A probabilistic, multidimensional version of Coombs' unfolding model is obtained by assuming that the projections of each stimulus and each individual on each axis are normally distributed. Exact equations are developed for the single dimensional case and an approximate one for the multidimensional case. Both types of equations are expressed solely in terms of univariate normal distribution functions and are therefore easy to evaluate. A Monte Carlo experiment, involving 9 stimuli and 3 subjects in a 2 dimensional space, was run to determine the degree of accuracy of the multidimensional equation and the feasibility of using iterative methods to obtain maximum likelihood estimates of the stimulus and subject coordinates. The results reported here are gratifying in both respects.

Peanut (Arachis hypogaea L.) and maize (Zea mays L.) are essential crops for Ghana’s economy and food security, but weed infestation poses a significant threat to their cultivation. Crop rotations influence weed communities, but little is known about these processes in peanut-cropping systems in West Africa. This study investigated the impact of different crop rotations and input levels on weed communities in Ghana over 3 yr. Results showed that low inputs (absence of herbicide and fertilization) favored species richness, while higher input levels (weed control with herbicides and fertilizer use) reduced it. Diversity and evenness were also affected by inputs, with varying patterns across locations and seasons. Weed population growth rates (λ) varied significantly by location and treatment; all management programs resulted in increasing weed populations. Principal component analysis revealed distinct associations between weed species and crop management. The majority of weed species exhibited a generalist behavior and did not associate with a particular management. However, billygoat weed (Ageratum conyzoides L.) and Benghal dayflower (Commelina benghalensis L.) were positively associated with high-input systems, while purple nutsedge (Cyperus rotundus L.) exhibited strong associations with low and medium inputs. The weed–crop rotation dynamics described here demonstrate how management drives the selection of weed species that are more pervasive and interfere with important food crops in Ghanaian agriculture.

Evidence-based psychotherapies (EBPs) are underused in health care settings. Aligning implementation of EBPs with the needs of health care leaders (i.e., operational stakeholders) can potentially accelerate their uptake into routine practice. Operational stakeholders (such as hospital leaders, clinical directors, and national program officers) can influence development and oversight of clinical programs as well as policy directives at local, regional, and national levels. Thus, engaging these stakeholders during the implementation and dissemination of EBPs is critical when targeting wider use in health care settings. This article describes how research–operations partnerships were leveraged to increase implementation of an empirically supported psychotherapy – brief Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (brief CBT) – in Veterans Health Administration (VA) primary care settings. The partnered implementation and dissemination efforts were informed by the empirically derived World Health Organization’s ExpandNet framework. A steering committee was formed and included several VA operational stakeholders who helped align the brief CBT program with the implementation needs of VA primary care settings. During the first 18 months of the project, partnerships facilitated rapid implementation of brief CBT at eight VA facilities, including training of 12 providers who saw 120 patients, in addition to expanded program elements to better support sustainability (e.g., train-the-trainer procedures).

Behavioural activation (BA) is an efficacious treatment approach. Activity monitoring is a key component of brief BA treatments; however, no studies have examined the most efficacious format for monitoring. The present pilot study tested brief versus intensive activity monitoring approaches during a BA intervention administered in a college orientation course. Outcomes characterised (1) engagement with the treatment protocol via activity monitoring and (2) participant qualitative experiences with monitoring and the intervention as reported during focus group interviews. Four course sections were randomly assigned to receive monitoring forms that were brief (assessed activities three times daily) or intensive (assessed activities hourly). Forms were provided electronically to students via a web-based platform which tracked completion. There were no significant differences in monitoring frequency (38.0 vs. 23.0 days; p = .154) or the duration of monitoring engagement (62.0 vs. 36.0 days; p = .054) between the brief and intensive conditions. Qualitative findings suggested that participants in both conditions found utility in activity monitoring, particularly during the first month as they transitioned to college. Overall, findings indicated that participants may find utility in monitoring during the first month of a BA intervention using either brief or intensive monitoring forms.

Clinical Trials Registration Number: NCT04038190

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) vaccination rates of a large health system reflected their respective service areas but varied by work role. Nurse vaccination rates were higher (56.9%) and rates among nursing support personnel were lower (38.6%) than those of their communities (51.7%; P < .001). Physician vaccination rates were highest (71.6%) and were not associated with community vaccination levels.

Here, we consider the last decades of ceramic manufacture among the Pawnee in the Central Great Plains, using petrographic analysis to explore raw material availability and use at the Kitkahahki Town site (14RP1). Historical documents reveal tremendous regional pressures and conflicts in the Kitkahahki Town area during its occupation in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries—processes that could have altered or restricted the movement of women outside village boundaries. Contact-era Pawnee pottery from Kitkahahki Town exhibits atypical paste textures, atypical inclusions, or both. At least one potter used atypical materials available immediately adjacent to the village, which suggests that ceramic raw material collection was at least occasionally adjusted to reduce risk. Petrographic analysis contributes to our understanding of Indigenous communities in colonial settings, particularly to questions of technological change and landscape use when both were intensely negotiated and rapidly changing.

The most common strategy recommended for management of jointed goatgrass infestations is to rotate from winter wheat to a spring crop for several years. A field study was conducted at three locations in 1998 and 1999 to determine the effects of spring seeding date on the ability of jointed goatgrass to flower and produce viable seed in the presence or absence of spring wheat and to determine the effect of jointed goatgrass competition and crop seeding date on spring wheat grain yield. Spring wheat was seeded on four dates at each location in both hand-sown and natural jointed goatgrass infestations. Jointed goatgrass plants from hand-sown spikelets flowered and developed spikelets on all seeding dates except the last; viable seed was produced on the two earliest seeding dates. Jointed goatgrass plant densities from natural infestations were from 1 to 12 plants m−2, and spikelet production ranged from 0 to 480 spikelets m−2. Natural jointed goatgrass infestations produced spikelets containing viable seed on all seeding dates at one location in 1998, the driest location. Spring wheat yield was not affected by jointed goatgrass competition; however, jointed goatgrass spikelet production was reduced by spring wheat competition compared with that of monoculture jointed goatgrass. The last seeding date of spring wheat was associated with 51% less crop yield compared with the recommended seeding date. The decision to manage jointed goatgrass infestations with a spring crop rotation should consider delayed seeding dates to minimize viable spikelet production by spring-germinating jointed goatgrass; however, the cost of this decision may include grain yield reduction.

Field studies were conducted to evaluate weed control with combinations of glyphosate at 750 g ae/ha and the insecticides acephate (370 g ai/ha), dicrotophos (370 g ai/ha), dimethoate (220 g ai/ha), fipronil (56 g ai/ha), imidacloprid (53 g ai/ha), lambda-cyhalothrin (37 g ai/ha), oxamyl (280 g ai/ha), or endosulfan (420 g ai/ha) and insect control with coapplication of the herbicide with insecticides acephate, dicrotophos, dimethoate, and imidacloprid. Applying lambda-cyhalothrin or fipronil with glyphosate reduced control of hemp sesbania by 19 and 9 percentage points, respectively, compared with glyphosate alone. Acephate, dicrotophos, dimethoate, imidacloprid, lambda-cyhalothrin, oxamyl, and endosulfan did not affect hemp sesbania, pitted morningglory, prickly sida, and redweed control by glyphosate. Lambda-cyhalothrin and fipronil did not affect glyphosate control of weeds other than hemp sesbania. Addition of glyphosate to dicrotophos improved cotton aphid control 4 d after treatment compared with dicrotophos alone. Thrips control was improved with addition of glyphosate to imidacloprid. Insect control was not reduced by glyphosate regardless of insecticide.

Russian thistle is a severe problem in fields after crop harvest in the Pacific Northwest (PNW) and is controlled either by tillage or broadcast applications of various herbicides. A study was conducted in Washington in 2000 and 2001 at four sites to compare the efficacy of two herbicide treatments applied with a light-activated, sensor-controlled (LASC) sprayer and a conventional broadcast sprayer for postharvest Russian thistle control. Additionally, simple economic comparisons, excluding fixed costs, were made among herbicide treatments and application methods. Both herbicide applicators controlled Russian thistle similarly within each herbicide treatment. Weed control was unacceptable (≤ 75%) when glyphosate plus 2,4-D was applied with either applicator. In contrast, Russian thistle control was > 90% with paraquat plus diuron regardless of applicator. The overall reduction in chemical use was 42% with the LASC compared with the broadcast applicator when averaged over the four sites. Herbicide and surfactant cost savings, using 2007 prices for the LASC compared with the broadcast applicator, ranged from $6.68/ha to $18.21/ha with the paraquat plus diuron treatment and averaged $13.27/ha less for the four sites. The use of the LASC for postharvest Russian thistle control can reduce growers' input costs, increase growers' profits, and improve environmental quality by reducing the amount and area of a restricted-use chemical.

In North America, terrestrial records of biodiversity and climate change that span Marine Oxygen Isotope Stage (MIS) 5 are rare. Where found, they provide insight into how the coupling of the ocean–atmosphere system is manifested in biotic and environmental records and how the biosphere responds to climate change. In 2010–2011, construction at Ziegler Reservoir near Snowmass Village, Colorado (USA) revealed a nearly continuous, lacustrine/wetland sedimentary sequence that preserved evidence of past plant communities between ~140 and 55 ka, including all of MIS 5. At an elevation of 2705 m, the Ziegler Reservoir fossil site also contained thousands of well-preserved bones of late Pleistocene megafauna, including mastodons, mammoths, ground sloths, horses, camels, deer, bison, black bear, coyotes, and bighorn sheep. In addition, the site contained more than 26,000 bones from at least 30 species of small animals including salamanders, otters, muskrats, minks, rabbits, beavers, frogs, lizards, snakes, fish, and birds. The combination of macro- and micro-vertebrates, invertebrates, terrestrial and aquatic plant macrofossils, a detailed pollen record, and a robust, directly dated stratigraphic framework shows that high-elevation ecosystems in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado are climatically sensitive and varied dramatically throughout MIS 5.

Ceratodontid lungfishes are generally rare, poorly represented elements of North America’s Mesozoic ecosystems, with previously known maximum diversity in the Late Jurassic. Herein we describe four new species of the form genus Ceratodus, from the Cretaceous of the Western Interior, considerably expanding fossil representation of post-Triassic dipnoans in North America. To model taxonomic and morphologic diversity, we adopt a four-fold system of phenetically based species groups, named for exemplars from the Morrison Formation. Ceratodus kirklandi n. sp. (Potamoceratodus guentheri group) and C. kempae n. sp. (C. frazieri group) represent a hitherto unsampled time interval, the Valanginian. Ceratodus nirumbee n. sp. and C. molossus n. sp. extend the temporal ranges of the C. fossanovum and C. robustus groups upward to the Albian and Cenomanian, respectively. These new occurrences show that ceratodontids maintained their highest diversity from the Late Jurassic through the mid-Cretaceous (Albian–Cenomanian), an interval of ~60 Myr. The existing record suggests that some of the later (mid-Cretaceous) ceratodontids may have been tolerant of salt water; to date, there is no evidence that they aestivated. Only a few occurrences are known from horizons younger than Cenomanian. Demise of ceratodontids appears to be part of a broader pattern of turnover that occurred at the Cenomanian-Turonian boundary in North America.

In patients with first episode Clostridium difficile infection treated with vancomycin or fidaxomicin, more patients receiving fidaxomicin achieved at least 2 log10 colony-forming units/g reduction in spores at the follow-up visit (P=.02). Similar to published literature, a higher proportion of patients receiving fidaxomicin demonstrated sustained clinical response.

Infect. Control Hosp. Epidemiol. 2016;37(2):215–218

IAU Commission 40 for Radio Astronomy (hereafter C40) brought together scientists and engineers who carry out observational and theoretical research in radio astronomy and who develop and operate the ground and space-based radio astronomy facilities and instrumentation. As of June 2015, the Commission had approximately 1,100 members from 49 countries, corresponding to nearly 10 per cent of the total IAU membership.