• Journal of Veterinary Clinics
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• v.23 no.2
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• pp.105-110
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• 2006

A three-layer, feed-forward artificial neural network (ANN) with sixteen input neurons, three hidden neurons, and one output neuron was developed to identify the presence of infectious bronchitis (IB) infection as early as possible in laying hen flocks. Retrospective data from flocks that enrolled IB surveillance program between May 2003 and November 2005 were used to build the ANN. Data set of 86 flocks was divided randomly into two sets: 77 cases for training set and 9 cases for testing set. Input factors were 16 epidemiological findings including characteristics of the layer house, management practice, flock size, and the output was either presence or absence of IB. ANN was trained using training set with a back-propagation algorithm and test set was used to determine the network's capability to predict outcomes that it has never seen. Diagnostic performance of the trained network was evaluated by constructing receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve with the area under the curve (AUC), which were also used to determine the best positivity criterion for the model. Several different ANNs with different structures were created. The best-fitted trained network, IBV_D1, was able to predict IB in 73 cases out of 77 (diagnostic accuracy 94.8%) in the training set. Sensitivity and specificity of the trained neural network was 95.5% (42/44, 95% CI, 84.5-99.4) and 93.9% (31/33, 95% CI, 79.8-99.3), respectively. For testing set, AVC of the ROC curve for the IBV_D1 network was 0.948 (SE=0.086, 95% CI 0.592-0.961) in recognizing IB infection status accurately. At a criterion of 0.7149, the diagnostic accuracy was the highest with a 88.9% with the highest sensitivity of 100%. With this value of sensitivity and specificity together with assumed 44% of IB prevalence, IBV_D1 network showed a PPV of 80% and an NPV of 100%. Based on these findings, the authors conclude that neural network can be successfully applied to the development of a screening model for identifying IB infection in laying hen flocks.

• Korean Journal of Poultry Science
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• v.38 no.3
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• pp.181-189
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• 2011

A 5-month (May to November in 2009) monitoring program for five viral pathogens in litter, such as avian influenza virus A (AIV), infectious bronchitis virus (IBV), infectious bursal disease virus (IBDV), fowl adenovirus (FAdV), and chicken infectious anemia virus (CIAV) was conducted in 62 flocks at 31 broiler farms (two flocks in each farm) in Korea in 2009. Viral pathogens were examined twice (before and at the end of the rearing period) at 31 broiler farms, and included fresh litter (n = 16) and recycled litter (n = 15) farms. Thirty-seven viruses (14 IBVs, 2 IBDVs, 9 FAdVs, and 12 CIAVs) were isolated from 75% (12/16) and 73% (11/15) of fresh litter and reused litter farms during the period, respectively, indicating no difference in viral contamination rate between farms using new and reused litter. Of these isolates, three (two CIAVs and one IBDV) were isolated from recycled litter samples collected before the rearing period at three broiler farms, whereas the others (n=34) were isolated from fresh and recycled litter samples collected at the end of the rearing period. When the performances, involving viability, body weight, and feed conversion ratio, were compared, no significant differences were found between farms using fresh and recycled litter during the period.

• Journal of Animal Science and Technology
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• v.51 no.4
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• pp.307-314
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• 2009

This experiment was conducted to investigate the effects of dietary garlic powder (GP) on growth performance and mRNA expression of hepatic 3-hydroxy-3-methylglutaryl-CoA reductase (HMG-CoA reductase) in broiler chickens. Day-old male chicks (Ross, n=270) were fed diets containing 0% [positive control (PC) with antibiotics or negative control (NC) without antibiotics], 1%, 3% and 5% GP for 6 wks. There were no significant differences in feed intake among the treatments throughout the experimental period. Body weight gains in groups fed dietary GP at 3% and 5% were significantly higher than that of NC group (P<0.05). Feeding GP up to 5% did not exert any adverse effect on weight gain and feed intake. There were no significant differences in the relative weights of liver, spleen, cecum and breast muscle. The content of meat cholesterol in GP containing dietary groups tended to be reduced as compared to NC group. Average infectious bronchitis antibody titers in chicks fed GP containing diets were significantly higher than that of NC group (P<0.05). The mRNA expression of hepatic HMG-CoA reductase was reduced by dietary GP. These results indicate that dietary GP has growth promoting effects and tended to alter cholesterol metabolism in broiler chickens.

• Korean Journal of Poultry Science
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• v.18 no.3
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• pp.183-196
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• 1991

In order to establish ELISA method to detect antibody against IBV various factors involved were examined. Antigen was prepared from Massachusetts type IBV which is known to be one of serotypes distributed most widely. The virus was grown in embryonated SPF chicken eggs. Allantoic fluid harvested was processed to ultracentrifugation and sucrose density gradient centrifugation to produce a purified antigen The antisera selected from the field samples based on hemagglutination inhibition test were used as the standard positive and negative sera for this study and the results obtained were summarized as follows. 1 , It was found that ELISA test was satisfactory when the purified antigen was coated on the plate in the amount of about 40ng protein per well. In case of the phospholipase treated hemagglutinating antigen it gave satisfactory results when the each well wns coated with 1.2 to 2.5 hemagglutinating unit which was equivalent to 40 to 90ng of protein. 2. There was no significant difference in the ratio of optical density of positive to that of negative serum whether the coated antigen was held for 1 hour at 37$^{\circ}C$ or it was held overnight at 4$^{\circ}C$. The coated antigen could be kept in dried state without change of antigenecity for at least one month of experimental period at 4$^{\circ}C$. 3. There was a big variation in the optical density and P/N values depending on the maker of the plates and on the plate of the same maker. 4. It was found that background optical density was negligible when serum was diluted more than 1：50 and serum dilution of 1：100 appeared to be appropriate as a routine test dilution to screen the antibody. 5. Optical density was fairly constant 15 minutes afterward from the time substrate was treated and during the 4 hours after stopper was treated. 6. There was a low correlation(r＝0.42) between ELISA and HI test. However, when 74serum samples were tested for the IBV antibody, 98.7% were found to be positive by both tests in which titers of 2$^{6}$ or more by HI test and P/N values of 1.4 or more by ELISA were considered to be positive, 7 Day-old IBV vaccinated chickens shows a similar antibody decay and rising pattern until 8 weeks of age by the two tests, ELISA and HI.