Suínos em diferentes fases de crescimento alimentados com milho ou sorgo: desempenho, digestibilidade e efeitos na biodigestão anaeróbia

Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)

SORGO: estenda sua safrinha com segurança: programa 22: Centro-Oeste/Sudeste.

O sorgo produz bem em condições ambientais adversas, como a seca. A cultura do sorgo tem sido uma boa opção para produção de grãos e forragem nas situações em que o falta de água oferece maiores riscos para outras culturas, como o milho. Outra vantagem do sorgo é sua baixa suscetibilidade a micotoxinas (problema comum no milho), o que confere a este cereal grande aceitação para composição de rações para animais domésticos, suínos e aves, que são muito sensíveis à presença de micotoxinas. O agrônomo e pesquisador da Embrapa Milho e Sorgo, Cícero Beserra de Menezes, traz mais informações sobre o Sorgo: estenda sua safrinha com segurança.

In Celebration of the 75th Birthday of Professor CNR Rao

Professor C. N. R. Rao will celebrate his 75th birthday in June 2009. As one of the world's foremost solid-state and materials chemists, he has had an enormous influence on generations of chemists throughout India and the world. Celebrations of Professor Rao's 75th birthday started already last June and will culminate on June 30, 2009. As part of these celebrations and to give tribute to Professor Rao's illustrious career and contributions to the chemistry community, this special issue in honor of this occasion includes 27 invited contributions from top scientists throughout the world, including a special

Cramer-Rao bounds for source localization in shallow ocean with generalized Gaussian noise

Localization of underwater acoustic sources is a problem of great interest in the area of ocean acoustics. There exist several algorithms for source localization based on array signal processing.It is of interest to know the theoretical performance limits of these estimators. In this paper we develop expressions for the Cramer-Rao-Bound (CRB) on the variance of direction-of-arrival(DOA) and range-depth estimators of underwater acoustic sources in a shallow range-independent ocean for the case of generalized Gaussian noise. We then study the performance of some of the popular source localization techniques,through simulations, for DOA/range-depth estimation of underwater acoustic sources in shallow ocean by comparing the variance of the estimators with the corresponding CRBs.

Cramer-Rao-Type Bounds for Sparse Bayesian Learning

In this paper, we derive Hybrid, Bayesian and Marginalized Cramer-Rao lower bounds (HCRB, BCRB and MCRB) for the single and multiple measurement vector Sparse Bayesian Learning (SBL) problem of estimating compressible vectors and their prior distribution parameters. We assume the unknown vector to be drawn from a compressible Student-prior distribution. We derive CRBs that encompass the deterministic or random nature of the unknown parameters of the prior distribution and the regression noise variance. We extend the MCRB to the case where the compressible vector is distributed according to a general compressible prior distribution, of which the generalized Pareto distribution is a special case. We use the derived bounds to uncover the relationship between the compressibility and Mean Square Error (MSE) in the estimates. Further, we illustrate the tightness and utility of the bounds through simulations, by comparing them with the MSE performance of two popular SBL-based estimators. We find that the MCRB is generally the tightest among the bounds derived and that the MSE performance of the Expectation-Maximization (EM) algorithm coincides with the MCRB for the compressible vector. We also illustrate the dependence of the MSE performance of SBL based estimators on the compressibility of the vector for several values of the number of observations and at different signal powers.

C. N. R. Rao and the Growth of Solid State and Materials Chemistry as a Central Domain of Research

In celebrating Professor C. N. R. Rao's 80th birthday, this article recalls his singular contributions to solid state and materials chemistry for about sixty years. In so doing, the article also traces the growth of the field as a central domain of research in chemical sciences from its early origins in Europe. Although Rao's major work lies in solid state and materials chemistry - a field which he started and nurtured in India while its importance was being recognized internationally - his contributions to other areas of chemistry (and physics), viz., molecular spectroscopy, phase transitions, fullerenes, graphene, nanomaterials and multiferroics are equally significant. Illustrative examples of his work devoted to rare earth and transition metal oxides, defects and nonstoichiometry, metal-insulator transitions, investigation of crystal and electronic structures of a variety of solids by means of electron microscopies and photoelectron spectroscopy, superconducting cuprates, magnetoresistive manganites, multiferroic metal oxides of various structures and, last but not the least, development of new strategies for chemical synthesis of a wide variety of solids including nanomaterials and framework solids in different dimensionalities, are highlighted. The article also captures his exemplary role as a science teacher, science educationist and institution builder in post-Independence India.

Comparación de maíz opaco-2, maíz amiláceo y sorgo en raciones para cerdos en crecimiento

En la porqueriza de la Estación Experimental Agropecuaria “La Calera” de Nicaragua, se efectuó un estudio para evaluar comparativamente el maíz opaco-2, maíz amiláceo y el sorgo en cerdos en crecimiento. A cada ración se le adiciono 0.5 libras de sal y 50 de suplemento vitamínico mineral; además de sal, harina de hueso y harina de concha ad-libitum. El experimento duro 8 semanas comprendidas entre los meses de febrero a abril de 1970. Se usaron 18 cerdos de la raza Blue Hybrid de 2 meses de edad, nacidos en el mismo Centro Experimental. El procedimiento experimental usado fue el de diseño completamente al azar. Se hicieron 3 tratamientos con 6 repeticiones cada uno. Durante las primeras 8 semanas de nacidos, estuvieron en un mismo medio y bajo un mismo régimen alimenticio. Todos se desparasitaron en su época correspondiente. En la primera semana de experimento los machos se castraron. Todos se desparasitaron y se formaron tres grupos de 6 cerdos cada uno, tres hembras y tres machos y a cada grupo se le suplió la ración correspondiente. Los cerdos se pesaron individualmente en el inicio y durante cada semana hasta el final del experimento. Obtenidas las ganancias de peso finales de cada cerdo, se efectuó el análisis estadístico correspondiente al diseño experimental. Las diferencias de ganancias de peso vivo de los cerdos alimentados con la ración “A” y las raciones “B” y “C” fueron estadísticamente significativas. En la estimación de los costos de los alimentos, la ración A, produjo los mayores beneficios económicos. En cuanto a las respuestas de carácter fisiológico, la ración “A” produjo los mejores resultados, en la ración “B” murió un cerdo, en la ración “C” presentaron síntomas de desnutrición y falta de crecimiento. En las tres raciones se presentaron diarreas en intensidad y frecuencia similares. Se concluyó que, con maíz Opaco-2 se alimentan mejor los cerdos, hay mayor eficiencia de conversión y se obtienen mayores ganancias económicas en las condiciones que se efectuó el experimento.