The anaerobic biodegradability of domestic sewage for four Egyptian villages and four Egyptian cities was determined in batch experiments. The results showed that the biodegradability of the Egyptian-villages sewage (73%) was higher than that of the cities (66%). The higher biodegradability of the soluble COD of village sewage (69%) as compared to that of the cities (46%) was the reason for the...

In some areas of rural Africa, long-standing cultural traditions and beliefs may discourage parents from verbally engaging with their young children. This study assessed the effectiveness of a parenting program designed to encourage verbal engagement between caregivers and infants in Wolof-speaking villages in rural Senegal. Caregivers (n = 443) and their 4- to 31-month-old children were observ...

This paper attempts to identify patterns of female work participation in more than 578 thousand villages of India using the data mining approach. The analysis is based on an index of participation that has been developed for the purpose and takes into the consideration both the extent and the intensity of participation in productive activities. The analysis reveals that Indian villages can be g...

The demographic transition changes the age composition of a population, affecting resource allocations at the household and aggregate level. If age profiles of income, consumption, savings and investments were stable and estimable for the entire population, they might suggest how the demographic transition would affect inputs to growth. However, existing macro and micro simulations are estimate...

BACKGROUND The community's awareness of Tuberculosis (TB) and delays in health care seeking remain important issues in Indonesia despite the extensive efforts of community-based TB programs delivered by a non-government organisation (NGO). This study explored the knowledge and behaviours in relation to TB and early diagnosis before and after an asset-based intervention designed to improve these...

Anophelism without malaria has long been recognized. In large irrigation projects, such as that around Niono, Mali, villages in irrigated areas sometimes have more anopheline vectors of malaria than adjacent nonirrigated villages, but overall malaria prevalence is substantially less. One hypothesized explanation for this is high anopheline densities lead to smaller adults, who do not live so lo...

BACKGROUND Pterygium is a fibrovascular growth of the bulbar conjunctiva and underlying subconjunctival tissue that may cause blindness. The mechanism of pterygium formation is not yet fully understood, but pterygium has some tumorlike features. OBJECTIVES The objective of this study was to evaluate the association between arsenic exposure through drinking water and the occurrence of pterygiu...

BACKGROUND Previous studies have suggested that acute necrotising gingivitis precedes noma disease and that noma clusters in some villages in certain regions of low- and middle-income countries. We sought to assess the prevalence of gingivitis with bleeding in young children from villages with or without a history of noma and to analyse epidemiological differences related to sociodemographic ch...