The Global Health Security Initiative (GHSI) established a laboratory network within the GHSI community to develop their collective surge capacity for radionuclide bioassay in response to a radiological or nuclear emergency. A recent exercise was conducted to test the participating laboratories for their capabilities in screening and in vitro assay of biological samples, performing internal dose assessment and providing advice on medical intervention, if necessary, using a urine sample spiked with a single radionuclide, 241Am. The laboratories were required to submit their reports according to the exercise schedule and using pre-formatted templates. Generally, the participating laboratories were found to be capable with respect to rapidly screening samples for radionuclide contamination, measuring the radionuclide in the samples, assessing the intake and radiation dose, and providing advice on medical intervention. However, gaps in bioassay measurement and dose assessment have been identified. The network may take steps to ensure that procedures and practices within this network be harmonised and a follow-up exercise be organised on a larger scale, with potential participation of laboratories from the networks coordinated by the International Atomic Energy Agency and the World Health Organization.
Pressure retarded osmosis (PRO) is a promising technology for renewable energy.However, its performance can be influenced by deformation of the PRO membrane caused by feed spacers at the high applied pressure and changed flow direction in the PRO membrane cell.The feed spacer-type tricot (tricot) for a flat-sheet membrane of the PRO module provides the structural support to withstand high pressure from the draw side.This keeps the feed channel open during turbulent flow at the vicinity of the membrane surface.The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of combined positions of feed tricot on membrane performance.The surface shapes of tricot were different; one side was uneven and the other side was soft.Furthermore, when tricot was combined with the feed cell of a PRO membrane module, there were two types of positions; depending on the lines of feedwater holes of the feed cell, when placed parallel to thick lines of the tricot with the feedwater holes it was named the vertical line, and when placed across was named the horizontal line.The different surface shape and combined positions of the tricot had a big impact on this study.The study results showed that the soft surface and vertical line conditions in the PRO could operate stably, and subsequently achieved higher performance compared with other combined conditions.
In this paper a printed inverted-F antenna (IFA) is miniaturized by loading a ceramic chip coupler for bluetooth applications. The chip coupler is composed of printed meander lines on surfaces of the ceramic (ε r =21) chip. The proposed printed IFA with the chip coupler is reduced up to 64.9 % compared with a general printed IFA. The size of antenna is a volume of 35.1 mm 3 . The -10 dB bandwidth was measured as 90 MHz (3.68 %). The measured radiation pattern shows omnidirectional patterns in the yz plane and xy plane.
The Tokyo Electric Power Company’s Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Power Plant (FDNPP) accident in 2011 resulted in a release of radionuclides into the environment (131I: 142.9 PBq, 137Cs:12.4 PBq). This study presents the results of internal doses to 174 residents living near the FDNPP at the time of the accident based on whole-body (WB) measurements performed by the National Institute of Radiological Sciences (NIRS) during the period between 27 June and 28 July 2011. The 174 subjects consisted of 125 adults (≥18-y) and 49 children (<18-y) and included 90 persons of Namie town, one of the municipalities heavily contaminated with the radionuclides. The number of subjects with significant detection of both 134Cs and 137Cs was relatively small: 28.8% for the adults and 4.1% for the children. A significant gender difference in the Cs detection rate (males > females) was observed in the adults but not the children. In this study, the committed effective dose (CED) from 134Cs and 137Cs was calculated based on individual WB contents (134Cs) corrected against body size, the observed body content ratio of 137Cs to 134Cs, and the assumed intake scenario (namely, acute inhalation of Type F compounds on 12 March 2011 when the first explosive event occurred at the site of the FDNPP). The 90th-percentile CED value for the adults was around 0.1 mSv and the maximum CED (0.63 mSv) was found in an elderly male. Comparable CED results were obtained in other WB measurements subsequently performed by the Japan Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA) in a similar manner to that of the NIRS, suggesting that the contribution of ingestion to the WB content observed would be trivial for most of the JAEA subjects. The intake ratio of 131I to 134Cs was evaluated to be 3~5 based on the 131I thyroid measurement data of Tokonami et al. Using the average intake ratio of 3.8, the resulting median and maximum thyroid-equivalent doses to the adult subjects of this study were estimated at 3.5 mSv and 84 mSv, respectively.
A dose-response experiment was conducted to determine the lysine requirement for broiler breeder hens during pre-peak production. Totally, one hundred and twenty-six flock 23-week-old Ross 308 broiler breeder hens with similar body weight were selected (2,188±32 g) for a 6-week experiment. Hens were fed with a basal diet of corn-wheat-soybean meal formulated to achieve the Ross 308 breeder nutrient specifications (2016), except for lysine. The 7 graded, daily lysine intake levels used in this experiment were 732, 785, 838, 891, 944, 997, and 1,050 mg, and hens were restricted to 133 g of feed throughout this experiment. Pen based egg production were recorded once a day and all eggs were weighed daily. Age at sexual maturity was determined when the hens attained age at 25% production. Body weight at 23∼29 weeks of age was not affected (P>0.05) by lysine levels. By fitting a linear-plateau model, the daily lysine requirements for feed conversion ratio, total produced egg weight, and age at sexual maturity at 23∼29 weeks of age were estimated as 865, 907, and 891 mg, respectively. Using a quadratic-plateau model, the daily lysine requirement at 23∼29 weeks of age were estimated as 974, 964, and 950 mg for feed conversion ratio, total produced egg weight, and age at sexual maturity, respectively. These results suggested that the daily lysine requirement for modern broiler breeder hens according to the National Research Council (1994) are insufficient for higher total produced egg weight, sexual maturity, and feed efficiency, and 120% of the NRC recommendation level would improve hen productivity when data are fitted under linearand quadratic-plateau models.
Feed enzymes are used in poultry diets to enhance nutrient availability and thereby improve growth performances of the birds. The objective of the present study was to investigate the effect of dietary Multi-Carbohydrase (MC) supplementation on growth performance, blood metabolites, visceral organ weights, gut morphology, and nutrient digestibility in broiler chickens. A total of 168 one-day-old broiler chicks (47.5 ± 0.20 g) were randomly allocated into one of four dietary treatments in a 2 × 2 factorial arrangement with 6 replications per treatment. Dietary treatments were as follows: (1) positive control (PC; energy sufficient, 3,200 ME, kcal/kg); (2) negative control (NC; energy deficient, 3,100 ME, kcal/kg); (3) PC with MC (MC; Superzyme-CS™; 0.05%); (4) NC with MC. Greater ADG (P = 0.022) was observed with the birds fed MC for the entire period (1–35 d) compared to birds fed a diet without MC. Birds fed the NC diet supplemented with MC showed improved FCR (P = 0.037) compared to birds fed the NC diet during the starter period (1–21 d). MC supplementation increased dry matter (P = 0.029), crude protein (P = 0.015), and energy digestibility (P = 0.015) of the birds compared to those fed a diet without MC on day 21. Moreover, birds fed a diet with MC had increased (P = 0.037) dry matter digestibility on day 35 compared to its counterpart, regardless of dietary energy level. Therefore, our study indicated that MC improved growth performance along with nutrient digestibility in broiler chickens fed corn soybean-meal-based diets containing wheat and wheat by-products from hatch to 35 d of age, regardless of dietary energy level.
An experiment was conducted to investigate the response of laying hens fed corn distiller's dried grains with solubles (DDGS) that are naturally contaminated with deoxynivalenol (DON).One hundred and sixty 52-week-old Lohmann Brown Lite hens were randomly allotted to five dietary treatments with 8 replicates per treatment. The dietary treatments were formulated to provide a range of corn DDGS contaminated with DON from 0% to 20% (i.e., 5% scale of increment). All laying hens were subjected to the same management practices in a controlled environment. Body weight, feed intake and egg production were measured biweekly for the entire 8-week experiment. The egg quality was measured biweekly for 8 weeks. On weeks 4 and 8, visceral organ weights, blood metabolites, intestinal morphology, and blood cytokine concentrations were measured.The inclusion of corn DDGS contaminated with DON in the diet did not alter (p> 0.05) the body weight, feed intake, hen-day egg production, egg mass and feed efficiency of the laying hens. No difference was found (p>0.05) in the egg quality of hens that were fed the dietary treatments. Furthermore, hens that were fed a diet containing corn DDGS contaminated with DON showed no change (p>0.05) in the visceral organ weights, the blood metabolites, and the cytokine concentrations. The crypt depth increased (p<0.05) as the amount of corn DDGS contaminated with DON increased. Proportionately, the villus height to crypt depth ratio of the laying hens decreased (p<0.05) with the increasing level of corn DDGS contaminated with DON in the diet.The inclusion of corn DDGS contaminated with DON up to 20% in layer diets did not cause changes in egg production performance and egg quality, which indicates that DON is less toxic at the concentration of 1.00 mg DON/kg.
An aquatic food chain was constructed to provide information of bioaccumulation of DEHP as followed: phytoplankton(Scenedesmus subspicatus) zooplankton(Daphnia magna) fish(Oryzias latipes). After 10 days of exposure to DEHP, the fish and culture water were analyzed for residual concentration of DEHP and BAF(Bioaccumulation Factor) was determined. In addition, BCF(Bioconcentration Factor) was calculated in exposure tank in which fish were only exposed DEHP by culture water. These experiments provide the relative importance between BAF and BCF. In this study, BCF and BAF did not show any significant difference. Another work in this study was model construction and application to investigate the effect of food chain structure to BAF in higher organism (fish). The model constructed in this study considered the biological characteristics of DEHP such as metabolic parameters, as well as the chemical characteristics such as solubility. This model could be used in prediction of bioaccumulation level in dependent of various food chain structures, when the target organisms or chemicals would be changed.
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