Spaceflight missions must limit biological contamination on both the outbound and return legs to comply with planetary protection requirements. Depending on the mission profile, contamination concerns may include the potential presence of bioactive molecules as defined by NASA’s Planetary Protection policies. Thus, the present study has examined the temperature and time requirements for sufficient inactivation/degradation of an infectious, heat-stable prion protein (Sup35NM), which serves as a model bioactive molecule. Bovine serum albumin was used to establish the method parameters and feasibility. Differential scanning calorimetry, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, analytical reversed-phase high-performance liquid chromatography, and mass spectrometry were utilized to analyze heat-treated samples, with non-treated samples serving as controls. Heat treatment at 400°C for 5 seconds was found to result in substantial decomposition of Sup35NM. In addition to the disruption of the protein backbone amide bonds, the side chain residues were also compromised. Fragments of molecular weight <4600 were observed by mass spectrometry but the impact of treatment on both the backbone and side chains of Sup35NM suggested that these fragments would not self-associate to create potentially pathogenic entities. The present methodology provided insight into the protein degradation process and can be applied to a variety of treatment strategies (e.g., any form of sterilization or inactivation) to ensure a lack of protein-based contamination of isolated extraterrestrial specimens.

This longitudinal survey examined the effect of the National Healthcare Safety Network’s (NHSN) recently updated Clostridioides difficile test method definition on reporting of hospital-onset C. difficile. Among six hospitals with ≥ 5 years of data available, the updated NHSN definition was associated with improved concordance between predicted versus reported cases.

We present the Evolutionary Map of the Universe (EMU) survey conducted with the Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder (ASKAP). EMU aims to deliver the touchstone radio atlas of the southern hemisphere. We introduce EMU and review its science drivers and key science goals, updated and tailored to the current ASKAP five-year survey plan. The development of the survey strategy and planned sky coverage is presented, along with the operational aspects of the survey and associated data analysis, together with a selection of diagnostics demonstrating the imaging quality and data characteristics. We give a general description of the value-added data pipeline and data products before concluding with a discussion of links to other surveys and projects and an outline of EMU’s legacy value.

The Hippoboscidae are ectoparasites of birds and mammals, which, as a group, are known to vector multiple diseases. Avipoxvirus (APV) is mechanically vectored by various arthropods and causes seasonal disease in wild birds in the United Kingdom (UK). Signs of APV and the presence of louse flies (Hippoboscidae) on Dunnocks Prunella modularis were recorded over a 16·5-year period in a rural garden in Somerset, UK. Louse flies collected from this site and other sites in England were tested for the presence of APV DNA and RNA sequences. Louse flies on Dunnocks were seen to peak seasonally three weeks prior to the peak of APV lesions, an interval consistent with the previously estimated incubation period of APV in Dunnocks. APV DNA was detected on 13/25 louse flies, Ornithomya avicularia and Ornithomya fringillina, taken from Dunnocks, both with and without lesions consistent with APV, at multiple sites in England. Collectively these data support the premise that louse flies may vector APV. The detection of APV in louse flies, from apparently healthy birds, and from sites where disease has not been observed in any host species, suggests that the Hippoboscidae could provide a non-invasive and relatively cheap method of monitoring avian diseases. This could provide advanced warnings of disease, including zoonoses, before they become clinically apparent.

Glufosinate serves as both a primary herbicide option and a complement to glyphosate and other postemergence herbicides for managing herbicide-resistant weed species. Enhancing broadleaf weed control with glufosinate through effective mixtures may mitigate further herbicide resistance evolution in soybean and other glufosinate-resistant cropping systems. Two field experiments were conducted in 2020 and 2021 at four locations in Wisconsin (Arlington, Brooklyn, Janesville, and Lancaster) and one in Illinois (Macomb) to evaluate the effects of postemergence-applied glufosinate mixed with inhibitors of protoporphyrinogen oxidase (PPO) (flumiclorac-pentyl, fluthiacet-methyl, fomesafen, and lactofen; Group 14 herbicides), bentazon (a Group 6 herbicide), and 2,4-D (a Group 4 herbicide) on waterhemp control, soybean phytotoxicity, and yield. The experiments were established in a randomized, complete block design with four replications. The first experiment focused on soybean phytotoxicity 14 d after treatment (DAT) and yield in the absence of weed competition. All treatments received a preemergence herbicide, with postemergence herbicide applications occurring between the V3 and V6 soybean growth stages, depending on the site-year. The second experiment evaluated the effect of herbicide treatments on waterhemp control 14 DAT and on soybean yield. Lactofen, applied alone or with glufosinate, produced the greatest phytotoxicity to soybean at 14 DAT, but this injury did not translate into yield loss. Mixing glufosinate with 2,4-D, bentazon, and PPO-inhibitor herbicides did not increase waterhemp control, nor did it affect soybean yield compared to when glufosinate was applied alone, but it may be an effective practice to reduce selection pressure for glufosinate-resistant waterhemp.

Objectives/Goals: The World Trade Center (WTC) Health Program (Program) Data Group was formed to address the increasing volume and complexity of analytics requests and to improve the Program’s data management capacity. Over time, the Group’s role expanded to include comprehensive data leadership and providing data-based support for decision-making. Methods/Study Population: The Program provides medical monitoring and treatment for WTC-related conditions to those directly affected by the 9/11 attacks. These activities generate an abundance of administrative and surveillance data. The Data Group was formed to establish structures and processes that would be adaptable and efficient in leveraging these data. We created a unified workflow including a shared inbox, a standardized request form, and a request-managing tracker. We established communication channels to distribute requests efficiently. We designed a request form to balance the administrative burden on requestors with the need to gather useful information for analyses. We also developed a documentation system to extract key details from forms and incorporate other relevant data to support evaluation and record-keeping. Results/Anticipated Results: From November 2021 through the end of 2023, the Data Group processed and fulfilled 93 data requests. These requests covered a multitude of functional areas essential to the administration of a limited health benefits program. The following top five functional areas made up two-thirds of all requests: Contract Management (n = 30), Research and Quality (n = 15), Operations (n = 11), Medical Policy (n = 10), and Communications (n = 7). Leveraging data collected through our request tracker, the Group conducted annual evaluations and developed visualizations to analyze trends in these requests. The evaluations helped us identify knowledge gaps, highlight areas for improvement – across the Program and within our own processes, and continue to guide and support future Program priorities. Discussion/Significance of Impact: The creation of the Data Group and unified workflow fulfilled the Program’s increasing analytic needs, enhanced oversight of data quality and usage, and facilitated data-driven Program decision-making. Continual optimization of the group’s processes enables opportunities to identify gaps in and support a range of health care delivery initiatives.

Regardless of method, political scientists often seek to develop arguments that can be generalized to a population of cases. But is this the only way to think about how cases speak to one another? We advocate for a new way to think about how qualitative research produces broadly applicable insights: translation. Much like linguistic translation, the goal of translation in political science is to develop ideas that are intelligible in a different context, even as the context will change how an idea or political practice is interpreted or enacted. Translation offers at least three benefits. It allows us to (1) rethink how we form and deploy concepts; (2) rethink what a generalizable argument is by carrying parts of an argument, instead of entire causal chains to other cases; and (3) rethink how we conceptualize knowledge accumulation to include an abductive process where generating theory is the primary goal.

This paper examines the writings of socialist scholars who played a pivotal role in shaping Friedrich Hayek’s perspective in The Road to Serfdom, including William Beveridge, Stuart Chase, Henry Dickinson, Hugh Dalton, Evan Durbin, Oskar Lange, Harold Laski, Abba Lerner, Barbara Wootton, and the contributing authors in Findlay MacKenzie’s Planned Society (1937). Many of these socialist thinkers held two main hypotheses. First, industrial concentration was inevitable under capitalism. Second, they argued, government ownership or control of key economic sectors was necessary to protect democracy from industrial consolidation in the capitalist system and to reduce political opposition to complete state ownership or control over the means of production. Despite sharing Hayek’s concern for socialism’s potential erosion of democratic freedoms, these socialist hypotheses have received much less scholarly attention than Hayek’s The Road to Serfdom. We conclude that Hayek formalized socialist scholars’ fears and developed a well-defined hypothesis that central planning could threaten democratic freedoms.

Typically, neoclassical realist scholars who prioritise state capacity as an intervening variable in their studies have often implied that states directly convert increased state capacity into improved military capabilities, leading them to engage in internal balancing and, occasionally, war. This article argues that the causal chain from state capacity to military modernisation and balancing is not as straightforward as the existing literature makes it look like. Using Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine as a plausibility-probe study, we propose that before states move from underbalancing to balancing, the process by which state capacity is translated into improved military capabilities might depend on conditional mechanisms. This novel theoretical model is labeled ‘conditional state capacity neoclassical realism’ and provides more case-specific explanatory power than the old state capacity theory.

Selection of effective herbicide strategies (i.e., one-pass versus two-pass and timing [preemergence versus postemergence]) is of great importance to corn growers. Field studies were conducted to evaluate overall end-of-season weed control efficacy of multiple herbicide strategies in conventional tillage corn production systems. These studies were carried out over six site-years at four locations in Wisconsin: Arlington (2018 and 2019), Brooklyn (2019), Lancaster (2019), and Janesville (2018 and 2019). Herbicide strategy treatments included one-pass preemergence, one-pass postemergence, two-pass preemergence followed by (fb) postemergence, and two-pass preemergence fb postemergence with layered residual herbicides. The weed species present at the experimental site-years included common lambsquarters, giant foxtail, giant ragweed, velvetleaf, and waterhemp. Except Arlington-2019, the herbicide strategy was not as influential for the site-years infested with common lambsquarters, giant foxtail, velvetleaf, and waterhemp species (e.g., Arlington-2018, Brooklyn-2019, Lancaster-2019), as effective overall end-of-season control (>90%) was achieved regardless of the herbicide strategy, and no significant differences were observed in the combined weed biomass across strategies. A two-pass strategy (e.g., preemergence followed by postemergence, or preemergence followed by postemergence with layered residual herbicides) was necessary for effective overall end-of-season control at the site-years infested with giant ragweed (Janesville-2018 and -2019). Weed interference reduced corn yield by 11% to 75% across site-years. Although certain weed communities can be effectively controlled by a one-pass herbicide strategy, two-pass strategies provided the greatest and most consistent overall end-of-season weed control and corn yield across all site-years, regardless of weed species composition and environmental conditions. Hence, a two-pass herbicide strategy is recommended for conventional-tillage corn production in Wisconsin to ensure effective end-of-season weed control while protecting yield potential of the crop, particularly in fields infested with moderate to high density of troublesome weeds such as giant ragweed.

Archaeological sites in Northwest Africa are rich in human fossils and artefacts providing proxies for behavioural and evolutionary studies. However, these records are difficult to underpin on a precise chronology, which can prevent robust assessments of the drivers of cultural/behavioural transitions. Past investigations have revealed that numerous volcanic ash (tephra) layers are interbedded within the Palaeolithic sequences and likely originate from large volcanic eruptions in the North Atlantic (e.g. the Azores, Canary Islands, Cape Verde). Critically, these ash layers offer a unique opportunity to provide new relative and absolute dating constraints (via tephrochronology) to synchronise key archaeological and palaeoenvironmental records in this region. Here, we provide an overview of the known eruptive histories of the potential source volcanoes capable of widespread ashfall in the region during the last ~300,000 years, and discuss the diagnostic glass compositions essential for robust tephra correlations. To investigate the eruption source parameters and weather patterns required for ash dispersal towards NW Africa, we simulate plausible ashfall distributions using the Ash3D model. This work constitutes the first step in developing a more robust tephrostratigraphic framework for distal ash layers in NW Africa and highlights how tephrochronology may be used to reliably synchronise and date key climatic and cultural transitions during the Palaeolithic.

In order to study the structure and temperature distribution within high-mass star-forming clumps, we employed the Australia Telescope Compact Array to image the $\mathrm{NH}_3$ (J,K) = (1,1) through (6,6) and the (2,1) inversion transitions, the $\mathrm{H}_2\mathrm{O}$ $6_{16}$-$5_{23}$ maser line at 22.23508 GHz, several $\mathrm{CH}_3\mathrm{OH}$ lines and hydrogen and helium recombination lines. In addition, 22- and 24-GHz radio continuum emission was also imaged.

The $\mathrm{NH}_3$ lines probe the optical depth and gas temperature of compact structures within the clumps. The $\mathrm{H}_2\mathrm{O}$ maser pinpoints the location of shocked gas associated with star formation. The recombination lines and the continuum emission trace the ionised gas associated with hot OB stars. The paper describes the data and presents sample images and spectra towards select clumps. The technique for estimating gas temperature from $\mathrm{NH}_3$ line ratios is described. The data show widespread hyperfine intensity anomalies in the $\mathrm{NH}_3$ (1,1) images, an indicator of non-LTE $\mathrm{NH}_3$ excitation. We also identify several new $\mathrm{NH}_3$ (3,3) masers associated with shocked gas. Towards AGAL328.809+00.632, the $\mathrm{H}_2\mathrm{O}$ $6_{16}$-$5_{23}$ line, normally seen as a maser, is instead seen as a thermally excited absorption feature against a strong background continuum. The data products are described in detail.

This editorial summarises the clinical relevance of ‘chronopsychiatry’, defined as the interface between circadian science and mental health science. Chronopsychiatry represents a move towards time-variable perspectives on neurobiology and symptoms, with a greater emphasis on chronotherapeutic interventions.