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This article examines four preadolescent girls' physical lives over three years inside and outside of schools (fourth, fifth, and sixth grades). The girls participated in a school-based physical education intervention during the first two years that was designed to enhance their physical activity (PA) choices in both environments. At the conclusion of each year, the girls were interviewed about their activities and attitudes about PA. Results showed varying commitments to a variety of activities including team sports, individual activities, and fitness challenges. Although their attitudes varied across the three years, each experienced a variety of social influences relative to their levels of participation. Most importantly was the support of family, friends, and teachers. In addition, they identified motivating environmental influences such as home equipment, local clubs and classes, and local recreation programs. Barriers included lack of skill or fitness levels, team competition, dislike for fragmented skill practice, lack of support, and fear of unsafe environments.

This four-year study investigated effects of a health-related physical education program on quantity and quality of lessons in seven elementary schools. Results showed that specialists produced the best outcomes and that trained teachers were superior to controls. Part 2 of the study assessed maintenance effects 1.5 years following intervention termination. Results supported employing specialists. (SM)

Global declines in bird and arthropod abundance highlights the importance of understanding the role of food limitation and arthropod community composition for the performance of insectivorous birds. In this study, we link data on nestling diet, arthropod availability and nesting performance for the Coastal Cactus Wren (Campylorhynchus brunneicapillus sandiegensis), an at-risk insectivorous bird native to coastal southern California and Baja Mexico. We used DNA metabarcoding to characterize nestling diets and monitored 8 bird territories over two years to assess the relationship between arthropod and vegetation community composition and bird reproductive success. We document a discordance between consumed prey and arthropod biomass within nesting territories, in which Diptera and Lepidoptera were the most frequently consumed prey taxa but were relatively rare in the environment. In contrast other Orders (e.g., Hemiptera, Hymenoptera)were abundant in the environment but were absent from nestling diets. Accordingly, variation in bird reproductive success among territories was positively related to the relative abundance of Lepidoptera (but not Diptera), which were most abundant on 2 shrub species (Eriogonum fasciculatum, Sambucus nigra) of the 9 habitat elements characterized (8 dominant plant species and bare ground). Bird reproductive success was in turn negatively related to two invasive arthropods whose abundance was not associated with preferred bird prey, but instead possibly acted through harassment (Linepithema humile; Argentine ants) and parasite transmission or low nutritional quality (Armadillidium vulgare; "pill-bug"). These results demonstrate how multiple aspects of arthropod community structure can influence bird performance through complementary mechanisms, and the importance of managing for arthropods in bird conservation efforts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Individual risk assessment and behavior change dominate the content of high school health education instruction whereas broader social, political, and economic factors that influence health—known as upstream causes—are less commonly considered. With input from instructors and students, we developed a 10-lesson experiential Public Health Advocacy Curriculum that uses classroom-based activities to teach high school students about the upstream causes of health and engages them in community-based health advocacy. The Curriculum, most suitable for health- or advocacy-related elective classes or after-school programs, may be taught in its entirety or as single lessons integrated into existing coursework. Although students at many schools are using the Curriculum, it has been formally evaluated with 110 predominantly Latino students at one urban and one semirural public high school in Northern California (six classes). In pre–post surveys, students showed highly significant and positive changes in the nine questions that covered the three main Curriculum domains (Upstream Causes, Community Exploration, and Public Health Advocacy), p values .02 to <.001. The Curriculum is being widely disseminated without charge to local, national, and international audiences, with the objective of grooming a generation of youth who are committed to the public health perspective to health. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Abstract. Large fire events in southern California have burned thousands of hectares over the past decade. Landscape pattern and natural system processes are shaped by these large conflagrations, thereby influencing the ecological structure and functioning of the region. Unburned vegetation remnants can be used to assess general fuel consumption and to provide valuable information regarding fire behaviour, weather effects and post-fire regeneration. For this study, post-fire unburned vegetation was mapped at a very fine spatial resolution based on semi-automatic classification of airborne large- format multispectral image data and compared across different fire environment zones within the 2003 Cedar Fire burn perimeter. Landscape metrics were used to characterise unburned vegetation patches for a section of the Cedar Fire affected by Santa Ana weather conditions and for a section of the fire that burned under non-Santa Ana weather conditions. Maps of remnant vegetation and associated landscape metrics were compared across these two sections and within shrubland community type, topography and age-class strata using inferential statistics. Key findings reveal more unburned vegetation in larger, rounder patches in the non-Santa Ana section. Pre-fire stand age greater than 6 years showed little effect on the amount or pattern of unburned vegetation within the Santa Ana section. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Jamison-Farabee consent decree in California mandates an outside psychiatrist's review of involuntary medication of state hospital patients. Patients' rights advocates presumably hoped the decree would facilitate more frequent medication refusal, while clinicians predicted the procedure would impair patient care. Outside review led to only a 1.1% rate of medication denial; half of the patients involved deteriorated afterward. Examination of a sample of patients subject to the decree and two comparable samples 1 year and 10 years earlier suggests that patients' successful medication refusal was no more frequent after implementation of the decree and that the procedure had negligible effects on patient care or outcome for patients not denied medication. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

1. The 2 1/2-month period from weaning to departure from the rookery was studied in northern elephant seal pups at Año Nuevo Island, California. After being weaned at 4 weeks of age, pups fast completely while learning to swim and dive before going to sea in search of food. 2. Pups increase their birthweight by a factor of 3-7 times on mother's milk alone. Males weigh more than females at birth and at weaning, and are nursed an average of one day longer. 3. Some newly weaned pups prolong the suckling period by stealing milk from nursing females or by being adopted by foster mothers. Males are more persistent and more successful at milk stealing than females and, consequently, exceptionally large weaners are always males. These sex differences are predicted from the manner in which adults maximize their reproductive success. An advantage in size and condition benefits a male much more than a female. Molting and canine eruption occur later in males than in females and these differences may be an adaptation in the former which facilitates milk stealing. 4. Sexual differentiation is evident in the earliest social interactions. Males interact more frequently than females and their bouts last longer. Behavioral components in the interactions of males and females resemble those of fighting adults of each respective sex. 5. Weaners begin entering the water when 6-7 1/2 weeks old. They learn to swim and dive gradually. As swimming proficiency increases, they venture further away from their birthplace. They are excellent swimmers and can stay underwater for 15 min by the time they leave the rookery at 3-3 1/2 months of age. 6. Although pups are born over an 8-week period, the majority of them depart the rookery over a 3-week period. Pups weaned late in the breeding season are stimulated to enter the water by those weaned earlier. Departure from the rookery is correlated with the onset of coastal upwelling and the latter is correlated with food abundance in the ocean. 7. Few weaned pups die before leaving the rookery. Mortalities result from injuries inflicted by adult males and females, trauma or drowning due to storms and high surf, overheating, accidents, and shark predation. 8. Survival after the first period at sea to 7 months of age is at least 50%. Thereafter, the survival rate declines gradually to a minimum of 12% at 3 years of age. There are no sex differences in survival to age 2. Pups born early in the breeding season exhibit a higher survival rate during the first year than those born later in the season; females born early in the season exhibit the highest parity rate in their cohort at age 3. 9. Early sex differences are interpreted as subserving the different adult reproductive strategies of each sex. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author presents a personal narrative of his experience as a lawyer dealing with his interactions with Joseph R. Grodin, a lawyer, law professor, and a former Presiding Justice on the California Court of Appeal and an Associate Justice on the Supreme Court of California and notes Grodin's works with labor laws.