BackgroundAn experiment was conducted in Vietnam to test the hypothesis that total dry matter (DM) intake and liveweight (LW) gain would increase in a curvilinear manner with increasing amounts of concentrate offered.MethodThere were five treatments: a basal diet of Guinea grass fed at 1 % of LW and rice straw fed ad libitum (T0), or this diet supplemented with concentrate at 0.6 (T1), 1.2 (T2), 1.8 (T3), or 2.4 % of LW (T4). The concentrate comprised locally available ingredients, namely cassava chips, rice bran, crushed rice grain, fishmeal, salt, and urea, mixed manually.ResultsConcentrate intake increased from T0 to T3, but there was no difference in concentrate intake between T3 and T4. Total feed intake increased in a curvilinear manner from 4.0 to 6.4 kg DM/d as the quantity of concentrate consumed increased. The substitution of concentrate for grass and rice straw increased with increasing consumption of concentrate and was as high as 0.49 kg DM reduction per kg of concentrate consumed. LW gain increased curvilinearly, with significant differences between T0 (0.092 kg/d), T1 (0.58 kg/d) and T2 (0.79 kg/d); but there were no significant differences in LW gain between T2, T3 (0.83 kg/d) and T4 (0.94 kg/d).With increasing amount of concentrate in the diet, the digestibilities of dry matter, organic matter, crude protein, and crude fat increased, but NDF digestibility decreased.ConclusionBased on these results, young Vietnamese Brahman-cross growing cattle will respond to a locally-sourced concentrate mix offered at a level of up to 1.2 % of LW.

Synthesis and characterization of material properties of biphasic calcium phosphates (BCP)/polycaprolactone (PCL) composites, which were obtained by melt infiltration of PCL using porous BCP bodies, were investigated. Using 70 vol.% of poly methyl methacrylate (PMMA) powder as a pore-forming agent, porous BCP bodies were obtained by pressure less sintering depending on the temperature. The porous bodies obtained showed interconnected, spherical pores about 200 microm in diameter. Densification of the pore frame improved and grain growth increased remarkably as the sintering temperature increased. Molten PCL was infiltrated into porous BCP bodies to obtain the BCP/PCL composites. The material properties such as the relative density, hardness, bending strength, and elastic modulus of BCP/PCL composite, which was sintered at 1200 degrees C, were 95.7%, 11.2 Hv, 31.6 MPa and 10.2 GPa, respectively.

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