California’s Flawed Surface Water Rights

California sprang into existence following the discovery of gold in 1848. Aside from domestic use, the first major use of water in California was in mining. The first mining consisted of placer mining of alluvial deposits in stream beds throughout the Sierra foothills. As those deposits were depleted, hydraulic mining arose, in which high-pressure jets of water were used to remove overlying earth from upland gold- bearing deposits. That type of mining, first employed in 1853, required substantial water diversions. When California entered the Union in 1850, the English common law was adopted as the “rule of decision” in courts, including the doctrine of riparian rights for surface water1 (it was also the governing doctrine in the rest of the Union). Riparian rights entitle the owner of land bordering a surface water body (“riparian” land) to use the water on his or her riparian land. This is a right to use water, not a right of ownership, and it inheres only in riparian lands. Riparian rights remain with the riparian land regardless of changes in ownership. Water under a riparian right cannot be used on nonriparian land.2 The right is shared equally among all riparians: they own access to the stream as “tenants in common.” They can divert water as long as this does not impair the rights of other riparians. No specific quantity attaches to a riparian right. If a riparian originally applied X, this does not preclude him from applying 5X later. Nonuse does not terminate the right. There is no recording of the volume diverted. No institution administers the ripar- ian right. Disputes are resolved through litigation among riparians. The riparian doctrine was logical where it originated, in a humid region with plentiful streamflow. Streamflow is treated as a common pool to be shared among all riparian landowners. But in an arid region like California, where rivers can run dry by the late summer and annual streamflow can vary by an order of magnitude, there needs to be a specific mechanism for allocating limited streamflow. The riparian right lacks this

Assessment of Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbon Contamination of Breeding Pools Utilized by the Puerto Rican Crested Toad, Peltophryne lemur.

Habitat preservation and management may play an important role in the conservation of the Puerto Rican crested toad, Peltophryne lemur, due to this species' small geographic range and declining native wild population. Bioavailable water concentrations of Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbon (PAH) contaminants within breeding pools at 3 sites were established using Passive Sampling Devices (PSDs) and gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC/MS). A more diverse population of PAH analytes were found in higher concentrations at the breeding site that allowed direct vehicular access, but calculated risk quotients indicated low risk to toad reproduction associated with the current PAH analyte levels

Making the Most of Medical Orientation – A New Approach

Orientating new junior medical staff can be a complex and time consuming task. Traditional models have typically involved a day or longer of lectures. This involves a large number of senior staff being available on the first day of term. It also means that junior staff not present on the first day had any access to an orientation program at all. Evaluation of our program confirmed the belief that the day was dull and that there was simply too much information for new staff to absorb. As a result of this feedback we extensively updated our orientation program. Pre-reading of the junior staff manual became compulsory. We departed from the traditional lecture style program and devised a new ten- station scenario based interactive program. The stations were designed to cover aspects of the hospital’s mandatory education and key educational requirements in order to function effectively on our campus. Station leaders were selected and trained in the goals of the new process. Several of our secondment sites were engaged in the development of the project topics. We hoped that our secondment sites would be relieved of some orientation responsibility if core material was delivered centrally. The strength of the new orientation is that it is portable, reproducible and uniform. It is also available via video conferencing. A single person can educate new staff in three hours if the need arises. Most importantly all new staff will have access to the program within a week of starting a term at our hospital

The Correlates of Right-wing Extremism

Research into the correlates of right-wing extremism has been focused on the group level, mainly ignoring the individual right-wing extremist behaviors, characteristics, and traits. Although group milieu strongly affects the ideology of individuals, personal decisions making often comes from a combination of unique experiences, cognitive abilities and biases, and differences in individual traits. This biographical study aimed to examine the life course events of twenty-five individual right-wing extremists identifying common biological and circumstantial correlates among and between the subjects. By analyzing the different correlates, this study created a matrix that identifies the correlates for significance. The results of the analysis created an individual right-wing extremist profile able to assist the United States law enforcement agencies, the intelligence community, and the criminal justice system by making a list of factors that can be used to identify individuals that are predisposed to the use of violence in the furtherance of their political, religious, and social ideologies. The data collected in this study suggests that a right-wing extremist who utilizes violence is a white male, radicalized under the age of 30, from a suburban or rural environment, has a high school education, has peers involved in right-wing extremist movements, having previously been exposed to traditional religion, married at least one time, and adhere to multiple right-wing extremist ideologies. Additionally, the right-wing extremist profile created in this study suggests that the individual is highly likely to be a military veteran with combat experience

Synaptic dysfunction in the perirhinal cortex of the R6/1 mouse model of Huntington's disease

Huntington's disease (HD) is a fatal brain disorder characterised by a progressive motor, psychiatric and cognitive decline, often manifesting in midlife. Since the identification of the gene responsible for HD and the development of predictive testing, it has become apparent that asymptomatic patients often exhibit early cognitive deficits. In particular, an impairment in recognition memory that is evident prior to the onset of classical symptoms and trank cell death. The perirhinal cortex is believed to be involved in processing aspects of recognition memory, specifically the discrimination between novel and familiar cues. Evidence suggests that activity-dependent decrements in neuronal activity within the perirhinal region could underlie this cognitive process and that the synaptic mechanism may be one of long-term depression (LTD). In the R6/1 mouse model of HD, synaptic plasticity is progressively altered in the perirhinal cortex in vitro. LTD expression is enhanced at one month, but then declines and is absent by 7 months of age. Dopamine is shown here to be a neuromodulator at normal perirhinal cortical synapses. Fluorescent immunohistochemical techniques are used to demonstrate altered dopamine receptor expression in the R6/1 perirhinal cortex that correlates with the aberrant synaptic plasticity. By exposing normal mouse slices to a D2 dopamine receptor antagonist, it is possible to recapitulate the R6/1 perirhinal synaptic phenotype. Importantly, the alteration of synaptic fiinction and loss of LTD in R6/1 mice can be restored by applying an agonist of dopamine receptors to brain slices. These data suggest that impaired perirhinal LTD may contribute to poor recognition memory and that the defect is at the level of the dopaminergic system. Moreover, dopaminergic therapy, targeted to the cortex, may be beneficial in HD

Autism: Understanding Behaviour

Being a parent is a demanding role. It places demands on our tolerance, our time, our energy levels, our coping skills and our physical stamina. But in the end the large majority of us consider that the attachments we form with our children, the pleasure they give us, the opportunities to contribute to their lives and the affection we receive back is all worth it. From the moment of our child's birth we attune to their movement and vocalisation, and in the dance of interaction we hope they attune to us. As our daughters and sons develop, we observe changes in the nature of our interactions. Development necessitates changes in bodies and minds, and so we adapt our own expectations and anticipation of our child’s behaviour to retain synchronicity and share common experience. The changes in our engagements reflect the development in reaching common milestones in the nature of parent-child interaction, primarily initiated by the anticipated development of the child. Ultimately, we expect that our children will become adults and each family may have a set of expectations that may or may not be reached. For a range of cultural, ethical and legal reasons, our children generally become adults in their own right at the age of 16, but it should be remembered that they never stop being our sons and daughters, and the bonds developed in childhood are equally as strong when our children become adults. Most of us cope well with the demands our children make of us, although we can feel an overwhelming sensation of frustration from time to time. However, some of us find it difficult to cope at times. Irrespective of disability, some parents are just more able to cope than others, and from time to time all of us need help, whether it be from family members, friends or outside agencies. Parents of autistic children are no different in their coping resources than any other parent, but they can be faced by a range of what they may see as confusing behaviour from their child that can alter how they engage. For some families this can place unanticipated demands, create challenging situations and stress within parent-child interactions, particularly when in public settings where the stakes are high and social cost significant. This chapter discusses the demands placed on parent-child interactions. It aims to provide some guidance as to how to derive meaning through interaction and offer some tips and strategies that will facilitate engagement. While this chapter is primarily aimed at parents and carers of autistic children as well as practitioners working with autistic children, not all of the information or strategies will be relevant or appropriate for a particular child. Each person and situation is unique, so it’s important to think about how the issues discussed here relate to your own context