A systematic review and network meta-analysis (NMA) were conducted to address the question, ‘What is the efficacy of litter management strategies to reduce morbidity, mortality, condemnation at slaughter, or total antibiotic use in broilers?’ Eligible studies were clinical trials published in English evaluating the efficacy of litter management in broilers on morbidity, condemnations at slaughter, mortality, or total antibiotic use. Multiple databases and two conference proceedings were searched for relevant literature. After relevance screening and data extraction, there were 50 trials evaluating litter type, 22 trials evaluating litter additives, 10 trials comparing fresh to re-used litter, and six trials evaluating floor type. NMAs were conducted for mortality (61 trials) and for the presence or absence of footpad lesions (15 trials). There were no differences in mortality among the litter types, floor types, or additives. For footpad lesions, peat moss appeared beneficial compared to straw, based on a small number of comparisons. In a pairwise meta-analysis, there was no association between fresh versus used litter on the risk of mortality, although there was considerable heterogeneity among studies (I2 = 66%). There was poor reporting of key design features in many studies, and analyses rarely accounted for non-independence of observations within flocks.

The goal of this study was to examine the effect of the linguistic distance between a first language (L1) and a second language (L2) on neural activity during second language relative to first language processing. We compared different L1–L2 pairs in which different linguistic features characterize linguistic distance. Chinese and Korean native speakers were instructed to perform sentence comprehension tasks in two L2s (English and Japanese) and their respective L1s. Activation while understanding English sentences relative to understanding sentences in L1 was greater for the Korean group than the Chinese group in the left inferior frontal gyrus, bilateral posterior superior temporal gyri, and right cerebellum. Activation while understanding Japanese sentences relative to understanding sentences in L1 was greater for the Chinese group than the Korean group in the anterior portion of the left superior temporal gyrus. The results demonstrated that the location of the L2–L1 processing-induced cortical activation varies between different L1–L2 pairs.

We observed the H2O maser at the nucleus of the Seyfert 2, IC 2560, using the VLBA and the phased VLA. The systemic, red-shifted and blue-shifted maser features and a continuum component have been detected. We propose a maser disk in the nuclear region. The systemic and red-shifted features are emitted from a nearly edge-on disk with the position angle of PA = −47°. The thickness is 2H < 0.025 pc. The binding mass is 3.5 × 106M⊙. Assuming the Keplerian rotation, the radii at the disk are r = 0.087-0.335 pc and the rotation velocities are 213–418 km s−1. The mean density within the inner radius is 1.3 × 109M⊙ pc−3, suggesting a massive black hole at the center. A continuum component is considered as a jet ejected from the nucleus, with an angle of 70° from the disk. The blue-shifted maser feature is located on the continuum component, being interpreted to be a ‘jet maser’.

We report on optical and near-infrared (NIR) follow-up spectroscopy of faint far-infrared (FIR) sources found in our deep FIR survey by Kawara et al.