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We extend decades of research on infants' visual processing by examining their eye gaze during viewing of natural scenes. We examined the eye movements of a racially diverse group of 4- to 12-month-old infants (N = 54; 27 boys; 24 infants were White and not Hispanic, 30 infants were African American, Asian American, mixed race and/or Hispanic) as they viewed images selected from the MIT Saliency Benchmark Project. In general, across this age range infants' fixation distributions became more consistent and more adult-like, suggesting that infants' fixations in natural scenes become increasingly more systematic. Evaluation of infants' fixation patterns with saliency maps generated by different models of physical salience revealed that although over this age range there was an increase in the correlations between infants' fixations and saliency, the amount of variance accounted for by salience actually decreased. At the youngest age, the amount of variance accounted for by salience was very similar to the consistency between infants' fixations, suggesting that the systematicity in these youngest infants' fixations was explained by their attention to physically salient regions. By 12 months, in contrast, the consistency between infants was greater than the variance accounted for by salience, suggesting that the systematicity in older infants' fixations reflected more than their attention to physically salient regions. Together these results show that infants' fixations when viewing natural scenes becomes more systematic and predictable, and that predictability is due to their attention to features other than physical salience.

The world is visually complex, yet we can efficiently describe it by extracting the information that is most relevant to convey. How do the properties of real-world scenes help us decide where to look and what to say? Image salience has been the dominant explanation for what drives visual attention and production as we describe displays, but new evidence shows scene meaning predicts attention better than image salience. Here we investigated the relevance of one aspect of meaning, graspability (the grasping interactions objects in the scene afford), given that affordances have been implicated in both visual and linguistic processing. We quantified image salience, meaning, and graspability for real-world scenes. In 3 eyetracking experiments, native English speakers described possible actions that could be carried out in a scene. We hypothesized that graspability would preferentially guide attention due to its task-relevance. In 2 experiments using stimuli from a previous study, meaning explained visual attention better than graspability or salience did, and graspability explained attention better than salience. In a third experiment we quantified image salience, meaning, graspability, and reach-weighted graspability for scenes that depicted reachable spaces containing graspable objects. Graspability and meaning explained attention equally well in the third experiment, and both explained attention better than salience. We conclude that speakers use object graspability to allocate attention to plan descriptions when scenes depict graspable objects within reach, and otherwise rely more on general meaning. The results shed light on what aspects of meaning guide attention during scene viewing in language production tasks.

Examines the relationship between the deregulation of the California electricity market and agricultural shortages in the Pacific Northwest. Natural and man-made factors that caused an increase in electricity prices in the Pacific Northwest; Information on the irrigation electricity buyout program proposed by the Idaho Power Co.; Impact of the power shortage and drought on agriculture in the Pacific Northwest.

Background: Latinos born in the US, 36 million, comprise 65% of all US Latinos. Yet their cancer experience is nearly always analyzed together with their foreign-born counterparts, 19 million, who constitute a steady influx of truly lower-risk populations from abroad. To highlight specific cancer vulnerabilities for US-born Latinos, we compare their cancer mortality to the majority non-Latino white (NLW) population, foreign-born Latinos, and non-Latino blacks., Methods: We analyzed 465,751 cancer deaths from 2008 to 2012 occurring among residents of California and Texas, the two most populous states, accounting for 47% of US Latinos. This cross-sectional analysis, based on granular data obtained from death certificates on cause of death, age, race, ethnicity and birthplace, makes use of normal standardization techniques and negative binomial regression models., Results: While Latinos overall have lower all-cancers-combined mortality rates than NLWs, these numbers were largely driven by low rates among the foreign born while mortality rates for US-born Latinos approach those of NLWs. Among Texas males, rates were 210 per 100,000 for NLWs and 166 for Latinos combined, but 201 per 100,000 for US-born Latinos and 125 for foreign-born Latinos. Compared to NLWs, US-born Latino males in California had mortality rate ratios of 2.83 (95% CI: 2.52-3.18) for liver cancer, 1.44 (95% CI: 1.30-1.61) for kidney cancer, and 1.25 (95% CI: 1.17-1.34) for colorectal cancer (CRC). Texas results showed a similar site-specific pattern., Conclusions: Specific cancer patterns for US-born Latinos, who have relatively high cancer mortality, similar overall to NLWs, are masked by aggregation of all Latinos, US-born and foreign-born. While NLWs had high mortality for lung cancer, US-born Latinos had high mortality for liver, kidney and male colorectal cancers. HCV testing and reinforcement of the need for CRC screening should be a priority in this specific and understudied population. The unprecedented proximity of overall rates between NLWs and US-born Latino populations runs counter to the prevailing narrative of Latinos having significantly lower cancer risk and mortality. Birthplace data are critical in detecting meaningful differences among Latinos; these findings merit not only clinical but also public health attention.

Numerous studies have documented increased breast cancer risks with hormone replacement therapy (HRT), but these do not give a woman her specific absolute risk for the remainder of her life. This article estimates the magnitude of the effect of HRT on breast cancer incidence in California and calculates a woman's cumulative risk of breast cancer with different formulations and durations of HRT use. The effects of HRT on the underlying breast cancer incidence were estimated using the attributable fraction method, applying HRT prevalence data from the 2001 California Health Interview Survey and published rates of higher relative risk (RR) from HRT use from the Women's Health Initiative (WHI) study and Million Women's Survey (MWS). The annual number of breast cancers potentially attributable to HRT in California was estimated, along with individual cumulative risk of breast cancer for various ages to 79 years according to HRT use, duration, and formulation. Using the WHI data, 829 of 19,000 breast cancers (4.3%) in California may be attributable to HRT. This figure increases to 3401 (17.4%) when the MWS RRs are applied. Use of estrogen-only HRT or short-term (approximately 5 years) use of combined HRT has a minimal effect on the cumulative risk calculated to the age of 79 years; application of the MWS data to a Californian woman commencing HRT at the age of 50 years (no HRT, 8.5%; estrogen only, 8.6%; combined, 9.1%). Prolonged (approximately 10 years) use of combined HRT increases the cumulative risk to 10.3%. This article demonstrates that HRT will generate a small additional risk of breast cancer in an individual. The reduction in perimenopausal symptoms may be considered sufficient to warrant this extra risk. However, this view needs to be balanced because the small increases in individual risk will be magnified, producing a noticeable change in population cancer caseload where HRT use is high.

Using expert panels of medical technologists and public health microbiologists, a modified nominal group process was used to reach a consensus on three questions concerning current human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) testing methods. The questions related to important sources of error, improving the testing process, and improving proficiency testing. The modified nominal group process proved to be effective in developing lists of errors in laboratory testing; it provided a fast, economic means of identifying possible areas for improving laboratory quality assurance and training programs. For the HIV testing model, the focus group panelists indicated laboratory pipetting errors, labeling, and specimen identification as the most important sources of error. To improve the quality of this testing, the panel recommended standardizing test interpretation and restricting testing to laboratories licensed to perform HIV-1 testing. To improve proficiency testing, the use of blind specimens and establishing minimum standards of performance were suggested.

This paper describes Friends Can Be Good Medicine, a multi-media, mental health promotion campaign conducted in 1982 throughout California. The creative design, pilot-test, implementation and results are reviewed. Conceptually, Friends was derived from evidence linking supportive personal relationships with increased physical and mental health. Three major campaign elements were: broadcast media, an array of educational materials, and community activities. Evaluation findings revealed that Friends was most effective when campaign elements reinforced one another. Resulting changes in knowledge, attitudes, and intentions among those reached by Friends were maintained after one year. It is contended that, for better or worse, mass media is part of the health care system.

Four wallaroos (Macropus robustus) from a central California zoo colony of 22 died within a three week period. Histopathologic findings in all four cases were suggestive of toxoplasmosis. Brain, lung and heart were the most frequently involved organs. Within 4 months of the last death sera from nine colony members were tested for antibodies against Toxoplasma gondii using the indirect hemagglutination test. All nine had serological titers ranging from 1:64 to 1:131,072.

This paper reports on an AIDS education campaign at a California college campus. A pretest-posttest design was used to determine whether the AIDS-related attitudes of students, faculty, and staff were affected by an AIDS Awareness Week. The results showed that the awareness week was successful in exposing the campus community to AIDS information. It was only marginally effective in changing AIDS-related attitudes because pretest attitudes were already at desirable levels, only a fraction of the campus community attended the highly motivating events of the campaign, and faculty did not actively support the goals of the campaign.

The view that human populations may not have arrived in the Western Hemisphere before about 12,000 radiocarbon yr BP has been challenged by claims of much greater antiquity for a small number of archaeological sites and human skeleton samples. One such site is the Homo sapiens sapiens cairn burial excavated in 1971 from the Yuha desert, Imperial County, California. Radiocarbon analysis of caliche coating one of the bones of the skeleton yielded a radiocarbon age of 21,500 +/- 1,000 yr BP, while radiocarbon and uranium series analyses of caliche coating a cairn boulder yielded ages of 22,125 +/- 400 and 19,000 +/- 3,000 yr BP, respectively. The late Pleistocene age assignment to the Yuha burial has been challenged by comparing the cultural context of the burial with other cairn burials in the same region, on the basis of the site's geomorphological context and from radiocarbon analyses of soil caliches. In rebuttal, arguments in defence of the original age assignment have been presented as well as an amino acid recemization analysis on the Yuha skeleton indicating an age of 23,600 +/- 2,600 yr BP. The tandem accelerator mass spectrometer at the University of Arizona has now been used to measure the ratio of 14C/13C in several organic and inorganic fractions of post-cranial bone from the Yuha H. sapiens sapiens skeleton. Isotope ratios from six chemical fractions all yielded radiocarbon ages for the skeleton of less than 4,000 yr BP. These results indicate that the Yuha skeleton is of Holocene age, in agreement with the cultural context of the burial, and in disagreement with the previously assigned Pleistocene age of 19,000-23,000 yr.

Increasing recognition of the importance of social support for health has not been accompanied by commensurate increases in knowledge about how to strengthen natural support networks on a large scale. This study evaluated the impact of California's innovative "Friends Can Be Good Medicine" public education campaign in promoting social support. Campaign impact was assessed with pre-, post-, and long-term follow-up interviews with a panel sample of 340 adults in the six county Fresno media market area. Comparisons of exposed and unexposed individuals found that the campaign appeared to have measurable impact on knowledge, attitudes, behavioral intentions, and support enhancing behavior. Follow-up interviews indicated that these gains maintained themselves over the course of a year. The campaign was most effective when it utilized multiple channels of communication. In Fresno City, where there was the most intensive combination of community activities and media exposure, respondents indicating substantial likelihood of engaging in support enhancing behavior increased from 42% to 59% compared to smaller gains in areas which relied primarily on community implementation, and no gains in areas where exposure to the campaign was limited to mass media. The campaign appeared particularly effective with people who had experienced the death of someone close to them during the past year, and within that group, gains were largest among respondents below average in initial levels of social support.