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Indigenous chicken production consists of an array of activities important to smallholder poultry farmers in Africa. One of the many factors influencing their production and threating the local food security is in the area of nutrition, particularly, that related to protein supplementation. The available feed resources to farmers are not enough to sustain the productivity of the chickens. Hence, the chickens’ diets often require nutritional supplementation. There is therefore an urgent need for the validation of locally grown feed ingredients to improve the sustainability of poultry production in sub-Saharan Africa. A dietary ingredient that may be used in the diets of chickens is lucerne (Medicago sativa), which is also known as alfalfa. In South Africa, lucerne is the most cultivated forage legume and approximately 1.3 million metric tonnes of lucerne are produced per year. Lucerne has high nutritional value, as it is a source of protein, amino acids, vitamins, and fatty acids. The potential of lucerne as a feed resource for indigenous chickens should, therefore, be investigated so that strategies to improve the nutrition of such chickens can be developed. The purpose of this review was to highlight lucerne as a potential dietary ingredient for indigenous chickens and discuss its effects on the productivity of broilers, egg-layers, and dual-purpose chickens.

Radiomic features are being increasingly studied for clinical applications. We aimed to assess the agreement among radiomic features when computed by several groups by using different software packages under very tightly controlled conditions, which included standardized feature definitions and common image data sets. Ten sites (9 from the NCI's Quantitative Imaging Network] positron emission tomography-computed tomography working group plus one site from outside that group) participated in this project. Nine common quantitative imaging features were selected for comparison including features that describe morphology, intensity, shape, and texture. The common image data sets were: three 3D digital reference objects (DROs) and 10 patient image scans from the Lung Image Database Consortium data set using a specific lesion in each scan. Each object (DRO or lesion) was accompanied by an already-defined volume of interest, from which the features were calculated. Feature values for each object (DRO or lesion) were reported. The coefficient of variation (CV), expressed as a percentage, was calculated across software packages for each feature on each object. Thirteen sets of results were obtained for the DROs and patient data sets. Five of the 9 features showed excellent agreement with CV < 1%; 1 feature had moderate agreement (CV < 10%), and 3 features had larger variations (CV ≥ 10%) even after attempts at harmonization of feature calculations. This work highlights the value of feature definition standardization as well as the need to further clarify definitions for some features.

Indigenous chicken production consists of an array of activities important to smallholder poultry farmers in Africa. One of the many factors influencing their production and threating the local food security is in the area of nutrition, particularly, that related to protein supplementation. The available feed resources to farmers are not enough to sustain the productivity of the chickens. Hence, the chickens’ diets often require nutritional supplementation. There is therefore an urgent need for the validation of locally grown feed ingredients to improve the sustainability of poultry production in sub-Saharan Africa. A dietary ingredient that may be used in the diets of chickens is lucerne (Medicago sativa), which is also known as alfalfa. In South Africa, lucerne is the most cultivated forage legume and approximately 1.3 million metric tonnes of lucerne are produced per year. Lucerne has high nutritional value, as it is a source of protein, amino acids, vitamins, and fatty acids. The potential of lucerne as a feed resource for indigenous chickens should, therefore, be investigated so that strategies to improve the nutrition of such chickens can be developed. The purpose of this review was to highlight lucerne as a potential dietary ingredient for indigenous chickens and discuss its effects on the productivity of broilers, egg-layers, and dual-purpose chickens. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]