BACKGROUND Many experts believe that the "health houses" of Iran have had major effects in increasing health status of Iranian rural community. One of the factors, which was critical to this success is the employment of young women and men from rural communities who serve as multipurpose health workers. They participate in a two-year task-oriented training course. OBJECTIVES The purpose of th...

The effects of land use and land use change on stream nitrate are poorly understood. While case studies have been presented, most process work has been done in areas with one land use (minimally disturbed or agricultural) and areas with substantial atmospheric deposition. In this paper we present results from three neighboring headwater catchments in western Oregon with similar (low) atmospheri...

Organic matter dynamics were studied in five streams at Coweeta Hydrologic Laboratory. Three of these streams drained logged watersheds, and two drained reference deciduous forest watersheds. Litter inputs to the streams draining disturbed watersheds were significantly lower than to reference streams. Additionally, while undisturbed litterfall consisted primarily of relatively refractory leaf s...

We present a preliminary analysis of the spatial and seasonal lightning distribution near the Cerro Chascón science preserve, probed with a space-borne imaging sensor and groundbased storm detectors. The lightning flash rate in this area is among the lowest in the world for comparable latitudes. Thunderstorms only occur around 5 days per year. Most observed lightning strikes occurred far to the...

A 514 I f it weren't for the cement pipe segments nearly nine feet in diameter, oversize yellow backhoes, towering piles of sand, and yawning trenches scattering the streets, the section of Toronto near the junction of Connaught and Fargo avenues would look like an ordinary residential neighborhood. In spring 2011 this area of comfortable-looking contemporary houses surrounded by tidy landscapi...

A technique to identify storms and capture scalar features within the geographic and temporal extent of the identified storms is described. The identification technique relies on clustering grid points in an observation field to find self-similar and spatially coherent clusters that meet the traditional understanding of what storms are. From these storms, geometric, spatial, and temporal featur...