Determining the most likely source of an invasive pest species might help to improve their management by establishing efficient quarantine measures and heading the search of efficient biological control agents. Planococcus ficus is an invasive mealybug pest of vineyards in Argentina, California, Mexico, Peru and South Africa. This mealybug pest had a previously known geographic distribution spa...

SUMMARY This research proposes and tests an approach to engineering distributed le systems that are aimed at wide-scale, Internet-based use. The premise is that replication is essential to deliver performance and availability, yet the traditional conservative replica consistency algorithms do not scale to this environment. Our Ficus replicated le system uses a single-copy availability, optimist...

Ivan V. Kuzmin, Michael Niezgoda, Richard Franka, Bernard Agwanda, Wanda Markotter, Robert F. Breiman, Wun-Ju Shieh, Sherif R. Zaki, and Charles E. Rupprecht Author affi liations: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, Georgia, USA (I.V. Kuzmin, M. Niezgoda, R. Franka, W.-J. Shieh, S.R. Zaki, C.E. Rupprecht); National Museums of Kenya, Nairobi, Kenya (B. Agwanda); University of Pr...

The latices of only 13 of a total of 46 species of Ficus examined contained appreciable proteolytic activity. Therefore, high proteolytic activity in the latex is not a distinguishing feature of the genus. The latex of F. stenocarpa had the highest specific activity followed closely by the latices of F. carica and F. glabrata. Latices of 6 species of Ficus were examined by chromatography on CM-...

Opuntia ficus-indica (L.) Mill. cladodes contain a polysaccharide fraction that can retain water. The cladodes are used in Sicilian folk medicine as cicatrizant. We studied the healing activity of a base cream containing 15% lyophilized cladodes and of a commercial ointment on the wound produced on the backs of rats. The treatment was carried out for 3 and 5 days. After three days of treatment,...

To assess the coextinction of species (the loss of a species upon the loss of another), we present a probabilistic model, scaled with empirical data. The model examines the relationship between coextinction levels (proportion of species extinct) of affiliates and their hosts across a wide range of coevolved interspecific systems: pollinating Ficus wasps and Ficus, parasites and their hosts, but...

Opuntia ficus indica, also known as prickly pads, are an important part of the human diet and are also used as forage for livestock. This is an interesting vegetable due the environmental conditions in which it grows and its resistance to climatic extremes; however, little is known about its nutritional properties, especially in the later stages of maturity. The objective of this study was to d...

Heavy metal, chromium (VI) removal by coagulation using natural coagulant material was investigated in this paper. Chromium occurs naturally in the paint manufacturing industry waste water in many steps of the process. The coagulation and flocculation method is used for chromium removal from waste water using fruits of Opuntia Ficus indica, Fruits of Jatropha gossypifolia and peel of Borassus f...

The leaves of Ficus exasperata Vahl Enum. Pl. vahl (Moraceae) are used by traditional healers in Southern Nigeria and some parts of Africa to avoid preterm births. However, previous reports showed that the plant also exhibited uterine contractions at specific concentrations. This study is therefore aimed at investigating the purported uterine inhibitory aspect of the plant on the isolated rat u...