The diurnal hawkmoth Macroglossum stellatarum is known to feed from a variety of flower species of almost all colours, forms and sizes. A newly eclosed imago, however, has to find its first flower by means of an innate flower template. This study investigates which visual flower features are represented in this template and their relative importance. Newly eclosed imagines were tested for their...

We present the first records on pollination biology of Jacquemontia montana (Moric.) Meisn. (Convolvulaceae), a widespread climber in the Chapada Diamantina. Our objectives were to (1) characterise flower morphology and biology of J. montana; (2) sample flower visitors and (3) make inferences about potential pollinators, based on foraging behaviour. Observations and sampling were performed on t...

Flower-like NiO hierarchical structures with 2-5 μm diameter assembled from nanosheet building blocks have been successfully fabricated via a wet-chemical method combined with thermodecomposition technology. The template-free method is facile and effective in preparing flower-like NiO superstructures in high yield. The intermediate product and final hierarchical structures are characterized by ...

How can one justify the secession of a territory from a liberal-democratic state of the kind currently prevalent in North America and Western Europe? The question does not primarily concern a mutually agreed secession, such as that of Norway from the United Kingdoms of Norway and Sweden in 1905. If the government and legislature of the ‘parent state’ freely agree to a secession of a part of its...

The main objective of this study was to determine the effects of vermicompost and amino acids on the qualitative and quantitative yield of chamomile. The experiment was conducted during the growing season of 2010 at the Alborz Medical Research Center. The Treatment groups consisted of vermicompost (0, 5, 10, 15 and 20 tons/ha) and the sprays of amino acids (budding stag, flowering stage, and bu...

The pollination of Passiflora coccinea by the hummingbird Phaethornis superciliosus was studied in Central Amazon, Brazil. We hypothesized that a greater nectar secretion rate (NSR) increases the pollination success of single flowers through Ph. superciliosus visiting behavior. For control flowers, NSR was an increasing function of flower base diameter (FBD). The total number of Ph. supercilios...

to evaluate the effect of slow release fertilizer and humic acid on quality of new guinea impatiens (impatiens hawkeri), an experiment established in complete random design with 15 treatments and three replications. treatments were slow release fertilizer (12-11-18-2.7mgo-8s) in five levels (0, 1.5, 3, 4.5 and 6 kg/m3) and humic acid in three levels (0, 2 and 4 kg/m3) that mixed with medium cul...

In this paper a non-diagonal regulator, based on the QFT method, is synthesized for an uncertain MIMO plant whose output and control signals are subjected to hard time-domain constraints. This procedure includes the design of a non-diagonal pre-controller based on a new simple approach, followed by the sequential design of a diagonal QFT controller. We present a new formulation for the latter s...