Urbanization and warming of Phoenix (Arizona,USA): Impacts,feedbacks and mitigation

This paper examines the impacts, feedbacks, and mitigation of the urban heat island in Phoenix, Arizona (USA). At Sky Harbor Airport, urbanization has increased the nighttime minimum temperature by 5°C and the average daily temperatures by 3.1°C. Urban warming has increased the number of misery hours per day for humans, which may have important social consequences. Other impacts include (1) increased energy consumption for heating and cooling of buildings, (2) increased heat stress (but decreased cold stress) for plants, (3) reduced quality of cotton fiber and reduced dairy production on the urban fringe, and (4) a broadening of the seasonal thermal window for arthropods. Climate feedback loops associated with evapotranspiration, energy production and consumption associated with increased air conditioning demand, and land conversion are discussed. Urban planning and design policy could be redesigned to mitigate urban warming, and several cities in the region are incorporating concerns regarding urban warming into planning codes and practices. The issue is timely and important, because most of the world's human population growth over the next 30 years will occur in cities in warm climates.     

Urban and wildland herpetofauna communities and riparian microhabitats along the Salt River, Arizona

Metropolitan areas are continually expanding, resulting in increasing impacts on ecosystems. Worldwide, riverine floodplains are among the most endangered landscapes and are often the focus of restoration activities. Amphibians and reptiles have valuable ecological roles in ecosystems, and promoting their abundance and diversity when rehabilitating riparian systems can contribute to reestablishing degraded ecosystem functions. We evaluated the herpetofauna community by measuring abundance, richness, diversity, and species-habitat relations along three reaches (wildland, urban rehabilitated, and urban disturbed reaches) varying in degree of urbanization and rehabilitation along the Salt River in central Arizona. We performed visual surveys for herpetofauna and quantified riparian microhabitat along eight transects per reach. The wildland reach had the greatest herpetofauna species richness and diversity, and had similar abundance compared to the urban rehabilitated reach. The urban disturbed reach had the lowest herpetofauna abundance and species richness, and had a similar diversity compared to the urban rehabilitated reach. Principal Component Analysis reduced 21 microhabitat variables to five factors which described habitat differences among reaches. Vegetation structural complexity, vegetation species richness, densities of Prosopis (mesquite), Salix (willow), Populus (cottonwood), and animal burrow density had a positive correlation with at least one herpetofauna community parameter, and had a positive correlation with abundance of at least one lizard species. Rehabilitation activities positively influenced herpetofauna abundance and species richness; whereas, urbanization negatively influenced herpetofauna diversity. Based on herpetofauna-microhabitat associations, we recommend urban natural resource managers increase vegetation structural complexity and woody debris to improve herpetofauna habitat when rehabilitating degraded riparian systems.     

Surveying University of Arizona students' health.

The authors sampled more than 600 University of Arizona students to determine how student attitudes, beliefs, and practices should be considered by healthcare personnel in planning campus health education programs. The survey found that students worried more about diet, exercise, and weight than they did about more serious health problems and that, although generally positive and optimistic, the students frequently felt anxious and overwhelmed. Two thirds of the students were sexually active, 74% of those who were active used various contraceptive methods. More than three quarters of those surveyed indicated they currently drank alcoholic beverages; one quarter of the drinkers said they frequently downed three or more drinks on one occasion, and 44% of the drinkers reported driving while under the influence of alcohol.     

Jack Michael and Arizona State: The Early Years

The Analysis of Verbal Behavior -     

An exploratory study examining needs,access, and competent social services for the transgender community in Phoenix,Arizona

ABSTRACT

Phoenix is the sixth largest city in the United States, with a vibrant yet underserved lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) population. Despite an extensive community presence, social service delivery bias persists among members of the LGBTQ community, but more often among transgender individuals. Existing research has examined social services from the perspective of either the client or the practitioner. This exploratory study specifically examines social services in the Phoenix metropolitan area for the transgender community. Data collected from interviews with participants and providers contributed to an assessment of the current level of social services for the transgender community, with a specific emphasis on identifying service gaps and recommendations for culturally competent and comprehensive services.     

Randomized trial of the healthy families Arizona home visiting program

The purpose of this paper was to examine the effectiveness of home visiting as a means of improving parental, child, and maternal outcomes and preventing child abuse and neglect. A randomized controlled trial was conducted in a large southwestern metropolitan area. One hundred and ninety-five women were randomly assigned to the Healthy Families Arizona experimental or control conditions. Significant results favoring the experimental group in contrast to the control group were found on some measures in each of five domains including violent parenting behavior, parenting attitudes and practices, parenting support, mental health and coping, and maternal outcomes.     

Arizona construction labor: A case study of union decline

Labor relations in the Arizona construction industry provide an interesting and informative case study of what occurs when unions push costs beyond what the market will bear. The industry was highly unionized, even including the homebuilding sector, in the late 1960s and early 1970s, when a series of strikes and major wage and benefit increases led one sector after another in the industry to turn to open-shop contractors. The construction unions and unionized contractors attempted to counter this move by agreeing to wage, benefit, and rule concessions, but the trend to open-shop work continued. Currently, the unions control only a small segment of the work with little prospect of improvement. Although special factors may have reduced union power more in the Arizona construction industry than nationally, developments in this state do indicate a probable decline in the national union share of work beyond what was found in the 1984 nationwide study. Professor Emeritus of Management; former Director, Industrial Research Unit and Chairman, Labor Relations Council. David O. Northrup processed the Dodge data and constructed the tables.     

Vegetation structure along urban ephemeral streams in southeastern Arizona

Riparian areas in Arizona are being encroached upon by urban developments. This study investigated the impacts of different urban housing densities on riparian vegetation structure along ephemeral streams. Nine sites representing three levels of housing density were selected within the town of Marana, located in southeast Arizona. The housing densities were categorized as high (7–8 houses ha^?1), moderate (2.5–4.5 houses ha^?1), and low (< 1.5 houses ha^?1). Each treatment had three replications. The urban developments were relatively young (less than 15 years). No significant differences were found among the treatments for the tree variables (density, height, mean canopy volume and total canopy volume) or the herbaceous vegetation variables (species richness, percentage of introduced species and percentage of ground cover). However, the shrub variables (mean density, mean height, mean canopy volume, total canopy volume and species richness) showed some significant differences. Shrub density and species richness was significantly greater adjacent to ephemeral channels than just three meters upland. In addition, whitethorn acacia shrubs were significantly taller and larger adjacent to the stream channels in the high and moderate housing density sites than in the low housing density sites. Creosote shrubs showed the opposite trend. Increased runoff in the more heavily urbanized streams may have promoted the growth of the facultative riparian species (whitethorn acacia) but not the non-riparian species (creosote). Overall, in these young developments, vegetation was resilient across the levels of urbanization explored in the study.     

Chapter 6: University of Arizona Life & Work Connections

SUMMARY

The concept of integration has emerged in recent years as a strategy considered by providers of employee assistance, wellness and work-life services to meet the changing needs of the organizations they serve. There continues to be much discussion, however, about what exactly integration is, and how to do it. Beginning with a definition of integration, this article seeks to contribute to the discussion by describing the University of Arizona (UA) Life & Work Connections, a program that was conceived from its development to be an integrated service model. The theoretical and philosophical backgrounds of the program are presented and translated into the UA Life & Work Connections model. Advantages of the model and challenges to integration are discussed, and a detailed case study of a critical incident response is presented.     

Direct and indirect effects of urbanization on soil and plant nutrients in desert ecosystems of the Phoenix metropolitan area,Arizona (USA)

Desert landscaping has become a dominant land cover type in arid US cities and often includes native plant species. Does replacement of native plant distribution in urban areas also reestablish ecological functioning characteristic of natural deserts? We compared ecological processes in three landscape types that are common to the metropolitan area of Phoenix, Arizona (USA): residential desert yards created from former lawns, Sonoran Desert preserves within the city, and Sonoran Desert preserves outside the city boundaries. Canopy cover, abundance of herbivorous insects, and soil properties (concentration of inorganic nitrogen (N), soil moisture and organic matter content, and water-holding capacity) were higher in residential desert yards than in native desert sites located both within and outside of the city. Furthermore, soil resources in desert yards were not organized around plant canopies, departing from the predictable resource island pattern that is characteristic of natural deserts. Intentional human manipulation and land use history accounts for these differences, while the urban environment contributes only subtly to soil N concentrations beneath plant canopies. While the use of desert landscaping may have important water conservation benefits, it does not help to mitigate the well-documented excess of reactive N within the Phoenix metropolitan area.     

War memories across the Pacific: Japanese visitors at the Arizona Memorial

Abstract

This article investigates Japanese visitors' experiences of the Arizona Memorial in Pearl Harbor, based on results gained from fieldwork observations, questionnaires, and personal interviews. Japanese visitors tend to understand the memorial and interpret its significance quite differently from the majority of US visitors. Nonetheless, the memorial clearly functions as a site for enhancing national consciousness for Japanese as well as US visitors, as they become acutely aware of their difference from Americans and in so doing reconfirm their own sense of national identity. While the Japanese understanding of the memorial serves to de-Americanize the significance of one of the most recognized national landmarks in the United States, it simultaneously reinforces the site's function as a national memorial by crystallizing a sense of difference based on national identities and encouraging a historical understanding based on a nationalist framework.     

John L. Michael’s Early Career: Houston to Arizona

The Analysis of Verbal Behavior -     

Persistence of Horned Lizards (Phrynosoma spp.) in urban preserves of Central Arizona

Urbanization is rapidly enveloping isolated remnants of Sonoran Desert habitat in southern Arizona. Understanding the means by which herpetofauna can persist in these habitats in the face of multiple impacts is vital to conservation efforts to retain intact biotic communities, especially those with a high diversity of reptile species. We surveyed ten preserves in the Phoenix Metropolitan region for Desert (Phrynosoma platyrhinos) and Regal (Phrynosoma solare) horned lizards, members of an iconic group of lizards of the Southwest. At least one horned lizard species is found in preserves across the range in size, age and habitat axes we assessed, provided that their primary prey, seed-harvester ants (Pogonomyrmex rugosus) are present. Horned lizards are apparently absent from one large preserve where they were once present, perhaps as a result of a decline in seed-harvester ants, but they may have been absent from other preserves due to the lack of appropriate habitat for their prey rather than due to direct anthropogenic impacts.     

Sexual Functioning in Spanish and Portuguese Young Adults: Initial Validation of the Arizona Sexual Experience Scale

Objectives: The authors conducted an initial validation of the Arizona Sexual Experience Scale (ASEX) and examined the sexual function of Spanish and Portuguese young adults. Methods: Participants were 523 Spanish and 595 Portuguese heterosexual young adults who completed a background questionnaire, the ASEX, and measures of sexual sensation seeking, excitation, and inhibition. Results: The ASEX showed good reliability and validity. Participants reported good sexual function. The most prevalent difficulties in men were related to desire and orgasm, and to orgasm and satisfaction in women. Conclusions: This is a psychometrically sound instrument to assess sexual functioning in Spanish and Portuguese young adults.     

Correlates of Depression among Chinese Immigrant Elders in Arizona: The Role of Acculturative Stress and Social Support

Using the stress and coping framework, we examined the association between acculturative stress, social support, and depression among Chinese immigrant elders living in Arizona. This cross-sectional study used a snowball sample of 120 respondents. Multiple regression results suggest that English language proficiency, health status, and gender were significant correlates of depression. Findings justify creating intervention programs that target Chinese immigrant elders who are less proficient in English, female, and in poor health. Future research and implications are discussed.