Greenhouse studies were conducted from 2020 to 2021 to evaluate the effect of simulated drift rates of 2,4-D and dicamba on strawberry growth, fruit development and fruit quality in Raleigh, NC. Treatments included 2,4-D choline and dicamba DGA plus Vapor Grip at 1/2x, 1/20x, and 1/200x of the 1x field rate of 1.09 and 0.8 kg ae ha-1, respectively. Treatments were applied to strawberry at three reproductive stages, including bud, flower, and fruit. Averaged across both herbicides, strawberry canopy size was reduced by the 1/2x rate 18, 25, 30, and 36% at 3, 6, 9, and 11 wk after treatment (WAT). The 1/2x rate of both herbicides caused greater injury to strawberry than the 1/20x or 1/200x, with maximum stunting from 2,4-D and dicamba of 54 and 36%, respectively. Fruit pH and SSC increased due to the 1/2x rate of dicamba compared to the 1/20x and 1/200x rates and the nontreated. Treated fruit (across all herbicides) were larger than fruit developing following herbicide application to flowers or buds but were similar to nontreated fruit.

Investigating the earliest stages of crystallization requires the transmission electron microscope (TEM) and is particularly challenging for materials which can be affected by the electron beam. Typically, when imaging at magnifications high enough to observe local crystallinity, the electron beam's current density must be high to produce adequate image contrast. Yet, minimizing the electron dose is necessary to reduce the changes caused by the beam. With the advent of a sensitive, high-speed, direct-detection camera for a TEM that is corrected for spherical aberration, it is possible to probe the early stages of crystallization at the atomic scale. High-quality images with low contrast can now be analyzed using new computing methods. In the present paper, this approach is illustrated for crystallization in a Ge2Sb2Te5 (GST-225) phase-change material which can undergo particularly rapid phase transformations and is sensitive to the electron beam. A thin (20 nm) film of GST-225 has been directly imaged in the TEM and the low-dose images processed using Python scripting to extract details of the nanoscale nuclei. Quantitative analysis of the processed images in a video sequence also allows the growth of such nuclei to be followed.

We assessed the relative efficacy and effectiveness of low-versus standard-dose neuroleptic therapy in reducing relapse rate in schizophrenic patients. Six long-term randomized controlled trials were retrieved through a MEDLINE search. A dose regimen between 50 and 100 mg equivalent of chlorpromazine, compared to a conventional one between 200 and 500 mg, was found to increase the likelihood of relapse in chronic schizophrenic patients. Differences, however, were statistically significant at 12 but not at 24 months of treatment.

Beam damage is a major limitation in electron microscopy that becomes increasingly severe at higher resolution. One possible route to circumvent radiation damage, which forms the basis for single-particle electron microscopy and related techniques, is to distribute the dose over many identical copies of an object. For the acquisition of low-dose data, ideally no dose should be applied to the region of interest before the acquisition of data. We present an automated approach that can collect large amounts of data efficiently by acquiring images in a user-defined area-of-interest with atomic resolution. We demonstrate that the stage mechanics of the Nion UltraSTEM, combined with an intelligent algorithm to move the sample, allow the automated acquisition of atomically resolved images from micron-sized areas of a graphene substrate. Moving the sample stage automatically in a regular pattern over the area-of-interest enables the collection of data from pristine sample regions without exposing them to the electron beam before recording an image. Therefore, it is possible to obtain data with minimal dose (no prior exposure during focusing), which is only limited by the minimum signal needed for data processing. This enables us to minimize beam-induced damage in the sample and to acquire large data sets within a reasonable amount of time.