eChapters

Precision feeding aims to supply animals with appropriate nutrients according to their changing physiological state, growth, production and environment. Conventional feeding plans are often static and may lead to waste, increased costs and environmental losses. This chapter introduces an AI-enabled framework integrating animal data, feed composition, growth characteristics and external factors. Regression, ensemble learning and other machine-learning models predict feed intake and weight gain, while linear programming and metaheuristic optimization generate efficient allocation plans. A decision-support system provides recommendations in real time. The approach can improve feed conversion, nutrient utilization, profitability and sustainability while reducing overfeeding, resource wastage and the environmental impact of livestock production.

Predictive analytics estimates future health risks and outcomes, while prescriptive analytics recommends appropriate interventions and resource-allocation strategies. This chapter explains how statistical models, machine learning and healthcare data can support disease-risk assessment, prognosis and personalized treatment. Applications involving cardiovascular disease, diabetes, cancer, chronic-disease management and early-warning systems are examined. The integration of clinical, genomic, lifestyle and electronic health-record data is discussed alongside survival analysis, disease-progression modelling and treatment-response prediction. The chapter also addresses bias, fairness, transparency, privacy, regulation and interoperability. Future developments involving real-time analytics, IoT-enabled monitoring and precision medicine illustrate the transition toward proactive, preventive and data-driven healthcare.

In the realm of cell culture, the quality and composition of the growth media and reagents play a pivotal role in growth and sustaining cells in vitro. The preparation of these essential components requires precision, attention to detail, and adherence to the strict protocols to ensure optimal cellular growth, viability, and experimental reproducibility. This introduction serves as a foundational overview of the critical aspects involved in the preparation of media and reagents for cell culture experiments. Furthermore, the preparation of media and reagents for cell culture necessitates adherence to stringent quality control measures to ensure consistency and reproducibility across experiments. Validation of media batches, sterility testing, and periodic quality assessments are essential practic

Introduction

For agricultural applications as well as for research work, often we need to prepare solutions of different agrochemicals of varying strength, as per the requirements. Agrochemicals are used to help crop plants grow, produce, and protect them from biotic/abiotic stresses. Many of the agrochemicals (insecticides, herbicides, fungicides, rodenticides, molluscicides, nematicides, etc.) are used to protect the crop from insect pests and diseases. However, some of them (fertilizers and soil conditioners) are used to augment crop yield. While in the previous chapter (Chapter 8) we discussed about preparation of laboratory solutions, in this chapter we will briefly discuss about the preparation of different agrochemicals.

Agrochemical/agrichemical is a generalized term used for the chemicals applied in agriculture. In general, it also includes the feed-supplements used in f isheries and animal husbandry.

Agrochemicals

Fertilizers

Fertilizers are used to augment growth of crop plants and to mitigate nutrient deficiency in the soil. Fertilisers can be organic (containing natural substances, prepared through natural processes) and inorganic fertilisers (synthetic fertilizers, manufactured artificially using chemical processes using natural deposits, by chemical alterations).

Soil Conditioners

Soil conditioners include manure, livestock and leaf compost, peat that help making the soil in good condition. They are laid on the top soil and then mixed properly. They not only increase nutrient contents in the soil but also improve aeration and water holding capacity.

Introduction

Different types of culture media are used for culturing microbes and plant tissues. Preparing as well as sterilizing them properly following appropriate method with safety for the desired purpose are important parts of research work. In this chapter, we will discuss briefly about different types of media, their composition, preparation and sterilization in laboratory for microbial or plant tissue culture.

Culture Medium

Ingredients mixed to prepare solid, liquid or semi-solid substance to support the growth of microorganism or plant tissue in vitro (outside the body) is called culture medium. Frequently, it becomes important to grow microorganism or plant/animal tissue in vitro for any or all of the following purposes:

• To study characteristic features or properties of microorganisms.

• To identify the causal organism(s) of infection in a clinical sample, so that appropriate remedy can be determined.

• To culture/multiply microorganism or plant/animal tissues in vitro for research or commercial purposes.

• To prepare/produce biological molecules, vaccines, antigens, proteins, metabolites, etc. in vitro for research or industrial purposes.

The purpose of PCA 1960 is to protect animals from being subjected to unnecessary pain or suffering. This at consists of 6 chapters covering 41 sections. This has been amended in 1982. The sections under each chapter have been concised for easy understanding. This provides only baseline information about the act.

Primary cells are often preferred to established cell lines as they better represent the cells in vivo in terms of activity and functions. On the other hand, there is significant difference between original culture and present culture and even between cultures of the same cells in different laboratories. The rate of growth increases and there is change in chromosome numbers of lines over the time. The differences in phenotypes can cause problems in comparison and interpretation of results. The advantage of cell lines are ease handling, grow continuously, large yield and readily available. Primary cell cultures compared to established cell line are more fastidious in their growth requirements because many cell lines are derived from tumour tissue and demonstrate reduced growth factor requirements.

The cell is the unit of structure of all plants and animals. With increasing complexity of organization, masses of different cell types tend to become localized and to form recognizable patterns. An aggregation of cells forming a definite pattern is called tissue. A still higher level of organization, tissues aggregate to form organs. The animal cell is a highly organized structure. Plant cell is different from animal cell  by having a cellulose cell wall.  There are a number of well defined structures viz., nucleus, mitochondria, lysosomes, Golgi apparatus etc in the cell. Animal cells also have centrioles whereas plant cells contain plastids such as chloroplasts. The remainder of the cell is the cytoplasm.

Types of bones
Bones forming the animal skeleton can be classified into two types such as compact bone (cortical) and spongy bone (trabecular / cancellous). The compact bone is found in diaphysis or shafts of all the long bones of forelimbs, hindlimbs and outer surfaces of the flat bones of skull and ribs. In contrast, the spongy or trabecular bone is found in epiphysis or extremities around the bone marrow cavities of long bones and centre of flat bones and vertebrae. As the name implies, the compact bone is solid and hard due to the arrangement of special collagen in the bone (Type I) forming the bands or lamellae parallel to each other surrounded by a cement of proteoglycan ground substance deposited with minerals. Whereas, the spongy bone is made up of meshwork of bone strands running in all directions arranged as trabeculae adapted for weight bearing ability in heads and condyles of long bones.
Structure of bone tissue
The bone consists of bone cells, extracellular organic matrix made of collagen fibres and minerals. The cells of bone are osteoblasts, osteocytes and osteoclasts. Osteoblasts are low columnar to squamous cells responsible for active synthesis and mineralization of bone matrix found mainly in the periosteum and endosteum. Osteocytes are responsible for structure of the bone and calcium homeostasis found in the mature bone. It is located in the lacunae with extensive cytoplasmic processes running through canaliculi with in the bone matrix to make communication between adjacent osteocytes. Osteoclasts are multinucleated (15-30 nuclei per cell) larger cells responsible for bone resorption and remodelling. The secretion of these cells composed of acid and lysosomal enzymes responsible for erosion of bone tissue thereby formation of Howship’s lacunae (Frappier and Eurell, 2006).

Processing

On arrival in the laboratory, the specimens are processed immediately or refrigerated until processed. For inoculation into animal/cell culture/embryonated eggs (EE), swabs are shaken in fluid medium, faeces are dispersed in fluid medium and tissue specimens are homogenized in a high speed blender/pestle and mortar with the help of an abrasive like powdered glass or sand. Good quality hard sand should be properly washed in distilled water, treated with HCl, washed thoroughly, dried and sterilized before use. Generally the infective tissue is homogenized in a few ml of buffer usually having a pH of 7.2 to 7.3 to make about 10% tissue suspension. The suspension is centrifuged at about 1000g for 10-15 minutes to sediment the tissue debris and coarse materials.

Principle

Unlike bacteria, which can be cultivated on an artificial nutrient medium, viruses rely on a living host cell for replication. Eukaryotic or prokaryotic host cells that have been infected with viruses can be used to produce viruses. Subsequently, the medium and cells can be collected and used as a virus source. The production of viruses usually consists of a two-step procedure: f irst, the growth of host cells, and then the production phase. Understanding the complex relationship between the host cell and virus is essential. Various crucial factors have been recognised, such as the concentration of host cells during infection and the multiplicity of infection (MOI).

Materials required

Equipment

a) Biosafety cabinet level 2 (B2)

b) Carbon Dioxide (CO2 ) Incubator (set to 37°C with a 5% CO2 in air atmosphere)

c) Refrigerated centrifuge

d) Refrigerator

e) Inverted Microscope

f) Micro pipettes(1-10 μl, 10-200 μl, 100-1000 μl)

g) -86°C/-80°C deep freezer

h) Autoclave

i) Hot air oven

j) Filtration Assembly

Programming techniques are used the mathematical tools by the scientists, economists, and planners to specify the optimum combination of resources and enterprises in farms and firms, to identify the profit maximizing mixes of commodities to be produced, to specify the cost minimizing methods of production and transportation of goods, to identify the least cost locations from which raw materials can be purchased, to determine the locations of production at which a particular commodity should be produced and the consumption centres to which it should be shipped, and to specify the least cost ingredients of a feed or ration which must meet the specified nutritional requirements. Programming techniques can be either linear or non-linear. Although several non-linear programming techniques (like quadratic, integer, separable, dynamic programming, etc., which are very complex to work with) are available, we will largely deal with linear programming technique and to a certain extent will brief the theory of dynamic programming.

Productivity measures, such as rate of growth or reproduction have traditionally been used as indicators of biological functioning. If this is regarded as closely related to animal welfare, then high productivity should be evidence for a high state of welfare. In some cases, selection for production has pushed animals to the point where basic biological functioning and body maintenance is compromised. Therefore, Production measures are always misused.  Productivity of the group is a different measure than productivity of the individual. Such group overall is performing poorly but that productivity from a few outstanding individuals makes average productivity look high. Similarly specific individuals who are performing very poorly may be overlooked if average group performance is high. Although commercial organized dairy farms are very limited, but welfare issues are always there in both small and large farm. Some of the important issues in the organized farms are discussed below.

Performing animal means any animal which is used at, or for the purpose of any entertainment to which the public are admitted through sale of tickets. Thousands of wild animals are used worldwide to perform demeaning and unnatural tricks to entertain the public (circuses, side-shows, within zoos, and in advertising, film and television). 
There are number of welfare issues related to performing animals which involves animal fighting, shows, (among domestic animals) or entertaining wild animals.

Pig production is concentrated mainly in the North-eastern corner of the country and consists primarily of backyard and informal sector producers. Though pig population is only 2% of all the livestock animals, Pork production in India  represents 7% of the country’s total meat production. This value is highest compared to any other species of meat animals.

1 Broilers

The broilers are also called young meat chickens; generally attend a body weight of 2 kg at 35-38 days of age with a feed conversion of 1.5-1.8. This improvement in growth is equivalent to reduction of market age by one day per year. This fast growth is possible due to intense feeding good quality feed & growth promoters in less space. However, this type of rearing has challenges many welfare issues in broiler farming.

Sheep and goat rearing in India continues to be traditional even today. This sector is primarily in the hands of poor, landless or small and marginal farmers who raise their animals on natural vegetation, stubbles and supplement tree lopping. The productivity of sheep in India is relatively low with an average body weight gain of 20 to 50 g/day. The major causes for the low productivity are inadequate grazing resources, tropical heat and disease incidences and a lack of awareness about improved management practices.

Long used as beasts of burden, animals in India are still regarded today as little more than commodities rather than sentient beings who feel pain, stress, exhaustion and depression. Low literacy rates and the tendency to follow traditional practices and cultural traditions have left India surely lacking in the area of animal welfare. India holds the majority of the world’s working animal population. Animals that are forced to work in India include bullocks, horses, ponies, mules, donkeys, camels, elephants and dogs. Despite a proud heritage and a culture rooted in tolerance and compassion, animal welfare is largely ignored by Indian society, leading to extreme animal suffering. Our villages and to a great extent, the urban population still allow working animals to be mercilessly exploited in fields, on the streets, in brick kilns, on battlefields, on playgrounds and in timber areas – all in the name of agriculture, entertainment, security and any number of other “justified” pursuits.

India is known for its rich wildlife heritage. In fact, the country is considered one of the best among available mega-biodiversity areas in the world. The landscape and agro-climatic conditions of India make it a unique habitat for wild animals. The government of India has made attempts to conserve wildlife through different projects like Corbett tiger, Elephant projects etc. The wild life management in India is at present ‘preservation-oriented’. This is bound to remain so for a long time because of the significantly depleted status of our wild life population. Indian government in pursuit of conserving the heritage of wilderness has made committed efforts with several wildlife and Forest Acts to ensure protection by declaring the areas as protected under the spectrum of national park and wildlife sanctuaries. The eco-tourism and conservation awareness has created environmental consciousness among the people.