INFLUENCE OF APPLE CULTIVAR, TREE PHENOLOGY, AND LEAF QUALITY ON THE DEVELOPMENT AND MORTALITY OF CHORISTONEURA ROSACEANA (LEPIDOPTERA: TORTRICIDAE)

The obliquebanded leafroller, Choristoneura rosaceana (Harris), is a polyphagous insect that is occasionally a serious pest of apple trees. To determine how well adapted it is to this host plant, we studied its nutritional ecology by measuring the development and mortality of larvae and pupae reared on different sets of leaves. We investigated the influence of 3 apple cultivars, 2 time periods (June, July-August), and several leaf types, including those with different ages and different branch positions, on these processes. Larvae and pupae developed more rapidly with lower mortality on younger leaves than on older ones. When larvae were fed leaves collected from the same cultivar and branch position at different times during the season, developmental rates were faster and survival rates were higher earlier in the season. Development and survival were similar on leaves of all cultivar

Management of Potato Leafhopper, Empoasca fabae (Homoptera: Cicadellidae), on Alfalfa with the Aid of Systems Analysis

Efficient management of the potato leafhopper (Homoptera: Cicadellidae) on alfalfa requires a procedure for dealing with the complexities of the ecological and economic system. We developed a mathematical model to represent this agroecosystem and demonstrated how systems analysis can help to make management more efficient and less risky. Our management policies were based on two criteria: annual income calculated from the nutrient yields of three harvests, and level of carbohydrate reserve in the taproots at the end of the season, We determined the dynamic economic thresholds for controlling the leafhoppers as immigrants on each of the cuttings of alfalfa. During development of the thresholds we tested a variety of control tactics, including timing of harvests, We found that, for adult immigrants on the second crop, the economic thresholds increase exponentially as stem height increases, Tactics associated with these thresholds included insecticide treatments and early cutting of the second harvest. The results indicated that temperature pattern has an important effect on the economic thresholds and risk. Evaluation of the model and its results through sensitivity analysis, validation, and a comparison with current recommendations showed that the model can be a useful tool in research and managemen

Cortical Circuitry Associated With Reflex Cardiovascular Control in Humans: Does the Cortical Autonomic Network Speak or Listen During Cardiovascular Arousal

Beginning with clinical evidence of fatal cardiac arrhythmias in response to severe stress, in epileptic patients, and following stroke, the role of the cerebral cortex in autonomic control of the cardiovascular system has gained both academic and clinical interest. Studies in anesthetized rodents have exposed the role of several forebrain regions involved in cardiovascular control. The introduction of functional neuroimaging techniques has enabled investigations into the conscious human brain to illuminate the temporal and spatial activation patterns of cortical regions that are involved with cardiovascular control through the autonomic nervous system. This symposia report emphasizes the research performed by the authors to understand the functional organization of the human forebrain in cardiovascular control during physical stressors of baroreceptor unloading and handgrip exercise. The studies have exposed important associations between activation patterns of the insula cortex, dorsal anterior cingulate, and the medial prefrontal cortex and cardiovascular adjustments to physical stressors. Furthermore, these studies provide functional anatomic evidence that sensory signals arising from baroreceptors and skeletal muscle are represented within the insula cortex and the medial prefrontal cortex, in addition to the sensory cortex. Thus, the cortical pathways subserving reflex cardiovascular control integrate viscerosensory inputs with outgoing traffic that modulates the autonomic nervous system. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Analysis of ``Gauge Modes'' in Linearized Relativity

By writing the complete set of $3 + 1$ (ADM) equations for linearized waves, we are able to demonstrate the properties of the initial data and of the evolution of a wave problem set by Alcubierre and Schutz. We show that the gauge modes and constraint error modes arise in a straightforward way in the analysis, and are of a form which will be controlled in any well specified convergent computational discretization of the differential equations.Comment: 11pages LaTe

Moving black holes via singularity excision

We present a singularity excision algorithm appropriate for numerical simulations of black holes moving throughout the computational domain. The method is an extension of the excision procedure previously used to obtain stable simulations of single, non-moving black holes. The excision procedure also shares elements used in recent work to study the dynamics of a scalarfield in the background of a single, boosted black hole. The robustness of our excision method is tested with single black-hole evolutions using a coordinate system in which the coordinate location of the black hole, and thus the excision boundary, moves throughout the computational domain.Comment: 9 pages and 11 figure

High-throughput SNP discovery through deep resequencing of a reduced representation library to anchor and orient scaffolds in the soybean whole genome sequence

Background: The Soybean Consensus Map 4.0 facilitated the anchoring of 95.6% of the soybean whole genome sequence developed by the Joint Genome Institute, Department of Energy, but its marker density was only sufficient to properly orient 66% of the sequence scaffolds. The discovery and genetic mapping of more single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) markers were needed to anchor and orient the remaining genome sequence. To that end, next generation sequencing and high-throughput genotyping were combined to obtain a much higher resolution genetic map that could be used to anchor and orient most of the remaining sequence and to help validate the integrity of the existing scaffold builds. Results: A total of 7,108 to 25,047 predicted SNPs were discovered using a reduced representation library that was subsequently sequenced by the Illumina sequence-by-synthesis method on the clonal single molecule array platform. Using multiple SNP prediction methods, the validation rate of these SNPs ranged from 79% to 92.5%. A high resolution genetic map using 444 recombinant inbred lines was created with 1,790 SNP markers. Of the 1,790 mapped SNP markers, 1,240 markers had been selectively chosen to target existing un-anchored or un-oriented sequence scaffolds, thereby increasing the amount of anchored sequence to 97%. Conclusion: We have demonstrated how next generation sequencing was combined with high-throughput SNP detection assays to quickly discover large numbers of SNPs. Those SNPs were then used to create a high resolution genetic map that assisted in the assembly of scaffolds from the 8× whole genome shotgun sequences into pseudomolecules corresponding to chromosomes of the organism

Seismic isolation of Advanced LIGO: Review of strategy, instrumentation and performance

The new generation of gravitational waves detectors require unprecedented levels of isolation from seismic noise. This article reviews the seismic isolation strategy and instrumentation developed for the Advanced LIGO observatories. It summarizes over a decade of research on active inertial isolation and shows the performance recently achieved at the Advanced LIGO observatories. The paper emphasizes the scientific and technical challenges of this endeavor and how they have been addressed. An overview of the isolation strategy is given. It combines multiple layers of passive and active inertial isolation to provide suitable rejection of seismic noise at all frequencies. A detailed presentation of the three active platforms that have been developed is given. They are the hydraulic pre-isolator, the single-stage internal isolator and the two-stage internal isolator. The architecture, instrumentation, control scheme and isolation results are presented for each of the three systems. Results show that the seismic isolation sub-system meets Advanced LIGO's stringent requirements and robustly supports the operation of the two detectors.Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave ObservatoryNational Science Foundation (U.S.