Aspen mortality summit, December 18 and 19, 2006, Salt Lake City, Utah

The USDA Forest Service Rocky Mountain Research Station sponsored an aspen sum- mit meeting in Salt Lake City, Utah, on December 18 and19, 2006, to discuss the rapidly increasing mortality of aspen (Populus tremuloides) throughout the western United States. Selected scientists, university faculty, and managers from Federal, State, and non-profit agencies with experience working with aspen were invited. Participants were first asked to share information on recent aspen mortality. Subject matter working groups were then asked to determine factors associated with recent aspen mortality, recommend research needs, and organize those needs into testable questions and hypotheses. This report documents their findings, and will serve as a platform for Resource Managers to address the Sudden Aspen Decline issue

Impact of academic detailing on clinical pharmacy specialist involvement in medication assisted

Title: Impact of academic detailing on clinical pharmacy specialist involvement in medication assisted treatment for opioid use disorder in a primary care setting Lindsey Bartos, PharmD; Kristin Tallman, PharmD, BCPS, BCACP; Dara Johnson, PharmD, BCPP, BCACP Introduction: Opioid prescribing and opioid overdose deaths have increased steadily since the 1990s, reaching a 6-fold increase between 1999 and 2017. The opioid crisis, as it became known, was declared a public health emergency in 2017. In 2018 alone, an estimated two million people had a diagnosed opioid use disorder (OUD). The use of medication-assisted treatment (MAT) for OUD reduces the use and cravings of opiates, and risk of all-cause and opioid-related mortality. The inclusion of clinical pharmacy specialists (CPSs) on multidisciplinary healthcare teams has been shown to improve health outcomes, increase cost-effectiveness, and improve the quality of healthcare. Nevertheless, CPS involvement in MAT for OUD in a primary care setting remains limited. This study will provide information regarding barriers to CPS involvement in MAT, and the effectiveness of academic detailing provided to CPSs in increasing CPS involvement. Objectives: The objectives of this project are to identify and describe the most common barriers to CPS involvement in MAT for OUD, then assess the impact of academic detailing on CPS comfort level with being involved in the care of patients undergoing MAT for OUD in the primary care setting. Additionally, this project will assess the hypothesis that academic detailing will increase the number of patients with a CPS involved in the treatment of OUD. Methods: Study participants are CPSs recruited from a large medical group in Oregon and SW Washington who completed a survey before and after participating in academic detailing. The pre-survey was used to assess demographics, current involvement with MAT, perceived barriers to involvement in MAT, and asked participants to anonymously assess their comfort level, knowledge, and beliefs regarding MAT for OUD using a 0-5 point scale. Academic detailing was developed based on reported barriers, and consisted of handouts, two 45 minute interactive presentations, and small group work with case-based application. Participants then filled out a post-survey to re-assess their comfort level, knowledge, and beliefs regarding MAT for OUD following academic detailing. Survey results were compared and summarized by using either % of respondents in each category or mean (standard deviation) for each question across all respondents, then compared using a Wilcoxon-rank-sum test. CPS involvement in MAT will be reassessed using a survey or electronic intervention tracking in June. Results: 19 CPSs responded to the pre-survey and 20 CPSs responded to the post-survey. 4 respondents (21.05%) were currently active in MAT, and of these respondents, 3 indicated they are involved with MAT for 1-5 patients annually, and 1 indicated they are involved with MAT for 20+ patients annually. The most common barriers to involvement in MAT were lack of time (23.08%), lack of X-waivered providers (23.08%), and lack of knowledge regarding MAT (21.15%). There was no change in the number of CPSs involved in MAT between the pre-survey and the post-survey. Median responses to 6 of the 8 survey questions differed significantly between the pre and post surveys (p Conclusions: Most CPSs within PMG are not involved in the use of buprenorphine in MAT for OUD, likely due to a combination of time constraints, a lack of providers with the ability to prescribe buprenorphine, and unfamiliarity with buprenorphine in MAT. Following academic detailing to address these barriers, CPS comfort with buprenorphine in MAT had significantly improved in most areas. CPS involvement in MAT for OUT will be reassessed in June, 3 months following the academic detailing intervention.https://digitalcommons.psjhealth.org/pharmacy_PGY2/1001/thumbnail.jp

Electric-Field Gradient at Cd Impurities in In2o3. A FLAPW Study

We report an ab initio study of the electric-field gradient tensor (EFG) at Cd impurities located at both inequivalent cationic sites in the semiconductor In2O3. Calculations were performed with the FLAPW method, that allows us to treat the electronic structure of the doped system and the atomic relaxations introduced by the impurities in the host lattice in a fully self-consistent way. From our results for the EFG (in excellent agreement with the experiments), it is clear that the problem of the EFG at impurities in In2O3 cannot be described by the point-charge model and antishielding factors.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures, and 2 table

Recurrent Neutrino Emission from Supermassive Black Hole Mergers

The recent detection of possible neutrino emission from the blazar TXS 0506+056 was the first high-energy neutrino associated with an astrophysical source, making this special type of active galaxies promising neutrino emitters. The fact that two distinct episodes of neutrino emission were detected with a separation of around 3 years suggests that emission could be periodic. Periodic emission is expected from supermassive binary black hole systems due to jet precession close to the binary's merger. Here we show that if TXS 0506+056 is a binary source then the next neutrino flare could occur before the end of 2021. We derive the binary properties that would lead to the detection of gravitational waves from this system by LISA. Our results for the first time quantify the time scale of these correlations for the example of TXS 0506+056, providing clear predictions for both the neutrino and gravitational-wave signatures of such sources.Comment: 6 pages, 3 figures, submitte

A Feasibility Study of a Program Integrating Mindfulness, Yoga, Positive Psychology, and Emotional Intelligence in Tertiary‑Level Student Musicians

Objectives Higher education student musicians face high physical, psychological, and emotional demands affecting their well-being and academic experience. This study examined the feasibility and preliminary effectiveness of the so-called CRAFT program, based on mindfulness, yoga, positive psychology, and emotional intelligence, to improve psychological well-being, psychological distress, emotional regulation, and physical flexibility amongst tertiary education student musicians. Methods Using a single-arm pre-post study design, student musicians (n = 25) at a royal conservatory of music in Spain followed a 25-week CRAFT program that was curricularly implemented during the academic year 2018/2019, once a week for 50 min. The outcome measures included were the Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire (FFMQ), the Subjective Psychological Well-Being Subscale (SPWS), the Emotional Regulation Questionnaire (ERQ), the Depression Anxiety and Stress Scale (DASS-21), and the Sit and Reach Test (SRT). Results Paired samples t-test and practical significance analyses revealed significant improvements for the total scale of the FFMQ (g = 0.28), the Observe (g = 0.44) and Describe (g = 0.38) subscales of the FFMQ, the SPWS (g = 0.32), the Reappraisal subscale of the ERQ (g = 0.43), and the SRT (g = 0.39). A similar pattern of results was observed in a filtered sample (n = 15) when excluding participants simultaneously engaged in yoga/meditation activities other than the CRAFT program. Conclusions These results indicated that the CRAFT program is a promising intervention for improving mindfulness skills and health and well-being states and abilities amongst higher education student musicians. Further research is needed to substantiate these findings and extend them to similar settings and populations with complex psychophysical concerns.Junta de Andalucia PIV-052/1

Mycobacterial contamination of environment in pig farms in the Czech Republic between 1996 and 2002

The purpose of this study was to find source of mycobacterial infections in pig farms. A total of 2 411 environmental samples (bedding materials, water, biofilm from pipelines, peat, etc.) were examined by microscopy and culture. Isolates were identified by serotyping and PCR. Mycobacteria were isolated from 579 (24.0%) samples. 47.0% isolates were Mycobacterium avium subsp. hominissuis isolates (IS901-, IS1245+, serotypes 4, 6, 8, 9), 2.2% isolates were M. a. avium (IS901+, IS1245+, serotype 2) and 50.8% belong to atypical mycobacteria comprising of fifteen species. The frequent isolates were found in peat samples (213/65.1%) in which 81.2% isolates comprised M. a. hominissuis. High amount of mycobacteria were isolated from biofilm (36.4%) and water (29.6%). Alike peat, non-pathogenic species were predominant. The third sources of mycobacteria were bedding materials, mostly sawdust (43.6%). Presence of mycobacteria in the animals’ environment leads to economic losses due to meat condemnation in abattoirs

Neurino Cadence of TXS~0506+056 Consistent with Supermassive Binary Origin

On September 18, 2022, an alert by ceCube indicated that a ~170TeV neutrino arrived in directional coincidence with the blazar TXS 0506+056. This event adds to two previous ones: a neutrino alert from its direction on September 22, 2017, and a 3sigma signature of a dozen neutrinos in 2014/2015. deBruijn 2020 showed that these two previous neutrino emission episodes could be due to a supermassive binary black hole (SMBBH) where jet precession close to final coalescence results in periodic emission. This model predicted a new emission episode consistent with the September 18, 2022 neutrino observation. Here, we show that the neutrino cadence of TXS 0506+056 is consistent with a SMBBH origin with mass ratios q3e8Msun. For the first time, we calculate the characteristic strain of the gravitational wave emission of the binary, and show that the merger could be detectable by LISA for black hole masses <5e8Msun if the mass ratios are in the range 0.1<q<0.3. We predict that there can be a neutrino flare existing in the still to be analyzed IceCube data peaking some time between 08/2019 and 01/2021 if a precessing jet is responsible for all three detected emission episodes. The next flare is expected to peak in the period 01/2023 to 08/2026. Further observation will make it possible to constrain the mass ratio as a function of the black hole mass more precisely and would open the window toward the preparation of the detection of SMBBH mergers.Comment: 10 pages, 2 figures, submitte

Cosmic neutrinos from temporarily gamma-suppressed blazars

Despite the uncovered association of a high-energy neutrino with the apparent flaring state of blazar TXS 0506+056 in 2017, the mechanisms leading to astrophysical particle acceleration and neutrino production are still uncertain. Recent studies found that when transparent to $\gamma$-rays, $\gamma$-flaring blazars do not have the opacity for protons to produce neutrinos. Here we present observational evidence for an alternative explanation, in which $\gamma$-ray emission is suppressed during efficient neutrino production. A large proton and target photon density help produce neutrinos while temporarily suppress the observable $\gamma$-emission due to a large $\gamma \gamma$ opacity. We show that the Fermi-LAT $\gamma$-flux of blazar PKS 1502+106 was at a local minimum when IceCube recorded the coincident high-energy neutrino IC-190730A. Using data from the OVRO 40-meter Telescope, we find that radio emission from PKS 1502+106 at the time period of the coincident neutrino IC-190730A was in a high state, in contrast to earlier time periods when radio and $\gamma$ fluxes are correlated for both low and high states. This points to an active outflow that is $\gamma$-suppressed at the time of neutrino production. We find similar local $\gamma$-suppression in other blazars, including in MAGIC's TeV flux of TXS\,0506+056 and Fermi-LAT's flux of blazar PKS B1424-418 at the time of coincident IceCube neutrino detections. Using temporary $\gamma$-suppression, neutrino-blazar coincidence searches could be substantially more sensitive than previously assumed, enabling the identification of the origin of IceCube's diffuse neutrino flux possibly with already existing data.Comment: 8 pages, 3 figures, accepted to ApJ Letter