In Florida, horses have numerous arthropod pests. Most of these pests are considered external parasites as their attack on the horse is principally external, as opposed to internal parasites such as “worms” or nematodes and bots. The common external parasites include filth flies such as non-biting house flies and biting stable flies and occasionally horn flies, the numerous other blood-feeding ...

Species diversity and seasonal abundance of muscoid flies (Diptera: Muscidae) developing in biosolid cake (dewatered biosolids) stored at a wastewater treatment facility in northeastern Kansas were evaluated. Emergence traps were deployed 19 May through 20 October 2009 (22 wk) and 27 May through 18 November 2010 (25 wk). In total, 11,349 muscoid flies were collected emerging from the biosolid c...

We are developing a concurrent, agent-based approach to complex systems simulation as part of the CoSMoS project. In such simulations an agent’s behaviour can typically be characterised as a series of queries and updates to its environment—a “transactional” pattern of interaction familiar to programmers of database systems. We explore how ideas from the field of databases, such as optimistic ap...

We show how a symbolic approach to the semantics of process algebras can be fruitfully applied to the modeling and analysis of partially unspecified biological systems, i.e., systems whose components are not fully known, cannot be described entirely, or whose functioning is not completely understood. This adds a novel deductive perspective to the use of process algebras within systems biology: ...

We propose a new class of semiparametric generalized linear models. As with existing models, these models are specified via a linear predictor and a link function for the mean of response Y as a function of predictors X. Here, however, the "baseline" distribution of Y at a given reference mean mu(0) is left unspecified and is estimated from the data. The response distribution when the mean diff...

Popularly known as horse flies or deer flies, Tabanidae, has 4.400 described species distributed worldwide. Most of the females are hematophagous, but several also flower visitors. Cretaceous fossils Tabanidae scarce and fossil have plesiomorphic features unknown in modern flies. Here, we revised taxonomy from Crato Formation Brazil describing a new genus, Araripus gen. nov ., two – crassitibia...

The aim of this study was to determine the parasitic and bacterial contaminations of houseflies found around various garbages, and to emphasize the necessity of fly control and taking more efficient strategies for garbage disposal. For this purpose, 800 houseflies from four garbage sources in the city of Kerman (hospital, urban, fruit & vegetable market, and slaughter house wastes) were collect...