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Ira Herscowitz died on 28 April 2003 of pancreatic cancer. He graduated from the California Institute of Technology and attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for his doctorate, studying the control of gene expression in phage lambda. As a young professor at the University of Oregon he started his seminal work on yeast molecular biology. Extending the pioneering work by Yasuji Oshima, he provided molecular interpretation of the cassette theory of yeast mating type interconversion. Later at the University of California, San Francisco, he continued to make key contributions on gene regulation and control of cell cycle with the yeast system. I think it a natural development that, in later years, he was concerned with the mammalian biology of pharmacogenetics of membrane transporters. Ira had a remarkable ability to untangle complex phenomena by clear reasoning and impressed us with his persuasive presentation. He was also an enthusiastic folk and blues singer. When I organized a biology meeting, I asked him to bring his guitar. He said that ‘I will bring my instrument made in Japan’, real or joke? I present below some of the witty lines he sang. I feel very sad that I cannot reproduce his attractively deep voice. (Jun-ichi Tomizawa, ‘Tomi’). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay provides an overview of the 11th International Conference of the Greening of Industry Network held in San Francisco, USA, on 12–15 October 2003. The conference gave Greening of Industry Network (GIN) members the opportunity to debate issues around the theme of Innovating for Sustainability in a location central to technological innovation in the United States. This special issue of Business Strategy and the Environment focuses on the diverse interpretations of innovation and their impacts on the different strands of sustainability. The conference was timely in its debates about the nature of innovation from system level to product level, and from technological innovation to innovations in the management of a wide range of stakeholders and the resulting impacts on environmental, economic, social and ethical sustainability. This essay briefly discusses the relationship between innovation and sustainability, and considers the factors that either facilitate progress towards a more sustainable future, or present barriers to achieving sustainability. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Profiles Joan Ablon, professor emerita of medical anthropology in the Department of Anthropology, History, and Social Medicine at the University of California in San Francisco. Details of her anthropology career at the University of Texas; Information on a study conducted by Ablon on dwarfism; Concern of Ablon on the social well-being of individuals.

In this paper we examine the effects of different components of corporate culture on two different categories of action in both routine and jolted environments. Data were collected on a heterogeneous sample of 54 corporations in the San Francisco Bay Area. We examined how the values, knowledge, and practices dimensions of corporate culture influenced actions to prepare for responding to future earthquake disasters and actions to mitigate or reduce future physical and associated earthquake losses. The findings show that corporate earthquake culture is a multidimensional concept, that varied elements of culture function to impact corporate action differently is distinct organizational environments, and that culture's impact on organizational action is contingent on the type of action being considered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses, in brief, about some of the papers presented at the 2001 annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, held in San Francisco, California. All these papers have a common theme to bring legislative affairs into the limelight. The paper "A Tools of the Trade' Look at the Comparing Congress with State Legislatures" offers a primer on comparing and contrasting U.S. Congress with the American state legislatures. The paper "Senate Apprenticeship in Historical Perspective" addresses the conventional wisdom among U.S. senators.

Abstract: This article illustrates the potential for studying best practices from the past, engaging in what we term archeological benchmarking. Our focus for this study was the Fred Harvey Company, which operated a highly successful string of restaurants and hotels along the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad line starting in 1876, reaching its peak around 1912, and continuing until the early 1950s. Fred Harvey was a visionary businessman who understood many of the key concepts guiding the most successful service operations today. This article describes the operating system Harvey used for delivering 15 million meals per year in 65 restaurants extending over a span reaching from Chicago to San Francisco. The underpinnings of Harvey's system foretold concepts considered new today, particularly the service profit chain [Heskett, J. , Jones, T. , Loveman, G. , Sasser Jr. , W. E. , Schlesinger, L. , 1994] and its reliance on a clear operations strategy supported by well-trained, loyal employees and a congruent system of measurement. It is significant that Harvey achieved his success without the advantages of modern information systems by relying, instead, on his iconic leadership, dogged attention to mundane details, and the service culture he was able to embed throughout the far-flung enterprise. The Harvey story is an example of ahead-of-its-time operations thinking, but it also asks us to attend more broadly to the history of the field – as does this entire special issue – as a source of inspiration and grounding. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Objective: To examine preferences for HIV test methods using conjoint analysis, a method used to measure economic preferences (utilities).Data Sources: Self-administered surveys at four publicly funded HIV testing locations in San Francisco, California, between November 1999 and February 2000 (n = 365, 96 percent response rate).Study Design: We defined six important attributes of HIV tests and their levels (location, price, ease of collection, timeliness/accuracy, privacy/anonymity, and counseling). A fractional factorial design was used to develop scenarios that consisted of combinations of attribute levels. Respondents were asked 11 questions about whether they would choose "Test A or B" based on these scenarios.Data Analysis: We used random effects probit models to estimate utilities for testing attributes. Since price was included as an attribute, we were able to estimate willingness to pay, which provides a standardized measure for use in economic evaluations. We used extensive analyses to examine the reliability and validity of the results, including analyses of: (1) preference consistency, (2) willingness to trade among attributes, and (3) consistency with theoretical predictions.Principal Findings: Respondents most preferred tests that were accurate/timely and private/anonymous, whereas they had relatively lower preferences for in-person counseling. Respondents were willing to pay an additional $35 for immediate, highly accurate results; however, they had a strong disutility for receiving immediate but less accurate results. By using conjoint analysis to analyze new combinations of attributes, we found that respondents would most prefer instant, highly accurate home tests, even though they are not currently available in the U.S. Respondents were willing to pay $39 for a highly accurate, instant home test.Conclusions: The method of conjoint analysis enabled us to estimate utilities for specific attributes of HIV tests as well as the overall utility obtained from various HIV tests, including tests that are under consideration but not yet available. Conjoint analysis offers an approach that can be useful for measuring and understanding the value of other health care goods, services, and interventions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: To compare and contrast methods and findings from two approaches to valuation used in the same survey: measurement of "attitudes" using simple rankings and ratings versus measurement of "preferences" using conjoint analysis. Conjoint analysis, a stated preference method, involves comparing scenarios composed of attribute descriptions by ranking, rating, or choosing scenarios. We explore possible explanations for our findings using focus groups conducted after the quantitative survey.Methods: A self-administered survey, measuring attitudes and preferences for HIV tests, was conducted at HIV testing sites in San Francisco in 1999-2000 (n = 365, response rate = 96 percent). Attitudes were measured and analyzed using standard approaches. Conjoint analysis scenarios were developed using a fractional factorial design and results analyzed using random effects probit models. We examined how the results using the two approaches were both similar and different.Results: We found that "attitudes" and "preferences" were generally consistent, but there were some important differences. Although rankings based on the attitude and conjoint analysis surveys were similar, closer examination revealed important differences in how respondents valued price and attributes with "halo" effects, variation in how attribute levels were valued, and apparent differences in decision-making processes.Conclusions: To our knowledge, this is the first study to compare attitude surveys and conjoint analysis surveys and to explore the meaning of the results using post-hoc focus groups. Although the overall findings for attitudes and preferences were similar, the two approaches resulted in some different conclusions. Health researchers should consider the advantages and limitations of both methods when determining how to measure what people value. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents information on a presidential address given by Harold R. Capener at the annual meeting of the Rural Sociological Society, San Francisco, California, in August 1975. The author said "Calvin Beale, one of our foremost demographers, in a recent article made a pronouncement of great significance to the discipline of rural sociology: The huge rural-to-urban trend, the common pattern to U.S. population migration since World War II, has been reversed. In the eyes of many Americans, the appeal of major urban areas has dimished and the attractiveness of rural and small town communities has increased, economically and otherwise. The result is a new trend that is already having an impact. One that modifies much we have taken for granted about population distribution. Beale's statement is interesting. He says, in effect, all these years we have been living and adjusting our social, economic, and political policies around the opposite phenomenon-rural-to-urban migration."

The article discusses the contribution of social service & mdash; public health and travellers' aid, to help immigrants in California. The Gold Rush brought such an overwhelming number of the sick and impoverished that the immigration wave threatened to become a catastrophe. Social work was peculiarly difficult to initiate because it was not only undertaken in the midst of an emergency but also before there was any experience in social service in the area. All newcomers had one idea in mind — to hurry off to the mines as soon as possible, make their pile and return home. Hurry, excitement, self-interest, gambling, drinking, vigilantism, robbery, and murder —all the ills of society appeared concentrated in an area which lately had been quiet and innocent. To San Francisco, California, came all who traveled by ship. Although the trip from the east coast of the United States was made by a few steamboats, most of the vessels were sailboats and took six to nine months for the trip around Cape Horn.

This article presents results of a study conducted in two suburbs outside London, England and San Francisco, California, respectively, to ascertain family relationships. It was found that the groups were found to be similar, when in both cases, parents in their old age maintained close ties with their adult children both in terms of geography and frequency of contact, and daughters play consistently more important parts in their parents' lives than sons. The difference was that a larger proportion of the American group have knowledge of and pride in their pedigree, while the English group have relatively little knowledge of ancestry. The study was carried out on a countrywide basis in a limited way with a group of 3,964 for the U.S.A. and 900 for Great Britain. Results of the study suggest that old people generally maintain close links with their children and that the mother-daughter tie is the central nexus of the kinship network of industrial societies. Concern for ancestry seems to be more pronounced in the U.S.A. than in Great Britain. But in view of the size of the inquiry these statements are not so much findings as suggestions for further research.