Medi-Cal program nursing home cohort study.

Description based on: 1970-1973; title from caption.

Medi-Cal Laws

Mode of access: Internet.

The works of Joseph Addison; including the whole contents of Bp. Hurd's edition, with letters and other pieces not found in any previous collection; and Macaulay's essay on his life and works,

v.1. Macaulay, on the life and writings of Addison. [Prefaces, etc., to earlier editions] Translations. Poems on several occasions. The campaign. Miscellaneous poems. Dramas: Rosamund; The drummer; Cato. Poemata.--v.2. Dialogues on medals. Travels. Essay on Virgil's Georgics. Discourse on ancient and modern learning. Of the Christian religion. Letters. Political writings.--v.3. The Freeholder. Swift's notes on the Free-holder. The Plebian, by Sir Richard Steele, with The Old whig, by Mr. Addison. The Lover.--v.4. The Tatler. The Guardian.--v.5-6. The Spectator.

High-frequency winter cooling and reef coral mortality during the Holocene climatic optimum

A detailed ecological, micro-structural and skeletal Sr/Ca study of a 3.42 m thick Goniopora reef profile from an emerged Holocene reef terrace at the northern South China Sea reveals at least nine abrupt massive Goniopora stress and mortality events occurred in winter during the 7.0-7.5 thousand calendar years before present (cal. ka BP) (within the Holocene climatic optimum). Whilst calculated Sr/Ca-SST (sea surface temperature) maxima during this period are comparable to those in the 1990s, Sr/Ca-SST minima are significantly lower, probably due to stronger winter monsoons. Such generally cooler winters, superimposed by further exceptional winter cooling on inter-annual to decadal scales, may have caused stress and mortality of the corals about every 50 years. Sea level rose by similar to 3.42 m during this period, with present sea-level reached at similar to 7.3 ka BP and a sea-level highstand of at least similar to 1.8 m occurred at similar to 7.0 ka. The results show that it took about 20-25 years for a killed Goniopora coral reef to recover. (C) 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

A late Pleistocene predator-accumulated avifauna from Kids Cave, West Coast, South Island, New Zealand

A fossil deposit excavated from the floor of Kids Cave, West Coast, South Island, New Zealand, is interpreted as having been primarily accumulated by New Zealand falcon Falco novaeseelandiae, with some contribution by Haast's eagle Harpagornis moorei. The fauna is rich: 3699 bones represented 41 bird species, two frog species, unspecified geckoes and skinks, and one bat species. Fossil deposition was mainly within the Last Glacial Maximum from about 22,000 cal yr bp to about 15,000 cal yr bp, with a marked change in sediment characteristics at the onset of the LGM's coldest period. Chronological control is given by three Uranium-series dates for a speleothem and radiocarbon AMS dating of four avian eggshell samples and one bone. The fauna is the first extensive predator accumulation of LGM age described from the West Coast of the South Island, and it indicates a palaeoenvironment of a mosaic of shrublands with forest patches. The onset of the coldest part of the LGM (Aurora 3 glacial advance, 19,500 - 19,000 cal yrs bp) saw marked climate cooling/drying affecting the site, but the avifauna indicates that although open-country taxa became more common in this period, some forest persisted nearby throughout the remainder of the LGM.

La geochimica degli isotopi stabili applicata a reperti scheletrici fossili per ricostruzioni paleoambientali (sito archeologico di Arslantepe –Turchia).

Il sito archeologico di Arslantepe (provincia di Malatya, Turchia) rappresenta un caso di studio di potenziale interesse per l’interazione tra i mutamenti climatici e la storia della civiltà. Il sito, occupato quasi ininterrottamente per un periodo di tempo relativamente lungo (6250-2700 BP), ha fornito una grande quantità di reperti ossei, distribuiti lungo una stratigrafia archeologica relativamente dettagliata e supportata da datazioni al radiocarbonio. Tali reperti, indagati con le tecniche della geochimica degli isotopi stabili, possono costituire degli efficaci proxy paleoclimatici. In questo lavoro è stata studiata la composizione isotopica di 507 campioni di resti ossei umani e animali (prevalentemente pecore, capre, buoi). I rapporti isotopici studiati sono relativi a ossigeno (δ18Ocarb, δ18Oph), carbonio (δ13Ccarb, δ13Ccoll) e azoto (δ15N), misurati nella frazione minerale e organica dell’osso; la variabilità nel tempo di questi parametri, principalmente legati alla paleonutrizione, può essere correlata, direttamente o indirettamente, a cambiamenti dei parametri ambientali quali temperatura e umidità atmosferiche. I risultati indicano che la dieta degli animali selvatici e domestici di Arslantepe era quasi esclusivamente a base di piante a ciclo fotosintetico C3, generalmente tipiche di climi umidi o temperati. La presenza di piante C4, più tipiche di condizioni aride, sembrerebbe essere riconoscibile solamente nella dieta del bue (Bos taurus). La dieta umana era esclusivamente terrestre a base di cereali e carne di caprini con una percentuale esigua o del tutto assente di carne di maiale e bue. Dal punto di vista paleoclimatico il principale risultato del lavoro consiste nel riconoscimento della preservazione di un segnale paleoclimatico a lungo termine (δ18OW, composizione isotopica dell’ossigeno dell’acqua ingerita), che identifica un massimo relativo di umidità attorno al 5000 BP e che si correla, per andamento e ampiezza della variazione a record paleoclimatici di sedimenti lacustri collocati in regioni adiacenti all’area di studio. Sulla base del confronto dei tre segnali isotopici sono state inoltre riconosciute due anomalie climatiche siccitose a breve termine, apparentemente riferibili a due episodi di aridità a scala regionale documentati in letteratura.

From icon to naturalised icon:a linguistic analysis of media representations of the BP Deepwater Horizon crisis

This research explores how news media reports construct representations of a business crisis through language. In an innovative approach to dealing with the vast pool of potentially relevant texts, media texts concerning the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill are gathered from three different time points: immediately after the explosion in 2010, one year later in 2011 and again in 2012. The three sets of 'BP texts' are investigated using discourse analysis and semi-quantitative methods within a semiotic framework that gives an account of language at the semiotic levels of sign, code, mythical meaning and ideology. The research finds in the texts three discourses of representation concerning the crisis that show a movement from the ostensibly representational to the symbolic and conventional: a discourse of 'objective factuality', a discourse of 'positioning' and a discourse of 'redeployment'. This progression can be shown to have useful parallels with Peirce's sign classes of Icon, Index and Symbol, with their implied movement from a clear motivation by the Object (in this case the disaster events), to an arbitrary, socially-agreed connection. However, the naturalisation of signs, whereby ideologies are encoded in ways of speaking and writing that present them as 'taken for granted' is at its most complete when it is least discernible. The findings suggest that media coverage is likely to move on from symbolic representation to a new kind of iconicity, through a fourth discourse of 'naturalisation'. Here the representation turns back towards ostensible factuality or iconicity, to become the 'naturalised icon'. This work adds to the study of media representation a heuristic for understanding how the meaning-making of a news story progresses. It offers a detailed account of what the stages of this progression 'look like' linguistically, and suggests scope for future research into both language characteristics of phases and different news-reported phenomena.

Diatom-based paleolimnological reconstruction of regional climate and local land-use change from a protected sinkhole lake in southern Florida, USA

Despite their sensitivity to climate variability, few of the abundant sinkhole lakes of Florida have been the subject of paleolimnological studies to discern patterns of change in aquatic communities and link them to climate drivers. However, deep sinkhole lakes can contain highly resolved paleolimnological records that can be used to track long-term climate variability and its interaction with effects of land-use change. In order to understand how limnological changes were regulated by regional climate variability and further modified by local land-use change in south Florida, we explored diatom assemblage variability over centennial and semi-decadal time scales in an ~11,000-yr and a ~150-yr sediment core extracted from a 21-m deep sinkhole lake, Lake Annie, on the protected property of Archbold Biological Station. We linked variance in diatom assemblage structure to changes in water total phosphorus, color, and pH using diatom-based transfer functions. Reconstructions suggest the sinkhole depression contained a small, acidic, oligotrophic pond ~11000–7000 cal yr BP that gradually deepened to form a humic lake by ~4000 cal yr BP, coinciding with the onset of modern precipitation regimes and the stabilization of sea-level indicated by corresponding palynological records. The lake then contained stable, acidophilous planktonic and benthic algal communities for several thousand years. In the early AD 1900s, that community shifted to one diagnostic of an even lower pH (~5.6), likely resulting from acid precipitation. Further transitions over the past 25 yr reflect recovery from acidification and intensified sensitivity to climate variability caused by enhanced watershed runoff from small drainage ditches dug during the mid-twentieth Century on the surrounding property.

A 2,500-year record of environmental change in Highlands Hammock State Park (Central Florida, U.S.A.) inferred from siliceous microfossils

Analysis of siliceous microfossils of a 79 cm long peat sediment core from Highlands Hammock State Park, Florida, revealed distinct changes in the local hydrology during the past 2,500 years. The coring site is a seasonally inundated forest where water availability is directly influenced by precipitation. Diatoms, chrysophyte statospores, sponge remains and phytoliths were counted in 25 samples throughout the core. Based on the relative abundance of diatom species, the record was subdivided into four diatom assemblage zones, which mainly reflect the hydrological state of the study site. An age-depth relationship based on radiocarbon measurements of eight samples reveals a basal age of the core of approximately 2,500 cal. yrs. BP. Two significant changes of diatom assemblage composition were found that could be linked to both, natural and anthropogenic influences. At 700 cal. yrs. BP, the diatom record documents a shift from tychoplanktonicAulacoseira species to epiphytic Eunotia species, indicating a shortening of the hydroperiod, i.e. the time period during which a wetland is covered by water. This transition was interpreted as being triggered by natural climate change. In the middle of the twentieth century a second major turnover took place, at that time however, as a result of human impact on the park hydrology through the construction of dams and canals close to the study site.

Late Glacial and Holocene data from sediment cores MD99-2236 and MD99-2256

The Laurentide Ice Sheet (LIS) was a large, dynamic ice sheet in the early Holocene. The glacial events through Hudson Strait leading to its eventual demise are recorded in the well-dated Labrador shelf core, MD99-2236 from the Cartwright Saddle. We develop a detailed history of the timing of ice-sheet discharge events from the Hudson Strait outlet of the LIS during the Holocene using high-resolution detrital carbonate, ice rafted detritus (IRD), d18O, and sediment color data. Eight detrital carbonate peaks (DCPs) associated with IRD peaks and light oxygen isotope events punctuate the MD99-2236 record between 11.5 and 8.0 ka. We use the stratigraphy of the DCPs developed from MD99-2236 to select the appropriate DeltaR to calibrate the ages of recorded glacial events in Hudson Bay and Hudson Strait such that they match the DCPs in MD99-2236. We associate the eight DCPs with H0, Gold Cove advance, Noble Inlet advance, initial retreat of the Hudson Strait ice stream (HSIS) from Hudson Strait, opening of the Tyrrell Sea, and drainage of glacial lakes Agassiz and Ojibway. The opening of Foxe Channel and retreat of glacial ice from Foxe Basin are represented by a shoulder in the carbonate data. DeltaR of 350 years applied to the radiocarbon ages constraining glacial events H0 through the opening of the Tyrell Sea provided the best match with the MD99-2236 DCPs; DeltaR values and ages from the literature are used for the younger events. A very close age match was achieved between the 8.2 ka cold event in the Greenland ice cores, DCP7 (8.15 ka BP), and the drainage of glacial lakes Agassiz and Ojibway. Our stratigraphic comparison between the DCPs in MD99-2236 and the calibrated ages of Hudson Strait/Bay deglacial events shows that the retreat of the HSIS, the opening of the Tyrell Sea, and the catastrophic drainage of glacial lakes Agassiz and Ojibway at 8.2 ka are separate events that have been combined in previous estimates of the timing of the 8.2 ka event from marine records. SW Iceland shelf core MD99-2256 documents freshwater entrainment into the subpolar gyre from the Hudson Strait outlet via the Labrador, North Atlantic, and Irminger currents. The timing of freshwater release from the LIS Hudson Strait outlet in MD99-2236 matches evidence for freshwater forcing and LIS icebergs carrying foreign minerals to the SW Iceland shelf between 11.5 and 8.2 ka. The congruency of these records supports the conclusion of the entrainment of freshwater from the retreat of the LIS through Hudson Strait into the subpolar gyre and provides specific time periods when pulses of LIS freshwater were present to influence climate.

Holocene Mg/Ca, alkenones, and light stable isotope measurements on the outer North Iceland shelf, sediment core MD99-2269

We present new Holocene century to millennial-scale proxies for the well-dated piston core MD99-2269 from Húnaflóadjúp on the North Iceland Shelf. The core is located in 365 mwd and lies close to the fluctuating boundary between Atlantic and Arctic/Polar waters. The proxies are: alkenone-based SST°C, and Mg/Ca SST°C estimates and stable d13C and d18O values on planktonic and benthic foraminifera. The data were converted to 60 yr equi-spaced time-series. Significant trends in the data were extracted using Singular Spectrum Analysis and these accounted for between 50% and 70% of the variance. A comparison between these data with previously published climate proxies from MD99-2269 was carried out on a data set which consisted of 14-variable data set covering the interval 400-9200 cal yr BP at 100 yr time steps. This analysis indicated that the 1st two PC axes accounted for 57% of the variability with high loadings clustering primarily into "nutrient" and "temperature" proxies. Clustering on the 100 yr time-series indicated major changes in environment at ~6350 and ~3450 cal yr BP, which define early, mid- and late Holocene climatic intervals. We argue that a pervasive freshwater cap during the early Holocene resulted in warm SST°s, a stratified water column, and a depleted nutrient supply. The loss of the freshwater layer in the mid-Holocene resulted in high carbonate production, and the late Holocene/neoglacial interval was marked by significantly more variable sea surface conditions.

(Table 1) Age determination of North Atlantic sediment cores

High-resolution sediment cores from the Vøring Plateau, the North Iceland shelf, and the East Greenland shelf have been studied to investigate the stability of major surface currents in the Nordic Seas during the Holocene. Results from diatom assemblages and reconstructed sea-surface temperatures (SSTs) indicate a division of the Holocene into three periods: the Holocene Climate Optimum (9500-6500 calendar (cal) years BP), the Holocene Transition Period (6500-3000 cal years BP) and the Cool Late Holocene Period (3000-0 cal years BP). The overall climate development is in step with the decreasing insolation on the Northern Hemisphere, but regional differences occur regarding both timing and magnitude of SST changes. Sites under the direct influence of the Norwegian Atlantic Current and the Irminger Current indicate SST cooling of 4-5°C from early Holocene to present, compared to 2°C recorded under the East Greenland Current. Superimposed on the general Holocene cooling trend, there is a high-frequency SST variability, which is in the order of 1-1.5°C for the Vøring Plateau and the East Greenland shelf and 2.5-3°C on the North Iceland shelf.

Raw X-ray fluorescence (XRF) scannings and radiocarbon age of sediment cores GeoB8331-4, and GeoB8322-2

Variations in the sediment input to the Namaqualand mudbelt during the Holocene are assessed using an integrative terrestrial to marine, source to sink approach. Geochemical and Sr and Nd isotopic signatures are used to distinguish fluvial sediment source areas. Relative to the sediments of the Olifants River, craton outcrops in the northern Orange River catchment have a more radiogenic Sr and a more unradiogenic Nd isotopic signature. Furthermore, upper Orange River sediments are rich in heavier elements such as Ti and Fe derived from the chemical weathering of Drakensberg flood basalt. Suspension load signatures change along the Orange River's westward transit as northern catchments contribute physical weathering products from the Fish and Molopo River catchment area. Marine cores offshore of the Olifants (GeoB8323-2) and Orange (GeoB8331-4) River mouths show pulses of increased contribution of Olifants River and upper Orange River input, respectively. These pulses coincide with intervals of increased terrestrial organic matter flux and increased paleo-production at the respective core sites. We attribute this to an increase in fluvial activity and vegetation cover in the adjacent catchments during more humid climate conditions. The contrast in the timing of these wet phases in the catchment areas reflects the bipolar behavior of the South African summer and winter rainfall zones. While rainfall in the Orange River catchment is related to southward shifts in the ICTZ, rainfall in the Olifants catchment is linked to northward shifts in Southern Hemisphere Westerly storm tracks. The later may also have increased southern Benguela upwelling in the past by reducing the shedding of Agulhas eddies into the Atlantic. The high-resolution records of latitudinal shifts in these atmospheric circulation systems correspond to late Holocene centennial-millennial scale climate variability evident in Antarctic ice core records. The mudbelt cores indicate that phases of high summer rainfall zone and low winter rainfall zone humidity (at ca. 2.8 and 1 ka BP) may be synchronous with Antarctic warming events. On the other hand, dry conditions in the summer rainfall zone along with wet conditions in the winter rainfall zone (at ca 3.3, 2 and 0.5 ka BP) may be associated with Antarctic cooling events.

Indicadores do nível relativo do mar e evolução costeira durante o holoceno tardio no litoral oeste do Ceará, NE do Brasil

In the coastal region of Ceará, between the municipalities of Acaraú and Itapipoca, thirteen sites were identified containing indicators of relative sea level, six of these being dated by optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) and radiocarbon. Ages obtained supports that were formed prograding beaches in the study area. In the eastern portion, beaches in coastal plain deposits occur while a system lagoon/barrier paleomangrove occurs in the western portion of the study area. In both cases the coastal deposits prograde from east to west. Higher sea levels were identified between the current: (a) 3.110-2.830 cal. yr. BP; (b) 1.830 yr. BP (OSL) - 1.490 cal. yr. BP; (c) between 1.240-1.060 cal. yr. BP; (d) 845-715 yr. BP (OSL). Since then the sea level suffered by lowering the current level. Variations in sea level are interpreted as responses to changes in the pattern of marine circulation and do not exclude possible tectonic disturbances in the basin of the continental margin. The indicators of relative sea level west coast of Ceará present differently from other curves constructed in the coastal northeast, suggesting that local factors mentioned above contributed to sea level fluctuations.