7,152 research outputs found

    2021 Home Grounds and Animals PMG - Author Contact List

    No full text
    This is a chapter of the 2021 Home Grounds and Animals PMG. This 2021 Virginia Pest Management Guide provides the latest recommendations for controlling diseases, insects, and weeds for home grounds and animals. This publication contains information about prevention and nonchemical control as alternatives to chemical control or as part of an integrated pest management approach. The chemical controls in this guide are based on the latest pesticide label information at the time of writing. Because pesticide labels change, read the label directions carefully before buying and using any pesticide. Regardless of the information provided here, always follow the latest product label instructions when using any pesticide. Commercial products are named in this publication for informational purposes only. Virginia Cooperative Extension does not endorse these products and does not intend discrimination against other products that also may be suitable.Peer reviewe

    Personalize Your Letter Writing

    No full text
    Delight your letter readers instead of baffling them with collegiate terms admonishes Virginia Kirkpatrick</p

    Author Checklist

    No full text
    Provides a checklist to review manuscripts, for content, format, structure of tables, graphs and figures, text citations and references, and other concerns

    National bestselling author Barbara Kingsolver to present on local dining at Virginia Tech

    No full text
    Author Barbara Kingsolver will visit campus Tuesday, Sept. 14 to present her recent bestseller and this year's Virginia Tech Common Book about eating local food: Animal, Vegetable, Miracle.</p

    A Model to Predict the Impact of Specification Changes on Chloride-Induced Corrosion Service Life of Virginia Bridge Decks

    No full text
    A model to determine the time to first repair and subsequent rehabilitation of concrete bridge decks exposed to chloride deicer salts that recognizes and incorporates the statistical nature of factors affecting the corrosion process is developed. The model expands on an existing deterministic model by using statistical computing techniques, including resampling techniques such as the parametric and simple bootstrap. Emphasis was placed on the diffusion portion of the diffusion-cracking model, but advances can be readily included for the time for corrosion deterioration after corrosion initiation. Data collected from ten bridge decks built in Virginia between 1981 and 1994 were used to model the surface chloride concentration, apparent diffusion coefficient, and clear cover depth. Several ranges of the chloride corrosion initiation concentration, as determined from the available literature, were investigated. The time to first repair and subsequent rehabilitation predicted by the stochastic model is shorter than the time to first repair and subsequent rehabilitation predicted by the deterministic model. The stochastic model is believed to more accurately reflect the true nature of bridge deck deterioration because it takes into account the fact that data for each of the parameters affecting chloride diffusion and corrosion initiation are not necessarily normally distributed. The model was validated by comparison of projected service lives of bridge decks built from 1981 to 1994 derived from the model to historical service life data for 129 bridge decks built in Virginia between 1968 and 1972. The time to rehabilitation predicted for the set of bridge decks built between 1981 and 1994 by the stochastic model was approximately 13 years longer than the normalized time to rehabilitation projected for the bridge decks built between 1968 and 1972 using historical data. The time to first repair and rehabilitation predicted by the probabilistic method more closely matches that of historical data than the time to first repair and rehabilitation predicted by the average value solution. The additional service life expected for the set of bridges built between 1981 and 1994 over those constructed from 1968 to 1972 can be attributed to the decrease in w/c ratio from 0.47 to 0.45 and slight increase in as-built cover depth from approximately 50 mm (2 in.) to 63.5 to 76 mm (2.5 to 3.0 in.).Virginia Department of Transportation 21706FHWA 2170

    Award-winning poet and author Jeff Mann to read from his works at Virginia Tech

    No full text
    Award-winning poet and author Jeff Mann of the Virginia Tech Department of English will be reading from his works at the Volume II bookstore on April 8 at 7: p.m

    Factors affecting loggerhead shrike mortality in Virginia

    No full text
    I studied loggerhead shrikes (Lanius ludovicianus) in the Shenandoah Valley in Virginia from April 1987 to April 1988; factors affecting mortality rates wring the breeding season, fall dispersal, and winter were investigated., The high reproductive,success in this study was similar to that reported by other researchers in the United States. Reproductive success was different among varying grass heights and varying amounts of bare soil areas within 100 m of shrike nests; success was highest in habitats with numerous bare soil areas and medium grass. I radio-harnessed fledglings at a mean age of 56 days to document dispersal, fall home-range areas, and survival rates. During the postfledging dispersal period, survival rates were 100% fledglings dispersed at a minimum of 78 days of age, and fall home-ranges typically contained medium grass and numerous bare soil areas. These habitat characteristics may provide shrikes with increased invertebrate availability. Winter negatively affected the loggerhead shrike population in Virginia; raptor predation was the primary cause of subadult and adult mortality, and road kill was secondary. Shrikes moved from grassland areas to shrub-forest areas during inclement weather and preyed on small birds. Home-range sizes were larger during the winter than at other times of the year. I documented the occurrence of low levels of organochlorine and organophosphates in all birds analyzed for pesticide contamination. Also, I present statistical models to predict age and sex of loggerhead shrikes; wing chord and tail white on rectrix 5 were the most useful variables in discriminating sexes and wing chord was used in discriminating ages. More research is needed on the effects of raptors on shrike populations and on the role of foraging habitat on winter areas.Master of Scienc

    Vegetation, wildlife, and human foraging in prehistoric western Virginia

    No full text
    To improve the study and management of Havens Wildlife Management Area (HWMA) in Roanoke County, Virginia, the ecological history of the Ridge and Valley Province of Virginia was investigated. Palynological, paleontological, archaeological, and historical data were synthesized into a comprehensive history of the region's vegetation, fauna, and humans from 25,000 B.P. to Euroamerican settlement. A linear programming model was developed to examine the relationship between the energy demand of a human band and the food resources of HWMA 2,500 years ago. The model was based on the assumption that prehistoric human foraging was impelled by the need to satisfy energy requirements and that prehistoric human foragers strove for maximum energetic efficiency. The model was driven by an objective function, that minimized the cost (expressed in hours of labor) of the human foragers' diet. Constraints on the achievement of this goal were the available metabolizable energy in selected mountain food resources and the energy demand of a 25-person band. The product of the model was a regimen of food resources that met the band's annual energy requirement at the lowest cost. The model predicted that fall was the dominant foraging season on HWMA. Chestnut was the major food resource, satisfying 54% of the bandâ s annual energy demand. Additional primary resources were opossum and raccoon, elk, woodchuck, white-tailed deer, and black bear. Secondary and tertiary resources were passenger pigeon, bitter acorns, hickory nuts, and false Solomon's seal rhizomes. Marginal food resources were wild turkey, Jack-in-the-pulpit corms, eastern cottontail, gray squirrel, sweet acorns, and box turtle. An annual foraging strategy with a fall-winter focus in mountain ecosystems and a spring-summer focus in lowland ecosystems was suggested by the model. A comparison of the model results with an archaeological data indicated that hickory nuts were over represented and chestnuts underrepresented at archaeological sites, and that clothing, not food, limited human population density in upland western Virginia ecosystems.Master of Scienc

    Elmer E. Kirkpatrick and Virginia Millsip Wright at the Mollie Spencer Well

    No full text
    Photograph depicting Elmer E. Kirkpatrick with his second wife Virginia Millsip Wright at the Mollie Spencer well in Yukon, Oklahoma circa 198
    corecore