• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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• v.32 no.8
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• pp.1145-1152
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• 2019

Objective: Mulberry (Morus alba L.) is a cultivated shrub grown widely in the sub-tropical and tropical areas. It has been shown that mulberry leaf contains high levels of protein while having polyphenols as phytonutrients. Therefore, it is important to conduct an experiment to assess potential toxic level from mulberry on behavior, blood hematological and coagulation parameter using Sprague-Dawley (SD) rats. Methods: Both male and female SD rats were given an intragastric administration of respective treatments of mulberry leaf intakes (control, low and high levels). Parameters of feed intake, hematological and coagulation of blood parameters, as well as liveweight changes were taken during the 7 d of adaptation, 28 d of treatment exposure, and 14 d of recovery periods, respectively. All treatment data were statistically analyzed using analysis of variance of SPSS17.0 for Windows Statistical Software following the Randomized complete block design with sex as a block. Results: Most of the parameters of the physical symptoms of the SD rats, were not significantly different (p>0.05) when compared with that of the control group. Those which remain unchanged in each dose group were, body weight (BW) gain, feed intake, the hematology and coagulation indexes. Although, there were a few individual indicators that were abnormal, but the overall physiological appearance of the rats were normal. Conclusion: Results under this experiment revealed that most hematological and coagulation parameters of the SD rats in both male and female were normal, although the weight gain of female rats in high-dose group was significantly reduced than those of the male rats. Under this study, the use of mulberry leaf up to 2 g/kg BW did not result in abnormal phenomenon in the SD rats. These findings would offer useful information for further in vivo feeding trials in animals to extensively use of mulberry leaf to improve animal production, particularly in P.R. China.

• Animal Bioscience
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• v.35 no.8
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• pp.1223-1234
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• 2022

Objective: The objectives of this study were to evaluate the effects of daily feed intake during the laying period on embryonic myogenic differentiation 1 (MYOD1), myogenic factor 5 (MYF5), and myogenic factor 6 (MYF6) gene expression in genetically fat and lean lines of chickens. Methods: An experiment in a 2×2 factorial design was conducted with two dietary intake levels (100% and 75% of nutrition recommendation) and two broiler chicken lines (fat and lean). Two lines of hens (n = 384 for each line) at 23th week of age were randomly divided into 4 treatments with 12 replicates of 16 birds. The experiment started at 27th week of age (5% egg rate) and ended at 54th week of age. Hatched eggs from the medium laying period were collected. Real time polymerase chain reaction analysis was used to analyse the MYOD1, MYF5, and MYF6 mRNA levels of E7, E9, E11, E13, and E15 body tissues and E17, E19, and E21 chest and thigh muscle samples. Results: The results indicated that there were significant effects of line, dietary intake, and interactions between them on MYOD1, MYF5, and MYF6 gene mRNA expression levels in embryonic tissues. Low daily feed intake did not change the expression trend of MYOD1 mRNA in either line, but changed the peak values, especially in lean line. Low daily feed intake altered the trend in MYF5 mRNA expression level in both lines and apparently delayed its onset. There was no apparent effect of low daily feed intake on the trends of MYF6 mRNA expression levels in either line, but it significantly changed the values on many embryonic days. Conclusion: Maternal nutrient restriction affects myogenesis and is manifested in the expression of embryonic MYOD1, MYF5, and MYF6 genes. Long term selection for fat deposition in broiler chickens changes the pattern and intensity of myogenesis.

• Animal Bioscience
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• v.37 no.7
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• pp.1246-1254
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• 2024

Objective: The goal of the current study was to investigate the impact of various concentrations of xylanase in energy-deficient corn-based diets on the growth performance, carcass characteristics, nutrient digestibility, and digesta viscosity in broilers from 7 to 35 days of age. Methods: A total of 280 seven-day-old Ross 308 broilers were randomly allocated to one of the five dietary treatments following a completely randomized design with 8 replicates and 7 birds per cage. The treatments were: i) positive control (PC, without xylanase); ii) NC-1 (80 kcal/kg ME reduced from PC); iii) NC-2 (100 kcal/kg ME reduced from PC); iv) NCX-1 (NC-1 + 2,000 U/kg xylanase); and v) NCX-2 (NC-2 + 3,000 U/kg xylanase). Body weight, weight gain, feed intake, and feed conversion ratio were determined weekly to evaluate growth performance. One bird per pen was sacrificed for ileal digesta collection to determine the viscosity and digestibility of energy, dry matter, crude protein on days 24 and 35, however breast and leg meat samples were obtained for proximate analysis (moisture, crude protein, fat, and ash) on day 35. Results: Birds fed diets supplemented with xylanase regardless of the amount had higher (p<0.05) body weights, daily gains, and improved feed efficiency compared to NC diets all throughout the experimental period. Feed intake was not affected (p>0.05) by the addition of xylanase. Moreover, lowered (p<0.05) viscosity of the ileal digesta were observed upon xylanase inclusion in the diets compared to the birds fed NC diets on day 24. Ileal nutrient digestibility and meat proximate composition were not affected (p>0.05) by xylanase. Conclusion: The present study indicated that the xylanase at 2,000 U/kg and 3,000 U/kg levels compensates for the 80 kcal/kg and 100 kcal/kg dietary energy levels, respectively, without having adverse effects on the growth performance, carcass characteristics, nutrient digestibility, and digesta viscosity of broilers.

• Animal Bioscience
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• v.37 no.8
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• pp.1398-1407
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• 2024

Objective: The objective of this study was to determine internal structure spectral profile of by-products from coffee processing that were affected by added-microorganism fermentation duration in relation to truly absorbed feed nutrient supply in ruminant system. Methods: The by-products from coffee processing were fermented using commercial fermentation product, consisting of various microorganisms: for 0 (control), 7, 14, 21, and 28 days. In this study, carbohydrate-related spectral profiles of coffee by-products were correlated with their chemical and nutritional properties (chemical composition, total digestible nutrient, bioenergy values, carbohydrate sub-fractions and predicted degradation and digestion parameters as well as milk value of feed). The vibrational spectra of coffee by-products samples after fermentation for 0 (control), 7, 14, 21, and 28 days were determined using a JASCO FT/IR-4200 spectroscopy coupled with accessory of attenuated total reflectance (ATR). The molecular spectral analyses with univariate approach were conducted with the OMNIC 7.3 software. Results: Molecular spectral analysis parameters in fermented and non-fermented by-products from coffee processing included structural carbohydrate, cellulosic compounds, non-structural carbohydrates, lignin compound, CH-bending, structural carbohydrate peak1, structural carbohydrate peak2, structural carbohydrate peak3, hemicellulosic compound, non-structural carbohydrate peak1, non-structural carbohydrate peak2, non-structural carbohydrate peak3. The study results show that added-microorganism fermentation induced chemical and nutritional changes of coffee by-products including carbohydrate chemical composition profiles, bioenergy value, feed milk value, carbohydrate subfractions, estimated degradable and undegradable fractions in the rumen, and intestinal digested nutrient supply in ruminant system. Conclusion: In conclusion, carbohydrate nutrition value changes by added-microorganism fermentation duration were in an agreement with the change of their spectral profile in the coffee by-products. The studies show that the vibrational ATR-FT/IR spectroscopic technique could be applied as a rapid analytical tool to evaluate fermented by-products and connect with truly digestible carbohydrate supply in ruminant system.

• Animal Bioscience
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• v.36 no.10
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• pp.1517-1529
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• 2023

Objective: The objective of this study was to investigate the phylogenetic and expression analysis of the angiopoietin-like (ANGPTL) gene family and their role in lipid metabolism in pigs. Methods: In this study, the amino acid sequence analysis, phylogenetic analysis, and chromosome adjacent gene analysis were performed to identify the ANGPTL gene family in pigs. According to the body weight data from 60 Jinhua pigs, different tissues of 6 pigs with average body weight were used to determine the expression profile of ANGPTL1-8. The ileum, subcutaneous fat, and liver of 8 pigs with distinct fatness were selected to analyze the gene expression of ANGPTL3, ANGPTL4, and ANGPTL8. Results: The sequence length of ANGPTLs in pigs was between 1,186 and 1,991 bp, and the pig ANGPTL family members shared common features with human homologous genes, including the high similarity of the amino acid sequence and chromosome flanking genes. Amino acid sequence analysis showed that ANGPTL1-7 had a highly conserved domain except for ANGPTL8. Phylogenetic analysis showed that each ANGPTL homologous gene shared a common origin. Quantitative reverse-transcription polymerase chain reaction analysis showed that ANGPTL family members had different expression patterns in different tissues. ANGPTL3 and ANGPTL8 were mainly expressed in the liver, while ANGPTL4 was expressed in many other tissues, such as the intestine and subcutaneous fat. The expression levels of ANGPTL3 in the liver and ANGPTL4 in the liver, intestine and subcutaneous fat of Jinhua pigs with low propensity for adipogenesis were significantly higher than those of high propensity for adipogenesis. Conclusion: These results increase our knowledge about the biological role of the ANGPTL family in this important economic species, it will also help to better understand the role of ANGPTL3, ANGPTL4, and ANGPTL8 in lipid metabolism of pigs, and provide innovative ideas for developing strategies to improve meat quality of pigs.

• Journal of Electrical Engineering and Technology
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• v.9 no.3
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• pp.1060-1071
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• 2014

Signals of the Electroencephalogram (EEG) can reflect the electrical background activity of the brain generated by the cerebral cortex nerve cells. This has been the mostly utilized signal, which helps in effective analysis of brain functions by supervised learning methods. In this paper, an approach for improving the accuracy of EEG signal classification is presented to detect epileptic seizures. Moreover, Independent Component Analysis (ICA) is incorporated as a preprocessing step and Short Time Fourier Transform (STFT) is used for denoising the signal adequately. Feature extraction of EEG signals is accomplished on the basis of three parameters namely, Standard Deviation, Correlation Dimension and Lyapunov Exponents. The Artificial Neural Network (ANN) is trained by incorporating Levenberg-Marquardt(LM) training algorithm into the backpropagation algorithm that results in high classification accuracy. Experimental results reveal that the methodology will improve the clinical service of the EEG recording and also provide better decision making in epileptic seizure detection than the existing techniques. The proposed EEG signal classification using feed forward Backpropagation Neural Network performs better than to the EEG signal classification using Adaptive Neuro Fuzzy Inference System (ANFIS) classifier in terms of accuracy, sensitivity, and specificity.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.51 no.2
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• pp.299-313
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• 2014

In the first part of this paper, the influences of some of crack parameters on natural frequencies of a cracked cantilever Functionally Graded Beam (FGB) are studied. A cantilever beam is modeled using Finite Element Method (FEM) and its natural frequencies are obtained for different conditions of cracks. Then effect of variation of depth and location of cracks on natural frequencies of FGB with single and multiple cracks are investigated. In the second part, two Multi-Layer Feed Forward (MLFF) Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs) are designed for prediction of FGB's Cracks' location and depth. Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) and Back-Error Propagation (BEP) algorithms are applied for training ANNs. The accuracy of two training methods' results are investigated.

• Communications for Statistical Applications and Methods
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.155-166
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• 2002

Neural networks have been studied as a popular tool for classification and they are very flexible. Also, they are used for many applications of pattern classification and pattern recognition. This paper focuses on Bayesian approach to feed-forward neural networks with single hidden layer of units with logistic activation. In this model, we are interested in deciding the number of nodes of neural network model with p input units, one hidden layer with m hidden nodes and one output unit in Bayesian setup for fixed m. Here, we use the latent variable into the prior of the coefficient regression, and we introduce the 'sequential step' which is based on the idea of the data augmentation by Tanner and Wong(1787). The MCMC method(Gibbs sampler and Metropolish algorithm) can be used to overcome the complicated Bayesian computation. Finally, a proposed method is applied to a simulated data.

• Journal of the Korea Organic Resources Recycling Association
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.117-124
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• 2002

This study was carried out to investigate variation of heavy metal contents for feed materials during composting and to evaluate the effect of pre-treatment methods on heavy metal analysis. Dry ashing, $HNO_3-HClO_4$, aqua-regia, HCl reflux, $HNO_3-HClO_4-HF$, autoclaving methods of $HNO_3$, HCl, and $HNO_3(2+1)$ were used as pre-treatment for heavy metal analysis. In analyzing standard material SRM 2781, recovery efficiencies of pre-treatment methods were 50-60% for Cr and Zn, >100% for Ni, and 80-90% for Cd and Cu. Recovery efficiency of dry ashing for SRM 2781 was the lowest. In composting raw material, Cd concentration by autoclaving methods was 3 to 4 times higher than the other methods and recovery efficiency of dry ashing was also the lowest. During composting, Cd content was the highest in autoclaving. Cr and Cu concentrations were the lowest in dry ashing and aqua-regia, respectively. Variation coefficients of Pb and Zn between pre-treatment methods were generally low.

• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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• v.27 no.8
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• pp.1131-1140
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• 2014

This research focused on the effects of different doses of Bacillus subtilis KN-42 on the growth performance, diarrhea incidence, faecal bacterial flora, and the relative number of Lactobacillus and Escherichia coli in faeces of weaned piglets to determine whether the strain can serve as a candidate antimicrobial growth promoter. A total of 360 piglets (initial body weight $7.14{\pm}0.63$ kg) weaned at $26{\pm}2$ days of age were randomly allotted to 5 treatment groups (4 pens per treatment with 18 pigs per pen) for a 28-day trial. Dietary treatments were basal diet without any antimicrobial (negative control; NC), basal diet supplemented with 120 mg/kg feed of neomycin sulfate (positive control; PC) and basal diet supplemented with $2{\times}10^9$ (L), $4{\times}10^9$ (M) and $20{\times}10^9$ (H) CFU/kg feed of B. subtilis KN-42. During the overall period, average daily gain and feed efficiency of piglets were higher in groups PC, M, and H than those in group NC (p<0.05), and all probiotics and antibiotics groups had a lower diarrhea index than group NC (p<0.05). The 16S rDNA gene-based methods were used to analyze faecal bacterial flora on day 28 of experiment. The result of denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis analysis showed that supplementation of B. subtilis KN-42 to the diet changed the bacterial communities, with a higher bacterial diversity and band number in group M than in the other four groups. Real-time polymerase chain reaction analysis showed that the relative number of Lactobacillus were higher in groups PC and H than in group NC (p<0.05), and the supplemented B. subtilis KN-42 to the diet also reduced the relative number of E. coli (p<0.05). These results suggest that dietary addition of B. subtilis KN-42 can improve the growth performance and gastrointestinal health of piglets.