Effects of exogenous phytase and xylanase, individually or in combination, and pelleting on nutrient digestibility, available energy content of wheat and performance of growing pigs fed wheat-based diets

Yang, Y.Y.,Fan, Y.F.,Cao, Y.H.,Guo, P.P.,Dong, B.,Ma, Y. X. Asian Australasian Association of Animal Productio 2017 Animal Bioscience Vol.30 No.1

Objective: Two experiments were conducted to determine the effects of adding exogenous phytase and xylanase, individually or in combination, as well as pelleting on nutrient digestibility, available energy content of wheat and the performance of growing pigs fed wheat-based diets. Methods: In Experiment 1, forty-eight barrows with an initial body weight of $35.9{\pm}0.6kg$ were randomly assigned to a $2{\times}4$ factorial experiment with the main effects being feed form (pellet vs meal) and enzyme supplementation (none, 10,000 U/kg phytase, 4,000 U/kg xylanase or 10,000 U/kg phytase plus 4,000 U/kg xylanase). The basal diet contained 97.8% wheat. Pigs were placed in metabolic cages for a 7-d adaptation period followed by a 5-d total collection of feces and urine. Nutrient digestibility and available energy content were determined. Experiment 2 was conducted to evaluate the effects of pelleting and enzymes on performance of wheat for growing pigs. In this experiment, 180 growing pigs ($35.2{\pm}9.0kg\;BW$) were allocated to 1 of 6 treatments according to a $2{\times}3$ factorial treatment arrangement with the main effects being feed form (meal vs pellet) and enzyme supplementation (0, 2,500 or 5,000 U/kg xylanase). Results: In Experiment 1, there were no interactions between feed form and enzyme supplementation. Pelleting reduced the digestibility of acid detergent fiber (ADF) by 6.4 percentage units (p<0.01), increased the digestibility of energy by 0.6 percentage units (p<0.05), and tended to improve the digestibility of crude protein by 0.5 percentage units (p = 0.07) compared with diets in mash form. The addition of phytase improved the digestibility of phosphorus (p<0.01) and calcium (p<0.01) by 6.9 and 7.6 percentage units respectively compared with control group. Adding xylanase tended to increase the digestibility of crude protein by 1.0 percentage units (p = 0.09) and increased the digestibility of neutral detergent fiber (NDF) (p<0.01) compared with control group. Supplementation of the xylanase-phytase combination improved the digestibility of phosphorus (p<0.01) but impaired NDF digestibility (p<0.05) compared with adding xylanase alone. In Experiment 2, adding xylanase increased average daily gain (p<0.01) and linearly improved the feed:gain ratio (p<0.01) compared with control group. Conclusion: Pelleting improved energy digestibility but decreased ADF digestibility. Adding xylanase increased crude protein digestibility and pig performance. Phytase increased the apparent total tract digestibility of phosphorus and calcium. The combination of phytase-xylanase supplementation impaired the effects of xylanase on NDF digestibility.

Microstructures and petro-fabrics of lawsonite blueschist in the North Qilian suture zone, NW China: Implications for seismic anisotropy of subducting oceanic crust

Cao, Y.,Jung, H.,Song, S. Elsevier Scientific Publishing Co 2014 Tectonophysics Vol.628 No.-

We conducted a detailed study on the microstructures and petro-fabrics of massive and foliated lawsonite blueschist (LBS) in North Qilian suture zone, NW China. The lattice preferred orientation (LPO) of glaucophane and lawsonite in foliated lawsonite blueschist (LBS) is considered to be dominantly formed by the deformation mechanism of dislocation creep and rigid-body rotation, respectively. The LPO of glaucophane is mainly characterized by the [001] axis aligning parallel to lineation and the [100] axis and (110) pole plunging perpendicular to foliation. In contrast, the LPO of lawsonite features the maximum [010] axis concentrated close to lineation and the [001] axis strongly clustered normal to foliation. The preferred orientation of [010] axis of lawsonite parallel to lineation is supported by a two-dimensional numerical modeling using the finite-volume method (FVM). The mineral LPOs are much stronger in foliated LBS than in massive LBS. In addition, a kinematic vorticity analysis suggests that both pure shear dominant (W<SUB>m</SUB>=0.18-0.26) and simple shear dominant (W<SUB>m</SUB>=0.86-0.93) deformation regimes are present in foliated LBS. The [001] axis and (010) pole of glaucophane, and the [100] and [010] axes of lawsonite, tend to distribute in a foliation-parallel girdle in the pure shear dominant samples, but simple shear dominant samples display more lineation-parallel concentrations of a [001] axis of glaucophane and a [010] axis of lawsonite. Because the whole-rock seismic anisotropies in foliated LBS are significantly higher than those in massive LBS and a counteracting effect on seismic anisotropies occurs between glaucophane and lawsonite, the delay time of fast S-wave polarization anisotropy induced by an actual subducting oceanic crust with a high subducting angle (>45-60<SUP>o</SUP>) is expected to range from 0.03 to 0.09s (lower bound for massive LBS) and from 0.1 to 0.3s (upper bound for foliated epidote blueschist).

A novel evidence theory model and combination rule for reliability estimation of structures

Y.R. Tao,Q. Wang,L. Cao,S.Y. Duan,Z.H.H. Huang,G.Q. Cheng 국제구조공학회 2017 Structural Engineering and Mechanics, An Int'l Jou Vol.62 No.4

Due to the discontinuous nature of uncertainty quantification in conventional evidence theory(ET), the computational cost of reliability analysis based on ET model is very high. A novel ET model based on fuzzy distribution and the corresponding combination rule to synthesize the judgments of experts are put forward in this paper. The intersection and union of membership functions are defined as belief and plausible membership function respectively, and the Murfhy’s average combination rule is adopted to combine the basic probability assignment for focal elements. Then the combined membership functions are transformed to the equivalent probability density function by a normalizing factor. Finally, a reliability analysis procedure for structures with the mixture of epistemic and aleatory uncertainties is presented, in which the equivalent normalization method is adopted to solve the upper and lower bound of reliability. The effectiveness of the procedure is demonstrated by a numerical example and an engineering example. The results also show that the reliability interval calculated by the suggested method is almost identical to that solved by conventional method. Moreover, the results indicate that the computational cost of the suggested procedure is much less than that of conventional method. The suggested ET model provides a new way to flexibly represent epistemic uncertainty, and provides an efficiency method to estimate the reliability of structures with the mixture of epistemic and aleatory uncertainties.

Strain path effects on the microstructure evolution and mechanical properties of Zr702

Cao, W.Q.,Yu, S.H.,Chun, Y.B.,Yoo, Y.C.,Lee, C.M.,Shin, D.H.,Hwang, S.K. Elsevier 2005 Materials science & engineering. properties, micro Vol.395 No.1

<P><B>Abstract</B></P><P>A commercial-purity Zr702 was grain-refined from 20μm to 0.2–0.5μm by equal channel angular pressing. Grain refinement was most evident in the first pass but was insignificant during the subsequent passes. Two microstructural characteristics evolved: a lamellar structure and an equiaxed subgrain structure during the route A pressing and the route B<SUB>C</SUB> pressing, respectively. Due to the rotation of specimen in between passes, two sets of geometrically necessary boundaries were formed during the route B<SUB>C</SUB> pressing. The mechanism of grain refinement during the route A pressing was evolution of high-angle geometrically necessary boundaries from the low-angled ones, while that during the route B<SUB>C</SUB> pressing was decomposition and rearrangement of pre-existing boundaries. The yield stress of severely deformed specimens increased with the reducing grain size according to a Hall–Petch relationship.</P>

Genetic and epigenetic analysis of the VHL gene in gastric cancers

Cao, Z.,Hwi Song, J.,Kim, C. J.,Cho, Y. G.,Kim, S. Y.,Nam, S. W.,Lee, J. Y.,Park, W. S. Taylor Francis 2008 Acta oncologica Vol.47 No.8

Highly refractory peridotites in Songshugou, Qinling orogen: Insights into partial melting and melt/fluid-rock reactions in forearc mantle

Cao, Y.,Song, S.,Su, L.,Jung, H.,Niu, Y. Universitetsforlaget ; Elsevier Science Ltd 2016 Lithos Vol.252 No.-

<P>The Songshugou ultramafic massif is located in the eastern segment of the Qinling orogenic belt, central China. It is a large spinel peridotite body dominated by coarse-grained, porphyroclastic, and fine-grained dunite with minor harzburgite, olivine clinopyroxenite, and banded/podiform chromitite. The compositions of the bulk rock dunite and harzburgite, and the constituent olivine and spinel, together with the textures and chemical characteristics of multiphase mineral inclusions, point to the highly refractory nature of these rocks with complex histories of high-temperature boninite melt generation and boninitic melt-rock reaction, probably in a young, warm, and volatile-rich forearc lithospheric mantle setting. Additionally, a subsequent low-temperature fluid rock reaction is also recorded by TiO2-rich spinel with Ti solubility/mobility enhanced by chloride- or fluoride rich subduction-zone fluids as advocated by Rapp et al. (2010). The olivine clinopyroxenite, on the other hand, was likely crystallized from a residual boninitic melt that had reacted with harzburgitic residues. The ubiquitous occurrences of hydrous minerals, such as anthophyllite, tremolite, Cr-chlorite, and serpentine (stable at lower PT crustal conditions) in the matrix, suggest that further low-temperature fluid-rock reaction (or retrograde metamorphism) has affected the original volatile-poor peridotites either in a mature and cool subduction zone, or in a continental crust during their exhumation into the Qinling collisional orogeny at early Paleozoic era, or both. The prolonged and intense ductile/brittle deformation can decrease the mineral grain size through dynamic recrystallization and fracturing, and thus aid the fluid-rock reaction or retrograde metamorphism and mineral chemical re-equilibration processes. Therefore, the Songshugou peridotites present a good example for understanding the petrogenesis and evolution of the mantle wedge, with the emphasis on the complex partial melting and melt/fluid-rock interactions in the forearc setting. (c) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.</P>

MICROSTRUCTURE AND CRYSTALLOGRAPHIC TEXTURE OF STRIP-CAST FE-3.2% SI STEEL SHEET

Y.B.XU,Y.M.YU,G.M.CAO,C.S.LI,G.D.WANG,Z.Y.JIANG 한국소성가공학회 2008 한국소성가공학회 컨퍼런스 Vol.2008 No.10

Dual-core steered non-rigid registration for multi-modal images via bi-directional image synthesis

Cao, X.,Yang, J.,Gao, Y.,Guo, Y.,Wu, G.,Shen, D. Oxford University Press 2017 Medical image analysis Vol.41 No.-

In prostate cancer radiotherapy, computed tomography (CT) is widely used for dose planning purposes. However, because CT has low soft tissue contrast, it makes manual contouring difficult for major pelvic organs. In contrast, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) provides high soft tissue contrast, which makes it ideal for accurate manual contouring. Therefore, the contouring accuracy on CT can be significantly improved if the contours in MRI can be mapped to CT domain by registering MRI with CT of the same subject, which would eventually lead to high treatment efficacy. In this paper, we propose a bi-directional image synthesis based approach for MRI-to-CT pelvic image registration. First, we use patch-wise random forest with auto-context model to learn the appearance mapping from CT to MRI domain, and then vice versa. Consequently, we can synthesize a pseudo-MRI whose anatomical structures are exactly same with CT but with MRI-like appearance, and a pseudo-CT as well. Then, our MRI-to-CT registration can be steered in a dual manner, by simultaneously estimating two deformation pathways: 1) one from the pseudo-CT to the actual CT and 2) another from actual MRI to the pseudo-MRI. Next, a dual-core deformation fusion framework is developed to iteratively and effectively combine these two registration pathways by using complementary information from both modalities. Experiments on a dataset with real pelvic CT and MRI have shown improved registration performance of the proposed method by comparing it to the conventional registration methods, thus indicating its high potential of translation to the routine radiation therapy.

Effects of Dietary Cellulose Levels on Growth, Nitrogen Utilization, Retention Time of Diets in Digestive Tract and Caecal Microflora of Chickens

Cao, B.H.,Zhang, X.P.,Guo, Y.M.,Karasawa, Y.,Kumao, T. Asian Australasian Association of Animal Productio 2003 Animal Bioscience Vol.16 No.6

This study was conducted to examine the effects of dietary cellulose levels on growth, nitrogen utilization, the retention time of diets in the digestive tract, and caecal microflora of 2-month-old Single Comb White Leghorn male chickens fed 3 purified diets that contained 0, 3.5% and 10% cellulose in equal amount of nutrients for 7 days. Body weight gain and nitrogen utilization were significantly higher (p<0.05), while total microflora counts in the caecal contents and retention time of the diet in the digestive tract were significantly lower (p<0.05) in the group fed 3.5% dietary cellulose compared with the group fed 10% dietary cellulose. Body weight gain, nitrogen utilization and retention time of the diet in the digestive tract decreased significantly while the total microflora count in the caecal contents increased significantly in the group fed 10% dietary cellulose compared to the group fed 0% dietary cellulose (p<0.05). Chickens fed 10% dietary cellulose had significantly increased counts of uric acid-degradative bacteria such as Peptococcaceae and Eubacterium, including Peptostreptococcus (p<0.05). The results suggest that cellulose in purified diets is an effective ingredient and the effects on growth, nitrogen utilization, caecal microflora counts and diet retention time in the digestive tract are dependent on the inclusion rate. Positive or negative effects of dietary cellulose are displayed by growth, nitrogen utilization, caecal microflora counts and retention time of the diet in the digestive tract. Positive effects were displayed when the inclusion rate is 3.5% and negative effects were displayed when that is greater than 3.5% of the diet, and the phenomenon is without reference to the age of the chickens.

Effects of Green Tea Polyphenols and Fructo-oligosaccharides in Semi-purified Diets on Broilers' Performance and Caecal Microflora and Their Metabolites

Cao, B.H.,Karasawa, Y.,Guo, Y.M. Asian Australasian Association of Animal Productio 2005 Animal Bioscience Vol.18 No.1

This study was conducted to examine the effects of green tea polyphenols (GTP) and fructo-oligosaccharides (FOS) supplement on performance, counts of caecal microflora and its metabolites production. In female broiler chickens fed on semi-purified diets from 28 to 42 d of age, dietary green tea polyphenols (GTP) and fructo-oligosaccharides (FOS) significantly reduced mortality (p<0.05). Dietary GTP significantly decreased the total count of caecal microflora, each colonic population count and caecal flora metabolites contents when compared to other groups (p<0.05). Dietary FOS did not influence the total count of caecal flora but it selectively increased Bifidobacteri and Eubacteria counts (p<0.05) and decreased the count of other microflora and concentrations of caecal phenols and indole (p<0.0.5). These results suggest that GTP and FOS in semi-purified diets can decrease mortality and change the caecal colonic flora population, but GTP shows antibiotic-like effects of non-selectively decreasing all colonic flora and then metabolites, and FOS acts selectively by increasing profitable microflora and decreasing production of caecal microflora metabolites besides volatile fatty acids.