Census Studies Research Articles

Quantifying the nonrevenue water problem in a sub-Saharan African environment: a practical application in the Republic of Cameroon (Central Africa)

ABSTRACT This paper aims to update nonrevenue water (NRW) estimations in Cameroon to identify challenges to reducing NRW in the country. Data were collected from the databases of the Joint Monitoring Program of WHO and UNICEF, International Benchmarking Network for Water and Sanitation, the Central Bureau of the Census and Population Studies of Cameroon, and the Demographic Health Survey. Results indicate that the global volume of NRW in Cameroon was about 84.6 million m3/year, which represents 50.8% of the system input volume. According to this estimate, it is about 32.2 billion CFA francs (USD 53.6 million), which is lost every year. By cutting down Cameroon's NRW to half its present level, about 1.75 million people could be supplied with water. This new analysis of global levels of NRW in Cameroon shows that the current estimated volume is higher than previously estimated. This is partly due to outdated infrastructure, poor operation and maintenance, over-conservative estimates used in previous estimates, and NRW level in rural areas. However, this estimate has been found to provide similar results to Camwater statistics. Nonetheless, more data would help refine the numbers.

Barcoding (COI) Sea Cucumber Holothuria mammata Distribution Analysis: Adriatic Rare or Common Species?

The overexploitation of the western Pacific Ocean has expanded the sea cucumber fishery into new regions to supply the Asian market. In 2013, sea cucumbers were removed from the Croatian marine protected species list, and commercial fishery took place for a short period (2017-2018) in the Eastern Adriatic Sea. However, holothuroid species are difficult to distinguish. Holothuria mammata is a species that has rarely been reported in this region and strongly resembles the common species Holothuria tubulosa. This is the first study to assess the genetic diversity of sea cucumbers in the Adriatic Sea using genetic barcoding of the mitochondrial gene cytochrome c oxidase subunit 1 (COI). Specimens for barcoding were collected from the northern and central Adriatic, along with a specimen that had been previously identified as H. sp. cf. mammata based on its morphological characteristics. While genetic analyses showed identified this specimen as H. tubulosa, 30% of the collected specimens were genetically identified as H. mammata. These results call into question the historically accepted sea cucumber assemblage in the Adriatic Sea, which regarded H. mammata as a rare species and generally disregarded its presence in large census studies. Such species distribution data are extremely important in developing and monitoring a sustainable fishery.

FREE-RANGING OCELOTS (LEOPARDUS PARDALIS): HEMATOLOGY AND SERUM CHEMISTRY REFERENCE VALUES.

Acquiring baseline physiologic data for animals from a free-ranging wildlife species is an elusive objective. Between 1990 and 2020, a monitoring program on the last population of ocelot (Leopardus pardalis) to inhabit public land in the United States yielded 139 blood samples from 67 individual animals. Ocelots were live trapped and anesthetized for census and radiotelemetric studies. The protocol included morphometrics, photographs, electronic identification, and blood collection. Complete blood count and serum chemistry were performed, and after sorting of the data to remove unhealthy individuals and occasional outliers, the dataset provided sufficient information to compute reliable reference intervals (RI). According to the American Society of Veterinary Clinical Pathology consensus guidelines, RI should be elaborated by using data from each reference individual only once. RI by random selection was determined when several measurements were available over time from one same animal. Second, RI were also computed allowing repeat measurements for reference individuals, exclusively to characterize and quantify the effect on the data distribution and on the generated RI. A summary of published RI for various species of wild felids is also presented. The variations observed between species is due not only to species differences but also to variation in measurement methods and RI study design. Overall, accurate blood work interpretation requires RI generated from a healthy population, with defined measurement methods and state-of-the-art RI study design. Of note, calcium is typically tightly regulated in all mammals, as illustrated by the narrow RI (8.5-10.8 mg/dl); conversely, finding a narrow RI in calcium across as many as 49 healthy individuals suggests a high-quality design study.

Information and Communication Technology in Brazilian Public Schools: A Sustainable Legacy of the Pandemic?

The present study aimed to analyze the sustainability of the post-COVID-19 pandemic Information and Communication Technology (ICT) legacy. The survey was conducted using raw secondary data from three census studies, one carried out before the pandemic and two after the return to in-person classes. The descriptive survey focused on Brazilian public schools and used a comparative intersectional design. Descriptive statistics were used to analyze the raw data. The poorest conditions in terms of the availability of technological resources were found in municipal public school systems. The amount of equipment available, bandwidth, and Internet data transmission rate in most public schools were far below desirable, despite advances in 2021 compared to 2019. Although there have been important improvements in ICT in Brazilian public schools, there was no evidence of inherited ICT resources as a legacy of the Government’s COVID-19 policies related to education. The study highlights the need for government to implement enduring public policies that guarantee the use of sustainable ICT resources to improve education, irrespective of global or national health challenges.

An approach to minimise bias in estimation of the lengthfrequency distribution of bowhead whales (Balaena mysticetus) from aerial photogrammetric data

Past attempts to estimate the length structure of the Bering-Chukchi-Beaufort (B-C-B) stock of bowhead whales have yielded quite different results from one study to the next because of size segregation on the summering areas or because of size segregation during the spring migration combined with inconsistent sampling during the migration period. A new approach is presented to document the length-frequency distribution of the B-C-B stock using length measurements from 3,107 whale images collected during the spring migrations of 1985, 1986, 1989-1992 and 1994. This method provides estimates of the proportion of calves (length <6m), subadults (length 6-<13m) and adults (length !13m). The data from all years are combined by weekly period and a bootstrap sampling procedure is used to construct the lengthfrequency by week. The distributions for each week are then combined to obtain the overall distribution, with each week’s contribution being in proportion to the fraction of the migration estimated from ice-based census studies to pass during that week. Corrections for differential detectability of mother/calf pairs and for calves born after they pass Point Barrow, Alaska, are allowed for in the analysis. This new approach eliminates some of the biases that affected past attempts to estimate the length-frequency distribution for the B-C-B population of bowhead whales. It is robust to inclusion or exclusion of data for any given year and the time interval chosen to define repeat images. The new approach estimates a slightly higher proportion of subadults and lower proportion of adults in the population than most previous studies. The proportion of calves is also lower, but that is suspected to result from our inability to accurately estimate the proportion of the migration late in the season when many of the mother-calf pairs pass Point Barrow. These late season migrants have not been accounted for during past photogrammetry studies or the ice-based census. Although the results do not differ substantially from those of most previous studies, sensitivity analyses indicate that several biases existed in the previous methods, but largely cancelled each other out.

The Effect of Organizational Commitment on Employee Performance with Workability as an Intervening Variable

The purpose of this study is to find out and analyze the effect of organizational commitment on employee performance with workability as an intervening variable in the Population and Civil Registry Office of Ngawi Regency. The analysis method used is path analysis. The population in this study was all employees at the Ngawi Regency Population and Civil Registration Service, which amounted to 74 people. The study also used census studies. The results showed that organizational commitment has a positive and significant effect on employee performance in the Population and Civil Registration Service of Ngawi Regency. Work ability has a positive and significant effect on the performance of employees in the Population and Civil Registration Service of Ngawi Regency. It is not proven that organizational commitment has a significant effect on the performance of employees with work ability as an intevining variable in the Ngawi Regency Population and Civil Registration Service.

Is there a Chinese pattern of the second demographic transition?

The Second Demographic Transition (SDT) is a useful theoretical framework for explaining the recent trend in many countries of very low fertility combined with alternative union and family types. Although past studies have observed the SDT in many Western societies, whether it is applicable to East Asia remains unclear. Capitalizing on data from the Chinese Census and China Family Panel Studies, we provide estimates of key behavioral and ideational indicators of the SDT. We find that union formation in China has trended increasingly toward patterns commonly observed in the West, including delayed age of marriage and the common practice of premarital cohabitation. While having a lowest-low fertility rate, China has not experienced rising nonmarital childbirths, a key component of the SDT. However, we observe growing tolerance toward nonmarital childbearing and childlessness. Marriages remain relatively stable in China, especially among couples with children. Taken together, our analysis suggests that typically coincident changes in patterns of family behavior associated with the SDT are not occurring simultaneously in China. Moreover, ideational changes are preceding behavioral changes, particularly in attitudes toward nonmarital childbearing and childlessness. Our research suggests a different pattern of the SDT in China, which has been heavily influenced by Confucian culture.

Cellular resolution anatomical and molecular atlases for prenatal human brains.

Increasing interest in studies of prenatal human brain development, particularly using new single‐cell genomics and anatomical technologies to create cell atlases, creates a strong need for accurate and detailed anatomical reference atlases. In this study, we present two cellular‐resolution digital anatomical atlases for prenatal human brain at postconceptional weeks (PCW) 15 and 21. Both atlases were annotated on sequential Nissl‐stained sections covering brain‐wide structures on the basis of combined analysis of cytoarchitecture, acetylcholinesterase staining, and an extensive marker gene expression dataset. This high information content dataset allowed reliable and accurate demarcation of developing cortical and subcortical structures and their subdivisions. Furthermore, using the anatomical atlases as a guide, spatial expression of 37 and 5 genes from the brains, respectively, at PCW 15 and 21 was annotated, illustrating reliable marker genes for many developing brain structures. Finally, the present study uncovered several novel developmental features, such as the lack of an outer subventricular zone in the hippocampal formation and entorhinal cortex, and the apparent extension of both cortical (excitatory) and subcortical (inhibitory) progenitors into the prenatal olfactory bulb. These comprehensive atlases provide useful tools for visualization, segmentation, targeting, imaging, and interpretation of brain structures of prenatal human brain, and for guiding and interpreting the next generation of cell census and connectome studies.

To count or not to count? Insights from Kenya for global debates about enumerating ethnicity in national censuses

There is an impasse on the question of whether or not to enumerate identity groups in national censuses, given their potential to variously facilitate dominance and an emergence from marginalisation. In this paper, we theorise the impasse in Kenya as relating to a colonial history of the strategic use of ethnicity to divide and rule; a demographic makeup with both some large ethnic groups and many small ones; and the local social construction of ethnicity, which allows significant latitude for collapse, disaggregation and change of group identities. This case corrects the dominance of Europe and the Americas in census studies and offers insights for assessing the political stakes of counting, namely, the need to bring past and present into conversation; to consider the varied political effects of demography; and to consider the particular significance and meaning of ethnicity and race in context.

Hypertension in elderly Egyptians

Global census studies reveal that the elderly are the most rapidly growing population group in both industrialized and less industrialized nations. During 1991 and 1992, three major interventional trials dealt with hypertension in older subjects and the value of antihypertensive treatment in the elderly. These were the American Systolic Hypertension in the Elderly Program [SHEP], the Swedish Trial in Old Patients with Hypertension [STOP-Hypertension], and the British Medical Research Council Trial on treatment of hypertension in older adults. All three trials showed that therapy for hypertension in the elderly reduces the risk of stroke and cardiovascular events. In 1993 evidence from the Egyptian Hypertension Project highlighted hypertension as a national public health problem that must be addressed. Guidelines for primary prevention among all sectors of the community are discussed

Whither queer suburbanisms? Beyond heterosuburbia and queer metronormativities

Despite renewed interest in suburban studies and a decentring of geographies of sexualities, the queer suburban remains a neglected arena of inquiry. This article argues for greater attention to ‘queer’ suburbanisms to deconstruct suburbia as implicitly heterosexualized. It critiques the persistent heteronormativity of key concepts – suburbanization, suburban diversification and suburbanisms – in Anglo-American-Australian suburban studies. It then remaps the lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and queer (LGBTQ+) urban by highlighting inconsistencies in queer metronormativities critiques and evaluating census studies and gay ethnographies to decentre the queer metropolis. The article concludes by complicating how queer metronormativities conceive of their margins and destabilizing the sexual contours of heterosuburbia.

The influence of depth on the Mediterranean reef fish assemblage revealed by the new video on underwater scooter method

The new video on underwater scooter method in combination with rebreather diving techniques was introduced and applied for visual census of fish assemblages. The presently applied method facilitates deeper visual census studies below 40 m, where they have rarely been done before due to the increasing research challenges with depth. The video on underwater scooter method is also expected to be less disturbing and faster compared to swimming divers. The method was applied in visual census study of fish assemblages from 8 to 50 m depth conducted at two locations in the east Adriatic using 102 video transects. The environmental variables contributing to the variation of the reef fish community in the depth range of the infralittoral and upper circalittoral bottoms were also recorded. Thirty-one fish species were recorded on transects and 10.3% of all individuals were not identified to the species level. The average density on transects was 0.8 individuals/m², with C. chromis, C. julis and G. auratus being both the most abundant and the most frequent species. Three environmental variables, depth, bottom with zoocover and eastern orientation of the coast, were identified as highly significant for species occurrence. Abundance and species richness of fish assemblages showed no significant variation with depths, inclinations, orientations and sites. A significant difference in the fish assemblage structure was found among orientations, depths and inclinations with the gradient change of species composition with increasing depth and with increasing inclination.

Pattern of Filling Up of Medical Certificate of Cause of Death at A Tertiary Care Hospital during Covid Pandemic: A Matter of Concern

Medical Certification of Cause of Death- MCCD, plays an important role in deciding the direction of public health programs, provide a feedback system for future implementation of health policies, health planning and management of epidemiological studies, vital statistics, medico-legal investigations, census studies, health research, assessment of effectiveness of public health programs. As Covid- 19 produces so much confusion into the mind of treating doctor as how to give cause of death in MCCD. Certification and classification and coding of death related to Covid-19 is essential for smooth contact tracing afterwards. Our study focused on the analysis of MCCD proformas filled up by residents and faculty members and common mistakes committed while filling it while treating the Covid patient at isolation wards. This is a retrospective, cross sectional study carried out at Covid-19 dedicated hospital associated with a Medical College situated in Rajasthan. The period of this study is three month of early Covid-19 pandemic time from 1st April 2020 to 30th June 2020, in which a total of 199 deaths were reported. We could study a total of 152 certificates (76.38%) out of total 199 deaths as in rest of cases, the MCCD was not attached as deceased was brought dead to hospital. The analytical result of study revealed some major errors like immediate cause of death was Covid-19 positive with cardiovascular arrest. The conclusion of our study highlights an urgent need for imparting extra efforts towards awareness, importance to undergraduates as well as postgraduate training. Also emphasis training of senior and junior faculty with other treating doctors. Suggestions to government for impose strict rules over clinician so that they know the importance of MCCD in pandemic time also.

Cool stars in the Galactic center as seen by APOGEE

The Galactic center region, including the nuclear disk, has until recently been largely avoided in chemical census studies because of extreme extinction and stellar crowding. Large, near-IR spectroscopic surveys, such as the Apache Point Observatory Galactic Evolution Experiment (APOGEE), allow the measurement of metallicities in the inner region of our Galaxy. Making use of the latest APOGEE data release (DR16), we are able for the first time to study cool Asymptotic Giant branch (AGB) stars and supergiants in this region. The stellar parameters of five known AGB stars and one supergiant star (VR 5-7) show that their location is well above the tip of the red giant branch. We studied metallicities of 157 M giants situated within 150 pc of the Galactic center from observations obtained by the APOGEE survey with reliable stellar parameters from the APOGEE pipeline making use of the cool star grid down to 3200 K. Distances, interstellar extinction values, and radial velocities were checked to confirm that these stars are indeed situated in the Galactic center region. We detect a clear bimodal structure in the metallicity distribution function, with a dominant metal-rich peak of [Fe/H] ∼ +0.3 dex and a metal-poor peak around {Fe/H] = −0.5 dex, which is 0.2 dex poorer than Baade’s Window. The α-elements Mg, Si, Ca, and O show a similar trend to the Galactic bulge. The metal-poor component is enhanced in the α-elements, suggesting that this population could be associated with the classical bulge and a fast formation scenario. We find a clear signature of a rotating nuclear stellar disk and a significant fraction of high-velocity stars with vgal > 300 km s−1; the metal-rich stars show a much higher rotation velocity (∼200 km s−1) with respect to the metal-poor stars (∼140 km s−1). The chemical abundances as well as the metallicity distribution function suggest that the nuclear stellar disk and the nuclear star cluster show distinct chemical signatures and might be formed differently.

The Sixteenth-Century Zinacantepec Census: Between Ethnohistory and Historical Demography

Abstract While earlier census studies yielded population data mainly for the Tepetlaoztoc and Morelos regions of central Mexico during the 1530s and 1540s, this ethnohistoric study, based on a newly discovered manuscript, sheds light on household types and population density in the town of Zinacantepec by 1574. By comparing population figures, household types, and migration patterns, this article reconsiders how Aztec invasion, and thereafter the Spanish conquest, affected population movements and stability in the Valley of Toluca, a former Aztec stronghold in central Mexico. Furthermore, the nature of Toluca Valley habitats may prompt us to rethink about how we interpret the nature of indigenous demographic layouts before and after the Spanish conquest, whether its features be urban or rural.

ACCESSING PUBLIC HEALTH FACILITIES: RURAL AND URBAN DISPARITIES

Science and technology are key drivers of human development as well as national development because technological and scientific revolutions strengthen economic advances, improvements in health care systems, formal education, and infrastructure and so on. At the same time, the advanced development of science and technology does not provide a good healthy atmosphere among the community. It creates psychological problems and physical health problems and rural community away from public health facilities provisions. In modern time, there has been a speedy increase globally in the science and technological and economic development, social development; implying enhances the facility to overcome crisis related to poverty, malnutrition and poor health of rural people. To overcome the poor health of rural people, the Union and the State government have been spending a huge amount on the public health care system. In spite of government policies and programmes do not reach into rural areas particularly women. This study discusses the status of public health facilities among rural and urban populations of Karaikudi Taluk in Tamil Nadu, India based on the 2011 census and case studies. The study found that all kinds of health care facilities are not being accessed by rural communities.

Trends in medication abortion and the role of low-volume and nonmetropolitan mifepristone purchasers: 2008–2011 and 2014–2017

ObjectiveThe objective was to examine trends in the number of low-volume and nonmetropolitan mifepristone purchasers and their role in the expansion of medication abortion. MethodsWe use deidentified data from Danco Laboratories, the sole distributor of mifepristone during the study period, to examine trends in mifepristone distribution. We focus on customers who purchased <100 doses a year and a subset of those who purchased <10 doses for the periods of 2008–2011 and 2014–2017. We use data from the Guttmacher Institute Abortion Provider Census (APC) studies in 2008 and 2017 to examine the extent to which some facilities that purchased mifepristone may be missing from Guttmacher's APC. ResultsBetween 2008 and 2017, the number of medication abortions increased 73%, though the number of mifepristone purchasers only increased 15%. The number of low-volume mifepristone customers, or those who purchased <100 tablets of mifepristone per year, decreased 8% over the study period, while the number purchasing <10 tablets per year decreased 14%. However, in recent years, low-volume customers were more likely to have purchased mifepristone in multiple years. In nonmetropolitan areas, the number of sites purchasing mifepristone increased slightly but the amount of mifepristone that was purchased more than doubled between 2008 and 2017. ConclusionsWhile reliance on medication abortion increased substantially between 2008 and 2017, there is no evidence that this was due to an increase in the number of facilities that purchased low volumes of mifepristone. ImplicationsWhile their numbers declined, abortion providers purchasing low volumes of mifepristone likely played an important role for the individuals they cared for. Access to abortion could increase if a wider network of health care practitioners, especially those in settings that do not currently provide abortions, was able to offer medication abortion.

Global change impacts on forest and fire dynamics using paleoecology and tree census data for eastern North America

The tree census, paleopollen, fossil charcoal, human population, and climate data presented here provide unique support for important anthropogenic influences on fire over the last 2000 years in the eastern USA. This includes multiple instances of climate fire anomalies that may be best explained by the role of human-caused burning. The coupling of paleoecological and tree census data to address larger global change questions is a novel research approach to describe and ascribe recent vegetation dynamics vis-a-vis the climate versus disturbance debate. The aims of the study are to (1) compile and compare pre-European settlement versus modern upland arboreal pollen and tree survey data from a large number of studies in various forest regions in the eastern USA, (2) analyze fossil charcoal dating back 2000 years for the northern versus central/southern tiers of the eastern USA, and (3) compare and contrast compositional and ecophysiological attributes for both datasets and temporal changes to known climate or disturbance phenomena to elucidate global change impacts and the drivers of forest change. We analyzed paleoecological (pollen and charcoal) and tree census studies to compare protohistoric and modern vegetation assemblage for eastern North America, including the drivers of forest change. A total of seven forest types in the north and central regions of the eastern USA were used to co-analyze fossil pollen, fossil charcoal, and tree survey data. Disparities and consistencies existed when independently assessing witness tree and pollen records. Although forests north of the tension zone line (TZL) contained mostly Fagus, Pinus, Tsuga, and Acer witness trees, pollen records were dominated, as expected, by high-pollen-producing Pinus, Quercus, Tsuga, and Betula. Here, present-day pollen and tree survey data revealed significant declines in Fagus, Pinus, Tsuga, and Larix and increases in Acer, Populus, Fraxinus, Quercus, and Abies. South of the TZL, both witness tree and pollen records pointed to Quercus and Pinus domination, with declines in Quercus and Castanea and increases in Acer and Betula based on present-day data. Modern assemblages comprise tree genera that are increasingly cool-adapted, shade-tolerant, drought-intolerant pyrophobes. Paleocharcoal data from 1 to 1750 AD indicate a slight increase in burning in southern forests and stable levels in the north, despite the increasing cold associated with the Little Ice Age. The most significant increase in burning followed the dramatic increase in human population associated with European settlement prior to the early twentieth century. Post-1940, fire suppression was an ecologically transformative event in all datasets. Our analysis identifies multiple instances in which fire and vegetation changes were likely driven by shifts in human population and land use beyond those expected from climate alone.

A diversified dinosaur track assemblage from the Lower Cretaceous Xiaoba Formation of Sichuan Province, China: Implications for ichnological database and census studies

The rapid rate of discovery of Lower Cretaceous tetrapod tracksites in terrestrial sequences on the Sichuan Basin area is such that the 2016 report of 21 sites in the Xiaoba, Feitianshan and Jiaguan Formations is now increased by ∼24%–26 sites. Of these seven occur in the Xiaoba Formation, including two new sites (Luogan and Apuruha) described here. Likewise, there has been a similar increase in reports of sites from the Jiaguan Formation, from 12 to 15 sites (=25%) in the same period. The total of estimated trackmakers, based on trackways, not individual tracks, is ∼598 for all three formations, including∼150 from the Xiaoba Formation, and ∼325 from the Jiaguan Formation. This indicates a two-year increase in the database of ∼20%. To date all tracks from the Xiaoba formation represent saurischians (non-avian theropods and sauropods). However, as the database has increased for all three formations it has been possible to demonstrate that didactyl, presumably deinonychosaurian trackmakers, although rare and in some cases poorly preserved, occur in about 20% of assemblages. Thus, the data base helps differentiate between the relatively low abundance and relatively widespread distribution of deinonychosaurian trackmakers within the non-avian theropod track database. This difference between abundance and distribution is consistent with what is known of patterns in other parts of Asia.

Bilibid and beyond: Race, body size, and the native in early American colonial Philippines

The United States’ occupation of the Philippines began with proclamations of a new era of development and the prospect of local political representation. In coming to grips with what they saw as America's civilising mission, colonial scholars and officials sought information about the peoples of the Philippines by conducting a census and various population studies, using an array of methodologies drawn from criminology and physical anthropology. This article traces and critiques representations of the Philippine population in the 1903 Philippine Census as well as in several related studies published in the early American period, which served to reduce the Filipinos to a state of ‘otherness’ which served to justify colonial projects. Several of these racialised studies used the inmates of Bilibid Prison, both alive and dead, as experimental and documentary subjects to create a record of Filipino ‘sample types’ for various administrative and other purposes, such as the exhibition at the St Louis World's Fair of 1904. Bilibid prisoners’ body size, brain weight, skin colour, facial features and other physical attributes were selectively correlated with other colonial constructions of Filipino individuals and groups, such as ‘wildness’ and political maturity.