BACKGROUND While current research priorities include investigations of age-related hearing loss, there are concerns regarding effects on childhood hearing, for example through increased personal headphone use. By utilising historical data, it is possible to assess what factors may have increased hearing problems in children in the past, and this may be used to inform current public health polic...

Determinatitm and use of economic thresholds is considered essential in nematode pest management programs. The economic efficiency of control measures is lnaximized when the difference hetween the crop valne and the cost of pest control is greatest. Since the cost of reducing the nematnde pnpnlation varies with the magnitutle of the reduction attempted, an economic (optimizing) threshold can be...

BACKGROUND Pollen beetle (Meligethes aeneus F.) management in oilseed rape (Brassica napus L.) has become an urgent issue in the light of insecticide resistance. Risk prediction advice has relied upon flight temperature thresholds, while risk assessment uses simple economic thresholds. However, there is variation in the reported temperature of migration, and economic thresholds vary widely acro...

We consider the economic optimal control problem of emissions abatement with uncertain climate thresholds. The basis of study is Nordhaus' (1994) DICE model augmented for parameter uncertainty, uncertain climate thresholds [Keller et al. 2000], and parameter learning. The method of optimization is an improved version of Storn & Price's (1995) Di erential Evolution. The algorithm is modi ed to b...