Contrasting effects of shooting disturbance on the movement and behavior of sympatric wildfowl species.

Human-wildlife conflict is a global conservation issue, necessitating effective mitigation strategies. Hunting is a common management approach to reduce conflict, but the indirect consequences are often overlooked. Chronic hunting-related disturbance can reduce fitness and redistribute species.

Peer mentor contributions to an early intervention vocational rehabilitation specialist service following trauma: A qualitative study.

Background: Peer mentors have a role in facilitating the participation, health and well-being of people who have had a traumatic injury. Few studies have explored the involvement of peer mentors in an early intervention vocational rehabilitation (EIVR) service following trauma.

Objective: This study aimed to explore the experience of implementing peer support within the context of an EIVR service from the perspectives of the peer mentors themselves, the vocational therapists supervising them, and the patients that received peer mentoring.

Assessing human carcinogenicity risk of agrochemicals without the rodent cancer bioassay.

The rodent cancer bioassays are conducted for agrochemical safety assessment yet they often do not inform regulatory decision-making. As part of a collaborative effort, the Rethinking Carcinogenicity Assessment for Agrochemicals Project (ReCAAP) developed a reporting framework to guide a weight of evidence (WOE)-based carcinogenicity assessment that demonstrates how to fulfill the regulatory requirements for chronic risk estimation without the need to conduct lifetime rodent bioassays. The framework is the result of a multi-stakeholder collaboration that worked through an iterative process of writing case studies (in the form of waivers), technical peer reviews of waivers, and an incorporation of key learnings back into the framework to be tested in subsequent case study development.

Nanoscale Three-Dimensional Imaging of Integrated Circuits Using a Scanning Electron Microscope and Transition-Edge Sensor Spectrometer.

X-ray nanotomography is a powerful tool for the characterization of nanoscale materials and structures, but it is difficult to implement due to the competing requirements of X-ray flux and spot size. Due to this constraint, state-of-the-art nanotomography is predominantly performed at large synchrotron facilities. We present a laboratory-scale nanotomography instrument that achieves nanoscale spatial resolution while addressing the limitations of conventional tomography tools.

A new paradigm for regulatory sciences.

Regulatory science, rooted in legal requirements, provides a mechanism for identifying, assessing, and managing harm to humans and the environment from exposure to hazardous substances. A challenge for regulatory authorities is that many governing laws reflect the scientific paradigm of the mid-20th century. By the nature of legislative processes, most laws are not able to readily adapt to incorporate scientific advances that are inherent in an ever-evolving paradigm.

The psychosocial impact of childhood dementia on children and their parents: a systematic review.

Background: Childhood dementias are a group of rare and ultra-rare paediatric conditions clinically characterised by enduring global decline in central nervous system function, associated with a progressive loss of developmentally acquired skills, quality of life and shortened life expectancy. Traditional research, service development and advocacy efforts have been fragmented due to a focus on individual disorders, or groups classified by specific mechanisms or molecular pathogenesis. There are significant knowledge and clinician skill gaps regarding the shared psychosocial impacts of childhood dementia conditions.

Conservation implications of a mismatch between data availability and demographic impact.

Cost-effective use of limited conservation resources requires understanding which data most contribute to alleviating biodiversity declines. Interventions might reasonably prioritise life-cycle transitions with the greatest influence on population dynamics, yet some contributing vital rates are particularly challenging to document. This risks managers making decisions without sufficient empirical coverage of the spatiotemporal variation experienced by the species.

Differing drivers of decline within a migratory metapopulation has implications for future conservation.

Researchers generally ascribe demographic drivers in a single sub-population and presume they are representative. With this information, practitioners implement blanket conservation measures across metapopulations to reverse declines. However, such approaches may not be appropriate in circumstances where sub-populations are spatiotemporally segregated and exposed to different environmental variation.

Proof-of-Principle Experiment for Testing Strong-Field Quantum Electrodynamics with Exotic Atoms: High Precision X-Ray Spectroscopy of Muonic Neon.

To test bound-state quantum electrodynamics (BSQED) in the strong-field regime, we have performed high precision x-ray spectroscopy of the 5g-4f and 5f- 4d transitions (BSQED contribution of 2.4 and 5.2 eV, respectively) of muonic neon atoms in the low-pressure gas phase without bound electrons.

Challenges and opportunities for overcoming dog use in agrochemical evaluation and registration.

Progress in developing new tools, assays, and approaches to assess human hazard and health risk provides an opportunity to re-evaluate the necessity of dog studies for the safety evaluation of agrochemicals. A workshop was held where partic­ipants discussed the strengths and limitations of past use of dogs for pesticide evaluations and registrations. Opportunities were identified to support alternative approaches to answer human safety questions without performing the required 90-day dog study.

SLAC microresonator RF (SMuRF) electronics: A tone-tracking readout system for superconducting microwave resonator arrays.

We describe the newest generation of the SLAC Microresonator RF (SMuRF) electronics, a warm digital control and readout system for microwave-frequency resonator-based cryogenic detector and multiplexer systems, such as microwave superconducting quantum interference device multiplexers (μmux) or microwave kinetic inductance detectors. Ultra-sensitive measurements in particle physics and astronomy increasingly rely on large arrays of cryogenic sensors, which in turn necessitate highly multiplexed readout and accompanying room-temperature electronics. Microwave-frequency resonators are a popular tool for cryogenic multiplexing, with the potential to multiplex thousands of detector channels on one readout line.

Time-varying effects of local weather on behavior and probability of breeding deferral in two Arctic-nesting goose populations.

Arctic-nesting geese face energetic challenges during spring migration, including ecological barriers and weather conditions (e.g., precipitation and temperature), which in long-lived species can lead to a trade-off to defer reproduction in favor of greater survival.

Towards achieving a modern science-based paradigm for agrochemical carcinogenicity assessment.

The rodent cancer bioassay has been the standard approach to fulfill regulatory requirements for assessing human carcinogenic potential of agrochemicals, food additives, industrial chemicals, and pharmaceuticals. Decades of research have described the limitations of the rodent cancer bioassay leading to international initiatives to seek alternatives and establish approaches that modernize carcinogenicity assessment. Biologically relevant approaches can provide mechanistic information and increased efficiency for evaluating hazard and risk of chemical carcinogenicity to humans.

Transforming the evaluation of agrochemicals.

The present agrochemical safety evaluation paradigm is long-standing and anchored in well-established testing and evaluation procedures. However, it does not meet the present-day challenges of rapidly growing populations, food insecurity, and pressures from climate change. To transform the current framework and apply modern evaluation strategies that better support sustainable agriculture, the Health and Environmental Sciences Institute (HESI) assembled a technical committee to reframe the safety evaluation of crop-protection products.

PA clinical postgraduate training: A half-century of development.

Clinical postgraduate training (CPGT) for physician assistants (PAs) began in 1971. A half-century later, the United States has 144 programs in 33 specialties. A growing and aging population, specialization in healthcare, and changes in graduate medical education have created new opportunities for PAs to consider this alternative following graduation.

Rethinking chronic toxicity and carcinogenicity assessment for agrochemicals project (ReCAAP): A reporting framework to support a weight of evidence safety assessment without long-term rodent bioassays.

Rodent cancer bioassays have been long-required studies for regulatory assessment of human cancer hazard and risk. These studies use hundreds of animals, are resource intensive, and certain aspects of these studies have limited human relevance. The past 10 years have seen an exponential growth of new technologies with the potential to effectively evaluate human cancer hazard and risk while reducing, refining, or replacing animal use.

Assessing chemical carcinogenicity: hazard identification, classification, and risk assessment. Insight from a Toxicology Forum state-of-the-science workshop.

The Toxicology Forum convened an international state-of-the-science workshop in December 2020. Challenges related to assessing chemical carcinogenicity were organized under the topics of (1) problem formulation; (2) modes-of-action; (3) dose-response assessment; and (4) the use of new approach methodologies (NAMs). Key topics included the mechanisms of genotoxic and non-genotoxic carcinogenicity and how these in conjunction with consideration of exposure conditions might inform dose-response assessments and an overall risk assessment; approaches to evaluate the human relevance of modes-of-action observed in rodent studies; and the characterization of uncertainties.

Axion Dark Matter Experiment: Detailed design and operations.

Axion dark matter experiment ultra-low noise haloscope technology has enabled the successful completion of two science runs (1A and 1B) that looked for dark matter axions in the 2.66-3.1 μeV mass range with Dine-Fischler-Srednicki-Zhitnisky sensitivity [Du et al.

Improved Constraints on Primordial Gravitational Waves using Planck, WMAP, and BICEP/Keck Observations through the 2018 Observing Season.

We present results from an analysis of all data taken by the BICEP2, Keck Array, and BICEP3 CMB polarization experiments up to and including the 2018 observing season. We add additional Keck Array observations at 220 GHz and BICEP3 observations at 95 GHz to the previous 95/150/220  GHz dataset. The Q/U maps now reach depths of 2.

Deexcitation Dynamics of Muonic Atoms Revealed by High-Precision Spectroscopy of Electronic K X Rays.

We observed electronic K x rays emitted from muonic iron atoms using superconducting transition-edge sensor microcalorimeters. The energy resolution of 5.2 eV in FWHM allowed us to observe the asymmetric broad profile of the electronic characteristic Kα and Kβ x rays together with the hypersatellite K^{h}α x rays around 6 keV.

Absolute energies and emission line shapes of the L x-ray transitions of lanthanide metals.

We use an array of transition-edge sensors, cryogenic microcalorimeters with 4 eV energy resolution, to measure L x-ray emission-line profiles of four elements of the lanthanide series: praseodymium, neodymium, terbium, and holmium. The spectrometer also surveys numerous x-ray standards in order to establish an absolute-energy calibration traceable to the international system of units for the energy range 4 keV to 10 keV. The new results include emission line profiles for 97 lines, each expressed as a sum of one or more Voigt functions; improved absolute energy uncertainty on 71 of these lines relative to existing reference data; a median uncertainty on the peak energy of 0.

Efficient and Low-Backaction Quantum Measurement Using a Chip-Scale Detector.

Superconducting qubits are a leading platform for scalable quantum computing and quantum error correction. One feature of this platform is the ability to perform projective measurements orders of magnitude more quickly than qubit decoherence times. Such measurements are enabled by the use of quantum-limited parametric amplifiers in conjunction with ferrite circulators-magnetic devices which provide isolation from noise and decoherence due to amplifier backaction.