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The 14th International Topical Meeting on Nuclear Applications of Accelerators (AccApp'21) was held in 2021 as an embedded topical meeting during the ANS Winter Meeting in Washington, D.C. The conference aimed to promote accelerator-based research and development and covered various research topics, including accelerator facilities, nuclear data, medical applications, and industrial applications. A total of 120 abstracts were submitted, and 105 presentations were given. The conference faced challenges due to the COVID-19 pandemic but was successful with the support of participants and sponsors. The conference proceedings were published in Nuclear Science and Engineering (NSE). [Extracted from the article]

Polyethylene (PE) mulches are widely used in strawberry (Fragaria × ananassa Duch) production for weed suppression and crop growth optimization. However, PE mulches are not biodegradable and contribute to plastic pollution. Our objective was to develop and test biodegradable liquid-applied 'hydromulches' (HMs) as a sustainable alternative to PE mulch. HM weed suppression efficacy, strawberry plant growth, and yield were evaluated. HMformulations consisted of shredded newsprint paper (NP), water, and a tackifier, either guar gum (GG) or psyllium husk (PH) added at 2 or 6%. Experiments were conducted at two environmentally distinct locations: northwest Washington (WA) and eastern North Dakota (ND). Five HM formulations were compared to black PEmulch within a randomized complete block design with four replications. PEmulch suppressed weeds completely at peak weed emergence and peak weed vegetative growth at both locations. Formulations of HM containing GG provided superior weed suppression compared to other HM formulations at peak weed emergence (4-6 vs. 18-22 plants m-2, respectively). At peak vegetative growth, HM formulations containing GG had the lowest weed density compared to other HMs in ND (1 vs. 9-12 plants m-2), whereas these differences were not observed in WA. Total weed biomass did not differ among HMs across both locations. GG HM formulations deteriorated similarly to PE mulch (3-5% vs. 2%, respectively) in ND, whereas other HMs deteriorated more substantially. In WA, all HMs deterioratedmore than PEmulch (6-12% vs. 1%, respectively). Fruit yield did not differ among treatments inweedy and weed-free subplots (194-254 g plant-1) inWA. In ND, yield was greater in all HM treatments compared to PE mulch in both weedy andweed-free subplots. Across both locations, strawberry canopy coverwas greater in PE mulch (56.1% canopy cover) compared to 2%GG and NP (42.4 and 39.8% canopy cover). Strawberry plant biomass was similar among mulch treatments. However, strawberry leaf and crown biomass were slightly lower in 2%PH compared to other mulch treatments. Results demonstrate HMs with GG tackifier are a promising alternative to PE mulch in organic strawberry systems based on ability to suppress weeds, enhance strawberry growth, and maintain yield. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The equitable distribution of docked bikeshare is an important issue for transportation decision-makers. Gini coefficients and Lorenz curves can be used to study transportation inequality. This study used these methods to achieve three outcomes. First, this study identified a gap in bikeshare equity literature and provided a more nuanced measure of bikeshare supply to better evaluate how well bikeshare meets demand. Second, the updated measure of distributional equity was used to evaluate bikeshare equity in Washington, DC. Third, using historical trip data, the Gini coefficient calculations indicated which trip types are better served. Comparison of the results highlighted a potential conflict in program goals: equity versus supporting existing bikeshare members. Policy feedback may bias this trade-off in favor of members, reinforcing spatial inequalities. Overall, this paper further demonstrated how Gini coefficients and Lorenz curves can be useful tools for evaluating inequality in transportation systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of European Journal of Development Research is the property of Palgrave Macmillan Ltd. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Evaporation from water surfaces is influencing many environmental science processes. Evaporation from pan data is not available as the most well-known method of determining evaporation in many areas, and therefore, the application of experimental mathematical equations in this field is considered. Most of the data for extracting these equations did not belong to cold regions, and as a result, the accuracy of these equations in cold regions has low reliability. In this study, the equations of Trabert (Meteorol Z 13:261–263, 1896), Kohler (Tech Rep Geol Survey Prof Paper 269:127–148, 1954), Kohler et al. (Evaporation from pans and lakes, US Government Printing Office, Washington, 1955), Papadakis (Soil Sci 93:76, 1961), Ântal (Evapotranspiration from com field. Term paper submitted for Dr. R. F. Dale's Agronomy 537 class. Received from personal communication with Dr. Dale (Dept. of Agronomy, Purdue, 1973), Linacre (Agric Meteorol 18:409–424, 1977), Linacre (Water Int 19:5–14, 1994) in Two default and revised modes (14 equations in total) have been used to determine evaporation in cold regions (Emberger climate classifications). Performance index (PI) as an error metric was used to analyze the efficiency of the equations. Findings show that in the absence of proper datasets for revision, Kohler et al. (Evaporation from pans and lakes, US Government Printing Office, Washington, 1955) and Papadakis (Soil Sci 93:76, 1961) equations are more proper options for determining evaporation in cold regions. The revision process increased the efficiency of all equations, with the slightest improvement for Papadakis (Soil Sci 93:76, 1961) and the most improvement for Trabert (Meteorol Z 13:261–263, 1896). According to the behavior of Papadakis (Soil Sci 93:76, 1961) equation in the revision process and its efficiency in both default and revision modes, it can be considered a firm equation in the cold region. The findings reveal that the revised equations have little efficiency difference. It indicates that in cold regions, the influence of the default parameters of the equations on efficiency is more significant than their mathematical formula of the equation. Also, the revision has led to Trabert (Meteorol Z 13:261–263, 1896) equation with relatively good results due to less relative flexibility than other equations. Therefore, it can be concluded that the essential factor to increase the reliability of the application of experimental mathematical equations in determining evaporation from the pan is the use of revised equations with data from cold regions. In addition, among all the equations studied, the revised Kohler et al. (Evaporation from pans and lakes, US Government Printing Office, Washington, 1955) equation was recognized as the most efficient equation for determining evaporation from the pan in the cold regions studied. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper evaluates a congestion management concept involving conversion of two existing general-purpose freeway lanes per direction on an 8-lane freeway (with 4 lanes per direction) to priced lanes offering free access for high-occupancy vehicles, in conjunction with cash payments to incentivize a sufficient number of commuters to travel as passengers in transit, carpools or vanpools such that congestion on the remaining free lanes would be no worse than it was before the conversion. Building on prior research, we use a refined modeling process to explore the viability of implementation of the concept on the eastern segment of the Capital Beltway in the Washington, DC metro area. The results of the analysis suggest that the strategy can benefit users of shared travel modes and toll-payers, improve travel speeds on toll-free general-purpose lanes, generate significant surplus revenues to support capital investments and operating subsidies for shared travel modes, and can absorb traffic growth through 2040. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Handwritten Text Recognition (HTR) is a challenging task due to the complex structures and variations present in handwritten text. In recent years, the application of gated mechanisms, such as Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) networks, has brought significant advancements to HTR systems. This paper presents an overview of HTR using a gated mechanism and highlights its novelty and advantages. The gated mechanism enables the model to capture long-term dependencies, retain relevant context, handle variable length sequences, mitigate error propagation, and adapt to contextual variations. The pipeline involves preprocessing the handwritten text images, extracting features, modeling the sequential dependencies using the gated mechanism, and decoding the output into readable text. The training process utilizes annotated datasets and optimization techniques to minimize transcription discrepancies. HTR using a gated mechanism has found applications in digitizing historical documents, automatic form processing, and real-time transcription. The results show improved accuracy and robustness compared to traditional HTR approaches. The advancements in HTR using a gated mechanism open up new possibilities for effectively recognizing and transcribing handwritten text in various domains. This research does a better job than the most recent iteration of the HTR system when compared to five different handwritten datasets (Washington, Saint Gall, RIMES, Bentham and IAM). Smartphones and robots are examples of low-cost computing devices that can benefit from this research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research has demonstrated children in out-of-home care have experienced trauma and a significant proportion are in need of behavioral health services (e.g. Casaneuva et al., NSCAW II baseline report: Child well-being, US Department of Health and Human Services, Washington, DC, 2011). Accessing services requires interagency coordination between child welfare and behavioral health professionals; however, challenges to coordination and collaboration may result in lack of service utilization for many youth (Hanson et al. 2016). Utilizing a mixed methodological approach, this paper describes the results of a study conducted five years after full state-wide implementation of processes designed to promote the use of evidence-based practices to inform decision-making for youth dually served by the child welfare and behavioral health systems. Outcomes from the study were used to develop strategies to address programmatic concerns and reinforce implementation supports. Study findings may aid organizations seeking to reinforce data-informed practices and employ strategies for addressing barriers at the worker and agency level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on the archive of the Washington Female Orphan Asylum, founded in 1815, and places the study of philanthropy in conversation with scholarship on the archive in histories of slavery, colonization, and trauma. It argues, first, that philanthropic and reform institutions such as the asylum were domestic sites of empire and that their archives reveal the reach of statecraft into the intimate lives of women and families. The article explores, second, the role of emotion in archival research, which can highlight an archive's construction and its silences. The relinquishments within the asylum's records provoke emotion; as fragmentary evidence, they testify to trauma and demand the historian's care. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Conservation planners often rely on heuristic indices when challenged with prioritizing potential projects under a constrained budget. This paper presents a comparative analysis of several prioritization indices (PIs) of culvert fish passage barriers, which can contribute to declines in anadromous fish populations. A federal injunction requires Washington state to restore 90% of habitat blocked by state‐owned culverts by 2030, prompting the development of numerous PIs, by various entities (i.e., counties, cities) within the injunction area. Our comparative analysis of PIs within the injunction Case Area investigates their ability to distinguish between barriers, their transferability in terms of scoring metrics, how scoring weights differ, and the preferences implied thereby. We document the use of six distinct PI methods by 10 entities and find that some PIs used many shared metrics, whereas others used a high percentage of unique metrics that would be difficult to replicate outside the entity's jurisdiction. Although habitat potential, habitat quantity, and connectivity were considered across all PIs, we found a high level of variation in terms of the metric weights. Our methods can be employed in other geographies or for other restoration PI planning efforts, and our results may facilitate the development and refinement of future PIs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article introduces the latest issue of Public Works Management and Policy, which covers a range of topics related to infrastructure and public policy. The first paper examines corruption in infrastructure development and proposes measures to mitigate it. The second paper focuses on how coastal counties in the southeastern United States are planning for sea level rise, emphasizing the importance of robust risk management. The third paper analyzes New Orleans' Adopt-A-Catch Basin Program and highlights the need for better communication and stakeholder involvement. The fourth paper explores the perceptions of farmers who have experience with automated technology and their implications for autonomous vehicles. The final paper evaluates a congestion management concept for the Capital Beltway in Washington, DC. The issue concludes with a book review. [Extracted from the article]

The pioneering work of Getis and Ord on local spatial statistics has a counterpart in spatial econometrics in treating spatial heterogeneity. This can be approached from a continuous or a discrete perspective. In a discrete perspective, referred to as spatial regimes, the coefficients vary by discrete subregions of the data. Whereas the estimation of spatial regime regressions is well understood, the delineation of the regimes themselves remains a topic of active interest. Generally speaking, two broad classes of methods can be distinguished, one in which the delineation is carried out separately from the coefficient estimation and one where the two are tightly integrated. Tightly integrated approaches are referred to as endogenous spatial regimes. A number of different methods have been suggested in the literature, including finite mixture models, GWR-based methods, and penalized regression. One drawback of regime delineation is that the results do not necessarily satisfy a spatial contiguity constraint, i.e., observations are grouped despite not being spatially connected. In this paper, we outline a heuristic to determine the spatial regimes endogenously, as an extension of the well-known SKATER algorithm for spatially constrained clustering. This guarantees that the resulting regimes consist of contiguous observations. We outline the method and apply it in the context of the determination of housing submarkets, which is represented by rich literature in applied spatial econometrics. We use a well-known Kaggle data set as the empirical example, which contains observations on house sales in King County, Washington. We compare the estimation of a hedonic house price model using the endogenous spatial regimes approach to a range of more traditional methods, including pooled regression, the use of administrative districts, data-driven regimes based on a-spatial and spatial clustering of explanatory variables, and finite mixture regression. We evaluate the results in terms of fit and assess the trade-offs between the spatial and a-spatial approaches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The NoMA Business Improvement District (BID) is one of Washington DC's fastest developing areas and has one of the city's largest concentrations of unhoused tent camps, many of which are located in underpasses that provide bits of protection and privacy. These underpasses were created during DC's City Beautiful Movement and have been the site of neoliberal antihomeless strategies. In this paper I explore the production of space in the NoMA area and how property owners, business associations, and government actors sanitized public space for wealthy newcomers while excluding poor and unhoused residents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper attempts to develop statistical modeling for air-conditioning analysis in Jakarta, Indonesia, during an emergency state of community activity restrictions enforcement (Emergency CARE), using a variety of parameters such as PM10, PM2.5, SO2, CO, O3, and NO2 from five IoT-based air monitoring systems. The parameters mentioned above are critical for assessing the air quality conditions and concentration of air pollutants. Outdoor air pollution concentration variations before and after the Emergency CARE, which was held in Indonesia during the COVID-19 pandemic on July 3-21, 2021, were studied. An air quality monitoring system based on the IoT generates sensor data that is collected from a government-integrated data portal, and that can be analyzed statistically. There are two main types of ANOVA (Analysis of Variance): one-way (or unidirectional) and two-way, which are applied to the collected sensor data and hypotheses calculated using ANOVA. ANOVA one-way was found to be more effective for analyzing air quality condition data. During emergency CARE, the average concentrations of PM10, PM2.5, and O3 from the air quality monitoring system show values that have exceeded the standard Air Quality Index (AQI), while the concentrations of CO, NO2, and SO2 are still below the applicable AQI values. It stated that air pollution in Jakarta worsened during the implementation of Emergency CARE. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Student-staffed behavioral health clinics may increase low-cost access to mental health services, but there is a need to assess these models. This retrospective study evaluates the effect of a community-based, nonprofit, and student-staffed mental health program on adult clients' depression, anxiety, and global distress to determine if this program model improves outcomes. Method: Historical, de-identified client demographic and Brief Symptom Inventory (BSI) data (n = 627) was evaluated using paired sample t -tests to determine the effectiveness of treatment from graduate students working at a community mental health clinic. Results: As clients progressed in therapy, their depression, anxiety, and overall global severity index significantly improved. Over the course of treatment, there was an 18% decrease in the number of clients presenting with clinically relevant scores. Discussion: It is recommended that community-based student-staffed behavioral health clinics be considered as they have the potential to provide effective, low-cost services for many in need. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The recently revised NAEYC position papers and the fourth edition of NAEYC's Developmentally Appropriate Guidelines (NAEYC. 2022. Developmentally Appropriate Practice in Early Childhood Programs: ServingChildren from Birth Through Age 8, edited by S. Friedman, 4th ed. Washington: National Association for the Education of Young Children) focus on children's strengths and diversity, and the need for equitable opportunities in early childhood programmes. We applaud these recent shifts. Yet previous ideas of risk, abnormality and inappropriateness are still embedded in the document, with still hidden, and negative, consequences for children, their families and communities, and for the educators and programmes that serve them. Drawing on critiques of developmentalism, the ideas of postdevelopmentalism and the framework of governmentality, we engage in a dialogue between an early career teacher educator and long-time advocate for DAP change and explore the control DAP has over early childhood education programmes. Despite claims that the fourth edition is too 'woke', we challenge educators and organisations in the USA (and elsewhere) to move away from the past and current approaches that still focus on children as innocent and in need of protection, as well as normal (and therefore, abnormal) childhood(s) – and to open up towards an education that is more fluid, one that focuses on children's diverse strengths, unimagined interests and as-yet-unknown possibilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Surrounding the passage of the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906, government chemist Harvey Washington Wiley and the Bureau of Chemistry at the Department of Agriculture conducted experiments in Washington, D.C., on food adulteration. Contributing to new urban histories of science and focusing on how Wiley saw adulteration as an urban conundrum, this article shows how D.C.'s longstanding status as a "model city" allowed Wiley and the Bureau to use the city, somewhat paradoxically, as both a laboratory for studying toxic urbanity and as a representation of a healthy urban ideal. As D.C.'s population grew dramatically at the turn of the century, Wiley's science mirrored the unease he associated with urban growth, deception, and food adulteration. Wiley promoted an ethic of authenticity as part of an antimodernist or nostalgic modernist science that sought to quell the epidemic of deception that ravaged food production, science, and the American city. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the early 1900s, Washington, D.C. contained many alleys in the interior of blocks inhabited by impoverished Black residents. Elite reformers engaged in an aggressive campaign to eliminate alleys, on the grounds of their purported unsanitary environment and high disease prevalence. In this paper, I combine quantitative, qualitative, and spatial sources to explore new perspectives on segregation, public health, and the racialized efforts of housing reformers during this period. I find that reformers overstated the horrors of conditions in alleys and their effects on residents' health: poorer health among alley residents was in large part due to Black residents' marginalization wherever they might live. Alleys' status as racialized space, coupled with progressive paternalistic racism, facilitated the discursive construction of alleys as pathological "breeding grounds of disease." Further, my findings shed new light on micro-configurations of segregation within racially mixed neighborhoods, as well as the social experience and meaning of such configurations. Far from indicating harmonious coexistence, the proximity of such alleys to white homes and institutions spurred elite Washingtonians' self-interested fear of disease spreading beyond the alleys. Thus, this pattern of segregation helps explain the zeal of the campaign to eradicate alleys: as a means of achieving separation from undesired Black neighbors whom white reformers associated with contagion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Papers in the Special Section on Racial Disparities in Health Care stemmed from. the 60th Anniversary of Family Process Conference, The Heart of the Matter: Systemic Imperatives to Address Health Disparities and Racism in the Time of COVID, which took place in Washington, DC in September 2021. Of the 12 presenters at the conference, these four were asked to recreate their talks into articles. They address key issues that help to explain health disparities in people of color, particularly African Americans, in the United States, as well as suggest innovations to clinical interventions and health care delivery systems to better serve people who have suffered adversity from the racial inequities in the American system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper offers an analysis of US strategy in the unfolding United States–China 'tech war' and its consequences. We argue that a tech war is now underway, and that Washington is the driving force behind it. Here, we focus on the most impactful policy so far: the placement of Huawei and over 150 of its affiliates on the sanctioned Entity List. As a result, a decoupling between high‐end US tech and Huawei Technologies is well underway, if not already complete. However, the consequences of the sanctions have not been what Washington intended or expected. The company appears to have maintained its position as one of the world's leading innovators in 5G technology and remains a leading supplier of 5G base stations. The United States risks undermining co‐operation with China in other critical policy areas because the tech war is viewed as aggressive in Beijing. It has also exposed the limits of US influence over allies and third countries, many of whom are opting for Huawei's cheaper 5G infrastructure. Nevertheless, the expansion of this approach by the Biden administration suggests that, in future, Washington may prioritise security interests over commercial ones as it seeks to preserve as much US primacy as possible. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Neighborhood parks are important venues to support moderate-to-vigorous (MVPA) activity. There has been a noticeable increase promoting physical activity among youth in neighborhood parks. This paper aims to assess the association between park use and MVPA among low-income youth in a large urban area. We recruited a cohort of 434 youth participants during the COVID pandemic years (2020–2022) from low-income households in Washington, D.C. We collected multiple data components: accelerometry, survey, and electronic health record data. We explored the bivariate relationship between the accelerometer-measured daily MVPA time outcome and survey-based park use measures. A mixed-effect model was fitted to adjust the effect estimate for participant-level and time-varying confounders. The overall average daily MVPA time is 16.0 min (SD = 12.7). The unadjusted bivariate relation between daily MVPA time and frequency of park visit is 1.3 min of daily MVPA time per one day with park visits (p < 0.0001). The model-adjusted estimate is 0.7 daily MVPA minutes for 1 day with park visit (p = 0.04). The duration of a typical park visit is not a significant predictor to daily MVPA time with or without adjustments. The initial COVID outbreak in 2020 resulted in a significant decline in daily MVPA time (− 4.7 min for 2020 versus 2022, p < 0.0001). Park visit frequency is a significant predictor to low-income youth's daily MVPA time with considerable absolute effect sizes compared with other barriers and facilitators. Promoting more frequent park use may be a useful means to improve low-income youth's MVPA outcome. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many important practical problems can be formulated as probabilistic constrained optimization problem (PCOP), which is challenging to solve since it is usually non-convex and non-smooth. Effective methods for (PCOP) mostly focus on approximation techniques. This paper aims at studying the D.C. (difference of two convex functions) approximation techniques. A D.C. approximation is explored to solve the probabilistic constrained optimization problem based on Chen–Harker–Kanzow–Smale (CHKS) smooth plus function. A smooth approximation to probabilistic constraint function is proposed and the corresponding D.C. approximation problem is established. It is proved that the approximation problem is equivalent to the original one under certain conditions. Sequential convex approximation (SCA) algorithm is implemented to solve the D.C. approximation problem. Sample average approximation method is applied to solve the convex subproblem. Numerical results suggest that D.C. approximation technique is effective for optimization with probabilistic constraints. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Public education reforms, such as expanded school choice, have become a critical lever for remaking urban landscapes. These reforms often aim to attract and retain affluent and White families in urban schools, so scholars have examined how these parents navigate the perceived risk of choosing these schools for their children. Purpose: This paper extends this scholarship to understand how other families experience these reforms in gentrifying landscapes. We ask: (1) How do Black parents navigate school selection in a gentrifying and expansive education marketplace? (2) How do Black parents' perceptions of schooling shape their approach to school selection? (3) How do parents' positionalities (e.g., gender, class, place attachments, and tenure in the city) influence their experiences? Research Design: We leverage a qualitative meta-analysis design that pools data from three separately conducted studies of gentrification in Washington, D.C. For this analysis, we center on 34 Black parents' experiences as they navigate school selection. We reanalyzed data through the lens of critical spatial and racial theories. We paid particular attention to participants' attachments to place, their perceptions of their choices, the school and neighborhood attributes participants valued, and how they navigated school selection. Findings: Parents considered a broad range of school and neighborhood characteristics as they constructed their choice sets. As they searched for schools, Black parents made a series of racialized compromises to find schools they perceived to be racially, physically, and socially safe for their children. Parents, for example, negotiated their desire for academic rigor with their perception of schools' social climates and their perceptions that schools would be racially affirming and inclusive. Place and space were essential to parents' choice set construction. Schools' physical locations and perceptions of safety influenced whether parents viewed schools as viable options for their children. Conclusion: Our study underscores the multiple factors that bound choice set construction. Critically, Black parents' experiences as they navigated school selection suggest that the expansive educational marketplace offered a "chance, not a choice" at high-quality educational opportunities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Retirement plans can create strong financial incentives that have important labor market implications, and many states have adopted alternative plan designs that significantly change these incentives. The authors use longitudinal data to investigate the impact of Washington State's 1996 introduction of a hybrid retirement plan on late-career attrition. The unique setup of Washington's plans allows them to provide empirical evidence on the influence of financial incentives created by statutory retirement eligibility thresholds. Findings show that despite facing very different financial incentives, teachers enrolled in the hybrid and traditional plans respond similarly to reaching a key retirement eligibility threshold. The authors hypothesize that teachers are anchoring to the eligibility thresholds, muting the influence of the financial incentives. They also provide evidence that, in the presence of bright-line eligibility thresholds that can anchor workers' separation behavior, commonly used structural models may overpredict workers' responsiveness to the financial incentives embedded in retirement plans. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Southern Economic Association (SEA) will be hosting its 94th Annual Meeting in Washington, DC from November 23-25, 2024. They are inviting the submission of individual papers and session proposals for consideration in the conference program. The deadline for submissions is April 1, 2024, and the SEA Program Planning Board will review all submissions and provide acceptance notices by mid-June 2024. There is a nonrefundable $35.00 submission fee for individual paper submissions, and instructions for submitting papers and making the payment can be found on the SEA website. Submission fees are waived for papers submitted as part of a complete session proposal, and the Session Submission Form can be downloaded from the SEA website. All session proposals must also be submitted by April 1, 2024. [Extracted from the article]

This study examines if and how pet protection orders have been used by domestic violence survivors in the 36 states and the District of Columbia in which they have been enacted. A review of court websites determined if there was a specific item to include a pet in the temporary and/or final protection order. In addition, individual court administrators were contacted in various states to determine if statistics were available on the number of pet protection orders issued. Another mode of investigation included examining appropriate websites in each state to ascertain if the state issued a report on domestic violence statistics, and if so, if that report contained information on pet protection orders. Only one state, New York, keeps track of the number of protection orders that have been issued that include pets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Large wood is an integral part of many rivers, often defining river‐corridor morphology and habitat, but its occurrence, magnitude, and evolution in a river system are much less well understood than the sedimentary and hydraulic components, and due to methodological limitations, have seldom previously been mapped in substantial detail. We present a new method for this, representing a substantial advance in automated deep‐learning‐based image segmentation. From these maps, we measured large wood and sediment deposits from high‐resolution orthoimages to explore the dynamics of large wood in two reaches of the Elwha River, Washington, USA, between 2012 and 2017 as it adjusted to upstream dam removals. The data set consists of a time series of orthoimages (12.5‐cm resolution) constructed using Structure‐from‐Motion photogrammetry on imagery from 14 aerial surveys. Model training was optimized to yield maximum accuracy for estimated wood areas, compared to manually digitized wood, therefore model development and intended application were coupled. These fully reproducible methods and model resulted in a maximum of 15% error between observed and estimated total wood areas and wood deposit size‐distributions over the full spatio‐temporal extent of the data. Areal extent of wood in the channel margin approximately doubled in the years following dam removal, with greatest increases in large wood in wider, lower‐gradient sections. Large‐wood deposition increased between the start of dam removal (2011) and winter 2013, then plateaued. Sediment bars continued to grow up until 2016/17, assisted by a partially static wood framework deposited predominantly during the period up to winter 2013. Plain Language Summary: We measure the large wood in the Elwha River, Washington, USA, during and after dam removal. The presence of two dams had previously limited the movement of sediment and wood through the system. The removal of those dams liberated large amounts of sediment and wood from the former reservoir bottoms, which traveled downstream and deposited in the river channel. We develop an Artificial Intelligence (AI) model to measure all wood and sediment in the Elwha River corridor downstream of the two former dams, from a time‐series of high‐resolution imagery collected from aircraft. These measurements, accurate to within 15% of true values, provide a unique opportunity to understand how large wood occurs and behaves over multiple years and tens of kilometers. We found that the deposition of large wood on bars was coincident with and promoted the growth of sediment bars. The AI model we made could be powerful enough to find large wood in other places and images for similar purposes. Our data sets and models are made available to stimulate further studies of changes in river form resulting from interactions between water flow, wood, sediment, and vegetation. Key Points: We develop automated methods for detection and mapping of large wood, sediment, vegetation, and water from a time‐series of orthoimageryHigh‐resolution, reach‐wide measurements reveal wood dynamics in two Elwha River reaches adjusting to upstream dam removals over 5.5 yearsLarge wood deposition increased after dam removal, then plateaued, and bars continued to grow assisted by a partially static wood framework [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the exhibition "1898: US Imperial Visions and Revisions" at the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery in Washington, DC. The exhibition explores American territorial expansion through portraiture and visual culture, focusing on the year 1898 when the US acquired territories through war and annexation. It showcases a variety of artifacts, including portraits, landscape paintings, quilts, maps, toys, and coins, to highlight the complexity of American involvement in the Philippines, Hawai'i, Cuba, Puerto Rico, and Guam. The exhibition challenges the homogeneity of imperial narratives by presenting conflicting viewpoints and emphasizing the role of Indigenous agency. It also uses portraiture to humanize the geopolitical context and prompt new discourses on American empire. The exhibition is organized thematically and geographically, with an emphasis on perspective and diversity of sources. It encourages viewers to question the motivations of different actors and understand the limitations of perspective in historical narratives. The exhibition is accessible and provides verbal descriptions of items, with well-lit cases for fragile objects. Overall, it successfully presents a revised and varied field of gazes on US empire, inviting viewers to think about the intersections of history, art, politics, and culture in everyday life. [Extracted from the article]

Mountain meadows are an essential part of the alpine–subalpine ecosystem; they provide ecosystem services like pollination and are home to diverse plant communities. Changes in climate affect meadow ecology on multiple levels, for example, by altering growing season dynamics. Tracking the effects of climate change on meadow diversity through the impacts on individual species and overall growing season dynamics is critical to conservation efforts. Here, we explore how to combine crowd‐sourced camera images with machine learning to quantify flowering species richness across a range of elevations in alpine meadows located in Mt. Rainier National Park, Washington, USA. We employed three machine‐learning techniques (Mask R‐CNN, RetinaNet and YOLOv5) to detect wildflower species in images taken during two flowering seasons. We demonstrate that deep learning techniques can detect multiple species, providing information on flowering richness in photographed meadows. The results indicate higher richness just above the tree line for most of the species, which is comparable with patterns found using field studies. We found that the two‐stage detector Mask R‐CNN was more accurate than single‐stage detectors like RetinaNet and YOLO, with the Mask R‐CNN network performing best overall with mean average precision (mAP) of 0.67 followed by RetinaNet (0.5) and YOLO (0.4). We found that across the methods using anchor box variations in multiples of 16 led to enhanced accuracy. We also show that detection is possible even when pictures are interspersed with complex backgrounds and are not in focus. We found differential detection rates depending on species abundance, with additional challenges related to similarity in flower characteristics, labeling errors and occlusion issues. Despite these potential biases and limitations in capturing flowering abundance and location‐specific quantification, accuracy was notable considering the complexity of flower types and picture angles in this dataset. We, therefore, expect that this approach can be used to address many ecological questions that benefit from automated flower detection, including studies of flowering phenology and floral resources, and that this approach can, therefore, complement a wide range of ecological approaches (e.g., field observations, experiments, community science, etc.). In all, our study suggests that ecological metrics like floral richness can be efficiently monitored by combining machine learning with easily accessible publicly curated datasets (e.g., Flickr, iNaturalist). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the late-2000s, Washington, DC achieved national notoriety for its embrace of market accountability in public schools and support for a steadily expanding charter sector. At the same time, the DC government pursued a concerted effort to attract new residents and investment to the city, a project that bore fruit in the form of some of the highest levels of gentrification in the country. Most of the research exploring intersections between charterization and gentrification has focused on the school choice decisions of gentrifier parents and school enrollment patterns. This paper illuminates the geography of opening and closing schools in DC—both charter and District-operated—between 1997 and 2017 and describes the intersection of those processes with patterns of gentrification and neighborhood change across the city. A detailed description of how this played out in one gentrifying neighborhood supplements the citywide analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The goal of this study was to describe medical providers' fluoride-related beliefs and practices, experiences with fluoride-hesitant caregivers, and barriers to incorporating oral health activities into their practice. In this cross-sectional study, we specifically tested the hypothesis of whether these factors differed between pediatric and family medicine providers. A 39-item online survey was administered to a convenience sample of pediatric and family medicine providers in Washington state and Ohio (U.S.A.). Responses to the fluoride survey were compared between pediatric and family medicine providers with a chi-square test (α = 0.05). Of the 354 study participants, 45% were pediatric providers and 55% were family medicine providers. About 61.9% of providers believed fluoridated water was highly effective at preventing tooth decay while only 29.1% believed prescription fluoride supplements were highly effective. Nearly all providers recommend over-the-counter fluoride toothpaste (87.3%), 44.1% apply topical fluoride in clinic, and 30.8% prescribe fluoride supplements. Most providers reported fluoride hesitancy was a small problem or not a problem (82.5%) and the most common concerns patients raise about fluoride were similar to those raised about vaccines. Lack of time was the most commonly reported barrier to incorporating oral health into practice, which was more commonly reported by family medicine providers than pediatric providers (65.6% vs. 50.3%; p =.005). Pediatric and family medicine providers have early and frequent access to children before children visit a dentist. Improving the use of fluorides through children's medical visits could improve pediatric oral health and reduce oral health inequities, especially for vulnerable populations at increased risk for tooth decay. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Opioid overdose is a major public health challenge. We aimed to understand facilitators and barriers to engagement in medication for opioid use disorder (MOUD) among persons with OUD in Washington, DC. Methods: We used a cross-sectional mixed-methods concept mapping approach to explore MOUD engagement between 2021–2022. Community members at-large generated 70 unique statements in response to the focus prompt: "What makes medication for opioid use disorder like buprenorphine (also known as Suboxone or Subutex) difficult to start or keep using?" Persons with OUD (n = 23) and service providers (n = 34) sorted and rated these statements by theme and importance. Data were analyzed with multidimensional scaling and hierarchical cluster analysis, producing thematic cluster maps. Results were validated by our community advisory board. Results: Seven themes emerged in response to the focus prompt: availability and accessibility; hopelessness and fear; unmet basic needs; characteristics of treatment programs; understanding and awareness of treatment; personal motivations, attitudes, and beliefs; and easier to use drugs. "Availability and accessibility," "hopelessness and fear," and "basic needs not being met" were the top three identified barriers to MOUD among consumers and providers; however, the order of these priorities differed between consumers and providers. There was a notable lack of communication and programming to address misconceptions about MOUD's efficacy, side effects, and cost. Stigma underscored many of the statements, showcasing its continued presence in clinical and social spaces. Conclusions: This study distinguishes itself from other research on MOUD delivery and barriers by centering on community members and their lived experiences. Findings emphasize the need to expand access to treatment, dismantle stigma associated with substance use and MOUD, and address underlying circumstances that contribute to the profound sense of hopelessness and fear among persons with OUD–all of which will require collective action from consumers, providers, and the public. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Infrastructure regularly supports male pursuits more than women's. Recent transportation scholarship focuses on this inequity by quantifying the daily travel of women and men for everyday care provision, often termed "the mobility of care." Care trips include dropping off and picking up family members, accompanying young children and old adults to medical appointments, and acquiring household goods. This study analyzes gendered travel behavior in the National Capital Region of the United States, including Washington, D.C. Methods: The basis of this study's analysis is data from the 2017/2018 Regional Travel Survey conducted by the National Capital Region Transportation Planning Board. The survey included records from approximately 16,000 households, 2,000 in Washington, D.C. Our study sample contained 19,274 unique people who made 49,215 trips. Many of these trips were made using the local bus and subway systems. Following an established methodology, the researchers recoded trip purpose data into five broad categories: care, work, shopping, leisure, school, and all other purposes. We then ran descriptive and statistical analyses of travelers aged 18 through 65 to measure the frequencies of household demographic characteristics and person-level trips for all purposes made by five travel modes: walk, bike, car, bus, and subway. Results: Based on our analysis, trips for work represent the majority of trips (34.7%), followed by shopping (28.2%), care (22.3%), leisure (8.5%), other (4.1%), and school trips (2.3%). Our findings indicate that women make more carerelated trips during the day than men (25.1% vs. 18.8%). They also make fewer work-related trips than men (30.3% vs. 40.2%). Regression analyses revealed correlations between care-related travel by all modes and public transportation by age, race, location of residence, and income. Discussion: The mobility of care, done mostly by women, is one of the primary reasons that people travel in and around Washington, D.C., and its suburbs. However, D.C.'s bus and subway systems are primarily designed to support the mobility of work done mostly by men. As a result, our study identifies the need for improvements in gender-responsive infrastructure, including public transportation policies and programs that explicitly address the mobility of care, improve access to care, and reduce the environmental impact of cars. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Brown spot of citrus caused by Alternaria citri is one of the emerging threats to the successful production of citrus crops. The present study, conducted with a substantial sample size of 50 leaf samples for statistical reliability, aimed to determine the change in mineral content in citrus leaves after brown spot disease attack. Leaf samples from a diverse range of susceptible citrus varieties (Valentia late, Washington navel, and Kinnow) and resistant varieties (Citron, Eruka lemon, and Mayer lemon) were analyzed. Significant variations (p ≤ 0.05) in mineral contents were observed across reaction groups (inoculated and un-inoculated), types (resistant and susceptible), and varieties of citrus in response to infection of Alternaria citri. The analysis of variance showed significant changes in mineral levels of citrus leaves, including nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P), potassium (K), calcium (Ca), magnesium (Mg), zinc (Zn), sodium (Na), iron (Fe), and copper (Cu). The results indicate that the concentration of N and P differed by 6.63% and 1.44%, respectively, in resistant plants, while susceptible plants showed a difference of 6.07% and 1.19%. Moreover, resistant plants showed a higher concentrations of K, Ca, Mg, Zn, Na, Fe, and Cu at 8.40, 2.1, 1.83, 2.21, 1.58, 2.89, and 0.36 ppm respectively, compared to susceptible plants which showed concentrations of 5.99, 1.93, 1.47, 1.09, 1.24, 1.81, and 0.31 ppm respectively. Amounts of mineral contents were reduced in both resistant as well as susceptible plants of citrus after inoculation. Amount of N (8.56), P (1.87) % while K (10.74), Ca (2.71), Mg (2.62), Zn (2.20), Na (2.08), Fe (3.57) and Cu (0.20) ppm were recorded in un-inoculated group of citrus plants that reduced to 3.15 and 0.76% and 3.66, 1.40, 0.63,0.42, 0.74, 1.13 and 0.13 ppm in inoculated group respectively. It was accomplished that susceptible varieties contained lower ionic contents than resistant varieties. The higher concentrations of ionic contents in resistant citrus varieties build up the biochemical and physiological processes of the citrus plant, which help to restrict spread of pathogens. Further research could explore the interplay between mineral nutrition and disease resistance in citrus, potentially leading to the development of new disease-resistant varieties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Persons with disabilities are disadvantaged in accessing sexual and reproductive health services, including condoms. In this study, we investigated whether condom access and use and their associated factors differed between persons with and without disabilities. We used data from adults in households receiving the Government of Zambia social cash transfers (SCT) in four districts of Luapula province. Condom access and use was the outcome. Disability, defined by the Washington Group Short Set Questions on Disability, was the main predictor. We performed logistic regression analyses to determine the associations between condom access and use and disability. In multivariable analyses, we controlled for covariates including age, sex, marital status, poverty status, HIV testing, and receiving the SCT. The sample comprised 1,143 people aged 16–49, with a median age of 21 years (interquartile range 18–28); 57.4% (n = 656) were female, 86.5% (n = 989) accessed and used condoms, and 17.9% (n = 205) were disabled, rating themselves with a 3 or a 4 on a scale of 1 = "not limited" to 4 = "cannot at all" in performing any of the six daily functions (seeing, hearing, walking, cognition, self-care, or communicating). Nearly sixty percent(58.5% (n = 120)) of persons with disabilities were female, 79.5% (n = 163) reported being very poor, 87.8% (n = 180) reported receiving SCT, and 86.3% (n = 177) reported accessing and using condoms. Condom access and use did not differ between persons with and without disabilities (adjusted odds ratio: 1.09; 95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.60–1.98]). We found no differences between persons with and without disabilities in condom access and use. We established that individual-level factors such as age, sex, marital status, and knowledge of being HIV positive might play a more important role in condom access and use than disability. Condom promotion interventions should account for these factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social media's pivotal role in catalyzing social movements is widely acknowledged across scientific disciplines. Past research has predominantly explored social media's ability to instigate initial mobilization while leaving the question of its capacity to sustain these movements relatively uncharted. This study investigates the persistence of movement activity on Twitter and Gab following a substantial on-the-ground mobilization event catalyzed by social media--the StoptheSteal movement culminating in the January 6th Capitol attack. Our findings indicate that the online communities active in the January 6 mobilization did not display substantial remobilization in the subsequent year. These results highlight the fact that further exploration is needed to understand the factors shaping how and when movements are sustained by social media. In this regard, our study provides valuable insights for scientists across diverse disciplines, on how certain social media platforms may contribute to the evolving dynamics of collective action. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study uses data from Google Trends and Twitter to analyze how public interest and sentiment towards Universal Basic Income (UBI) changed across all 50 states and Washington D.C. between 2018 and 2021. We specifically selected this time period as it includes both Andrew Yang's UBI campaign during the Democratic primaries in 2019 and the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 when UBI gained attention due to the federal government's unconditional cash payment to almost all citizens. To overcome the limitations of sporadic opinion polls, we built on a recent development of the rescaling method to generate longitudinal Google Trends and conducted Twitter sentiment analysis. We observed a modest rise in public interest in UBI during Andrew Yang's campaign, especially in blue states, and a significant increase across all states at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Although it quickly waned, the level of public attention became elevated compared to the pre-pandemic level. Contrary to previous studies, our analysis also reveals that overall sentiment became less positive after the peak interest during the pandemic, as more people engaged in online discussions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, we introduce the concept and construction of an innovative Digital Miniature Cathode Ray Magnetometer designed for the precise detection of magnetic fields. This device addresses several limitations inherent to magnetic probes such as D.C. offset, nonlinearity, temperature drift, sensor aging, and the need for frequent recalibration, while capable of operating in a wide range of magnetic fields. The core principle of this device involves the utilization of a charged particle beam as the sensitivity medium. The system leverages the interaction of an electron beam with a scintillator material, which then emits visible light that is captured by an imager. The emitted scintillation light is captured by a CMOS sensor. This sensor not only records the scintillation light but also accurately determines the position of the electron beam, providing invaluable spatial information crucial for magnetic field mapping. The key innovation lies in the combination of electron beam projection, CMOS imager scintillation-based detection, and digital image signal processing. By employing this synergy, the magnetometer achieves remarkable accuracy, sensitivity and dynamic range. The precise position registration enabled by the CMOS sensor further enhances the device's utility in capturing complex magnetic field patterns, allowing for 2D field mapping. In this work, the optimization of the probe's performance is tailored for applications related to the characterization of insertion devices in light sources, including undulators. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Little is known about the in-water behavior and site fidelity of harbor seals (Phoca vitulina richardii), as most photo-identification (photo-ID) studies are typically conducted while they are hauled-out on land. We investigated in-water site fidelity rates and seasonal presence in Burrows Pass, Washington, using photographs collected during a long-term photo-ID and behavioral study from January 2015 through November 2019. There was a minimum of 161 individuals and a maximum of 286 individual harbor seals using Burrows Pass. Harbor seals were present in all seasons, with the lowest sighting rates during summer. Individuals were more likely to be sighted/re-sighted in fall and spring. There was large variations in the level and seasonality of site fidelity among individuals. The majority of seals (69.62%) were seen only once, but 22.69% showed low to moderate site fidelity (2–5 sightings) and 7.69% showed strong site fidelity (≥6 sightings) over seasons and across years. These seasonal variations were likely due to foraging, life history, and individual behavioral variabilities. Studies like this provide necessary information about harbor seal in-water site fidelity and behavior, which are less well known but vitally important in harbor seal management and conservation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Policymaking is quickly gaining focus in the field of implementation science as a potential opportunity for aligning cross-sector systems and introducing incentives to promote population health, including substance use disorders (SUD) and their prevention in adolescents. Policymakers are seen as holding the necessary levers for realigning service infrastructure to more rapidly and effectively address adolescent behavioral health across the continuum of need (prevention through crisis care, mental health, and SUD) and in multiple locations (schools, primary care, community settings). The difficulty of aligning policy intent, policy design, and successful policy implementation is a well-known challenge in the broader public policy and public administration literature that also affects local behavioral health policymaking. This study will examine a blended approach of coproduction and codesign (i.e., Policy Codesign), iteratively developed over multiple years to address problems in policy formation that often lead to poor implementation outcomes. The current study evaluates this scalable approach using reproducible measures to grow the knowledge base in this field of study. Methods: This is a single-arm, longitudinal, staggered implementation study to examine the acceptability and short-term impacts of Policy Codesign in resolving critical challenges in behavioral health policy formation. The aims are to (1) examine the acceptability, feasibility, and reach of Policy Codesign within two geographically distinct counties in Washington state, USA; (2) examine the impact of Policy Codesign on multisector policy development within these counties using social network analysis; and (3) assess the perceived replicability of Policy Codesign among leaders and other staff of policy-oriented state behavioral health intermediary organizations across the USA. Discussion: This study will assess the feasibility of a specific approach to collaborative policy development, Policy Codesign, in two diverse regions. Results will inform a subsequent multi-state study measuring the impact and effectiveness of this approach for achieving multi-sector and evidence informed policy development in adolescent SUD prevention and treatment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the early 1990s, tensions loomed large on the Korean Peninsula unlike the disintegration of the global confrontations and the movements to open the former Soviet socialist world brought about by the post-Cold War conflict structure. Despite the signing of the Inter-Korean Basic Agreement in 1991, the North Korean nuclear issue that emerged drove the Korean Peninsula into a crisis, and its resolution through the US-DPRK Geneva Agreement also failed to produce ultimate results. This study explores the reasons behind the strategy of assurance pursued by Washington failed under such circumstances. In particular, this research examines the aspects of both assurance and deterrence of Washington’s policy toward Pyongyang. Shedding new lights on assurance as an imperative part of successful deterrence, this study aims to provide policy implications for future policy toward North Korea. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Life history diversity can significantly affect population dynamics and effects of management actions. For instance, variation in individual responses to environmental variability can reduce extirpation risk to populations, as the portfolio effect dampens temporal variability in abundance. Moreover, differences in habitat use may cause individuals to respond differently to habitat management and climate variability. To explore the role of life history diversity in population trajectories, population models need to incorporate within-population variation. Integrated population modeling (IPM) is a population modeling approach that offers several advantages for sharing information and propagating uncertainty across datasets. In this study, we developed an IPM for an endangered population of Chinook salmon (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha) in the Wenatchee River, Washington, USA, that accounts for diversity in juvenile life histories, spawning location, and return age. Our analysis revealed that diversity in the age of juvenile emigration from natal streams had a portfolio effect, resulting in a 20% reduction in year-to-year variability in adult abundance in population projections. Our population viability analysis suggests that management interventions may be necessary to meet recovery goals, and our model should be useful for simulating the outcomes of proposed actions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author describes how sociological and philosophical discussions of agency tend to center questions of how or why people are agentic rather than who or what is agentic. In contrast, the author poses questions about the agency of things, the agency of non-humans, and the agency of dead humans, using three examples of historical traces—Washington's refusal of a third term, Jenner's development of the smallpox vaccines, and Smith's publication of The Wealth of Nations —as historical examples to examine how non-humans and non-living-humans leave traces that can experienced as agentic. The author then analyzes six theories of agency that might provide explanations for these actions (actants, affordances, switchmen, residue, repression, and ghosts) before turning to his earlier work on the concept of "external authorities." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Winged bean [Psophocarpus tetragonolobus (L.) D.C.], is unique legume which has numerous phytochemical with distinct properties. So, this research work was performed to explore and quantify the bioactive compound from different extracts of winged bean seeds through GC-MS and to assess the bio-efficacy on cowpea seed to protect them against deterioration and bruchid. Methods: The bioactive compounds of winged bean seed extracts (from different solvents, viz., water, ethanol and hexane) were analysed by GC-MS and the bio-efficacy of identified superlative extract on maintaining the quality of cowpea seed var. VBN 3 was done using accelerated ageing method. Result: The GC-MS results showed the attendance of 30 different compounds in different extracts of the winged bean seeds. Of the different compounds eluted from extract, the ethanolic seed extract revealed the existence of distinct phytocompounds such as dmannitol, 1,4-anhydro-(1.59%), diethyl phthalate (27.21%), n-hexadecanoic acid (4.54%), 9,12-octadecadienoic acid (Z,Z)- (9.71%), oleic acid (14.16%), octadecanoic acid (4.89%), 9,12,15-octadecatrienoic acid and 2-phenyl-1,3-dioxan-5-yl ester (1.05%) which possess significant antioxidant and insecticidal properties. Among the different concentration of ethanolic extract, cowpea seeds treated with 2.5% of ethanolic seed extract of winged bean showed the highest germination (94%) and vigour index I (4436) compared to other treatments while the control recorded lowest germination (88%) and vigour index (3572) at initial day. As ageing progresses, seed germination percent and vigour index of 2.5% ethanolic extract treated seeds dropped to 63% and 1845 while, it is 42% and 953 in case of untreated seeds. The bio-efficacy study of ethanolic extract against bruchid revealed the LD90 value (2.5%) of winged bean seed extract. This study clearly shows that ethanolic extract of winged bean seeds have many bioactive compounds with distinct properties that maintain the seed quality under storage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As Indigenous-led education mandates proliferate globally, understanding how educators teach Indigenous perspectives and sovereignty remains urgent. Learning and integrating such knowledge proves difficult for non-Native teachers, given their lengthy participation in settler colonial schooling and society. What does learning to implement Native sovereignty curriculum entail? Codesigned with eight Native education leaders, this qualitative study examines five non-Native K–12 teachers' learning processes with Washington's Since Time Immemorial curriculum across three schools, using interviews, observations, and other data. Findings indicate six themes of learning supporting meaningful implementation, one potential catalyst for overall growth, and two distinct learning trajectories that suggest outward, rather than inbound, directionality. Implications for teacher education and educational leadership clarify needed steps for teacher learning and curriculum implementation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We provide the first North American report of the lichenicolous fungus Pronectria fragmospora. Based on multigene phylogenetic analyses we found this species to be nested within the genus Trichonectria and the new combination Trichonectria fragmospora is proposed. We provide a description and photos of the North American material on Evernia prunastri and a phylogenetic tree showing its placement within the genus. We also compare this species to related species of Trichonectria and similar species of Pronectria. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This qualitative study involved interviews with 31 social studies educators (teachers, district leaders, teacher educators, and state social studies specialists) who took part in standards development committees across 18 states and Washington, DC. Researchers found that some participants were able to form communities of practice and believed they had agency to enact goals, such as incorporating inquiry and increasing diversity into the standards. However, teacher participants, in particular, reported that their sense of agency diminished as standards moved through the process. Many participants did not believe that the final standards represented their community of practice's shared goals, but instead the goals of others outside their community, such as politicians or special interest groups. We conclude with several recommendations for the improvement of state standards creation and review processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction/Objectives: In 2022, 1 in 6 households with children experienced food insecurity (FI) in the United States. The negative impact of FI on child health is well documented and pediatric clinicians are encouraged to actively screen and intervene in clinical settings. This study aims to evaluate the feasibility and impact of a FI management protocol implemented in 2017 at a pediatric primary care health network serving patients who are Medicaid-eligible in Washington, DC. Methods: In 2019, an 18-item electronic survey was sent to a convenience sample of 42 pediatric clinicians within the health network to understand their knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors surrounding implementation. Both quantitative and qualitative responses were collected and analyzed. We report frequencies of the Likert-type responses, including perceived compliance with protocol components and intervention efficacy. We evaluated the relationship between FI knowledge level and rates of clinician documentation compliance by chi square and Cramer's V statistic for effect size. Open-ended responses were reviewed, and common themes were identified and used to provide context for quantitative results. Results and Conclusions: Out of 42 clinicians invited to complete the survey, 35 completed responses. All respondents reported universal screening for FI (100%) at routine examinations, 80% reported frequently electronically documenting FI in medical records, and 91% of clinicians reported frequently referring families who screened positive for FI to at least one FI resource, with 24% reporting that resources met families' needs. Open-ended responses revealed increased awareness of FI prevalence and of patient experiences in households experiencing FI, increased satisfaction with clinical management of FI, but also concerns around having limited clinical time to do the protocol and the usefulness and accessibility of referred resources. In conclusion, implementing this pilot FI protocol was feasible, but clinicians perceived limited impact of the protocol on alleviating FI and desired more robust intervention options. Further improvements include shifting the burden of performing the protocol away from the clinician, such as by streamlining the protocol or identifying a resource staff member, and establishing more accessible and effective FI interventions such as "Food as Medicine" offerings in partnership with community organizations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

SARS-CoV-2 transmission is largely driven by heterogeneous dynamics at a local scale, leaving local health departments to design interventions with limited information. We analyzed SARS-CoV-2 genomes sampled between February 2020 and March 2022 jointly with epidemiological and cell phone mobility data to investigate fine scale spatiotemporal SARS-CoV-2 transmission dynamics in King County, Washington, a diverse, metropolitan US county. We applied an approximate structured coalescent approach to model transmission within and between North King County and South King County alongside the rate of outside introductions into the county. Our phylodynamic analyses reveal that following stay-at-home orders, the epidemic trajectories of North and South King County began to diverge. We find that South King County consistently had more reported and estimated cases, COVID-19 hospitalizations, and longer persistence of local viral transmission when compared to North King County, where viral importations from outside drove a larger proportion of new cases. Using mobility and demographic data, we also find that South King County experienced a more modest and less sustained reduction in mobility following stay-at-home orders than North King County, while also bearing more socioeconomic inequities that might contribute to a disproportionate burden of SARS-CoV-2 transmission. Overall, our findings suggest a role for local-scale phylodynamics in understanding the heterogeneous transmission landscape. Author summary: State- or county-level data collected as part of routine surveillance often mask significant local differences in SARS-CoV-2 transmission due to their lack of granularity. This leaves local public health departments with incomplete information for resource allocation. Using King County, Washington as an example of a diverse, metropolitan US county, we leveraged genomic epidemiology to understand differences in transmission between North and South King County, two adjacent regions within the same county with stark socioeconomic differences. By combining epidemiological, mobility, and demographic data, we found that these two regions had divergent SARS-CoV-2 epidemic trajectories following the start of statewide stay-at-home orders in March 2020. Our approach also revealed important differences in the role of viral importations and persistence of local viral transmission on changing SARS-CoV-2 incidence in the background of large-scale non-pharmaceutical interventions. Our work shows that we can use genomic epidemiology to reveal differences in transmission at a local scale, which can inform equitable resource allocation at a local level to reduce the burden of infectious diseases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Managing private forests for wildfire resilience is challenging due to conflicting social, economic, and ecological decisions that may result in an increase of surface fuel loads leading to greater fire risk. Due to fire suppression and a changing climate, land managers in fire-prone regions face an increasing threat of high severity fires. Thus, land managers need fuel treatment options that match their forest types and management objectives. One potential option for producers that graze livestock is silvopasture management, where livestock, forages, and overstory vegetation are carefully managed for co-benefits on the same unit of land. This study compared forest composition and structure, fuel types, and vegetative biomass between silvopasture and non-grazed managed forests in Washington, U.S. We show that silvopasture management results in reductions in grass biomass, litter, and duff depth when compared to non-grazed managed forest. These findings point to the integrated nature of silvopasture, where management of overstory composition and structure, understory vegetation, and grazing can reduce fuel loads and potential wildfire risk. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]