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This study was conducted to investigate the effect of dietary supplementation of octacosanol (OCT) extracted from triticale sprout on laying performance, egg quality, and blood parameters of laying hens. A total of 192, Hyline brown laying hens aged 43 weeks were divided into 4 dietary groups of 48 birds each and they were randomly subjected to one of the experimental diets containing OCT at the levels of none, 10, 20, and 30 mg/kg of diet. All birds were fed with isoenergetic and isonitrogenous mash diets for 6 weeks. The result showed that hens supplemented with 20 and 30 mg/kg OCT in diet significantly increased (p0.05) egg production than those fed with the basal diet. OCT concentration in the egg yolk of hens fed with 20 and 30 mg/kg OCT was significantly higher than in those fed the control diet. Hens fed 20 and 30 mg/kg OCT exhibited greater high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol and interleukin (IL) concentrations and reduced serum concentrations of cholesterol and triglyceride compared to those fed with 0 and 10 mg/kg OCT. This study indicates that supplementing the diet of laying hens with 20 and 30 mg/kg of OCT can improve the performance, egg quality, and health status of laying hens.

Objective: The present research was conducted to evaluate the interactive effect of dietary concentration of calcium (Ca) and 25-hydroxy vitamin D3 (25OHD3) on the performance, blood composition and digestibility of laying hens.Methods: A total of 540 Hy-line brown laying hens aged 61 to 70 weeks were randomly allotted in a 3×3 factorial arrangement, consisting of three levels of 25OHD3 (0, 25, and 50 μg/kg) and three levels of Ca (3.5%, 4.0%, and 4.5%). All diets had basal concentration of 3,000 IU/kg of vitamin D3 including the 2,800 kcal/kg of metabolic energy and 16% of crude protein.Results: The results showed that interactive effect (p

This study aimed to investigate the effects of cold drinking water on cellular and humoral immunity in heat-exposed laying hens. One hundred and eight laying hens at 19 weeks old were placed into three treatments with six replicates of six hens in each group as follows: (1) hens were provided with normal drinking water (NW) under the control of thermoneutral temperature (CT: 25 ± 1 °C; CT + NW), (2) hens were provided with NW under high ambient temperature (HT: 35 ± 1 °C; HT + NW) for 8 h/d for a month, and (3) hens were treated under HT with cold drinking water (CW: 15 ± 1 °C; HT + CW) for 8 h/d for a 4-weeks. Then, the feed consumption, egg production, egg weight, feed conversion ratio, and blood immune parameters were investigated. The results showed that cold drinking water (CW) caused a significant (p < 0.05) recovery in the reduction of food intake and egg production due to heat stress; however, there was no significant effect (p > 0.05) on egg weight and feed conversion ratio. Moreover, CW significantly (p < 0.05) restored the immune-suppressing effects of heat stress on the contents of peripheral blood mononuclear cells, including B-cell (BU-Ia), helper T cell (CD4), and the ratio of helper/cytotoxic T cell (CD4/CD8). In addition, CW significantly (p < 0.05) recovered the reduction on the level of mRNA expression of interleukin-2 (IL-2) and interferon-gamma (IFN-γ), as well as significantly (p < 0.05) restored the reduction of plasma concentration of IL-2, IFN-γ and immunoglobulin G in heat-stressed laying hens. These results prove that CW increased heat dissipation and enhanced feed intake, egg production, and cellular and humoral immunity in heat-exposed laying hens.

This study investigated the effects of dietary lupin (LP) as a replacement for soybean meal (SBM) on the performance, meat quality, and blood parameters of broilers. A total of 960 1-day-old Ross 708 broilers were divided into four dietary groups. The four diets were formulated with different levels of dehulled LP content in place of SBM; LP0: 0, LP50: 50, LP100: 100, and LP200: 200 g/kg. There was a trend ( P *) was lower ( P

The red mite, Dermanyssus gallinae (Mesostigmata: Dermanyssidae), is one of the most serious pests in chicken farming and causes serious economic losses. Overuse of chemical acaricides has caused pest resistance as well as environmental residual toxicity to chickens and eggs. Therefore, given the warm and humid conditions of chicken farms, alternative application with entomopathogenic Beauveria bassiana sensu lato was investigated to control D. gallinae. Based on the characterization and virulence assays of B. bassiana isolates against red mite, a red mite-pathogenic fungal library was constructed. A total of six highly virulent B. bassiana isolates were selected from the first bioassay. They showed 70–100% mortality in ten days which were higher than cypermethrin, showing 40% mortality. Considering their fungal virulence, conidial production, and thermotolerance, isolate JEF-410 was established to be the best candidate for industrialization. JEF-410 showed a dose-dependent virulence against red mite nymphs. JEF-410 conidia from millet granule-based mass culture were applied to a commercial chicken farm and it showed a significant suppression of population increase under high humidity conditions. In summary, B. bassiana JEF-410 having higher control efficacy than cypermethrin could be effectively used to control D. gallinae in the fungus-friendly humid chicken farms. This work solved challenges of mass production of B. bassiana and management of the red mite in poultry farming under right conditions of RH and temperature.

Young Chul Youn,1 Jae-Won Jang,2 Su-Hyun Han,1 HyeRyoun Kim,3 Ju-Won Seok,4 Jun Soo Byun,5 Kwang-Yeol Park,1 Seong Soo A An,6 In Kook Chun,7 SangYun Kim8 1Department of Neurology, Chung-Ang University College of Medicine, Seoul, 2Department of Neurology, Kangwon National University Hospital, 3Department of Laboratory Medicine, 4Department of Nuclear Medicine, 5Department of Radiology, Chung-Ang University College of Medicine, 6College of Bionano Technology, Gachon Bionano Research Institute, Gachon University, 7Department of Nuclear Medicine, Kangwon National University Hospital, 8Department of Neurology, Seoul National University Bundang Hospital and Seoul National University College of Medicine, Gyeonggi-do, Republic of Korea Purpose: Early-onsetAlzheimer’s disease (EOAD) has a different pathologic burden and clinical features compared with late-onsetAlzheimer’s disease(LOAD). We examined the effects of age at onseton the burden and distribution of β-amyloid in patients with EOAD, in whom well-characterized mutations associated with Alzheimer’s disease were absent.Methods: We genotyped ApoE, APP, PSEN1 and PSEN2 in the patients with Alzheimer’s disease: 9 patients with EOAD (age 70) and 8 normal controls (NCs), all of whom had undergone 11C-labeled Pittsburgh compound B-positron emission tomography imaging.Results: Patients with EOAD exhibited higher z scores and larger cluster sizes, and retained higher levels of Pittsburgh compound B in the bilateral thalamus and in some parts of the globus pallidus (P

Understanding and predicting a driver’s behaviors in a vehicle is a prospective function embedded in a smart car. Beyond the patterns of observable behaviors, driver’s intention could be identified based on goal-driven behaviors. A computational model to classify driver intention in visual search which is finding a target with one’s eyes as moving selective attention across a search field, could improve the level of intelligence that a smart car could demonstrate. To develop a computational cognitive that explains the underlying cognitive process and reproduces drivers’ behaviors, particular parameters in human cognitive process should be specified. In this study, 2 issues are considered as influential factors on a driver’s eye movements: a driver’s visual information processing characteristics (VIPCs) and the purpose of visual search. To assess an individual’s VIPC, 4 psychological experiments—Donders’s reaction time, mental rotation, signal detection, and Stroop experiments—were utilized. Upon applying ...

Objective: The aim of this study is to investigate learnability of gestures-commands pair when people use gestures to control a device. Background: In vision-based gesture recognition system, selecting gesture-command pairing is critical for its usability in learning. Subjective preference and its agreement score, used in previous study(Lim et al., 2012) was used to group four gesture-command pairings. To quantify the learnability, two learning models, average time model and marginal time model, were used. Method: Two sets of eight gestures, total sixteen gestures were listed by agreement score and preference data. Fourteen participants divided into two groups, memorized each set of gesture-command pair and performed gesture. For a given command, time to recall the paired gesture was collected. Results: The average recall time for initial trials were differed by preference and agreement score as well as the learning rate R driven by the two learning models. Conclusion: Preference rate agreement score showed influence on learning of gesture-command pairs. Application: This study could be applied to any device considered to adopt gesture interaction system for device control.

Environmental and medium factors were investigated as basic data for optimizing DHA production when usingThraustochytrium aureum. To study the effect of environmental conditions, the rotation speed and culture temperature were, changed. Plus the trend of the growth characteristics, lipid content in the biomass, and DHA content in lipids were evaluated according to various initial glucose concentrations. The biomass, lipid, and DHA analyses showed that the physiological characteristics ofT. aureum were closely related with the environmental and medium conditions, as in the case of other marine microorganisms. For example, a low rotation speed of 50 rpm lowered the cell growth rate as well as the DHA content in the lipids. A low temperature had a negative effect on the cell growth, yet a positive effect on the lipid content in the biomass. Different initial glucose concentrations had no effect on the lipid content in the biomass or DHA content in the lipids, yet did affect the cell growth. Accordingly, these results show that environmental and medium factors must be synthetically considered in order to optimize DHA production when usingT. aureum.

This study investigates the human factor issues in gesture interaction focused on the individual differences, which could affect on both system completeness and usability. The first aspect in individual differences is semantic association between a gesture and a command, while the second aspect regards performing gesture. In this study, we conduct an empirical study on gesture-command pairing and gesture performing while analyzing the agreement score, gesture attribute, length of trajectory, and speed of motion. Statistical analysis shows the significant effects of the individual difference on variability of the gesture performance. Finally, the probability distribution function and cumulative distribution function are identified for the range of trace length and the range of motion speed.