Protecting the Ballona Wetlands in West Los Angeles: A Look Back at Three Decades of Urban Habitat Advocacy

Surrounded by densely populated West Los Angeles, the Ballona Wetlands are a remnant of a larger, flourishing coastal ecosystem that has been subjected to over a hundred years of urban assault. Ninety-eight percent of Los Angeles County’s historic wetlands have been filled and developed, and more than a century of abuse and neglect have severely degraded the Ballona Wetlands. Nonetheless, the Ballona Wetlands remain “one of the most important pieces of wildlife habitat” in the region, and they constitute the County’s largest remaining coastal wetland. As might be expected when an important, severely endangered coastal natural resource located in a highly urbanized urban area is at stake, protecting the Ballona Wetlands has been fraught with controversy. But, unexpectedly, each of the major players has, over time, experienced reversals of position—and of fortune—not commonly encountered. This is a cautionary tale, but it offers hope for the future. When the State formulates its Ballona Wetlands restoration plan, the promise of revitalization to a natural, healthy coastal wetlands ecosystem may finally be realized

Near-Shortest and K-Shortest Simple Paths

2005, Networks, 46, pp. 98-109

Characters connected with the yield of the corn plant

Publication authorized August 6, 1921."The writer... is merely a reporter of results secured in 1910, 1911, and 1914, from studies by C. B. Hutchison, C. E. Neff, S. B. Nuckols and others"--P. [3].Digitized 2007 AES.[pt. I]. A study of the correlation between yield and certain characteristics of the corn plant -- [pt. II]. A study of the relation of certain ear characters to shelling percentage shrinkage and viability.Includes bibliographical references ([pt. I], page 11)

News Stories of Intimate Partner Violence: An Experimental Examination of Participant Sex, Perpetrator Sex, and Violence Severity on Seriousness, Sympathy, and Punishment Preferences

This study experimentally examines the effects of participant sex, perpetrator sex, and severity of violence on perceptions of intimate partner violence (IPV) seriousness, sympathy toward the victim, and punishment preferences for the perpetrator. Participants (N = 449) were randomly assigned to a condition, exposed to a composite news story, and then completed a survey. Ratings of seriousness of IPV for stories with male perpetrators were significantly higher than ratings of seriousness for stories with female perpetrators. Men had significantly higher sympathy for female victims in any condition than for male victims in the weak or strong severity of violence conditions. Men’s sympathy for male victims in the fatal severity of violence condition did not differ from their sympathy for female victims. Women had the least sympathy for female victims in the weak severity condition and men in the weak or strong severity conditions. Women reported significantly higher sympathy for female victims in the strong and fatal severity of violence conditions. Women’s ratings of sympathy for male victims in the fatal severity of violence condition were statistically indistinguishable from any other group. Participants reported stronger punishment preferences for male perpetrators and this effect was magnified among men. Theoretical implications are presented with attention provided to practical considerations about support for public health services

Taphonomy After the Fact: Violence and Ritual in Room 33 at Chaco and Room 178 at Aztec

Chaco Canyon‘s Room 33 (excavated by George Pepper) and Aztec Ruins room 178 (excavated by Earl Morris) are recognized for their rich taphonomic context. These two mortuary features reveal a great deal of information about ritualized behavior. Researchers such as Akins and Palkovich have provided partial analyses of the Chaco skeletal material in the 1980s. The reanalysis of those remains considers the Chaco burials in relation to those at Aztec and analyzes their meaning through a thorough analysis of the grave goods, archaeological records, and ethnohistorical documents to provide a better understanding of these elaborate and unique mortuary rooms. Specifically, this study focuses on signatures of identity, biological, cultural, and socioeconomic. Biological identity markers include age, sex, and stature. Cultural identity includes mortuary context, graves goods, and site layout. Socioeconomic identity, which is the hardest to reconstruct is evidenced by the frequency and distribution of trauma related to exposure to violence, changes to anatomy related to unequal amounts of labor, and susceptibility to diseases over time. The result of looking at all these factors is that it is possible to reconstruct identity, such as Burial 3672 in Room 33. This male is especially intriguing because the burial shows evidence of extensive perimortem fractures on the cranium suggesting a violent death, and yet this is a very high status individual based on the stature and isotopic analysis as well as the grave offerings he was interred with. These kinds of taphonomic and mortuary features are explored

Factors Distinguishing Positive Deviance Among Low-Income African American Women: A Qualitative Study on Infant Feeding

Background: Positive deviant individuals practice beneficial behaviors in spite of having qualities characterizing them as high risk for unhealthy behaviors. Objective: This study aimed to identify and understand factors distinguishing low-income African American women who breastfeed the longest (positive deviants) from those who breastfeed for a shorter duration or do not breastfeed. Methods: Seven mini-focus groups on infant-feeding attitudes and experiences were conducted with 25 low-income African American women, grouped by infant-feeding practice. Positive deviants, who had breastfed for 4 months or more, were compared with formula-feeding participants who had only formula fed their babies and short-term breastfeeding participants who had breastfed for 3 months or less. Results: Positive deviant women had more schooling, higher income, breastfeeding intention, positive breastfeeding and unfavorable formula-feeding attitudes, higher self-efficacy, positive hospital and Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children experiences, more exclusive breastfeeding, and greater comfort breastfeeding in public. Short-term breastfeeding women varied in breastfeeding intention and self-efficacy, seemed to receive insufficient professional breastfeeding support, and supplemented breastfeeding with formula. Some showed ambivalence, concern with unhealthy behaviors, and discomfort with breastfeeding in public. Formula-feeding women intended to formula feed, feared breastfeeding, thought their behaviors were incompatible with breastfeeding, were comfortable with and found formula convenient, and received strong support to formula feed. Conclusion: Tapping into the strengths of positive deviants; tailoring interventions to levels of general and breastfeeding self-efficacy; increasing social, institutional, and community supports; and removing inappropriate formula promotion may offer promising strategies to increase breastfeeding among low-income African American women

Solving Defender-Attacker-Defender Models for Infrastructure Defense

In Operations Research, Computing, and Homeland Defense, R.K. Wood and R.F. Dell, editors, INFORMS, Hanover, MD, pp. 28-49.The article of record as published may be located at http://dx.doi.org10.1287/ics.2011.0047This paper (a) describes a defender-attacker-defender sequential game model (DAD) to plan defenses for an infrastructure system that will enhance that system's resilience against attacks for an intelligent adversary, (b) describes a realistic formulation of DAD for defending a transportation network, (c) develops a decomposition algorithm for solving this instance of DAD and others, and (d) demonstrates the solution of a small transportation-network example. A DAD model generally evaluates system operation through the solution of an optimization model, and the decomposition algorithm developed here requires only that this system-operation model be continuous and convex. For example, our transportation-network example incorporates a congestion model with a (convex) nonlinear objective function and linear constraints

Annual report of the Northeast Missouri Crops Experiment Field (1924)

Caption title.Digitized 2006 AES MoU

Productive methods for soybeans in Missouri

Cover title.Includes bibliographical references