Advancements in Mass Rearing the Air Potato Beetle Lilioceris cheni

The air potato beetle, Lilioceris cheni Gressitt and Kimoto (Coleoptera:Chrysomelidae), is a successful biological control agent of the air potato vine, Dioscorea bulbifera L. (Dioscoreales: Dioscoreaceae), in the southern United States. Lilioceris cheni is currently being mass-reared by the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services Division of Plant Industry (FDACS-DPI) for biological control releases and research. The facility rears and releases over 50,000 adult beetles annually at approximately 1000 different locations. In addition to data on beetle production and distribution, studies on alternative larval and adult diets are described. Adults fed bulbils as the sole food source had reduced life spans compared with beetles given fresh air potato leaves. Adults survived without air potato leaves or bulbils for several days to two weeks depending on availability of leaves at emergence. Larvae did not survive on a modified artificial Colorado potato beetle diet containing fresh air potato vine leaves. Adults survived while consuming artificial diet but ceased oviposition. They, however, resumed egg laying less than one week after being returned to a diet of fresh air potato vine leaves.

Methodology of Assessing the Comlectarity of Consumer Services in the Territory of Urban Aglomeration

The article presents methodological approaches to the formation of a criteria of assessing the level of consumer services sphere development on the territory of an urban agglomeration, taking into account the determination of the indicative supply rate of companies providing services. The semantic basis of the category "complectarity" is formulated and the significance of this category in the approach of assessing the actual state of the development level of the consumer services sphere is shown, taking into account the actual set of services provided by enterprises in relation to the set of services, which serve as a measure of their number. The application of this methodology allows us to reveal the unevenness of the supply of consumer services relative to real demand of this services and to explain the formation of pricing policy of companies, providing services in conditions of deviation from the equilibrium of supply and demand, which fully meets the principles of the theory of pricing formation by formulating a coherent strategy of the consumer services sphere development. Research carried out on the basis of using methodology of complectarity makes it possible to more accurately determine the species and quantitative disparities in supply in any territory of an urban agglomeration, taking into account the size of the population living in it. Evaluation of the supply of consumer services relative to their real demand based on the application of the bundling methodology allows us to determine the specific and quantitative disproportions of the supply of consumer services in any territory of an urban agglomeration relative to the number of people living there, which corresponds to the theory of pricing, explains the possibility of forming an equilibrium price, subject to the presence or absence of a package offer of consumer services, including specific and quantitative indicators. Thus, a program or strategy for the development of consumer services should be aimed at bringing the indicator of integral completeness to one. It is with this meaning that economic equilibrium and the absolute achievement of the goals of strategic development of the consumer services sector take place. This condition corresponds to the concepts of "set", "ideal completeness" and serves as a criterion for assessing the level of development of consumer services in the territory under consideration.

Legal regulation of pawnshops in pre-revolutionary and Soviet civil legislation

The article examines the process of the origin and development of pawnshop activity in the Russian state in the pre-revolutionary and Soviet periods. Special attention is paid to improving the conditions for granting loans to the population secured by property. The authors investigated the normative legal acts regulating the activities of pawnshops. It is noted that the creation of pawnshops was due to the need to rid the population of usurious oppression and the search for new sources of replenishment of the state treasury. The analysis of the sources of legal regulation shows that in the pre-revolutionary period there was a gradual transfer of the work of pawnshops from the public sphere to the private – the organisational and legal forms of pawnshops were improved, the system of control over their activities changed. The chronological framework of the study also includes the Soviet stage of the formation of pawnshop activity, which is poorly studied. After the temporary cessation of pawnshops, the process of its revival began within the framework of a new economic policy in order to improve consumer services for the population. The authors reveal the contribution of pawnshops to the preservation of citizens' property during the Axis-Soviet War. The analysis of the history of pawnshop activity allowed us to conclude about the social role of pawnshops and their importance for maintaining the financial situation of the population, which indicates the need for the development of pawnshop activity at the present stage.

Opportunities for interdisciplinary studies of the economic behavior fundamentals

The purpose of the study is to identify trends in the economic behavior of the population in the field of consumer, saving, investment, and credit activity. The analysis of human economic actions only for solving scientific problems is divided into the listed types, but in practice, an individual makes a particular decision (chooses a certain strategy) under the impact of simultaneously influencing groups of factors that depend on gender and age, place and living conditions, social affiliation-income group, level of education, psychological and value attitudes, level of development of the financial infrastructure in a certain territory, stage of economic development of a country and / or region. And now another significant factor has been added — the coronavirus pandemic and its consequences. The article presents the results of the first stage of the interdisciplinary research project "Socio-psychological factors of economic behavior of the population: risks and opportunities (cross-country comparisons)" carried out by the authors. On the basis of the data obtained with the help of the sociological tools developed by the authors, the types of economic behavior are investigated in terms of four psychosocial aspects closely related to the features of mentality: trust, risk, stress, responsibility. An interdisciplinary approach to the study of the motives and strategies of economic behavior provides identification of the most realistic picture of all current risks and opportunities for population in the financial and consumer services market. At the second stage, the data obtained by the authors from the results of the survey of the Russian population, will be compared on the basis of a comparative analysis with the outcomes of the forthcoming surveys of respondents from Poland, Belarus, Lithuania and Slovakia.

Smilax auriculata: A new host for Orchid fleck dichorhavirusvirus identified in Florida, USA

In June 2020, Orchid fleck virus (OFV) was detected in a species of Liriope in Leon and Alachua County, Florida (Fife et al; 2021). In October of the same year, four adjacent dune/ear-leaf greenbrier vines, Smilax auriculata (Smilaceae: Liliales), showed yellowing and mottling symptoms (Figure 1). Infected and healthy S. auriculata leaves samples were collected in Alachua County by the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, Gainesville, Florida. OFV primers successfully detected in four Smilax samples by conventional RT-PCR assay. Amplicon sequences (Acc. No. MZ645935 and MZ645938) shared 99% nucleotide identity with OFV infecting orchids (LC222629) and citrus (MK522804). The OFV subgroup I (OFV-Orc1) and subgroup II (OFV-Orc2) specific primers (Kondo et al 2017) were utilized to confirm the presence of OFV type strains infecting Smilax. Sanger sequencing of subgroup I specific amplicons (MZ645934) shared 99% nucleotide identity with OFV-Orc1 (LC222629) whereas subgroup II specific amplicon sequence (MZ645930) shared 98-99 % nucleotide identity with OFV-Orc2 (AB244417). Further confirmation was done by USDA-APHIS-PPQ-Plant Pathogen Confirmatory Diagnostics Laboratory utilizing optimized conventional RT-PCR protocols (Roy et al. 2020) and deep sequencing on a on a NextSeq550 Illumina platform. Assembled reads identified seven non-overlapping viral contigs. Five RNA1 and two RNA2 contigs covered more than 97% of the bipartite OFV genome with average coverage depth of 5297.61 and 5186.04, respectively. Contigs of RNA1 and RNA2 shared 98-99% nt identity to OFV-Orc2-RNA1 (AB244417) and OFV-Orc-RNA2 (AB244418 and LC222630). No other pathogen sequences were identified. This is the first time the genus Smilax has been identified as a natural host of OFV. Very recent findings of OFV-Orc in Florida in Liriope, Aspidistra, and Ophiopogon among the Asparagaceae family members (Fife et al; 2021) and now in the Smilacaceae suggest a broader host range of the virus than previously known; further research should be conducted to better characterize the potential risk of introduction into citrus in Florida.

Clasificacion de las licencias para aplicadores dictadas por el Departamento de Agricultura y Servicios al Consumidor del estado de la Florida (FDACS), relacionadas con agricultura y control de plagas

Esta guía ofrece una explicación de las licencias para aplicadores de pesticidas privados, públicos y comerciales emitidos por FDACS en el Capítulo 487 de los Estatutos de la Florida. This 4-page fact sheet is the Spanish language version of Agricultural and Related Pest Control Applicator License Classifications under the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services (FDACS). Written by Frederick M. Fishel and Tatiana Sanchez, and published by the UF Department of Agronomy, February 2014.

Service inclusion: the role of disability identity in retail

Purpose The purpose of this research is to explore the role of identity for consumers with disabilities in a retail context. Understanding disability identity is critical to ensuring inclusion in service environments. Despite the growing call to understand the role of identity in consumer services, research on disability identity and the impacts of identity on service inclusion remains minimal. Design/methodology/approach A qualitative methodology generated data through personal narratives from people with disabilities revealing deep insights into the complexity of identity in a fashion retail context. Findings Emergent themes detail five consumer disability identities – authentic unique self, integrated self, community self, expressive self and practical self – seen when viewing service experiences from the perspective of people with lived experience of disability. Individual and collective agency also emerged as key themes that enable people with disabilities to feel a sense of inclusion. Originality/value This research explores the service experiences of people with disabilities in a retail context through a disability identity lens. The authors contribute to service literature by identifying five consumer disability identities that people with a disability adopt through their service experience and present a typology that demonstrates how each identity impacts on agency, with implications for service inclusion.

Systemic Risk Spillovers in the European Energy Sector

In this article, we aim to study systemic risk spillovers for European energy companies and to determine the spillover network of the energy sector with other economic sectors. To examine the spillovers within the energy sector, we employ three systemic risk measures. We then embed the results of these models into a Diebold–Yilmaz framework. Moreover, we consider an entropy procedure to extract a Bayesian formulation of its systemic risk spillover. This allows us to determine which company in our sample contributes the most to systemic risk, which company is the most vulnerable to systemic risk, and the place of the energy sector within risk networks. Our results reveal the fact that all companies manifest enhanced spillovers during 2008, early 2009, and 2020. These episodes are associated with the dynamics of the global financial crisis and the pandemic crisis. We notice that specific companies are risk drivers in the sector in both times of market turbulence and calm. Lastly, we observe that several economic sectors such as banks, capital goods, consumer services, and diversified financials generate relevant spillovers towards the energy sector.

STRUCTURAL-DYNAMIC ANALYSIS OF THE DOMESTIC CONSUMER MARKET IN THE CONTEXT OF MACROECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT OF UKRAINE

The article is devoted to the multifactor structural-dynamic analysis of the development of the consumer market of Ukraine as a system segmented into the markets of food and non-food goods and consumer services, and to determine the factor impact of its segments on macroeconomic dynamics. The stable growth of the analyzed segments was revealed, despite a slight decrease in the volume of sales of services in 2020 due to the quarantine restrictions imposed by the Government for certain types of economic activity. Changes in the commodity structure of the consumer market are analyzed. The average growth rate of food sales was 113.5%, non-food – 111.2%, services – 102.5%, which is fully correlated with the average growth of nominal GDP by 118.1%. It was found that the largest share of household expenditures was concentrated in the food market, where there was a faster growth in consumer prices compared to effective demand. It was found that the average monthly total expenditures of households in the consumer market decreased, primarily on non-food goods and services. In the domestic market of consumer services, there was a tendency to widen the gap between market supply and effective demand and redistribute the structure of consumer demand. To obtain an objective description of the impact of the domestic consumer market on the general parameters of the economic system of Ukraine, the factor influence of sales in consumer markets of food and non-food goods and services on GDP dynamics is analyzed. The significance of the parameters of the regression equation was checked by Fisher’s F-test. It was found that despite the significant aggregate influence of external factors, the obtained regression equation with a high degree of reliability indicates that the state of the consumer market of food products has little effect on nominal GDP, while the growth of non-food and services markets is guaranteed to increase GDP. This allows us to rethink the role of the domestic consumer market as a concept of a holistic system of socio-economic relations, which complements the established location of the interaction of producers and consumers with the institutional component. Further research is recommended to be directed in the direction of an extremely important aspect of goal-setting of institutional regulation of domestic consumer market development, namely meeting the needs of consumers, who are the final link in market relations.

System of Consumer Services for Population of Western Section of BAM Construction Areas (1974—1989)

The article is devoted to the history of the organization of consumer services for the population in the areas of construction of the BAM western section in 1974—1989. The features of the material and technical support of the household service, the problems of staffing, the structure and dynamics of services in cities and townships of builders are considered. It is noted that the network of consumer services enterprises was designed in a temporary version for the period of construction of the main railway. It is shown that the lag in the development of the public services system was caused by the sectoral mechanism of construction management, adjustments to design estimates, and a reduction in funding for civil construction. It is emphasized that, unlike other objects of the social sphere, which received the support of the all-Union ministries, the organization of the welfare service was under the territorial jurisdiction. In consumer services for the population of the construction site, such problems as a lack of production space, materials and components, an insignificant degree of mechanization and automation of labor, and a high staff turnover have been identified. Summing it up, the author comes to the conclusion that attempts to reform the industry in the second half of the 1980s could not significantly increase the efficiency of the household service in connection with the completion of the BAM construction and the simultaneous crisis of the Soviet system.