The first demonstration of laser action in ruby was made in 1960 by T. H. Maiman of Hughes Research Laboratories, USA. Many laboratories worldwide began the search for lasers using different materials, operating at different wavelengths. In the UK, academia, industry and the central laboratories took up the challenge from the earliest days to develop these systems for a broad range of applications. This historical review looks at the contribution the UK has made to the advancement of the technology, the development of systems and components and their exploitation over the last 60 years.

Calcareous loess in North Canterbury, eastern South Island, New Zealand (NZ), preserves subfossil bird bone, terrestrial gastropods, and eggshell, whose abundances and radiocarbon ages allowed us to reconstruct aspects of palaeoenvironment at high resolution through 25 to 21 cal ka BP. This interval includes millennial-scale climatic variability during the extended last glacial maximum (30–18 ka) of Australasia. Our loess palaeoclimatic record shows good correspondence with stadial and interstadial climate events of the NZ Climate Event Stratigraphy, which were defined from a pollen record on the western side of South Island. An interstade from 25.4 to 24 cal ka BP was warm but also relatively humid on eastern South Island, and loess grain size may indicate reduced vigour of the Southern Hemisphere westerly winds. The subsequent stade (24–22.6 cal ka BP) was drier, colder, and probably windier. The next interstade remained relatively dry on eastern South Island, and westerly winds remained vigorous. The 25.4–24 ka interstade is synchronous with Heinrich stade 2, which may have driven a southward migration of the subtropical front, leading to warming and wetting of northern and central South Island and retreat of Southern Alps glaciers at ca. 26.5 ka.

The Australian prime lamb industry is seeking to improve lean meat yield (LMY) as a means to increasing efficiency and profitability across the whole value chain. The LMY of prime lambs is affected by genetics and on-farm nutrition from birth to slaughter and is the total muscle weight relative to the total carcass weight. Under the production conditions of south eastern Australia, many ewe flocks experience a moderate reduction in nutrition in mid to late pregnancy due to a decrease in pasture availability and quality. Correcting nutritional deficits throughout gestation requires the feeding of supplements. This enables the pregnant ewe to meet condition score (CS) targets at lambing. However, limited resources on farm often mean it is difficult to effectively manage nutritional supplementation of the pregnant ewe flock. The impact of reduced ewe nutrition in mid to late pregnancy on the body composition of finishing lambs and subsequent carcass composition remains unknown. This study investigated the effect of moderately reducing ewe nutrition in mid to late gestation on the body composition of finishing lambs and carcass composition at slaughter on a commercial scale. Multiple born lambs to CS2.5 target ewes were lighter at birth and weaning, had lower feedlot entry and exit weights with lower pre-slaughter and carcass weights compared with CS3.0 and CS3.5 target ewes. These lambs also had significantly lower eye muscle and fat depth when measured by ultrasound prior to slaughter and carcass subcutaneous fat depth measured 110 mm from the spine along the 12th rib (GR 12th) and at the C-site (C-fat). Although carcasses were ~5% lighter, results showed that male progeny born to ewes with reduced nutrition from day 50 gestation to a target CS2.5 at lambing had a higher percentage of lean tissue mass as measured by dual energy X-ray absorptiometry and a lower percentage of fat during finishing and at slaughter, with the multiple born progeny from CS3.0 and CS3.5 target ewes being similar. These data suggest lambs produced from multiple bearing ewes that have had a moderate reduction in nutrition during pregnancy are less mature. This effect was also independent of lamb finishing system. The 5% reduction in carcass weight observed in this study would have commercially relevant consequences for prime lamb producers, despite a small gain in LMY.

There are a variety of causes of acute heart failure in children including myocarditis, genetic/metabolic conditions, and congenital heart defects. In cases with a structurally normal heart and a negative personal and family history, myocarditis is often presumed to be the cause, but we hypothesise that genetic disorders contribute to a significant portion of these cases. We reviewed our cases of children who presented with acute heart failure and underwent genetic testing from 2008 to 2017. Eighty-seven percent of these individuals were found to have either a genetic syndrome or pathogenic or likely pathogenic variant in a cardiac-related gene. None of these individuals had a personal or family history of cardiomyopathy that was suggestive of a genetic aetiology prior to presentation. All of these individuals either passed away or were listed for cardiac transplantation indicating genetic testing may provide important information regarding prognosis in addition to providing information critical to assessment of family members.

Growth mixture modeling with a sample of 749 Mexican heritage families identified parallel trajectories of adolescents’ and their mothers’ heritage cultural values and parallel trajectories of adolescents’ and their fathers’ heritage cultural values from Grades 5 to 10. Parallel trajectory profiles were then used to test cultural gap-distress theory that predicts increased parent–adolescent conflict and adolescent psychopathology over time when adolescents become less aligned with Mexican heritage values compared to their parents. Six similar parallel profiles were identified for the mother–youth and father–youth dyads, but only one of the six was consistent with the hypothesized problem gap pattern in which adolescents’ values were declining over time to become more discrepant from their parents. When compared to families in the other trajectory groups as a whole, mothers in the mother–adolescent problem gap trajectory group reported higher levels of mother–adolescent conflict in the 10th grade that accounted for subsequent increases in internalizing and externalizing symptoms assessed in 12th grade. Although the findings provided some support for cultural gap-distress predictions, they were not replicated with adolescent report of conflict nor with the father–adolescent trajectory group analyses. Exploratory pairwise comparisons between all six mother–adolescent trajectory groups revealed additional differences that qualified and extended these findings.

This paper aims to advance the scientific understanding of the role of culture, particularly cultural orientation, in development and psychopathology. We advance a theoretical framework that conceptualizes cultural orientation as a developmental construct represented by multiple psychological dimensions and social identities, and influenced by the contexts in which individuals are embedded. This perspective suggests that cultural orientation changes within individuals over time as a function of their experiences with and memberships in multiple groups, including the mainstream and ethnic culture groups, as well as a function of their normative developmental changes (i.e., the development of cognitive, social, and emotional capabilities). In addition, this framework places the development of an ethnic culture social identity (e.g., an ethnic identity) and a mainstream culture social identity in broader developmental perspectives that recognize these as two of the many social identities that are simultaneously embedded within the individual's self-concept and that simultaneously influence one's cultural orientation. To support the successful integration of culture into the study of development and psychopathology, we describe how highly reliable and valid measures of cultural orientation, indexed by individuals’ social identities, are essential for generating a scientifically credible understanding of the role of cultural orientation in development and psychopathology. Further, we detail some best research practices associated with our developmental and contextual framework, and note some important considerations for researchers interested in studying cultural orientation, development, and psychopathology.

The Agricultural Act of 2014 introduced new crop insurance policies to manage agricultural risk, especially to cotton farmers. A representative farm panel was used to elicit the yield distribution of the farm, county, and correlation. Results suggest that the optimal underlying insurance policy is Revenue Protection at a 75% coverage level for both high- and low-productivity farms even with a Yield Exclusion provision. The Stacked Income Protection Plan benefit is mostly attributable to a higher insurance premium subsidy. For any crop, efficient agricultural risk management can be achieved through understanding the guaranteed yield and its relation to the farm and county yield.

Most future industrial and organizational (I-O) psychology practitioners and researchers initially enroll in an introductory I-O psychology course during their junior or senior year of undergraduate studies, making introductory textbooks their first in-depth exposure to the field and an important knowledge base. We reviewed and analyzed the 6,654 unique items (e.g., journal articles, book chapters) published in 1,682 unique sources (e.g., scholarly journals, edited books, popular press publications) and authored by 8,603 unique individuals cited in six popular I-O psychology textbooks. Results showed that 39% of the top-cited sources are not traditional academic peer-reviewed journals, 77% of the top-cited articles were published in cross-disciplinary journals, and 58% of the top-cited authors are affiliated with business schools and not psychology departments. These results suggest that the science–practice divide in I-O psychology may develop later—perhaps after graduates obtain employment as either practitioners or researchers. Also, results suggest I-O psychology is closer to business and management than social psychology and psychology in general. We discuss additional implications for the science–practice divide, how to define and measure scholarly impact, and the future of I-O psychology as a field, including the movement of I-O psychologists to business schools and the sustainability of I-O psychology programs in psychology departments.

We provide an expanded and updated, 2-locus phylogeny (mtSSU, nuLSU) of the lichenized fungal family Trypetheliaceae, with a total of 196 ingroup OTUs, in order to further refine generic delimitations and species concepts in this family. As a result, the following 15 clades are recognized as separate genera, including five newly established genera: Aptrootia, Architrypethelium, Astrothelium (including the bulk of corticate species with astrothelioid ascospores; synonyms: Campylothelium, Cryptothelium, Laurera), Bathelium s. str. (excluding B. degenerans and relatives which fall into Astrothelium), the reinstated Bogoriella (for tropical, lichenized species previously placed in Mycomicrothelia), Constrictolumina gen. nov. (for tropical, lichenized species of Arthopyrenia), Dictyomeridium gen. nov. (for a subgroup of species with muriform ascospores previously placed in Polymeridium), Julella (provisionally, as the type species remains unsequenced), Marcelaria (Laurera purpurina complex), Nigrovothelium gen. nov. (for the Trypethelium tropicum group), Novomicrothelia gen. nov. (for an additional species previously placed in Mycomicrothelia), Polymeridium s. str., Pseudopyrenula, Trypethelium s. str. (T. eluteriae group), and Viridothelium gen. nov. (for the Trypethelium virens group). All recognized genera are phenotypically characterized and a discussion on the evolution of phenotypic features in the family is given. Based on the obtained phylogeny, species delimitations are revised and the importance of characters such as thallus morphology, hymenial inspersion, and secondary chemistry for taxonomic purposes is discussed, resulting in a refined species concept.

The response of Grapholita molesta (Busck) males to three-component sex pheromone blends containing a 100% ratio of the major sex pheromone component, (Z)-8-dodecenyl acetate and a 10% ratio of (Z)-8-dodecenol, but with varying ratios of (E)-8-dodecenyl acetate (0.4, 5.4, 10.4, 30.4, and 100.1% E-blends) was tested with populations in eight stone and pome fruit orchards in Europe, Asia, and North and South America. Traps baited with the 5.4% E-blend caught significantly more males than traps with any other blend with all populations. Significantly more males were caught in traps baited with the 10.4% E-blend than in traps with the remaining blends, except with the 0.4% E-blend in Turkey. Significant differences in male moth catches occurred between the other blends with the 0.4>30.4% E-blend, and the 30.4>100.1% E-blend. Male moth catches with the 100.1% E-blend only differed from the hexane control in Chile. No apparent differences were noted to these blends in populations collected from pome or stone fruits. Flight tunnel assays to synthetic blends with a subset of populations were similar to the field results, but the breadth of the most attractive E-blends was wider. Flight tunnel assays also demonstrated a high level of male–female cross-attraction among field-collected populations. Female gland extracts from field-collected populations did not show any significant variation in their three-component blends. The only exceptions in these assays were that long-term laboratory populations were less responsive and attractive, and produced different blend ratios of the two minor components than recently collected field populations.