MOUSE CONTROL IN MY ORCHARD

The control of mice was by far the most serious problem that I had in producing apples before Endrin became available as a ground spray. I have used Endrin in my orchards every year except one since it became available in our area. The one year that I failed to use Endrin I lost 20% of the trees in one block from mouse damag

The Life History, Behavior, and Ecology of \u3ci\u3eEtheostoma sagitta\u3c/i\u3e (Jordan and Swain)

The life history, behavior, and ecology of Etheostoma sagitta (Jordan and Swain) were studied in the Cumberland River system in Tennessee. Diving equipment was utilized in making observations on macrohabitat, microhabitat, distribution, seasonal and diurnal activity, feeding behavior, migration, territoriality, associated species, competition, and population density and structure. Courtship, reproductive behavior, and diurnal activity were studied primarily in an experimental raceway. Feeding behavior and territoriality were studied in the raceway and in a 77.5-1. (20-gal.) aquarium. Parasites, longevity, age and growth, ova numbers and maturation, sex ratios, and food habitats were examined in the laboratory. Etheostoma sagitta was found in clear as well as turbid streams. Habitats ranged from intermittent pools to small rivers. It more frequently occurred in streams with small rubble bottoms, but microhabitat varied with size class and season. Adults more frequently inhabited mid-channel portion of the stream while juveniles inhabited the periphery during the fall, winter, and spring. Migration was only noted in No Business Creek. Associated species and competition are discussed, with special reference to other Etheostoma. Quantitative diurnal activity studies indicated that activity peaked in late morning (1100 hrs.) and probably ceased by 1900 hrs. Large males and females were more active than smaller fish. Juvenile fish fed mainly upon copepods, cladocerans, and dipteran larvae. E. sagitta is sexually dimorphic. Males reached the height of coloration in spring. The color patter was retained throughout the year in adults but intensity faded after the breeding season. Females were only slightly brighter in the spring. Courtship and reproductive behavior began with construction of of a gravel depression by an adult male. During this activity, territorial behavior was centered upon the gravel nest area. This was the only time that territorial behavior was observed. E. sagitta attains its greatest growth increment during the first year. Over the period of study, population densities did not change drastically; longevity was 4 years. A sex ratio of 1.04 males per females was observed

Journalism and Community: A Case Study of the Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service (NNS)

This is a case study of the Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service (NNS) – a three-year-old, award-winning, online-only journalism source at www.milwaukeenns.org. A longtime journalist and communications professional leads a small team of part-time reporters, interns and volunteers as NNS seeks to provide professional and objective reporting about 17 low-income communities in America’s 30th largest city. This research examines the extent to which NNS has achieved its goals by analyzing and interpreting a significant sample of the 750-plus stories published on its website. It also focuses on the individual and shared experiences of the news service’s staff as it uses journalism to help construct a sense of community. In addition to how other media and institutions have reacted to its work, the study also examines how NNS contributes to the ongoing discussion of journalism and community journalism – and how and why journalism matters to how a neighborhood is perceived – even as the news service’s supporters consider its sustainability. NNS is based at Marquette University, which is a short distance from the targeted communities. But unlike community journalism initiatives that are curricular highlights at academic institutions elsewhere, NNS stems from a unique partnership between a university and community-building operations. This study is mindful of prior consultant reports by two recognized media stalwarts as it also looks at how the news service views itself and its work in hopes of better understanding its overall purpose. This research reviews the vast critical thinking concerning the concepts of community and sense of community as well as journalism, community journalism, public (or civic) journalism and online journalism. The social construction of reality is used as a theoretical framework from which to create four guiding questions: 1) How does NNS imagine its work? 2) What defines its work? 3) How have others in the community and elsewhere described or presented its work? 4) Who has done the work and what have they learned about journalism and community? This study ends by discussing the implications that the news service has for journalism education as well as for journalism and community

Product recognition in store shelves as a sub-graph isomorphism problem

The arrangement of products in store shelves is carefully planned to maximize sales and keep customers happy. However, verifying compliance of real shelves to the ideal layout is a costly task routinely performed by the store personnel. In this paper, we propose a computer vision pipeline to recognize products on shelves and verify compliance to the planned layout. We deploy local invariant features together with a novel formulation of the product recognition problem as a sub-graph isomorphism between the items appearing in the given image and the ideal layout. This allows for auto-localizing the given image within the aisle or store and improving recognition dramatically.Comment: Slightly extended version of the paper accepted at ICIAP 2017. More information @project_page --> http://vision.disi.unibo.it/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=111&catid=7

Action of earthworms on flint burial – a return to Darwin’s estate

For thirty years, from the early 1840s, Charles Darwin documented the disappearance of flints in the grounds of Down House in Kent, at a location originally known as the “Stony Field”. This site (Great Pucklands Meadow - GPM) was visited in 2007 and an experiment set up in this ungrazed grassland. Locally-sourced flints (either large - 12 cm, or small – 5 cm dia.) were deposited at two densities within sixteen 1 m2 plots in a randomised factorial design. The area selected was distant from public access routes and remained unmown throughout the duration here reported. Fixed point photographs were taken at the outset to enable later photogrammetric analysis. After 6 years, the site was re-examined. The flints had generally been incorporated into the soil. Photographs were re-taken, proportion of buried flints recorded and measurements made of burial depth from a quarter of each plot. Results showed that large flints were more deeply incorporated than smaller (p=0.025), but more of the latter were below the soil surface. A controlled laboratory experiment was also conducted using Aporrectodea longa (the dominant earthworm species in GPM) to assess effects of casting in the absence of other biota. Results suggested that this species has a major influence on flint burial through surface casting. Combined with a long term, but small scale collection of A. longa casts from an area close to GPM, all results were consistent with those provided by Darwin and showed that rate of flint burial was within the range 0.21-0.96 cm y-1

Corticosteroid-induced remission and mycophenolate maintenance therapy in granulomatous lymphocytic interstitial lung disease: long-term, longitudinal change in lung function in a single-centre cohort

AIM: The aim of the study was to evaluate the response in lung function to different treatment regimens for common variable immunodeficiency patients with granulomatous lymphocytic interstitial lung disease (GLILD). METHOD: A longitudinal retrospective cohort study was carried out. Patients were divided into three groups. To assess the response to different treatments, we compared baseline lung function with post-treatment tests. RESULTS: 14 patients with GLILD were included, seven of whom were treated with acute corticosteroids for a mean duration of 132±65 days. Spirometry results were unchanged, but there was a significant improvement in diffusing capacity of the lung for carbon monoxide (DLCO)% and transfer coefficient of the lung for carbon monoxide (KCO)% (median change in DLCO%=7%, p=0.04, and KCO%=13%, p=0.02). Relapse occurred in three out of seven patients. Five patients were treated with long-term mycophenolate mofetil (MMF) with/without corticosteroids for a mean duration of 1277±917 days. No changes were found in spirometry; however, there was a significant increase in DLCO% and KCO% (median change in each of DLCO% and KCO%=10%, p=0.04). Four patients on steroids with MMF successfully weaned the prednisone dose over 12 months. Four patients never received immunosuppression therapy. A significant decline was found in their lung function assessed over 7.5 years. The median reduction in the forced vital capacity (FVC)%, forced expiratory volume in 1 s (FEV1)% and DLCO% was 15%, 7% and 15%, equivalent to 2%, 1% and 2% per year, respectively. CONCLUSION: Corticosteroids improve gas transfer in GLILD, but patients often relapse. The use of MMF was associated with long-term effectiveness in GLILD and permits weaning of corticosteroids. A delay in initiating and continuing maintenance treatment could lead to disease progression

Predictive Factors for and Complications of Bronchiectasis in Common Variable Immunodeficiency Disorders

Bronchiectasis is a frequent complication of common variable immunodeficiency disorders (CVID). In a cohort of patients with CVID, we sought to identify predictors of bronchiectasis. Secondly, we sought to describe the impact of bronchiectasis on lung function, infection risk, and quality of life. We conducted an observational cohort study of 110 patients with CVID and an available pulmonary computed tomography scan. The prevalence of bronchiectasis was 53%, with most of these patients (54%) having mild disease. Patients with bronchiectasis had lower median serum immunoglobulin (Ig) concentrations, especially long-term IgM (0 vs 0.25 g/l; p < 0.01) and pre-treatment IgG (1.3 vs 3.7 g/l; p < 0.01). CVID patients with bronchiectasis had worse forced expiratory volume in one second (2.10 vs 2.99 l; p < 0.01) and an annual decline in forced expiratory volume in one second of 25 ml/year (vs 8 ml/year in patients without bronchiectasis; p = 0.01). Patients with bronchiectasis also reported more annual respiratory tract infections (1.77 vs 1.25 infections/year, p = 0.04) and a poorer quality of life (26 vs 14 points in the St George's Respiratory Questionnaire; p = 0.02). Low serum immunoglobulin M concentration identifies patients at risk for bronchiectasis in CVID and may play a role in pathogenesis. Bronchiectasis is relevant because it is associated with frequent respiratory tract infections, poorer lung function, a greater rate of lung function decline, and a lower quality of life

Thermal Hair of Quantum Black Hole

We investigate the possibility of statistical explanation of the black hole entropy by counting quasi-bounded modes of thermal fluctuation in two dimensional black hole spacetime. The black hole concerned is quantum in the sense that it is in thermal equilibrium with its Hawking radiation. It is shown that the fluctuation around such a black hole obeys a wave equation with a potential whose peaks are located near the black hole and which is caused by quantum effect. We can construct models in which the potential in the above sense has several positive peaks and there are quai-bounded modes confined between these peaks. This suggests that these modes contribute to the black hole entropy. However it is shown that the entropy associated with these modes dose not obey the ordinary area law. Therefore we can call these modes as an additional thermal hair of the quantum black hole.Comment: LaTeX, 12 pages, 14 postscript figures, submitted to Phys. Rev.