Growth performance, gut microbiota composition, health and welfare of European sea bass (Dicentrarchus labrax) fed an environmentally and economically sustainable low marine protein diet in sea cages.

The large use of fish meal/fish oil in carnivorous fish feeds is the main concern regarding environmental sustainability of aquaculture. Here, we evaluated the effects of an innovative diet, designed to be (1) environmentally sustainable by lowering the marine protein content while being (2) cost effective by using sustainable alternative raw materials with acceptable cost and produced on an industrial scale, on growth performance, gut microbiota composition, health and welfare of European sea bass (Dicentrarchus labrax), a key species of the Mediterranean marine aquaculture, reared in sea cages. Results show that the specific growth rate of fish fed the low marine protein diet was significantly lower than those fed conventional diet (0.67% vs 0.69%). Fatty acid profile of fillets from fish fed a low marine protein diet presented significant lower n-6 and higher n-3 content when compared to conventional ones. Then, a significant increase in the abundance of Vibrio and reduction of Photobacterium were found in the gut of fish fed with the low marine protein diet but effects on sea bass health needs further investigation. Finally, no major health and welfare alterations for fish fed the low marine protein diet were observed, combined with a potential slight benefit related to humoral immunity. Overall, these results suggest that despite the low marine protein diet moderately affects growth performance, it nevertheless may enhance environmental and economic sustainability of the sea bass aquaculture.

Design of a Supraharmonic Monitoring System Based on an FPGA Device.

During the last few decades, the poor quality of produced electric power is a key factor that has affected the operation of critical electrical infrastructure such as high-voltage equipment. This type of equipment exhibits multiple different failures, which originate from the poor electric power quality. This phenomenon is basically due to the utilization of high-frequency switching devices that operate over modern electrical generation systems, such as PV inverters. The conduction of significant values of electric currents at high frequencies in the range of 2 to 150 kHz can be destructive for electrical and electronic equipment and should be measured. However, the measuring devices that have the ability of analyzing a signal in the frequency domain present the ability of analyzing up to 2.5 kHz-3 kHz, which are frequencies too low in comparison to the high switching frequencies that inverters, for example, work. Electric currents at 16 kHz were successfully measured on an 8 kWp roof PV generator. This paper presents a fast-developed modern measuring system, using a field programmable gate array, aiming to detect electric currents at high frequencies, with a capability for working up to 150 kHz. The system was tested in the laboratory, and the results are satisfactory.

Structural elucidation of olive pomace fed sea bass (Dicentrarchus labrax) polar lipids with cardioprotective activities.

The purpose of this study was to structurally characterise the polar lipids of sea bass (Dicentrarchus labrax), fed with an experimental diet containing olive pomace (OP), that exhibit cardioprotective activities. OP has been added to conventional fish oil (FO) feed at 4% and this was the OP diet, having been supplemented as finishing diet to fish. Sea bass was aquacultured using either FO or OP diet. At the end of the dietary experiment, lipids in both samples of fish muscle were quantified and HPLC fractionated. The in vitro cardioprotective properties of the polar lipid fractions, using washed rabbit's platelets, have been assessed and the two most biologically active fractions were further analysed by mass spectrometry. The gas-chromatrograpy-mass spectrometric data shows that these two fractions contain low levels of myristic (14:0), oleic (18:1 cis ω-9) and linoleic acids (18:2 ω-6), but high levels of palmitic (16:0) and stearic acids (18:0) as well as eicosadienoic acid (20:2 ω-6). The first fraction (MS1) also contained significant levels of arachidonic acid (20:4 ω-6) and the omega-3 fatty acids: eicosapentaenoic acid (22:5) and docosahexaenoic acid (22:6). Electrospray-mass spectrometry elucidated that the lipid composition of the two fractions contained various diacyl-glycerophospholipids species, where the majority of them have either 18:0 or 18:1 fatty acids in the sn-1 position and either 22:6 or 20:2 fatty acids in the sn-2 position for MS1 and MS2, respectively. Our research focuses on the structure/function relationship of fish muscle polar lipids and cardiovascular diseases and structural data are given for polar lipid HPLC fractions with strong cardioprotective properties.