Suitability of two root-mining weevils for the biological control of scentless chamomile, Tripleurospermum perforatum, with special regard to potential non-target effects

The biology and host range of the two root-mining weevils Diplapion confluensKirby and Coryssomerus capucinus (Beck), two potential agents for the biological control of scentless chamomile Tripleurospermum perforatum (Mérat) Laínz, were studied in the field in southern Germany and eastern Austria, and in a common garden and under laboratory conditions in Delémont, Switzerland from 1993 to 1999. Both weevils were univoltine, and females started to lay eggs in early spring. Diplapion confluens had three and C. capucinus five instars. Larvae of both species were found in the field from mid-April until the end of July; later instars preferentially fed in the vascular cylinder of the shoot base, root crown or root. Although larvae of both species occupy the same temporal and spatial niche within their host plants, they occurred at all investigated field sites together, and showed a similar distribution within sites. No negative or positive interspecific association was detected. Host-specificity tests including no-choice, single-choice, and multiple-choice tests under confined conditions, as well as tests under field conditions with natural and augmented insect densities revealed that both herbivores were specific to plant species in the tribe Anthemideae. However, their development to mature larva or adult on several cultivated plants, as well as on one plant species native to North America, rendered them unsuitable for field release in North America. It was concluded that to investigate non-target effects reliably, host-specificity tests with biological control agents should be carried out under a variety of conditions, particularly with augmented insect densities, as are expected to occur naturally after releas

2011 IMSAloquium, Student Investigation Showcase

Inquiry Without Boundaries reflects our students’ infinite possibilities to explore their unique passions, develop new interests, and collaborate with experts around the globe.https://digitalcommons.imsa.edu/archives_sir/1003/thumbnail.jp

2010 IMSAloquium, Student Investigation Showcase

IMSA students engage in investigations in nanotechnology, particle physics, law, neonatal medicine, literature, transplantation biology, water purity, the educational achievement gap, neurobiology and memory, ethics, theatre, discrete mathematics, economics, and more.https://digitalcommons.imsa.edu/archives_sir/1002/thumbnail.jp

06. 2010 IMSAloquium Student Investigation Showcase

https://digitalcommons.imsa.edu/class_of_2010/1004/thumbnail.jp

City of Grace: Power, Performance, and Bodies in Colonial South Carolina

Colonial Charles Town, South Carolina, was widely reputed to be one of the most refined and genteel cities in the early British Empire. As its planters and merchants grew rich from the overseas rice trade, they sought to embody their new elite status by learning the courtly styles of European social dancing, using dances such as the minuet to cultivate a sense of physical "grace." This sense of grace allowed them to construct cosmopolitan identities and differentiate a social order that consolidated their power over the colony. Meanwhile, other social factions, such as the colony's large slave majority and the emerging class of middling tradesmen, sought their own share in controlling the vocabulary through which bodies might mean. "City of Grace: Power, Performance, and Bodies in Colonial South Carolina" puts colonial Charles Town's "bodies" into conversation in order to highlight how bodily behaviors such as dancing, posture, and comportment could organize power relations in an eighteenth-century British colony. This dissertation considers in turn the part that four groups played in the conflict over the values assigned to Charles Town's bodies: the wealthy elites who sought to use "grace" as a means to proclaim and ensure their status, the dancing masters who sought to capitalize on the elites' need for training, the African slaves whose syncretized performances of their own ethnically-specific dances troubled elite ideals of a graceful "white" body, and the emerging cohort of middling tradespeople and evangelical believers who critiqued the pretensions of elite manners. By using sources such as dancing manuals, paintings, and private letters, I put the colonial body back "on its feet," in order to understand the kinesthetic qualities of movement itself as a site for creating and transmitting meaning. Within this framework, I suggest that genteel grace was a strategy by which eighteenth-century elites sought to perform class status without betraying the artificiality of the performance

Paul in Rome: A Case Study on the Formation and Transmission of Traditions

Paul is arguably the second most important figure in the history of Christianity. Although much has been written about his stay and martyrdom in Rome, the actual circumstances of these events — unless new evidence is uncovered — must remain obscure. In this dissertation I analyze the matter from a fresh perspective by focusing on the formation and transmission of traditions about Paul’s final days. I begin by studying the Neronian persecution of the year 64 CE, i.e. the immediate historical context in which the earliest traditions were formed. In our records, a documentary gap of over thirty years follows the persecution. Yet we may deduce from chance remarks in texts written ca. 95-120 CE that oral traditions of Paul’s death were in circulation during that period. In chapter 2, I develop a quantitative framework for their contextualization. Research has shown that oral traditions, if not committed to writing, fade away after about eighty years. Only two documents written within that crucial time frame have survived: the book of Acts and the Martyrdom of Paul (MPl). These texts present discrepant versions of Paul’s death that I term respectively the “anti-Judaic” and “anti-Neronian” traditions. Despite Acts’ canonical status, it is Nero’s portrayal as Paul’s arch-enemy in MPl that would capture the imagination of Christians for centuries to come. The apostle’s martyr cult, which is still in existence, constitutes another important tradition. The evidence for its earliest phase is extremely scarce; hence, I attempt to reconstruct its development by analogy with the cult of the Argentinean folk saint Difunta Correa. The last chapter examines the enduring traditions of late antiquity, a period in which new stories emerged about places in Rome where Paul had been active and about people converted by him. These fictional stories were transmitted through the Middle Ages as if they were true and some of them have endured to our day. All in all, the dissertation explores two overarching themes about the social role of traditions: (1) some traditions, once set in motion, acquire a life of their own, and (2) the group that controls them acquires invaluable political influence.Doctor of Philosoph

People, fire, forest and water in Wungong: the landscape ecology of a West Australian water catchment

Bushfire is, in terms of human lives lost, property destroyed, and damage to natural systems, by far the most urgent environmental problem in Australia. This thesis tries to answer a number of questions about bushfire behaviour, history, effects, and management, in the Wungong Catchment of Western Australia. It does so by an overtly cross-disciplinary approach, involving a mixture of the three main streams of human knowledge, namely the humanities, natural science, and social science.First, I offer a literature review of several hundred books and papers drawn from the three main streams of knowledge mentioned above. The review includes some discussion of ‘bushfire epistemology’, a currently vague and neglected matter.The concept of ‘place’ is important to humans, so I then give a straightforward geographical description of Wungong Catchment, with some mention of the history of bushfire. To describe the vegetation, I use inductive statistics, and a method developed by me from the ideas of Delaunay (1929) and Dirichlet (1850). Given that there are hundreds of plant species within the catchment, I use a landscape approach, and only sketch the main tree species, and two iconic plants, the balga and the djiridji, both of which are important to the original custodians of the catchment, the Nyoongar people. There is discussion of other people’s research into the effect of bushfire on seed banks, and the flowering intervals of some plants of the jarrah forest.To see if Western Australia is anomalous, or fits into the worldwide pattern of humans using fire as a landscape management tool, I then examine some records of bushfire in other lands, including Africa, Madagascar, India, and Europe. The thesis then looks at the history of fire in the jarrah forest of Western Australia, based on observations by early European explorers and settlers from 1826 onward, the views of various foresters, and some opinions of current Nyoongar Elders.Using a mixture of natural science, applied mathematics, and archaeology, I give the results of cleaning the stems of those ancient plants called grasstrees, or balga (Xanthorrhoea spp.). These carry the marks of former bushfires, stretching back to 1750. They confirm historical reports of frequent fire in the jarrah forest, at 2-4 year intervals, and a recent decline in fire frequency. This contradicts the view, held by some, that European arrival increased the frequency of fire.As support for the balga findings, I present a simple mathematical model of self-organization in bushfire mosaics. It shows how lengthy bushfire exclusion can lead to disastrous situations, in which large areas of landscape become flammable and unstable. It shows how frequent, patchy burning can maintain a stable bushfire mosaic, with mild, beneficial fires. In the next chapter, I offer mathematical suggestions on how current unstable mosaics can be restabilized, by careful reintroduction of such burning.In dry, south-western Australia, water supply is an important topic, and a better understanding of the hydrological effects of bushfire may help with both bushfire and water management. I draw upon the natural science of forest hydrology, and the effects of fire in catchments. The evidence comes not only from Australia, but also from the United States, and South Africa.Turning to social science, I introduce Professor Peter Checkland’s ‘Soft Systems Methodology’, and suggest how it could be applied in resolving complicated conflict about bushfire management. I finish in legal style, with a summing up, and a verdict on the use of bushfire as a land management tool in Wungong Catchment, and possibly in other flammable landscapes

Emergent behavior in multiplicative critical processes and applications to economy

Tese de doutoramento, Física, Universidade de Lisboa, Faculdade de Ciências, 2014The main objective of this thesis is to develop a theoretical foundation for the study of economic phenomena based on methods of statistical physics applied to a system composed by set of multiplicative processes. An equivalent of equilibrium is established for such system and proved to behave statistically as in thermal equilibrium. An equivalent to canonical and microcanonical ensembles is realized and the relation with the theory of scale-free complex networks is made. The statistics of more than one century of US economy is studied in the light of these findings and an explanation for inflation and the resilience of wealth inequalities is found. The equivalent of Markov stochastic process on the set of multiplicative processes is established and the corresponding Fokker-Plank equation is derived. Moreover, a relation with self-organized criticality (SOC) is made. The study of market fluctuations is done using SOC models and yielding the same result as the Fokker-Planck approach. Based on these findings, we will argue that the distribution on the fluctuations of prices in organized market cannot follow Levy-stable distributions as stated by Mandelbrot.89 Finally, some applications to market and credit risk are made.O objectivo principal desta tese é o desenvolvimento de um novo equadramento teórico para o estudo dos fenómenos económicos baseado em métodos da física estatística aplicada a sistema composto por um agregado de processos multiplicativos. Num tal sistema, um estado equivalente ao estado de equil1íbrio emerge e demonstra-se que o seu comportamento estatístico é semelhante a um sistema em equilíbrio térmico. É realizado o estudo dos correspondentes ensembles canónico e microcanónico e feita a ligação com a teoria das redes complexas livres de escala. A estatística de mais de um século de economia dos EUA é estudada à luz destes desenvolvimentos é.dada uma explicação para os fenómenos da inflacção e da resiliência das desiguladades sociais. O equivalente ao processos estocásticos Markovianos no agregado de processos multiplicativos é establecido com o desenvolvimento da correspondente equação de Fokker-Planck e é feita a relacção com o fenómeno da criticalidade auto-organizada(SOC). O estudo das flutuações nos preços de mercado usando modelos SOC é feito levando ao mesmo resultado esperado pela abordagem equação de Fokker-Planck, o que nos vai permitir no futuro fazer a ligação com conjunto de ferramentas desenvolvidas pela matemática financeira. Baseado nestes resultados, argumentamos que as flutuações dos preços de mercado não podem seguir distribuições Lévy estáveis como propunha Mandelbrot89.Finalmente, algumas aplicações do enquadramento teórico são apresentadas.Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT

2012 IMSAloquium, Student Investigation Showcase

Through SIR and its partnerships, IMSA students engage in rich opportunities to pursue compelling questions of interest, conduct investigations, engage with extraordinary advisors, communicate findings, and ultimately impact society.https://digitalcommons.imsa.edu/archives_sir/1004/thumbnail.jp