Recent excavations by the Ancient Southwest Texas Project of Texas State University sampled a previously undocumented Younger Dryas component from Eagle Cave in the Lower Pecos Canyonlands of Texas. This stratified assemblage consists of bison (Bison antiquus) bones in association with lithic artifacts and a hearth. Bayesian modeling yields an age of 12,660–12,480 cal BP, and analyses indicate behaviors associated with the processing of a juvenile bison and the manufacture and maintenance of lithic tools. This article presents spatial, faunal, macrobotanical, chronometric, geoarchaeological, and lithic analyses relating to the Younger Dryas component within Eagle Cave. The identification of the Younger Dryas occupation in Eagle Cave should encourage archaeologists to revisit previously excavated rockshelter sites in the Lower Pecos and beyond to evaluate deposits for unrecognized, older occupations.

De-institutionalization of mental health patients has evolved, over nearly 3 generations now, to a status quo of mental health patients experiencing myriad contacts with first-responders, primarily police, in lieu of care. The current institutions in which these patients rotate through are psychiatric emergency units, emergency rooms, jails, and prisons. Although more police are now specially trained to respond to calls that involve mental health patients, the criminalization of persons with mental illness has been steadily increasing over the past several decades. There have also been deaths. The Crisis Intervention Team (CIT) model fosters mental health acumen among first responders, and facilitates collaboration among first responders, mental health professionals, and mental health patients and their families. Here, we review some modern, large city configurations of CIT, the co-responder model, the mitigating effects of critically situated community-based programs, as well as barriers to the success of joint efforts to better address this pressing problem.

The age of sand dunes in the Nebraska Sand Hills has been controversial, with some investigators suggesting a full-glacial age and others suggesting that they were last active in the late Holocene. New accelerator mass spectrometry radiocarbon ages of unaltered bison bones and organic-rich sediments suggest that eolian sand deposition occurred at least twice in the past 3000 14C yr B.P. in three widely separated localities and as many as three times in the past 800 14C yr at three other localities. These late Holocene episodes of eolian activity are probably the result of droughts more intense than the 1930s “Dust Bowl” period, based on independent Great Plains climate records from lake sediments and tree rings. However, new geochemical data indicate that the Nebraska Sand Hills are mineralogically mature. Eolian sands in Nebraska have lower K-feldspar (and K2O, Rb, and Ba) contents than most possible source sediments and lower K-feldspar contents than dunes of similar age in Colorado. The most likely explanation for mineralogical maturity is reduction of sand-sized K-feldspar to silt-sized particles via ballistic impacts due to strong winds over many cycles of eolian activity. Therefore, dunes of the Nebraska Sand Hills must have had a long history, probably extending over more than one glacial–interglacial cycle, and the potential for reactivation is high, with or without a future greenhouse warming.

Most previous workers have regarded the insoluble residues of high-purity Quaternary limestones (coral reefs and oolites) as the most important parent material for well-developed, clay-rich soils on Caribbean and western Atlantic islands, but this genetic mechanism requires unreasonable amounts of limestone solution in Quaternary time. Other possible parent materials from external sources are volcanic ash from the Lesser Antilles island arc and Saharan dust carried across the Atlantic Ocean on the northeast trade winds. Soils on Quaternary coral terraces and carbonate eolianites on Barbados, Jamaica, the Florida Keys (United States), and New Providence Island (Bahamas) were studied to determine which, if either, external source was important. Caribbean volcanic ashes and Saharan dust can be clearly distinguished using ratios of relatively immobile elements (Al2O3/TiO2, Ti/Y, Ti/Zr, and Ti/Th). Comparison of these ratios in 25 soils, where estimated ages range from 125,000 to about 870,000 yr, shows that Saharan dust is the most important parent material for soils on all islands. These results indicate that the northeast trade winds have been an important component of the regional climatology for much of the Quaterary. Saharan dust may also be an important parent material for Caribbean island bauxites of much greater age.

Geochemical and geomorphic data from dune fields in southwestern Nebraska provide new evidence that the Nebraska Sand Hills once migrated across the North and South Platte rivers and dammed the largest tributary system to the Missouri River. The Lincoln County and Imperial dune fields, which lie downwind of the South Platte River, have compositions intermediate between the Nebraska Sand Hills (quartz-rich) and northeastern Colorado dunes (K-feldspar-rich). The most likely explanation for the intermediate composition is that the Lincoln County and Imperial dunes are derived in part from the Nebraska Sand Hills and in part from the South Platte River. The only mechanism by which the Nebraska Sand Hills could have migrated this far south is by complete infilling of what were probably perennially dry North Platte and South Platte river valleys. Such a series of events would have required an extended drought, both for activation of eolian sand and decreased discharges in the Platte River system. A nearby major tributary of the North Platte River is postulated to have been blocked by eolian sand about 12,000 14C yr B.P. We propose that an eolian sand dam across the Plattes was constructed at about this same time.

Uranium-series dating of dense tufa deposited in a small cave, at former lake margins, and in large tufa mounds clarifies the timing of lake-level variation during the past 400,000 yr in the Pyramid Lake basin. A moderate-sized lake occasionally overflowed the Emerson Pass sill at elevation of ∼1207 m between ca. 400,000 and 170,000 and from ca. 60,000 to 20,000 yr B.P., as shown by 230Th/234U ages of the cave samples, 230Th-excess ages of tubular tufas, and average isochron-plot ages of shoreline-deposited tufas. (By comparison, modern Pyramid Lake is ∼50 m below this sill). There is a lack of tufa record during the intervening period from ca. 170,000 to 60,000 yr B.P. After ca. 20,000 yr, Pyramid Lake underwent abrupt changes in level and, based on previous 14C ages, reached its highest elevation (ca 1335 m) at ca. 14,000 yr B.P. The youngest uranium-series ages are comparable with previously reported 14C ages.

The study of ancient biodiversity trends is confounded by biases of the paleontologic record, but standardizing sampling intensity among time intervals can ameliorate sample-size biases. We show that several existing standardization methods are intimately linked to the spatial components of diversity (alpha, the within-assemblage diversity; and beta, the between-assemblage diversity). The subsampling curves generated by these methods can also be generated by various manipulations of alpha and beta, so that one can predict the responses of the methods to specific changes in alpha or beta diversity. The responses of the subsampling methods to changes in total diversity depend on whether measured alpha or measured beta diversity changed. Like biodiversity, sampling consists of a within-sample component (the number of specimens collected per locality) and a between-sample component (the number of localities). Several subsampling methods (rarefaction, OW, O2W) attempt to standardize sampling effort at both levels, although they use no direct information on the former. Instead, they alter sampling intensity at the beta level to compensate for perceived biases at the alpha level. We show that alpha and beta diversity are not so easily interchangeable and that the accuracy of the subsampling methods depends critically on the spatial characteristics of diversity in a data set. Current methods are calibrated only to the abundance-richness characteristics of individual collections, but the amount of beta diversity and the degree to which the rareness/commonness of taxa correlates among samples also strongly affect the accuracy of the subsampling methods. We offer new calibrations based on empirical data sets that account for these factors. Our findings do not support Alroy et al.'s (2001) tentative claim that the taxonomic radiation in the Cenozoic marine realm is an artifact of biased sampling intensity. Their diversity curves that most strongly contradict Sepkoski's traditional Phanerozoic curve are based on a method that overcorrects for local sample-size biases, whereas the remaining curves are either consistent with the traditional curve or ambiguous because of the limited temporal and taxonomic coverage of the analysis. Other factors may bias Sepkoski's curve, but there is insufficient evidence to claim that variations in sampling intensity are the major determinant of its long-term trajectory.

Montevidisco is an interactive videodisc application intended for intermediate Spanish students. It combines language enrichment with elements of role-playing games as the student plays the role of someone visiting a hypothetical city in Mexico, interacting with native Spanish speakers in native situations via videodisc. The concept originated at Brigham Young University in the early eighties, with the video filming done at that time. More recently, the BYU Humanities Research Center has adapted the original material to run on standard microcomputer platforms.

There are three implementations of Montevidisco in various stages of development. The first is a side-by-side version that uses a HyperCard stack on a Macintosh to control a separate videodisc player and monitor. The second version uses a video overlay configuration with ToolBook and Windows on an IBM platform. Both of these versions are 'finished' to the extent that they are being used in intermediate Spanish classes at BYU and elsewhere. General marketing arrangements are expected to be finalized this summer. The most recent implementation uses QuickTime on a Macintosh to display digitized video directly from the computer's hard disk.

This paper begins with an explanation of the general features of Montevidisco that are common to all three implementations. It outlines some of the design considerations faced and explains how the choice of metaphor influenced those decisions. Some questions that have been raised during the testing and review process are also addressed. The paper then categorizes the significant differences between the three implementations and discusses the technological and pedagogical reasons for them. It concludes with a status report on the QuickTime version and gives an assessment of this new digital video technology in an instructional environment.

Middle Archaic earthen mound complexes in the lower Mississippi valley are remote antecedents of the famous but much younger Poverty Point earthworks. Watson Brake is the largest and most complex of these early mound sites. Very extensive coring and stratigraphic studies, aided by 25 radiocarbon dates and six luminescence dates, show that minor earthworks were begun here at ca. 3500 B.C. in association with an oval arrangement of burned rock middens at the edge of a stream terrace. The full extent of the first earthworks is not yet known. Substantial moundraising began ca. 3350 B.C. and continued in stages until some time after 3000 B.C. when the site was abandoned. All 11 mounds and their connecting ridges were occupied between building bursts. Soils formed on some of these temporary surfaces, while lithics, fire-cracked rock, and fired clay/loam objects became scattered throughout the mound fills. Faunal and floral remains from a basal midden indicate all-season occupation, supported by broad-spectrum foraging centered on nuts, fish, and deer. All the overlying fills are so acidic that organics have not survived. The area enclosed by the mounds was kept clean of debris, suggesting its use as ritual space. The reasons why such elaborate activities first occurred here remain elusive. However, some building bursts covary with very well-documented increases in El Niño/Southern Oscillation events. During such rapid increases in ENSO frequencies, rainfall becomes extremely erratic and unpredictable. It may be that early moundraising was a communal response to new stresses of droughts and flooding that created a suddenly more unpredictable food base.

Objectives: This study compared the relative cost-effectiveness of daily recombinant human deoxyribonuclease (rhDNase), with alternate day rhDNase and hypertonic saline (HS) for treating children with cystic fibrosis (CF).

Methods: A randomized controlled trial with a crossover design allocated 40 CF children consecutively to 12 weeks of daily rhDNase, alternate day rhDNase, or HS. The primary outcome measure was forced expiratory volume in 1 second (FEV1), a measure of lung function. All health resource use was prospectively documented for each patient and multiplied by unit costs to give a total health service cost for each 12-week treatment period. The nonparametric bootstrap method was used to present cost-effectiveness acceptability curves and net benefit statistics for each treatment comparison, for various hypothetical levels of the decision maker's ceiling ratio.

Results: Compared with HS, there was a 14% improvement in FEV1 for daily rhDNase (95% CI, 5% to 23%), and a 12% improvement (95% CI, 2% to 22%) for alternate day rhDNase. For a ceiling ratio of £200 per 1% gain in FEV1, the mean net benefits of daily and alternate day rhDNase compared with HS were £1,158 (95% CI, −£621 to 2,842) and £1,188 (95% CI, −847 to 3,343), respectively; the mean net benefit of daily compared with alternate day rhDNase was *minus;£30 (95% CI, −£2,091 to 1,576).

Conclusions: If decision makers are prepared to pay £200 for a 1% gain in FEV1 over a 12-week period, then on average either rhDNase strategy is cost-effective.