ECONOMIC ANALYSIS OF ENVIRONMENTAL BENEFITS OF INTEGRATED PEST MANAGEMENT

Public support for integrated pest management (IPM) is derived in part from concerns over food safety and the environment, yet few studies have assessed the economic value of health and environmental benefits of IPM. An approach is suggested for such an assessment and applied to the Virginia peanut IPM program. Effects of IPM on environmental risks posed by pesticides are assessed and society's willingness to pay to reduce those risks is estimated. The annual environmental benefits of the peanut IPM program are estimated at $844,000. The estimates of pesticide risks and willingness to pay can be applied elsewhere in economic assessments of IPM.Integrated pest management, Willingness to pay, Environmental benefits, Crop Production/Industries, Environmental Economics and Policy,

Evaluation of be-38 percent al alloy final report, 27 jun. 1964 - 28 feb. 1965

Mechanical properties, microstructural features, and general metallurgical quality of beryllium- aluminum allo

Gulf Stream Meanders: Observations on the Deep Currents

During 1979–1980, an array of inverted echo sounders (IES) and three deep current meter moorings were deployed on the continental slope 100–200 km northeast of Cape Hatteras, North Carolina. This array continuously monitored the path of the Gulf Stream and the deep currents under it. The mean currents at two sites 1000 m off the bottom near the northern edge of the stream were veered to the right of the mean surface path, indicating a deep inflow to the stream. Mean currents 500 and 1000 m off the bottom 50 km farther offshore were northeastward, nearly colinear with the surface Gulf Stream path. The deep velocity fluctuations are characterized by a transition from transverse flow aligned with the local bathymetry for periods longer than about 12 days to fluctuations with a cross-stream orientation for shorter periods. For periods between 4 days and 1 month, cross-stream movements of the Gulf Stream temperature front are vertically coherent and nearly barotropic, based on correlations between the IES-measured stream path and deep temperature fluctuations. Temperature fluctuations at the current meter sites lead cross-stream (positive onshore) velocity fluctuations by approximately 90°. Consideration of the nondiffusive fluctuating heat equation for deep layers suggests a three-term balance between local rate of change, cross-stream horizontal advection, and vertical advection of temperature, with the first two being of like sign. Kinematically, this requires |wTz| \u3e |υTy|, so that parcel trajectories in the cross-stream plane are inclined at angles steeper than the mean cross-stream slope of the isotherms. Eddy energy conversion between the fluctuations and the mean field in deep layers is predominantly baroclinic, with e-folding growth time scales of approximately 10 days

Time scales and structure of topographic Rossby waves and meanders in the deep Gulf Stream

During July–November 1982, current and temperature records were collected from six current meters spanning the lower 2000 m of the water column on two moorings in the Gulf Stream northeast of Cape Hatteras, N.C. Frequency domain EOF analysis of the velocity cross-spectra reveals that there are two kinematically distinct wave processes present in the subinertial range, identifiable as topographic Rossby wave and meander-associated motions, which are energetically dominant at periods longer than and shorter than 14 days, respectively. Simultaneous thermocline depth measurements obtained using inverted echo sounders show that the low-frequency topographic Rossby wave motions are uncoupled with near-surface displacements of the Gulf Stream path, but that cross-stream velocity fluctuations in the 14-day and 5-day period bands are associated with vertically coherent meanders of the Gulf Stream temperature front

Neutron star glitches have a substantial minimum size

Glitches are sudden spin-up events that punctuate the steady spin down of pulsars and are thought to be due to the presence of a superfluid component within neutron stars. The precise glitch mechanism and its trigger, however, remain unknown. The size of glitches is a key diagnostic for models of the underlying physics. While the largest glitches have long been taken into account by theoretical models, it has always been assumed that the minimum size lay below the detectability limit of the measurements. In this paper we define general glitch detectability limits and use them on 29 years of daily observations of the Crab pulsar, carried out at Jodrell Bank Observatory. We find that all glitches lie well above the detectability limits and by using an automated method to search for small events we are able to uncover the full glitch size distribution, with no biases. Contrary to the prediction of most models, the distribution presents a rapid decrease of the number of glitches below ~0.05 $\mu$Hz. This substantial minimum size indicates that a glitch must involve the motion of at least several billion superfluid vortices and provides an extra observable which can greatly help the identification of the trigger mechanism. Our study also shows that glitches are clearly separated from all the other rotation irregularities. This supports the idea that the origin of glitches is different to that of timing noise, which comprises the unmodelled random fluctuations in the rotation rates of pulsars.Comment: 8 pages; 4 figures. Accepted for publication in MNRA

Molecular Model of Dynamic Social Network Based on E-mail communication

In this work we consider an application of physically inspired sociodynamical model to the modelling of the evolution of email-based social network. Contrary to the standard approach of sociodynamics, which assumes expressing of system dynamics with heuristically defined simple rules, we postulate the inference of these rules from the real data and their application within a dynamic molecular model. We present how to embed the n-dimensional social space in Euclidean one. Then, inspired by the Lennard-Jones potential, we define a data-driven social potential function and apply the resultant force to a real e-mail communication network in a course of a molecular simulation, with network nodes taking on the role of interacting particles. We discuss all steps of the modelling process, from data preparation, through embedding and the molecular simulation itself, to transformation from the embedding space back to a graph structure. The conclusions, drawn from examining the resultant networks in stable, minimum-energy states, emphasize the role of the embedding process projecting the non–metric social graph into the Euclidean space, the significance of the unavoidable loss of information connected with this procedure and the resultant preservation of global rather than local properties of the initial network. We also argue applicability of our method to some classes of problems, while also signalling the areas which require further research in order to expand this applicability domain

Spatial coherence resonance on diffusive and small-world networks of Hodgkin-Huxley neurons

Spatial coherence resonance in a spatially extended system that is locally modeled by Hodgkin-Huxley (HH) neurons is studied in this paper. We focus on the ability of additive temporally and spatially uncorrelated Gaussian noise to extract a particular spatial frequency of excitatory waves in the medium, whereby examining also the impact of diffusive and small-world network topology determining the interactions amongst coupled HH neurons. We show that there exists an intermediate noise intensity that is able to extract a characteristic spatial frequency of the system in a resonant manner provided the latter is diffusively coupled, thus indicating the existence of spatial coherence resonance. However, as the diffusive topology of the medium is relaxed via the introduction of shortcut links introducing small-world properties amongst coupled HH neurons, the ability of additive Gaussian noise to evoke ordered excitatory waves deteriorates rather spectacularly, leading to the decoherence of the spatial dynamics and with it related absence of spatial coherence resonance. In particular, already a minute fraction of shortcut links suffices to substantially disrupt coherent pattern formation in the examined system.Comment: 8 two-column pages, 6 figures; accepted for publication in Chao

Surface electrical properties experiment, part 1

The work is reported which was performed on the Surface Electrical Properties Experiment Data Acquisition System. Areas discussed include: data handling and processing, installation and external signal application, operation of the equipment, and digital output. Detailed circuit descriptions are included