ULTRASONOGRAPHIC FEATURES OF DIFFUSE HEPATOCELLULAR DISORDERS IN DAIRY CATTLE

Ultrasonography of the liver was performed in 200 Holstein-Friesian dairy cattle using a 3.5 MHz transducer with a linear array electronic scanner. Liver samples were taken, processed and examined microscopically and the fat occupying rate was calculated. The hepatic ultrasonograms were evaluated according to the presence of bright pattern, dark pattern, deep attenuation, vascular blurring and blurring of edges. Of the 200 animals, 96 had a normal liver, 63 had hydropic degeneration of the liver, 37 had fatty infiltration of the liver, 3 had liver dystrophy and I had hepatic amyloidosis, diagnosed through histopathological examination. Amyloidosis was characterized by bright pattern and blurring of edges. Liver dystrophy had higher percentages of bright pattern and blurring of edges than normal liver. Hydropic degeneration had higher percentages of dark pattern and blurring of edges than normal liver. Fatty infiltration had higher percentages of bright pattern, deep attenuation, vascular blurring and blurring of edges than normal liver. The present results suggest that different ultrasonographic patterns can be observed in various diffuse hepatocellular disorders in dairy cattle     

Efficacy of essential oils combination on performance,ileal bacterial counts,intestinal histology and immunocompetence of laying hens fed alternative lipid sources

This study was carried out to assess the effects of a blend of herbal essential oils (namely Thymus vulgaris, Mentha piperita, Rosmarinus offisinalis and Anethum graveolens) and different dietary lipid sources on the performance, ileal bacterial enumeration, intestinal histological alterations and immune responses in laying hens. For this purpose, a total of 150 laying hens were randomly allocated to six experimental treatments with five replicates of five birds each. Dietary treatments consisted of three levels of a mixture of essential oils (0, 100 and 200 mg/kg) and two sources of lipid (soybean oil and fish oil containing different ratios of n‐6 to n‐3 fatty acids) fed to the animals during an 80‐days feeding trial. Findings indicated that dietary administration of fish oil not only increased significantly the spleen relative weight (p < 0.01) and the antibody titre against Newcastle virus (p < 0.05) but also led to reductions in liver relative weight (p < 0.05) and feed conversion ratio (p < 0.05). Moreover, the mixture of herbal essential oils brought about declines in hepatic relative weight, heterophile to lymphocyte ratio (p < 0.05) and intestinal pathogen populations (p < 0.01). Mention must also be made of the improvements it made in spleen weight (p < 0.01), antibody titres against SRBC (p < 0.01) and Newcastle virus (p < 0.05), villus height to crypt depth ratio (p < 0.01), goblet cell numbers (p < 0.05), lamina propria lymphatic follicle diameters (p < 0.01) and feed conversion ratio (p = 0.06). It may be claimed that the enhancements observed in the performance of laying hens fed fish oil and 200 mg/kg of the blend of essential oils could have potentially been associated with improved intestinal health indices as well as cellular and humoral immune responses.     

Recovery of sperms bearing X chromosomes with different concentrations of magnetic nanoparticles in ram

Pre-conceptual sex selection is still a highly debatable process whereby X and Y chromosome bearing spermatozoa are isolated before oocyte fertilization. Recently, magnetic nanoparticles (MNP) have been used to determine X and Y chromosomes bearing spermatozoa as a result of searching for a cheap, highly efficient method using non-toxic materials. This study aimed to recover the sperm bearing X chromosomes in ram with different concentrations of MNP and then evaluate the success of this method using polymerase chain reaction (PCR). Ram sperms were divided into four groups, treated with 0 (control), 50, 100 and 200 μg/ml MNP, respectively. MNP was used to restore sperm cells bearing X chromosomes. Upon recovery, the PCR was performed to identify the X and Y sperms, Methyl ThiazoleTetrazolium (MTT), to assess MNP toxicity and sperm viability and acridine orange (AO) to evaluate sperm DNA integrity. The results of PCR revealed that the treatment of spermatozoa- bearing X chromosomes with 50 μg/ml MNP had the highest effects on the recovery of X sperm rather than the other concentrations of MNP. However, the concentrations of MNP did not have any toxic effects on spermatozoa, sperm viability and, DNA integrity, but the high concentration of MNP (200 μg/ml) significantly reduced DNA integrity. According to MTT and AO results, the concentrations of MNP used in this study had no toxic effects on spermatozoa and did not reduce the sperm viability and DNA integrity, except that 200 μg/ml MNP significantly reduced DNA integrity.     

Production of monoclonal antibody against recombinant bovine sex-determining region Y (SRY) and their preferential binding to Y chromosome-bearing sperm

Separation of X and Y chromosome-bearing sperm is an appropriate method for the selection of desired sex of offspring to increase the profit in livestock industries. The purpose of this study was the production of a monoclonal antibody against recombinant bovine sex-determining region Y protein for separation Y sperm. The hybridoma cells from splenocytes of immunized female's balb/C mice and Sp2/0 cells were made. The binding affinity of our monoclonal antibody (mAbSRY2) was compared with mouse monoclonal SRY-15. The Western blot method indicated that mAbSRY2 successfully detected the rbSRY protein. The specificity and sensitivity of mAbSRY2 is comparable to SRY-15 commercially ones. The SRY gene in 100% of bull semen contains the Y chromosome that had the strongest binding affinity to mAbSRY2 was synthesized. In other words, the binding affinity of semen contains the X sperms near the negative control. In general, this immunological method can help to separate X from Y sperms. However, the mAbSRY2 is bind to Y-bearing sexed sperm, but in the future; the sexed sperms need to apply in farms.     

Precipitation forecasting by large-scale climate indices and machine learning techniques

Global warming is one of the most complicated challenges of our time causing considerable tension on our societies and on the environment. The impacts of global warming are felt unprecedentedly in a wide variety of ways from shifting weather patterns that threatens food production, to rising sea levels that deteriorates the risk of catastrophic flooding. Among all aspects related to global warming, there is a growing concern on water resource management. This field is targeted at preventing future water crisis threatening human beings. The very first stage in such management is to recognize the prospective climate parameters influencing the future water resource conditions. Numerous prediction models, methods and tools, in this case, have been developed and applied so far. In line with trend, the current study intends to compare three optimization algorithms on the platform of a multilayer perceptron (MLP) network to explore any meaningful connection between large-scale climate indices (LSCIs) and precipitation in the capital of Iran, a country which is located in an arid and semi-arid region and suffers from severe water scarcity caused by mismanagement over years and intensified by global warming. This situation has propelled a great deal of population to immigrate towards more developed cities within the country especially towards Tehran. Therefore, the current and future environmental conditions of this city especially its water supply conditions are of great importance. To tackle this complication an outlook for the future precipitation should be provided and appropriate forecasting trajectories compatible with this region's characteristics should be developed. To this end, the present study investigates three training methods namely backpropagation (BP), genetic algorithms (GAs), and particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithms on a MLP platform. Two frameworks distinguished by their input compositions are denoted in this study: Concurrent Model Framework (CMF) and Integrated Model Framework (IMF). Through these two frameworks, 13 cases are generated: 12 cases within CMF, each of which contains all selected LSCIs in the same lead-times, and one case within IMF that is constituted from the combination of the most correlated LSCIs with Tehran precipitation in each lead-time. Following the evaluation of all model performances through related statistical tests, Taylor diagram is implemented to make comparison among the final selected models in all three optimization algorithms, the best of which is found to be MLP-PSO in IMF.     

Salinity tolerance of wild barley Hordeum vulgare ssp. spontaneum

Salinity tolerance of 47 wild barley genotypes and six barley cultivars was evaluated under control and salinity stress (300 mM NaCl) conditions. Shoot and root dry weight (DW), plant height, membrane stability index (MSI), relative water content, survival rate, leaf malondialdehyde (MDA) and proline contents, root and leaf Na, K, Ca and K/Na ratio, and chlorophyll a fluorescence were measured. Salinity stress caused significant increase in the MDA, proline content, Na and Ca concentrations of the roots and leaves, but resulted in a decrease in the other traits. H. spontaneum genotypes were considerably less affected by the salinity than the genotypes of H. vulgare. Plant survivability was negatively correlated with the Na concentration (r =−.66) but positively correlated with the leaf K/Na ratio (r = .67) and MSI (r = .68). Tolerance mechanisms such as ion exclusion (Na) were likely to be present in the wild barley causing K/Na homeostasis as well as the much lower root and shoot Na, resulting in the higher survival rate.     

Nitrate leaching in a silage maize field under different irrigation and nitrogen fertilizer rates

Quantification of the interactive effects of nitrogen (N) and water on nitrate (NO₃) loss provides an important insight for more effective N and water management. The goal of this study was to evaluate the effect of different irrigation and nitrogen fertilizer levels on nitrate-nitrogen (NO₃-N) leaching in a silage maize field. The experiment included four irrigation levels (0.7, 0.85, 1.0, and 1.13 of soil moisture depletion, SMD) and three N fertilization levels (0, 142, and 189 kg N ha⁻¹), with three replications. Ceramic suction cups were used to extract soil solution at 30 and 60 cm soil depths for all 36 experimental plots. Soil NO₃-N content of 0-30 and 30-60-cm layers were evaluated at planting and harvest maturity. Total N uptake (NU) by the crop was also determined. Maximum NO₃-N leaching out of the 60-cm soil layer was 8.43 kg N ha⁻¹, for the 142 kg N ha⁻¹ and over irrigation (1.13 SMD) treatment. The minimum and maximum seasonal average NO₃ concentration at the 60 cm depth was 46 and 138 mg l⁻¹, respectively. Based on our findings, it is possible to control NO₃ leaching out of the root zone during the growing season with a proper combination of irrigation and fertilizer management.     

Calibration of Hargreaves–Samani equation for estimating reference evapotranspiration in semiarid and arid regions

The Penman–Monteith (FAO-56 PM) equation is suggested as the standard method for estimating evapotranspiration (ET₀) by the International Irrigation and Drainage Committee and Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). On the other hand, the Hargreaves–Samani (HS) equation is an alternative method compared with the FAO-56 PM equation. In the present study, the original coefficient C of the HS equation is calibrated based on the FAO-56 PM equation for estimating the reference ET₀ from 15 meteorological stations in central Iran (about 170,000 km²) under semiarid and arid conditions. After calibration, the new values for C are ranged from 0.0018 to 0.0037. The mean bias error (MBE), the root mean square error (RMSE), and the ratio of average estimations of ET₀ (R) values for all stations are ranged from 0.12 to 5.38, ?5.35 to 1.15 mm d^?1 and 0.64 to 1.28 for the HS equation and from 0.12 to 2.48, ?2.2 to 0.60 mm d^?1, and 1.00 to 1.05 for the calibrated Hargreaves–Samani equation (CHS), respectively. Results indicate that the average RMSE and MBE values are decreased by 40% and 66%, respectively. Relationships for calibrating the C coefficient on the basis of annual average of daily temperature range (ΔT) and wind speed (V) are proposed, calibrated, and validated. Hence, the CHS equation can be used for ET₀ estimates with acceptable accuracy instead of the FAO-56 PM method.