Evolutionary biology and genetic techniques for insect control

The requirement to develop new techniques for insect control that minimize negative environmental impacts has never been more pressing. Here we discuss population suppression and population replacement technologies. These include sterile insect technique, genetic elimination methods such as the release of insects carrying a dominant lethal (RIDL), and gene driving mechanisms offered by intracellular bacteria and homing endonucleases. We also review the potential of newer or underutilized methods such as reproductive interference, CRISPR technology, RNA interference (RNAi), and genetic underdominance. We focus on understanding principles and potential effectiveness from the perspective of evolutionary biology. This offers useful insights into mechanisms through which potential problems may be minimized, in much the same way that an understanding of how resistance evolves is key to slowing the spread of antibiotic and insecticide resistance. We conclude that there is much to gain from applying principles from the study of resistance in these other scenarios – specifically, the adoption of combinatorial approaches to minimize the spread of resistance evolution. We conclude by discussing the focused use of GM for insect pest control in the context of modern conservation planning under land-sparing scenarios

Metropolis and province configurations of identity in contemporary Austrian literature

This thesis uses an investigation of the contemporary development of the Anti-Heimatroman to explore the relationship between national identity and literature in present-day Austria. The traditional Anti-Heimatroman dominated the Austrian canon during the 1960s and 1970ร and has been cited by critics as fulfilling the criteria for a so called Nationalliteratur. The genre Second Republic identity paradigms through its bitingly aggressive presentation of a provincial milieu whose dynamics were overwhelmingly negative, and which was intended to function as a metonym for the state at large. Critical consensus, however, suggests that the Anti-Heimatroman became obsolete at the beginning of the 1980ร. This thesis interrogates both of these points of view, arguing not only that the Anti-Heimatroman continues to exist in the contemporary context, but also that the genre continues to function as 'national literature.’ The introduction uses empirical data to present an overview of the factors which contribute to the dominant conceptualisation of contemporary Austrian national identity, considering especially some of its more problematic aspects. These include the first victim thesis and the repercussions of the Waldheim affair. The second part of the introduction constitutes an historical overview of the development of the Anti- Heimat genre until the early 1980s.The case-studies that follow attempt to determine the extent to which conventions of the Anti-Heimatroman, as identified by critics including Mecklenburg, Zeyringer and Rossbacher, can be applied to four contemporary Austrian novels representing both aspects of the metropolis/province binary. The first study, an investigation of Josef Winkler's Der Ackermann aus Kärnten shows that the novel perpetuates these conventions through its presentation of protagonist constantly subjugated by a patriarchal system founded upon enforced submission to the institutions of authoritarian family and Church. An analysis of Gstrein's Das Register investigates the dynamics of a provincial Austrian tourist-trap whose inhabitants lives revolve around a capitalist imperative of economic and social success. The second part of the thesis shifts the reader's attention to the metropolis. A reading of Wiener Passion shows Faschinger's literary Vienna to be dominated by a purely provincial mentality built upon nostalgia for Austria's imperial past, a nostalgia revealed to be utterly fallacious in view of the experiences of the novel's main protagonist, Rosa Hawelka. Finally, an examination of Rabinovici's Suche nach M. applies the border imagery intrinsic in the traditional Anti-Heimatroman to explore expose the rigidity of the victim/perpetrator binary which Rabinovici presents as continuing to govern relations between Jewish and non-Jewish Austrians

A study of the interactions between ylidic phosphorus species and s-blockmetals

This thesis details the synthesis and characterisation of alkaline earth metal complexes of phosphonium ylides and iminophosphoranes, together with some related phosphine oxide species. This thesis also contains the synthesis and structural characterisation of a number of novel phosphonium ylides and iminophosphoranes. Chapter 1 provides an introduction to the field of phosphonium ylides and related compounds, describing their preparation and subsequent reactivity. Chapter 2 contains an explanation of the experimental techniques and analytical tools used, whilst Chapter 3 details the syntheses and analyses for all of the complexes discussed in the thesis. Chapter 4 discusses novel alkaline earth metal phosphonium ylide complexes. The chapter contains the first structurally characterised neutral phosphonium ylide complexes of calcium, strontium and barium with the general formula (Ph(_3)PCH(_2))(_2) M[N(SiMe(_3))(_2)](_2), where M = Ca, Sr and Ba. The analogous iminophosphorane and phosphine oxide complexes are discussed in detail in chapter 5. Complexes of the general formula (Ph(_3)PNH)(_2) M[0C(_6)H2(Me)(^1)Bu(_2)](_2),(Ph(_3)P0)(_2) M[0C(_6)H(_2)(Me)’Bu(_2)](_2) and (Ph(_3)PO)(_2) M[N(SiMe(_3))(_2)](_2), are described where M =Ca, Sr and Ba. Chapter 6 details the synthesis of novel litbiated iminophosphoranes and related compounds as well as the synthesis of a novel dianion [Ph(_2)(PhCH')PN"] for use in synthetic organic chemistry. The final Chapter (7) details the synthesis and structural characterisation of a number of novel phosphonium ylides Ph(_2)R'PCHR" and iminophosphoranes Ph(_2)R’’’PNH and their corresponding salts e.g Ph(_2)R'PTH(_2)R"X and Ph(_2)R 'P+NH(_2)X

Staat; Stadt; Subjekt: The Body and the City in Contemporary Austrian Fiction

Since the publication in 1960 of Hans Lebert’s, Die Wolfshaut, Austrian fiction has been dominated by the so-called Anti-Heimatroman or ‘critical regional novel’, which deploys the provincial setting as a key vehicle for the socially-critical representation of the Austrian nation. Such is the dominance of the Anti-Heimatroman that critics have identified a concern with regional Austria as one of the few constants of post-war Austrian writing. In the vast majority of the literature produced since the 1960s, therefore, Vienna has no role to play; the capital has occupied only a marginal position on Austria’s literary landscape. Recently, however, critics have acknowledged a return to the city in Austrian fiction. This thesis provides the first detailed account of this ‘urban turn’, focussing on the question of how the literary text’s socially-critical function has evolved as a result of the transition from province to metropolis. Placing its focus at the intersection of the body and (primarily urban) space, it provides readings of five novels published during the 1990s and 2000s. Its five case studies draw on the work of Michel Foucault and Walter Benjamin to explore the role that the subject’s interaction with urban topographies plays in contemporary literature’s critical engagement with Austrian realities. Chapter One challenges the established view that the Anti-Heimatroman became obsolete during the 1980s. It examines the construction of the gendered Heimat in Norbert Gstrein’s Das Register (1992), and explores in particular the extent to which Gstrein’s work draws on the generic norms of the Anti-Heimatroman. Turning to novels that are set in Vienna, subsequent chapters isolate two phases in the evolution of literature’s engagement with the realities of present-day and historical Austria. Readings of Lilian Faschinger’s Wiener Passion (1999) and Doron Rabinovici’s Suche nach M. (1997) show that during the 1990s, the city replaces the province as a privileged backdrop for critical engagement with the problematic discourses that structure Austria’s post-war identity politics. By contrast, the post-Jahrtausendwende texts discussed here, Arno Geiger’s Es geht uns gut (2005) and Thomas Stangl’s Ihre Musik (2006), are marked by a turn inward, as writers become more interested in the emotional, psychological and existential orientation of the urban subject. But this turn inward results ultimately in a shift outward, enabling Austrian writers to focus on more universal socio-political issues. This thesis explores the development of literary engagement with Austrian realities during two decades of Austria’s literary history that remain conspicuously under-researched. The contemporaneity of the urban turn demands a critical focus on younger authors who have traditionally stood in the long shadows cast by their better-established colleagues. This unconventional approach, which leads away from the Austrian canon, is the source of second contribution that this thesis makes to Austrian Studies. By engaging explicitly with novels produced by younger authors, this thesis asks what the work of newer constellations of Austrian writers can tell us about the changing status of literature, and of its relationship to the society of which it is a product

Enhanced lensing rate by clustering of massive galaxies: newly discovered systems in the SLACS fields

[Abridged] We exploit the clustering of massive galaxies to perform a high efficiency imaging search for gravitational lenses. Our dataset comprises 44 fields imaged by the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS), each of which is centered on a lens discovered by the Strong Lens ACS Survey (SLACS). We compare four different search methods: 1) automated detection with the HST Archive Galaxy-scale Gravitational Lens Survey (HAGGLeS) robot, 2) examining cutout images of bright galaxies (BGs) after subtraction of a smooth galaxy light distribution, 3) examining the unsubtracted BG cutouts, and 4) performing a full-frame visual inspection of the ACS images. We compute purity and completeness and consider investigator time for the four algorithms, using the main SLACS lenses as a testbed. The first and second algorithms perform the best. We present the four new lens systems discovered during this comprehensive search, as well as one other likely candidate. For each new lens we use the fundamental plane to estimate the lens velocity dispersion and predict, from the resulting lens geometry, the redshifts of the lensed sources. Two of these new systems are found in galaxy clusters, which include the SLACS lenses in the two respective fields. Overall we find that the enhanced lens abundance (30^{+24}_{-8} lenses/degree^2) is higher than expected for random fields (12^{+4}_{-2} lenses/degree^2 for the COSMOS survey). Additionally, we find that the gravitational lenses we detect are qualitatively different from those in the parent SLACS sample: this imaging survey is largely probing higher-redshift, and lower-mass, early-type galaxies.Comment: submitted to ApJ; 19 pages, 12 figure

Designing for Dual Submission of ETDs

The main objective is to get participants thinking about how they can solve problems associated with a dual submission of ETDs. Many institutions choose to archive ETDs in their repositories, but also mandate, insist, or permit ETDs to be submitted to ProQuest via the UMI ETD Administrator. The Administrator offers a no-submission-fee route for ETD inclusion in ProQuest’s ubiquitous subscription databases. At FIU, after deciding on a mandatory ETD Policy in July 2011, we considered moving from a payment/snail mail submission to altogether scrapping submission to ProQuest; however, our librarians made a case for keeping at least an option for ProQuest submission. After consideration of all the options, implementing the UMI ETD Administrator seemed the most logical because it relieves payment, paperwork, and snail mail. Unfortunately, the UMI ETD Administrator creates as many problems as it solves e.g., the dual submission. According to the Berkman Center’s Good Practices for University Open-Access Policies, the university should offer to make additional deposits outside of the institutional repository. Thus, we sought to find a way for the students to only submit once to our DigitalCommons Institutional Repository. By June 2012, we manually triaged our first batch of ETDs from our DigitalCommons to the UMI ETD Administrator; however, since that first batch we have identified problems with metadata submission, entering student information, and the ETD Administrator default setup. For instance, with our second batch, we eliminated discrepancies with the department field; in our third batch, we eliminated concerns with FERPA and submitting student information; in our fourth batch, we look to cut down the time of each manual submission. Attendees, with institutions considering the ETD Administrator, should expect to anticipate and solve several issues associated with implementing the system in conjunction with an institutional repository. Attendees, who work with both the ETD Administrator and an Institutional Repository, should expect to gain new ideas for eliminating a dual submission for students, a quicker publication turn around, and/or decreased workflow time

New media data to identify student training needs

The main objective is to exhibit how usage data from new media can be used to assess areas where students need more help in creating their ETDs. After attending this session, attendees will be able to use usage data from new media, in conjunction with traditional assessment data, to identify strengths and weaknesses in ETD training and resources. The burgeoning ETD program at Florida International University (FIU) has provided many opportunities to experiment with assessment strategies and new media. The usage statistics from YouTube and the ETD LibGuide revealed areas of strength and weakness in the training resources and the overall ETD training initiative. With the ability to assess these materials, they have been updated to better meet student needs. In addition to these assessment tools, there are opportunities to connect these statistics with data from a common error checklist, student feedback from ETD workshops, and final ETD submission surveys to create a full-fledged outcome based assessment program for the ETD initiative