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Archives are not straightforward repositories of history. Instead, they authorize which stories are remembered. In this article we apply the insights of cultural geographers and other influential scholars of archives to analyze the political dimensions of archiving activist histories. A small group of antiprison activists produced a personal archive during the 1990s and 2000s documenting brutality behind bars and efforts to dismantle solitary confinement in California prisons. After being deemed too dangerous to be opened to the public by university archivists, and without a permanent home, the papers were at risk of being lost to history. By presenting our work building this archive, we analyze the limitations of institutional libraries and the vital role played by individuals and independent institutions willing to preserve dangerous papers, and we show how preserving histories of state violence and opposition can become a deeply personal and risky endeavor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2004, California became the first state to require that employers provide paid family leave (PFL) to their employees. This paper examines the effect of California's PFL law on time spent caregiving to parents and to grandchildren by older adults aged 50–79. To identify the effect of the law, the paper uses the 1998–2016 waves of the Health and Retirement Study and a difference-in-differences approach comparing outcomes in California to other states before and after the implementation of the law. Results suggest that the law induced a switch in caregiving behavior with older adults spending less time caring for grandchildren and more time helping parents. Focusing on women, results further suggest that PFL affected older adults both through their own leave-taking and through reallocations of their caregiving time in response to leave-taking by new parents. The findings motivate thinking more broadly when calculating the costs and benefits of PFL policies; to the extent that California's PFL law enabled older adults to provide more care for their parents they otherwise would not have received, such an outcome represents an indirect benefit of the policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Motivated by debates about California's net migration loss, we employ valued exponential-family random graph models to analyze the inter-county migration flow network in the United States. We introduce a protocol that visualizes the complex effects of potential underlying mechanisms and perform in silico knockout experiments to quantify their contribution to the California Exodus. We find that racial dynamics contribute to the California Exodus, urbanization ameliorates it, and political climate and housing costs have little impact. Moreover, the severity of the California Exodus depends on how one measures it, and California is not the state with the most substantial population loss. This paper demonstrates how generative statistical models can provide mechanistic insights beyond simple hypothesis-testing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes the perspectives of college students toward food insecurity and basic needs campus resources. We draw from interviews with 49 students at one university in California's Inland Empire conducted in 2019. We found that regardless of personal experience with food insecurity, participants were generally reluctant to access resources or disclose their experiences with the campus community. We propose that this food insecurity stigma operates individually, interactionally, and structurally. We also discuss it as a by-product of neoliberal discourses about students "abusing" the system and needing to pull themselves up by the bootstraps. A response from university stakeholders has been to normalize food insecurity and visibilize resource use. While an important strategy to counteract the impact of food insecurity, we argue that normalization has limits in regard to addressing the root causes of food insecurity. Finally, we also illustrate ways that students themselves resist food insecurity stigma. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A large literature documents that there are significant academic and non-academic differences between the youngest and oldest students in a school cohort. This paper investigates if being the youngest in a cohort has any impact on an individual's propensity to commit crime by utilizing a data set that contains over 4 million arrest records spanning a 20-year period in California. While I find no persistent effect on the probability of arrest, the youngest students in a cohort have a higher risk of arrest for certain offenses at age 14, corresponding to the age when they would transition to high school. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Water reuse with Advanced Water Treatment (AWT) is increasingly appealing for urban areas seeking water supply reliability. In cities facing water scarcity, how can large-scale reuse support reliability and how do reuse operations affect water quality, energy use, and water conservation? This paper presents a systems analysis of metropolitan-scale water reuse and its effects on water supply and quality. For the case study of Los Angeles County, California, USA, hydroeconomic modeling is used to evaluate reuse as a contributor to water supply given urban water conservation, drought-induced water scarcity, and costs and benefits for supply and demand. Results indicate that AWT can be a viable source of supply especially when coupled with conservation. Across modeled scenarios, reuse provides as much as 30% of regional supplies. New water reuse with AWT becomes viable when imported water availability is 50% or less of historic values. Existing indirect potable reuse operations in the county remain important. Systemwide energy intensity of operations increases with greater reuse in the absence of water conservation. Modeled influent flow rates to wastewater treatment plants resemble historical values, but extreme flow events could pose risks. The paper offers a holistic framework to evaluate water reuse as a component of urban water management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For persons serving life-without-parole (LWOP) sentences in California, a commutation usually offers them the sole glimpse of hope for release from prison. While governors were reluctant to consider any sentence reductions from 1975 to 2016, commutations—including those for LWOP—have become a more frequent occurrence since. Yet, little is still known about how governors have justified reducing a sentence that initially offered no prospect of release from prison. Given the apparent change in practice, themes emerging from the content of 177 gubernatorial commutation summaries granted to persons serving LWOP sentences between 2017 and 2021 are analyzed in this paper. Through open coding, rehabilitative indicators (programming and institutional conduct) emerged as necessary preconditions for a commutation, while retributive factors (a reassessment of the nature of the crime and the prerogative to adjust excessive prison sentences or to correct sentencing errors) complemented sentence reductions. The findings expose the ethical issues that arise from an LWOP sentence and the subsequent commutation. More specifically, they shed light on the commitment offenses underlying commuted LWOP sentences and raise questions regarding the penal objectives that are supposed to be accomplished with permanent imprisonment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An acute difficulty in wine-ratings-related research, and in calculating consensus among judges, is that each rating is one observation drawn from a latent probability distribution that is wine- and judge-specific. One observation is almost no data at all. Minimizing a weighted sum of cross entropies has been proposed as a method of estimating the shape of the latent distribution using one observation. That method was tested on 30 blind triplicate wine ratings. This article replicates that test, presents results of tests at hypothetical boundary conditions, and then presents test results for a set of 30 blind triplicate ratings published by Cicchetti [(2014, August). Blind tasting of South African wines: A tale of two methodologies (AAWE Working Paper No. 164, 15 pages)] and a set of 1599 blind triplicate ratings from the California State Fair. The test results show that the minimum cross entropy solution is substantially more accurate than the analysis of a single rating. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Discourse regarding public health problems disproportionately affecting marginalized communities may shape and sustain health inequities. Analyses of news media and public health communications in the wake of infectious disease outbreaks provides opportunities to examine how discourse produces dominant public perceptions about the drivers of health emergencies and who is responsible for protecting community health. Guided by Bacchi's "What is the Problem Represented to Be?" analytic approach, this paper critically examines the discursive construction of problems and solutions in news media (n = 35) and public health communication (n = 18 press releases, n = 1 governmental report) regarding an unprecedented hepatitis A outbreak in San Diego, California, USA (2016–2018) that disproportionately affected people experiencing homelessness. We organize our findings around three elements of problem and solution representation with respect to the outbreak: 1. The inequitable attribution of risk and deservingness; 2. assumptions divorced from socio-structural factors and perspectives of marginalized populations; and 3. political theatre as a means of blame-shifting and (in)action. Overall, our findings suggest that even when structural-level issues were acknowledged within news media and public health communication as undergirding the 'problem' of the hepatitis A outbreak, outbreak discourse focused on individual-level responsibility for both the causes of and solutions to it (e.g. vaccines, criminalization of homelessness), and on shifting blame between government actors. These findings have implications for understanding the role that news media and public health agencies play in shaping public perception of the causes, consequences and solutions to infectious disease outbreaks that disproportionately affect marginalized populations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The California mission system linked Spanish Catholic and political institutions. To secure land and convert Indigenous peoples, the Spanish built 21 missions from San Diego to Sonoma in the 18th and 19th centuries. These missions were sites of disease, violence, and mass death. They were also places built by Native people, on Native lands, where they lived, prayed, and were buried. As a result, missions are fundamentally Indigenous places and important touchstones for descendants today. This article examines such meanings in the lives of several Ohlone peoples, Indigenous peoples of the San Francisco-Monterey region. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork with Ohlone tribes, I argue that we can understand relationships they sustain with California missions by considering such places as Indigenous cemeteries, Indigenous churches, and especially both. While dominant narratives restrict "missionized" Indigenous peoples to an irrecoverable past, this paper theorizes California mission as sites of violence, survival, and belonging to homeland. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper compares drinking patterns of Whites and Hispanics who after crossing the U.S./Mexico border drink and do not drink in Mexico. Data came from a household survey of 1,209 adults 18 to 39 years of age in California. Residence near the US/Mexico border increases the likelihood of drinking in Mexico (AOR = 4.57; 95%CI = 2.45–8.52; p <.001). Hispanics (AOR = 1.91; 95%CI = 1.26–2.90; p <.01), those who drink more frequently (AOR = 1.05; 95%CI = 1.02–1.09; p <.01) and those who drink six or more drinks in day (AOR = 1.91; 95%CI = 1.26–2.29; p <.01) are more likely than Whites and lighter drinkers to report this behavior. Crossing the U.S./Mexico border to drink is influenced by living close to the border, Hispanic ethnicity, and drinking many drinks in a day. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To make informative public policy decisions in battling the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, it is important to know the disease prevalence in a population. There are two intertwined difficulties in estimating this prevalence based on testing results from a group of subjects. First, the test is prone to measurement error with unknown sensitivity and specificity. Second, the prevalence tends to be low at the initial stage of the pandemic and we may not be able to determine if a positive test result is a false positive due to the imperfect test specificity. The statistical inference based on a large sample approximation or conventional bootstrap may not be valid in such cases. In this paper, we have proposed a set of confidence intervals, whose validity doesn't depend on the sample size in the unweighted setting. For the weighted setting, the proposed inference is equivalent to hybrid bootstrap methods, whose performance is also more robust than those based on asymptotic approximations. The methods are used to reanalyze data from a study investigating the antibody prevalence in Santa Clara County, California in addition to several other seroprevalence studies. Simulation studies have been conducted to examine the finite-sample performance of the proposed method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite being some of the harshest environments to design for and inhabit, deserts are considered some of the most malleable in our imagination. Countless military bases, proving grounds, gunneries, and practice fields that simulate other locales prove that in military imagination, deserts are nondescript proxy spaces waiting to be filled with the character of whatever location they are to imitate. The developers' imagination is not far behind. Through a historical case study of California City, an ambitiously planned but only partially built desert development project, and unpacking of the terms "desert" and "wasteland," this essay examines the colonial gaze towards the desert that often shapes our perceptions of this unique environment and exposes the fallacies in our thinking that lead us to imagine deserts as a blank slate waiting to be transformed. The paper also highlights the dangers of overconfidence in technology to create techno-utopias and the need to acknowledge the reality of the desert's harsh environment in any planning or development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, scholars have taken increased interest in the existential dimensions of human im/mobility largely to trace how growing numbers of persons across the globe are pressed to navigate increasingly restrictive mobility regimes. The focus on restrictive contexts has, however, deterred researchers from considering experiences of well-being in precarious conditions. This paper shows how a place-based approach to the study of im/mobility can address this gap by directing scholarly attention to supportive places that promote the well-being of various groups facing limited social conditions. Drawing upon phenomenological healthcare studies, I theorize existential well-being as a dialectic of dwelling-mobility, and study how an increasingly visible supportive place on college campuses in California—namely, the Undocumented Student Resource Center (USRC)—impacts the existential experiences of undocumented students involved in its operations. I theorize 'place' from a sociocultural psychological perspective, viewing USRCs as dynamic, psycho-social-material realities produced by USRC staff and students involved in distinct meaning-making practices. I then discuss research conducted with an USRC in Northern California to show how its distinct socio-material design and psychosocial practices contributed to the development of existential well-being in undocumented students. I conclude that a place-based approach to the study of existential im/mobility can shed light on well-being experiences that are not dependent on the eradication of restrictive mobility regimes and (as such) can contribute to social change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines populous perspectives of the government's responsibility to intervene in situations of possible parental neglect of children in England, Finland, Norway, and California (USA), and ask if institutional context, defined as child protection system and children´s wellbeing situation, are formative for people's perspectives on government responsibility for children in vulnerable situations and how they view children´s future. With representative samples of populations responses to a survey vignette using ordered logistic regression, findings indicate that the institutional context shed some light on differences on state responsibility. However, similarly to welfare state research, there are differences and contradictions in important dimensions that require further investigation, especially on citizens perceptions of neglect and on intrusive interventions. Citizens with a comparatively higher education are evidently much more supportive of state responsibility for children and child protection interventions than other citizens. This finding is similar to those of other studies of state responsibility. Overall, there is a high level of support in populations for the provision of public services to children and families in vulnerable situations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores Latino male community college students' perceptions of their course-related interactions with faculty at a Hispanic Serving Institution in California. Using a Critical Race Theory in Education framework, we qualitatively examine the ways in which race and racism shape students' descriptions of these interactions and the extent to which students attribute negative interactions to racial discrimination and/or oppression. Longitudinal, semi-structured interview data (N = 24) presented underscore the need for structurally diverse faculty in community colleges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The misuse use of prescription stimulants (MPS) among college students is a pressing public health concern. Past research suggests there is variation in MPS frequency by race/ethnicity. According to the Theory of Triadic Influence, a health behavior can increase in frequency based on experiences and characteristics of the behavior. Thus, our aim was to examine the association between experiences and characteristics of MPS with MPS frequency, by race/ethnicity. A probability sample of students attending two California universities completed a paper-based, psychometrically validated, instrument. Students who reported engaging in MPS in their lifetime were also asked questions about frequency, cost per pill, administration routes, sources, and experience with the drug. We used regression analyses to address our research questions, and conducted analyses by racial/ethnic group (i.e. for students identifying as Asian, Latinx, and White). MPS frequency did not vary by race/ethnicity. The influence of characteristics of misuse on frequency varied by race/ethnicity. Additionally, frequency of experiencing the desired outcome was significantly associated with increased MPS frequency across all three racial/ethnic groups. Characteristics of misuse are important to consider when screening for misuse and potential dependence. Particular attention should be given to these characteristics by race/ethnicity. Implications for future research are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to show how Californian libraries deliver value, by taking a preliminary value framework previously developed from a study of academic literature, and applying it to the public library landscape in California. A "bricolage" approach was used to develop an evidence-based framework of value and subsequently to gather data about Californians' use of and attitudes about public libraries. The framework was developed through an extended literature review and applied across data gathered through a survey of residents, interviews with library stakeholders, a review of statistics on library usage, and a review of the outcomes of grant-funded programs in California public libraries. The most significant outcome of our project is a unique value proposition for California's public libraries. These libraries deliver value for individuals, families, groups, communities, and society as a whole. They provide opportunities and support for learning and knowledge development, health and wellbeing, community development, and economic development. Value is delivered through a unique combination of resources, people, and space. California's public libraries are largely offering services that are valued by the public; however, public awareness of the range and nature of services offered remains lower than desired. Practitioners can use the evidence-based framework and the unique value proposition to better understand the aspects of their library services that offer most value to their communities, and to make more persuasive cases for library support. This paper is the first to use an evidence-based framework of value in assessing the impact of California's public libraries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Conceptualizing and measuring trends in segregation in higher education is difficult as both vertical and horizontal sorting is prevalent and patterns vary across racial groups. In this paper, we measure various trends in racial segregation in California for 20 years. We find significant sorting by race both between and within sectors of higher education, though the overall levels of segregation are lower in California's colleges than they are in California's high schools. These trends have and remained relatively stable over time. We also find important differences between groups. We see that most Latinx-White and Black-White segregation is due to students attending different schools within the same sector, while Asian-White segregation is increasingly due to students attending schools in different sectors. We also find evidence that policy and structural changes, such as opening a new campus, can affect patterns of segregation across and within sectors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

California has experienced one of the most intense and prolonged droughts in its history in the last decade, prompting the state government to undertake a series of policy responses. This paper compares the impact of the 2015 urban water-use reduction mandate with respect to pre-policy voluntary conservation efforts and post-policy water consumption trends by examining utility-level water demand dynamics of the Metropolitan Water District in Southern California. The findings overall indicate that despite voluntary measures resulting in a gradual decline in urban water-use, the introduction of the regulatory stick achieved swift reduction targets that remained even after removal of the mandatory policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 1997, thirty-nine members of a religious cult from California, US, committed mass suicide to gain abnormal powers exchanging their present body form. This is popularly known as Heaven's Gate. In 2021, in India, two young women were killed by their learned parents to get abnormal powers by giving-up their present body form. The paper connects such incidences and answers questions like why we feel that our present form of life is worth quitting? Ten eminent personalities from different fields were interviewed. Their responses are presented in a "belief-emotion-behavior," a novel format, analyzing the relationship between the three. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the recent times, the use of geosynthetic-reinforced soil (GRS) technology has become popular for constructing safe and sustainable pavement structures. The strength of the subgrade soil is routinely assessed in terms of its California bearing ratio (CBR). However, in the past, no effort was made to develop a method for evaluating the CBR of the reinforced subgrade soil. The main aim of this paper is to explore and appraise the competency of the several intelligent models such as artificial neural network (ANN), least median of squares regression, Gaussian processes regression, elastic net regularisation regression, lazy K-star, M-5 model trees, alternating model trees and random forest in estimating the CBR of reinforced soil. For this, all the models were calibrated and validated using the reliable pertinent historical data. The prognostic veracity of all the tools mentioned supra were assessed using the well-established traditional statistical indices, external model evaluation technique, multi-criteria assessment approach and independent experimental dataset. Due to the overall excellent performance of ANN, the model was converted into a trackable functional relationship to estimate the CBR of reinforced soil. Finally, the sensitivity analysis was performed to find the strength and relationship of the used parameters on the CBR value. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The objective of this paper is to propose a compaction control method that facilitates the use of expansive soil, as embankment material for highways in humid climates. Three types of expansive soils, utilised as general embankment fill in Southern China, were selected for investigating the physical, compaction, and shear strength properties. The compaction-control method was proposed based on the compaction curve revealed by the dry preparation method, associated with the corresponding soaked California bearing ratio. The site test and long-term monitoring were conducted in an embankment in Ningming, which was filled with compacted expansive soil controlled by the suggested method. The laboratory test results showed that the maximum dry unit weight obtained from the dry preparation method was less than that generated from the moist preparation method, while the optimum moisture content acquired from the dry preparation method was greater and closer to its natural moisture content. The moisture content corresponding to maximum CBR was 2% larger than the optimum moisture content. The in-situ monitoring results presented that the moisture content of the constructed embankment was close to its natural moisture content or plastic limit, the maximum settlement was 70.6 mm, and the maximum horizontal displacement was 20 mm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mapping and monitoring initial burn severity is a critical aspect of forest management and landscape restoration. Recently, supervised learning has achieved great success in evaluating the post-fire forest condition, but plenty of labeled samples are needed to carry out training for supervised learning. However, due to the limitation of accessible labeled data, it is often arduous to put supervised learning into practice in the remote sensing field. In this paper, a novel semi-unsupervised image classification framework by using generative adversarial networks under the Google Earth Engine (GEE) platform is proposed to undertake the burn severity assessment with limited samples. The generative model can produce additional adversarial samples that look like the real samples; therefore, the discriminative model gains better classification capabilities in burn severity assessment with the extra training data provided by the generator. The detailed evaluation and comparative experiments are done in the context of post-fire assessment on eleven forest fires in northern California in the United States. The experimental results demonstrate that our approach significantly outperforms the two other most well-known methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Increasing road construction activities in Nigeria has led to increased demand for lateritic soil (LS), whose properties vary from one location to another, and. The properties of some of this laterite deposits along road alignment can be improved to enable it withstand traffic loads. This paper presents results of the laboratory evaluation of LS stabilised with oil palm fibre ash and cement blends, with a view to determine its suitability as flexible pavement construction material. The mixtures were subjected to British Standard heavy (modified Proctor) compaction energy to determine their strength characteristics. Test results show that the properties of LS improved with oil palm fibre ash and cement treatment. The maximum dry density decreased with corresponding increase in optimum moisture content as the cement content increased from 0% to 6% and the LS content of the mixtures decreased with increased oil palm fibre ash, at a fixed per cent of cement. The peaked California bearing ratio of 190.09% (soaked) recorded for the 80% LS + 14% OPFA + 6% C mix proportion, with 14th day unconfined compressive strength of 785.75 kN/m2, cohesion of 140 kN/m2 and angle of internal friction of 25°, can be used as a base material in road construction. Further work may be encouraged to assess resilient modulus of this material under cyclic load. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper attempts to study the effects of acidic and alkaline waters on the geotechnical properties of a particular type of clay with low plasticity from the northeast areas of Isfahan that have been evaluated with pH values adjusted from 3 to 8. The remoulded specimens were placed in moulds under the influence of acid and alkaline rains with different pH values and years of precipitation. Atterberg limits tests, soil permeability coefficient, California bearing ratio (CBR) test and unconfined compressive strength (UCS) of soil specimens with various pH values were used to evaluate soil mechanical changes relative to soil with neutral acidity. In order to identify internal structural mechanisms of soil before and after artificial raining on the specimens, scanning electron microscopy and pH drainage tests of specimens were performed. The results of the interaction of rain and soil with shifting from neutral values were evaluated over a period of precipitation fluxes from 1 to 20 years. In overall, the more is the acidity or alkalinity of the artificial rain, the more will increase the Atterberg limits and the soil permeability compared to the soil specimens under artificial rain with pH = 7; and the decreasing trend is observed in UCS values and CBR. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Education and training in global health and social justice is crucial to ensuring the next generation of health professionals are poised to tackle the pressing issues of our time. To develop and implement an intensive summer course on global health and social justice for high school students at the University of Southern California. This paper reviews the course aims and curriculum, its implementation both onsite and online, and reports on student course evaluations and long-term student outcomes. Student satisfaction with the program was extremely high, which endured when the course went virtual during the COVID-19 pandemic. The most popular elements of the course included interactive, game-based activities and guest speakers. Many students reported that the course motivated them to pursue higher education and careers in global health or related fields. More universities should consider offering summer programs or other extension programs targeting high school students in order to meet the increasing demand for global health education. Recommendations for implementing global health courses for younger learners include having an interdisciplinary focus with a range of topics and diverse perspectives; provision of scholarships to allow low-income students and students from abroad to participate; prioritizing the integration of active learning and experiential educational opportunities; and incorporating debriefing and reflection as integral parts of learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Much research examining the biological and social-cultural underpinnings of human mate preferences has focused on univariate or bivariate analyses of demographic variables and personality constructs. In this paper, we argue that a multivariate approach more effectively highlights the multifaceted structure and correlates of human mate preferences. To support this claim, we applied several multivariate techniques to data from a large adult sample to (1) examine the major dimensions underlying individual differences in mate preferences, and (2) elucidate how these preferences relate to individual differences in personality. An exploratory factor analysis of an omnibus mate preference questionnaire yielded a 14-factor solution with dimensions mirroring trends in evolutionary psychology and the Big Five personality framework. An inter-battery factor analysis of these dimensions paired with higher-order personality factors provided strong support for the "likes attract" model of partner preferences. Bootstrap confidence intervals for all factor loadings highlighted the robustness of our results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, the performance of two 18-story steel moment frame buildings (UBC 1982 and 1997 designs) in southern California under plausible San Andreas fault earthquakes in the next 30 years is quantified. The approach integrates rupture-to-rafters simulations into the PEER performance-based earthquake engineering (PBEE) framework. Using stochastic sources and computational seismic wave propagation, three-component ground motion histories at 636 sites in southern California are generated for 60 scenario earthquakes on the San Andreas fault. The ruptures, with moment magnitudes in the range of 6.0–8.0, are assumed to occur at five locations on the southern section of the fault. Two unilateral rupture propagation directions are considered. The 30-year probabilities of all plausible ruptures in this magnitude range and in that section of the fault, as forecast by the United States Geological Survey, are distributed among these 60 earthquakes based on proximity and moment release. The response of the two 18-story buildings hypothetically located at each of the 636 sites under three-component shaking from all 60 events is computed using 3-D nonlinear time-history analysis. Using these results, the probability of the structural response exceeding Immediate Occupancy (IO), Life-Safety (LS), and Collapse Prevention (CP) performance levels under San Andreas fault earthquakes over the next 30 years is evaluated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we draw on three ethnographic studies of surrogacy we carried out separately in different contexts: the western US state of California, the south Indian state of Karnataka, and the western Russian metropolis of St Petersburg. In our interviews with surrogate mothers, intended parents, and surrogacy professionals, we traced the meanings and ideologies through which they understood the clinical labour of surrogacy. We found that in the US, interviewed surrogates, intended parents and professionals understood surrogacy as an exchange of both gifts and commodities, where gift-giving, reciprocity, and relatedness between surrogates and intended parents were the major tropes. In India, differing narratives of surrogacy were offered by its different parties: whilst professionals and intended parents framed it as a win-win exchange with an emphasis on the economic side, the interviewed surrogate mothers talked about surrogacy as creative labour of giving life. In Russia, approaches to surrogacy among the interviewed surrogate mothers, professionals and intended parents overlapped in framing it as work and a businesslike commodity exchange. We suggest these three different ways of ethical reasoning about the clinical labour of surrogacy, including justifications of women's incorporation into this labour, were situated in local moral frameworks. We name them "repro-regional moral frameworks", inspired by earlier work on moral frameworks as well as on reproductive nationalisms and transnational reproduction. Building on these findings, we argue that any international or global regulation of surrogacy, or indeed any moral stance on it, needs to take these local differences into account. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the challenges faced by unhoused women in accessing general and reproductive health care services in Santa Cruz, CA. Semi-structured interviews with women experiencing houselessness were conducted in Santa Cruz, CA with a focus on their narrative experiences as patients. The overwhelming majority of participants expressed appreciation for clinics that provided support through longer hours, alternative therapies, and appointment reminders. Overall, the interviews indicated that women who had access to a social worker were much more likely to report improved access to satisfactory treatment. These findings suggest that there is not a tangible lack of healthcare services for unhoused women in the local community, but rather a burden of treatment navigation caused by a dearth of information on how to access care. The interviews suggest that this burden can be reduced with social work interventions and service centers that offer health navigation support. By adapting theories of the "burden of treatment," we argue that additional attention must be paid to overcoming the "burden of treatment navigation." For related reasons, we suggest that increasing the availability of social workers would concretely improve health outcomes for unhoused women. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Alkaline activation has received much attention in recent years as a method for improving the soil properties. This paper presents the details of laboratory investigation to evaluate the feasibility of using the alkaline activation along with the treated coir fibers for improvements of engineering characteristics of soils and subgrade performance of pavements. In the presence of high alkali solutes, the fly ash (FA) was used as a precursor due to its amorphous nature and high silica-to-alumina ratio. Additionally, this study adopted the physical treatment of the fiber surface with the linseed oil. Treated coir fibers and fly ash were added to soil in 1% and 60% ratios (by weight), respectively. Accordingly, a series of unconfined compressive strength (UCS), modulus of elasticity (Es), direct shear (DS) and California bearing ratio (CBR) tests were conducted on the stabilized soil with and without pairing with treated fibers. By adding alkali-activated (AA) fly ash and inclusion of treated fibers led to increasing deformability and failure strain. Based on the atomic force microscopy tests, the addition of treated fibers contributes to the enhancement of AA-stabilized soil through yielding a denser and more uniform structure. The findings encouraged the application of AA-stabilized soils reinforced with treated fibers to improve the strength of soils in alkaline environment as subgrade of pavements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The use of low-NOx compressed natural gas (CNG) medium-duty vehicles (MDVs) and heavy-duty vehicles (HDVs) has the potential to significantly reduce NOx emissions and yield improvements in regional air quality. However, the extent of air quality improvement depends on many factors including future levels of vehicle deployment, the evolution of emissions from other sources, and meteorology. An analysis of the impacts requires modeling the atmosphere to account for both primary and secondary air pollutants, and the use of health impact assessment tools to map air quality changes into quantifiable metrics of human health. Here, we quantify and compare the air quality and health impacts associated with the deployment of low-NOx CNG engines to power future MDV and HDV fleets in California relative to both a business-as-usual and a more advanced fleet composition. The results project that reductions in summer ground-level ozone could reach 13 ppb when compared to a baseline fleet of diesel and gasoline HDV and MDV and could reach 6 ppb when compared to a cleaner fleet that includes some zero-emission vehicles and fuels. Similarly, for all CNG cases considered reductions in PM2.5 are predicted to range from 1.2 ug/m3 to 2.7 ug/m3 for a summer episode and from 3.1 ug/m3 to approximately 7.8 ug/m3 for a winter episode. These improvements yield short-term health benefits equivalent to $47 to $56 million in summer and $38 to $43 million in winter during episodes conducive to poor air quality. Additionally, the use of zero emission vehicle options such as battery electric and hydrogen fuel cell trucks could achieve approximately 25% to 31% higher benefits for an equivalent fleet penetration level due to the additional emission reductions achieved. Implications: The paper provides a quantitative estimate of the air quality and human health benefits that can be achieved through the use of novel compressed natural gas engines (i.e., low-NOx CNG) in medium- and heavy-duty vehicles and provide a comparison with zero emission vehicles. Thus, our findings will provide support for policy development seeking to transform the trucking sector to meet clean air and climate goals given the current struggle policymakers have with selecting between alternative truck technologies due to variance in factors like cost and technical maturity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers a photograph by Leon A. Borensztein of the artist Judith Scott, taken in the Creative Growth Arts Center in California in 1997. It explores notions of affect and the mobilization of feeling on the part of the artist and artwork, photographer and viewer, with consideration of the way in which textile associations are central to the affective passage of transmission and encounter. A textile-skin interface between the haptic and the scopic is seen to characterize both the performative arena of the subject matter and the intricacy of the photograph's surface. Scott's textile-rich practices as an artist and her biographical circumstances are considered as intrinsic to the affective potency of the image. Didier Anzieu's notion of the skin envelope further enriches analysis of the bond that is established within the performative arena of the image and the sensations that are embodied in the viewer's response. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Inclusionary housing is considered a powerful local policy tool that can help address housing affordability and social inclusion issues. This paper draws from empirical research conducted in the City of Santa Monica in California to provide fresh insights on a successful innovative inclusionary housing program, the Affordable Housing Production Program (AHPP). This program was established to increase affordable housing production and enable social integration. Based on the Land Use and Circulation Element (LUCE) of the General Plan, the AHPP seeks to capture some of the increase in land value resulting from planned increases in the intensity of development. Our research shows that the program increased inclusionary housing production by market-rate developers by 15% over the previous inclusionary housing policy. The study finds that land use policies and planning can, through inclusionary housing, help harness the strength of the real estate market to (1) increase affordable housing production, and (2) achieve effective social integration in neighborhoods of opportunity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]