Risk management for insect pollinators in the United States: past practices, current developments, and future directions

Past practices: Over the last 140 years, most serious bee kill incidents in the United States were caused by the use of highly toxic insecticides with extended residual toxicity. Several universities conducted research on pollinator safety, and their research was used to develop guidance on protecting bees from pesticides and USEPA test methods for pollinators. Risk management activities conducted by state and federal agencies primarily focused on the acute toxicity of foliar applied insecticides to honey bees (Apis mellifera L.).Current developments: Risk management in the US is undergoing a significant transformation. Regulatory agencies are working on improving risk assessment and mitigation. Concerns include acute and chronic effects of pesticides on multiple species of bees via multiple routes of exposure. Guidance on risk assessment for pollinators has been significantly updated to address several of these concerns. State and federal agencies, universities, registrants, non-governmental organizations, beekeepers, growers, applicators and others are becoming actively involved in risk management activities.Future directions: Regulatory agencies in the US are increasing their involvement in activities to improve risk management for pollinators. Continued collaborative efforts between multiple stakeholders, including regulatory and non-regulatory approaches, should help improve our ability to protect pollinators from pesticides.Keywords: pesticide, pollinator, regulatory, risk managemen

A Burial Mound with Culture Layers from the Early Bronze Age near Torslev, Northern Jutland

A Burial Mound with Culture Layers from the Early Bronze Age near Torslev, Northern Jutlan

The City of Morro Bay, California Sign Ordinance Update and Tourism-Oriented Directional Sign Plan

ABSTRACT The City of Morro Bay, California – Sign Ordinance Update and Embarcadero District Tourism-Oriented Directional Sign Plan Erik Berg-Johansen This report includes a Draft Sign Ordinance, a Tourism-Oriented Directional Sign Plan, and a background report for each product. The final products were created thought a process involving extensive research, community outreach, and detailed discussions among City of Morro Bay staff. The Sign Ordinance It was discovered that signs are important to business owners and residents due to their effect on both economic and aesthetic issues in communities. This report documents research of scholarly articles, case studies, and community outreach efforts. This report includes survey results and analysis that reveal the opinions of Morro Bay business owners, and also their ideas in regards to the sign ordinance update. According to many business owners, the current sign ordinance is convoluted, virtually unenforced, and unfairly applied. It was the goal of this project to hear what the community desires, and then apply this knowledge to a proposal that residents and business owners in Morro Bay approve of. The proposed sign ordinance aims to be fair and user-friendly, while ultimately enhancing community character and aesthetic quality in the future. Tourism-Oriented Directional Sign Plan The Tourism-Oriented Directional Sign Plan was created to promote tourism in the City of Morro Bay and negate the need for A-frame sign use in the Embarcadero District. The plan includes three alternatives that are intended to spur discussion among the Planning Commission when the proposal is presented. The background report associated with this plan is intended to provide the reasoning behind the proposals, and give readers of the plan background knowledge on directional signs in general. Similar to the sign ordinance background report, this report documents research of scholarly articles, case studies, and community outreach efforts

An Early Neolithic Grave at Bjørnsholm, North Jutland

An Early Neolithic Grave at Bjørnsholm, North Jutlan

Expanding the Coding Potential of Vertebrate Mitochondrial Genomes: Lesson Learned from the Atlantic Cod

Vertebrate mitochondrial genomes are highly conserved in structure, gene content, and function. Most sequenced mitochondrial genomes represent bony fishes, and that of the Atlantic cod (Gadus morhua) is the best characterized among the fishes. In addition to the well-characterized 37 canonical gene products encoded by vertebrate mitochondrial genomes, new classes of gene products representing peptides and noncoding RNAs have been discovered. The Atlantic cod encodes at least two peptides (MOTS-c and humanin (HN)), two long noncoding RNAs (lncCR-L and lncCR-H), and a number of small RNAs. Here, we review recent research in the Atlantic cod focusing on putative mitochondrial-derived peptides, the mitochondrial transcriptome, and noncoding RNAs

Erasmus Syllogisms in Cognition and Facilitation of Organizational Innovation

By use of an empirical example from a planned organizational change program within an international company, we examine how specific characteristics of objects (forms) used to represent ideas –  in interaction with “hard-wired” aspects of human cognition –  may contribute to explain outcomes of translation processes and the extent of alteration of the design of the future organization.  We argue that a type of syllogism judged as invalid by criteria of formal logics – denoted as Erasmus syllogism – could be rather common in reasoning, and that these logically invalid interferences may contribute to significant innovations. Situations where syllogisms are not recognized as invalid by the involved actors seem to be more prevalent when e.g. the actors are unfamiliar with the semantic content (as e.g. abstract symbols). We argue that understanding of semiotic conditions for occurrence of formal logically invalid syllogism, as well as of the neglect of their invalidity by involved actors in ongoing discourses and reasoning, may contribute to a better understanding of how ideas and objects are translated, within organizations as well as in general. The discussion is a contribution to better understanding of why and how ideas are altered as part of ongoing sense making processes within organizations