AFLP analysis of genetic differentiation in CpGV resistant and susceptible Cydia pomonella (L.) populations

The codling moth, Cydia pomonella (Lep., Tortricidae), is a significant pest of orchard crops such as apple and pear in Southern Germany, and can cause severe economic damage to apple crops. Due to resistance to conventional pesticides and the growing market for organic fruit, Cydia pomonella Granulovirus (CpGV) has been used to control C. pomonella in Germany for over 10 years. Recently, populations exhibiting resistance to CpGV have been reported. In this study, we have used amplified fragment length polymorphism (AFLP) markers to estimate genetic variations between eight different C. pomonella populations, which were obtained from different locations exhibiting varying levels of resistance to CpGV. Three different AFLP primer combinations generated a total of 194 AFLP fragments, ranging from 57.84 to 424.11 bp, with an average of 59.23 amplified fragments per primer combination. The total number of segregating fragments ranged from 181 to 115 and resulted in a high loci polymorphism of 100% in most cases, except for two populations, where it was found to be 88.1% and 93.3%. An analysis of genetic variation based on the obtained AFLP markers resulted in high gene diversity (Hj) values, ranging between 0.2884 to 0.3508. Hj values also indicated a loss in gene diversity within a population over time. The Wright Fixation Index (FST) values indicated a low to moderate genetic differentiation in the populations. The cluster analysis (UPGMA), based on genetic distance values, showed that the majority of C. pomonella populations from different locations were clearly distributed into distinct groups and showed a large genetic variability

Toward Provenance-Based Security for Configuration Languages

Large system installations are increasingly configured using high-level, mostly-declarative languages. Often, different users contribute data that is compiled centrally and distributed to individual systems. Although the systems themselves have been developed with reliability and availability in mind, the configuration compilation process can lead to unforeseen vulnerabilities because of the lack of access control on the different components combined to build the final configuration. Even if simple change-based access controls are applied to validate changes to the final version, changes can be lost or incorrectly attributed. Based on the growing literature on provenance for database queries and other models of computation, we identify a potential application area for provenance to securing configuration languages.

Contrasting Properties of Motor Output from the Supplementary Motor Area and Primary Motor Cortex in Rhesus Macaques

The goal of this study was to assess the motor output capabilities of the forelimb representation of the supplementary motor area (SMA) in terms of the sign, latency and strength of effects on electromyographic (EMG) activity. Stimulus triggered averages of EMG activity from 24 muscles of the forelimb were computed in SMA during a reach-to-grasp task. Poststimulus facilitation (PStF) from SMA had two distinct peaks (15.2 and 55.2 ms) and one poststimulus suppression (PStS) peak (32.4 ms). The short onset latency PStF and PStS of SMA were 5.5 and 16.8 ms longer than those of the primary motor cortex (M1). The average magnitudes (peak increase or decrease above baseline) of the short and long latency PStF and PStS from SMA at 60 μA were 13.8, 11.3 and −11.9% respectively. In comparison, M1 PStF and PStS magnitudes at 15 μA were 50.2 and −23.8%. Extrapolating M1 PStF magnitude to 60 μA yields a mean effect that is nearly 15 times greater than the mean PStF from SMA. Moreover, unlike M1, the facilitation of distal muscles from SMA was not significantly greater than the facilitation of proximal muscles. We conclude that the output from SMA to motoneurons is markedly weaker compared with M1 raising doubts about the role of SMA corticospinal neurons in the direct control of muscle activit

Political Economy

This chapter situates Montesquieu’s economic writing within broader political and economic developments that favored the emergence, in France and all over Europe, of political economy. For Montesquieu, the rise of international trade; the increasing dominance of mobile forms of wealth; and transformed expectations for material well-being in modern societies undermined traditional social structures and the forms of political authority that went with them. In this context, Montesquieu’s political thought can be read as a kind of political economy insofar as it employed a moral psychology of other-directedness and self-interest that was better adapted to an emerging commercial society than traditional models of duty and virtue. But Montesquieu, unlike the more straightforwardly economic writers of his time, did not organize his inquiry around questions of plenty so much as he sought, through his comparative method, to explore the diverse ways in which statecraft in the age of commerce could contribute to his ideal of moderate government

Inheritance and Incest: Toward a Lévi-Straussian Reading of Montesquieu's <i>De L'esprit des Lois</i>

The premise of this article is that Montesquieu, while seen as an Enlightenment thinker who contributed centrally to the development of the social sciences before the period of discipline formation in the nineteenth century, is generally appreciated in only the vaguest of terms. To the degree that he has been seen as a social theorist rather than as a belletrist or a political writer, scholars have had to amputate major sections of his masterwork, De l'esprit des lois (1748). In so doing, they have tended to give false or at least only partial readings of a work whose author insisted must be read as a whole. This article proceeds in an unorthodox fashion—at least for a historian—through a reading of De l'esprit des lois against Claude Lévi-Strauss's Les structures élémentaires de la parenté (1949). Through this parallel reading, I establish that Montesquieu's treatment of inheritance bears a remarkable homology with Lévi-Strauss's treatment of incest in Les structures élémentaires. These authors saw their respective objects—the incest taboo, in one case, and inheritance law, in the other—as fundamental to regulating sociability itself. This technique offers a more unified reading of De l'esprit des lois and, in so doing, reassesses Montesquieu's contribution to modern social theory. From a methodological point of view, I am hoping to interest my readers in an alternative way of reading historical texts: juxtaposing texts or corpora that do not have the clear genetic links between them that are generally highly valued by historians. This is an example of what Robert B. Pippin has called “interanimation” and what I have elsewhere likened to the painterly technique of simultaneous contrast

Commerce

No abstrac

Toward Provenance-Based Security for Configuration Languages

Large system installations are increasingly configured using high-level, mostly-declarative languages. Often, different users contribute data that is compiled centrally and distributed to individual systems. Although the systems themselves have been developed with reliability and availability in mind, the configuration compilation process can lead to unforeseen vulnerabilities because of the lack of access control on the different components combined to build the final configuration. Even if simple change-based access controls are applied to validate changes to the final version, changes can be lost or incorrectly attributed. Based on the growing literature on provenance for database queries and other models of computation, we identify a potential application area for provenance to securing configuration languages

Demand for Information Technology Workers in Central Florida

This is a study which attempts to determine the current and future demand for Information technology (IT) employees. A total of fifty-two (52) organizations from Central Florida responded to this study. Several interesting findings included: 1) seventy-five percent of the companies surveyed have a current hiring freeze in place for IT positions; 2) by 2006 forty percent of the companies are expected to resume hiring some IT personnel; 3) the areas of security, client support, systems analysis and consulting show the greatest demand and; 4) the most essential skills for an entry level IT position include: communications (verbal and written), database, system analysis and project management