Phosphine fumigation of cool grain

The biosecurity problem addressed was the need to understand and evaluate phosphine fumigation of cool grain (i.e. 20°C or less) as a means of controlling resistant biotypes of insect pests of stored grain which are major EPPs threatening the grain industry. The benefits of cooling and phosphine fumigation are that cooling preserves grain quality and reduces insect population growth, and phosphine kills insects and has a residue free status in all major markets. The research objectives were to: - conduct laboratory experiments on phosphine efficacy against resistant insects in cool grain, and determine times to population extinction. - conduct laboratory experiments on phosphine sorption in cool grain and quantify. - complete fumigation trials in three states (Queensland, WA and NSW) on cool grain stored insealed farm silos. - make recommendations for industry on effective phosphine fumigation of cool grain. Phosphine is used by growers and other stakeholders in the grain industry to meet domesticand international demands for insect-free grain. The project aim was to generate new information on the performance of phosphine fumigation of cool grain relevant to resistant biotypes. Effective control of resistant biotypes using phosphine to fumigate cool grain will benefit growers and other sectors of the grain industry, needing to fumigate grain in the cooler months of the year, or grain that has been cooled using aeration

The association of osteoarthritis risk factors with localized, regional and diffuse knee pain

SummaryObjectiveTo identify determinants of different patterns of knee pain with a focus on risk factors for knee osteoarthritis (OA).DesignThe Knee Pain Map is an interviewer-administered assessment that asks subjects to characterize their knee pain as localized, regional, or diffuse. A total of 2677 participants from the Osteoarthritis Initiative were studied.We used multinomial logistic regression to examine the relationship between risk factors for OA and knee pain patterns. We examined the bivariate and multivariate relationships of knee pain pattern with age, body mass index (BMI), sex, race, family history of total joint replacement, knee injury, knee surgery, and hand OA.ResultsWe compared 2462 knees with pain to 1805 knees without pain. In the bivariate analysis, age, sex, BMI, injury, surgery, and hand OA were associated with at least one pain pattern. In the multivariate model, all of these variables remained significantly associated with at least one pattern. When compared to knees without pain, higher BMI, injury, and surgery were associated with all patterns. BMI had its strongest association with diffuse pain. Older age was less likely to be associated with localized pain while female sex was associated with regional pain.ConclusionsWe have shown that specific OA risk factors are associated with different knee pain patterns. Better understanding of the relationship between OA risk factors and knee pain patterns may help to characterize the heterogeneous subsets of knee OA

Soils and Climate... Of the Texas A&M University Research and Extension Center at Stephenville in Relation to the Cross Timbers Land Resource Area.

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Can we avoid high coupling?

It is considered good software design practice to organize source code into modules and to favour within-module connections (cohesion) over between-module connections (coupling), leading to the oft-repeated maxim "low coupling/high cohesion". Prior research into network theory and its application to software systems has found evidence that many important properties in real software systems exhibit approximately scale-free structure, including coupling; researchers have claimed that such scale-free structures are ubiquitous. This implies that high coupling must be unavoidable, statistically speaking, apparently contradicting standard ideas about software structure. We present a model that leads to the simple predictions that approximately scale-free structures ought to arise both for between-module connectivity and overall connectivity, and not as the result of poor design or optimization shortcuts. These predictions are borne out by our large-scale empirical study. Hence we conclude that high coupling is not avoidable--and that this is in fact quite reasonable

Convergence of the critical attractor of dissipative maps: Log-periodic oscillations, fractality and nonextensivity

For a family of logistic-like maps, we investigate the rate of convergence to the critical attractor when an ensemble of initial conditions is uniformly spread over the entire phase space. We found that the phase space volume occupied by the ensemble W(t) depicts a power-law decay with log-periodic oscillations reflecting the multifractal character of the critical attractor. We explore the parametric dependence of the power-law exponent and the amplitude of the log-periodic oscillations with the attractor's fractal dimension governed by the inflexion of the map near its extremal point. Further, we investigate the temporal evolution of W(t) for the circle map whose critical attractor is dense. In this case, we found W(t) to exhibit a rich pattern with a slow logarithmic decay of the lower bounds. These results are discussed in the context of nonextensive Tsallis entropies.Comment: 8 pages and 8 fig

Self-Similar Scalar Field Collapse: Naked Singularities and Critical Behaviour

Homothetic scalar field collapse is considered in this article. By making a suitable choice of variables the equations are reduced to an autonomous system. Then using a combination of numerical and analytic techniques it is shown that there are two classes of solutions. The first consists of solutions with a non-singular origin in which the scalar field collapses and disperses again. There is a singularity at one point of these solutions, however it is not visible to observers at finite radius. The second class of solutions includes both black holes and naked singularities with a critical evolution (which is neither) interpolating between these two extremes. The properties of these solutions are discussed in detail. The paper also contains some speculation about the significance of self-similarity in recent numerical studies.Comment: 27 pages including 5 encapsulated postcript figures in separate compressed file, report NCL94-TP1

Semi-automatic enrichment of crowdsourced synonymy networks: the WISIGOTH system applied to Wiktionary

International audienceSemantic lexical resources are a mainstay of various Natural Language Processing applications. However, comprehensive and reliable resources are rare and not often freely available. Handcrafted resources are too costly for being a general solution while automatically-built resources need to be validated by experts or at least thoroughly evaluated. We propose in this paper a picture of the current situation with regard to lexical resources, their building and their evaluation. We give an in-depth description of Wiktionary, a freely available and collaboratively built multilingual dictionary. Wiktionary is presented here as a promising raw resource for NLP. We propose a semi-automatic approach based on random walks for enriching Wiktionary synonymy network that uses both endogenous and exogenous data. We take advantage of the wiki infrastructure to propose a validation "by crowds". Finally, we present an implementation called WISIGOTH, which supports our approach

From dynamical scaling to local scale-invariance: a tutorial

Dynamical scaling arises naturally in various many-body systems far from equilibrium. After a short historical overview, the elements of possible extensions of dynamical scaling to a local scale-invariance will be introduced. Schr\"odinger-invariance, the most simple example of local scale-invariance, will be introduced as a dynamical symmetry in the Edwards-Wilkinson universality class of interface growth. The Lie algebra construction, its representations and the Bargman superselection rules will be combined with non-equilibrium Janssen-de Dominicis field-theory to produce explicit predictions for responses and correlators, which can be compared to the results of explicit model studies. At the next level, the study of non-stationary states requires to go over, from Schr\"odinger-invariance, to ageing-invariance. The ageing algebra admits new representations, which acts as dynamical symmetries on more general equations, and imply that each non-equilibrium scaling operator is characterised by two distinct, independent scaling dimensions. Tests of ageing-invariance are described, in the Glauber-Ising and spherical models of a phase-ordering ferromagnet and the Arcetri model of interface growth.Comment: 1+ 23 pages, 2 figures, final for

Learning and Action Alliance framework to facilitate stakeholder collaboration and social learning in urban flood risk management

Flood and water management governance may be enhanced through partnership working, intra- and cross-organisational collaborations, and wide stakeholder participation. Nonetheless, barriers associated with ineffective communication, fragmented responsibilities and ‘siloed thinking’ restrict open dialogue and discussion. The Learning and Action Alliance (LAA) framework may help overcome these barriers by enabling effective engagement through social learning, and facilitating targeted actions needed to deliver innovative solutions to environmental problems. By increasing the adaptive capacity of decision-makers and participants, social learning through LAAs may lead to concerted action and sustained processes of behavioural change. In this paper, we evaluate the LAA framework as a catalyst for change that supports collaborative working and facilitates transition to more sustainable flood risk management. We use a case study in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, UK, to demonstrate how the LAA framework brought together disparate City stakeholders to co-produce new knowledge, negotiate innovative actions and, ultimately, work towards implementing a new vision for sustainable urban flood risk management. The shared vision of Newcastle as a ‘Blue-Green City’ that emerged is founded on a strong platform for social learning which increased organisations’ and individuals’ capacities to manage differences in perspectives and behaviours, reframe knowledge, and make collective decisions based on negotiation and conflict resolution. Broad recommendations based on lessons learned from the Newcastle LAA are presented to aid other cities and regions in establishing and running social learning platforms

A dynamic neural field approach to natural and efficient human-robot collaboration

A major challenge in modern robotics is the design of autonomous robots that are able to cooperate with people in their daily tasks in a human-like way. We address the challenge of natural human-robot interactions by using the theoretical framework of dynamic neural fields (DNFs) to develop processing architectures that are based on neuro-cognitive mechanisms supporting human joint action. By explaining the emergence of self-stabilized activity in neuronal populations, dynamic field theory provides a systematic way to endow a robot with crucial cognitive functions such as working memory, prediction and decision making . The DNF architecture for joint action is organized as a large scale network of reciprocally connected neuronal populations that encode in their firing patterns specific motor behaviors, action goals, contextual cues and shared task knowledge. Ultimately, it implements a context-dependent mapping from observed actions of the human onto adequate complementary behaviors that takes into account the inferred goal of the co-actor. We present results of flexible and fluent human-robot cooperation in a task in which the team has to assemble a toy object from its components.The present research was conducted in the context of the fp6-IST2 EU-IP Project JAST (proj. nr. 003747) and partly financed by the FCT grants POCI/V.5/A0119/2005 and CONC-REEQ/17/2001. We would like to thank Luis Louro, Emanuel Sousa, Flora Ferreira, Eliana Costa e Silva, Rui Silva and Toni Machado for their assistance during the robotic experiment