Greenhouse studies were conducted from 2020 to 2021 to evaluate the effect of simulated drift rates of 2,4-D and dicamba on strawberry growth, fruit development and fruit quality in Raleigh, NC. Treatments included 2,4-D choline and dicamba DGA plus Vapor Grip at 1/2x, 1/20x, and 1/200x of the 1x field rate of 1.09 and 0.8 kg ae ha-1, respectively. Treatments were applied to strawberry at three reproductive stages, including bud, flower, and fruit. Averaged across both herbicides, strawberry canopy size was reduced by the 1/2x rate 18, 25, 30, and 36% at 3, 6, 9, and 11 wk after treatment (WAT). The 1/2x rate of both herbicides caused greater injury to strawberry than the 1/20x or 1/200x, with maximum stunting from 2,4-D and dicamba of 54 and 36%, respectively. Fruit pH and SSC increased due to the 1/2x rate of dicamba compared to the 1/20x and 1/200x rates and the nontreated. Treated fruit (across all herbicides) were larger than fruit developing following herbicide application to flowers or buds but were similar to nontreated fruit.

Prolonged grief disorder (PGD) is associated with impairments in cognitive functioning, but the neuropsychological correlates of early grief in older adults are poorly understood. This preliminary study cross-sectionally examined neuropsychological functioning in bereaved adults with high and low grief symptoms and a non-bereaved comparison sample and further explored the relationship between multidomain cognitive measures and grief severity. A total of ninety-three nondemented older adults (high grief: n = 44; low grief: n = 49) within 12 months post-bereavement and non-bereaved comparison participants (n = 43) completed neuropsychological battery including global and multiple domain-specific cognitive functioning. Linear regression models were used to analyze differences in multidomain cognitive measures between the groups and specifically examine the associations between cognitive performance and grief severity in the bereaved, after covariate adjustment, including depressive symptoms. Bereaved older adults with higher grief symptoms performed worse than those with lower symptoms and non-bereaved participants on executive functioning and attention and processing speed measures. In the bereaved, poorer executive functioning, attention and processing speed correlated with higher grief severity. Attention/processing speed–grief severity correlation was seen in those with time since loss ≤ 6 months, but not > 6 months. Intense early grief is characterised by poorer executive functioning, attention, and processing speed, resembling findings in PGD. The putative role of poorer cognitive functioning during early grief on the transition to integrated grief or the development of PGD remains to be elucidated.

Stress and diabetes coexist in a vicious cycle. Different types of stress lead to diabetes, while diabetes itself is a major life stressor. This was the focus of the Chicago Biomedical Consortium’s 19th annual symposium, “Stress and Human Health: Diabetes,” in November 2022. There, researchers primarily from the Chicago area met to explore how different sources of stress – from the cells to the community – impact diabetes outcomes. Presenters discussed the consequences of stress arising from mutant proteins, obesity, sleep disturbances, environmental pollutants, COVID-19, and racial and socioeconomic disparities. This symposium showcased the latest diabetes research and highlighted promising new treatment approaches for mitigating stress in diabetes.

Field studies were conducted in commercial muscadine vineyards in western North Carolina in 2018 and eastern North Carolina in 2019, 2020, and 2021 to determine tolerance of younger (< 9 yr) and older (≥ 9 yr) bearing muscadine grapevines to 2,4-D directed beneath the crop postemergence (POST). Treatments included 2,4-D choline at 0, 0.53, 1.06, 1.60, and 2.13 kg ae ha−1 applied as a single treatment in May or June (spring) at immediate pre-bloom, and sequential treatments at 0.53 followed by (fb) 0.53, 1.06 fb 1.06, 1.6 fb 1.6, or 2.13 fb 2.13 kg ha−1. The first sequential treatment was applied in spring fb another application of the same amount in July (summer) at pre-veraison. No differences in injury on muscadine grapevines were observed from 2,4-D treatments. Differences among treatments were not observed for yield of younger vines. However, for older vines, a difference due to 2,4-D rate was observed in 2018, when yield was higher when 2,4-D was applied at 1.6 kg ha−1 compared with nontreated grapevines, and when 2,4-D was applied at 0.53 and 2.13 kg ha−1. A rate-by-timing interaction was observed in 2019 when yield was lower from 0.53 kg ha−1 2,4-D summer application compared with all other summer treatments but similar to the nontreated. However, no biological pattern was observed from either of these differences. No differences among treatments were observed for fruit pH, titratable acidity, or soluble solid content of either younger or older vines.

Background: Cortical electrical stimulation (CES) may produce different motor responses according to the brain area stimulated. In this study, we describe a new motor response characterized by finger movements such as a person playing piano, which we named the Piano Player Hand (PPH) sign. Methods: We retrospectively reviewed the CES results of 252 patients with drug-resistant epilepsy who underwent SEEG between January 2005 and December 2019 at the Grenoble-Alpes University Hospital. The patients’ characteristics, SEEG findings and CES parameters were extracted to find common clinical and anatomical features. Results: The PPH sign was identified 20 times from 12 patients, with stimulation of either the supplementary motor area (SMA), anterior cingulate gyrus (ACG), pre-SMA, middle frontal gyrus and anterior insula. It was obtained with high frequency stimulation, with intensity ranging from 0,7 to 3mA and mostly contralateral to the stimulation side (19/20). It was part of the ictal semiology of five patients. An afterdischarge was observed in five of the relevant CES. Conclusions: The PPH sign is a novel clinical sign, obtained mainly, but not exclusively, with CES of a small vicinity encompassing the SMA, pre-SMA and ACG. The PPH sign, when occurring ictally, may point to the premotor mesial frontal surface of the brain.

Field studies were conducted on southern highbush blueberry in Elizabethtown and Rocky Point, NC, in 2019, 2020, and 2021 to determine tolerance to 2,4-D choline as a postemergence-directed application. In separate trials for younger and older bearing blueberry bushes, both 2,4-D choline rates and application timing were evaluated. Treatments included 2,4-D choline at 0, 0.53, 1.06, 1.60, and 2.13 kg ae ha–1 applied alone in winter during dormancy, and sequential treatments at 0.53 kg ae ha–1 followed by (fb) 0.53, 1.06 fb 1.06, 1.6 fb 1.6, or 2.13 fb 2.13 kg ae ha–1. The first application of the sequential treatments was applied in winter followed by another application in spring during early green fruit. Injury to blueberry from 2,4-D choline treatments was not observed for either maturity stage, and fruit yield was not affected by any of the treatments. Differences among treatments were not observed for fruit soluble solid content (SSC) in older bushes, or for fruit pH, SSC, and titratable acidity (TA) in younger bushes. In older bushes, fruit pH and TA had rate-by-timing interactions, and TA had a farm-year interaction with differences at Rocky Point in 2019 and Elizabethtown in 2020, but biologically no pattern was observed from the treatments.

Field studies in strawberry grown on polyethylene-mulched raised beds were conducted from 2018 to 2019 and 2019 to 2020 in Clayton, NC, to determine ‘Camarosa’ and ‘Chandler’ strawberry tolerance to 2,4-D directed to the row middle between beds. Treatments included 2,4-D at 0, 0.53, 1.06, 1.60, and 2.13 kg ae ha−1 applied alone and sequential treatments (0.53 followed by [fb] 0.53 or 1.06 fb 1.06 kg ae ha−1). Initial treatments were applied in winter (December 2018 or January 2020) during vegetative growth, and sequential applications were applied in spring (April 2019 or March 2020) during reproductive growth. No differences among treatments were observed for visual foliage injury, strawberry crop canopy, fruit yield, and fruit quality (pH, titratable acidity, and soluble solid content).

The derivation and numerical implementation of a linearized version of the gyrokinetic (GK) Coulomb collision operator (Jorge et al., J. Plasma Phys., vol. 85, 2019, 905850604) and of the widely used linearized GK Sugama collision operator (Sugama et al., Phys. Plasmas, vol. 16, 2009, 112503) is reported. An approach based on a Hermite–Laguerre moment expansion of the perturbed gyrocentre distribution function is used, referred to as gyromoment expansion. This approach allows the considering of arbitrary perpendicular wavenumber and expressing the two linearized GK operators as a linear combination of gyromoments where the expansion coefficients are given by closed analytical expressions that depend on the perpendicular wavenumber and on the temperature and mass ratios of the colliding species. The drift-kinetic (DK) limits of the GK linearized Coulomb and Sugama operators are also obtained. Comparisons between the gyromoment approach and the DK Coulomb and GK Sugama operators in the continuum GK code GENE are reported, focusing on the ion-temperature-gradient instability and zonal flow damping, finding an excellent agreement. It is confirmed that stronger collisional damping of the zonal flow residual by the Sugama GK model compared with the GK linearized Coulomb (Pan et al., Phys. Plasmas, vol. 27, 2020, 042307) persists at higher collisionality. Finally, we show that the numerical efficiency of the gyromoment approach increases with collisionality, a desired property for boundary plasma applications.

The main aim of the current study was to present the abilities of widely used crop models to simulate four different field crops (winter wheat, spring barley, silage maize and winter oilseed rape). The 13 models were tested under Central European conditions represented by three locations in the Czech Republic, selected using temperature and precipitation gradients for the target crops in this region. Based on observed crop phenology and yield from 1991 to 2010, performances of individual models and their ensemble were analyzed. Modelling of anthesis and maturity was generally best simulated by the ensemble median (EnsMED) compared to the ensemble mean and individual models. The yield was better simulated by the best models than estimated by an ensemble. Higher accuracy was achieved for spring crops, with the best results for silage maize, while the lowest accuracy was for winter oilseed rape according to the index of agreement (IA). Based on EnsMED, the root mean square errors (RMSEs) for yield was 1365 kg/ha for winter wheat, 1105 kg/ha for spring barley, 1861 kg/ha for silage maize and 969 kg/ha for winter oilseed rape. The AQUACROP and EPIC models performed best in terms of spread around the line of best fit (RMSE, IA). In some cases, the individual models failed. For crop rotation simulations, only models with reasonable accuracy (i.e. without failures) across all included crops within the target environment should be selected. Application crop models ensemble is one way to increase the accuracy of predictions, but lower variability of ensemble outputs was confirmed.