OBJECTIVE To investigate the association of malnutrition in children living in substandard settlements (slums) of Maceió, Brazil, with maternal nutritional status and environmental conditions. METHODS Cross-sectional study involving a probability sample of 2,075 mothers (18 to 45 years) and their children (4 months to 6 years), living in the slums of the city of Maceió. First, we conducted a ...

Informal settlements are a common feature of developing countries. In South Africa the improvement of living conditions in these settlements and the upgrading to formal housing types are regarded as being of central importance to the nation’s development. Effective settlement improvement and upgrading activities, which we here term “management”, require adequate spatial data. To date, the acqui...

Nairobi, Kenya exhibits a wide variety of micro-climates and heterogeneous surfaces. Paved roads and high-rise buildings interspersed with low vegetation typify the central business district, while large neighborhoods of informal settlements or "slums" are characterized by dense, tin housing, little vegetation, and limited access to public utilities and services. To investigate how heat varies ...

Lining systems render a significant role in ensuring that waste materials are safely separated from the environment. Despite the advent of modern lining systems, compacted clay barriers or liners are regarded as one of the very significant components of lining system and are being used as a waste containment system in landfills which require insignificant infiltration. Compacted clay barriers m...

Final offer arbitration (FOA) and conventional arbitration (ARE) are compared as mechanisms for settling labor disputes. It is recognized that the parties can manipulate their final offers under FOA in order to achieve a more desirable outcome, and the equilibrium pair of final offers is derived as a function of the uncertainty about the arbitrator's award and the relative risk preferences of t...

In the past decade, the federal government has frequently investigated and prosecuted pharmaceutical manufacturers for illegal promotion of drugs for indications not approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) ("off-label" uses). State governments can choose to coordinate with the federal investigation, or pursue their own independent state investigations. One of the largest-ever off-lab...

A tooth enamel electron spin resonance (ESR) dosimetry study was carried out with the purpose of obtaining the individual absorbed radiation doses of population from settlements in the Semipalatinsk region of Kazakhstan, which was exposed to radioactive fallout traces from nuclear explosions in the Semipalatinsk Nuclear Test Site and Lop Nor test base, China. Most of the settlements are located...

In the Monte desert, increasing population density, changing land rights and infrastructure may encourage livestock activity, with unknown consequences on ecosystems. Factors that influence livestock settlement distribution may affect ecosystem degradation. We hypothesize that surface and groundwater availability influence livestock settlements distribution. We evaluated this hypothesis with a ...