Gaps in the implementation of effective interventions impact nearly all cancer prevention and control strategies in the US including Massachusetts. To close these implementation gaps, evidence-based interventions must be rapidly and equitably implemented in settings serving racially, ethnically, socioeconomically, and geographically diverse populations. This paper provides a brief overview of The Implementation Science Center for Cancer Control Equity (ISCCCE) and describes how we have operationalized our commitment to a robust community-engaged center that aims to close these gaps. We describe how ISCCCE is organized and how the principles of community-engaged research are embedded across the center. Principles of community engagement have been operationalized across all components of ISCCCE. We have intentionally integrated these principles throughout all structures and processes and have developed evaluation strategies to assess whether the quality of our partnerships reflects the principles. ISCCCE is a comprehensive community-engaged infrastructure for studying efficient, pragmatic, and equity-focused implementation and adaptation strategies for cancer prevention in historically and currently disadvantaged communities with built-in methods to evaluate the quality of community engagement. This engaged research center is designed to maximize the impact and relevance of implementation research on cancer control in community health centers.

We report major new insights from recent research at the Powars II Paleoindian red ocher quarry (48PL330). We salvaged more than 7,000 artifacts from Powars II between 2014 and 2016 by screening redeposited sediment from the talus slope below the intact portion of the site. Clovis artifacts dominate the diagnostic artifact assemblage, including 53 Clovis points, 33 preforms, and artifacts associated with a previously unrecognized blade core industry. We report the first radiocarbon dates from the site, determined from dating bone tools, which indicate Cody-aged use (ca. >10,000 cal BP). Further, salvage efforts discovered a previously unknown toolstone source from which many of the Clovis artifacts were produced. The Powars II Clovis points most resemble early Paleoindian points from the far Northern Plains and were likely both produced and discarded in the red ocher quarry after hunting, as evidenced by preform production and the presence of impact fractures on many used points. Given these production and discard patterns, Powars II holds some of the best evidence archaeologists currently have for Paleoindian ritualism related to hunting.

The Hell Gap National Historic Landmark, located on the northwestern plains of Wyoming, is one of the most important Paleoindian archaeological sites in North America because it contains a stratified sequence of occupations spanning nearly the entirety of the Paleoindian period. Although Hell Gap is central to archaeological knowledge concerning North American Paleoindian chronology, consistently assigning component ages has been problematic due to conflicting radiocarbon determinations from individual strata, stratigraphic age reversals in age-depth relationships, and other issues related to the stratified open campsite. Toward resolving the Hell Gap chronology, we devised a procedure for correcting age-depth relationships for incorporation in chronostratigraphic models and then used the Bayesian age-depth modeling qprocedures in Bchron to estimate the ages of 11 stratified components present at Hell Gap Locality 1. We present these age estimates and discuss their significance to Paleoindian chronology. Notable aspects of our chronology include a revised age estimate for the Goshen complex, the identification of three Folsom components spanning the entirety of the Folsom temporal range, and relatively young age estimates for the Late Paleoindian Frederick/Lusk component(s) at Locality 1. More broadly, our study demonstrates a procedure for creating chronometric models of stratigraphically complicated open stratified sites of any type.

The Wold Bison Jump (48JO966) is a communal bison (Bison bison) hunting site in Johnson County, Wyoming. It likely represents a single kill event precipitated by Great Plains foragers between A.D. 1433 and 1643. Operating the jump required that prehistoric hunters drive stampeding bison up a steep slope in order to position them within a V-shaped drive line configured to funnel them toward a cliff. Using iterative models of least cost paths, topographic cross-sections, and visibility analysis, we test which landscape-embedded variables are optimized at the jump site as compared to other potential localities across the study area. We find that this site’s placement is primarily explained by minimizing the distance at which the cliff face is visible and secondarily by minimizing the cost of slope and curvature routes ascending into the drive lines. Our procedure could hypothetically be used to predict optimal jump locations on similar landscapes.

Pulsed laser deposition (PLD) is a technique which utilizes a high energy pulsed laser ablation of targets to deposit thin films on substrates in a vacuum chamber. The high-intensity laser pulses create a plasma plume from the target material which is projected towards the substrate whereupon it condenses to deposit a thin film. Here we investigate the properties of vanadium oxide thin films prepared utilizing two variations of the pulsed laser deposition (PLD) technique: femtosecond PLD and nanosecond PLD. Femtosecond PLD (f-PLD) has a significantly higher peak intensity and shorter duration laser pulse compared to that of the excimer-based nanosecond PLD (n-PLD). Experiments have been conducted on the growth of thin films prepared from V2O5 targets on glass substrates using f-PLD and n-PLD. Characterization using SEM, XRD and Raman spectroscopy shows that the f-PLD films have significantly rougher texture prior to annealing and exhibit with an amorphous nano-crystalline character whereas the thin films grown using n-PLD are much smoother and highly predominantly amorphous. The surface morphology, structural, vibrational, and chemical- and electronic-state elemental properties of the vanadium oxide thin films, both prior to and after annealing to 450 °C, will be discussed.

Cu-Nb in situ composites attain anomolous increases in strength upon mechanical deformation. The unique filamentary microstructures that evolve during processing (cold rolling and/or wire drawing) are the source of the strengthening. Results from transmission electron microscopy characterization studies have played a key role in the understanding of the relationships between structure and properties. However, the fabrication of reliable TEM samples has been extremely challenging for the following reasons: (1) traditional electrochemical techniques are not suitable for the two-phase microstructure, (2) preparation of longitudinal and transverse sections of fine (∼150 μm diameter wires) and thin (∼60 μm thick) sheet is tedious, and (3) it is necessary to avoid excessive heat (< 30°C) during sample preparation to preserve the metastable structural arrangements. This paper will review the procedures used to prepare TEM specimens from bulk wire and sheet samples as well as from extracted Nb filaments. Proper techniques for plating, mounting, sectioning, polishing, and ion-thinning will be discussed.

A Pd–U–Si metallic glass transforms upon annealing to a quasicrystalline phase of the same composition. Electron diffraction patterns of this material verify its icosahedral symmetry. Differential scanning calorimetry and transmission electron microscopy are used to obtain both the nucleation and growth kinetics of this glass-to-quasicrystal, first-order phase tranformation. The homogeneous nucleation rate of the quasicrystaUine phase in the metallic glass achieves a maximum at a temperture where its growth is still relatively slow.

Tsuei and Johnson previously reported significantly enhanced superconducting transition temperatures for rapidly solidified Al-Si alloys. Here we report a microstructural study of melt spun Al80 Si20 ribbons to determine the mechanism responsible for this enhancement.

Results of this investigation revealed three distinct microstructures from the top surface to the more rapidly cooled bottom surface (which was in contact with the melt-spinning wheel). Near the top, the microstructure is of hypoeutectic morphology even though this is a hypereutectic alloy. The predominant microstructure is cellular. A 1 to 3 Wm thick layer at the bottom of the ribbon was found to be responsible for the largest enhancement. This layer is composed of fine-grained supersaturated fcc Al containing densely distributed dc Si precipitates. Microdiffraction analysis revealed a cube/cube orientation relationship between the precipitates and the matrix. These results provide insight into the possible mechanism for the enhancement.

Ti-Ni alloys have been made amorphous over a broad composition range by sputter deposition, ion implantation and electron irradiation. Structural analysis of these alloys was made by electron diffraction techniques. Microdensitometer traces of diffraction patterns produced scattering profiles from which radial distribution functions (RDF's) were derived. The results from this analysis were comparable to those from x-ray diffraction studies on similar alloys. It was found that the positions of the intensity maxima vary systematically with alloy composition. However, values of coordination number were less precise due to experimental uncertainties. Furthermore, no dramatic differences were observed in the RDF's of the samples amorphized by the three techniques.

A supralinear dose dependence for the amorphous transformation was observed in NiTi during bombardment with 2.5 MeV Ni+ ions. These results are consistent with a mechanism that requires cascade overlap to obtain a critical defect density for the amorphous transformation. Direct amorphization in the cascades was not resolvable. The temperature dependence of the minimum dose required for complete amorphous transformation had the same form as that observed for amorphization of silicon. Amorphization caused by electron bombardment required a higher dose than by ion bombardment. Different degrees of homogeneity of the damage state between ions and electrons can explain the dose dependence on particle type.