906 research outputs found
Odorants for surveillance and control of the Asian Citrus Psyllid (Diaphorina citri).
BackgroundThe Asian Citrus Psyllid (ACP), Diaphorina citri, can transmit the bacterium Candidatus Liberibacter while feeding on citrus flush shoots. This bacterium causes Huanglongbing (HLB), a major disease of citrus cultivation worldwide necessitating the development of new tools for ACP surveillance and control. The olfactory system of ACP is sensitive to variety of odorants released by citrus plants and offers an opportunity to develop new attractants and repellents.ResultsIn this study, we performed single-unit electrophysiology to identify odorants that are strong activators, inhibitors, and prolonged activators of ACP odorant receptor neurons (ORNs). We identified a suite of odorants that activated the ORNs with high specificity and sensitivity, which may be useful in eliciting behavior such as attraction. In separate experiments, we also identified odorants that evoked prolonged ORN responses and antagonistic odorants able to suppress neuronal responses to activators, both of which can be useful in lowering attraction to hosts. In field trials, we tested the electrophysiologically identified activating odorants and identified a 3-odor blend that enhances trap catches by ∼230%.ConclusionThese findings provide a set of odorants that can be used to develop affordable and safe odor-based surveillance and masking strategies for this dangerous pest insect
Why a Scalar Explanation of the L3 Events is Implausible
We investigate the question of whether an additional light neutral scalar can
explain the events with high invariant mass photon
pairs recently observed by the L3 collaboration. We parameterize the low energy
effects of the unknown dynamics in terms of higher dimensional effective
operators. We show that operators which allow for the scalar to be produced and
decay into photon pairs will allow other observable processes that should have
been seen in current experiments.Comment: Latex 14 pages (1 figure not included). MIT preprint CTP-219
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Comparing supply and demand perspectives of destination competitiveness
The measurement of destination competitiveness usually entails the adoption of either a demand or supply perspective. The former comprises of collecting data from tourists while the latter involves supply-side stakeholders such as business owners and government entities. The overall aim of this paper is to challenge the idea of a choice between the two perspectives and to propose an evaluative framework that combines both: the Supply-Demand Analysis of Competitiveness. Its application is also presented and discussed using the city of Lisbon, Portugal as a case
Supporting First-Gen Students in Overcoming Career Readiness Barriers
First-generation college students face unique challenges in their career readiness, specifically in regard to securing internships and other experiential learning opportunities, finding mentors, and building a professional network. This session will discuss practical strategies that staff and faculty can utilize in an effort to support first-gen students in these areas of their career development
LHC Searches for Non-Chiral Weakly Charged Multiplets
Because the TeV-scale to be probed at the Large Hadron Collider should shed
light on the naturalness, hierarchy, and dark matter problems, most searches to
date have focused on new physics signatures motivated by possible solutions to
these puzzles. In this paper, we consider some candidates for new states that
although not well-motivated from this standpoint are obvious possibilities that
current search strategies would miss. In particular we consider vector
representations of fermions in multiplets of with a lightest neutral
state. Standard search strategies would fail to find such particles because of
the expected small one-loop-level splitting between charged and neutral states.Comment: 16 pages, 9 figure
Multiplicity Studies and Effective Energy in ALICE at the LHC
In this work we explore the possibility to perform ``effective energy''
studies in very high energy collisions at the CERN Large Hadron Collider (LHC).
In particular, we focus on the possibility to measure in collisions the
average charged multiplicity as a function of the effective energy with the
ALICE experiment, using its capability to measure the energy of the leading
baryons with the Zero Degree Calorimeters. Analyses of this kind have been done
at lower centre--of--mass energies and have shown that, once the appropriate
kinematic variables are chosen, particle production is characterized by
universal properties: no matter the nature of the interacting particles, the
final states have identical features. Assuming that this universality picture
can be extended to {\it ion--ion} collisions, as suggested by recent results
from RHIC experiments, a novel approach based on the scaling hypothesis for
limiting fragmentation has been used to derive the expected charged event
multiplicity in interactions at LHC. This leads to scenarios where the
multiplicity is significantly lower compared to most of the predictions from
the models currently used to describe high energy collisions. A mean
charged multiplicity of about 1000-2000 per rapidity unit (at ) is
expected for the most central collisions at .Comment: 12 pages, 19 figures. In memory of A. Smirnitski
Identified baryon and meson distributions at large transverse momenta from Au+Au collisions at GeV
Transverse momentum spectra of , and up to 12 GeV/c
at mid-rapidity in centrality selected Au+Au collisions at GeV are presented. In central Au+Au collisions, both and
show significant suppression with respect to binary scaling at
4 GeV/c. Protons and anti-protons are less suppressed than
, in the range 1.5 6 GeV/c. The and
ratios show at most a weak dependence and no significant
centrality dependence. The ratios in central Au+Au collisions approach
the values in p+p and d+Au collisions at 5 GeV/c. The results at high
indicate that the partonic sources of , and have
similar energy loss when traversing the nuclear medium.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figure
Measurement of charm production at central rapidity in proton-proton collisions at TeV
The -differential production cross sections of the prompt (B
feed-down subtracted) charmed mesons D, D, and D in the rapidity
range , and for transverse momentum GeV/, were
measured in proton-proton collisions at TeV with the ALICE
detector at the Large Hadron Collider. The analysis exploited the hadronic
decays DK, DK, DD, and their charge conjugates, and was performed on a
nb event sample collected in 2011 with a
minimum-bias trigger. The total charm production cross section at TeV and at 7 TeV was evaluated by extrapolating to the full phase space
the -differential production cross sections at TeV
and our previous measurements at TeV. The results were compared
to existing measurements and to perturbative-QCD calculations. The fraction of
cdbar D mesons produced in a vector state was also determined.Comment: 20 pages, 5 captioned figures, 4 tables, authors from page 15,
published version, figures at
http://aliceinfo.cern.ch/ArtSubmission/node/307
The significance of cephalopod beaks as a research tool: An update
The use of cephalopod beaks in ecological and population dynamics studies has allowed major advances of our knowledge on the role of cephalopods in marine ecosystems in the last 60 years. Since the 1960's, with the pioneering research by Malcolm Clarke and colleagues, cephalopod beaks (also named jaws or mandibles) have been described to species level and their measurements have been shown to be related to cephalopod body size and mass, which permitted important information to be obtained on numerous biological and ecological aspects of cephalopods in marine ecosystems. In the last decade, a range of new techniques has been applied to cephalopod beaks, permitting new kinds of insight into cephalopod biology and ecology. The workshop on cephalopod beaks of the Cephalopod International Advisory Council Conference (Sesimbra, Portugal) in 2022 aimed to review the most recent scientific developments in this field and to identify future challenges, particularly in relation to taxonomy, age, growth, chemical composition (i.e., DNA, proteomics, stable isotopes, trace elements) and physical (i.e., structural) analyses. In terms of taxonomy, new techniques (e.g., 3D geometric morphometrics) for identifying cephalopods from their beaks are being developed with promising results, although the need for experts and reference collections of cephalopod beaks will continue. The use of beak microstructure for age and growth studies has been validated. Stable isotope analyses on beaks have proven to be an excellent technique to get valuable information on the ecology of cephalopods (namely habitat and trophic position). Trace element analyses is also possible using beaks, where concentrations are significantly lower than in other tissues (e.g., muscle, digestive gland, gills). Extracting DNA from beaks was only possible in one study so far. Protein analyses can also be made using cephalopod beaks. Future challenges in research using cephalopod beaks are also discussed.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio
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