White Pekin duck is an important meat resource in the livestock industries. However, the temperature increase due to global warming has become a serious environmental factor in duck production, because of hyperthermia. Therefore, identifying the gene regulations and understanding the molecular mechanism for adaptation to the warmer environment will provide insightful information on the acclimation system of ducks. This study examined transcriptomic responses to heat stress treatments (3 and 6 h at 35 °C) and control (C, 25 °C) using RNA-sequencing analysis of genes from the breast muscle tissue. Based on three distinct differentially expressed gene (DEG) sets (3H/C, 6H/C, and 6H/3H), the expression patterns of significant DEGs (absolute log2 > 1.0 and false discovery rate < 0.05) were clustered into three responsive gene groups divided into upregulated and downregulated genes. Next, we analyzed the clusters that showed relatively higher expression levels in 3H/C and lower levels in 6H/C with much lower or opposite levels in 6H/3H; we referred to these clusters as the adaptable responsive gene group. These genes were significantly enriched in the ErbB signaling pathway, neuroactive ligand-receptor interaction and type II diabetes mellitus in the KEGG pathways (P < 0.01). From the functional enrichment analysis and significantly regulated genes observed in the enriched pathways, we think that the adaptable responsive genes are responsible for the acclimation mechanism of ducks and suggest that the regulation of phosphoinositide 3-kinase genes including PIK3R6, PIK3R5, and PIK3C2B has an important relationship with the mechanisms of adaptation to heat stress in ducks.

Heat manipulation at early age has been known to help chickens cope with heat stress later in life. The present study was conducted to determine the effects of early heat conditioning at 5 days of age on performance in broilers when re-exposed to heat stress later in life. Day-old, 256 Arbor Acre boiler chicks were housed in two identical rooms where all broilers were exposed to a 23-h light: 1-h dark cycle throughout the study and provided with feed and water ad libitum. At the age of 5 days, one group was exposed to 37℃ for 24 hours and then returned to the temperature at which control birds were maintained (early heat condition group) while the other was maintained without heat modulation (Control). On 21 days, broilers were regrouped into 4 groups (CON+CON: control+control; CON+HS: control+heat stress; HC+CON: heat conditioning+control; HC+HS: heat conditioning+heat stress), and given 7 days for adaptation. On 28 days, birds in one room were exposed to heat stress (21℃ → 31℃) for 3 days whereas those in the other were at room temperature. Heat stress resulted in decreased feed intake, water intake, and body weight gain (P<0.05), but increased rectal temperature and mortality (P<0.05). No beneficial effects of heat conditioning were detected when broilers were exposed to heat stress again at later in life. The present results were discussed together with other studies regarding possible differences in methods such as ages of breeders and strains, which may have resulted in the failure of heat conditioning to help broilers resist heat stress.

We investigated the effects of dietary pearlzyme (mudflat-bacteria origin protease) on growth performance and development of digestive organs in broilers. Two hundred forty, 4 day-old female Ross broiler chicks were divided into 2 groups (control vs. pearlzyme) which were randomly housed in 8 pens with 15 chicks/pen. They were fed one of two diets containing pearlzyme at 0 or 0.1% for 4 weeks. Dietary pearlzyme resulted in significant increase in body weight during the first week of the experiment (p<0.05). With age, weight gain and feed efficiency continued to decrease reaching significant level during the last week. Mortality was 3.3% in control but not in pearlzyme during the entire period of the experiment. Dietary pearlzyme resulted in increased weight (p<0.05) in the ceca and rectum, and increased length in the ceca (p<0.05). However, there were tendencies to increase the weight of the gizzard (p<0.071) but to decrease the length of the small intestine (p<0.068). The results of the current study show that dietary pearlzyme affects weight gain and the development of digestive organs.

This paper describes a research of a shape optimization study to maximize a range of a guided missile with canards and tailfins. To design a guided missile for the maximum range, a shape optimization system is incorporated with a trajectory analysis and an optimization technique. In the trajectory analysis part, a component build-up method is directly connected to the equation of motion to calculate aerodynamic coefficients at every time step. In the optimization part, real coded adaptive range genetic algorithm was adopted to find out an optimum shape of the global maximum range. The shape optimization system of a guided missile for the maximum range can maximize the range of a guided missile and yield the optimum shape of canards and tailfins. The analysis results confirmed that the optimum shape thus derived extended the range of the base shape by 5.8% for the unguided case and by 21.4% for the guided case.

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