Search

The article discusses how western states in the U.S. manage their water supply systems. Western water users have had long experience with community organizations at the local level: with commercial water companies, municipal governments, mutual water companies and a variety of public districts. The most successful is a type of special service district called an irrigation districts. These originated and have their prototype in California, but have spread, with modifications to all states. California irrigation districts historically arose from the extremity of small farmers who needed an organization to provide them with an essential service which otherwise would, because of its large scale, be the sole preserve of giant landowners. Without districts, these giants would have dominated arid land agriculture, an outcome which was indeed envisioned and fostered by the Desert Land Act of 1877. For their success, districts required three basic powers: taxation, bonding and forced inclusion of lands within the economical service area. Irrigation districts serve over 4 million acres in California. Irrigation generally presupposes an intensive application of labor and capital to land, with close management of small tracts.

Californians have had long experience in the use of a device of local government known as an irrigation district. This is one of a class of greatly diverse forms of public districts which in some states of the United States are in wide and growing use and in others almost unknown. Districts as such are something of a mystery to most people although they are in fact a simple conception. Simple and ingenious, they provide a means of accomplishing two basic ends: questions relative to projects of calamitous local import may be locally decided, and boundaries of tax burden may be conformed with those of the anticipated project benefit. In the case of California irrigation districts, which tax all the land whether the owner irrigates or not and tax only land, exempting improvements, there has been a kind of side benefit of extraordinary importance to the state. Where invoked these provisions have combined to change a semiarid land from expectable permanent slumber as an area of absentee baronies to one of prosperous independent farms and rural cities offering social as well as economic rewards to the State.

The article presents information on preferential tax provisions under both income and property taxation. According to the article, twenty-five of the thirty-five states in the United States, imposing state income taxes have old-age exemption or credit provisions. Twenty of the thirty-five states allow liberalized medical deductions for the aged. Social security benefits are not taxable in nearly all of the states. Property tax concessions are granted in seven states. Additional minimum standard deduction and capital gains from personal residence are new provisions under the Revenue Act of 1964. Persons over 65 are allowed a tax credit for taxable income from pensions, annuities, interest, dividends, and rents, up to a limit of 1,524 $. According to provisions of "State Income Taxes With Liberalized Medical Deductions for the Aged" in 1965, medical deductions in California is excess of 3 percent of adjusted gross income. Expenses for medical care of taxpayer and spouse, if either is 65 or over, are not subject to the rule which limits deductions to that in excess of 3 percent of gross income in Maryland.

The widespread introduction of electronic data processing at every level of government operation has brought very great, and as yet incomplete, changes in organizational procedures and structure. Already, more sophisticated tools of management science are being utilized in public ad- ministration; operations research, systems analysis, and simulation, the quantitative methods, which have demonstrated their effectiveness in aerospace endeavors, are being applied to matters of public concern. The author here presents preliminary findings on an ongoing research study of the State of California's experience in the application of systems analysis to five designated problem areas-crime, transportation, waste management, information-handling, and welfare. Al- though the potential advantages and limitations of these techniques cannot be predicted at this early stage, it is apparent that new patterns of intergovernmental relationships are evolving, that new kinds of staff capability must be developed, and that management in the Space Age calls for a new order of competence, viability, and innovativeness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Determines the factors influencing the formation of attitudes towards mathematics in California. Evaluation of the psychological distance of student-father relationship; Emphasis on the existence of distant relationships; Accounts on the ratings of the attitude of fathers toward mathematics.

This article presents results of a study conducted in two suburbs outside London, England and San Francisco, California, respectively, to ascertain family relationships. It was found that the groups were found to be similar, when in both cases, parents in their old age maintained close ties with their adult children both in terms of geography and frequency of contact, and daughters play consistently more important parts in their parents' lives than sons. The difference was that a larger proportion of the American group have knowledge of and pride in their pedigree, while the English group have relatively little knowledge of ancestry. The study was carried out on a countrywide basis in a limited way with a group of 3,964 for the U.S.A. and 900 for Great Britain. Results of the study suggest that old people generally maintain close links with their children and that the mother-daughter tie is the central nexus of the kinship network of industrial societies. Concern for ancestry seems to be more pronounced in the U.S.A. than in Great Britain. But in view of the size of the inquiry these statements are not so much findings as suggestions for further research.

The article discusses the contribution of social service & mdash; public health and travellers' aid, to help immigrants in California. The Gold Rush brought such an overwhelming number of the sick and impoverished that the immigration wave threatened to become a catastrophe. Social work was peculiarly difficult to initiate because it was not only undertaken in the midst of an emergency but also before there was any experience in social service in the area. All newcomers had one idea in mind — to hurry off to the mines as soon as possible, make their pile and return home. Hurry, excitement, self-interest, gambling, drinking, vigilantism, robbery, and murder —all the ills of society appeared concentrated in an area which lately had been quiet and innocent. To San Francisco, California, came all who traveled by ship. Although the trip from the east coast of the United States was made by a few steamboats, most of the vessels were sailboats and took six to nine months for the trip around Cape Horn.

Questions the teaching capabilities of teachers in Santa Barbara, California. Funds allocated for teachers professional development in effective reading and writing; Explanation on how the process of rationalization in reading operates; Discussion on the causes of teachers poor performance in Santa Barbara, California.

Some characteristics dud attitudes of 100 middle-class families, recent migrants to a California metropolitan area, were sampled by questionnaire. The respondents had a history of frequent moves on short notice and reported that they settled into new communities quickly and without apparent difficulty. The sample showed a higher than anticipated level of independence, self- reliance, and ability to adapt to what is often considered a tension- and stress-producing situation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To better understand forest carbon (C) storage patterns, C budgets were constructed and contrasted among four stands of different vegetation, elevation, and disturbance histories from the northern Sierra Nevada of California, USA. The True‐fir stand, considered to be undisturbed and at a higher elevation (1820 m), stored substantially more C than the three stands at lower elevation (1360–1430 m) and that had sustained various levels of disturbance. The Mixed Conifer stand was minimally disturbed by thinning 27 yr ago. The Oak stand was moderately disturbed by two fires in the past 17 yr. The Pine Plantation stand was considered the most disturbed having been cleared and subjected to site preparation and windrowing 50 yr ago and thinned again 17 yr ago. Total C mass to a 30 cm soil depth (Mg C/ha) was True‐fir 531, Mixed Conifer 317, Oak 310, and Pine Plantation 253. Adding in soil C to 1 m depth increased total C mass to 595, 349, 404, and 345, respectively. True‐fir had significantly larger C mass than the other three stands in nearly all pools measured. The three low‐elevation stands, while similar to each other in total C, stored C differently in patterns that reflected their disturbance histories. Oak and Pine Plantation were very similar in detrital C stores, whereas Mixed Conifer had at least twice the C mass in both the forest floor and woody debris pools. Mixed Conifer had higher concentrations of soil C but had very low soil C mass due to considerably lower fine‐soil bulk densities and higher rock contents. C pools in the forest floor and soil showed observable patterns over distances of 10–100 m that paralleled the patterns of C in the live vegetation. Total C in True‐fir was equal to the large masses of old‐growth conifer forests of the U.S. Pacific Northwest and likely represents a high‐equilibrium level of C storage for forests of this region. The three low‐elevation stands represent typical forests in various states of recovery from disturbance that are in C accumulating stages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Death Valley, located within the Mojave Desert of the United States, is one of the most extreme terrestrial environments on Earth. We studied free‐living soil nematode abundance and community structure in soil samples collected from alluvial fans in Death Valley between 2013 and 2018. Our objective was to establish the distribution and abundance of soil nematodes on alluvial fans with respect to soil properties, vegetation, and channels that reflect past and future water flows. The study period spanned an extreme drought for the region but also included a 2016 superbloom of spring annual plants that followed a strong El Niño event. We found that nematode communities were dominated by bacterial‐feeding species and had higher densities under shrub canopies than in adjacent interplant soils. Nematode abundance was similar between areas on alluvial fans that were channelized by past water flows and adjacent desert pavement and does not appear to be linked to how water distributes on the fans following rainfall events. Nematode abundance increased during the superbloom in soils around annual plants. Across the study period, soil organic matter content was the only soil variable measured that was significantly and positively correlated to nematode abundance. Overall, nematodes in this extreme environment are adapted to drought, but they are highly dependent on the growth and distribution of both perennial and annual plants to supply the soil organic matter that their microbial food sources rely upon. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Focuses on the death of biologist Raymond F. Dasmann on November 5, 2002 in Santa Cruz, California. Contributions of Dasmann in the field of ecology; Career background of Dasmann; Accomplishments of Dasmann.

Discusses issues concerning assisted reproductive technologies (ART) in California. Background of the bill targeting information disclosure and quality control of ART; Requirements of federal laws for in vitro fertilization programs; Pros and cons of increased regulation on ART.

Reports on the occurrence of carrot red leaf associated RNA in carrots in Great Britain. Collection of carrot leaves from fields in Lancashire, England in July 2002; Initial occurrence of the disease in carrots outside California; Similarity of all of the British sequences to those of two California isolates.

Discusses the observation of blighted shoots of pistachio in commercial orchards in Thiva County, Greece, in April and May 2002. Production of dry nuts resulting from infected catkins and racemes on female trees; Isolation and identification of the fungus based on morphological characteristics; First report of Botrytis cinerea causing shoot blight on pistachio outside of California.

Copyright of Conservation Biology is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Vaccine mandates can take many forms, and different kinds of mandates can implicate an array of values in diverse ways. It follows that good ethics arguments about particular vaccine mandates will attend to the details of individual policies. Furthermore, attention to particular mandate policies-and to attributes of the communities they aim to govern-can also illuminate which ethics arguments may be more salient in particular contexts. If ethicists want their arguments to make a difference in policy, they should attend to these kinds of empirical considerations. This paper focuses on the most common and contentious vaccine mandate reform in the contemporary United States: the elimination of nonmedical exemptions (NMEs) to school and daycare vaccine mandates. It highlights, in particular, debates about California's Senate Bill 277 (SB277), which was the first successful recent effort to eliminate NMEs in that country. We use media, secondary sources, and original interviews with policymakers and activists to identify and evaluate three ethics arguments offered by critics of SB277: parental freedom, informed consent, and children's rights to care and education. We then turn to one ethics argument often offered by advocates of SB277: harm prevention. We note, however, that three arguments for mandates that are common in the immunization ethics literature-fairness/free-riding, children's rights to vaccination, and utilitarianism-did not play a role in debates about SB277., (© 2023 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.)