A closed colony of Lutzomyia longipalpis was established with specimens collected in the Raposa - Serra do Sol indian reservoir, one of the main foci of visceral leishmaniasis in the State of Roraima, Brazil. Biological observations were made on four generations of a L. longipalpis colony with emphasis on productivity. Aspects studied were the number of laid and retained eggs, and the number of...

Eusocial insects exhibit a remarkable reproductive division of labor between queens and largely sterile workers [1, 2]. Recently, it was shown that queens of diverse groups of social insects employ specific, evolutionarily conserved cuticular hydrocarbons to signal their presence and inhibit worker reproduction [3]. Workers also recognize and discriminate between eggs laid by the queen and thos...

Maternal effects are environmental components of phenotypes that complicate relationships between natural selection and evolution because they often affect phenotypes and fitness simultaneously. We studied the effects of egg size variation on juvenile survival in a population of American coots (Fulica americana). We experimentally evaluated egg size variation at three levels: across the populat...

Endosymbiotic bacteria in the genus Wolbachia have been linked to several types of reproductive parasitism, which enhance their own transmission, while their direct effects on the host vary from beneficial to neutral or detrimental. Here, we report negative effects of infection on immunity-related traits of Drosophila simulans and the parasitoid wasp Leptopilina heterotoma. Infected D. simulans...

In J. Opt. Soc. Am. A27, 797 (2010), Yura and Hanson derived what they claim to be "a general expression for the mean level crossing rate for an arbitrary" random process following any desired probability distribution function. On the other hand, the authors themselves assert that in some cases their results "differ somewhat from the result reported in the literature." This discrepancy "remains...

Claude Bernard (1813-1878) followed two main research paths: the chemical and physiological study of digestion and liver function, along with experimental section of nerves and studies on sympathetic nerves. Curare studies were, for example, of longstanding interest. His profound mental creativity and hand skillfulness, besides methodology quality, directed his experiments and findings, mainly ...

So, have the dynamic programming's day arrived or not? From Burt's comprehensive review, one may possibly draw both answers: yes and no. The positive response is only logical given the list of applications in his paper for the last 20 years or so, which is by no means a complete one. Burt's useful suggestions of how to apply dynamic programming in the multi-dimensional state variable problems i...