A comparison of the toxicity of the botanical insecticide, Sirinol and two chemical insecticides, Mospilan and Consult, on two natural enemies of the pistachio psyllid, coccinellid predator (Oenopia conglobata)...

Full Title: A comparison of the toxicity of the botanical insecticide, Sirinol and two chemical insecticides, Mospilan and Consult, on two natural enemies of the pistachio psyllid, coccinellid predator (Oenopia conglobata) and parasitic wasp (Psyllaephagus pistaciae)The common pistachio psyllid, Agonoscena pistaciae, is one of the most important pests of pistachio tree. This pest has many natural enemies and some of the important ones are the coccinellid predator (CP) (Oenopia conglobata) and the parasitic wasp (PW) (Psyllaephagus pistaciae). In this research, the effect of three concentrations of Sirinol on the first and fourth instar larvae and the adult of O. conglobata and on the pupae and adult of P. pistaciae was tested and the toxicity of this insecticide was compared with that of two chemical insecticides, Consult and Mospilan. Topical bioassay was carried out in laboratory condition; however, to investigate the resistance stage of the parasitic wasp, a completely randomized experimental design was used in the field condition in 2010 and 2011. The results of these experiments show that the chemical pesticide, Mospilan, caused more mortality of all the stages of the two previously mentioned natural enemies than did Sirinol. The results show that Mospilan had a slightly harmful, moderately harmful, moderately harmful, and slightly harmful effect on the adult of the PW and the adult and the first and fourth instar larvae of the CP, respectively and Consult had a harmless, slightly harmful, slightly harmful, and moderately harmful effect on the named stages of the PW and CP respectively. On the other hand, Sirinol had a slightly harmful effect on the adult of PW, but a harmless effect on the other stages; consequently, it falls into the category of International Organisation for Biological Control (IOBC). The field experiments conducted in 2010 and 2011 showed that 15.79% Mospilan, 13.8% Consult, and 6.49% Sirinol caused the mortality of the larvae and pupae of the PW. This research showed that Sirinol which caused very low mortality of the natural enemies of pistachio psyllid can be used in Integrated Pest Management (IPM) program in pistachio orchards.Keywords: Oenopia conglobata, Psyllaephagus pistaciae, insecticide, Sirinol, Consult, Mospila

Bank Default Risk Propagation along Supply Chains: Evidence from the U.K.

How does banks’ default risk affect the probability of default of non-financial businesses? The literature has addressed this question by focusing on the direct effects on the banks’ corporate customers – demonstrating the existence of bank-induced incre

Thermodynamic evaluation of a combined-cycle power plant with MSF and MED desalination

Rising water scarcity and abundant brine water resources, especially in desert locations, call for the wider adaptation of desalination techniques. Furthermore, the interdependency of water and energy has gained more attention in recent years and it is expected to play an important role in the near future. The present study deals with both topics in that it presents the coupling of a power plant with desalination units for the simultaneous generation of energy and water in Iran. The power plant used in the analysis is the Qom combined-cycle power plant. The plant is integrated, first, with a multi-stage flash (MSF) unit and, then, with a multi-effect desalination (MED) unit, and it is evaluated using energy and exergy analyses. We find that the generated power of the integrated systems is decreased by 9.7% and 8.5% with the MED and the MSF units, respectively. Lastly, the freshwater production in the plant using MED is significantly higher than in the plant with MSF (1,000 versus 1,521 kg/s).Fontina Petrakopoulou would like to thank the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid and the Ministerio de Economía, Industria y Competitividad (Ramón y Cajal Programme RYC-2016-20971) for their financial support of this study

Parallelisation strategies for agent based simulation of immune systems

Background In recent years, the study of immune response behaviour using bottom up approach, Agent Based Modeling (ABM), has attracted considerable efforts. The ABM approach is a very common technique in the biological domain due to high demand for a large scale analysis tools for the collection and interpretation of information to solve biological problems. Simulating massive multi-agent systems (i.e. simulations containing a large number of agents/entities) requires major computational effort which is only achievable through the use of parallel computing approaches. Results This paper explores different approaches to parallelising the key component of biological and immune system models within an ABM model: pairwise interactions. The focus of this paper is on the performance and algorithmic design choices of cell interactions in continuous and discrete space where agents/entities are competing to interact with one another within a parallel environment. Conclusions Our performance results demonstrate the applicability of these methods to a broader class of biological systems exhibiting typical cell to cell interactions. The advantage and disadvantage of each implementation is discussed showing each can be used as the basis for developing complete immune system models on parallel hardware

Exergoeconomic modeling and evaluation of a combined-cycle plant with MSF and MED desalination

In the coming years, numerous regions are expected to suffer from water scarcity. One of the technologies of great interest in facing this challenge has been the generation of freshwater through water desalination, a process that reduces the amount of salt and minerals to a standard level, making the water suitable for drinking or agricultural/industrial use. The efficiency of each desalination process depends on the concentration of salts in the raw water and the end-use of the produced water. The present study presents the exergetic and exergoeconomic analyses of the coupling of a power plant with desalination units for the simultaneous generation of energy and water in Iran. The plant is integrated, first, with a multi-stage flash (MSF) unit and, then, with a multi-effect desalination (MED) unit. We find that the cost of exergy destruction of the MED and MSF integrated plants is lower when compared to the standalone power plant by about 0.1% and 9.2%, respectively. Lastly, the freshwater production in the plant using MED is significantly higher than that in the plant with MSF (1,000 versus 1,521 kg/s).Khoshgoftar Manesh, M. H., Kabiri, S., Yazdi, M., & Petrakopoulou, F. (2020a). Exergoeconomic modeling and evaluation of a combined-cycle plant with MSF and MED desalination. Journal of Water Reuse and Desalination, 10(2), 158-172

Assessment of the Shellfish Production Areas’ Quality: The Oualidia and Sidi Moussa Lagoons Case

Based on European regulation 91/492/EC, Morocco, very early, established legislation with conditions for producing and marketing live bivalve molluscs. In applying this legislation, the National Institute of Fisheries Research (INRH)   has set up a system for sanitary monitoring of the marine environment, through which several harvesting areas have been classified while others are in progress. In January 2020, the Oualidia and Sidi Moussa lagoons were categorized respectively in classes B and C with respectively 52.77% of the results, which were between 230 and 4600 MPN E. coli / 100 g of flesh and intravalvular liquid (FIL) and 11.11% of results that fell between 4600 and 46000 MPN E. coli / 100 g FIL. Sidi Moussa lagoon has been classified as a clean area category C since 2006. As a result, the oyster farming activity has been suspended in this area. This incident is a warning sign of the significant weakness of these ecosystems in addressing multiple social and economic challenges. On another side, INRH has sufficient data and tools to progress towards a better optimization of the marine environment sanitary monitoring program management

Assessment of the Shellfish Production Areas’ Quality: The Oualidia and Sidi Moussa Lagoons Case

Based on European regulation 91/492/EC, Morocco, very early, established legislation with conditions for producing and marketing live bivalve molluscs. In applying this legislation, the National Institute of Fisheries Research (INRH)   has set up a system for sanitary monitoring of the marine environment, through which several harvesting areas have been classified while others are in progress. In January 2020, the Oualidia and Sidi Moussa lagoons were categorized respectively in classes B and C with respectively 52.77% of the results, which were between 230 and 4600 MPN E. coli / 100 g of flesh and intravalvular liquid (FIL) and 11.11% of results that fell between 4600 and 46000 MPN E. coli / 100 g FIL. Sidi Moussa lagoon has been classified as a clean area category C since 2006. As a result, the oyster farming activity has been suspended in this area. This incident is a warning sign of the significant weakness of these ecosystems in addressing multiple social and economic challenges. On another side, INRH has sufficient data and tools to progress towards a better optimization of the marine environment sanitary monitoring program management

EVALUATION OF STANDARD OCEAN COLOUR CHLOROPHYLL-a ALGORITHMS IN THE NORTHERN PERSIN GULF: COMPARISON OF MAGNITUDE AND SEASONALITY

The Persian Gulf is a peripheral sea that is quite turbid and visually complicated. Because of the complicated oceanic and atmospheric optical features of this maritime area, satellite remotely sensed chlorophyll-a (Chl-a, mg m−3) outputs have been used extensively. In this study, the seasonality and magnitude of Level-3 Chl-a time-series products, and daily Level-2 satellite-derived Chl-a concentrations were assessed using corresponding/concurrent in-situ observations gathered during 2008 to 2018. The results revealed that the field observations overestimated satellite-derived Chl-a by 115% in the deeper areas and up to 161% along the Iranian coastal waters. Comparison of inter-annual Chl-a time-series datasets with corresponding in-situ measurements showed that temporal patterns of the satellite-derived Chl-a values are not consistent with field observations. The monthly average of the satellite Chl-a series shows a different seasonal pattern in every region of the study area, and their magnitude over-estimated from 21% to 83% relative to in-situ observations. The absorption coefficients at 488–510 nm are primarily influenced by non-living particles instead of phytoplankton pigments, and no significant correlation are found between in-situ and Chl-a values from OC3/OC4 algorithms. Absorption coefficients spectra of water constituent’s shows that the contribution of phytoplankton pigments in particulate absorption coefficients at the blue-green bands are 48%–59%, and the particulate absorptions of water bodies are under the strong influence of non-living particles (40%–52%). Our results suggest that the red-green band-ratios algorithm centred at 675 nm and 555 nm presents more accurate results than OC3/OC4 over the study area