Five-county Area Research Articles

Rural Electric Demand Research

In cooperative research with rural power suppliers in Nebraska, 35 recording demand meters were installed. The demand study was started in December of 1980 and concluded in March of 1983. Data collection in Nebraska was concentrated in a five-county area in eastcentral Nebraska. Customers were sampled based on a stratified randomized design. Electrical demands were recorded for 5-min intervals. Coincidental peak demands for 60-min intervals were determined for selected peak power use days in 1981 and 1982. In addition, 15-min coincidental demands showing maximum average and minimum demands for each month for the two-year study are presented. Demands predicted by the Rural Electrification Administration demand tables were generally lower than the measured demands while demands predicted by linear regression analysis were higher than the measured demands. Measured coincidental peak demands per customer for the total of all stratified groups ranged from 5.7 to 8.6 kW.

Peer Counselors, Network Builders for Elderly Persons

With ever-increasing budget cuts reducing services available from professionally trained staff, the utilization of volunteer elderly peer counselors/helpers in the rehabilitation process can offer professionals an opportunity to maintain or enhance current levels of coverage. Peer counselors can provide a role model, assisting elderly blind clients in rebuilding a network of contacts linking them back into the community at large. Peer counseling is a component of the Senior Blind Program, Michigan Commission for the Blind. The program for the elderly serves a five-county area composed of rural and urban areas.

A School-Community Agency Project for Visually Handicapped Children

Describes a model project providing assessment and supportive services for “mainstreamed” visually handicapped children. The Albany Association of the Blind contributed professional staff to work in a five-county area for the purpose of educating parents and school staff concerning the needs of children. The goals, team concept, assessment, service, workshops, and evaluation of the project are covered.

The Slosson as a predictor of Wide Range Achievement Test performance

This study investigated the efficacy of predicting academic achievement as measured by the Wide Range Achievement Test, using the Slosson Intelligence Test For Children and Adults as the predictor. Ninety-five children referred for psychological evaluations in a five-county area in southeastern Nebraska were given both instruments, and a regression analysis was conducted where the Slosson IQ scores were separately regressed on Reading, Spelling and Arithmetic standard scores from the Wide Range Achievement Test. The results indicated that the Slosson IQ significantly predicts Wide Range standard scores. Derived regression equations are reported.

Hepatitis B outbreak traced to an oral surgeon.

Over a four-year period in a five-county area, 71 patients with clinical hepatitis B had dental work performed in the two to six months before their illness. Fifty-five cases were traced to a single oral surgeon. Seventy-nine per cent of these patients were positive for hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) and most had no other recognized source of hepatitis. An investigation of the implicated dentist uncovered no gross inadequacies in instrument sterilization or general dental procedures; however, the dentist was found to be an asymptomatic carrier of HBsAg of the same subtype (ay) as nine of 11 of his patients who had hepatitis and whose serums were available for testing. Since no HBSAg was found in the dentist's saliva, urine or feces, and since he admitted to having frequent cuts on his fingers, it is possible that a "hemoral" transmission of HBs Ag produced hepatitis in his patients.

Coverage of the Five-County Miami Valley Region

The feasibility of connecting 19 outlying municipalities in the Miami Valley five-county area into a metropolitan cable network is examined. It is concluded that the use of supertrunk would permit inclusion of Tipp City, Breokvllle, and Germantown, because they lie within a mile or two of the nearest metropolitan cable distri. Carlisle also is dose, but its low populatio density makes it itable for inclusion in the forseeable future. For towns farther from the metropolitan area, the two leading possibilities are convetinal FM microwave equipment, which we assume is used within the metropolitian area as described in System Designs for the Dayton Metropolitan Area, and the use of local dis on service (LD) microwave equipment now under development.

Counties' role grows in urban affairs

Analysis of new county functions and role of county commissioners from study and interviews conducted in the five-county Atlanta metropolitan area and the six-county Detroit area.

Mammals of North-Central Texas

North-central Texas includes five counties along the central part of the northern border of Texas. Of the 66 kinds of mammals recorded, 59 are native species and more than a third of these find their eastern or western limits of range in the area. Eastern woodland forms occupy the eastern part of the area, and Great Plains kinds the western. The Red River permits migration of both eastern and western species. Some westward immigration of eastern mammals has occurred in recent years. North-central Texas, as here defined, includes five counties that extend eastward from the eastern base of the Texas Panhandle along the Red River and make up approximately the central third of the northern border of the state. The counties, from west to east, are: Hardeman, Wilbarger, Wichita, Clay, and Montague. The area is 150 miles from west to east and averages about 30 miles from north to south. Elements of two distinct mammalian faunas meet in north-central Texas. The land west of Hardeman County is semiarid grassland and brushland and possesses a mammalian fauna typical of the Great Plains. From Montague County eastward the land is wooded and the mammals there are more typical of the woodlands of southeastern United States. From Hardeman County to Montague County the en- vironment is transitional and there is also a transition from a fauna typical of the Great Plains to a fauna of the southeastern woodlands. Many species of mammals range completely across north-central Texas. However, more than one third of the 59 full species of native mammals here listed find their eastern or western limit of range in the five-county area here considered. The woodland vole, for example, ex- tends no farther west than Montague County, and the northern grass- hopper mouse ranges no farther east than Wichita County. Neither of these species seems to have an ecological counterpart in the opposite fauna. The eastern woodrat and the southern plains woodrat meet in Clay and Montague counties. The ranges of these two species may overlap slightly but the animals are otherwise allopatric, and doubt- less they are ecological competitors.

The Changing Pattern of Southern California's Economy

tropolis of Los Angeles, apart from Los Angeles City, includes important satellite cities such as Long Beach, Santa Monica, Burbank, Glendale, Vernon, Downey, Torrance, Hawthorne, El Segundo, Inglewood, and many others in which important defense production has developed. Both the Los Angeles and San Diego industrial areas have felt the steadily increasing effects of the defense program which assumed new and larger proportions after May 1940. In 1940 Los Angeles County had a population of 2,785,643, Los Angeles City a population of 1,504,277, the Los Angeles metropolitan census district 2,904,596, and the five counties of Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, and Ventura, 3,252,720. This five-county area had increased 1200 per cent from 1900 to 1940, compared with a 365 per cent increase for California and 73.3 per cent for the Nation. Population density in 1940 was considerably larger than for all of California. Between the census in 1940 and January 1942, this five-county area had increased in population by an estimated 164,780 persons.2 The population of San Diego City in 1940 was 203,341, while that of the county was 289,473, the percentages of increase for the 1930-40 decade being 37 and 38 respectively. By January 1, 1942, the population of the county was estimated at 370,000. Thus the population of the six southern counties hav-