychotic drug approved for the management of behavioural disturbance in children and adolescents with ASD. Aim: To explore the safety of antipsychotic medication use in people with ASD. Method: Four observational studies using a UK primary care database as a data source. The first study was a descriptive study to provide up-to-date information on the prevalence of ASD and psychotropic medication prescribing. Next, two analytical studies, of different designs, to investigate the risk of incident seizure associated with antipsychotic use, were conducted. A cohort study comparing the risk of incident seizure in people using antipsychotics with the users of other psychotropics; followed by a selfcontrolled case series analysis on the risk of incident seizure associated with antipsychotic use. Lastly, a cohort study to investigate the relationship between the risk of cardiac events and antipsychotic exposure, compared to other psychotropics, was conducted. Results: There has been a noticeable increase (3.3-fold) in the prevalence of ASD over the period from 2009 to 2016. Over this period, 12.4% of the treated ASD patients had been prescribed antipsychotics; 50.7% of antipsychotic prescriptions was for risperidone and 49.3% was for other antipsychotics. The hazard ratios of the risk of incident seizure and cardiac events associated with antipsychotic use were 1.28 (95% CI: 0.74-2.19) and 1.27 (95% CI: 0.62-2.62), respectively. During the first month of other psychotropic medication treatment, the incidence rate ratio of seizure was 1.57, 95% CI:1.03-2.38. Conclusion: This research found no evidence of an increased risk of incident seizure or cardiac outcomes associated with antipsychotic use compared to other psychotropics ASD patients. A short term increase in the risk of incident seizure was noted with the use of psychotropics other than antipsychotics

Streaming and Massively Parallel Algorithms for Edge Coloring

A valid edge-coloring of a graph is an assignment of "colors" to its edges such that no two incident edges receive the same color. The goal is to find a proper coloring that uses few colors. (Note that the maximum degree, Delta, is a trivial lower bound.) In this paper, we revisit this fundamental problem in two models of computation specific to massive graphs, the Massively Parallel Computations (MPC) model and the Graph Streaming model: - Massively Parallel Computation: We give a randomized MPC algorithm that with high probability returns a Delta+O~(Delta^(3/4)) edge coloring in O(1) rounds using O(n) space per machine and O(m) total space. The space per machine can also be further improved to n^(1-Omega(1)) if Delta = n^Omega(1). Our algorithm improves upon a previous result of Harvey et al. [SPAA 2018]. - Graph Streaming: Since the output of edge-coloring is as large as its input, we consider a standard variant of the streaming model where the output is also reported in a streaming fashion. The main challenge is that the algorithm cannot "remember" all the reported edge colors, yet has to output a proper edge coloring using few colors. We give a one-pass O~(n)-space streaming algorithm that always returns a valid coloring and uses 5.44 Delta colors with high probability if the edges arrive in a random order. For adversarial order streams, we give another one-pass O~(n)-space algorithm that requires O(Delta^2) colors

Brief Announcement: Streaming and Massively Parallel Algorithms for Edge Coloring

A valid edge-coloring of a graph is an assignment of "colors" to its edges such that no two incident edges receive the same color. The goal is to find a proper coloring that uses few colors. In this paper, we revisit this problem in two models of computation specific to massive graphs, the Massively Parallel Computations (MPC) model and the Graph Streaming model: Massively Parallel Computation. We give a randomized MPC algorithm that w.h.p., returns a (1+o(1))Delta edge coloring in O(1) rounds using O~(n) space per machine and O(m) total space. The space per machine can also be further improved to n^{1-Omega(1)} if Delta = n^{Omega(1)}. This is, to our knowledge, the first constant round algorithm for a natural graph problem in the strongly sublinear regime of MPC. Our algorithm improves a previous result of Harvey et al. [SPAA 2018] which required n^{1+Omega(1)} space to achieve the same result. Graph Streaming. Since the output of edge-coloring is as large as its input, we consider a standard variant of the streaming model where the output is also reported in a streaming fashion. The main challenge is that the algorithm cannot "remember" all the reported edge colors, yet has to output a proper edge coloring using few colors. We give a one-pass O~(n)-space streaming algorithm that always returns a valid coloring and uses 5.44 Delta colors w.h.p., if the edges arrive in a random order. For adversarial order streams, we give another one-pass O~(n)-space algorithm that requires O(Delta^2) colors

Measuring Services Quality: Tabuk Municipal

This study evaluates service quality in Tabuk Municipality and tries to identify employee constraints of providing better service. The study used SERVPERF presented by Cronin and Taylor [2] (1992) to explore client perceptions of the service quality provided by municipal Tabuk. Interviews with Tabuk Municipality employees were then conducted, which focused on issues raised in the questionnaire analysis. Statistical analyses revealed a positive relationship between the tangible dimension and quality of service. Interviewees indicated that municipal employees require additional training to improve their skills in working with the public. Moreover, employees viewed incentives as an important avenue for improving the quality of services provided