Insecticides for Soil Insects

It\u27s easy to overlook damage done by soil insect pests, and control recommendations haven\u27t always been too satisfactory. This situation is changing; insecticides are proving effective againt these parts

It Pays to Spray For Corn Borers

Research test plots and results obtained by farmers who left check strips show that spraying with insecticides is a good way to kill corn borers

Fighting the Corn Rootworm

This spring, soon after corn planting, millions of tiny unseen worms will begin burrowing through the soil of Iowa cornfields

Insect and Rodent Prospects for 1956

What are the prospects for a pest epidemic on our field crops in 1956? We can\u27t predict pest outbreaks for sure- a lot depends on the weather next spring. But here are some possibilities and things to watch

Qigong for the Management of Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus

Type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2MD) is a complex, chronic, metabolic disease with hyperglycemia arising from insulin resistance, progressive pancreatic beta cell failure, insufficient insulin secretion and increased hepatic glucose output. In the Chinese medicine theory, T2DM is often referred to as a form of Xiao Ke (消渴) or “wasting‐thirst disorder.” Genetic, dietary, lifestyle and environmental factors play a role in T2DM. People with a family history of diabetes or who are obese are at the highest risk of developing the disease. T2DM is often associated with hypertension, dyslipidemia and atherosclerosis and if not managed can lead to complications including cerebrovascular accident, peripheral vascular disease and nephropathy. T2DM can be well managed with biomedical and Chinese medicine treatment approaches. Lifestyle changes including appropriate diet and exercise are paramount in managing T2DM. Regular Qigong practice can be a beneficial part of one\u27s exercise routine for T2DM self‐care. Qigong exercise has shown promising results in clinical experience and in randomized, controlled pilot studies for affecting aspects of T2DM including positive associations between participation in Qigong and blood glucose, triglycerides, total cholesterol, weight, BMI and insulin resistance. This chapter looks at how traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) views diabetes as well as new understandings of how Qigong can support the management of T2DM

Host galaxy identification for supernova surveys

Host galaxy identification is a crucial step for modern supernova (SN) surveys such as the Dark Energy Survey (DES) and the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST), which will discover SNe by the thousands. Spectroscopic resources are limited, so in the absence of real-time SN spectra these surveys must rely on host galaxy spectra to obtain accurate redshifts for the Hubble diagram and to improve photometric classification of SNe. In addition, SN luminosities are known to correlate with host-galaxy properties. Therefore, reliable identification of host galaxies is essential for cosmology and SN science. We simulate SN events and their locations within their host galaxies to develop and test methods for matching SNe to their hosts. We use both real and simulated galaxy catalog data from the Advanced Camera for Surveys General Catalog and MICECATv2.0, respectively. We also incorporate "hostless" SNe residing in undetected faint hosts into our analysis, with an assumed hostless rate of 5%. Our fully automated algorithm is run on catalog data and matches SNe to their hosts with 91% accuracy. We find that including a machine learning component, run after the initial matching algorithm, improves the accuracy (purity) of the matching to 97% with a 2% cost in efficiency (true positive rate). Although the exact results are dependent on the details of the survey and the galaxy catalogs used, the method of identifying host galaxies we outline here can be applied to any transient survey