scholarly journals First Record of the Large-Scale Loach Paramisgurnus dabryanus (Cobitidae) in the United States

2018 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 246-254 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joseph E. Kirsch ◽  
Richard F. Feeney ◽  
Alisha Goodbla ◽  
Christopher Hart ◽  
Zachary J. Jackson ◽  
...  

Abstract Exotic species have been implicated as a major threat to native freshwater fish communities in the Unites States. The San Francisco Estuary watershed has been recognized as one of the most invaded systems where exotics often dominate the fish community. On October 6, 2014, members of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service detected a previously unknown exotic fish in a disconnected pool immediately upstream from the Chowchilla Bifurcation Structure in the San Joaquin River, a major tributary of the San Francisco Estuary. A member of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service initially identified the fish as an Oriental Weatherfish Misgurnus anguillicaudatus using external morphological characteristics. We conducted additional fish sampling near the Chowchilla Bifurcation Structure in November 2014 and collected a total of six additional specimens in disconnected pool habitats. Unexpectedly, genetic and meristic techniques revealed that these specimens were Large-Scale Loach Paramisgurnus dabryanus. To our knowledge this is the first confirmed occurrence of Large-Scale Loach in the United States and the suspected pathway of introduction is release from aquaria. Very little is known about the population in the San Joaquin River. We recommend further evaluation of the ecology, distribution, and abundance of Large-Scale Loach to better understand their potential impact on the fish communities of the San Joaquin River and the likelihood of establishment throughout the United States.

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brett R. Bayles ◽  
Michaela F George ◽  
Haylea Hannah ◽  
Patti Culross ◽  
Rochelle R. Ereman ◽  
...  

Background: The first shelter-in-place (SIP) order in the United States was issued across six counties in the San Francisco Bay Area to reduce the impact of COVID-19 on critical care resources. We sought to assess the impact of this large-scale intervention on emergency departments (ED) in Marin County, California. Methods: We conducted a retrospective descriptive and trend analysis of all ED visits in Marin County, California from January 1, 2018 to May 4, 2020 to quantify the temporal dynamics of ED utilization before and after the March 17, 2020 SIP order. Results: The average number of ED visits per day decreased by 52.3% following the SIP order compared to corresponding time periods in 2018 and 2019. Both respiratory and non-respiratory visits declined, but this negative trend was most pronounced for non-respiratory admissions. Conclusions: The first SIP order to be issued in the United States in response to COVID-19 was associated with a significant reduction in ED utilization in Marin County.


2020 ◽  
pp. 109-146
Author(s):  
Pierre-Hugues Verdier

This chapter examines the rise of financial sanctions as a tool of U.S. foreign policy and the role of U.S. prosecutors in enforcing sanctions against global banks. It describes how the United States developed its financial sanctions capabilities against terrorist groups, then turned them against state actors such as North Korea, culminating with elaborate sanctions programs against Iran and Russia. It shows how U.S. federal and state prosecutors uncovered large-scale sanctions evasion efforts at numerous global banks that processed U.S. dollar payments. This enforcement campaign led to some of the largest criminal fines ever levied, and global banks such as HSBC and BNP Paribas agreed to implement U.S. sanctions and anti-money laundering controls in their worldwide operations, thus broadening the reach of U.S. policy. Although U.S. enforcement actions faced strong criticism by U.S. allies, banks facing large fines, negative publicity, and potential loss of access to essential U.S. dollar payment infrastructure complied with U.S. demands. Unlike other cases, U.S. sanctions did not lead to multilateral reforms, instead triggering efforts by sanctioned states and bystanders to reduce their dependence on the U.S. dollar and U.S. payment systems.


Author(s):  
Howard G. Wilshire ◽  
Richard W. Hazlett ◽  
Jane E. Nielson

Since 1900, United States troops have fought in more foreign conflicts than any other nation on Earth. Most Americans supported those actions, believing that they would keep the scourge of war far from our homes. But the strategy seems to have failed—it certainly did not prevent terror attacks against the U.S. mainland. The savage Oklahoma City bombing in 1995 and the 11 September 2001 (9/11) attacks on New York and Washington, D.C. were not the first to inflict war damage in America’s 48 contiguous states, however—nor were they the first warlike actions to harm innocent citizens since the Civil War. Paradoxically, making war abroad has always required practicing warfare in our own back yards. Today’s large, mechanized military training exercises have degraded U.S. soils, water supplies, and wildlife habitats in the same ways that the real wars affected war-torn lands far away. The saddest fact of all is that the deadly components of some weapons in the U.S. arsenal never found use in foreign wars but have attacked U.S. citizens in their own homes and communities. The relatively egalitarian universal service of World War II left a whole generation of Americans with nostalgia and reverence for military service. Many of us, perhaps the majority, might argue that human and environmental sacrifices are the price we must be willing to pay to protect our interests and future security. A current political philosophy proposes that the United States must even start foreign wars to protect Americans and their homes. But Americans are not fully aware of all the past sacrifices—and what we don’t know can hurt us. Even decades-old impacts from military training still degrade land and contaminate air and water, particularly in the arid western states, and will continue to do so far into the future. Exploded and unexploded bombs, mines, and shells (“ordnance,” in military terms) and haphazard disposal sites still litter former training lands in western states. And large portions of the western United States remain playgrounds for war games, subject to large-scale, highly mechanized military operations for maintaining combat readiness and projecting American power abroad.


1932 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 18-25

Albert Abraham Michelson was born on December 19, 1852, at Strelno in Posen, now restored to Poland. When he was two years old, he was taken by his parents, Samuel Michelson and Rosalie (Przlubska), to the United States, and, after some fifteen years spent in Virgina City, Nevada, where his brother Charles was born, San Francisco became their home. There his sister Miriam, the author, was born, and the boy attended the high school. He was given, in unusual circumstances, an appointment in the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis, and after graduating in 1873 he became a midshipman in the U.S. Navy for two years and was afterwards appointed instructor in physics and chemistry in the Naval Academy in 1875, holding the appointment until 1879. His next year was spent in the Nautical Almanac Office in Washington, and then he studied for two years at the College of France, and at Heidelberg and Berlin. In 1882 he became Professor of Physics in the Case School of Applied Science at Cleveland, Ohio. After seven years he went as Professor of Physics to Clark University, Worcester, Mass., and remained there until 1892. He was then appointed Professor at the head of the Ryerson Physical Laboratory, Chicago ; this appointment he held until shortly before his death, which occurred on May 9, 1931. He married Miss Edna Stanton of Lake Forest, Illinois, in 1899, and they had a son and two daughters. This in brief contains the history of his official appointments : how he filled the various posts is another matter.


2007 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 122-145 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xia-Huang Yin

AbstractThis article studies characteristics of recent immigrants from China (PRC) in the United States, especially their socioeconomic status and networking with their native land. The unprecedented, large-scale, and highly diversified immigration from China to the U.S. since the late 1970s has not only turned the Chinese into the second largest immigrant group in American society, but has also created new opportunities for interpretation of the Chinese diasporic experience. By examining the socioeconomic diversity among PRC immigrants in their American life and the extensive networks they have established across the Pacific, the article shows how class, ethnicity, and transnationality work at cross purposes in the Chinese American experience and sheds light on the new dynamics in overseas Chinese communities in this rapidly changing era.


Author(s):  
Ian Caine ◽  
◽  
Trenton Tunks ◽  
Carlos Serrano ◽  
◽  
...  

By the year 2050 the United States population will increase by half, with 70% living in a megaregion (Regional Plan Association, 2006). These numbers emphasize the critical link between large-scale territorial expansion and the prospects for successful urbanism. Currently, 11 mega-regions exist in the U.S., each bound together by a unique mixture of demographics, infrastructure, culture, and environment. As each megaregion grows, it must identify and leverage critical infrastructures that are capable of binding geographies and increasing efficiencies. This project speculates about one such strategy for the emerging megaregion known as the Texas Triangle.


2018 ◽  
Vol 46 (1) ◽  
pp. 68-91 ◽  
Author(s):  
Donald S. Travis

The American sociologist Morris Janowitz presented two world views of security named “absolutist” and “pragmatist.” This dualistic paradigm endures into the 21st century and explains how complex and contentious security options are debated within the U.S. security establishment. His paradigm also reveals a condition called the “hegemon trap,” which means that the more powerful militarily that a state becomes relative to other states, the less likely it will fight a large-scale conventional war, resulting in frequent and perpetual limited, low-intensity, and unconventional wars. Based on experiences learned since the Vietnam War, the United States can improve global security by balancing resources between absolutist and pragmatist outlooks. This requires devoting a greater share of resources toward peacetime engagement, stability operations, and unconventional warfare.


Author(s):  
Mark Zeller ◽  
Karthik Gangavarapu ◽  
Catelyn Anderson ◽  
Allison R. Smither ◽  
John A. Vanchiere ◽  
...  

AbstractThe emergence of the early COVID-19 epidemic in the United States (U.S.) went largely undetected, due to a lack of adequate testing and mitigation efforts. The city of New Orleans, Louisiana experienced one of the earliest and fastest accelerating outbreaks, coinciding with the annual Mardi Gras festival, which went ahead without precautions. To gain insight into the emergence of SARS-CoV-2 in the U.S. and how large, crowded events may have accelerated early transmission, we sequenced SARS-CoV-2 genomes during the first wave of the COVID-19 epidemic in Louisiana. We show that SARS-CoV-2 in Louisiana initially had limited sequence diversity compared to other U.S. states, and that one successful introduction of SARS-CoV-2 led to almost all of the early SARS-CoV-2 transmission in Louisiana. By analyzing mobility and genomic data, we show that SARS-CoV-2 was already present in New Orleans before Mardi Gras and that the festival dramatically accelerated transmission, eventually leading to secondary localized COVID-19 epidemics throughout the Southern U.S.. Our study provides an understanding of how superspreading during large-scale events played a key role during the early outbreak in the U.S. and can greatly accelerate COVID-19 epidemics on a local and regional scale.


Plant Disease ◽  
2007 ◽  
Vol 91 (4) ◽  
pp. 380-386 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. J. Fisher ◽  
J. M. DiTomaso ◽  
T. R. Gordon ◽  
B. J. Aegerter ◽  
D. R. Ayres

The fungal pathogen Claviceps purpurea (subgroup G3) has a worldwide distribution on salt marsh Spartina spp. In Northern California (United States), native Spartina foliosa sustains high rates of infection by G3 C. purpurea in marshes north of the San Francisco Estuary. Invasive populations of S. alterniflora and S. alterniflora × foliosa hybrids are virtually disease free in the same estuary, although S. alterniflora is host to G3 C. purpurea in its native range (Atlantic Coast of the United States). Greenhouse inoculation experiments showed no differences in susceptibility among S. foliosa, S. alterniflora, and Spartina hybrids. Under field conditions, S. foliosa sustained a higher incidence of disease in coastal marshes than in marshes within the bay. This geographic effect may be attributable to environmental differences between the coast and the bay proper, with the former being more conducive to infection by C. purpurea. Seed set of S. foliosa spikelets was 40 to 70% lower on infected than on uninfected inflorescences, but seed germination was not affected. The C. purpurea epidemic on S. foliosa on the coast north of the San Francisco Estuary further reduces the meager competitive ability of this declining native plant species.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nathan Isaac Hoffmann ◽  
Kristopher Velasco

As same-sex couples gain greater social acceptance and new rights, their numbers in the United States are rapidly increasing. Yet few researchers have studied immigrants in same-sex couples on a large scale. Using the American Community Survey from 2008 to 2019, this study compares immigrants in same-sex couples to corresponding different-sex couples in order to characterize and assess the scale of “sexual migration” to the U.S. Moreover, we evaluate how the policy environment regarding same-sex couples shapes migratory patterns. We find that, compared to different-sex immigrant couples, immigrants in same-sex couples come from richer, more democratic countries that are less represented in immigrant networks. Fixed effects models show that as origin countries become more LGBT-friendly, we see more LGB immigrants from those countries in the U.S. On the individual level, immigrants in same-sex couples are more likely to live in progressive U.S. states, an effect that increases in strength as migrants come from for more LGBT-friendly countries of origin. Our findings put into question dominant models of migration that emphasize economic and network effects, suggesting the importance of considering sexuality as well as political and lifestyle motivations more broadly.


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