Young Herbert Strauss (far right) with three unidentified friends walking down a street on an excursion to Sulzfeld, Baden.

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The potential for monitoring and control of insect pests in Southern Hemisphere forestry plantations using semiochemicals

Southern Hemisphere plantation forestry has grown substantially over the past few decades and will play an increasing role in fibre production and carbon sequestration in future. The sustainability of these plantations is, however, increasingly under pressure from introduced pests. This pressure requires an urgent and matching increase in the speed and efficiency at which tools are developed to monitor and control these pests. To consider the potential role of semiochemicals to address the need for more efficient pest control in Southern Hemisphere plantations, particularly by drawing from research in other parts of the world. Semiochemical research in forestry has grown exponentially over the last 40 years but has been almost exclusively focussed on Northern Hemisphere forests. In these forests, semiochemicals have played an important role to enhance the efficiency of integrated pest management programmes. An analysis of semiochemical research from 1970 to 2010 showed a rapid increase over time. It also indicated that pheromones have been the most extensively studied type of semiochemical in forestry, contributing to 92% of the semiochemical literature over this period, compared with research on plant kairomones. This research has led to numerous applications in detection of new invasions, monitoring population levels and spread, in addition to controlling pests by mass trapping or disrupting of aggregation and mating signals. The value of semiochemicals as an environmentally benign and efficient approach to managing forest plantation pests in the Southern Hemisphere seems obvious. There is, however, a lack of research capacity and focus to optimally capture this opportunity. Given the pressure from increasing numbers of pests and reduced opportunities to use pesticides, there is some urgency to develop semiochemical research capacity.

Dorothea (Dola) Guttmann (seated second from right) with other members of Sport Reichsbund jüdischer Frontsoldaten (RjF) Tilsit Portraits Groups

Verso: handwritten list of names

left to right:johanna heilbrunnl marcus heilbrunn, karl heilbrunn; osterade / harz Portraits Family

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The sensitivity of the northern hemisphere summer mean meridional circulation to changes in the large scale eddy forcing

A zonally averaged version of the Goddard Laboratory for Atmospheric Sciences (GLAS) climate model is used to study the sensitivity of the northern hemisphere (NH) summer mean meridional circulation to changes in the large scale eddy forcing. A standard solution is obtained by prescribing the latent heating field and climatological horizontal transports of heat and momentum by the eddies. The radiative heating and surface fluxes are calculated by model parameterizations. This standard solution is compared with the results of several sensitivity studies. When the eddy forcing is reduced to 0.5 times or increased to 1.5 times the climatological values, the strength of the Ferrel cells decrease or increase proportionally. It is also seen that such changes in the eddy forcing can influence the strength of theNH Hadley cell significantly. Possible impact of such changes in the large scale eddy forcing on the monsoon circulation via changes in the Hadley circulation is discussed. Sensitivity experiments including only one component of eddy forcing at a time show that the eddy momentum fluxes seem to be more important in maintaining the Ferrel cells than the eddy heat fluxes. In the absence of the eddy heat fluxes, the observed eddy momentum fluxes alone produce subtropical westerly jets which are weaker than those in the standard solution. On the other hand, the observed eddy heat fluxes alone produce subtropical westerly jets which are stronger than those in the standard solution.

The right path : The autobiography of a survivor /

Account of the German occupation of Kecskemet; fate of Jews of Kecskemet; liberation; immediate postwar experiences in Kecskemet; memories of childhood in Kotaj and Kecskemet; move to Budapest; training as soccer player in Budapest; return to Kecskemet and work in printing shop; fate of family members during the holocaust; early years of World War II in Kecskemet; entry into forced labor; life in labor camp; escape and hiding; liberation by Red Army; return to Kecskemet under Soviet Ukrainian occupation; return to printing business in Kecskemet; courtship and marriage in April 1945; reuinion with two sisters; birth of daugher; move to Budapest in 1949; work as printer in Budapest; life in Budapest under Communist domination; anti-Semitism; uprising of 1956 in Budapest; flight to Vienna; life in Vienna; emigration to USA; life in New York; move to Los Angeles; started business in food preparation; coached soccer team.

Sequence-dependent molecular conformation of polynucleotides: right and left-handed helices

Based upon a stereochemical guideline, two topologically distinct types of helicalduplexes have been deduced for a polynucleotide duplex with alternating purine pyrimidine sequence (PAPP): (a) right-handed uniform (RU) helix and (b) left-handed zig-zag (LZ) helix. Both structures have trinucleoside diphosphate as the basic unit wherein the purine pyrimidine fragment has a different conformation from the pyrimidine-purine fragment. Thus, RU and LZ helices represent two different classes of sequence-dependent molecular conformations for PAPP. The conformationalf eatures of an RU helix of PAPP in B-form and three LZ-helices for B-, D- and Z-forms are discussed.

Towards a Critique of the Concept of the Right to Self-Determination in Africa : A Conceptual Examination and the Cases of Western Sahara, Southern Sudan and Eritrea

This thesis examines the right to self-determination which is a norm used for numerous purposes by multiple actors in the field of international relations, with relatively little clarity or agreement on the actual and potential meaning of the right. In international practice, however, the main focus in applying the right has been in the context of decolonization as set by the United Nations in its early decades. Thus, in Africa the right to self-determination has traditionally implied that the colonial territories, and particularly the populations within these territories, were to constitute the people who were entitled to the right. That is, self-determination by decolonization provided a framework for the construction of independent nation-states in Africa whilst other dimensions of the right remained largely or totally neglected. With the objective of assessing the scope, content, developments and interpretations of the right to self-determination in Africa, particularly with regard to the relevance of the right today, the thesis proceeds on two fundamental hypotheses. The first is that Mervyn Frost s theory of settled norms, among which he lists the right to self-determination, assumes too much. Even if the right to self-determination is a human right belonging to all peoples stipulated, inter alia, in the first Article of the 1966 International Human Rights Covenants, it is a highly politicized and context-bound right instead of being settled and observed in a way that its denial would need special justification. Still, the suggested inconsistency or non-compliance with the norm of self-determination is not intended to prove the uselessness or inappropriateness of the norm, but, on the contrary, to invite and encourage debate on the potential use and coverage of the right to self-determination. The second hypothesis is that within the concept of self-determination there are two normative dimensions. One is to do with the idea and practice of statehood, the nation and collectivity that may decide to conduct itself as an independent state. The other one is to do with self-determination as a human right, as a normative condition, to be enjoyed by people and peoples within states that supersedes state authority. These external and internal dimensions need to be seen as complementary and co-terminous, not as mutually exclusive alternatives. The thesis proceeds on the assumption that the internal dimension of the right, with human rights and democracy at its core, has not been considered as important as the external. In turn, this unbalanced and selective interpretation has managed to put the true normative purpose of the right making the world better and bringing more just polity models into a somewhat peculiar light. The right to self-determination in the African context is assessed through case studies of Western Sahara, Southern Sudan and Eritrea. The study asks what these cases say about the right to self-determination in Africa and what their lessons learnt could contribute to the understanding and relevance of the right in today s Africa. The study demonstrates that even in the context of decolonization, the application of the right to self-determination has been far from the consistent approach supposedly followed by the international community: in many respects similar colonial histories have easily led to rather different destinies. While Eritrea secured internationally recognized right to self-determination in the form of retroactive independence in 1993, international recognition of distinct Western Sahara and Southern Sudan entities is contingent on complex and problematic conditions being satisfied. Overall, it is a considerable challenge for international legality to meet empirical political reality in a meaningful way, so that the universal values attached to the norm of self-determination are not overlooked or compromised but rather reinforced in the process of implementing the right. Consequently, this thesis seeks a more comprehensive understanding of the right to self-determination with particular reference to post-colonial Africa and with an emphasis on the internal, human rights and democracy dimensions of the norm. It is considered that the right to self-determination cannot be perceived only as an inter-state issue as it is also very much an intra-state issue, including the possibility of different sub-state arrangements exercised under the right, for example, in the form of autonomy. At the same time, the option of independent statehood achieved through secession remains a mode of exercising and part of the right to self-determination. But in whatever form or way applied, the right to self-determination, as a normative instrument, should constitute and work as a norm that comprehensively brings more added value in terms of the objectives of human rights and democracy. From a normative perspective, a peoples right should not be allowed to transform and convert itself into a right of states. Finally, in light of the case studies of Western Sahara, Southern Sudan and Eritrea, the thesis suggests that our understanding of the right to self-determination should now reach beyond the post-colonial context in Africa. It appears that both the questions and answers to the most pertinent issues of self-determination in the cases studied must be increasingly sought within the postcolonial African state rather than solely in colonial history. In this vein, the right to self-determination can be seen not only as a tool for creating states but also as a way to transform the state itself from within. Any such genuinely post-colonial approach may imply a judicious reconsideration, adaptation or up-dating of the right and our understanding of it in order to render it meaningful in Africa today.

Tax transparency can work for companies if they do it right

The Tax Transparency Package released by the European Commission last week comes amid global moves by the G20 and others to make it more difficult for companies to avoid paying their fair share of tax. But as serious information sharing plans are hammered out between nations around the world, the Australian government is considering protecting the privacy of some of Australia’s richest people, diluting transparency measures aimed at private companies.

Pictures that ask the right questions

An article about the use of photographs as research in the writing of memoir. "I expect many people begin the writing of a memoir by looking through old photos. Pictures, after all, belong in the past, and they hold out the promise of delivering it to us again: everyone is younger, surrounded by yesterday’s world, a moment fixed in time. Even the size of the photo paper and printing tone belong back there, in a printer’s shop that doesn’t exist anymore. And yet, for the purpose of writing a memoir, the most useful pictures also reach beyond the past, and beyond their initial role in verifying your memories, or filling out the details. That is, they are more than an account. Such pictures seem to be asking questions about what happened next, in the moments and years after they were taken..."

What if tax reform was a fundamental human right?

As an election looms in Australia, the tax debate continues unabated. Self-interest abounds. When we remove self-interest, we are often reduced to standard design principles for a taxation system. Lost in this discussion is the fundamental purpose of tax, which is to finance government expenditure. Most would argue that tax revenue should be sufficient to meet basic economic and social needs of the community. But how does a community determine what these basic economic and social needs should be? One way is by using a human rights framework. This can provide guidance for both developing and developed countries considering tax reform.

A hitchhiker's guide to a crowded syconium: how do fig nematodes find the right ride?

P>1Organisms with low mobility, living within ephemeral environments,need to find vehicles that can disperse them reliably to new environments. The requirement for specificity in this passenger-vehicle relationship is enhanced within a tritrophic interaction when the environment of passenger and vehicle is provided by a third organism. Such relationships pose many interesting questions about specificity within a tritrophic framework. 2. Central to understanding how these tritrophic systems have evolved, is knowing how they function now. Determining the proximal cues and sensory modalities used by passengers to find vehicles and to discriminate between reliable and non-reliable vehicles is, therefore, essential to this investigation. 3. The ancient, co-evolved and highly species-specific nursery pollination mutualism between figs and fig wasps is host to species-specific plant-parasitic nematodes which use fig wasps to travel between figs. Since individual globular fig inflorescences, i.e. syconia, serve as incubators for hundreds of developing pollinating and parasitic wasps, a dispersal-stage nematode within such a chemically,complex and physically crowded environment is faced with the dilemma of choosing the right vehicle for dispersal into a new fig. Such a system therefore affords excellent opportunities to investigate mechanisms that contribute to the evolution of specificity between the passenger and the vehicle. 4. In this study of fig-wasp-nematode tritrophic interactions in Ficus racemosa within which seven wasp species can breed, we demonstrate using two-choice as well as cafeteria assays that plant-parasitic nematodes (Schistonchus racemosa) do not hitch rides randomly on available eclosing wasps within the fig syconium, but are specifically attracted, at close range, i.e. 3 mm distance, to only that vehicle which can quickly, within a few hours, reliably transfer it to another fig. This vehicle is the female pollinating wasp. Male wasps and female parasitic wasps are inappropriate vehicles since the former are wingless and die within the fig, while the latter never enter another fig. Nematodes distinguished between female pollinating wasps and other female parasitic wasps using volatiles and cuticular hydrocarbons. Nematodes could not distinguish between cuticular hydrocarbons of male and female pollinators but used other cues, such as volatiles, at close range, to find female pollinating wasps with which they have probably had a long history of chemical adaptation. 5. This study opens up new questions and hypotheses about the evolution and maintenance of specificity in fig-wasp-nematode tritrophic interactions.

Conformational analysis of the right-hand twisted antiparallel β-Structure

The conformational analysis of a pair of two-linked peptide units in the anti-parallel arrangement is reported here with a view to study the effect of association of one chain with the other. The pair of two-linked peptide units were fixed in space through the hydrogen bonds between them, in accordance with certain hydrogen bond criteria. Model building was undertaken to ascertain whether the proximity of the side-chains could be used to eliminate any one of the right-hand twisted, left-hand twisted or regular β-structures. Stereochemically, it was found possible with all of them. The preference for a right-hand twisted β-structure, however, was indicated by the classical energy calculations. The relevance of the results thus obtained is discussed in the context of the preferential right-hand twist of the β-pleated sheets present in globular proteins. The agreement between the minimum energy conformations obtained for the pair of two-linked peptide units and the globular protein data is also indicated.

Hollow hemisphere and microcapsules of nonionic copolymer

Hemispherical colloidal nanowells or microwells with hollow interiors are becoming increasingly important for the encapsulation of functional materials. There has been rapid progress to develop new methods to obtain such structures. In this work, we present emulsification approach to generate hemisphere and microcapsules of biocompatible organic polymer. The precise control over the size is exhibited by applying variable vortex effect. The hemispheres and microcapsules of a copolymer (BPVA-PVA) were characterized by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and confocal laser scanning microscopy (CLSM). These structures were used for loading of hydrophilic molecules and submicron colloidal particles to demonstrate their potential application. The introduction of hydrophobic groups on poly(vinyl alcohol) was crucial to obtain these structures.