A Temperature-Dependent Phenology Model for the Sweetpotato Whitefly Bemisia tabaci MEAM1 (Hemiptera: Aleyrodidae)

The sweetpotato whitefly Bemisia tabaci (Gennadius) MEAM1 (Hemiptera: Aleyrodidae) is widely distributed in tropical and subtropical regions affecting more than 600 different species of cultivated and wild plants. Due to the large number of viruses it can transmit, the species is one of the most important economic insect pests in the world. Determination of the pest’s temperature-dependent population growth potential is crucial knowledge for understanding the population dynamics and spread potential of the species and the diseases it can transmit, as well as for designing effective pest management strategies. B. tabaci MEAM1 development, mortality and reproduction were studied at seven constant temperatures in the range from 12° to 35°C. The Insect Life Cycle Modeling (ILCYM) software was used to fit nonlinear equations to the data and establish an overall phenology model to simulate life-table parameters based on temperature. Life tables of B. tabaci MEAM1 established at naturally fluctuating temperature in La Molina, Lima, during different seasons, covering the entire temperature range of the species' predicted performance curve, were used to validate the model. The overall model predicted population development within the temperature range of 13.9° to 33.4°C with a maximum finite rate of population increase (=1.138) at 26.4°C. The model gave good predictions when compared with observed life tables and published data. The established process-based physiological model presented here for B. tabaci MEAM1 can be used predicting the species distribution potential based on temperature worldwide and should prove helpful in adjusting pest management measures

Monitoring adherence to the international code of conduct : highly hazardous pesticides in Central Andean agriculture and farmers’ rights to health

О губернаторской деятельности В. А. Арцимовича в Сибири

Obstacles to integrated pest management adoption in developing countries

Despite its theoretical prominence and sound principles, integrated pest management (IPM) continues to suffer from anemic adoption rates in developing countries. To shed light on the reasons, we surveyed the opinions of a large and diverse pool of IPM professionals and practitioners from 96 countries by using structured concept mapping. The first phase of this method elicited 413 open-ended responses on perceived obstacles to IPM. Analysis of responses revealed 51 unique statements on obstacles, the most frequent of which was “insufficient training and technical support to farmers.” Cluster analyses, based on participant opinions, grouped these unique statements into six themes: research weaknesses, outreach weaknesses, IPM weaknesses, farmer weaknesses, pesticide industry interference, and weak adoption incentives. Subsequently, 163 participants rated the obstacles expressed in the 51 unique statements according to importance and remediation difficulty. Respondents from developing countries and high-income countries rated the obstacles differently. As a group, developing-country respondents rated “IPM requires collective action within a farming community” as their top obstacle to IPM adoption. Respondents from high-income countries prioritized instead the “shortage of well-qualified IPM experts and extensionists.” Differential prioritization was also evident among developing-country regions, and when obstacle statements were grouped into themes. Results highlighted the need to improve the participation of stakeholders from developing countries in the IPM adoption debate, and also to situate the debate within specific regional contexts

Influence of speach activity on vibrometer signals to extract vital parameters of humans

For the measurement of vital parameters of the heart the elekrocardiogram or ECG is used. If a non-contact measurement is required the vibrocardiogram or VCG is more appropriate. During the measurement normally the client is quiet because she or he is realizing that the measurement is going on. This is not the case when the VCG is picked up because for comfort and to protect the eyes infrared lasers are used. The VCG measures the speed of the surface of the skin invoked by the activity of the heart. Therefore clients are asked not to move since this would influence the result of the mesurement. It can be shown that also speaking influences the VCG significantly despite the fact that airborne sounds like the human utterance cover a different frequencey range than the heart activity. Obviously the structure-borne sounds emitted from the vocal chords influence the VCG. In this paper this phenomenon is investigated in detail and a method is derived with which the utterance of a human can be detected based on a figure of reliability extracted from the VCG. For the measurement of the heart beat frequency only those sections of the VCG are exploited in which the client does not speak