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BackgroundLatina women are less likely to report engaging in leisure-time physical activity (PA) than non-Latina white women. This study evaluated the 24-month impact of a faith-based PA intervention targeting Latinas.MethodsThe study is a cluster randomized controlled trial of a PA intervention or cancer screening comparison condition, with churches as the randomization unit. A total of 436 Latinas (aged 18-65 years) from 16 churches who engaged in low levels of self-report and accelerometer-based PA were enrolled. The experimental condition was a 24-month PA intervention, with in-person classes, social support, and environmental changes, led by community health workers (i.e., promotoras). At baseline, 12-, and 24 months, we assessed changes in accelerometer-based and self-reported moderate to vigorous physical activity (MVPA; primary outcomes). Secondary outcomes were light intensity activity, sedentary time, body mass index (BMI), and waist circumference.ResultsAfter adjusting for sociodemographic factors, a mixed effects analysis found significant increases in self-reported leisure time MVPA (p

ObjectivesTo describe both conditions of a two-group randomized trial, one that promotes physical activity and one that promotes cancer screening, among churchgoing Latinas. The trial involves promotoras (community health workers) targeting multiple levels of the Ecological Model. This trial builds on formative and pilot research findings.DesignSixteen churches were randomly assigned to either the physical activity intervention or cancer screening comparison condition (approximately 27 women per church). In both conditions, promotoras from each church intervened at the individual- (e.g., beliefs), interpersonal- (e.g., social support), and environmental- (e.g., park features and access to health care) levels to affect change on target behaviors.MeasurementsThe study's primary outcome is min/wk of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) at baseline and 12 and 24 months following implementation of intervention activities. We enrolled 436 Latinas (aged 18-65 years) who engaged in less than 250 min/wk of MVPA at baseline as assessed by accelerometer, attended church at least four times per month, lived near their church, and did not have a health condition that could prevent them from participating in physical activity. Participants were asked to complete measures assessing physical activity and cancer screening as well as their correlates at 12- and 24-months.SummaryFindings from the current study will address gaps in research by showing the long term effectiveness of multi-level faith-based interventions promoting physical activity and cancer screening among Latino communities.

The purpose of this study is to provide an exploratory analysis of the proportion of pedestrians, bicyclists, and drivers exhibiting four specific behaviors at 12 intersections near transit stations in 4 the San Francisco Bay Area. The target behaviors include: 1) pedestrians crossing the roadway while using a mobile device, such as a cell phone, 2) pedestrians crossing a signalized intersection against a red light, 3) bicyclists running a red light at a signalized intersection, and 4) automobiles turning right on red without stopping. These four behaviors are important because they may lead 8 to pedestrian crashes. Field observations show a range of observed pedestrian and bicycle violation of red lights. At some locations as few as 2.4% of non-motorized road users violated red lights, whereas 40% did at other sites. The range of vehicles violating red lights was somewhat higher, with 20% to 62% of drivers turning right illegally on a red light. Male pedestrians were more likely than females to talk on mobile devices while crossing the street and crossing the street at red lights. As pedestrian and bicycle mode shares increase, it will be essential for all users to understand their rights and responsibilities in the roadway environment. Documenting behaviors helps provide a foundation for engineering, education, and encouragement treatments that will improve safety for pedestrians and other roadway users.

Despite decades of research surrounding determinants of alcohol and tobacco (A&T) use among adolescents, built environment influences have only recently been explored. This study used ordinal regression on 205 Latino adolescents to explore the influence of the built environment (proximity to A&T retailers) on A&T use, while controlling for recognized social predictors. The sample was 45% foreign-born. A&T use was associated with distance from respondents’ home to the nearest A&T retailer (−), acculturation (+), parents’ consistent use of contingency management (−), peer use of A&T (+), skipping school (+), attending school in immediate proximity to the US/Mexico border (+), and the interaction between the distance to the nearest retailer and parents’ consistent use of contingency management (+). The association between decreasing distance to the nearest A&T retailer and increased A&T use in Latino adolescents reveals an additional risk behavior determinant in the US–Mexico border region.

This paper provides the data collection and research results for the Seamless Travel project. The Seamless Travel Project is a research project funded by Caltrans and managed by the University of California Traffic Safety Center, with David Ragland, PhD., as the Principal Investigator and Michael Jones as the Project Manager. The project is funded by Caltrans Division of Innovation and Research and is being conducted by the Traffic Safety Center of University of California Berkeley and Alta Planning + Design.Measuring bicycle and pedestrian activity is a key element to achieving the goals of the California Blueprint for Bicycling and Walking (the Blueprint). Meeting these goals, which include a 50% increase in bicycling and walking and a 50% decrease in bicycle and pedestrian fatality rates by 2010, and increases in funding for both programs, will require a quantifiable and defensible base of knowledge. This research helps meet two of the Blueprint’s major strategic objectives: (1) collecting data on volumes and facilities, and (2) determining the most cost-effective methods of estimating bicycle and pedestrian collision rates.

The purpose of this research is to assess the effectiveness on individual travel behavior as a result of using combined car-sharing and transit passes. This assessment was based upon participation in a mobility pass program or Compass + Pass Program that was implemented in late 2004 in the San Diego region. Program participants were highly satisfied for having an alternative to the drive-alone commute. This key finding points to the fact that there is some level of latent demand for alternatives to the drive alone commute, especially in corridors with heavy peak hour congestion. Also of significance is the finding that Program participants improved their views and impressions of nearly all characteristics of transit as a result of their participation in the Program. This research supports regional transportation policy-making in San Diego as well a comparable cities across California and the nation.

This dissertation examines the relationship between transportation access and industrial and office property rents. The primary purpose of this research is to evaluate two sparsely studied topics in the transportation-land use literature: the impacts of light rail transit on property values, and the effect of transportation facilities on non-residential land uses.Multivariate regression analysis is used on longitudinal data for approximately five hundred and twenty office properties and five hundred industrial properties collected from the San Diego metropolitan region over the period from 1986 to 1995. Asking rents ($/square foot/month) is the dependent variable. Straight-line distance of each property to the nearest freeway on/off ramp, the nearest light rail station, and to the San Diego central business district provide measures of access. Other independent variables include building and neighborhood characteristics.The findings show that access to freeways is consistently significant in predicting office rents. This result indicates that freeways are important in shaping office property values, and by extension office land use patterns. Light rail transit did not have a significant effect on office rents. Access to the CBD was only significant for downtown office properties. The CBD variable in this case may be a proxy for the effect of localization economies. None of the measures of access was significant for industrial properties.This research underscores the importance of refining measures of access in order to capture and better understand the transportation-land use relationship. In particular, if the distance of an industrial firm to freeways, light rail transit, and the CBD is not important, then what kinds of access do matter? This research also has important implications for planning light rail transit systems. There is strong evidence that light rail systems do not provide enough travel cost savings to increase non-residential property values. This finding should be taken seriously in planning alignments for future light rail systems. Light rail systems need to be aligned with existing activity centers, rather than expected to stimulate new development or the redevelopment of distressed urban areas.

The Glenn M. Anderson Freeway/Transitway project includes six lanes for general traffic, two HOV lanes, and the Green Line, a light rail project with ten transit stations and park and ride lots. The 17.2 mile facility traverses eleven jurisdictions and serves these and other neighboring communities. The study analyzes transportation attitudes and behavior before and after the opening of both the freeway and before the transitway opening. We measure travel behavior impacts of the new transportation system using a panel study. The attitudes and intended use of the facility as well as a 24 hour travel diary. Also investigated land use around transit nodes and local freeway interchanges by measuring zoning changes, reviewing general plans and other documents, and interviewing local planning officials.

Neotraditional Neighborhood Design (NTND) has gained increasing attention from professional, academic, and popular circles during the past ten years. This review establishes a baseline evaluation of NTND, with the goal of providing the background for more specific research in the future. The first section of the paper orients NTND in a historical context, reviewing the main subdivision design trends of the past century and how NTND has either diverged or borrowed from them. The second section of the paper focuses on a review of current issues and policies related to this planning trend, with special attention directed toward transportation and land use research and the effect of neotraditional design on accessibility of the transportation system. The paper concludes by offering an assessment of the potential of NTND to address growth-related problems in suburban areas and by identifying key unmet research needs.

The primary intent of this research is to explore the claim that transportation benefits can be derived from neo-traditional neighborhood design. Conventional transportation planning models are used as tools to evaluate the performance differences of two hypothetical street networks designed to replicate a neo-traditional and a conventional suburban community. Relative transportation benefits are measured in terms of vehicle-miles travelled (VMT), average trip lengths, and congestion on links and at intersections. This comparison provides an assessment of how well the two networks in question deal with trips generated by the activities which they serve. All aspects of the modelled communities are held constant except for the actual configuration of the networks. This type of evaluation can indicate, for example, whether the same level of activity (defined by the land uses within the community) creates greater congestion on one type of network, or if trip lengths on one network are generally longer. The ultimate goal is to determine if one network type, because of the nature of its design, can result in a more efficient transportation system.

Social networking sites have seen tremendous growth and are widely used around the world. Nevertheless, the use of social networking sites in educational contexts is an under explored area. This paper uses a qualitative methodology, autoethnography, to investigate how social networking sites, specifically Facebook[TM], can help first semester doctoral students adapt to a Ph.D. program and a new national culture. Each week during the semester, a Ph.D. Student Tip and a Cultural Tip was posted. Students would then post related discussions, observations, and/or questions. At the conclusion of the semester the doctoral students shared their thoughts about participating in the Facebook[TM] group through autobiographical narratives. A technique called open coding was used to analyze the narratives. Our findings suggest three emergent themes. Social networking sites can aid adaptation through: 1) facilitating knowledge exchange, 2) alleviating apprehension, and 3) enabling socialization and building community. The data showed that the Facebook[TM] discussions aided in various types of knowledge exchange, providing a conceptual map that facilitated greater adaptation. Next, the interactions appeared to help minimize trepidation related to embarking on a new program of study and adjusting to a new national culture. Third, the Facebook[TM] group was useful fostering socialization and community among the students. We make the following recommendations for professors when implementing SNS (Social Network Site) groups: 1) establish a Facebook[TM] group with a course-related identity, 2) be sensitive to security and privacy issues, 3) provide tips to "seed" various types of knowledge exchange, 4) encourage participation, and 5) assess and adjust. While our research is exploratory in nature, we believe it provides a foundation for future research in this important and rapidly expanding area of SNS usage. (Contains 2 tables.)

Information systems (IS) process modeling using the technique of Data Flow Diagramming (viz., Systems Analysis) can be defined as a complex task for IS designers. This study draws from the domains of educational psychology and organizational behavior in examining the training of novices in conceptual process modeling. Specifically, an experiment was conducted to determine what effects cooperative, team based participation has on self-efficacy and learning outcomes in dataflow diagramming (DFD) tasks. Results showed novice learners of DFDs performed better when working in cooperative teams rather than learning alone. For those learning in cooperative teams, neither team conflict nor team cohesion had any effect on DFD skill acquisition. (Contains 5 tables and 2 figures.)

Objective: Cell phone use while driving is hazardous; it quadruples the risk of a collision and multiplies the risk of a fatality nine-fold. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration estimates that 8% of young drivers and 5% of all drivers use cell phones while driving. Participants and Methods: The authors trained graduate student volunteers to observe the daytime cell phone use of 3,650 drivers leaving the student exits of college parking structures at a large university. Results: The student observers recorded a cell phone usage rate of 11.1%, which was significantly higher than that seen in the National Occupant Protection Use Survey (p less than 0.00001). Female drivers were 1.51 times more likely to be using a cell phone while driving than were men (12.9% vs 8.6%, p less than 0.001), and drivers with passengers were 0.15 times more likely to drive while telephoning than were solo drivers (1.8% vs 12.1%, p less than 0.001). Conclusions: The authors offer suggestions for possible interventions to reduce this hazardous behavior. (Contains 3 tables.)

Over the last decade, demand for active transportation modes such as walking and bicycling has increased. While it is desirable to provide high levels of safety for these eco-friendly modes of travel, unfortunately, the overall percentage of pedestrian and bicycle fatalities increased from 13% to 18% of total road-related fatalities in the last decade. In San Diego County, although the total number of pedestrian and bicyclist fatalities decreased over the same period of time, a similar trend with a more drastic change is observed; the overall percentage of pedestrian and bicycle fatalities increased from 19.5% to 31.8%. This study aims to estimate pedestrian and bicyclist exposure and identify signalized intersections with highest risk for walking and bicycling within the city of San Diego, California, USA. Multiple data sources such as automated pedestrian and bicycle counters, video cameras, and crash data were utilized. Data mining techniques, a new sampling strategy, and automated video processing methods were adopted to demonstrate a holistic approach that can be applied to identify facilities with highest need of improvement. Cluster analysis coupled with stratification was employed to select a representative sample of intersections for data collection. Automated pedestrian and bicycle counting models utilized in this study reached a high accuracy, provided certain conditions exist in video data. Results from exposure modeling showed that pedestrian and bicyclist volume was characterized by transportation network, population, traffic generators, and land use variables. There were both similarities and differences between pedestrian and bicycle models, including different spatial scales of influence by mode. Additionally, the study quantified risk incorporating injury severity levels, frequency of victims, distance crossed, and exposure into a single equation. It was found that not all intersections with the highest number of pedestrian and bicyclist victims were identified as high-risk after exposure and other factors such as crash severity were taken into account., 1. Introduction According to the fatality analysis reporting system (FARS) encyclopedia, in 2016, 818 cyclists and 5987 pedestrians were killed in traffic accidents, making up 18.2 percent of all crash [...]

Identifying sites with refugial capacity can inform conservation efforts to assess the degradation status of global ecosystems (Keith et al., 2013), and it can guide landscape conservation planning (e.g., Moilanen, 2007). Although climate-change impacts are of mounting concern (e.g., Araújo et al., 2006; Scholze et al., 2006; Halsch et al., 2021), climate change is only one of many anthropogenic stressors contributing to biodiversity declines (Morris et al., 2020). Environmental stability is a key concept often applied when describing refugia for species and ecosystem persistence or resistance to change (Keppel et al., 2015, Morelli et al., 2020) under current and future climate change (McCullough et al., 2016). Keywords: amenazas; biodiversidad; cambio climático; cambio global; gestión y planificación estratégica; paisajes; sur de California; biodiversity; climate change; global change; landscapes; Southern California; strategic planning and management; threats; ; ; ; ; ; ; EN amenazas biodiversidad cambio climático cambio global gestión y planificación estratégica paisajes sur de California biodiversity climate change global change landscapes Southern California strategic planning and management threats 1 11 11 03/02/22 20220201 NES 220201 INTRODUCTION The specter of biodiversity loss due to human activities is widely recognized and well described in natural systems (Maxwell et al., 2016). [Extracted from the article]