A 42-d trial was conducted to study the influence of 2 plant extracts on performance, digestibility, and digestive organ weights in broilers. The feeding program consisted of a starter diet until 21 d and a finisher diet until 42 d. There were 4 treatment groups: control; 10 ppm avilamycin (AB); 200 ppm essential oil extract (EOE) from oregano, cinnamon, and pepper; and 5,000 ppm Labiatae extract (LE) from sage, thyme, and rosemary. No differences in feed intake or feed conversion were observed. From 14 to 21 d of age, broilers fed the LE diet grew faster than the broilers fed the control or EOE feeds (68.8 vs. 63.9 and 61.6 g/d, respectively). Antibiotic and plant extract supplementation improved apparent whole-tract and ileal digestibility of the nutrients. For starter feed, LE supplementation improved apparent fecal digestibility of DM (P < 0.01), and all additives increased ether extract digestibility (P < 0.001). However, no effect was detected for CP digestibility (P > 0.1). At the ileal level, the AB, EOE, and LE supplementation of the starter feed increased DM and starch (P < 0.01) digestibility but not CP digestibility (P > 0.1). All additives improved apparent fecal digestibility of DM and CP of the finisher diet. No differences were observed for proventriculus, gizzard, liver, pancreas, or large or small intestine weight. In the present study, both plant extracts improved the digestibility of the feeds for broilers. The effect of different additives on digestibility improved the performance slightly, but this effect was not statistically significant.

No abstract

In recent years plastination has begun to revolutionize the way in which human and veterinary gross anatomy can be presented to students. The study reported here assessed the efficacy of plastinated organs as teaching resources in an innovative anatomy teaching/learning system. The main objective was to evaluate whether the use of plastinated organs improves the quality of teaching and learning of anatomy. For this purpose, we used an interdepartmental approach involving the departments of Veterinary Anatomy, Human Anatomy, Veterinary Surgery, and Education Development and Research Methods. The knowledge base of control and experimental student groups was examined before and after use of the fixed or plastinated resources, respectively, to gather information evaluating the effectiveness of these teaching resources. Significant differences (p < 0.001) between control and experimental groups of Human and Veterinary Anatomy were observed in the post-test results. The Veterinary Surgery students had the most positive opinion of the use of plastinated specimens. Using these data, we were able to quantitatively characterize the use of plastinated specimens as anatomy teaching resources. This analysis showed that all the plastinated resources available were heavily used and deemed useful by students. Although the properties of plastinated specimens accommodate student needs at various levels, traditional material should be used in conjunction with plastinated resources.

rEsUmEnIntroducción: La investigación educativa desde la perspectiva de la corriente SAL (Students' Approaches to Learning) ha explorado los mecanismos implicados en el aprendizaje, así como los factores que influyen en los enfoques de aprendizaje. Partiendo del modelo 3P de Biggs (1987) y de la revisión de factores de Baeten, Kyndt, Struyven, y Dochy (2010), el presente estudio realizó una revisión sistemática para seleccionar y recuperar evidencias empíricas de factores personales y contextuales que pueden influir en los enfoques de aprendizaje. Método: Se siguió el procedimiento de revisión sistemática y se extrajeron estudios en función de unos criterios de selección determinados. Resultados: Muchos de los estudios seleccionados coinciden en sus resultados y evidencian la influencia de diversos factores (motivación, conocimientos previos, concepciones de aprendizaje, creencias epistemológicas, cantidad de trabajo, percepción de los criterios de evaluación, concepciones y métodos de enseñanza de los profesores, titulación y tipo de tarea y contenido) sobre los enfoques de aprendizaje. Sin embargo, no existen resultados concluyentes sobre otras variables (sexo, edad, cociente intelectual, tipo de evaluación). Conclusiones: Se observan desequilibrios en la atención prestada al estudio de determinadas variables, así que la presente revisión puede servir de guía

An experiment was conducted to investigate the effect of dietary levels of crude protein (CP), close to the range used commercially and to the European Commission recommended values, on the nitrogen (N) balance, ammonia (NH(3)) emission and pollutant characteristics of the slurry from growing and finishing pigs. Three feeding programmes with different CP levels were compared during the growing and the finishing periods of fattening. Diets were formulated to be isoenergetic and for the digestible lysine : metabolisable energy ratio to be similar in all the diets for each phase, but differed in CP concentration (160, 150 and 140 g CP/kg for the growing phase and 155, 145 and 135 g CP/kg for the finishing phase). Faeces and urine from barrows (eight replicates per diet) allocated in metabolism cages were collected separately for 5 days to calculate the N balance and for 2 days to measure NH(3) emission in a laboratory system for 240 h. Excreta were analysed for pH, volatile fatty acids (VFA), total N, electrical conductivity (EC), total solids (TS), volatile solids (VS), biochemical oxygen demand (BOD(5)), chemical oxygen demand (COD) and NH(4)-N reduction of dietary CP content led to a linear decrease of urinary (P < 0.05) and total (P < 0.05) N excretion, and N excretion/feed intake (P < 0.001). The emission of NH3 was similar in all diets (P > 0.05) during the 240 h of study. However, in the growing phase, the NH(3)-N level in slurry was lower (P < 0.05) for the low-CP diet. In addition, the CP level had no significant effect (P > 0.05) on total VFA, EC, TS, VS, COD or BOD(5) contents of excreta. These parameters were higher (P < 0.05) in slurry from the finishing phase than from the growing phase. However, NH(4)-N in the slurry decreased (P < 0.05) by 20.3% and 28.4% when the CP level was decreased by 9.30 or 21.40 g/kg, respectively. It is concluded that lowering dietary CP levels even by small amounts and using CP levels close to these used in commercial diets and close to the European Commission recommended values will decrease urinary and total N excretion in the slurry of growing-finishing pigs. The slurry from finishing pigs is more concentrated than that from growing pigs.