Persistence Index Research Articles

Evaluating persistent memory range indexes

Persistent memory (PM) is fundamentally changing the way database index structures are built by enabling persistence, high performance, and (near) instant recovery all on the memory bus. Prior work has proposed many techniques to tailor index structure designs for PM, but they were mostly based on volatile DRAM with simulation due to the lack of real PM hardware. Until today is it unclear how these techniques will actually perform on real PM hardware. With the recent released Intel Optane DC Persistent Memory, for the first time, this paper provides a comprehensive evaluation of recent persistent index structures. We focus on B + -Tree-based range indexes and carefully choose four representative index structures for evaluation: wBTree, NV-Tree, BzTree and FPTree. These four tree structures cover a wide, representative range of techniques that are essential building blocks of PM-based index structures. For fair comparison, we used an unified programming model for all trees and developed PiBench , a benchmarking framework which targets PM-based indexes. Through empirical evaluation using representative workloads, we identify key, effective techniques, insights and caveats to guide the making of future PM-based index structures.

Indicators of Professional Skills Development in Cheerleading Coaches

By now, coach’s professional functions have long been expanded: from merely training an athlete for competitions to performing multiple roles of a manager, teacher, psychologist, etc. With the growing popularity of cheerleading and improvement of methods, means and conditions of sports training, with enhanced requirements to skills in major sport subjects, the demand for a coach as the key figure in training successful cheerleaders also grows. It is particularly important for athletes from children sports schools where a coach is bringing up an individual the society needs. In this regard, the research was aimed at studying the level of professional skills development in cheerleading coaches of various qualifications. To achieve the above goal, the following research methods were applied: retrospective analysis of psychological and pedagogical literature, studying pedagogical experience, surveying, testing. A research was conducted to identify the required professional skills of cheerleading coaches, taking into account pedagogical activities. Methods were used to identify the development level of reflection capability, willful self-regulation, empathic trends, personal aggressiveness and propensity to conflict, dialogue-based structure of inter-personal relations and creativity. It was found that coaches with greater practical work experience had a much higher level of indicators like constructive relations (83 %), persistence index (83 %), sign-based thinking (67 %) and creativity (33 %). Most coaches with smaller practical experience had a medium level of these properties’ development. Consequently, thelevel of skills required for coach’s efficient professional development primarily depends on the personal experience and the content of educational system.

Development and stability study of products containing cupuaçu butter

The Amazon region is responsible for much of Brazil’s native fruit biodiversity. In this context, stands out the cupuacu ( Theobroma grandiflorum ( Wild. Ex Spreng.) K. Schum.), a fruit tree whose fruit has a seed with high fat content and nutritional value, besides antioxidant and moisturizing activities. The present research aimed to use the cupuacu butter in the development of shampoo and emulsion formulations, evaluating their stability and the antioxidant activity of the emulsion. The butter was extracted from cupuacu pulping byproducts by the ultrasound assisted extraction method, and was used to formulate four shampoos (I, II, III and IV) and emulsions containing 3% and 5% of cupuacu butter. All formulations had their organoleptic characteristics (color, odor and appearance) and physicochemical parameters (pH determination, viscosity, conductivity and centrifugation) analyzed, as well as the evaluation of shampoo density, foam persistence and refractive index and spreadability and potencial antioxidant activity of the emulsion. The stability of the formulations was evaluated by monitoring the organoleptic and physicochemical characteristics by the preliminary and accelerated stability tests. Shampoo formulations I and II showed lower than expected viscosity during the preliminary stability test and were discarded. After accelerated stability, formulation IV had a change in its appearance while formulation III was satisfactory in the other parameters, only presenting a decrease in the viscosity values, allowing the addition of a new thickening agent. Emulsions showed values within the standards in all evaluations and were stable during stability tests. The spreadability of the butter-containing emulsions was higher than the control emulsion, implying that the addition of the butter provides ease of application. Emulsions showed low antioxidant activity as they are produced with processing byproducts, but allowing the addition of smaller amounts of synthetic antioxidants to the formulation. Thus, the use of cupuacu butter obtained from pulping byproducts has been shown to be applicable in the development of different formulations of commercial interest such as shampoos and emulsions.

Reservoir Inflow Prediction by Ensembling Wavelet and Bootstrap Techniques to Multiple Linear Regression Model

In this study, a new hybrid model, bootstrap multiple linear regression (BMLR) is suggested to investigate the potential of bootstrap resampling technique for daily reservoir inflow prediction. The proposed model compares with three other models: Multiple linear regression (MLR), wavelet multiple linear regression (WMLR) and wavelet bootstrap multiple linear regression (WBMLR). River stage data of monsoon season (1st July 2010 to 30 September 2010) from three gauging stations of Chenab river basin are used. In wavelet transformation, input vectors are decomposed using discrete wavelet transformation (DWT) into discrete wavelet components (DWCs). Then suitable DWCs are used to provide input to MLR model to develop WMLR model. Bootstrap technique coupled with MLR model to build up BMLR model. While WBMLR model is the conjunction of suitable DWCs and bootstrap technique to MLR model. Performance indices namely root mean square error (RMSE), mean absolute error (MAE), Nash-Sutcliffe coefficient of efficiency (NSC), and persistence index (CP) are used in study to evaluate the performance of model. Results showed that hybrid model BMLR produce significantly better results on performance indices than other models MLR, WMLR and WBMLR.

Association of Early Postoperative Pain Trajectories With Longer-term Pain Outcome After Primary Total Knee Arthroplasty

Studies to date have not comprehensively examined pain experience after total knee arthroplasty (TKA). Discrete patterns of pain in this period might be associated with pain outcomes at 6 to 12 months after TKA. To examine patterns of individual post-TKA pain trajectories and to assess their independent associations with longer-term pain outcome after TKA. This prospective cohort study combined data from a national US TKA cohort with ancillary pain severity data at 2 weeks and 8 weeks after the index TKA using a numeric rating scale. All participants received primary, unilateral TKA within the Function and Outcomes Research for Comparative Effectiveness in Total Joint Replacement (FORCE-TJR) national network of community sites in 22 states or at the lead site (University of Massachusetts Medical School). Participants had a date of surgery between May 1, 2013, and December 1, 2014. The data analysis was performed between January 13, 2015, and July 5, 2016. Pain trajectories in the postoperative period (8 weeks). Index knee pain at 6 months after TKA using the Knee Injury and Osteoarthritis Outcome Score (KOOS) pain scale. Group-based trajectory methods examined the presence of pain trajectories in the postoperative period (8 weeks) and assessed whether trajectories were independently associated with longer-term pain (6 months). The cohort included 659 patients who underwent primary TKA with complete data at 4 points (preoperative, 2 weeks, 8 weeks, and 26 weeks). Their mean (SD) age was 67.1 (8.0) years, 64.5% (425 of 659) were female, the mean (SD) body mass index (calculated as weight in kilograms divided by height in meters squared) was 30.77 (5.66), 94.5% (613 of 649) were white, and the mean (SD) preoperative 36-Item Short Form Health Survey physical component summary and mental component summary scores were 34.1 (8.2) and 53.8 (11.4), respectively. Two pain trajectory subgroups were identified at 8 weeks after TKA: patients who experienced fast pain relief in the first 8 weeks after TKA (fast pain responders, composing 72.4% [477 of 659] of the sample) and patients who did not (slow pain responders, composing 27.6% [182 of 659] of the sample). After adjusting for patient factors, the pain trajectory at 8 weeks after TKA was independently associated with the mean KOOS pain score at 6 months, with a between-trajectory difference of -11.3 (95% CI, -13.9 to -8.7). The trajectory among slow pain responders at 8 weeks after surgery was independently associated with improved but greater persistent index knee pain at 6 months after TKA compared with that among fast pain responders. Early identification of patients with a trajectory of slow pain response at 8 weeks after TKA may offer an opportunity for interventions in the perioperative period to potentially improve the long-term pain outcomes after TKA.

HYGIENIC GROUNDS FOR SELECTION CRITERIA FOR PESTICIDE DETECTION IN AGRICULTURAL COMMODITIES, FOOD PRODUCTS AND SOIL (EXAMPLE FOR FUNGICIDES)

Despite its effectiveness and extensive use, pesticides pose a serious risk to human health. The main way of their penetration into the human body is with food intake. The purpose of this study was to provide hygienic grounds for selecting criteria for pesticide detection in agricultural raw commodities, foodstuffs and soil on the example for fungicide). Materials and methods. The stability parameters of the investigated fungicides in crops typical for soil and climatic conditions of Ukraine have been presented by the results obtained in own field studies. Statistical processing of the results was performed by using the IBM SPSS Statistics Base v.22 Licensed Statistical Suite. Results and Discussion. In order to provide scientific and methodological grounds for national-scale monitoring of fungicide use, the study on dynamics of pesticide content in soil and agricultural commodities and on prediction of the safety of food grown on the soil treated with fungicides of different classes were conducted. According to the hygienic classification of pesticides by their stability in soil and in agricultural commodities, triazoles class compounds have been found out as the most hazardous; the classes of strobilurins, ethylene-bis-dithiocarbamates, cyanopyffoles, anilidopirimidines and anilides have been classified as moderately hazardous, and pyrazolecarboxamides have been assessed as low hazardous. According to the integral hazard index of food contaminated with pesticides, the most of the tested compounds belong to the 3 hazard classes, except for triazoles, strobilurins, and ethylene-bis-dithiocarbamates, which belong to the 2 hazard classes. Conclusion. The following selection criteria have been proposed for monitoring the level of agricultural commodity and food contamination with fungicides: allowable daily dose, hazard class according to toxicity parameters, half-life in agricultural commodities. For soil monitoring, it is recommended to take into account the organic carbon sorption coefficient, allowable daily dose, hazard class according to the parameters of toxicity, half-life in soil, persistence index.

PSU5 ECONOMIC IMPACT OF PULMONARY ARTERY CATHETER UTILIZATION AMONG CARDIAC SURGERY PATIENTS: PERSPECTIVES FOR AN ACUTE CARE HOSPITAL AND AN INTEGRATED PAYER-PROVIDER HEALTH SYSTEM

A recent study demonstrated pulmonary artery catheter (PAC) use surrounding cardiac surgery is associated with a significant decrease in the incidence of new onset heart failure (HF) and respiratory failure (RF), while bacteremia and urinary infection complication rates significantly increased, as compared to patients that did not receive a PAC. We evaluated the economic impact of perioperative monitoring PAC utilization for adult cardiac procedures to support decision-making regarding PAC adoption for an acute care hospital and an integrated payer-provider health system. An Excel-based model was created to estimate the annualized savings for a US acute care hospital utilizing a monitoring PAC perioperatively for cardiac procedures during the index visit. A second model for an integrated payer-provider included costs for the index visit and for treatment of persistent index visit-related HF and RF complications over the following year (excluding patients with history of these conditions). Complication rates, costs, and healthcare utilization inputs were extracted from literature and a national database. Scenario analyses with varying surgical volume and PAC adoption rates were performed, as were one-way and probabilistic sensitivity analyses. For an acute care hospital, base-case (500 cardiac surgeries/year, 34% PAC adoption) annualized savings for the index visit totaled US$61,806 vs. no PAC utilization. Scenario analyses with cardiac surgical volumes of 100 and 1,500 procedures/year resulted in estimated savings of US$12,361 and US$185,418, respectively. Increased PAC adoption rates (75% and 95%) were associated with increased savings: US$134,751 and US$170,685, respectively, for 500 procedures/year. HF and RF treatment costs had the largest impact on savings. For an integrated payer-provider, base-case (3,845 cardiac surgeries/year, 34% PAC adoption) resulted in estimated savings of US$596,637 for the index visit and treatment of related complications over the following year. Monitoring PAC utilization for adult cardiac surgeries generates significant savings for acute care hospitals and integrated payer-provider systems.

HEURISTIC METHODS FOR THE DESIGN OF CRYPTOGRAPHIC BOOLEAN FUNCTIONS

In this article, heuristic methods of hill climbing for cryptographic Boolean functions satisfying the required properties of balance, nonlinearity, autocorrelation, and other stability indicators are considered. A technique for estimating the computational efficiency of gradient search methods, based on the construction of selective (empirical) distribution functions characterizing the probability of the formation of Boolean functions with indices of stability not lower than required, is proposed. As an indicator of computational efficiency, an average number of attempts is proposed to be performed using a heuristic method to form a cryptographic Boolean function with the required properties. Comparative assessments of the effectiveness of the heuristic methods are considered. The results of investigations of the cryptographic properties of the formed Boolean functions in comparison with the best known assessments are given. On the basis of the conducted research, it can be concluded that the functions constructed in accordance with the developed method have high persistence indexes and exceed the known functions by these indicators.

Predictors and Incidence of Atrial Flutter After Catheter Ablation of Atrial Fibrillation

Atrial flutter (AFL) is a common form of arrhythmia recurrence after atrial fibrillation (AF) ablation. We aimed to define (1) the incidence of AFL and (2) the clinical factors associated with cavo-tricuspid isthmus dependent (typical) and atypical AFL, after AF ablation. The retrospective cohort consisted of 1,029 patients that underwent initial radiofrequency AF ablation from May 2005 to December 2013 at a single academic center. Patients with missing follow-up data, history of AFL ablation, and those with undocumented AFL were excluded. Atrial volumes were measured using three-dimensional cardiac computed tomography or magnetic resonance imaging. A total of 607 patients were included in the final cohort (age 59.2 ± 10.6 years, 76.0% men, 58.7% paroxysmal AF). During a median follow-up of 845 days (interquartile range 389 to 1,597 days), 122 (20.1%) patients developed AFL. Of these, 17 had typical AFL, 98 had atypical AFL, and 7 patients had both circuits. In the multivariable Cox regression analysis, only right atrial volume index (hazard ratio [HR] 1.25 per 10 ml/m2, confidence interval [CI] 95% 1.10 to 1.42) was associated with incident typical AFL; whereas persistent AF (HR 1.59, CI 95% 1.06 to 2.40), linear lesions (HR 1.58, CI 95% 1.02 to 2.46) and left atrial volume index (HR 1.17 per 10 ml/m2, CI 95% 1.07 to 1.27) were associated with incident atypical AFL. In conclusion, noninvasive measures of right and left atrial remodeling are strongly associated with incident AFL after AF ablation. Strategies to prevent incident AFL using these measures after index ablation warrant further investigation.

Assessment of flood hazard mapping in urban areas using entropy weighting method: a case study in Hamadan city, Iran

Flood is one of the major natural disasters which cause enormous casualties and damages particularly in urban areas. In urban areas, studies on flood hazards have been accompanied by tensions for various reasons, including complexity of urban levels, different spatial modeling indices, lack of accurate hydrological data, and precise modeling of land surface simulations. This paper used a Constrained Delaunay Triangular Irregular Network to model fine urban surfaces (based on the detailed ground sampling data), and subsequently discusses five indicators regarding the dangers of flood, namely (1) elevation, (2) slope, (3) distance to discharge channels, (4) index of development and persistence of the drainage network (IDPR), and (5) infiltration rate. In the next step for flood hazard mapping, the combination of geographical information systems and the entropy weight method as the multi-criteria decision analysis was used to combine the indicators. The proposed methodology was used for Hamadan city that is located in the central part of Hamadan Province in Iran where several floods occur annually. The flood hazard mapping indicates that approximately 15.83% of the total study area is classified as very highly hazardous, 31.72% as hazardous, 20.11% as moderate, 16.02% as minor, and 16.32% as the least hazardous. Finally, superimposition and receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve methods were used to verify the accuracy of the obtained flood hazard map. In terms of superimposition and ROC curve, the accuracy of the model was approximately 70% and 73%, respectively.

Dual-PISA: An index for aggregation operations on time series data

Aggregation operations play an essential role in time series database management. As the number of data increases, it is difficult for current solutions, such as summary table and MapReduce-based methods to respond to such queries with low latency. Other approaches, such as segment tree-based methods, have a poor insertion performance when the data size exceeds the available memory. This paper proposes a Persistent Index for Segmented Aggregations (PISA), which has fast insertion performance and low latency for aggregation queries. PISA uses a forest to overcome the performance disadvantage of insertion in traditional segment trees. By defining two kinds of tags, namely code number and serial number, we propose an algorithm to accelerate queries by avoiding unnecessary reading data on disk. Additionally, we extend it to Dual-PISA to tolerate a range of unordered data, which is very important in the real world. Dual-PISA is stored on disk and is hugely memory-efficient — only takes a few hundred bytes of memory for billions of data points. Dual-PISA can be easily implemented on both traditional databases and NoSQL systems. It handles aggregation queries within milliseconds on a commodity server, for a time range that contains tens of billions of data points.

English

Herbicide resistance and environmental pollution are the risks associated with chemical control of weeds. Allelopathic plant extracts may be exploited for weed management as an alternative to commercial herbicides. Before development of allelochemical-based eco-friendly herbicides, bioherbicidal potential of plants need to be evaluated. Present study was conducted to evaluate phytotoxic allelopathic impact of leaf extract from eight agroforestry and fruit plant species against Lepidium sativum. The results showed that all plant species delayed germination and inhibited root length, shoot length and seedling dry weight of Lepidium sativum. Four plant species such as Moringa oleifera, Mangifera indica, Albizia procera and Delonix regia were most phytotoxic with Lepidium sativum root growth inhibition of ≥85% as compared with control and seedling persistence index <30% of control. Phenolic contents were maximum in Mangifera indica (137 mg g-1 leaf dry weight) followed by Delonix regia (130 mg g-1 leaf dry weight). The results suggest that phytotoxic action of leaf extract of plant species may be due to presence of phenolic allelochemicals that may be exploited further either directly for weed management or development of bioherbicides.

Real-Time Traffic Flow Pattern Matching to Improve Predictive Performance of Online Simulation-Based Dynamic Traffic Assignment

In real-time simulation-based dynamic traffic assignment, selection of the most suitable demand from the library of demands calibrated offline improves the accuracy of the prediction. In the era of data explosion, relying on contextual and rule-based pattern matching logic does not seem sufficient. A rolling horizon scheme for real-time pattern matching is introduced using two pattern matching frameworks. The hard matching algorithm chooses the closest pattern at each evaluation interval, while soft matching calculates the probability of being a match for each pattern. To make sure the pattern switch does not happen because of short-lived interruptions in traffic conditions, a persistency index is introduced. The results show that the number of switches in hard matching is bigger than soft matching but the error of real-time matching for both cases is low. The importance of the results is twofold: First, any observation that is not similar to only one pattern in the library can be mimicked using multiple available patterns; second, more advanced algorithms can match the patterns existing in the library, without any contextual logics for pattern matching.

Spatial distribution and trends of different precipitation variability indices based on daily data in Northern Chile between 1966 and 2015

AbstractNorthern Chile is one of the most arid regions in the world, as it includes the Atacama Desert. At high elevations, most precipitation is observed only during a short period of the year, from December until March. This renders water availability a major concern for policymakers. Accumulated rainfall varies considerably from one year to another, and for this reason, climate projections have a very low degree of confidence in this area. Consequently, in this region, it is more interesting to study the irregularity of precipitation itself than accumulated rainfall values, as they express in a clearer way the behaviour of precipitation. According to daily data from 161 meteorological stations, four irregularity indices of precipitation were calculated: concentration index, entropy, persistence index, and fractal dimension. These indices were measured according to observed values, and their spatial distribution was subsequently determined by interpolating following multivariate regression models that consider different geographical variables such as latitude, distance to the Amazon Basin, elevation, orientation, and curvature. The temporal trends of each index and for each meteorological station were also calculated, displaying different results depending on the latitude and elevation. These changes agree with the observed modifications on the inter‐tropical atmospheric circulation and with changes in the precipitation diurnal cycle. These results will help improve climate projections for this region, in the process facilitating the development of more accurate climate models and informing the formulation of water management policies.

Vulnerability of Human Erythrocytes to Persistent High Glycemic Index Diets: Implications for Ageing and Neurodegeneration: Possible Amelioration by Carnosine

It is proposed that excessive consumption of high carbohydrate and high glycemic index (GI) diets, typical of the socalled Western diet, converts human erythrocytes into systemic sources of methylglyoxal (MG) and glycated protein, including alpha-synuclein. This is due to activity-induced deamidation of asparagine residues in the glycolytic enzyme triosephosphate isomerase (TPI), which can result in loss of enzyme activity and accumulation of the MG precursor dihydroxyacetone-phosphate. Under such circumstances, erythrocytic MG could provoke protein glycation in the tissues, including the brain, and may be responsible for much age-associated macromolecular modification. The naturally-occurring and pluripotent dipeptide carnosine (beta-alanyl-L-histidine) is enriched in erythrocytes (10-fold compared to sera). Carnosine could help to ameliorate MG generation and reactivity, due to its ability to (i) partially inhibit glycolysis and suppress MG generation and (ii) prevent MG-induced protein glycation, It is concluded that persistent consumption of high GI diets should be avoided, and carnosine, administered orally or intra-nasally to enhance access to the brain, could be explored with respect to age-related conditions including type-2 diabetes and neurodegeneration.

Impact of imazethapyr and its ready-mix combination with imazamoxto control weeds in blackgram

The bio-efficiency of imazethapyr and its combination with imazamox or pendimethalin in comparison to hand weeding against weeds, their effect on growth, yield and phytotoxicity on black gram and residual effect on succeeding mustard crop were studied during 2014–15 and 2015–16. Hand weeding twice resulted in the highest overall weed control efficiency followed by pre-emergence application of imazethapyr + imazamox 80 g/ha, preemergence imazethapyr + imazamox 70 g/ha and pre-emergence imazethapyr + pendimethalin 1000 g/ha. Hand weeding twice and pre-emergence imazethapyr + pendimethalin 1000 g/ha were comparable to pre-emergence imazethapyr + imazamox 70 g/ha for seed yield. With every increase of one weed per square metre, the blackgram seed yield was reduced by 2.1 kg/ha. Similarly with every g/m2 increase in weed weight, the blackgram yield was subjected to fall by 5.1 kg/ha. The economic threshold levels i.e. No/m2 and g/m2 with the weed management practices studied varied between 8.3–42.0/m2 and 3.5–17.6 g/m2. Weed persistence index (WPI) was lowest and crop resistance index (CRI) was highest in the hand weeding twice treatment. Post-emergence application of imazethapyr 70 and 80 g/ha and imazethapyr + imazamox 70 and 80 g/ha caused mild toxicity during 2014 and had therefore lower crop resistance index. Efficiency index was the highest under hand weeding followed by preemergence application of imazethapyr + imazamox 80 g/ha, pre-emergence imazethapyr + pendimethalin 1000 g/ha and pre-emergence imazethapyr 80 g/ha. Weed index indicated 55.4% reduction in yield of blackgram due to weeds. Preemergence imazethapyr 80 g/ha, imazethapyr + imazamox 80 g/ha, imazethapyr 70 g/ha and imazethapyr + pendimethalin 1000 g/ha had higher overall impact index than hand weeding due to lower cost. Residual effect/phytotoxicity was not observed on succeeding crop of mustard during 2014 and 2015 as well.

Bio-efficacy of readi-mix herbicides on weeds and productivity in late-sown wheat

A field experiment was conducted during 2015–16 and 2016–17 at Rajasthan College of Agriculture, Udaipur, India to evaluate the bio-efficacy of readi-mix herbicides in late sown wheat. The experiment consisting of fifteen treatments was laid out in randomized block design with four replications. The results revealed that Readi-mix application of sulfosulfuron + metsulfuron (32 g/ha)) and mesosulfuron + iodosulfuron (14.4 g/ha) gave higher weed control index (95.36, 94.72%), lower weed index (2.00, 2.75%) and weed persistence index (0.349, 0.351) whereas, higher index value of crop resistance index (CRI), weed management index (WMI) and herbicide efficiency index (HEI) (28.61, 0.38 and 5.50). Both of these treatments recorded 34.3 and 33.3 per cent grain yield enhancement along with 49.0% and 47.7% higher net returns over the unweeded control with the highest benefit-cost ratio (2.34 and 2.32). Results from contract analysis indicated significant (p < 0.0001) interaction of year x treatments and response of Readi-mix v/s single/sequential herbicide application on grain yield, weed density and dry matter. The joint effect of parameters on grain yield was significant with high magnitude (RGY. Weed density total, Weed dry weight total, Total N, P and K uptake = 0.98; p < 0.0001). Additionally, the regression model for grain yield on total weed density (R2 = 0.84), weed dry weight (R2=0.79), total N uptake (R2=0.98), P uptake (R2=0.93) and K uptake (R2 = 0.97) demonstrated significant dependence. Moreover, no symptoms of phytotoxicity were seen in any of the treatment in the crop at 21 days after herbicide application.

Relative density of weeds and weed indices as influenced by weed control options in cotton

Field experiments were conducted at Professor Jayashankar Telangana State Agricultural University, Rajendranagar during Kharif 2017 for the evaluation of efficacy different doses of diuron in both red and black soils. The treatment consisted of test herbicides such as, diuron 80% WP at 0.5 kg/ha, 0.75 kg/ha and 1.0 kg/ha along with registered formulation of pendimethalin 38.7% CS at 677 g/ha, intercropping with green manure crop, mechanical weeding thrice at 20, 40, 60 DAS and unweeded control. The experiment was laid out in a randomised block design replicated thrice. The weed flora of the experimental field in red soil was dominated by Cynodon dactylon, Rottboellia exaltata, Parthenium hysterophorus, Trianthema portulacastrum and Commelina benghalensis. While in case of black soil, predominant flora was Cynodon dactylon, Cyperus rotundus, Parthenium hysterophorus, Euphorbia geniculata, Tridax procumbens, Cyanotis cristata, Digera arvensis and Celosia argentia. The treatments, mechanical weeding thrice at 20, 40 and 60 DAS, polymulch treatments reduced the weed growth in both red and black soils. Among the herbicides, diuron at 1.0 kg/ha fb pyrithiobac-sodium + quizalofop-ethyl in red soil and both diuron at 1.0 kg/ha and 0.75 kg/ha along with sequential application of herbicides reduced the density of weeds. Diuron could reduce the broad-leaved weeds and grasses except itch grass. Sedges are also could not be reduced by diuron. The lower values of weed persistence index was obtained with herbicidal treatments i.e., diuron at 1.0 and 0.75 kg/ha fb pyrithiobac-sodium + quizalofop-ethyl. The crop resistance index and treatment efficiency index were superior in case of polymulch and mechanical weeding thrice at 20, 40 and 60 DAS.

Differences in the Phenology of Harmonia axyridis (Coleoptera: Coccinellidae) and Native Coccinellids in Central Europe.

Harmonia axyridis (Pallas), an invasive non-native species in central Europe, can outcompete other aphidophagous species. The distribution and abundance of H. axyridis vary depending on different host plants, and its effects on native coccinellid communities may change accordingly. The distribution and abundance of coccinellids in central Europe (50°N, 14°E) were investigated from 2010 to 2016. Coccinellids were counted at regular intervals on cereals (Avena, Hordeum, and Triticum), herbaceous plants (Matricaria and Urtica) and trees (Acer, Betula, and Tilia). Additionally, the occurrence over time of each species on these plants was assessed and used as an index of persistence. Across all years, the adults and larvae of H. axyridis were the dominant species of coccinellid on trees. However, H. axyridis was less abundant on herbaceous plants and cereals than on trees. Populations of native coccinellids and H. axyridis co-occurred on trees and persisted for the same length of time, while native coccinellids persisted longer than H. axyridis on herbaceous plants and cereals. Compared to 1976-1986, in the 2010s, the abundance of native species decreased on all plants by 50-70%. The presence of H. axyridis could be considered as a factor driving changes in the assemblages of native coccinellids.

Relationship Between Calibration Time and Final Performance of Conceptual Rainfall-Runoff Models

Various methods are used in the literature for calibration of conceptual rainfall-runoff models. However, very rarely the question on the relation between the number of model runs (or function calls) and the quality of solutions found is asked. In this study two lumped conceptual rainfall-runoff models (HBV and GR4J with added snow module) are calibrated for five catchments, located in temperate climate zones of USA and Poland, by means of three modern variants of Evolutionary Computation and Swarm Intelligence optimization algorithms with four different maximum numbers of function calls set to 1000, 3000, 10,000 and 30,000. At the calibration stage, when more than 10,000 function calls is used, only marginal improvement in model performance has been found, irrespective of the catchment or calibration algorithm. For validation data, the relation between the number of function calls and model performance is even weaker, in some cases the longer calibration, the poorer modelling performance. It is also shown that the opinion on the model performance based on different popular hydrological criteria, like the Nash-Sutcliffe coefficient or the Persistence Index, may be misleading. This is because very similar, largely positive values of Nash-Sutcliffe coefficient obtained on different catchments may be accompanied by contradictory values of the Persistence Index.