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This paper introduces the Watermark Imaging System (WImSy) which can be used to photograph, document, and study sheets of paper. The WImSy provides surface images, raking light images, and transmitted light images of the paper, all in perfect alignment. We develop algorithms that exploit this alignment by combining several images together in a process that mimics both the "surface image removal" technique and the method of "high dynamic range" photographs. An improved optimization criterion and an automatic parameter selection procedure streamline the process and make it practical for art historians and conservators to extract the relevant information to study watermarks. The effectiveness of the method is demonstrated in several experiments on images taken with the WImSy at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and at the Getty Museum in Los Angeles, and the results are compared with manually optimized images. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Runtime verification (RV) refers to methods for formal reasoning about all aspects of the dynamic execution of systems, including hardware, software, and cyber-physical systems. RV includes techniques to assess and enforce correctness of a system against systemic bugs or extrinsic uncertainties. These methods are typically considered lightweight as they may not involve exhaustive verification or proofs, but they provide a higher level of rigor and versatility compared to conventional testing methods. This article introduces the extended versions of selected papers from the peer-reviewed proceedings of the 20th International Conference on Runtime Verification (RV 2020). RV 2020 was supposed to be held in Los Angeles, California, USA in July 2020, but was instead held virtually due to the global Covid-19 pandemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The winner of the 2020 TPS Best Paper Award has been selected (please refer to our TPS home page for details about the award at https://ieee-npss.org/publications/transactions-on-plasma-science/). This year is the second year that the award is being given, and I am pleased to announce that Prof. Chandrashekhar Joshi, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of California at Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, USA, is the winner for his article “Laser-driven plasma accelerators operating in the self- guided, blowout regime.” This article appeared in IEEE TPS, vol. 45, pp. 3134–3146, in December 2017. The award plaque, certificate, and cheque will be presented to Prof. Joshi at an upcoming International Conference on Plasma Science in South Lake Tahoe, CA, USA, in June 2021. This is an open-access article and is freely available to our readers. Congratulations to Prof. Chan Joshi on this accomplishment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aggregates are essential materials in civil engineering, they are used for railway and road constructions, for hydraulic engineering but they are also the base material of concrete. The crushed stones are exposed to several effects during their lifespan. Therefore, several tests were developed to evaluate their performance. One of the most important aspects is the resistance to degradation. However, degradation tests require special types of equipment and usually take longer than common strength tests which are more likely to be available for rock materials. Therefore, the empirical connections between strength and degradation values can be extremely useful in practice. The paper aimed to collect all available relationships and datasets from the literature that presents the relations between these different parameters - such as Aggregate Impact Value (AIV), Aggregate Crushing Value (ACV), Ten Percent Fines Value (TFV), Los Angeles Abrasion Value (LAAV), and micro-Deval Coefficient (MDE) - and rock strength parameters - such as Uniaxial Compressive Strength (UCS) and Point Load Strength Index (IS(50)) - and to provide the best-fit formula for different rock types. The paper also highlights the difficulties and limitations of the compared relationships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Runtime verification (RV) refers to methods for formal reasoning about all aspects of the dynamic execution of systems, including hardware, software, and cyber-physical systems. RV includes techniques to assess and enforce correctness of a system against systemic bugs or extrinsic uncertainties. These methods are typically considered lightweight as they may not involve exhaustive verification or proofs, but they provide a higher level of rigor and versatility compared to conventional testing methods. This article introduces the extended versions of selected papers from the peer-reviewed proceedings of the 21st International Conference on Runtime Verification (RV 2021). RV 2021 was supposed to be held in Los Angeles, California, USA in November 2021, but was instead held virtually due to the global Covid-19 pandemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While the co-production of knowledge through community-engaged research is intended to be a reciprocally beneficial process, academic institutions have often devalued community expertise by treating community organizations as subjects rather than co-creators of knowledge. Drawing from Black Feminist Epistemology, this ethnographic study examines how one community-based organization, Los Angeles Community Action Network (LA CAN), partners with academic researchers, including their discourse around partnerships and how they challenged power dynamics between community and their university partners. This paper discusses key themes from their partnerships, including centering community members' expertise through their lived experience and forming long-term mutual relationships rooted in abolition and the Black Radical Tradition. Drawing on an analysis of LA CAN's organizing and research processes with academic partners, we discuss how the centering of community expertise and forming relationships with academics aligned on these values can help to challenge the traditional power dynamics in community-university partnerships, resulting in different ways of knowing or what LA CAN referred to as "the real data set.". [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Philip K. Dick takes the highly computerized but ruined Los Angeles of the United States after the post-apocalyptic war as the background and brings the cyberspace struggle between androids and humans as the novel's theme, sketching a cyberpunk society in which humans and androids fight against each other. The novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? invites people to think about cyberspace and human-androids subjectivity. Inspired by Slavoj Zizek's critical theory of cyberspace, this paper uses this science-fiction force as a text to explore how contemporary American science fiction reconstructs a revolutionary human-androids subject in cyberspace, challenging human subjectivity in the urban space. Faced with human-android coexistence, Dick affirms the coexistence of multiple subjects using equal dialogue, fully exploits the advantages of androids and humans, and constructs the subject with human-androids. Through an in-depth study of androids, this paper concludes that in a human-androids coexistence space, humans and androids should not be in a master-slave relationship; instead, they are each other's constitutive Other. Humans should try to break the boundary between self and others to accept a pluralistic and open subject. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: According to the 5th edition of the Japanese Guidelines for the Treatment of Gastric Cancer, proximal gastrectomy is recommended for patients with early upper gastric cancer who can retain the distal half of the residual stomach after R0 resection. However, a large number of recent clinical studies suggest that surgical indications for proximal gastrectomy in the guidelines may be too narrow. Therefore, this meta-analysis included patients with early and advanced gastric cancer and compared short- and long-term postoperative outcomes between the two groups. At the same time, we only had high-quality clinical studies such as propensity score-matched studies and randomized controlled trials, which made our research more authentic and credible. Methods: Data were retrieved from PubMed, EMBASE, Medline, and Cochrane Library up to June 2023, and included treatment outcomes after proximal gastrectomy with double-tract reconstruction and total gastrectomy with Roux-en-Y reconstruction. The primary results were Early-phase complications(Anastomotic leakage, Anastomotic bleeding, Abdominal abscess, Abdominal infection, Pulmonary infection, Incision infection, Intestinal obstruction, Dumping syndrome, Pancreatic fistula), Late-phase complications(Intestinal obstruction, Anastomosis stricture, Dumping syndrome, Reoperation, Internal hernia, Incidence of endoscopic gastroesophageal reflux), Serious complications (≥ Grade III C-D score), Quality of life[Gastroesophageal reflux symptom evaluation (Visick score)(≥ III), Los Angeles classification(C or D)], Nutritional status(Hemoglobin, Receipt of vitamin B12 supplementation), Oncologic Outcomes(The 5-year overall survival rates). Secondary outcomes were surgical outcomes (Operative time, Estimated blood loss, Postoperative hospital stay, Number of harvested lymph nodes, Gas-passing, Postoperative mortality).The Cochrane risk-of-bias tool and Newcastle‒Ottawa scale were used to assess the quality of the included studies. Results: After screening, 11 studies were finally included, including 1154 patients. Results from the combined literature showed that total gastrectomy had a significant advantage over proximal gastrectomy with double-tract reconstruction in mean operating time (MD = 4.92, 95% CI: 0.22∼9.61 P = 0.04). However, meta-analysis results showed that Hemoglobin (MD = 7.12, 95% CI:2.40∼11.84, P = 0.003) and Receipt of vitamin B12 supplementation (OR = 0.12, 95% CI:0.05∼0.26, P < 0.00001) in the proximal gastrectomy with double-tract reconstruction group were better than those in the total gastrectomy with Roux-en-Y reconstruction group. There is no significant difference between the proximal gastrectomy with double-tract reconstruction and the total gastrectomy with Roux-en-Y reconstruction group in Early-phase complications(OR = 1.14,95% CI:0.79∼1.64, P = 0.50), Late-phase complications(OR = 1.37,95% CI:0.78∼2.39, P = 0.27), Gastroesophageal reflux symptom evaluation (Visick score)(≥ III)(OR = 0.94,95% CI:0.14∼1.07 P = 0.07), Los Angeles classification(C or D)(OR = 0.33,95% CI:0.01∼8.21, P = 0.50), the 5-year overall survival rates (HR = 1.01, 95% CI: 0.83 ~ 1.23, P = 0.89). Conclusion: Proximal gastrectomy with double-tract anastomosis is a safe and feasible treatment for upper gastric carcinoma. However, the operating time was slightly longer in the proximal gastrectomy with double-tract group compared to the total gastrectomy with Roux-en-Y group. The two groups were comparable to the total gastrectomy with Roux-en-Y group in terms of serious complications (≥ Grade III C-D score), early-phase complications, late-phase complications, and quality of life. Although the scope of proximal gastrectomy is smaller than that of total gastrectomy, it does not affect the 5-year survival rate, indicating good tumor outcomes for patients. Compared to total gastrectomy with Roux-en-Y group, proximal gastrectomy with double-tract reconstruction had higher hemoglobin levels, lower probability of vitamin B12 supplementation, and better long-term efficacy. In conclusion, proximal gastrectomy with double-tract reconstruction is considered one of the more rational surgical approaches for upper gastric cancer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Self-melting ice asphalt pavement materials inhibit pavement freezing and improve driving safety. This paper aims to study the long-term salt release characteristics of self-melting ice asphalt mixtures and the impact on pavement after complete salt release. Firstly, a method to accelerate the rapid release of salt based on the Los Angeles abrasion tester. Then, long-term salt release patterns were elucidated under the influence of deicing agent dosage, type of asphalt, and type of gradation. Finally, a quantitative analysis of the pavement performance after complete salt release is conducted. The results indicate that the release efficiency of the Los Angeles abrasion tester method has increased by 91 times compared to the magnetic stirrer immersion flushing method and by 114 times compared to the natural soaking method. The SBS-modified self-melting ice asphalt mixture possesses a longer duration of salt release, but the uniformity of salt release is inferior. Salt release duration is directly proportional to the dosage of deicing agents. SMA-13 self-melting ice asphalt mixture exhibits poorer uniformity in salt release. After complete salt release, high-temperature stability of self-melting ice asphalt mixtures decreased by 31.6%, low-temperature performance decreased by 15.4%, water stability decreased by 26.7%, and fatigue life decreased by 35.9%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 2020 census reports that 61.2 million Latinxs live in the US, totaling around 19% of all residents, forming the country's largest minority population. With the growing number of Latinxs, there has been a higher level of contact between Spanish and English leading to language mixing or code-switching (CS) in mainstream American culture. This paper examines the Spanish/English CS in radio advertisements on Los Angeles's 96.3 La Mega, a bilingual radio station geared towards today's youth. Using Derrick' 2015 sentential framework for the linguistic analysis of multilingual sentences, I carry out a sentence-by-sentence analysis of the linguistic nature of the on-air bilingual advertisements. I explore both national advertisements, as well as DJ-endorsed advertisements, to discern whether they follow the patterns previously pointed out in the literature for positive consumer evaluations of Spanish/English bilingual advertisements. Furthermore, I am interested in if these advertisements are in line with the ethos of 96.3 La Mega, which prides itself on being fully bilingual. This research will shed light on the linguistic nature of contemporary strategies being used in bilingual advertisements for the US Latinx community and marketing tactics designed to encourage their consumerism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents an extensive numerical study on the seismic performance of steel eccentrically braced frames (EBFs) designed according to the ASCE 7-16 standard. A series of EBF building structures ranging from 2 to 12 stories located in downtown Los Angeles are designed with different yielding links, including conventional and replaceable links. The performance of the structures is investigated through nonlinear time-history analyses (NLTHAs) under a suite of 40 ground motions, selected and scaled to match the target uniform hazard spectrum. The peak deformations are first examined to assess the performance of the buildings as well as the design procedure. Residual deformations are also evaluated and critically compared with acceptable limits, to provide insight into the downtime and recovery time of EBFs after major earthquakes. Previous studies have demonstrated that the response of stable yielding systems to major earthquakes is often accompanied by significant residual deformations, and that residual drifts exceeding 0.5% can cause hindrance to the buildings occupants. In EBFs, in addition to residual drifts, residual link rotations are also relevant and expected to be more severe due to the localization of inelastic deformations in the yielding link. For replaceable modular yielding links, significant residual link rotations after major earthquakes will hinder repairs and the link replacement process, which is one of the important design objectives. The performance of EBFs is also compared with what was observed in previous studies for buckling restrained braced frames and special moment resisting frames. In the end, the results from the extensive NLTHAs are used to establish a relationship between peak drifts and peak link rotations in EBFs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on the Electrochemical Society meeting held in Los Angeles, California. The first symposium of the Physical and Analytical Electrochemistry Division focused on Durability and Reliability of Low-Temperature Fuel Cells and Fuel Cell Systems. This symposium presented Outstanding Student Paper Awards to students of various universities of the United States. For example, Vishal Mittal of the University of Connecticut got the award for his paper entitled, "Factors Accelerating Membrane Degradation Rate and the Underlying Degradation Mechanism in PEMFC." In this paper, experiments were performed to elucidate the factors and conditions important for photoelectromagnetic degradation.

The Editors of the Journal "Auditing: A Journal of Practice & Theory" invited Professor Gary L. Holstrum and Professor Theodore J. Mock to submit this synopsis of the University of Southern California Audit Judgment Symposium in the belief that many audit researchers and professionals who were not able to attend the conference would benefit from the report. A significant area of audit judgment is the evaluation of audit evidence. This synopsis of audit judgment and evidence evaluation research is based upon papers and presentations made at the 1985. The evaluation of audit evidence may be based on one of several models of inference. Audit evidence could be evaluated according to a Bayesian inference model, a non-Bayesian statistical model, a hierarchical or cascaded inference model, a causal reasoning model, or some other form of inference model. Strengths and weaknesses of various inference models were discussed at the Symposium. The Symposium began with presentations of some current behavioral science research on inference models that are expected to be relevant to audit evidence evaluation.

This paper presents a comprehensive modeling framework for large-scale agent-based multimodal transportation simulation tailored to the complex urban environments of megacities, with a specific focus on the Greater Los Angeles (LA) area. The framework leverages the Multi-Agent Transport Simulation (MATSim) toolkit, which addresses the evolving challenges posed by urbanization and technology-driven shifts in human mobility patterns. The framework enables the generation of explicit travel trajectories for a representative 10% sample population of LA County, comprising over one million individuals. To ensure the model's validity, an efficient network calibration algorithm is proposed with rigorous validation using publicly available traffic count data. This paper underscores the development and configuration of the agent-based simulation model for LA, providing a robust foundation for large-scale urban mobility simulations and advancing our understanding of the intricacies of megacities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Chile, recognized as one of the world's most earthquake-prone nations, has gained valuable insights from significant earthquakes, such as those in 1985 and 2010, which have influenced updates to the nation's design codes. Although Chile's seismic design approach has been largely effective in recent earthquakes and demonstrated an "operational" performance level in most structures, performance-based design (PBD) methods have not yet been officially incorporated as valid approaches in the Chilean seismic design codes for buildings. However, in 2017, the Chilean Association on Seismology and Earthquake Engineering (ACHISINA) introduced a PBD approach, primarily for verification purposes, based on the Los Angeles Tall Buildings Structural Design Council (LATBSDC) framework. In this work, firstly, we provide an overview of Chile's PBD methodology, focusing on the thresholds for various performance levels. These levels are established through experimental and numerical analysis, correlating performance with permissible damage levels. The second part of the paper examines the seismic performance of a residential building, designed before the 2010 Maule earthquake and subsequently damaged, using Chile's PBD guidelines. This case study highlights the implementation and effectiveness of PBD for assessing seismic resilience in Chilean structures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aims to forecast New York and Los Angeles gasoline spot prices on a daily frequency. The dataset includes gasoline prices and a big set of 128 other relevant variables spanning the period from 17 February 2004 to 26 March 2022. These variables were fed to three tree-based machine learning algorithms: decision trees, random forest, and XGBoost. Furthermore, a variable importance measure (VIM) technique was applied to identify and rank the most important explanatory variables. The optimal model, a trained random forest, achieves a mean absolute percent error (MAPE) in the out-of-sample of 3.23% for the New York and 3.78% for the Los Angeles gasoline spot prices. The first lag, AR (1), of gasoline is the most important variable in both markets; the top five variables are all energy-related. This paper can strengthen the understanding of price determinants and has the potential to inform strategic decisions and policy directions within the energy sector, making it a valuable asset for both industry practitioners and policymakers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: The COVID-19 pandemic disproportionately affected older adults, particularly those with pre-existing chronic health conditions. To address the health disparity and challenges faced by under-resourced African American older adults in South Los Angeles during this period, we implemented a hybrid (virtual/in-person), pre-post, community-based participatory intervention research project utilizing a faith-based lay health advisor model (COVID-19 Health Ambassador Program (CHAP)). We recruited COVID-19 Health Ambassadors (CHAs) and African American older adults (participants) from faith-based organizations who partook in CHA-led meetings and follow-ups that educated and supported the participants. This paper seeks to evaluate this intervention's implementation using the Consolidated Framework for Implementation Research (CFIR) as a reporting tool with an emphasis on fidelity, challenges, and adaptations based on data collected via stakeholder interviews and surveys. Results: CHAP was delivered to 152 participants by 19 CHAs from 17 faith-based organizations. CHAs assisted with chronic disease management, resolved medication-related challenges, encouraged COVID-19 vaccination, reduced psychological stress and addressed healthcare avoidance behaviors such as COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy among the participants. Challenges encountered include ensuring participant engagement and retention in the virtual format and addressing technological barriers for CHAs and participants. Adaptations made to better suit the needs of participants included providing communication tools and additional training to CHAs to improve their proficiency in using virtual platforms in addition to adapting scientific/educational materials to suit our participants' diverse cultural and linguistic needs. Conclusion: The community-centered hybrid approach in addition to our partnership with faith-based organizations and their respective COVID-19 health ambassadors proved to be essential in assisting underserved African American older adults manage chronic health conditions and address community-wide health disparities during the COVID-19 pandemic. Adaptability, cultural sensitivity, and teamwork are key to implementing health interventions especially in underserved populations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Los Angeles basin is a significant anthropogenic source of major greenhouse gases (CO2 and CH4) and the pollutant CO, contributing significantly to regional and global climate change. We present a novel approach for monitoring the spatial and temporal distributions of greenhouse gases in the Los Angeles basin using a highresolution spectroscopic remote sensing technique. A new Fourier Transform Spectrometer called CLARS-FTS has been deployed since May 2010 at JPL's California Laboratory for Atmospheric Remote Sensing (CLARS) on Mt. Wilson, California for automated long-term measurements of greenhouse gases. The instrument design and performance of CLARS-FTS are presented. From its mountaintop location at an altitude of 1673 m, the instrument points at a programmed sequence of ground target locations in the Los Angeles basin, recording spectra of reflected near-IR solar radiation. Column-averaged dry-air mole fractions of greenhouse gases (XGHG) including XCO2, XCH4, and XCO are retrieved several times per day for each target. Spectra from a local Spectralon® scattering plate are also recorded to determine background (free tropospheric) column abundances above the site. Comparisons between measurements from LA basin targets and the Spectralon® plate provide estimates of the boundary layer partial column abundances of the measured species. Algorithms are described for transforming the measured interferograms into spectra, and for deriving column abundances from the spectra along with estimates of the measurement precision and accuracy. The CLARS GHG measurements provide a means to infer relative, and possibly absolute, GHG emissions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cellular vehicle-to-everything (C-V2X) is a communication technology that supports various safety, mobility, and environmental applications, given its higher reliability properties compared to other communication technologies. The performance of these C-V2X-enabled intelligent transportation system (ITS) applications is affected by the performance of the C-V2X communication technology (mainly packet loss). Similarly, the performance of the C-V2X communication is dependent on the vehicular traffic density which is affected by the traffic mobility patterns and vehicle routing strategies. Consequently, it is critical to develop a tool that can simulate, analyze, and evaluate the mutual interactions of the transportation and communication systems at the application level to quantify the benefits of C-V2X-enabled ITS applications realistically. In this paper, we demonstrate the benefits gained when using C-V2X Vehicle-to-Infrastructure (V2I) communication technology in an energy-efficient dynamic routing application. Specifically, we develop a Connected Energy-Efficient Dynamic Routing (C-EEDR) application using C-V2X as a communication medium in an integrated vehicular traffic and communication simulator (INTEGRATION). The results demonstrate that the C-EEDR application achieves fuel savings of up to 16.6% and 14.7% in the IDEAL and C-V2X communication cases, respectively, for a peak hour demand on the downtown Los Angeles network considering a 50% level of market penetration of connected vehicles. The results demonstrate that the fuel savings increase with increasing levels of market penetration at lower traffic demand levels (25% and 50% the peak demand). At higher traffic demand levels (75% and 100%), the fuel savings increase with increasing levels of market penetration with maximum benefits at a 50% market penetration rate. Although the communication system is affected by the high density of vehicles at the high traffic demand levels (75% and 100% the peak demand), the C-EEDR application manages to perform reliably, producing system-wide fuel consumption savings.The C-EEDR application achieves fuel savings of 15.2% and 11.7% for the IDEAL communication and 14% and 9% for the C-V2X communication at the 75% and 100% market penetration rates, respectively. Finally, the paper demonstrates that the C-V2X communication constraints only affect the performance of the C-EEDR application at the full demand level when the market penetration of the connected vehicles exceeds 25%. This degradation, however, is minimal (less than a 2.5% reduction in fuel savings). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A biography of Charles Carleton Hirt, founding member of the non-profit organization American Choral Directors Association, is presented. He was born on November 4, 1911, in Los Angeles, California, to Adolph Hirt and Della Belle Hirt and attended an elementary school in Glendale, California. In 1941, Hirt was offered a teaching assignment at the Glendale Junior College by the Glendale Board of Education.

The article focuses on the career of Cheng-Ming Chuong, a developmental biologist at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. Chuong has interest on how feathers are generated in adult birds. He decided to try to track down the location of stem cells in feathers. Chuong and his team discovered that in flight feathers, the ring of stem cells tilts towards the side where the quill arises. He plans to continue his characterization of feather stem cells.

Atmospheric delay correction remains a major challenge for interferometric synthetic aperture radar (InSAR) technology. In this paper, we first reviewed several commonly used methods for tropospheric delay correction in InSAR. Subsequently, considering the large volume and high temporal resolution of global navigation satellite system (GNSS) station measurement data, we proposed a method for spatial prediction of the InSAR tropospheric delay phase based on the backpropagation (BP) neural network and GNSS zenith total delay (ZTD). Using 42 Sentinel-1 interferograms over the Los Angeles area in 2021 as an example, we validated the accuracy of the BP + GNSS method in spatially predicting ZTD and compared the correction effects of BP + GNSS and five other methods on interferograms using the standard deviation (StaD) and structural similarity (SSIM). The results demonstrated that the BP + GNSS method reduced the root-mean-square error (RMSE) in spatial prediction by approximately 95.50% compared to the conventional interpolation method. After correction using the BP + GNSS method, StaD decreased in 92.86% of interferograms, with an average decrease of 52.03%, indicating significantly better correction effects than other methods. The SSIM of the BP + GNSS method was lower in mountainous and high-altitude areas with obvious terrain changes in the east and north, exhibiting excellent and stable correction performance in different seasons, particularly outperforming the GACOS method in autumn and winter. The BP + GNSS method can be employed to generate InSAR tropospheric delay maps with high temporal and spatial resolution, effectively addressing the challenge of removing InSAR tropospheric delay signals in areas with significant terrain variations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Traffic state estimation (TSE), which reconstructs the traffic variables (e.g., speed, flow) on road segments using partially observed data, plays an essential role in intelligent transportation systems. Generally, traffic estimation problems can be divided into two categories: model-driven approaches and data-driven approaches. The model-driven method is commonly used to solve TSE efficiently and calibrate the parameters of these models. The data-driven method requires a large amount of historical observed traffic data in order to improve performance accurately. In order to combine the advantages of model-driven and data-driven methods, this paper proposed a hybrid framework incorporating the traffic flow model into deep learning (TFMDL) modeling that contains both model-driven and data-driven components. This paper focuses on highway TSE with observed data from loop detectors. We build a hybrid cost function to adjust the weights of model-driven and data-driven proportions. We then evaluate the proposed framework using the open-access performance measurement system (PMS) dataset on a corridor of US I-405 in Los Angeles, California. The experimental results show the advantages of the proposed TFMDL approach in performing better than several benchmark models in terms of estimation accuracy and data efficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nowcasting is a term originating from economics, finance, and meteorology. It refers to the process of determining the uncertain state of the economy, markets or the weather at the current time by indirect means. In this paper, we describe a simple two‐parameter data analysis that reveals hidden order in otherwise seemingly chaotic earthquake seismicity. One of these parameters relates to a mechanism of seismic quiescence arising from the physics of strain‐hardening of the crust prior to major events. We observe an earthquake cycle associated with major earthquakes in California, similar to what has long been postulated. An estimate of the earthquake hazard revealed by this state variable time series can be optimized by the use of machine learning in the form of the Receiver Operating Characteristic skill score. The ROC skill is used here as a loss function in a supervised learning mode. Our analysis is conducted in the region of 5° × 5° in latitude‐longitude centered on Los Angeles, a region which we used in previous papers to build similar time series using more involved methods (Rundle & Donnellan, 2020, https://doi.org/10.1029/2020EA001097; Rundle, Donnellan et al., 2021, https://doi.org/10.1029/2021EA001757; Rundle, Stein et al., 2021, https://doi.org/10.1088/1361-6633/abf893). Here we show that not only does the state variable time series have forecast skill, the associated spatial probability densities have skill as well. In addition, use of the standard ROC and Precision (PPV) metrics allow probabilities of current earthquake hazard to be defined in a simple, straightforward, and rigorous way. Plain Language Summary: Earthquake nowcasting refers to the determination of hazard for major earthquakes at the present time, the recent past, and the near future. Nowcasting is an idea borrowed from economics, markets, and meteorology, where it has been frequently used. In this paper, we show that there is order hidden within chaotic earthquake seismicity using a very simple transformation of the data. Small earthquakes appear to transition from unstable stick‐slip events that produce seismic waves, to stable sliding where no seismic waves are produced. Our hypothesis is that this transition is due to a material phenomenon called strain‐hardening, that is frequently observed in laboratory rock mechanics experiments. The result is a state variable time series, computed over the last 51 years in California, that strongly resembles the long‐anticipated cycle of stress accumulation and release. Using supervised machine learning techniques, we can optimize the two‐parameter model. From that optimized model, we can rigorously calculate the probability of current hazard from major earthquakes. Extending these methods, we can also compute spatial hazard as well. The result is a new method for assessing earthquake hazard that may be useful for a variety of applications. Key Points: "Chaotic" seismicity contains hidden structure in the form of state variable time seriesStandard data science methods can be used to convert the time series to probabilitiesBoth temporal and spatial probabilities can be computed [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Random forests are a popular type of machine learning model, which are relatively robust to overfitting, unlike some other machine learning models, and adequately capture non-linear relationships between an outcome of interest and multiple independent variables. There are relatively few adjustable hyperparameters in the standard random forest models, among them the minimum size of the terminal nodes on each tree. The usual stopping rule, as proposed by Breiman, stops tree expansion by limiting the size of the parent nodes, so that a node cannot be split if it has less than a specified number of observations. Recently an alternative stopping criterion has been proposed, stopping tree expansion so that all terminal nodes have at least a minimum number of observations. The present paper proposes three generalisations of this idea, limiting the growth in regression random forests, based on the variance, range, or inter-centile range. The new approaches are applied to diabetes data obtained from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey and four other datasets (Tasmanian Abalone data, Boston Housing crime rate data, Los Angeles ozone concentration data, MIT servo data). Empirical analysis presented herein demonstrate that the new stopping rules yield competitive mean square prediction error to standard random forest models. In general, use of the intercentile range statistic to control tree expansion yields much less variation in mean square prediction error, and mean square prediction error is also closer to the optimal. The Fortran code developed is provided in the Supplementary Material. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sedimentary phosphate extraction in open-pit operations generates large volumes of waste rock (WR), which are mainly overburdens and interburdens. Traditionally, the WR is mixed and stored on the surface in waste rock piles (WRPs). This paper presents a case study of the Benguerir mine site in Morocco. It investigates the potential valorization of each WR lithology based on the geological and geomechanical properties to reduce their environmental footprint and create added value to "waste." The WR samples (soils and rocks) were collected from drill cores and mining trenches in the Benguerir mine. The geological characterization results using petrographic descriptions indicate the presence of nine phosphate layers and, in addition to the overburdens, eight interburdens. Four types of WR are identified: carbonate, siliceous, marly clay, and phosphate. The geomechanical characterization of soil-like samples showed an average plasticity index (PI) of 50% according to the methylene blue value (MBV) of 7.1, classifying them in the A3–A4 categories as plastic and clayey marl soils. The hard rock samples have excellent mechanical properties in terms of their uniaxial compressive strength (UCS), Los Angeles abrasion value (LA), and micro-Deval value (MD). The average compressive strength is 104 MPa for the flint, 35 MPa for the phosphate flint, 32 MPa for the silexite, 26 MPa for the limestone, 11 MPa for the indurated phosphate, and 8 MPa for the marly limestone. Based on the obtained results, these WRs can be considered as an excellent alternative secondary raw material for use in civil engineering applications, ceramics, and cement industries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The fifth-generation (5G) network is the current emerging technology that meets the increasing need for higher throughputs and greater system capacities. It is expected that 5G technology will enable many new applications and services. Vehicle-to-everything (V2X) communication is an example of an application that is supported by 5G technology and beyond. A V2X communication system allows a vehicle to be connected to an entity, such as a pedestrian, another vehicle, infrastructure, and a network, to provide a robust transportation solution. It uses many models and strategies that are usually based on machine learning (ML) techniques, which require the use of a vehicle dataset. In this paper, a real vehicle dataset is proposed that was generated in the city of Los Angeles (LA). It is called the Vehicle dataset in the city of LA (VehDS-LA). It has 74,170 samples that are located on 15 LA streets and each sample has 4 features. The LA dataset has been opened to allow researchers in V2X and ML fields to use it for academic purposes. The main uses of the VehDS-LA dataset are studies related to 5G networks, vehicle automation, or ML-Based vehicle mobility applications. The proposed dataset overcomes limitations experienced by previous related works. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Diversity of physical encounters in urban environments is known to spur economic productivity while also fostering social capital. However, mobility restrictions during the pandemic have forced people to reduce urban encounters, raising questions about the social implications of behavioral changes. In this paper, we study how individual income diversity of urban encounters changed during the pandemic, using a large-scale, privacy-enhanced mobility dataset of more than one million anonymized mobile phone users in Boston, Dallas, Los Angeles, and Seattle, across three years spanning before and during the pandemic. We find that the diversity of urban encounters has substantially decreased (by 15% to 30%) during the pandemic and has persisted through late 2021, even though aggregated mobility metrics have recovered to pre-pandemic levels. Counterfactual analyses show that behavioral changes including lower willingness to explore new places further decreased the diversity of encounters in the long term. Our findings provide implications for managing the trade-off between the stringency of COVID-19 policies and the diversity of urban encounters as we move beyond the pandemic. Mobile phone data reveals a significant decrease in the income diversity of urban encounters during the COVID-19 pandemic in the USA, even though overall mobility returned to pre-pandemic levels by late 2021. This was mainly due to persistent behavioral changes including less willingness to explore new places. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The coupling of frame structures with external oscillating bodies, such as rigid walls, dynamic mass absorbers, elastoplastic dampers, or tuned mass dampers, can be effective in reducing the displacements of the structure and protecting it against seismic loads. This paper proposes connecting an external oscillating body to the first story of a frame structure and studying the effectiveness of the coupling by evaluating the reduction in the displacements of the frame structure. The inertial effects of the oscillating body are increased by introducing a virtual mass, provided by an inerter device. The oscillating body, characterized by physical and virtual masses, is connected to the frame structure through a hysteretic device. The study is performed on a dynamically equivalent three-degree-of-freedom (3-DOF) model, whose equations are written using a direct approach. To verify the effectiveness of the protection device, named hysteretic mass damper inerter (HMDI), in reducing the displacements of the frame structure, the displacement of the first story and the drifts of the upper stories are compared to those of the frame structure not connected to the external oscillating body. An initial spectral analysis, performed on the linearized mechanical system, clarifies the role of the parameters of the external device in the dynamic behavior of the coupled system. An additional seismic analysis is performed by using three single earthquake records first, and then a set of seven additional earthquake records selected to be compatible with the design spectrum of Los Angeles. Specific spectral gain maps are used to organize the results of an extensive parametric analysis. They show that the HMDI reduces both displacements and drifts of the structure in large ranges of the parameters that characterize the HMDI. It is found that the proposed protection method is particularly effective for low- and medium-rise frame structures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urbanization has been vastly studied in the theoretical literature related to the fields of urban studies. Different approaches to urban theories—from critical urban theory to the Los Angeles school, from the postcolonial to the planetary approach—offer various definitions of the concept of urbanization based on distinct ontologies, epistemologies, and methodologies. The various readings of the concept of urbanization among the approaches related to the urban theories would benefit from an extensive analysis through a holistic stance, which is the aim of this study. First, we attempt to put forward a typology of the concept of urbanization by reviewing the various approaches related to prominent urban theories and categorizing them. In so doing, we find that the approaches are essentially focused on three main categories or types: static, dynamic and alternative. Next, the paper presents the case study of Iran and tries to trace the categories to understand the ways in which urbanization is expressed and perceived in the country. To this aim, and to determine the main themes, we use thematic analysis to study official documents—texts and legislations—and also to conduct in-depth interviews with expert individuals. Findings of the case study indicate that in the context of Iran the urbanization concept has been commonly described as static. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent advances in quantitative tools for examining urban morphology enable the development of morphometrics that can characterize the size, shape, and placement of buildings; the relationships between them; and their association with broader patterns of development. Although these methods have the potential to provide substantial insight into the ways in which neighborhood morphology shapes the socioeconomic and demographic characteristics of neighborhoods and communities, this question is largely unexplored. Using building footprints in five of the ten largest U.S. metropolitan areas (Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Houston, and Los Angeles) and the open-source R package, foot, we examine how neighborhood morphology differs across U.S. metropolitan areas and across the urban-exurban landscape. Principal components analysis, unsupervised classification (K-means), and Ordinary Least Squares regression analysis are used to develop a morphological typology of neighborhoods and to examine its association with the spatial, socioeconomic, and demographic characteristics of census tracts. Our findings illustrate substantial variation in the morphology of neighborhoods, both across the five metropolitan areas as well as between central cities, suburbs, and the urban fringe within each metropolitan area. We identify five different types of neighborhoods indicative of different stages of development and distributed unevenly across the urban landscape: these include low-density neighborhoods on the urban fringe; mixed use and high-density residential areas in central cities; and uniform residential neighborhoods in suburban cities. Results from regression analysis illustrate that the prevalence of each of these forms is closely associated with variation in socioeconomic and demographic characteristics such as population density, the prevalence of multifamily housing, and income, race/ethnicity, homeownership, and commuting by car. We conclude by discussing the implications of our findings and suggesting avenues for future research on neighborhood morphology, including ways that it might provide insight into issues such as zoning and land use, housing policy, and residential segregation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper shows an agricultural irrigation alternative using a low-cost Internet of Things (IoT) application. This technology allows the automation and optimization of processes by monitoring, processing, and analyzing large volumes of related data, including variables related to the soil (moisture), fertilization, and irrigation, which can be visualized through the internet to enable sustainable and efficient agriculture. The study is centered on the Los Angeles, Biobío, Chile case. The main objective of the prototype is to optimize water consumption for agricultural irrigation by using only the amount that is strictly necessary for each crop by allowing real-time visualization of irrigation status, moisture data, and irrigation times while providing a history of data that can be used for further analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although earlier research has shown that individual differences on the spectrum of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) are highly heritable, emerging evidence suggests that symptoms are associated with complex interactions between genes and environmental influences. This study investigated whether a genetic predisposition [Note that the term 'genetic predisposition' was used in this manuscript to refer to an estimate based on twin modeling (an individual's score on the latent trait that resembles additive genetic influences) in the particular population being examined.] for the symptom dimensions hyperactivity and inattention determines the extent to which unique-environmental influences explain variability in these symptoms. To this purpose, we analysed a sample drawn from the Twins Early Development Study (TEDS) that consisted of item-level scores of 2168 16-year-old twin pairs who completed both the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ; Goodman, in J Child Psychol Psychiatry 38:581–586, 1997) and the Strength and Weaknesses of ADHD Symptoms and Normal Behavior (SWAN; Swanson, in Paper presented at the meeting of the American Psychological Association, Los Angeles, 1981) questionnaire. To maximize the psychometric information to measure ADHD symptoms, psychometric analyses were performed to investigate whether the items from the two questionnaires could be combined to form two longer subscales. In the estimation of genotype-environment interaction, we corrected for error variance heterogeneity in the measurement of ADHD symptoms through the application of item response theory (IRT) measurement models. A positive interaction was found for both hyperactivity (e.g., β 1 = 2.20 with 95% highest posterior density interval equal to [1.79;2.65] and effect size equal to 3.00) and inattention (e.g., β 1 = 2.16 with 95% highest posterior density interval equal to [1.56;2.79] and effect size equal to 3.07). These results indicate that unique-environmental influences were more important in creating individual differences in both hyperactivity and inattention for twins with a genetic predisposition for these symptoms than for twins without such a predisposition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a large body of literature detailing how modern bureaucracy is hostile to entrepreneurial thinking and creative behavior and this paper aims to detail how this impacts university faculty. Individuals in large bureaucratic organizations may have chosen to work there because they were bureaucratically-minded to begin with, or became bureaucratically-minded after a time of being subjected to the bureaucratic organization’s culture. Universities have been studied in-depth in this regard. College campuses have a complex dual organization: with a bureaucratic administration and a presumably more creative non-bureaucratic faculty. It is also presumed that students would not be as bureaucratic-minded as administrators. Previous research, using a culture survey instrument, measured and compared culture dimension scores of bank management and family-firm management: finding that bank managers had a more bureaucratic culture profile while family-firm management had a more entrepreneurial profile. This study uses that research as a comparison benchmark in extending the same instrument to university administrators, faculty, art students and business students. All campus respondents were from California State University Dominguez Hills (CSUDH), a campus in Los Angeles. Findings show that all CSUDH campus segments, with small exceptions for student groups, share essentially the same campus culture. The campus culture, in all of its parts, is significantly more bureaucratic than bank management culture; with family-firm management culture being much more entrepreneurial than all other groups. This research provides practical essential background for those who would seek to improve higher education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a case study of a realistic application and evaluation of a promising structural health monitoring approach that exploits some topological features of building-like structures to develop a reduced-order, reduced-complexity, not-necessarily-linear, substructure model. The approach not only reliably detects the occurrence of anomalous features that can reflect incipient damage and deterioration but also provides the locations of the structure's regions where a single or multiple changes have been detected. The target structure used in this study is a 52-story building in Los Angeles that is instrumented with a relatively dense sensor array and is being continuously monitored through the efforts of the community seismic network (CSN). Two qualitatively different system identification approaches (global and substructuring) are applied to the large data set of ambient acceleration measurements produced by a strong wind event ("Santa Ana winds") to identify the dominant modal characteristics of the building. The results are shown to match the corresponding results from a high-resolution computational model of the building based on a widely used structural analysis software package (ETABS) developed by Computers and Structures, Inc. The main contribution of this study is to demonstrate the practical feasibility of the proposed substructuring approach with a high-order system using both wind and low-amplitude ambient vibration measurements. The approach also assesses the accuracy and reliability of the estimates of the dominant modal features of the structure to subsequently provide a probabilistic measure of confidence in the extent and location of changes if an anomaly is detected. Due to the minimal computational resources needed to implement the proposed substructuring approach, it is efficient for near-real-time applications where important structures need to be continuously monitored for sustainability as well as resiliency requirements. The method is applicable to linear, nonlinear nonhysteretic, and hysteretic systems, with no restriction on the source of the signal for identification purposes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The annual business meeting of the members of the Behavior Genetics Association, a corporation not for profit, duly organized and existing under and by virtue of the laws of the State of Illinois, United States of America, was convened at the USC Hotel, at 12:00 US-PT on the 24th day of June, 2022. Minutes of the Annual Business Meeting of the Members of the BEHAVIOR GENETICS ASSOCIATION: June 24, 2022, 12:00-13:30, Venue USC Hotel, 3540 S Figueroa St, Los Angeles, CA 90007 Danielle Dick provided the IDEA committee report, reminding the membership that the conduct policy has been launched and is available on the website and that there would be an organizational culture survey following the 2022 BGA meeting. [Extracted from the article]

Los Angeles Harbor, in San Pedro Bay, has long drawn scientific researchers, from its days as a 19th century muddy tide flat to today's industrial complex of man-made channels and wharves. A marine biological laboratory was established on Terminal Island as an outpost of the University of California and operating for the summers of 1901 and 1902. As it was a teaching laboratory, it attracted women students and researchers. Two Los Angeles women associated with the laboratory and who made contributions to the advancement of biology were Sarah P. Monks, an instructor at the Los Angeles Normal School and Martha Burton Williamson, a self-taught conchologist. These women were born in the 1840's and grew up at a time when scientific pursuits were not the norm for the proper Victorian women. Both had done research in Los Angeles Harbor before the laboratory on Terminal Island was opened and both continued their independent research in the harbor after the laboratory was relocated to San Diego. Both women had cottages on Terminal Island from where they collected and conducted their research. Monks named her cottage Phataria after a sea star, whose asexual reproduction and autonomy was the subject of her research. Williamson amassed a significant collection of shells, corresponding extensively with malacologists from around the world. Williamson's most significant publication was her 1892 Smithsonian paper on the shells of San Pedro Bay, possibly the first paper published devoted exclusively to the biota of San Pedro Bay and certainly, the first written by a woman. Both faced setbacks in their careers, Monks by not being recognized as author of her anatomy textbook and Williamson for her inability to join the California Academy of Sciences. They both survived residing, at least part-time, within the inhospitable environment of the Terminal Island district of Los Angeles Harbor. They serve as role models for any women who face the prospect of going where few women go in their quest for scientific knowledge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines how social movement organizations shift scale through the case of the immigrant rights movement. This was largely a local movement for the first decades of its existence. However, in the late 1990s, repressive federal policies increased the salience of national politics for many organizations. While recognizing the importance of national politics, many organizations remained mostly engaged in local politics for nearly a decade. The aim of this paper is to examine why immigrant rights organizations stayed local for so long after the threat shifted to the federal level and why they actually shifted to the national scale when they did. It does so by focusing on the case of Los Angeles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents an abstract of the paper ``Rockin' the Rock House' A Music Video to Prevent Syphillis in South Central Los Angeles,' by Juli Schmidt, a semifinalist paper in the contest for the 1989 Secretary's Award for Innovations in Health Promotion and Disease Prevention.

In this paper, the level of air quality in ten highly polluted cities in California US state is investigated by looking at persistence and seasonality properties of the time series based on fractional integration framework. Five pollutants, which are carbon monoxide (CO), nitrogen dioxide (NO2), ozone (O3) and fine and coarse particulate matters (PM2.5 and PM10), for ten selected cities, including Bakersfield, Los Angeles, and El Centro, are considered. The levels of CO, O3 and PM2.5 are above the exceedance limits for these ten cities, while the results of fractional integration show the possibility of mean reversion for PM2.5 whereas CO levels are still in non-mean reverting range. Levels of pollutants are found to be seasonal in all pollutant cases and across the cities. Since all pollutants pose serious concern to inhabitants of the cities, the California government should intensify more effort in making appropriate policy to reduce pollutant levels in the state. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rock music is an integral part of American culture. This paper presents a study of sensing and analysing over 57,000 rock music live performances between 2007 and 2017. Spatial traces of 575 rock music artists performing in concerts nationwide were collected from a major music streaming platform Spotify. Location-based concert data were analysed to explore economic and geographic factors linked to the landscape of rock music live performance and to reveal the importance of population demographics and leisure and hospitality (LH) economics to the culture and music industries from a spatial aspect. Over 90% of rock concerts between 2007 and 2017 were found in 250 counties. The aim of the study is to specify and develop a model that reasonably accounts for spatial heterogeneity present in the concert data. By regressing rock concert data against demographic data and LH establishment data, ordinary least squares (OLS) models were better fitted in metropolitan counties than non-metropolitan counties. Spatial dynamics of concerts were revealed by local R2 values and the obtained structure in the form of spatial heterogeneity was then explained using geographically weighted regression (GWR) models. High population density and LH services in industry-leading cities such as New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago and Houston exhibit advantages in explaining rock concert distributions. Findings from the models reflect the live music industry's interrelationships to the LH industry and suggest LH services being essential considerations in selecting concert destinations for rock musicians. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hyperspectral target detection is one of the most challenging tasks in remote sensing due to limited spectral information. Many algorithms based on matrix decomposition (MD) are proposed to promote the separation of the background and targets, but they suffer from two problems: (1) Targets are detected with the criterion of reconstruction residuals, and the imbalanced number of background and target atoms in union dictionary may lead to misclassification of targets. (2) The detection results are susceptible to the quality of the a p r i o r i target spectra, thus obtaining inferior performance because of the inevitable spectral variability. In this paper, we propose a matrix decomposition-based detector named dictionary learning-cooperated matrix decomposition (DLcMD) for hyperspectral target detection. The procedure of DLcMD is two-fold. First, the low rank and sparse matrix decomposition (LRaSMD) is exploited to separate targets from the background due to its insensitivity to the imbalanced number of background and target atoms, which can reduce the misclassification of targets. Inspired by dictionary learning, the target atoms are updated during LRaSMD to alleviate the impact of spectral variability. After that, a binary hypothesis model specifically designed for LRaSMD is proposed, and a generalized likelihood ratio test (GLRT) is performed to obtain the final detection result. Experimental results on five datasets have shown the reliability of the proposed method. Especially in the Los Angeles-II dataset, the area under the curve (AUC) value is nearly 16% higher than the average value of the other seven detectors, which reveals the superiority of DLcMD in hyperspectral target detection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper introduces a multi-method approach for Film Geography that intertwines spatial analysis, cartography, textual analysis, discourse analysis, field research, and expert interviews. Historically, film studies has focused on textual analysis whereas geography has emphasized the material aspect of space through field research. However, if cinema is a double ontology of image and industry film geographers must engage with both to make a meaningful contribution to the complex interwoven discourses on cinematic space. This case study focuses on the Nate Starkman Building, a frequently filmed warehouse located in the Arts District of Los Angeles, California. This case study acts as an example of how a multi-method approach can be applied to on-location filming. I demonstrate how the methods can be combined to contextualize and pinpoint previously invisible interactions between the on-screen appearance and the cultural politics of film production and placemaking. I argue that film-geographic analysis allows for a more in-depth look into the Hollywood-machinery that has led to these unique socio-economic structures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the water environment research paper titled "Characteristics of Highway Stormwater Runoff," by Y. Han, S. Lau, M. Kayhanian, and M. K. Stenstrom. The paper examined a large amount of highway stormwater runoff from different traffic sites in Los Angeles, California. It mentioned that pavement degradation is one of the main cause of pollutants in highway stormwater runoff wherein pavement type affect the stormwater's pH, alkalinity, and organic and inorganic solids. It also showed the difference between chlorine and chloride through water analysis.

Emerging transformable lattice structures provide promising paradigms to reversibly switch lattice configurations, thereby enabling their properties to be tuned on demand. The existing transformation mechanisms are limited to nonfracture deformation, such as origami, instability, shape memory, and liquid crystallinity. In this study, we present a class of transformable lattice structures enabled by fracture and shape-memory-assisted healing. The lattice structures are additively manufactured with a molecularly designed photopolymer capable of both fracture healing and shape memory. We show that 3D-architected lattice structures with various volume fractions can heal fractures and fully restore stiffness and strength over two to ten healing cycles. In addition, coupled with the shape-memory effect, the lattice structures can recover fracture-associated distortion and then heal fracture interfaces, thereby enabling healing of lattice wing damages, mode-I fractures, dent-induced crashes, and foreign-object impacts. Moreover, by harnessing the coupling of fracture and shape-memory-assisted healing, we demonstrate reversible configuration transformations of lattice structures to enable switching among property states of different stiffnesses, vibration transmittances, and acoustic absorptions. These healable, memorizable, and transformable lattice structures may find broad applications in next-generation aircraft panels, automobile frames, body armor, impact mitigators, vibration dampers, and acoustic modulators. Structural materials: Changing shape on demand A lattice structure that switches between different arrangements when fractured and healed has been developed by scientists in the United States. A lattice structure, like a network of struts, can improve a material's strength without significantly increasing its weight. This approach is seen in the design of bridges, but lattice-based structures are also used on smaller scales, for example, in battery electrodes or biomedical scaffolds. Qiming Wang from the University of Southern California, Los Angeles, and co-workers created a material in which the lattice can be modified dynamically for specific applications through an autonomous healing process. They 3D printed a transformable lattice structure made from a polymer. By heating the structure, they could change it from a so-called kagome lattice to a triangular lattice, thereby altering physical properties such as vibration transmission and stiffness. This transformation was entirely reversible. Existing healing experiments on self-healing bulk materials typically rely on manual contact of fracture interfaces. Development of 3D-architected lattice structures that can autonomously heal fractures or damages is still an outstanding engineering challenge. This paper presents a class of additively manufactured lattice structures that can autonomously heal fractures by first aligning fracture interfaces through a shape-memory process and then repairing fracture interfaces through a fracture-healing process. Through harnessing the coupling of shape-memory and self-healing, this paper also demonstrates reversible configuration transformations of lattice structures among states of different stiffnesses, vibration transmittances, and acoustic absorptions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

From the onset of the COVID‐19 pandemic, policymakers and news reports warned that restrictions on individual mobility and commercial activity could lead to a surge in domestic violence (DV). Some initial studies found evidence of greater DV incidence during the pandemic, but findings were inconsistent across locations and DV measures. This paper focuses on a single major city, Los Angeles (LA), to study the impact of the initial pandemic shutdown. We use three DV measures from police data (911 calls, crime incidents and arrests) as well as two measures from non‐police administrative sources (the county DV hotline and hospital records). We find an increase in DV calls to the police and calls to the hotline. However, we find that DV crimes recorded by police and hospital visits by female assault (and DV) victims decreased significantly, suggesting that the increase in calls came from higher reporting rates. The decrease in DV crimes is not attributable to reductions in policing intensity, as the arrest rate for DV crimes was higher during the shutdown. We conclude that the initial LA shutdown increased the rates at which people contacted authorities about DV, but decreased the overall incidence of physical DV crimes in the population. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Focuses on the agenda for the 1999 International Conference of Software Engineering in Los Angeles, California. Enhancement of the industrial presentation programs; List of participating research papers; Topics and writers for the research papers.

Introduction: Different models have been developed to address inequities across the cancer care continuum. However, there remains a scarcity of best practices on understanding and responding to the burden of cancer in a defined catchment area. As such, the National Cancer Institute (NCI) recently provided a framework to maximize the impact on cancer burden, including a greater focus on community outreach and engagement. In this paper, we describe how Cedars Sinai Cancer (CSC), a health system that serves one of the most diverse counties in the US, implemented the framework to define its catchment area, characterize its population, identify high risk priority groups, and make decisions to address health disparities. Methods: We provide a review of the methods used to assess socio-ecological levels of influence. Data were reviewed from numerous national, statewide, and county sources and supplemented by locally administered questionnaires, heat maps, and community profile summaries to gain more localized snapshots of cancer disparities in Los Angeles County. Lastly, feedback was solicited from external peer groups, community stakeholders, and key decision-makers, and the proposed catchment area was aligned with the State's Cancer Plan and the NCI Catchment Area and Community Outreach and Engagement Mandate. Results: The selected CSC catchment area meets NCI criteria and has potential to demonstrate impact both at the population level and within specialty populations. As a result, strategies are being developed to organize community outreach and engagement, as well as research across basic, clinical, and population sciences to guide cancer control and prevention efforts. Discussion: To maintain a high level of cultural inclusion and sensitivity, multiple layers of data are needed to understand localized pictures of cancer disparities and underlying causes. Community engagement remains essential to implementing policy, best practice, and translational science for broader impact. Impact: The clinical and translation work conducted at any cancer center requires an understanding of the determinants of health that contribute to the differences in cancer incidence and mortality among different groups. The NCI-aligned approach that we highlight is critical to support the design of future cancer control strategies that address and possibly reduce local health inequities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]