SoCal Minds

A catch-up lagniappe with a soupcon from all over

From Cal State Fullerton, RAND, CSUN, Loyola Marymount, UCLA, UCR, UCI, Claremont Graduate University, Chapman

Let's play fast catch up. With apologies that the press of fuller time employment for actual pay has cut into the posting here -- and may continue to do so -- here's stuff from around the area worth a gander:

The Bruins open their spiffy, new Terasaki Life Sciences building today, a major facility named after the emeritus surgery prof, transplant pioneer and key developer of tissue typing technology who also donated $50 million to the school.

Also of note in Westwood: a $2.9 million study on gum disease among diabetics with emphasis in new genetic techniques that will let researchers better understand whether changes in health affect body systems and allow certain types of bacteria to flourish. Bruin scholars also will join colleagues from five other schools in a major new scrutiny of climate change in the Southwestern United States, a region that experts predict will be among the most affected by issues related to global warming.

In Fullerton, a researcher has put together nearly $7 million in grants to study and boost the health of Asian Pacific Islanders, some 870,000 of whom live in Southern California and must deal with particular challenges with obesity and cancer. Other research on campus recently has targeted Asian American women and their reproductive health, particularly since some of the student-assisted work found that this group of females, while sexually active, used contraceptives less and were unlikely to undergo routine testing for disorders affecting women. And yet another Titan scholar has become a surprising expert for highly personal reasons on the topic of suicide among people, especially young women, of Asian descent; suicide is the second leading cause of death among Asian American women ages 15 to24 and women of Asian descent in this age group, joined by those older than 65, have the highest suicide rates across all racial-ethnic groups, experts say.  

In Santa Monica, the think tank folks have found thatGood Samaritans could get better, more cost effective results if only they would work harder to coordinate all those after-school programs aimed at helping kids; the full report available here details how, in principle, five cities have proved they can help more urban youngsters reach their fullest potential through the after-school programs if sponsors work together. Other researchers, meantime, have raised questions about the market for residential wind and flood insurance, coverages that were found tragically lacking and still have not been put back together five years after Hurricane Katrina.

In Riverside, itty-bitty guppies have told a tale of species' resilience after a poor, early start in life, while in Orange, little sea slugs, jolted by electricity and shocked by nasty lobster attacks, have provided intriguing insights into brain activity and memory.

In Claremont, researchers have created a computer model to help figure how to reduce public conflicts over the location of power lines and other transmission facilities for advanced but remote solar and wind power plants, while in Westchester, student broadcasters are celebrating the resolution of a frequency dispute so that campus radio station KXLU (88.9) can be heard without interference in eastern Los Angeles, including by underground hipsters in Silverlake, downtown and Pasadena.

 

New ways for a new generation of Korean Americans

From USC & Cal State Fullerton

It's one of the significant populaces of people of Asian descent and signs abound as to how its members are hitting a key point in a crucial demographic shift with important implications to the nation and Southern California. As Korean Americans move into their second generation in this country, they're strengthening their community bonds, flexing their organizing muscle and even seeing changes in the practice of their faith, according to recent posts that also show the ethnic group's care and cultivation by members of the scholarly community. The Trojans, for example, supported a Washington summit recently of 175 Korean American influentials who took part in a program on Asian American empowerment and community outreach. It's notable that participants, in discussing how to build up the Korean American community, themselves had ties to corporations and institutions including Goldman Sachs, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the Pentagon, Johns Hopkins and MTV. In Fullerton, a sociologist who has studied the religiosity of Korean Americans notes that many younger believers still engage in tongsongkido, an emotionally charged, fervent fashion of prayer. But a burgeoning numer of churches founded by younger, second-generation Americans of Korean descent distinguish themselves from their paretns' immigrant congregrations with their English-based, multiracial, more communal and community oriented approach to faith, writes Sharon Kim (shown in photo at right). She herself is a pastor's wife and has published a new tome based on her decade of study on what she terms the central cultural institution of the quarter-million or so Korean Americans in Los Angeles and Orange County.

Trojans give a boost to Washington summit of influentials

In Fullerton, a focus on how churches change for younger faithful

 

Everybody's talking at us about lots of stuff this week

From UCLA, ALOUD, Zocalo & Cal State Fullerton

 

Never let it be said that Southern Californians lack the capacity to exercise their rights to free speech and to talk for free and freely, whether it's about political topics, as discussed in this Bruin video above, or in conversations that this week will run the gamut of: strategies to break the cycle of gang violence late Tuesday afternoon in Westwood; music and the centrality of themes of celebration and lament in it through the ages on Tuesday night in downtown; the power of Native American story-telling and how its techniques can powerfully inform contemporary memoir writing on Wednesday night in downtown; how distinguished scholars and practitioners see the course of Latino literature in the 21st century in downtown Thursday night;  how religion is reshaping America in Chinatown Thursday night (yes, this is the correct date, this time); on the public trust and remaking the Nixon Library in Fullerton on Tuesday afternoon; and, yes, even a shout-out to a production-meditation on the solo powers exemplified in the Watts Towers on Thursday night on the Westside; and two, fully staged performances in the courtyard of 'Hamlet,' one of the best-known works of the Bard Tuesday and Wednesday night on the Westside, featuring Bruin thespians from the actor training program.

A suprising nod by voters for state tax, fee increases

From Cal State Fullerton

Ahh, perhaps there is cause for hope still for the Golden State: While the politicans and pundits have pronounced California's fiscal and governance crisis almost insoluble, voters would take a suprising, pragmatic whack at the problems, pollsters in Fullerton say, based on their tracking of Orange County residents attitudes and opinions. They say that a majority of those asked would favor balancing the state budget with, gasp, fee and tax increases as well as program cuts. Both Republicans and Democrats in one of the state's most populous and conservative counties aren't buying the minority legislative stand of no taxes or fee increases and just program cuts -- a position that, due to state budget approval requirements, has helped to cast California into a fiscal and governance grid-lock. The random telephone survey of 601 Orange County residents, conducted between Sept. 13 and Oct. 4 by the center for public policy, found Prop. 25 -- which would eliminate the state requirement to pass a budget by 2/3rds vote by legislators -- winning among Dems, the GOP and independents. Those in Orange overwhelmingly say employment in their biggest concern, far ahead of a traditional No. 1 woe of traffic and congestion. The survey shows deep opposition to ballot measures to legalize marijuana and to suspend air pollution control and emissions regulations. As is to be expected behind the Orange curtain, voters favor GOP candidates in November races with gubernatorial aspirant Meg Whitman demonstrating some strength; notably, though, she has a 15-point edge over Jerry Brown in the county that the Gubbernator carried over his Democratic opponent by 34 points.

In Orange County, poll finds nonpartisan pragmatism on state fiscal, governance crisis

 

In Fullerton, a new vision for 60-acre site, town-gown life

From Cal State Fullerton

It's still just a vision and it will require serious money to be more. But give credit to those who think about town-gown matters for coming up with new plans for 60 acres south of the school, which, under redevelopment proposals sketched out for Fullerton officials, would be turned into a 'special district of livable streets, trails and walkways linking learning, living, working, shopping and dining.' Among the visions outlined -- erasing existing boundaries (particularly the border created by Nutwood Avenue) between the school and community; trolley service connecting the community and campus; and ample public spaces, shopping and pedestrial, bike, bus and shuttle access. Two years of cooperative planning between the university and city have gone into the proposal for 'College Town@Fullerton,' which, advocates say, has analogs at Ohio State, Arizona State and UConn. More work and consultation lies ahead.

Planners present proposals to redevelop area south of campus

'Green shoots' abound in Southland campus projects

From Caltech, Harvey Mudd, Cal State Fullerton & CSULA

Color lots of folks at campuses throughout the area a concerned shade of green as efforts to protect the environment take center stage in some varied ways:

• In Pasadena, scientists say they have designed a new material from one of the most inexpensive, abundant substances around and this thin film, which they call a nanomesh, could pave the way for more efficient devices that help convert heat to electricity and vice versa. This material, they say, offers an advance on energy efficiency by taking advantage of what happens when scientists can get silicon get into a super thin film or sheet, which also has a grid-like pattern full of holes. This nanomesh, named because it is 22 nanometers thick (a nanometer being a billionth of a meter), has extraordinarily low thermal conducting properties while doing little to impede electrical conductivity. This means it could be a boon in super efficient refrigerators or other devices with electrical charges, and for heating and cooling.

New, silicon-based 'nanomesh' shows promise as a boost to thermoelectric devices

• In Claremont, some undergraduates spent their summer trying to see if nanotechnology could be used to create composite membranes that someday might help slow global warming by filtering harmful emissions of gases from power plants.

• In East L.A., a three-year, $1.7 million grant will let the school reconfigure and modernize 9,500 square feet of space in the engineering and technology building so faculty and students can dive deeper into path-breaking research in energy and sustainability. Work already was under way in this area as part of another five-year, $5 million federal grant that had established a center focusing on creating better, more efficient fuel, photovoltaic and combustion cells, as well as ways to capture greenhouse gases and sequester them so they don't contribute to global warming. 

In East L.A., a $1.7 million boon for energy and sustainability research

• In Fullerton, some business administration students surmounted their initial chagrin to tackle successfully an unexpected challenge: How could a Waterfront Hilton be made more green and environmentally responsible and sustainable? The b-school takes on many collaborative, consulting projects with area enterprises but officials said they typically involve finance or marketing issues. So this green case offered something of a twist. Still, the project, for the client and the young scholars, worked, as the proffered recommendations -- which still are getting put in place and tested -- focused on management strategies and ideas on potential utility savings and the benefits of key environmental certifications.

In Fullerton, business students tackle a waterfront consulting case with a green twist

A day to ponder significance of U.S. Constitution

From Cal State Fullerton & USC

Banks and stores will stay open and the mail will go through. But if some buildings get festooned with more than a flag or two, there's cause for celebration today: Despite the rancorous partisan clamor about its flaws and imperfections, this is the day for the nation to officially fete the Constitution and citizenship as part of a federal holiday enacted in a measure pressed by the recently deceased Robert Byrd, the longest serving member of Congress in U.S. history and a fella who carried a pocket-sized copy of the founding documents and quoted them often. In Fullerton, the always terrific journalist-author Joe Mathews and former state treasurer Mark Paul will make a Constitution Day appearance to discuss their 'California Crackup' book and whether California has become ungovernable. In Exposition Park, the Trojans take note of this day -- marking the 1787 convention signing of the Constitution -- by touting the law school's upcoming curtain-raiser of the Supreme Court term and providing lots of handy links to information on the guiding plan of how the nation will be governed. These could be hugely helpful as partisans toss up their notions about changing it.

In Fullerton, 2 authors to discuss Golden State's plight for Constitution Day

What's really in much-disputed documents that detail how U.S. will be governed?

Green tomorrow a front and center focus on campuses

From UCLA, Cal State Fullerton, Loyola Marymount, Occidental, Cal Poly Pomona, CSULB & Chapman

For those in northern climes, will global warming offer surprising boon?

It's not exactly an expected scenario. And, at root, it speaks to a vast global divide that will occur, experts say, due to dire circumstances associated with global warming: Those who live in what's now a vast, often desolate and lesser developed frigid northern climes will find themselves in a newly prosperous, resource rich, probably more affluent and favored zone of the planet when the global environment warms and shifts, a Bruin geographer predicts. This will lead to Canada, Scandinavia, Russia and the northern United States, he says, suddenly becoming beckoning havens, spots with, perhaps, the only abundant supplies of fresh water, abundant population growth and almost miraculously released natural resources, such as oil and gas supplies. Meantime, he sees wet places on earth getting wetter and parched spots getting even more so, with little cheery news at all for many of the highly populated spots on the present planet. He forecasts China as the world's economic superpower by 2050, with the U.S. sliding into the No. 2 spot and the longer rise of cities north of the 45th parallel. Los Angeles and other spots will still be major population centers and more folks will still be in traditional population centers but look to Seattle, Minneapoli-St. Paul, Toronto, Copenhagen, Moscow and other northern burghs to be the capitals of the climate change tomorrow.

A sunny forecast for northern lands in the era of drastic global climate change

Can student commuters find eco alternatives to cars, crowded parking?

• Now that Labor Day has come and gone and the calendar marks the end of summer, tens of thousands of students across the Southland have or soon will be racing back to campus, all too often commuting across considerable distances, one to a car, to get to classes and a higher education. And, if the responses from 500 students studied for a Fullerton research project are indicative at all, driving -- and especially stashing that car in costly, chaotic, congested parking -- is no fun at all for young people, who argue they have little choice about how they get to school. Three-quarters of those Orange County students motor to school, alone, researchers, including Edwin Shin and Jessica Watson, found in Prof. Ray Young's urban planning course. (Shin and Watson flank Young in Karen Tapia photo at right) Here's another big finding, though: Students who take public transportation or who bike or walk to school are much more satisfied with their commuting experience. The students involved in the academic research on commuting offered their own suggestions on how to provide incentives to get their peers out of the car-parking-commuting snaggle. In Westchester and Eagle Rock, though, school officials have taken one small step to cut down on the presence of so many vehicles, working, as many other campuses have, to provide the Zipcar program. The vehicle-sharing program aims to allow not only students but also neighbors to sign up for relatively affordable, short-term rental of cars.

In Fullerton, proof that the headache list often tops out with cars for commuting, campus parking

In Eagle Rock, a new sharing option for those who need a car only rarely

In Westchester, a way to cut congestion, parking through vehicle sharing program

How to power up, track better campus environmental programs

•  As long as there's going to be huge demand for big expanses to park student commuters' cars, well, why shouldn't such spots do double-duty and provide campus shade and solar generating spots, too? In Pomona, two new installations on the roof of a school gym (shown in photo at right) and with a canopy over a parking lot will help the school chip away at becoming 'carbon neutral.' The leased equipment, which also comes with grants and subsidies, will generate roughly 1.8 kilowatt hours of electricity annually for the campus, which has an annual, total electric consumption of some 45 million kilowatt hours, school officials say. But how best to monitor and encourage green practices at institutions of higher education? In Long Beach, where the school spends more than $7.5 million annually on utility costs, officials have created an intern program to help both track and spread best environmental practices with efforts such as a fall audit of classroom energy use and a residence hall competition to see which dorm can conserve the most power. And, in Orange, school officials are touting their participation in a new, 230-institution 'sustainability' program, which aims to provide greater accounting and transparency about campuses' environmental and conservation efforts. An aim of the 'STARS' program, in which the Orange County folks also hope to win some key certifications, is to provide an alternative to some existing efforts, which have drawn considerable criticism for their evaluation methods and seemingly punitive rating systems.

In Pomona, solar power arrays start popping up all over 

In Long Beach, interns help campus push its green programs

In Orange, joining up with consortium's new, more open monitoring of green campus efforts

What do GenY workers want so they won't leave jobs?

From Cal State Fullerton

It all may begin to sound as generic and all-encompassing as a Sydney Omarr astrological charting. But if generational forecasts, especially those based on research involving more than 2,300 individuals, are to be believed, well, listen up Baby Boomers and Gen X-ers: Those young folks coming up and nipping the heels at the workplace have some needs and concerns that need addressing, especially before the next economic upturn occurs and those youngest employees hoof it to new jobs. The folks in Fullerton have worked with some major Southland corporations to try to get a handle on what motivates Gen Y employees, those born between 1979 and 1995, and how to manage them best on the job. They've got their data and results out for free and warn that, watch out, 71% of the young 'uns plan to switch employers when the economy allows. That could have important, longterm effects on companies, the researchers warn, noting that the graying Boomers are exiting the workplace for retirement, post haste, and the relatively small cohort of the Gen X alone can't step up and step in to all the needed jobs, duties and demands. So Gen Y retention and recruitment will be key -- and some ol' fashioned stuff, not some misguided trendy approaches, gets up on the lists to accomplish this. Like? The researchers say the Gen Y workers want what everyone else does: Money, chances to advance, decent benes, a fair boss and a spot to make friends and enjoy life with a flexible work schedule. Oh, and about that corner office, chief....

In Fullerton, data on 2,300 discloses workplace expectations of a young generation

Click here for full report on 'Managing, Developing Young Professionals'

A look at stuff old, borrowed and blues-making in Orange

From Cal State Fullerton & Chapman University

Ah, this isn't about those summer brides and their seasonal weddings but the focus here still will be something old, something borrowed and stuff that might make us blue. The folks in Fullerton have pulled together a notable online centerpiece on the school's role in the archeological life of Orange County, which includes collegians teaching youngsters at the Bowers Museum's Kidseum about ancient matters and researchers (like Meredith Rivin, seen in Karen Tapia photo at left) preserving, curating and studying the county's trove of artifacts, archeological and paleontological, some dating back more than 60 million years. That, of course, may be how old some readers of this posting may feel after glancing through a posting from the folks in Orange, who, as the fall semester prepares to launch, just have to remind of us of the yawning differences in experiences of those who will make up the Class of 2014; some clever and mischievous folks in Beloit, Wisc., of course, compile an annual list of attributed attributes to freshmen. This year, they note in the borrowed info, that the kids coming into college this fall: for some reason haven't mastered cursive handwriting; think cable television is boring and even e-mail is too slow as a form of communication; and have only known Hollywood icon Clint ('Dirty Harry') Eastwood as the maker of movies with a great sensitivity and humanity.

A spotlight on Fullerton's roles in archeological, paleontological life in Orange County

The Class of 2014? Oh, my, yes they have some very different lives, experiences