Unit Gain Research Articles

Effect of ensiled crimped grape marc on energy intake, performance and gas emissions of beef cattle

The objective of the current study was to evaluate the effect of ensiled crimped grape marc (ECGM) on energy intake, growth performance, and emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane (CH4) in beef cattle. Twenty Angus steers (390 ± 38 kg initial BW; mean ± s.d.; 14 months of age) were used in a randomised design to test two diets: control (CON, roughage-based diet) and grape marc (GMD; 300 g/kg of ECGM containing 31.2 g/kg of condensed tannins in the total mixed ration on DM basis). Steers were randomly stratified by initial BW and then assigned to treatment and either an individual or group-housed pen. Steers were fed twice daily for a total of 41 d. Following diet adaptation, steers were moved between individual and group pens every 8 d for three rotations, allowing individual DM intake and faecal output measurements to be quantified. Carbon dioxide and CH4 emissions were measured using two, portable, automated, open-circuit gas quantification systems (GQS). There were no significant treatment differences in average daily gain (ADG), however the final BW was 5% greater for steers fed CON than those fed GMD (P < 0.01). Steers fed GMD consumed 4% more than CON-fed steers (P < 0.01), and thus the feed conversion ratio, measured as feed:gain, was 16% higher for the GMD group (P = 0.02). Dry matter digestibility (P < 0.01) and as a result, dietary metabolisable energy (ME) per kg of DM (P < 0.01) and ME intake (P = 0.03) were lower in GMD-fed steers. No differences between treatments were found when CO2 and CH4 emissions were expressed in g per kg of DM intake or MJ of ME intake. In conclusion, diets containing 300 g/kg of ECGM (31.2 g/kg of condensed tannins on DM basis) reduced the energy availability and had no impact on CH4 output when expressed per unit gain or metabolisable energy intake in growing beef steers.

Performance Index and Economic Efficiency of SASSO C44 Broilers Fed Diets Containing Graded Levels of Dried Blood-Rumen Content Mixture to Replace Roasted Soybean Meal

This experiment was carried out to evaluate performance index and economic efficiency of broiler chicks fed diets containing dried blood rumen content mixtures (DBRCM) as a replacement for roasted soybean meal (RSBM). A total of 225 unsexed day-old broiler chicks (SASSO C44) were randomly allocated to five dietary treatments in a completely randomized design. Each treatment was replicated thrice with 15 birds per replicate. The experimental diets were formulated to contain 100% RSBM+0%DBRCM (T1), 80%RSBM+ 20% DBRCM (T2), 60% RSBM + 40% DBRCM (T3), 40% RSBM + 60% DBRCM(T4) and 20% RSBM+ 80% DBRCM (T5) based on a control ration contained 30% roasted soybean meal. The result showed that there was no statistical difference (P≥0.05) in performance index during the experimental period. The mean mortality was not influenced (P≥0.05) across the treatment groups. Birds fed T1 had the highest (P&lt;0.05) and T5 the lowest (P&lt;0.05) feed cost per kilogram feed. Feed cost per unit gain (Kg) was the highest (P&lt;0.05) for T1 and the lowest (P&lt;0.05) for T4 and T5. Total feed cost of the birds fed T1 was higher than those of the birds fed T5 diet. The highest (P&lt;0.05) economic efficiency was observed for birds fed on T4 and T5. Based on this result, it could be concluded that 80% DBRCM can replace roasted soybean meal to achieve the highest economic efficiency, without affecting the performance index of broiler chicken.

F164. Visualization of electrical activities of lumbar nerve root and cauda equina by a magnetospinograph system

Introduction There are many cases of multilevel lumbar spinal stenosis and foraminal stenosis, but there is still no neuroelectrophysiological diagnostic method with a high spatial resolution for these conditions. We have been developing a magnetospinograph system which is a supine position-type biomagnetometer equipped with superconducting quantum interference device (SQUID) fluxmeter. We have reported that magnetospinography could noninvasively evaluate the spinal cord and spinal nerve activity by body surface recordings. Methods We used a newly developed 124-channel SQUID biomagnetospinometer system (Kanazawa Institute of Technology, Japan) with a wide sensor area and a suitable curve for lumber lordosis. Neuromagnetic fields of 32 healthy subjects (64 nerves), 22–58 years of age (mean age 41 years), were measured at the surface of the lower back after electric stimuli of the peroneal nerves at the knees. With the use of a unit gain normalized minimum-norm (UGMN) filter method, which is a spatial filtering technique, the direction and intensity of the current source on each reconstruction point was reconstructed, and the conductive direction, distribution, and temporal change of the current source were visualized. Then, the propagation pathway of the estimated electrical currents was superimposed on lumbar spine X-rays. Results We used a newly developed 124-channel SQUID biomagnetospinometer system (Kanazawa Institute of Technology, Japan) with a wide sensor area and a suitable curve for lumber lordosis. Neuromagnetic fields of 32 healthy subjects (64 nerves), 22–58 years of age (mean age 41 years), were measured at the surface of the lower back after electric stimuli of the peroneal nerves at the knees. With the use of a unit gain normalized minimum-norm (UGMN) filter method, which is a spatial filtering technique, the direction and intensity of the current source on each reconstruction point was reconstructed, and the conductive direction, distribution, and temporal change of the current source were visualized. Then, the propagation pathway of the estimated electrical currents was superimposed on lumbar spine X-rays. For all subjects, we could record the nerve action magnetic fields in the lumbar spine after peroneal nerve stimuli. In 44 nerves (68.8%), we could visualize the estimated electrical currents propagating through the surrounding fifth intervertebral foramina and ascending to the cranial direction in the lumbar canal. The conduction velocity of the current source was 40.3–78.8 m/s (mean 56.5 m/s), as calculated from the peak latency. Conclusion Using the magnetospinograph system, we successfully visualized the propagation of estimated neural electric activities in the lumbar spine after peroneal nerve stimuli. This system holds enormous potential for establishing a non-invasive neuroelectrophysiological diagnostic method for the identification of the disordered site in lumbar spinal nerves.

THEORETICAL ANALYSIS OF SINGLE-FIBER TRANSMISSION OVER WDM-PON SYSTEMS

In this paper, a rigorous theoretical analysis on optical beat interferometric (OBI) noises caused by the Rayleigh backscattering (RB) and Fresnel reflection (FR) effects on the performance of a single-fiber single-wavelength WDM-PON (wavelength division multiplexing-passive optical network) transmission system has been presented. Two categories of PON are evaluated: a conventional and a long-reach WDM-PON system. The conventional WDM-PON took place in an access network for a typical transmission distance of 20 km without any optical amplification at the remote node (RN). In this case, the gain of the optimal reflective optical network unit (ONU) will depend on the relative RB power and also the FRs magnitudes and locations along the optical fiber channel/transmission link. However, in the cases of the long-reach WDM-PON deployed at a transmission distance of 100 km or further, the optical amplifiers are indispensable to enhance the optical power budget and to prevent the effect of fiber nonlinearities that may occur at high power injection levels. Although the presence of an optical amplifier (OA) in a long-reach WDM-PON will actually give some additional gain to the whole system, as a result it also produces the worse RB and FR effects to the system itself. A crosstalk to signal (C/S) ratio is used as a key performance indicator of whether the transmission system is in good working order or not. Therefore, this study may provide insight and relevant information in terms of transmission optimization for WDM-PON systems and developments in the future. To educate on the current technologies and developments surrounding conventional and long-reach WDM-PON, a brief overview is provided in the background part of the introduction.

Navigating the Health Care System: An Adolescent Health Literacy Unit for High Schools

Currently, no intervention concerning transition of health care responsibilities from parents to teens exists for adolescents in the general population. The purpose of this intervention was to evaluate teacher satisfaction and student knowledge gain of a health unit developed for adolescents on becoming their own health care advocates. Throughout the 2014-2015 school year, 13 health and career technical education teachers in 11 Delaware high schools taught the unit to 948 students in 2 90-minute classes in 35 classrooms. Assessments included teacher reflections and student pre- and posttests to measure knowledge transfer and gain and gather feedback. Teacher and student feedback indicated the materials were appropriate and useful in teaching students to navigate the health care system. Student knowledge increased from pretest (64%) to posttest (82%), (p < .001). The educational background of the teacher did not influence this outcome. Students reported they will know what to do better at their next doctor's appointment because of this unit and indicated support for peers to learn this information. The unit resulted in content knowledge increase for students. It was consistently effective throughout all schools regardless of social and demographic characteristics, teacher type, or experience teaching the unit.

Enhancement mode GaN-based multiple-submicron channel array gate-recessed fin metal-oxide-semiconductor high-electron mobility transistors

To study the function of channel width in multiple-submicron channel array, we fabricated the enhancement mode GaN-based gate-recessed fin metal-oxide-semiconductor high-electron mobility transistors (MOS-HEMTs) with a channel width of 450 nm and 195 nm, respectively. In view of the enhanced gate controllability in a narrower fin-channel structure, the transconductance was improved from 115 mS/mm to 151 mS/mm, the unit gain cutoff frequency was improved from 6.2 GHz to 6.8 GHz, and the maximum oscillation frequency was improved from 12.1 GHz to 13.1 GHz of the devices with a channel width of 195 nm, compared with the devices with a channel width of 450 nm.

The interactive influence of dietary nutrient density and feed form on the performance of broiler chickens

The present study investigates the interactions between dietary nutrient density and feed form on the growth performance, coefficient of apparent ileal digestibility (CAID) of dry matter (DM), nitrogen (N), starch, fat, calcium (Ca) and phosphorus (P), and N-corrected apparent metabolisable energy (AMEn) in broiler chickens to 21d post-hatch. Maize-soybean meal diets with five tiers of nutrient density were formulated and mixed. The diets were then divided into two equal batches; the first batch was offered as unprocessed mash and the second batch was steam-pelleted at a conditioning temperature of 75 °C. A 5 × 2 factorial array of ten dietary treatments were offered to a total of 480, day-old male broiler (Ross 308) chicks accommodated in 60 cages (eight birds per cage). Significant (P < 0.001) interactions between nutrient density and feed form were observed for weight gain, feed intake and feed per unit gain. While birds fed pelleted diets outperformed those fed mash diets at each nutrient density level, the pellet-associated benefits were more pronounced at the lowest nutrient density. Increasing nutrient density increased (P < 0.001) N digestibility from 0.772 to 0.811, but decreased (P < 0.001) that of starch from 0.969 in very low density diets to 0.943 in very high density diets. No significant (P > 0.05) effect of nutrient density on the CAID of DM and fat was found. Feeding pelleted diets, regardless of nutrient density, reduced (P < 0.001) the CAID of DM, N, starch and fat. Significant nutrient density × feed form interactions were observed for the CAID of Ca (P < 0.001) and P (P < 0.01). Pelleting enhanced (P < 0.05) the CAID of Ca and P in the diet with lowest nutrient density but reduced (P < 0.05) the digestibility of these minerals in all other nutrient density diets. Increasing dietary nutrient density progressively increased the AMEn, but feeding of pelleted diets, regardless of nutrient density, reduced (P < 0.001) the AMEn. Overall, the present data showed that the magnitude of pelleting-induced benefits on broiler performance varied depending on dietary nutrient density, with responses to pelleting decreasing with increasing dietary nutrient density. The present study highlights that dietary nutrient density must be taken into consideration if the full benefits associated with feeding pelleted diets are to be achieved.

Comparative Evaluation of Lettuce Wastes, Pawpaw Leaves, Whole Lettuce and Cabbage Wastes as a Sole Feed Ingredient for Growing Archachatina marginata Snails

There is inadequate information on quality feedstuffs for large-scale year-round production of snails in Nigeria. This study evaluated the performance, carcass analysis and sensory properties of cooked meat of Archachatina marginata snails fed on plant wastes as sole feed ingredient. A feeding trial of 6-month duration involving one hundred and twenty growing snails (132.91 ± 2.13 g) in a randomly distributed four dietary treatments of pawpaw leaves (PL), whole lettuce, lettuce wastes (LW) and cabbage wastes (CW) was conducted. Treatment effect on shell length and width was significant (P 0.05). The highest dressing percentage of 43.2% was obtained for snails on LW, while the lowest value of 35.19% was recorded for snails on PL. The treatments had no appreciable effect on the nutrient composition and sensory quality of the snail meat. The highest dry matter digestibility of 83.50% was recorded in snails on CW which was statistically similar to those on LW (83.33%), while the least value of 78.33% was recorded in snails on PL. The weight gain and feed per unit gain followed the same pattern as the dry matter digestibility. It is concluded that lettuce waste as well as cabbage waste can be utilized as sole feed for growing snails, thereby increasing the feed-base for snail production in the tropics.

Quadruple Gate-Embedded T Structured GaN-Based Metal–Oxide–Semiconductor High-Electron Mobility Transistors

In this paper, high performance quadruple gate-embedded T structured GaN-based metal–oxide–semiconductor high-electron mobility transistors (MOSHEMTs) were fabricated using laser interference photolithography method and photoelectrochemical oxidation method, in which polymethylmethacrylate was used as sacrificial layer. The associated drain-source saturation current was improved to 175 mA/mm and the gate leakage current at the gate-source voltage of −80 V was improved to $0.81~\mu \text{A}$ compared with the 125 mA/mm and $7.6~\mu \text{A}$ of the conventional single gate GaN-based MOSHEMTs, respectively. Moreover, the associated maximum extrinsic transconductance of the quadruple gate-embedded T structured GaN-based MOSHEMTs was enhanced from 97.3 mS/mm to 118.4 mS/mm. Besides, the associated unit gain cutoff frequency and the associated maximum oscillation frequency were improved from 7.6 GHz to 10.8 GHz and from 11.4 GHz to 27.4 GHz, respectively. The improved performances of the quadruple gate-embedded T structure GaN-based MOSHEMTs were attributed to the function of the gate length reduction and the gate resistance decrease.

Multiple-Submicron Channel Array Gate-Recessed AlGaN/GaN Fin-MOSHEMTs

In this paper, the multiple-submicron channel array gate-recessed AlGaN/GaN fin-metal-oxide-semiconductor high-electron mobility transistors (fin-MOSHEMTs) were fabricated using the photoelectrochemical oxidation method, the photoelectrochemical etching method, and the He-Cd laser interference photolithography method. The multiple-submicron channel array was formed using the He-Cd laser interference photolithography system. The gate-recessed structure and the directly grown gate oxide layer were performed using the photoelectrochemical etching method and the photoelectrochemical oxidation method, respectively. The subthreshold swing and the extrinsic transconductance were improved in the resulting devices with a narrower channel width. Furthermore, the unit gain cutoff frequency and the maximum oscillation frequency were also enhanced using a narrower channel width in the multiple-submicron channel array AlGaN/GaN fin-MOSHEMTs.

The Effect of Head Model Simplification on Beamformer Source Localization.

Beamformers are a widely-used tool in brain analysis with magnetoencephalography (MEG) and electroencephalography (EEG). For the construction of the beamformer filters realistic head volume conductor modeling is necessary for accurately computing the EEG and MEG leadfields, i.e., for solving the EEG and MEG forward problem. In this work, we investigate the influence of including realistic head tissue compartments into a finite element method (FEM) model on the beamformer's localization ability. Specifically, we investigate the effect of including cerebrospinal fluid, gray matter, and white matter distinction, as well as segmenting the skull bone into compacta and spongiosa, and modeling white matter anisotropy. We simulate an interictal epileptic measurement with white sensor noise. Beamformer filters are constructed with unit gain, unit array gain, and unit noise gain constraint. Beamformer source positions are determined by evaluating power and excess sample kurtosis (g2) of the source-waveforms at all source space nodes. For both modalities, we see a strong effect of modeling the cerebrospinal fluid and white and gray matter. Depending on the source position, both effects can each be in the magnitude of centimeters, rendering their modeling necessary for successful localization. Precise skull modeling mainly effected the EEG up to a few millimeters, while both modalities could profit from modeling white matter anisotropy to a smaller extent of 5–10 mm. The unit noise gain or neural activity index beamformer behaves similarly to the array gain beamformer when noise strength is sufficiently high. Variance localization seems more robust against modeling errors than kurtosis.

Adiposity, Telomere Length, and Telomere Attrition in Midlife: the 1946 British Birth Cohort.

BackgroundObesity has been linked with shorter telomere length, both of which have been implicated in ageing, but the impact of early life adiposity on telomere length is unclear.MethodsWe included 2,479 participants from the MRC National Survey of Health and Development with measurements of body mass index, waist and hip circumference, and leukocyte telomere length (LTL) at age 53, of whom 1,000 had second measurements at ages 60–64. Relative LTL was measured with rt-PCR. Linear regression was performed to investigate associations between adiposity and LTL. Body mass index from childhood through adulthood was used to assess adiposity across the life course.ResultsWe found no cross-sectional associations between adiposity measures and LTL at ages 53 or 60–64. Longitudinally, each unit gain in waist circumference weakly corresponded with a 0.06% (95% CI: −1.31 to 0.10) LTL decrease annually, with association approaching statistical significance (p = 0.09). Being overweight at ages 6 and 15 corresponded to a nonsignificant shorter LTL at age 53 and they were associated with 2.06% (95% CI: 0.05–4.08%) and 4.26% (1.98–6.54%) less LTL attrition in midlife, respectively, compared to those who were not overweight.ConclusionThere is a weak indication that greater telomere loss was seen with greater concurrent body mass index gain. Adolescent overweight corresponded to shorter telomeres in midlife, albeit weakly, and with less subsequent attrition. Our findings point toward potential pathways which may link adiposity and ageing outcomes.

On the determinant of the Laplacian matrix of a complex unit gain graph

Let G be a complex unit gain graph which is obtained from an undirected graph Γ by assigning a complex unit φ(vivj) to each oriented edge vivj such that φ(vivj)φ(vjvi)=1 for all edges. The Laplacian matrix of G is defined as L(G)=D(G)−A(G), where D(G) is the degree diagonal matrix of Γ and A(G)=(aij) has aij=φ(vivj) if vi is adjacent to vj and aij=0 otherwise. In this paper, we provide a combinatorial description of det(L(G)) that generalizes that for the determinant of the Laplacian matrix of a signed graph.

Simultaneous Enhancement of Photoluminescence, MRI Relaxivity, and CT Contrast by Tuning the Interfacial Layer of Lanthanide Heteroepitaxial Nanoparticles.

Nanoparticle (NP) based exogenous contrast agents assist biomedical imaging by enhancing the target visibility against the background. However, it is challenging to design a single type of contrast agents that are simultaneously suitable for various imaging modalities. The simple integration of different components into a single NP contrast agent does not guarantee the optimized properties of each individual components. Herein, we describe lanthanide-based core-shell-shell (CSS) NPs as triple-modal contrast agents that have concurrently enhanced performance compared to their individual components in photoluminescence (PL) imaging, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), and computed tomography (CT). The key to simultaneous enhancement of PL intensity, MRI r1 relaxivity, and X-ray attenuation capability in CT is tuning the interfacial layer in the CSS NP architecture. By increasing the thickness of the interfacial layer, we show that (i) PL intensity is enhanced from completely quenched/dark state to brightly emissive state of both upconversion and downshifting luminescence at different excitation wavelengths (980 and 808 nm), (ii) MRI r1 relaxivity is enhanced by 5-fold from 11.4 to 52.9 mM-1 s-1 (per Gd3+) at clinically relevant field strength 1.5 T, and (iii) the CT Hounsfield Unit gain is 70% higher than the conventional iodine-based agents at the same mass concentration. Our results demonstrate that judiciously designed contrast agents for multimodal imaging can achieve simultaneously enhanced performance compared to their individual stand-alone structures and highlight that multimodality can be achieved without compromising on individual modality performance.

Study of the impact of electromigration on integrated circuit performance and reliability at design level

Electromigration damage in interconnects is a well-known bottleneck of integrated circuits, as it is responsible for the performance degradation. High values of temperature and current density accelerate the damage, causing an increase in the lines resistance and circuit lifetime reduction. In this work, a method is proposed to evaluate the electromigration effects in an operational amplifier circuit performance due the void growth induced by electromigration. The performance parameters are simulated by AC, DC and transient analysis for a specific temperature and time interval and the results are compared with a circuit free of electromigration. The method is used to investigate the circuit response regarding the unit gain frequency, voltage gain, cutoff frequency, output swing voltage and settling time. There are three lines that can be traditionally classified as critical due to the large current density they carry. Nevertheless, a fourth line, which has a current density below the maximum limit set by the technology being typically considered as non-critical from the layout design point of view, leads to significant reduction of the voltage gain and voltage swing, of about 59% and 14% in 5years.

Effect of planting pattern of forage sorghum on forage productivity and heifer performance during finishing phase

This study aimed to assess the effect of sorghum planting patterns on forage response and performance of beef heifers at finishing phase. The experimental period lasted 84 days; treatments consisted of the combination of two interrow spacings (22 and 44 cm) and two sorghum-sowing rates (12 and 24 kg ha?1). Beef heifers, at finishing phase, with initial age of 15 months (± 2.3 months) and average body weight of 262 kg (± 37.95 kg), continuously grazed forage. The experimental design was completely randomized in a 2 × 2 factorial scheme with three repetitions per area. The different planting patterns did not affect (P &gt; 0.05) dry matter production (5,447.78 kg DM ha?1) and accumulation rate (58.47 kg DM ha?1 day?1). Forage accumulation rate, leaf mass, forage mass, leaf supply and forage supply were influenced (P &lt; 0.05) by time. Similar behavior was observed for stocking rate, weight gain per area unit and daily weight gain, with values of 1,172.32 kg of liveweight ha?1, 312.31 kg ha?1; 0.891 kg day?1, respectively. Animal performance had no effect (P &gt; 0.05) from planting patterns, with nearly 4.04 mm of subcutaneous fat thickness and final weight of 330.36 kg. Animal body development showed no significant differences (P &gt; 0.05), with values for length, heart girth and hip height of 132.01, 163.75 and 126.75 cm, respectively. The weight to average height ratio between planting patterns was 2.67 kg cm?1.

Design and optimization of collection efficiency and conversion gain of buried p-well SOI pixel X-ray detector

Buried P-Well (BPW) technology was used in silicon-on-insulator pixels (SOIPIX) to suppress the back-gate effect, the major challenge in SOIPIX. In this work, we have designed and optimized two novel pixel structures, which are based on different BPW design layouts, to study the carrier collection efficiency and conversion gain of the pixel unit used in SOIPIX X-ray detectors. The first structure has an extended BPW region connected with a P+ node. In the second structure, a separated BPW ring region is formed surrounding the P+ node. Two X-ray sources with different photon energies have been applied in the simulation of excess carrier generation. The results indicated that the first structure had higher collection efficiency while the second structure had a slightly better conversion gain. As a result, the total photoelectric voltage of the first structure is about two times that of the second structure, where low doping concentration (&lt;1 × 1016 cm‒3) in the BPW region is preferred. Such a study of design and optimization of BPW technology is very important for applications in SOIPIX detectors

Complex unit gain bicyclic graphs with rank 2, 3 or 4

A T-gain graph is a triple Φ=(G,T,φ) consisting of a graph G=(V,E), the circle group T={z∈C:|z|=1} and a gain function φ:E→→T such that φ(eij)=φ(eji)−1=φ(eji)‾. The rank of T-gain graph Φ, denoted by r(Φ), is the rank of the adjacency matrix of Φ. Yu et al. (2015) [8] obtained some properties of inertia of a T-gain graph. They characterized the T-gain unicyclic graphs with small positive or negative index. Motivated by above, in this paper, we characterize the complex unit gain connected bicyclic graphs with rank 2, 3 or 4.

Effect of Feeding Milk Replacer on Dry Matter Intake and Feed Efficiency in Holstein x Kankrej Crossbred Calves

An experiment was conducted on HF x Kankrej crossbred calves to study the effect of formulated milk replacer on nutrients intake, feed conversion efficiency, cost of feeding and disease incidence. Eighteen newly born calves of either sex were selected. The calves were fed colostrum up to 3 days and from 4th to 9th day whole milk at the rate of 12.5% of body weight. From 10th day the calves were randomly distributed in to three treatment group. The calves of T1 group received whole milk as per routine farm practice; T2 group was fed whole milk and commercial milk replacer as per manufacturer’s recommendation, whereas T3 group calves received formulated milk replacer @ 12.5 % of body weight with upper limit of 4 kg per day. The overall initial (day 10) and final (day 94) body weight of calves were 27.71±6.53 and 44.96±10.60 kg, respectively. Overall average dry matter intake (DMI) per day, as per cent body weight and per kg metabolic body weight (W0.75) was 0.52±0.02 kg, 1.45±0.03 kg and 35.34±0.78 g, respectively. The dry matter intake in T1 was significantly higher followed by T2 than T3. Overall intake of total digestible nutrients (TDN) on daily, per cent body weight and per kg W0.75 basis was 0.546±0.02 kg, 1.28±0.04 kg and 31.03±0.87 g, respectively. The DM intake for each kg gain was significantly lower in T3 (3.07 kg) and T1 (3.02) than T2 (4.79 kg) calves. The feed conversion efficiency (TDN intake kg/kg gain) was significantly superior in T3 (2.22) followed by T2 (4.23), whereas in T1 (2.95) it was intermediate. The feed cost and total rearing cost were lower (p less than 0.05) for farm formulated milk replacer (T3) than commercial milk replacer (T2) and was highest for milk feeding (T1) group. The feed cost and total rearing cost per unit gain in weight were also lower (p less than 0.05) for farm formulated milk replacer (T3) than other two groups. The disease incidences were intermediate in farm formulated milk replacer (T3). Thus, raising crossbred calves on farm formulated milk replacer can be a better option for economic gain of farmers, health of calves and (sparing) more milk for humans.

Biological evaluation of dried Azolla in combination with carbohydrases in broiler bird

The study was conducted to evaluate the feeding of dried Azolla (Azolla pinnata) alone and in combination with exogenous feed enzymes in commercial broiler under complete randomized design. For this purpose, day old broiler chicks (n=88) were divided into 4 main groups T0 T1, T2 and T3 with two replicates of 11 chicks each. Group T0 and T2 were given ration containing 0 and 5 per cent dried Azolla, respectively but not feed enzyme viz. phytase and carbohydrase whereas, group T1 and T3 had 0 and 5 per cent dried Azolla, respectively and fed feed enzymes. Overall growth performance in the group fed dried Azolla (T2 and T3) was found to be similar to taht of control groups (T0, T1). Feed intake per unit gain in live weight was found to be significantly (P<0.05) higher in the dried Azolla fed groups thus exhibiting low feed conversion efficiency. There was higher availability of the minerals calcium (Ca) and phosphorus (P) in dried Azolla fed groups T2 and T3 compared to control groups T0 and T1 as exhibited by higher retention of minerals Ca and P in the storage organ viz. tibial bone. It is thus concluded that dried Azolla can be safely incorporated at 5 percent level in poultry broiler feed.