Search

The article focuses on a study which assesses the feasibility of implementing a culturally appropriate Alzheimer's disease and related dementias (ADRD) workflow in primary care setting in the U.S. To determine the impact of the new workflow, ADRD workflow outcomes and demographic data pre- and post-implementation were extracted from the electronic medical record (EMR). Results revealed that all ADRD workflow outcomes were higher post-implementation compared to pre-implementation.

Chinook salmon (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha) display remarkable life history diversity, underpinning their ability to adapt to environmental change. Maintaining life history diversity is vital to the resilience and stability of Chinook salmon metapopulations, particularly under changing climates. However, the conditions that promote life history diversity are rapidly disappearing, as anthropogenic forces promote homogenization of habitats and genetic lineages. In this study, we use the highly modified Yuba River in California to understand if distinct genetic lineages and life histories still exist, despite reductions in spawning habitat and hatchery practices that have promoted introgression. There is currently a concerted effort to protect federally listed Central Valley spring‐run Chinook salmon populations, given that few wild populations still exist. Despite this, we lack a comprehensive understanding of the genetic and life history diversity of Chinook salmon present in the Yuba River. To understand this diversity, we collected migration timing data and GREB1L genotypes from hook‐and‐line, acoustic tagging, and carcass surveys of Chinook salmon in the Yuba River between 2009 and 2011. Variation in the GREB1L region of the genome is tightly linked with run timing in Chinook salmon throughout their range, but the relationship between this variation and entry on spawning grounds is little explored in California's Central Valley. We found that the date Chinook salmon crossed the lowest barrier to Yuba River spawning habitat (Daguerre Point Dam) was tightly correlated with their GREB1L genotype. Importantly, our study confirms that ESA‐listed spring‐run Chinook salmon are spawning in the Yuba River, promoting a portfolio of life history and genetic diversity, despite the highly compressed habitat. This work highlights the need to identify and protect this life history diversity, especially in heavily impacted systems, to maintain healthy Chinook salmon metapopulations. Without protection, we run the risk of losing the last vestiges of important genetic variation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As teacher educators better understand the recurved, holistic, and often deeply embedded ways in which teachers learn, they can better support meaningful professional preparation that serves teachers' careers, the students they teach, and the profession of teaching as a whole. This article uses the ecologically minded "teacher identity" as a useful analytic for understanding beginning teacher development. The author is guided by a view of teacher development as a continuum rather than discrete, linear parts. That is to say that teacher recruitment, preservice preparation, inservice professional development, and teacher retention may be chronologically sequenced but, epistemologically, they are intertwined and continually loop back and forth to influence each other in mutually constitutive ways. Teacher development is circular even as it is also forward-moving: a teacher is always collapsing the past, present, and future into a complex melange of professional beliefs, goals, memories, and predictions while enacting practice. This article, then, considers how teachers rely on embedded understandings "of" and "for" themselves as teachers, which derive from personal and prior experiences as well as professional and current ones. These embedded understandings shape how teachers interpret, evaluate, and continuously collaborate in the construction of their own early development. Drawing on data collected from six first-year teachers from the same California university teacher education program, the article examines how multiple components of a teacher's professional identity mediate one another as each becomes intertwined within (and organized around) the teacher's understandings of teaching, teacher practices, and career plans. To present this analysis, the author focuses on ways a teacher's "reasons for entering" the profession illuminate teacher identity and influence teacher development. (Contains 1 table, 1 diagram and 6 notes.)

Objective: High level athletes achieve high rates of return to play and improved patient reported outcomes (PROMs) after hip arthroscopy for femoroacetabular impingement (FAI). However, few studies have evaluated return to sport rates in recreational athletes, risk factors for failure to return to sport, and the effect of psychological readiness to return to sport (RTS) within this population. We hypothesize that recreational athletes undergoing hip arthroscopy for FAI achieve high PROMs and rates of RTS and that psychological readiness is a risk factor for failure to RTS. Additionally, we hypothesize that male athletes and younger age are positively associated with psychological readiness to RTS. Methods: Retrospective review of prospectively collected data in our institution's Center for Hip Pain and Preservation Outcomes Registry identified recreational athletes with a minimum of 12 months follow-up, who underwent hip arthroscopy for FAI between 2008-2018. The primary outcome was RTS. The secondary outcomes were ---Hip-RSI (SF) score, modified Harris Hip Score (mHHS), Hip Outcome Score Activities of Daily Living (HOS-ADL), Hip Outcome Score Sport (HOS-Sport), and International Hip Outcome Tool (iHOT33). Results: 84.8% of recreational athletes returned to sport with 70.52% returning to the same level of play. Athletes who failed to RTS were younger (p-value=0.0427), last participated 9-12 months prior to surgery (32.26%) or had stopped participating in sports altogether (70.97%) (p-value=0.0002 and p-value=0.0013). Hip-RSI Score was a statistically significant predictor of failure to RTS at one and two years respectively (OR 0.915 (95%CI 0.87, 0.962) and OR 0.904 (95%CI 0.818, 0.999)). Increasing age had a positive effect on psychological readiness to RTS (0.5004-point increase in RSI score (p-value=0.0002)) while sex, BMI, additional ipsilateral surgery, and last participation in sport were not predictive of psychological readiness (p-values>0.05). Conclusions: Recreational athletes undergoing hip arthroscopy achieve high rates of RTS, return to the same level of play, and demonstrate significant improvements in PROMs. The Hip-RSI-score was a statistically significant predictor of failure to RTS at 1 and 2 years post operatively. Lastly, higher psychological readiness for return to sport was seen in older recreational athletes undergoing hip arthroscopy for FAI. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Older adults experiencing chronic homelessness (i.e., prolonged homelessness and a disabling condition) have low rates of advance care planning (ACP) despite high rates of morbidity and mortality. Rehousing of homeless‐experienced individuals into permanent supportive housing (PSH) may present an opportunity to introduce ACP; but this is unknown. Therefore, we explored staff and resident perceptions of conducting ACP in PSH. Methods: We conducted semi‐structured interviews with PSH staff (n = 13) and tenants (PSH residents) (n = 26) in San Francisco. We used the capability (C), opportunity (O), motivation (M), behavior (COM‐B) framework within the Behavior Change Wheel model and the Theoretical Domains Framework (TDF) to inform interviews, categorize themes, and guide qualitative thematic analysis. Results: The mean age of PSH residents was 67 (SD = 6.1) years and 52% were women. Of staff, 69% were women. Important COM‐B barriers included ACP complexity (C), complicated relationship dynamics (O), resource limitations (O), pessimism (M), variable staff confidence (M), and competing priorities (M). Facilitators included easy‐to‐use documents/videos, including the PREPARE for Your Care program (C), stability with housing (O), exposure to health crises (O), potential for strong relationships (O), and belief that ACP is impactful (M). Recommendations included adapting materials to the PSH setting, providing staff trainings/scripts, and using optional one‐on‐one or group sessions. Conclusions: We identified behavioral determinants related to ACP for formerly chronically homeless older adults in PSH. Future interventions should include using easy‐to‐use ACP materials and developing resources to educate PSH residents, train staff, and model ACP in groups or one‐on‐one sessions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article reports on a study of teachers at one reforming high school. Though it is not their task to debate No Child Left Behind (NCLB), the authors locate their investigation inside the current policy context to which NCLB is attached. Specifically, they present their analysis through the organizational behavior lens of threat rigidity to discuss the ways that current federal and state policy contexts influence schools and how those affected schools in turn adopt corresponding reforms that influence teachers' work. The analysis demonstrates that on both levels, such influence occurs in similar ways: by centralizing and restricting the flow of information, by constricting control, by emphasizing routinized and simplified instructional/assessment practices, and by applying strong pressure for school personnel to conform. (Contains 1 table, 1 figure and 11 notes.)

Background Context: Throughout United States history, immigrant education has been shaped and defined by political struggles over immigration, language rights, national security, and educational equity and access. Bilingual education has become the contemporary battleground for these struggles. In 1996, in California, a struggle ensued between supporters of bilingual education and the English Only movement, culminating in a public ballot initiative, Proposition 227, designed to end bilingual education. Purpose/Focus: This article explores the ways in which advocacy groups engage in efforts to protect immigrant students' access to, and inclusion in, schools, and how that engagement is shaped and seeks to impact on prevailing policies and ideologies. Design: This qualitative case study is based on historical records from the Proposition 227 campaigns, analysis of media coverage, and interviews, and was written as a reflective piece by a social scientist who was active in the campaigns. Conclusions and Recommendations: The battle over Proposition 227 was just one episode in a historically broader and deeper societal struggle between fundamentally different perspectives about the role of public schools in a diverse society. Although the explicit conflicts between English Only and bilingual education forces in California before, during, and after Proposition 227 were focused on English learner program design--the language to be used for instruction, materials, and credentialing--this was and is an ideological struggle. Advocates for bilingual education were unprepared for fighting this battle in the public arena of a ballot initiative. In the course of the Proposition 227 campaign, advocates drew lessons that informed a revised strategy: to shift the basic paradigm within which immigrant education is framed beyond the framework of civil rights and a compensatory program to redefine immigration schooling in an affirmative, additive 21st-century global vision. This has resulted in a renewed advocacy movement, illustrating the role that advocacy organizations play in adapting and reshaping the dialogues and policies over immigrant education.

In this article, the author presents Kenji Ima who recalls his life in America's World War II prison camps. In the summer of 1945, after more than three years in the prison camp, Kenji Ima and his friends returned home from Minidoka. Seeing the marble edifices of the King Street railroad station and the towering buildings of Seattle, "was like finding Oz," Kenji Ima remembers. But he said they were still the enemy. Their neighbor on Beacon Hill had a grocery store with a sign that said, "No Japs Allowed." Furthermore, when Kim Ima--daughter of Kenji Ima--was growing up, the Ima family occasionally mentioned her father's time "in camp." It was always called just "camp." Kim Ima prodded her father, a sociologist, for more details--first in junior high when she was writing a research paper and again in college when she wrote a one-act play about her family's silence. She decided her father's reticence must mean he had few memories of Minidoka because he was there when he was a child. But, when they attended a conference about the prison camps in California, Kenji Ima finally started talking to his daughter about the sadness he felt when he first saw Kim Ima perform "Within the Silence" five years ago. Thus, he realized that talking to his daughter and seeing her performances is a way of accepting the sadness and using the acceptance to live in the present.

Objective: The interdependence of hospitals is underappreciated in patient outcomes studies. We used a network science approach to foreground this interdependence. Specifically, within two large state-based interhospital networks, we examined the relationship of a hospital's network position with in-hospital mortality and length of stay. Methods: We constructed interhospital network graphs using data from the Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project and the American Hospital Association Annual Survey for Florida (2014) and California (2011). The exposure of interest was hospital centrality, defined as weighted degree (sum of all ties to a given hospital from other hospitals). The outcomes were in-hospital mortality and length of stay with sub-analyses for four acute medical conditions: pneumonia, heart failure, ischemic stroke, myocardial infarction. We compared outcomes for each quartile of hospital centrality relative to the most central quartile (Q4), independent of patient- and hospital-level characteristics, in this retrospective cross-sectional study. Results: The inpatient cohorts had 1,246,169 patients in Florida and 1,415,728 in California. Compared to Florida's central hospitals which had an overall mortality 1.60%, peripheral hospitals had higher in-hospital mortality (1.97%, adjusted OR (95%CI): Q1 1.61 (1.37, 1.89), p<0.001). Hospitals in the middle quartiles had lower in-hospital mortality compared to central hospitals (%, adjusted OR (95% CI): Q2 1.39%, 0.79 (0.70, 0.89), p<0.001; Q3 1.33%, 0.78 (0.70, 0.87), p<0.001). Peripheral hospitals had longer lengths of stay (adjusted incidence rate ratio (95% CI): Q1 2.47 (2.44, 2.50), p<0.001). These findings were replicated in California, and in patients with heart failure and pneumonia in Florida. These results show a u-shaped distribution of outcomes based on hospital network centrality quartile. Conclusions: The position of hospitals within an inter-hospital network is associated with patient outcomes. Specifically, hospitals located in the peripheral or central positions may be most vulnerable to diminished quality outcomes due to the network. Results should be replicated with deeper clinical data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Examines data collected from 36 California schools over three years to investigate individual and schoolwide influences shaping teachers' relationships to particular school reform efforts (thereby leading teachers to mediate the reforms in individual ways). (Contains references.) (SM)

Good reforms can have harmful results if equity effects are ignored. As California implements its accountability system, certain questions must be addressed concerning the system's data use, measurement features (consistency, meaningfulness, achievement growth, achievement gaps among groups), instructional improvement focus, incentives for low-achieving schools, and equal learning opportunities. (MLH)

Reports interviews with 36 California teachers concerning the challenges of diverse classrooms, teachers' roles, and the move to adopt more global curricula needed for an increasingly international world. Teachers discuss their personal development of cultural awareness, including foreign language learning and participating in workshops on prejudice reduction and intergroup relations. (CJS)

Background: The proportion of adults age 50 and older experiencing homelessness is growing. People at risk for homelessness may stay with family and friends during homelessness episodes. Moving in with housed family and friends is a strategy used to exit homelessness. Little is known about these stays with family and friends. This study examined the motivations for and challenges of older adults experiencing homelessness staying with or moving in with family or friends. Methods: We purposively sampled 46 participants from the HOPE HOME study, a cohort of 350 community-recruited adults experiencing homelessness age ≥50 in Oakland, CA. Inclusion criteria included having stayed with housed family/friends for ≥1 nights in the prior 6 months. We sampled 19 family/friends who had hosted participants experiencing homelessness. We conducted separate, semi-structured interviews, summarized, memoed and coded data consistent using a grounded theory approach. Results: Older adults experiencing homelessness reported primarily temporary stays. Motivations for stays on the part of participants included a need for environmental, physical, and emotional respite from homelessness. Both individuals experiencing homelessness and hosts cited the mutual benefits of stays. Barriers to stays included feelings of shame, concerns about burdening the hosts, and interpersonal conflicts between older adults experiencing homelessness and host participants. Conclusions: There are potential opportunities and concerns surrounding temporary stays between older adults experiencing homelessness and their family or friends. Policy solutions should support the potential mutual benefits of temporary stays, while addressing interpersonal barriers to strengthen kinship and friendship networks and mediate the negative impacts of homelessness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Criticizes the Unz/Tuchman "English for Children" initiative (R. Unz) a proposal that would place limited-English-speaking children in California together, regardless of age or academic abilities, for one year of intensive English instruction and no instruction in academic subjects before returning them to regular classes. Discusses the dangers of this approach. (SLD)

Sediment delivery following post‐fire logging is a concern relative to water quality. While studies have assessed the effect of post‐fire logging on sediment yields at different spatial scales, none have explicitly identified sediment sources. Our goal was to quantify post‐fire and post‐salvage logging sediment yields and use rill patterns to identify sediment sources. We measured the extent and type of logging disturbance, length of rills per unit area or "rill density", ground cover, and sediment yields in nine logged and five control small catchments or "swales", 0.09 to 0.81 ha, for 5 years after the 2013 Rim Fire in California's Sierra Nevada. The logged swales had a mean ground disturbance of 31%. After the first wet season following logging, there was no difference in either mean rill density (0.071 and 0.088 m m−2, respectively) or mean transformed, normalized sediment yields between the control and logged swales. Untransformed mean sediment yields across three sites ranged from 0.11–11.8 and 1.1–3.2 Mg ha−1 for the controls and salvage‐logged swales, respectively. Rill density was strongly related to sediment yield and increased significantly with the amount of high‐traffic skid trail disturbance in logged swales. Rill density was not significantly related to the amount of bare soil despite a significant relationship between sediment yields and bare soil. Rills usually initiated in bare soil and frequently connected high traffic skid trails to the drainage network after being diverted by waterbars. Rill connectivity and sediment yields decreased in control and logged swales where vegetation or other surface cover was high, suggesting this cover disconnected rills from the drainage network. Increasing ground cover on skid trails and between areas disturbed by post‐fire logging and stream channels may reduce sediment yields as well as the hydrologic connectivity between hillslopes and the drainage network. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background/Objectives: Older homeless-experienced adults have low rates of advance care planning (ACP) engagement despite high rates of morbidity and mortality. To inform intervention development, we examined potential barriers and solutions to ACP engagement. Design: Cross-sectional qualitative study. Setting: We recruited adults who were homeless in the prior three years and ≥50 years of age in the San Francisco Bay Area, and recruited clinical stakeholders from a national meeting of homeless providers. We analyzed qualitative data using thematic analysis. Measurements: We conducted semistructured interviews with homeless-experienced older adults (n = 20) and focus groups with clinical stakeholders (n = 24) about perceived barriers and solutions to ACP engagement. Results: Participants considered ACP important, reflecting on deaths of people in their networks who had died. Participant-identified barriers to ACP included poor ACP knowledge, lack of familial ties and social isolation, competing priorities, avoidance and lack of readiness, fatalism and mistrust, and lack of ACP training for clinical and nonclinical staff. They identified solutions that included framing ACP as a way to provide meaning and assert choice, providing easy-to-read written documents focused on the populations' unique needs, tailoring content and delivery, initiating ACP in nonclinical settings, such as permanent supportive housing, and providing incentives. Conclusions: Both older homeless-experienced adults and clinical stakeholders believe that ACP is important, but acknowledge multiple barriers that impede engagement. By focusing on potential solutions, including capitalizing on opportunities outside of health care settings, focusing on the period after housing, and tailoring content, there are opportunities to improve ACP uptake. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An unprecedented number of foreign-born children in California classrooms are forcing educators to rethink school programs, structures, policies, and staffing. Schools are largely overwhelmed by demographic changes, war-traumatized and undocumented children, tremendous academic gaps, and cultural and language diversity. Classroom methods and resources are suggested. (MLH)

BACKGROUND: Environmental health (EH) professionals, one of the largest segments of the public health workforce, are responsible for delivery of essential environmental public health services. The challenges facing these professionals and research needs to improve EH practice are not fully understood, but 26% of EH professionals working in health departments of the United States plan to retire in 5 y, while only 6% of public health students are currently pursuing EH concentrations. OBJECTIVES: A groundbreaking initiative was recently launched to understand EH practice in health departments of the United States. This commentary article aims to identify priority EH practice challenges and related research needs for health departments. METHODS: A horizon scanning approach was conducted in which challenges facing EH professionals were provided by 1,736 respondents working at health departments who responded to a web-based survey fielded in November 2017. Thematic analyses of the responses and determining the frequency at which respondents reported specific issues and opportunities identified primary EH topic areas. These topic areas and related issues informed focus group discussions at an in-person workshop held in Anaheim, California. The purpose of the in-person workshop was to engage each of the topic areas and issues, through facilitated focus groups, leading to the formation of four to five related problem statements for each EH topic. DISCUSSION: EH professionals are strategically positioned to diagnose, intervene, and prevent public health threats. Focus group engagement resulted in 29 priority problem statements partitioned among 6 EH topic areas: a) drinking water quality, b) wastewater management, c) healthy homes, d) food safety, e) vectors and public health pests, and f) emerging issues. This commentary article identifies priority challenges and related research needs to catalyze effective delivery of essential environmental public health services for common EH program areas in health departments. An unprecedented initiative to revitalize EH practice with timely and strategic recommendations for student and professional training, nontraditional partnerships, and basic and translational research activities is recommended. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Misdirected amplexus has been reported between conspecifics, congeners, between different amphibian families, and between amphibians and non-amphibian objects. We observed misdirected amplexus between a Pacific Treefrog and a Western Toad, wherein the treefrog amplexed the toad's leg. These types of events can result in reproductive interference and have also been considered an evolutionary trap for some species. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Residents of the United States rely on municipal governments to deliver important public goods but are often reluctant to pay for those goods. Can tax policy design affect voters' propensity to say yes to local taxes? We answer this question by analyzing a new database of 929 tax increases of heterogeneous design that were proposed to California voters from 1996 to 2010. We find that voters' willingness to raise a municipal tax varies with the choice of tax base, as well as with such policy design features as its timing and its symbolic links to particular purposes. The political limits on city revenue may vary substantially depending on how a tax is designed, and theories that assume otherwise—including several classic models of urban politics—may exaggerate the degree to which municipal revenues are constrained. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The geographically widespread mayfly genus Baetis occurs from the subarctic to tropical regions of the world. Many of the 20 described Baetis species in North America are known to show cryptic species diversity. However, studies of Baetis that have examined morphology and genetic diversity have found mixed results in terms of cryptic species, with some studies indicating a complex of related species and others suggesting a single widespread species. We used Bayesian analyses, intra- and interspecific genetic diversity values, and median-joining haplotype networks to compare cytochrome oxidase I (COI) sequences from Baetis specimens from parts of northern and southern California (n = 742). Our results suggest that genetic diversity at the COI gene region in populations from northern California supports the diversity indicated by morphology (Baetis tricaudatus and Baetis adonis); however, populations in southern California exhibit more genetic diversity than indicated by morphology alone (DNA divergence > 1%), which suggests cryptic species diversity. The putative species that was morphologically and genetically identified as Baetis tricaudatus was the only taxon that occurred in both regions. No haplotypes were shared between regions. Intraspecific diversity within putative species from northern California was >1%. In contrast, intraspecific diversity within species from southern California was always <1%. Such discrepancies highlight the need for locally derived reference libraries in using next-generation sequencing or environmental DNA as a method to examine genetic diversity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: To examine attitudes toward tobacco control policies among older African American homeless-experienced smokers.Approach: A qualitative study.Setting: Oakland, California.Participants: Twenty-two African American older homeless-experienced smokers who were part of a longitudinal study on health and health-related outcomes (Health Outcomes of People Experiencing Homelessness in Older Middle Age Study).Method: We conducted in-depth, semistructured interviews with each participant to explore beliefs and attitudes toward tobacco use and cessation, barriers to smoking cessation, and attitudes toward current tobacco control strategies including raising cigarette prices, smoke-free policies, and graphic warning labels. We used a grounded theory approach to analyze the transcripts.Results: Community social norms supportive of cigarette smoking and co-use of tobacco with other illicit substances were strong motivators of initiation and maintenance of tobacco use. Self-reported barriers to cessation included nicotine dependence, the experience of being homeless, fatalistic attitudes toward smoking cessation, substance use, and exposure to tobacco industry marketing. While participants were cognizant of current tobacco control policies and interventions for cessation, they felt that they were not specific enough for African Americans experiencing homelessness. Participants expressed strong support for strategies that de-normalized tobacco use and advertised the harmful effects of tobacco.Conclusion: Older African American homeless-experienced smokers face significant barriers to smoking cessation. Interventions that advertise the harmful effects of tobacco may be effective in stimulating smoking cessation among this population. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) has drastically affected the delivery of cancer care. Cancer patients have experienced increased fear and anxiety affecting their ability to seek appropriate treatment and follow up. Cancer patients who have Covid-19 have a higher mortality rate compared with those without cancer. This highlights the need for cancer patients to make every effort to reduce exposure. This academic medical center saw an increase in the number of cancer patients who were unwilling to return for treatments and follow up visits. The purpose of this initiative was to implement two curbside cancer clinics for the treatment of patients with solid tumors and hematologic malignancies. This innovation allowed patients and their caregivers to remain in their vehicle without having to enter the cancer center. Curbside clinics, designed to provide an identical standard of care as performed in the infusion clinics, opened for patient care in March 2020. Therapies moved to these clinics included all intramuscular, subcutaneous, and intradermal cancer and cancer supportive care medication injections. Antineoplastic agents including chemotherapy and immunotherapy were also administered in these clinics. Procedures such as blood draws, central vascular access care and fittings for scalp cooling were other services provided. The CNS and designated clinic RNs collaborated with pharmacy, hospital security, facilities, and environmental care staff to develop a comprehensive implementation plan with the required equipment and safety measures. The Covid-19 pandemic will likely impact cancer care for an extended period. Both patients and providers have embraced the Covid-19 curbside clinics. Staff report high satisfaction with this novel strategy for care delivery. Patients and caregivers have been extremely satisfied with the services provided and have recommended this as a permanent strategy for delivery of cancer therapies to eligible patients. Since opening, over 5,000 patients have visited these curbside cancer clinics. Curbside cancer clinics offer patients a way to receive therapies by Oncology nurses without the need to enter the health care setting, thus reducing their risk of exposure to Covid-19 and reducing associated stress and anxiety. This academic medical center has implemented permanent spaces and equipment to ensure that curbside clinics become a permanent part of the cancer program. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background and purpose Alterations in the gut microbial community composition may be influential in neurological disease. Microbial community profiles were compared between early onset pediatric multiple sclerosis ( MS) and control children similar for age and sex. Methods Children ≤18 years old within 2 years of MS onset or controls without autoimmune disorders attending a University of California, San Francisco, USA, pediatric clinic were examined for fecal bacterial community composition and predicted function by 16S ribosomal RNA sequencing and phylogenetic reconstruction of unobserved states ( PICRUSt) analysis. Associations between subject characteristics and the microbiota, including beta diversity and taxa abundance, were identified using non-parametric tests, permutational multivariate analysis of variance and negative binomial regression. Results Eighteen relapsing−remitting MS cases and 17 controls (mean age 13 years; range 4-18) were studied. Cases had a short disease duration (mean 11 months; range 2-24) and half were immunomodulatory drug ( IMD) naïve. Whilst overall gut bacterial beta diversity was not significantly related to MS status, IMD exposure was (Canberra, P < 0.02). However, relative to controls, MS cases had a significant enrichment in relative abundance for members of the Desulfovibrionaceae ( Bilophila, Desulfovibrio and Christensenellaceae) and depletion in Lachnospiraceae and Ruminococcaceae (all P and q < 0.000005). Microbial genes predicted as enriched in MS versus controls included those involved in glutathione metabolism (Mann−Whitney, P = 0.017), findings that were consistent regardless of IMD exposure. Conclusions In recent onset pediatric MS, perturbations in the gut microbiome composition were observed, in parallel with predicted enrichment of metabolic pathways associated with neurodegeneration. Findings were suggestive of a pro-inflammatory milieu. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We use the 3D finite-element method to conduct dynamic models of rupture and resulting ground motion on the Claremont-Casa Loma stepover of the northern San Jacinto fault. We incorporate complex fault geometry (from the U.S. Geological Survey [USGS] Quaternary Faults Database; see Data and Resources), a realistic velocity structure (the Southern California Earthquake Center Community Velocity Model-S), a realistic regional stress field with an orientation taken from seismicity relocation literature, and several stochastic self-similar shear stress distributions. As we incorporate more types of complexity, the specific effects of any individual factor become less apparent within the overall rupture behavior. We also find that the distribution of high and low shear stress that arises from combining regional and stochastic stress fields has the strongest control over where the rupture terminates. Using a regional stress field alone, as well as with the combined regional and stochastic stress realization, we find that the stepover presents a significant barrier to rupture, regardless of our choice of initial nucleation point and that it is difficult for rupture to propagate the full length of either fault segment. Greater heterogeneity of stresses tends to produce shorter ruptures. Within this result, we find that the Claremont strand is more favorable for long ruptures than the Casa Loma-Clark strand. Low-frequency ground-motion intensity and distribution are controlled largely by the velocity structure rather than by stress heterogeneity. The strongest motions produced in these models are in the San Bernardino basin. Although directivity effects do contribute to the low-frequency ground-motion distribution, particularly in the near field, they are secondary to the effects of the velocity structure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Southern California San Jacinto fault is geometrically complex, consisting of several major strands with smaller scale complexity within each strand. The two northernmost strands, the Claremont and the Casa Loma-Clark, are separated by a 25-km-long extensional stepover with an average of 4 km separation between the strands. We use a combined modeling method to assess probable rupture and ground-motion behaviors for this stepover. First, dynamic rupture modeling on geometrically complex fault strands embedded in a state-of-the-art 3D crustal velocity model is used to generate a series of scenario earthquakes. We then use the resulting near-fault low-frequency (<1 Hz) ground-motion time histories to generate broadband synthetic seismograms with a hybrid approach. These synthetics are then compared with a distribution of precariously balanced rocks (PBRs) near the fault to constrain our results and assess shaking hazard for the region surrounding the fault. Our dynamic models produce sources between Mw 5.4 and 6.9, with rupture limits imposed by sharp contrasts in fault stress or by geometrical barriers. The main stepover serves as a primary barrier to rupture in our model, producing event sizes that are consistent with the historical behavior of the San Jacinto fault. The largest broadband synthetics are a good match to leading ground-motion prediction equations and are generally consistent with the distribution of PBRs, none of which experience accelerations that produce toppling probabilities significantly higher than zero. Thus, although the PBRs do not rule out any of our model scenarios, they confirm that our models produce realistic rupture extents and shaking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The prevalence of autistic disorder (AD), a serious developmental condition, has risen dramatically over the past two decades, but high-quality population-based research addressing etiology is limited. Objectives: We studied the influence of exposures to traffic-related air pollution during pregnancy on the development of autism using data from air monitoring stations and a land use regression (LUR) model to estimate exposures. Methods: Children of mothers who gave birth in Los Angeles, California, who were diagnosed with a primary AD diagnosis at 3-5 years of age during 1998-2009 were identified through the California Department of Developmental Services and linked to 1995-2006 California birth certificates. For 7,603 children with autism and 10 controls per case matched by sex, birth year, and minimum gestational age, birth addresses were mapped and linked to the nearest air monitoring station and a LUR model. We used conditional logistic regression, adjusting for maternal and perinatal characteristics including indicators of SES. Results: Per interquartile range (IQR) increase, we estimated a 12-15% relative increase in odds of autism for ozone [odds ratio (OR) = 1.12, 95% CI: 1.06, 1.19; per 11.54.ppb increase] and particulate matter ≤2.5μm (OR = 1.15; 95% CI: 1.06, 1.24; per 4.68-μg/m3 increase) when mutually adjusting for both pollutants. Furthermore, we estimated 3-9% relative increases in odds per IQR increase for LUR-based nitric oxide and nitrogen dioxide exposure estimates. LUR-based associations were strongest for children of mothers with less than a high school education. Conclusion: Measured and estimated exposures from ambient pollutant monitors and LUR model suggest associations between autism and prenatal air pollution exposure, mostly related to traffic sources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

SUMMARY Simulations of earthquake rupture on the southern San Andreas Fault (SAF) reveal large amplifications in the San Gabriel and Los Angeles Basins (SGB and LAB) apparently associated with long-range path effects. Geometrically similar excitation patterns can be recognized repeatedly in different SAF simulations (e.g. Love wave-like energy with predominant period around 4 s, channelled southwestwardly from the SGB into LAB), yet the amplitudes with which these distinctive wavefield patterns are excited change, depending upon source details (slip distribution, direction and velocity of rupture). We describe a method for rapid calculation of the sensitivity of such predicted wavefield features to perturbations of the source kinematics, using a time-reversed (adjoint) wavefield simulation. The calculations are analogous to those done in adjoint tomography, and the same time-reversed calculation also yields path-sensitivity kernels that give further insight into the excitation mechanism. For rupture on the southernmost 300 km of SAF, LAB excitation is greatest for slip concentrated between the northern Coachella Valley and the transverse ranges, propagating to the NE and with rupture velocities between 3250 and 3500 m s-1 along that fault segment; that is, within or slightly above the velocity range (between Rayleigh and S velocities) that is energetically precluded in the limit of a sharp rupture front, highlighting the potential value of imposing physical constraints (such as from spontaneous rupture models) on source parametrizations. LAB excitation is weak for rupture to the SW and for ruptures in either direction located north of the transverse transverse ranges, whereas Ventura Basin (VTB) is preferentially excited by NE ruptures situated north of the transverse ranges. Path kernels show that LAB excitation is mediated by surface waves deflected by the velocity contrast along the southern margin of the transverse ranges, having most of their energy in basement rock until they impinge on the eastern edge of SGB, through which they are then funnelled into LAB. VTB amplification is enhanced by a similar waveguide effect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Though typically limited in aerial extent, soils of high-elevation riparian wetlands have among the highest density of soil carbon (C) and nitrogen (N) of terrestrial ecosystems and therefore contribute disproportionally to ecosystem services such as water retention, forage production, wildlife habitat, and reactive N removal. Because much soil C and N is stored in labile forms in anaerobic conditions, management activities or environmental changes that lead to drying cause mineralization of labile soil organic matter, and loss of C and N. Meadows are focal points of human activities in mountain regions, often with incised stream channels from historically heavy grazing exacerbated by extreme runoff events. To quantify soil C and N stores in montane riparian meadows across hydrologic conditions, 17 meadows between 1950- and 2675-m elevation were selected in the central Sierra Nevada Range, California, that were classified using the proper functioning condition (PFC) system. Results indicate that C and N density in whole-solum soil cores were equivalent at forest edge positions of properly functioning, functioning at-risk, and nonfunctioning condition. Soils under more moist meadow positions in properly functioning meadows have at least twice the C, N, dissolved organic C, and dissolved organic N (DON) than those under nonfunctioning meadows. Densities of total N and DON, but not C, of functioning at-risk meadows are significantly lower ( P < 0.05) than those of properly functioning meadows at mid-slope and stream-bank positions, suggesting accelerated loss of N early in degradation processes. Though variable, the soil attributes measured correspond well to the PFC riparian wetland classification system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The 2002 Biscuit Fire burned at mixed-severities encompassing over 200,000ha of publicly owned forestland, including more than 8300ha of conifer plantations. We used pre- and post-fire digital aerial photography to examine how the level of canopy damage varied within these plantations in relation to topography, weather, vegetation-cover, and management history, with an emphasis on the age of the plantation. We examined 198 plantations that varied widely in age (5–47years), size (1.25–47ha), and landscape context. The average level of canopy damage within the plantations was 77%. Based on Random Forest variable importance values, plantation age was the best predictor of canopy damage. Average annual precipitation, elevation and topographic position were ranked second, third, and fourth, respectively. A model selection procedure, using geo-statistical regression models and Akaike’s information criterion, corroborated the importance of plantation age relative to the other predictors tested and also suggested that the influence of age varied over time. The top ranked regression model indicated that the level of canopy damage reached its maximum around age 15 and stayed relatively high until age 25 before declining. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

This article describes the clinical work that three sets of geriatricians and psychologists provided in three elder abuse forensic centers in California. After a brief history of how the clinical services in each program developed, the contributions of geriatricians and psychologists within these elder abuse teams are detailed through the use of several case anecdotes. Beyond providing physical and psychological evaluations, geriatricians and psychologists provide consultations and education to other professionals and to elder abuse victims and their caregivers. These clinical teams emphasize the importance of conducting home visits and functional assessments, working with interdisciplinary team members, and providing expert testimony. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study uses five years of field data from the Land Retirement Demonstration Project located in western Fresno County of California to develop a comprehensive theoretical and numerical modeling framework to evaluate the specific site conditions required for a sustainable land retirement outcome based on natural drainage. Using field data, principles of mass balance in a control volume, the HYDRUS-1D software package for simulating one-dimensional movement of water, heat, and multiple solutes in variably-saturated media, and a model-independent parameter optimizer, the processes of soil water and solute movement in root zone and deep vadose zone were investigated. The optimization of unsaturated soil hydraulic parameters and downward flux (natural drainage) from the control volume against observed vadose zone salinity levels and shallow groundwater levels yield difficult to obtain natural drainage rate as a function of water table height within the control volume. The results show that the unsaturated soil hydraulic properties and the downward flux from the soil profile are the critical parameters. A “natural drainage approach” to sustainable land management for drainage-impaired land is proposed. With this approach it is feasible to design a sustainable land use regimen for drainage-impaired lands in general and retired lands in particular. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Seacliff changes evaluated using both terrestrial and airborne lidar are compared along a 400 m length of coast in Del Mar, California. The many large slides occurring during the rainy, six-month study period (September 2004 to April 2005) were captured by both systems, and the alongshore variation of cliff face volume changes estimated with the airborne and terrestrial systems are strongly correlated (r² = 0.95). However, relatively small changes in the cliff face are reliably detected only with the more accurate terrestrial lidar, and the total eroded volume estimated with the terrestrial system was 30 percent larger than the corresponding airborne estimate. Although relatively small cliff changes are not detected, the airborne system can rapidly survey long cliff lengths and provides coverage on the cliff top and beach at the cliff base. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a verification of three simulations of the ShakeOut scenario, an 7.8 earthquake on a portion of the San Andreas fault in southern California, conducted by three different groups at the Southern California Earthquake Center using the SCEC Community Velocity Model for this region. We conducted two simulations using the finite difference method, and one by the finite element method, and performed qualitative and quantitative comparisons between the corresponding results. The results are in good agreement with each other; only small differences occur both in amplitude and phase between the various synthetics at ten observation points located near and away from the fault—as far as 150 km away from the fault. Using an available goodness-of-fit criterion all the comparisons scored above 8, with most above 9.2. This score would be regarded as excellent if the measurements were between recorded and synthetic seismograms. We also report results of comparisons based on time–frequency misfit criteria. Results from these two criteria can be used for calibrating the two methods for comparing seismograms. In those cases in which noticeable discrepancies occurred between the seismograms generated by the three groups, we found that they were the product of inherent characteristics of the various numerical methods used and their implementations. In particular, we found that the major source of discrepancy lies in the difference between mesh and grid representations of the same material model. Overall, however, even the largest differences in the synthetic seismograms are small. Thus, given the complexity of the simulations used in this verification, it appears that the three schemes are consistent, reliable and sufficiently accurate and robust for use in future large-scale simulations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Substantial erosion of the unstable seacliffs along the economically important coastline of San Diego County, California, threatens existing developments and public safety. Time-series mapping of the seacliffs and beaches provides valuable information about seasonal and rapid-event erosion. With high resolution terrestrial laser scanning (TLS) georeferenced using real-time-kinematic global positioning systems, it is possible to establish reliable comparisons of time-series surveys for quantitative change analysis of seacliff morphology. This paper introduces new field survey methods for georeferencing TLS surveys collected in dynamic environments where conventional control methods cannot be effectively implemented for large-scale mapping. Specifically, the quality control of scan alignment and the identification of optimal surveying parameters of point separation/density, distance from target, setup spacing, and efficiency are discussed for long cliff sections. These TLS surveys, performed several times along an approximately 17-km segment of seacliffs in San Diego County show an average root-mean-square uncertainty of 7.9 cm between adjacent scans approaching the nominal 7.2 cm accuracy of the survey equipment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]