Colleges and universities around the world engaged diverse strategies during the COVID-19 pandemic. Baylor University, a community of ˜22,700 individuals, was 1 of the institutions which resumed and sustained operations. The key strategy was establishment of multidisciplinary teams to develop mitigation strategies and priority areas for action. This population-based team approach along with implementation of a “Swiss Cheese” risk mitigation model allowed small clusters to be rapidly addressed through testing, surveillance, tracing, isolation, and quarantine. These efforts were supported by health protocols including face coverings, social distancing, and compliance monitoring. As a result, activities were sustained from August 1 to December 8, 2020. There were 62,970 COVID-19 tests conducted with 1435 people testing positive for a positivity rate of 2.28%. A total of 1670 COVID-19 cases were identified with 235 self-reports. The mean number of tests per week was 3500 with approximately 80 of these positive (11/d). More than 60 student tracers were trained with over 120 personnel available to contact trace, at a ratio of 1 per 400 university members. The successes and lessons learned provide a framework and pathway for similar institutions to mitigate the ongoing impacts of COVID-19 and sustain operations during a global pandemic.

The Fontan Outcomes Network was created to improve outcomes for children and adults with single ventricle CHD living with Fontan circulation. The network mission is to optimise longevity and quality of life by improving physical health, neurodevelopmental outcomes, resilience, and emotional health for these individuals and their families. This manuscript describes the systematic design of this new learning health network, including the initial steps in development of a national, lifespan registry, and pilot testing of data collection forms at 10 congenital heart centres.

Field experiments were conducted at two locations in Missouri in 2012 and 2013 to evaluate herbicide programs in 4-hydroxyphenylpyruvate dioxygenase (HPPD)-inhibitor-resistant soybean, referred to as FG72 soybean, and their tolerance to four HPPD-inhibiting herbicides. At the Columbia location, PRE followed by (fb) POST and two-pass POST treatments provided 97% or greater control of all weeds except ivyleaf morningglory. At Moberly in 2012, PRE fb POST treatments provided 95% or greater control and 100% biomass reduction (BR) of glyphosate-resistant (GR) waterhemp, with the exception of isoxaflutole at 0.04 kg ha−1 plus S-metolachlor at 0.6 kg ha−1 plus metribuzin at 0.2 kg ha−1. In 2013, PRE fb POST treatments provided greater than 89% control and 93% BR. Two-pass POST treatments of isoxaflutole plus glyphosate always provided greater control and BR of GR waterhemp compared with glyphosate fb glyphosate. However, at Columbia, where glyphosate-susceptible weeds were present, there were no differences in control or BR between two-pass POST treatments. In the soybean tolerance experiment, isoxaflutole provided the lowest levels of injury. Applications of tembotrione at the 1× rate resulted in the greatest injury in both years. Topramezone at the 1× rate always provided less injury than tembotrione, but was always similar in BR. The 2× rates increased soybean injury over the 1× rate for the third trifoliate (V3) application, but not for the PRE and first-flower (R1) applications. V3 and R1 applications of isoxaflutole and mesotrione resulted in similar injury, height reduction, and BR to soybean 28 d after application in 2012 and 2013. Overall these results indicate that FG72 soybean could allow the use of HPPD-inhibiting herbicides such as mesotrione PRE along with isoxaflutole PRE and POST to provide an additional herbicide mechanism of action that was not previously available in soybean.

We use nonparametric production function methods to decompose farm-level labor productivity growth into components attributable to efficiency change, technical change, and factor intensity. The estimation is accomplished using balanced panel data drawn from the Kansas Farm Management Association for the period 1993 to 2007. We find that labor productivity growth is primarily driven by factor intensity and technical change. Efficiency change is declining with increasing productivity growth, and technical change is not Hicks-neutral and occurs at high levels of factor intensity, suggesting that innovation is embodied in factor intensity.

Our knowledge of the universe comes from recording the photon and particle fluxes incident on the Earth from space. We thus require sensitive measurement across the entire energy spectrum, using large telescopes with efficient instrumentation located on superb sites. Technological advances and engineering constraints are nearing the point where we are recording as many photons arriving at a site as is possible. Major advances in the future will come from improving the quality of the site. The ultimate site is, of course, beyond the Earth’s atmosphere, such as on the Moon, but economic limitations prevent our exploiting this avenue to the degree that the scientific community desires. Here we describe an alternative, which offers many of the advantages of space for a fraction of the cost: the Antarctic Plateau.

Due to the wide bandgap and other key materials properties of 4H-SiC, SiC MOSFETs offer performance advantages over competing Si-based power devices. For example, SiC can more easily be used to fabricate MOSFETs with very high voltage ratings, and with lower switching losses. Silicon carbide power MOSFET development has progressed rapidly since the market release of Cree’s 1200V 4H-SiC power MOSFET in 2011. This is due to continued advancements in SiC substrate quality, epitaxial growth capabilities, and device processing. For example, high-quality epitaxial growth of thick, low-doped SiC has enabled the fabrication of SiC MOSFETs capable of blocking extremely high voltages (up to 15kV); while dopant control for thin highly-doped epitaxial layers has helped enable low on-resistance 900V SiC MOSFET production. Device design and processing improvements have resulted in lower MOSFET specific on-resistance for each successive device generation. SiC MOSFETs have been shown to have a long device lifetime, based on the results of accelerated lifetime testing, such as high-temperature reverse-bias (HTRB) stress and time-dependent dielectric breakdown (TDDB).

This study evaluates the economic competitiveness of a sample of Kansas farrow-to-finish operations by estimating relative firm efficiency using nonparametric mathematical programming techniques. Measures of technical, allocative, scale, economic, and overall efficiency are then related to farm characteristics to identify sources of efficiency. Results indicate that overall efficient farms produce a high quantity of pork per litter, produce a portion of their own feed grains, generate a large portion of their income from swine and other livestock enterprises, and have a lower debt-to-asset ratio.

Demonstrating the equivalence of constructs is a key requirement for cross-cultural empirical research. The major purpose of this paper is to demonstrate how to assess measurement and functional equivalence or invariance using the 9-item, 3-factor Love of Money Scale (LOMS, a second-order factor model) and the 4-item, 1-factor Pay Level Satisfaction Scale (PLSS, a first-order factor model) across 29 samples in six continents (N = 5973). In step 1, we tested the configural, metric and scalar invariance of the LOMS and 17 samples achieved measurement invariance. In step 2, we applied the same procedures to the PLSS and nine samples achieved measurement invariance. Five samples (Brazil, China, South Africa, Spain and the USA) passed the measurement invariance criteria for both measures. In step 3, we found that for these two measures, common method variance was non-significant. In step 4, we tested the functional equivalence between the Love of Money Scale and Pay Level Satisfaction Scale. We achieved functional equivalence for these two scales in all five samples. The results of this study suggest the critical importance of evaluating and establishing measurement equivalence in cross-cultural studies. Suggestions for remedying measurement non-equivalence are offered.

Surgical site infection (SSI) surveillance is performed using a variety of methods with unclear performance characteristics. We used claims data to identify records for review following hysterectomy and colorectal surgery. Claims-enhanced screening identified SSIs missed by routine surveillance and could be used for targeted chart review to improve SSI detection.