The Minnesota Center for Twin and Family Research (MCTFR) comprises multiple longitudinal, community-representative investigations of twin and adoptive families that focus on psychological adjustment, personality, cognitive ability and brain function, with a special emphasis on substance use and related psychopathology. The MCTFR includes the Minnesota Twin Registry (MTR), a cohort of twins who have completed assessments in middle and older adulthood; the Minnesota Twin Family Study (MTFS) of twins assessed from childhood and adolescence into middle adulthood; the Enrichment Study (ES) of twins oversampled for high risk for substance-use disorders assessed from childhood into young adulthood; the Adolescent Brain (AdBrain) study, a neuroimaging study of adolescent twins; and the Siblings Interaction and Behavior Study (SIBS), a study of adoptive and nonadoptive families assessed from adolescence into young adulthood. Here we provide a brief overview of key features of these established studies and describe new MCTFR investigations that follow up and expand upon existing studies or recruit and assess new samples, including the MTR Study of Relationships, Personality, and Health (MTR-RPH); the Colorado-Minnesota (COMN) Marijuana Study; the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) study; the Colorado Online Twins (CoTwins) study and the Children of Twins (CoT) study.

In “Toward a Theory of Race, Crime, and Urban Inequality,” Sampson and Wilson (1995) argued that racial disparities in violent crime are attributable in large part to the persistent structural disadvantages that are disproportionately concentrated in African American communities. They also argued that the ultimate causes of crime were similar for both Whites and Blacks, leading to what has been labeled the thesis of “racial invariance.” In light of the large scale social changes of the past two decades and the renewed political salience of race and crime in the United States, this paper reassesses and updates evidence evaluating the theory. In so doing, we clarify key concepts from the original thesis, delineate the proper context of validation, and address new challenges. Overall, we find that the accumulated empirical evidence provides broad but qualified support for the theoretical claims. We conclude by charting a dual path forward: an agenda for future research on the linkages between race and crime, and policy recommendations that align with the theory’s emphasis on neighborhood level structural forces but with causal space for cultural factors.

Timing of weed emergence and seed persistence in the soil influence the ability to implement timely and effective control practices. Emergence patterns and seed persistence of kochia populations were monitored in 2010 and 2011 at sites in Kansas, Colorado, Wyoming, Nebraska, and South Dakota. Weekly observations of emergence were initiated in March and continued until no new emergence occurred. Seed was harvested from each site, placed into 100-seed mesh packets, and buried at depths of 0, 2.5, and 10 cm in fall of 2010 and 2011. Packets were exhumed at 6-mo intervals over 2 yr. Viability of exhumed seeds was evaluated. Nonlinear mixed-effects Weibull models were fit to cumulative emergence (%) across growing degree days (GDD) and to viable seed (%) across burial time to describe their fixed and random effects across site-years. Final emergence densities varied among site-years and ranged from as few as 4 to almost 380,000 seedlings m−2. Across 11 site-years in Kansas, cumulative GDD needed for 10% emergence were 168, while across 6 site-years in Wyoming and Nebraska, only 90 GDD were needed; on the calendar, this date shifted from early to late March. The majority (>95%) of kochia seed did not persist for more than 2 yr. Remaining seed viability was generally >80% when seeds were exhumed within 6 mo after burial in March, and declined to <5% by October of the first year after burial. Burial did not appear to increase or decrease seed viability over time but placed seed in a position from which seedling emergence would not be possible. High seedling emergence that occurs very early in the spring emphasizes the need for fall or early spring PRE weed control such as tillage, herbicides, and cover crops, while continued emergence into midsummer emphasizes the need for extended periods of kochia management.

This Essay examines the elegantly simple idea that consent to medical treatment or participation in human research must be “informed” to be valid. It does so by using as a case study the controversial clinical research trial known as the Surfactant, Positive Pressure, and Oxygenation Randomized Trial (“SUPPORT”). The Essay begins by charting, through case law and the adoption of the common rule, the evolution of duties to secure fully informed consent in both research and treatment. The Essay then utilizes the SUPPORT study, which sought to pinpoint the level of saturated oxygen that should be provided to extremely low birth weight infants to demonstrate modern complexities and shortcomings of the duty to secure informed consent. This Essay shows how the duty is measured by foreseeability of risks and benefits in human research and why federal regulators believed the tradeoffs in risk and benefits from differing oxygen levels administered in the support study were foreseeable. It then explores the contours of the duty to secure informed consent when applied to researchers who also serve as treating physicians, highlighting how common law duties differ in jurisdictions that apply the professional standard and those that apply the patient-centered material risk standard. This Essay provides new insight into what the law must do to make real the notion that [e]very human being of adult years and sound mind has a right to determine what shall be done with his body.”

Intestinal health is important for maximising the health, welfare, and performance of poultry. In addition, intestinal health issues in poultry can have devastating financial impacts for producers, and food safety concerns for consumers. Until recently, intestinal health issues were seen as a handful of known infectious agents leading to a set of severe and identifiable named diseases. There is however an emerging area which depicts intestinal health as a more complex and multifaceted system than previously known. Recent progress in technology suitable for microbial community analysis has evolved our understanding of the chicken intestinal microbiome. It is now understood that shifts in the composition of microbial communities can occur. These shifts can result in a series of implications, including: disease, welfare, environmental, and food safety concerns. Minor shifts in intestinal microbial balance can result in a wide continuum of disease presentations ranging from severe to mild clinical, subclinical or asymptotic. Differential diagnosis of poultry intestinal health issues may be challenging and is important for applying appropriate treatment options. This review discusses new and emerging topics in broiler chicken intestinal health, with a focus on microbial composition, newly discovered microbial shifts in classical poultry diseases, range in severity of enteric diseases, newly identified organisms in normal intestinal flora, implications of shifts in intestinal microbial communities and diagnosis of emerging intestinal health issues in poultry.

A segment of the debate surrounding the commercialization and use of glyphosate-resistant (GR) crops focuses on the theory that the implementation of these traits is an extension of the intensification of agriculture that will further erode the biodiversity of agricultural landscapes. A large field-scale study was initiated in 2006 in the United States on 156 different field sites with a minimum 3-yr history of GR-corn, -cotton or -soybean in the cropping system. The impact of cropping system, crop rotation, frequency of using the GR crop trait, and several categorical variables on seedbank weed population density and diversity was analyzed. The parameters of total weed population density of all species in the seedbank, species richness, Shannon's H′ and evenness were not affected by any management treatment. The similarity between the seedbank and aboveground weed community was more strongly related to location than management; previous year's crops and cropping systems were also important while GR trait rotation was not. The composition of the weed flora was more strongly related to location (geography) than any other parameter. The diversity of weed flora in agricultural sites with a history of GR crop production can be influenced by several factors relating to the specific method in which the GR trait is integrated (cropping system, crop rotation, GR trait rotation), the specific weed species, and the geographical location. Continuous GR crop, compared to fields with other cropping systems, only had greater species diversity (species richness) of some life forms, i.e., biennials, winter annuals, and prostrate weeds. Overall diversity was related to geography and not cropping system. These results justify further research to clarify the complexities of crops grown with herbicide-resistance traits to provide a more complete characterization of their culture and local adaptation to the weed seedbank.

In 1976, David Sugden and Brian John developed a classification for Antarctic landscapes of glacial erosion based upon exposed and eroded coastal topography, providing insight into the past glacial dynamics of the Antarctic ice sheets. We extend this classification to cover the continental interior of Antarctica by analysing the hypsometry of the subglacial landscape using a recently released dataset of bed topography (BEDMAP2). We used the existing classification as a basis for first developing a low-resolution description of landscape evolution under the ice sheet before building a more detailed classification of patterns of glacial erosion. Our key finding is that a more widespread distribution of ancient, preserved alpine landscapes may survive beneath the Antarctic ice sheets than has been previously recognized. Furthermore, the findings suggest that landscapes of selective erosion exist further inland than might be expected, and may reflect the presence of thinner, less extensive ice in the past. Much of the selective nature of erosion may be controlled by pre-glacial topography, and especially by the large-scale tectonic structure and fluvial valley network. The hypotheses of landscape evolution presented here can be tested by future surveys of the Antarctic ice sheet bed.

This paper describes the system architecture of a newly constructed radio telescope – the Boolardy engineering test array, which is a prototype of the Australian square kilometre array pathfinder telescope. Phased array feed technology is used to form multiple simultaneous beams per antenna, providing astronomers with unprecedented survey speed. The test array described here is a six-antenna interferometer, fitted with prototype signal processing hardware capable of forming at least nine dual-polarisation beams simultaneously, allowing several square degrees to be imaged in a single pointed observation. The main purpose of the test array is to develop beamforming and wide-field calibration methods for use with the full telescope, but it will also be capable of limited early science demonstrations.

In North America, terrestrial records of biodiversity and climate change that span Marine Oxygen Isotope Stage (MIS) 5 are rare. Where found, they provide insight into how the coupling of the ocean–atmosphere system is manifested in biotic and environmental records and how the biosphere responds to climate change. In 2010–2011, construction at Ziegler Reservoir near Snowmass Village, Colorado (USA) revealed a nearly continuous, lacustrine/wetland sedimentary sequence that preserved evidence of past plant communities between ~140 and 55 ka, including all of MIS 5. At an elevation of 2705 m, the Ziegler Reservoir fossil site also contained thousands of well-preserved bones of late Pleistocene megafauna, including mastodons, mammoths, ground sloths, horses, camels, deer, bison, black bear, coyotes, and bighorn sheep. In addition, the site contained more than 26,000 bones from at least 30 species of small animals including salamanders, otters, muskrats, minks, rabbits, beavers, frogs, lizards, snakes, fish, and birds. The combination of macro- and micro-vertebrates, invertebrates, terrestrial and aquatic plant macrofossils, a detailed pollen record, and a robust, directly dated stratigraphic framework shows that high-elevation ecosystems in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado are climatically sensitive and varied dramatically throughout MIS 5.

WideStrike® Acala cotton is a two-gene, in-plant trait that provides broad-spectrum and season-long control of lepidopteran insect pests, and the varieties available in California also have resistance to glyphosate. There have been indications that WideStrike cotton has some glufosinate tolerance as well, so the level of tolerance to glufosinate needed to be ascertained. A 2-yr (2008 and 2009) study was conducted in California to evaluate the potential crop injury caused by three different rates (0.59, 0.88, and 1.76 kg ai ha−1) of glufosinate–ammonium at four different growth stages (cotyledon, 2-node, 5- to 6-node, and 18- to 19-node stages) of WideStrike Acala cotton. The effects of these treatments on the cotton plants and yield were closely monitored. Glyphosate at 1.54 kg ae ha−1 was applied at all cotton growth stages as a standard application, and a nontreated control was included. The greatest level of injury (58%) was observed with the highest rate of glufosinate applied at both the cotyledon and the two-node stage of cotton. However, injury was less than 10% following glufosinate at 0.59 kg ha−1 applied at the 18- to 19-node stage. The level of injury increased with the higher application rate of glufosinate at all crop growth stages. In 2008 and 2009, the glufosinate treatments had no effect on cotton lint yield. Therefore, the study showed that glufosinate can be applied safely topically at 0.59 kg ha−1 at the cotyledon- to 2-node stage or as POST-directed spray between the 5- to 19-node stages. Although injury occurred at this rate, the plants recovered within 2 to 3 wk of the treatment. Increasing glufosinate rates beyond 0.59 kg ha−1 can increase the possibility of greater crop injury.

The goal of this research was to develop herbicide programs for controlling acetolactate synthase (ALS)–, propanil-, quinclorac-, and clomazone-resistant barnyardgrass. Two applications of imazethapyr alone at 70 g ai ha−1 failed to control the ALS-resistant biotype more than 36%; however, when imazethapyr at 70 g ha−1 was applied early POST (EPOST) followed by imazethapyr at 70 g ha−1 plus fenoxaprop at 120 g ai ha−1 immediately prior to flooding (PREFLD), barnyardgrass control improved to 78% at 10 wk after planting. When imazethapyr was applied twice following PRE or delayed PRE applications of clomazone at 336 g ai ha−1, quinclorac at 560 g ai ha−1, pendimethalin at 1,120 g ai ha−1, or thiobencarb at 4,480 g ai ha−1 control was 92 to 100%. A single-pass program consisting of a delayed PRE application of clomazone at 336 g ha−1 plus quinclorac at 560 g ha−1 plus pendimethalin at 1,120 g ha−1 plus thiobencarb at 4,480 g ha−1 controlled all herbicide-resistant barnyardgrass biotypes at the same level as a standard multiple application program.