In vivo prediction of abdominal fat and breast muscle in broiler chicken using live body measurements based on machine learning.

The purpose of this study was to predict the carcass characteristics of broilers using support vector regression (SVR) and artificial neural network (ANN) model methods. Data were obtained from 176 yellow feather broilers aged 100-day-old (90 males and 86 females). The input variables were live body measurements, including external measurements and B-ultrasound measurements. The predictors of the model were the weight of abdominal fat and breast muscle in male and female broilers, respectively. After descriptive statistics and correlation analysis, the datasets were randomly divided into train set and test set according to the ratio of 7:3 to establish the model. The results of this study demonstrated that it is feasible to use machine learning methods to predict carcass characteristics of broilers based on live body measurements. Compared with the ANN method, the SVR method achieved better prediction results, for predicting breast muscle (male: R2 = 0.950; female: R2 = 0.955) and abdominal fat (male: R2 = 0.802; female: R2 = 0.944) in the test set. Consequently, the SVR method can be considered to predict breast muscle and abdominal fat of broiler chickens, except for abdominal fat in male broilers. However, further revaluation of the SVR method is suggested.

Cultivation and characters of aerobic granules for pentachlorophenol (PCP) degradation under microaerobic condition.

Cultivation of aerobic granular sludge for pentachlorophenol (PCP) degradation under microaerobic condition (DO concentration was controlled at 0.2-0.7 mg/L) was studied in this paper. Anaerobic granules were selected as inoculum. The changes of appearance were observed and the variations of SVI, VSS/TSS, PN/PS and the size of sludge were measured during cultivating. The capabilities for degradation of PCP, AOX and COD(Cr) were also studied. Observations on mature granules were carried out by scanning electron microscope, and the results indicated bacillus was dominant on the surface of granules while in the inner of granules both bacillus and coccus were the dominant microorganisms. K, Na, Fe, Ca, Mg, Ni, Co, Mn, Cu and Zn were detected in the granules by element analysis.

Coupled anaerobic/aerobic biodegradation of 2,4,6 trichlorophenol.

Degradation of 2,4,6-trichlorophenol (TCP) with co-immobilizing anaerobic granular sludge and isolated aerobic bacterial species was studied in coupled anaerobic/aerobic integrated reactors. The synergism of aerobes and anaerobes within co-immobilized granule might facilitate degrading the TCP and exchange of anaerobic metabolites 4-CP, which promoted system organic removal efficiency and recovered from organic shock-loads more quickly. The biomass specific activities experiment further confirmed that strict anaerobes be not affected over the course of this experiment by the presence of an oxic environment, aerobic activity predominated in the outer co-immobilized granule layers, while the interior was characterized by anaerobic activity. The co-immobilized granule could thus enable both aerobic and anaerobic microbes function in the same reactor and thereby integrate the oxidative and reductive catabolism.