Tuberculosis (TB) is a deadly, yet curable, infectious disease that continues to be a global health threat. Armenia suffers from rising TB incidence and mortality rates. Armenians living in Los Angeles (LA) County, where TB incidence is higher than national averages, is the second largest Armenian community in the world; therefore implications are that many TB cases are attributed to this group. Using the social ecological model as a theoretical framework, this concurrent, mixed-methods study compared Armenians to non-Armenians in LA County about their knowledge of TB and perceived barriers to seeking and adhering to treatment. Bivariate chi-square analysis from online surveys of 55 Armenians and 72 non-Armenians revealed significant differences in their source of TB knowledge and compliance upon diagnosis. Multinomial logistic regression analysis was completed using the following significant predictor factors: classification, home remedy use, age, education, and primary household language. Parallel, in-depth interviews of 10 Armenians and 8 non-Armenians further corroborated that, although both populations were aware that TB exists, knowledge relating to TB mode of transmission, global incidence, and treatment options was generally lacking. However, the Armenian population was more eager to help others and urge seeking treatment when receiving a positive diagnosis, whereas non-Armenians expressed lack of willingness to physically assist patients. These findings have implications for positive social change, as they can inform the efforts of public health and health care entities in more effective disease management, resource allocation, and patient care. Such efforts should help decrease TB prevalence in the U. S. Armenian population and potentially Armenia.

In Los Angeles County, California, approximately 2,245 victims of child sex trafficking were identified between 1997 and 2012. Several authors believed that poverty was linked to child sex trafficking because it increased the vulnerability of victims. The purpose of this nonexperimental, correlational study was to explore the question of how poverty was related to child sex trafficking in Los Angeles County, California. Intersectionality from the third wave of feminist theory was used as the theoretical underpinning of this study. Using data from the United States Census Bureau and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, information was collected on 97 counties in the southwestern portion of the United States that had a minimum population of 100,000 people and at least 1 arrest of a minor for prostitution between the years of 1997 and 2012. Analysis of the nonnormal data through a Friedman test indicated that differences in the medians existed in the levels of the child sex trafficking variable, but follow up tests did not reveal the sources of the differences. Kendall's W test results indicated a lack of concordance, and Spearman's correlation did not indicate that a monotonic relationship existed between the variables when tested by year, except for 1998. These results failed to provide the evidence needed to reject the null hypothesis. The relationship between poverty and child sex trafficking at the county level could not be measured by income and through a portion of the victim population. Differing measurements of poverty, varying levels of analysis, and diverse applications of intersectionality may yield different results. Ultimately, this study was a first step, rather than a final step, in creating positive social change through increased knowledge and more effective policies against sex trafficking.

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This dissertation challenges how Hollywood is typically imagined as monolithic, homogenous and homogenising, and separated from other cinemas by fixed and impermeable borders. This influential cinematic paradigm posits a centre-periphery model underpinned by binary oppositions in which most cinemas are negatively defined as Hollywood’s ‘other’ and perceived as fixed in permanent states of opposition and assimilation. It is a perception reinforced by the influential critical paradigm which focuses on the films’ formal stylistic and narrative properties. This conceptualisation ignores, or fails to observe, the larger picture, in which global, national and local cinemas relate to each other in complex and volatile ways. My argument is that a paradigm shift is required in which the main question asked is not ‘What is Hollywood?’ but ‘Where is Hollywood?’ Location is a crux of my argument because it offers a way of questioning the widespread conception of Hollywood as bounded and fixed in a stable cultural landscape. I apply Arjun Appadurai’s framework of disjunctive global cultural flows to the analysis of cinema to show the existence of a more dynamic and chaotic screenscape than is popularly imagined. I also develop a new model of textual analysis involving traces and tracings. This troubles the notion of impermeable borders by finding the traces of global cultural flows within the film frame and tracing their trajectories outside the frame to and from their points of origin and destination. From the creative tensions caused by these asymmetrical and, multidirectional flows a previously unobserved screenscape emerges in which it is possible to see globalising processes as hybridising processes. Within this interpretive framework Hollywood is decentred and can no longer be perceived as fixed and bounded, or as the paradigm by which most cinemas define themselves and are judged. It reveals that heterogeneity and flux rather than homogeneity and fixity characterise intercinematic relations. It shows the existence of porous borders permitting transnational flows. In linking a film’s formal stylistic properties to the disjunctions in the global flows, the new model I develop for textual analysis offers a way of re-imagining Hollywood within the transnational imaginary. / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

The purpose of this study was to determine the effects of a six-week career planning dropout prevention program on the self-concepts and academic achievement of at-risk middle school students in an inner-city public school environment. The research population consisted of 1,434 students (grades seven, eight and nine) attending an inner city public junior high school in south-central Los Angeles, California. The selection of the research site and sample was based on the assumption that the student population met the criteria and demographic profile of at-risk students: Students are from low-income and/or single parent families; have low achievement scores in reading and mathematics; exhibit a high incidence of truancy, absenteeism and teenage pregnancy; have low career aspirations and plans; and exhibit other related characteristics of at-risk students. The study was conducted from September, 1993 to January, 1994 (fall semester, 1993). All students were selected by random procedure from grades seven, eight and nine. The experimental group consisted of 195 students enrolled in a woodworking class. The control group consisted of 1,239 students who were not enrolled in a woodworking class but were enrolled in other elective classes. The experimental treatment consisted of a six week career planning dropout prevention program. The career planning dropout prevention program was infused into the 20-week woodworking class during the 6th through 12th week, and consisted of seven interrelated topics and lesson plans. The objectives of the study were to research and explore career interests and options, and to construct personal career planning portfolios for students in the experimental group. It was concluded that: a) There were no significant differences between pre and post measures of self-concept in the experimental group, b) There was no significant difference in the pre and post academic achievement scores between the control and experimental groups, c) There was a substantial increase int he academic achievement scores of the experimental group, but this increase did not equal or exceed the alpha value. / Graduation date: 1997

The northern Los Angeles basin is influenced by two structural styles: the west-trending compressional Transverse Ranges to the north, and the strike-slip Peninsular Ranges to the south. The interaction of these two structural styles has resulted in a complex fold/fault belt at the northern margin of the Los Angeles basin, which deforms a variable sequence of late Miocene through Quaternary marine strata. Subsurface mapping of Quaternary marine gravels by electric-log correlation documents the latest phase of deformation in the northern Los Angeles basin. The Quaternary marine gravels are folded at the Wilshire arch, the Hollywood basin, the central trough, the Newport-Inglewood fault, and the Santa Monica fault. The west-plunging Wilshire arch, which follows Wilshire Boulevard east of the Newport- Inglewood fault, is a broad fold identified and named in this study. Deformation of the Wilshire arch, which is underlain and caused by the potentially-seismogenic Wilshire fault, began around 0.8 - 1.0 Ma. A fault-bend fold model, based on the shape of the Wilshire arch, indicates a dip-slip rate of 1.5 - 1.9 mm/yr for the Wilshire fault, whereas a three-dimensional elastic dislocation model indicates a right-reverse slip rate of 2.6 - 3.2 mm/year for the Wilshire fault. The finer-grained marine Pliocene strata include the late Pliocene to early Pleistocene Pico member, and the early Pliocene Repetto member, of the Fernando Formation. Thickness and lithology variations in the Pico and Repetto strata, which were influenced by syndepositional structures, indicate that the entire Pliocene and the latest Miocene were characterized by compression. The primary structure present throughout the Pliocene is a south-dipping monocline, which was underlain and caused by a deep reverse fault, dipping ~55 - 60° to the north, referred to here as the Monocline fault. Relative subsidence of the central trough resulted in deposition of up to 7000 ft (2135 m) of Pico strata, and up to 5000 ft (1525 m) of Repetto strata, compared to zero deposition on the monoclinal high. In the western part of the study area, the south-dipping monocline is interrupted by the secondary East Beverly Hills fold, which may be a rabbit-ear fold that accommodates excess volume by bedding-parallel slip. The East Beverly Hills fold was active in the latest Miocene through Pliocene, and was most active during early Pliocene Repetto deposition. In the eastern part of the study area, the monocline is interrupted by the Las Cienegas fold, which formed in the hangingwall of the Las Cienegas fault. The Las Cienegas fault was a normal fault in the late Miocene, and was reactivated in the Pliocene as a steep reverse fault. Folding and uplift on the Las Cienegas anticline occurred throughout the Pliocene, with the greatest amount occurring during lower and lower-middle Pico deposition. / Graduation date: 1994

The following pages recount the struggle and criticism that went into bringing the first imported water to Los Angeles, the reasons the water was necessary, the legal bases on which water was acquired, and the end results on the distant Owens River Valley.

During the 1920s, Los Angeles Boosters, fearing the congestion of East coast cities,developed ideas about urban growth that emphasized industrial decentralization and urban dispersal. Before, during, and after WWII, these fears intertwined with the rise of defense related industries, particularly aviation and steel. As the city continued to grow, becoming a regional metropolis, these defense related industries, long present in Los Angeles, were brought into peripheral hubs by local boosters looking to develop places like Palmdale and Fontana. These cities grew and became, as important manufacturing and defense centers, part of the larger regional economy. These forces and boosters were key in developing Los Angeles' urban character - from its sprawl to its reliance on the military industrial complex. As American manufacturing waned and the Cold War ended, significant downsizing in these industries (Steel in Fontana and aerospace in Palmdale) led to economic and urban transformations in these peripheral hubs. No longer booming manufacturing hubs, they became distant suburbs looking for new economic lifeblood on the edges of Los Angeles's urban and industrial sprawl.

Los Angeles has had the worst traffic for the longest time out of any American city with many of its residents commuting for over an hour to and from work. The solution to this problem has existed for over 50 years but political forces have stopped its implementation. With the funding problems California—and the nation—faces, it is hard to convince politicians to build new roads, especially when they won’t see results for almost 20 years, long after they have left office. This funding gap is where the private sector can play a role. Using “congestion pricing,” a concept introduced in 1952 by Nobel Prize-winning economist William Vickrey, a private company can recoup its costs from road construction and turn a profit; a procedure that encourages further road construction by moving transportation decisions from bureaucrats to entrepreneurs. As we shall see, these two groups have vastly different incentives that lead to very different policies.

There are currently two proposals for an NFL stadium in the Los Angeles area. This thesis explains these proposals as a case study of an imbalanced political market in which concentrated gainers have an advantage over diffuse losers. Although there is little evidence that the economic benefits of a stadium will exceed the costs -- and much reason to worry that the costs will be large – developers have nonetheless gained considerable support in the political community. The pattern is a familiar one, but the thesis explains special features of this case: the excitement of professional football, the governmental fragmentation of the metropolitan area, and the relative shortage of local investigative journalism.