Relative Palatability to Sheep of Some Browse Species, their In sacco Degradability and In vitro Gas Production Characteristics

Abdulrazak, S.A.,Nyangaga, J.,Fujihara, T. Asian Australasian Association of Animal Productio 2001 Animal Bioscience Vol.14 No.11

A study was conducted to estimate the nutritive value of some selected acacia forages using palatability index, in sacco degradability and in vitro gas production characteristics. Ten wethers (mean wt. $18{\pm}3.5kg$) were offered Acacia tortilis, Acacia nilotica, Acacia mellifera, Acacia brevispica, Acacia Senegal and Leucaena leucocephala (control) using a cafeteria system to determine the species preference by the animals. The acacia species were rich in nitrogen and showed variable palatability pattern. Significant (p<0.05) differences in relative palatability index (RPI) were detected among the species with the following ranking: brevispica > leucaena > mellifera > tortilis > Senegal > nilotica. Acacia nilotica appeared to be of low relative palatability with RPI of 24% and this was attributed to relatively high phenolic concentrations. The DM potential degradability (B) and rate of degradation (c) of the species were significantly (p<0.05) different, ranging from 40.1 to 59.1% and 0.0285 to 0.0794/h respectively. Acacia species had moderate levels of rumen undegradable protein, much higher than that in leucaena. In vitro gas production results indicated the effect of polyphenolic compounds on the fermentation rate, with lower gas production recorded from A. nilotica and tortilis. Based on RPI, A. brevispica and mellifera were superior to the rest and comparable to L. leucocephala. Long-term feeding trials are required with the superior species when used as protein supplements to poor quality diets.

Chemical Composition, Phenolic Concentration and In Vitro Gas Production Characteristics of Selected Acacia Fruits and Leaves

Abdulrazak, S.A.,Orden, E.A.,Ichinohe, T.,Fujihara, T. Asian Australasian Association of Animal Productio 2000 Animal Bioscience Vol.13 No.7

The objective of this study was to evaluate the nutritive value of selected fruits (pods and seeds) and leaves of acacia tree species namely; Acacia nubica (nubica), Acacia tortilis (tortilis) and Acacia brevispica (brevispica), Acacia reficiens (reficiens) and Acacia senegal (senegal). A wide variability in chemical composition, polyphenolics and gas production was recorded. The crude protein (CP) ranged from 131 to 238 g/kg DM. Neutral detergent fiber (NDF), acid detergent fiber (ADF) and lignin (ADL) were higher in senegal and significantly different (p<0.05) from other species. The nitrogen bound to fiber tended to be higher in leaves than the fruits, ranging from 2.6 to 11.3 g/kg NDF and 1.6 to 3.2 g/kg ADF. The leaves of reficiens and senegal had higher concentrations of total extractable phenolics (TEPH), total extractable tannins (TET) and total condensed tannins (TCT), but lower in NDF, ADF and ADL than the fruits of nubica, tortilis and brevispica. Mineral concentrations varied among species; all were relatively poor in phosphorus, moderate in calcium and magnesium, and rich in microelements. A significant (p<0.05) variation in gas production after 12, 24, 48, 72 and 96 h was recorded between species. Nubica had the highest (p<0.05) rate of gas production (0.0925) while the highest potential gas production was recorded in tortilis. A strong negative correlation between TEPH and TET with gas production after 24, 48, 72 and 96 was established (r=-0.72 to -0.82). Crude protein and TCT correlated negatively but also weakly with gas production characteristics. Organic matter digestibility calculated from gas production after 48 h (OMD48) ranged between 465 g/kg DM in reficiens and 611 g/kg DM in tortilis. The results of this study indicate that acacia species have the potential to be used as feed supplements.

Interference Mitigation Technique through Shielding and Antenna Discrimination

Lway Faisal Abdulrazak,Arshed A. O 보안공학연구지원센터 2015 International Journal of Multimedia and Ubiquitous Vol.10 No.3

Interference mitigation between IMT-Advanced and Fixed Satellite Services (FSS) is presented in this article. Toward this goal, an analytical model has been developed based on the deterministic analysis of the propagation model. The IMT-Advanced system parameters have been represented by Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access (WiMAX) 802.16e. The use of VSAT unit and different shielding materials is considered. The testing is performed in the Anechoic Chamber as well as outdoor, and deployment is designed to fulfill FSS signal receiving criteria. A strong positive correlation was found between path loss parameters various terrains for different deployment areas. The Antenna discrimination has been discussed alongside the shielding absorption coefficients of the suggested materials. Then the antenna discrimination proposal is demonstrated with a high degree of capability to reduce the harmful power interference from IMT-Advanced base station towards the FSS receiver.

TeCaRob: Tele-Care using Telepresence and Robotic Technology for Assisting People with Special Needs

Abdelsalam (Sumi) Helal, Bessam Abdulrazak 한국과학기술원 인간친화 복지 로봇 시스템 연구센터 2006 International Journal of Assistive Robotics and Me Vol.7 No.3

This paper discusses a new concept of home care delivery benefiting frail People with Special Needs (PwSN¹). This new concept is an extension of the existing Smart House (SH) concept, which is challenged when PwSN occupants need physical assistance. The TeCaRob concept explores the use of robotics to remotely assist frail elders and other PwSN in diverse tasks of daily living.

Evaluation of Some Agri-industrial By-products Available in Samoa for Goats

Aregheore, E.M.,Abdulrazak, S.A.,Fujihara, T. Asian Australasian Association of Animal Productio 2003 Animal Bioscience Vol.16 No.11

Nutritional evaluation of some agro-industrial byproducts available in Samoa [dry brewers' grains (DBG), cocoa shell (CS), cocoa dust (CD) and desiccated coconut waste meal (DCWM)] available in Samoa was carried out using both the in vivo and in vitro techniques. In the in vivo study 24 Anglo-nubian goats were offered by-products with other feed ingredients to compound four different diets. The goats were randomly allocated to 4 diets on the basis of liveweight (18.7-0.3kg). The ADF content of the byproducts followed a similar trend to NDF. The byproducts have a high content of organic matter (91.0-95.4%). Gross energy (GE) content was higher in DCWM (25.1 MJ/kg DM), closely followed by CD (23.2 MJ/kg DM). Concentrate intake was significantly different (p<0.05) among the goats. Average daily live weight gains were 105, 92, 88 and 97 g/goat/day for DBG, CS, CD and DCWM, respectively. Daily live weight gains were higher (p<0.05) in the goats that received DBG, while the least gain was obtained in the goats that received CS byproduct diet. DM digestibility was significantly higher (p<0.05) in the goats on DBG diet than in the other goats. The least DM digestibility was obtained in the goats that received CD diet (p>0.05). CP digestibility followed a similar pattern to DM digestibility. The digestibility of NDF and ADF was influenced by the nature of the diets. The digestibility of OM and GE were best (p<0.05) in the goats that received DBG, DCWM and CS byproduct diets than in CD. Significant differences (p<0.05) among the byproducts were recorded for net gas production. Potential gas production (a+b) ranged from 7.064 to 42.17 ml. Organic matter digested (OMD) from gas production value at 24 h was higher in DBG (47.6 g/kg DM) and this was followed by DCWM (42.5 g/kg DM). The least OMD was obtained in CD (17.9 g/kg DM). A significant difference (p<0.05) in DM disappearance after 4, 8, 16, 24, 48 and 72 h was recorded. The potential and effective degradability varied significantly (p<0.05) from 85.95-99.6 g/kg DM and from 39.9-65.8%, respectively. The digestibility of the byproducts in both the in vivo and in in vitro techniques demonstrated that they are potential source of feed ingredients for ruminant livestock in Samoa and possibly in the other small Pacific Island countries. On the basis of their potential degradability the byproducts could be ranked in the following order:DCWM>DBG>CD>CS. In conclusion, the results obtained suggest that all the byproducts can contribute to ruminant livestock diets without adverse effects on feed intake, growth rate and apparent nutrient digestibility coefficients.

A self-configuration middleware for smart spaces

Charles Gouin-Vallerand,Bessam Abdulrazak,Sylvain Giroux,Mounir Mokhtari 보안공학연구지원센터 2009 International Journal of Smart Home Vol.3 No.1

The self-configuration process can simplify the complexity and reduce the cost of the management and deployment of devices, applications and services in smart spaces. Mechanisms inspired from the Autonomic Computing and Pervasive Computing can be used to automate management of the heterogeneous space's component. In this paper, we present our work on Autonomic Pervasive Computing and mainly the self-configuration process. We also introduce our self-configuration middleware that is deployed at DOMUS Laboratory.

Personalization and Multi-user Management in Smart Homes for Disabled People

Rachid Kadouche,Bessam Abdulrazak,Mounir Mokhtari,Sylvain Giroux,Helene Pigot 보안공학연구지원센터 2009 International Journal of Smart Home Vol.3 No.1

Dependent people have a great variability in their needs and levels of motor and/or cognitive handicap. Hence they call for personalized services, especially when interacting with their environment. In smart homes, the Semantic Matching Framework (SMF) provides an appropriate middleware for delivering personalized assistive services in line with the disabilities of a user. SMF is a system based on the Web Ontology Language (OWL) as a modeling language to define ontologies for modeling and reasoning on the user environment and its profile. This paper first, details the adopted approach to personalize a smart home to people with special needs. Then shows how SMF support and manage multiple-users.

Disability centered approach in smart space management

Rachid Kadouche,Bessam Abdulrazak,Sylvain Giroux,Mounir Mokhtari 보안공학연구지원센터 2009 International Journal of Smart Home Vol.3 No.2

The recent convergence of ubiquitous computing and context-aware computing has seen a considerable rise in interest in applications that exploit aspects of the contextual environment to enhance implicit user interaction, offer services, present information, tailor application behavior or trigger adaptation. However they are often insufficient to provide adequate environments for people with special needs and allow them to be an integral part of society. This paper presents our approach to enhance environment services to peoples with special needs. Particularly it highlights the data representation and implementation of this approach under a framework based on the Web Ontology Language OWL-DL. A prototype of this framework was integrated in a smart home demonstrator and tested with users under a laboratory conditions.

Integration of Rehabilitation Robotics in the Context of Smart Homes - Application to Assistive Robotics

M,Mokhtari,B,Abdulrazak,M,A,Fki,R,Rodriguez,B,Grandjean 한국과학기술원 인간친화 복지 로봇 시스템 연구센터 2003 International Journal of Assistive Robotics and Me Vol.4 No.2

This paper describes our methodology to bridge rehabilitation robotics and smart homes (domotics), which are the two research areas aiming at the assistive technologies for disabled people. Rehabilitation robotics could be classified in two main research areas. The first area consists mainly on developing systems aiming to compensate for motor disabilities of the proper arm, usually due to spinal cord injuries or muscular dystrophies. This is defined as assistive robotics, where several systems appeared over the last two decades. It aims to help the disabled to be able to perform daily living tasks without assistance. The second area of research is the therapy robotics, or rehabilitation robotics, which aims at restoring motor deficiencies by using an arm robot with a defined protocol. Therapy robotics is mainly dedicated to people having a stroke. Smart homes, known as domotics in the Europe, aims at the user environment, to make it more accessible by adding automated controlled systems used via a common user interface, which is defined as an environmental control system. The smart homes context is not only limited to home environments, but is also applicable to hospitals, schools, outdoors, etc. In term of tasks we could say that smart homes are dedicated to control systems in the environment such as doors, windows, lights, TV, VCR, etc. Where, assistive robotics is mainly dedicated to manipulate objects, such as gripping object from the floor, drinking, eating, etc. This paper describes the adaptation of the software architecture developed for the Manus robot in the context of smart homes where the robot is considered as an object among the others.

Performance of Growing Goats Fed Urea Sprayed Maize Stover and Supplemented with Graded Levels of Tithonia Diversifolia

Wambui, C.C.,Abdulrazak, S.A.,Noordin, Q. Asian Australasian Association of Animal Productio 2006 Animal Bioscience Vol.19 No.7

A study was carried out to examine the effect of supplementing urea-sprayed maize stover with incremental levels of Tithonia diversifolia (Tithonia) forage on dry matter (DM) intake, digestibility and live weight changes. Fifteen crossbred bucks were used in a completely randomised design for a duration of 7 weeks. The treatments comprised of a control: the basal diet (maize stover sprayed with 1% urea) plus 100 g maize germ offered alone or supplemented with: 10 (T1), 20 (T2), 30 (T3) or 40% (T4) Tithonia on a dry matter basis. All animals were allowed ad libitum access to water and mineral lick. Supplementing maize stover with Tithonia resulted in increased total DM intake (p<0.05) from 376.7 (control), to 444.1 (T1), 533.1 (T2), 519.7 (T3) and 578.9 g/day (T4) but did not significantly (p>0.05) influence the intake of stover. Diet DM digestibility increased with supplementation with T3 recording the highest value of 66.5% which was 10.6% higher than the control. Supplementation significantly increased daily weight gains (p<0.05). T4 had the highest ADG (43.7 g/day), even though there was no difference between T4 and T3 (35.7 g/day). In goats, Tithonia should be included up to 30% of ration on a DM basis for optimum production. The higher level of inclusion (40%) may be used for higher total output in terms of meat and milk but with few animals.