Effect of Temperature on Demographic Parameters of the Hawthorn Red Midget Moth, Phyllonorycter corylifoliella, on Apple

The hawthorn red midget moth, Phyllonorycter corylifoliella (Hübner) (Lepidoptera: Gracillariidae), is one of the most serious pests of apple and pear orchards in Iran, however little is known about its biology and relationship with environmental factors. The reproduction and population growth parameters of P. corylifoliella were examined at six constant temperatures (15, 20, 25, 30, 33 and 35° C) on apple var. golden delicious. At 35° C, P. corylifoliella failed to develop beyond the first instar. The lowest (13%) and highest (64%) mortality rates of immature stages occurred at 25 and 33° C, respectively. The life expectancies (ex) decreased with increasing of age and the life expectancies of one-day-old larvae were estimated to be 38.68, 33.34, 35.11, 26.28 and 16.11 days at 15, 20, 25, 30 and 33° C, respectively. The highest intrinsic rate of natural increase (rm), net reproductive rate (Ro) and finite rate of increase (λ) at 25° C were 0.100 ± 0.003, 47.66 ± 5.47 and 1.11 ± 0.00, respectively. The mean generation time (T) decreased with increasing temperatures from 86.86 ± 0.53 days at 15° C to 33.48 ± 0.16 days at 30° C. Doubling time (DT) varied significantly with temperature and the shortest doubling time was obtained at 25° C. The results of this study provide direction for future research on evaluating the performance of P. corylifoliella and the efficiency of its natural enemies in apple orchards under variable environmental conditions

Resilience Assessment: A Performance‐Based Importance Measure

The resilience of a system can be considered as a function of its reliability and recoverability. Hence, for effective resilience management, the reliability and recoverability of all components which build up the system need to be identified. After that, their importance should be identified using an appropriate model for future resource allocation. The critical infrastructures are under dynamic stress due to operational conditions. Such stress can significantly affect the recoverability and reliability of a system‘s components, the system configuration, and consequently, the importance of components. Hence, their effect on the developed importance measure needs to be identified and then quantified appropriately. The dynamic operational condition can be modeled using the risk factors. However, in most of the available importance measures, the effect of risk factors has not been addressed properly. In this paper, a reliability importance measure has been used to determine the critical components considering the effect of risk factors. The application of the model has been shown through a case study

The Effect of Risk Factors on the Resilience of Industrial Equipmen

Recently, to evaluate the response of systems against disruptive events, the application of the resilience concept has been increased. Resilience depicts the system’s ability to return to its normal operational status after the disruption. Various studies in the field of engineering and non-engineering systems have only considered systems’ performance indicators to estimate resilience. Therefore, the impact of operating and environmental factors (risk factors) has been neglected. In this paper, the influence of the risk factors (rock type), as well as the system’s performance indicators, are considered in the resilience estimation of the excavator system of Gol-E-Gohar Iron mine

A Study Regarding Confronting the Pain of Existential Loneliness in Irvin Yalom’s Ideas and the Mystical Pain of Separation in Molavi’s View

Irvin Yalom believes that loneliness is an existential boundary and pain which is inseparable from a human being. He comes into this world alone, leaves it alone and he alone is responsible for creating his own character; not only does he have no helper in this world, but there is no refuge for him either and he has been thrown into this world involuntarily. Jalal al-Din Muhammad Balkhi (Molavi) also discusses the pain of loneliness, but it is not Yalomi’s type of bitter loneliness; rather, it is in the form of loneliness from one’s origin; his anguish is not from not having a refuge, rather it is the separation from God and estrangement in the world that has brought him anguish and pain. In Yalom’s view, the pain of loneliness has no solution; it is an existential issue that man must accept and he can only soothe it. But Molavi considers being with God as elimination of the pain of separation and loneliness. By presenting this research, the writes hopes to decrease the weight of loneliness through a meaningful approach. For this purpose, the article will first point out the aspects of the pain of loneliness and ultimately, will present solutions for release from this pain

Lepidopter Parasitoidea

Parasitoids have a long history of pest management, specially for control of economical important lepidopteran pests, such as Noctuidae, Tortricidae, and Pyralidae. The two major parasitoids super families Trichogrammatidae and Braconidae in relation to biocontrol of lepidopteron pests are important. In this chapter: (i) the mass production of the moth egg parasitoid, Trichogramma brassicae Bezdenko, 1968 (Hymenoptera, Trichogrammatidae), which has been known to occur in Iran and attack many important hosts Lepidoptera, such as the chickpea pod borer, Helicoverpa armigera (Hübner, 1808), Carob moth, Ectomyelois ceratoniae (Zeller, 1839), and the codling moth, Cydia pomonella (Linnaeus, 1758) in the region and (ii) biology and parasitism behavior of Bracon (Glabrobracon) variator Nees, 1811, as larval ectoparasitoid of Cydia johanssoni Aarvik and Karsholt, 1993 (Lepidoptera: Tortricidae), a seed feeder of Anagyris foetida Linnaeus, 1758 (Fabaceae) at forest habitats in Western Iran, are discussed. Host development was arrested immediately upon parasitism. The dissected capsules show each adult female lay three eggs close to host larvae inside seed case. Video films and photographs of the behavior as research documents were recorded. Both aestivation and hibernation of the parasitoid occur in the parasitization rate on C. johanssoni averaged 18.77% ± 3.80, during second generation of the parasitoid wasp, B. (G.) variator

Using Improved DDAO Algorithm to Solve Economic Emission Load Dispatch Problem in the Presence of Wind Farms

In power systems planning, economic load dispatch considering the uncertainty of renewable energy sources is one of the most important challenges that researchers have been concerned about. Complex operational constraints, non-convex cost functions of power generation, and some uncertainties make it difficult to solve this problem through conventional optimization techniques. In this article, an improved dynamic differential annealed optimization (IDDAO) meta-heuristic algorithm, which is an improved version of the dynamic differential annealed optimization (DDAO) algorithm has been introduced. This algorithm has been used to solve the economic emission load dispatch (EELD) problem in power systems that include wind farms, and the performance of the proposed technique was evaluated in the IEEE 40-unit and 6-unit standard test systems. The results obtained from numerical simulations demonstrate the profound accuracy and convergence speed of the proposed IDDAO algorithm compared to conventional optimization algorithms including, PSO, GSA, and DDAO, while independent runs indicate the robustness and stability of the proposed algorithm

LIFE HISTORY AND DEMOGRAPHIC PARAMETERS OF APHIS FABAE (HEMIPTERA: APHIDIDAE) AND ITS PARASITOID, APHIDIUS MATRICARIAE (HYMENOPTERA: APHIDIIDAE) ON FOUR SUGAR BEET CULTIVARS

The black bean aphid, Aphis fabae Scopoli (Hemiptera: Aphididae) is one of the important pests of sugar beet in Iran. Aphidius matricariae Haliday (Hymenoptera: Braconidae, Aphidiinae) is a key parasitoid used in various integrated pest management (IPM) programs worldwide. This study was conducted to determine the effects of four cultivars of sugar beet (IC, PP8, Rasoul and Shirin) on biology and demographic parameters of A. fabae and A. matricariae as a step toward biological control of black bean aphid. Experiments were performed in a growth chamber with 25±1ºC, 70±5 % RH and a photoperiod of 16L : 8D hours. Survival rates (lx) of A. fabae and A. matricariae were highest on Rasoul and PP8 cultivars, respectively. The life expectancy of 1-day-old adults of A. fabae and A. matricariae was estimated to be 4.25, 4.3, 4.15, 4.5 and 3.8, 3.8, 3.45, 3.65 days on IC, PP8, Rasoul and Shirin cultivars, respectively. There were significant differences between rm values of A. fabae and A. matricariae on PP8, Shirin and Rasoul cultivars. There were no significant differences between net reproductive rates (Ro) of A. fabae on different cultivars of sugar beet, while there were clear differences in Ro values of A. matricariae on various cultivars. The highest value of Ro for A. matricariae was obtained on Shirin cultivar. The parasitoid performed better on Shirin than other cultivars, while the aphid performance was poorly affected by cultivars. Therefore, we suggest the use of Shirin cultivar to maximize the natural biological control of A. fabae by A. matricariae

3-(2-Chloro­phen­yl)-4-(4-nitro­phen­yl)-1H-1,2,4-triazole-5(4H)-thione

In the crystal structure of the title triazole compound, C14H9ClN4O2S, mol­ecules are connected into centrosymmetric dimers by pairs of N—H⋯S hydrogen bonds. In addition, there are weak C—H⋯N hydrogen bonds stabilizing the crystal structure. The dihedral angles between the triazole ring and the two benzene rings are 73.0 (4) and 72.9 (4)°

Evaluation of a wide rim phosphorylated calix[4]arene's properties as a sensory molecule in an Er(III)-PVC membrane sensor

This study concerns the evaluation of ionophoric properties of a functionalized calix 10 −7 -1 × 10 −3 M of erbium ions, with a limit of detection of 3.8 × 10 −8 M. Its potential response was independent of pH variation in the relatively wide range 4.5-6.5. The dynamic response time of the electrode to achieve a steady potential was found to be about 7 s. The selectivity of the sensor towards erbium ions with respect to several mono-, di-, tri-, and tetravalent metal ions was examined. The prepared sensor can be used for 3 months without considerable divergences in potential response. The performance of the sensor was examined as an indicator electrode for complexometric titration of erbium solutions by EDTA

Nonlinear large deformation dynamic analysis of electroactive polymer actuators

Electroactive polymers have attracted considerable attention in recent years due to their sensing and actuating properties which make them a material of choice for a wide range of applications including sensors, biomimetic robots, and biomedical micro devices. This paper presents an effective modeling strategy for nonlinear large deformation (small strains and moderate rotations) dynamic analysis of polymer actuators. Considering that the complicated electro-chemo-mechanical dynamics of these actuators is a drawback for their application in functional devices, establishing a mathematical model which can effectively predict the actuator\u27s dynamic behavior can be of paramount importance. To effectively predict the actuator\u27s dynamic behavior, a comprehensive mathematical model is proposed correlating the input voltage and the output bending displacement of polymer actuators. The proposed model, which is based on the rigid finite element (RFE) method, consists of two parts, namely electrical and mechanical models. The former is comprised of a ladder network of discrete resistive-capacitive components similar to the network used to model transmission lines, while the latter describes the actuator as a system of rigid links connected by spring-damping elements (sdes). Both electrical and mechanical components are validated through experimental results