The research was carried out in 2005 at the Lithuanian University of Agriculture, Department of Horticulture. The aim of research was to investigate the yield and quality of different leeks cultivars as influenced by different grown methods. Leeks were growing in these ways: I way – growing in smooth surface; 2 way – growing into 15 cm deep furrows; 3 way - growing on the 15 cm furrows; 4 way – growing in the holes of 20 cm depth. The biggest harvest has been received from the early leek varieties, total harvest - 36,63 t ha-1, standard harvest – 31,12 t ha-1 and late leek varieties total harvest - 26,85 t ha-1, standard harvest – 24,05 t ha-1) grown in smooth surface. The early leeks grown in the holes of 20 cm depth has been received the biggest mass per plant (average 325,0 g) and mass per plant of the late leeks has been received from the leeks grown on the 15 cm furrows (average 274,7 g). The early leeks of the best biochemical composition have been grown in the holes of 20 cm depth and the late leeks have been grown on the 15 cm furrows.

Chronic subclinical levels of disease occur frequently in intensive swine production and compromise nutrient utilization efficiency. Sulfur amino acids (methionine plus cysteine; M+C) have been implicated in improving the animal’s response to immune system stimulation (ISS). Research objectives were to determine the effects of ISS on the optimal dietary methionine to methionine plus cysteine ratio (M:M+C) and on the fractional synthesis rate (FSR) of albumin, fibrinogen and total protein in plasma, liver, and small intestine (SI) of growing pigs. A nitrogen balance study showed that the optimal M:M+C was increased during ISS and greater than 0.62. In a flooding dose infusion study it was determined that total plasma protein FSR was increased during ISS and tended to decrease with reduced M+C intake. Plasma albumin FSR decreased with reduced M+C intake. The data implicates M+C as important nutrients involved in the immune response and careful dietary supplementation during ISS is necessary. / Funding sponsored by Evonik Degussa, Ontario Pork, the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada.

The tobacco growing area is an important aspect for the consistency of cigarette aroma and the control of cigarette quality. The fragrance of tobacco leaves would be different for climates and planting environments, such as soil and rainfalls. Accurately discriminating tobacco growing areas is very important to maintain the specifications of cigarettes. In this thesis, the relationship between tobacco near-infrared (NIR) spectra and growing areas is studied. Soft computing models and statistical classifiers are established, and the performance of the developed classifiers are compared in the prediction accuracy and in evaluations derived from confusion matrix. An artificial neural network (ANN) classifier and a statistical model are firstly developed. The best prediction accuracy of ANN model reaches to 79.3% in 226 training samples and 78.7% in 66 testing samples, respectively, which are 2.2% and 4.5% higher than the best results of the conventional statistical model in training (77.1%) and in testing (74.2%), respectively. A support vector machine (SVM) model is proposed to investigate the characteristics of growing areas based on risk error minimum, and produces a higher classification accuracy than ANN model does, demonstrating the effectiveness and robustness of SVM model. In addition, a genetic algorithm (GA) optimized SVM (GA-SVM) model is proposed for taking the influence of the interaction of individual inputs on the performance of classifiers into account. With the application of GA, the sensitive input subset is identified and used to discrimination models. The simulation results demonstrate that the GA-SVM model has the best performance among the other developed models, and the model complexity is simplified, which is shown by requiring fewer inputs to achieve the equivalent prediction accuracy. The GA-SVM classifier is preferred for solving multi-category problems. / Prof. Simon X. Yang

No description available.

Two experiments were conducted to determine the effects of phosphorus (P) in growing pigs. In experiment 1, fifty-four pigs were randomly allotted to three diets with available phosphorus (aP) concentrations of 0.23%, 0.17% and 0.11%. In experiment 2, twenty-eight pigs were assigned to four treatments including T1 (diet with 0.23% aP for three wks), T2 (diet with 0.11% aP for wk1 replaced by diet with 0.23% aP for wk2 and wk3), T3 (diet with 0.11% aP for wk1 and wk2 replaced by diet with 0.23% aP for wk3) and T4 (diet with 0.11% aP for all three wks). The 0.11% aP diet proved to be very low with negative effects on performance and bone quality. Reduced dietary P resulted in reduced P intake and reduced P excretion. In conclusion, growing pigs are sensitive to P and environmental pollution because of dietary P can be reduced by dietary manipulation of P.

No description available.

This study investigates the effect of current place of residence on the transition to parenthood and the extent to which place of growing up influences childbearing decisions. It controls for the effects of demographic characteristics, economic situation and respondents’ values and attitudes on the transition to parenthood so the residential impact measured won’t be biased. We analyze data on childless persons aged 22, 26, 30 and 34 from the Swedish Young Adult Panel Study (YAPS) wave 2003 enriched with register data on births for the study period 2003 to 2006. Multivariate logistic regression is the tool of analysis. We find no significant effect of place of residence on the transition to parenthood among female young adults, and only limited significant effect among men. More specifically men living in the countryside are much less likely to become fathers than are men in metropolitan areas. Contrary to place of residence, the place of growing up has significant effect on first births for both males and females. Women who grew up in the countryside or small towns have higher risk to become mothers than women who grew up in bigger cities but the reverse is significantly true for the men.

Darbo aktualumas: Mokslinėje literatūroje pateikiama daug duomenų ir informacijos apie žuvų auginimo ypatumus žuvininkystės ūkiuose auginat žuvis pramoniniu būdu. Sodybiniai vandens telkiniai savo ruožtu įrengiami ir žuvys jose auginamos bei veisiamos šių telkinių savininkų nuožiūra. Trūksta mokslinių tyrimų ir metodinės literatūros analizuojančios sodybinių vandens telkinių įrengimo bei jų pritaikymo mėgėjiškos akvakultūros vystymui, problematiką, todėl ši sritis nusipelno išsamesnės mokslinės analizės. Darbo tikslas: Išanalizuoti sodybinių vandens telkinių įrengimo, jų priežiūros bei žuvų auginimo sodybiniuose vandens telkiniuose ypatumus. Darbo uždaviniai: 1. Apibrėžti dirbtinių vandens telkinių įrengimo teisinį reglamentavimą, atlikti sodybinių vandens telkinių įrengimo projektų vertinimą. 2. Aprašyti sodybiniuose vandens telkiniuose auginamas žuvų rūšis ir aptarti jų auginimo sodybiniuose vandens telkiniuose specifiką. 3. Atlikti vandens telkinių vandens fizinių savybių, cheminės sudėties ir mikrobiologinius tyrimus bei pateikti sodybinių vandens telkinių vandens kokybės vertinimą. 3. Nustatyti su sodybinių vandens telkinių priežiūra, žuvų veisimu ir auginimu susijusias problemas bei pateikti rekomendacijas problemų sprendimui. Išvados: 1. Tiriami sodybiniai vandens telkiniai įrengti pagal suderintus nesudėtingus vandens telkinių įrengimo projektus prisilaikant LR Aplinkos apsaugos įstatyto ir kitų teisės aktų reikalavimų. Sodybinių vandens telkinių įrengimo metu... [toliau žr. visą tekstą] / It is hard to imagine a Lithuanian country district with no pond. Recently the owners of the ponds more and more often select the homestead ponds which are well adapted to the amateurish fish breeding, growing and recreation. It is important, while setting such homestead ponds, to understand the biology of separate fish breeds and to realize the pond as individual and complex ecosystem. Homestead ponds and the water quality need to satisfy biological features of fish and to secure their wellness and nutritional quality. This demands a good knowledge and appropriate competency of the owners at such spheres as pond equipment, fish breeding, fish growing, fish additional feeding, evaluation of water quality and etc. Scientific literature supplies plenty of data and information about peculiarities of fish growing at the fishery farms where the fish are cultured in an industrial way. The homestead ponds are set and the fish are grown and bred at the discretion of the owners. This sphere deserves particular scientific analysis because of the lack of scientific investigations and methodological literature which analyzes the topic of pond equipment and adjustment for the development of amateurish aquaculture. The aim of this study is to analyze the peculiarities of pond equipment, observation and fish growing in the ponds. In order to reach the goal several tasks which include definition of the juridical regulation of pond equipment and evaluation of pond equipment projects were made... [to full text]

In mehrjährigen Versuchen wurde der Anbau von Himbeeren im beheizten Foliengewächshaus zur Ernteverfrühung und zur Ernteverspätung untersucht. Ziel waren Sorten- und Anbauempfehlungen sowie eine Bewertung der Wirtschaftlichkeit unter sächsischen Anbaubedingungen. Möglich ist die Containerkultur im Folientunnel mit Sommersorten wie »Glen Ample« und »Tulameen« mit einer Ernte von Mitte April bis Mitte Juni sowie der Anbau von Herbstsorten wie »Himbotop«, »Erika« und »Sugana« mit einer Ernte von Ende August bis Anfang Dezember und einer zweiten Ernte von Mitte April bis Mitte Juni. Im geschützten Anbau werden eine bessere Fruchtqualität und eine bessere Haltbarkeit im Vergleich zur Freilandware erzielt. Der Ertrag ist höher und die Erntezeit ist länger. Beim Anbau von Herbstsorten ist bei einem Ertrag von 3,4 kg/m² (Gesamtertrag Herbst- und Frühjahrsernte) und einem Erlös von 8,50 Euro/kg (Durchschnittserlös Herbst- und Frühjahrsernte) ein positiver Deckungsbeitrag erzielbar. Beim Anbau der Sommersorten »Glen Ample« und »Tulameen« mit nur einer Ernte im Frühjahr wird bei einem Ertrag von 2,3 kg/m² und einem Erlös von 10 Euro/kg ein positiver Deckungsbeitrag erreicht. Die Erzielung dieser Erträge ist unter den Standortvoraussetzungen in Dresden möglich. Die Containerkultur von Himbeeren im geschützten Anbau ist mit hohen Kosten und einem hohen Anbaurisiko verbunden. Hohe Erträge setzen ein sicheres Beherrschen des Anbauverfahrens voraus.

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