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There is a significant shortage of veterinary technicians. To help address this issue, there has been a call to increase the capacity of United States VT/N educational programs. Yet, the current challenges within the field may be negatively impacting the number of people deciding to pursue VT/N certification. To assess this possibility, this study was designed to explore the enrollment, retention, and graduation trends within United States VT/N educational programs. Explore the trends between 2018 and 2022 in enrollment, retention, and graduation of veterinary technicians/nurses (VT/N) at educational programs located in the United States. Educators and administrators working in United States VT/N educational programs. An electronic survey distributed via an anonymous link within emails sent from the Association of Veterinary Technician Educators. A total of 82 responses from educators and administrators working in United States VT/N educational programs were received. Forty-three percent of participants indicated a decrease in student enrollment in the last 5 years. The factors seen to have the largest significant impact were \"More potential students not convinced being credentialed will lead to a difference in job duties when compared to non-credentialed work,\" \"More potential students who do not think being credentialed will lead to a substantial increase in pay when compared to non-credentialed work\" and \"More potential students not willing/able to invest the time needed to become credentialed.\" A total of 60% reported an increase in retention efforts within the last 5 years. The services most commonly reported as increasing included mental health support and academic mentoring. This study suggests that an increased number of potential VT/N students are deciding that being credentialed is not worth the time or money. While additional resources directed toward recruitment and retention are needed within VT/N educational programs, without systematic changes within the field, it is likely that there will be a continued decline in the number of interested applicants.

The Golden Retriever Lifetime Study (GRLS) is the first prospective longitudinal study attempted in veterinary medicine to identify the major dietary, genetic and environmental risk factors for cancer and other important diseases in dogs. The GRLS is an observational study that will follow a cohort of 3000 purebred Golden Retrievers throughout their lives via annual online questionnaires from the dog owner and annual physical examinations and collection of biological samples by the primary care veterinarian. The field of comparative medicine investigating naturally occurring disorders in pets is specifically relevant to the many diseases that have a genetic basis for disease in both animals and humans, including cancer, blindness, metabolic and behavioural disorders and some neurodegenerative disorders. The opportunity for the GRLS to provide high-quality data for translational comparative medical initiatives in several disease categories is great. In particular, the opportunity to develop a lifetime dataset of lifestyle and activity, environmental exposure and diet history combined with simultaneous annual biological sample sets and detailed health outcomes will provide disease incidence data for this cohort of geographically dispersed dogs and associations with a wide variety of potential risk factors. The GRLS will provide a lifetime historical context, repeated biological sample sets and outcomes necessary to interrogate complex associations between genes and environmental influences and cancer.

The strategic placement of nutrient supplement can alter the distribution of cows in an area, as found in three studies conducted in California. Findings further reveal that nutrient placement is more effective during the dry season. Nutrient supplement placement as the best practice for range management is examined.

The Golden Retriever Lifetime Study (GRLS) is the first prospective longitudinal study attempted in veterinary medicine to identify the major dietary, genetic and environmental risk factors for cancer and other important diseases in dogs. The GRLS is an observational study that will follow a cohort of 3000 purebred Golden Retrievers throughout their lives via annual online questionnaires from the dog owner and annual physical examinations and collection of biological samples by the primary care veterinarian. The field of comparative medicine investigating naturally occurring disorders in pets is specifically relevant to the many diseases that have a genetic basis for disease in both animals and humans, including cancer, blindness, metabolic and behavioural disorders and some neurodegenerative disorders. The opportunity for the GRLS to provide high-quality data for translational comparative medical initiatives in several disease categories is great. In particular, the opportunity to develop a lifetime dataset of lifestyle and activity, environmental exposure and diet history combined with simultaneous annual biological sample sets and detailed health outcomes will provide disease incidence data for this cohort of geographically dispersed dogs and associations with a wide variety of potential risk factors. The GRLS will provide a lifetime historical context, repeated biological sample sets and outcomes necessary to interrogate complex associations between genes and environmental influences and cancer.

Assessments of conservation effects are being conducted to determine the effectiveness of agricultural conservation practices. The practice of nutrient supplement placement to improve livestock distribution has not been designated a “best management practice” by the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS). Three studies in California visually and statistically document the effectiveness of nutrient supplement placement for changing livestock distribution. The initial study conducted in the Sierra Nevada foothills demonstrated that use of riparian patches could be reduced with strategic placement of dehydrated molasses supplement. A study on an adjacent ranch found that during the dry season, supplement placement effectively redistributed livestock by attracting them into a zone that extended out to about 600 m (1,980 ft) from the supplement. In a study on a coastal ranch in San Luis Obispo County, nutrient supplements were used to attract cows into an ungrazed forest adjacent to grazed grassland. The results of the studies reported here support the effectiveness of supplement placement for changing livestock distribution. Integration of supplement placement practices into best management practices and into NRCS's prescribed grazing standard is supported by this research.

Erik Jorgensen and colleagues report a highly efficient method for generating single-copy transgene insertions in C. elegans . Notably, these single-copy transgenes are expressed at endogenous levels and can be expressed in the female and male germlines. At present, transgenes in Caenorhabditis elegans are generated by injecting DNA into the germline. The DNA assembles into a semistable extrachromosomal array composed of many copies of injected DNA. These transgenes are typically overexpressed in somatic cells and silenced in the germline. We have developed a method that inserts a single copy of a transgene into a defined site. Mobilization of a Mos1 transposon generates a double-strand break in noncoding DNA. The break is repaired by copying DNA from an extrachromosomal template into the chromosomal site. Homozygous single-copy insertions can be obtained in less than 2 weeks by injecting approximately 20 worms. We have successfully inserted transgenes as long as 9 kb and verified that single copies are inserted at the targeted site. Single-copy transgenes are expressed at endogenous levels and can be expressed in the female and male germlines.

A minimal Mos transposon for integration of transgenes into the Caenorhabditis elegans genome expands the genetic toolbox in this model organism. We have generated a recombinant Mos1 transposon that can insert up to 45-kb transgenes into the Caenorhabditis elegans genome. The minimal Mos1 transposon ( miniMos ) is 550 bp long and inserts DNA into the genome at high frequency (∼60% of injected animals). Genetic and antibiotic markers can be used for selection, and the transposon is active in C. elegans isolates and Caenorhabditis briggsae . We used the miniMos transposon to generate six universal Mos1 -mediated single-copy insertion (mosSCI) landing sites that allow targeted transgene insertion with a single targeting vector into permissive expression sites on all autosomes. We also generated two collections of strains: a set of bright fluorescent insertions that are useful as dominant, genetic balancers and a set of lacO insertions to track genome position.

Thin film materials for photovoltaics such as cadmium telluride (CdTe), copper-indium diselenide-based chalcopyrites (CIGS), and lead iodide-based perovskites offer the potential of lower solar module capital costs and improved performance to microcrystalline silicon. However, for decades understanding and controlling hole and electron concentration in these polycrystalline films has been extremely challenging and limiting. Ionic bonding between constituent atoms often leads to tenacious intrinsic compensating defect chemistries that are difficult to control. Device modeling indicates that increasing CdTe hole density while retaining carrier lifetimes of several nanoseconds can increase solar cell efficiency to 25%. This paper describes in-situ Sb, As, and P doping and post-growth annealing that increases hole density from historic 10 14 limits to 10 16 –10 17 cm −3 levels without compromising lifetime in thin polycrystalline CdTe films, which opens paths to advance solar performance and achieve costs below conventional electricity sources.

This study aimed to quantify the microdamage to cortical bone of different thickness and the maximum insertion torque during orthodontic miniscrew implant (OMI) placement with and without a pilot hole. Forty-five porcine bone specimens were prepared with thicknesses of 1.5, 2 and 2.5 mm. Ten bone specimens per thickness had a pilot hole drilled prior to the insertion of an OMI, and the remaining 15 bone specimens had an OMI without a pilot hole inserted. Sequential staining was used to identify damage caused by bone preparation and surface microdamage from OMI insertion and confocal laser microscopy images were used to quantify damage characteristics. Of the five damage characteristics, only one decreased when a pilot hole was used for all bone specimens (p = 0.025), while two increased as cortical bone thickness increased (p = 0.0064, p = 0.0003). There was no evidence that maximum insertion torque differed according to pilot hole status (p = 0.1144) and increased as cortical bone thickness increased (p = 0.0001). The presence of a pilot hole had minimal effect on microdamage characteristics and no effect on maximum insertion torque. As cortical bone thickness increased, an increase in microdamage and in maximum insertion torque was observed.