Populations of Pear Thrips, \u3ci\u3eTaeniothrips Inconsequens\u3c/i\u3e (Thysanoptera: Thripidae) in Sugar Maple Stands in Vermont: 1989-2005

Development of an effective IPM strategy for pear thrips, Taeniothrips inconsequens (Uzel) (Thysanoptera: Thripidae), a pest of sugar maple, Acer saccharum Marshall, demands an understanding of their population fluctuations over time. Pear thrips populations were monitored using a standardized soil sampling method every fall from 1989 – 2005 in 14 counties of Vermont (U.S.). Data from individual sites were combined into north, central and south regions. High numbers of thrips emerged from soil sampled in 1989, 1990, 1993 and 2001, particularly in the north region (Washington, Lamoille, and Franklin counties). The central and south regions had lower pear thrips populations over all years. These results provide, for the first time, fundamental knowledge of pear thrips populations across a wide geographical area of Vermont and will assist in the design of suitable control strategies for pear thrips in the future

Breaking Down the Chain: A Guide to the Soft Drink Industry

Provides an overview of the soft drink industry's earnings, structure, markets, and determinants of demand; major players; supply chain; marketing strategies; and policy and legislative actions in response to the sugar-sweetened beverage tax

Chronic exposure to neonicotinoids increases neuronal vulnerability to mitochondrial dysfunction in the bumblebee (Bombus terrestris)

This work was funded jointly by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the Natural Environment Research Council, the Scottish Government, and The Wellcome Trust, under the Insect Pollinators Initiative (United Kingdom) Grant BB/ 1000313/1 (to C.N.C.).The global decline in the abundance and diversity of insect pollinators could result from habitat loss, disease, and pesticide exposure. The contribution of the neonicotinoid insecticides (e.g., clothianidin and imidacloprid) to this decline is controversial, and key to understanding their risk is whether the astonishingly low levels found in the nectar and pollen of plants is sufficient to deliver neuroactive levels to their site of action: the bee brain. Here we show that bumblebees (Bombusterrestris audax) fed field levels [10 nM, 2.1 ppb (w/w)] of neonicotinoid accumulate between 4 and 10 nM in their brains within 3 days. Acute (minutes) exposure of cultured neurons to 10 nM clothianidin, but not imidacloprid, causes a nicotinic acetylcholine receptor-dependent rapid mitochondrial depolarization. However, a chronic (2 days) exposure to 1 nM imidacloprid leads to a receptor-dependent increased sensitivity to a normally innocuous level of acetylcholine, which now also causes rapid mitochondrial depolarization in neurons. Finally, colonies exposed to this level of imidacloprid show deficits in colony growth and nest condition compared with untreated colonies. These findings provide a mechanistic explanation for the poor navigation and foraging observed in neonicotinoid treated bumblebee colonies.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

Buckling of a beam extruded into highly viscous fluid

Inspired by microscopic paramecies which use trichocyst extrusion to propel themselves away from thermal aggressions, we propose a macroscopic experiment to study the stability of a slender beam extruded in a highly viscous fluid. Piano wires were extruded axially at constant speed in a tank filled with corn syrup. The force necessary to extrude the wire was measured to increase linearly at first until the compressive viscous force causes the wire to buckle. A numerical model, coupling a lengthening elastica formulation with resistive force theory, predicts a similar behaviour. The model is used to study the dynamics at large time when the beam is highly deformed. It is found that at large time, a large deformation regime exists in which the force necessary to extrude the beam at constant speed becomes constant and length-independent. With a proper dimensional analysis, the beam can be shown to buckle at a critical length based on the extrusion speed, the bending rigidity and the dynamic viscosity of the fluid. Hypothesising that the trichocysts of paramercies must be sized to maximise their thrust per unit volume as well as avoid buckling instabilities, we predict that their bending rigidity must be about $3\times 10^{-9}~\mathrm{N\cdot \mu m^2}$. The verification of this prediction is left for future work.Comment: Accepted for publication in PRE on November 18 2014, 7 pages, 6 figure

A survey of parallel execution strategies for transitive closure and logic programs

An important feature of database technology of the nineties is the use of parallelism for speeding up the execution of complex queries. This technology is being tested in several experimental database architectures and a few commercial systems for conventional select-project-join queries. In particular, hash-based fragmentation is used to distribute data to disks under the control of different processors in order to perform selections and joins in parallel. With the development of new query languages, and in particular with the definition of transitive closure queries and of more general logic programming queries, the new dimension of recursion has been added to query processing. Recursive queries are complex; at the same time, their regular structure is particularly suited for parallel execution, and parallelism may give a high efficiency gain. We survey the approaches to parallel execution of recursive queries that have been presented in the recent literature. We observe that research on parallel execution of recursive queries is separated into two distinct subareas, one focused on the transitive closure of Relational Algebra expressions, the other one focused on optimization of more general Datalog queries. Though the subareas seem radically different because of the approach and formalism used, they have many common features. This is not surprising, because most typical Datalog queries can be solved by means of the transitive closure of simple algebraic expressions. We first analyze the relationship between the transitive closure of expressions in Relational Algebra and Datalog programs. We then review sequential methods for evaluating transitive closure, distinguishing iterative and direct methods. We address the parallelization of these methods, by discussing various forms of parallelization. Data fragmentation plays an important role in obtaining parallel execution; we describe hash-based and semantic fragmentation. Finally, we consider Datalog queries, and present general methods for parallel rule execution; we recognize the similarities between these methods and the methods reviewed previously, when the former are applied to linear Datalog queries. We also provide a quantitative analysis that shows the impact of the initial data distribution on the performance of methods

High-fructose corn-syrup-sweetened beverage intake increases 5-hour breast milk fructose concentrations in lactating women

This study determined the effects of consuming a high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS)-sweetened beverage on breast milk fructose, glucose, and lactose concentrations in lactating women. At six weeks postpartum, lactating mothers (n = 41) were randomized to a crossover study to consume a commercially available HFCS-sweetened beverage or artificially sweetened control beverage. At each session, mothers pumped a complete breast milk expression every hour for six consecutive hours. The baseline fasting concentrations of breast milk fructose, glucose, and lactose were 5.0 ± 1.3 µg/mL, 0.6 ± 0.3 mg/mL, and 6.8 ± 1.6 g/dL, respectively. The changes over time in breast milk sugars were significant only for fructose (treatment × time, p < 0.01). Post hoc comparisons showed the HFCS-sweetened beverage vs. control beverage increased breast milk fructose at 120 min (8.8 ± 2.1 vs. 5.3 ± 1.9 µg/mL), 180 min (9.4 ± 1.9 vs. 5.2 ± 2.2 µg/mL), 240 min (7.8 ± 1.7 vs. 5.1 ± 1.9 µg/mL), and 300 min (6.9 ± 1.4 vs. 4.9 ± 1.9 µg/mL) (all p < 0.05). The mean incremental area under the curve for breast milk fructose was also different between treatments (14.7 ± 1.2 vs. −2.60 ± 1.2 µg/mL × 360 min, p < 0.01). There was no treatment × time interaction for breast milk glucose or lactose. Our data suggest that the consumption of an HFCS-sweetened beverage increased breast milk fructose concentrations, which remained elevated up to five hours post-consumption

Saleability of Anti-malarials in Private Drug Shops in Muheza, Tanzania: A Baseline study in an era of assumed Artemisinin Ccombination Therapy (ACT).

Artemether-lumefantrine (ALu) replaced sulphadoxine-pymimethamine (SP) as the official first-line anti-malarial in Tanzania in November 2006. So far, artemisinin combination therapy (ACT) is contra-indicated during pregnancy by the national malaria treatment guidelines, and pregnant women depend on SP for Intermittent Preventive Treatment (IPTp) during pregnancy. SP is still being dispensed by private drug stores, but it is unknown to which extent. If significant, it may undermine its official use for IPTp through induction of resistance. The main study objective was to perform a baseline study of the private market for anti-malarials in Muheza town, an area with widespread anti-malarial drug resistance, prior to the implementation of a provider training and accreditation programme that will allow accredited drug shops to sell subsidized ALu. All drug shops selling prescription-only anti-malarials, in Muheza town, Tanga Region voluntarily participated from July to December 2009. Qualitative in-depth interviews were conducted with owners or shopkeepers on saleability of anti-malarials, and structured questionnaires provided quantitative data on drugs sales volume. All surveyed drug shops illicitly sold SP and quinine (QN), and legally amodiaquine (AQ). Calculated monthly sale was 4,041 doses, in a town with a population of 15,000 people. Local brands of SP accounted for 74% of sales volume, compared to AQ (13%), QN (11%) and ACT (2%). In community practice, the saleability of ACT was negligible. SP was best-selling, and use was not reserved for IPTp, as stipulated in the national anti-malarial policy. It is a major reason for concern that such drug-pressure in the community equals de facto intermittent presumptive treatment. In an area where SP drug resistance remains high, unregulated SP dispensing to people other than pregnant women runs the risk of eventually jeopardizing the effectiveness of the IPTp strategy. Further studies are recommended to find out barriers for ACT utilization and preference for self-medication and to train private drug dispensers