We report the discovery of an ancient forest bed near Stanley, on the Falkland Islands, the second such ancient deposit identified on the South Atlantic island archipelago that is today marked by the absence of native tree species. Fossil pollen, spores and wood fragments preserved in this buried deposit at Tussac House show that the source vegetation was characterized by a floristically diverse rainforest dominated by Nothofagus-Podocarpaceae communities, similar to cool temperate Nothofagus forests/woodlands and Magellanic evergreen Nothofagus rainforests. The age limit of the deposit is inferred from the stratigraphic distribution of fossil pollen species transported by wind, birds or ocean currents from southern Patagonia, as well as similar vegetation types observed across the broader region. The deposit is suggested to be between Late Oligocene and Early Miocene, making it slightly older than the previously analysed Neogene West Point Island forest bed (200 km west of Tussac House). The combined evidence adds to our current knowledge of the role of climate change and transoceanic dispersal of plant propagules in shaping high-latitude ecosystems in the Southern Hemisphere during the late Palaeogene and Neogene.

Physician parents encounter unique challenges in balancing new parenthood with work responsibilities, especially upon their return from parental leave. We designed a pilot program that incorporated 1:1 parental coaching to expectant and new physician parents and provided stipends for lactation support and help at home. Additional initiatives included launching a virtual new parent group during the COVID-19 pandemic and starting an emergency backup pump supplies program. There was positive feedback for our Parental Wellness Program (PWP), which was used to secure expanded funding. Pilot results showed that our program had a meaningful impact on parental wellness, morale, productivity, and lactation efforts.

ABSTRACT IMPACT: Our findings could potentially identify CVD at-risk persons living with HIV who might benefit from aggressive risk-reduction. OBJECTIVES/GOALS: PWH have higher rates of CVD than the general population yet CVD risk prediction models rely on traditional risk factors and fail to capture the heterogeneity of CVD risk in PWH. Here we identify protein biomarkers that are able to discriminate between CVD cases and controls in PWH, and we assess their added benefit beyond traditional risk factors. METHODS/STUDY POPULATION: We analyzed 459 baseline protein expression levels from five OLINK panels in a matched CVD (MI, coronary revascularization, stroke, CVD death) case-control study with 390 PWH from INSIGHT trials (131 cases, 259 controls). We formed 200 datasets via bootstrap. For each bootstrap set, a two-component partial least squares discriminant model (PLSDA) was fit. The importance of each variable in the discrimination of cases and controls in the PLSDA projection was assessed by the variable importance in projection (VIP) score. Proteins with average VIP scores > 1 were used in penalized logistic regression models with elastic net penalty, and proteins were ranked based on the number of times the protein had a nonzero coefficient. Proteins in the top 25th percentile were considered to have high discrimination. RESULTS/ANTICIPATED RESULTS: Participants had mean age 47 years, 13% were females, 4.9% had CVD at baseline and 69% were on ART at baseline. Eight proteins including the hepatocyte growth factor and interleukin-6 were identified as able to distinguish between CVD cases and controls within PWH. A protein score (PS) of the top-ranked proteins was developed using the bootstrap (for weights) and the entire data. The PS was found to be predictive of CVD independent of established CVD and HIV factors (Odds ratio: 2.17 CI: 1.58-2.99). A model with the PS and traditional risk factors had a 5.9% improvement in AUC over the baseline model (AUC=0.731 vs 0.69), which is an increase in model predictive power of 18%. Individuals with a PS above the median score were 3.1 (CI: 1.83- 5.41) times more likely to develop CVD than those with a protein score below the median score. DISCUSSION/SIGNIFICANCE OF FINDINGS: A protein score developed improved discrimination of PWH with CVD and those without, and helped identify PWH with high risk for developing CVD. If validated, this score and/or the individual proteins could be used in addition with established factors to identify CVD at-risk individuals who might benefit from aggressive risk-reduction.

Introduction: Non-medical cannabis recently became legal on October 18th, 2018 to Canadian adults. The impact of legalization on Emergency Departments (EDs) has been identified as a major concern. The study objective was to identify changes in cannabis-related ED visits and changes in co-existing diagnoses associated with cannabis-related ED visits pre- and post-legalization for the entire urban population of Alberta. Urban Alberta was defined as Calgary and Edmonton, inclusive of Sherwood Park and St. Albert given the proximity of some Edmontonians to their EDs) encompassing 12 adult EDs and 2 pediatric EDs. Methods: Retrospective data was collected from the National Ambulatory Care Reporting System, and from the HealthLink and the Alberta Poison and Drug Information Service (PADIS) public telehealth call databases. An interrupted time-series analysis was completed via segmented regression calculation in addition to incident rate and relative risk ratio calculation for the pre- and post-legalization periods to identify both differences among the entire urban Alberta population and differences among individuals presenting to the ED. Data was collected from October 1st, 2013 up to July 31st, 2019 for ED visits and was adjusted for natural population increase using quarterly reports from the Government of Alberta. Results: The sample included 11 770 pre-legalization cannabis-related visits, and 2962 post-legalization visits. Volumes of ED visits for cannabis-related harms were found to increase post-legalization within urban EDs (IRR 1.45, 95% CI 1.39, 1.51; absolute level change: 43.48 visits per month in urban Alberta, 95% CI 26.52, 60.43), and for PADIS calls (IRR 1.87, 95% CI 1.55, 2.37; absolute level change: 4.02 calls per month in Alberta, 95% CI 0.11, 7.94). The increase in visits to EDs equates to an increase of 2.72 visits per month, per ED. Lastly, increases were observed for cannabinoid hyperemesis (RR 1.23, 95% CI 1.10, 1.36), unintentional ingestion (RR 1.48, 95% CI 1.34, 1.62), and in individuals leaving the ED pre-treatment (RR 1.28, 95% CI 1.08, 1.49). Decreases were observed for coingestant use (RR 0.77, 95% CI 0.73, 0.81) and hospital admissions (RR 0.88, 95% CI 0.80, 0.96). Conclusion: Overall, national legalization of cannabis appears to be correlated with a small increase in cannabis-related ED visits and poison control calls. Post-legalization, fewer patients are being admitted, though cannabinoid hyperemesis appears to be on the rise.

Background and aims: For patients with a severe brain injury there is no objective physiotherapy assessment tool that is responsive to the incremental changes in motor recovery in the acute stage. The aims of this study were to identify the items of neuro-motor recovery and scoring criteria for the Acute Brain Injury Physiotherapy Assessment (ABIPA) and determine responsiveness to change and concurrent validity against accepted standard measures of consciousness and physical function in the severe brain injury population.

Method: The literature was searched and an expert consensus panel of experienced clinical physiotherapists informed item selection and developed practical assessment guidelines. The ABIPA was investigated for responsiveness to change and concurrent validity against the Glasgow Coma Scale (GCS), Clinical Outcome Variable Scale (COVS) and Motor Assessment Scale (MAS). Eleven patients (9 males; cohort 41 ± 18 years) with moderate/severe brain injury were recruited, and assessed on days 1, 3, 7 and then weekly until discharge.

Results: The ABIPA demonstrated good to excellent correlations overall with the GCS (rho > .76, p ≤ .001), COVS (rho > .82, p ≤ .001) and MAS (rho > 0.66, p ≤ .001). On day 3, the ABIPA showed the greatest responsiveness to change (standardised response means (SRM) > .83) compared to other measures (SRMs < .77). At discharge all tools demonstrated change in neuro-motor recovery.

Conclusions: The ABIPA is a promising tool for detecting incremental changes in neuro-motor recovery early after severe brain injury.

We are developing a purely commensal survey experiment for fast (<5 s) transient radio sources. Short-timescale transients are associated with the most energetic and brightest single events in the Universe. Our objective is to cover the enormous volume of transients parameter space made available by ASKAP, with an unprecedented combination of sensitivity and field of view. Fast timescale transients open new vistas on the physics of high brightness temperature emission, extreme states of matter and the physics of strong gravitational fields. In addition, the detection of extragalactic objects affords us an entirely new and extremely sensitive probe on the huge reservoir of baryons present in the IGM. We outline here our approach to the considerable challenge involved in detecting fast transients, particularly the development of hardware fast enough to dedisperse and search the ASKAP data stream at or near real-time rates. Through CRAFT, ASKAP will provide the testbed of many of the key technologies and survey modes proposed for high time resolution science with the SKA.

Sprouted potato tubers lose nutritional value, and their increased content of reducing sugar renders them unsuitable for the french fry and chipping industries. Thus, tuber sprouting in storage is a primary concern of the potato industry, and is currently controlled by application of chemical sprout suppressants. Such suppressants are subject to widespread regulation by governmental agencies. The present study was initiated to investigate the role of the plant hormone ethylene in potato (Solanum tuberosum L.) tuber dormancy release. To this end, potato cv. ‘Russet Burbank’ was transformed with ETR1, an ethylene receptor gene from Arabidopsis. The resulting clones were genetically characterized to verify integration and expression of the ETR1 mRNA and protein. Transgenic clones showed developmental and morphologic changes in plant and tuber, and differing responses to environmental stress and pathogen attack relative to untransformed controls. Lengthening of dormancy was also observed in ETR1 antisense clones stored at 4 °C. Transgenic potato clones treated with solutions of silver thiosulfate (STS), an ethylene action inhibitor, showed restoration of normal plant morphology, while controls were unaffected. These results demonstrate the pleiotrophic effects of ethylene in potato, and identify a need for additional studies on the relationship between ethylene and tuber dormancy.

The Fifth International workshop on chromosome 9 comprised a gathering of 36 scientists from seven countries and included a fairly even distribution of interests along chromosome 9 as well as a strong input from more global activities and from comparative mapping. At least eight groups had participated in the goal set at the previous workshop which was to improve the fine genetic mapping in different regions of chromosome 9 by meiotic breakpoint mapping in allocated regions and this has resulted in some greatly improved order information. Excellent computing facilities were available and all contributed maps were entered not only into SIGMA (and thence submitted to GDB) but also into a dedicated version of ACEDB which can be accessed on the Web in the form of one of 28 slices into which the chromosome has been arbitrarily divided. It was generally agreed that the amount of data is now overwhelming and that the integration and validation of all data is not only unrealistic in a short meeting but probably impossible until the whole chromosome has been sequenced and fully annotated. Sequence-ready contigs presented at the meeting totalled about 3 MB which is about one fiftieth of the estimated length. The single biggest barrier to integration of maps is the problem of non-standard nomenclature of loci. In the past 2 workshops efforts have been made to compare traditional ‘consensus’ maps made by human insight (still probably best for small specific regions) with those generated with some computer assistance (such as SIGMA) and those generated objectively by defined computer algorithms such as ldb. Since no single form of map or representation is entirely satisfactory for all purposes the maps reproduced in the published version of the report are confined to one of the genetic maps, in which Genethon and older markers have been incorporated, a Sigma map of the genes as symbols together with a listing of known ‘disease’ genes on chromosome 9, and a revised assessment of the mouse map together with a list of mouse loci predicted to be on human chromosome 9. One of the 28 ACEDB slices is also shown to illustrate strengths and weaknesses of this approach. Workshop files include not only all maps available at the time but also details of loci and details of the meiotic breakpoints in the CEPH families (http://www.gene.ucl.ac.uk/scw9db.shtml).

This report and other information on chromosome 9 can be found on the chromosome 9 homepage at the URL: http://www.gene.ucl.ac.uk/chr9/

The study analysed employer receptivity to hiring mentally retarded persons. A stratified random sample of 100 employers in the Hobart area were sent a two part questionnaire. The first part of the questionnaire was designed to replicate Mahoney’s (1976b) Melbourne study of employers’ attitudes to the mentally retarded. A comparison of the Hobart and Melbourne data indicated that in both samples the variables of age, educational level, size of organization and the number of mentally retarded persons previously employed were all related to positive employer attitudes. The second part of the questionnaire was concerned with Hobart employers’ attitudes towards a Job Try-Out program. The major finding revealed that employers’ willingness to cooperate in this type of program was strongly related to their willingness to hire successful candidates from such programs on a permanent basis. The implications of these findings were discussed.