The incidence of congenital malformations (CM) among non-Hispanic White American (NHWA) mothers was reviewed to identify and evaluate the geographic differences in the most frequent CM subtypes associated with smoking and other risk factors. Data on CM were obtained from 150,775 children (2000-2004) from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Risk factors associated with CM development were the mother’s age < 21 and > 35 years, body weight gain during pregnancy, anemia, diabetes mellitus, eclampsia (cases of preeclampsia were omitted), smoking, and alcohol use during pregnancy. Among smoking mothers, the most common CM was omphalocele, club foot, cleft lip, and polydactyly. The highest incidences (CM/10,000 births/year) of observed CM in children of smoking mothers were clubfoot, 25.51 cases (Utah), cleft lip, 22.47 (South Dakota), polydactyly, 21.23 (North Dakota), and omphalocele, 13.14 (Montana). The presence of maternal comorbidities, tobacco and alcohol consumption, and their association with other environmental factors can affect the incidence of CM in NHWA mothers. Further comparisons among the American states regarding the overall changes in CM over the last two decades should uncover crucial outcomes in terms of CM and smoking.

This study investigated the helminths of the mixed invasive population of Darevskia armeniaca and D. dahli, collected during two field trips in Denyshy, Zhytomyr region, Ukraine, in 2023. In total, 67 adult lizards (35 D. armeniaca and 32 D. dahli) were examined. Molecular and morphological approaches were used to identify the parasites. The analyses revealed six helminth species, including four nematodes (Toxocara cati, Strongyloides darevskyi, Oswaldocruzia sp., and Spirurida gen. sp.), one trematode (Pleurogenes claviger), and one cestode (Mesocestoides litteratus). Toxocara cati had the highest prevalence, found in cysts located primarily on the liver and in the body cavity of the hosts. The qualitative and quantitative comparative assessment of the helminth community suggests that, due to the introduction of these lizards, most helminth species from their native range have been lost. Additionally, most local helminth species have not yet adapted to parasitising these lizards as normal hosts of their life cycle.

The crystal structure of etrasimod has been solved and refined using synchrotron X-ray powder diffraction data and optimized using density functional theory techniques. Etrasimod crystallizes in space group P1 (#1) with a = 10.6131(5), b = 10.7003(5), c = 11.1219(8) Å, α = 72.756(2), β = 76.947(2), γ = 77.340(1)°, V = 1159.28(6) Å3, and Z = 2 at 298 K. The crystal structure contains O▬H⋯O hydrogen-bonded etrasimod dimers, which lie in layers approximately parallel to the (2,0,−1) plane. The amino group of each molecule forms an intramolecular N▬H⋯O hydrogen bond to the carbonyl group of the adjacent carboxylic acid group. The powder pattern has been submitted to ICDD for inclusion in the Powder Diffraction File™ (PDF®).

We examine the maximum dimension of a linear system of plane cubic curves whose $\mathbb {F}_q$-members are all geometrically irreducible. Computational evidence suggests that such a system has a maximum (projective) dimension of $3$. As a step towards the conjecture, we prove that there exists a three-dimensional linear system $\mathcal {L}$ with at most one geometrically reducible $\mathbb {F}_q$-member.

Grazing is a crucial component of dairy farms across many regions of the world. This review explores challenges related to grazing infrastructure and opportunities for future improvement. Farmers who aim to increase pasture utilisation face heightened inter-animal competition necessitated by pasture restriction to achieve target post-grazing sward heights. Increasing the frequency of fresh pasture allocation beyond once per day has been observed to reduce milk production in primiparous animals, due to intensified competition for limited feed resources. Implementing grazing paddocks tailored for 24- to 36-hour allocations helps to mitigate inter-animal competition while concurrently preventing the grazing of fresh regrowth. Crucial to this approach is establishing farm roadway infrastructure that allows access to all sections of the grazing platform. However, the development of these roadway networks has often occurred without a comprehensive assessment of their impact on the efficiency of the dairy herd’s movement between grazing paddocks and the milking parlour. The efficiency of the dairy herd’s movement is most significantly influenced by the location of the milking parlour within the grazing platform. Extreme walking distances or challenging terrain on farm roadways may have an impact on milk production per cow. Factors such as farm roadway surface quality and width significantly influence cow throughput on farm roadways. Recent studies have highlighted inadequate roadway widths on many farms relative to their herd size, while surface condition may also be limiting cow throughput on these farms. Enhancing roadway width and surface condition of farm roadways may improve labour efficiency on commercial farms.

According to the ‘rigorist’ interpretation, the imperfect duty of (e.g.) beneficence does not permit agents to fail to perform any beneficent act that is available to the agent in order to pursue some nonmoral interest, whereas on the latitudinal interpretation, agents are permitted to fail to do so. I defend the latitudinal interpretation by criticising recent defences of rigorism offered by Jens Timmermann and Pauline Kleingeld, arguing that they conflict with important features of Kant’s moral theory, and that the latitudinal interpretation better coheres with Kant’s overall view.

The concept of interaction classes (iClasses) for multi-environment trial data was introduced to address the problem of summarising variety performance across environments in the presence of variety by environment interaction (VEI). The approach involves the fitting of a factor analytic linear mixed model (FALMM), with the resultant estimates of factor loadings being used to form groups of environments (iClasses) that discriminate varieties with different patterns of VEI. It is then meaningful to summarise variety performance across environments within iClasses. The iClass methodology was developed with respect to a FALMM in which the genetic effects for different varieties were assumed independent. This was done for pedagogical reasons but it was pointed out that the accuracy of variety selection is greatly enhanced by considering the genetic relatedness of varieties, either via ancestral or genomic information. The focus of the current paper is therefore to extend the iClass approach for FALMMs which incorporate such information. In addition, a measure of stability of variety performance across iClasses is defined. The utility of the approach for variety selection is illustrated using a multi-environment trial dataset from the lentil breeding programme operated by Agriculture Victoria.

We argue that the controversial Barrett appointment and President Trump’s norm-violating rhetoric posed risks to the Supreme Court’s ability to generate acceptance of a 2020 election intervention. We fielded four nationally-representative survey experiments to measure the Court’s ability to generate public acceptance of an election intervention across key events during the election period. Results show that public acceptance changed substantially across events. The Court lacked the ability to induce acceptance, particularly among Democrats, after the election. Only after the Court dismisses the Republican-led election challenge does acceptance rebound. The Court’s ability to generate public acceptance regarding election disputes appears tenuous.

A new explicit solution representation is provided for ARMA recursions with drift and either deterministically or stochastically varying coefficients. It is expressed in terms of the determinants of banded Hessenberg matrices and, as such, is an explicit function of the coefficients. In addition to computational efficiency, the proposed solution provides a more explicit analysis of the fundamental properties of such processes, including their Wold–Cramér decomposition, their covariance structure, and their asymptotic stability and efficiency. Explicit formulae for optimal linear forecasts based either on finite or infinite sequences of past observations are provided. The practical significance of the theoretical results in this work is illustrated with an application to U.S. inflation data. The main finding is that inflation persistence increased after 1976, whereas from 1986 onward, the persistence declines and stabilizes to even lower levels than the pre-1976 period.

In the 1870s, Heinrich Schliemann's excavations in Mycenae brought to light an unknown civilization. His intellectual network exploited the impact of these fascinating discoveries by implementing a double appropriation process. Many foreign intellectuals and members of the upper class sought to engage with the impressive findings. Meanwhile, a Greek intellectual elite played a pivotal role by Hellenizing Mycenaean antiquities to integrate them within a vision of a glorious national past. These processes were brought together with the inauguration of the branch of Mycenaean Archaeology by the Greek king and the establishment of the National Museum.

The crystal structure of cummingtonite-(P21/m) was characterised by single-crystal structure-refinement, infrared spectroscopy and 57Fe Mössbauer spectroscopy. Previous cummingtonite-(P21/m) specimens characterised have Mn2+ as the dominant constituent at M(4) but this amphibole has Fe2+ dominant at M(4). The formula of the amphibole was corrected for minor exsolved calcium-amphibole and is (Mg5.66Fe2+1.28Mn0.06)Σ7.00Si8.00O22(OH)2. The crystal structure (a = 9.4885(19), b = 18.040(4), c = 5.2891(11) Å, β = 102.06(3)°, V = 885.4(3) Å3, space group P21/m and Z = 2), was refined to an R1-index of 3.34% for 2338 observed reflections. Site-occupancy refinement gave the following site-populations: M(1) = 1.972(8) Mg + 0.028 Fe2+, M(2) = 2.000 Mg, M(3) = 0.989(6) Mg + 0.011 Fe2+, M(4) = 0.815(8) Mg + 1.125 Fe2+ + 0.060 Mn2+ apfu. Infrared spectroscopy in the principal (OH)-stretching region shows two peaks, at 3367 and 3652 cm–1, that were assigned to the local arrangements M(1)MgM(1)MgM(3)Mg–OH and M(1)MgM(1)Fe2+ M(3)Mg–OH (≈ M(1)MgM(1)MgM(3)Fe2+–OH) with relative intensities in accord with the refined site-populations. 57Fe Mössbauer spectrum shows three quadrupole-split doublets with parameters indicative of octahedrally coordinated Fe2+ at M(4) and M(1,2,3), and octahedrally coordinated Fe3+ that occurs in exsolved calcium amphibole. All three techniques indicate a small amount of Fe2+ at M(1,2,3) despite the fact that there is more than sufficient CMg to completely fill the M(1,2,3) sites: 5.66 Mg pfu. Issues involving the current and possible future nomenclature and classification of the magnesium-iron-manganese amphiboles are discussed in detail.

Cumulative exposure to anticholinergic and sedative medications has been associated with worsening physical function in older adults. We evaluated the feasibility of measuring physical function using wearable devices and explored the impact of reducing the anticholinergic and sedative medication burden in a pilot study of community-dwelling adults aged 60 years and older. Evaluations included the 10-meter walk test (10MWT), the Short Physical Performance Battery (SPPB), and the mini-BESTest. Two participants/month were recruited in one clinic in 2022. The five participants had a median age of 67, a median DBI of 1.7, and four were female. The feasibility analysis showed that the 10MWT and SPPB tests were completed on 12/12, and the mini-BESTest on 11/12. An exploratory analysis showed clinically meaningful improvements in gait speed (mean +0.18 m/s) and SPPB (mean +2.2 points). We showed the feasibility of measuring physical function by wearable devices during deprescribing of anticholinergic and sedative medications.

The diet proposed by the EAT-Lancet Commission has faced criticism concerning its affordability. This study aimed to investigate the cost associated with a greater alignment to the EAT-Lancet reference diet in the province of Québec, Canada. The dietary habits of 1147 French-speaking adults were assessed using repeated web-based 24-h recall data collected between 2015 and 2017 in the cross-sectional PRÉDicteurs Individuels, Sociaux et Environnementaux (PREDISE) study. Diet costs were calculated using a Nielsen food price database. Usual dietary intakes and diet costs were estimated using the National Cancer Institute’s multivariate Markov Chain Monte Carlo method. Adherence to the EAT-Lancet diet was assessed using the EAT-Lancet dietary index (EAT-I). Associations between diet costs and EAT-I scores were evaluated using linear regression models with restricted cubic splines. After adjustment for energy intake, a higher EAT-I score (75th v. 25th percentiles) was associated with a 1·0 $CAD increase in daily diet costs (95 % CI, 0·7, 1·3). This increase in diet costs was mostly driven by the following component scores of the EAT-I (75th v. 25th percentiles, higher scores reflecting greater adherence): vegetables (1·6 $CAD/d, 95 % CI: 1·2, 2·1), free sugars (1·6 $CAD/d, 95 % CI: 1·3, 1·9), fish and plant-based proteins (1·4 $CAD/d, 95 % CI: 1·0, 1·8), fruits (0·9 $CAD/d, 95 % CI: 0·4, 1·3) and whole grains (0·4 $CAD/d, 95 % CI: 0·0, 0·8). Inversely, a greater score for the poultry and eggs component was associated with reduced diet costs (–1·2 $CAD/d, 95 % CI: −1·7, −0·7). This study suggests that adhering to the EAT-Lancet diet may be associated with an increase in diet costs in the province of Québec.