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Simple Summary: Defatting can be performed mechanically by cutting the frozen insect larvae and then pressing them to enable the leakage of intracellular fat, or chemically using petroleum ether extraction of the insect meal. This study aimed to investigate the effects of different defatting methods of black soldier fly (Hermetia illucens) larvae meal (BSFM) on the metabolic energy and nutrient digestibility in laying hens. The results show that both defatting methods of BSFM had no adverse effects on the metabolic energy and nutrient digestibility in young laying hens, but pressed black soldier fly meal (BSFMp) demonstrated better effects on the digestibility of metabolic energy and nutrients in the feed for young laying hens. This study aimed to investigate the effects of different defatting methods of black soldier fly (Hermetia illucens) larvae meal (BSFM) on the metabolic energy and nutrient digestibility in laying hens. Sixty young laying hens (Hy-Line W-36) aged 63 days were randomly divided into two groups (G1 and G2), each with five replicates of six hens housed in individual cages. Group G1 was fed 25% pressed black soldier fly meal (BSFMp) and 75% basal diet, and Group G2 was fed 25% extracted black soldier fly meal (BSFMe) and a 75% basal diet. Both diets included 5 g/kg chromium oxide as an external marker. A 7-day preliminary trial was followed by a 4-day experimental period. The results indicate that pressing and extracting significantly affected the digestibility of crude fat and total energy in BSFM, with BSFMp showing significantly higher crude fat digestibility than BSFMe. Similarly, total energy digestibility was also significantly higher in BSFMp. However, there were no significant differences in dry matter, organic matter, and crude protein digestibility between the two processing methods. The apparent metabolic energy values of BSFMp and BSFMe were 16.34 and 12.41 MJ/kg, respectively, showing a significant difference. The nitrogen-corrected metabolic energy values were 15.89 MJ/kg in BSFMp and 11.93 MJ/kg in BSFMe, indicating a highly significant difference. The digestibility of arginine and leucine in BSFMp was significantly higher than in BSFMe, while differences in lysine, cystine, threonine, tryptophan, and isoleucine were not significant. In conclusion, both defatting methods of BSFM had no adverse effects on the metabolic energy and nutrient digestibility in young laying hens, but BSFMp demonstrated better effects on the digestibility of metabolic energy and nutrients in the feed for young laying hens. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mastering root distribution is essential for optimizing the root zone environment and for improving water use efficiency, especially for crops cultivated in greenhouses. Here, we set up two irrigation amount levels based on measurements of the cumulative 20 cm pan evaporation (Ep) (i.e., K0.9: 0.9 Ep; K0.5: 0.5 Ep), and three ventilation modes through opening the greenhouse vents at different locations (TR: open the roof vents only; TRS: open both the roof and south vents; TS: open the south vents only) to reveal the effects of the ventilation mode and irrigation amount on the root distribution of greenhouse tomato. Six treatments were designed in blocks with the ventilation mode as the main treatment and the irrigation amount as the vice treatment. On this basis, the normalized root length density (NRLD) model of six treatments was developed by considering air environment, soil water and temperature conditions, root length density (RLD) and yield. The results showed that air speed of the TRS was significantly higher than TR and TS (p < 0.01), and the air temperature and relative humidity under different ventilation showed the rule: TR > TS > TRS. There was a significant third-order polynomial function relationship between NRLD and soil depth, and the coefficient of the cubic term (R0) had a bivariate quadratic polynomial function relationship with irrigation amount and air speed (determination coefficient, R2 = 0.86). Root mean square errors of the simulated and measured value of NRLD under TR, TRS and TS were 0.20, 0.23 and 0.27 in 2020, and 0.31, 0.23 and 0.28 in 2021, respectively, normalized root mean squared errors were 15%, 17%, 20% in 2020, and 23%, 18% and 21% in 2021. The RLD distribution ratio from the ground surface to a one-quarter relative root depth was 74.1%, and 88.0% from the surface to a one-half relative root depth. The results of the yield showed that a better combination of ventilation and irrigation was recommended as TRS combined with K0.9. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background and Objectives: After failed epilepsy surgery, patients often revert to an antiseizure medication (ASM) ASM regimen, which can be adjusted or optimized in three ways: increasing the dose, alternative therapy, and combination therapy. It is unclear which type of antiseizure medication adjustment method can improve outcomes. Materials and Methods: Children who underwent failed epileptic resection surgery at the Department of Neurosurgery, Children's Hospital of Chongqing Medical University between January 2015 and December 2021 were included in this cohort, who were reviewed for whether they underwent adjustment of ASM with increased dose, alternative therapy, or combination therapy. The seizure outcome and quality of life (QoL) were assessed. Two-tailed Fisher exact test and Mann–Whitney U test were used for statistical analysis. Results: Sixty-three children with failed surgery were included for further analysis, with a median follow-up time of 53 months. The median seizure recurrence time was 4 months. At the last follow-up, 36.5% (n = 23) of patients achieved seizure freedom, 41.3% (n = 26) achieved seizure remission, and 61.9% (n = 39) had a good QoL. None of the three types of ASM adjustment improved children's outcomes, whether considered in terms of seizure-free rate, seizure remission rate, or QoL. Early recurrences were significantly associated with decreased probability of seizure freedom (p = 0.02), seizure remission (p = 0.02), and a good QoL (p = 0.01). Conclusions: Children who underwent failed epilepsy surgery remains some potential for late seizure remission from ASM. Yet adjusting ASM regimen does not increase the probability of seizure remission nor does it improve the QoL. Clinicians should complete evaluations and consider the need for other antiepileptic treatment as soon as possible after surgery failed, especially when dealing with children with an early recurrence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drought is complex and is also one of the main disasters affecting China. Exploring the response of agricultural drought and meteorological drought to climatic factors helps us to understand the causes of drought. In this paper, we evaluated the temporal and spatial characteristics of soil drought and meteorological drought (SMD) and explored their responses to climatic factors and latent heat fluxes (LHF), and then explained their variation from the perspective of atmospheric circulation. The following results were obtained. (1) Meteorological drought has gradually increased in the Liaohe River Basin, on the North China Plain, and on the Loess Plateau while average soil moisture has been maintained at only approximately 25%. The impacts of drought are very serious in these regions. (2) LHF response to short time-scale (3-month scale) drought performance is high in the dry season, and the regions with high correlation coefficients are spatially distributed and concentrated in the monsoon climate zone. The regions with high correlation coefficients between drought and LHFs on long time scales (12-month scale) are concentrated in the coastal basin of southeast China. (3) Short- and long-term SMDs showed highly responsive and significant relationships with PDO, showing variations in the southeast coastal basin, the Pearl River basin, the northwest inland basin and the eastern part of the Heilongjiang basin, with a maximum correlation coefficient of 0.21 (p < 0.01). The short-term SMD in the northwestern inland region was significantly negatively correlated with AMO (correlation coefficient of −0.19, p < 0.01). the Nino3.4 index is significantly positively correlated with the SMD in the southeast coastal region of China, with a maximum correlation coefficient of 0.23 (p < 0.01). The decrease in convective precipitation led to a stronger association between soil and meteorological drought and climatic factors. This study helps to reveal the changing patterns of SMDs and can also be used globally to identify the local development patterns of drought under climate change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Simple Summary: Rosmarinic acid (RA) is a natural water-soluble phenolic compound and a major antioxidant occurring in rosemary. In this study, the effects of dietary supplementation with RA on the growth performance, serum biochemical indices, liver antioxidant activity, and muscle nutritional components of broiler chickens were examined. The results showed that supplementation with RA significantly improved the growth performance of broilers. Therefore, the addition of RA to broiler feed as a natural antioxidant has great prospects. The aim of the present study was to investigate the effects of dietary supplementation with different doses of rosmarinic acid (RA) on the growth performance, serum biochemical indices, liver antioxidant activity, and muscle nutritional component of broiler chickens during 1–20 days of age. A total of 1000 1-day-old Cobb 500 white-feathered broilers were divided into five groups. Each group included four replicates and 50 birds per replicate. The control group was the basic fodder group fed with a basal diet. The experimental groups included four levels of RA (100, 200, 300, and 400 mg/kg RA added to the basal diet, respectively). The results showed that a quadratic increase in final body weight (BW) and average daily gain (ADG) and a quadratic decrease in the feed/gain (F/G) ratio were observed with increasing dietary RA levels. At 200 mg/kg RA supplementation, growth performance was significantly improved. Moreover, under this RA treatment, the highest levels of total protein and globulin were detected in the serum, the activities of total superoxide dismutase and catalase in the liver of broilers were significantly increased, and the malondialdehyde content was significantly decreased, indicating a higher antioxidant capacity of the liver when 200 mg/kg RA was added to the basal diet. The flavor of the muscle meat was improved by dietary supplementation with 200 mg/kg RA. Therefore, adding 200 mg/kg of RA to the diet could significantly improve the growth performance of broilers, improve liver antioxidant capacity, and improve muscle quality, etc. The addition of RA to broiler feed as a natural antioxidant has great prospects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drought is a multifaceted natural disaster that can impact the ecological environment, crop yield, and social economy through the hydrological cycle process. Meteorological drought occurs first, which then propagates to other forms. This study presents the propagation characteristics of meteorological to hydrological drought in different river basins of China. The main drivers of drought propagation are also quantitatively analyzed in this study. The standardized precipitation index (SPI) and standardized runoff index (SRI) were used to describe meteorological and hydrological drought, respectively. The Songhua and Liaohe River Basin (SLRB), Haihe River Basin (HARB), Huaihe River Basin (HURB), Yellow River Basin (YRB), Yangtze River Basin (YARB), Pearl River Basin (PRB), Southeast Basin (SEB), Southwest Basin (SWB), and Continental Basin (CB) were analyzed in this study. The precipitation and runoff datasets were used to compute the SPI and SRI, respectively. The results showed that the drought propagation time was mainly 1–3 months in China. In general, drought propagation had a stronger relationship in the central and eastern river basins of China than in the western river basins (SWB and CB). Spring and winter had a weaker drought propagation relationship than autumn and winter. Drought propagation was driven by precipitation in the HURB, YARB, SEB, and PRB; soil moisture and precipitation were drivers in the HARB and YRB; moreover, soil moisture and potential evapotranspiration were drivers in the SLRB and CB. This study improves the understanding of the characteristics and drivers of drought propagation in droughts in river basins. Therefore, this study might provide a reference to reveal the mechanism of drought. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As an important part of the large-scale ecological restoration project of "Grain for Green", the planting area of jujube (Ziziphus jujuba) trees has increased significantly in the hilly region on the Loess Plateau of China, which aims to improve water and soil conservation and develop economic prospects of the region. Understanding the long-term effects of expanding orchards and the responses of soil water dynamics to drought are important for orchard management. Therefore, we use a space-for-time substitution to investigate the variations of plant-available water storage in returning cropland to orchards with different stand ages (2, 6, 10, and 15 years) in a normal year (NY2014, 442.1 mm rainfall) and the next year with low annual precipitation (DY2015, 388 mm rainfall). The results showed that the plant-available water storage in jujube orchards decreased with increasing stand age, and the trend was most obvious in the 60–180 cm layer. The mature stands (10 and 15 years) primarily absorbed soil water from the deep layer (180–300 cm) in DY2015, leading to negative values of plant-available water storage. The whole soil profiles were all subjected to severe water deficits in our study. The findings will help guide rain-fed orchard management in the loess hilly region of China and similar dryland regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]