Sitodiplosis mosellana (Géhin) (Diptera: Cecidomyiidae) is a significant pest of wheat, Triticum aestivum Linnaeus (Poaceae), in Canada. Monitoring currently relies on labour-intensive counts of ovipositing females. Although traps baited with S. mosellana pheromone are used as decision support tools in the United Kingdom, in Canada, they are considered reliable only to indicate adult activity. Recent findings show that variability in pheromone release from commercial lures affects the number of midges captured and limits the reliability of pheromone monitoring. Here, two lure types and two trap types were compared for their ability to attract and retain S. mosellana males. We then compared the number of males captured in pheromone traps with the information provided by other monitoring tools, including emergence traps, soil cores, and ovipositing female counts. Jackson traps with Trécé rubber septa lures captured the most midges. The number of males captured in pheromone-baited traps was not related to overwintering, ovipositing, or emerging populations, suggesting that pheromone traps may not accurately reflect S. mosellana populations under field conditions. Variability in extracted pheromone amount between lures, regional climate, and Canada’s vast wheat-growing area may limit the development of an effective pheromone-based decision support tool for this region. Nevertheless, refinement of lure formulation, standardisation of trapping protocols, and integration of complementary monitoring approaches may enhance trap reliability and support a stronger monitoring system.

Pelmatozoa is an informal grouping of filter-feeding echinoderms including crinoids, paracrinoids, rhombiferans, and eocrinoids that possess a theca, an erect stalk, and feeding appendages. Although crinoids were major constituents of marine communities with high diversity and abundance throughout the Paleozoic, most other pelmatozoans had relatively low species diversity and/or short temporal durations. It has been proposed that these different diversification trajectories could have resulted from crinoids outcompeting other filter-feeding pelmatozoans during the early Paleozoic, although this hypothesis involving niche overlap has never been formally tested. Here, we tested this hypothesis using the incredibly diverse pelmatozoan fauna of the Late Ordovician (Sandbian) Bromide Formation of Oklahoma, which preserves a rich, ecologically complex fauna that developed as a result of the Great Ordovician Biodiversification Event. We developed a framework to quantitatively characterize pelmatozoan feeding ecology using multivariate analysis of ecomorphological traits and explored niche space occupation and potential competition between crinoids, rhombiferans, paracrinoids, eocrinoids, and diploporans from the Bromide fauna. Results revealed key ecological factors controlling niche differentiation and showed that crinoids, paracrinoids, and rhombiferans occupy nonoverlapping regions of niche space, indicating competition between groups was unlikely. Although the competition hypothesis was not supported, narrow niche space occupation suggests that paracrinoids and rhombiferans were more ecologically limited than crinoids, which might have played a role in their differential diversification dynamics. These results elucidate both the nature of interactions between pelmatozoan taxa and the potential mechanisms driving their evolutionary trajectories, as well as the complexity of ecological communities that arose during the Ordovician radiation.

A seminal result of Komlós, Sárközy, and Szemerédi states that any $n$-vertex graph $G$ with minimum degree at least $(1/2+\alpha )n$ contains every $n$-vertex tree $T$ of bounded degree. Recently, Pham, Sah, Sawhney, and Simkin extended this result to show that such graphs $G$ in fact support an optimally spread distribution on copies of a given $T$, which implies, using the recent breakthroughs on the Kahn-Kalai conjecture, the robustness result that $T$ is a subgraph of sparse random subgraphs of $G$ as well. Pham, Sah, Sawhney, and Simkin construct their optimally spread distribution by following closely the original proof of the Komlós-Sárközy-Szemerédi theorem which uses the blow-up lemma and the Szemerédi regularity lemma. We give an alternative, regularity-free construction that instead uses the Komlós-Sárközy-Szemerédi theorem (which has a regularity-free proof due to Kathapurkar and Montgomery) as a black box. Our proof is based on the simple and general insight that, if $G$ has linear minimum degree, almost all constant-sized subgraphs of $G$ inherit the same minimum degree condition that $G$ has.

In a retrospective cohort of 6363 neonates admitted to three NICUs, there was no reduction in Staphylococcus aureus acquisition when comparing pre- and post-pandemic incidence rates. While additional infection prevention practices introduced during the pandemic helped prevent SARS-CoV-2 transmission, these practices may not have reduced S. aureus transmission to infants.

We analyze the extent to which the prospects for economic development may relate to the environmental damages associated with economic activities. We consider an economic growth framework in which production activities generate polluting emissions which in turn negatively affect production capabilities, and publicly-funded abatement is pursued to mitigate such effects. Since the time preference is endogenously related to capital, abatement affects the size of the discount factor through its implications on capital accumulation. We show that the elasticity of environmental damages affects the optimal tax rate and thus the abatement level, which in turn determines whether the economy will end up in a stagnation or growth regime. This suggests that the cross-country heterogeneity in environmental damages may explain the different development patterns experienced by industrialized and developing economies. Our results are robust to the presence of productive public spending and two alternative forms of capital (clean and dirty capital).

This paper presents a novel robust control method for a hip-assist exoskeleton robot’s joint module, addressing dynamic performance under variable loads. The proposed approach integrates traditional PID control with robust, model-based strategies, utilizing the system’s dynamic model and a Lyapunov-based robust controller to handle uncertainties. This method not only enhances traditional PID control but also offers practical advantages in implementation. Theoretical analysis confirms the system’s uniform boundedness and ultimate boundedness. A Matlab prototype was developed for simulation, demonstrating the control scheme’s feasibility and effectiveness. Numerical simulations show that the proposed fractional-order hybrid PD (FHPD) controller significantly reduces tracking error by 58.70% compared to the traditional PID controller, 55.41% compared to the MPD controller, and 32.32% compared to ADRC, highlighting its superior tracking performance and stability.

We establish a polynomial ergodic theorem for actions of the affine group of a countable field K. As an application, we deduce—via a variant of Furstenberg’s correspondence principle—that for fields of characteristic zero, any ‘large’ set $E\subset K$ contains ‘many’ patterns of the form $\{p(u)+v,uv\}$, for every non-constant polynomial $p(x)\in K[x]$. Our methods are flexible enough that they allow us to recover analogous density results in the setting of finite fields and, with the aid of a finitistic variant of Bergelson’s ‘colouring trick’, show that for $r\in \mathbb N$ fixed, any r-colouring of a large enough finite field will contain monochromatic patterns of the form $\{u,p(u)+v,uv\}$. In a different direction, we obtain a double ergodic theorem for actions of the affine group of a countable field. An adaptation of the argument for affine actions of finite fields leads to a generalization of a theorem of Shkredov. Finally, to highlight the utility of the aforementioned finitistic ‘colouring trick’, we provide a conditional, elementary generalization of Green and Sanders’ $\{u,v,u+v,uv\}$ theorem.

Ensuring seed viability over decades is a central challenge in ex situ conservation of plant genetic resources. Standard germination tests, while effective, are destructive and fail to detect early molecular damage that precedes viability loss. RNA integrity has emerged as a promising biomarker due to the inherent vulnerability of mRNA to oxidative degradation in the dry state. In this study, we identified and validated seed-stored mRNAs in common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris), a major crop species extensively represented in global germplasm collections, and investigated transcript degradation patterns in seeds conserved for up to 30 years. Using a comparative genomics approach, we identified 107 P. vulgaris orthologs of long-lived rice mRNAs, many encoding proteins involved in RNA stabilization, oxidoreductase activity, and primary metabolism. Thirty transcripts were validated by RT-qPCR, and the integrity of nine was assessed using paired primers targeting 5′ and 3′ regions. Degradation followed a consistent 5′→3′ pattern, particularly in longer transcripts, and correlated strongly with germination power. Predictive performance varied across transcripts: PSMA4, SMP1, and TRA2 consistently showed strong correlations with viability, whereas others were less informative. The ΔΔCq metric improved resolution by detecting degradation asymmetry. Samples included a genetically diverse panel of conserved, regenerated, and artificially aged accessions, enhancing applicability to real-world genebank conditions. Artificial aging intensified degradation signatures and mirrored patterns observed in naturally aged seeds. Altogether, our results indicate transcript integrity as a molecular biomarker for seed viability, supporting the development of robust molecular tools to inform decision-making and regeneration planning in long-term germplasm conservation.

The global use of antimicrobial chemicals drastically increased during and after the COVID-19 pandemic owing to heightened awareness of personal and surface hygiene needs. Disinfectants, especially chlorine-based disinfectants (CBDs), were extensively used for surface and equipment decontamination in the domestic, industrial, veterinary and healthcare sectors during the heights of the pandemic. The increased use of disinfectants has resulted in their increased discharge into municipal wastewater systems and surface waters. Our Perspective article considers the One Health challenges associated with the increased discharge of disinfectants into wastewater. One Health is a collaborative approach that ensures the well-being of people, animals and the environment. Wastewater is a common endpoint to the many interactions between people, animals and their environment. The potential One Health challenges and knowledge gaps associated with the constant discharge of low but sublethal concentrations of CBDs into wastewater are discussed. The data gaps point to the risks associated with the unregulated use of CBDs and need for their judicial use.

This study investigates the gut microbiota of newly emerged adult females and males of five economically important Anastrepha species (Tephritidae) – A. ludens, A. obliqua, A. serpentina, A. striata, and A. fraterculus – by analyzing 16S rRNA amplicon sequences from 36 samples collected from ecologically relevant fruit hosts and locations in Mexico. We chose to concentrate only on newly emerged adults to identify bacteria that females could potentially transmit vertically to progeny via oviposition, a topic that remains poorly studied. Results revealed that Proteobacteria dominated the microbiota in all species, but substantial variation was observed in genus-level composition. Differentially abundant genera included Enterobacter, Gluconobacter, Tatumella, Providencia, Ochrobactrum, Siccibacter, Sphingobacterium, and Sphingobium. Significant differences in alpha diversity were observed between species, particularly between A. obliqua and A. striata, and between A. obliqua and A. serpentina based on the Shannon index. Anastrepha ludens, A. obliqua, and A. striata males exhibited higher species richness than females, although these differences were not statistically significant within individual species likely due to limited sample size. Interestingly, across all species, significant differences in microbiota composition were observed between males and females. Our findings suggest that morphological, physiological (i.e., metamorphosis) and ecological factors, such as possible gut structural differences and host fruit preferences, may influence the composition of the gut microbiota, potentially affecting the ecological adaptability and pest behavior of these flies.

Burkholderia cepacia is a rare cause of prosthetic valve endocarditis. We report an 18-year-old male with Tetralogy of Fallot and two sequential transcatheter pulmonary valves (Melody and Myval), presenting with persistent bacteraemia unresponsive to antibiotics. Surgical explantation of both valves with homograft replacement and tricuspid repair achieved complete recovery, emphasising surgery in refractory infections.

We introduce a new family of coalescent mean-field interacting particle systems by producing a pinning property that acts over a chosen sequence of multiple time segments. Throughout their evolution, these stochastic particles converge in time (i.e. get pinned) to their random ensemble average at the termination point of any one of the given time segments, only to burst back into life and repeat the underlying principle of convergence in each of the successive time segments, until they are fully exhausted. Although the architecture is represented by a system of piecewise stochastic differential equations, we prove that the conditions generating the pinning property enable every particle to preserve their continuity over their entire lifetime almost surely. As the number of particles in the system increases asymptotically, the system decouples into mutually independent diffusions, which, albeit displaying progressively uncorrelated behaviour, still close in on, and recouple at, a deterministic value at each termination point. Finally, we provide additional analytics including a universality statement for our framework, a study of what we call adjourned coalescent mean-field interacting particles, a set of results on commutativity of double limits, and a proposal of what we call covariance waves.