• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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• v.28 no.11
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• pp.1614-1623
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• 2015

The objectives of the current experiment were to study the response of the growth performance of early finishing gilts to different net energy (NE) concentrations in diets, and to compare the NE values of diets between calculated NE values and measured NE values using French and Dutch CVB (Centraal Veevoederbureau; Central Bureau for Livestock Feeding) NE systems. In a metabolism trail, the NE concentrations in five diets used for the growth trial were determined based on digestible nutrient concentrations, digestible energy, and metabolizable energy using a replicated $5{\times}5$ Latin square design with 10 barrows (initial body weight [BW], $39.2{\pm}2.2kg$). In a growth trial, a total of 60 early finishing gilts (Landrace${\times}$Yorkshire; initial BW, $47.7{\pm}3.5kg$) were allotted to five dietary treatments of 8.0, 9.0, 10.0, 11.0, and 12.0 MJ NE/kg (calculated, as-is basis) with 12 replicate pens and one pig per pen in a 42-d feeding experiment. The NE and amino acid (AA) concentrations in all diets were calculated based on the values from NRC (2012). Ratios between standardized ileal digestible AA and NE concentrations in all diets were closely maintained. Pigs were allowed ad libitum access to feed and water. Results indicated that calculated NE concentrations in diets (i.e., five dietary treatments) were close to measured NE concentrations using French NE system in diets. The final BW was increased (linear and quadratic, p<0.05) with increasing NE concentrations in diets. Furthermore, average daily gain (ADG) was increased (linear and quadratic, p<0.01) with increasing NE concentrations in diets. There was a quadratic relationship (p<0.01) between average daily feed intake and NE concentrations in diets. Feed efficiency (G:F) was also increased (linear, p<0.01) as NE concentrations in diets were increased. The NE intake per BW gain (kcal NE/kg of BWG) was increased (linear, p<0.01) with increasing NE concentrations in diets that were predicted from both French and Dutch CVB NE systems. Linear regression indicated that predictability of daily NE intake from the BW of pigs was very low for both French ($R^2$, 0.366) and Dutch CVB ($R^2$, 0.374) NE systems. In conclusion, increasing NE concentrations in diets increase BW, ADG, G:F, and NE intake per BW gain of early finishing gilts. The BW of early finishing gilts is not a good sole variable for the prediction of daily NE intake.

• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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• v.30 no.9
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• pp.1314-1322
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• 2017

Objective: This experiment investigated the effect of dietary net energy (NE) concentrations on growth performance and NE intake of growing gilts. Methods: Five diets were formulated to contain 9.6, 10.1, 10.6, 11.1, and 11.6 MJ NE/kg, respectively. A metabolism trial with 10 growing pigs (average body weight [BW] = $15.9{\pm}0.24kg$) was conducted to determine NE concentrations of 5 diets based on French and Dutch NE systems in a $5{\times}5$ replicated Latin square design. A growth trial also was performed with five dietary treatments and 12 replicates per treatment using 60 growing gilts (average BW = $15.9{\pm}0.55kg$) for 28 days. A regression analysis was performed to predict daily NE intake from the BW of growing gilts. Results: Increasing NE concentrations of diets did not influence average daily gain and average daily feed intake of growing gilts. There was a quadratic relationship (p = 0.01) between dietary NE concentrations and feed efficiency (G:F), although the difference in G:F among treatment means was relatively small. Regression analysis revealed that daily NE intake was linearly associated with the BW of growing gilts. The prediction equations for NE intake with the BW of growing gilts were: NE intake (MJ/d) = $1.442+(0.562{\times}BW,kg)$, $R^2=0.796$ when French NE system was used, whereas NE intake (MJ/d) = $1.533+(0.614{\times}BW,kg)$, $R^2=0.810$ when Dutch NE system was used. Conclusion: Increasing NE concentrations of diets from 9.6 to 11.6 MJ NE/kg have little impacts on growth performance of growing gilts. Daily NE intake can be predicted from the BW between 15 and 40 kg in growing gilts.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.54 no.12
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• pp.4751-4758
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• 2022

Two-phase flow may almost exist in every branch of the energy industry. For the corresponding engineering design, it is very essential and crucial to monitor flow patterns and their transitions accurately. With the high-speed development and success of deep learning based on convolutional neural network (CNN), the study of flow pattern identification recently almost focused on this methodology. Additionally, the photographing technique has attractive implementation features as well, since it is normally considerably less expensive than other techniques. The development of such a two-phase flow pattern online monitoring system is the objective of this work, which seldom studied before. The ongoing preliminary engineering design (including hardware and software) of the system are introduced. The flow pattern identification method based on CNNs and transfer learning was discussed in detail. Several potential CNN candidates such as ALexNet, VggNet16 and ResNets were introduced and compared with each other based on a flow pattern dataset. According to the results, ResNet50 is the most promising CNN network for the system owing to its high precision, fast classification and strong robustness. This work can be a reference for the online monitoring system design in the energy system.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.39 no.4
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• pp.237-248
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• 2007

Sodium-cooled fast reactor is considered in France as a potential candidate for a prototype of 4th generation system to be built by 2020. A detailed working program has been launched recently to identify by 2012 the potential improvement tracks for later industrial development of these reactors. The goals for innovation are first identified: Progress of the safety with a special attention to severe accidents risk minimization and mitigation (defense in depth approach); Economic competitiveness of the system mainly by reducing the capital cost, the investment risks by enhancing in service inspection and repair capacities, and raising the availability; Sustainability with fissile material management while reducing the proliferation risk; capacity for long-lived waste transmutation.