Oak and Yellow-Poplar Response to Pre-Commercial Chemical Applications After Clearcutting A High-Graded Hardwood Stand on the Western Highland Rim of Tennessee

The repetitious use of diameter-limit harvesting in upland hardwoods has led to low-valued stands with understory canopy layers containing mostly shade-tolerant species. Desirable, shade intolerant reproduction is limited to regenerate these stands. This study evaluated the effectiveness of post-harvest herbicides (glyphosate and sulfometuron methyl) and application methods to accelerate the growth of natural oak advance reproduction. Treatment areas received clearcut treatments in the late winter/early spring of 2014. Six treatment units were established using banded foliar sprays, radial release sprays, pre-emergent broadcast sprays, or combinations of methods, along with an untreated control. Permanent regeneration plots were measured pre-harvest and after harvest (fall 2014) to evaluate the regeneration response. Individual white and red oak species along with yellow-poplar seedlings were measured for ground line diameter and overall height. Second measurements were taken in the winter of 2017 (two growing seasons later) to determine diameter and height growth change. Yellow-poplar and oak species reproduction per acre estimates, for the 2017 measurements, for block A, B, and C were 850, 1,900, and 233 seedlings. Shade intolerant reproduction formed a greater abundance compared to the shade tolerant species. It is proposed that the larger shade tolerant reproduction present before harvest was completely removed during the timber harvest activity. Significant differences were found between herbicide applications for absolute ground line diameter change for combined seedlings (P=0.0037), absolute height change for combined seedlings (P\u3c0.0001), diameter growth among species (P=0.02988), height growth among species (P=0.0399), diameter change for sprout reproduction (P=0.0268), height change in new germinant reproduction (P=0.0245), height change for sprout reproduction (P\u3c0.0001). Change in ground line diameter for yellow-poplar new germinants was significant (P=0.0161). The change in height comparisons for the species with size class found yellow-poplar sprout reproduction (P=0.0031), white oak new germinant and sprout reproduction were different (P=0.0152 and P\u3c0.0001, respectively). Sulfometuron methyl only treatments typically had the greatest growth responses while radial treatments using glyphosate performed the poorest. A dense coverage of grasses established following herbicide applications. The emergence of grass likely reduced growth rates due to altered microenvironments as well as competition for root zone growing space, soil moisture, and nutrients

Protective coloration in the coleoptera

Citation: Peairs, Leonard Marion. Protective coloration in the coleoptera. Senior thesis, Kansas State Agricultural College, 1905.Morse Department of Special CollectionsIntroduction: One of the fundamental laws of nature is the arrangement by virtue of which every living thing has its natural enemies from which it must be protected or suffer the extinction of the species. These so called enemies are not, of course, enemies because of hatred or spite, as are enemies in the human family, but the enmity is rather the result if the natural instinct of some species to secure their food by preying upon other species. In the economy of nature we find that it is not only the large and powerful animals that prey upon the: small and weak, but that there is a kind of provision for keeping the balance which works like an endless chain. This may be illustrated by taking a common case from nature. The larger carnivorous animals prey upon smaller animals which may in turn feed upon insects These insects: or their near relatives may in turn, be found gaining their living by sucking the blood of the first large flesh eating animals or living as parasites in or upon them, or by eating their carcasses after death. There seems to be a tendency always working toward the extinction of the weaker species by the more powerful ones, or by those of their own kind which are better adapted to the conditions of life in which they are placed. To counterbalance this tendency many of these smaller species acquire, or are provided with, some special adaptation to protect them from their foes, or to help them in their search for food. These adaptations take various forms. They may enable their possessor to run more swiftly so as to escape pursuit, or on the other hand they may enable some other animal to run or fill more swiftly and so more easily capture its prey. Another way by which an advantage is gained is by special means of concealment, on the one hand from the pursuers, and on the other, from the pursued

Machine analysis of students' mathematical representations for multiplication and division problems

Thesis: M. Eng., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, 2013.Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.Includes bibliographical references (page 35).This project extends Classroom Learning Partner classroom interaction software to include a semantic interpretation component. This semantic interpretation, combined with existing syntactic interpretation, enables the software to tag and group student work using knowledge of the math used in both creating and solving problems. The analysis is being prototyped using student work in grades 4 and 5, with focus on multiplication and division. First, during the authoring step, the notebook author gives each page a "page definition" that encapsulates the mathematical problem presented on that page. For a multiplication or division problem, this involves setting the three numbers connected by the product relation (e.g., 6 * 3 = 18), marking which of those numbers are given by the problem or otherwise unknown, and selecting an overall context for the problem, such as equal groups or area. Then, once students have submitted their work, the analysis component takes the raw output of the syntactic interpretation step and relates it back to the mathematical content of the page to assign each student's work a set of automatically generated tags. These tags address the correctness of a student's methods and results, as well as highlighting different problem-solving strategies that students might have used to arrive at the same answer. Finally, the teacher can sort student submissions by these various tags to quickly find noteworthy or contrasting examples to present to the class.by Matthew Peairs.M. Eng