Does certified organic farming reduce greenhouse gas emissions from agricultural production?     

Julius Alexander McGee 《Agriculture and Human Values》2015,32(2):255-263

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Effect of incorporation of thermo-regulatory genes into exotic layers on egg production and quality under tropical environment     

Julius K. Hagan  Kwaku Adomako  Simon Oscar Olympio 《Tropical animal health and production》2014,46(1):107-111

A breed development strategy aimed at making exotic layers (Lohmann Brown) more productive under tropical environment using thermo-regulatory genes is underway at Akate Farms in Kumasi, Ghana. The present experiment was carried out to find out the effect of the genes on egg production in hot and humid environments. Three genetic groups comprising naked-neck, frizzle and their normally feathered sibs were obtained after successive generations of crossing between naked-neck and frizzle cocks and Lohmann brown hens. A total of 270 18-week-old pullets, 90 each of the 3 groups, were selected randomly and assigned to a completely randomized design experiment with 3 replicates, with 30 birds in each replicate group and kept up to a period of 72 weeks. The birds were kept in a partitioned open-sided deep-litter house constructed with sandcrete blocks with 30 pullets in each compartment. They were fed ad libitum with layer diets containing 18 % crude protein and 2,800 kcal ME/kg. Results obtained showed that the crossbred naked-neck and frizzle phenotypes produced eggs at a significantly (P?<?0.05) higher rates than their normally feathered sibs and also out-performed their normally feathered sibs in other egg production parameters measured, even though they all segregated from similar parents. This is an indication of the favourable effect of the genes on egg production under hot and humid environments.  相似文献   

The effect of non-genetic factors on the reproductive performance of Sanga and Friesian × Sanga crossbred dairy cattle breeds kept under hot and humid environment     

Samuel Obeng Apori  Julius Kofi Hagan 《Tropical animal health and production》2014,46(6):1045-1050

A study was conducted to assess the effect of non-genetic factors on the reproductive performance of Sanga and Friesian?×?Sanga crossbred dairy cattle kept at Amrahia Dairy Farm, Ghana. Records on 66 crossbred Friesian?×?Sanga and 105 purebred Sanga cattle from 2005 to 2012 were used. The effect of sex of calf (male or female), season of calving (major, minor and dry), year of calving (2005–2012) and parity (first to third) on birthweight, calving interval and age at first calving were determined. The data were analyzed using the general linear model procedures of GenStat (Discovery Edition). The effect of parity of dam, year of calving, season of calving and sex of calf were considered as fixed effects for evaluating the different reproductive traits. Data on calving and conception rates over the period were 74.3 and 76.1 %, respectively. The overall mean values for birthweight, age at first calving and calving interval obtained were 23.9?±?1.5 and 22.8?±?1.4 kg, 38.8?±?2.5 and 40.2?±?2.4 months and 390.8?±?12.5 and 413.6?±?12.1 days for the crossbred and Sanga, respectively. It was observed that all the major determinants of reproductive performance studied apart from birthweight were significantly influenced by year of birth, parity, season of calving and sex.  相似文献   

The Piwi-piRNA pathway provides an adaptive defense in the transposon arms race   总被引：1，自引：0，他引：1  

Aravin AA  Hannon GJ  Brennecke J 《Science (New York, N.Y.)》2007,318(5851):761-764

Increasingly complex networks of small RNAs act through RNA-interference (RNAi) pathways to regulate gene expression, to mediate antiviral responses, to organize chromosomal domains, and to restrain the spread of selfish genetic elements. Historically, RNAi has been defined as a response to double-stranded RNA. However, some small RNA species may not arise from double-stranded RNA precursors. Yet, like microRNAs and small interfering RNAs, such species guide Argonaute proteins to silencing targets through complementary base-pairing. Silencing can be achieved by corecruitment of accessory factors or through the activity of Argonaute itself, which often has endonucleolytic activity. As a specific and adaptive regulatory system, RNAi is used throughout eukarya, which indicates a long evolutionary history. A likely function of RNAi throughout that history is to protect the genome from both pathogenic and parasitic invaders.  相似文献   

Use of two spatially explicit models to determine the effect of injury geometry on natural resource recovery     

Mark S. Fonseca  Paula E. Whitfield  W. Judson Kenworthy  David R. Colby  Brian E. Julius 《水产资源保护:海洋与淡水生态系统》2004,14(3):281-298

• 1. Disturbance to sessile communities has been evaluated in a wide variety of terrestrial and marine settings, but, to our knowledge, recovery has not explicitly considered the effects of injury shape, except in an exploratory fashion. Therefore, we have developed a simple, but spatially explicit relationship between the geometry of a disturbance and the recovery rate in the context of natural resource damage assessment.
• 2. Here, grounding of motor vessels in shoalgrass (Halodule wrightii), manatee grass (Syringodium filiforme), and turtlegrass (Thalassia testudinum) habitats results in a variety of injury shapes whose recovery must be evaluated to assign penalties and restoration costs to the party responsible.
• 3. We developed two spatially explicit, cellular automata modelling techniques to evaluate injury recovery trajectory. Techniques in both SAS^® and ArcINFO^® were developed and applied to injuries of varying perimeter but fixed area.
• 4. The SAS method utilized either a simple Boolean or probabalistic interrogation of the status of adjacent pixels using the matrix language component of the software. ArcINFO utilized a cost/distance module to evaluate proximity of unfilled to filled (colonized) pixels and then applied a decision rule that governed conversion from unfilled to a filled state. As expected, the greater the perimeter/area ratio, the faster the recovery; and modelling approaches yielded almost identical results.
• 5. A case study involving ～1200 m² of almost monotypic T. testudinum revealed that both models predicted that 100% recovery of above‐ground components of the injury would not occur for approximately 60 years. This model is now being used routinely in the assessment of vessel groundings in seagrass beds within the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary and has been used successfully by the Government to prevail in US Federal Court challenges. Both methods have substantial, untapped capabilities to explore the effect of numerous ecological effects on the processes influencing recovery from disturbance.

Published in 2004 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.  相似文献   

Tillage systems and soil properties in east Africa     

Julius Y.K. Zake 《Soil & Tillage Research》1993,27(1-4):95-104

This paper defines tillage, indicating that as it is mostly a physical concern of the soil, it has not been studied as much as chemically related soil properties. Tillage in shifting cultivation is also reviewed. Different tillage systems in a number of east African Countries namely Tanzania, Malawi, Botswana, Kenya, Zambia and Uganda are reviewed. The types of tillage in their respective soils are discussed in each Country. Uganda's tillage practices for the main food crop (banana) are discussed, pointing out the crop's rooting system in relation to the heavy, relatively fertile soils, where the bananas are mostly grown. The paper distinguishes between tillage to avoid soil compaction and tillage to reduce soil crusting or hardening and concludes that more research should be carried out on tillage practices relating to heavy soils as it affects the different types of crops, as most of the previous tillage research had been carried out on relatively light soils. Soil crusting or hardening which may involve an understanding of the physical, chemical and biological properties of the soil, should also receive more attention.  相似文献   

Analysis of the Thermal Energy Requirements for the Extraction of Leaf Protein Concentrate from some Green Plants     

Julius K. Tangka 《Biosystems Engineering》2003,86(4):473-479

Extraction of protein from the leaves of green plants is very important because of the high cost of conventional forms of protein such as meat, milk and fish. In order to design machinery for this extraction, and also to embark on leaf protein concentrate extraction, it is necessary to measure and analyse the energy requirements to carry out each process involved in the extraction, using different plant species.Experiments were carried out to determine the amount of crude protein, and the thermal energy required to extract leaf protein concentrate, from juices obtained from the leaves of some plant species. Leaves from the following plants were selected: cassava (Manihot esculanta), Siam weed (Chromolaena odorata), bitter leaf (Vernonia amygdalina), gliricidia (Gliricidia maculata) and thorny tree (Hura crepetans). The leaves from the plant species were macerated in a laboratory pulper. Juice was obtained from the samples using perforated cylinders and a hydraulic press. The specific heat capacity of the juices was determined using the cooling curve method. The values of the heat capacities were used to calculate the amount of thermal energy required to raise the temperature of each juice from its normal temperature of about 25°C to a total protein coagulation temperature of about 80°C. The crude protein content of the extract was determined using the Kjeldal method.Results indicate that the green coagulum extracted from all the juices all have a protein content of at least 37%. The thermal energy required to coagulate protein from the juices ranges from 1·59 kJ kg⁻¹ for Hura crepetans to 2·7 kJ kg⁻¹ for Vernonia amygdalina. The energy requirement to obtain crude protein (CP) ranges from 8 kJ kg⁻¹ [CP] with Hura crepetans to 182 kJ kg⁻¹ [CP] with Vernonia amygdalina. Both results are statistically significant at the 0·01 confidence interval. It is concluded that the choice of plant species can significantly lower the thermal energy requirement for the extraction of leaf protein concentrate.  相似文献   

The role of nitrogen oxides in oxidant production as predicted by the Regional Acid Deposition Model (RADM)     

Paulette Middleton  Julius S. Chang  Mark Beauharnois  Linda Hash  Francis S. Binkowski 《Water, air, and soil pollution》1993,67(1-2):133-159

Regional oxidant distributions produced under various atmospheric conditions and emission scenarios are investigated using the Regional Acid Deposition Model (RADM). RADM is a complex, evolving three-dimensional Eulerian model that describes the chemistry, transport and deposition of tropospheric trace species including SO₂, sulfate, NO _x and volatile organic compounds as well as O₃, other major oxidants and acids. The model calculates the short-term temporal evolution of atmospheric trace gas concentrations and their deposition on the regional scale. This study is focused on oxidant production in the eastern United States and southeastern Canada. The influence of atmospheric conditions is explored by comparing three characteristic winter, summer and spring/fall cases. Base-case 1985 emissions of SO _x , NO _x , volatile organic compounds (VOCs), NH₃ and CO are specified using the comprehensive pollutant emissions inventory developed as part of the National Acid Precipitation Assessment Program (NAPAP). The perturbed case, which represents projected anthropogenic emission changes for 2010, indicates changes in daily total 80 km grid average NO _x emissions ranging from increases of 75% to decreases of 45% and VOC emission changes ranging from increases of 65% to decreases of 20%. The largest NO _x emission changes occur in the northeast, and the largest VOC changes occur in the Gulf Coast area. Ground level grid average midday O₃ concentrations for the 1985 emission cases are highest (on the order of 70 to 100 ppb) in the New York City and Houston metropolitan areas for the summer and spring cases; the summer case also indicates relatively high grid average O₃ concentrations of greater than 80 ppb in the southeast. Winter case values are much lower than summer O₃ values throughout the region, with highs of 40 to 50 ppb occurring in the southeast and the Great Lakes area. Changes in NO _x and other emissions under the complex 2010 emissions scenario for the summer case result in maximum O₃ concentration reductions of 10% in the Houston area and increases in O₃ of a few percent in some rural areas of the southeast. This study underscores the need for more comprehensive assessment of the complex relationships among regional emission changes, oxidant production and atmospheric conditions.  相似文献   

Antioxidant capacity of some herbs/spices from cameroon: a comparative study of two methods     

Agbor GA  Oben JE  Ngogang JY  Xinxing C  Vinson JA 《Journal of agricultural and food chemistry》2005,53(17):6819-6824

This study evaluates the antioxidant capacity of 14 herbs/spices from Cameroon. Freeze-dried samples extracted in methanol (free or unconjugated polyphenol) and in 1.2 M hydrochloric acid (HCl) in methanol (total antioxidant that is both unconjugated and conjugated) were analyzed using two different antioxidant assay methods [Folin-Ciocalteu reagent (Folin) and the ferric reducing antioxidant power (FRAP)]. The 1.2 M HCl in methanol extracts had significantly higher (P < 0.001) antioxidant capacities than the methanolic extract. Generally, the FRAP antioxidant values were significantly (P < 0.001) higher than the Folin antioxidant values. Although a significant correlation (P < 0.05) was obtained between the Folin phenol and the FRAP antioxidant, the trends of the antioxidant capacity of the samples were different for the Folin and FRAP methods. The leaves of the Piper species top the total antioxidant tables in both Folin and FRAP assay methods, respectively. Irvingia gabonensis tops the FRAP free antioxidant list, while Piper umbellatum leads the Folin free antioxidant followed by Thymus vulgaris. Thus, the antioxidant capacity of plant samples determined by different methods should be interpreted with caution. However, irrespective of the assay method used, the samples were rich in antioxidants.  相似文献   

Calibration and prediction of amino acids in stevia leaf powder using near infrared reflectance spectroscopy     

Li G  Wang R  Quampah AJ  Rong Z  Shi C  Wu J 《Journal of agricultural and food chemistry》2011,59(24):13065-13071

The use of stevia as animal feed additive has been researched over the years, but how to rapidly predict its amino acid contents has not been studied yet by using near-infrared reflectance spectroscopy. In the present study, 301 samples of stevia leaf powder were defined as the calibration set from which calibration models were optimized, and the performance of prediction was evaluated. Compared with other mathematical treatments, the models developed with the "1, 12, 12, 1" treatment, combined with modified partial least-squares regression and standard normal variance with de-trending, had a significant potential in predicting amino acid contents, such as threonine, serine, etc. Six spectral regions were found to possess large spectrum variation and show high contribution to calibration models. From the present study, the calibration models of amino acids in stevia were successfully developed and could be applied to quality control in feed processing, breeding selection and mutant screening.  相似文献