Responses of intake,digestibility and nitrogen utilisation in goats fed low‐quality roughages supplemented with tree foliages

BACKGROUND: A meta‐analysis of data containing 127 different dietary treatments with 593 goats from 30 published studies was performed to explain the effects of foliage supplementation to low‐quality roughages on intake, digestibility and N utilisation in goats. RESULTS: Basal dry matter (DM) intake decreased linearly with increasing foliage level (FL) in diets and foliage crude protein (CP) intake, whereas total DM intake increased linearly with increasing FL and CP intake from foliages and quadratically with increasing concentration of neutral detergent fibre (NDF) in foliages. The digestibility of DM and CP increased linearly with increasing FL and CP concentration in basal roughages and foliage CP intake. The greater concentration of NDF in foliages and roughages decreased CP digestibility linearly. Intakes of digestible DM and CP increased quadratically with increasing FL, with plateau levels of 36.4 and 5.52 g kg^?1 (body weight)^0.75 in response to 490 and 740 g kg^?1 FL respectively. Faecal N, urinary N and N retention increased linearly with increasing FL and foliage CP intake. CONCLUSION: Responses of goats fed basal roughages supplemented with foliages are influenced by the quality and quantity of foliages and quality of roughages. Up to 490 g kg^?1 FL can be incorporated in diets for better feed utilisation and animal performance, beyond which nutrient utilisation may be adversely affected. Copyright © 2009 Society of Chemical Industry     

A Physics-Based Crystallographic Modeling Framework for Describing the Thermal Creep Behavior of Fe-Cr Alloys

In this work, a physics-based thermal creep model is developed based on the understanding of the microstructure in Fe-Cr alloys. This model is associated with a transition state theory-based framework that considers the distribution of internal stresses at sub-material point level. The thermally activated dislocation glide and climb mechanisms are coupled in the obstacle-bypass processes for both dislocation and precipitate-type barriers. A kinetic law is proposed to track the dislocation densities evolution in the subgrain interior and in the cell wall. The predicted results show that this model, embedded in the visco-plastic self-consistent framework, captures well the creep behaviors for primary and steady-state stages under various loading conditions. The roles of the mechanisms involved are also discussed.

     

Thermodynamic analysis and optimization of a novel N2O–CO2 cascade system for refrigeration and heating

In this study, a natural refrigerant based cascaded system, with nitrous oxide as the low temperature fluid and carbon dioxide as the high temperature fluid, is analyzed for simultaneous cooling and heating applications. Effects of significant design and operating parameters on system performance are studied. Optimization of intermediate pressure for maximum COP for various design and operating parameters are presented as well. Results show that use of internal heat exchanger has marginal influence on system performance. Due to similar thermodynamic properties of nitrous oxide and carbon dioxide, the optimized intermediate temperature turns out to be independent of the performance of gas cooler and evaporator for a given operating condition. Due to the same reason, N₂O as low temperature fluid and CO₂ as high temperature fluid in a cascade arrangement exhibit similar behavioural trends in a system where the fluids are swapped.     

Arsenic removal from groundwater and its safe containment in a rural environment: validation of a sustainable approach

Of all the naturally occurring groundwater contaminants, arsenic is by far the most toxic. Any large-scale treatment strategy to remove arsenic from groundwater must take into consideration safe containment of the arsenic removed with no adverse ecological impact. Currently, 175 well-head community-based arsenic removal units are in operation in remote villages of the Indian subcontinent. Approximately 150,000 villagers collect arsenic-safe potable water everyday from these units. The continued safe operation of these units has amply demonstrated that use of regenerable arsenic-selective adsorbents is quite viable in remote locations. Upon exhaustion, the adsorbents are regenerated in a central facility by a few trained villagers and reused. The process of regeneration reduces the volume of disposable arsenic-laden solids by nearly 2 orders of magnitude. Finally, the arsenic-laden solids are contained on well-aerated coarse-sand filters with minimum arsenic leaching. This disposal technique is scientifically more appropriate than dumping arsenic-loaded adsorbents in the reducing environment of landfills as currently practiced in developed countries including the United States.     

A novel shape-based coding-decoding technique for an industrial visual inspection system

This paper describes a unique single camera-based dimension storage method for image-based measurement. The system has been designed and implemented in one of the integrated steel plants of India. The purpose of the system is to encode the frontal cross-sectional area of an ingot. The encoded data will be stored in a database to facilitate the future manufacturing diagnostic process. The compression efficiency and reconstruction error of the lossy encoding technique have been reported and found to be quite encouraging.     

Synthesis and characterization of l-tyrosine based novel polyphosphates for potential biomaterial applications

Starting from the natural amino-acid l-tyrosine, a diphenolic monomeric molecule was developed using carbodiimide mediated solid-phase synthesis techniques. This monomeric molecule was polymerized by reacting it in equimolar proportions with suitable dihalophosphates to yield novel biodegradable polyphosphates containing peptide linkages and phosphoester linkages alternating in the polymer backbone. The biodegradability of such a polymer is expected to arise from the hydrolytic degradability of the phosphoester linkages and the enzymatic degradability of the peptide linkages in the polymer backbone. Design of such a polymer is expected to make a significant contribution to biomaterials research, regarding drug delivery device and tissue engineering scaffold applications. The monomer was obtained by a novel solid phase carbodiimide-mediated amide coupling process. The subsequent polymers were obtained by solution-phase dehydrochlorination polycondensation reactions in the presence of a suitable acid acceptor. The synthesized polymers were characterized by ¹³C NMR, ³¹P NMR and FTIR for their chemical structure, by GPC for their molecular weight distribution, and by DSC and TGA for their thermal transition characteristics.