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THE AUTHOR TESTS TWO HYPOTHESES ABOUT THE ORGIN OF OPINION OF PARTISAN ACTIVISTS. THE FIRST IS A RATIONAL-CHOICE THESIS STATING THAT DUE TO ELECTORAL CONSIDERATIONS, ACTIVISTS WILL ADOPT POSITIONS ON ISSUES THAT CORRESPOND TO WHERE THEY BELIEVE VOTERS STAND ON THOSE ISSUES. THE COMPETING HYPOTHESIS IS BASED ON THE INFLUENCE OF CONTENDERS FOR THE PARTIES' PRESIDENTIAL NOMINATION. THIS HYPOTHESIS PREDICTS THAT JUST AS CANDIDATES PLAY A ROLE IN ACTIVATING SEGMENTS OF THE PARTY TO PARTICIPATE IN THE NOMINATION PROCESS, THEY ALSO INFLUENCE THE VIEWS HELD BY THOSE ACTIVISTS. USING DATA FROM THE 1988 AND 1992 CONVENTION DELEGATE STUDIES, THE AUTHOR CONDUCTS TWO TESTS OF THESE HYPOTHESES. THE IMPLICATIONS OF THE FINDINGS ARE DISCUSSED.

STUDIES OF PARTY COHESION COMMONLY FOCUS ON SUPPORT FOR PARTY NOMINEES AND EMPHASIZE IMPLICATIONS FOR ELECTORAL SUCCESS. THIS ARTICLE SHIFTS THAT FOCUS TO THE PARTY ORGANIZATIONS AND EXPLORES THE RAMIFICATIONS FOR OPINION LEADERSHIP AND GOVERNING. IT REPORTS CONSISTENTLY LOW LEVELS OF ISSUE COHERENCE WITHIN BOTH MAJOR PARTIES, EVEN AMONG DELEGATES WHO SUPPORT THE SAME CANDIDATE. THESE FINDINGS, THE AUTHOR CONCLUDES, POSE AN OBSTACLE TO PROGRAMMATICALLY COHERENT PARTIES AND HINDER THE SUCCESSFUL TRANSMISSION OF CLEAR ALTERNATIVES TO VOTERS.

It was investigated the current state of development of de School Environment Projects in the public educational institutions of de Town 18 Rafael Uribe Uribe in Bogotá (Colombia). The participation grade was measured in the design, execution and evaluation of the environmental projects, the registration and systematising of experiences, the generation of reflection spaces and the structuring to the Institutional Educational Project. By means of the test pilot the variables were determined for the design muestral and the validation of the mensuration instrument. Three populations study object were determined and for each was designed a for through which the information of the variable was gathered by means of the method of direct interview. The results show that the overwhelming majority of the considered population didn't participated in the design, in the execution of the environmental projects. The registration and systematizing of experiences are minimum, as well as the reflection spaces and conceptualization. There is not articulation from the environmental project to the Institutional Educational Project. The little participation, systematizing of experiences and lack of reflection spaces and conceptualization limit the impact of the School Environmental Projects in the formation of favorable attitudes to the environment. ; Se investigó el estado actual de desarrollo de los Proyectos Ambientales Escolares en las instituciones educativas públicas de la Localidad 18 Rafael Uribe Uribe en Bogotá (Colombia). Se midió el grado de participación en el diseño, ejecución y evaluación de los proyectos ambientales, el registro y sistematización de experiencias, la creación de espacios de reflexión y la articulación al Proyecto Educativo Institucional. Mediante una prueba piloto se determinaron las variables para el diseño de la muestra y la validación del instrumento de medición. Se establecieron tres poblaciones objeto de estudio y para cada una se diseñó un formulario a través del cual se recolectó la información de las variables mediante el método de entrevista directa. Los resultados muestran que la mayoría de la población considerada no participó en el diseño, ni en la ejecución, ni en la evaluación de los proyectos ambientales. El registro y la sistematización de experiencias son mínimos, así como los espacios de reflexión y conceptualización. No hay articulación del proyecto ambiental al Proyecto Educativo Institucional. La poca participación, sistematización de experiencias y falta de espacios de reflexión y conceptualización limitan el impacto de los Proyectos Ambientales Escolares en la formación de actitudes favorables al ambiente.

El aumento de las expectativas de vida en la sociedad actual determina que cada vez sea mayor el número de personas en la fase de prejubilación. Este fenómeno no es exclusivo de la población civil sino que también se da en la población militar, llamado en ella "Reserva". En el Ejército de Tierra, dependiendo del status militar que se desempeñe, pasas antes o después a la Reserva. El objetivo del presente estudio ha sido conocer de qué manera se ve afectada la salud en las personas del Ejército de Tierra que están a 1 ó 2 años de pasar a la Reserva. Para la evaluación de la variable salud se ha utilizado el cuestionario de salud de Goldberg GHQ-28. Los resultados indican que más del 80% de la población estudiada está "bien" o "muy bien" según dicho cuestionario.

Agricultural practices are disturbances that affect soil organism communities. In order to evaluate the impact of these practices on entomoàthologenic nematode populations, we report the preliminary results of the recovery frequency, abundance and density of entomopathogenic nematode populations, from natural areas, crop field edges and organic and conventional crops in Oja valley (La Rioja, Spain). ; European Society of Nematologists C.N.R. Institute for Plant Protection Sectio of Bari. Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche Presidenza del Consiglio dei Ministri Dipatimento delle Politiche Comunitarie ; Peer reviewed

2 pages ; A total of 500 soil samples from 100 sites from 18 habitat types were assesses for the presence of entomopathogenic nematodes usin the Galleria baiting technique. ematodes were recovered from 28 soil samples representing 14 sites. ; European Society of Nematologists. C.N.R. Institute for Plant Protection - Section of Bari. Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche. Presidenza del Consiglio dei Ministri. Dipatimento delle Politiche Comunitarie ; Peer reviewed

Looked at leaders and followers using Achen's measures of representation. Found that the representatives' views are fairly close to those of their constituents, that representatives are efficient at positioning themselves at the mean constituent position, and that representatives respond to shifts in liberalism /conservatism in their districts. (Abstract amended)

A number of studies have shown that the use of transgenic seed increases productivity, reduces the quantities of pesticide required to protect crops, and cuts down the labour involved in cultivation. Besides saving time, this reduces manpower requirements and the use of farm machinery, and the use of such seed has had an important economic (and environmental) impact on the production of certain crops. These advantages translate into reduced production costs-particularly so for a number of crops whose international market price has fallen steadily over the last ten years. Current Chilean legislation, however, only allows the multiplication of genetically modified plants whose final product is destined for export. The aim of this work was to compare the production costs associated with conventional and transgenic Bt and RR maize, and therefore to highlight the potential economic benefits to Chile of opening the market to genetically modified seed. ; Existen trabajos que han probado que los cultivos transgénicos aumentan la productividad, reducen el uso de pesticidas convencionales, disminuyen el número de labores culturales, con el consiguiente ahorro de tiempo, mano de obra y uso de maquinaria, en definitiva, han tenido un impacto económico —e incluso ambiental— sobre la producción de algunos cultivos. Lo anterior se traduce en una disminución de los costos de producción, especialmente aquellos cultivos cuyos precios internacionales en la última década han caído sistemáticamente. En Chile, la legislación sólo permite la multiplicación de especies vegetales modificadas genéticamente cuyo producto final sea para exportación. Dado este marco, el presente trabajo tuvo por objetivo comparar los costos de producción convencional de maíz para grano y con modificaciones Bt y RR, permitiéndonos construir un escenario para comparar los beneficios económicos potenciales que tendrían en Chile la liberación al mercado de semillas modificada genéticamente.

Wireworms are polyphagous soil-dwelling pests that are hard to control. Attract-and-kill strategies, combining attractive semiochemicals with biocontrol agents, have great promise to control insect pests. We hypothesized that the combination of plant semiochemicals and entomopathogenic nematodes (EPNs) in an attract-and-kill system could greatly enhance the nematodes' efficiency against wireworms. We evaluated the potential of alginate beads loaded with plant extracts and EPNs to control Agriotes obscurus. We tested the efficiency to kill wireworms or to reduce their feeding activity when combining potato tuber extracts as attractants with any of seven different EPN populations. While a direct application of EPNs on wireworms did not reduce the feeding activity nor increased their mortality, the combination of attractants and EPNs encapsulated in alginate beads resulted in attraction and consumption of the EPNs and caused up to 50% wireworm mortality with the EPN species Steinernema carpocapsae. Beads with EPNs caused a significant reduction of the wireworms' feeding activity. This study shows that wireworms feeding on EPN-containing beads have their feeding activity and survival negatively affected. Considering their long developmental time and the survival capability of EPNs in the soil, implementing this attract-and-kill system in the field might be a suitable strategy for the long-term management of wireworms. ; The authors thank Ricardo Machado from the University of Bern (Switzerland), Selcuk Hazir from the Aydın Adnan Menderes University (Turkey) and Fernando García del Pino from the Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona (Spain) for providing the nematodes populations that were used in the experiments. The authors also thank to Mickaël Gaillard for the statistical help. The results presented in this study are part of the PhD thesis by the first author DLF, supported by a Ph.D. grant from Coordinated Integrated Pest Management in Europe (C-IPM), project ElatPro. RCH is awarded by Ramon y Cajal contract award (RYC-2016-19939) from the Government of Spain.

This article belongs to the Special Issue Entomopathogenic Nematodes: Lethal Parasites of Insects. ; [Simple Summary] The disease caused by Xylella fastidiosa affects economically relevant crops such as olives, almonds, and grapevine. Since curative means are not available, its current management principally consists of broad-spectrum pesticide applications to control vectors like the meadow spittlebug Philaenus spumarius, the most important one in Europe. Exploring environmentally sound alternatives is a primary challenge for sustainable agriculture. Entomopathogenic nematodes (EPNs) are well-known biocontrol agents of soil-dwelling arthropods. Recent technological advances for field applications, including improvements in obtaining cell-free supernatants from EPN symbiotic bacteria, allow their successful implementation against aerial pests. Here, we investigated the impact of four EPN species and their cell-free supernatants on nymphs of the meadow spittlebug. First, we observed that the exposure to the foam produced by this insect does not affect the nematode virulence. Indeed, direct applications of certain EPN species reached up to 90–78% nymphal mortality rates after five days of exposure, while specific cell-free supernatants produced 64% mortality rates. Overall, we demonstrated the great potential of EPN and cell-free supernatant of their symbiont bacteria applications against this vector, opening new venues to develop novel biopesticides for integrated management practices and organic productions. ; The meadow spittlebug Philaenus spumarius (Hemiptera: Aphrophoridae) is the primary vector of Xylella fastidiosa (Proteobacteria: Xanthomonadaceae) in Europe, a pest–disease complex of economically relevant crops such as olives, almonds, and grapevine, managed mainly through the use of broad-spectrum pesticides. Providing environmentally sound alternatives to reduce the reliance on chemical control is a primary challenge in the control of P. spumarius and, hence, in the protection of crops against the expansion of its associated bacterial pathogen. Entomopathogenic nematodes (EPNs) are well-known biocontrol agents of soil-dwelling arthropods. Recent technological advances in field applications, including improvements in obtaining cell-free supernatant from their symbiotic bacteria, allow their successful implementation against aerial pests. Thus, this study aimed to evaluate, for the first time, the efficacy of EPN applications against nymphal instars of P. spumarius. We tested four EPN species and the cell-free supernatant of their corresponding symbiotic bacteria: Steinernema feltiae–Xenorhabdus bovienii, S. carpocapsae–X. nematophila, S. riojaense–X. kozodoii, and Heterorhabditis bacteriophora–Photorhabdus laumondii subsp. laumondii. First, we showed that 24 and 72 h exposure to the foam produced by P. spumarius nymphs did not affect S. feltiae virulence. The direct application of steinernematid EPNs provided promising results, reaching 90, 78, and 53% nymphal mortality rates after five days of exposure for S. carpocapsae, S. feltiae, and S. riojaense, respectively. Conversely, the application of the cell-free supernatant from P. laumondii resulted in nymphal mortalities of 64%, significantly higher than observed for Xenorhabdus species after five days of exposure. Overall, we demonstrated the great potential of the application of specific EPNs and cell-free supernatant of their symbiont bacteria against P. spumarius nymphs, introducing new opportunities to develop them as biopesticides for integrated management practices or organic vineyard production. ; This study was funding by a grant from the Ministry of Science and Innovation (PID2019-104112RB-I00). The researchers were funded by the following agencies and grants: - I.V.-D. funded by ADER I + D + i (2019) fellowship by the Rioja Agency of Economic Development (La Rioja, Spain) and currently is supported by an FPU-UR-2020 fellowship. - R.B.-P. was supported by the pre-doctoral contracts CAR-2018 (Department of Economic Development and Innovation of the Government of La Rioja). - M.d.M.G.-T. is supported by Program JAE-Intro CSIC call 2020 (JAEINT20_EX_0939). - R.C.-H. is supported by Ramón y Cajal contract award from the Government of Spain (RYC-2016-19939). ; Peer reviewed