The U.S. Department of Agriculture–Agricultural Research Service (USDA-ARS) has been a leader in weed science research covering topics ranging from the development and use of integrated weed management (IWM) tactics to basic mechanistic studies, including biotic resistance of desirable plant communities and herbicide resistance. ARS weed scientists have worked in agricultural and natural ecosystems, including agronomic and horticultural crops, pastures, forests, wild lands, aquatic habitats, wetlands, and riparian areas. Through strong partnerships with academia, state agencies, private industry, and numerous federal programs, ARS weed scientists have made contributions to discoveries in the newest fields of robotics and genetics, as well as the traditional and fundamental subjects of weed–crop competition and physiology and integration of weed control tactics and practices. Weed science at ARS is often overshadowed by other research topics; thus, few are aware of the long history of ARS weed science and its important contributions. This review is the result of a symposium held at the Weed Science Society of America’s 62nd Annual Meeting in 2022 that included 10 separate presentations in a virtual Weed Science Webinar Series. The overarching themes of management tactics (IWM, biological control, and automation), basic mechanisms (competition, invasive plant genetics, and herbicide resistance), and ecosystem impacts (invasive plant spread, climate change, conservation, and restoration) represent core ARS weed science research that is dynamic and efficacious and has been a significant component of the agency’s national and international efforts. This review highlights current studies and future directions that exemplify the science and collaborative relationships both within and outside ARS. Given the constraints of weeds and invasive plants on all aspects of food, feed, and fiber systems, there is an acknowledged need to face new challenges, including agriculture and natural resources sustainability, economic resilience and reliability, and societal health and well-being.

Increasing research attention is being given to former felons, or returning citizens, after their release from prison. This paper contributes to that dialogue by exploring the documentary-making process of a grassroots organization founded by and for returning citizens and their families, and the contributions it made when it was completed in 1996, and continues to make today. Little is known about how community organizations can use the making of an organizational documentary to build the capacities of the organization, its affiliates, a neighborhood, and social change. By exploring the collaborations and challenges that took place during the local reintegration process back into family and community, the start and completion of the documentary in the mid-1990s was quite innovative. This article analyzes reciprocal tensions of service (Simmel 1908) reflected in the documentary when it was completed in 1996, and its continuing relevance to the growth of returning citizenship today.

Background: Healthcare-associated infections (HAIs) represent an ongoing problem for all clinics. Children’s clinics have waiting rooms that include toys and activities to entertain children, possibly representing reservoirs for HAIs. This study focuses on a newly constructed children’s outpatient clinic associated with a teaching hospital. We studied waiting room bacterial colonization of floors and play devices from the last phase of construction through 6 months of clinical use. Methods: Waiting room areas on the first 2 floors of the facility were studied due to high patient volume in those areas. In total, 16 locations were sampled: 11 on floors and 5 on play items. Using sterile double-transport swabs, all locations were sampled on 5 separate occasions over 2 months during the last phase of construction and 13 times over 6 months after the clinic was opened. After collection swabs were placed on ice, transported to a microbiology lab, and used to inoculate Hardy Diagnostics Cdiff Banana Broth (for Clostridium difficile - Cdiff), CHROM MRSA agar (for methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus - MRSA), Pseudomonas isolation agar (for Pseudomonas spp and P. aeruginosa), and tryptic soy agar to detect Bacillus spp. Media were incubated for 48 hours at 37°C and were scored for bacterial presence based on observation of colonies or change in the medium. Results: During the construction phase, waiting-room-floor bacterial colonies were dominated by Bacillus spp, and first-floor waiting rooms had nearly 7 times more colonies than those on the second floor (P < .05). A similar pattern was observed for C. difficile and MRSA. No Pseudomonas spp were observed during construction. Once patients were present, Bacillus spp contamination dropped for the first floor, but increased for the second floor. All other bacterial types (C. difficile, MRSA, Pseudomonas spp, and P. aeruginosa) increased on the second floor after the clinic opened (eg, from 23% to 42% for C. difficile and from 7% to 46% for MRSA; P < .05). The play devices showed small increases in bacterial load after clinic opening, most notably Pseudomonas spp. Conclusions: This study provides evidence that a shift from bacterial species associated with soil (eg, Bacillus spp) toward species commonly associated with humans occurred in waiting rooms after construction in this children’s outpatient clinic. Increases for MRSA, Pseudomonas spp, and P. aeruginosa were linked to patient presence. These data suggest that patients, their families, and clinic staff transport bacteria into clinic waiting rooms. This outpatient clinic environmental contamination may increase potential for HAIs and may represent a target for intervention.

Funding: None

Disclosures: None

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the antimicrobial stewardship module in our electronic medical record was reconfigured for the management of COVID-19 patients. This change allowed our subspecialist providers to review charts quickly to optimize potential therapy and management during the patient surge.

OBJECTIVES/SPECIFIC AIMS: The aim of this study is to determine whether quantitative measures of knee structures including effusion, bone marrow lesions, cartilage, and meniscal damage can improve upon an existing model of demographic and clinical characteristics to classify accelerated knee osteoarthritis (AKOA). METHODS/STUDY POPULATION: We conducted a case-control study using data from baseline and four annual follow-up visits from the osteoarthritis initiative. Participants had no radiographic knee osteoarthritis (KOA) at baseline. AKOA is defined as progressing from no KOA to advance-stage KOA in at least 1 knee within 48 months. AKOA knees were matched 1:1 based on sex to (1) participants who did not develop KOA within 48 months and (2) participants who developed KOA but not AKOA. Analyses were person based. Classification and regression tree analysis was used to determine the important variables and percent of variance explained. RESULTS/ANTICIPATED RESULTS: A previous classification and regression tree analysis found that age, BMI, serum glucose, and femorotibial angle explained 31% of the variability between those who did and did not develop AKOA. Including structural measurements as candidate variables yielded a model that included effusion, BMI, serum glucose, cruciate ligament degeneration and coronal slope and explained 39% of the variability. DISCUSSION/SIGNIFICANCE OF IMPACT: Knee structural measurements improve classification of participants who developed AKOA Versus those who did not. Further research is needed to better classify patients at risk for AKOA.

Ten ice-sheet models are used to study sensitivity of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets to prescribed changes of surface mass balance, sub-ice-shelf melting and basal sliding. Results exhibit a large range in projected contributions to sea-level change. In most cases, the ice volume above flotation lost is linearly dependent on the strength of the forcing. Combinations of forcings can be closely approximated by linearly summing the contributions from single forcing experiments, suggesting that nonlinear feedbacks are modest. Our models indicate that Greenland is more sensitive than Antarctica to likely atmospheric changes in temperature and precipitation, while Antarctica is more sensitive to increased ice-shelf basal melting. An experiment approximating the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s RCP8.5 scenario produces additional first-century contributions to sea level of 22.3 and 8.1 cm from Greenland and Antarctica, respectively, with a range among models of 62 and 14 cm, respectively. By 200 years, projections increase to 53.2 and 26.7 cm, respectively, with ranges of 79 and 43 cm. Linear interpolation of the sensitivity results closely approximates these projections, revealing the relative contributions of the individual forcings on the combined volume change and suggesting that total ice-sheet response to complicated forcings over 200 years can be linearized.

Field experiments were conducted at three locations in North Carolina in 1998 and 1999 and one location in Virginia in 1998 to evaluate weed management systems in peanut. Treatments consisted of diclosulam alone preemergence (PRE), or diclosulam plus metolachlor PRE alone or followed by (fb) bentazon plus acifluorfen postemergence (POST). These systems were also compared with commercial standards of metolachlor PRE fb bentazon plus acifluorfen POST or imazapic POST. Our data indicate that diclosulam PRE plus metolachlor PRE in conventional tillage peanut production usually controlled common lambsquarters, common ragweed, prickly sida, and entireleaf morningglory. But control of spurred anoda, goosegrass, ivyleaf morningglory, large crabgrass, and pitted morningglory by this system was inconsistent and may require additional POST herbicide treatments. Systems that included diclosulam plus metolachlor PRE consistently provided high yields and net returns.

The rates of solifluction of two lobes in the Ruby Range have been determined by 14C dates of samples taken from buried organic layers in the lobes. Twenty-one dates are available from one lobe, and seven from another. When plotted against distance back from control points at the lobe fronts the dates show considerable scatter. In part the scatter is thought to be due to a potential age range of 340 ± 100 yr in the organic layers. Linear and polynomial regressions were calculated for the time/distance relationships shown by the dates. The rates of lobe advance established by these means for the lobe with seven dates are not thought to be reliable. Reasonably good estimates of movement rate were determined for the second lobe by both the linear and polynomial methods. However, the rates established by the two methods are quite similar. Because of this and other uncertainties it is difficult to draw inferences of climatic change from the changes in movement rate shown by the polynomial solution.

Field experiments were conducted in Alabama during 1999 and 2000 to test the hypothesis that any glyphosate-induced yield suppression in glyphosate-resistant cotton would be less with irrigation than without irrigation. Yield compensation was monitored by observing alterations in plant growth and fruiting patterns. Glyphosate treatments included a nontreated control, 1.12 kg ai/ha applied POST at the 4-leaf stage, 1.12 kg/ha applied DIR at the prebloom stage, and 1.12 kg/ha applied POST at 4-leaf and postemergence directed (DIR) at the prebloom cotton stages. The second variable, irrigation treatment, was established by irrigating plots individually with overhead sprinklers or maintaining them under dryland, nonirrigated conditions. Cotton yield and all measured parameters including lint quality were positively affected by irrigation. Irrigation increased yield 52% compared to nonirrigated cotton. Yield and fiber quality effects were independent of glyphosate treatments. Neither yield nor any of the measured variables that reflected whole plant response were influenced by glyphosate treatment or by a glyphosate by irrigation interaction.

The development and spread of glyphosate-resistant (GR) horseweed has increased the use of dicamba as an alternative herbicide treatment. Research evaluated suspected glyphosate-resistant horseweed populations from DeKalb (GR-1) and Cherokee (GR-2) counties, Alabama, for response to glyphosate, dicamba, and glyphosate + dicamba. Populations used for resistance determination were tested at rosette and bolt growth stages. Glyphosate resistance evaluation treatments ranged from 0 to 36.0 kg ae ha−1. Data confirmed that GR-1 and GR-2 horseweed populations were 3.0 to 38 times more resistant to glyphosate than the susceptible population, according to population, data type, and growth stage at treatment. GR-1 and GR-2 populations were further evaluated for response to dicamba. Dicamba was applied at 0 to 1.12 kg ai ha−1, both with and without the addition of glyphosate at 1.12 kg ae ha−1. All populations had similar tolerance to dicamba, with the exception of GR-2 treated at the rosette growth stage, which had ~2-fold greater tolerance. When glyphosate was tank-mixed with dicamba, the response of GR populations was similar to that of dicamba alone. Therefore, any potential resistance-management benefit of tank-mixing dicamba with glyphosate may be negated when one is attempting to control GR horseweed. Conversely, adding glyphosate to dicamba drastically enhanced control of the susceptible population at both growth stages.

The 2005 articles by Stoltman et al. and Flannery et al. to which Neff et al. (this issue) have responded are not an indictment of instrumental neutron activation analysis (INAA) but, rather, of the way Blomster et al. (2005) misuse it and of the hyperbolic culture-historical claims they have made from their INAA results. It has long been acknowledged that INAA leads not to sources but to chemical composition groups. Based on composition groups derived from an extremely unsystematic collection of sherds from only seven localities, Blomster et al. claim that the Olmec received no carved gray or kaolin white pottery from other regions; they also claim that neighboring valleys in the Mexican highlands did not exchange such pottery with each other. Not only can one not leap directly from the elements in potsherds to such sweeping culture-historical conclusions, it is also the case that other lines of evidence (including petrographic analysis) have for 40+ years produced empirical evidence to the contrary. In the end, it was their commitment to an unfalsifiable model of Olmec superiority that led Blomster et al. to bypass the logic of archaeological inference.