Egg parasitoid exploitation of plant volatiles induced by single or concurrent attack of a zoophytophagous predator and an invasive phytophagous pest

Zoophytophagous insect predators can induce physiological responses in plants by activating defence signalling pathways, but whether plants can respond to facultative phytophagy by recruiting natural enemies remains to be investigated. In Y-tube olfactometer bioassays, using a system including a Vicia faba plant, the zoophytophagous predator Podisus maculiventris and the egg parasitoid Telenomus podisi, we first demonstrated that T. podisi females are attracted by broad bean plants damaged by feeding activity of P. maculiventris and on which host egg masses had been laid, while they are not attracted by undamaged plants or plants damaged by feeding activity alone. In a second experiment, we evaluated the impact of the invasive phytophagous pest Halyomorpha halys on this plant volatile-mediated tritrophic communication. Results showed that the invasive herbivorous adults do not induce plants to recruit the native egg parasitoid, but they can disrupt the local infochemical network. In fact, T. podisi females are not attracted by volatiles emitted by plants damaged by H. halys feeding alone or combined with oviposition activity, nor are they attracted by plants concurrently infested by P. maculiventris and H. halys, indicating the specificity in the parasitoid response and the ability of the invasive herbivore in interrupting the semiochemical communication between plants and native egg parasitoids. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study showing that zoophytophagous predator attacks induce indirect plant defences similarly to those defence strategies adopted by plants as a consequence of single or concurrent infestations of herbivorous insects

Dielectric response of modified Hubbard models with neutral-ionic and Peierls transitions

The dipole P(F) of systems with periodic boundary conditions (PBC) in a static electric field F is applied to one-dimensional Peierls-Hubbard models for organic charge-transfer (CT) salts. Exact results for P(F) are obtained for finite systems of N = 14 and 16 sites that are almost converged to infinite chains in deformable lattices subject to a Peierls transition. The electronic polarizability per site, \alpha_{el} = (\partial P/\partial F)_0, of rigid stacks with alternating transfer integrals t(1 +/- \delta) diverges at the neutral-ionic transition for \delta = 0 but remains finite for \delta > 0 in dimerized chains. The Peierls or dimerization mode couples to charge fluctuations along the stack and results in large vibrational contributions, \alpha_{vib}, that are related to \partial P/\partial \delta and that peak sharply at the Peierls transition. The extension of P(F) to correlated electronic states yields the dielectric response \kappa of models with neutral-ionic or Peierls transitions, where \kappa peaks >100 are found with parameters used previously for variable ionicity \rho and vibrational spectra of CT salts. The calculated \kappa accounts for the dielectric response of CT salts based on substituted TTFs (tetrathiafulvalene) and substituted CAs (chloranil). The role of lattice stiffness appears clearly in models: soft systems have a Peierls instability at small \rho and continuous crossover to large \rho, while stiff stacks such as TTF-CA have a first-order transition with discontinuous \rho that is both a neutral-ionic and Peierls transition. The transitions are associated with tuning the electronic ground state of insulators via temperature or pressure in experiments, or via model parameters in calculations.Comment: 10 pages, 9 figures; J.Chem.Phys., in pres

\u201cJudicial Independence vs. Judicial Accountability. Judicial Selection Models for Constitutional Courts. A comparative analysis\u201d

Abstract La cronaca politica degli ultimi anni riporta un numero rilevante di confronti, dal tono piu\u300 o meno conflittuale, tra le istituzioni politiche e quelle giurisdizionali. Di particolare rilevanza e\u300 che tale sorta di opposizione tra giustizia e politica coinvolga non solo l\u2019operato delle magistrature ordinarie ma anche quello delle Corti costituzionali: le supreme garanti e guardiane di quei principi sui quali dovrebbe fondarsi l\u2019intero ordinamento. A dispetto di cio\u300, esistono importanti occasioni in cui le autorita\u300 politiche e quelle giurisdizionali intrecciano i loro interessi, ed una di queste e\u300 proprio il momento in cui vengono reclutati i giudici costituzionali. Tuttavia, se una considerevole mole di ricerca e\u300 stata condotta sia sulla diffusione del judicial review, sia sulla cosiddetta \u201cjudicialization of politics\u201d, molta meno attenzione e\u300 stata invece dedicata ai processi ed alle regole di selezione ed elezione dei giudici costituzionali. Il lavoro qui presentato intende, piuttosto, sottolineare la rilevanza di tali previsioni, ritenendole espressione di valori intimamente connessi allo status ed al ruolo dei giudici nel sistema e nell\u2019equilibrio costituzionale. Si ritiene, in particolare, che due valori di fondo siano sottesi a tali meccanismi, proponendosi spesso come alternativi: quello dell\u2019indipendenza e quello della responsabilita\u300 degli organi della giurisdizione costituzionale. Attraverso l\u2019analisi comparata delle procedure di selezione dei giudici costituzionali e supremi di quattro paesi (Francia, Italia, Germania e Stati Uniti), l\u2019obiettivo di questo lavoro e\u300 quello di individuare quale sia, tra l\u2019indipendenza e la responsabilita\u300, il valore privilegiato, evidenziando le connessioni e le implicazioni che tale scelta ha sulla rispettiva forma di Stato

The Customs Union Issue: Why do we Observe so few of them?

The number of preferential trade agreements has greatly increased over the past two decades, yet most existing bilateral arrangements take the form of free trade areas, and less than ten percent can be considered to be fully fledged customs unions. This paper develops a political economy model of trade policy under imperfect competition to provide a positive explanation for the prevalence of free trade areas. In a three-country setting, a representative from each prospective member is elected to determine the tariffs to be applied on imported goods. Under a customs union, the necessity to coordinate tariffs leads voters to strategically delegate power to more protectionist representatives. Contrary to most of the existing literature, we show that strategic delegation may imply that free trade areas increase welfare compared to customs unions. Moreover, the model also indicates that free trade areas are more likely to be politically viable than customs unions.strategic delegation, preferential trade agreements

Performance Comparison of Various STM Concurrency Control Protocols Using Synchrobench

Writing concurrent programs for shared memory multiprocessor systems is a nightmare. This hinders users to exploit the full potential of multiprocessors. STM (Software Transactional Memory) is a promising concurrent programming paradigm which addresses woes of programming for multiprocessor systems. In this paper, we implement BTO (Basic Timestamp Ordering), SGT (Serialization Graph Testing) and MVTO(Multi-Version Time-Stamp Ordering) concurrency control protocols and build an STM(Software Transactional Memory) library to evaluate the performance of these protocols. The deferred write approach is followed to implement the STM. A SET data structure is implemented using the transactions of our STM library. And this transactional SET is used as a test application to evaluate the STM. The performance of the protocols is rigorously compared against the linked-list module of the Synchrobench benchmark. Linked list module implements SET data structure using lazy-list, lock-free list, lock-coupling list and ESTM (Elastic Software Transactional Memory). Our analysis shows that for a number of threads greater than 60 and update rate 70%, BTO takes (17% to 29%) and (6% to 24%) less CPU time per thread when compared against lazy-list and lock-coupling list respectively. MVTO takes (13% to 24%) and (3% to 24%) less CPU time per thread when compared against lazy-list and lock-coupling list respectively. BTO and MVTO have similar per thread CPU time. BTO and MVTO outperform SGT by 9% to 36%

Substitutability and Protectionism: Latin America’s Trade Policy and Imports from China and India

This paper examines the trade policy response of Latin American governments to the rapid growth of China and India in world markets. To explain higher protection in sectors where a large share is imported from these countries, we extend the ‘protection for sale’ model to allow for different degrees of substitutability between domestically produced and imported varieties. The extension suggests that higher levels of protection towards Chinese goods can be explained by high substitutability between domestically produced goods and Chinese goods, whereas lower levels of protection towards goods imported from India can be explained by low substitutability with domestically produced goods. The data supports the extension to the ‘protection for sale’ model, which performs better than the original specification in terms of explaining Latin America's structure of protection.Latin America, protectionism

Detection of nonthermal emission from the bow shock of a massive runaway star

The environs of massive, early-type stars have been inspected in recent years in the search for sites where particles can be accelerated up to relativistic energies. Wind regions of massive binaries that collide have already been established as sources of high-energy emission; however, there is a different scenario for massive stars where strong shocks can also be produced: the bow-shaped region of matter piled up by the action of the stellar strong wind of a runaway star interacting with the interstellar medium. We study the bow-shock region produced by a very massive runaway star, BD+43 3654, to look for nonthermal radio emission as evidence of a relativistic particle population. We observed the field of BD+43 3654 at two frequencies, 1.42 and 4.86 GHz, with the Very Large Array (VLA), and obtained a spectral index map of the radio emission. We have detected, for the first time, nonthermal radio emission from the bow shock of a massive runaway star. After analyzing the radiative mechanisms that can be at work, we conclude that the region under study could produce enough relativistic particles whose radiation might be detectable by forthcoming gamma-ray instruments, like CTA North.Comment: Accepted in Astronomy and Astrophysics Letter

Environmental Noise and Nonlinear Relaxation in Biological Systems

We analyse the effects of environmental noise in three different biological systems: (i) mating behaviour of individuals of \emph{Nezara viridula} (L.) (Heteroptera Pentatomidae); (ii) polymer translocation in crowded solution; (iii) an ecosystem described by a Verhulst model with a multiplicative L\'{e}vy noise.Comment: 32 pages; In "Ecological Modeling" by Ed. Wen-Jun Zhang. ISBN: 978-1-61324-567-5. - Nova Science Publishers, New York, 201

A bottom-up method for evaluating the whole energy demand of large residential building stocks: an application to a regional scale

In this paper a method is described, originally conceived during the compilation of the Energy and Environmental Regional Plan of Sicily, aimed to: a) set up a lay-out model of an overall regional residential estate into a certain number of different building and heating system types; b) calculate the energy needs of every single type according to the procedures established by the national and European regulations; The method is particularly designed to evaluate the possible energy savings from the implementation of different interventions concerning the envelope and the HVAC systems to the various building types. The method, although based on several assumptions, shows to be reliable enough and is also characterized by a simple structure easily adoptable by planners and technicians in their attempt to lead regional energy policies toward more sustainable paths. The method has been validated against the aggregate value of the real energy demand deriving from the regional energy balance

Penelusuran Sejarah Instrumen Akordeon dalam Ansambel Musik Melayu di Kota Pontianak

This study generally aims to trace the history of the instrument in Malay Music Ensemble in Pontianak. The method used is a form of qualitative methods to historical research. Sources of data in this study is Muhammad Thaha, that is, those who know the history of the accordion instrument in Malay Music Ensemble in Pontianak. The main data collection tool in the study were researchers themselves as a key instrument. Based on the results of a study of the history of the accordion instrument in Malay Music Ensemble in Pontianak found some related documents. Accordion instruments entered in Pontianak before the 1960s. In 1961 the accordion become part of the Malay Music Ensemble in Pontianak. Accordion became a very important instrument in the music play Malays Malays so that people want to maintain the accordion instrument that can be characteristic of Malay ethnic instruments in Pontianak