Use of Baited Pitfall Traps for Monitoring Pales Weevil, \u3ci\u3eHylobius Pales\u3c/i\u3e (Coleoptera: Curculionidae)

Pitfall traps baited with ethanol and turpentine serve as an effective tool for monitoring pales weevil (Hylobius pales) populations. Males and females are equally attracted to this bait. Neither component alone showed any attractiveness. The presence of a pine stem for weevil feeding does not affect the number or sex ratio of captured weevils. The potential of using attraction to baited traps as a sampling method for pales weevil is discussed

Military Issues Within the Atlantic Alliance

For more than thirty years the security of Western Europe has been built upon the link with the United States through the North Atlantic Alliance. The ties have endured because they are based on an identity of interest. Nonetheless the Alliance has often been strained and there are differences of view now on a range of issues, political, economic, and military

Nato Strategy and Force Postures for the Next 20 Years

Nato strategy and its force posture in the central sector in Europe have been under criticism for some time. The strategy is attacked for being too heavily reliant on the early use of nuclear weapons, or indeed for being nuclear at all; the force posture because it is not strong enough to give confidence that Nato could defend Europe should deterrence break down

Crisis and Consensus in the West: The Boundaries of Shared Interests

The West has faced and will surely face in the future crises which call for rapid political or military responses

Feedback control of heart rate during treadmill exercise based on a two-phase response model

This work investigated automatic control of heart rate during treadmill exercise. The aim was to theoretically derive a generic feedback design strategy that achieves a constant input sensitivity function for linear, time-invariant plant models, and to empirically test whether a compensator C2 based on a second-order model is more dynamic and has better tracking accuracy than a compensator C1 based on a first-order model. Twenty-three healthy participants were tested using first and second order compensators, C1 and C2, respectively, during 35-minute bouts of constant heart rate treadmill running. It was found that compensator C2 was significantly more accurate, i.e. it had 7 % lower mean root-mean-square tracking error (1.98 vs. 2.13 beats per minute, p = 0.026), and significantly more dynamic, i.e. it had 17 % higher mean average control signal power (23.4 × 10−4 m2/s2 vs. 20.0 × 10−4 m2/s2, p = 0.011), than C1. This improvement likely stems from the substantially and significantly better fidelity of second-order models, compared to first order models, in line with classical descriptions of the different phases of the cardiac response to exercise. These outcomes, achieved using a treadmill, are consistent with previous observations for the cycle ergometer exercise modality. In summary, whenever heart rate tracking accuracy is of primary importance and a more dynamic control signal is acceptable, the use of a compensator based on a second-order nominal model is recommended

Heart rate variability changes with respect to time and exercise intensity during heart-rate-controlled steady-state treadmill running

The aim of this work was to investigate the time and exercise intensity dependence of heart rate variability (HRV). Time-dependent, cardiovascular-drift-related increases in heart rate (HR) were inhibited by enforcing a constant heart rate throughout the exercise with a feedback control system. Thirty-two healthy adults performed HR-stabilised treadmill running exercise at two distinct exercise intensity levels. Standard time and frequency domain HRV metrics were computed and served as outcomes. Significant decreases were detected in 8 of the 14 outcomes for the time dependence analysis and in 6 of the 7 outcomes for the exercise intensity dependence analysis (excluding the experimental speed-signal frequency analysis). Furthermore, metrics that have been reported to reach an intensity-dependent near-zero minimum rapidly (usually at moderate intensity) were found to be near constant over time and only barely decreased with intensity. Taken together, these results highlight that HRV generally decreases with time and with exercise intensity. The intensity-related reductions were found to be greater in value and significance compared to the time-related reductions. Additionally, the results indicate that decreases in HRV metrics with time or exercise intensity are only detectable as long as their metric-specific near-zero minimum has not yet been reached

Self-paced heart rate control for treadmill exercise

Introduction: With conventional heart rate (HR) control systems, the exercising person is bound to walk or run at a pace determined by the feedback. This may be challenging for people with impairments that make it difficult for them to achieve a smooth, continuous pace. The aim of this work was to assess the technical feasibility of a novel self-paced heart rate control strategy and to compare its accuracy with conventional heart rate control. Methods: We propose a self-paced heart rate control system that embeds an automatic positioning controller within the heart rate control loop. The treadmill speed command is decoupled from the heart rate compensator, whereas speed is determined by the exerciser’s own volition: target speed is displayed visually to the person and, when they try to follow this target, the position controller sets the treadmill speed while keeping the person at a safe reference position on the track. A further novel contribution of this work is a new input-sensitivity-shaping, frequency-domain design strategy for feedback control of position. Results: Experimental evaluation with four participants showed that self-paced heart rate control is technically feasible: all participants were able to accurately follow the target running speed calculated by the HR compensator and presented to them visually; for all four participants, self-paced HR tracking accuracy was not substantially different from conventional HR control performance; on average, the self-paced heart rate controller gave slightly better performance than conventional HR control, with RMS tracking error of 2.98 beats per minute (bpm) vs 3.11 bpm and higher average control signal power. Conclusion: The proposed self-paced heart rate control strategy with embedded automatic position control is deemed feasible. This approach may be helpful for people with gait impairments or other limitations that make it difficult for them to follow an imposed treadmill speed

Voluntary Accounting Policy Choices of Lower -Level Firms in Multi -Firm Organizations.

This study investigates the determinants of accounting choices for subsidiary firms in multi-firm organizations. A subsidiary is defined as either a company that is controlled (i.e., more than 50 percent ownership) by another corporation (its parent ) or is a firm under the parent company\u27s influence (i.e., between 20 and 50 percent ownership). Previous studies focus exclusively on the parent company; hence little is known about making accounting procedure choices for subsidiaries. As a separate legal entity, a subsidiary\u27s accounting policies should be of interest to its creditors, regulators, and noncontrolling minority-interest shareholders. The accounting procedure choices investigated are depreciation and inventory. The sample was comprised of 96 subsidiary-parent matches for depreciation methods and 36 subsidiary-parent matches for inventory methods drawn from the period ranging from 1982 to 1997. Two sets of empirical models were evaluated. First, single firm models that ignore the nature of the parent-subsidiary relationship but, rather, focus solely on the characteristics of the subsidiary firm. Second, multi-firm models were evaluated that expand the single firm model by including variables that capture certain aspects of the parent-subsidiary relationship. Statistically significant results were found for some of the following variables that measure the multi-firm aspect of the subsidiary\u27s accounting choice: (1) the parent company\u27s choice, (2) the percentage ownership held by the parent, and (3) when the subsidiary was acquired from another parent company. In addition, this study contributes by identifying the level of proportional ownership that signals, on average, the exercise of parental influence over the subsidiary\u27s choice