Use of Fluridone for Control of Palmer Amaranth (Amaranthus palmeri) in Cotton (Gossypium hirsutum) and on Ditchbanks

Since 2006, glyphosate-resistant Palmer amaranth has been considered the most problematic weed in agronomic crops across the Midsouth. As a result of glyphosate resistance, producers began to again utilize a diverse herbicide program for management of this weed, which consists of several soil-residual herbicides most notably diuron, fluometuron, fomesafen, and metolachlor. Fluridone inhibits phytoene desaturase in plants, and is unique in that its mechanism of action (MOA) is not currently registered for use in cotton. Studies were conducted to determine the length of residual that fluridone provides in controlling Palmer amaranth in Arkansas glyphosate- and glufosinate-resistant cotton programs and along field margins in comparison to other soil-residual herbicides. Furthermore, studies were conducted to assess the persistence of fluridone in Arkansas soils and the risk for injury to crops subsequently planted following fluridone use in cotton. Regardless of the cotton program, fluridone failed to provide season-long control of Palmer amaranth; hence, reducing the number of postemergence applications will not be recommended when applying fluridone at cotton planting. Additionally, fluridone failed to provide season-long control of Palmer amaranth along ditchbanks over that of other labeled soil-residual herbicides; however, when applied under favorable conditions fluridone applied preplant incorporated provided extended control of Palmer amaranth with or without a sequential application. Injury to wheat as a rotational crop from an application of fluridone to cotton was greater than that of other crops commonly rotated with cotton; albeit, injury was not severe enough to result in wheat yield reductions. Although fluridone did not provide season-long control of Palmer amaranth, introducing a herbicide with a unique MOA into current cotton would be beneficial for reducing the risk of resistance to herbicides that are currently used in cotton

A Soft Spot in a Hard Place

A Soft Spot in a Hard Place, edited by Zachary Gough with Thomas Gokey, Max Haiven, and Cassie Thornton, is a small collection of texts and conversations that contributes to the project of understanding how creativity, art, and the imagination might help us refigure our relationship to money, debt, capitalism, and our economic lives as a whole. This book is part of the Reference Points series published through Portland State University Art and Social Practice MFA Program. The series is an evolving pedagogical framework in which graduate students formulate and research a significant topic or practitioner(s) related to socially engaged art. Because the series is designed to shift and respond to the concerns of the program\u27s current students and faculty, mode, structure, and content are open-ended.https://pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu/reference_points/1010/thumbnail.jp

Effectiveness of Clinical Scenarios in Improving Student Interprofessional Skills and Attitudes

Background: “Interprofessional education (IPE) is defined as the process by which individuals from two or more health professions learn with, from, and about each other across the spectrum of their education to improve collaboration, practice, and the quality of health care.” [1] Interprofessional Education has recently gained interest as an important aspect of training in healthcare professions, attracting the attention and support of several key pharmacy organizations. Various models of IPE have been implemented to facilitate collaboration among medical, nursing, pharmacy, and social work students and professionals. One model found to be particularly effective among pharmacy students is a mock clinical scenario, requiring interprofessional collaboration in order to yield the best care for the patient. Objectives: Therefore, the aim of this project is to utilize mock clinical scenarios to improve interprofessional knowledge, collaboration, student attitudes, and behaviors among Cedarville pharmacy, nursing, and social work students and Wright State medical students. The long term goal is to integrate this clinical scenario model, if proven effective, into the interprofessional curriculums of emerging health science centers. Methodology: The study will conduct mock clinical scenarios among pharmacy, nursing, social work, and medical students. The participants will complete a survey prior to the event regarding interprofessional behaviors and attitudes. The volunteers will then complete the scenario in intraprofessional groups. Following the intraprofessional session another survey will be taken to determine any changes in attitudes and behaviors. The subjects will then complete the scenario again in interprofessional groups. Following the interprofessional session a final survey will be administered to further measure change in attitudes and behaviors. Both sessions will be 20 minutes, and participants will be given 5 minutes to complete each survey. Analysis: Analysis will be conducted with the Kruskall-Wallis test to find change in attitudes among the students among the different majors. Also, the Wilcoxon signed-rank test will determine changes within each group since normal distribution will not be assumed

Evaluating Interprofessional Fast Forward Rounds for Transition of Care Education

Background: Interprofessional Education is gaining recognition by key pharmacy organizations for its value in healthcare education, producing various models for implementation among healthcare students and professionals. Unfolding cases incorporating transitions of care may improve student skills and attitudes toward interprofessional collaboration. Objectives: This project assessed the efficacy of unfolding cases in improving interprofessional skills and attitudes among pharmacy, nursing, and social work students. The ultimate goal is to integrate this model, if proven effective, into the curricula of multiple health science centers. Methodology: First, pharmacy, nursing, and social work students completed a pre-intervention survey regarding interprofessional skills and attitudes before discussing the first “fast-forward rounds” case in professional silos. After a transitions of care lecture, subjects completed the alternative cases in interprofessional groups in a crossover design. The comparable transitions of care cases included common healthcare topics that were challenging but within the scope of regular practice. “Fast forwards” between transitions of care required students to interpret changes in the case throughout the hospital stay. Following the interprofessional session, group debriefing allowed for feedback on cases, transitions, and differences working with and without other professions. Finally, a post-intervention survey was administered to measure changes in interprofessional attitudes and skills. Analysis: Kruskall-Wallis analysis identified differences among the three majors on the pretest and posttest separately. The Wilcoxon sign rank test assessed changes within each group since normal distribution was not assumed. A Chi-squared test analyzed demographic data. Results: Data analysis of results from the conference revealed a significant improvement in 15 of 25 survey questions in the composite group, while 14, 7, and 4 questions showed significant improvement in the pharmacy, nursing, and social work sub-analyses, respectively. Fewer questions showed significant improvement in the social work group, possibly due to the specific medical details of the cases as well as fewer social work participants relative to pharmacy and nursing. Discussion: Results suggest that this intervention can effectively improve student attitudes toward interprofessional collaboration and understanding of transitions of care. Changes can be made to improve the benefit to social work students and to increase the number of majors participating

Climate change and social learning (CCSL): supporting local decision making for climate change, agriculture and food security

The CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS1) is challenging its own community of scientists and partners to understand the importance of co-created knowledge in finding solutions to local climate change issues. Local communities dealing with the daily realities of climate change risk, adaptation and mitigation don’t have time to wait. They need an immediate way to combine their own knowledge with that of others to build better solutions. CCAFS believes it can use the concept of social learning to challenge the CGIAR family and others to adopt new ways of working, forge new partnerships and co-create new knowledge to support more collective local decision making on climate change

Devotions for Advent 2022 Canticles of Luke

Each week of this Advent devotional will focus on one of the four Lukan canticles, putting it in its context as well as making connections to other portions of Scripture. At the end of this Advent season, may we, like those who have gone before us, “sing to the Lord, bless his name; tell of his salvation from day to day” (Ps. 96:2). Many thanks to all the CSL and CTSFW students who contributed devotional reflections. A special note of thanks to my counterpart, Zachary Roll, who organized this effort at Concordia Seminary, St. Louis who has been a joy to work with and to get to know. A final note of thanks to Kim Hosier in the print shop and Rev. Dr. Paul Grime for their aid in completing this devotional booklet.https://scholar.csl.edu/osp/1021/thumbnail.jp

Blackcurrants Reduce the Risk of Postmenopausal Osteoporosis: A Pilot Double-Blind, Randomized, Placebo-Controlled Clinical Trial.

Beneficial effects of blackcurrant supplementation on bone metabolism in mice has recently been demonstrated, but no studies are available in humans. The current study aimed to examine the dose-dependent effects of blackcurrant in preventing bone loss and the underlying mechanisms of action in adult women. Forty peri- and early postmenopausal women were randomly assigned into one of three treatment groups for 6 months: (1) a placebo (control group, n = 13); (2) 392 mg/day of blackcurrant powder (low blackcurrant, BC, group, n = 16); and (3) 784 mg/day of blackcurrant powder (high BC group, n = 11). The significance of differences in outcome variables was tested by repeated-measures ANOVA with treatment and time as between- and within-subject factors, respectively. Overall, blackcurrant supplementation decreased the loss of whole-body bone mineral density (BMD) compared to the control group (p \u3c 0.05), though the improvement of whole-body BMD remained significant only in the high BC group (p \u3c 0.05). Blackcurrant supplementation also led to a significant increase in serum amino-terminal propeptide of type 1 procollagen (P1NP), a marker of bone formation (p \u3c 0.05). These findings suggest that daily consumption of 784 mg of blackcurrant powder for six months mitigates the risk of postmenopausal bone loss, potentially through enhancing bone formation. Further studies of larger samples with various skeletal conditions are warranted to confirm these findings

The contribution of geogenic particulate matter to lung disease in indigenous children

© 2019 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. Indigenous children have much higher rates of ear and lung disease than non-Indigenous children, which may be related to exposure to high levels of geogenic (earth-derived) particulate matter (PM). The aim of this study was to assess the relationship between dust levels and health in Indigenous children in Western Australia (W.A.). Data were from a population-based sample of 1077 Indigenous children living in 66 remote communities of W.A. (>2,000,000 km2), with information on health outcomes derived from carer reports and hospitalisation records. Associations between dust levels and health outcomes were assessed by multivariate logistic regression in a multi-level framework. We assessed the effect of exposure to community sampled PM on epithelial cell (NuLi-1) responses to non-typeable Haemophilus influenzae (NTHi) in vitro. High dust levels were associated with increased odds of hospitalisation for upper (OR 1.77 95% CI [1.02–3.06]) and lower (OR 1.99 95% CI [1.08–3.68]) respiratory tract infections and ear disease (OR 3.06 95% CI [1.20–7.80]). Exposure to PM enhanced NTHi adhesion and invasion of epithelial cells and impaired IL-8 production. Exposure to geogenic PM may be contributing to the poor respiratory health of disadvantaged communities in arid environments where geogenic PM levels are high

EvoChromo: towards a synthesis of chromatin biology and evolution

Over the past few years, interest in chromatin and its evolution has grown. To further advance these interests, we organized a workshop with the support of The Company of Biologists to debate the current state of knowledge regarding the origin and evolution of chromatin. This workshop led to prospective views on the development of a new field of research that we term ‘EvoChromo’. In this short Spotlight article, we define the breadth and expected impact of this new area of scientific inquiry on our understanding of both chromatin and evolution

The Simons Observatory microwave SQUID multiplexing detector module design

Advances in cosmic microwave background (CMB) science depend on increasing the number of sensitive detectors observing the sky. New instruments deploy large arrays of superconducting transition-edge sensor (TES) bolometers tiled densely into ever larger focal planes. High multiplexing factors reduce the thermal loading on the cryogenic receivers and simplify their design. We present the design of focal-plane modules with an order of magnitude higher multiplexing factor than has previously been achieved with TES bolometers. We focus on the novel cold readout component, which employs microwave SQUID multiplexing ($\mu$mux). Simons Observatory will use 49 modules containing 60,000 bolometers to make exquisitely sensitive measurements of the CMB. We validate the focal-plane module design, presenting measurements of the readout component with and without a prototype detector array of 1728 polarization-sensitive bolometers coupled to feedhorns. The readout component achieves a $95\%$ yield and a 910 multiplexing factor. The median white noise of each readout channel is 65 $\mathrm{pA/\sqrt{Hz}}$. This impacts the projected SO mapping speed by $< 8\%$, which is less than is assumed in the sensitivity projections. The results validate the full functionality of the module. We discuss the measured performance in the context of SO science requirements, which are exceeded.Comment: Accepted to The Astrophysical Journa