Aflatoxin-contaminated feed cause mortality, suppression of the immune system, reduced growth rates and losses in feed efficiency. This research study was planned to investigate the immunomodulatory ...and growth promoting effect of milk thistle as feed additive against aflatoxin $B_1$ in broiler chicks at NWFP Agricultural University Peshawar, Pakistan. Two hundred and forty (240) day old broilers chicks were randomly assigned into four major groups AfF, aflatoxin free feed; Aflatoxin $B_1$ was present in the feed at the levels of 80-520 ${\mu}g/kg$ of the feed in the remaining three groups. Aflatoxin contaminated feed was provided for 5 weeks. Group AfB was supplemented with toxin binder "Mycoad" at 3 g/kg of feed and group AfT was supplemented with milk thistle at10 g/kg of feed. Each group was further sub divided into two sub-groups, vaccinated against ND (Newcastle disease), IB (Infectious bronchitis) and IBD (Infectious bursal diseases) according to recommended schedule of vaccination or non vaccinated. Each sub group carried three replicates with 10 chicks per replicate. Chicks were reared in pens in an open sided house. Supplementary heat was provided to all the chicks during brooding period. Mean body weight gain and dressing percentage were significantly (p<0.05) higher in group AfF, followed by AfT, AfB and Af. Weight gain and dressing percentage was the same in group AfB and AfT, while it was significantly lower in group Af. Feed intake, breast, thigh and leg weight were found significantly (p<0.05) higher in group AfF, followed by AfB, AfT and Af. Significantly lower (better) FCR value was recorded in group AfT. Water intake was significantly (p<0.05) higher in group AfT and AfF as compared to other groups. Mortality was significantly (p<0.05) higher in group Af. Mean bursa and thymus weights were found significantly (p<0.05) higher in group AfF, AfB and AfT followed by Af, while higher spleen weight was recorded in group AfT. Mean antibody titer against ND, IB and IBD was significantly (p<0.05) higher in group AfT, as compared to other groups. It is concluded that milk thistle at 10 g/kg of feed could effectively be utilized as immunostimulant and growth promotant in the presence of immunosuppressant aflatoxin $B_1$ in the feed.
Cluster technology has witnessed a tremendous inception in computing world. The technique integrates the standard computing resources to generate more processing power and other hardware strengths. ...The collection of interconnected stand-alone computers ensures high availability, increased throughput, scalability and improved performance. We have developed a dynamic cluster based approach for high speed Network Intrusion Detection Systems (NIDS) using refined policy based routing. The front end of the cluster is the loadbalancer which distributes the traffic among cluster nodes on a predefined policy. Our proposed logic ensured maximum utilization of cluster resources by exchanging state information, load sharing, reducing data loss and performing recovery evaluation procedure to maximize overall efficiency. Our rule based loadbalancing technique which uses switchovers to prevent system overloading has shown quality results. We have further integrated the concept of Comparator Logic to recover the lost traffic in case of switchovers etc. The retrieved data is re-evaluated by recovery NIDS thus maximizing the system efficiency. Snort, an open source NIDS has been used on account of being a de-facto IDS standard. Finally, our results ratify the adoption of cluster based approach in NIDS environment using commodity hardware. We have validated the concept by analyzing the performance in different traffic conditions, packet sizes, configurations and bandwidths. Our results showed a significant improvement of the system in terms of packet handling/analyzing capacity and can be considered as good contribution in cluster based adoption of NIDS.
Field studies for screening sunflower genotypes against insect pests were carried out during spring and fall 1996. Twenty three different genotypes were screened for presence of loopers, whiteflies ...and jassids at seedling and anthesis stages. Inconsistent results were observed for resistance/non- preference to the jassid population for various sunflower genotypes during both seasons of study. Among the hybrid studied, Peshawar-28 and parental line RHA-274 showed resistance/non-preference to whiteflies at both stages of growth.
