#LIU-Class of 1990

[mariacallous]

Minnesota Governor Tim Walz’s elevation to the national stage as running mate for Vice President Kamala Harris has suddenly put him in the spotlight. Walz had a low national profile until a successful behind-the-scenes strategy led him to be considered for Democrats’ suddenly vacant second spot.

One of the striking elements of Walz’s biography is his unusually deep connections to China. Walz first visited the country in 1989, just months after the Tiananmen Square protests, and returned to the country some 30 times afterward. As an educator and then a small business owner, he facilitated student groups’ trips to China. As a legislator, he served on the Congressional-Executive Commission on China, which monitors human rights and the rule of law in the country, and co-sponsored resolutions urging the release of democratic activist Liu Xiaobo and remembering the Tiananmen Square victims.

Not all the attention to Walz’s China record has been positive. Republican and conservative figures have sought to portray Walz’s China ties as dangerous. On X, for example, Sen. Marco Rubio accused Walz of being a Chinese asset—“an example of how Beijing patiently grooms future American leaders”—who would “allow China to steal our jobs & factories & flood America with drugs.”

But Rubio’s attack has it precisely backward. Walz’s record is that of a measured critic of the Chinese Communist Party—prone neither to exaggeration nor accommodation. Nor is this a pose cooked up by spin doctors in the past few weeks. Small-town Nebraska newspaper articles—published well before Walz had any political ambitions—demonstrate that his professed affection for the Chinese people and culture has been matched by a longstanding criticism of the country’s rulers.

Back in the 1980s and ’90s, it didn’t take a lot to make the local papers. Walz, for instance, was once photographed for the Alliance Times-Herald—“Box Butte County’s Only Family-Owned Newspaper”—for a National Guard project: painting and repairing trash cans in the town center. (The photograph is about as exciting as the description suggests.)

The regular stuff of small-town news reporting—council meetings, 4-H club events, church announcements—was occasionally enlivened by stories about exceptional events. One such, it turned out, was Walz’s decision to teach in China as part of a program run by WorldTeach, a Massachusetts-based nonprofit. (Many news accounts, at the time and later, describe WorldTeach as a Harvard-run program, but it’s more accurate to say it was founded by Harvard students.)

“I’ve always had a real interest in travel, and feel this is a golden opportunity to see a culture that’s 3,000 years old,” Walz, then a senior at Chadron State College, told the Chadron Record in an article announcing his selection in 1989.

Walz would be going under less than glamorous conditions. It was the first year that WorldTeach would make placements in China, the Record reported, and that meant participants had to be resourceful: “They said we’ll basically have to solve our own problems,” Walz said. He said he had to raise $2,500 for his transportation, health insurance, and orientation costs—and, once in China, he would only earn $100 per month in salary (although that was, the Record noted, “about twice the amount generally paid [to] Chinese teachers”).

Although the crackdown on protesters in June 1989 led Walz to wonder whether the trip would go on, the program remained in place. After orientation in Hong Kong and Guangzhou, China, he traveled to his teaching site: a senior middle school in Foshan, a then-rapidly growing city in central Guangdong Province in southern China. There, he taught U.S. history and culture and English to classes of 65 students each from December 1989 to December 1990, according to a 1990 article in the Chadron Record. (Walz’s Midwestern-accentuated U.S. English was a change for the students, whose previous instructor was British, according to a 1994 article in the Scottsbluff Star-Herald.)

His trip was big enough news that the Record printed excerpts from a letter Walz wrote to a Chadron State faculty member while he was abroad. Walz wrote that he was “being treated like a king.” He was, he wrote, “totally responsible for my curriculum. But I’m managing.”

After he returned, Walz was invited to speak about his time at his alma mater, Chadron State. At about the same time, an interview about his year in China ran in local papers. His enthusiasm was obvious: “No matter how long I live, I’ll never be treated that well again,” Walz told the Record in 1990. “They gave me more gifts than I could bring home. It was an excellent experience.” (In 2024, the New York Post twisted this line as evidence that Walz had “fawned over Communist China.”)

Yet in context, it’s clear that Walz was no dupe. During his teaching year, he visited Beijing (a 40-hour trip by rail) and saw Tiananmen Square, according to the Record. As much as Walz loved China and the Chinese people, his attitude toward the Chinese Communist Party was bluntly critical. Tiananmen Square, he told the Record, “will always have a lot of bitter memories for the people.” (Walz later chose June 6 as his wedding date so he could “have a date he’ll always remember,” according to his wife.)

The problem with China, Walz observed, wasn’t its people but the government. “If they had the proper leadership, there are no limits on what [Chinese people] could accomplish,” he told the Record. “They are such kind, generous, capable people. They just gave and gave and gave to me. Going there was one of the best things I have ever done.”

Walz viewed China’s population as eager to leave its Communist-run society. “Many of the students want to come to America to study,” he told the Record. “They don’t feel there is much opportunity for them in China.” He mentioned that during one of his trips to nearby Macau, then still a Portuguese colony, the government granted amnesty to Chinese immigrants living in the colony illegally, triggering a stampede by tens of thousands of Chinese who wanted residency in the West.

The trip shaped Walz’s career as an educator. Within a few months of his return, Walz had found a job as a social studies teacher in Alliance, Nebraska, a town whose population was then just under 10,000 people. He created a pen-pal program linking his students to Chinese middle-school students at his old teaching placement, where a friend of his worked. The program was reported on the front page of the Alliance Times-Herald in 1991.

Walz, who must have been a dynamic teacher, used the exchange of letters to not only bridge cultural gaps but also demonstrate the stakes of then-acrimonious U.S.-China government relations to his students. Walz pointedly described the politics of the countries’ then-seemingly large trade imbalance (a fraction of what it is now) to the Times-Herald: “The Chinese government wants us to buy what they sell, but won’t buy what we sell.”

Soon, Walz was leading groups of students to China. The first visit was in July 1993, when he took 25 Alliance High School students on a trip partly funded by the Chinese government, although the students and sponsors, including Walz, had to cover costs of $1,580 each, according to an article in the Scottsbluff Star-Herald; Walz helped by raising funds from local businesses. (In a rare criticism of an aspect of Chinese culture, rather than the Chinese Communist Party, Walz responded to one student’s interest in hearing Chinese opera by saying he’d “rather eat glass” than see another Chinese opera.) Walz’s honeymoon with his wife, a fellow teacher, the next year involved two student trips to China, according to the Star-Herald. Later, he and his wife would start a business to promote similar exchanges.

For all his fondness toward China, Walz’s descriptions of its people at times reflected the prevailing stereotypes of the time. “The students are almost too well behaved,” he wrote in his letter from China that was excerpted in the Record in 1989. In a 1994 profile ahead of his honeymoon in China, Walz told the Star-Herald that it had been hard to memorize names and tell his students apart (although he also noted that Chinese students thought all Americans looked alike.) To the Times-Herald in 1993, he described his students as not overly creative but industrious: “[T]here was never even any unfinished homework,” he recalled. And, for Walz, mostly used to small-town life, the sheer scale of China was astonishing: “The people were the best part, and the worst part was the number of people.”

The contemporaneous (and surprisingly extensive) record of how Walz’s time in China influenced him clearly rejects the idea that Walz was groomed or otherwise misled by his time in the country. He was an earnest, young observer of a society and government radically unlike his own. After repeated exposure, however, China became increasingly familiar to him. His opinions about the Chinese people and their government derived from firsthand observations, filtered through his own background and reading.

Neither a hawk nor a dove, Walz approached China as a student and a teacher—an owl, to steal a metaphor. Throughout these early interviews, his insistence on the separation between a people and their government—and his repeated criticism of the Chinese government—was plain. So was his emphasis on the importance of democracy and recognizing where the United States fell short.

People change, and seeking clues to how a potential Vice President Walz would act based on how high school teacher Walz approached his lessons is clearly perilous. Still, it seems clear that Walz values facts, and in particular experience, rather than theory or ideology; that he has deeply held core beliefs about China’s people and government set in the era of Tiananmen; and that his commitment to promoting human rights—and U.S. economic interests in trade negotiations—is longstanding.

With that background, leavened by subsequent experience on China issues as a member of Congress, it seems more likely than not that Walz would be neither inflexibly hostile nor naïve about relations with Beijing.

[lilad03-blog]

Questions for Dina Meyer

Let's go back to your decision to attend LIU Brookville. What was the reason you choose this particular school?

Wikipedia says you were from Forrest Hills. Did you commute from Queens to Nassau County? Did you live on campus-if so, where?

Records indicate you were a Business Major. Why did you pick that?

I went searching for you in the campus newspaper-The Pioneer; now called The Tide. I was really looking to see if you were in any school productions. (Ideally if you got one of those bad first reviews.) Unfortunately, the archives don't go back that far. So. I have to ask if you did any school plays or work with the TV/Radio production program?

Since this is a Facebook site for all the colleges and campuses for my year, to keep people from feeling left out did you ever go to LIU-Brooklyn or Southampton College campuses?

You studied at the Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre in New York for threes (1990-1993). Your 1st credit seems to be in Forest Whitaker's HBO film Strapped. Your character was called Delivery Person and frankly, I had to dig way down on IMDb.com to find that. Just how important was that work for your mindset?

Not long after Strapped finished shooting in Brooklyn, you were in L.A. working on Beverly Hills, 90210 as a recurring character for 12 episodes; In 1995 you worked opposite Keanu Reeves and Dolph Lundgren in Johnny Mnemonic. When did you know you had made it?

Have to ask you about your new movie Katie's Mom-described as "The Graduate as told from Mrs. Robinson's (your character) point of view." It won Awards at 4 different film festivals in the past 12 months. Yet, at the date of this interview it has not gotten distribution. When and where will we be able to see it?

Class reunions. I've been to a few and it seems it is middle of the Bell Curve kind of stuff. Both the CEOs and the indigent stay away. How about you?

You'll note I left this one for last. A classmate of yours, who will remain unnamed, told me he saw you swimming in the pool on campus and within a few minutes all the boys came out to watch you. (Now, he could tell a tall tale but I figure why not.) Any recollections here?

[chiefarbitermoon]

February is Black History Month

Dolly King was a multi-sport star at Long Island University during the late 1930s, playing basketball, baseball, and football. 

After college, King played several seasons of professional basketball with the all-black New York Renaissance 

“The Rens” were the first all black team, that was also black owned. Founded in 1923, they predated the Harlem Globetrotters (1926) by three years.

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LIU Class of 1990 Facebook site: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1440945796095966

[xtruss]

Two Reasons That Europe Would Be Forced To Decouple From The US

— Jan Oberg | January 05, 2023

Illustration: Liu Rui/Global Times

Several years ago, I wrote in a Danish book about foreign and security politics that Denmark and other European countries would be wise to begin to walk on two legs: One for The West, and one for The Rest. One leg would be friendly, correct and necessary cooperation with the United States, the EU and others ultimately belonging to the West, and allowing friendly criticism too. The other leg would consist of taking into account the emerging world order change and seek cooperation with the Rest - China, the Belt and Road Initiative, and at least some of the non-Western regional organizations. As expected, there was no reaction.

In the fields of foreign and security policy, Denmark and quite a few other European countries have put all their eggs in one basket, where earlier they maintained some freedom of navigation. EU countries Finland and Sweden joining NATO speaks volumes: The dominant psychology is that the West must stand united against - not with - the Rest. The NATO-Russia conflict playing out so tragically on Ukrainian soul is just one example. Many European countries might just as well close down their Ministries of Foreign Affairs and become US State Department divisions.

Now, what do we mean by the West? Politically and militarily, mostly the US + NATO + EU. Culturally, more the Christian world, which has been created through Western colonialism, imperialism and militarism - coming with a Bible and, if that wasn't enough, the Sword. In terms of civilization, deeper values or ways of thinking, it means the individual over the collective, Man over Nature, Man over Woman, one God over Man (and monotheism), either/or thinking over both/and thinking, linear over circular time, the psychical/mechanical over social/organic, the body over the soul and spirit, the idea of one center guiding peripheries benevolently or by violence - that is, the West's civilizing mission on the Rest, the White man's burden.

The old Cold War that ended around 1990 was between two versions of that West which actually had a lot in common, namely deep Westernness. The Eastern West lead by the socialist Soviet Union with its vassals in the Warsaw Pact and Comecon; it built upon a mechanical social philosophy by a German mind, Karl Marx, embodying everything Western/Occidental. The Western West on the other hand, grew out of Enlightenment, free spirit, industrialization and even revolutions but that too built on a stale center-periphery thinking with the US, God's own country, as its center and the Rest as 2nd- and 3rd-class peripheries. Its center is NATO, not the EU, because the EU has been manifestly unable to get its act together.

This system's philosopher was Adam Smith, originally a moral philosopher but ultimately twisted into a father of the capitalist market economy with its God-like invisible hand. It's main - false - assumption was that individual utility and profit maximization would benefit all society. Alas, it led, instead, to perverse and unstoppable inequality and global militarist dominance for its maintenance. Around this market, revolves a parliamentary democracy. But it's based on 2-3 percent of the people who are members of a party - compared to about 7 percent in China - who make up the lists of candidates the citizens can vote for. Western democracy is about voting, but not selecting; it's representative but direct rule of, for and by the people. The Eastern West fell apart in the late 1980s. Predictably, the Western West is now in rampant decline and bound to fall, mostly because of its unwise, triumphalist response to its "brother's" demise. It falls also because of a) militarism beyond any rationality, b) lack of self-criticism and innovation and c) lack of a vision beyond the four-year election periods.

For the above reasons, my prediction is that the Western West will cling to the US as its leader. United in decline, it needs the image of an external image, narratives and a negative vision: Everybody and everything non-West is a threat to us! Win/lose is the message, instead of win/win. Confrontation instead of cooperation. The EU Lisbon Treaty states that the EU shall serve peace, speak with one voice in foreign policy and that it shall build efficient supra-national structures. It has succeeded in none of them. It lacks true democracy, its top leadership not voted into office. Its security is mostly NATO/US-based with no vision of an alternative common civil-military security.

The EU failed miserably to build peace with Russia, handle the refugee crisis in 2015 and the COVID-19 crisis, and now it blindly follows the US' response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine and becomes a victim of it. However, there could be two reasons that Europe would be forced to decouple from the US. One, if the post-Biden US becomes extremely isolationist or disintegrates into a civil war-like situation. Two, if the effects of the US sanctions, cancellation of everything Russia, the destruction of Nord Stream 2 and the US selling liquefied gas at four times the price in the US cause stronger anti-US sentiment throughout Europe.

When the West falls, the Rest will be wise to mitigate and help the West - non triumphally, but also without compromising its own development philosophy and momentum. It won't be easy, but that will be the task the next few years. Everything must be done to avoid a new Occident-Orient Cold War because even a cold war will prevent us from solving humanity's urgent problems.

— The Author is Director of Sweden-based Think Tank Transnational Foundation for Peace and Future Research.

[demifiendrsa]

Mortal Kombat 11: Aftermath – Official Reveal Trailer. The Mortal Kombat 11: Aftermath expansion will launch on May 26, 2020. 

The Mortal Kombat 11: Aftermath expansion includes a new cinematic story, three new characters (Fujin, Sheeva, and guest character RoboCop), and three new skins for $39.99. A Mortal Kombat: Aftermath Kollection including the base game, “Kombat Pack” downloadable content, and Mortal Kombat 11: Aftermath expansion will also be available digitally at launch and physically in June only in the Americas for $59.99.

The expansion will arrive alongside a free update, which adds new stages “Klassic Dead Pool” and “Soul Chamber,” new stage Fatalities, and and the popular “Friendships” feature.

key visual

screenshots

Overview

About

Mortal Kombat 11: Aftermath is a new expansion for the hit videogame, Mortal Kombat 11, the best-selling title in franchise history that was named Fighting Game of the Year at the 2019 D.I.C.E. Awards. Developed by award-winning NetherRealm Studios, Mortal Kombat 11: Aftermath expands the critically acclaimed story campaign with an all-new, cinematic narrative centered around trust and deceit, while also adding new playable characters in returning Mortal Kombat fighters, Fujin and Sheeva, and guest character, RoboCop, who is making his series debut.

Key Features

Franchise-First Story Expansion – The critically acclaimed story campaign continues with an all-new cinematic narrative that picks up directly where Mortal Kombat 11 left off. Fire God Liu Kang, the new keeper of time and protector of Earthrealm, must now enlist the help of unlikely allies and familiar foes to forge a new history as the fate of two worlds hang in the balance.

Exciting New Characters Join the Roster – New playable characters join the fight with the triumphant return of Fujin, the God of Wind who serves as Earthrealm’s protector alongside his brother Raiden, and Sheeva, the fourarmed, half-human and half-dragon queen of the ancient Shokan race. RoboCop, the iconic, highly advanced cybernetic police officer, makes his first appearance in the franchise, continuing the pedigree of popular Mortal Kombat guest fighters. RoboCop in Mortal Kombat 11: Aftermath features the voice and likeness of actor Peter Weller, who portrayed the popular character in both the original RoboCop (1987) film and RoboCop 2 (1990) sequel. Mortal Kombat 11: Aftermath will also include three new character skin packs to be released over time.

Fan-Favorite Stages, Stage Fatalities & Friendships Return – In conjunction with the Mortal Kombat 11: Aftermath release, all Mortal Kombat 11 owners will have access to a free content update featuring new Stages, including the return of the Klassic Dead Pool and Soul Chamber arenas; Stage Fatalities, the fan-favorite finishing moves that use the environment to destroy opponents; and the popular Friendships feature, allowing players to take down their adversaries with a hint of kindness.

New Players Can Join the Fight with Mortal Kombat 11: Aftermath Kollection – Offers the perfect opportunity for new players to join the fight, featuring all characters, story content, game modes and pre-order bonuses in one ultimate package. This compilation includes Mortal Kombat 11 along with all content from Mortal Kombat 11: Aftermath and the previously released Mortal Kombat 11 Kombat Pack, containing six playable characters—Shang Tsung, Nightwolf, Sindel, Terminator T-800, The Joker and Spawn – plus 25 additional character skins. The Mortal Kombat 11: Aftermath Kollection can be pre-ordered for $59.99 (SRP) with digital pre-orders offering immediate access to Mortal Kombat 11 and the Kombat Pack upon purchase. The physical version will be available this June in the Americas only.

Upgrade Options for Current Mortal Kombat 11 Owners – Those who have already purchased Mortal Kombat 11 can pre-order the Mortal Kombat 11 Aftermath expansion for $39.99 (SRP) or the Mortal Kombat 11: Aftermath + Kombat Pack Bundle for $49.99 (SRP).

Pre-order for Exclusive Content – All preorders* receive the Eternal Klash Skin Pack at launch, featuring three new character skin variants – “Unbound Rage” Scorpion inspired by Mortal Kombat (2011), “Son of Arctika” Sub-Zero inspired by Mortal Kombat: Deception and “Kori Power” Frost, a Klassic version of the Lin Kuie warrior.

Best-In-Class, Brutal Kombat – Mortal Kombat 11 is the latest installment in the critically acclaimed franchise, providing a deeper and more personalized experience than ever before. The best-selling title is packed to the brim with multiple features and modes for all players, including the Story mode, Custom Character Variation System, Towers of Time, Kombat League, The Krypt and the signature roster returning and franchise-first fighters, all equipped with powerful Krushing Blows and unique Fatalities that display devastatingly brutal cinematic visuals.

[liunaticfringe]

(via How Lucy Liu became comfortable with the human body through her artwork | Datebook)

It can be an unsettling experience for any art student, particularly one who’s innately demure about nudity, to sketch the human figure from a naked model for the first time. Of course you’re there to look closely at the body, but is it really OK to stare? And how awkward is it if you happen to make eye contact?

“I think I was honestly in shock the first time,” says Lucy Liu, laughing as she recalls her bashfulness at her first life drawing class at the New York Studio School more than two decades ago. “Here was this person displayed and actually comfortable, and everyone’s just looking like it’s nothing, like it’s a wine bottle or bowl of grapes. But I was like, wait a minute! Where’d the real bowl of grapes go?”

The actress who is perhaps best known for playing a sword-slashing yakuza assassin in Quentin Tarantino’s “Kill Bill,” a sexy PI in “Charlie’s Angels” and, most recently, a socialite on the dark comedy “Why Women Kill,” visited the Napa Valley Museum in Yountville on a recent afternoon. Her first U.S. museum exhibition, “Lucy Liu: One Of These Things Is Not Like The Others,” is on view there through April 26.

Few of Liu’s legion of fans have been aware that during her time as an actress she’s had a parallel career as an artist, even though she’s started talking to the press more openly about her art in recent years.

Ever since she was a teenager growing up with her two older siblings and Chinese immigrant parents in Queens, N.Y., Liu has been steadily working in a wide variety of media — broad-stroked figurative paintings, abstract silkscreens, wooden sculpture and meticulous found-object assemblage.

Throughout her acting career, which took off back in 1997 when Liu landed the role of the fierce diva lawyer Ling Woo on the hit series “Ally McBeal,” her art-making practice has been an important, creatively sustaining part of her life.

“I feel an exuberance, and an extraordinary strength when I’m in the studio, working freely and not on a timeline, unlike when you’re on a set and every minute is accounted for,” Liu said. “In the studio, you can suddenly realize 16 hours have gone by and you’ve been in this extended magical moment.”

Liu has exhibited her work in galleries since the mid-1990s, yet she used her Chinese name, Yu Ling, until 2011. “I didn’t use my own name at first because I wanted people to come in with an open mind, a blank slate,” Liu said, noting that she did not want her art to be judged as that of a celebrity hobbyist. “I think (because of some of her hard-edged roles) people expect me to be this hard-ass and my work to be tough.”

Instead, visitors to the Napa exhibition will find that much of Liu’s work, particularly her figurative paintings inspired by Japanese shunga (erotic art popularized in the 17th century), is full of feeling and deeply personal, inspired by her own struggle to come to terms with an upbringing in which any frank discussion of sexuality was taboo.

In a high-necked, billowing white dress, high heels, red lipstick and an above-the-shoulder bob haircut, Liu, 51, sat in a quiet corner of the high-ceilinged main gallery surrounded by her recent large-scale paintings — anonymous, fleshy nudes and faceless family portraits (including a nostalgic one, re-created from a family photo, showing Liu as a toddler in a lavender coat during an outing to Flushing Meadows). A massive riff on Willem de Kooning’s 1950s “Women” series fills the back wall, and Liu’s meticulously crafted “Totem” series of small hand-embroidered spinal columns hangs in an adjacent gallery.

Earlier in the afternoon, Liu was the keynote speaker at the Wine Country museum’s Phenomenal Women fundraising luncheon. She used the opportunity to discuss with the majority-female audience her art-making practice and the themes that run through her work: displacement, a search for belonging and self-discovery, acceptance of oneself as a sexual being, and using art to overcome powerful familial and cultural inhibitions.

She spoke openly about forging a career in the arts that has baffled her parents (her father died in 2017) and how, through her art, she has struggled to overcome her deeply ingrained, and distinctly un-Hollywood, modesty.

“I didn’t know anything about the male body, I didn’t even know about the female body” as a young woman, Liu said. “Growing up, we spoke to each other in Chinese at home, and we didn’t talk about bodies, ever. We didn’t expose ourselves or look at each other. I’d never seen my parents nude. When I got my period, I was like, ‘What’s going on?’ I was so clueless about everything. I think that through the painting of these large bodies and the genitalia, I was able to start to understand that it’s OK. It’s not taboo. It’s not a dirty thing to be a woman and look at a female body or a male body and be curious about it.

“When I started in this business as an actress, people would make fun of me when I was doing a costume fitting because they would have to build a special section for me so that I could change in there. Working on ‘Ally McBeal,’ unlike everyone else who would just take off their clothes no matter who was there, they were like, ‘Let’s bring in the screen, it’s Lucy’s fitting.’ Oh my God, it was so disruptive for them because I had to go behind the screen every time I even wanted to change my shirt.”

Liu first started experimenting with collage as a young teenager “using just magazines, newspapers and glue stick,” she said. “That was my first discovery of art. I didn’t have brushes or paint, and we never went to museums. I didn’t even know what I was doing at first, but I knew I had to express myself.”

The actress and artist, who has never married, moved back to New York from Los Angeles 10 years ago. She paints regularly in a studio in Jersey City.

“As I progressed in the business in the past 20 years, I’ve become so much more comfortable with myself,” Liu said. “I have a  4½-year-old son now, and I let him run around naked, I let him see me naked. I don’t want him to feel uncomfortable with the human body.

She glanced around the room at her painting of two women kissing, another of an undressed woman, reclining with her arms above her head, seemingly utterly relaxed. “We’re all just a part of nature.”

“Lucy Liu: One Of These Things Is Not Like The Others”: Art exhibit. On view through April 26. Open 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., Wednesdays through Sundays. The Napa Valley Museum Yountville, 55 Presidents Circle, Yountville. 707-944-0500. www.napavalleymuseum.org

[limeiisabunny]

Li Mei Headcanon for my AU

Li Mei is a passionate and badass Rebel.

She has a good sense of humor. This mostly comes from Bo rai cho. She also snorts when she laughs.

She’s cool and calm leader and would lay down her life for her people and friends.

She’s 100 years old. In Earthrealm years she is 20.

Nicknames: Little rabbit (Bo rai cho), Magenta Rebel (Mostly everyone), Rebel of Sun Do (Shao Kahn)

She is anti establishment. Hates the corrupt upper class. (Which is mostly Edenians)

She dreams of a free Outworld, where the poor didn’t suffer because of Kahns.

Li Mei is a talented cook. If she wasn’t a warrior she would most likely be a chef.

She also taught Kung Jin in archery. And was Kai’s teacher as well.

Li Mei was born in a small but tight knit village called Sun Do. The people of Sun Do were poor serfs, tied to the land and under the control of Edenian lords.

(A serf is similar to a slave. The main difference is that you cannot buy a serf.)

They were made to do back breaking labor for many hours and paid little for it. The little they earned was mostly taken by the Kollector, came twice a month to take “tribute”.

Anyone who refused to pay was beaten severely. One day, Li Mei’s father tried to stand up to the Kollector. She watched as the Kollector beat her father to death.

Li Mei swore vengeance on the Kollector and Shao Kahn. When she was 10 she left her village to find the legendary Bo rai cho.

(At this time Bo rai cho was younger and a drifting warrior. He was wanted at the time for treason. He’s also more cold and less wise.)

She found him half drunk in a bar in the middle of no where. She demanded that he teach her everything he knew about Kombat.

Bo rai cho was impressed by the little girl’s fierceness but he declined her, telling her to return home. She refused to take no as an answer though. She followed him out of the bar.

That’s when a group of bandits was going to mug Bo rai cho. Li Mei stood up for him, punching one of the thugs in the balls when the thug punched her back Bo rai cho stepped in and easily beat the thugs into running away.

After that, Bo rai cho was so impressed with her fighting spirit, he decided to make her his protege. While they traveled Earthrealm, he trained her to be an amazing fighter. Their relationship developed into a father and daughter relationship. 

Side note, they often would get into bar fights together and would defeat any bounty hunter that came for Bo rai cho. 

When she was a young adult, Raiden came to Bo rai cho and asked him to help him train earthrealm warriors to defeat Shao Kahn. Bo rai cho agreed to it and asked Li Mei to go with him, but she declined. 

She said she still had to avenge her father and that the poor of Sun Do and Outworld need her. With that he hugged her, wished her luck and left.

Li Mei spent the next 50 years as traveling vigilante rebel. During this time she met a Naknadan named the Inventor (An OC of mine. He is the good brother of The Kollector and the Kollector betrayed him.) Both wanted revenge on the Kollector.

She then came across a pair of Saurian twins Khameleon and Chameleon. 

She also befriended a pacifist and poet Shokan named Zenkaro. (He’s based on a Shokan from the 1990s mk cartoon who goes by the same name. Except i re-imagine him as a general turned poet, who wishes only for peace.) 

The five of them formed a rebel group named The Outliers. They were like a group of robin hoods. They stole from the corrupt upper class and gave to the poor, they attacked Shao Kahn soldiers and overall became a thorn in Shao Kahn’s side. 

Li Mei soon became revered amongst the poor and downtrodden and they nicknamed her the “Magenta Rebel”

But one day Shang Tsung and his forces found their camp and took all of them prisoner. He saw Li Mei’s value as a fighter and decided to strike a deal with her.

If she fought in the Mortal Kombat tournament for him, he would free her friends. But if she didn’t he would kill her friends and enslave Sun Do for eternity. Li Mei had no choice but to accept.

She won many matches in Shao Kahn’s name but refused to kill. Raiden quickly recognized her. When he spoke with her she told him she was here against her will.

Shang Tsung had her fight against a cocky Kung Lao, he won against her but did say that she put up a good fight. (Sorry but in my AU Kung Lao doesn’t take so many Ls)

Raiden sent Fujin and Bo rai cho to save the Outliers and Jax. Once they were safe, Li Mei quickly defected to Earthrealm’s side.

After Liu Kang defeated Goro and Shang Tsung, the Outliers helped evacuate the people of Sun Do from Outworld so they could escape enslavement.

During this she finally got her vengeance against the Kollector and killed him.

Bo rai cho convinced her to stay in Earthrealm for awhile to help her people settle in and join the White Lotus. She promised the Outliner she’d return to help end Shao Kahn.

The Outliers went on to join Kitana’s resistance.

During this time she started to become very fond of Kung Lao. She actually found his cocky attitude cute and he found her rebelliousness very attractive.

Kung Lao took a bullet for her during a battle with the Black Dragon. She started to understand the Kung Lao’s pain of having to live in Liu Kang and The Great Kung Lao’s shadows. Their bond was strengthened because of this.

She returned to Outworld to join in the final fight against Shao Kahn and after they won, she married Kung Lao and had a daughter.

[hurtworld]

mesaj attım ama cevap vermedin dostum. PCR ve qPCR teknikleriyle alakalı kaynak olarak yardımcı olabilir misin?

mendeley kullanıyor musun bilmiyorum ama ben APA şeklinde buraya atayım kaynakları sen seç beğen al dostum.

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[mariacallous]

It’s been nothing but grim news for the Chinese economy this year. A hoped-for COVID-19 recovery never materialized after years of repression left the public wary of spending, giving it a case of what economist Adam Posen dubbed “economic long COVID.” (Hear him discussing that idea on FP Live.) Real estate giants have been on the brink of collapse all year. Even the Communist Party has reluctantly acknowledged the scale of the problems it faces, although officials claim that things can only get better. And Chinese dictator Xi Jinping needs someone to blame for everything going wrong.

The sharp slowdown has hit hard in a country that has experienced three decades of uninterrupted high growth. (It would have been four, if not for the interruption of the protests and killings of 1989.) Like the European “30 glorious years” of the postwar era, the notion that each year would be better than the next came to be taken for granted; those days are over.

Here are five perspectives on the Chinese economic crisis—and the impact that it’s left on the public.

1. The Chinese Communist Party Wants the Property Bubble Back

By Robert Foyle Hunwick, Jan. 10

The Chinese growth story has been about property and construction—especially for an urban middle class that was given its homes by the state in the 1990s and watched their value rocket. For years, the government tried to deflate the property bubble, but now it’s desperate to reinflate it. “With unreliable and government-fiddled stock markets, 70 percent of Chinese wealth is held in real estate,” writes British author Robert Foyle Hunwick, an expert on crime in China, “while land sales remain the main source of income for those same corrupt provincial administrators.”

Corruption helped fuel the real estate market as officials bought up valuable property, but it was also a massive source of corruption itself. Real estate deals were greased by bribery, and local leaders grew fat off the proceeds. Everyone else got sucked in, too, and may be left holding the bag. When it comes to presales, for instance, which are the mortgages that most Chinese homebuyers take out on as yet unbuilt apartments, “there’s a local legal twist to it that has caused further headaches: In China, the lender can go after the borrower, as well as developers, if they wish to reclaim any unpaid debt.”

2. How China’s Education System Trapped a Generation

By Helen Gao, June 22

China’s youth unemployment has reached such high levels this year that the government stopped publishing the statistics. For a generation of college graduates raised in cutthroat educational competition against their peers, the discovery that promised rewards have vanished has been traumatic. As Gao, a writer and reporter in her 30s, describes it, “When I read news about state crackdowns on the private sector, I feel a sense of déjà vu. The industries under assault—private tutoring, property, tech, and finance—employed the country’s best and brightest.”

Young Chinese have turned instead to “lying flat”—giving up on the rat race and working the minimum that they can in order to survive. As Gao says, she was taught to sneer at the slackers among her peers, but now she thinks they had the right idea all along. “As my generation’s once-bright prospects fade, the truth comes out: We thought we had left school behind when we graduated. It turns out school has followed us into adulthood and makes us its pupils still.”

3. Xi’s Policies Have Shortened the Fuse on China’s Economic Time Bombs

By Zongyuan Zoe Liu, Sept. 6

China’s economic problems run deep, writes political economist Zongyuan Zoe Liu, from sluggish consumption to a demographic crisis to a housing bubble. But Xi’s policies have taken existing fault lines and deepened them. “Economically, Xi has been a bull in a china shop. His economic policies have often shifted focus but always emphasize the party’s overarching control across nearly all dimensions of China’s economic and financial activity.”

Xi’s obsession with top-down control has wrecked the chances of thoughtful reform. While there was once room for policy experimentation at a local level that could be scaled up later, today the pressure to appeal to the man in charge is stronger than ever. “Chinese policy thinkers attempted to compensate for the absence of prudent economic strategy under Xi by ceaselessly leaping from one grand idea to the next under the banner of national rejuvenation,” Liu writes.

4. China Prefers Guns to Butter

By Jacqueline N. Deal and Michael Mort, Sept. 7

As the economic crisis bites and cities struggle to pay pensions or welfare, there’s one institution that rarely goes short in Xi’s China: the military. Defense spending has kept soaring upward in the hope of winning a confrontation with the United States—or out of fear that Washington might strike first.

“Of course, the history of PLA [People’s Liberation Army] entanglement in China’s domestic economy makes it difficult to discriminate between defense investment for military purposes and internally oriented stimulus spending (i.e., make-work),” Deal and Mort, who run a Washington, D.C., consultancy, note, but “in the event that China continues to fail to transition to sustainable consumption-based growth, Beijing will be left with one of the biggest hammers in the world, and recalcitrant parties abroad may all look like nails.”

The COVID-19 pandemic caused a temporary slowdown in spending—but the economic crisis hasn’t. “PLA investment stalled during the height of COVID on the mainland in 2020 as Chinese shipyards switched from building PLA Navy vessels, a traditional cost center, to building commercial ships—potentially because constructing warships requires tighter working conditions than constructing bulk carriers, and health concerns were paramount. But the spending increases appear to have resumed by last year and to be outstripping GDP growth once more,” they write.

5. Maybe China’s Economy Isn’t So Doomed

By Bob Davis, Oct. 17

Amid all the bad news, some analysts remained bearish on China’s long-term prospects, pointing to the way the country had successfully ridden out previous crises, such as the global crash of 2008 or the peer-to-peer lending scandals of 2015-2018. Veteran China economy reporter Bob Davis took a long look at the optimists. “The optimists’ case relies on a close examination of Chinese economic data but also reflects the view that while President Xi Jinping and the rest of the Chinese leadership are hard-liners politically, they are economic pragmatists who want to follow in the tradition of Deng Xiaoping, who led China’s opening to the West,” Davis writes.

There’s certainly been a tendency to read any downturn in China as doom for the Chinese Communist Party—and it’s worth remembering that states survive recessions, or even depressions, all the time. “Every time the Chinese economy stumbles, there is a tendency to say that finally the end is near,” Cornell University economist Eswar Prasad told Davis. “The optimists’ view might be too optimistic, but it provides some grounding, so we don’t get too carried away every time the Chinese economy stumbles.”

[internetreputationcost-blog]

Online reputation management Strategies

Online reputation management refers to the influencing and also controlling of an individual's or team's online reputation. Initially a public relationships term, the development of the internet and also social networks, together with reputation administration firms, have made search engine result a core component of an individual's or group's online reputation. Online reputation management, in some cases abbreviated as ORM, concentrates on the management of product as well as service search website outcomes.

online reputation management focuses on the monitoring of product and solution search engine result within the digital space. A range of digital markets and also on the internet areas like e-Bay, Amazon and also Alibaba have ORM systems constructed in, as well as making use of reliable control nodes these can minimize the danger as well as shield systems from possible misuses and also misuses by destructive nodes in decentralized overlay networks.

The most popular controls for off-line credibility administration consist of social duty, media exposure, news release in print media as well as sponsorship among relevant devices. Track record is a social construct based upon the point of view other individuals hold about an individual or point. Before the internet was established, consumers wishing to find out about a business had few choices.

A firm's online reputation relied on personal experience. [] A business expanded and broadened based on the market's assumption of the brand. Public connections was created to manage the picture and build the credibility of a company or person. [] The concept was initially produced to broaden public connections beyond media connections.

Originally, public relations included published media, events and also networking campaigns. In 1998, Google was started. The appeal of the net presented brand-new advertising and marketing and also branding chances. Where when reporters were the main resource of media web content, blog sites, review sites as well as social networks offered a voice to customers despite credentials.

ORM consists of standard reputation techniques of public relations however likewise concentrates on developing a lasting credibility technique that corresponds across all web-based channels and systems. ORM includes search engine reputation management which is developed to counter adverse search results and also boost positive material. Some services have actually adopted dishonest ways to wrongly boost their track records.

Online Reputation Management - Sayles ...

Reputation administration (sometimes referred to as rep administration or ORM) is the practice of trying to shape public assumption of a person or organization by influencing info concerning that entity, primarily online. What demands this shaping of understandings being the role of consumers in any organisation as well as the cognisance of just how much if disregarded these assumptions may damage a company's performance any time of the year, a threat no entrepreneur or business exec can manage.

A significant part of reputation administration entails reducing unfavorable search outcomes, while highlighting positive ones. For organisations, online reputation monitoring usually includes an attempt to bridge the space in between just how a firm regards itself and also just how others watch it. A fast-growing self-control and corporate need, credibility administration is extensively recognized as an important intangible possession which can be among one of the most essential resources of one-upmanship in a fiercely competitive market, and with firms continuously under boosted examination from business neighborhood, regulatory authorities, and also company governance guard dogs great reputation monitoring methods remain to aid companies deal with this scrutiny.

Excellent track record management practices are likewise vital in assisting any type of entity manage personnel confidence as a control device on public understandings which if weakened and also overlooked can be costly, which in the future may cripple employee confidence, a threat no company would certainly attempt check out as staff morale is one of one of the most crucial motorists of firm efficiency.

Online Reputation Management Company ...

A class activity lawsuit was submitted by the law office Beasley Allen against Taco Bell. The suit was willingly withdrawn with Beasley Allen mentioning that "From the beginning of this situation, we specified that if Taco Bell would make sure adjustments pertaining to disclosure as well as marketing of its 'seasoned beef' item, the instance could be dismissed." Taco Bell reacted to the instance being taken out by releasing a track record administration project entitled "Would certainly it eliminate you to claim you're sorry?" that ran ads in different information outlets in print and online, which tried to accentuate the volunteer withdrawal of the instance.

Some of the methods used by track record administration companies consist of: Improving the tagging and also seo of company-published products, such as white papers and favorable consumer endorsements in order to push down adverse content. Publishing original, positive sites and also social media accounts, with the objective of exceeding negative results in a search.

Submitting lawful take-down demands if someone believes they have been reviled. Obtaining states of business or person on third-party sites that rate highly on Google. Creating fake, positive reviews of the private or service to counteract negative ones. Using spambots and denial-of-service strikes to compel websites with damaging web content off the internet totally. [] Astroturfing third-party websites by creating confidential accounts that produce positive evaluations or lash out versus negative ones.

Eliminating on the internet cup shots. Proactively reacting to public criticism originating from current modifications. Eliminating or subduing images that are embarrassing or break copyright. Speaking to Wikipedia editors to get rid of supposedly wrong information from the Wikipedia pages of companies they stand for. The technique of track record monitoring increases numerous moral concerns. It is widely disagreed upon where the line for disclosure, astroturfing, and also censorship ought to be attracted.

The direct exposure of underhanded online reputation monitoring can itself be risky to the credibility of a firm that tries it. Some companies technique moral kinds of track record monitoring. Google considers there to be nothing naturally wrong with reputation management, and also also introduced a toolset in 2011 for users to check their on-line identification and request the removal of undesirable content.

For instance, they might avoid individuals that dedicated violent criminal offenses who are wanting to push information regarding their criminal offenses lower on search engine result. In 2010 a research study showed that Naymz, one of the first Internet 2.0 solutions to provide energies for Online Reputation Management (ORM), had actually created a method to examine the online track record of its participants (RepScore) that was instead very easy to deceive.

Since December 2017, Naymz was closed down. In 2015, the online merchant Amazon.com taken legal action against 1,114 people who were paid to publish fake luxury testimonials for products. These reviews were created utilizing an internet site for Macrotasking, Fiverr. com. Several various other business use phony Yelp and also Facebook evaluations, and one journalist collected first-class testimonials for an organisation that does not exist, from social media sites accounts that have likewise provided extremely positive testimonials to "a chiropractor in Arizona, a beauty parlor in London, a limousine firm in North Carolina, a real estate agent in Texas, as well as a locksmith professional in Florida, among other distant organisations".

The lawsuit had comparable language and also the defendant accepted the injunction by the plaintiff, which enabled the reputation monitoring firm to issue takedown notices to Google, Yelp, Leagle, Ripoff Report, different news sites, and other internet sites. " 9 Online Reputation Management Services Business owners can Attain on their own". Fetched 11 May 2016.

Singh, Munindar (2000 ). " A social mechanism of credibility administration in digital neighborhoods" (PDF). Cooperative Details Representatives IV-The Future of Info Brokers in Cyberspace. Lecture Notes in Computer Scientific Research. 1860. Springer. pp. 154165. CiteSeerX. doi:10.1007/ 978-3-540-45012-2_15. ISBN 978-3-540-67703-1. Mudhakar Srivatsa; Li Xiong; Ling Liu (2005 ). (PDF). WWW '05 Proceedings of the 14th global seminar on Web.

Hall, R. 1992. The Strategic Evaluation of Intangible Resources. Strateg. Handle. J. 13( 2) 135 (What's in a Name? Track Record Structure and also Business Approach, Fombrun, Charles; Shanley, Mark, Academy of Management Journal; Jun 1990; 33, 2; ABI/INFORM Worldwide, pp239 240.) S. Jai, Shankar (June 1, 1999). "Credibility is everything". New Straits Times (Malaysia).

( 2001 ). "Online reputation administration: the brand-new face of company public relations?". Public Relations Evaluation. 27 (3 ): 247261. doi:10.1016/ S0363-8111( 01 )00085-6. John Tozzi (April 30, 2008). " Do Reputation Management Services Work?". Bloomberg L.P. Retrieved August 3, 2012. Bilton, Nick (April 4, 2011). " The Expanding Company of Online Reputation Management". The New York City Times. Gotten June 12, 2012.

" Study: ebay.com vendors pc gaming the track record system?". CNET. Recovered July 14, 2012. " What is credibility administration? - Interpretation from WhatIs.com". WhatIs.com. Gotten 2015-12-01. Sepandar D. Kamvar; Mario T. Schlosser; Hector Garcia-Molina. (PDF). WWW '03 Proceedings of the 12th global meeting on Internet. doi:10.1145/ 775152.775242. Milo, Moryt (2013-05-17). " Terrific Companies Lean Onward, Respond Rapid".

Fetched 2013-09-05. Lieb, Rebecca (July 10, 2012). " Just How Your Content Method Is Essential For Track Record Management". MarketingLand. Obtained June 12, 2012. "MT Masterclass - Online reputation monitoring". Monitoring Today. May 1, 2007. Weigelt, K., as well as C. Camerer (1988 ). "Online reputation and also company method: An evaluation of recent concept and applications." Strategic Management Journal 9: 443-454.

( 2003 ). 'How to be an excellent director?', Wall Road Journal, 241, pp. R1R4). Cravens, Karen S.; Oliver, Elizabeth Goad (1 July 2006). "Workers: The key web link to corporate reputation management". Organisation Horizons. 49 (4 ): 293302. doi:10.1016/ j.bushor. 2005.10.006. " Alabama's Beasley Allen law practice drops match versus Taco Bell over 'seasoned beef' cases".

Retrieved 2016-06-13. " With Legal action Over, Taco Bell's Mystery Meat Is An Enigma No More". NPR.org. Retrieved 2016-06-13. Macedo, Diane (2011-04-26). " Taco Bell Still Has Beef With Company That Went Down Legal Action Fox Information". Fox Information. Retrieved 2016-06-13. Resnick, Paul; Zeckhause, Richard (May 2, 2001). "Count on among complete strangers in internet deals: Empirical evaluation of ebay.com's credibility system".

CiteSeerX. Spencer, Stephan (September 12, 2007). " DIY reputation management". CBS Interactive. Recovered August 3, 2012. Thomas Hoffman (February 12, 2008). " Online reputation management is warm-- however is it honest?". John Amato. Fetched August 3, 2012. Kinzie, Susan; Ellen Nakashima (July 2, 2007). " Employing Pros to Fine-tune Your Google Picture".

Fetched July 12, 2012. Krazit, Tom (January 11, 2011). " A guide on online reputation management". CNET. Obtained July 13, 2012. Thompson, Nicholas (June 23, 2003). " More Companies Pay Noted to Their 'Word of Mouse' Reputation". The New York City Times. Recovered July 13, 2012. " Published mug shots: A constant tip of one man's past".

Obtained 27 September 2015. Giovinco, Steven W. " Photo Online Reputation Administration: What It Is, And Why You Must Treatment". Medium.com. Medium. Gotten 9 May 2015. Holiday, Ryan (August 28, 2012). " Just how to fix your Wikipedia issue". Lot of money. Recovered November 30, 2015. Farmer, Yanick (2018-01-02). " Honest Decision Making and also Track Record Monitoring in Public Relations" (PDF).

Online reputation Management ...

33 (1 ): 213. doi:10.1080/ 23736992.2017.1401931. ISSN 2373-6992. " Online reputation management: Glitzkrieg". Economic expert Group. March 10, 2011. Retrieved August 3, 2012. Kessler, Sarah (June 16, 2011). " Google Launches Tool for Online Reputation Management". Mashable. Obtained July 13, 2012. Lazzari, Marco (2010 ). IADIS International Seminar e-Society 2010. Porto. pp. 519522. ISBN 978-972-8939-07-6. " Don't Be Tricked by Fake Online Reviews Part II Krebs on Protection".

Tuttle, Brad. " Amazon Info Claim Against Writers of Phony Online Reviews". MONEY.com. Gani, Aisha. " Amazon.com files a claim against 1,000 'fake reviewers'". the Guardian. " I produced a fake business and also purchased it a remarkable online track record". Combination. Volokh, Eugene; Paul Alan Levy (10 October 2016). " Lots of questionable litigation, with missing offenders, focus on obtaining web pages taken down or deindexed".

Online Reputation Management (ORM ...

There are a great deal of misunderstandings regarding online reputation management. Some people assume it's just social networks surveillance, while others believe it has something to do with public connections, and also still others essentially have no suggestion just how it can impact company and sales. In this overview, I'm mosting likely to describe the role of online reputation management in today's business and media landscape.

Simply a couple of years earlier, the web was very various. Business were not appealing customers but just marketing to a passive target market; people can not reveal their voice in a powerful means, and the total interaction landscape was really "leading down." The situation has significantly altered. Today, web sites are no more fixed brochures.

And regular communications on socials media are vital to any kind of company success. Regardless of the size of your company, they (prospects, clients, clientsanyone as well as, possibly, everyone) are speaking about you. They are tweeting regarding your most recent item, leaving a discuss your blog site, publishing a Facebook update concerning their client experience, as well as a lot more.

[thearkhound]

X-Men: Children of the Atom class reunion (Famitsu interview)

I’m taking a break from the usual Konami-related interview translations to translate this interview from Famitsu.com by a so-called “Nishikawa-kun” with Capcom veterans Akira Yasuda (Akiman), Akira Nishitani and Takeshi Tezuka. This is technically a promotional interview for Blade Smash, an action game released for Android and iOS devices on September 2018, but the trio mostly end up talking about their past works with Capcom, with emphasis on their Marvel fighting games.

Source: https://www.famitsu.com/news/201809/28164931.html

I have no plans to translate the other parts of the interview, but I do have plans to translate other interviews related to Capcom and other companies in addition to all the Konami stuff.

A Capcom Class Reunion

Famitsu: Before we begin, can you tell us about your careers in the game industry up to this point?

Tezuka: I’ve joined Capcom in 1990, where I made nothing but arcade games. When Docomo started their i-Mode service in 1999 (an online service that provide video games and manga to feature phones), I began making games for them. Since then, I been working on nothing but mobile games as the head of their mobile games division. I went back to Capcom in 2014 and has since a started a new company called Mugen Combo.

Akiman: I’ve joined Capcom in 1985, where I mainly did artwork. After I quit Capcom in 2003, I began working as a freelance artist. I’ve worked as a designer and illustrators on many games since then, but it was during my time at Capcom when I did artwork for development purposes too. Final Fight and Street Fighter II: The World Warrior both have a special place in my heart.

Nishitani: I joined in 1986. I was recruited by Mr. Yoshiki Okamoto (Capcom’s head of development at the time) and was assigned on projects such as Street Fighter II and Final Fight. We (Nishitani, Akiman and Okamoto) look like three disconnected people, but we worked together quite a few many times. Because that, I was able to train Tezuka-kun.

Tezuka: That’s right. From now on, I will call myself “Mr. Nishitani’s disciple.”

Akiman: This is the first time I’ve seen someone admit that they were educated for real. (laughs)

Nishitani: I worked together with Akiman-sensei on many projects such as Forgotten Worlds, Final Fight and Street Fighter II. He used to draw anything I would ask him out of my own self-indulgence. I made him redo quite a few stuff a lot, so I was truly sorry for him back then.

Akiman: That’s alright.

Nishitani: I’ve never seen the process of someone actually drawing until I’ve joined Capcom. When I saw Akiman’s work, I thought “so this is how you draw”. At the time I was what you would call “pure” and didn’t know the difficulty of actually illustrating. I would have opinions like “since this is for a game, not doing this would be a bad idea“, without considering factors such as time and skill, and Akiman-sensei would do it all. In retrospect, I was pretty selfish back then.

Akiman: At the time I thought Nishitani-san was truly a genius. He joined Capcom as soon as he graduated high school at the age of 18. If Okamoto-san was like Emperor Liu Bei (TL’s note: a historical character from China’s three kingdoms period), then Nishitani-san is like Zhuge Liang, a person who quickly rose to the ranks of game development. I was 21 at the time and I was taking orders from a newcomer who was three years younger than me. (laughs) But because he was pleasant to work with, I never really felt offended taking orders from him. Among all the developers within Capcom, he’s the one who could be said was the first person who actually knew anything about video games.

Tezuka: As soon as I’ve joined Capcom, Okamoto-san told me “Nishitani knows all the answers to game development, so ask him if you’re ever in doubt”.

Akiman: That’s because he’s a genius. He’s a God. Personally I think Okamoto-san was the one brought the logic of videogames to Capcom, but it was Nishitani-san who perfected it. It’s true. Whenever we had doubts, he always answered all of our questions. He would always come up with an answer as soon as you would ask him.

Tezuka: I though Nishitani-san’s planning document for Street Fighter II was truly amazing. After development ended, everything came out exactly as it was documented on the plan.

Nishitani: I’m too embarrassed to just retired. (laughs) That’s why I formed my current company, Arika after leaving Capcom.

The Development Environment At The Time

Famitsu: When did Tezuka-san and Nishitani-san started working together?

Nishitani: It was during Marvel Super Heroes. Although it was developed a bit later, we started planning it around the same time we were working on X-Men: Children of the Atom. Although the development team was different, working with Tezuka-kun almost identical to working with the X-Men COTA team.

Tezuka: Before that I met Nishitani-san right after joining the company, just before he started working on Street Fighter II. Since Nishitani-san is a genius, he often listens to other people’s stories. At the time he was making Street Fighter II, I was working on another game titled 3 Wonders on the same floor. Since Nishitani-san’s desk was next to mine, I would often overhear him talking with the other staff members. I thought “that was amazing”, I could just ask them for advice. I would immediately evaluate the advice from the staff members and simply reply it with a “that’s ok”. It created the impression that people who wanted games to be interesting were somehow greedy.

Nishitani: Do you remember the discussions we had about the buttons in Street Fighter II?

Tezuka: I remember. It was shortly after I’ve joined the company. During the development of Street Fighter II, I saw it wasn’t using the same punching pads that the first Street Fighter uses. I told Nishitani-san “why aren’t you using punching pads like in SF1? I really liked those.” (laughs) In retrospect, Street Fighter II wouldn’t had been possible with such punching pads, but at the time Nishitani-san would have still consider such a viewpoint from a foolish newcomer.

Famitsu: Changing the subject to Marvel Super Heroes, Marvel characters are pretty popular now thanks to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but back then most of their characters were still relatively obscure. Who was it that came up with the idea of making a Marvel fighting game?

Nishitani: Indeed, who was it?

Akiman: I think it was Akitomo-kun.

Tezuka: It was Akitomo-kun’s fault.

Nishitani: Ah, Akitomo-kun...

Famitsu: Who is Akitomo-kun?

Nishita: He was an employee at the time, Katsuya Akitomo. He now works as a translator and a writer for model kits.

Akiman: He is an expert in American comic books and is pretty fluent in English. I think he actually translates comic books now. Prior to making X-Men COTA, Capcom made an arcade game based on The Punisher, another Marvel property. Around that period, Akitomo-kun began proselytizing to the development team about how the X-Men were interesting.

Tezuka: We’ve even assembled a study group on the subject of the X-Men.

Akiman: Because of that, there was feeling in the air at Capcom that we needed to make an X-Men game.

Famitsu: I see. Akiman-san, what is the most impressive memories of working together with Tezuka-san?

Akiman: The dancing during karaoke.

Nishitani: The karaoke was pretty impressive.

Akiman: That was the most impressive thing outside work. (laughs)

Tezuka: Ah! There was that time when the three of us shaved our heads.

Akiman: Yeah. Did something bad happened to us back then?

Tezuka: Not really. I was talking to Nishitani-san and he told me that he was in the mood for shaving his head for once in his life, and you (Akiman-san) were there working on your day off, so we decided to shave our heads together.

Akiman: Now I remember. (laughs)

Nishitani: I was pretty angry at the time. I just shaved my head and suddenly I had to do many interviews for Street Fighter II.

Tezuka: I was also angry that I got Nishitani-san involved with the whole head-shaving business. But you were indifferent to it.

Famitsu: That was pretty embarrassing. Nishitani-san, what was your biggest memory of working with Tezuka-san?

Nishitani: Since I’ve joined Capcom at the age of 18, everyone who joined afterwards was older than me at first. But it was the year when Tezuka-kun joined the company that I was able to handle the other staff members in a frank matter. My seniors became scared of me because of that. (wry smile)

Secret Stories Behind the Development of Capcom/Marvel Games

Famitsu: The three of you have been involved in making fighting games for a long time. What is the most important point to keep in mind when making a game?

Nishitani: I’ve talked a lot about this with Tezuka-kun, but I’m more on a theoretical side. I think about making games starting with a theory. While that’s important, l also think that factors such as a sense of excitement, coolness and fun are also important when it comes to arcade games. I’m the type who completely ignores those sort of things. Akiman-san would often say “I want to play as this kind of character because he seems cool” and I did not understand why at first. Strength is more important than coolness. I come from a place where appearance was of secondary importance, so I thought it wasn’t important to take that into consideration.

Akiman: Zangief’s design for example, was initially a lot more slimmer.

Nishitani: That’s right. Since I wanted to emphasize his strength, I thought Zangief should be a lot harder and more musclebound. So I asked Akiman-san to make him bigger.

Tezuka: With the Juggernaut, he was ridiculously big.

Nishitani: He really was big. We overdid it and the people at Marvel got mad at us.

Akiman: Even I thought we overdid it back then.

Nishitani: Originally the Juggernaut was just like how he appeared in the comics, but then we thought he needed to be bigger! (laughs)

Famitsu: Akiman-san, did you ever have any issues and such with your own work?

Akiman: I used to be a fan of martial arts manga such as Fist of the North Star or Karate Baka Ichidai. I was designing under the mentality of bringing such characters to a video game. Of course, if you simply copy them, you only end up with a shallow imitation. So I was incorporating my favorite essences from all sorts of manga bit by bit and then I would emphasize the freshness. Older games were, to be honest, not very refreshing. You could have a sensible premise, but it’s not really refreshing if all you’re doing is simply attacking the bad guys here and there. Wouldn’t it be more fun to fully obliterate the enemies instead? I was thinking more about how to bring out a sense of exhilaration when moving rather than simply thinking about the gameplay. In other words, I wonder if I caused any trouble in that regard.

Nishitani: It’s the same story for me. Players might be looking for cool graphics, but there won’t be any exhilaration if the gameplay is bad.

Akiman: Now I remember. There was something I wanted to put in a game and at the time I consulted Nishitani-san, asking him “I made something like this, but I wonder how the gameplay will turn out”, and he replied “there’s nothing I cannot modify in some form.”

Nishitani: Perhaps I exaggerated a bit at the time. Tezuka-kun said earlier that I would often listen to other people’s opinions, but I really listened to everything. In an environment where anything can be asked, designers like Akiman-san can hone their skills and the game will improve tremendously. Otherwise, all the bad aspects of gameplay and such will come to me.

Tezuka: When it comes to adjustments, Nishitani-san was truly a risk-taker. He would say “it’s alright, I could adjust any game.”

Akiman: That’s why he’s amazing. When it comes to game development, it is no exaggeration to say that working with Nishitani-san was something else.

Famitsu: What about you, Tezuka-san?

Tezuka: Unlike the other two, I’m not very skilled at videogames. Because of that, I wanted to make games with the concept that even unskilled players can enjoy. A Marvel fighting game like X-Men COTA isn’t about coming up with an elaborate strategy like a typical Street Fighter, but it’s more about having that feeling of exhilaration. If you only make a game about challenging an opponent in a rather stoic matter, I think it will gradually have less people playing. Our continuing conviction is to make a game that is fun to touch and play.

Famitsu: By the way, how was the character roster was determined in those Marvel games at the time?

Nishitani: Basically we had discussions with Marvel. If there was someone we wanted to use, we would negotiate with them for their approval.

Tezuka: The rest was trying to fit the characters into the play mechanics we wanted to create. But because Marvel was one of the largest comic book company, we naturally wanted to use their most recognizable characters. However, if you can’t tell a character’s nature from their appearance, then you wouldn’t know what kind of technique they would use if you put them into a game. Therefore, the appearance of a character is pretty important.

Akiman: Back then I was in charge of drawing the standing poses and animation, but since the number of animation frames we were capable of outputting increased during that period, rivalries broke out within the company.

Famitsu: What do you mean?

Akiman: We began competing over how many frames we could use for a character’s standing animation. (laughs). There was a character created by a certain staff member whose standing pose was so amazingly animated, even his fingers moved. When everyone saw that, everyone, including myself, increased the number of frames in the standing poses they were working on so they wouldn’t lose to this particular staff member. (laughs)

Tezuka: The presentation also became flashier and flashier. Since it’s a game about a battle between superpowered beings, we had no choice but to make it flashy.

Akiman: For us, X-Men and its sequels felt like they were the legitimate successors of Street Fighter II.

Tezuka: Didn’t Nishitani-san originally said that he had to decide between working Street Fighter III or X-Men?

Nishitani: I really didn’t had any desire to make a Street Fighter III. I think the game would’ve been too similar to II if I was the one who ended up making it. But with a fighting game starring superbeings like the ones in X-Men, you can expand your frame of ideas and I think anything can be possible. Ultimately, Ryu and Ken ended up fighting like superbeings themselves in the Marvel vs. Capcom series, but I don’t think a battle like the ones in X-Men would’ve been possible with the mentality of those days.

Tezuka: I was pretty shocked when I saw the supermoves for the first time. Since the screen was full of projectiles, I thought it was impossible to avoid them. (laughs)

Blade Smash: A Game For Action Novices

Famitsu: The plan for interview was derived from Blade Smash, a smartphone game developed by Tezuka-san. Since you played Blade Smash in advance, can you give us your honest impressions?

Nishitani: The controls were pretty easy to use. When I was looking at the game at first, I thought the tempo could’ve been improved, but I no longer felt that after actually playing it. It felt pretty good to move such energetic characters. You could play a match without having to worry about unnecessary things like special move commands.

Tezuka: Thanks! Since Blade Smash is a smartphone game, I designed it so that people who aren’t skilled at action games could enjoy it. There are plans to add more technical-focused characters in the future, so I think the more skilled players can sense the response if they used those.

Akiman: The movement and effects are pretty good. It’s a good game that you play competitively in a very straightfoward sense.

Famitsu: One of the characters appearing Blade Smash named Kiwame was designed by Akiman-san. I wonder what was the process of coming up with her design.

Tezuka: I simply asked Akiman-san directly and he complied with my request.

Akiman: Since it was a request from Tezuka-kun, I felt like I had to listen to him.

Tezuka: Even during the days of Power Stone, you would always do my requests.

Akiman: It felt good to have a job. (laughs) Every time I talked to Tezuka-kun about the past, flowers blossoming comes to my mind and when we’re done talking, it gives me the urge to work again and say “I might do it.”

Famitsu: What kind of character did you intend Kiwame to be when you were coming up with her design?

Akiman: Since he requested for a karate girl, I imagined someone who would be the daughter of Mas Oyama, wearing a karate gi. Didn’t Mas Oyama used to seclude himself in the mountains to train in karate. If he secluded himself in a mountain, then his hair must’ve been very unkempt. Therefore, I decided that Kiwame-chan must also have unkempt hair. However, because she was originally a beautiful girl, she has sparkling eyes.

Tezuka: Since Akiman-san was the person who came up with Chun-Li, I thought he would make another Chinese kung-fu girl at first, but then we decided for a karate girl instead for something different.

Famitsu: I see. I would like to ask more details about the making of Blade Smash. How long did the game took to be made since development started.

Tezuka: Around three years ago. We’re still undergoing development.

Famitsu: The vs. genre has been spreading on smartphones lately, but there weren’t that many games in that genre for smartphone three years ago, wasn’t there?

Tezuka: That’s right Back then there many games that were simply about touching the screen, but I thought games that would require skill would end up being more prevalent. I wanted to create a fun game that is easy to control, but when it comes to serious competitive fighting games are not very compatible with smartphones. Therefore, the development of the game started under the idea of lowering the threshold of fighting games.

Famitsu: Are there any aspects that gave you trouble during development.

Tezuka: Definitely the communication portion of the circuity. Since this is a game primarily developed for wireless multiplayer, we had to adjust it accordingly in order to reduce lag as much as possible. It was pretty difficulty to make it work with all the different smartphone model.

Famitsu: What was the reason for releasing this game on smartphones?

Tezuka: As someone who used to make arcade games, old arcade games were pretty easy to try out. You could just go to the arcade, insert the coin and play the game a bit to try it out. The environment has since changed. Now it’s easy to just download a game for free on a smartphone and try it out for yourself, isn’t it? Therefore, the smartphone platform has created an environment which makes it easy to create casual games.

Nishitani: The mobile and arcade markets really resemble each other. For starters, if you don’t think a game looks interesting, you’re unlikely to try it out. And let’s say you do try it out. If the game doesn’t hold your attention after your first play, chances are you wouldn’t bother with it again. If it’s an app, you would likely delete it. However, Tezuka-kun has the technology and know-how that makes him come up with something interesting.

Akiman:  The match I’ve played was pretty fun, so I think I might download it once it’s released.

Nishitani: Indeed. Once the game is released, I wish everyone will try it out . You will feel something that will make you think “ah!”.

Famitsu: Nishitani-san, Akiman-san! Please tell us what you thought of today’s discussion?

Nishitani: It was fun to had this reunion after such a long time. (laughs)

Akiman: I thought it was good to talk about the past. Since I’m not the type who goes outside very often, I thought it was fun to talk with everyone after not seeing them for such a while.

Tezuka:Everyone has since drifted apart, so I rarely get any chance to meet up with them. I want to gather the other staff members and do an X-Men reunion.

Nishitani: By all mean, we should meet more often in the future. (laughs)

Famitsu: Thanks!

From left to right: Akira “Akiman” Yasuda, Takeshi Tezuka and Akira Nishitani.

[legendnaonao-blog]

English in North of China

Introduction

There is no doubt that the English language plays an important role in China. Tory have said that with the development of the global economy, China is a developing country in the world trade. It requires Chinese people to study and communicate from western countries. Therefore, China will be an international country in the future. The basic requirement of it is to be good at communication.

The Role of English in the North of China

English, as a world language, has become popular everywhere. If China wants to achieve better development, it will be a must to learn English well. Language, as an important tool to communicate, always changes with the development of society. Nowadays, the English language has the greatest influence among more than four thousand languages worldwide. It has been used widely in the world and increasingly becomes the multi-national, multi-cultural, multi-functional international language.

The background of Mandarin Chinese in the North of China

China is a multi-ethnic, multi-language, multi-population word power. Dan Zhang said: “It is a significant base to use Mandarin in China. The definition of Mandarin Chinese is the dialect of Chinese spoken in Beijing (the capital of China, located in the north of China) and adopted as the official language for all of China.” Therefore, Mandarin Chinese is based on the northern dialect. Why? It can be said that it has certain historical and realistic inevitability. Facing historical reality, we cannot deny the fact that from ancient times to the present, the development of China's politics has always been rooted in the northern economy. As a result, northern dialects cover the broadest areas and are used by the most populous situations. Its vocabulary is very popular across the country. Of course, it is based only on the dialect of the northern dialects. Not all northern dialects discard some narrower words. Meanwhile, Mandarin Chinese will continue to be absorbed by other dialects and loanwords, creating a vocabulary system that enriches the language.

According to Xianxian Liao netizen said: “Mandarin, as a traditional language, can be traced back to Zhou dynasty (1046-256 BCE). "Ya Yan" is the earliest lingua franca in China.”  It is equivalent to the current Mandarin in the general sense. Later generations called the ancient phonology of the ancient times "Ya Yan". The sound system is the ancient phonology, and the ancient Chinese people attached great importance to the unification of local dialects, so there appeared "Ya Yan". It was considered the origin and the earliest form of manifestation of Mandarin n China. There are two reasons behind the broadcast of "YanYan". First, the frequent contact with envoys required the use of "Ya Yan". Second, there were many followers of Confucius, which was an excellent thinker and educator in China, coming from different religions. Confucius used "Ya Yan" to teach them. After learning knowledge, these followers went back to their religions and promoted the common "Ya Yan" at that time.

Until the Han dynasty, the official was called "Tong Yu". The "Ya Yan" of the Zhou dynasty and the "Tong Yu" of the Han dynasty were inherited and generally the same. After the Han dynasty, society increasingly became stable in Suitang dynasty. The language was called "Zheng Yin" at that time. In Ming dynasty and Qing dynasty, the language has revolved to "Guan Hua". "Guan Hua" already had some similarities with Mandarin nowadays.

The Origin of English in China

The origin of English China can be divided into five different periods. First, before the Opium war, the open port of Guangzhou, China, produced the first batch of merchants and general agents who engaged in trade activities with foreigners in simple English. The unique language used by Chinese and Westerners in Guangzhou to conduct business transactions and media was called Pigeon English, the homonym of business English. Second, after the second Opium War, it was late of Qing dynasty. The number of negotiations between the Qing court and the powers increased, marking the beginning of English education. Under the influence of the Jingshi Tongwen Library, the Shanghai Guangfang Dialect and the Guangzhou Tongwenguan were established one after another, and English education became important. Third, the period of the Republic of China was a period of complexity and change, and the development of English in China was very unstable. The Revolution of 1911 overthrew the feudal monarchy, and the Republic of China was proclaimed in 1912. The new government began to reform political, economic, and cultural education. English education has developed faster than the previous two periods in history. Fourth, in the early days of the founding of the People's Republic of China, due to the influence of the "Cultural Revolution", Russian has made great progress in China, but the development of English has been difficult. Therefore, the development of English is minimal at that time. Fifth, after the reform and opening up, China has become more and more connected with the world. As a tool for communication with the world, English has gradually been recognized and accepted by people and has begun to spread throughout the country. Almost all colleges and universities offer English classes. China has become the country with the largest number of English learners. In recent years, the number of people has often remained above 60 million, surpassing the United States.

The Role of English in Education in China

In China, it is obligatory for students to learn English from elementary school to university. During the process of the whole study, all students are required to learn English. From Weiji Baidu material, in 1978, especially after 1983, English was used as a compulsory subject in the college entrance examination. Beginning in the late 1980s and early 1990s, the English language proficiency test was implemented in full-time colleges and universities as a requirement for the first foreign language compulsory course and linked to the degree. In the subsequent education reform, English has always had to start from elementary school and continue to learn from the university. English is a very practical subject. It should allow children to achieve the input and output of language information in the "second mother tongue" atmosphere through the body interaction of watching, listening, speaking, reading, writing, singing and jumping.

It is obvious that English is helpful in business, government and education. A netizen Youth Happy said: “With the development of global economy, English has become a tool to communicate with Westerners. English is a world language usually used among governors.” Therefore, English is indeed very important. Inspirational students summed up the points that are very concise. “First of all, in China's so many years of college entrance examination, English is one of the three major subjects, and then is the master's degree, the doctoral examination, in addition to the professional class is English, the importance of English is visible; Secondly, the world is developing rapidly, and the more The smaller the change, the more you have to develop a new market if you want to develop yourself. English as a universal language must be learned. In the end, you can speak fluent English if you can find the most basic job. I believe that no matter where you go, there must be a variety of units rushing to ask you. Approaches to Improve English Study in China”

As the “The Influence of Economic Development on English Education and Countermeasures” article and another author Yong Liu mention that instead of only focusing on reading and writing of English, Chinese students should pay more attention to listening and speaking. To change the approaches of only memorizing words, we need to create an English atmosphere for students. Students must cultivate English thought, instead of translating Chinese thoughts to English messages. Learning activities in a relaxed and fun atmosphere, combined with real life to improve understanding and memory.

  Work cited

Dan Zhang, “The Importance of Chinese Characters to the Unification of the Chinese Nation”

       https://wenku.baidu.com/view/a06d5ca9284ac850ad0242b7.html

Inspirational students, “For most Chinese, is English a waste skill?”

       https://baijiahao.baidu.com/s?id=1628342548834087011&wfr=spider&for=pc

Happy Youth “Do you know the importance of English to contemporary college students?”

https://baijiahao.baidu.com/s?id=1591818597466798765&wfr=spider&for=pc

Liaoliao Xian “Chinese Mandarin, Minimal History”

https://www.xuehua.us/2018/07/27/%E4%B8%AD%E5%9B%BD%E6%99%AE %E9%80%9A%E8%AF%9D%E6%9E%81%E7%AE%80%E5%8F%B2/

Troy “Is learning English still a trend now?”

https://www.zhihu.com/question/35855401

Weiji Baidu English

https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E8%8B%B1%E8%AF%AD

Yong Liu “Cultivation of Language Learning Strategies in English Teaching”

http://www.ecp.com.cn/cc/dxyy/yufa/20160505092106.htm

 “The Influence of Economic Development on English Education and Countermeasures”

https://www.xzbu.com/9/view-891297.htm

[chiefarbitermoon]

As some of you know I admin. a Facebook site for both my undergrad. Fordham Class of 1980 (https://www.facebook.com/groups/537184563628982) and for my graduate Long Island University Class of 1990 (https://www.facebook.com/groups/1440945796095966).

Well, WFUV and the Tilles Center. THIS IS A TWO-FER FOR ME! 😎 #TillesCenter #TheCelticAngels #WFUV

[akarorax-blog]

Fruit fly Management Techniques in India

Journal of Entomology and Zoology Studies 2019; 6(1): 245-257

                   Fruit fly management techniques in India : A Review

                                             Anil Kumar

Department of Entomology

Dr Yashwant Singh Parmar University of Horticulture and Forestry Nauni, Solan H.P. 173230

Email: akarorax@gmail.com

 ABSTCACT

Fruit fly belongs to order Diptera and family Tephritidae is distributed widely in tropical, temperate and subtropical area of the world. There are about 4,500 species of fruit flies (Drew and Roming, 1997) among which 2,000 are considered economically important and are widely distributed in the temperate, tropical and sub tropical regions of the world (Christenson and Foote, 1960) of which 5 per cent of these occur in India (Ramani, 1998). The extent of losses vary from 30 -100 per cent depending upon the crop and season. Feeding by fruit fly larvae may cause complete destruction of fruits, rather than cosmetic damage as is caused by many other insect pests. Gupta and Verma (1992) observed about 80 per cent fruit fly infestation on cucumber and bottle gourd, 60 per cent on bitter gourd and 50 per cent on sponge gourd in mid hill conditions of Himachal Pradesh. Keeping in view the economic  importance of fruit fly  and crop, its management could be done using local area management and wide area management techniques (Dhillon et al.,2005). The use of geographical information system could also be used as an IPM tool to mark site- specific locations of traps, land use areas and fruit fly population within a specific operational region.Although, the sterile insect technique has been successfully used in area-wide approaches, the wide area management needs more sophisticated and powerful technologies in their eradication programme, such as insect transgenesis, which could be deployed over wide-area and is less susceptible to immigrants. Since, fruit fly is a pest which cannot be eradicated by opting one method so combination of methods like cultural, physical, biological, chemical, genetic and quarantine methods are adopted to manage fruit fly besides  other local area management options.

Introduction:

Fruit fly pests are members of the Family Tephritidae in the Order Diptera. Fruit flies are one of the most economically important groups of insect pests world wide. There are about 4,500 species of fruit flies (Drew and Roming, 1997) among which 2,000 are considered economically important and are widely distributed in the temperate, tropical and sub tropical regions of the world (Christenson and Foote, 1960) of which 5% of these occur in India (Ramani, 1998). The first detailed report on fruit flies from the Indian sub-continent was made by Bezzi (1913) who enlisted the species from India, Pakistan, Myanmar, Sri Lanka and Nepal. Superior mobility, great dispersive powers, high reproductive rates, movement through market chain and extreme polyphagy are among the common traits of Bactocera species.

Several Bactrocera species are well-documented invaders of horticultural crops and also rank high on quarantine lists worldwide (Clarke et al, 2005). Since these are of quarantine importance they are of great concern to fruit producing countries where these species occur, requiring them to re-evaluate and revise their control strategies. In countries where these species have not been recorded, quarantine measures have been considerably strengthened to minimise the risk of their entry, establishment and spread.

Damage caused by fruit flies to various fruit and vegetable crops has been estimated up to 100 per cent (Dhillon et al., 2005; Philippe et al., 2010). In mid hill conditions of Himachal Pradesh (Gupta and Verma, 1992) observed about 80 per cent fruit fly infestation on cucumber and bottle gourd, 60 per cent on bitter gourd and 50 per cent on sponge gourd. Losses result from direct feeding damage, decay by opportunistic pathogens, and the loss of export market opportunities through quarantine restrictions imposed by importing countries to avoid entry and establishment of these pests. Many species of fruit flies are considered as high priority quarantine pests in various countries.

Fruit fly is a highly polyphagous species (Metcalf and Metcalf, 1992) and can disperse using mosaic of host crops available and take advantage of human agricultural trade. Bactrocera dorsalis infests plants of 40 families including many commercial fruits (Smith, P. H.,1989; Vargas et ah, 1984; Vargas and Carey, 1990). The attack of B. dorsalis on 173 different varieties   of fruit and vegetables has been reported by Metcalf and Metcalf (1992). It is a destructive pest on a wide range of tropical and sub tropical fruits and vegetables (Ye and Liu, 2005a). To name a few, mango {Mangifera indica L.), guava (Psidium guajava L.), custard apple {Annona squamosa L.), apple (Malus pumila M.) star fruit (Averrhoa carambola L.), banana {Musa paradisiacal L.), orange {Citrus sinensis jL.), papaya (Carica papaya L.), peach {Prunus persica L.), plum {Prunus domestica L.),j and tomatoes (Lycopersicum esculentum M.) (Clausen et ai, 1965, Koyama, 1989). In India this species attacks mango and causes serious loss ranging from 5-80% (Kapoor, 1993, 2004; Verghese et a i, 2002, Verghese and Jayanthi, 2001) and damage caused on guava is up to 44 percent (Stonehouse et a i, 1998, 2005).

Almost half of the world's mangoes are cultivated in India alone, with the second-largest source being China (Jedele et al., 2003). Mango is usually available in India from March to mid-August. During off season B. dorsalis survives on its alternative host, guava {Psidium guajava) thereby completing several generations within a year. Guava is an important crop commonly called as the poor man’s apple. In India, guava occupies 3.2% of the total area under fruits contributing about 3.3% of the total fruit production in the country (Indian Horticulture Database, 2011). India is the second largest producer of jbanana after China. These three fruit crops are commercially important hosts which are severely damaged by fruit flies. In India B. dorsalis attacks commercial varieties of mango (Verghese et al., 2002). Fruit fly eggs are laid into unripe or ripening fruit where the larvae develop and feed on the pulp of the fruits. Infested fruits are spoiled quickly and often fall to the ground before ripening. If that controlled, growers may lose the entire crop. Generally, the Oriental fruit flies are able to reproduce in most envirormient and climates. Since, the maggots damage the fruits internally, it is difficult to control this pest with   insecticides.   Therefore,   there   is   a   need   to explore alternative methods of control, and develop an     integrated     control     strategy     for     effective management of this pest.

 Classification:

—  Kingdom: Animalia

—  Phylum: Euarthropoda

—  Class: Insecta

—  Order: Diptera

—  Family:  Tephritidae

Major fruit fly species found in India

Insect

Scientific  Name

Guava  Fruit Fly

Bactocera  correcta

Mango  Fruit fly

B.  dorsalis

Peach  Fruit Fly

B.  zonata

Ber  Fruit Fly

Carpomya  vesuviana

Fruit  fly

B.  cucurbita, B. tau

Citrus  fly

B.  minax

Three  stripped fruit fly

B.  diversa

Olive  fruit fly

B.  oleae

Carambola  fruit fly

B.  carambola

Caryea  Fruit fly

B.  caryeae

Life Cycle of fruit fly:

Under favourable conditions female fruit flies become sexually mature and capable of laying eggs about 5 days after they emerge. After mating they actively seek out ripening fruit, and deposit their banana-shaped eggs in a small cavity just below the skin. Oviposition (sting) sites appear as small brown spots on the surface of the fruit, under which is a cavity with one to more than 20 eggs.

After 2 to 3 days in favourable conditions the minute, transparent larvae hatch and start feeding on the flesh of the fruit, slowly tunnelling towards the core. The larvae have a sharply-pointed front end with no obvious head, and a blunt rear end, and become cream-coloured as they get older. Early infestation is often indicated by a brown colouration of the fruit flesh in the area of feeding due to oxidation of the tissues. From about 7 to 40 days later, depending on fruit kind and temperature, the larvae reach maturity (8 to 10 mm long), when they leave the fruit, fall to the ground and pupate just below the surface of the soil. About 8 to 40 days later, depending on temperature, the adult flies emerge from the pupae, crawl up to the soil surface, and the cycle is complete.

During warm conditions and in ripe fruit, the life cycle can be completed in as little as 3 to 4 weeks. This duration can increase to about 2 or 3 months in winter or where eggs are laid in greener fruit.

Damage:

Fruit fly adults most often lay their eggs in the fresh flesh of fruits and vegetables. Fruit is a term that refers to the fertilized embryo of fruit and vegetable flowers.  The eggs hatch into larvae (maggots) which most often feed on the inside of the fruit, resulting in a soft, mushy mess. The maggot destroy and convert the pulp into a bad smelling, discoloured semi liquid mass unfit for human consumption. The infestation results in fruit drop and start rotting from inside. On complete rotting of the fruits, the damaged fruit develop yellow spots with black centers through which liquid oozes out on pressing.

 MANAGEMENT STRATEGY:

As with the control of many pest species, a single control method by itself is often not sufficient to eradicate (or even effectively control) the fruit fly from an area. The best results are gained from a combination of the methods found in the section below. For example, bait spraying, male annihilation and good hygiene have been used in combination in attempts to eradicate Fruit fly in New South Wales, Australia (Gilchrist, pers. Comm. 2008).

·           Physical

·           Cultural

·           Biological

·           Chemical

·           Genetic

Cultural Control:

·           Sanitation

Sanitation is a method that you can use to help: prevent fruit fly egg and larvae (maggot) development in infested fruit; and deny female adult flies a suitable place for egg laying. This method requires that you collect and destroy all fallen and unwanted fruit from the garden. The destruction of this fruit ensures that larvae do not survive to pupate in the ground, and later emerge as adult flies. Sanitation is considered an essential practice since fruit trees with fallen and rotting fruit around the base are a major source of fruit fly infestations.

·           Trapping

Fruit fly traps can be divided broadly into three groups: monitoring; mass trapping; and liquid protein trapping. With the range of products commercially available there is some overlap in these groupings.

ü   Monitoring

Monitoring traps are simply containers which fruit flies can enter, but which they cannot easily escape from. When combined with a powerful lure (parapheromone), male fruit flies will be strongly attracted into the trap and this will let you know when fruit flies are active. The numbers of flies caught will give you some indication of the level of fruit fly activity, but should only be considered as a guide.The main management advice provided by traps is an awareness of whether fruit flies are active in your orchard and whether it is time to commence other fruit fly management activities.

As a general rule, monitoring traps are deployed at a low rate, often only one or two per hectare or per orchard block. Some types of these traps are also used to monitor and verify that a pest free area truly is pest free.

There are a variety of traps available on the market, including the Lynfield (used primarily for fruit fly pest free area monitoring), the Bugs for Bugs Fruit Fly Trap, Bio-Trap, and the Susbin trap. Forms of stick traps like Jackson traps and the Fruition trap can also be used for monitoring fruit fly activity.

ü   Mass Trapping

Mass trapping can use the same traps as monitoring, but deployed at much higher rates. The theory behind this approach is to attempt to catch as many active flies as possible. However, it must be remembered that the lures used in many traps are specific to male fruit flies and the damaging egg laying females flies will be unaffected. Therefore, mass trapping must be used in conjunction with other proven techniques such as protein bait sprays. Mass trapping for male flies is also similar to another control methods, the Male Annihilation Technique (MAT).

Some fruit fly traps are able to be use a female attracting compound. Bio-Trap also supply a fruit fly attractant gel that attracts both male and female fruit flies. The Fruition trap used a lure sachet and visual cues to attract fruit flies.

ü Liquid Protein traps

Liquid protein traps can be used in some cases for monitoring in pest free areas, but their main use is to capture female fruit flies. They target the female fruit fly’s need to feed on protein in order to develop their eggs to maturity. By using a protein attractant, recently emerged female fruit flies will enter the trap, get caught, and eventually drown. There is a range of different traps and lures, and it is also possible to make these at home. The main shortcoming of liquid protein traps is that they tend to have a limited range of attraction. Commonly these traps will be placed at a 5m interval around the perimeter of an orchard.

·           Covering of fruits

Bagging of fruits on the tree (3 to 4 cm long) with 2 layers of paper bags at 2 to 3 day intervals minimizes fruit fly infestation and increases the net returns by 40 to 58% (Fang, 1989; Jaiswal et al., 1997). Akhtaruzzaman et al. (1993) suggested cucumber fruits should be bagged at 3 days after anthesis, and the bags should be retained for 5 days for effective control. It is an environmentally safe method for the management of this pest.

·           Exposing Pupae to Direct Sun

Deep ploughing is done in summer to expose the pupae to the direct sun. Pupae are killed by deep summer ploighing. In fruit crops raking of soil is done in summer to expose pupae to sun.

·           Early Harvesting

Early harvesting is method that you can use to help prevent adult fruit flies from infesting your crop. It is the practice of picking your fruit and vegetables as early as possible from your garden, even sometimes when it is green. This practice may deny adult flies the opportunity to infest your fruit, depending on fruit fly pressure. Note that early harvesting can also be achieved by planting early fruiting varieties of fruits and vegetables. These plants tend to bare produce before fruit fly populations increase as the season advances and temperatures increase.

·           Host Plant Resistance

Host plant resistance is an important component in integrated pest management programs. It does not cause any adverse effects to the environment, and no extra cost is incurred to the farmers. Unfortunately success in developing high yielding and fruit fly-resistant varieties has been limited. There is a distinct possibility of transferring resistance genes in the cultivated genotypes from the wild relatives of cucurbits for developing varieties resistant to melon fruit fly through wide hybridization.

Crop

Examples of  Resistant Varities

Bitter  Gourd

IHR-89,  IHR-243, Hisar II,

Pumpkin

IHR 35,  IHR 40, IHR 79-2, IHR 83

and IHR  86

Sponge  gourd

NS 14

Round  melon

Arka Tinda

 Physical Control:

·           Disinfestation

Disinfestation is a process which removes all life stages of Fruit fly from fruit, prior to export, to prevent the spread of this pest around the world. The most common, approved methods of pre-export disinfestations are mainly chemical treatments such as methyl bromide fumigation, or the application of insecticides. These chemical are becoming “increasingly unacceptable” to people at all stages of the export process, from the technicians performing the treatments to the end consumer (Jessup et al. 1998a). In recent years there has been an increasing emphasis on finding more consumer-accepted methods of disinfesting fruit prior to export.

Jessup et al. (1998) have shown that sealing fruit in polyethylene bags and storing them at 38°C for 3 days caused 100% mortality of Fruit fly eggs and larvae in a number of fruit. The treatment components, polythene wrap and mild heat, are relatively inexpensive when compared to both cold-storage and chemical disinfestation methods. The 3 day duration of heat treatment is substantially less than the 12 – 16 days needed to achieve 100% mortality in cold treatment programs. The heat treatment process did not promote mould or shrivelling, or negatively affect the colour evenness or taste of the fruit. Some judges used in this experiment “preferred the flavour of sealed, heat-treated tomatoes and apples over that of non-treated fruit” (Jessup et al. 1998).

 ·           Cold Treatment

Fruits are subjected to cold temperature to potentially kill fruit fly in them. Fruits that have been subjected to cold treatment include kiwifruit, pome fruit, stone fruit, citrus and grapes etc. Most of tropical fruits are susceptible to frost injury, are not given cold treatment.

0.0°C ± 0.5ºC for  minimum 14 days.

·           Male Annihilation Technique:

Male Annihilation Technique (MAT) involves the use of a high density of bait stations consisting of a male lure combined with an insecticide (usually technical malathion, and more recently fipronil), to reduce the male population of fruit flies to such a low level that mating does not occur. 

 There are several examples of the successful use of methyl eugenol in the technique.  Oriental fruit fly (Bactocera dorsalis) was eradicated from Guam and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands in the 1960s by Steiner and his colleagues.  The insecticide used during the eradication was nailed.  Outstanding successes using this method have been recorded for eradicating oriental fruit fly from California and from the Amami Islands of Japan.

·           Vapor Heat Treatment

VHT is process in which fruits are subjected to hot saturated water vapour, and without the use of any chemicals under controlled temperature and humidity. Fruit fly larvae are sterilised and made incapable of growing and multiplying. VHT is a very important step used in quarantine. This treatment is used to kill many disease causing organisms and different insect pests.

Biological Control

Over 200 hymenopteran parasitoids species have been unequivocally associated with members of the Tephritidae family. Among them, about 150 are Braconidae, most of them belonging to the Opiinae subfamily. Less than a tenth of these Opiinae are commonly used in present biocontrol programs or have the potential to be used in future classical and augmentative projects. Most of these species belong to the genera Fopius Wharton, Diachasmimorpha Viereck and Psyttalia Walker. However the importance of some other families cannot be neglected.

·           Egg-pupal parasitoids

This first category includes the egg-(pre)pupal parasitoids within the genus Fopius. Though Fopius arisanus (Sonan) is the only species in this group commonly used in various biocontrol programmes, F. ceratitivorus Wharton and F. caudatus (Szépligeti) might also be of interest against some Ceratitis spp.. Fopius arisanus has been used in classical biological control for the last 60 years. Diachasmimorpha longicaudata has been the most widely used species in tephritid biocontrol to date. Despite being outclassed by F. arisanus on all studies on competition, D. longicaudata is easier thus less expensive to rear and more efficient in regions where Bactrocera spp. are absent, especially in Florida, Central and Latin Americas.Wharton and Yoder (2007) provide its detailed native distribution as well as the list of countries where it has been introduced. This species has been associated with about 70 Tephritidae including rare cases of gall- forming species used in weed control. It is mainly used to suppress the populations of Anastrepha spp., Ceratitis capitata (Wiedemann) and B. dorsalis. Numerous papers deal with its bionomics, its response to olfactory or visual stimuli, its dispersal or its avoidance of host immune response. Many of the idiobiont parasitoids attacking fruit fly pupae are not specialists on Tephritidae. Most of them are small Chalcidoidea or Evanoidea with a very low dispersion range. Some of them may also hyper-parasitize other primary parasitoids. Coptera haywardi (Oglobin) (Diapriidae) is an exception and has provided promising results during the last decade. Recent studies on its host selection behaviour suggested it could be of great interest to suppress the populations of C. capitata and Anastrepha spp. in augmentative programmes in Central and Latin Americas. The use of fungi for biocontrol purposes pre-dates the first introductions of exotic beneficial insects. However, they received comparatively little attention during the 20th century. This is mainly due to their lack of specificity, to the heavy constraints linked with their mass-production and/or their storage and to their instability under adverse environmental conditions. These general aspects were reviewed in several papers during the last 20 years. These constraints generated a lack of interest, which in turn led to a lack of research.

Against tephritid flies, pre-2000 published works are consequently sparse. Some examples are the experimentation of mycoinsecticides against C. capitata, Anastrepha fraterculus (Wiedemann) , Bactrocera tryoni (Froggatt) or B. oleae . The early 21st century has seen a growing tide of interest for entomopathogenic fungi, particularly to replace parasitoids when or where their use is impracticable. Two fungal species are mainly used: Metharhizium anisopliae (Metschnikoff) and Beauveria bassiana (Balsamo-Crivelli) Vuillemin (Deuteromycotina: Hyphomycetes).

Genetic

·           Genetic analyses to aid management

The relatedness of Fruit fly captured in traps can be examined through the analysis of microsatellite markers. This technique can be used to find out if invasions occurring in different places and at different times involve individuals which are from the same source population and that are related to each other, or if they represent distinct invasions independent of each other. In Adelaide, Australia at least six Fruit fly which were full siblings of each other were caught in traps in the same month, by Gilchrist et al. (2004). These six flies were trapped at a number of sites separated by “distances greater than the unaided dispersal distance of Fruit fly,” which provides evidence for human-aided dispersal of Fruit fly in Adelaide. Previously, many outbreaks occurring at the same time in places separated by large distances were thought to be separate outbreaks, but this research showed that this situation could be a single outbreak, spread around by humans (Gilchrist et al. 2004).

·       Transgenic control strategies

Recent developments have led to the possibility of genetically engineering “factory strains of pest insects which produce male-only broods.” When released into the wild in large numbers, these flies would mate with female flies, but all of the next generation of flies would be male. This would improve the sterile insect technique (SIT) currently used to control Queensland fruit fly (Fruit fly) populations. A 100% male population cannot reproduce, and so the fly species population would collapse. This control strategy has become near-possible due to the development of transformation vectors for insects other than drosophilid flies. There are 5 transformation vectors developed which have the potential to be used in the Fruit fly. The process by which this method works is very complex, but involves ‘RNA interference’ (RNAi) targeting genes critical to early development. The sex ratio of a population could be altered by placing this RNAi under the control of a sex-limited gene promoter. This would mean that no young which were either male or female would develop properly (Raphael et al. 2004).

·       Sterile Insect Techniques (SIT)

A technique called the sterile insect technique (SIT) is used to contain and exclude populations of Queensland fruit fly. The goal of SIT is to release a large amount of sterile males to mate with any introduced wild females, resulting in the production of infertile eggs (Knipling, 1959).  The potential of SIT for controlling pests has been around since the 1960s, when SIT trials first caused large declines in the size of fruit fly populations (Monro, 1966). Compared to insecticidal control methods, SIT has some advantages including increased specificity and can be targeted to affected regions (Knipling, 1959).  SIT programs in the past have failed due to continual immigration into the areas being targeted (Meats et al. 2003). The most common method used to make fruit flies sterile for SIT programs is to irradiate them.  The most effective time of the life cycle for irradiation to occur is when pupation is approximately 70% complete. (Gilchrist & Crisafulli, 2005). The most effective irradiation dose rate for SIT programs should be at a level which makes individuals sterile without reducing its reproductive competitiveness. Irradiated males are not reproductively disadvantaged against normal males in terms of female remating – levels of female remating have been found to be similar for irradiated and normal males (Harmer et al. 2006).

Chemical Control:

·       Cover Spray:

Cover sprays are applied to the whole tree, and target Fruit fly sheltering in the tree canopy and maggots located within host fruit. Insecticide sprays used include dimethoate, fenthion and trichlorfon, depending on the tree being sprayed (Dominiak, 2007). After cover spraying, there is a period of time for which fruit should not be picked or eaten. The length of this withholding period depends on which insecticide was used . As mentioned above, cover spraying is often used in combination with bait spraying to achieve suppression of high populations of Fruit fly.

·       Ground Spray

Ground sprays are done to target larvae and emerging adult in the soil. It is done by drenching the insecticide solution under the tree trunk. Application of insecticide in the soil as trunk of tree and the compost heaped in the viscinity of field. No more than two spray required.

Eg., Chloropyriphos.

·       Bait

This method of Fruit fly control involves the spot spraying of a combination of a dilute protein mixture and an insecticide (eg. Maldison). The protein servers as an attractant, and when the Fruit fly feed on the protein mixture the insecticide component causes death: this method targets both the male and female Fruit fly. A recommended bait spraying regime is 100 ml doses, targeting the shady spots which Fruit fly like to occupy. A density of 100 spot sprays per hectare (around 6 to 8 per residential property) is used in the Fruit Fly Exclusion Zone (FFEZ) of Eastern Australia. This amount of spraying is thought to be effective due to a bait spot being within the “daily wandering range of each fly within the treatment area. The effectiveness of this control method can be reduced by rain washing off bait spots and the pesticide degrading over time (Gilchrist, pers. Comm.. 2008). Maldison is used as an insecticide in bait spraying within the FFEZ, as it has a short residual life and low mammalian toxicity. “Bait spraying alone will not be enough to control high populations of fruit fly. It should be use in corporation with other control methods.

  Local Area management

Local area management means the minimum scale of pest management over a restricted area such as at field level/crop level/village level, which has no natural protection against reinvasion. The aim of local area management is to suppress the pest, rather than eradicate it. Under this management option a number of methods such as bagging of fruits, field sanitation, protein baits and cue-lure traps, host plant resistance, biological control, and soft insecticides, can be employed to keep the pest population below economic threshold in a particular crop over a period of time to avoid the crop losses without health and environmental hazards, which is the immediate concern of the farmers.

Wide area management

Wide area management is not a unitary concept, but incorporates a number of related but distinct methods including local area management. The methods used for a wide area management approach include male-sterile insect release, insect transgenesis, and quarantine control techniques in combination with available local area management options. The aim of wide area management is to coordinate and combine different characteristics of an insect eradication program over an entire area within a defensible perimeter. The area must be subsequently protected against reinvasion by quarantine controls, for example, by pest eradication on isolated islands. The USDA-ARS areawide IPM programs of melon fruit fly started in 1999 in collaboration with the Hawaiian State Department of Agriculture and University of Hawaii, using the environmentally sound strategies such as field sanitation, male annihilation with male lures and attractants, protein bait sprays/traps, augmentative releases of biological control agents (Fopius arisanus and Psyttalia fletcheri), and sterile insect release. It has proved to be economically viable, environmentally sensitive, sustainable, and has suppressed fruit flies below economic thresholds with the minimum use of organophosphate and carbamate insecticides (Wood, 2001; Mau et al., 2003b; Vargas et al., 2003; Klungness et al., 2005). An IPM program that used field sanitation, protein bait applications, male annihilation, and release of sterile flies and parasites reduced fruit fly infestation from 30 to 40% to less than 5%, and cut organophosphate pesticide use by 75 to 90% (Vargas, 2004).

The recent wide area management program eradication program of B. cucurbitae in Seychelles demonstrated a three tier model including a) initial population reduction using bait sprays, b) elimination of reproduction using parapheromone lure blocks to eradicate males and thus prevent oviposition by females, and c) intensive surveying by traps and fruit inspection, until it can be certain that the pest is entirely eradicated (Mumford, 2004). Although, the sterile insect technique has been successfully used in area-wide approaches, the wide area management needs more sophisticated and powerful technologies in their eradication program, such as insect transgenesis, which could be deployed over wide-area and is less susceptible to immigrants. Above all, the use of the geographical information system has been used as a tool to mark site-specific locations of traps, host plants roads, land use areas and fruit fly populations within a specified operational grid.

 CASE STUDIES:

Dr. Rana K and Kanwar HS, (2014) conducted a field trial to evaluate the efficacy of  some eco friendly techniques to manage fruit fly at Dr. Yashwant Singh Parmar University of Horticulture and forestry, Nauni, solan. Treatments were poison bait spray and cue lure baited traps individually and in combination  for the management of melon fruit flies (Bactocera spp.) infesting bitter gourd crop during kharif 2011 and 2012. It was found that all the treatments were effective in reducing the fruit damage during both years.  The combined treatment of cue lue baited traps and poison baited spray proved the most effective for management of fruit flies with significantly less fruit damage(20.92%) as compared to control (45.66%) and their separate application 22.36% and 25.42% respectively.

CBT- Cue lure Bait Trap, PBT- Poison Bait Trap

A field experiment was conducted by Ahmad et al., (2005) at the Arid Zone Research Institute Bahawalpur, during the year 2005 to assess the efficacy of different methods of fruit fly control on Ber. Five different methods namely insecticides, baiting, cultural, Integrated Management and no treatment were compared for percentage fruit damage and Yield. It was concluded that application of integrated pest management methods was most effective than other applied singly.

 Liu et al (1985) reported that cultural operations in guava orchards in Taiwan suppressed the adult population of B. dorsalis temporarily, but as a result of emigration, the number of flies

increased again as soon as conditions became suitable. Hoeing with discs was also found effective in checking the pupating larvae of B. dorsalis (Mann 1989). Larval density and per cent fruit infestation was lower in half and fully ripe fruits collected from the fields where sanitation was practised. Likewise, the relative density of tephritid adults was lower in the orchards with sanitation. The orchard without sanitation had an irregular harvesting pattern which resulted in abundant ripe fruits on trees and fallen rotting fruits on the ground (Liquido 1993). Singh (2004) reported sanitation and tillage practices to be effective against B. dorsalis on guava. The infested fruits particularly the fruits on the tree which have signs of attack should be removed instead of removing fallen fruits on the ground as the larvae from such fruits have already left for pupation. In fields where sanitation measures were practiced, the level of fruit flies decreased significantly (Verghese et al 2004). Different cultural practices like soil raking by hand and, collection and destruction of fallen fruits were also helpful in reducing the damage (Singh 2004, Stonehouse et al 2007, Kumar 2011, Sharma et al 2011b, Kumar and Sharma 2012, Verghese et al 2012).

Methyl eugenol is the most powerful of all the male lures attracting usually the males of Oriental fruit fly and others and is being used for both monitoring and management of fruit flies (Drew 1974, Hardy 1979, Drew and Hooper 1981, Kapoor et al 1987, Drew and Hancock 1994, Verghese et al 2006b, Vargas et al 2009b, Singh and Sharma 2011, Singh et al 2011, Kumar and Sharma 2012, Sharma 2012, Verghese et al 2012). This technique has been successfully used for the eradication and control of several Bactrocera species (Steiner et al 1965, Bateman et al 1973,

It was reported that 1 per cent methyl eugenol alongwith 0.5 per cent malathion or 0.1 per cent carbaryl was most effective against B. dorsalis (Balasubramaniam et al 1972, Lakshmanan et al 1973). It was also advocated the monthly replenishment of methyl eugenol. However, Cunningham et al (1975) used 83 per cent methyl eugenol alongwith 10 per cent naled and 7 per cent thixein for management of B. dorsalis. Methyl eugenol (0.025, 0.05, 0.075 and 0.1 ml) impregnated on 2 cm² cotton wad had no significant difference in their efficacy when replenished at weekly interval (Belavadi 1979). Under field conditions, it was observed that single application of methyl eugenol at 0.075 ml was most effective upto 17 days for capturing B. dorsalis if the population was low (0-22 fruit flies/trap) and upto 32 days when the population was high (0-81 fruit flies/trap).

 Conclusion:

Fruit fly belongs to order Diptera and family Tephritidae. It is a very important group of pests on account of their potential to cause damage to fruits and vegetables. It is a direct pest of the crop as directly feed on the fruit and make it unmarketable hence is a very big problem agricultural point of view. There are 4500 spp of fruit flies in the world out of which 2000 are economic pests of crops and about 5% of these are found in india. Fruit fly is a pest having a wide host range it feeds on fruit crops as well as vegetable crops. The extent of losses vary from 30 -100 per cent depending upon the crop  and season. Feeding by fruit fly larvaemay cause complete destruction of fruits, rather than cosmetic damage as is caused by many other insect pests.   Keeping in view the economic  importance of fruit fly  and crop, its  management could be done using local area management and wide area management techniques (Dhillon et al.,2005).In mid hill conditions of Himachal Pradesh (Gupta and Verma, 1992) observed about 80 per cent fruit fly infestation on cucumber and bottle gourd, 60 per cent on bitter gourd and 50 per cent on sponge gourd. The use of geographical information system could also be used as an IPM tool to mark site- specific locations of traps, land use areas and fruit fly population within a specific operational region. Although, the sterile insect technique (SIT) has been successfully used in wide area approaches, this technique should be used  in eradicating pest from the field. ( Sarwar, 2015) Fruit fly is a pest which can not be eradicated by opting one method so combination of methods like cultural, physical, biological, chemical, genetic and quarantine methods are adopted to manage fruit fly besides  other local area management options and coordination of local farmers are important in eradication of fruit fly. No fruit or vegetable should be exported or imported from other place without undergoing quarantine or disinfestations of fruit or vegetable.

[fewnexusalyse]

Relational Summary: Module 15

In this video lecture, Dr. Culhane dives deeper into 3D/5D visualization as a nexus thinking technology. Since my concentration of study is in water, I began to look for examples of how 3D virtual reality techniques are applied to water studies. I came across this YouTube video of a 3D simulation of a wave energy generator:

This YouTube video reminded me of a research paper I wrote in a previous environmental science class. In my paper, I discuss the potential and environmental impacts of oscillating water column wave energy converters which is the same renewable energy technology shown in the video above. I would like to share the paper with you:

Oscillating Water Column Wave Energy Converter

Introduction

As the world’s population continues to climb, it is expected that global energy consumption will also increase exponentially within the next century (Clément et al. 2002). World energy consumption is expected to increase as much as 56% by 2040 (Clément et al. 2002). The proportion of this percentage increase that will be met by advances in renewable energy technologies is the focus topic. Specifically, converting the energy of ocean waves into electricity is a renewable energy technique that can help to meet increasing demands without contributing considerable and detrimental damage to the Earth (Liu 2016). Converting the movement of ocean waves into energy is a generally clean process because after construction, wave energy converters do not emit any greenhouse gases or produce any harmful waste products (Clément et al. 2002). This is favorable as renewable energy has risen to the forefront for many countries. The combination of wave power with innovative modern technologies will need to be further assessed for environmental impact and risks, and further developed to lower expenses before wave energy can be implemented further.

It is estimated that the total potential of all wave power hitting the coastlines globally is around 1 TW (Falnes 2007). Other estimations by the World Energy Council state that wave energy could meet 12 percent of the world’s energy usage (Zabihian and Fung 2011). Wave energy has been and continues to be utilized the most in Europe despite the global potential (Clément et al. 2002). The reason for Europe’s success in wave energy is because of its ideal location where the ocean and wind currents are hitting the coastline at maximum power for longer periods of time throughout the year (Langhamer et al. 2010). The wave power hitting the European west coast alone would produce enough electricity for all of western Europe (Langhamer et al. 2010).

To have the means to harness all this wave power, there must first be sufficient mechanisms of doing so. It was as early as 1799 in which techniques were first used to harness the energy and motion of ocean waves (Clément et al. 2002). There were more than a thousand different patents for wave energy converter designs utilizing around 100 different concepts filed before 1980 (Falcão 2010). Wave energy converters have technologies for implementation both offshore and onshore (Falcão 2010). Over the past three decades, considerable efforts have been made to advance wave energy technologies and adaptations on a global scale (Konispoliatis et al. 2016). At the beginning of this century, commercial wave energy plants already existed in Europe, Australia, and Israel (Clément et al. 2002). More recently, the leading countries in ocean wave energy are Portugal and the U.K. (Zabihian and Fung 2011). However, Australia, Denmark, and Ireland are not far behind because they may surpass Portugal and the U.K. as leaders of wave energy in less than 10 years (Zabihian and Fung 2011).

Compared to other renewable energy sources, waves have the highest energy density which means it has the highest amount of energy stored in a given space per unit of volume (Clément et al. 2002). Wave energy is a combination of both potential energy, from wave height, and kinetic energy from movement of water particles (Zabihian and Fung 2011). Waves are created by wind and can travel thousands of kilometers with very little loss in initial energy (Clément et al. 2002). Further comparing to other renewables, wave energy installations have the same low energy and carbon intensity levels as large wind turbines installations (Uihlein 2016). A limiting factor is that not all coastlines have a high enough concentration of wave energy for this method to be economically feasible for all coastal countries (Clément et al. 2002). In addition, wave energy can vary from season to season, so full-scale operation year-round as a primary energy source is not possible in some places (Falcão 2010).

Discussion

Oscillating Water Column

There are multiple categories of wave energy converters including terminator devices, attenuators, point absorbers, and overtopping devices (Falnes 2007). Falling under the category of terminators is a device called an oscillating water column (Falnes 2007). The first oscillating water column (OWC) was developed in Japan in the 1940’s by Japanese Navy officer Yoshio Masuda, who is also known as “the father of modern wave energy” (Falcão 2010). OWC technology has been developed for longer than other wave energy converters (Zabihian and Fung 2011). It’s long development for an efficient design is a reason why OWCs are the most favored of the wave energy converters (Konispoliatis et al. 2016). Since they are more popular, the OWC device is also the best competitor for the commercialization of wave energy converters (Liu 2016).

Oscillating water columns align perpendicular to the waves to capture the power of the waves and covert it to wind energy (Falnes 2007). OWCs can be constructed to fit on the coast where waves are crashing directly on the shoreline, or floating in open ocean with a mooring to secure it to the sea floor (Konispoliatis et al. 2016). OWCs are essentially comprised of 3 main parts: the chamber, the wind turbine, and the generator (Bouali and Larbi 2017). The chamber is partially submerged and typically made of concrete and steel (Falcão 2010). The chamber is where the waves flow in and traps the air (Bouali and Larbi 2017). The motion of the waves push the pressurized air up in an oscillating motion into the wind turbine (Bouali and Larbi 2017). The air flows through the turbine which powers the generator (Bouali and Larbi 2017).

OWCs range in dimensions from the size of a small car to the size of a small house (Iino et al. 2016). Most wave energy converters are comprised of plastics, concrete, and both ferrous and non-ferrous metals which can be reused and recycled (Uihlein 2016). But around 10% of the leftover materials must go in a landfill (Uihlein 2016). It is important to use materials that can withstand years of sometimes extreme ocean climate conditions to avoid any corrosion and breakdown of the materials into the environment (Tiron et al. 2015). Most wave energy converters are made of an average 55 percent concrete and less than 10 percent plastics and metals (Uihlein 2016). Generally, steel takes up 45 percent of the total weight of the device (Uihlein 2016). OWCs specifically have around 60 percent steel and a little over 30 percent concrete making up their total weight (Uihlein 2016).

The shape of the OWC design is very crucial in order to obtain the maximum wave flow and power (Falcão and Henriques 2016). The goal is to increase the energy absorbed from the waves while decreasing any losses from the process of converting the energy (Liu 2016). OWCs utilize many different shapes including “J,” “U,” and “V” shapes (Falcão and Henriques 2016). The shape influences the physics and hydrodynamics of the waves which plays a huge part in how much and how fast air is pushed through the turbine (Iino et al. 2016). Apart from shape, engineers have experimented with the inclination, size, and many other factors in efforts to find the optimum and most efficient design to harness the most wave energy (Iino et al. 2016). The most common, and one of the simpler designs of off-shore OWCs is a partly submerged vertical cylinder that has an open bottom chamber (Konispoliatis et al. 2016).

Earlier OWCs of the 1980’s -1990’s have a power capacity of 60-500 kW (Falcão 2010). The two most powerful OWCs built to date were constructed in the UK and Australia and had power capacities of 1 MW (Falcão and Henriques 2016). Unfortunately, both were wrecked in deployment due to rough ocean conditions which causes concern in construction, safety, and cost (Falcão and Henriques 2016). For these reasons, less than half of the number of open water (floating) OWCs have been launched compared to shoreline (fixed) OWCs (Falcão 2010). The two cases above are examples demonstrating that offshore OWCs tend to be more expensive, and are harder and more dangerous to install because of open ocean conditions (Falcão 2010). They also require deep-water moorings and long underwater electrical cables (Falcão 2010). Shoreline OWCs are preferred because they are easier to construct and maintain (Falcão and Henriques 2016).

Environmental Impacts

There is insufficient research and a large margin of uncertainty when it comes to the environmental impacts of wave energy converters because they have largely been deployed in short experimental/trial stages (Frid et al. 2012). What is known and presented are mainly estimations and predictions of long-term environmental effects (Frid et al. 2012). Additionally, wave energy devices will have different effects on different ecosystems (Frid et al. 2012). The location and mass of a wave energy converter are important in determining its environmental impact. The total material mass of the device itself should not be an obstruction in the environment where it is constructed and deployed (Uihlein 2016). For example, for offshore devices there are extensive areas that need to be avoided such as shipping lanes, military zones, marine archaeological sites, mining zones, oil fields, conservation areas, and more (Langhamer et al. 2010). And for onshore devices, areas to avoid include highly populated areas, marine life breeding grounds, and conservation zones (Frid et al. 2012).

There are also some unintended positive impacts that wave energy can have on an ecosystem. Positive correlations have been found between the volume of material and environmental impacts (Uihlein 2016). For instance, wave energy converters can protect a marine habitat by blocking commercial fishers from using large trolling nets (Langhamer et al. 2010). This acts as a conservation zone for the marine life in the area increasing fish density and diversity (Langhamer et al. 2010). The presence of wave energy converters may also attract marine life that form artificial reefs on or around the devices as a new habitat (Langhamer et al. 2010). This could be harmless to the device itself if the location of newly formed habitats is around the base of the structure (Langhamer et al. 2010). It is undesirable if the buildup of organic mass is encroaching or limiting the movement of functional parts, or adding extra weight to the device (Tiron et al. 2015). For example, a buildup of mussel, oyster, barnacles, or algae growing on the structure can damage the device itself or block water flow (Tiron et al. 2015). Unwanted biomass buildup, known as biofouling, is likely to occur in some marine ecosystems compared to others especially since maintenance is already difficult and expensive for offshore wave energy converters (Tiron et al. 2015). Similar to the artificial reef effect, it is known that floating structures attract fish because they serve as shelter from predators and areas to spawn (Langhamer et al. 2010). Birds can also be attracted to these devices as resting and feeding spots (Frid et al. 2012). The result of putting floating structures out where there was not before creates new habitat that may introduce new trophic opportunities and change the flow of the food web when new species create new niches (Langhamer et al. 2010).

The moorings and foundation are the portion of the wave energy converters that have the most environmental impact (Uihlein 2016). The moorings of offshore wave energy devices can have harmful effects because they can disturb the seabed and alter the geological surface of the ocean floor when anchored down (Langhamer et al. 2010). Because they jet out perpendicular to the shore, some designs of onshore wave energy devices will change the natural shape and erosion patterns of the coastline which may cause some new topographic features such as sandbars to form (Langhamer et al. 2010). Both situations for offshore and onshore wave energy converters alter sedimentation transport of the sea floor or shoreline which can damage the surrounding natural ecosystems and habitats (Langhamer et al. 2010). Off-shore devices may also interfere with natural ocean current patterns but no significant effects have been documented (Langhamer et al. 2010). Although, many types of fish species depend on ocean currents to transport larvae between spawning grounds and feeding grounds, so wave energy devices, if arranged in a larger field, could adjust the flow of natural ocean currents could have a potential negative impact on fish populations (Frid et al. 2012).

Some concerns over noise pollution have come up because open ocean devices have the potential to interrupt communication of marine mammal species that use echolocation (Langhamer et al. 2010). There is also a hypothesis that noise can interfere with some fish species who use sound to find nursery locations (Frid et al. 2012). The level of noises and vibrations emitted during construction of OWCs would likely exceed the threshold of tolerance for many marine species and can scare them off from their habitats (Frid et al. 2012). Even though a handful of concerns over noise pollution have come up, there is still not sufficient research on the long-term effects of noise from continual operation (Langhamer et al. 2010).

Most of the negative environmental impacts of wave energy converters only happen during the construction and deployment phase (Uihlein 2016). From what is known, the long term negative environmental impacts are minimal (Langhamer et al. 2010). It is estimated that the total carbon emissions of an OWC over 25 years, including construction, installation, operation, and decommissioning is only about 24 grams of carbon dioxide (Uihlein 2016). Wave energy is gaining the continual support of the public as more people are learning of this technology (Uihlein 2016). Wave energy is favorable by the public because unlike solar and wind, it is far away enough from residential areas so that it does not require large areas of land, does not create any visual obstructions, and does not create any sound disturbances to people (Uihlein 2016).

Conclusion

Ocean wave energy is an emerging field in renewable energy. It has many benefits including its overall sustainability and little known environmental impact (Liu 2016). The oscillating wave columns are some of the most dependable wave energy converters because of their relatively simple design (Iino et al. 2016). Despite the simplicity of the concept, high construction costs, little market competition, and little research are some reasons why wave energy has not boomed (Clément et al. 2002). Investigating the long-term environmental effects of wave energy is an ongoing process. Studies of wave energy converters are difficult and costly (Langhamer et al. 2010). Oscillating wave columns and other wave energy technologies need the support of government and long term funding in order for it to reach commercialization at the same level as wind and solar power (Uihlein 2016). But it is possible that wave energy could reach the level of importance that wind and hydropower were at ten years ago (Langhamer et al. 2010).

Another challenge is the fact that waves can be unpredictable. When there is irregularity in the direction and amplitude of the waves, it is difficult to get to maximum efficiency (Clément et al. 2002). Furthermore, if there is an extreme weather event such as a hurricane, the waves might generate a hundred times the average loading which can severely damage the OWC (Clément et al. 2002). Because wave energy is unpredictable by nature, more studies taking wave variability into account are needed to find the most efficient way to harness the power of waves with the least amount of negative environmental impact (Uihlein 2016). However, it is possible that in the future we may find wave energy technologies arranged in vast arrays in wave energy farms (Uihlein 2016). As better technologies are developed over time and more people are investing in renewable energy, wave energy will most likely transition into global commercialization sooner than later (Uihlein 2016).

When I think about the use of the 3D visualization, I wish I had the knowledge and use of 3D technology when I originally wrote that research paper. The 3D virtual reality video of the wave energy converter summarizes the information in my paper and converts it into a format that is much more realistic and immersive than if I just had a slideshow of pictures of one to accompany my paper. I believe more educators should utilize 3D technology in their teaching methods. That’s why I can agree with Dr. Culhane statement, “On the road to that version of reality we still have a lot of work to do, but in my mind it starts with teaching our children (and ourselves) that it is normal to ‘speak 3D’.”

[01sentencereviews]

“new-to-me” - aug 2018

all that jazz (1979, bob fosse) 

the king of comedy (1982, martin scorsese) 

cabaret (1972, bob fosse) 

fast trip, long drop (1994, gregg bordowitz)

fireworks (1947, kenneth anger)

spielberg (2017, susan lacy) 

2010 (1984, peter hyams) 

the nights of zayandeh-rood (1990, mohsen makhmalbaf)

sitcom (1998, françois ozon)

reality bites (1994, ben stiller)

honorable mentions:

here now (2015, gregg araki)

invocation of my demon brother (1969, kenneth anger) 

schizopolis (1996, steven soderbergh)

scorpio rising (1963, kenneth anger)

tootsie (1982, sydney pollack) 

water drops on burning rocks (2000, françois ozon)

werewolf (2016, ashley mckenzie)

new releases:

blackkklansman (spike lee)

crazy rich asians (jon m. chu)

i’m not her(e): iMnOTHERe (carman spoto)*

madeline’s madeline (josephine decker)*

minding the gap (bing liu)*

real housewives of new york city, “ship happens”

sharp objects (jean-marc vallée)*

skate kitchen (crystal moselle)

so long enthusiasm (vladimir durán)

some of my best friends are ghosts (andrew infante)*

we the animals (jeremiah zagar)

readings:

zach baron, "ethan hawke is always in style" (gq)

beyoncé, "beyoncé in her own words: her life, her body, her heritage" (vogue)

kelley dong, "digital make-believe: imagining the self in pixelvision" (mubi notebook)*

kelly dong, "review: living in a material world--jon m. chu's 'crazy rich asians'" (mubi notebook)

willow catelyn maclay, "review: the brillance of helena howard in 'madeline's madeline'" (mubi notebook)

david marchese, "in coversation: kathleen turner" (vulture)*

isiah medina, "isiah medina introduces his film 'idizwadidiz'" (mubi notebook)

katie rife, "trash, class, and free cigarettes: my life with the jerry springer show" (av club)

kate taylor, "rapper azealia banks clains she was at elon muck's house over the weekend he was 'scrounding for investors'" (business insider)

*must watch/read