Farmers’ Preferences for the Design of Fruit Fly Pest-Free Area (FF-PFA) in Kerio-Valley: A Latent-Class Approach

Fruit flies are a very important group of pests for many countries due to their potential to cause damage in fruits thus restricting access to international markets for plant products that can host fruit flies. The high probability of introduction of fruit flies associated with a wide range of hosts’ results in restrictions imposed by many importing countries to accept fruits from areas in which these pests are established. For these reasons, establishment and maintenance of pest free areas for fruit flies (FF-PFAs) is receiving considerable attention in the current policy debates. Kenya Plant Health Inspectorate Service (KEPHIS) has taken the lead to establish and help maintain FF-PFAs in the main mango production zones of Elgeyo-Marakwet County of Kenya. However, as the ultimate success of the programme depends on farmers’ judgment and acceptance, acquiring information about potential demand is of paramount importance for policy advice. In this paper, we assess the demand in terms of consumer preferences and willingness to pay for FF-PFAs using a stated choice experiment method (SCE). A novel feature of this paper is that it focuses on how the FF-PFA should be designed and presented. Results from the latent class model (LCM) reveal that farmers prefer FF-PFAs featuring training, market information with sales contract, large benefits to other mango value-chain actors and when they are recommended by officials. Keywords: FF-PFA, SCE, LCM, Farmers’ preference, Mang

Anomalous dimension of non-singlet quark currents at O(1/Nf^2) in QCD

We compute the O(1/Nf^2) corrections to the flavour non-singlet quark bilinear currents in QCD in arbitrary spacetime dimensions. Hence, the anomalous dimension of the QED current $\bar{\psi} \sigma^{\mu\nu} \psi$ is deduced at four loops in the MSbar scheme up to one unknown parameter.Comment: 8 latex page

Three loop MSbar tensor current anomalous dimension in QCD

The anomalous dimensions of the general flavour non-singlet quark bilinear currents \psi \gamma^{[\mu_1} ... \gamma^{\mu_n]} \psi are computed at three loops in quantum chromodynamics in the minimal subtraction scheme. The dimension of the tensor current emerges for the case n = 2 and the anomalous dimension for the general flavour singlet current is also discussed.Comment: 8 latex page

A Hybrid Artificial Bee Colony Algorithm for Graph 3-Coloring

The Artificial Bee Colony (ABC) is the name of an optimization algorithm that was inspired by the intelligent behavior of a honey bee swarm. It is widely recognized as a quick, reliable, and efficient methods for solving optimization problems. This paper proposes a hybrid ABC (HABC) algorithm for graph 3-coloring, which is a well-known discrete optimization problem. The results of HABC are compared with results of the well-known graph coloring algorithms of today, i.e. the Tabucol and Hybrid Evolutionary algorithm (HEA) and results of the traditional evolutionary algorithm with SAW method (EA-SAW). Extensive experimentations has shown that the HABC matched the competitive results of the best graph coloring algorithms, and did better than the traditional heuristics EA-SAW when solving equi-partite, flat, and random generated medium-sized graphs

Advanced microscopy analysis of the micro-nanoscale architecture of human menisci

The complex inhomogeneous architecture of the human meniscal tissue at the micro and nano scale in the absence of artefacts introduced by sample treatments has not yet been fully revealed. The knowledge of the internal structure organization is essential to understand the mechanical functionality of the meniscus and its relationship with the tissue’s complex structure. In this work, we investigated human meniscal tissue structure using up-to-date non-invasive imaging techniques, based on multiphoton fluorescence and quantitative second harmonic generation microscopy complemented with Environmental Scanning Electron Microscopy measurements. Observations on 50 meniscal samples extracted from 6 human menisci (3 lateral and 3 medial) revealed fundamental features of structural morphology and allowed us to quantitatively describe the 3D organisation of elastin and collagen fibres bundles. 3D regular waves of collagen bundles are arranged in “honeycomb-like” cells that are comprised of pores surrounded by the collagen and elastin network at the micro-scale. This type of arrangement propagates from macro to the nanoscale

Study of the flying ability of Rhynchophorus ferrugineus (Coleoptera: Dryophthoridae) adults using a computer-monitored flight mill

The red palm weevil, Rhynchophorus ferrugineus (Olivier) (Coleoptera: Dryophthoridae), native to tropical Asian regions, has become a serious threat to palm trees all over the world. Knowledge of its flight potential is vital to improving the preventive and curative measures currently used to manage this pest. As R. ferrugineus is a quarantine pest, it is difficult to study its flight potential in the field. A computer-monitored flight mill was adapted to analyse the flying ability of R. ferrugineus through the study of different flight parameters (number of flights, total distance flown, longest single flight, flight duration, and average and maximum speed) and the influence of the weevil s sex, age, and body size on these flight parameters. Despite significant differences in the adult body size (body weight and length) of males and females, the sex of R. ferrugineus adults did not have an influence on their flight potential. Neither adult body size nor age was found to affect the weevil s flying abilities, although there was a significantly higher percentage of individuals flying that were 8 23 days old than 1 7 days old. Compared to the longest single flight, 54% of the insects were classified as short-distance flyers (covering <100m) and 36 and 10% were classified as medium- (100 5000m) and long-distance (> 5000m), respectively. The results are compared with similar studies on different insect species under laboratory and field conditions.The authors wish to thank researcher Daniel Sauvard (INRA - Unite de Zoologie Forestiere - Orleans) for helping in the knowledge of the flight mill technique. For the help in the design and construction of the flight mill device, we thank Anna Comes and Inaki Moratal. For the reviews on the previous versions of this manuscript, we thank Ferran Garcia-Mari (Universitat Politecnica de Valencia - Instituto Agroforestal del Mediterraneo) and Apostolos Pekas (Biobest Belgium N. V.). This research was partially funded by the Foundation of the Comunidad Valencia for the Agroalimentary Research, Agroalimed, within the project named: Study of the flight behaviour and chromatic attraction in Rhynchophorus ferrugineus adults (Coleoptera: Curculionidae).Ávalos Masó, JA.; Martí Campoy, A.; Soto Tornero, MT. (2014). Study of the flying ability of Rhynchophorus ferrugineus (Coleoptera: Dryophthoridae) adults using a computer-monitored flight mill. Bulletin of Entomological Research. 104(4):462-467. doi:10.1017/S0007485314000121S4624671044OEPP/EPPO (2008). Rhynchophorus ferrugineus. Data sheets on quarantine pests. Available online at http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1365-2338.2008.01195.x/pdf.Heath, R. R., Coffelt, J. A., Sonnet, P. E., Proshold, F. 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