Radiocarbon (14C) data for 2nd millennium BC urban sites in northern Mesopotamia have been lacking until recently. This article presents a preliminary dataset and Bayesian model addressing the Middle and early Late Bronze Age (Old Babylonian and pre/early Mittani) strata of Kurd Qaburstan—one of the largest archaeological sites on the Erbil plain of Iraqi Kurdistan. The results place the large, densely occupied and fortified Middle Bronze Age city in the first part of the 18th century BC, an outcome consistent with the site’s tentative identification as ancient Qabra. A long occupation gap (up to two centuries) probably ensued, before a smaller town confined to the high mound and part of the northeastern lower town resumed in the late 16th and early 15th centuries BC, possibly before this region became part of the Late Bronze Age kingdom of Mittani.

A series of measures of calf welfare was developed through a process of expert consultation. A welfare assessment of group-housed calves was carried out on 53 UK dairy farms during the winter of 2000/01. The assessment used animal-based measures including direct observation of the calves and examination of their health history through a review of farm records. The findings from this were compiled into a profile of calf welfare which outlined the range of results for each measure used. The results fell into the three categories of respiratory health, nutrition and general appearance. A broad range of results was found across the farms visited for the measures in each of these categories. Some farms performed well for all measures taken, and no farms performed consistently badly across all aspects of calf welfare. The majority of farms combined aspects of both good and poor welfare performance.

A preliminary investigation was undertaken to evaluate a series of animal-based welfare measures for the assessment of finishing pigs in units that were members of the RSPCA Freedom Food farm assurance scheme. A total of 20 finishing pig units were visited in the summer of 2002 and 14 of these were revisited in late winter 2003. Behavioural observations of the pigs, both undisturbed and disturbed by the observer, were made in 128 pens containing 9,444 pigs and the physical condition of 650 individuals was examined. A range of event behaviours were observed including social interactions. Play behaviour was observed in 66% of pens during ten-minute observation periods. The prevalence of physical conditions varied greatly between units. The most prevalent skin lesion was on the flank (40.8%) however, only 4.5% of pigs had both fresh and healed flank lesions suggestive of persistent fighting.

This paper describes an approach to assessing the overall welfare of cows on dairy farms. Veterinary and behaviour experts were shown results for ten selected welfare parameters for 25 pairs of dairy farms paired for farm assurance status but with similar geographical location and husbandry system. From this information alone they were asked to state which farms had better welfare. Overall, there were no significant differences between the conclusions of veterinary and behaviour experts. There was a significant relationship between the proportion of experts rating a farm as poorer and the measured difference in the number of cows with lameness or rising restrictions between the paired farms. There were no significant relationships between the expert decisions and differences in milk yield, flight distance, swollen hocks, mastitis incidence, dystocia level, conception rates, prevalence of thin cows and proportion of cows with dirty udders. Clearly, experts rate lameness and discomfort as highly important indices of poor welfare in dairy cows.

A Delphi technique was used to gather the opinions of animal welfare experts on the most appropriate measures for welfare assessment of farm animals. The experts were asked to consider measures that were directed towards the animal (animal-based), rather than measurement of their environment. This systematic approach was designed to achieve a degree of consensus of opinion between a large number of experts. Two rounds of postal questionnaires were targeted at people with expertise in one or more of the species of interest. The respondents suggested measures based upon observations of health status, behaviour, and examination of records. These measures reflect the animal's welfare state — in other words, how the animal is coping within the environment and husbandry system in which it lives. The measures for cattle, pigs and laying hens were categorised into 22, 23 and 28 aspects, respectively, with the highest ranking of importance being given to observation of lameness in dairy cattle and pigs and to observation of feather condition in laying hens. This Delphi study was the basis for the development of a series of protocols to assess the welfare state of dairy cattle, pigs and laying hens.

Providing assurance of improvement in welfare outcomes is the desire of some UK certification schemes. However, this is only likely to be achieved if such schemes monitor welfare outcomes rather than rely on defining welfare resources that should be provided. The University of Bristol has developed protocols for the on-farm evaluation of animal-based welfare parameters for incorporation into certification schemes. The assessment system is designed to provide credible (repeatable, valid and feasible) evidence for assessment of compliance with welfare standards in organic and conventional farming systems. For issues identified as causing potential concern the assessor is encouraged to conduct further investigations of the relevant resource standards and, where appropriate, management requirements. Furthermore the assessment tool enables certification bodies and relevant third parties to monitor the ability of schemes to deliver good welfare outcomes. Finally, it provides a mechanism for farmers to review their own health and welfare performance. The practical application of these systems is now being pursued by some UK certification bodies.

Growing attitudinal and affective differences across party lines and increasing social polarization are often attributed to the strengthening of partisanship as a social identity. Scholars have paid less attention to personal preferences as a contributor to these phenomena. Our focus is on how citizens’ policy beliefs—their operational ideologies—are associated with their views of partisan groups. We examine our perspective with two studies. In the first, we find that the attribution of ideologically extreme political views to an individual's peer significantly reduces interest in interpersonal interaction but find limited evidence that partisan group membership alone induces social polarization. In the second, we show that citizens’ policy views are strongly associated with their perceptions of their own partisan group as well as their counterpartisans. Together, our results have important implications for understanding the consequences of increased polarization and partisan antipathy in contemporary politics.

A field study was conducted in 2017 and 2018 at the Louisiana State University Agricultural Center H. Rouse Caffey Rice Research Station near Crowley, LA, to evaluate the impact of reduced rates of halosulfuron on quizalofop activity in Louisiana rice production. Halosulfuron and a prepackaged mixture of halosulfuron plus thifensulfuron were evaluated at 0, 17, 35, or 53 g ai ha−1 and 34 or 53 g ai ha−1, respectively, in a mixture with quizalofop at 120 g ai ha−1. Control of barnyardgrass, red rice, and two non-acetyl-CoA carboxylase resistant rice lines, CL-111 and CLXL-745, were recorded at 14 and 28 d after treatment (DAT). The red rice, CL-111, and CLXL-745 represented a weedy rice population. Across all species evaluated at 14 DAT, all mixtures containing halosulfuron and halosulfuron plus thifensulfuron resulted in antagonism with an observed control of 79% to 90%, compared with an expected control of 96% to 99%. At 28 DAT, all mixtures containing halosulfuron resulted in neutral interactions for barnyardgrass control. Quizalofop mixed with halosulfuron plus thifensulfuron at the lower rate of 34 g ha−1 was able to overcome the antagonism compared with the higher rate of 53 g ha−1 for barnyardgrass control at 28 DAT. Both the high and the low rate of halosulfuron plus thifensulfuron resulted in antagonistic interaction for red rice, CL-111, and CLXL-745 control at 28 DAT. This research suggests that mixing quizalofop with halosulfuron plus thifensulfuron should be avoided, especially at the higher rate of 53 g ha−1.

A study was conducted at the Louisiana State University Agricultural Center’s H. Rouse Caffey Rice Research Station in 2017 and 2018 to evaluate the interaction between a prepackage mixture of clomazone plus pendimethalin applied at 0, 760, 1,145, or 1,540 g ai ha−1 mixed with propanil at 0, 1,120, 2,240, or 4,485 g ai ha−1. A synergistic response occurred when barnyardgrass was treated with all rates of clomazone plus pendimethalin mixed with either rate of propanil evaluated at 56 d after treatment (DAT). Unlike barnyardgrass, an antagonistic response occurred in yellow nutsedge used as a control when treated with 760 and 1,540 g ha−1 of clomazone plus pendimethalin mixed with 1,120 or 22,40 g ha−1 of propanil at 28 DAT; however, 1,145 g ha−1 of clomazone plus pendimethalin mixed with 4,485 g ha−1 of propanil resulted in a neutral interaction. At 28 DAT, rice flatsedge treated with all herbicide mixtures resulted in neutral interactions. The synergism of clomazone plus pendimethalin applied at 1,540 g ha−1 mixed with propanil applied at 2,240 or 4,485 g ha−1 to control barnyardgrass resulted in an increased rough rice yield compared with 760 or 1,145 g ha−1 of clomazone plus pendimethalin mixed with propanil applied at 1,120 or 2,240 g ha−1. These results indicate that if barnyardgrass and rice flatsedge are present in a rice field the prepackage mixture of clomazone plus pendimethalin mixed with propanil can be an option for growers. However, if yellow nutsedge infest the area other herbicides may be needed.

In order to maximize the utility of future studies of trilobite ontogeny, we propose a set of standard practices that relate to the collection, nomenclature, description, depiction, and interpretation of ontogenetic series inferred from articulated specimens belonging to individual species. In some cases, these suggestions may also apply to ontogenetic studies of other fossilized taxa.

Precise instrumental calibration is of crucial importance to 21-cm cosmology experiments. The Murchison Widefield Array’s (MWA) Phase II compact configuration offers us opportunities for both redundant calibration and sky-based calibration algorithms; using the two in tandem is a potential approach to mitigate calibration errors caused by inaccurate sky models. The MWA Epoch of Reionization (EoR) experiment targets three patches of the sky (dubbed EoR0, EoR1, and EoR2) with deep observations. Previous work in Li et al. (2018) and (2019) studied the effect of tandem calibration on the EoR0 field and found that it yielded no significant improvement in the power spectrum (PS) over sky-based calibration alone. In this work, we apply similar techniques to the EoR1 field and find a distinct result: the improvements in the PS from tandem calibration are significant. To understand this result, we analyse both the calibration solutions themselves and the effects on the PS over three nights of EoR1 observations. We conclude that the presence of the bright radio galaxy Fornax A in EoR1 degrades the performance of sky-based calibration, which in turn enables redundant calibration to have a larger impact. These results suggest that redundant calibration can indeed mitigate some level of model incompleteness error.

To make a power spectrum (PS) detection of the 21-cm signal from the Epoch of Reionisation (EoR), one must avoid/subtract bright foreground sources. Sources such as Fornax A present a modelling challenge due to spatial structures spanning from arc seconds up to a degree. We compare modelling with multi-scale (MS) CLEAN components to ‘shapelets’, an alternative set of basis functions. We introduce a new image-based shapelet modelling package, SHAMFI. We also introduce a new CUDA simulation code (WODEN) to generate point source, Gaussian, and shapelet components into visibilities. We test performance by modelling a simulation of Fornax A, peeling the model from simulated visibilities, and producing a residual PS. We find the shapelet method consistently subtracts large-angular-scale emission well, even when the angular resolution of the data is changed. We find that when increasing the angular resolution of the data, the MS CLEAN model worsens at large angular scales. When testing on real Murchison Widefield Array data, the expected improvement is not seen in real data because of the other dominating systematics still present. Through further simulation, we find the expected differences to be lower than obtainable through current processing pipelines. We conclude shapelets are worthwhile for subtracting extended galaxies, and may prove essential for an EoR detection in the future, once other systematics have been addressed.

Samples from the sphalerite-dominated zone of a seafloor massive sulfide chimney, the Satanic Mills Chimney of the PACMANUS hydrothermal field, have been investigated to determine the internal macrostructure and microstructure of this zone, the phases present, and the distribution of metals. A combination of electron probe microanalysis, electron backscattered diffraction, and x-ray diffraction has been used. At the macroscale, this zone of the chimney wall is heavily porous and is comprised primarily of sphalerite, enclosing minor chalcopyrite, pyrite, and wurtzite. A Pb–As sulfosalt layer of possible microbial origins is present at the outer edge of the sphalerite matrix, next to a pore. The sphalerite has grown in globules on the order of 300 μm in diameter. At the microscale, the sphalerite features a colloform texture and a duplex-type grain structure consisting of either fine-grain regions in the center surrounded by coarse-grained regions or radiating coarse grains only. Pb- and As-rich bands have been detected in the colloform sphalerite, and growth twins have been observed in both the sphalerite and chalcopyrite crystals. A qualitative description of the growth of a typical globule is given, including nucleation, crystal growth, and solute redistribution.

Introduction: Buprenorphine/naloxone (buprenorphine) has proven to be a life-saving intervention amidst the ongoing opioid epidemic in Canada. Research has shown benefits to initiating buprenorphine from the emergency department (ED) including improved treatment retention, systemic health care savings and fewer drug-related visits to the ED. Despite this, there has been little to no uptake of this evidence-based practice in our department. This qualitative study aimed to determine the local barriers and potential solutions to initiating buprenorphine in the ED and gain an understanding of physician attitudes and behaviours regarding harm reduction care and opioid use disorder management. Methods: ED physicians at a midsize Atlantic hospital were recruited by convenience sampling to participate in semi-structured privately conducted interviews. Audio recordings were transcribed verbatim and de-identified transcripts were uploaded to NVivo 12 plus for concept driven and inductive coding and a hierarchy of open, axial and selective coding was employed. Transcripts were independently reviewed by a local qualitative research expert and themes were compared for similarity to limit bias. Interview saturation was reached after 7 interviews. Results: Emergent themes included a narrow scope of harm reduction care that primarily focused on abstinence-based therapies and a multitude of biases including feelings of deception, fear of diversion, feeling buprenorphine induction was too time consuming for the ED and differentiating patients with opioid use disorder from ‘medically ill’ patients. Several barriers and proposed solutions to initiating buprenorphine from the ED were elicited including lack of training and need for formal education, poor familiarity with buprenorphine, the need for an algorithm and community bridge program and formal supports such as an addictions consult team for the ED. Conclusion: This study elicited several opportunities for improved care for patients with addictions presenting to our ED. Future education will focus on harm reduction care, specifically strategies for managing patients desiring to continue to use substances. Education will focus on addressing the multitude of biases elicited and dispelling common myths. A locally informed buprenorphine pathway will be developed. In future, this study may be used to advocate for improved formal supports for our department including an addictions consult team.

A field study was conducted in 2015 and 2016 at the H. Rouse Caffey Rice Research Station near Crowley, Louisiana, to evaluate the interactions of quizalofop and a mixture of propanil plus thiobencarb applied sequentially or mixed to control weedy rice and barnyardgrass. Visual weed control evaluations occurred at 14, 28, and 42 d after treatment (DAT). Quizalofop was applied at 120 g ai ha−1 at 7, 3, and 1 d before and after propanil plus thiobencarb were each applied at 3,360 g ai ha−1. In addition, quizalofop was applied alone and in a mixture with propanil plus thiobencarb at day 0. Control of red rice ‘CL-111’ and ‘CLXL-745’ was greater than 91% when quizalofop was applied alone at day 0, similar to control for quizalofop applied 7, 3, and 1 d prior to propanil plus thiobencarb at all evaluation dates. Control of the same weeds treated with quizalofop plus propanil plus thiobencarb applied in a mixture at day 0 was 70% to 76% at each evaluation date, similar to quizalofop applied 1 or 3 d after propanil plus thiobencarb. A similar trend in control of barnyardgrass by 88% to 97% occurred when quizalofop was applied alone and by 48% to 53% at 14, 28, and 42 DAT when the mixture was used. ‘PVL01’ rough rice yield was 4,060 kg ha−1 when treated with quizalofop alone; however, yield was reduced to 3,180 kg ha−1 when it was treated with quizalofop mixed with propanil plus thiobencarb at day 0, similar to PVL01 rice treated with quizalofop 1 or 3 d following the propanil plus thiobencarb application.

A field study was conducted during the 2016 and 2017 crop seasons at the LSU AgCenter H. Rouse Caffey Rice Research Station to evaluate weed control and rice yield after quizalofop-p-ethyl applications in water-seeded coenzyme A carboxylase (ACCase)–resistant ‘PVLO1’ long-grain rice production utilizing different flood systems, application timings, and quizalofop rates. The initial application of quizalofop was applied at five timings beginning when ‘PVLO1’ rice was at the coleoptile stage (PEG) through the one- to two-tiller stage. A total quizalofop rate of 240 g ai ha–1 was split into two applications: 97 followed by 143 g ha–1 or 120 followed by 120 g ai ha–1 in both pinpoint and delayed flood water-seeded management systems. A second quizalofop application was applied 14 d after initial treatment (DAIT). At 14 DAIT, a reduction in control of barnyardgrass and red rice was observed by delaying the initial quizalofop application to the two- to four-tiller stage compared with rice treated at earlier growth stages. At 42 DAIT, control of barnyardgrass was 94% to 96%, and red rice was 98% following the second application of quizalofop, regardless of initial application timing. Rice treated with quizalofop at the PEG and two- and three-leaf stage resulted in a rice height of 104 cm at harvest compared with 96 to 100 cm when the initial application of quizalofop was delayed to later growth stages. Applying the initial application of quizalofop to rice at the PEG timing in the pinpoint or the delayed flood system resulted in a total gross value per hectare of $450 and $590, respectively. Within each flood system, delaying the initial application of quizalofop to the one- to two-tiller stage resulted in a gross per-hectare value reduction of $100 ha-1 in the pinpoint flood and $110 ha-1 in the delayed flood.

Acetyl co-enzyme A carboxylase (ACCase)-resistant rice allows quizlaofop-p-ethyl to be applied as a POST control of troublesome grass weeds. A field study was conducted in 2017 and 2018 at the H. Rouse Caffey Rice Research Station near Crowley, LA, to evaluate the influence of a crop oil concentrate (COC), a silicon-based surfactant plus a nitrogen source (SNS), or a high-concentrate COC (HCOC) in overcoming the grass weed control antagonism of quizalofop-p-ethyl when mixed with bispyribac-Na. Quizalofop-p-ethyl was applied at 120 g ai ha−1, bispyribac-Na was applied at 34 g ai ha−1, and all adjuvants were applied at 1% vol/vol. Antagonistic interactions were observed at 14 d after treatment (DAT) when quizalofop-p-ethyl was mixed with bispyribac-Na with no adjuvant for control of barnyardgrass, the non–ACCase-tolerant rice cultivars ‘CL-111’ and ‘CLXL-745’, and red rice. At 14 DAT, antagonism of quizalofop-p-ethyl for control of barnyardgrass was observed when mixed with bispyribac-Na plus COC, SNS, or HCOC, with an observed control of 43%, 63%, and 86%, respectively, compared with an expected control of 95% for quizalofop-p-ethyl alone. However, the antagonism of quizalofop-p-ethyl when mixed with bispyribac-Na plus HCOC for barnyardgrass control at 14 DAT was overcome by 28 DAT, with an observed control of 91%, compared with an expected control of 97%. Synergistic or neutral interactions were observed at 14 and 28 DAT when COC, SNS, or HCOC was added to a mixture of quizalofop-p-ethyl plus bispyribac-Na for CL-111, CLXL-745, and red rice control. According to the results of this study, HCOC is the most effective adjuvant for quizalofop-p-ethyl and bispyribac-Na mixtures for control of weedy rice and barnyardgrass.