New records, nomenclatural changes, and taxonomic notes for select North American leaf beetles (Coleoptera: Chrysomelidae)

New records, nomenclatural changes and taxonomic notes are presented for select North American leaf beetles (Coleoptera: Chrysomelidae). The following genera are newly recorded from the United States: Nesaecrepida Blake, 1964; Acallepitrix Bechyne, 1959; Margaridisa Bechyne, 1958; Parchicola Bechyne and Springlova de Bechyne, 1975; (all Galerucinae: Alticini); and Demotina Baly, 1874 (Eumolpinae). The following species are newly recorded from the United States: Neolema dorsalis (Olivier, 1791) (Criocerinae); Charidotella bifossulata Boheman, 1855 (Hispinae: Cassidini); Syphrea flauicollis (Jacoby, 1884) (Galerucinae: Alticini); and Promecosoma inflatum Lefevre, 1877, and Demotina modesta Baly, 1874 (Eumolpinae). The following new synonymies are proposed: Deloyala clauata, var. diuersicollis Schaeffer, 1925, transferred from synonymy with Plagiometriona clauata (Fabricius, 1798) to synonymy withP. clauata testudinaria (Boheman, 1855); Chrysomela hybrida Say, 1824, downgraded from subspecies of Calligrapha lunata (Fabricius, 1787) to full synonym of CaZZigrapha lunata (Fabricius); Chrysomela casta Rogers, 1856, downgraded from subspecies of Zygogramma suturalis (Fabricius, 1775) to full synonym of Zygogrammasuturalis (Fabricius); Trirhabdagurneyi Blake, 1951, downgraded to synonym of Trirhabda caduca Horn, 1893; Scelida mimula Wilcox, 1965, downgraded to synonym of Scelida nigricornis (Jacoby, 1888); Exoracalifornica Wilcox, 1953, downgraded to synonym of Pte leon breuicornis (Jacoby, 1887); alaeothonaarizonensis Blake, 1950, downgraded to synonym ofLupraea discrepans (Schaeffer, 1932); Haltica nigritula Linell, 1898, downgraded to synonym of Nesaecrepida asphalt ina (Suffrian, 1868); Cryptocephalus reinhardi Sundman, 1965, downgraded to synonym of Cryptocephalus nwtabilis Melsheimer, 1847. The tribes Chalepini Wiese, 1910, and Uroplatini Weise, 1910 (Hispinae), are synonymized, and both of these family-group names are recognized as nomina protecta. The family-group name Octotomites Chapuis, 1875, is recognized as a nomen oblitum. Coptocycla testudinaria Boheman, 1855, is downgraded from specific status to a subspecies of Plagiometriona clauata (Fabricius, 1798); Cassida bicolor (Fabricius, 1798) is recognized as a valid subspecies of Charidotellasexpunctata (Fabricius). The genus Hemiphrynus Horn, 1889, is removed from synonymy with Phrynocepha and reinstated as a valid genus; Rhabdopterus weisei (Schaeffer, 1920) is removed from synonymy with Rhabdopterus praetextus (Say) and reinstated as a valid species. The following new combinations are proposed: Synetocephalus wallacei (Wilcox, 1965), transferred from Pseudoluperus; Nesaecrepida infuscata (Schaeffer, 1906), transferred from Monomacra; Acallepitrix nitens (Horn, 1889), transferred from Epitrix; Margaridisa atriuentris (Melsheimer, 1847), transferred from Hornaltica; Parchicola iris (Olivier, 1808) and P. tibialis (Olivier, 1808), transferred from Monomacra; and Coleothorpa panochensis (Gilbert, 1981), transferred from Coscinoptera; Promecosoma arizonae (Crotch, 1873), transferred from Metaxyonycha; Tymnes chrysis (Olivier, 1808), T. oregonensis (Crotch, 1873), and T. thaleia (Blake, 1977), transferred from Colaspis. The following new replacement name is proposed: Triarius nigroflaulls, for Luperodes flauoniger Blake, 1942 (not Laboissiere, 1925). The identities of Griburius equestris (Olivier, 1808) and G. laruatlls (Newman, 1840) are discussed

CHOOSING A PATH: A STUDY OF THE THEORIES OF CHRISTIAN CONVERSION AND CHRISTIAN NURTURE IN THE CONFESSIONS OF ST. AUGUSTINE AND IN CHRISTIAN NURTURE BY HORACE BUSHNELL

Abstract (Summary), 321 pages. This dissertation is a comparative study of the phenomenon of Christian conversion with the praxis of Christian nurture in the thought of St. Augustine and Horace Bushnell. The primary sources of the investigation are St. Augustine's Confessions and Bushnell's Christian Nurture. Brief reviews of studies of the primary documents provide interpretations and set the historical context in which each person lived and worked. Augustine was a theologian in the early centuries of the post-New Testament church during the generation after the rule of Emperor Constantine and the legalization of Christianity. Bushnell was a congregational minister in New England during the 19th century of revivalism in America. There is a basic difference between Augustine's and Bushnell's guiding theories of human nature. Bushnell wrote that a person who is born in a Christian family should never grow up knowing himself or herself as anything other than a Christian. But Augustine felt that each person needed to have an individual moment of conversion when that person finds their rest in God. Another difference is that the philosophy of nurture for Augustine is primarily tied in the Confessions to God, who seeks lost humankind and, in his other writings, to the church as an instructional agency for religious education on earth. Meanwhile, in Bushnell's theory of nurture, his main repository for all education including anything religious is the home; everything else is seen as assisting the parents. More intricate aspects of Augustine's and Bushnell's perspectives on human nature are explored and, in specific, a deeper analysis of their beliefs on conversion and nurture is investigated in this paper. The principles from this study should be applicable in most faiths or settings; although Christian educators in schools (parochial or private), home school families, parents, caretakers of children, and workers in churches and other Christian education settings may find it especially helpful and pertinent

Obesity, unhappiness, and the challenge of affluence : theory and evidence

Is affluence a good thing? The book "The Challenge of Affluence" by Avner Offer (2006) argues that economic prosperity weakens self-control and undermines human well-being. Consistent with a pessimistic view, we show that psychological distress has been rising through time in modern Great Britain. Taking over-eating as an example, our data reveal that half the British population view themselves as overweight, and that happiness and mental health are worse among fatter people in Britain and Germany. Comparisons also matter. We discuss problems of inference and argue that longitudinal data are needed. We suggest a theory of obesity imitation where utility depends on relative weight

A Delay Tolerant Networking-Based Approach to a High Data Rate Architecture for Spacecraft

Historically, it has been the case that SWaP placed such severe constraints on radios that the links between spacecraft and the ground were relatively slow. This meant that the radio link was normally a significant bottleneck in returning scientific data. Over recent years, however, a combination of more efficient radio design, intelligent waveforms, and highly directed, high-frequency RF / optical systems have led to a rapid increase in the amount of data that can be pushed through radio and optical links. This has led to some cases where the radio links are capable of moving data much more quickly than the spacecraft and instruments are capable of actually generating it! In some instances, scientific data can therefore be lost not because the downlink is too slow to support the data rate, but instead because the spacecraft was not designed in a way that would let it fully utilize both the radio and the networking services available to it.The High Data Rate Architecture (HiDRA) project describes a packet-based approach to building modern, distributed spacecraft systems. It presents a means for spacecraft and other assets to participate in both present and future Delay Tolerant Networks (DTN), while simultaneously ensuring that the asset is able to fully utilize the new, high-speed links that have been seeing more widespread development and deployment in recent years. With this in mind, this paper begins with a discussion regarding HiDRA's evolution. Next, it discusses the capabilities and limitations of NASA's present DTN-enabled networks. Of particular note is the way in which principles of network design at the terrestrial level (e.g. use of programmable networks / software-defined networks, separation between data and control plane, infusion of COTS Ethernet switch chips, etc.) can all be translated into the space environment as well. After this, the paper discusses the design and implementation of a present prototype reference implementation of High-Rate DTN (HDTN), which is intended to demonstrate future high-rate networking concepts as part of a coherent demonstration on the International Space Station (ISS). The goal, of both the research and of this implementation, is to help develop a ready-made toolbox of ideas, approaches, and examples from which mission designers can draw when putting together new missions. Assuming all goes as planned, this should not only work to reduce the cost of individual mission design, but also improve the rate at which science data can be returned for mission participants to review

Stigmergic epistemology, stigmergic cognition

To know is to cognize, to cognize is to be a culturally bounded, rationality-bounded and environmentally located agent. Knowledge and cognition are thus dual aspects of human sociality. If social epistemology has the formation, acquisition, mediation, transmission and dissemination of knowledge in complex communities of knowers as its subject matter, then its third party character is essentially stigmergic. In its most generic formulation, stigmergy is the phenomenon of indirect communication mediated by modifications of the environment. Extending this notion one might conceive of social stigmergy as the extra-cranial analog of an artificial neural network providing epistemic structure. This paper recommends a stigmergic framework for social epistemology to account for the supposed tension between individual action, wants and beliefs and the social corpora. We also propose that the so-called "extended mind" thesis offers the requisite stigmergic cognitive analog to stigmergic knowledge. Stigmergy as a theory of interaction within complex systems theory is illustrated through an example that runs on a particle swarm optimization algorithm

Evaluation of Classifier Complexity for Delay Tolerant Network Routing

The growing popularity of small cost effective satellites (SmallSats, CubeSats, etc.) creates the potential for a variety of new science applications involving multiple nodes functioning together or independently to achieve a task, such as swarms and constellations. As this technology develops and is deployed for missions in Low Earth Orbit and beyond, the use of delay tolerant networking (DTN) techniques may improve communication capabilities within the network. In this paper, a network hierarchy is developed from heterogeneous networks of SmallSats, surface vehicles, relay satellites and ground stations which form an integrated network. There is a tradeoff between complexity, flexibility, and scalability of user defined schedules versus autonomous routing as the number of nodes in the network increases. To address these issues, this work proposes a machine learning classifier based on DTN routing metrics. A framework is developed which will allow for the use of several categories of machine learning algorithms (decision tree, random forest and deep learning) to be applied to a dataset of historical network statistics, which allows for the evaluation of algorithm complexity versus performance to be explored. We develop the emulation of a hierarchical network, consisting of tens of nodes which form a cognitive network architecture. CORE (Common Open Research Emulator) is used to emulate the network using bundle protocol and DTN IP neighbor discovery

Stochastic Feature Selection with Distributed Feature Spacing for Hyperspectral Data

Feature subset selection is a well studied problem in machine learning. One short-coming of many methods is the selection of highly correlated features; a characteristic of hyperspectral data. A novel stochastic feature selection method with three major components is presented. First, we present an optimized feature selection method that maximizes a heuristic using a simulated annealing search which increases the chance of avoiding locally optimum solutions. Second, we exploit local cross correlation pair-wise amongst classes of interest to select suitable features for class discrimination. Third, we adopt the concept of distributed spacing from the multi-objective optimization community to distribute features across the spectrum in order to select less correlated features. The classification performance of our semi-embedded feature selection and classification method is demonstrated on a 12-class textile hyperspectral classification problem under several noise realizations. These results are compared with a variety of feature selection methods that cover a broad range of approaches. Abstract © IEE