Butterfly Research Articles

Horticultural and Ecological Assessment of Public Gardens and Parks at Benghazi City during Last Five Decades

Gardens and parks play significant and major role from ecological and environmental point of view. The presence of trees, plants and greenery in public gardens and resorts helps to cool the surrounding environment, reduce air pollution and improve air quality. They can also support pollinators and wild life like bees, butter flies and birds by providing a diverse range of flowering plants and habitats for urban wildlife. Despite of the ornamental plants were very limited, and the workers and specialists in this field were very rare, the municipality of Benghazi tried to provide the horticultural structures like plant nurseries, training programs and investing in employees and providing opportunities for their development. During years from 1990 to 2023, the number of gardens and parks was jumped to more than 127. Recently, more horticultural care was noticed not only in the governmental sector but also in the private one while the number of ornamental nurseries increased, private agricultural companies established, and more plants were imported and introduced to the city. Because of lack of information, we tried to analyzed and assayed the gardens and parks situation from horticultural and ecological point of view at Benghazi city from 1973 to the present using available information with focusing on the development of this sector to provide more data base for the authorities, interests and researchers.

Reliable and Automatic Recognition of Leaf Disease Detection using Optimal Monarch Ant Lion Recurrent Learning

Around 7.5 billion people worldwide depend on agriculture production for their livelihood, making it an essential component in keeping life alive on the planet. Negative impacts are being caused on the agroecosystem due to the rapid increase in the use of chemicals to combat plant diseases. These chemicals include fungicides, bactericides, and insecticides. Both the quantity and quality of the output are impacted when there is a high-scale prevalence of diseases in crops. Plant diseases provide a significant obstacle for the agricultural industry, which has a negative impact on the growth of plants and the output of crops. The problem of early detection and diagnosis of diseases can be solved for the benefit of the farming community by employing a method that is both quick and reliable regularly. This article proposes a model for the detection and diagnosis of leaf infection called the Automatic Optimal Monarch AntLion Recurrent Learning (MALRL) model, which attains a greater authenticity. The design of a hybrid version of the Monarch Butter Fly optimization algorithm and the AntLion Optimization Algorithm is incorporated into the MALRL technique that has been proposed. In the leaf image, it is used to determine acceptable aspects of impacted regions. After that, the optimal characteristics are used to aid the Long Short Term Neural Network (LSTM) classifier to speed up the process of lung disease categorization. The experiment's findings are analyzed and compared to those of ANN, CNN, and DNN. The proposed method was successful in achieving a high level of accuracy when detecting leaf disease for images of healthy leaves in comparison to other conventional methods.

Operational Parametric Based Reliability Estimation & Justification of Failure Criterion of Hydro Power Plant: A Case Study

Abstract: Generating more Power are complex at cheaper cost, also continuous energy supplied are important Hydro power generation is one of the most successful renewable energy resources for the production electrical energy without any environmental hazard and presently it providing more than 86% of all electricity generated by renewable sources worldwide and accounts for about 20% of world electricity. To increase the percentage of green energy in account of world electricity generation the analysis must be performed to get the information about the working conditions of each component in plants so that the required maintenance action should be taken. Maintenance and operation of a hydro power plant is very complicated and the process to calculate and analyzing its compatibility and reliability is very important. In this work introducing a Markov model to evaluate the reliability parameter of THPS-I Sirmour, Rewa. For this work the operational data regarding failure and maintenance time taken to repaired and analysis of all parts of generating unit of the power plant for period of 2010-2015 is considered. The availability and reliability of individual unit of power plant is evaluated by taking into account different reliability Parameters, namely failure rate (λ), repair rate (µ), MTTR, MTTF, MTBF through the collected data and tabulating the required information for the analysis. By this analysis work we can improve reliability of all the components of each unit of power plant. The sub-unit that is commonly failed during operation is like- penstock, butter fly valve, spiral case, turbine, generator, excitation system, speed governor etc. Reliability plays a key role in the cost-effectiveness of systems Keywords: Hydro power plant, Reliability evaluation, Reliability parameters, Markov analysis, Total schedule outage hrs and Total forced outage hrs.

ASIC Design of Butterfly Unit Based on Non-Redundant and Redundant Algorithm

ASIC Design of Butterfly Unit Based on Non-Redundant and Redundant Algorithm

Rare tumors in pediatric age group: Single center experience from Saudi Arabia.

Rare pediatric tumors are heterogeneous group containing a variety of histopathological diseases, they represent approximately 10% of all childhood cancers. These rare tumors had a diversity of histology and clinical behaviors that pose different challenges to the investigators. Exploring different pediatric rare tumors. The data were reviewed, retrospectively, through the medical records of seven rare pediatric diseases between 2012 and 2019. Giant cell fibroblastoma (GCF) presented as painless swelling in the trunk, positive for CD34 with PTEN gene mutation. Neuroglial heterotopic tissue presented in 7 days old girl with facial asymmetry and bulging in the oral cavity, maximal de-bulking was done, histopathology was positive for GFAP and S100p. Left side neck mass, surgically excised revealed non-metastatic salivary grand mucoepidermoid carcinoma. Follow up without any chemotherapy or radiotherapy for 5 years with complete remission. Mesenchymal chondrosarcoma (MCS) presented in maxillofacial bones by persistent nasal bleeding, HEY1-NCOA2 fusion gene confirmed the diagnosis. Extra-osseous Ewing sarcoma (EES) presented as rubbery painless swelling in the scalp with fusion transcript involving EWSR1-FL11. Juvenile xanthogranuloma (JXG) presented by butter fly like skin patch in the face with foamy histiocytes in upper dermis with few Touton giant cells, extensive systemic involvement of lung and bone marrow. Metastatic ovarian choriocarcinoma with choriocarcinoma syndrome received induction two different lines of chemotherapy and consolidated with autologous stem cell transplant. Seven pediatric rare tumors, with different aspects of challenges in diagnosis and management, despite the absence of formal protocols and rarity of other center experiences.

호랑나비 유래 항균 펩타이드 파필리오신 3의 항염증 활성

호랑나비 유래 항균 펩타이드 파필리오신 3의 항염증 활성

Yi Ji-young Gayageum Compilation—Silk Butterfly. 2018. AkdangEban, Inc. ADCD012–017. Mastered by Min Ji-Yeon (Studio Paju). Design by Min Hye-jung (designtuesday). Manufactured by JungMin Printech. 75-page booklet with notes in Korean and English. 6 CDs.

Yi Ji-young Gayageum Compilation—Silk Butterfly. 2018. AkdangEban, Inc. ADCD012–017. Mastered by Min Ji-Yeon (Studio Paju). Design by Min Hye-jung (designtuesday). Manufactured by JungMin Printech. 75-page booklet with notes in Korean and English. 6 CDs.

Restoration on Private Lands: A Case Study Examining Vegetation Recruitment following Restoration Treatments in an Oak-pine Barrens Ecosystem in Western Michigan, U.S.A.

Oak-pine barrens ecosystems provide critical habitat for the federally endangered Karner blue butterfly (Lycaeides melissa samuelis). Wild lupine (Lupinus perennis), an herbaceous perennial in this ecosystem is the only food source for the butterfly's larvae. The range and quality of these ecosystems have declined significantly. Restoration in private lands can be key to expanding these habitats, but often there is limited or no follow-up to assess the recovery of the site following restoration treatments. We conducted a case study in a private property in Newaygo County, Michigan for which prescribed fire had been implemented every 2 y from 2007 through 2011 to promote recruitment of key understory vegetation, but there had been no follow-up recovery assessment. The burn treatment consisted of a section that was not burned, one that was burned twice, and one that was burned three times. We collected data on vegetation groups and site related factors along this fire gradient to examine differences as a function of fire frequency, as well as delineate factors driving patterns of understory plant recruitment. Results show little tree recruitment from seedlings, but high densities of tree saplings recruited via resprouting. Estimated cover of lupine was low across all treatments, whereas Pennsylvania sedge (Carex pensylvanica Lam,) was highest among species in both cover and biomass. Lupine exhibited a negative relationship with Pennsylvania sedge, litter, and sprouted tree saplings, but a positive relationship with moss cover. We make recommendations for additional restoration interventions and highlight the need for continued support of private landowners as they engage in conservation of imperiled species.

A hybrid identification method on butterfly optimization and differential evolution algorithm

Modern swarm intelligence heuristic search methods are widely applied in the field of structural health monitoring due to their advantages of excellent global search capacity, loose requirement of initial guess and ease of computational implementation etc. To this end, a hybrid strategy is proposed based on butterfly optimization algorithm (BOA) and differential evolution (DE) with purpose of effective combination of their merits. In the proposed identification strategy, two improvements including mutation and crossover operations of DE, and dynamic adaptive operators are introduced into original BOA to reduce the risk to be trapped in local optimum and increase global search capability. The performance of the proposed algorithm, hybrid butterfly optimization and differential evolution algorithm (HBODEA) is evaluated by two numerical examples of a simply supported beam and a 37-bar truss structure, as well as an experimental test of 8-story shear-type steel frame structure in the laboratory. Compared with BOA and DE, the numerical and experimental results show that the proposed HBODEA is more robust to detect the reduction of stiffness with limited sensors and contaminated measurements. In addition, the effect of search space, two dynamic operators, population size on identification accuracy and efficiency of the proposed identification strategy are further investigated.

"The Butterflies" by Natalie Thomas.

"The Butterflies" by Natalie Thomas.

Reconfiguring Asian American Identity in Terms of the Post-Racial Aesthetics of Affectivity: A Study on David Hwang’s M. Butterfly

Reconfiguring Asian American Identity in Terms of the Post-Racial Aesthetics of Affectivity: A Study on David Hwang’s M. Butterfly

Bauhinia purpurea: An Updated Pharmacological Profile

Bauhinia purpurea (B. purpurea) (family: Fabaceae) commonly called as butter fly tree has vast medicinal uses and remarkable pharmacological potential. Various phytoconstituents, extracts and parts of this plant were possess significant pharmacological activities such as cardiac activity, antifungal, wound healing, antidiabetic, antiulcer, antioxidant, antinociceptive, hepatoprotective, nephroprotective, antidiarrhoeal, anti-inflammatory, antipyretic, analgesic, antimalarial, gastro protective and cytoprotective activity. The present study emphasizes the overview of recent studies and/or updates on pharmacological potential of B. purpurea.

Increasing the Butterfly-Compressibility of Moment Matrix Blocks: A Quantitative Study

The butterfly (BF)-compressibility of moment matrix blocks is studied quantitatively for various geometrical configurations and compression algorithm parameters. To enable investigation of electrically large geometries, the methodology employs simplified expressions for the compressed memory and fast low-rank (LR)-approximation techniques. The study indicates that a block's optimal BF-compression is obtained for a nontrivial choice of the BF's depth, determined by the underlying geometrical configuration and compression threshold. It is also shown that reduced-dimensionality interactions are more BF-compressible. In particular, the optimal compressibility for the recently introduced generalized equivalence and generalized source integral equations is shown to be dependent on their effective dimensionality, which is dictated by the compression threshold. At high thresholds, these formulations are more BF-compressible than their conventional counterparts. The implications for the design of BF-compression-based solvers, in a geometrically adaptive manner, are discussed.

Native Insect Pollinators and Their Effect on Sweet Gourd Production

The study was conducted in the field laboratory of the Department of Entomology, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman Agricultural University, Gazipur, Bangladesh during September 2016 to June 2017 to know the insect pollinators of sweet gourd, their behavior and their role on sweet gourd yield and seed quality. The study showed that ten species of insects belong to seven families in three orders (Lepidoptera, Diptera and Hymenoptera) were found as pollinator. The abundance of the pollinator species ranged from 0.1±0.1 to 2.2±0.3 per 30 sweeps. The cabbage butter fly and ant showed statistically similar and higher abundance compared to other insect pollinators. The foraging durations of the frequently abundant pollinators ranged from 16.8 ± 2.2 to 36.6 ± 4.4 S per flower and ant spent the longest duration. Insect pollination showed the highest number of fruit plant-1, yield ha-1 and seed fruit-1 both in winter and summer season compared to natural and hand pollination. Production of fruit, seed set and yield of insect pollinating plot in winter and summer seasons were 6.4 ± 0.3 and 4.8 ± 0.2 plant-1, 84.8 ± 2.7 and 62.6 ± 1.0 fruit-1, and 18.5 ± 0.8 and 16.7 ± 0.7 t ha-1, respectively. The findings indicated that the native insect pollinators increased the production of fruit, seed and yield of sweet gourd. Conserving and enhancing native insect pollinators may boost sweet gourd production in Bangladesh.
 Ann. Bangladesh Agric. (2019) 23(1) : 63-68

Roosting Site Usage, Gregarious Roosting and Behavioral Interactions During Roost-assembly of Two Lycaenidae Butterflies.

Lycaenidae is one of the larger of the world's butterfly families, based on number and diversity of species, but knowledge of roosting in this group is sparse. Zizina otis riukuensis and Zizeeria maha okinawana are two small lycaenids that are commonly found in urban settings and widely distributed across much of Asia. We conducted experiments on a university campus to determine the plant species and plant structures commonly used by these two blues when roosting. We also tested the hypothesis that gregarious roosting exists in these two blues by demonstrating the non-random distribution of roosting blues and the tight mapping of their roosts to the spatial distribution of specific plant species and/or specific plant structures, as well as by demonstrating behavioral interactions among individuals during roosting-assembly. We found that both Z. otis and Z. maha roosted primarily on flowers and fruits of Tridax procumbens and Vernonia cinerea. We also found that these blues formed conspicuous roosting aggregations with significant positive associations between the flowers and fruits of both T. procumbens and V. cinerea and the blues. Moreover, our behavioral observations showed that these blues expressed various levels of interaction during roosting gatherings. Based on these findings, we conclude that gregarious roosting exists in both Z. otis and Z. maha. To our knowledge, this paper represents one of the first demonstration of nocturnal gregarious roosting in lycaenids. This study also highlights the importance of institutional estates in providing roosting resources for butterflies in urban ecosystems.

Book Review: Cannon R.J.C. 2020: Courtship and Mating of Butterflies.

Cannon R.J.C. 2020: Courtship and Mating of Butterflies. CAB International, Boston, 392 pp. ISBN 9781789242638. Price GBP 95.00, EUR 115.00, USD 135.00.

Corona, the Butterfly that Flapped its Wings

Corona, the Butterfly that Flapped its Wings

The system for regulation of cotton bollworm population on tobacco in crop rotation of organic agriculture

The results of development of the control system over the population of cotton bollworm Helicoverpa armigera Hbn are presented to protect seed plantings of tobacco with the use of plant isolation. The studies were conducted in the Krasnodar Territory on a tobacco variety Yubileiny novy 142. The regulation of the cotton bollworm population on tobacco seed plantings was carried out by the method of mass capture of male pests with pheromone traps in order to change the gender balance. This was done together with the application of a biopreparation and sowing of a trap crop (corn) to attract and catch butterfl ies at an earlier stage. At a high degree of bollworm population (4–10 specimens / tobacco infl orescence) on non-isolated plants, insecticides based on baculovirus of nuclear polyhedrosis of cotton bollworm FermoVirin XC (in the doze 1.0– 4.0 g/ha) and Helicovex (0.05–0.2 l/ha) were used three times with an interval of 7 days in combination with “male vacuum”. Biological effi ciency was 38– 77 and 62–84% in reducing the number of bollworm larvae, 41–75 and 60–79% in decreasing the damage, respectively. The decrease in the number of bollworm larvae on isolated plants reached 36– 70 and 58–79%, the decrease in damage – 39–69 and 60–72%, respectively. Treatment of seed plots with virus insecticides allowed to save from 22 to 43 kg of the biological yield of tobacco seeds per 1 ha on non-isolated plants and from 21 to 51 kg on isolated plants. With a low number of hatching larvae (14 specimens / 100 plants), a single use of the preparations Bitoxibacillin (Bacillus thuringiensis var. Thuringiensis) and Lepidocide (Bacillus thuringiensis var. Kurstaki) reduced the amount of phytophage by 47–75 and 48–64%, respectively. The system is recommended for use on other crops damaged by cotton bollworm, including in organic farming technologies.

Computational Method Study on Drag Coefficient of Butterfly Porous Fence

To study the drag coefficient of butterfly porous fence, this study proposes the computational model of butterfly porous fence based on the wind tunnel experiment. Effects of wind speed, porosity and hole diameter on the drag coefficient of the butterfly porous fence are investigated through the ANSYS Fluent. Under different wind speeds, the measurement results of the flow field behind the porous fence by the micro-particle image velocimetry (PIV) technology are found to be in good agreement with the numerical simulation. The numerical model can be considered correct and the simulation method is reasonable. Through the analysis of the simulation, research groups obtained some conclusions. Wind speed has almost no effect on drag coefficient when the maximum wind speed is over 10.0 m/s. The drag coefficient of the butterfly porous fence decreases gradually with the increase of porosity. Based on the simulation, the formula is established among drag coefficient, porosity and hole diameter when d is 6.6 mm ~ 9.5 mm. The research provides some theoretical basis for the butterfly porous fence engineering design. At the same time, it can effectively suppress dust diffusion to lighten the pollution of air.

Revision of the poorly known Neotropical butterfly genus Zischkaia Forster, 1964 (Lepidoptera, Nymphalidae, Satyrinae), with descriptions of nine new species

We provide the first comprehensive taxonomic revision of the poorly known South American butterfly genus Zischkaia Forster, 1964, hitherto regarded as including three described species. A phylogenetic analysis based on DNA sequence data shows that Zischkaia is monophyletic and consists of two morphologically diagnosable clades. Morphological characters and DNA ‘barcodes’ support the recognition of twelve species in the genus, a significant increase even for the relatively poorly studied subtribe Euptychiina. Consequently, nine new species are described and named herein, including Z. arctoa Nakahara, sp. nov., Z. chullachaki Nakahara & Zacca, sp. nov., Z. baku Zacca, Dolibaina & Dias, sp. nov., Z. arenisca Nakahara, Willmott & Hall, sp. nov., Z. argyrosflecha Nakahara, L. Miller & Huertas, sp. nov., Z. abanico Nakahara & Petit, sp. nov., Z. josti Nakahara & Kleckner, sp. nov., Z. mielkeorum Dolibaina, Dias & Zacca, sp. nov. and Z. warreni Dias, Zacca & Dolibaina, sp. nov. In addition, a neotype is designated for Satyrus pacarus Godart, [1824], and lectotypes are designated for Euptychia amalda Weymer, 1911, Euptychia fumata Butler, 1867 and Euptychia saundersii Butler, 1867.