Most of studies on the video communications are based on an unproved hypothesis: They take it granted that the full-face images of communicators are the 'sine qua non' in video conversations, and profiles are rather confusing or annoying for them. This paper proves the counter hypothesis that profile images are also useful and they can replace the full-faces under some conditions. Psychological...

We carried out a randomized controlled trial in Bogotá, the recipient of Colombia's highest number of internally displaced people (IDP), to assess whether the use of SMS to communicate eligibility to social benefits fosters the welfare of victimized internal refugees. Only a fraction of IDP are eligible to benefits. We inform eligibility via SMS to a random half of such households, and estimate...

T elimination of health disparities in the United States is a national priority and overriding goal for Healthy People 2010 (HP 2010). Surveillance of health indicators among minority populations is essential to eliminating disparities. Surveillance is critical for program planning, policy making, evaluating population-based strategies, and tracking progress toward national and state objectives.

Rural tourism or tourism in rural areas is a new form of activity that can bring economic and social benefits to the society. It will not only generate employment for the people but it can also develop social, cultural and educational values; therefore, rural tourism has attracted increasing attention from governments, NGOs and other organizations. Economic regime change from Fordism to post-Fo...

Since the mid-eighties, a sand pit located at the boundary of Mellery, a small village in Belgium, has been used as a dumping ground for industrial waste. After a particularly dry summer, many people complained of very foul smells coming from the dumping ground. An analysis of the environmental atmosphere detected alkanes and chlorinated saturated and unsaturated hydrocarbons in various concent...

To know the prevalence of heterophyid trematodes among inhabitants of a southern coastal village, i.e., Sacho-ri, Gangjin-gun, Jeollanam-do (Province), 82 stool samples were examined on helminth eggs and protozoan cysts using Kato-Katz and formalin-ether sedimentation techniques. Total 33 people (40.2%) were positive for trematodes (Heterophyes nocens 15 people, Pygidiopsis summa 3, Metagonimus...

I was approximately 12 years old living in Agakamatasa village when Dr Carleton Gajdusek came and stayed with us in the village. I was selected by Carleton among other boys to help him take photographs of the village and the people. We toured other provinces and visited Lae, Madang, Rabaul, Hoskins, Chimbu and Mt Hagen in search of kuru disease but we found nothing. We settled down in South For...

Human migration implies adaptations to new environments, such as ways to benefit from the available biodiversity. This study focused on the use of animal-derived remedies, and we investigated the effects of migration on the traditional medical system of the indigenous Truká people. This ethnic group lives in Northeast Brazil and is currently distributed in four distinct villages. In these villa...

Eliminating human parasitic disease often requires interrupting complex transmission pathways. Even when drugs to treat people are available, disease control can be difficult if the parasite can persist in nonhuman hosts. Here, we show that restoration of a natural predator of a parasite's intermediate hosts may enhance drug-based schistosomiasis control. Our study site was the Senegal River Ba...