Saturday, January 25, 2020

Effect Of Insecticides On Honey Bees Biology Essay

Effect Of Insecticides On Honey Bees Biology Essay Introduction: Pollinators are very important for the production of any crop as they play very important role for pollination of the flowers and crops. Bees are considered one of the major pollinators of the agricultural crops. The study of this issue is very important as well as difficult due to the complex interaction of bees with their hosts. Many environmental factors are involved in the complexity of this interaction (Schmid, 1975). Honey bees are good pollinators but they are not common for all crops (Batra 1995). Most people are interested in honey and wax production by bees but some honey bees are used in orchard pollination, where they take nectar and pollen for the purpose (Cheung 1973). Honey bees are most vulnerable pollinators of agricultural crops as USDA estimated the financial value of these profitable pollinators that is approximately 15- 20 dollars billion per year (Johnson 2010). On the other hand, they are very sensitive insects as they are disturbed by the common environmental factor like pollution. Pesticides are the chemicals that are most widely used to control pests in crop production. When different chemicals are applied to the crops, they not only affect the pests of the crops but also harm the beneficial insects as pollinators, predators and parasites etc. This harmful effect disturbs the natural balance between the insects and their natural hosts. The table below shows the dependence of agricultural crops on honey bee pollination. Almond, Alfalfa, Apple, peaches, carrots, sunflower, onion, broccoli and citrus with other field crops are given with their dependence. Estimated value of Honey Bee to US crop production, 2000 estimates (Johnson, 2010) Use of chemicals (Pesticides) in agricultural crops is important to get required production on one side while on other side, safety of honey bees and other natural enemies from these chemicals are also required. But if these chemicals are not used against insect pests of the crops, it will also create problems for producers as they can not be able to get such production that can fulfill the food requirements of nation or worldwide. Large number of bee colony developers is present in The United States that provides bees as pollinators, commercially to different crop producers. U.S. Department of Agricultureà ¢Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ¬Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¾Ã‚ ¢s (USDA) 2007 Census point out that 2.9 million bee colonies are used for 28,000 operations in the United States. Increasing use of chemicals (insecticides and pesticides) to control the other problems of crop production disturbs honey bees populations either natural or reared commercially. Johnson 2010 gave the map that shows the disorder in honey bees colonies in different states in 2009. http://beealert.blackfoot.net/ Johnson (2010) gave the reasons for colonies collapses in his report by the data collected under the information provided by USDA. These colony loses in honey bees disturbs Agricultural economy of the country, so scientists try to explore that chemicals that are less or not harmful for the pollinators and they started performing different experiment by using different chemicals to check their efficacy against honey bees activities and pollination. Complete give up of chemicals is not possible as they effect the production of different agricultural crops (Akca et al. 2009), but these chemicals should be use under certain limits. According to the Pretty 1995, the over usage of these agrochemicals make the soil and environment deteriorated and on the other side genetic diversity of the living organisms is also disturbed. Many scientists focused on all non target insects while some are more specific towards the pollinators, their behavior and activities against insecticides which are commonly used for crop pests (Liong et al. 1998; Qadri et al. 1994). Different chemicals and methodologies are carried by different scientists to explain the effectiveness of certain chemicals against honey bee normal functioning. Some of them are given here. Methodologies by Different scientists and their results: Akca et al. 2009 performed an experiment by using 8 chemicals against worker honey bees. They used residual film method for each chemical. Physical conditions for experiment were 25O C and 75% RH and data was collected after 1, 8, 16 and 24 hours. Honey bees of 20 days or less were used in experiments. Three different doses for each chemical were used (recommended, 1/2 and 1/4 of recommended) at same physical conditions. Above is the table that shows the chemical used, their recommended doses and their groups to which these chemicals belong. Their results revealed that all of the insecticides with all doses are toxic to the honey bees after last three intervals except Azadirechtin. All chemicals are significantly toxic to time and doses while the mortality goes on decreasing when dose was reduced. Among all toxic compounds, they found that Sevin XLR was the most fast acting and toxic to the honey bees. Under the light of this experiment, it was concluded that the chemicals that are botanical in nature have less or no toxic to the honey bees. They are organic in nature and environmentally safe. The scientists concluded that it is needed to find out bio-chemicals that does not effect adversely to the bees but have good control of pests. Needham and Stevenson 1973 performed an experiment by using three chemicals, Malathion EC, Azinphos-methyl EC and Endosulfan WP. They performed experiment under natural conditions in field. They sprayed chemicals while bees were foraging on the oil seed rape crops and notice the mortality after 1 and 28 days. They found that mortality was maximum for Malathion and then Azinphos-methyl while for Endosulfan it was very low. Table for results of these chemicals is given below. For this result, they concluded that the formulations of the chemicals play important role for their toxicity. For this conclusion, they performed another experiment by taking two chemicals, Endosulfan and Azinphos-methyl with both formulations. The method of experiment was same as before. But this time, they found that the wetablepowder (WP) formulations were mote toxic than emulsifiable concentrate (EC). The table for results is given as: It is revealed from the results that again Azinphos-methyl was more toxic than Endosulfan no matter what the concentration was. Though all chemicals had effect on Acetyl cholinesterase of the brain of honey bees. So they concluded that the choice of chemical is more important than the concentrations of the chemicals. In the same way different experiment with different hypothesis are carried out by different scientists to show the effect of chemicals on the activity of honey bees as a pollinator and their role for the crop production. Some of the literature review is given below about the work on honey bees against different chemical and different methodologies by different scientists. Review of Literature: Akca et al. (2009) studied the effect of eight different insecticides on honey bees and check their acute toxicity level on hazelnut pests. They used Karate, Deltanete, Sevin, Oncol, Mesurol and Neem @ of their recommended dose and below (1/2 and 1/4 of recommended dose) against Honeybees. They found that Azadirechtin is most safe and environmental friendly insecticide as compare to all other. They also revealed from their experiment that Sevin is one of the most dangerous insecticides for the honeybee activity. In their experiment they recommend that Azadirechtin should be used to control the Hazelnut pests. Batra (1995) presented a review article about the importance of the honey bees as a pollinator for different crops. He described the situations before and after the application of agricultural practices in a field crop that disturb the population of bees to the hosts. Halm et al. (2005) presented New Risk Assessment Approach for Systemic Insecticides: The Case of Honey Bees and Imidacloprid (Gaucho). This publication explains an approach to estimate the risk of systemic insecticides more precisely. They estimated two levels that were levels of exposure (PEC) and toxicity (PNEC). PECs are determined for different Honey bees categories in order to estimate the amount of contaminated pollen and nectar consumed. PNECs are estimated or calculated for chronic, acute and sublethal toxicities of the test chemical. All of the experiment was done under field conditions. These assessments are used to describe the risks of the systemic insecticides against honey bees. Iwasa et al. (2004) performed an experiment on honey bees by taking different neonicotinoids in topical application in laboratory. They found that nitro-substituted compounds like imadacloprid and dinotefuran were more toxic as compared to Cyano-substituted compounds like acetamaprid and thiacloprid. They also studied the effect of some synergists like piperonyl butoxide, triflumizole and propiconazole. They observed that these synergists increased the effect of cyano-substituted compounds towards more toxic while nitro-substituted compounds were not affected by these synergists. Kevan (1999) gave the name, bioindicators to the honey bees. According to him, pollinators and pollination is important for all ecosystems specially agriculture. They are as sensitive to the changes in environment as they are getting easily harmed by the competitors, diseases, predators and parasites on one side while they are easily defeated by the physical and chemical factors like chemical application and habitat modification. According to Kevan, honeybees are indicators of the atmospheric pollutions as they are functionally disturbed by the abnormalities in the environment. Montana, Department of agriculture (2007) published a report about the role of pesticides and honey bees in the production of agricultural crops. In this report, they described that insecticides application not only control the other pests of the crops but also disturb the honey bee population while on the other hand if insecticides are not applied to control the other pests of the crop, the production by the crops is also disturbed. So in this guideline, they give some general suggestions and ideas for the application of insecticides and chemicals to control the insect pests of the crops. Needham and Stevenson (1973) studied the effect of 3 organophosphates on foraging bees and their pollination ability was testes under the influence of these (Endosulfan WP, Azinphos-methyl EC and Malathion EC) chemicals. According to their results, Endosulfan was safer among all three. According to their observations, they concluded that the other two chemicals except Endosulfan, difference of formulations (wetable powder and Emulsifiable concentrate) is also one of the factors that made these chemicals more toxic than Endosulfan. Surviliene et al. (2009) published an article Insvestigation of Pesticides Effect on Pollination of Bumblebees in Greenhouse Tomatoes. In this article, they checked the effect of different chemicals on the bumblebee hives with different doses. They concluded that with the specific recommended doses of some specific chemicals did not affect the bee activities and lives while some chemicals badly affect the bees and their activities. As they used triazamat with 1 ml/lit concentration, Azadirachtin with 5ml/lit and propamocarb hydrochloride with 1.5 /ha. They did not notice nay bad effect on bumblebees while tolyfluanid with 1.5 mg/lit had negative effect on bee colonies and activities. Akca, I., C. Tuncer, A. Guler and I. Saruhan. 2009. Residual Toxicity of 8 different insecticides on honey bees ( Aps mellifera Hymenoptera: Apidae). J. Anim. Veter. Adv. 8(3): 436-440. Batra, SWT. 1995. Bees and pollination in our changing environment. Apidologie. 26: 361-370. Cheung, S. N. S. 1973. The fable of the bees: an economic investigation. J. Law Econ. 16:11-33. Halm, M. P., A. Rortais, G. Arnold, J. N. Tasei and S. Rault. 2006. New risk assessment approach for systemic insecticides: the case of honey bees and Imidachloprid. Environ. Sci. Technol. 40: 2448-2454. Iwasa, T., N. Motoyama, J. T. Ambrose and R. M. Roe. 2004. Mechanism for the differential toxicity of neonicotinoid insecticides in the honey bee, Apis mellifera. Crop Protection. 23: 371-378. Jhohnson, R. 2010. Honey bee olony Collapse Disorder. Congressional Research Service. pp. 1-20. Kevan, P. G. 1999. Pollinators as bioindicators of the state of environment: species, activity and diversity. 74: 373-393. Liong, P. C. W. P. Hazah and V. Murugan. 1998. Toxocity of some pesticides towards fresh water fishes. Malaysian Agric. J. 54 (3): 147-156. Needham, P. H. and J. H. Stevenson. 1973. The toxicity to foraging honey bees, Apis mellifera, of Endosulfan, melathion and Azinophos-methyl applied to flowering oil seed rape, Brassica napus. Ann. Appl. Biol. 75: 235-240. Pretty, J. N., 1995. Regenerating agriculture: Policies nad Practice for sustainability and self-reliance. Earthscan Publications Limited, London, pp: 320. ISBN: 0309052483. Qadri, Y. H., A. N. Swamy and J. V. Rao. 1994. Species difference in brain acetylcholinerterasse response to monocrotophos in vitro. Ecotoxicol. Environ. 28: 91-98. PMID: 7523071. Schmid, R. 1975. Two hundred years of pollinationbiology: an overview. The Biologist. 57: 26-35. Surviliene, E., L. Raudonis and J. Jankauskiene. 2009. Investigation of pesticides effect on pollination of bumblebees in greenhouse tomatoes. SODININKYSTE IR DARZININKYSTE. 28(3): 235- 241. USDA, 2007. Census of Agriculture, Table 31, http://www.agcensus.usda.gov/ Publications/2007/Full_Report/Volume_1,_Chapter_1_US/st99_1_029_031.pdf.

Friday, January 17, 2020

To what extent is ”Frankenstein’ concerned with the theme of education and what does it have to say about the advantages and disadvantages of this?

In Frankenstein, education cannot simply be considered as an ordinary theme, because there are so many differing angles which are represented throughout. It primarily depends however on what actually counts as education in the first place; does it have to be necessarily formal, or does it also count if it is information passed on from one family member to another, or even if it is simply something gleaned from the environment that surrounds us. This is the question that must be answered, as well as deciphering what methods Shelley uses to convey the fact that education is essential for the books' events to occur. In Frankenstein from the very beginning, whenever Victor is mentioned, it is in the context of learning, or of having learnt something crucial. This is in comparison to Walton, whose knowledge appears to come from his exploration, from his search for a true companion who can accompany him throughout the rest of his life, someone who will truly understand him. Walton's knowledge is not just from experiences, but also from studying, from academia, as well as from his perceptions of the world around him, and from what his morals command him to either do or not to do. However, despite all of his academia, he is still astonished when he is told about Frankenstein's creature, and even more so when he views it for himself. This proves that despite formal education, there will still be gaps of knowledge, and the power to surprise will always exist. Victor relates to Walton all about how his education was formulated, what exactly he had learnt from his bad experiences with books and at Ingolstadt, and by focussing on outdated science such as those ideas thought of by Cornelius Agrippa and Albertus Magnus. The point blank refutation by his father of these theories and ideas did not mean that Victor realised they were hopelessly incorrect; on the contrary, he ‘continued to read with the greatest avidity'. This reading eventually led to the creation of the creature, which although being a tremendous achievement in its own right, is something which directly contravenes the natural order of things, and is therefore a sin. By studying such ‘wild fantasies' and not instead reading something far more ‘real and practical', he allowed himself to be taken into the world of unnatural occurrences, where he would be able to achieve incredible things, but at the same time ‘terrible'. At Ingolstadt, Victor was further mislead from the path of true science by Krempe who did not capture his imagination, and possessed a ‘repulsive countenance' and instead continued to strive towards conquering death through reanimating and creating his own perfect being. It does bring up questions of who ought to be able to control life and death, which the creature then follows through killing, through controlling the manner and time of death of those that Victor held dear. However, despite the creature's education through learning from his surroundings, there is still some quality to him which is not human. This is indeed the lack of any sort of moral structure; he is not able to empathise, or realise that what he does is wrong. This can be shown by ‘you belong then to my enemy-to him towards whom I have sworn eternal revenge; you shall be my first victim.' Perhaps in some way he acknowledges it as wrong, but due to his previous experience with the people in the cabin, he now no longer wishes to be like them, and wants to separate himself from society. This separation means he then becomes particularly cold blooded, but he does know that it will prove effective in affecting Frankie. Due to the creature describing his ‘heart swelling with exultation and triumph', it demonstrates that to some extent the creature has developed sophisticated planning, because it was not spur of the moment (the fact that there is no regret mentioned proves this). The creature has learnt to be cold from his ‘father's' abandonment of him, and the people in the cabin rejecting him solely on the basis of physical appearance. Therefore he has learnt that to cause emotional suffering is the best way to commit revenge; the preferred method of hurt is to destroy someone's heart. The creature's knowledge did not turn out to have a positive effect on anyone's life, but rather ended up causing several deaths and miserable lives for many. Whether or not the creature deserved to be given a full education is still unclear, but it shows that knowledge can be very harmful. However it did not appear to be so for Safie, who was also learning at the same time as the creature, albeit it not as surreptitiously as it, because Safie simply learnt the language and was not mentioned as having later committed acts of evil. The creature learnt from afar, much as an infant does, by listening to language and eventually picking up the ability to manipulate it in one's own way, although he evidently learnt from books as well for research and insight. Despite all this, he still isn't an intellectual, and primarily learns about his strength, about others and about others' perceptions of him through trial and error. There is the question of whether or not the creature was solely spurred on by William's being such an unpleasant child or whether it was simply in the creature's blood. Nevertheless, this proves that to some extent, people learn behaviours from what they experience of what occurs around them, and it is not just pre-learned behaviour. It raises the question of whether the creature would have been more docile if either Victor had directly cared for him, or provided a creature as a friend. He has learnt to become so disillusioned with humanity, that now they are now worthless to him, even a defenceless young child. This heinous crime doesn't mean anything to him, in the same way that it didn't technically mean anything to Victor to about the creature; only disgust about what he had created was realised. This disgust can be easily understood, because he has managed to reanimate dead flesh; who is to say that there might not be some imprint of the personality of the old owner of these body parts existing still? Despite the addition of ‘luxuriances' such as ‘lustrous black, flowing hair', it is still a crime against nature, and also raises the moral question of whether or not the creature learns from scratch with his blank slate of a ‘child brain', or whether he simply possesses the mind of the old brain. How a new creature made from death can still have life, particularly have its own mind is uncertain, especially when we consider that the creature must suddenly have had a consciousness emerge out of oblivion, but all we know is that there must be something real about it for it to be able to affect the lives of real humans. Whether or not education is simply learning how to live by gathering and experiencing simple pleasures, having sufficient food, and utilising fire depends on what and who is being asked, but surely anything that is learnt counts as a sort of education in its own way. Learning through experience means that on the plus side, you know what you have learnt is true, and you know what will work best in a certain set of circumstances, but when you arrive at something new and unfamiliar, trial and error (error being the key point) is the only way forward. Frankenstein in a way is all about education, particularly when it comes to the misuse of formal education, and mistakes made, but because not all of the plot details in the end come down to a matter of education, it therefore cannot be deemed to be the key theme of the novel.

Thursday, January 9, 2020

Using MySQL Connection Code in Multiple PHP Files

Many website owners use PHP to enhance the capabilities of their webpages. When they combine PHP with the open-source relational database MySQL, the list of capabilities grows immensely. They can establish login credentials, conduct user surveys, set and access cookies and sessions,  rotate banner ads on their site, host user forums, and open online stores, among many other features that are not possible without a database. MySQL and PHP are compatible products and are frequently  used together by website owners. The MySQL code can be included directly in the PHP script. Both are located on your web server, and most web servers support them. The server-side location provides reliable  security for the data your website uses. Connecting Multiple Webpages to One MySQL Database If you have a small website, you probably dont mind typing your MySQL database connection code into the PHP script for a few pages. However, if your website is large and many of the  pages require access to your MySQL database, you can save time with a shortcut. Put the MySQL connection code in a separate file and then call the saved file where you need it. For example, use the SQL code below in a PHP script to log in to your MySQL database. Save this code in a file called datalogin.php. Now, whenever you  need to connect one of your webpages to the database, you include this line in PHP in the file for that page: When your pages connect to the database, they can read from it or write information to it. Now that you can call MySQL, use it to set up an address book or a hit counter for your website.

Wednesday, January 1, 2020

Role of the United States Constitution - 832 Words

Role of the United States Constitution The role of the constitution plays an important part of the everyday life in the United States. It is a part of every person’s life even if they do not realize it. It usually has impacted your life in the past or even at every moment in someone’s life. â€Å"Although the Constitution created a new federal government, it took a courageous, brilliant, and farseeing Supreme Court chief justice to help realize the framers’ vision.† (Microsoft, 2007) The Constitution itself provides that it may be amended to address social and economic changes. There are two main functions that the U. S. Constitution serves. One of main function is the three branches of the federal government which are judicial, legislative†¦show more content†¦State and local laws that conflict with valid federal law are unconstitutional. Another main section of the constitution is the Commerce Clause which, â€Å"grants Congress the power to regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states, and with Indian tribes.† (Cheeseman, 2007) This was set in place mainly to foster the development of a national market and free trade among the states. The 10 amendments that are part of the Constitution are the bill of rights. These amendments basically guarantee rights to people and protect these rights from government that might try to get in the way. Over the years 17 amendments have been added with some being abolished slavery, prohibited discrimination, authorized the federal income tax and given women the right to vote. Probably the most known amendment is freedom of speech which is defined as, â€Å"the concept of being able to speak freely without censorship.† (Wikipedia, 2008) This is the one of the most important amendments because all other amendments would basically be meaningless without it. In Minnesota there was a state wide smoking ban that took effect on September 30, 2007. â€Å"The Minnesota law applies to bars, restaurants, and private clubs.† (Brunswick, 2007) This change in the law has affected some of the business in many bars. Recently there have been a few bars that have found a â€Å"loophole† in the Freedom to Breathe Act. The loophole basically states that smoking isShow MoreRelatedThe Role Of Homeland Security From The United States Constitution1398 Words   |  6 PagesThe role of Homeland Security originated from the Founding Fathers, under the United States Constitution, that created a system and gave the primary role of homeland security to state and local governments (Oliver, 2007). When state and local governments became overwhelmed and could no longer effectively deal with a crisis then homeland security government would assist those governments (Oliver, 2007). 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