117 research outputs found
Corn Silage Yield and Quality, and Soil Health Metrics After Fall Cover Crop Grazing
Integrated crop-livestock systems can potentially produce more product per unit of land with minimal impacts on soil health and cash crop quality. In the Upper Midwest there is an opportunity to graze fall cover crops (CC) after winter wheat in a corn-wheat rotation. In East Lansing, Michigan, two CC treatments: 1) a pure brassica mixture (PURE), and 2) a complex mixture containing legumes, warm and cool season grasses, and brassicas (MIX) were planted after wheat, and grazed by lambs in the fall seasons of 2019 to 2021. The following year, soil health, corn yield and quality were measured from plots corresponding to a non-grazed control and plots grazed in October, November, and December. There was no significant effect on spring soil bulk density and penetration resistance (PR) regardless of CC mixture or the timing of grazing, although PR was numerically higher in the grazed plots. Corn crude protein, acid detergent fiber, and neutral detergent fiber were not different across graze date or CC treatments (P \u3e 0.05), although corn contained more starch when grown after MIX grazed in November (P=0.02). The difference in starch was possibly an artifact of spatial variability across the site. Corn dry matter yield was lower in the non-grazed control (15.35 Mg ha-1) when compared to the grazing treatments in October (17.37 Mg ha-1) and December (17.19 Mg ha-1) (P=0.03). Grazing cover crops in the fall may improve corn yield the following year without causing soil compaction or changing corn quality
The detection of malingering amnesia: an approach involving multiple strategies in a mock crime
The nature of amnesia in the context of crime has been the subject of a prolonged debate. It is not uncommon that after committing a violent crime, the offender either does not have any memory of the event or recalls it with some gaps in its recollection. A number of studies have been conducted in order to differentiate between simulated and genuine amnesia. The recognition of probable malingering requires several inferential methods. For instance, it typically involves the defendant\u2019s medical records, self-reports, the observed behavior, and the results of a comprehensive neuropsychological examination. In addition, a variety of procedures that may detect very specific malingered amnesia in crime have been developed. In this paper, we investigated the efficacy of three techniques, facial thermography, kinematic analysis, and symptom validity testing in detecting malingering of amnesia in crime. Participants were randomly assigned to two different experimental conditions: a group was instructed to simulate amnesia after a mock homicide, and a second group was simply asked to behave honestly after committing the mock homicide. The outcomes show that kinematic analysis and symptom validity testing achieve significant accuracy in detecting feigned amnesia, while thermal imaging does not provide converging evidence. Results are encouraging and may provide a first step towards the application of these procedures in a multimethod approach on crime-specific cases of amnesia
Parasitism of Adult Pentatomidae by Tachinidae in Soybean in the North Central Region of the United StatesPheylan
Stink bugs (Hemiptera: Pentatomidae) are agricultural pests of increasing significance in the North Central Region of the United States, posing a threat to major crops such as soybean. Biological control can reduce the need for insecticides to manage these pests, but the parasitism of stink bugs byTachinidae (Diptera) is poorly characterized in this region. The objective of this study was to evaluate the rate of parasitism of stink bugs by tachinids over 2 yr from nine states across the North Central Region. Parasitism was assessed by quantifying tachinid eggs on the integument of stink bug adults. Parasitism rates (i.e., percent of adult stink bugs with tachinid eggs) were compared across stink bug species, states, stink bug sex, and years.The mean percent parasitism of stink bugs by tachinids was about 6% across the region and did not differ among stink bug species. Mean percent parasitism was significantly higher in Missouri than in northern and western states. In addition, male stink bugs had significantly higher mean percent parasitism than females. Stink bug species commonly found in soybean in the region showed some parasitism and are therefore potentially vulnerable to oviposition by these parasitoids.This is the first study to characterize the level of parasitism of stink bugs by tachinids across the North Central Region
Probability of Cost-Effective Management of Soybean Aphid (Hemiptera: Aphididae) in North America
Mood and the Market: Can Press Reports of Investors’ Mood Predict Stock Prices?
We examined whether press reports on the collective mood of investors can predict changes in stock prices. We collected data on the use of emotion words in newspaper reports on traders’ affect, coded these emotion words according to their location on an affective circumplex in terms of pleasantness and activation level, and created indices of collective mood for each trading day. Then, by using time series analyses, we examined whether these mood indices, depicting investors’ emotion on a given trading day, could predict the next day’s opening price of the stock market. The strongest findings showed that activated pleasant mood predicted increases in NASDAQ prices, while activated unpleasant mood predicted decreases in NASDAQ prices. We conclude that both valence and activation levels of collective mood are important in predicting trend continuation in stock prices
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