An experiment was conducted to investigate the supplementation of direct-fed microbials (DFM) as an alternative to antibiotics on growth performance, immune response, cecal microbial population, and ...ileal morphology of broiler chickens. A total of 800 one-day-old male broiler chicks (Ross × Ross) were randomly allotted to 4 dietary treatments with 4 replicate pens per treatment (50 birds/replicate pen). The 4 dietary treatments fed for 35 d were a corn-soybean meal basal diet (control); control plus 0.1% virginiamycin, as an antibiotic growth promoter (AGP); control plus 0.1% direct-fed microbials that contained Lactobacillus reuteri (DFM 1); and control plus 0.1% direct-fed microbials that contained a mixture of L. reuteri, Bacillus subtilis, and Saccharomyces cerevisiae (DFM 2). Results showed that dietary AGP and DFM supplementation significantly increased (P < 0.05) the BW gain of broilers during 0 to 21 d. The feed intake was reduced, whereas the feed conversion was improved significantly when birds were fed DFM 2 at 0 to 7 d of age. The white blood cell and monocyte levels were significantly higher in the DFM 2 group compared with the control. In addition, feeding DFM significantly (P < 0.05) increased the plasma immunoglobulin levels where a higher level was observed in DFM 2 compared with those of the other treatments. Neither DFM nor AGP treatments affected the cecal Lactobacillus and Salmonella content; however, cecal Escherichia coli content significantly decreased in broiler chickens fed DFM and AGP. The ileal villus height, and width and total thickness of muscularis externa were significantly increased when birds were fed DFM compared with AGP and control. These results indicate that the dietary supplementation of DFM increases the growth performance of birds at an early age, stimulates the immune response, decreases the number of E. coli, and improves the ileal morphology of broiler chickens. Thus, DFM that contained a mixture of several beneficial microorganisms could be a viable alternative to antibiotics in the broiler diets.
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UILJ, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK, ZAGLJ, ZRSKP
Breast cancer is the most common cancer that causes death in women. Conventional therapies, including surgery and chemotherapy, have different therapeutic effects and are commonly associated with ...risks and side effects. Near infrared radiation is a technique with few side effects that is used for local hyperthermia, typically as an adjuvant to other cancer therapies. The understanding of the use of near NIR as a monotherapy, and its effects on the immune cells activation and infiltration, are limited. In this study, we investigate the effects of HT treatment using NIR on tumor regression and on the immune cells and molecules in breast tumors. Results from this study demonstrated that local HT by NIR at 43 °C reduced tumor progression and significantly increased the median survival of tumor-bearing mice. Immunohistochemical analysis revealed a significant reduction in cells proliferation in treated tumor, which was accompanied by an abundance of heat shock protein 70 (Hsp70). Increased numbers of activated dendritic cells were observed in the draining lymph nodes of the mice, along with infiltration of T cells, NK cells and B cells into the tumor. In contrast, tumor-infiltrated regulatory T cells were largely diminished from the tumor. In addition, higher IFN-γ and IL-2 secretion was observed in tumor of treated mice. Overall, results from this present study extends the understanding of using local HT by NIR to stimulate a favourable immune response against breast cancer.
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IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, UL, UM, UPUK
This paper focused on the effect of sol–gel stirring duration on the properties nanostructured lithium niobate (
LiNbO
3
) films grown by sol–gel method. Nanostructured LiNbO
3
film was deposited on ...quartz substrate using sol–gel deposition technique. The precursor solution has been prepared with maximum stirrer times of 48 h. The structural, morphological and optical properties of grown films have been investigated using X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy, atomic force microscopy, optical study through Raman spectroscopy, UV–Visible and photoluminescence (PL). The measurements showed that the structure was crystalline in nature and the grains was distributed regularly within the film. This observation is typically used in optical waveguides and other optoelectronics applications. Raman spectroscopy proved a multi dominated Raman-active phonons with the main diffraction peaks corresponding to E(LO1), E(LO7), E(LO8), E(TO3) and E(TO4).
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EMUNI, FIS, FZAB, GEOZS, GIS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, MFDPS, NLZOH, NUK, OBVAL, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, SBMB, SBNM, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK, VKSCE, ZAGLJ
Electricity consumption prediction plays a vital role in intelligent energy management systems, and it is essential for electricity power supply companies to have accurate short and long-term energy ...predictions. In this study, a deep-ensembled neural network was used to anticipate hourly power utilization, providing a clear and effective approach for predicting power consumption. The dataset comprises of 13 files, each representing a different region, and ranges from 2004 to 2018, with two columns for the date, time, year and energy expenditure. The data was normalized using minmax scalar, and a deep ensembled (long short-term memory and recurrent neural network) model was used for energy consumption prediction. This proposed model effectively trains long-term dependencies in sequence order and has been assessed using several statistical metrics, including root mean squared error (RMSE), relative root mean squared error (rRMSE), mean absolute bias error (MABE), coefficient of determination (R2), mean bias error (MBE), and mean absolute percentage error (MAPE). Results show that the proposed model performs exceptionally well compared to existing models, indicating its effectiveness in accurately predicting energy consumption.
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DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
This manuscript presents high performance dual polarized eight-element multiple input multiple output (MIMO) fifth generation (5G) smartphone antenna. The design consists of four dual-polarized ...microstrip diamond-ring slot antennas, positioned at corners of printed circuit board (PCB). Cheap Fr-4 dielectric with permittivity 4.3 and thickness of 1.6mm is used as substrate with overall dimension of 150 x 75 x 1.6 mm.sup.3 . In mobile system due to limited space mutual coupling between nearby antenna elements is an issue that distort MIMO antenna performance. Defected ground structure is used to control coupling. The defected ground structure has advantages like ease of fabrication, compact size and high efficiency as compare to other techniques. Less than 30dB coupling is achieved for adjacent elements. The -10 dB impedance bandwidth of 700 MHz is achieved for all radiating elements ranging from 3.3 GHz to 4.1 GHz. The value is about 900MHz for -6dB. The proposed antenna offers good results in terms of fundamental antenna parameters like reflection coefficient, transmission coefficient, maximum gain, total efficiency. The antenna achieved average gain more than 3.8dBi and average radiation efficiency more than 80% for single dual polarized element. The antenna provides sufficient radiation coverage in all sides. The MIMO antenna characteristics like diversity gain (DG), envelope correlation coefficient (ECC), total active reflection coefficient (TARC) and channel capacity are calculated and found according to standards. Furthermore, effect of user on antenna performance in data-mode and talk-mode are studied. Proposed design is fabricated and tested in real time. The measured results shows that proposed design can be used in future smartphones applications. The design is compared with some of the existing work and found to be the best one in many parameters and can be used for commercial use.
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DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
Cobalt ferrite nano-particles (CoFe2O4) were synthesized by the co-precipitation method with ammonium hydroxide as an alkaline solution. The reactions were carried out at different temperatures ...between 20 and 80°C. The nano-particles have been investigated by magnetic measurements, X-ray powder diffraction and transmission electron microscopy. The average crystallite size of the synthesized samples was between 11 and 45nm, which was found to be dependent on both pH value of the reaction and annealing temperatures. However, lattice parameters, interplane spacing and grain size were controlled by varying the annealing temperature. Magnetic characterization of the nano-samples were carried out using a vibrating sample magnetometer at room temperature. The saturation magnetization was computed and found to lie between 5 and 67emu/g depending on the particle size of the studied sample. The coercivity was found to exhibit non-monotonic behavior with the particle size. Such behavior can be accounted for by the combination between surface anisotropy and thermal energies. The ratio of remanence magnetization to saturation magnetization was found to exhibit almost linear dependence on the particle size.
► Cobalt ferrite nano-particles were synthesized with average crystallite size between 11 and 45nm. ► The size of the particles are dependent on both the reaction and annealing temperatures. ► The dependence of saturation magnetization on particle size was explained in view of surface effects. ► Coercivity was found to exhibit non-monotonic behavior with particle size.
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK
Rheumatic heart disease (RHD) accounts for over a million premature deaths annually; however, there is little contemporary information on presentation, complications, and treatment.
This prospective ...registry enrolled 3343 patients (median age 28 years, 66.2% female) presenting with RHD at 25 hospitals in 12 African countries, India, and Yemen between January 2010 and November 2012. The majority (63.9%) had moderate-to-severe multivalvular disease complicated by congestive heart failure (33.4%), pulmonary hypertension (28.8%), atrial fibrillation (AF) (21.8%), stroke (7.1%), infective endocarditis (4%), and major bleeding (2.7%). One-quarter of adults and 5.3% of children had decreased left ventricular (LV) systolic function; 23% of adults and 14.1% of children had dilated LVs. Fifty-five percent (n = 1761) of patients were on secondary antibiotic prophylaxis. Oral anti-coagulants were prescribed in 69.5% (n = 946) of patients with mechanical valves (n = 501), AF (n = 397), and high-risk mitral stenosis in sinus rhythm (n = 48). However, only 28.3% (n = 269) had a therapeutic international normalized ratio. Among 1825 women of childbearing age (12-51 years), only 3.6% (n = 65) were on contraception. The utilization of valvuloplasty and valve surgery was higher in upper-middle compared with lower-income countries.
Rheumatic heart disease patients were young, predominantly female, and had high prevalence of major cardiovascular complications. There is suboptimal utilization of secondary antibiotic prophylaxis, oral anti-coagulation, and contraception, and variations in the use of percutaneous and surgical interventions by country income level.
This paper explored physical properties of LiNbO
3
thin films that was deposited on quartz substrate employing spray pyrolysis technique. New raw materials were exploited as the precursor compounds. ...The films were annealed at different annealing temperatures, i.e. room temperature to 600 °C. The LiNbO
3
are characterized and analyzed by the FESEM, AFM, X-ray diffraction and analyzed by UV–Visible and photoluminescence. The optical properties were analyzed by ultra violet- visible (UV–Visible) and photoluminescence measurements. The results indicated that the orientation of films crystallization and the grain size decreased with the increment of annealed temperatures. Energy band gap was recorded approximately 3.9 eV. The transmission efficiency was found to be in the range of 43–78%. Refractive index was observed from 2.02 to 2.43. Optical conductivity increased from 1.8 × 104 to 2.4 × 104 (s
−1
). The real and imaginary components of dielectric constants (ε
r
, ε
i
), and Urbach energy decreased with higher annealing temperature.
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EMUNI, FIS, FZAB, GEOZS, GIS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, MFDPS, NLZOH, NUK, OBVAL, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, SBMB, SBNM, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK, VKSCE, ZAGLJ
•Growth phase influences recovery, autoflocculation, lipid content and composition.•In batch cultivation, E. texensis should be harvested during the stationary phase.•E. texensis is a very suitable ...candidate for the microalgal biodiesel production.
The effect of growth phase on the recovery of the autoflocculating microalgae Ettlia texensis was studied. In the stationary phase, 90% recovery was achieved after 3h settling. Scanning electron microscopic pictures revealed that extracellular polymeric substances (EPS) on the cell surface were involved in autoflocculation. During the stationary phase an increase of the protein fraction in the EPS was observed while the total fatty acids content increased. The autoflocculating properties of E. texensis combined with favourite fatty acid content and composition make this microalgae an excellent candidate for biodiesel production if harvested at the end of the stationary phase.
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK
Flavonoids represent a large diverse group of natural products that are used as a traditional medicine against various infectious diseases. They possess many biological activities including ...antimicrobial, antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, anti-cancer and anti-diabetic activities. Commercially, flavonoids are mainly obtained from plants, however, several challenges are faced during their extraction. Microorganisms have been known as natural sources of a wide range of bioactive compounds including flavonoids. Actinobacteria are the most prolific group of microorganisms for the production of bioactive secondary metabolites, thus facilitating the production of flavonoids. The screening programs for bioactive compounds revealed the potential application of actinobacteria to produce flavonoids with interesting biological activities, especially anticancer activities. Since marine actinobacteria are recognized as a potential source of novel anticancer agents, they are highly expected to be potential producers of anticancer flavonoids with unusual structures and properties. In this review, we highlight the production of flavonoids by actinobacteria through classical fermentation, engineering of plant biosynthetic genes in a recombinant actinobacterium and the de novo biosynthesis approach. Through these approaches, we can control and improve the production of interesting flavonoids or their derivatives for the treatment of cancer.
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