ABSTRACT The present study was conducted to investigate the effects of dietary fiber on growth performance, fat deposition, serum lipids, fat metabolism, and mRNA (messenger RNA) expression of lipoprotein lipase (LPL) in Jilin white and Carlos geese. Sixty Jilin white and sixty Carlos geese aged six-weeks and of similar health and weight (average weight 313.11g) were selected. Geese of each breed were randomly divided into two groups (n=30), and with each group containing three replicate subgroups of 10 geese. The diet was supplemented with 8% or 11% fiber (corn straw powder). The Jilin white geese are divided into A1 (8%) and A2 (11%) groups, and Carlos geese are divided into B1 (8%) and B2 (11%) groups. The experiment lasted 35 days. The results showed that high dietary fiber can significantly (p<0.05) increase average daily feed intake (ADFI), significantly (p<0.05) reduce final weight (FW) and average daily gain (ADG) of both varieties, and increase LPL mRNA expression levels in abdominal fat, liver, sebum, and urethral glands. High dietary fiber accelerates intestinal peristalsis, affects the absorption of other nutrients, reduces the available energy value of the absorbed feed, and increases fat loss. Compared with the to Carlos geese, high dietary fiber content had a more significant effect on the live, slaughter, and sebum weights and sebum percentage of the Jilin white geese, indicating that the Carlos geese have higher requirements for dietary fiber content. High fiber content will reduce the growth performance, slaughter performance, and fat deposition of geese.

This paper presents a numerical analysis that uses an orthogonal array to investigate overburden failure caused by longwall mining of multiple coal seams. An LN(s k) array is said to be an orthogonal array with s levels, N rows, and k columns. This analysis identifies the contrasting factors that influence the height of the caving and water-conducting fractured zones. The factors include the mechanical properties of the interburden layers (factor A), thickness of the interburden layers (factor B), and mining height of the lower seam (factor C). The mechanical properties of the overburden failure are quantitatively investigated and the correlations among the factors are evaluated. The results show that factors A, B, and C all have a significant influence on the interactions during mining of multiple seams. This means that mining of the lower seam significantly changes the height of the caving zone of the entire system, with factors B and C having the most influence. Factor B has a more obvious effect on the water-conducting fractured zone than factor A, but factor C has the greatest effect among the factors. An equation to describe a dividing line, which is set to denote the relationship between the non-interaction ratio (K) and the cutting height of the lower seam (M) is proposed. This modified dividing line can be used to determine whether interactions exist among the overburden failure zones.

RESUMO: Carex physodes é uma espécie efêmera no deserto frio de Gurbantunggut, no noroeste da China, que possui padrões reprodutivos tanto sexuais como assexuais. Os objetivos principais deste estudo foram caracterizar os sistemas de reprodução e identificar o papel da dispersão dos frutos na reprodução sexual de C. physodes. Foram medidas a biomassa aérea e de raízes, a razão raiz-parte aérea, a biomassa de inflorescência e a frutificação de C. physodes e estudada a dispersão de estames perigínicos e aquênios em habitat natural e ambiente interno. A biomassa das raízes de C. physodes foi aproximadamente dez vezes maior do que a biomassa aérea. A maior parte da biomassa aérea é alocada para a inflorescência, o que sugere que C. physodes aloca a maioria da biomassa para a parte reprodutiva. Ela produz estames perigínicos com pericarpo contendo um aquênio. Os estames perigínicos se dispersam a uma distância muito maior do que os aquênios na velocidade do vento de 1 e 4 m s-1, e o tempo de flutuação dos estames perigínicos na água foi muito maior que o dos aquênios. Os estames perigínicos podem reter mais água e aderir ao solo muito mais facilmente do que os aquênios, o que sugere que esses estames são apropriados para dispersão por vento; além disso, estão adaptados para dispersão por grande distância quando ocorrem chuvas ocasionais. No entanto, os aquênios podem permanecer perto das plantas-mãe e dispersar-se apenas por distâncias curtas. C. physodes é adaptada morfológica e fisiologicamente ao ambiente do deserto frio por meio de uma combinação de caracteres associados aos rizomas e aos estames perigínicos. Essa adaptação pode aumentar a oportunidade de sobrevivência e expansão da população de C. physodes.

ABSTRACT: Carex physodes is an ephemeral species in the cold desert of Gurbantunggut in Northwest China. It has both asexual and sexual reproductive patterns. The primary aims of this study were to characterize the reproduction systems and identify the role of fruit dispersal in the sexual reproduction of C. physodes. Aboveground and underground biomass, root-shoot ratio, inflorescence biomass, fruit-set of C. physodes were measured and dispersal of perigynia and achenes in the natural habitat and indoor condition were studied. The underground biomass of C. physodes was approximately 10 times more than the aboveground biomass. The most parts of aboveground biomass is allocated to the inflorescence, which suggests that C. physodes allocates most biomass to the reproductive part. C. physodes produces perigynium with a pericarp containing one achene. The perigynia disperse at a much greater distance than achenes at both 1 and 4 m s-1 wind velocity, and the floating time of perigynia in water was much longer than that of achenes. Perigynia can hold more water and adher soil much more easily than achenes, which suggests that perigynia are suitable for wind dispersal, and they also adapt to spread at a long distance by occasionally rainfall. However, achenes may remain near the mother plants and only disperse at short distances. C. physodes is morphologically and physiologically adapted to the cold desert environment via a combination of characters associated with the rhizomatous and perigynium. This adaption may increase the opportunity of survival and expansion of population of C. physodes.

In deep excavations under conditions of high ground stress, even hard rock undergoes creep and other time-dependent effects that may result in instability. This study involves an analysis of the typical damage to the surrounding rock in the deep tunnels of the Jinchuan nickel mine in China. In order to understand the creep mechanism, triaxial creep laboratory tests were conducted under high stress. The creep characteristic curves and the Nishihara model parameters of typical rock were obtained from these tests. The numerical simulations, with which the creep model is developed, were performed using Flac3D. The creep model parameters were back-analysed on the basis of field monitoring data. Finally, appropriate support schemes for deep tunnels are suggested. The creep deformation of rock increases with time and axial load. At the same load level, the creep deformation of unloading is greater than that of loading. The simulated deformations of the surrounding rock are coincident with those from in situ monitoring, indicating the applicability of the presented rock creep model in situations of high ground stress. The results constitute a reference for support design in deep mining tunnels. rock creep, high ground stress, deformation, modelling, numerical simulation.

Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) is widely used as an effective medium to integrate physical world and information world of Internet of Things (IOT). While keeping energy consumption at a minimal level, WSN requires reliable communication. Multicasting is a general operation performed by the Base Station, where data is to be transmitted to a set of destination nodes. Generally, the packets are routed in a multi-hop approach, where some intermediate nodes are also used for packet forwarding. This problem can be reduced to the well-known Steiner tree problem, which has proven to be NP-complete for deterministic link descriptors and cost functions. In this paper, we propose a novel multicast protocol, named heuristic algorithms for the solution of the Quality of Service (QoS) constrained multicast routing problem, with incomplete information in Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN). As information aggregation or randomly fluctuating traffic loads, link measures are considered to be random variables. Simulation results show that the Hop Neural Networks (HNN) based heuristics with a properly chosen additive measures can yield to a good solution for this traditionally NP complex problem, when compared to the best multicast algorithms known.