In the Mediterranean area, the main corn borer species are Sesamia nonagrioides Lefebvre (Mediterranean corn borer) and Ostrinia nubilalis Hübner (European corn borer). In the overall context of integrated pest control, it is possible to reduce the effect of a pest without having a negative effect on the environment by varying the sowing date. Benefits are possible if the most susceptible stage...

Three experiments were conducted to compare the feeding value of genetically enhanced corn (Roundup Ready corn events GA21 and nk603) with nontransgenic hybrids. The four treatments included two separate reference hybrids (REF), the near-isogenic control hybrid (CON), and the genetically enhanced corn (RR), resulting in two preplanned comparisons of CON vs. RR and RR vs. the average of REF. In ...

The three-level hybrid parallel programming model consisting of MPI, OpenMP and vectorization with multicolor-based reordering methods provides optimum performance on SMP cluster architectures with vector processors such as the Earth Simulator (ES) for finite-element type applications. While the three-level hybrid and flat MPI parallel programming models offer similar performance, the hybrid pr...

Tolerance to crowding stress has played a crucial role in improving agronomic productivity in field corn; however, commercial sweet corn hybrids vary greatly in crowding stress tolerance. The objectives were to 1) explore transcriptional changes among sweet corn hybrids with differential yield under crowding stress, 2) identify relationships between phenotypic responses and gene expression patt...

beet armyworm,spodoptera exigua (hübner) (lep.: noctuidae), is a polyphagous insect pest inflicting substantial economic damage to many crops including corn, cotton, beet, tomato, celery, lettuce and alfalfa. in this study the effect of 10 commercial hybrids of corn (sc700, dc370, sc704, sc260, sc500, keynes540, keynes410, ksc260, ksc400 and ksc301) on the beet armyworm was investigated through...

The efficacy of a double-cross corn (Zea mays) hybrid (Old Raccoon selection X T216) X (Tebeau selection X Mp 307) resistant to Meloidogyne incognita as a rotational crop, and fenamiphos treatment for management of root-knot nematode (M. incognita race 1) in squash (Cucurbita pepo var. melopepo) was evaluated in field tests during 1996 and 1997. Numbers of M. incognita in the soil and root-gall...

This paper shows new evidence of a steady long-term decline in age of male sexual maturity since at least the mid-eighteenth century. A method for measuring the timing of male maturity is developed based on the age at which male young adult mortality accelerates. The method is applied to mortality data from Sweden, Denmark, Norway, the United Kingdom, and Italy. The secular trend toward earlier...

The effect of three electrical stimulation (ES) frequencies (10, 35, and 50 Hz) on two muscle groups with different proportions of fast and slow twitch fibers (abductor pollicis brevis (APB) and vastus lateralis (VL)) was explored. We evaluated the acute muscles' responses individually and during hybrid activations (ES superimposed by voluntary activations). Surface electromyography (sEMG) and ...