Objectives/Goals: Arterial stiffness is a determinant of vascular health. Older Black females exhibit greater arterial stiffness than White females. Exercise minimizes negative health effects of prolonged exposure to adverse social determinants of health (SDoH). Here, we will assess the role of exercise on race differences in arterial stiffness and SDoH in females. Methods/Study Population: We will recruit 96 postmenopausal females (48 Black, 48 White) from the Birmingham, AL area. Graded exercise tests will be used to define training status (“trained”: VO2max ≥60th percentile, “untrained”: ≤35th percentile). We will assess arterial stiffness via pulse wave velocity (SphygmoCor XCEL). SDoH will include income, education, neighborhood deprivation, racial discrimination, food insecurity, and healthcare access, all measured via corresponding surveys. We will then perform a two-way analysis of variance (race × training status) to assess the differences in arterial stiffness between groups. Through linear regression, we will evaluate the statistical relations between arterial stiffness and race, training status, and SDoH. Results/Anticipated Results: Our central hypothesis is that Black females will have greater arterial stiffness, by way of greater exposure to adverse SDoH, than White females, but that habitual aerobic exercise will attenuate this race difference. Ultimately, we aim to inform future clinical trials related to understanding female-specific cardiovascular disease progression. Discussion/Significance of Impact: Black females face significant exposure to adverse SDoH and have the highest rates of cardiovascular disease in the United States. However, females are still widely underrepresented in relevant research. This will be the first study to examine the roles of aerobic exercise, race, and SDoH in cardiovascular disease risk among females.

The UK's services for adult attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) are in crisis, with demand outstripping capacity and waiting times reaching unprecedented lengths. Recognition of and treatments for ADHD have expanded over the past two decades, increasing clinical demand. This issue has been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite an increase in specialist services, resource allocation has not kept pace, leading to extended waiting times. Underfunding has encouraged growth in independent providers, leading to fragmentation of service provision. Treatment delays carry a human and financial cost, imposing a burden on health, social care and the criminal justice system. A rethink of service procurement and delivery is needed, with multiple solutions on the table, including increasing funding, improving system efficiency, altering the service provision model and clinical prioritisation. However, the success of these solutions hinges on fiscal capacity and workforce issues.

Betting quotes provide valuable information on market-implied probabilities for outcomes of events such as elections or referendums, which may have an impact on exchange rates. We generate exchange-rate forecasts around such events based on a model that combines risk-neutral event probabilities implied from betting quotes with risk-neutral exchange-rate densities extracted from currency option prices. Its application to predict exchange rates around the Brexit referendum and the U.S. presidential elections shows that these forecasts, conditional on the respective outcomes, were accurate, and markets were able to separate their views on the likelihood and the impact of these events.

Collaborative quality improvement and learning networks have amended healthcare quality and value across specialities. Motivated by these successes, the Pediatric Acute Care Cardiology Collaborative (PAC3) was founded in late 2014 with an emphasis on improving outcomes of paediatric cardiology patients within cardiac acute care units; acute care encompasses all hospital-based inpatient non-intensive care. PAC3 aims to deliver higher quality and greater value care by facilitating the sharing of ideas and building alignment among its member institutions. These aims are intentionally aligned with the work of other national clinical collaborations, registries, and parent advocacy organisations. The mission and early work of PAC3 is exemplified by the formal partnership with the Pediatric Cardiac Critical Care Consortium (PC4), as well as the creation of a clinical registry, which links with the PC4 registry to track practices and outcomes across the entire inpatient encounter from admission to discharge. Capturing the full inpatient experience allows detection of outcome differences related to variation in care delivered outside the cardiac ICU and development of benchmarks for cardiac acute care. We aspire to improve patient outcomes such as morbidity, hospital length of stay, and re-admission rates, while working to advance patient and family satisfaction. We will use quality improvement methodologies consistent with the Model for Improvement to achieve these aims. Membership currently includes 36 centres across North America, out of which 26 are also members of PC4. In this report, we describe the development of PAC3, including the philosophical, organisational, and infrastructural elements that will enable a paediatric acute care cardiology learning network.

Amphiphilic diacetylenes (DAs) can self-assemble into photopolymerizable liposomes that can be used to construct effective pathogen sensors. Here, modified commercial inkjet printers are used to disperse DAs into water, facilitating self-assembly. The liposomes are of similar size, but are significantly less polydisperse than liposomes formed using conventional sonication methods. The process is efficient, readily scalable and tolerant of structural modification. The derivitization of approximately 5% of the DA head groups and the incorporation of fluorophores into the hydrophobic bilayer allows for the preparation of novel multifluorophore PDA sensing systems that can provide enhanced bacterial discrimination in a single experiment by way of a fluorescent fingerprint.

In this study, we assessed the relationship between the size of bolts cut from pin oak trees, Quercus palustris Münchhausen (Fagaceae), and eastern white pines, Pinus strobus Linnaeus (Pinaceae), and the number and body size of cerambycid beetles (Coleoptera: Cerambycidae) that develop within them. From oak bolts emerged adult Graphisurus fasciatus (De Geer) (98% of beetles) and Xylotrechus colonus (Fabricius), while pine bolts produced Monochamus carolinensis (Olivier) (95%) and Astylopsis sexguttata (Say). The number of G. fasciatus was positively correlated with the diameter of the oak bolts, while the greatest number of M. carolinensis emerged from pine bolts of intermediate diameter. Body size of both species was positively correlated with bolt diameter. Rates of parasitism were very low, only 0.9% for oaks, and averaging 5.3 ± 8.6% across pine bolts. Oak bolts yielded the braconid wasps (Hymenoptera: Braconidae) Wroughtonia ferruginea (Brues) and a species in the genus Atanycolus Förster (similar to Atanycoluscharus (Riley)), and an ichneumonid (Hymenoptera: Ichneumonidae) in the genus Demopheles Förster. Pine bolts produced a braconid in the genus Digonogastra Viereck, and the tachinid fly (Diptera: Tachinidae) Billaea monohammi (Townsend).

Proliferative enteropathy (PE; ileitis) is a common intestinal disease affecting susceptible pigs raised under various management systems around the world. Major developments in the understanding of PE and its causative agent, Lawsonia intracellularis, have occurred that have led to advances in the detection of this disease and methods to control and prevent it. Diagnostic tools that have improved overall detection and early onset of PE in pigs include various serological and molecular-based assays. Histological tests such as immunohistochemistry continue to be the gold standard in confirming Lawsonia-specific lesions in pigs post mortem. Despite extreme difficulties in isolating L. intracellularis, innovations in the cultivation and the development of pure culture challenge models, have opened doors to better characterization of the pathogenesis of PE through in vivo and in vitro L. intracellularis–host interactions. Advancements in molecular research such as the genetic sequencing of the entire Lawsonia genome have provided ways to identify various immunogens, metabolic pathways and methods for understanding the epidemiology of this organism. The determinations of immunological responsiveness in pigs to virulent and attenuated isolates of L. intracellularis and identification of various immunogens have led to progress in vaccine development.

The release of genetically engineered apple trees raises the question of their potential environmental impact, and the transfer via pollen of transgenes to cross-compatible cultivars of Malus domestica and Malus species is deemed to be the greatest source for environmental exposure. The hybrid TNR 31-35, a descendant of Malus sieversii var. sieversii f. niedzwetzkyana, carrying a homozygous, dominant gene responsible for red pigmentation in all plant parts, was used to assess gene flow in an apple scion repository of genetic resources. The red pigmentation provides a morphological marker that enables large-scale evaluation of cross-fertilization under natural conditions. In two consecutive years, 60 and then 56 apple trees of 38 different Malus domestica cultivars were selected to serve as pollen-receptor trees. In these two years, 6876 and then 5513 seeds, respectively, were gathered from pollen-receptor trees located at different distances, 2–100 m from 15 pollen-dispenser trees. In total, 11 797 seedlings were examined. An average of 1.8% and 1.4%, respectively, of all seedlings obtained showed red-colored leaves. Considering both years of sampling, 69% of the seeds fertilized by TNR 31-35 were found at less than 10 m from the nearest pollen-dispenser tree. Almost 91% of all seeds fertilized by TNR 31-35 were found at less than 60 m from the nearest pollen-dispenser tree, which is equal to 30 adjacent trees along the row. In this study, pollen was dispersed at least 104 m. After phenotypical evaluation, seedlings selected as red-colored were investigated by simple sequence repeat (SSR) analysis. Each seedling was tested with at least one heteromorphic SSR-marker, which allows the verification of TNR 31-35 as the male parent. All but four seedlings showed one allele specific for the appropriate fruiting tree and the second allele specific for the pollen-dispenser TNR 31-35.

Multi-fold stacks of In0.6Ga0.4As quantum dots embedded into a GaAs matrix were investigated by means of x-ray diffuse scattering. The measurements were done with synchrotron radiation using different diffraction geometries. Data evaluation was based on comparison with simulated distributions of x-ray diffuse scattering. For the samples under consideration ((001) surface) there is no difference in dot extension along [110] and [-110] and no directional ordering. The measurements easily allow the determination of the average indium amount in the wetting layers. Data evaluation by simulation of x-ray diffuse scattering gives an increase of Incontent from the dot bottom to the dot top.

Multi-fold stacks of In0.6Ga0.4As quantum dots embedded into a GaAs matrix were investigated by means of x-ray diffuse scattering. The measurements were done with synchrotron radiation using different diffraction geometries. Data evaluation was based on comparison with simulated distributions of x-ray diffuse scattering. For the samples under consideration ((001) surface) there is no difference in dot extension along [110] and [-110] and no directional ordering. The measurements easily allow the determination of the average indium amount in the wetting layers. Data evaluation by simulation of x-ray diffuse scattering gives an increase of Incontent from the dot bottom to the dot top.

Multi-fold stacks of In0.6Ga0.4As quantum dots embedded into a GaAs matrix were investigated by means of x-ray diffuse scattering. The measurements were done with synchrotron radiation using different diffraction geometries. Data evaluation was based on comparison with simulated distributions of x-ray diffuse scattering. For the samples under consideration ((001) surface) there is no difference in dot extension along [110] and [-110] and no directional ordering. The measurements easily allow the determination of the average indium amount in the wetting layers. Data evaluation by simulation of x-ray diffuse scattering gives an increase of Incontent from the dot bottom to the dot top.

In this paper we extend recent work on the detection of inclusions using electrostatic measurements to the problem of crack detection in a two-dimensional object. As in the inclusion case our method is based on a factorization of the difference between two Neumann-Dirichlet operators. The factorization possible in the case of cracks is much simpler than that for inclusions and the analysis is greatly simplified. However, the directional information carried by the crack makes the practical implementation of our algorithm more computationally demanding.

The strain distribution inside and in the vicinity of coherently strained self-organized islands has been investigated by high-resolution x-ray diffraction (HRXRD). Finite element method (FEM) calculations were carried out in order to calculate the strain field, which was then used to simulate x-ray reciprocal space maps on the basis of kinematical scattering theory. For Si0 75Ge0.25 islands an abrupt increase in the Ge-concentration at about one third of the island height has been found. This behavior can be attributed to different nucleation stages during growth. Highly strained buried CdSe quantum dots (QDs) strongly influence the surrounding ZnSe matrix. From reciprocal space maps and FEM simulations we were able to estimate the shape and size of the islands. The results are in agreement with transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and UHV atomic force microscopy (AFM) data.