Materials and Methods: In this study, grouper juveniles (92.43±standard error of the mean 0.51 mm) maintained in 31 ppt seawater were transferred into five tanks with seawater diluted to 25, 20, 15, 10, and 5 ppt. The salinity of the control group was not changed and was maintained at 31 ppt. Serum cortisol was measured using ELISA at 0, 30, 60, and 120 min after the fish were transferred to the different concentrations of salinity.
Results: The survival percentage was recorded for 14 days following the transfer and the results revealed that serum cortisol of fish in a high change in salinity (15, 10, and 5 ppt) was significantly higher than the control group immediately after exposure. At the high salinity change, the cortisol levels gradually decrease at 30 min and 60 min, until no difference in cortisol concentration was observed at 120 min. No mortality was observed in fish exposed to low salinity change (25 and 20 ppt) while in higher salinity change (5 ppt), the survival percentage was 50%.
Conclusion: The study revealed that the serum cortisol concentration was high initially and continues to decrease to resting cortisol level at 120 min indicating that cortisol hormone is released following acute stress as a primary response in grouper juveniles.
MATERIALS AND METHODS: A total of 30 healthy female boer cross goats at the age of 4 months old with average initial live body weight (BW) of 20.05±0.5 kg were used for on-farm feeding trial to evaluate the growth performance as preparation for breeding purposes. The experimental goats were divided into two groups of 15 animals each labeled as control and treatment groups, which were kept under intensive farming system. Goats in control group were fed with normal routine feeding protocol practiced by the farmer, while goats in the treatment group were fed with new feed formulation. Throughout the experimental period, on-farm monitoring and data collection were carried out. Initial BW and body condition score (BCS) were recorded before the start of the experiment while final BW and BCS were gained after 7 months of the experimental period. Average daily gain (ADG) was calculated after the experiment end. Data on BW, ADG, and BCS were recorded from both groups for every 2 weeks and reported monthly. The feed intake for the control group was 2.8 kg/animal/day which practiced by the farmer and 3.2 kg/animal/day as new feed formulation for the treatment group.
RESULTS: After 7 months of the experimental period, final BW shows an improvement in treatment group (39.1±1.53 kg) compared with control group (32.3±1.23 kg). The ADG in treatment group also gives promising result when comparing with control group. Goats in treatment group significantly attained better ADG than control group which were 126.7 g/day and 83.3 g/day, respectively. For the BCS, goats in the treatment group had shown an improvement where 86.67% (13 out of 15) of the group had BCS ≥3 (1-5 scoring scale) and only 66.67% (10 out of 15) of the control group had BCS ≥3.
CONCLUSION: Therefore, it was concluded that implementation of proper feeding program as shown in treatment group give promising result to improve the growth performance of replacement breeder goats which can be adopted by the farmers to improve farm productivity.
Methods: 80 patients with invasive breast cancer receiving BCS after neoadjuvant chemotherapy were included in this non-randomized case-control study. 40 patients with specimen radiography performed in a standard approach (control group) were compared to 40 patients with use of a radiopaque tissue transfer system (study group).
Results: 19/80 (23.75%) patients required re-excision because of involved margins; among those, 14/40 (35%) were in the control group and 5/40 (12.5%) in the study group. The association between the use of the radiopaque tissue transfer system and the lower re-excision rate was statistically significant (p = 0.023).
Conclusion: Our analysis provides a rationale for the routine use of a radiopaque tissue transfer system for specimen radiography in BCS after neoadjuvant chemotherapy for invasive breast cancer in order to reduce re-excision rates.