The Health Status and Unique Health Challenges of Rural Older Adults in California

Examines the demographics, health, and levels of physical activity and food insecurity of rural seniors compared with those of urban and suburban seniors. Outlines environmental and social risk factors that require context-specific policies and programs

Professional Concerns: English for Despisers

Do some of your students view the book as enemy? Are some of your students completely turned off by English? Do you have trouble getting some of your students to read

Baldcypress tree ring elemental concentrations at Reelfoot Lake, Tennessee from AD 1795 to AD 1820

Many two hundred year old baldcypress trees in Reelfoot Lake, Tennessee, lived through the great New Madrid earthquakes of 1811--1812. This study was undertaken to determine if the elemental composition of baldcypress tree rings showed any systematic variation through the earthquake period of AD 1795 through AD 1820. Multiple cores were collected from two Reelfoot Lake baldcypress trees and analyzed using Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry (ICP-MS). Individual yearly rings and five-year ring segments were analyzed to determine their elemental compositions. The cores were analyzed for Li through U but only Ba, Ce, Cs, Cu, I, La, Mg, Mn, Nd, Rb, Sm, Sr, and Zn were found to be in appropriate concentrations for this study. Of these elements only Ce, I, La, Nd, Rb, and Sm showed any systematic changes within individual cores. Comparison of three cores taken from one tree reveal that tree-ring elemental concentrations and changes in tree-ring elemental concentration through time are very different among the cores. When comparing the elemental concentrations of tree rings for the same years in the two different trees neither elemental concentrations nor changes in elemental concentration through time were similar. We conclude that the elemental concentrations in the tree rings of the two baldcypress trees analyzed in this study show no systematic change through the earthquake period of AD 1795 through AD 1820

Hotspot origin of the Mississippi embayment and its possible impact on contemporary seismicity

Previous authors have related the Late Cretaceous/early Tertiary subsidence of the Mississippi embayment to the opening of the Gulf of Mexico, but the Gulf opened earlier in Triassic/Jurassic time. We offer an alternative hypothesis that development of the embayment was coeval with the passage of the Mississippi Valley graben system over the Bermuda hotspot about 90 Ma. Several lines of evidence of significant uplift of the embayment axis accompanying mid-Cretaceous magmatism and prior to Late Cretaceous subsidence support this proposal. First, reactivation of the Pascola arch in the northern embayment is recorded by flanking deposits of basal Upper Cretaceous gravel. Second, beneath a regional mid-Cretaceous unconformity, subcrops of Jurassic and Early Cretaceous strata define a pronounced southwest-plunging arch in the southern embayment. This arch is collinear with an arch revealed in Paleozoic rocks after restoration to mid-Cretaceous structural geometries. Third, a deep weathering profile on mid-Cretaceous alkalic plutons along the western embayment margin is nonconformably overlain by Paleocene sediments, and rapid mid-Cretaceous cooling of these intrusions has been interpreted from apatite fission tracks. Moreover, exploratory holes along the embayment axis encountered similar weathered alkalic intrusions nonconformably overlain by basal Upper Cretaceous strata. Fourth, there was an anomalous influx of clastic sediment into the northern Gulf of Mexico during mid-Cretaceous time, and subsequent clastic facies patterns suggest the Mississippi River drainage began to enter the Gulf in the Late Cretaceous. Passage of the Mississippi Valley graben over the Bermuda hotspot during elevated hotspot activity of Cretaceous time may have significantly weakened the previously rifted lithosphere. Rifted continental margin at Charleston, South Carolina, also passed over this hotspot in latest Cretaceous time. Similarly, the St. Lawrence rift system passed over the Great Meteor hotspot during the Cretaceous. It is important to note that these rift systems are the principal loci of strong seismicity in eastern North America, and thus weakening by increased Cretaceous hotspot activity may be an important common factor for these seismic rift zones

Ii. Points of View about Ufos: A Multidimensional Scaling Study

This study has isolated and identified five stereotypical points of view based on patterns of perceived similarities within a sample of 14 UFO reports. Using an improved individual differences approach to multidimensional scaling, numerical parameters and verbal caricatures have been developed for a four-dimensional “Prejudiced” viewpoint, a four or five-dimensional “Party Line” viewpoint, a six-dimensional “Skeptical” viewpoint, a six-dimensional “Believer” viewpoint, and a nine-dimensional “Contactee” viewpoint. The apparent assumptions and concerns of each viewpoint are delineated. The corresponding profiles of expressed UFO-related attitudes have been examined. </jats:p