Susceptibility of White Spruce Seed Sources to Yellowheaded Spruce Sawfly, \u3ci\u3ePikonema Alaskensis,\u3c/i\u3e(Hymenoptera: Tenthredinidae)

A field caging technique was used to test the susceptibility of 25 white spruce, Picea glauca (Moench) Voss, seed sources to attack by Pikonema alaskensis (Rohwer). No sig- nificant differences were found in the number of eggs laid, number of dessicated eggs, or number of egg slits. Percent oviposition differed significantly within a tree, the south side having more eggs. Bud size differed significantly within trees and between trees but not between seed sources. The number of sawfly eggs laid on a bud could not be related to bud size. There was no significant difference in susceptibility of the seed sources studied to Pikonema alaskensis

Differential Attributions of the Causes of Subordinate Success and Failure by Aggressive and Non-Aggressive Individuals

This dissertation examined the differential causal attributions of non-aggressive and aggressive individuals responding to incidents of subordinate success and failure. Participants (N = 407) were presented with 16 vignettes (eight describing subordinate success and eight describing subordinate failure) that utilized unique combinations of consensus, distinctiveness, and consistency information. Participants made attributions regarding the cause of the subordinate’s behavior (i.e., person, task, circumstances, or any combination of the three) and indicated their preferred behavioral response (i.e., praise/reward, reprimand/punish, coach/train, redesign the task, or do nothing). When responding to incidents of subordinate success, the causal attributions of aggressive individuals were similar to those of non-aggressive individuals. However, when responding to incidents of subordinate failure, in an apparent attempt to make the subordinate more worthy of hostility, the causal attributions of aggressive individuals deviated from those of non-aggressive individuals for two information patterns (i.e., low consensus, high distinctiveness, and high consistency; low consensus, low distinctiveness, and low consistency). Moreover, for aggressive individuals, the processing of information relating to subordinate failure was considerably less complex than the processing of information relating to subordinate success. Implications, potential limitations, and directions for future research are discussed

Amplifying Limitations, Harms and Risks of Large Language Models

We present this article as a small gesture in an attempt to counter what appears to be exponentially growing hype around Artificial Intelligence (AI) and its capabilities, and the distraction provided by the associated talk of science-fiction scenarios that might arise if AI should become sentient and super-intelligent. It may also help those outside of the field to become more informed about some of the limitations of AI technology. In the current context of popular discourse AI defaults to mean foundation and large language models (LLMs) such as those used to create ChatGPT. This in itself is a misrepresentation of the diversity, depth and volume of research, researchers, and technology that truly represents the field of AI. AI being a field of research that has existed in software artefacts since at least the 1950's. We set out to highlight a number of limitations of LLMs, and in so doing highlight that harms have already arisen and will continue to arise due to these limitations. Along the way we also highlight some of the associated risks for individuals and organisations in using this technology

Active architecture for pervasive contextual services

Pervasive services may be defined as services that are available to any client (anytime, anywhere). Here we focus on the software and network infrastructure required to support pervasive contextual services operating over a wide area. One of the key requirements is a matching service capable of assimilating and filtering information from various sources and determining matches relevant to those services. We consider some of the challenges in engineering a globally distributed matching service that is scalable, manageable, and able to evolve incrementally as usage patterns, data formats, services, network topologies and deployment technologies change. We outline an approach based on the use of a peer-to-peer architecture to distribute user events and data, and to support the deployment and evolution of the infrastructure itself

Active architecture for pervasive contextual services

International Workshop on Middleware for Pervasive and Ad-hoc Computing MPAC 2003), ACM/IFIP/USENIX International Middleware Conference (Middleware 2003), Rio de Janeiro, Brazil This work was supported by the FP5 Gloss project IST2000-26070, with partners at Trinity College Dublin and Université Joseph Fourier, and by EPSRC grants GR/M78403/GR/M76225, Supporting Internet Computation in Arbitrary Geographical Locations, and GR/R45154, Bulk Storage of XML Documents.Pervasive services may be defined as services that are available "to any client (anytime, anywhere)". Here we focus on the software and network infrastructure required to support pervasive contextual services operating over a wide area. One of the key requirements is a matching service capable of as-similating and filtering information from various sources and determining matches relevant to those services. We consider some of the challenges in engineering a globally distributed matching service that is scalable, manageable, and able to evolve incrementally as usage patterns, data formats, services, network topologies and deployment technologies change. We outline an approach based on the use of a peer-to-peer architecture to distribute user events and data, and to support the deployment and evolution of the infrastructure itself.Peer reviewe

Counterexamples to maximal regularity for operators in divergence form

In this paper, we present counterexamples to maximal $L^p$-regularity for a parabolic PDE. The example is a second-order operator in divergence form with space and time-dependent coefficients. It is well-known from Lions' theory that such operators admit maximal $L^2$-regularity on $H^{-1}$ under a coercivity condition on the coefficients, and without any regularity conditions in time and space. We show that in general one cannot expect maximal $L^p$-regularity on $H^{-1}(\mathbb{R}^d)$ or $L^2$-regularity on $L^2(\mathbb{R}^d)$

Plans for the first balloon flight of the gamma-ray polarimeter experiment (GRAPE)

We have developed a design for a hard X-ray polarimeter operating in the energy range from 50 to 500 keV. This modular design, known as GRAPE (Gamma-Ray Polarimeter Experiment), has been successfully demonstrated in the lab using partially polarized gamma-ray sources and using fully polarized photon beams at Argonne National Laboratory. In June of 2007, a GRAPE engineering model, consisting of a single detector module, was flown on a high altitude balloon flight to further demonstrate the design and to collect background data. We are currently preparing a much larger balloon payload for a flight in the fall of 2011. Using a large (16-element) array of detector modules, this payload is being designed to search for polarization from known point sources of radiation, namely the Crab and Cygnus X-1. This first flight will not only provide a scientific demonstration of the GRAPE design (by measuring polarization from the Crab nebula), it will also lay the foundation for subsequent long duration balloon flights that will be designed for studying polarization from gamma-ray bursts and solar flares. Here we shall present data from calibration of the first flight module detectors, review the latest payload design and update the predicted polarization sensitivity for both the initial continental US balloon flight and the subsequent long-duration balloon flights

GRAPE: a balloon-borne gamma-ray polarimeter

The Gamma-RAy Polarimeter Experiment (GRAPE) is a concept for an astronomical hard X-ray Compton polarimeter operating in the 50 - 500 keV energy band. The instrument has been optimized for wide-field polarization measurements of transient outbursts from energetic astrophysical objects such as gamma-ray bursts and solar flares. The GRAPE instrument is composed of identical modules, each of which consists of an array of scintillator elements read out by a multi-anode photomultiplier tube (MAPMT). Incident photons Compton scatter in plastic scintillator elements and are subsequently absorbed in inorganic scintillator elements; a net polarization signal is revealed by a characteristic asymmetry in the azimuthal scattering angles. We have constructed a prototype GRAPE module that has been calibrated at a polarized hard X-ray beam and flown on an engineering balloon test flight. A full-scale scientific balloon payload, consisting of up to 36 modules, is currently under development. The first flight, a one-day flight scheduled for 2011, will verify the expected scientific performance with a pointed observation of the Crab Nebula. We will then propose long-duration balloon flights to observe gamma-ray bursts and solar flares