In vitro susceptibility of Brachyspira hyodysenteriae to organic acids and essential oil components

The antibacterial potential of organic acids and essential oil components against Brachyspira hyodysenteriae, the causative pathogen of swine dysentery, was evaluated. Minimum inhibitory concentrations (MIC) of 15 compounds were determined at pH 7.2 and pH 6.0, using a broth microdilution assay. In addition, possible synergism was determined. MIC values for the three tested strains were similar. For organic acids, MIC values at pH 6.0 were lower than at pH 7.2. B. hyodysenteriae was most sensitive to cinnamaldehyde and lauric acid, with MIC values <1.5 mM. Most antibacterial effects of binary combinations were additive, however, for thymol and carvacrol, synergism could be observed. In vitro results demonstrate the antibacterial action of certain essential oil components and organic acids against B. hyodysenteriae.     

Functional porous carbons from waste cotton fabrics for dyeing wastewater purification

A new functional porous carbons (PC-WF) is prepared by activation-pyrolysis method use waste cotton fabrics (WF) as an abundant, cheap and available precursor for removal of Brilliant Crocein (BC-GR) and Cationic Red 2GL (CR-GL) from aqueous phase. The PC-WF was characterized by BET, FTIR, SEM, and XRD techniques, the surface area, total pore volume, average pore diameter was found as 1463.5 m² g^-1, 0.783 cm³ g^-1 and 2.14 nm, respectively. The influences on BC-GR and CR-GL adsorption of various experimental factors such as initial concentration and temperature were investigated. Adsorption kinetics was found to be best represented by the pseudo-second order model. The adsorption capacity was 319.8 mg g^-1 for BC-GR and 842.5 mg g^-1 for CR-GL at 30 °C, respectively. The results indicate that for waste cotton fabrics in particular, the practical application of this process to the production of porous carbon would be possible.     

Characterizing long-term forest disturbance history and its drivers in the Ning-Zhen Mountains,Jiangsu Province of eastern China using yearly Landsat observations (1987–2011)

Forest losses or gains have long been recognized as critical processes modulating the carbon flux between the biosphere and the atmosphere. Timely, accurate and spatially explicit information on forest disturbance and recovery history is required for assessing the effectiveness of existing forest management. The major objectives of our research focused on testing the mapping efficacy of the vegetation change tracker (VCT) model over a forested area in China. We used a new version of VCT algorithm built upon the Landsat time series stacks (LTSS). The LTSS consisted of yearly image acquisitions to map forest disturbance history from 1987 to 2011 over the Ning-Zhen Mountains, Jiangsu Province of east China. The LTSS consisted of TM and ETM+ scenes with different projections due to distinct data sources (Beijing remote sensing ground station and the USGS EROS Center). The validation results of the disturbance year maps showed that most spatial agreement measures ranged from 70 to 86 %, comparable with the VCT accuracies reported for many places in USA. Very low accuracies were identified in 1995 (38.3 %) and 1992 (56.2 %) in the current analysis. These resulted from the insensitivity of the VCT algorithm to detect low intensity disturbances and also from the mis-registration errors of the image pairs. Major forest disturbance types existing in our study area were identified as agricultural expansion (39.8 %), urbanization (24.9 %), forest management practice (19.3 %), and mining (12.8 %). In general, there was a gradual decreasing trend in forest cover throughout this region, caused principally by China’s economic, demographic, environmental and political policies and decisions, as well as some weather events. While VCT has largely been used to assess long term changes and trends in the USA, it has great potential for assessing landscape level change elsewhere throughout the world.     

钙和维生素D对生长肉鸡免疫及抗氧化功能的影响

本试验旨在研究日粮中钙(ca)和维生素D水平对生长肉鸡免疫及抗氧化功能的影响.采用2× 2完全随机试验设计,选用体重相近的4周龄爱拔益加(AA)肉鸡144只,随机分成4个处理,每个处理6个重复,每个重复6只鸡,分别饲喂含Ca 0.90%、1.15%和维生素D 750、5 000 IU/kg的试验日粮,试验期为4周.结果表明,1)维生素D对胸腺和脾脏指数作用显著(P<0.05),随维生素D添加量的增加免疫功能增强;与0.90%Ca组相比,1.15%Ca组町降低法氏囊指数(P<0.05)和血清免疫球蛋白含量(P>0.05);维生素D和Ca的互作显著影响脾脏指数和血清白介素-2(IL-2)(P<0.05),5 000 IU/kg维生素D+0.90%Ca组脾脏指数和IL-2较高;2)随维生素D添加量的增加,血清和肝脏总超氧化物歧化酶(T-SOD)活性、谷胱甘肽过氧化物酶(GSH-Px)活性、总抗氧化能力(T-AOC)升高,丙二醛(MDA)含量降低;随Ca添加量的增加,生长肉鸡的抗氧化性能降低,且对机体肝脏T-SOD、GSH-Px、T-AOC影响显著(P<0.05);维生索D和Ca的互作对血清和肝脏T-SOD、GSH-Px、MDA影响显著(P<0.05),5 000 IU/kg维生素D+0.90%Ca组在抗氧化方面优势明显.综合分析,5 000 IU/kg维生素D+0.90%Ca组在抗氧化和免疫方面具有一定的优势.因此,实际生产中在满足生长肉鸡Ca基本需要量的同时,适当增加维生素D添加量对提高生长肉鸡免疫和抗氧化功能具有重要的作用.     

Effect of ammonia and nitrite on vigour,survival rate,moulting rate of the blue swimming crab <Emphasis Type="Italic">Portunus pelagicus</Emphasis> zoea

The effects of ammonia and nitrite on vigour, survival rate, moulting rate of zoea of blue swimming crab, Portunus pelagicus, were studied. A total of five nitrite-N treatments (26.67, 53.34, 106.68, 213.36, 426.72 mg/l) and a control (no nitrite-N added) were set up for the acute nitrite-N toxicity experiment; a total of five ammonia-N treatments (8.43, 16.86, 33.72, 67.44, 134.88 mg/l) and a control (no ammonia-N added) were set up for the acute ammonia-N toxicity experiment. The results showed that the vigour, survival rate and moulting rate of zoea of the blue swimming crabs exposed to over 53.34 mg/l were significantly different (P < 0.05) from the control group. The zoea LC₅₀ values (mg/l) of nitrite-N were 179.47, 76.56, 66.70, 37.49, 25.01, 25.35, 25.34 mg/l for 24, 36, 48, 60, 72, 84, 96 h, respectively. The vigour, survival rate and moulting rate of zoea of the blue swimming crabs exposed to over 16.86 mg/l were significantly different (P < 0.05) from the control group. The zoea LC₅₀ values (mg/l) of ammonia-N were 51.04, 39.62, 38.72, 24.43, 16.90, 13.42, 11.16 mg/l for 24, 36, 48, 60, 72, 84, 96 h, respectively. The zoeae are highly sensitive to ammonia and nitrite, and the toxicity of ammonia and nitrite on Portunus pelagicus decrease with development of this crab.