Search

My Turn is software used to manage several Covid-19 mass vaccination campaigns in California. The objective of this article is to describe the use of My Turn at two points of dispensing in California and comment on process improvements to reduce manual tasks of six identified processes of vaccination–registration, scheduling, administration, documentation, follow-up, and digital vaccine record–and paper. We reviewed publicly available documents of My Turn and patients vaccinated at George R. Moscone Convention Center in San Francisco and Oakland Coliseum Community Vaccination Clinic. For publicly available documents of My Turn, we examined videos of My Turn on YouTube, and documentation from EZIZ, the website for the California Vaccines for Children Program. For patients, we examined publicly available vaccination record cards on Instagram and Google. At the George R. Moscone Convention Center, 329,608 vaccines doses were given. At the Oakland Coliseum Community Vaccination Clinic, more than 500,000 vaccine doses were administered. The use of My Turn can be used to reduce manual tasks and paper for mass vaccinating patients against Covid-19. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: In an effort to address persistent inequities in maternal and infant health, policymakers and advocates have pushed to expand access to doula care. Several states, including California, now cover doula services through Medicaid. As coverage expands, research on the impact of doula care will likely increase. To develop best practices for research, it is critical to engage community doulas, clients, and other key stakeholders. Description: Our overarching goal was to build capacity for future doula- and client-centered research on community doula care. First, we established a Steering Committee with members from seven relevant stakeholder groups: community doulas, former or potential doula clients, clinicians, payers, advocates, researchers, and public health professionals. Second, we conducted a needs assessment to identify and understand stakeholders' needs and values for research on community doula care. Findings from the needs assessment informed our third step, conducting a research prioritization to develop a shared research agenda related to community doula care with the Steering Committee. We adapted the Research Prioritization by Affected Communities protocol to guide this process, which resulted in a final list of 21 priority research questions. Lastly, we offered a training to increase capacity among community doulas to engage in research on community doula care. Assessment: Our findings provide direction for those interested in conducting research on doula care, as well as policymakers and funders. Conclusion: The findings of our stakeholder-engaged process provide a roadmap that will lead to equity-oriented research centering clients, doulas, and their communities. Significance: What is Already Known on this Subject?: Doula care is often cited as a cost-effective intervention to improve maternal and infant health and health care experiences. However, research that focuses on the community-based model of doula care is limited. What this Study Adds?: This paper describes a stakeholder-engaged process that identified important understudied research questions about community doula care. Researchers can further refine these questions to conduct partnered research with multiple stakeholder groups, including community doulas, former or potential doula clients, clinicians, payers, advocates, and public health professionals. Further, this paper outlines best practices for research on community doula care. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Strandings have been extensively documented for large mammals, however, a comprehensive survey focusing on batoids is currently lacking. To address this knowledge gap, we conducted a review of available stranding data sourced from iNaturalist, news websites, and published papers. A total of 3.148 reports encompassing 189 batoid species were recovered, revealing the vulnerability of both oceanic and coastal species to strandings. Nevertheless, limited data on life stage, sex, animal condition, and fate hinder a comprehensive understanding of this phenomenon. Putative causes were identified only for a small percentage (6%) of the reports, namely pollution, abrupt environmental alterations, predation, pathologies, and fishing activities. The earliest reported stranding dates back to 1989, with an increase in reports observed since 2019. iNaturalist accounted for the majority (75%) of records, emphasizing its significance as a platform for reporting and monitoring batoid strandings. These strandings were reported in 51 countries, with the coastal areas of California, United States, particularly notable. Among the identified species, Rhinoptera bonasus exhibited the highest number of strandings, with 392 recorded individuals. Alarmingly, more than half of the reports involved threatened species, underscoring the need for increased attention to batoid strandings. To address these issues, we propose the establishment of stranding monitoring networks and the development of a freely accessible global database. In addition, the training of volunteer citizen scientists, the development of rescue and rehabilitation protocols, and manuals of good fishing practices aimed at commercial and recreational fisheries are also recommended. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The number of wildfire incidents affecting communities in Wildland–Urban Interface (WUI) areas has been rapidly increasing. Understanding the fire spread between structures and evaluation of the response of the communities to the possible wildfire scenarios are crucial for proper risk management in the existing and future communities. This paper discusses a stochastic methodology to evaluate the community's response to potential wildfire scenarios. The methodology has three primary features: (1) it is based on stochastic modeling of fire spread; (2) it breaks the wildfire incident into two consecutive segments: spread inside the wildland and spread inside the community; (3) it integrates the two spread models in the form of a conditional probability. The paper focuses on fire spread inside the community and applies the proposed methodology to two case studies in California, US. The two case studies demonstrate variations in fire spread within the communities for the given fire scenarios approaching from the wildland. The performance of communities is characterized using cumulative distribution functions of the number of ignited buildings over time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recycled concrete aggregates (RCAs) have a high potential to be used as replacements for natural aggregates in the construction of pavements with similar or even better characteristics. This paper evaluates the influence of RCA as a partial replacement in a granular sub-base of 37.5 mm nominal maximum size (GSB38). Specifically, two replacement percentages of RCA by weight of the coarse aggregate of the GSB38 were evaluated: 10 and 15. To estimate the influence on the mechanical behavior, abrasion tests were carried out in the Los Angeles (LA) abrasion and California bearing ratio (CBR) methods. For GSB38, the average abrasion results were 30.54%. The CBR for the same material at a penetration of 0.254 cm was 26.90, 61.00 and 76.20% and at a penetration of 0.508 cm was 33.00, 65.70 and 82.00% for 10, 25 and 56 blows per layer, respectively. For GSB38 with 10% RCA, similar and even better behavior than natural GSB38 was found in terms of LA abrasion, with an average result of 38.68%. The CBR for the same alternative at a penetration of 0.254 cm was 13.20, 52.80 and 57.70% and at a penetration of 0.508 cm was 18.00, 61.30 and 68.90% for 10, 25 and 56 blows per layer, respectively. But GSB38 with 15% RCA showed an average abrasion of 45.51%, indicating a decrease compared with natural GSB38 and GSB38 with 10% RCA. The CBR for the same alternative also shows a decreasing trend. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) is the primary gatekeeper to secure financial aid for college. The federal government instituted two changes to the process in 2017, commonly known as "prior-prior year" FAFSA: (1) an earlier start date that lengthens the filing period and (2) the ability to use completed taxes from the prior calendar year. This paper uses descriptive statistics to examine resulting changes in application filing behavior in California. Students submitted their FAFSA substantially earlier and refiling rates increased among independent students in the policy year. Although these changes may have reduced the burden of applying, the earlier submissions did not appear to substantially alter state aid receipt or postsecondary attendance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Gradual loss of water resource in the Salton Sea has got much attention from researchers recently for its damage to the local environment and ecosystems for human beings, animals and plants. To monitor the water resource of the lake, researchers usually obtain certain water resource indices manually from databases such as the satellite images of the region. In this paper, we develop a new method to monitor the area of the Salton Sea automatically. By this method, the lake boundary is first segmented from each satellite image by an image segmentation procedure, and then its area is computed by a numerical algorithm. The sequence of lake areas computed from satellite images taken at different time points is then monitored by a control chart from the statistical process control literature. Because the lake area changes gradually over time, the control chart designed for detecting process mean drifts is used here for the water resource surveillance application. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The earthquake cycle of stress accumulation and release is associated with the elastic rebound hypothesis proposed by H.F. Reid following the M7.9 San Francisco earthquake of 1906. However, observing details of the actual values of time- and space-dependent tectonic stress is not possible at the present time. In two previous papers, we have proposed methods to image the earthquake cycle in California by means of proxy variables. These variables are based on correlations in patterns of small earthquakes that occur nearly continuously in time. The purpose of the present paper is to compare these two methods by evaluating their information content using decision thresholds and Receiver Operating Characteristic methods together with Shannon information entropy. Using seismic data from 1940 to present in California, we find that both methods provide nearly equivalent information on the rise and fall of earthquake correlations associated with major earthquakes in the region. We conclude that the resulting timeseries can be viewed as proxies for the cycle of stress accumulation and release associated with major tectonic activity. Article Highlights: The current state of the earthquake cycle of tectonic stress accumulation and release is unobservable We review two methods for visualizing the current state of the earthquake cycle from correlation in small earthquake patterns Machine learning techniques indicate that signals in a correlation time series corresponding to future large earthquakes can be detected [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Hearing Voices (HV) Movement promotes diverse understandings of voice-hearing and seeing visions, which mental health professionals commonly refer to as 'auditory hallucinations,' 'schizophrenia,' or 'psychosis.' Central to this movement are peer support groups through which attendees connect with others who have similar experiences. This paper describes an adaptation of a Hearing Voices group facilitation training at VA Greater Los Angeles (VAGLA) and discusses training modifications, along with trainee perceptions and implementation and intervention outcomes. This is a first step towards adapting HV-inspired groups to VA systems of care. Data collection involved surveys of trainees (n = 18) and field notes throughout the 24 h online training. Findings indicate high acceptability and appropriateness of the training and high feasibility in implementation, suggesting the training was well-adapted to VAGLA. This research contributes to global efforts to integrate the Hearing Voices approach in diverse settings and increase awareness about its benefits among providers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Marginalized individuals are less likely to participate or have their interests represented in political processes than historically privileged individuals. Interest groups are considered the best means to address this gap, but there is little research on the role of interest groups in mobilizing people to participate in political processes and none on marginalized communities in particular. This paper is the first to test hypotheses about organizational strategies used to mobilize vulnerable communities for political participation around unconventional oil and gas policies in California and Colorado. Based on a survey of interest groups in both states, the results show that interest groups working in vulnerable communities do more outside advocacy (i.e., connecting residents to representatives) and use more personal communication methods (i.e., door-to-door canvassing) than interest groups working in historically privileged communities. However, organizational strategies in general are not well predicted by the target community's composition, suggesting that decisions around mobilization strategies are driven by other factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Persian gum as a newly introduced hydrocolloid with unique adhesive and gel forming properties has found wide applications in various industries such as medicine, food and textile. Recently, it has been employed in soil environment as a biocompatible stabilizing agent. However, due to its novelty, there is no study about its application in cohesionless sandy soil. This paper provides a comprehensive evaluation of Persian gum treated sand through macro- and microscale tests including compaction, unconfined compressive strength (UCS), direct shear (DS), triaxial (UU), California bearing ratio (CBR), falling head permeability, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), stereo zoom microscopy (SZM), Brunner, Emmet and Teller (BET), particle size analysis (PSA) and thermal gravimetric analysis (TGA). The tests were conducted on untreated and treated soil with different Persian gum contents and curing times. The obtained results represent the powerful performance of this novel gum in mechanical strength and bearing capacity enhancement through binding soil particles and formation of large agglomerated grains. Also, the remarkable ability of this novel gum in pore filling and compacting soil interstructure makes it a favorable additive in soil projects with permeability reduction purposes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper, on the one hand, proposes a statistical technique to detect potential causal relationships when the researcher has georeferenced data but not time dimension, and, on the other, applies this new methodology to the analysis of potential partial causal determinants of home prices. In particular, we find that the direction of causality for home prices in California goes from the income level to prices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To address the gap in energy performance studies regarding the role of information entropy in feedback processes between input and output slacks, the paper develops a novel Stochastic-Entropic Analysis for Ideal Solutions (SEA-IS) model. The non-linear stochastic optimization model is then applied to assess the potential information gains that may arise from energy slacks minimization given the different optimal reduction quantiles in US states. The model relies on Beta distributed priors to model the odds-ratio of learning feedback and takes advantages of numerous strengths present in DEA and TOPSIS approaches for performance management. Machine learning methods are also employed to predict information gains in terms of contextual variables. We find that California is the only U.S. state that has indicate strong mutual information feedback and continuous improvements in efficiency. The results indicate there is ample scope for harnessing the power of information gains in improving energy efficiency, particularly in 37 U.S. states, which indicates scope for a public–private partnership to achieve this goal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Point sources in spatially referenced data can impact outcomes in surrounding locations (e.g., a factory that emits air pollution). Previous statistical methods have sought to describe the non-stationary correlation induced by the presence of a point source, with fewer attempting to quantify its overall impact. We introduce directionally varying change points (DVCP), a model that aims to estimate the magnitude of the impact of a point source as well as its range of influence across the spatial domain. DVCP allows for a unique change point parameter, describing the range of influence of a point source, at every angle extending from the source and uses a Gaussian process with directionally defined correlation function to facilitate estimation of the parameters. The Gaussian predictive process approximation is used for fitting the model to large datasets. Through simulation, we show that DVCP can easily accommodate a wide range of shapes defining the range of influence. We apply DVCP to better understand spatial patterns of ambient PM 2.5 concentrations and issues related to environmental inequity in California and Colorado. The method is available in the R package DVCP. Supplementary materials accompanying this paper appear online. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While many standardized assessment measures exist to track child mental health treatment outcomes, the degree to which such tools have been adequately tested for reliability and validity across race, ethnicity, and class is uneven. This paper examines the corpus of published tests of psychometric properties for the ten standardized measures used in U.S. child outpatient care, with focus on breadth of testing across these domains. Our goal is to assist care providers, researchers, and legislators in understanding how cultural mismatch impacts measurement accuracy and how to select tools appropriate to the characteristics of their client populations. We also highlight avenues of needed research for measures that are in common use. The list of measures was compiled from (1) U.S. state Department of Mental Health websites; (2) a survey of California county behavioral health agency directors; and (3) exploratory literature scans of published research. Ten measures met inclusion criteria; for each one a systematic review of psychometrics literature was conducted. Diversity of participant research samples was examined as well as differences in reliability and validity by gender, race or ethnicity, and socio-economic class. All measures showed adequate reliability and validity, however half lacked diverse testing across all three domains and all lacked testing with Asian American/Pacific Islander and Native American children. ASEBA, PSC, and SDQ had the broadest testing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Emergency general surgery (EGS) is a critical component of emergency care in the United States. Due to the time sensitiveness of EGS conditions, ensuring adequate spatial access to EGS services is paramount for reducing patient morbidity and mortality. Past studies have used travel time to measure spatial access to EGS services, which has its limitations. The major purpose of this paper is to evaluate the utility of a gravity-based spatial access model in measuring spatial access to EGS services in California. Our data sources include the American Hospital Association 2015 Annual Survey, the American Community Survey 2013–2017 five-year average dataset, and background geospatial datasets. We implemented both the gravity-based model and the shortest travel time method and compared them in measuring spatial access to EGS-capable hospitals in California at the census block group level. We analyzed each metric's ability to identify disparities in spatial access for the population as a whole, and subsequently to identify socio-demographic disparities. Overall, we found that both methods identified similar geographic and socio-demographic patterns of the spatial access. Native Americans and rural residents experienced the greatest disadvantage in spatial access to both general EGS services and advanced EGS services. However, the gravity-based model revealed more disparities in spatial access to EGS services than the travel time model, suggesting that using travel cost alone to measure spatial access to EGS services may underestimate the magnitude of disparities. These findings call for the use of gravity-based models that incorporate measures of population demand and hospital capacity when assessing spatial access to surgical services, and have implications for reallocating surgery resources to address disparities in spatial access. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the constant-damage residual displacement ratios Cr (i.e., the ratio of the residual displacement in terms of the maximum inelastic displacement) of single-degree-of-freedom (SDOF) systems with different damage levels. A statistical study aimed at estimating the constant-damage Cr is conducted using the modified Park–Ang damage model when subjected to 228 ground motions recorded in California and organized for the NEHRP soil type, peak ground acceleration and ground motion duration. The effects of soil type, damage model and hysteretic behaviour are highlighted. The results indicate that constant-damage Cr increases when the damage index increases, reaching a limit at a damage index of 0.5. An empirical expression is finally proposed with two-step regression analysis to provide a reliable estimate of constant-damage Cr for SDOF structures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: In this study, we describe a participatory design process to develop a technology-based intervention for sun protection for children and their parents. Our methodology embraces and leverages the expert knowledge of the target users, children and their parents, about their sun protection practices to directly influence the design of our mobile just-in-time adaptive intervention (JITAI). The objectives of this paper are to describe our research procedures and summarize primary findings incorporated into developing our JITAI modules. Methods: We conducted 3 rounds of iterative co-design workshops with design expert KidsTeam UW children (N: 11–12) and subject expert children and their parents from local communities in California (N: 22–48). Iteratively, we thematically coded the qualitative data generated by participants in the co-design sessions to directly inform design specifications. Results: Three themes emerged: (1) preference for non-linear educational format with less structure,; (2) situations not conducive for prioritizing sun protection; and (3) challenges, barriers, and ambiguity relating to sun protection to protect oneself and one's family. Based on the design ideas and iterative participant feedback, three categories of modules were developed: personalized and interactive data intake module, narrative-education module with augmented reality experiment, person/real-time tailored JITAI, and assessment modules. Conclusions: This is one of the first projects that maximally engage children and parents as co-designers to build a technology to improve sun protection with iterative and intentional design principles. Our scalable approach to design a mobile JITAI to improve sun protection will lay the foundation for future public health investigators with similar endeavors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Persistent scatterer interferometric synthetic aperture radar (PS-InSAR) is a widely used technique for local ground deformation estimation due to its millimetric accuracy and full-resolution results. However, with the enhancement of data acquisition capability of the SAR sensors, larger coverage and higher temporal-spatial resolution of SAR images can cause explosive increase and uneven distribution of PS points. PS network constructed between PSs with different qualities may cause spatial-error propagation. Large PS points list with large amount of data also have high requirements on computing performance and storage space. Those problems can bring big challenge for PS-InSAR technique in processing capacity, deformation monitoring accuracy and algorithm efficiency. In order to effectively overcome those limitations, this paper proposed a novel block PS-InSAR method that uses the approach of partitioning a study area into regular blocks with overlapping regions, selecting a high-quality reference point for each block and eliminating the discontinuity of the parameter calculating results in adjacent blocks by the weighted least square method. We used this approach to analyze ground subsidence in over 13,000 km2 of southern California, and it performed successfully when 69 Sentinel-1 images were used and 21,029,968 PSs were selected. Only approximately 10 h was needed for this experiment. Comparing the deformation rate and time series of the InSAR results with 29 GPS observations, the mean and standard deviation of difference of deformation rate were − 0.63 mm/yr and 1.53 mm/yr, respectively, and the average root mean squared error of deformation time series was 3.7 mm. The experiment demonstrated that this method could achieve high accuracy results without spatial discontinuity and increase the computational efficiency significantly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hydroelectric generators in pumped-storage service experience more loading cycles than their counterparts in continuous-flow service. As a result, generator rotors in pumped-storage service are more susceptible to fatigue cracking, especially in high-stress locations such as the field-pole attachment slots. Failure of a pole attachment during operation has catastrophic consequences. Pacific Gas and Electric Company, owner, and operator of the Helms Pumped-Storage Facility in California, sought assistance in performing stress and fatigue crack growth analyses of the original Helms rotor design to assess the potential for fatigue cracking in the pole-attachment dovetails. Informed by results from a preliminary analysis, the company decided to inspect the Helms pole attachments. Inspections revealed the presence of cracking in several pole-attachment dovetail slots. Cracks were removed by local grinding as a temporary repair to allow limited additional operation while replacement rotors were fabricated. Detailed analysis of the repaired rotor was performed to evaluate remaining strength based on conservative assumptions. This paper describes analyses that allowed the company to make important and informed decisions regarding the integrity and reliability of the Helms Facility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Exploring spatial patterns in the context of disease mapping is a decisive approach to bring evidence of geographical tendencies in assessing disease status and progression. In most cases, multiple count responses (corresponding to disease incidences of multiple types, such as cancer in men and women) are recorded at each spatial location, which may exhibit similar spatial patterns in addition to disease-specific patterns. These are typically modeled using multivariate shared component models, where the spatial (random) effects may be shared between the disease types to model their association. However, this framework is not immune to spatial confounding, where the latent correlation between the spatial random effects and the fixed effects often leads to misleading interpretation. A recent approach to attenuate spatial confounding is the "SPatial Orthogonal Centroid 'K'orrection", aka SPOCK, which displaces the geographical centroids, ensuring orthogonality of the spatial random effects and the fixed effects. In this paper, we introduce MSPOCK, or Multiple SPOCK, to tackle spatial confounding for the multiple counts scenario. The methodology is evaluated on synthetic data, and illustrated via an application to new cases of respiratory system cancer for men and women for the US state of California in 2016. Our studies show that the MSPOCK correction leads to a reduction of the posterior variance estimates of model parameters, while maintaining the interpretation of the model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Post-wildfire investigations of structures provide engineers with data to understand how to harden building infrastructure for future wildfire hazards. This paper presents a preliminary framework where field-collected LiDAR and drone data is integrated with numerical models for post-wildfire assessment of buildings with the goal of learning from wildfire-damaged buildings. The developed framework provides a new and novel approach for post-wildfire instigations of buildings using field-collected data, particularly LiDAR and drone data. This framework is demonstrated on a metal-framed school building in Paradise, California that was heavily damaged in the 2018 Camp Fire. The authors collected drone aerial images and light detection and ranging (LiDAR) scans of Achieve Charter High School after the 2018 Camp Fire. All data were used to create a system-level finite element model to simulate the fire behavior of a portal frame with non-prismatic members. A parametric study was performed with three typical compartment fires to examine the influence of building characteristics on the fire's maximum temperature and duration. Several time–temperature (T–t) curves, representing different fire scenarios, were generated between the two extreme cases produced by the parametric study. Finally, the finite element model was subjected to the generated fire curves, and the results were compared with the measured deformations from the LiDAR data collected in the field. The finite element model, subjected to each fire Time–temperature curve scenario, simulated global deformations within 2% of the true deformations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]