Bois noir is an important grapevine yellows disease in Europe that can cause serious economic losses in grapevine production. It is caused by stolbur phytoplasma strains of the taxonomic group 16SrXII-A. Hyalesthes obsoletus Signoret (Hemiptera: Cixiidae) is the most important vector of bois noir in Europe. This polyphagous planthopper is assumed to mainly use stinging nettle [Urtica dioica L. ...

5 6 Dirk Grimm, Joyce S. Lee, Lora Wang, Tushar Desai, Bassel Akache, Theresa A. 7 Storm, and Mark A. Kay 8 9 10 Stanford University, School of Medicine, Departments of Pediatrics and Genetics, 300 11 Pasteur Drive, Department of Biochemistry, 279 Campus Drive, Stanford, California, 12 94305, USA 13 #Current address: University of Heidelberg, Cluster of Excellence CellNetworks, 14 BIOQUANT, Im ...

to be co-examiner, for his interest in this thesis. I am heartily grateful to Dr. Kai Lutz for providing me indispensable and irreplaceable support during the last few years. I am deeply indebted not only for the share of his enormous scientific experience and knowledge, but also for his encouragement, confidence and comprehension. I would like to thank Prof. Dr. Lutz Jäncke for the work collab...

Contra-rotating propellers have renewed interest from the naval architecture community, because of the recent development of electric propulsion drives and podded propulsors. Contrarotating propulsion systems have the hydrodynamic advantages of recovering part of the slipstream rotational energy which would otherwise be lost utilizing a conventional screw propeller system. The application of th...