A natural carbohydrate fraction Actigen™ from Saccharomyces cerevisiae cell wall: effects on goblet cells, gut morphology and performance of broiler chickens

A study was conducted to evaluate a natural carbohydrate fraction Actigen™ (NCF), derived from mannanoligosaccharide, in feed on growth performance, intestinal morphology and goblet cell number and area of male broilers'. Dietary treatments included: 1) control diet (antibiotic and NCF free), 2) NCF at 200g/t, 3) NCF at 400g/t, and 4) NCF 800g/t. Two hundred and forty birds were placed into 12 replicate pens per treatment (5 birds/pen), sixty birds per treatment. Body weight and feed intake were recorded weekly up to day 42. At this time a 2.5cm section of jejunum and duodenum were excised post mortem for morphological analysis. Birds fed 200g/t and 800g/t NCF were significantly (P<0.01) heavier from day 14 onwards than the control birds. Feed intake was significantly higher in birds fed 200g/t NCF compared to those fed the control at 21 and 35 days (P<0.05). Diets containing 200g/t and 800g/t of NCF significantly decreased broiler feed conversion ratio (FCR) compared to the control in the first phase (1-14 days) (P<0.01) and levels of NCF decreased FCR (P<0.05) in the second phase (15-28 days). NCF had no significant effect on villus height, villus width, crypt depth or villus to crypt ratio in either duodenum or jejunum. NCF did not significantly affect goblet cell area or goblet cell number in the duodenum, however, in the jejunum, 800g/t NCF significantly (P<0.05) increased goblet cell area over the control. In conclusion, NCF showed a positive effect on broiler performance in the starter and grower phases, and increased goblet cell area in the jejunum, suggesting higher levels of mucin production. This indicated that the performance benefit of NCF could be age-dependent, with younger birds responding more than the older ones. There were no additional benefits to performance when feeding NCF for a longer period (after 28 d of age), however it is postulated that birds fed NCF would have greater defence to pathogenic challenge through increased storage capacity of muci

Critical single-domain/multidomain grain sizes in noninteracting and interacting elongated magnetite particles: Implications for magnetosomes

The critical size for stable single-domain (SD) behavior has been calculated as a function of grain elongation for magnetite grains using a numerical micromagnetic algorithm. Importantly, for the first time, we consider the contribution of intergrain magnetostatic interactions on the SD/multidomain (MD) critical size (d0). For individual grains our numerical estimates for d0 for elongated grains are lower than that determined by previous analytical and numerical calculations. Nevertheless, the inclusion of magnetostatic interactions into the model was found to increase d0 to values significantly higher than any previously published estimates of d0 for individual grains. Therefore the model calculations show that there is a relatively wide range of grain sizes within which depending on the degree of magnetostatic interactions and elongation, a grain can be either SD or MD. The model results are compared to observations of magnetosomes found in magnetotactic bacteria. The newly calculated upper d0 limit for the interacting grains now accommodates the largest magnetosomes reported in the literature. These large magnetosomes were previously thought to be MD, suggesting that evolutionary processes are highly efficient at optimizing magnetosome grain size and spatial distribution

Arbitration Whack-A-Mole: The Federal Policy Favoring Arbitration Hammers the Rights of Individual Employees

In a country that protects the plaintiff\u27s right to a day in court, it only seems natural that Sally should have the opportunity to take her cause to the courthouse. But the strong fedral presumption that supports the enforcement of arbitration provisions is like a hammber that pushes plaintiffs like Sally and those if Huffman into the arbitration arena. In Huffman, the Sixth Circuit rescued an employwer from an ambiguous arbitration provision contained in the employer-drafted employment agreement and enforced the arbitration provision as one of the provisions to survive expiration of the contract, even though it was not listed in the survival clause

On Multifractal Structure in Non-Representational Art

Multifractal analysis techniques are applied to patterns in several abstract expressionist artworks, paintined by various artists. The analysis is carried out on two distinct types of structures: the physical patterns formed by a specific color (``blobs''), as well as patterns formed by the luminance gradient between adjacent colors (``edges''). It is found that the analysis method applied to ``blobs'' cannot distinguish between artists of the same movement, yielding a multifractal spectrum of dimensions between about 1.5-1.8. The method can distinguish between different types of images, however, as demonstrated by studying a radically different type of art. The data suggests that the ``edge'' method can distinguish between artists in the same movement, and is proposed to represent a toy model of visual discrimination. A ``fractal reconstruction'' analysis technique is also applied to the images, in order to determine whether or not a specific signature can be extracted which might serve as a type of fingerprint for the movement. However, these results are vague and no direct conclusions may be drawn.Comment: 53 pp LaTeX, 10 figures (ps/eps

China and the South : objectives, actors and interactions

China has stepped up its engagement of developing countries through both bilateral interactions and the establishment of more formal multilateral fora. To achieve this, China's leaders have established a clear state policy designed to secure much needed resources and to establish an identity as a new and different type of ‘great power’. China has also become a proactive provider of development aid which, when combined with other forms of economic engagement, have raised concerns in the West that China is undermining the promotion of a liberal global order. But we need to take care in considering who, or what, is driving Chinese policy. The institutional weakness of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs means that commercial and financial agencies have dominated the agenda; major state owned enterprises and increasingly large numbers of small, often private enterprises are pursuing their own commercial agendas overseas, which are often not controlled by Beijing. The result is a patchwork of different types of relationships with developing countries, more often driven by the commercial concerns of economic actors than by a coherent diplomatic strategy

Measuring the health impact of human rights violations related to Australian asylum policies and practices: A mixed methods study

This article has been made available through the Brunel Open Access Publishing Fund - Copyright @ 2009 Johnston et al.BACKGROUND: Human rights violations have adverse consequences for health. However, to date, there remains little empirical evidence documenting this association, beyond the obvious physical and psychological effects of torture. The primary aim of this study was to investigate whether Australian asylum policies and practices, which arguably violate human rights, are associated with adverse health outcomes. METHODS: We designed a mixed methods study to address the study aim. A cross-sectional survey was conducted with 71 Iraqi Temporary Protection Visa (TPV) refugees and 60 Iraqi Permanent Humanitarian Visa (PHV) refugees, residing in Melbourne, Australia. Prior to a recent policy amendment, TPV refugees were only given temporary residency status and had restricted access to a range of government funded benefits and services that permanent refugees are automatically entitled to. The quantitative results were triangulated with semi-structured interviews with TPV refugees and service providers. The main outcome measures were self-reported physical and psychological health. Standardised self-report instruments, validated in an Arabic population, were used to measure health and wellbeing outcomes. RESULTS: Forty-six percent of TPV refugees compared with 25% of PHV refugees reported symptoms consistent with a diagnosis of clinical depression (p = 0.003). After controlling for the effects of age, gender and marital status, TPV status made a statistically significant contribution to psychological distress (B = 0.5, 95% CI 0.3 to 0.71, p </= 0.001) amongst Iraqi refugees. Qualitative data revealed that TPV refugees generally felt socially isolated and lacking in control over their life circumstances, because of their experiences in detention and on a temporary visa. This sense of powerlessness and, for some, an implicit awareness they were being denied basic human rights, culminated in a strong sense of injustice. CONCLUSION: Government asylum policies and practices violating human rights norms are associated with demonstrable psychological health impacts. This link between policy, rights violations and health outcomes offers a framework for addressing the impact of socio-political structures on health.This research was supported by an Australian National and Medical Research Council PhD Scholarship (N. 251782) and a Victorian Health Promotion Foundation research grant (No. 2002-0280)

An evaluation of staff experiences of the Royal Literary Fund writer-in-residence service to support improvements in written communication in healthcare

Written communication is essential to staff and patient experience in healthcare. The Royal Literary Fund has hosted a writing fellow in an NHS Trust since 2018 providing professional writing training. The aim of this evaluation was to explore the experiences of staff using the service. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 21 staff members from a range of professions who had accessed the service. Data were analysed using thematic analysis. Findings: The writing service was highly valued. Three themes emerged: feelings about writing at work, reported benefits of attending sessions, and perceived barriers to accessing them. Staff felt underskilled in professional writing and described the wish to write more succinctly and reflectively. Self-reported confidence increased after sessions. Stigma around writing skills prevented some staff from recommending the service. Wider adoption of professional writing skills training through the NHS could have benefits in terms of increasing self-perceived skills and confidence

Link Prediction in Complex Networks: A Survey

Link prediction in complex networks has attracted increasing attention from both physical and computer science communities. The algorithms can be used to extract missing information, identify spurious interactions, evaluate network evolving mechanisms, and so on. This article summaries recent progress about link prediction algorithms, emphasizing on the contributions from physical perspectives and approaches, such as the random-walk-based methods and the maximum likelihood methods. We also introduce three typical applications: reconstruction of networks, evaluation of network evolving mechanism and classification of partially labelled networks. Finally, we introduce some applications and outline future challenges of link prediction algorithms.Comment: 44 pages, 5 figure

Testing foundations of quantum mechanics with photons

The foundational ideas of quantum mechanics continue to give rise to counterintuitive theories and physical effects that are in conflict with a classical description of Nature. Experiments with light at the single photon level have historically been at the forefront of tests of fundamental quantum theory and new developments in photonics engineering continue to enable new experiments. Here we review recent photonic experiments to test two foundational themes in quantum mechanics: wave-particle duality, central to recent complementarity and delayed-choice experiments; and Bell nonlocality where recent theoretical and technological advances have allowed all controversial loopholes to be separately addressed in different photonics experiments.Comment: 10 pages, 5 figures, published as a Nature Physics Insight review articl