ABSTRACT This study was conducted to evaluate the effects of acetic acid, lactic acid, and butyric acid on the production performance, egg parameters (quality and quantity traits), blood and liver serum biochemical parameters and gastrointestinal tract microorganism on female Japanese quails. A total of 640 female Japanese quails aged 35-84 days were housedfor eight treatments with four replicates. They were arranged in completely randomized design (CRD) to evaluate the effects of basal diet (BD) with a supplement of acetic acid (AA), lactic acid (LA) and butyric acid (BA). The performance parameters to study this effect are feed intake, feed conversion ratio, egg traits such as egg weight, egg production, and egg mass along with specific gravity, internal quality unit (IQU), yolk and albumen indexes, and eggshell traits such as weight, thickness, and surface. It also includes blood serum biochemical parameters such as cholesterol, triglyceride, HDL, LDL, albumin, globulin, glucose, and gastrointestinal tract microflora (E.Coli and Salmonella). Eight dietary treatments were formulated by addition of organic acids such as BD without organic acids additive, BD with 124 mg/kg AA additive, BD with 104 mg/kg LA additive, BD with 113 mg/kg BA additive, BD with 63.5 mg/kg AA+53.5 mg/kg LA additive, BD with 63.5 mg/kg AA+57 mg/kg BA additive, BD with 53.5 mg/kg LA+57 mg/kg BA additive and BD with 41.6 mg/kg AA+35 mg/kg LA+37 mg/kg BA additive. The results showed that the diets containing BD+LA+BA+AA and BD+AA alone considerably increased feed intake, feed conversion ratio, egg weight, egg production and egg mass (p<0.01). The diets containing BD+AA and BD+LA significantly affected some quality traits such as eggshell thickness, eggshell weight (p<0.01), shell surface, and IQU (p<0.05). The diets containing BD+AA and BD+LA alone increased serum cholesterol, HDL, albumin, globulin and total protein significantly (p<0.01). Moreover, the groups containing BD+AA and BD+LA significantly decreased triglyceride contents in serum (p<0.05). The results showed that the diets containing BD+LA and BD+BA significantly decreased the E.Coli and Salmonella population in the gastrointestinal tract (p<0.01). Based on the experiment, it can beinferred that LA alone, or in combination with other organic acids, improved and showed positive effects on performance and egg traits in female Japanese quail.

Abstract This study compares ball, bar-clip and bar-ball attachment systems for implant-retained mandibular overdentures with three implants. The first implant is placed in the middle of the mandible and the other two are imbedded in the first premolar regions. Linear elastic finite element analysis is used for design analysis. Three dimensional geometry of the mandible is generated from computed tomography. Other parts are modeled using SolidWorks software. The foodstuff is positioned at the right first molar, representing the most frequent masticating situation. To obtain accurate mesh-independent results, finite element models are solved using several mesh grids. They are then validated by means of a detailed convergence analysis. The results demonstrate that the highest von-Mises stress in the bone is always located around the neck of the implant, at its upper threads. Ball and bar-ball attachments transfer the highest and lowest stresses to the bone surrounding the implants, respectively. The lowest stresses in the cortical and cancellous bones are due to bar-ball attachment. Yet, the overdenture gets its maximum movement for this arrangement. Consequently, the use of bar-ball attachment is only recommended for the cases in which stress transferred to peri-implant bone is more important than overdenture stability. Among the three treatment designs, ball attachment seems to exhibit the lowest lateral and overall displacements and hence, better overdenture stability.