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This study employs a partially temporally constrained modeling approach to examine spatiotemporal variations in driver injury severity in single-vehicle large truck crashes across different terrains in California, allowing for a nuanced understanding of how specific factors influencing injury outcomes may change over time. Utilizing crash data from January 1st, 2015, to December 31st, 2017, obtained from the Highway Safety Information System, this study categorizes terrains as flat, rolling, and mountainous terrain and employs a random parameter multinomial logit model with heterogeneity in means and variance to account for potential heterogeneity in crash injury outcomes. This approach helps understand how different terrains influence injury severities while allowing for parameter variability across observations. The analysis is further enriched by likelihood ratio tests to verify the stability and temporal transferability of the model estimates across different terrains and years. Notably, the study identifies truck overturning as the first and second event in a crash as a consistent parameter influencing injury severity across all years, emphasizing its importance regardless of terrain or time in single-vehicle large truck crashes. Furthermore, this study takes into account a wide range of variables, including driver characteristics, crash attributes, roadway characteristics, vehicle features, and environmental and temporal aspects. The findings highlight the importance of terrain-specific elements in traffic safety assessments and the need for focused measures to reduce serious injuries in truck crashes. The out-of-sample simulation revealed a significant increase in minor and severe injuries when flat terrain parameters were replaced with those from rolling or mountainous terrains. This research not only contributes to the existing literature by detailing the dynamics of injury severity in single-vehicle large truck crashes but also announces the utility of partially temporally constrained models in enhancing traffic safety management strategies., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2024 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Rare earth elements (REEs) are considered the limiting resources for advancing clean technologies and electronics. Because global REEs reserve is limited, non-conventional and secondary sources are being investigated for recovery. Here, we investigated wet and dry sand from seven Southern California beaches for sixteen REEs. These include five light REEs, two medium REEs, and nine heavy REEs, separated by their atomic weight. The mass of the magnetically separated compounds ranged from 15.19 to 129.91 g per kg of dry sand in the studied sea beaches in Southern California. The total REEs concentration ranged from 1168.1 to 6816.7 μg per kg of wet sand (dry sand basis) and 1474.7-7483.8 μg per kg of dry sand. Cerium (Ce) and Yttrium (Y) were the most prevalent REEs in these beaches ranging from 387.4 to 2241.1 μg kg-1 and 104.5-2302.3 μg kg -1 of sand respectively. This study found light REEs concentration accounted for 70-80% of total rare earth elements in the studied beaches. The concentrations of the analyzed REEs were significantly different (p < 0.05) from each other in the studied beaches. Additionally, Pearson correlation showed that the REEs were strongly correlated (r ≥ 0.83) with each other in the reported sea beaches, indicating a similar origin of the REEs. The dominant heavy metals in the studied samples were Vanadium (V), Chromium (Cr), Cobalt (Co), Nickel (Ni), Copper (Cu), Zinc (Zn), and Strontium (Sr). Dominant minerals identified in sands were quartz, anorthite, ilmenite, and xenotime. All the beaches are lowly enriched with REEs, and any of the REEs caused no ecological risk or pollution. Similarly, no pollution/ecological risk was observed for the analyzed heavy metals. This study identified beach sand as a potential REEs source and demonstrated an easy separation of REEs containing magnetic compounds from sand., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2023 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Objectives: The aim of this study was to investigate the basic preparedness of rural community pharmacies to continue operations during and immediately following a disaster., Methods: In 2014, we conducted a telephone survey (N = 990) of community pharmacies in 3 rural areas: North Dakota/South Dakota, West Virginia, Southern Oregon/Northern California regarding whether they had a formal disaster/continuity plan, offsite data backup, emergency power generation, and/or had a certified pharmacy immunizer on staff. Logistic regression and chi square were performed using Stata 11.1., Findings: Community pharmacies in rural areas (≤50.0 persons/mile2) were less likely to have emergency power (odds ratio [OR] = 0.59; 95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.32-1.07) or certified pharmacy immunizer on staff (OR = 0.47; 95% CI: 0.34-0.64). Pharmacies in lower income areas were less likely to have emergency power and offsite data backup or a formal disaster plan (OR = 0.70; 95% CI: 0.49-0.99) compared with pharmacies in higher income areas. Community pharmacies in areas of higher percent elderly population were less likely to have emergency power (OR = 0.54; 95% CI: 0.39-0.73), or certified pharmacy immunizer on staff (OR = 0.65; 95% CI: 0.47-0.91) compared with chain pharmacies in areas with lower percent elderly population., Conclusions: Being in a rural, low-income, or high-elderly area was associated with lower likelihood of basic preparedness of community pharmacies.

Over a 1-y period, a California calf-raising operation experienced 4 separate episodes of sudden death in 4-6-mo-old steers. Each episode occurred in 1-3 contiguous pens on 1 of 3 properties owned by the operation, but eventually all 3 properties were involved. In each episode, animals appeared normal at the evening feeding but at the subsequent morning feeding were found dead or dying. Remaining live calves had a stiff gait and were often dribbling urine, but did not show respiratory signs until they were down and agonal. At postmortem examination, calves consistently had moderate-to-large numbers of ecchymotic and suffusive hemorrhages on the epicardial surface and moderate-to-large amounts of fluid in the pericardial sac. Pulmonary edema and/or moderate amounts of watery fluid in the thoracic and abdominal cavities were present in a smaller percentage. On histologic examination, the myocardium had variable myofiber degeneration characterized by hypereosinophilia and fragmentation with mild interstitial infiltrates. Testing of heart and liver samples for monensin found levels lower than in previous cases of monensin toxicity. Rumen content was negative for oleandrin and grayanotoxins. Sodium monofluoroacetate (trade name: 1080) was consistently detected at ⩾10 ppb in kidney and liver, and was concluded to be the cause of the intoxication.

Purpose: To examine the relationship between area population density and community pharmacy-based Alzheimer's Disease (AD)-related services: pharmacists' medication knowledge and counseling, immunizations, and in-stock cognitive enhancers in 3 predominantly rural regions of the United States., Methods: A standardized interview was administered by telephone to a 100% sample of community pharmacies in 3 areas: Northern California/Southern Oregon (n = 206), North and South Dakota (n = 278), and West Virginia (n = 420). Key study outcomes included: pharmacists' medication knowledge, availability of immunization services, and cognitive enhancers in stock. Respondents were classified by population density (persons/mi 2 ) by pharmacy location to evaluate the relationship between rurality and AD-related pharmacy services. Chi-squared and logistic regression analyses were performed using Stata 10.1., Findings: Pharmacies in more rural areas (50.1-100.0, 25.1-50.0, and ≤25.0 persons/mi 2 ) were about 50% less likely to offer immunizations (95% CI: 0.32-0.91; 0.32-0.76; 0.28-0.80, respectively) compared to the least rural areas (>100.0 persons/mi 2 ). Compared to the least rural areas, pharmacists in the most rural areas (≤25.0 persons/mi 2 ) were less likely to name ≥2 gastrointestinal adverse effects of donepezil (OR = 0.50, 95% CI: 0.31-0.82) or have memantine XR 28 mg (OR = 0.61, 95% CI: 0.41-0.89) and other surveyed medications (OR = 0.57, 95% CI: 0.39-0.82) in stock., Conclusions: We found disparities in AD-related services in community pharmacies located in more rural counties, wherein individuals with AD and their caregivers may face barriers to obtaining quality pharmaceutical care. There is a need to strengthen pharmacists' knowledge and improve pharmacy services to reduce disparities., (© 2017 National Rural Health Association.)

Mycosphaerella graminicola causes Septoria tritici blotch (STB) in wheat (Triticum aestivum) and is considered one of the most devastating pathogens of that crop in the United States. Although the genetic structures of M. graminicola populations from different countries have been analyzed using various molecular markers, relatively little is known about M. graminicola populations from geographically distinct areas of the United States and, in particular, of those from spring versus winter wheat. These are exposed to great differences in environmental conditions, length and season of host-free periods, and resistance sources used in geographically separated wheat breeding programs. Thus, there is more likely to be genetic differentiation between populations from spring versus winter wheat than there is among those within each region. To test this hypothesis, 330 single-spore isolates of M. graminicola representing 11 populations (1 from facultative winter wheat in California, 2 from spring wheat in North Dakota, and 8 from winter wheat in Indiana and Kansas) were analyzed for mating type frequency and for genetic variation at 17 microsatellite or simple-sequence repeat (SSR) loci. Analysis of clone-corrected data revealed an equal distribution of both mating types in the populations from Kansas, Indiana, and North Dakota, but a deviation from a 1:1 ratio in the California population. In total, 306 haplotypes were detected, almost all of which were unique in all 11 populations. High levels of gene diversity (H = 0.31 to 0.56) were observed within the 11 populations. Significant (P ≤ 0.05) gametic disequilibrium, as measured by the index of association (rBarD), was observed in California, one Indiana population (IN1), and three populations (KS1, KS2, and KS3) in Kansas that could not be explained by linkage. Corrected standardized fixation index (G″(ST)) values were 0.000 to 0.621 between the 11 populations and the majority of pairwise comparisons were statistically significant (P ≤ 0.001), suggesting some differentiation between populations. Analysis of molecular variance showed that there was a small but statistically significant level of genetic differentiation between populations from spring versus winter wheat. However, most of the total genetic variation (>98%) occurred within spring and winter wheat regions while <2% was due to genetic differentiation between these regions. Taken together, these results provide evidence that sexual recombination occurs frequently in the M. graminicola populations sampled and that most populations are genetically differentiated over the major spring- and winter-wheat-growing regions of the United States.