6,406 research outputs found
Analyzing the Mass-Rearing System of the California Red Scale Parasitoid Aphytis melinus (Hymenoptera: Aphelinidae)
Results from studies to improve mass rearing production of the parasitoid Aphytis melinus De Bach (Hymenoptera: Aphelinidae) are presented. Parasitoid production was carried out following standard commercial procedures using an alternative host, Aspidiotus nerii Bouché (Hemiptera: Diaspididae), infesting Cucurbita moschata (Duchesne) (Cucurbitaceae), butternut squash. We found that the initial number of A. melinus adults introduced into rearing cages to start production and the scale/parasitoid ratio in those cages profoundly influenced future parasitoid production. We also observed that scale parasitism was positively correlated with the production of parasitoid adults, but this relationship was negatively correlated if > 2.6 parasitoids per d, per cm2, were used in the cages to start parasitism. Supplemental honey (provided on the squash surface) had no clear impact on parasitoid production or survival, but improved host parasitism. Approximately 47% of the host scale population on squash was parasitized, with another 43.1% of the population recorded as dead. We found that ≤ 10 host scales per cm2 on squash was an adequate density for mass production purposes
A first order Tsallis theory
We investigate first-order approximations to both i) Tsallis' entropy
and ii) the -MaxEnt solution (called q-exponential functions ). It is
shown that the functions arising from the procedure ii) are the MaxEnt
solutions to the entropy emerging from i). The present treatment is free of the
poles that, for classic quadratic Hamiltonians, appear in Tsallis' approach, as
demonstrated in [Europhysics Letters {\bf 104}, (2013), 60003]. Additionally,
we show that our treatment is compatible with extant date on the ozone layer.Comment: 4 figures adde
Inverse magnetic catalysis from the properties of the QCD coupling in a magnetic field
We compute the vacuum one-loop quark-gluon vertex correction at zero
temperature in the presence of a magnetic field. From the vertex function we
extract the effective quark-gluon coupling and show that it grows with
increasing magnetic field strength. The effect is due to a subtle competition
between the color charge associated to gluons and the color charge associated
to quarks, the former being larger than the latter. In contrast, at high
temperature the effective thermo-magnetic coupling results exclusively from the
contribution of the color charge associated to quarks. This produces a decrease
of the coupling with increasing field strength. We interpret the results in
terms of a geometrical effect whereby the magnetic field induces, on average, a
closer distance between the (electrically charged) quarks and antiquarks. At
high temperature, since the effective coupling is proportional only to the
color charge associated to quarks, such proximity with increasing field
strength makes the effective coupling decrease due to asymptotic freedom. In
turn, this leads to a decreasing quark condensate. In contrast, at zero
temperature both the effective strong coupling and the quark condensate
increase with increasing magnetic field. This is due to the color charge
associated to gluons dominating over that associated to quarks, with both
having the opposite sign. Thus, the gluons induce a kind of screening of the
quark color charge, in spite of the quark-antiquark proximity. The implications
of these results for the inverse magnetic catalysis phenomenon are discussed.Comment: Expanded discussion, references added. Version to appear in Phys.
Lett.
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