A literature review of biological and bio-rational control strategies for slugs: Current research and future prospects

Terrestrial gastropod molluscs (slugs and snails) (Mollusca: Gastropoda) cause significant crop damage around the world. There is no formal approach for differentiating between slugs and snails; however, an organism is usually considered a slug when there is no external shell, or when the shell is small in comparison to the body, and a snail when there is a large external shell. Although snails are an important pest of many crops, this review focuses on slug pests and their nonchemical control measures. A recent study by the UK Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board concluded that the failure to control slugs could cost the UK agriculture industry over GBP 100 million annually, with similar figures reported around the world. Whilst slugs are mostly controlled using chemical molluscicide products, some actives have come under scrutiny due to their detrimental environmental effects and impact on nontarget organisms. This has resulted in the ban of actives such as methiocarb in the UK and EU, and, more recently, the ban of metaldehyde in the UK. Therefore, there is an urgent need to find alternative and effective nontoxic solutions in the interest of global food security. In this paper, we have integrated extant literature on the three main biological control agents of slugs, namely nematodes, carabid beetles and sciomyzid flies, and various promising bio-rational slug control strategies. The review also highlights current research gaps and indicates some relevant potential future directions towards developing environmentally benign slug control solutions

Computerized home video detection for motherese may help to study impaired interaction between infants who become autistic and their parents

Computerized home video detection for motherese may help to study impaired interaction between infants who become autistic and their parents. Mahdhaoui A, Chetouani M, Cassel RS, Saint-Georges C, Parlato E, Laznik MC, Apicella F, Muratori F, Maestro S, Cohen D. Institut des Systèmes Intelligents et de Robotique, Université Pierre et Marie Curie, Paris, France. Autism is a well-defined clinical syndrome after the second year of life, but information on autism in the first two years of life is still lacking. The study of home videos has described children with autism during the first year of life as not displaying the rigid pattern typical of later symptoms. Therefore, developmental/environmental factors are claimed in addition to genetic/biological ones to explain the onset of autism during maturation. Here we describe (1) a developmental hypothesis focusing on the possible implication of motherese impoverishment during the course of parent-infant interactions as a possible co-factor; (2) the methodological approach we used to develop a computerized algorithm to detect motherese in home videos; (3) the best configuration performance of the detector in extracting motherese from home video sequences (accuracy = 82% on speaker-independent versus 87.5% on speaker-dependent) that we should use to test this hypothesis

Computerized home video detection for motherese may help to study impaired interaction between infants who become autistic and their parents

Autism is a well-defined clinical syndrome after the second year of life, but information on autism in the first two years of life is still lacking. The study of home videos has described children with autism during the first year of life as not displaying the rigid pattern typical of later symptoms. Therefore, developmental/environmental factors are claimed in addition to genetic/biological ones to explain the onset of autism during maturation. Here we describe (1) a developmental hypothesis focusing on the possible implication of motherese impoverishment during the course of parent-infant interactions as a possible co-factor; (2) the methodological approach we used to develop a computerized algorithm to detect motherese in home videos; (3) the best configuration performance of the detector in extracting motherese from home video sequences (accuracy=82% on speaker-independent versus 87.5% on speaker-dependent) that we should use to test this hypothesis. Copyright (C) 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.201E6E18Italian Ministry of Instruction, University, and Research (MIUR) [PRIN 2003-2005, PRIN 2005-2007]Fondation de France [2008005170]Italian Ministry of Instruction, University, and Research (MIUR) [PRIN 2003-2005, PRIN 2005-2007]Fondation de France [2008005170