Report of subgroup epidemiology and decision support systems

Developments Decision Support Models. In France, the DSS’s Mildi-LIS and MilPV merged to form a new DSS for advisors and potato growers: Mileos. Furthermore, DSS’s for organic production in France (Fredon) and Germany (Oko-SIMPHYT) were developed to help scheduling copper applications within the national and local regulations for application of copper. The EuroBlight platform saw the birth of an application which allows comparison of the performance of core algorithms for potato late blight DSS for a range of years and locations (weather). EuroBlight now also provides a list of DSS’s, contact persons etc. available in Europe

EuroBlight tool for the comparison of late blight sub-models - Status and perspectives

Partners from the EuroBlight network, with support from ENDURE, created a freely available platform that allows testing and comparing weather-based late blight models (www.euroblight.net). The platform contains extensive weather data: hourly data from many European Union countries, both north and south, between 2006 and 2009. It also contains seven different weather based late blight sub-models. Most recently, biological data for verification were uploaded from monitoring of field experiments and potato fields around Europe. The results from different models for disease risk or, infection risk give similar but by no means identical results. The tool is intended to improve the quality of existing sub-models and it will be used to analyse the weather based risk of late blight development in different regions of Europe and beyon

On the Influence of Stochastic Moments in the Solution of the Neutron Point Kinetics Equation

On the Influence of Stochastic Moments in the Solution of the Neutron Point Kinetics EquationComment: 12 pages, 2 figure

Identifying and dealing with the adaptability needs of an unwed pregnant teenager

This article describes a way of identifying and dealing with the adaptability needs of a pregnant teenager from a life design perspective. The participant was selected purposively from among a group of undergraduate students at an institution for unwed mothers. The intervention involved life design counselling and occurred over a period of three months. Data on participant adaptability needs to facilitate life design counselling were gathered using the Career Adapt-Abilities Inventory and the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, as well as qualitative techniques (including the Career Interest Profile, a genogram, a lifeline, a collage, idioms and role models). Following the intervention, the participant revealed heightened self-insight with regard to her personal experiences, a ‘changed’ experience in respect of certain aspects of her context and pro-active behaviour with regard to the challenges she was facing. The process of life design can have a positive effect on an unwed pregnant teenager.http://www.elliottfitzpatrick.com/jpa.htmlgv201

Epidemiology and integrated control of Potato Late Blight in Europe

Phytophthora infestans, the causal agent of late blight, is a major threat to potato production in northwestern Europe. Before 1980, the worldwide population of P. infestans outside Mexico appeared to be asexual and to consist of a single clonal lineage of A1 mating type characterized by a single genotype. It is widely believed that new strains migrated into Europe in 1976 and that this led to subsequent population changes including the introduction of the A2 mating type. The population characteristics of recently collected isolates in NW Europe show a diverse population including both mating types, sexual reproduction and oospores, although differences are observed between regions. Although it is difficult to find direct evidence that new strains are more aggressive, there are several indications from experiments and field epidemics that the aggressiveness of P. infestans has increased in the past 20 years. The relative importance of the different primary inoculum sources and specific measures for reducing their role, such as covering dumps with plastic and preventing seed tubers from becoming infected, is described for the different regions. In NW Europe, varieties with greater resistance tend not to be grown on a large scale. From the grower’s perspective, the savings in fungicide input that can be achieved with these varieties are not compensated by the higher (perceived) risk of blight. Fungicides play a crucial role in the integrated control of late blight. The spray strategies in NW Europe and a table of the specific attributes of the most important fungicides in Europe are presented. The development and use of decision support systems (DSSs) in NW Europe are described. In The Netherlands, it is estimated that almost 40% of potato growers use recommendations based on commercially available DSS. In the Nordic countries, a new DSS concept with a fixed 7-day spray interval and a variable dose rate is being tested. In the UK, commercially available DSSs are used for c. 8% of the area. The validity of Smith Periods for the new population of P. infestans in the UK is currently being evaluated

Relaxation in homogeneous and non-homogeneous polarized systems. A mesoscopic entropy approach

The dynamics of a degree of freedom associated to an axial vector in contact with a heat bath is decribed by means of a probability distribution function obeying a Fokker-Planck equation. The equation is derived by using mesoscopic non-equilibrium thermodynamics and permits a formulation of a dynamical theory for the axial degree of freedom (orientation, polarization) and its associated order parameter. The theory is used to describe dielectric relaxation in homogeneous and non-homogeneous systems in the presence of strong electric fields. In the homogeneous case, we obtain the dependence of the relaxation time on the external field as observed in experiments. In the non-homogeneous case, our model account for the two observed maxima of the dielectric loss giving a good quantitative description of experimental data at all frequencies, especially for systems with low molecular mass.Comment: 19 pages, 3 table

Arachidonic acid, arachidonic/eicosapentaenoic acid ratio, stearidonic acid and eicosanoids are involved in dietary-induced albinism in Senegal sole (Solea senegalensis)

Senegal sole larvae were fed live prey enriched with different amounts of arachidonic acid (ARA, 20:4n-6) and eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA, 20:5n-3) to re-evaluate the effect of these two fatty acids on flatfish pigmentation. Echium oil, a plant derived oil rich in gamma-linolenic acid (GLA, 18:3n-6) and stearidonic acid (SDA, 18:4n-3) was also used as a component of one of the enrichment emulsions. Although ARA content did not have any effect on growth there was a clear influence on pigmentation that correlated clearly with prostaglandin production. Inclusion of Echium oil, on the contrary, exerted a positive effect on pigmentation rate even though dietary ARA levels were as high as in the other emulsions. The relationships between dietary ARA levels and dietary ARA/EPA ratio, prostaglandin production and pigmentation are discussed

Lines, Circles, Planes and Spheres

Let $S$ be a set of $n$ points in $\mathbb{R}^3$, no three collinear and not all coplanar. If at most $n-k$ are coplanar and $n$ is sufficiently large, the total number of planes determined is at least $1 + k \binom{n-k}{2}-\binom{k}{2}(\frac{n-k}{2})$. For similar conditions and sufficiently large $n$, (inspired by the work of P. D. T. A. Elliott in \cite{Ell67}) we also show that the number of spheres determined by $n$ points is at least $1+\binom{n-1}{3}-t_3^{orchard}(n-1)$, and this bound is best possible under its hypothesis. (By $t_3^{orchard}(n)$, we are denoting the maximum number of three-point lines attainable by a configuration of $n$ points, no four collinear, in the plane, i.e., the classic Orchard Problem.) New lower bounds are also given for both lines and circles.Comment: 37 page