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The ‘Landscapes of Production and Punishment’ project aims to examine how convict labour from 1830–1877 affected the built and natural landscapes of the Tasman Peninsula, as well as the lives of the convicts themselves.

A considerable loss of nitrogen occurred across the rumen when fresh New Zealand herbages were fed to sheep and live-weight gain of grazing sheep was positively correlated with predicted absorption of amino acids from the small intestine (MacRae and Ulyatt, 1974). This suggests that body growth of young sheep fed some fresh herbages ad libitum may be limited by protein absorption being low in relation to metabolizable energy (ME). The present experiment was designed to test this hypothesis, with special reference to body tissue protein deposition and metabolism, using a diet of ryegrass/white clover pasture.

We present techniques developed to calibrate and correct Murchison Widefield Array low-frequency (72–300 MHz) radio observations for polarimetry. The extremely wide field-of-view, excellent instantaneous (u, v)-coverage and sensitivity to degree-scale structure that the Murchison Widefield Array provides enable instrumental calibration, removal of instrumental artefacts, and correction for ionospheric Faraday rotation through imaging techniques. With the demonstrated polarimetric capabilities of the Murchison Widefield Array, we discuss future directions for polarimetric science at low frequencies to answer outstanding questions relating to polarised source counts, source depolarisation, pulsar science, low-mass stars, exoplanets, the nature of the interstellar and intergalactic media, and the solar environment.

OBJECTIVES/SPECIFIC AIMS: The Rockefeller University-Center for Clinical and Translational Science and Clinical Directors Network (RU-CCTS/CDN) community-academic-partnership engaged with Carter Burden Center for the Aging (CBCA), a multisite senior community services organization serving Upper Eastside and East Harlem, NY, to develop community-engaged research. Many seniors served by CBCA are racial/ethnic minorities, live in poverty, suffer from multiple chronic conditions, depression, and food insecurity; there is no simple measure routinely used to characterize the health/health risks of program participants. Multiple biological, musculoskeletal, psychosocial and nutritional factors collectively contribute to frailty a construct that is variously defined, and has been used as a surrogate or predictor for health outcomes. Aim 1: We will engage seniors, CBCA leadership, New York City Department for the Aging, staff and other stakeholders in research priority-setting, joint protocol writing, research conduct, analysis and dissemination to cultivate a population of elder stakeholders interested in designing and participating in this and future research. Aim 2: We will characterize the health status of the resident and nonresident populations by collecting data across 3 sessions to include validated cardio-metabolic, musculoskeletal, chronic condition prevalence, quality of life, psychosocial, and nutritional assessments. METHODS/STUDY POPULATION: Stakeholders will be engaged through the process of Community Engaged Research Navigation and a series of meetings and exercises to refine priorities and research design, co-write the protocol, provide feedback on conduct, analyze and disseminate results of the project. RESULTS/ANTICIPATED RESULTS: Outcomes will include rates of participation and retention in assessments and engagement activities, themes from qualitative research, contributions to study design, placement of aims on the T0-T48 spectrum, social network analysis, classification of engagement on the spectrum of Community-based Participatory Research (CBPR) and partnership assessment. The primary outcome is frailty (6-minute walk test); We will examine associations among these measures with services utilization data captured electronically by CBCA. A key deliverable of this project will be a REDCap data capture platform that integrates and displays these measures that will be sustainable for CBCA. DISCUSSION/SIGNIFICANCE OF IMPACT: This practice-based research partnership will allow us to extract, replicate and extend the lessons learned about engaging stakeholders in generating hypotheses, operationalizing research, collecting and analyzing data, and disseminating results. The collaboration is built around generating and testing rigorous clinical an health services hypotheses that are derived from real-world practice-based needs and also incorporate basic science measures to embed and examine mechanistic hypotheses. Testing a simple to implement validated surrogate frailty measure will accelerate progress on evidence-based practices to test interventions that enhance healthy aging and serve as a model for future similar partnerships to form a network for community-based senior research. This work aligns with the RU-CCTS grant Hub Research goal to engage populations across the life span, including hard-to-reach and underserved populations, such as minority seniors.

It is commonly assumed in affluent, Western, democratic societies that by enhancing opportunities for choice, we enhance freedom and well-being, both by enabling people to get exactly what they want and by enabling people to express their identities. In this paper, we review evidence that the relationships between choice, freedom, and well-being are complex. The value of choice in itself may depend on culture, and even in cultural contexts that value choice, too much choice can lead to paralysis, bad decisions, and dissatisfaction with even good decisions. Policy-makers are often in a position to enhance well-being by limiting choice. We suggest five questions that policy-makers should be asking themselves when they consider promulgating policies that will limit choice in the service of enhanced well-being. The relationships between choice, freedom, and well-being are not simple, and an appreciation of their complexity may help policy-makers target their interventions more effectively.

The entire series of Durchmusterung (DM) catalogs (Bonner, Southern, Córdoba, Cape Photographic) has been computerized through a collaborative effort among institutions and individuals in France and the United States of America. Complete verification of the data, both manually and by computer, the inclusion of all supplemental stars (represented by lower case letters), complete representation of all numerical data, and a consistent format for all catalogs, should make this collection of machine-readable data a valuable addition to digitized astronomical archives.

The Murchison Widefield Array is a new low-frequency interferometric radio telescope built in Western Australia at one of the locations of the future Square Kilometre Array. We describe the automated radio-frequency interference detection strategy implemented for the Murchison Widefield Array, which is based on the aoflagger platform, and present 72–231 MHz radio-frequency interference statistics from 10 observing nights. Radio-frequency interference detection removes 1.1% of the data. Radio-frequency interference from digital TV is observed 3% of the time due to occasional ionospheric or atmospheric propagation. After radio-frequency interference detection and excision, almost all data can be calibrated and imaged without further radio-frequency interference mitigation efforts, including observations within the FM and digital TV bands. The results are compared to a previously published Low-Frequency Array radio-frequency interference survey. The remote location of the Murchison Widefield Array results in a substantially cleaner radio-frequency interference environment compared to Low-Frequency Array’s radio environment, but adequate detection of radio-frequency interference is still required before data can be analysed. We include specific recommendations designed to make the Square Kilometre Array more robust to radio-frequency interference, including: the availability of sufficient computing power for radio-frequency interference detection; accounting for radio-frequency interference in the receiver design; a smooth band-pass response; and the capability of radio-frequency interference detection at high time and frequency resolution (second and kHz-scale respectively).

The influence of annealing ambient conditions and deposited passivation materials on indium-gallium-zinc-oxide (IGZO) thin-film transistor (TFT) performance is investigated. Results from annealing experiments confirm that a nominal exposure to oxidizing ambient conditions is required, which is a function of temperature, time and gas environment. Nitrogen anneal with a controlled air ramp-down provided the best performance devices with a mobility (µsat) of 11-13 cm2/V·s and subthreshold slope (SS) of 135-200 mV/dec, with some hysteresis. Plasma-deposited passivation materials including sputtered quartz and PECVD SiO2 demonstrated a significant increase in material conductivity, which was not significantly reversible by an oxidizing ambient anneal. E-beam evaporated Al2O3 passivated devices that were annealed in air at 400 °C demonstrated improved stability over time and suppressed hysteresis in comparison to unpassivated devices. Devices which were passivated with B-staged bisbenzocyclobutene-based (BCB) resins and annealed in air at 250 °C also exhibited suppressed hysteresis.

The impact of community-associated Clostridium difficile infection (CA-CDI) on patients with spinal cord injuries and disorders (SCI/Ds) is not fully understood. We examined CA-CDI cases among veterans with SCI/D, comparing them with community-onset, healthcare facility-associated (CO-HCFA) cases. Generally, patients with CA-CDI had less comorbidity, less severe CDI, and lower likelihood of antibiotic exposure.

Active surveillance to identify asymptomatic carriers of carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae (CRE) is a recommended strategy for CRE control in healthcare facilities. Active surveillance using stool specimens tested for Clostridium difficile is a relatively low-cost strategy to detect CRE carriers. Further evaluation of this and other risk factor-based active surveillance strategies is warranted.

A whole-farm, stochastic and dynamic simulation model was developed to predict biophysical and economic performance of grazing dairy systems. Several whole-farm models simulate grazing dairy systems, but most of them work at a herd level. This model, named e-Dairy, differs from the few models that work at an animal level, because it allows stochastic behaviour of the genetic merit of individual cows for several traits, namely, yields of milk, fat and protein, live weight (LW) and body condition score (BCS) within a whole-farm model. This model accounts for genetic differences between cows, is sensitive to genotype × environment interactions at an animal level and allows pasture growth, milk and supplements price to behave stochastically. The model includes an energy-based animal module that predicts intake at grazing, mammary gland functioning and body lipid change. This whole-farm model simulates a 365-day period for individual cows within a herd, with cow parameters randomly generated on the basis of the mean parameter values, defined as input and variance and co-variances from experimental data sets. The main inputs of e-Dairy are farm area, use of land, type of pasture, type of crops, monthly pasture growth rate, supplements offered, nutritional quality of feeds, herd description including herd size, age structure, calving pattern, BCS and LW at calving, probabilities of pregnancy, average genetic merit and economic values for items of income and costs. The model allows to set management policies to define: dry-off cows (ceasing of lactation), target pre- and post-grazing herbage mass and feed supplementation. The main outputs are herbage dry matter intake, annual pasture utilisation, milk yield, changes in BCS and LW, economic farm profit and return on assets. The model showed satisfactory accuracy of prediction when validated against two data sets from farmlet system experiments. Relative prediction errors were <10% for all variables, and concordance correlation coefficients over 0.80 for annual pasture utilisation, yields of milk and milk solids (MS; fat plus protein), and of 0.69 and 0.48 for LW and BCS, respectively. A simulation of two contrasting dairy systems is presented to show the practical use of the model. The model can be used to explore the effects of feeding level and genetic merit and their interactions for grazing dairy systems, evaluating the trade-offs between profit and the associated risk.

We describe an investigation of 3 postoperative Gordonia bronchialis sternal infections. A nurse anesthetist was identified as the source of the outbreak, her scrubs likely becoming contaminated by her home washing machine. The outbreak ended after disposal of the implicated washing machine. Domestic laundering of surgical scrubs may need reevaluation.