Field applications of entomopathogenic fungi against Rhagoletis cerasi

Two myco-insecticides, Naturalis-L (Beauveria bassiana) and PreFeRal®WG (Paecilomyces fumosoroseus), were applied against adult R. cerasi (Diptera: Tephritidae) in two orchards in north-western Switzerland in summer 2006. Both products were applied at a concentration of 5.75x104 CFU / ml. With four applications at seven day intervals the whole flight period of R. cerasi was fully covered. During this period (5th June – 6th July) the temperature averaged 19.2°C, total precipitation was 60 mm. Under these conditions Naturalis-L significantly reduced the number of damaged fruit (efficacy: 69-74%), whereas damage was not significantly reduced with PreFeRal®WG (efficacy: 27%). Fungus infested flies were found on the yellow sticky traps proving that the myco-insecticides worked as predicted. Climatic conditions were different in 2007: temperature averaged 15.9°C (16th May – 4th July), total precipitation was 281 mm. In 2007 only Naturalis-L was tested: with five applications an efficacy of 73% and 78% was obtained on the cherry varieties Langstieler and Dolleseppler, respectively. However, for the latest ripening and most infested variety Schauenburger only an efficacy of 18% was observed. In these cherries a high number of young larvae were found indicating that the efficacy was low at the end of the treatment period. In conclusion a control of R. cerasi with myco-insecticides seems possible. However, application regime still has to be improved and should not only be adapted to the flight period of R. cerasi, but also to the cherry varieties

The LHC Magnet Programme: From Accelerator Physics Requirements to Production in Industry

The LHC is designed to provide, at a beam energy of 7 TeV, a nominal peak luminosity of 1034 cm-2s-1 with simultaneous collisions at two high-luminosity insertions. This objective is being achieved by pushing the technology of superconducting accelerator magnets and cryogenics to its state-of-the-art limits, and by upgrading the existing CERN accelerators and infrastructures. In this paper, the parameters of the main dipole (1232 units) and quadrupole (392 units) magnets stemming from the LHC design considerations are presented and discussed. Subsequently, the R & D program undertaken at CERN and with industry, to experimentally validate magnet design assumptions, to assess the merits of design variants and to procure and commission the heavy tooling necessary for series manufacture, is described and its main difficulties and results highlighted. Finally a report is given about the procurement strategy, and the progress in manufacturing

LHC Arc Dipole Status Report

The LHC, a 7 TeV proton collider presently under construction at CERN, requires 1232 superconducting (SC) dipole magnets, featuring a nominal field of 8.33 T inside a cold beam tube of 50 mm inner diameter and a magnetic length of 14.3 m. To achieve such high fields whilst retaining the well-proven fabrication methods of cables made with NbTi superconductors, it is necessary to operate the magnets at 1.9 K in superfluid helium. For reasons of space and economy, the two dipole apertures are incorporated into a single iron yoke and cryostat (two-in-one concept). The design considerations and the experimental results, which have led to the design adopted for series manufacture, are presented and discussed. The aims and status of the short model and full size prototype dipole programmes are subsequently reported. Finally, the major milestones of the schedule of the dipole magnets series manufacture are given and commented

Dichotomous Hamiltonians with Unbounded Entries and Solutions of Riccati Equations

An operator Riccati equation from systems theory is considered in the case that all entries of the associated Hamiltonian are unbounded. Using a certain dichotomy property of the Hamiltonian and its symmetry with respect to two different indefinite inner products, we prove the existence of nonnegative and nonpositive solutions of the Riccati equation. Moreover, conditions for the boundedness and uniqueness of these solutions are established.Comment: 31 pages, 3 figures; proof of uniqueness of solutions added; to appear in Journal of Evolution Equation

Potential and Limits of Pesticide Free Apple Growing by a Self-Regulating Orchard Set-Up: Project Presentation and First Experiences

Different research groups have already proven that flowering plants in orchards can enhance beneficial arthropods. Even within the tree rows different beneficial can be supported by selected plant species. In most experimental work done to stabilize the apple production system only single interaction effects were tested. However until now, no research group has quantified the additive effects of multiple measures on systembiodiversity and on the production economy. Our experiment combines all known measures of indirect pest and disease control measures in a near-to practical production model orchard without the use of any pesticide (not even organic ones). The orchard is split in 4 blocks: in two of them bio-control measures e.g. application of Granulosis Virus against codling moth (C. Pomonella) are applied; in the other two blocks no bio-control is applied. Standard commercial organic and integrated orchards with the disease-susceptible cultivar Gala in the vicinity of the model orchard are assessed by the same methods and serve as reference. Our intermediate results reveal that the self-regulating orchard developed already in the 2nd and 3rd leaf a clearly higher flora and fauna biodiversity compared to the reference orchards. The same happened in relation to the specific fruit beneficial e.g. the populations of aphid predators. In the self-regulating orchard they were capable to keep the aphid damages – in particular of the powdery apple aphid (D. plantaginea) - on trees and fruits under a commercially relevant level although the initial abundance of aphid colonies in spring was by far over the common threshold value. It is planned to continue the experiment until 2016

Fatty acids synthesized by oral treponemes in chemically defined media

OMIZ-W68, a chemically defined medium that contains no long-chain fatty acids and yet supports in vitro proliferation of a wide range of fastidious oral anaerobes, is described. The type strains of Treponema denticola, Treponema lecithinolyticum, Treponema maltophilum, Treponema pectinovorum, Treponema socranskii, and an as yet unpublished canine Treponema species could be propagated indefinitely in this medium with sugar supplements for the saccharolytic species. Analysis of the cellular fatty acids (CFA) of these treponemes by gas chromatography demonstrated the synthesis of C14, C15, C16, and C17 fatty acids (linear-, iso-, and anteiso-forms) in various proportions, but neither hydroxy- nor unsaturated fatty acids. However, between 0% and 40% of the eluted material could not be identified. The proportions of CFAs differed not only between species but also between the eight strains of Treponema denticola investigated. Replacing OMIZ-W68 by a derivative minimal essential medium (OMIZ-M/TDCDK) developed for Treponema denticola had little effect on the CFA profiles. In contrast, the CFA profiles of treponemes grown in OMIZ-W68 showed at best minor similarity to the strains from the Moore library of the Virginia Polytechnic Institute, which had been grown in media containing serum, peptones, and yeast extrac

The source parameters of the San Fernando earthquake inferred from teleseismic body waves

The accuracy of teleseismic estimates of moment, fault area, dislocation and stress drop was tested for the case of a thrust fault: the San Fernando, California, earthquake of February 9, 1971. On the basis of P-wave spectra of 25 stations and S-wave spectra of 9 stations, the respective values were found to be 0.7 · 10^(26) dyne-cm, 570 km^2, 45 cm, and 14 bars. They agree well with the same parameters obtained from field observations. It is concluded that Brune's (1970) seismic source model is valid for the area determination of thrust earthquakes. The energy radiated in the form of S wave is estimated to be 5 · 10^(21) ergs

Multistep shell model in the complex energy plane

We have adopted the multistep shell model in the complex energy plane to study nuclear excitations occurring in the continuum part of the spectrum. In this method one proceeds by solving the shell model equations in a successive manner. That is, in each step one constructs the building blocks to be used in future steps. We applied this formalism to analyze the unbound nuclei $^{12,13}$Li starting from the one-particle states in $^{10}$Li and two-particle states in $^{11}$Li. In the former case the excitations correspond to the motion of three particles partitioned as the product of a one-particle and two-particle systems. The ground state of $^{12}$Li is thus calculated to be an antibound (virtual) state. In the four-particle system $^{13}$Li the states can be constructed as the coupling of two correlated pairs. We found that there is no bound or antibound state in $^{13}$Li.Comment: 10 pages, 2 table, 3 figures, Proceedings of the Conference on Advanced Many-Body and Statistical Methods in Mesoscopic Systems, Constanta, Romania, June 27th - July 2nd 2011. To appear in Journal of Physics: Conference Serie

A traveling-wave THz photomixer based on angle-tuned phase matching

A traveling-wave THz photomixer based on a free-space optical-THz phase-matching scheme is proposed. A dc-biased coplanar strip line fabricated on low-temperature-grown GaAs serves as the active area of the device, and is illuminated by two noncollinear laser beams which generate interference fringes that are accompanied by THz waves. The device with the laser-power-handling capability over 300 mW and a 3-dB bandwidth of 1.8 THz was experimentally demonstrated. The results show that traveling-wave photomixers have the potential to surpass small-area designs