Winburn and Wagner acknowledged that COIs can be equated with counties but also, and potentially even more significantly, with cities and neighborhoods . Lastly, Stephanopoulos added that “communities exist, and should be represented in the legislature, at different levels of generality,” and that more specific communities can form smaller-scale districts and broader ones can be captured by larger-scale districts like the congressional type . Thus this camp answers that the COI can take a wide range of scales. The opposing camp, however, has doubted that COIs can exist at certain scales. Chambers and Monmonier were skeptical that they hold at the smaller scales, suggesting that they are larger than neighborhoods. Chambers believed that such communities have to be large in order to command a majority in a district, but he was focusing on those relevant to the congressional type, which are almost always far larger than neighborhoods . Monmonier based his case on the improved transport and communication links that have allowed communities to form that are more fragmented and extend beyond one’s residential proximity . Gardner had trouble with the idea that there could be COIs at the larger scales, musing that a congressional district of half a million or more people could hardly be deemed a single, coherent community. May and Moncrief , in their commentary on districts in the Western United States, similarly questioned whether a meaningful COI could be tied to one of the sprawling districts in rural desert environments , though Steen suggested that the fact that such districts are so rural is enough to distinguish them as salient communities . In sum, this camp retorts that the COI exists only at a narrow range of scales, and cannot be applied at the largest and smallest ends of the scale spectrum. The frequent references to the neighborhood in this literature on COIs raise the question of how related the two concepts are. These appear to be similar or at least related concepts, especially when one is focusing on the cognitive COI. But this relationship only seems to apply at a particular scale of COI; a large-scale COI made up of multiple counties is obviously not comparable to a neighborhood. Of course, one must first define what exactly a neighborhood is,vertical gardening in greenhouse which is itself an interesting and rich topic that has been approached in various ways. Scholars have given definitions deriving from more socioeconomic or demographic approaches to more cognitive ones .

The latter study adopted a cognitive approach by asking residents to indicate where they believe the boundaries of the Koreatown neighborhood to be. If one can define and identify a certain neighborhood as a region, either thematic or cognitive, one can then determine how well it corresponds to a particular scale of COI, whether the two greatly overlap or are even identical. COIs may well exist at different scales, but they are different varieties of COI, with different meanings for residents. One can discover the nature of each scale of COI by recognizing it as a cognitive region. Conceptualizing COIs as cognitive regions offers the greatest potential to discover their meaningful extents, precisely because meaning is a cognitive construct. In this research, I pursue this by soliciting people’s beliefs about the extent of their COI, giving them the freedom to make it as big or small as they choose. Such a survey can reveal the scales people most commonly use to think of COIs, thereby identifying as precisely as possible a range of scales for these cognitive regions. One can also conceive of a scale of “sense of place” by which people have different levels or types of place attachment at different scales. For example, an individual might identify very strongly with his or her city, but feel little connection to one’s county. Similarly, some people might identify more with their state than their country, while others might feel the opposite. One can even possess a strong “sense of place” at multiple scales simultaneously. Shamai demonstrated this in a study with Canadian students, finding that they held “nested allegiances” for three different levels of place: country, province, and metropolitan area. However, these students did not feel an equal degree of attachment toward each of these three scales. Rather, they felt a stronger sense of place toward their metropolitan area, followed by their country, and lastly their province. These findings have implications for COI research, because if people can identify with multiple levels of place simultaneously, they can certainly identify with multiple COIs while feeling different levels of attachment toward each. In addition to the COI criterion, the need to respect the boundaries of already existing administrative regions has long been recognized as an important objective for good redistricting . The requirement is currently used in places ranging from Japan to the United Kingdom to California .

While respecting clearly-bounded administrative regions is easier to interpret than respecting the more vaguely-bounded COIs, the two criteria may in fact be closely related. Counties and cities are often considered to be “vital, legal, and familiar communities of interest” . The residents of such jurisdictions “share a history and collective sense of identity” that help foster a genuine sense of community . Gardner contended that genuine communities arise where relevant ties form, but those bonds last only in jurisdictions with fixed boundaries. He argued furthermore that “common residency in a working, functioning, self-governing locality by itself can give rise to a political and administrative community of interest entitled to recognition. As the Colorado Supreme Court recently observed, ‘counties and the cities within their boundaries are already established as communities of interest in their own right, with a functioning legal and physical local government identity on behalf of citizens that is ongoing’” . Winburn and Wagner likewise identified counties as important COIs in the redistricting context, in large part because they play such a critical role in the electoral process, from registering voters to mailing election information to administering polling places . Bowen made a similar case with cities, as “residents of the same city share much in common—the same taxation levels, the same public problems, and the same municipal government” . These findings suggest that administrative regions may well contribute to the emergence of COIs as cognitive regions, and that the boundaries of the former may also serve as the boundaries of the latter. However, some scholars have cautioned against completely equating administrative regions with COIs. Winburn and Wagner recognized that “counties are [not] the only, or even always the most relevant, political community of interest for a citizen” . Stephanopoulos argued that the two are often different, as when interests and affiliations do not follow administrative boundaries, or when administrative regions contain multiple communities or only parts of communities. He did concede, however, that “the two may sometimes be functionally identical, both because [administrative regions] tend to be inhabited by people with similar socioeconomic characteristics, and because civic ties can foster a sense of kinship” . The consensus appears to be that administrative regions are at the very least useful proxies for COIs, if not in some sense meaningful communities themselves. Whether this is more the case for counties or cities likely depends on locational context; counties are probably more meaningful entities in rural areas than in urban areas.

My dissertation seeks to investigate the effect of both scale and administrative regions on people’s conceptions of their COI. I do so by conducting two studies. The first study seeks to determine the effects of three factors on the cognitive COIs that survey respondents depict. Those factors are the extent of the map given to survey respondents, whether the boundaries of administrative regions are shown to them on the map, and whether they live in an urban or rural locale. This study is an experimental survey of residents of an urban study area and a rural study area, greenhouse vertical farming with the manipulated variable being the type of map that residents receive. There are six types of map, because there are three possible map extents with versions that have and lack boundaries. Participants of this first study respond by drawing freehand on the map three different areas representing their COI, one being the area that is definitely within their COI, another being the area that is probably within their COI, and the last one being the area that is possibly within their COI. Requiring a series of drawings enables me to achieve a secondary aim of this study—examining variation within respondents’ cognitive COIs by having them depict different levels of confidence, in the same vein as Montello et al. . Another secondary aim is to explore how the cognitive COIs that respondents depict coincide with the existing electoral districts, as a function of scale. The second study seeks to determine the extent of the cognitive COIs that survey respondents depict, when given free rein to make their region as large or small as they want. Participants respond to this second study by ranking predefined administrative regions on the map according to how confident they are that a given area is within their COI. They do so at three different map scales—one showing large-sized areas , one showing medium-sized areas , and one showing small-sized areas . Respondents also indicate how much they identify with the COI they define at each scale, on a five-point rating scale. This enables me to achieve a secondary aim of this study— investigating whether respondents identify with multiple nested COIs at different scales, and if they do, which ones they identify with the most. Like the first study, my second study achieves the additional secondary aim of exploring how the cognitive COIs that respondents depict coincide with the existing electoral districts, as a function of scale. Both studies together allow me to determine whether COIs exist as cognitive regions at multiple scales. If they do, then I can describe the nature of these regions at those different scales, particularly whether they reflect local districts, counties, and cities.Focal therapy has the potential to improve management of prostate cancer , by reducing side effects associated with radical treatment. While the safety and feasibility of FT strategies have been reported using cryoablation,focal laser ablation ,and high intensity focused ultrasound ,long-term oncologic efficacy is unknown. A critical barrier to robust testing of FT strategies is appropriate patient selection criteria, which are not clearly established.A recent FDA-AUA-SUO workshop on partial gland ablation highlighted this challenge, noting that “some [authors] regard [partial gland ablation] as an alternative to AS for low-risk cancers, whereas others view it as an alternative to radical therapy for selected, higher risk cancers.”Regardless of approach, there is broad agreement on the importance of assessment for FT using multi-parametric MRI followed by targeted biopsy.To clarify the impact of different patient selection criteria on FT eligibility, we retrospectively studied men who have received MRI/Ultrasound fusion biopsy, incorporating both targeted and template biopsies. To confirm biopsy findings and to derive the accuracy of fusion biopsy in FT eligibility, we examined whole-organ concordance of eligibility assessment in a subset of patients who underwent radical prostatectomy.All men undergoing MRI/US fusion biopsy at UCLA between January 2010 and January 2016 were retrospectively screened for a suspicious lesion identified on mpMRI , which was found to contain CaP upon targeted biopsy . FT eligibility criteria, based on the NCCN intermediate-risk definition8 and recent consensus guidelines,were applied . Figure 2 shows histological profiles for FT eligible patients based on biopsy. Three different patterns of CaP are shown, each suitable for treatment by hemi-gland ablation or less. Men with bio-psynegative ROIs were considered ineligible for FT. Similarly, men without csCaP < 4mm were also considered ineligible , regardless of the number of positive cores. All collection of clinical data was performed prospectively within a UCLA IRB-approved registry. The fusion biopsy method, which has been previously described, was unchanged throughout the study period.Briefly, within 2 months of biopsy, patients underwent a 3T mpMRI with body coil. MRI interpretation was conducted under the direction of a dedicated uroradiologist , and suspicious lesions were assessed according to UCLA and Prostate Imaging-Reporting and Data System criteria.MRI assessment was based onthe UCLA assessment system,which pre-dates PI-RADS v1, and after PI-RADS v2 was established, by both systems using highest suspicion category found. At biopsy, images were registered and fused with real-time transrectal ultrasound to generate a 3D image of the prostate with delineated ROIs.