EFFECTS OF DIETARY GLYCINE BETAINE ON BLOOD CHARACTERISTICS AND PORK QUALITY

This study was conducted to determine the effects of dietary glycine betaine on pork quality and blood characteristics. A total of 80 female pigs (Landrace  ×  Yorkshire  ×  Duroc) were randomly allotted into one of four experimental diet groups. Each group of pigs fed with a commercial diet (control) added with 0.2 g glycine betaine (T1), 0.4 g glycine betaine (T2) and 0.6 g glycine betaine (T3)/kg diet during 40 days. Glycine betaine concentrations in plasma and loin muscle were significantly increased by dietary glycine betaine; however, triglyceride concentration in serum was decreased by dietary glycine betaine. Creatine phosphokinase concentrations in plasma had no significant difference among the dietary groups. Redness ( a* ) was significantly higher in T2 and T3; however, at the first and seventh days of storage, redness ( a* ) was not significantly different between dietary groups. Shear force was significantly higher in dietary glycine betaine groups at the first day of storage. Cholesterol content was significantly lower in T2 and T3, whereas T1 was not significantly different compared with the control group. In fatty acid composition, the ratio of saturated fatty acids was increased, whereas unsaturated fatty acids were decreased by dietary glycine betaine.

PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS

Glycine betaine is an amino acid (trimethylglycine) present in most organisms, and is an obligatory intermediate in the catabolism of choline. Glycine betaine has been reported to affect some aspects of pork qualities. As a result of this study, dietary glycine betaine should improve meat redness and reduce cholesterol. However, dietary glycine betaine did not influence creatine phosphokinase levels in plasma. These results will be helpful to the pork industry and meat scientists for improving meat qaulity.     

Determining node duty cycle using Q-learning and linear regression for WSN

Wireless sensor network(WSN)is effective for monitoring the target environment,which consists of a large number of sensor nodes of limited energy.An efficient medium access control(MAC)protocol is thus imperative to maximize the energy efficiency and performance of WSN.The most existing MAC protocols are based on the scheduling of sleep and active period of the nodes,and do not consider the relationship between the load condition and performance.In this paper a novel scheme is proposed to properly determine the duty cycle of the WSN nodes according to the load,which employs the Q-leaming technique and function approximation with linear regression.This allows low-latency energy-efficient scheduling for a wide range of traffic conditions,and effectively overcomes the limitation of Q-learning with the problem of continuous state-action space.NS3 simulation reveals that the proposed scheme significantly improves the throughput,latency,and energy efficiency compared to the existing fully active scheme and S-MAC.     

Glucoamylase of Amylomyces rouxii

The production of glucoamylase by Amylomyces rouxii, a mold used in rice and cassava fermentations in the Orient, was demonstrated under solid substrate culture conditions. The enzyme purified by ammonium sulfate fractionation, gel filtration, and Sephadex ion exchange column chromatography appears homogeneous. A. rouxii glucoamylase is a glycoprotein and has an optimum pH around 4.5, optimum temperature 60°C, a molecular weight of 55,600 daltons, and K_m values of 15.8, 27.6, 16.8 mg/mL for soluble starch, glycogen, and amylopectin, respectively. Unlike the other fungal glucoamylases, which were found (from culture filtrates) to exist in multiple forms, A. rouxii glucoamylase, isolated from solid substrate fermentation, displayed only one form.     

A HIERARCHICAL DIVISIVE CLUSTERING METHOD FOR MACHINE-COMPONENT GROUPING PROBLEMS

This paper proposes a new approach based on graph theory for the machine-component grouping problem in a cellular manufacturing system. The objective is to form components into part families such that the degree of interrelations is high among components within the same part family and low between components of different part families.

Since finding an optimal solution through total enumeration is prohibitive in terms of time and efforts even for problems with a moderate number of components, a heuristic algorithm is proposed. The algorithm is hierarchical and divisive in nature and illustrated with numerical examples.     

Soft-switched,high frequency resonant AC-to-DC rectifier with high power factor

A high frequency and soft-switched AC-to-DC rectifier employing a series-type resonant circuit is proposed to overcome the disadvantages of the conventional peak-rectifying circuit. Using the proposed rectifier, a high power factor and low harmonic currents are obtained in the AC line. Furthermore, several advantages such as high power density and wide output voltage range can also be available. Through simulation and experimental results, the usefulness of the proposed rectifier is verified.     

一种基于UML的嵌入式应用软件开发环境

阐述了传缩嵌入式软件的开发方法和环境,指出了他们的优缺点;介绍了迭代式软件开发方法以及通用建模语言UML;提出了基于UML的嵌入式软件开发环境;分析了它的组成与结构;并介绍了I-Logix公司新推出的基于UML的面向嵌入式应用的软件开发环境-Rhapsody。     

Hard X-ray microscopy with Zernike phase contrast

Zernike phase contrast has been added to a full‐field X‐ray microscope with Fresnel zone plates that was in operation at 6.95 keV. The spatial resolution has also been improved by increasing the magnification of the microscope objective looking at the CsI(Tl) scintillation crystal. Cu no. 2000 meshes and a zone plate have been imaged to see the contrast as well as the spatial resolution. A Halo effect coming from the Zernike phase contrast was clearly visible on the images of meshes.     

Small signal modelling for the PWM series resonant converter

A discrete time domain modelling is presented for the pulse-width modulated series resonant converter (PWM-SRC) with a discontinuous current mode. This nonlinear system is linearized about its equilibrium state to obtain a linear discrete time model for the investigation of small signal performances such as the stability and transient response. The usefulness of this small signal model is verified by dynamic simulation.