Urban in Nature: Yosemite, Cars, and California\u27s Cities, 1913–1970

The impacts of national parks do not stop at their borders, and neither should their histories. Located less than a day’s drive from California’s biggest cities, Yosemite National Park remains a product of their combined influences. “Urban in Nature” is a relational history of the park and its nearby metropolitan areas like Merced (70 miles away), Berkeley (180), San Francisco (200), and Los Angeles (300). Since the advent of the automobile Yosemite has been a mirror of the state’s urban areas, rather than an escape from them. Passenger cars drove Yosemite’s urbanization in two interconnected ways. Firstly, increasing amounts of tourist traffic in the early 1900s forced National Park Service personnel to construct increasingly sophisticated built environment; this process is especially evident in Yosemite Valley, a spectacular chasm containing waterfalls, sheer cliffs, and—most importantly—tens of thousands of humans at any given time. Secondly, automobiles served as cross-pollinators between the park and urban California, facilitating a statewide exchange of ideas, architecture, and political allegiances. In both its physical form and its connections to other cities, Yosemite Valley became “urban in nature.” This study expands the political, economic, and cultural significance of areas that are often considered escapes from urban industrial society. I argue that, on the contrary, places like Yosemite are integral parts of the world outside their gates. It has become common to bemoan the level of development in America’s national parks, but I argue that we must acknowledge their connections with urban spaces in order to reach a more nuanced understanding of the interdependency between nature and civilization

Hippies in the Park: Yosemite and the Counterculture in the Sixties American West

For many visitors, Yosemite\u27s park boundaries symbolize a division between nature and civilization. On a busy day in Yosemite Valley, however, that divide seems nonexistent. Cars slither by, glinting in the sun. The valley echoes with camera clicks. Tourists stream into grocery stores and souvenir shops. The post office sorts mail and the dentist cleans teeth. In short, Yosemite Valley is little different than a small town. The American West is defined by wilderness but dominated by cities. Yosemite Valley, the park\u27s population center, exemplifies the tension between the two. My research examines this ideological conflict through the lens of youth counterculture. Like many other places, Yosemite experienced some form of turmoil during the late 1960s. Much of this was related to increased visitation. Expecting a refuge from urban life, visitors instead found traffic, noise, and air pollution. Worst of all, they found an influx of hippie visitors who irritated park rangers and visitors alike. That irritation boiled over on July 4, 1970, when hippies and park authorities clashed in Stoneman Meadow. As a result, the park began refusing entrance to youths, especially those with long hair or vans. In the words of the Berkeley Tribe weekly, Yosemite had become \u27an occupied zone. The Stoneman riot carries larger implications for the study of the American West. National park tourism is often viewed as a distinctive part of American identity, promoting self-sufficiency, ruggedness, and family values. Yet places like Yosemite also offered an escape from these norms. Although federally owned, national parks symbolized escape from the moral authority of civilization. Campgrounds allowed hippies to form and reform communal living situations overnight. Tourism is a pliable construct, capable of accommodating disparate moral and political factions. My research explores the role of national parks in highlighting--and mediating--conflicting visions of nature, family, and nation in the late 1960s

The Adolescent Depression Rating Scale (ADRS): a validation study

BACKGROUND: To examine the psychometric properties of the Adolescent Depression Rating Scale (ADRS), a new measure was specifically designed to evaluate adolescent depression. METHODS: The 11-item clinician-report and 44-item self-report versions of the ADRS were developed from a qualitative phase involving interviews of experts and adolescents. These two instruments were then administered to 402 French speaking adolescents with and without depressive disorders. Item distribution, internal consistency, convergent validity, discriminant validity and factorial structure were assessed. RESULTS: After reduction procedures, a 10-item clinician version and a 10-item self-report version were obtained. The ADRS demonstrated good internal consistency (alpha Cronbach coefficient >.70). It also discriminated better between adolescents with and without depression than the Hamilton Depressive Rating Scale and the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI-13). CONCLUSION: The ADRS is a useful, short, clinician-report and self-report scale to evaluate adolescent depression. Further studies to replicate our findings and evaluate ADRS sensitivity to effects of treatment and psychometric properties in populations of adolescents with several psychiatric disorders are warranted

A Population Genetic Approach to Mapping Neurological Disorder Genes Using Deep Resequencing

Deep resequencing of functional regions in human genomes is key to identifying potentially causal rare variants for complex disorders. Here, we present the results from a large-sample resequencing (n = 285 patients) study of candidate genes coupled with population genetics and statistical methods to identify rare variants associated with Autism Spectrum Disorder and Schizophrenia. Three genes, MAP1A, GRIN2B, and CACNA1F, were consistently identified by different methods as having significant excess of rare missense mutations in either one or both disease cohorts. In a broader context, we also found that the overall site frequency spectrum of variation in these cases is best explained by population models of both selection and complex demography rather than neutral models or models accounting for complex demography alone. Mutations in the three disease-associated genes explained much of the difference in the overall site frequency spectrum among the cases versus controls. This study demonstrates that genes associated with complex disorders can be mapped using resequencing and analytical methods with sample sizes far smaller than those required by genome-wide association studies. Additionally, our findings support the hypothesis that rare mutations account for a proportion of the phenotypic variance of these complex disorders

Republicanism in America: a history of the colonial and republican governments of the United States of America, from the year 1607 to the year 1869. To which is added constitutions, proclamations, platforms, resolutions, decisions of courts, laws. Also, a brief history of all the existing republics in the world /

Mode of access: Internet

The golden state: a history of the region west of the Rocky Mountains; embracing California, Oregon, Nevada, Utah, Arizona, Idaho, Washington Territory, British Columbia, and Alaska, from the earliest period to the present time ... with a history of Mormonism and the Mormons./ By R. Guy McClellan.

1 p. L., 15-685 p. : ill. ; 23 cm.Electronic text and image data. Ann Arbor, Mich. : University of Michigan, Digital Library Initiatives, 1996. Includes both TIFF files and keyword searchable text. [Making of America] This volume is made possible by a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation

Analysis of TTU Campus Storm Water Drainage by Storm Water Management Model

Storm water drainage is a growing concern in TTU campus which is going to be worsened by the construction works in near future. During Spring 2016 in CEE 5990/6990 (Storm Water Management) class we had the scope of investigating the campus storm water drainage system. As of May 2016, the campus storm water runoff was poorly understood and showed some disagreement with the field observation. To understand the storm water movement to and from the campus a thorough analysis was required. Therefore, the objective of this study was to model the storm water drainage system of TTU campus and recommend possible solutions. To fulfil this objective, a Strom Water Management Model (SWMM) using EPA SWMM modeling software was developed for a large part of the campus that drains into outfall near 12th street. The modeling was followed by field investigation and detailed geospatial analysis of the study area. It was found that the drainage system is inadequate to the needs of a sustainable storm water management standard. It also pointed to the need of updating the existing database. However, significant improvement in the storm water drainage was attainable when hypothetical best management practices (BMP) were incorporated into the system. This implies that the storm water drainage of the campus could be improved by enriching the database and implementing simple yet effective management practices. This research should work as a baseline for future planning of the campus storm water management upon fine tuning and rigorous field validation