A hard coat, a tough choice? The effects of host seed morphology and mechanics on the egg laying behaviour of the bruchid beetle, Callosobruchus maculatus.

This study investigated whether the egg laying behaviour of Callosobruchus maculatus, an important storage pest of leguminous seed crops, was related to the mechanical properties of the host seed. The hypothesis was that females avoid laying eggs on seeds with particularly tough seed coats and hard cotyledons to reduce the resistance their larvae are subjected to when they bore into the seed to complete their development. Females were presented with seeds from three leguminous species: Vigna unguiculata, V. angularis and V. radiata. The distribution of oviposition sites on the seed's surface was related to the morphology and mechanical properties of the seed. Vickers microhardness and fracture tests were used to investigate regional variation and compare the properties of seeds with and without eggs adhered to their surface. There were no significant regional differences in the hardness of the cotyledon material along the longitudinal axis of the seed (P > 0.05). However, there were significant differences between the mechanical properties of the seed coat and the cotyledons; in V. unguiculata the seed coat was tougher, 1249 ± 80.8 J m−2, than the cotyledons, 402 ± 30.0 J m−2 (P 0.05). Mechanical data are discussed in relation to the egg laying behaviour of C. maculatus

A VIEW FROM THE GROUND: A REFORM GROUP’S PERSPECTIVE ON THE ONGOING EFFORT TO ACHIEVE MERIT SELECTION OF JUDGES

This article describes the history of judicial selection in the state of Pennsylvania. It describes the judicial selection reform movement and the growth of the organization Pennsylvanians for Modern Courts ( PMC ) which devises solutions to meet the various challenges to judicial integrity in Pennsylvania. It focuses on the merit system that PMC has been trying to achieve for Pennsylvania\u27s appellate courts

Enhancement of second-order nonlinear-optical signals by optical stimulation

Second-order nonlinear optical interactions such as sum- and difference-frequency generation are widely used for bioimaging and as selective probes of interfacial environments. However, inefficient nonlinear optical conversion often leads to poor signal-to-noise ratio and long signal acquisition times. Here, we demonstrate the dramatic enhancement of weak second-order nonlinear optical signals via stimulated sum- and difference-frequency generation. We present a conceptual framework to quantitatively describe the interaction and show that the process is highly sensitive to the relative optical phase of the stimulating field. To emphasize the utility of the technique, we demonstrate stimulated enhancement of second harmonic generation (SHG) from bovine collagen-I fibrils. Using a stimulating pulse fluence of only 3 nJ/cm2, we obtain an SHG enhancement >10^4 relative to the spontaneous signal. The stimulation enhancement is greatest in situations where spontaneous signals are the weakest - such as low laser power, small sample volume, and weak nonlinear susceptibility - emphasizing the potential for this technique to improve signal-to-noise ratios in biological imaging and interfacial spectroscopy

Poverty and inequality in Britain: 2005

This Commentary provides an update on trends in poverty and inequality in Great Britain, based on the latest official government statistics. It uses the same approach to measuring incomes and poverty in Great Britain as the government employs in its Households Below Average Income (HBAI) publication

Living standards, inequality and poverty

In this Election Briefing Note, we assess what has happened to living standards under Labour, setting out how average incomes, income inequality and poverty have changed since 1996- 97. We compare these changes with what happened under previous governments, and highlight where there have been differences between Labour's first and second terms

Statistics of the Mesoscopic Field

We find in measurements of microwave transmission through quasi-1D dielectric samples for both diffusive and localized waves that the field normalized by the square root of the spatially averaged flux in a given sample configuration is a Gaussian random process with position, polarization, frequency, and time. As a result, the probability distribution of the field in the random ensemble is a mixture of Gaussian functions weighted by the distribution of total transmission, while its correlation function is a product of correlators of the Gaussian field and the square root of the total transmission.Comment: RevTex: 5 pages, 2 figures; to be presented at Aspects of Quantum Chaotic Scattering (Dresden, March 7-12, 2005

Poverty and inequality in Britain: 2006

This Commentary provides an update on trends in poverty and inequality in Great Britain, based on the latest official government statistics. It uses the same approach to measuring incomes and poverty in Great Britain as the government employs in its Households Below Average Income (HBAI) publication

Plan recognition for space telerobotics

Current research on space telerobots has largely focused on two problem areas: executing remotely controlled actions (the tele part of telerobotics) or planning to execute them (the robot part). This work has largely ignored one of the key aspects of telerobots: the interaction between the machine and its operator. For this interaction to be felicitous, the machine must successfully understand what the operator is trying to accomplish with particular remote-controlled actions. Only with the understanding of the operator's purpose for performing these actions can the robot intelligently assist the operator, perhaps by warning of possible errors or taking over part of the task. There is a need for such an understanding in the telerobotics domain and an intelligent interface being developed in the chemical process design domain addresses the same issues