Seed retention, and ultimately seed shatter, are extremely important for the efficacy of harvest weed seed control (HWSC) and are likely influenced by various agroecological and environmental factors. Field studies investigated seed-shattering phenology of 22 weed species across three soybean [Glycine max (L.) Merr.]-producing regions in the United States. We further evaluated the potential drivers of seed shatter in terms of weather conditions, growing degree days, and plant biomass. Based on the results, weather conditions had no consistent impact on weed seed shatter. However, there was a positive correlation between individual weed plant biomass and delayed weed seed–shattering rates during harvest. This work demonstrates that HWSC can potentially reduce weed seedbank inputs of plants that have escaped early-season management practices and retained seed through harvest. However, smaller individuals of plants within the same population that shatter seed before harvest pose a risk of escaping early-season management and HWSC.

Potential effectiveness of harvest weed seed control (HWSC) systems depends upon seed shatter of the target weed species at crop maturity, enabling its collection and processing at crop harvest. However, seed retention likely is influenced by agroecological and environmental factors. In 2016 and 2017, we assessed seed-shatter phenology in 13 economically important broadleaf weed species in soybean [Glycine max (L.) Merr.] from crop physiological maturity to 4 wk after physiological maturity at multiple sites spread across 14 states in the southern, northern, and mid-Atlantic United States. Greater proportions of seeds were retained by weeds in southern latitudes and shatter rate increased at northern latitudes. Amaranthus spp. seed shatter was low (0% to 2%), whereas shatter varied widely in common ragweed (Ambrosia artemisiifolia L.) (2% to 90%) over the weeks following soybean physiological maturity. Overall, the broadleaf species studied shattered less than 10% of their seeds by soybean harvest. Our results suggest that some of the broadleaf species with greater seed retention rates in the weeks following soybean physiological maturity may be good candidates for HWSC.

Seed shatter is an important weediness trait on which the efficacy of harvest weed seed control (HWSC) depends. The level of seed shatter in a species is likely influenced by agroecological and environmental factors. In 2016 and 2017, we assessed seed shatter of eight economically important grass weed species in soybean [Glycine max (L.) Merr.] from crop physiological maturity to 4 wk after maturity at multiple sites spread across 11 states in the southern, northern, and mid-Atlantic United States. From soybean maturity to 4 wk after maturity, cumulative percent seed shatter was lowest in the southern U.S. regions and increased moving north through the states. At soybean maturity, the percent of seed shatter ranged from 1% to 70%. That range had shifted to 5% to 100% (mean: 42%) by 25 d after soybean maturity. There were considerable differences in seed-shatter onset and rate of progression between sites and years in some species that could impact their susceptibility to HWSC. Our results suggest that many summer annual grass species are likely not ideal candidates for HWSC, although HWSC could substantially reduce their seed output during certain years.

Adenoid cystic carcinoma, or cylindroma, usually presents in the salivary glands or in the upper respiratory passages. We report an unusual case of adenoid cystic carcinoma in a 45-year-old woman who presented with a three-year history of progressive right trigeminal sensory palsy, most pronounced in the second division. There was, in addition, a right trigeminal motor palsy and a partial right 6th nerve palsy. CT scanning showed only a small soft tissue mass spanning an enlarged right foramen ovale. Solid adenoid cystic carcinoma was resected from Meckel’s cave via a middle cranial fossa approach. A subsequent biopsy of the right maxillary antral mucosa found tumor tissue. We concluded that the tumor originated in the maxillary antrum and spread posteriorly along the infraorbital nerve to enlarge in the foramen ovale. Radiation to a total of 5,000 cGy was given. At 22 months there was neither radiographic nor clinical evidence of recurrence. At 30 months, the development of unsteady gait signalled the presence of recurrent tumor extending backwards from Meckel’s cave into the right cerebello-pontine angle.

Although many types of sports and recreational activities have been identified as common causes of acute spinal cord injury, hockey has been a rare cause of acute cord injury in Canada or elsewhere. For example, from 1948 to 1973 there were no patients with cord injuries due to hockey in a series of 55 patients with acute cord injuries due to sports or other recreational activities admitted to two Toronto hospitals. In contrast, between 1974 and 1981, the Acute Spinal Cord Injury Unit, Sunnybrook Medical Centre treated six patients with cervical spinal injury due to hockey, five of whom were seen during a 13 month period from September, 1980 to October, 1981. Five of the six sustained a severe acute cervical spinal cord injury, and one a cervical root injury. The cord injury was complete in two cases, while three had complete motor loss but incomplete sensory loss below the level of the lesion. All were males aged 15 to 26 years. Of the players with cord injury, four struck the boards with the neck flexed, and one struck another player with the neck flexed. The one player without cord injury struck the boards with his neck extended. The commonest bony injury was a burst fracture of C5 or C6. One of the patients with a complete cord injury died three months later of a pulmonary embolus, and the other patients with cord injury showed some recovery of root function, but little or no cord recovery. The reasons for the increase in spinal injuries in hockey are unknown.

Fifty-nine patients were treated in a prospective, randomized comparison of pentobarbital and mannitol for the control of intracranial hypertension resulting from head injury. Patients with elevated intracranial pressure (ICP) after evacuation of intracranial hematomas were randomized to one of two treatment groups; mannitol initially or pentobarbital initially, followed by the second drug as required by further elevation of ICP. Similarly, patients with raised ICP but without hematomas requiring evacuation were randomly assigned to two treatment groups in an identical paradigm.

Those with ICP elevation and no hematoma treated with pentobarbital as initial therapy had a 77% mortality compared to a 41% mortality for those with mannitol as initial treatment. Patients with evacuated hematomas had mortalities of 40% and 43% (no significant difference) for pentobarbital and mannitol respectively. In both no-hematoma and hematoma streams pentobarbital was less effective than mannitol for control of raised ICP.

Multivariate statistical analysis indicates that pentobarbital coma is not better than mannitol for the treatment of intracranial hypertension and may be harmful in no-hematoma patients with intracranial hypertension after head injury.

Deflection missions to near-Earth asteroids will encounter non-negligible uncertainties in the physical and orbital parameters of the target object. In order to reliably assess future impact threat mitigation operations such uncertainties have to be quantified and incorporated into the mission design. The implementation of deflection demonstration missions offers the great opportunity to test our current understanding of deflection relevant uncertainties and their consequences, e.g., regarding kinetic impacts on asteroid surfaces. In this contribution, we discuss the role of uncertainties in the NEOTωIST asteroid deflection demonstration concept, a low-cost kinetic impactor design elaborated in the framework of the NEOShield project. The aim of NEOTωIST is to change the spin state of a known and well characterized near-Earth object, in this case the asteroid (25143) Itokawa. Fast events such as the production of the impact crater and ejecta are studied via cube-sat chasers and a flyby vehicle. Long term changes, for instance, in the asteroid's spin and orbit, can be assessed using ground based observations. We find that such a mission can indeed provide valuable constraints on mitigation relevant parameters. Furthermore, the here proposed kinetic impact scenarios can be implemented within the next two decades without threatening Earth's safety.

A thin fluid drop is at rest on a plane vertical surface, supported against gravity by surface tension. The perimeter of the drop is required to lie on a given closed curve, upon which the contact angle is arbitrary. If the drop is of sufficient volume, it can wet the whole area interior to this curve. However, for any given curve, there is a certain critical volume below which this fully wetted configuration is not physically acceptable, the formal solution having negative thickness. It is suggested here as an alternative that the upper portion of the drop, above a free boundary to be determined, must drain completely. Some time-dependent computations in two dimensions are presented to illustrate this draining property. In three dimensions, the static free boundary has zero contact angle, and must be determined as part of the solution. An example solved here is that where the original boundary is a circle, and the free boundary is a non-trivial curve lying inside it, whose shape is found by numerical methods. This problem also has relevance to the shape of a raindrop on a windowpane where surface contamination prevents contact-line motion, and the drop may again be considered to be confined within a prescribed boundary.

The average thickness of the wetting film left behind during the slow passage of an air bubble in a water-filled capillary tube of circular cross-section has been determined experimentally as a function of bubble speed and bubble length. For bubbles of length many times the tube radius, the ratio of film thickness to tube radius is found to be a function of the capillary number only, in agreement with previous experimental studies. As has been found previously, the asymptotic result of Bretherton (1961) significantly underpredicts the film thickness, the discrepancy being greatest at the lowest speeds. For bubbles of length less than about 20 tube radii, on the other hand, good agreement with the Bretherton theory is obtained over two orders of magnitude in bubble speed. The theoretical profile of long bubbles is shown to be unstable; however the explanation of the observed behaviour is, as yet, incomplete.

We develop a time-dependent numerical algorithm, using a boundary-integral approach, to investigate fingering in Hele-Shaw cells. Starting from a sinusoidal variation in the initial interface, stable fingers quickly form for a wide range of the dimensionless surface-tension parameter. For very low values of the parameter, the incipient finger bifurcates. The stable fingers are clearly the same as those obtained by McLean & Saffman (1981) using a steady-state algorithm. These steady-state solutions were found to be linearly unstable. We resolve this apparent discrepancy regarding stability by tracing the fate of small disturbances placed on and about the finger tip. We show that some small disturbances do, indeed, grow initially; however, they reach a maximum amplitude and decay as they convect backward from the tip of the finger to regions where stabilizing surface tension is the major physical force. Relatively large imposed disturbances, on the other hand, cause a finger to bifurcate; the critical disturbance amplitude decreases as the surface tension is reduced

A method of time-dependent conformal mapping is introduced to simplify the power-series solution procedure for time- and space-periodic standing waves in deep water. A solution has been found to 25th order in the wave amplitude. The values of certain coefficients are determined by the requirement that secular terms must be suppressed. Because the series for the wave profile is not always uniformly convergent, Padé approximants are used for summation. For very high waves, the slope of the surface has at least two relative maxima. The singularity structure of the solution is also discussed.

X-Ray Absorption Spectroscopy (XAS) and Photoelectron Spectroscopy (PES) have been performed upon highly radioactive samples, particularly Plutonium, at the Advanced Light Source in Berkeley, CA, USA. First results from alpha and delta Plutonium are reported as well as a detailed analysis of sample quality.