Microbial control of diamondback moth,Plutella xylostella L. (Lepidoptera: Yponomeutidae) using bacteria (Xenorhabdus nematophila) and its metabolites from the entomopathogenic nematode Steinernema carpocapsae

Cells and cell-free solutions of the culture filtrate of the bacterial symbiont, Xenorhabdus nematophila taken from the entomopathogenic nematode Steinernema carpocapsae in aqueous broth suspensions were lethal to larvae of the diamondback moth Plutella xylostella. Their application on leaves of Chinese cabbage indicated that the cells can penetrate into the insects in the absence of the nematode vector. Cell-free solutions containing metabolites were also proved as effective as bacterial cells suspension. The application of aqueous suspensions of cells of X. nematophila or solutions containing its toxic metabolites to the leaves represents a possible new strategy for controlling insect pests on foliage.     

Teachers' Views about What to do about Sustainable Development

In its various guises the political and economic implications of the spectrum of ideas labelled ‘sustainable development’ have been widely discussed in the media. This research engaged secondary school teachers in the debate concerning the implications for education of the concept of sustainable development. Underpinning this pilot research project is the assumption that teachers, as generally informed citizens, have been sensitised to some of the issues raised in the public domain. Teachers in both the USA and Scotland were interviewed to ascertain the extent to which they had begun to make connections between what they have heard and read informally about sustainable development and their responsibilities as teachers. The objective of this research was to determine the impact of this informal ‘environmental’ education on teaching practice.     

牛仔裤的洗水处理

在实践的基础上,介绍牛仔裤几种常见的洗水方法及其有关材料、参数。     

Landing techniques in volleyball

Knee injuries such as anterior cruciate ligament lesions and patellar tendonitis are very frequent in volleyball, and are often attributed to micro traumas that occur during the landing phase of airborne actions. The aim of the present study was to compare different jumping activities during official men's and women's volleyball games. Twelve top-level matches from the Italian men's and women's professional leagues were analysed. The jumps performed during the games were classified according to the landing technique used by the player (left or right foot or both feet together), court position, and ball trajectory. Chi-square analyses were performed to detect differences in landing techniques between the sexes, court positions, and trajectories when serving, attacking, blocking, and setting. Significant differences (P?相似文献   

Social and interactional practices for disseminating current awareness information in an organisational setting

Current awareness services are designed to keep users informed about recent developments based around user need profiles. In organisational settings, they may operate through both electronic and social interactions aimed at delivering information that is relevant, pertinent and current. Understanding these interactions can reveal the tensions in current awareness dissemination and help inform ways of making services more effective and efficient. We report an in-depth, observational study of electronic current awareness use within a large London law firm. The study found that selection, re-aggregation and forwarding of information by multiple actors gives rise to a complex sociotechnical distribution network. Knowledge management staff act as a layer of “intelligent filters” sensitive to complex, local information needs; their distribution decisions address multiple situational relevance factors in a situation fraught with information overload and restrictive time-pressures. Their decisions aim to optimise conflicting constraints of recall, precision and information quantity. Critical to this is the use of dynamic profile updates which propagate back through the network through formal and informal social interactions. This supports changes to situational relevance judgements and so allows the network to ‘self-tune’. These findings lead to design requirements, including that systems should support rapid assessment of information items against an individual’s interests; that it should be possible to organise information for different subsequent uses; and that there should be back-propagation from information consumers to providers, to tune the understanding of their information needs.     

Biochemical and genetic studies on cardiometabolic syndrome

Cardiometabolic syndrome is one of the major public health issues of this century which describes a cluster of clinical characteristics. Seventy two patients with coronary artery disease (CAD) and cardiometabolic syndrome and forty healthy age and sex matched normal controls were selected for this study. Detailed clinical epidemiological and anthropometric characteristics were noted. Lipid profile and Cytokinesis-block micronuclei (CBMN) assay using cytochalasin B were carried out in all the subjects. Serum total cholesterol, triglyceride and LDL-cholesterol was significantly higher and HDL cholesterol was significantly lower in patients compared to their normal counter-parts (P<0.05). CBMN frequency of the patients was significantly higher at all ages compared to their normal counter parts (P<0.05). Various risk factors like diabetes, hypertension, dyslipidemia, abdominal obesity, smoking and alcoholism were found influenced the CBMN frequency; but the changes were not significant. From this study it can be concluded that DNA damage was found to be higher in patients with cardiometabolic syndrome which may be attributed to the generation of free radicals associated with alcohol consumption, tobacco use, dyslipidemia and glucose intolerance and the accumulation of free radicals with increase in age.     

How to Assess and Categorize Teachers’ Views of Science? Two Methodological Issues

Research in Science Education - This paper addresses two methodological issues related to the assessment of teachers’ views of science. The first concerns the distinction between the...     

How can clusters sustain performance? The role of network strength, network openness, and environmental uncertainty

This paper draws on social network theory to develop a model of regional cluster performance. We suggest that high performing regional clusters are underpinned by (1) network strength and (2) network openness, but that the effects of these on the performance of a cluster as a whole are moderated by environmental uncertainty. Specifically, the positive effects of network openness on cluster performance tend to increase as environmental uncertainty increases, while the positive effects of network strength on cluster performance tend to decrease as environmental uncertainty increases. Our findings have theoretical and practical implications for social network research in general, and cluster research in particular.