Adopting a complex-wide bed bug IPM program, incorporating proactive monitoring, and biweekly treatments of infested apartments utilizing non-chemical and chemical methods can successfully reduce infestation rates to very low levels.

Abstract:We generalize the standard model of particle physics such it displays global scale invariance. The gravitational action is also suitably modified such that it respects this symmetry. This model is interesting since the cosmological constant term is absent in the action. We find that the scale symmetry is broken by the recently introduced cosmological symmetry breaking mechanism. This simultaneously generates all the dimensionful parameters such as the Newton's gravitational constant, the particle masses and the vacuum or dark energy. We find that in its simplest version the model predicts the Higgs mass to be very small, which is ruled out experimentally. We further generalize the model such that it displays local scale invariance. In this case the Higgs particle disappears from the particle spectrum and instead we find a very massive vector boson.Hence the model gives a consistent description of particle physics phenomenology as well as fits the cosmological dark energy.

We consider models of gravitation that are based on unimodular general coordinate transformations (GCT). These transformations include only those which do not change the determinant of the metric. We treat the determinant as a separate field which transforms as a scalar under unimodular GCT. We consider a class of such theories. In general, these theories do not transform covariantly under the full GCT. We characterize the violation of general coordinate invariance by introducing a new parameter. We show that the theory is consistent with observations for a wide range of this parameter. This parameter may serve as a test for possible violations of general coordinate invariance. We also consider the cosmic evolution within the framework of these models. We show that in general we do not obtain consistent cosmological solutions if we assume the standard cosmological constant or the standard form of non-relativistic matter. We propose a suitable generalization which is consistent with cosmology. We fit the resulting model to the high redshift supernova data. We find that we can obtain a good fit to this data even if include only a single component, either cosmological constant or non-relativistic matter.

We examined bed bug prevalence in 2,372 low-income apartments within 43 buildings in four New Jersey cities using a combination of resident interviews, brief visual inspections, and monitoring with Climbup Insect Interceptors. Infestation rates ranged from 3.8 to 29.5% among the buildings, with an overall infestation rate of 12.3%. Within each apartment, the bed area trapped significantly more bed bugs per trap than the sofa (or upholstered chair) area. African American residents had a proportionally higher number of bed bug infestations than white residents. Women were more likely to report bed bug bite symptoms than men. Only 68% of the residents who experienced bed bug infestations reported symptoms after being bitten (n = 475). Among those with self-reported symptoms (n = 319), the frequency of the reported symptoms was: pain 90%, itchiness 20%, welts 13%, and insomnia 8%. Fifty-nine percent of the residents (n = 539) who experienced bed bug infestations applied insecticides to control bed bugs. Climbup interceptors detected 89 ± 1% and brief visual inspections detected 72 ± 3% of the infestations. Only two out of 291 infestations were not detected by brief visual inspection or interceptors. Assuming US$50 per hour labor rate, the average per apartment cost for the building-wide bed bug monitoring protocol was US$12 per apartment. Forty-nine percent of the infestations detected by the protocol were in apartments whose residents were unaware of the bed bug activity.

A new approach to prepare and characterize prestressed competitive double network elastomeric systems was investigated. A styrene−butadiene−styrene (SBS) triblock copolymer system containing physical cross-links was used to achieve a double network by additional chemical cross-linking using ultraviolet (UV) light. Properties measured from conventional monotonic tensile tests, stress relaxation, thermomechanical, hysteresis, and swelling analysis were investigated and related to their network structure. These double network elastomers show a transition between competitive and collaborative behavior in their mechanical properties at different strain regimes. These elastomers also show lower permanent set in both low and high strain regimes along with lower hysteresis. These networks exhibit lower modulus along with lower coefficient of thermal expansion, still showing lower swelling ratios, which results from a competition between the networks.

We consider a model of gravity and matter fields which is invariant only under unimodular general coordinate transformations (GCT). The determinant of the metric is treated as a separate field which transforms as a scalar under unimodular GCT. Furthermore we also demand that the theory is invariant under a new global symmetry which we call generalized conformal invariance. We study the cosmological implications of the resulting theory. We show that this theory gives a fit to the high-z supernova data which is identical to the standard Big Bang model. Hence we require some other cosmological observations to test the validity of this model. We also consider some models which do not obey the generalized conformal invariance. In these models we can fit the supernova data without introducing the standard cosmological constant term. Furthermore these models introduce only one dark component and hence solve the coincidence problem of dark matter and dark energy. *

Current bed bug, Cimex lectularius L., control usually involves insecticide applications that pose a high risk of insecticide exposure to residents and applicators. To minimize these risks and the amount of insecticides used, we designed and evaluated a dust band treatment technique. The laboratory assay showed that 1% cyfluthrin dust treated bands are highly effective in killing bed bugs. We further evaluated this technique in bed bug infested apartments. The "dust band" treatment consisted of installing a 3.8-cm-wide fabric band on furniture legs and brushing Tempo dust (1% cyfluthrin) (Bayer Environmental Science, Research Triangle Park, NC) onto the bands. In addition, interceptors were installed under furniture legs. Alpine (0.5% dinotefuran) aerosol spray was applied directly to live bed bugs found on furniture during biweekly inspections. This treatment was compared with two other treatments: "integrated pest management" (IPM) and "control." The IPM treatment included dust bands plus the following: applying hot steam to infested furniture and surrounding areas, installing mattress encasements, applying 1% cyfluthrin dust around room perimeters, and installing interceptors under furniture legs. Alpine aerosol was applied to live bed bugs found during biweekly inspections. In the control group, the apartments received cursory treatment with insecticide sprays by the existing pest control contractor hired by the property management office. Bed bug numbers before and after treatments were determined based on biweekly interceptor counts or a combination of interceptor counts and visual inspections. From 0 to 12 wk, mean bed bug counts of the dust band, IPM, and the control treatment decreased by 95, 92, and 85%, respectively. Both dust band and IPM resulted in higher bed bug reduction than the control. There was no significant difference in the final counts between dust band and IPM treatments. An additional field experiment showed installing 1% cyfluthrin dust band and interceptors in lightly infested apartments prevented bed bug population rebound. Results indicate applying insecticide dust bands to furniture legs is an effective bed bug control technique.

We study quintessential inflation with an inverse hyperbolic type potential V (φ) = V0/cosh (φ n /λ n ), where V0, λ and "n" are parameters of the theory. We obtain a bound on λ for different values of the parameter n. The spectral index and the tensor-to-scalar-ratio fall in the 1σ bound given by the Planck 2015 data for n ≥ 5 for certain values of λ. However for 3 ≤ n < 5 there exist values of λ for which the spectral index and the tensor-to-scalar-ratio fall only within the 2σ bound of the Planck data. Furthermore, we show that the scalar field with the given potential can also give rise to late time acceleration if we invoke the coupling to massive neutrino matter. We also consider the instant preheating mechanism with Yukawa interaction and put bounds on the coupling constants for our model using the nucleosynthesis constraint on relic gravity waves produced during inflation.