Jersey City Research Articles

Genetic analyses of the Asian longhorned beetle (Coleoptera, Cerambycidae, Anoplophora glabripennis), in North America, Europe and Asia

The Asian longhorned beetle, (Coleoptera, Cerambycidae, Anoplophora glabripennis (Motschulsky)), is endemic to China and Korea and an important invasive insect in North America and Europe. We analyzed mitochondrial DNA sequence data of invasive populations of A. glabripennis in North America and Europe, and microsatellite allele frequency data of beetles from North America. We show that populations in New York City and Long Island NY; New Jersey, Chicago, IL, and Toronto, Canada have limited genetic diversity compared to populations in China. In addition, the data suggest that separate introduction events were responsible for many of the populations in North America and for European populations in Austria, France, Germany and Italy. Populations on Long Island, NY are suspected to have been initiated by the transport of cut wood from New York City. A. glabripennis beetles found in Jersey City, NJ appear to be derived from an expansion of the New York City, NY population, whereas beetles found in Linden, NJ are an expansion from the Carteret, NJ population. Limited genetic diversity did not stop this invasive insect from establishing damaging populations in North America. Founders of introduced A. glabripennis populations in North America and Europe are likely derived from populations in China that are themselves invasive, rendering difficult the identification of source populations. Invasiveness in an insect’s natural range could be an important predictor of potential pest status of introduced populations.

The Need for a "Mental Health Home"

Back to table of contents Previous article Next article LetterFull AccessLetterJames McCreath Ph.D.James McCreath Ph.D.Search for more papers by this authorPublished Online:1 Jul 2009https://doi.org/10.1176/ps.2009.60.7.993AboutSectionsView articleView PDFView EPUB ToolsAdd to favoritesDownload CitationsTrack Citations ShareShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InEmail View articleThe Need for a "Mental Health Home"To the Editor: In the April issue Drs. Smith and Sederer ( 1 ) do a terrific job presenting a rationale for the "mental health home." There is no doubt that our fragmented behavioral health system is inadequate for individuals most at risk. There is no reason to think that the public's demand that general hospitals substantially improve both process and outcomes shouldn't apply to the behavioral health industry. The coordination and delivery of behavioral health services must improve, and the mental health home concept warrants a close look. At the heart of the model the authors see "generalists working with the entire individual and coordinating care among a range of behavioral and rehabilitation service providers." I couldn't agree more, although an empathic relationship is a must, and no one framed this better than Deitchman ( 2 ), who felt that the "chronic client in the community needs a 'traveling companion not a travel agent,'" or Lamb ( 3 ), who advocated for "therapist-case managers." Coordination without an empathic worker-consumer relationship is bound to fall short of expectations for improved service delivery. Coordination will also fall short if the mental health home team's added value is limited to advocacy. Advocacy is helpful but not adequate to overcome the system's numerous structural weaknesses. Achieving continuity of care for individuals most at risk would require the team to have resources and authority to acquire services.In 2007 Jersey City Medical Center's Behavioral Health Center established a "clinical home" pilot for adults with co-occurring disorders and histories of high recidivism and treatment nonadherence (I was vice president for behavioral health at the time). Every behavioral health program—partial hospital, outpatient department, emergency department, residential facility, and intensive case management—can function as a clinical home. The clinical home duties are above and beyond that program's routine services and are considered "enhanced." The pilot assigns "navigators" to consumers with high use of emergency or inpatient services who will not accept community-based services or are ineligible for intensive case management or assertive community treatment. The evidence to date is that the clinical home reduced recidivism and enhanced treatment adherence for consumers whom the system had given up on.The model is unique in that the clinical home clinician (or team) follows the consumer through all services. If the partial hospital accepts responsibility for a consumer and that consumer needs hospitalization, the partial hospital worker follows the consumer through the inpatient stay. If the emergency department is the clinical home and the consumer wants partial hospitalization, the emergency department worker escorts the consumer to the program until linkage is established. Consumer choice must supersede program and system concerns.One reason that the pilot works is that all the services are under one agency. No doubt this model would create potentially insurmountable turf issues in multiagency systems, but there can be no minimizing the value of a mental health home, where one team has the resources and authority to acquire services valued by the consumer. Certainly the mental health home warrants significant demonstration project funding.Dr. McCreath is president and chief executive officer of Hall-Brook Behavioral Health, Westport, Connecticut.

Cardiovascular Disease Urban Intervention: Baseline Activities and Findings

Regular exercise, good dietary habits, knowledge of the disease and its warning signs as well as ability to perform CPR (cardiopulmonary resuscitation) are all important to prevent and combat Cardiovascular Disease (CVD) and Stroke. In 2005-2006, an AHA sponsored "Search Your Heart" cardiovascular disease intervention was conducted in 388 urban African-American/black and Latino/Hispanic faith based institutions, all churches of various denominations, to improve members' knowledge and preparedness about CVD and stroke. The intervention involved (a) distribution of a customized multi-component CVD and stroke related educational and skill development package to 388 "ambassadors" for all participating churches, (b) AHA staff coordinated educational sessions for the ambassadors and (c) 211 Ambassadors coordinating the conduct of at least one CVD educational activities in their churches. In May 2006, a written survey was distributed to 211 ambassadors affiliated with the Heritage affiliate of AHA, which covers New Jersey, Connecticut, Long Island and New York City, to: (a) assess the intervention's effect, and (b) plan and implement a targeted forward intervention approach based on findings. Survey questions addressed regular exercise, healthy eating, disease knowledge, and warning signs and ability to perform CPR.

Bottom‐Up Efforts to Improve New York City's Schooling: The New Localism as Neighborhood‐based Education Organizing

Yearbook of the National Society for the Study of EducationVolume 108, Issue 1 p. 86-111 Bottom-Up Efforts to Improve New York City's Schooling: The New Localism as Neighborhood-based Education Organizing Norm Fruchter, Norm Fruchter Annenberg Institute for School Reform (AISR) at Brown UniversitySearch for more papers by this author Norm Fruchter, Norm Fruchter Annenberg Institute for School Reform (AISR) at Brown UniversitySearch for more papers by this author First published: 04 November 2009 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1744-7984.2009.01153.x Norm Fruchter is the Senior Program Advisor at the Annenberg Institute for School Reform (AISR) at Brown University. He founded the Institute for Education and Social Policy at New York University and directed it for more than a decade. Fruchter has directed an alternative high school for dropouts in Newark, and an alternative bachelor's degree program for community activists and public sector workers in Jersey City. He served ten years on his local Brooklyn school board. He is the co-author of Choosing Equality: The Case for Democratic Schooling and Hard Lessons: Public Schools and Privatization. His latest book, Urban Schools, Public Will was published by Teachers College Press in 2007. Read the full textAboutPDF ToolsExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditWechat Volume108, Issue1April 2009Pages 86-111 RelatedInformation

Sacred Landscapes: Material Evidence of Ideological and Ethnic Choice in Long Island, New York, Gravestones, 1680–1800

Long Island grave markers from the 17th and 18th centuries are examined and analyzed. Due to its strategic location, between the English culture sphere of New England and the “Dutch” culture sphere of New Amsterdam/New York, Long Island is an excellent laboratory for studying cultural recombination in various forms of material culture. Long Island has no quarryable stone, so all colonial gravestones, except fieldstone markers, were imported from New England, New Jersey, or New York City. This study found a different pattern of motifs for Long Island compared to New England, but memorialization by status was more like that of New England than Virginia. Ideological, social, and ethnic boundaries are demonstrated. Location or proximity to a culture sphere also played a role in choice of grave marker, as did customary trade networks. More than 4,300 stones were photographed and statistically analyzed; the data are of use to scholars in many fields.

Failure of Aedes albopictus to Overwinter Following Introduction and Seasonal Establishment at a Tire Recycling Plant in the Northeastern USA

In July 2006, an introduction of the Asian tiger mosquito, Aedes albopictus, was documented for the first time at a commercial tire recycling plant in northeastern Connecticut, USA. The introduction likely occurred via transport of infested tires originating from northern New Jersey or metropolitan New York City. Efforts were made to determine seasonal establishment and overwintering success by assessing adult biting and oviposition activity in the surrounding woodlands. The first adult female was collected in a CO2-baited Mosquito Magnet Liberty trap within the confines of the tire plant during the week of July 28. Additional females were collected intermittently thereafter through October 16. Host-seeking female Ae. albopictus attempting to alight on human subjects and larvae hatching from eggs collected in ovitraps placed in the woodlands surrounding the tire plant were detected weekly from August 21 through October 2, denoting seasonal establishment in the adjoining woodlands. However, no larvae of Ae. albopictus were recovered from eggs collected in ovitraps that were placed in the surrounding woodlands or in traps placed 1.0-1.6 km away, nor were any host-seeking females detected by human subjects the following season (July to October 2007), indicating that the species did not survive winter conditions to enable successful colonization. The failure of Ae. albopictus to overwinter and establish itself in the forested woodlands following several weeks of seasonal breeding and oviposition during the summer and early fall were most likely due to winter egg mortality, interspecific competition from Aedes triseriatus and Aedes japonicus, and/or other ecological barriers. Permanent establishment of Ae. albopictus in New England is unlikely despite the recurring importation of infested used tires into recycling facilities. However, continued monitoring of such facilities for potential reinvasion is warranted especially in urban/suburban environs where global warming and milder winter temperatures may provide more suitable conditions in the future for colonization.

Mark Twain’s Jews (review)

Twain's Jews, by Dan Vogel. Jersey City: KTAV Publishing, 2006. 146 pp. $22.95. Dan Vogel's Twain's is predicated on a simple question, one I had posed in 1996: Was Twain an antisemite? Certainly, like many antisemites, Twain was fascinated by Jews, and Vogel notes Twain mentions infinitely more frequently than negroes, the dominated attention in his time (p. 2). And while Vogel's book artfully explores Twain's two obsessions, and making money, he ultimately offers the conclusion while Twain could not escape the limitations of his time, he was not antisemitic. Moreover, Vogel suggests Twain admired American Jewry, especially for their intellectual savvy (and, of course, their business acumen). But it is an argument is not fully convincing. The problem, perhaps, is Vogel's use of the term antisemite. It is only in his last chapter he defines the word, using David Gerber's pyramid of degrees of anti-Jewish sentiment. Vogel concedes if there is a hint of prejudice emerges from Twain's oeuvre, it is Innocent anti-Semitic (p. 117), not meant to harm, but to jostle. Furthermore, Vogel argues Twain's humor, his style of earnest delivery, was often misconstrued, which is not an unreasonable assertion. What is problematic, however, is Vogel often dismisses antisemitism as Hannibal Syndrome, arguing because Twain's exposure to Jewish culture was inevitably colored by his upbringing in rural Hannibal, Missouri, the anti-Jewish sentiment often emerges from his writing is inadvertent. Vogel provides proof against Twain's antisemitism by illustrating Twain's myriad associations with notable Jews, including Theodore Herzl and Sigmund Freud, and by Twain's honorific descriptions of in his writing. However, Vogel is on the defensive, and he directs his assault against two sources: my article, A Number-One Troublemaker': Twain's AntiSemitic Discourse in 'Concerning the Jews,' (Studies in American Jewish Literature 15 [1996]) and Sander Gilman's Mark Twain and the Diseases of the Jews (American Literature 65 [March 1993]). Vogel vehemently argues against both pieces, accusing me of being seduced into making a dangerous insinuation in the 'come-on' introduction phrase of the title. It implies, he writes, that the phrase was written by Twain and expresses his belief the are the'number-one'cause of'trouble in the world.' He concedes I admit Twain was not a virulent anti-Semite, but does not repair the implication she engendered by ripping the opening phrase of the title from a story by Bernard Malamud. How else, Vogel asks, might one label discourse slurs (p. 115). Indeed, how else to define Twain's stereotypical rendering of Jews? The purpose of my article was not to disparage Twain, but instead to illustrate how Twain was a product of his cultural roots. Even Vogel concedes the early Samuel Clemens wrote an article for a Cincinnati newspaper the blasted Jewsadultered the fuel by mixing coal dust and ground pepper (quoted in Vogel, p. 5). While Vogel stubbornly recognizes Hannibal Syndrome, he also cites Shelley Fishkin in her article on Racial Attitudes in the Twain Encyclopedia, noting Twain was never able to fully transcend completely the limits of his time, his place, and his race (Fishkin, quoted in Vogel, p. …

“We Never Locked Our Doors at Night”: Newark on the 'Net, Minus the Mob

In an episode of recently concluded HBO series, Sopranos, New Jersey mob boss decides to show his teenage son Newark neighborhood. We're talking history A.J. Your family's Newark's history. His son, though, remains unimpressed. Well who gives a shit about Newark? I'm making a point, Tony counters. This used to be beautiful. A hundred percent Italian. He then laments state of disrepair along Garside Street, commenting on filthiness and crime he sees all around him. I mean, look at, look at all these buildings here. Most of them are falling down to ground. He then points to his family's parish church, a symbol for him of vanished Little Italy that has been replaced by boarded-up crack dens. But that church is still standing. You know why? Tony asks his son. The bricks? A. J. guesses. Because our people give a shit, that's why. Every Sunday, Italians from they drive miles to come here to pray. To keep this place alive. To which A. J. asks, Yeah, so how come we never do? (The Sopranos). irony of this violent mob boss lamenting intrusion of crime and danger into his formerly safe which all Italian here, need hardly be remarked. Periodically throughout series, flashbacks show us that in 1950s, when streets were clean and safe, Tony's father and Uncle Junior were not above using baseball bats and meat cleavers to convince shopkeepers delinquent with loan payments of errors of their ways. And some of what was built by Italians (and, as we shall see, Jews) in working-class Newark was not exactly sanctioned by Chamber of Commerce. Clearly, Tony is building for himself a selective and usable past out of memories that like bricks lie all around him on Garside Street. Yet there is another irony to Tony's trek. Why don't we come here? A. J. asks, and it is evident that for all of Tony's loving evocations of old neighborhood, where his people built something, Garside Street and poverty of life in its coldwater flats are things he and his people did everything they could to flee as soon as they could. Yet even if, like Tony, most white ex-Newarkers avoid city in favor of leafy green suburbs of McMansions to which many of them have escaped, thousands of former city residents do return to city of their youth- virtually. New technologies, particularly Internet, have enabled exiles from urban America to creatively recoup the neighborhood from comfort of their cul de sacs, without having to traverse city streetscapes they imagine as demonstrably more dangerous and lethal than they were in their youth. One such imaginative recreation is http://www.oldnewark.com, a cornucopia of oral histories, photos, and historical vignettes of Newark's theaters, ethnic shops and neighborhoods, fire companies, restaurants, parks and much else that gave texture to New Jersey's largest city from roughly 1910-67. Newark is not alone as phenomenon of virtual city has become a common one. In Europe especially, virtual cities have arisen as new combination virtual city hall and chamber of commerce, where one can an array of shopping, entertainment and city services, all without ever having to step over a homeless person or negotiate gridlocked streets. point of such virtual cities, Aurigi and Graham argue, is to present urbanism's thrills and cultural amenities without poverty and contestation that may disconcert or threaten upscale computer users in time. Of course, they note problems of poverty and unequal access to resources or political influence persist offscreen (Aurigi and Graham).1 Other cities' Web sites offer a mix of historical vignettes and information on current amenities in real cities they virtually replicate. In virtual analog of Jersey City, information on current offerings at Liberty State Park coexists with Frank I am Law Hague, who has not held sway at City Hall since 1947 (Olszewski). …

An Unmatched Distinction

Disinfection holds an unmatched distinction among water treatment technologies: it has saved countless lives over the past 100 years since chlorine was first applied to water drawn from the Boonton Reservoir in Jersey City, N.J. This momentous application of “chloride of lime” transformed water treatment across the globe. Chlorine has remained the disinfectant of choice, as reported by 68% of the utilities that responded to AWWA's Disinfection Systems Committee survey of disinfection practices. A number of utilities reported having switched to other disinfectants: chloramine ‐ 30%, ozone ‐ 9%, chlorine dioxide ‐ 8%, ultraviolet light ‐ 2%. Part 1 of the committee's two‐part report covers recent changes, current practices, and water quality. Part 2 will be published in the November issue.

Cause for Celebration

In his column, AWWA Executive Director Gary Zimmerman celebrates the 100th anniversary of the first large‐scale use of chlorination as a disinfection technology at the Boonton Reservoir of the Jersey City Water Works in 1908. He mentions other topics presented in this month's Journal, including disinfection practices, the results of AWWA's Disinfection Systems Committee survey, and the 2008 State of the Industry Report.

Churches and the Holocaust: Unholy Teaching, Good Samaritans and Reconciliation (review)

Churches and the Holocaust: Unholy Teaching, Good Samaritans and Reconciliation, by Mordecai Paldiel. Jersey City, NJ: KTAV, 2006. 443 pp. $39.50. Mordecai Paldiel is arguably the foremost authority on the history of Righteous Persons during the Shoah. This volume brings that vast store of information along with the archival material at Yad VaShem into a coherent narrative about Christian clergy who undertook rescue efforts. This is certainly the definitive summary of what is known today about the clergy rescuers of Jews during the Holocaust. It is required reading for any would-be or present scholar of the Holocaust and a necessary addition to any library on the Holocaust whether personal or institutional. After a brief overview of Paldiel's perspectives on Christian-Jewish relations during the many centuries prior to the Shoah, he lays out all existing information about the rescue efforts of clergy in specific countries and regions (e.g., the Balkans) throughout Europe. Paldiel then concludes the volume with two chapters in which he offers some overarching reflections on the roots of rescue and takes up post-Holocaust issues such as the anti-Judaic heritage of Christianity in the post-Shoah world and the significance of statements by the Catholic and Protestant churches on the relationship with Jews over the past forty years. An extensive set of notes, a comprehensive bibliography and an alphabetical list of clergy rescuers identified by their respective Christian denomination (Catholic/Protestant/Orthodox) round off the book. There is little question this masterful work bringing together years of research by Paldiel and his colleagues at Yad VaShem will remain a standard reference work in Holocaust studies for years to come. At the outset of the volume Paldiel sets forth its basic purpose: to understand how certain clergy were able to overcome what seems to him an endemic feature of the Christian philosophy of history, i.e., an inherent drive which, when pushed to an extreme, leads to the justification, if not to the incitement, of Jewish extermination. So this work is more than merely a chonicle of what clergy did to save Jews and where they did it, although often it reads that way. It does offer some interpretation of classical Christian attitudes towards Jews and Judaism as well as reflections on what actually motivated rescue efforts. Having endorsed the book as an extremely useful resource for detailed factual infotmation about clergy rescuers in virtually every part of Europe, I must note some limitations and even some small scholarly flaws. As to the latter, though minor, they indicate a measure of scholarly laxity. The noted popular writer on Christian antisemitism and the Holocaust James Carroll is named on several occasions as John Carroll. And the distinguished scholar on Polish-Jewish relations Antony Polansky is identified as a Polish publicist. It is unclear whether this is intended as a putdown of Polansky's comprehensive work over the years on Polish-Jewish relations or simply an error. …

"Important, Responsible Work": Willa Cather's Office Stories and her Necessary Editorial Career

"IMPORTANT, RESPONSIBLE WORK": WILLA CATHER'S OFFICE STORIES AND HER NECESSARY EDITORIAL CAREER Ellen Gruber Garvey New Jersey City University In December 1908 Sarah Orne Jewett wrote a much-quoted letter to Willa Cather, inwhich she urged the youngerwomanto leave her"incessant , important, responsible work" as an editor at McClure'smagazine to devote herself to her own writing.1 Cather scholars and fans like this letter, since leaving McClure sfreed Cather to concentrate on her fiction. But Cather's career in a powerful position in the premier mass medium of her age was transformative. The office was still a new space for women and "going to business" was still a new activity for them. Magazine publishing had considerable attractions for educated women ofCather's period . Cather's work supplied herwith income and contacts, and it shaped herwriting. Much scholarship on Cather looks at her editorial work as at best a necessary preamble to various aspects ofher life. Editing got Cather out ofNebraska to work on the HomeMonthlyin Pittsburgh, and thereby introduced her to Isabella McClung, and through her, to contacts and a sense of herself as a serious writer; editing got Cather to New York to work on McClure's, and so introduced her to the New York literary scene and Edith Lewis; editing sent Cather to Boston on a project to conduct research on Mary Baker Eddy for McClure'sand thereby introduced herto Sarah Orne Jewett andAnnie Fields; editing eventuallygave Cather enough distance from Nebraska to write about it. Finally, however , most scholars see Cather's editorial work on McClure's as a distraction and a misdirection ofenergies. Undergirdingthat critical consensus are Cather's own anguished complaints , in correspondence with other writers, about how draining editorial work was for her. She responded in this vein, for example, to a 1908 letterfrom Jewetturgingthat she leave editorialworkbehind. We might note, however, that Jewett's December letter follows two in which Jewett laments her own preoccupation and lackofstrength orconcentration for writing. Jewett and Cather did not meet until afterJewett's carriage accident made manyactivities exhaustingforher, essentially stoppingJewett's writing. Her letter to Cather stems in part from her own sense ofbeing daunted by the effort ofwriting. Jewett's shifting pronouns reveal that she identifies with Cather; her wishes for Cather are tied to her wishes for 178Ellen Gruber Garvey herself. She writes, "I do think that it is impossible for you to work so hard and yet have your gifts mature as they should—when one's first working powerhas spent itselfnothing everbrings it backjust the same, and I do wish in my heart that the force ofthis veryyear could have gone into three or four stories."2 Jewett goes on to endorse a Romantic notion ofgenius recollecting in tranquility, writing in seclusion, and finding a stillness from which to write. "To work in silence and with all one's heart, that is the writer's lot; he is the only artist who must be a solitary, and yet needs the widest outlookupon the world." It is a seductive image ofwhat the writer needs, endorsed by critics who have traced the route ofCather's settling in to the room ofher own on a high floor at Isabelle McClung's family home, sitting in seclusion looking out at the world, or to the tent of her own in Jaffrey, New Hampshire, where she summered. But it is not the whole truth. Cather responds to the portion of Jewett's letter that envisions the office as a lair of dangers and distractions, keeping her from her true calling. Her reply plays to that vision with dramatic panache, in a torrent of metaphors. She compares the energy she puts out during the day at McClure'sto that ofa trapeze performer, worried about an imminent fall; she reports that the work dilutes and weakens her and that reading manuscripts is like sitting in a tepid bath and leaves her irritatedwith eitherheat or cold. She is "dispossessed and bereft" of herself; her mind becomes a card catalog ofnotes with only the most limited application. The work of editingthe magazine itselfis like mentalarithmetic, the interestingpeople she meets are seen from a distance, as from a train; the excitement...

Soil metal concentrations and productivity of Betula populifolia (gray birch) as measured by field spectrometry and incremental annual growth in an abandoned urban Brownfield in New Jersey

A forested brownfield within Liberty State Park, Jersey City, New Jersey, USA, has soils with arsenic, chromium, lead, zinc and vanadium at concentrations above those considered ambient for the area. Using both satellite imagery and field spectral measurements, this study examines plant productivity at the assemblage and individual specimen level. Longer term growth trends (basal area increase in tree cores) were also studied. Leaf chlorophyll content within the hardwood assemblage showed a threshold model for metal tolerance, decreasing significantly beyond a soil total metal load (TML) of 3.0. Biomass production (calculated with RG-Red/Green Ratio Index) in Betula populifolia (gray birch), the co-dominant tree species, had an inverse relationship with the Zn concentration in leaf tissue during the growing season. Growth of B. populifolia exhibited a significant relationship with TML. Assemblage level NDVI and individual tree NDVI also had significant decreases with increasing TML. Ecosystem function measured as plant production is impaired at a critical soil metal load.

Michael A. Shmidman, ed., Turim: Studies in Jewish History and Literature Presented to Dr. Bernard Lander, 1. New York: Touro College Press, 2007. Pp. xiv, 359 plus 1 color figure and pages in Hebrew. $30. Distributed by KTAV Publishing House, Inc., 930 Newark Ave., Jersey City, NJ 07306.

Michael A. Shmidman, ed., Turim: Studies in Jewish History and Literature Presented to Dr. Bernard Lander, 1. New York: Touro College Press, 2007. Pp. xiv, 359 plus 1 color figure and pages in Hebrew. $30. Distributed by KTAV Publishing House, Inc., 930 Newark Ave., Jersey City, NJ 07306.

Soil metal concentrations and vegetative assemblage structure in an urban brownfield

Anthropogenic sources of toxic elements have had serious ecological and human health impacts. Analysis of the soil samples from a brownfield within Liberty State Park, Jersey City, NJ, USA, showed that arsenic, chromium, lead, zinc and vanadium exist at concentrations above those considered ambient for the area. Accumulation and translocation features were characterized for the dominant plant species of four vegetative assemblages. The trees Betula populifolia and Populus deltoides were found to be accumulating Zn in leaf tissue at extremely high levels. B. populifolia, P. deltoides and Rhus copallinum accumulated Cr primarily in the root tissue. A comparison of soil metal maps and vegetative assemblage maps indicates that areas of increasing total soil metal load were dominated by successional northern hardwoods while semi-emergent marshes consisting mostly of endemic species were restricted primarily to areas of low soil metal load.

2nd International Conference on HIV Treatment Adherence

The 2nd International Conference on HIV Treatment Adherence was held from March 28–30, 2007, in Jersey City, NJ, USA. This was the second year the conference was jointly sponsored by the International Association of Physicians in AIDS Care and the National Institute of Mental Health. A similar HIV adherence conference entitled ‘Elements of Success’ had been held previously. The meeting was organized for physicians, nurses, pharmacists, psychologists, social workers, researchers and other healthcare professionals interested in current HIV adherence research. The conference format included plenary sessions, workshops, oral abstract sessions, invited symposia and a poster display, allowing ample time for networking and meeting with colleagues from around the world. Attendees of the conference also had the opportunity to attend round table discussion groups organized by regions of interest, including Sub-Saharan Africa and the southeast USA; areas of interest including HIV stigma, disclosure issues and building international collaborations; and disciplinary groups for social workers, mental health professionals, nurses and pharmacists.

Taking the Long View: From Evidence to Policy

The Fourth Annual Conference of State Nursing Workforce Centers took place on April 27-28, 2006, in Jersey City, New Jersey. This is a summation of participant's activities at the workforce centers conference, including information regarding the North Carolina Center for Nursing, Legislative Leadership Immersion Institute, George Mason University, Colleagues in Caring, and the New Jersey Collaborative Center for Nursing. Key topics discussed included critical analysis of the national workforce issues such as shortage (supply and demand), work regarding nursing satisfaction, turnover, and workforce issues' impact on patient outcomes. In addition, nursing practice and work design were discussed, along with national and local policy issues, including successful strategies for nurse policy advocacy and communication of nursing needs and potential problem solutions to multiple stakeholders. This article summarizes the highlights of this important conference.

Valley National Bancorp

AbstractCommercial Banking (MIC: 8.1 SIC: 6021 NAIC: 522110)Valley National Bancorp is a bank holding company. Co.'s principal subsidiary is a national banking association, Valley National Bank (VNB), which provides a full range of commercial and retail banking services through 169 branch offices located in New Jersey and New York City. These services include the acceptance of demand, savings and time deposits; extension of consumer, real estate, small business administration (SBA) loans and other commercial credits; equipment leasing; and personal and corporate trust, as well as pension and fiduciary services. As of Dec 31 2006, Co. has with about $12.40 billion in total assets and $8.50 billion in deposits.

Valley National Bancorp

AbstractCommercial Banking (MIC: 8.1 SIC: 6021 NAIC: 522110)Valley National Bancorp is a bank holding company. Co.'s principal subsidiary is a national banking association, Valley National Bank (VNB), which provides a full range of commercial and retail banking services through 169 branch offices located in New Jersey and New York City. These services include the acceptance of demand, savings and time deposits; extension of consumer, real estate, small business administration (SBA) loans and other commercial credits; equipment leasing; and personal and corporate trust, as well as pension and fiduciary services. As of Dec 31 2006, Co. has with about $12.40 billion in total assets and $8.50 billion in deposits.

Churches and the Holocaust: Unholy Teaching, Good Samaritans, and Reconciliation. By Mordecai Paldiel. Jersey City, N.J.: KTAV Publishing House Inc, 2006. 443 pp. $39.50

Churches and the Holocaust: Unholy Teaching, Good Samaritans, and Reconciliation. By Mordecai Paldiel. Jersey City, N.J.: KTAV Publishing House Inc, 2006. 443 pp. $39.50