Temperature changes are common in nature and insects are particularly exposed and sensitive to such variations which can be potential stresses, ultimately affecting life history traits and overall fitness. Braconids have been widely used to study the effects of temperature on host-parasitoid interactions and the present work focused on the solitary endoparasitoid Aphidius ervi Haliday (Hymenopt...

In recent years, the call for strong and clear property rights has grown in law and development circles. In the landmark book The Mystery of Capital: Why Capitalism Triumphs in the West and Fails Everywhere Else, de Soto put forth the claim that “strong and clear” property rights, formalized rather than informal, are necessary for economic efficiency and for the protection of the poor, who occu...

In this paper, an innovative power plant, constituted by a gas turbine in combined-cycle fuelled by a synthesis gas (or syngas), produced in a local biomass gasifier, is analyzed. The plant is integrated with an external combustion system, fed by cellulosic biomass, connected to a heat exchanger able to increase the air temperature, as in a regenerative cycle. The combustion products pass throu...

One vexing problem facing mankind is how to promote sustainable use of common property resources. Within developed and developing countries alike, misuse of fresh water, pastures, and forests is commonplace. While developed countries have in many cases designed principles and laws to promote sustainable resource use, developing countries often lack the institutional know-how and means to enforc...

In this experiment, we investigated the performance of two types of heat sink, swagedand extruded-type, used in the inverter of industrial electricity generator. The swaged-type heat sink has 62 fins, and the extruded-type has 38 fins having the same dimension as that of the swaged-type. But the extruded-type heat sink maintains the same heat transfer area by the laterally waved surface which h...

Obesity is often associated with poor heat tolerance. This case-control study was to determine the effect of obesity measured by the Body Mass Index (BMI) on the occurrence of heat disorders. The subjects, 218 soldiers with heat disorders and 537 controls, were matched for age and sex. Obesity was defined as a BMI of greater than 27. The odds ratio for obese soldiers was 3.53; however, their re...