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Abstract: Optical characteristics and long-distance transport of smoke plumes are studied using satellite observations and ground-based remote sensing in New York City. Vertical distribution and column optical properties of aerosol plume are derived from a combination of multi-wavelength lidar and sunphotometer measurement. Aloft smoke plumes from two cases are investigated in this paper from U.S. western and south-western forest fires. The smoke source and transport pathway to the U.S. east coast are analyzed by MODIS and CALIOP imageries as well as HYSPLIT backward trajectory analysis. In both cases, the plumes have relatively high optical depth (as much as 1.2 at 500-nm) and Angstrom exponent of up to 1.8, but show different intrusion heights, source regions and transport process. Lidar profiling observations indicate these smoke plumes mixing downward into the planetary-boundary-layer which are coincident with increasing trends of surface PM2.5 (particulate matter, diameter < 2.5 μm) concentrations. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

This paper investigates the maximum genus and upper embeddability of connected 4-regular graphs. We obtain lower bounds on the maximum genus of connected 4-regular simple graphs and connected 4-regular graphs without loops in terms of the Betti number. The definition of the Betti number is referred to [Gross and Tucker, Topological Graph Theory, New York, 1987]. Furthermore, we give examples that show that these lower bounds are tight. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Building energy efficiency is strongly linked to the operations and control systems, together with the integrated performance of passive and active systems. In new high quality buildings in particular, where these two latter aspects have been already implemented at the design stage, users' perspective, obtained through post-occupancy assessment, has to be considered to reduce whole energy requirement during service life. This research presents an innovative and low-cost methodology to reduce buildings' energy requirements through post-occupancy assessment and optimization of energy operations using effective users' attitudes and requirements as feedback. As a meaningful example, the proposed method is applied to a multipurpose building located in New York City, NY, USA, where real occupancy conditions are assessed. The effectiveness of the method is tested through dynamic simulations using a numerical model of the case study, calibrated through real monitoring data collected on the building. Results show that, for the chosen case study, the method provides optimized building energy operations which allow a reduction of primary energy requirements for HVAC, lighting, room-electricity, and auxiliary supply by about 21%. This paper shows that the proposed strategy represents an effective way to reduce buildings' energy waste, in particular in those complex and high-efficiency buildings that are not performing as well as expected during the concept-design-commissioning stage, in particular due to the lack of feedback after the building handover. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes a modeling framework for estimating the acute effects of personal exposure to ambient air pollution in a time series design. First, a spatial hierarchical model is used to relate Census tract-level daily ambient concentrations and simulated exposures for a subset of the study period. The complete exposure time series is then imputed for risk estimation. Modeling exposure via a statistical model reduces the computational burden associated with simulating personal exposures considerably. This allows us to consider personal exposures at a finer spatial resolution to improve exposure assessment and for a longer study period. The proposed approach is applied to an analysis of fine particulate matter of <2.5 μm in aerodynamic diameter (PM2.5) and daily mortality in the New York City metropolitan area during the period 2001-2005. Personal PM2.5 exposures were simulated from the Stochastic Human Exposure and Dose Simulation. Accounting for exposure uncertainty, the authors estimated a 2.32% (95% posterior interval: 0.68, 3.94) increase in mortality per a 10 μg/m3 increase in personal exposure to PM2.5 from outdoor sources on the previous day. The corresponding estimates per a 10 μg/m3 increase in PM2.5 ambient concentration was 1.13% (95% confidence interval: 0.27, 2.00). The risks of mortality associated with PM2.5 were also higher during the summer months. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This paper uses student level data from New York City to study the relationship between a public school losing enrollment to charter school competitors and the academic achievement of students who remain enrolled in it. Geographic measures most often used to study the effect of school choice policies on public school student achievement are not well suited for densely populated urban environments. I adopt a direct approach and measure charter school exposure as the percentage of a public school''s students who exited for a charter school at the end of the previous year. Depending on model specification, I find evidence that students in schools losing more students to charter schools either are unaffected by the competitive pressures of the choice option or benefit mildly in both math and English. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

In the spring of 2009, New York City (NYC) experienced the emergence and rapid spread of pandemic influenza A H1N1 virus (pH1N1), which had a high attack rate in children and caused many school closures. During the 2009 fall wave of pH1N1, a school-located vaccination campaign for elementary schoolchildren was conducted in order to reduce infection and transmission in the school setting, thereby reducing the impact of pH1N1 that was observed earlier in the year. In this paper, we describe the planning and outcomes of the NYC school-located vaccination campaign. We compared consent and vaccination data for three vaccination models (school nurse alone, school nurse plus contract nurse, team). Overall, >1,200 of almost 1,600 eligible schools participated, achieving 26.8% consent and 21.5% first-dose vaccination rates, which did not vary significantly by vaccination model. A total of 189,902 doses were administered during two vaccination rounds to 115,668 students at 998 schools included in the analysis; vaccination rates varied by borough, school type, and poverty level. The team model achieved vaccination of more children per day and required fewer vaccination days per school. NYC's campaign is the largest described school-located influenza vaccination campaign to date. Despite substantial challenges, school-located vaccination is feasible in large, urban settings, and during a public health emergency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: In this paper we present theoretical models for microcellular communications at UHF and microwave frequencies. For rural microcells, a vectorial analysis of the two-ray model is carried out, and comparisons between the developed model and measurements reported in rural areas of New Jersey and San Francisco Bay are provided. For urban microcells, the street is three-dimensionally modeled as a deterministic multislit waveguide channel, according to its database, and vectorial analysis is also taken into account. For the 3D street model, comparisons in good agreement with measurements reported in New York City are performed. Comparisons provided with measured data show that the models proposed can be very useful tools toward increasing theoretical analysis in spite of empirical analysis in the field of prediction. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Handheld GPS provides a new technology to trace people’s daily travels and has been increasingly used for household travel surveys in major cities worldwide. However, methodologies have not been developed to successfully manage the enormous amount of data generated by GPS, especially in a complex urban environment such as New York City where urban canyon effects are significant and transportation networks are complicated. We develop a GIS algorithm that automatically processes the data from GPS-based travel surveys and detects five travel modes (walk, car, bus, subway, and commuter rail) from a multimodal transportation network in New York City. The mode detection results from the GIS algorithm are checked against the travel diaries from two small handheld GPS surveys. The combined success rate is a promising 82.6% (78.9% for one survey and 86.0% for another). Challenges we encountered in the mode detection process, ways we developed to meet these challenges, as well as possible future improvement to the GPS/GIS method are discussed in the paper, in order to provide a much-needed methodology to process GPS-based travel data for other cities. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Information is presented about several papers discussed at the conference "Music and Imagined Communities. Articulations of the Self and the other in the Musical Realm," held at the European University Institute in Florence, Italy from October 28 to October 29, 2011. Topics examined include musical theater in Egypt and vernacular Arab theater, the globalization of Islamic pop music, and opera and Italians in New York City. Speakers included scholars Patrick Wood, Linda Braun, and Ryan Weber.

Abstract: Fossil fuel combustion is the primary source of anthropogenic acidity in cloud water. Since 1994 there is a measurable decrease in hydrogen, sulfate, and nitrate ion concentrations in cloud water collected at Whiteface Mountain. In this paper we assess these changes from the point of view of progress toward clean air conditions. The cleanest clouds crossing Whiteface Mountain, those with the lowest total ion concentrations, are found to have pH values in the range 5.0–5.25. Furthermore, there is a linear relationship between pH, sulfate and nitrate ion concentrations in cloud water. With this in mind, we define clean cloud water values of sulfate, nitrate and hydrogen as mean concentrations observed in cloud water samples with pH in the range 5.0–5.25. We then compare mean annual values to clean air values to determine annual ratios. In 1994, ratios for , and H+ were respectively 26.9, 13.1 and 29.9 times above the clean air value. In 2009, the , and H+ corresponding ratios were 4.2, 2.7, and 4.8 times above the clean air value. In other words, comparison of the 1994 and 2009 results suggest reductions in anthropogenic concentrations of , and H+, by 84%, 79% and 84% respectively. To verify our approach, we have calculated corresponding changes in the aerosol ratio, with clean air concentrations equal to the natural background aerosol value used for the Regional Haze Rule. These results compared favorably to our cloud water ratio. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

This paper describes a time-sensitive approach to climate change projections that was developed as part of New York City's climate change adaptation process and that has provided decision support to stakeholders from 40 agencies, regional planning associations, and private companies. The approach optimizes production of projections given constraints faced by decision makers as they incorporate climate change into long-term planning and policy. New York City stakeholders, who are well versed in risk management, helped to preselect the climate variables most likely to impact urban infrastructure and requested a projection range rather than a single 'most likely' outcome. The climate projections approach is transferable to other regions and is consistent with broader efforts to provide climate services, including impact, vulnerability, and adaptation information. The approach uses 16 GCMs and three emissions scenarios to calculate monthly change factors based on 30-yr average future time slices relative to a 30-yr model baseline. Projecting these model mean changes onto observed station data for New York City yields dramatic changes in the frequency of extreme events such as coastal flooding and dangerous heat events. On the basis of these methods, the current 1-in-10-year coastal flood is projected to occur more than once every 3 years by the end of the century and heat events are projected to approximately triple in frequency. These frequency changes are of sufficient magnitude to merit consideration in long-term adaptation planning, even though the precise changes in extreme-event frequency are highly uncertain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the effect of the human capital characteristics of co-ethnic immigrant communities on foreign-born students' math achievement. We use data on New York City public school foreign-born students from 39 countries merged with census data on the characteristics of the immigrant household heads in the city from each nation of origin and estimate regressions of student achievement on co-ethnic immigrant community characteristics, controlling for student and school attributes. We find that the income and size of the co-ethnic immigrant community has no effect on immigrant student achievement, while the percent of college graduates may have a small positive effect. In addition, children in highly English proficient immigrant communities test slightly lower than children from less proficient communities. The results suggest that there may be some protective factors associated with immigrant community members' education levels and use of native languages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to explore the diverse meanings of terrorism. It will also analyze UN's capacity to deal with it, regarding mainly the antecedents of 9/11 attacks in New York. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Struening et al. demonstrated a widening disparity of low birthweight (LOB) rates among New York City health areas from 1980-1986, clearly a dynamic process. In contrast, the New York City Department of Health reported static citywide LOB rate in 1988-2008. Struening et al. is extended here at the health district level with mapping and regression analyses. Additionally, birthweight data are reported for babies born in 1998-2001 to a group of African-American and Dominican women in Upper Manhattan. The data reported in this paper indicate that both fetal programming of the mother herself (life course model) and stress during or shortly before pregnancy may play a role in LOB. Current stress may arise from past events. Intergenerational effects, thus, could arise from stresses on the grandmother and their residual impacts on the mother as well as new stresses on the mother as an adult. The average weight of babies born to the Upper Manhattan mothers who were born in 1970-1974 was 3,466 g, with 1.6% below 2,500 g; that of babies of mothers born in 1975-1979, 3,320 g, with 6% below 2,500 g. The latter group was born during the 1975-1979 housing destruction. Intergenerational impacts of that event may be reflected in this elevated rate of LOB. Health district maps of LOB incidence ranges show improvement from 1990-2000 and then deterioration in 2005 and 2008. Bivariate regressions of socioeconomic (SE) factors and LOB incidence showed many strong associations in 1990; but by 2000, the number and strength of these associations declined. In 1990, 2000, and 2008, black segregation was the SE factor most strongly associated with LOB. Black segregation and murder rate explained about 85% of the pattern of 1990 LOB. Regressing the 1970-1980 percent population change against the SE factors showed effects even in 2000. The 1990 murder rate and 1989 percentage of public assistance explained over half the 2008 LOB incidence pattern. The housing destruction of the 1970s continued to influence LOB incidence indirectly in 2008. The ability of community and individual to cope with current stressors may hinge on resilience status, which is shaped by past events and circumstances. The present interacts with the past in many ways. Serial displacement exemplifies this interaction of immense importance to public health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Unlike previous scholarship on skin-bleaching advertisements conducted by scholars such as Lawrence Levine and Kathy Peiss, this paper finds those advertisements reflected a definite and widespread preference for light skin among African Americans in 1920's Harlem. Newspaper records and historical archives demonstrate that tangible if permeable boundaries existed between "black," "brown," "light brown," and "yellow" "Negroes" in 1920's Harlem. Skin bleaching was far more than merely cosmetic: it was a profoundly micro-political form of self-masking and identity shifting mediated by the new mass market. The advertisements not only appealed to the desire to be beautiful but also to the desire to find a mate, get a better job, and associate oneself with the future, modernity, and progress. Skin bleaching was one practice in a universe of speech and speech-acts that constituted an African American version of the discourse of civilization. At one extreme, skin-bleaching represented part of a "Great White Hope" that lightskinned "New Negroes" might actually be able to escape their "Negro" past and become a new near-white "intermediate" race, as anthropologist Melville Herskovits pronounced them in 1927. Uncritical reconstructions of a unitary "black" subject position in 1920's Harlem obscures the deep divides and antagonisms based on class and color that striated Harlem society. Recognizing these truths suggests that multiple "Negro" racial identities were constructed through quotidian actions both pedestrian and potent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: West Nile Virus is an arthropod-borne flavivirus that appeared for the first time in New York City in the summer of 1999 and then spread prolifically within birds, with over 200 species having been infected. Mammals, such as humans and horses, do not develop sufficiently high bloodstream titers to play a significant role in transmission, which is a reason for considering the mosquito–bird cycle. In this paper we propose a model to study bird involvement in transmitting West Nile Virus using a system of ordinary differential equations considering the mosquito and several avian populations. A threshold value , depending on the model’s parameters, is obtained that determines the disease level and allows us to propose possible control strategies. We determine the effects regarding the disease transmission considering the coexistence of two bird species, and then generalize this taking into account several bird species. We conclude that knowledge of the relative abundance of several bird species allows us to estimate with accuracy the risk for overall West Nile Virus transmission. Also, the establishment of the disease at an endemic level can be explained by the interaction between responsible populations of birds and mosquitoes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For most cities, it is very challenging to both collect information from throughout a city, irrespective of agency or city function, and integrate this information into a broad decision-support environment. For example, this is particularly challenging for mature cities of the size and complexity of New York City, Tokyo, and London and for their managing agencies. Resource management for a city spans multiple domains including water and sanitation, buildings, transportation, energy, security, citizen services, and regional development. Implementing processes, policies, or interoperability features across multiple domains in a legacy city, as defined in this paper, requires significant coordination and "permission" among the agency players. Here, we propose a novel smarter-city maturity model that depicts the cross-domain and agency-to-agency interactions in response to an event (such as a water-main break). We also propose an enabling system architecture and multidomain-aware command portal that provide a detailed plan to address and optimize the management of resources for complex events. Finally, we propose a value-modeling method for quantifying the estimated cost of alternative scenarios and of selecting the best response to an event. To illustrate the approach, an example is given for a rainfall event. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper begins by juxtaposing contemporary discourses on Harlem and the Lower East Side, arguing that the processes of iconization of these two neighborhoods have been very different. Whereas the iconicity of Harlem has always been shot through with ambivalence, the Lower East Side has come to signify a relatively unambivalent sacred space for US Jewry. The second part of the essay then traces the representations of Harlem and the Lower East Side back to early twentieth-century African American and Jewish American novels, claiming that critically analyzing the theme of ambivalence in these texts – and, more specifically, how ambivalence manifests itself differently within each literary tradition – is key to understanding not only why Harlem and the Lower East Side have undergone parallel but divergent processes of iconization, but also the way Jews and blacks have been positioned and have attempted to position themselves in relation to dominant white US society. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Abstract: In 2010, it is the 25th anniversary of the first paper describing the genetic identification of human individuals by DNA fingerprint analysis. Since then DNA analysis has become a major tool to relate biological evidence to the persons involved in a crime or to determine the biological relationship among individuals. The currently used methodology is the result of major technological changes that were partly driven by criticism on previous methodologies, and partly driven by demand especially due to mass disasters such as the ‘9/11 attack’ on the World Trade Center in New York. This review will give an overview of the current methodology in genetic identification and new developments that will have a future impact on forensic identification. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is well recognized that an interdisciplinary approach is essential in the development and implementation of solutions to address the current pediatric obesity epidemic. In two half-day meetings that included workshops and focus groups, faculty from diverse fields identified critically important research challenges, and gaps to childhood obesity prevention. The purpose of this white paper is to describe the iterative, interdisciplinary process that unfolded in an academic health center setting with a specific focus on underrepresented minority groups of Black and Hispanic communities, and to summarize the research challenges and gaps related to pediatric obesity that were identified in the process. Although the research challenges and gaps were developed in the context of an urban setting including high-risk populations (the northern Manhattan communities of Washington Heights, Inwood, and Harlem), many of the issues raised are broadly applicable. The processes by which the group identified research gaps and methodological challenges that impede a better understanding of how to prevent and treat obesity in children has resulted in an increase in research and community outreach collaborations and interdisciplinary pursuit of funding opportunities across units within the academic health center and overall university. Clin Trans Sci 2010; Volume 3: 172–177 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In an earlier paper based on PM2.5 speciation network data, we showed that nickel (Ni) concentrations were much higher in New York City (NYC) than in New Jersey (NJ) and Connecticut (CT), and that the NYC levels, but not those in NJ and CT, were much higher in the winter than in summer. However, all of the speciation sites in NYC were in the northern half of the city. To determine the distributions of Ni and other PM2.5 components within NYC, we collected 8-weeklong filter samples at 10 sites throughout NYC in both winter and summer, and measured the concentrations of the elements by X-ray fluorescence (XRF). The resulting data, together with speciation network site data, were used to construct seasonal average concentration isopleth maps for Ni and vanadium (V). As expected, Ni was much higher in Bronx than in Brooklyn, and much higher in winter than in summer. By contrast, V was higher in Brooklyn than in Bronx, and the winter and summer levels were similar. It appears that space-heating boilers are the major source category for Ni in NYC, whereas the Port of New York is the major source of V. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

West Nile Virus (WNV) made its initial appearance in the New York City (NYC) metropolitan area in 1999 and was implicated in cases of human encephalitis and the extensive mortality in crows (Corvus sp.) and other avian species. Mosquitoes were found to be the primary vectors and NYC's current policy on control strategies involved an eradication program that depends on the synchronicity of the summer mosquito population's increases with the occurrence of cases in humans. The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether this is the most effective control strategy because past mathematical models assumed discrete behavior that is modeled by difference equations for a single summer season was most important to the virus's life cycle. However, both surviving mosquito eggs and surviving migratory birds incubate the virus during the winter, leading to a continuation of infections in the following warmer spring and summer when the birds return and the eggs hatch. Additionally, the virulence of WNV has been observed to fluctuate with changes in temperature toward warmer conditions. Models are required that account for these multi-seasonal dynamics and time-scale calculus is a newly developed method for resolving the behavior of systems that exhibit both discrete and continuous behavior. We found that, although the static states of the new temperature delay model are no different from older models, simulations indicate that the rate of the infection is affected by avian recovery at a lower temperature threshold. Consequently, eradication strategies should consider that controlling mosquitoes during the fall when colder temperatures occur would cause a fast and efficient drop to a disease-free state. This could prove rather more effective than mosquito control in the warmer months. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Manhattan Midtown-2005 field experiment (MID05) collected turbulence observations at 12 street-level sites (at 3-m height) and at 5 rooftop sites (at 220-m average height). The MID05 observations of 30-min averaged standard deviations of wind speed components and temperature and of sensible heat and momentum flux are found to be consistent with the authors’ previously reported averaged observations in similar tall-building surroundings in the Oklahoma City Joint Urban 2003 (JU2003) and Manhattan Madison Square Garden 2005 (MSG05) field experiments. The main focus of this paper, though, is on the magnitudes of the space and time variations of the 30-min averaged turbulence values. Wind tunnel experiments and computational fluid dynamics model outputs would suggest large variations, but the full-scale urban observations show that the standard deviations of the space and time variations are usually less than 50% of the averages. Some individual observations are tabulated and the minimum and maximum listed, showing a typical range at street level for, say, συ of about ±10%–20% in time and about ±40% in space. It is suggested that the reason for the observed lack of large variations in turbulence is the large amount of mixing generated by (i) the 20°–40° meanders in wind direction over the 30-min periods, which cause a “flopping” of building wakes, and (ii) the strong vertical mixing around the tall buildings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Information about several papers discussed at the Adolescent Sexual Health Symposium in New York City in February 2009 is presented. Topics include HIV/AIDS cases for adolescents, child and adolescent health and sexual health services. The symposium featured Doctor of Philosophy Jane Powers, director Kristine Mesler of the state Health Department and professor Stephen F. Hamilton.

Abstract: Problem: Subway transit is a relatively safe mode of transportation, yet compared to all other forms of mass transit in the United States (U.S.), subways have the highest fatality rate. The aim of this paper is to characterize subway-related fatalities in order to identify opportunities for risk reduction. Method: Medical examiner records for all New York City (NYC) subway-related deaths (1990-2003) were reviewed. Data were abstracted on decedents'' demographics and autopsy findings, including laboratory findings. Results: There were 668 subway-related fatalities, of these, 10 (1.5%) were homicides, 343 (51.3%) were determined to be suicides, and 315 (47.2%) were accidental. Although decedent characteristics varied between fatality categories, they were not particularly informative with regard to prevention. Conclusion: Prevention strategies that focus on structural controls are likely to be most efficacious in improving the overall safety of the NYC subway systems. Impact on industry: These findings suggest that structural rather than individual-level interventions would be most successful in preventing subway fatalities. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

• Air taxis (urban air mobility (UAM) services) are planned to be launched in coming years. • Proposed a centralized framework to allocate and dispatch air taxis dynamically. • Developed hybrid simulation goal programming model that can make real-time decisions. • Tested the proposed approach using millions of estimated air taxi demand data. Expected to begin its operations in the coming years, air taxi aims to provide everyday transportation services to customers in metropolitan cities. These vehicles offer urban air mobility (UAM) services using the electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) technology. This research is the first to present a hybrid simulation goal programming (HSGP) approach to dispatch vehicles in a centralized air taxi network. After each customer drop-off, the model makes real-time decisions on (i) whether the air taxi must become idle or pick up customers, and (ii) the station to which the air taxi should be dispatched (if the air taxi is operational). The feasibility of the HSGP approach is tested using potential air taxi demands in New York City (NYC) provided by a prior study. The results of the experimentation suggest that the minimum number of air taxis required for efficient operation in NYC is 84, functioning with an average utilization rate of 66%. In addition, the impacts of commuter's "willingness to fly" rate, percentage of demand fulfillment, on-road travel limit, maximum customer wait time, and arrival distribution on the optimal number of air taxis, utilization rate, number of customers served, and cost incurred per customer are examined. Analyses show that the "willingness to fly" rate appears to have a linear influence on the number of air taxis and the efficiency, while on-road travel distance has an exponential impact on the performance measures. The HSGP algorithm developed in this paper can be used by any company that is interested in venturing into the air taxi market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the effects of Asian peers on non-Asian student achievement in New York City public schools. We use exogenous variation in the share of Asian students across cohorts within schools stemming from a fertility shock among the Asian population in the Chinese year of the Dragon. Results show that a 10-percentage-point increase in the share of Asian students reduces non-Asian math and ELA scores by 0.14 and 0.16 standard deviations. The reduction in achievement is associated with an increase in the share of non-Asian students who fail to demonstrate the skills expected at the grade, especially in math. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This descriptive paper characterizes the sexual behaviors of a diverse sample (N = 311) of gay, bisexual, and other nonidentified men who have sex with men (MSM) who regularly attended gyms in New York City. Approximately 50% of the sample indicated sex with primary male partners, while 88% of the men had sexual relations with male casual partners in the 6 months prior to assessment. The participants met their casual partners in a variety of different venues, including the Internet. Differences were noted along key demographic factors with regard to the contexts in which men met their partners. The data indicate that the men use serosorting, strategic positioning, and contexts in which they meet other men, to influence choices concerning sexual partners and practices as a form of health protection. It is proposed that these patterns of sexual behavior are representative of the totality of the lives of gay, bisexual, and other MSM, because despite engaging in gym behaviors, which might be considered health promoting, these men are simultaneously taking risks. Such findings point to varying motivations as to why gay, bisexual, and other MSM actually attend the gym. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Manhattan Bridge is one of the first examples of an urban bridge whose design was impacted by partisan politics and a desire for a more, in the eyes of some, esthetically pleasing suspension bridge. It was the third bridge to be built across the East River and its design resulted in a battle between Leffert L. Buck, his associates R. S. Buck, and O. F. Nichols and Gustav Lindenthal, the Commissioner of Bridges in New York City, appointed after the preliminary design of the bridge had been completed. This paper is about that battle. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The subject of the paper is the collapse of towers and highscrapers, particularly, the collapse of the World Trade Center towers in New York on September 11, 2001. The deduced equations of progressive collapse are used to refute the generally accepted opinion of experts about progressive collapse of the WTC towers in the free-fall regime, which is the official version of the US government. It is proved that progressive collapse is much slower than free fall. The critical floors where collapses started from are estimated using the well-established fact of the free-fall time of all WTC collapses. To this end, the most comprehensive “hybrid” analysis is advanced taking into account that collapses could start on several floors simultaneously, not on one floor as suggested before. According to this “hybrid” model, at the first stage, several floors collapsed simultaneously as a result of fracture waves causing a dust cloud and, at the second stage, the lower part of tower being intact in the first stage collapsed in the regime of progressive failure. Five different collapse types are studied, including the fastest and slowest collapses, and then the hybrid mode is examined with initial collapse of several floors followed by the “domino-effect” of the remaining floors. It is established that the floors where the WTC collapses started from were located significantly lower than the floors hit by the terrorists and subjected to fire. This conclusion confirms the same former result obtained by using the simple official theory of pure progressive collapse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reflects on the tenant revolts that happened in Virginia and New York during the American Revolution. The paper examines the action of tenants in Hudson Valley, New York and Loudoun County, Virginia, during the Revolutionary War in an attempt to uncover what grievances did tenants in both parts of the country hope to change during the Revolution. It also analyzes their relationship with the British army, explain how landlords and Revolutionaries reacted to the revolt, and measure their levels of success.

The explosive growth of remote access electronic resources (e-resources) has added to the workload of libraries’ cataloging departments. In response to this challenge, librarians developed various ways of providing access to electronic collections, but few dealt with the processing of free remote access e-resources, such as electronic books, Web sites, and databases. This paper will consider the various approaches taken by cataloging agencies to process Internet resources in all formats. It will then go on to describe Columbia University Libraries’ approach to cataloging free Internet resources using a combination of selector input data, an automated form able to convert the information into MARC records, access level records, and cataloging expertise. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most American and English cancer patients prefer to die at home. Factors associated with greater likelihood of dying at home have been contradictory in many studies and no studies have compared the effects of factors in different countries. The objective of this paper is to compare the factors affecting place of cancer death in two major cities, New York and London. Methods: We use data on all individuals aged ≥40 dying of cancer in London (59604) and New York City (51 668) in the years 1995 through 1998. The probability of death at home is examined in each city as a function of gender, age group (40-55, 56-64, 65-74, 75+), year, type of cancer, and area socioeconomic status, using multiple logistic regression. Results: Although the probability of death at home is the same in the two cities (∼1 in 5), being female lowers the odds of death at home by ∼7% in London, and raises it by ∼22% in New York. Older age is associated with increased odds of dying at home in New York but decreased odds of dying at home in London. Being in the lowest tercile of socioeconomic status (relative to the highest) lowers the odds of death at home by 22% in London and 39% in New York. Conclusion: Site of death varies significantly by patient and area characteristics in both cities, an understanding, which should be taken account of in future planning of end-of-life care. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When Cuban-born Celia Cruz arrived in New York City in 1962, she faced audiences that dismissed her as irrelevant to their current musical and cultural preferences. The boom in ethnic pride of the 1970s, though, allowed Celia to emerge as the only female superstar of salsa, the "new" sound of Latin music. From 1971 to 2003, Celia developed into a dynamic entertainer representative of the commercial success of salsa music, the musical, linguistic, and cultural possibilities and tensions associated with "crossover," and the essence or cubanidad of the Cuban exile community. Throughout this paper, I argue that Celia both manufactured and resisted her popularity with a mainstream audience, demonstrating that "crossing over" does not necessitate a shift from the margin to mainstream but may also represent a shift from one sort of margin to another. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: African American and Hispanic women, such as those living in the northern Manhattan and the South Bronx neighborhoods of New York City, are generally underserved with regard to breast cancer prevention and screening practices, even though they are more likely to die of breast cancer than are other women. Primary care physicians (PCPs) are critical for the recommendation of breast cancer screening to their patients. Academic detailing is a promising strategy for improving PCP performance in recommending breast cancer screening, yet little is known about the effects of academic detailing on breast cancer screening among physicians who practice in medically underserved areas. We assessed the effectiveness of an enhanced, multi-component academic detailing intervention in increasing recommendations for breast cancer screening within a sample of community-based urban physicians. Methods: Two medically underserved communities were matched and randomized to intervention and control arms. Ninety-four primary care community (i.e., not hospital based) physicians in northern Manhattan were compared to 74 physicians in the South Bronx neighborhoods of the New York City metropolitan area. Intervention participants received enhanced physician-directed academic detailing, using the American Cancer Society guidelines for the early detection of breast cancer. Control group physicians received no intervention. We conducted interviews to measure primary care physicians' self-reported recommendation of mammography and Clinical Breast Examination (CBE), and whether PCPs taught women how to perform breast self examination (BSE). Results: Using multivariate analyses, we found a statistically significant intervention effect on the recommendation of CBE to women patients age 40 and over; mammography and breast self examination reports increased across both arms from baseline to follow-up, according to physician self-report. At post-test, physician involvement in additional educational programs, enhanced self-efficacy in counseling for prevention, the routine use of chart reminders, computer-rather than paper-based prompting and tracking approaches, printed patient education materials, performance targets for mammography, and increased involvement of nursing and other office staff were associated with increased screening. Conclusion: We found some evidence of improvement in breast cancer screening practices due to enhanced academic detailing among primary care physicians practicing in urban underserved communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Information about several papers discussed during a symposium held at the Fordham University School of Law in New York City on April 7, 2009 on judicial selection system is presented. Topics highlight the attempt to guide the reform of judicial selection systems on the appointment of judges. Panelists who attended the symposium focused on the creation of a good system for selecting judges, obtain support for the appointment process, and preserve and oppose the appointive system.