Insect pathogenic fungi in biological control: status and future challenges

In Europe, insect pathogenic fungi have in decades played a significant role in biological control of insects. With respect to the different strategies of biological control and with respects to the different genera of insect pathogenic fungi, the success and potential vary, however. Classical biological control: no strong indication of potential. Inundation and inoculation biological control: success stories with the genera Metarhizium, Beauveria, Isaria/Paecilomyces and Lecanicillium (previously Verticillium). However, the genotypes employed seem to include a narrow spectrum of the many potentially useful genotypes. Conservation biological control: Pandora and Entomophthora have a strong potential, but also Beauveria has a potential to be explored further. The main bottleneck for further exploitation of insect pathogenic fungi in biological control is the limited knowledge of host pathogen interaction at the fungal genotype level

Offshoring in Europe—Evidence of a Two-Way Street from Denmark

Based on a large Danish survey of companies in tradable goods and services sectors, this working paper presents the results of offshoring and its impact on jobs, adding new perspectives to the globalization debate. Globalization entails a cross-border flow of jobs, but contrary to the mainstream media portrayal of globalization, it is not a one-way but a two-way street. In 2002–05 more jobs were created as a result of offshoring of activities into eastern Denmark from companies outside Denmark (i.e., inshored to Denmark) than were eliminated due to offshoring from companies in the Danish region. Overall, the employment effects of both offshoring and inshoring were found to be limited to less than 1 percent of all jobs either lost to offshoring or gained via inshoring. For Denmark, the worries in purely numerical terms regarding the employment effects of globalization seem overly alarmist. However, the trends revealed in the study do pose challenges for low-skilled workers—the group most negatively affected—and for highly skilled specialists, who face pressure to constantly upgrade their skills. Policy implications can be drawn in view of our results to ensure that labor markets are able to meet the demands of globalizing firms.Labor Market, Offshoring, Offshore Outsourcing, High- and Low-Skilled Workers, Skill Bias, Denmark, Flexicurity

Hvem gavner hvem i marken?

I det dyrkede land ønsker vi en høj produktion af sunde fødevarer samtidig med, at økosystemets biologiske mangfoldighed er så høj som muligt. Naturlige fjender er med til at holde skadedyrene nede uden brug af pesticider. Men når nogle svampearter angriber de nyttige insekter som rovinsekterne og bierne, kan det indirekte hæmme fødevareproduktionen

Den nordiske Industri-, Landbrugs- og Kunstudstilling i København i 1888 – en introduktion til arkivet og dets anvendelsesmuligheder

Med Den nordiske Industri-, Landbrugs- og Kunstudstilling i København i 1888 kulminerede den danske udstillingstradition i en storstilet styrkedemonstration af nordisk erhvervsliv med tusindvis af udstillere, titusindvis af udstillingsnumre og hundredtusindvis af udstillingsgæster. Samlet set udgør udstillingen et tværsnit over det nordiske og i særdeleshed det danske erhvervsliv anno 1888, og udstillingens arkiv lægger følgelig op til såvel brede undersøgelser inden for flere typer af historieforskning som detaljerede studier af enkelte udstillende virksomheder, foreninger og privatpersoner, som kan følges gennem de forskellige arkivserier. Denne artikel er tænkt dels som en bred introduktion til udstillingens mangfoldighed af udstillere og udstillingsgenstande, dels som et hjælpemiddel for arkivbrugere i anvendelsen af kildematerialet fra udstillingsarkivet. På baggrund af en fremstilling af diversiteten af de mangfoldige udstillerskarer og -emner gennemgår artiklen de forskellige arkivserier i en undersøgelse af, hvad de kan bidrage med af oplysninger om de enkelte udstillere. Det er således håbet, at artiklen vil finde anvendelse både som en introduktion til udstillingen, dens opbygning og udstillerklientel og som indgang til det kvantitativt og kvalitativt righoldige kildemateriale.---The Nordic Exhibition of Industry, Agriculture, and Art of 1888 – an introduction to the archive and its applicationsThe Danish tradition of industrial exhibitions peaked with the Nordic Exhibition of Industry, Agriculture, and Art of 1888 in Copenhagen, which was a display of the capability of Nordic business conditions. The exhibition gathered thousands of exhibitors, tens of thousands of exhibits and hundreds of thousands of visitors. It forms a sectional view of Nordic, in particular Danish, business conditions in the year 1888. The exhibition archives set the scene for broad investigations of various types of historical research as well as detailed studies of selected businesses, associations and private individuals, which and who can be traced through the different types of record series. The purpose of this article is to provide a broad introduction to the diversity of the exhibitors and exhibits and to render assistance to the use of the source material from the exhibition archives. The presentation of the diverse exhibitors and exhibits is followed by an examination of which information the different record series can provide about the exhibitors. The intent is therefore that this article will be used as an introduction to the exhibition, its bureaucratic structure and its exhibitors as well as an introduction to the quantitatively and qualitatively rich source material

Development of a Procedure for Estimating the Parameters of Mechanistic Emission Source Models from Chamber Testing Data

In order to evaluate the impacts of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) emissions from building materials on the indoor pollution load and indoor air quality beyond the standard chamber test conditions and test period, mechanistic emission source models have been developed in the past. However, very limited data are available for the required model parameters including the initial concentration (Cm0), in-material diffusion coefficient (Dm), partition coefficient (Kma), and convective mass transfer coefficient (km). In this study, a procedure is developed for estimating the model parameters by using VOC emission data from standard small chamber tests. Multivariate regression analysis on the experimental data are used to determine the parameters. The Least Square and Global search algorithm with multi-starting points are used to achieve a good agreement in the normalized VOC concentrations between the model prediction and experimental data. To verify the procedure and estimate its uncertainty, simulated chamber test data are first generated by superposition of different levels of “experimental uncertainties” on the theoretical curve of the analytical solution to a mechanistic model, and then the procedure is used to estimate the model parameters from these data and determine how well the estimates converged to the original parameter values used for the data generation. Results indicated that the mean value of the estimated model parameters Cm0 was within -0.04%+/-2.47% of the true values if the “experimental uncertainty” were within +/-10% (a typical uncertainty present in small-scale chamber testing). The procedure was further demonstrated by applying it to estimate the model parameters from real chamber test data. Wide applications of the procedure will result in a database of mechanistic source model parameters for assessing the impact of VOC emissions on indoor pollution load, and for evaluating the effectiveness of various IAQ design and control strategies

Optimizations of Pt/SiC and W/Si multilayers for the Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array

The Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array, NuSTAR, is a NASA funded Small Explorer Mission, SMEX, scheduled for launch in mid 2011. The spacecraft will fly two co-aligned conical approximation Wolter-I optics with a focal length of 10 meters. The mirrors will be deposited with Pt/SiC and W/Si multilayers to provide a broad band reflectivity from 6 keV up to 78.4 keV. To optimize the mirror coating we use a Figure of Merit procedure developed for gazing incidence optics, which averages the effective area over the energy range, and combines an energy weighting function with an angular weighting function to control the shape of the desired effective area. The NuSTAR multilayers are depth graded with a power-law, d_i = a/(b + i)^c, and we optimize over the total number of bi-layers, N, c, and the maximum bi-layer thickness, d_(max). The result is a 10 mirror group design optimized for a flat even energy response both on and off-axis

Synthesis and characterization of monomeric manganese(II) and cobalt(III) complexes of the hexadentate amine ligand N,N,N',N'-tetrakis(2-pyridylmethyl)ethane-1,2-diamine, C26H28N6 (tpen)

The syntheses and characterization of complexes of manganese(II) and cobalt(III) with the potentially hexadentate ligand N,N,N',N'-tetrakis(2-pyridylmethyl)ethane-1,2-diamine, C26H28N6 (tpen), are described. The monomeric manganese(II) complex [Mn(C26H28N6)(H2O)](ClO4)2 (1) crystallizes in the monoclinic space group C2/c with 4 formula units in a cell of dimensions a = 15.080(1) Å, b = 10.101(1) Å, c = 19.426(2) Å and b = 94.6l(l)°. The structure has been refined to a final value of the conventional R-factor of 0.0401 based on 2586 observed independent reflections. The geometry at the manganese center is seven-coordinate, and is best described as a capped trigonal pyramid with the water molecule forming the cap and the six nitrogen atoms of the tpen ligand occupying the pyramidal sites. The manganese atom and the water molecule lie on a crystallographic twofold axis. The related cobalt(III) complex, [Co(C26H28N6)] (C1O4)3 (4) crystallizes in the monoclinic space group P21/n with 4 formula units in a cell of dimensions a = 9.829(2) Å, b = 18.364(4) Å, c = 18.128(4) Å and b = 93.64(3)°. The structure has been refined to a final value of the conventional R-factor of 0.0526 based on 3574 observed independent reflections. The complex is approximately octahedral, the coordination being provided by the six nitrogen atoms of the tpen ligand. The EPR spectrum of 1 diluted into the corresponding Cd(II) host has been simulated with the parameters g = 2.00, A = 0.0080 cm-1, D = 0.116 cm-1, and E = 0.0013 cm-1. The small value of E/D is consistent with the observed symmetry of the complex. KEY WORDS: Monomeric manganese(II) complex, Monomeric cobalt(III) complex, Hexadentate ligand, N,N,N',N'-tetrakis(2-pyridylmethyl)ethane-1,2-diamine  Bull. Chem. Soc. Ethiop. 2004, 18(1), 17-28.