Small Village Research Articles

Traditional and Vernacular Architecture in Bali

The study of Bali's traditional and vernacular architecture requires a comprehensive interdisciplinary approach to reveal the complex expressions of this culturally diverse island. Influenced by Hindu, Buddhist and indigenous beliefs, Bali's architecture is closely interwoven with its lush landscape, characterised by terraced rice fields, volcanic mountains and a tropical climate. The theoretical foundations are based on vernacular architecture and emphasise the importance of indigenous knowledge, local materials and cultural, social and environmental factors. The study focuses on the classification and functions of more than 20,000 Hindu temples or "pura", which reflect the island's deep cultural roots and rituals based on the Balinese calendar. An examination of small villages such as Pengotan reveals a nuanced architecture with sacred and profane zones clustered around temple areas, residential areas and cemeteries. The concentration of family units in sacred spaces and the meticulous adherence to the luan concept reveal the intricacies of traditional Balinese architecture. However, the preservation of this architectural heritage is being challenged by rapid modernisation and a booming tourism industry. The influx of tourists, which has increased from 2.5 million in 2010 to 14 million in 2017, poses a threat to Bali's traditional building practices and materials. The environmental impact of increasing waste and inadequate infrastructure, exacerbated by the growing number of foreign visitors, requires sustainable planning. The government's ambitious goal of creating '10 new Balis' to double the number of tourists raises concerns about environmental protection and proper waste management. The methodological approach of this study is deeply rooted in vernacular architecture and aims to decipher the nuances and preserve Bali's architectural heritage. Balancing the demands of modernisation and tourism with the need for environmental sustainability is critical to the protection of the heritage.
 
 Index Terms— Vernacular Architecture, Bali, Tourism, Traditions

Sediment connectivity as a key to understand geomorphic effects of the Storm Alex in two mountain catchments of the Mediterranean Alps (Italy)

The occurrence of extreme rainfall events over mountain catchments is likely to trigger mass failure processes on hillslopes and sediment transport within the channel network. Understanding the degree of linkage between the sediment sources and transfer pathways downstream is essential in those catchments where settlements are affected by hydro-geomorphic processes, in order to plan suitable interventions for risk mitigation. A recent storm (October 2020) named “Alex”, estimated to be an extratropical cyclone with a more than 100-year return period, hit the Mediterranean Alps at the border between Italy and France, triggering deadly landslides and flooding processes. This work focuses on two adjacent mountain catchments located in the Liguria region (Italy) which share the same outlet, where a small village was damaged by high-magnitude sediment transport and deposition processes during the storm. In order to analyze sediment dynamics at the catchment scale leading to severe damage to the urban settlements at the outlet, an integrated approach was used. Very high resolution (0.5 m) satellite imagery was employed to map the mass failure processes on the hillslopes with a visual interpretation. This dataset was then compared with a map of the Index of Connectivity created using the SedInConnect 2.3 software to characterize the pre-event structural connectivity in both catchments. The integration of these two datasets permitted understanding that debris slides evolving into debris flows downstream supplied most of the sediments to the channel network. These processes concentrated mainly in a specific catchment where hillslopes have the highest connectivity with the valley bottom. This outcome provided a clear evidence that inventory maps developed soon after an extreme event, coupled with sediment connectivity datasets, can provide relevant information for future land management and risk mitigation strategies. These can be exploited to prioritize structural interventions in specific areas, to reduce the connectivity or disconnect inhabited areas from the hydro-geomorphic systems and avoid future damage.

Factors associated with hospitalization in a pediatric population of rural Tanzania: findings from a retrospective cohort study

BackgroundDespite pediatric acute illnesses being leading causes of death and disability among children, acute and critical care services are not universally available in low-middle income countries, such as Tanzania, even if in this country significant progress has been made in child survival, over the last 20 years. In these countries, the hospital emergency departments may represent the only or the main point of access to health-care services. Thus, the hospitalization rates may reflect both the health system organization and the patients’ health status. The purpose of the study is to describe the characteristics of clinical presentations to a pediatric Outpatient Department (OPD) in Tanzania and to identify the predictive factors for hospitalization.MethodsRetrospective cohort study based on 4,324 accesses in the OPD at Tosamaganga Voluntary Agency Hospital (Tanzania). Data were collected for all 2,810 children (aged 0–13) who accessed the OPD services, within the period 1 January − 30 September 2022. The association between the hospitalization (main outcome) and potential confounding covariates (demographic, socio-contextual and clinical factors) was evaluated using univariate and multivariate logistic regression models.ResultsFive hundred three (11.6%) of OPD accesses were hospitalized and 17 (0.4%) died during hospitalization. A higher (p < 0.001) risk of hospitalization was observed for children without health insurance (OR = 3.26), coming from more distant districts (OR = 2.83), not visited by a pediatric trained staff (OR = 3.58), and who accessed for the following conditions: burn/wound (OR = 70.63), cardiovascular (OR = 27.36), constitutional/malnutrition (OR = 62.71), fever (OR = 9.79), gastrointestinal (OR = 8.01), respiratory (OR = 12.86), ingestion/inhalation (OR = 17.00), injury (OR = 6.84).ConclusionsThe higher risk of hospitalization for children without health insurance, and living far from the district capital underline the necessity to promote the implementation of primary care, particularly in small villages, and the establishment of an efficient emergency call and transport system. The observation of lower hospitalization risk for children attended by a pediatric trained staff confirm the necessity of preventing admissions for conditions that could be managed in other health settings, if timely evaluated.

Differentiated Borders of Belonging and Exclusion: European Migrants in Rural Areas in Iceland

This article addresses questions of difference, positionality, and belonging from the perspectives of international migrants living and working in rural communities in Iceland. With the recent integration of rural areas into the global economy, small villages and towns have undergone rapid social transformation. The development of new industries and growing tourism in these localities has attracted many international migrants. The share of migrants in the local populations oscillates between 10% to 50%, depending on the town, with the majority coming from Europe. Commonly, they make up the greater part of workers in service jobs and manual labour in rural towns and villages. This article builds on data from ethnographic field research over 15 months in five parts of Iceland located outside of the capital region. Based on the analysis of interviews with migrants, we examine different perceptions of affinity and belonging and explore their experiences of inclusion and exclusion. To what extent do migrants see themselves as part of local communities? How do they narrate their social positions in those places? The discussion highlights how social stratification and hierarchy affect migrants’ experiences of inclusion as commonly displayed in the interviews. Furthermore, we elaborate on how notions of relatedness and otherness reflect inherited ideas of Europe and contemporary divergent geopolitical positions.

Indication Variability of the Particulate Matter Sensors Dependent on Their Location.

Particulate matter (PM) suspended in the air significantly impacts human health. Those of anthropogenic origin are particularly hazardous. Poland is one of the countries where the air quality during the heating season is the worst in Europe. Air quality in small towns and villages far from state monitoring stations is often much worse than in larger cities where they are located. Their residents inhale the air containing smoke produced mainly by coal-fired stoves. In the frame of this project, an air quality monitoring network was built. It comprises low-cost PMS7003 PM sensors and ESP8266 microcontrollers with integrated Wi-Fi communication modules. This article presents research results on the influence of the PM sensor location on their indications. It has been shown that the indications from sensors several dozen meters away from each other can differ by up to tenfold, depending on weather conditions and the source of smoke. Therefore, measurements performed by a network of sensors, even of worse quality, are much more representative than those conducted in one spot. The results also indicated the method of detecting a sudden increase in air pollutants. In the case of smokiness, the difference between the mean and median indications of the PM sensor increases even up to 400 µg/m3 over a 5 min time window. Information from this comparison suggests a sudden deterioration in air quality and can allow for quick intervention to protect people's health. This method can be used in protection systems where fast detection of anomalies is necessary.

Deconcentration strategies as tools for preventing gentrification as perceived by residents of tourism destinations

Abstract Purpose The issue of residents' attitudes is essential in the context of phenomena such as overtourism, tourismphobia, gentrification, and touristification at destinations. An important operation is the management of tourism flows (deconcentration strategies) to counteract negative phenomena. The purpose of this article is to assess the attitudes of residents of destinations of different sizes toward the activities of local government in regulating tourist traffic, which are understood as deconcentration strategies. Design/methodology/approach A qualitative research method using the focus group interview method (focus study) was applied. The survey was conducted with six groups of respondents from cities experiencing the effects of overtourism and small towns and villages where these effects are not apparent. Findings The survey showed that not all residents of large and well-known cities (Krakow and Tricity) and smaller towns are optimistic about the deconcentration strategy. In particular, residents of areas outside the centers of large cities do not want the dispersion of tourists. Practical implications There is a fundamental conclusion to be drawn about the need for sustainable management, in which citizens are active players at the planning level. Social implications This study has shown the need for public consultation before introducing deconcentration strategies, as residents of large well-known cities and smaller towns are not always favorably disposed toward the tourism management solutions implemented by local authorities. Originality/value Despite managing tourism and teasing out deconcentration strategies, the effectiveness of these measures is an emerging fundamental problem, particularly regarding the perceptions of residents.

«Другие мигранты» на Дальнем Востоке России, или Поиск советского народа в период нациестроительства на постсоветском пространстве

The article examines a new, not very important from the statistical viewpoint, but extremely unusual flow of migrants from the former republics of the USSR, primarily Central Asian and, to a lesser extent, Transcaucasian. In the recent past a typical migrant in the Far East, as well as in Russia as a whole, can be described as a resident of a small city or village, who is focused on a short-term or cyclical stay in the region for the purpose of earning money and minimally interacting with the host community. However, the new flow of migrants includes residents of large cities who travel to Russia with an intention to integrate. For these types of migrants the usual economic push/pull factors do not play a significant role. The representatives of this group possess sufficiently high qualifications and did not experience any serious economic problems in the country of origin. The motives for their move are rather political in nature, and this is not persecution for dissent or participation in opposition activities, but rather what the authors refer to as the search for the Soviet people. According to the authors’ conclusion, the emergence of this migration flow is associated with the growing process of ethnicization (as a form of nation-building) in the states of the post-Soviet space, which is increasingly becoming less post-Soviet. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the authorities of the newly independent states pursued an extremely cautious national policy, which was largely explained by the artificial nature of the contemporary borders of these states and their ethnic foundation. The former imperial cities, the previous centers of power, whose population most closely corresponded to the image of the Soviet people, preserved their high status. However, in the recent years the situation has changed. As ethnicization intensifies, accompanied by the ousting of the Soviet, which was equated with the Russian, the “debris” of the Soviet people lose not only their social status, but also the foundation for self-identification. They move to Russia in search of such foundation, with the hope to find confirmation of their own professional and socio-political identity.

Lost Futures

Embedded within large-scale resource extraction projects is a tension between the immobility of the resource and the mobility of the people who inhabit the surface over which the resource is found. The limited ability to negotiate the place of extraction, and the destruction of prior ecologies, can generate significant hardship to local populations and pose particular ethical dilemmas, as in the small village of Wollar located at the New South Wales coal frontier. Here, the supposed ethical imperatives of coal-based power and energy have dismantled and sacrificed communities as the coal mining industry has advanced and intensified its operations. Looking at both social and environmental ecologies, the paper analyses how imagined coal-centred futures, and progress, is phrased (or not phrased) as an ethical and political issue, and the consequences of that coal-based future, psychologically, emotionally, imaginally and cosmologically on those who live near the mines. What once carried a felt ambience of being home has, through technological and political deployment, become a non-place of transience, anonymity, and change. In this unbalanced political conflict, a natural environment and lived ecology are subject to developmentalist and technological ecologies in ethical-political dispute with a diminishing sense of home, and produce suffering because of unequal power relations which derive from the success of the destructive technologies. Searching for a language to capture the sense of sacrifice and suffering that happens in the shadow of large-scale mining, I propose a new concept: ‘eritalgia’. Eritalgia expands the existing duad of nostalgia and solastalgia, capturing the sense of lost future self in place, emphasising the role of power and discursive hegemony in shaping experiences of and well-being in place.

Analysing the Effect of Chassis Torsional Flexibility on the Rollover Threshold of a Multi-Purpose Agricultural Vehicle

Multi-purpose agricultural tractors are vehicles that are usually involved in different operations, including road maintenance in small villages and cultivation of small agricultural plots, particularly in mountainous areas. These vehicles typically feature narrow tracks to enhance manoeuvrability, making rollover stability a critical consideration in operational settings. This characteristic arises from the interplay between the suspension and vehicle chassis. This paper introduces a numerical multi-body model designed to replicate the dynamics of a multi-purpose tractor with a torsional chassis. Model parameters were derived through experimental measurements conducted on an actual vehicle. Static measurements were performed to assess tire and suspension stiffness while tilting tests were performed to establish the static rollover limit of the vehicle. Dynamic tests conducted on a four-post test rig characterised the vehicle’s dynamics. The validated model was utilised to explore the vehicle’s stability by reproducing the static rollover tests and simulating the vehicle’s performance under working conditions on a banked road. The vehicle rollover stability was studied by performing a sensitivity analysis that considered both chassis torsional stiffness and suspension stiffness under different loading conditions. The results indicate a trade-off between frame and suspension stiffnesses that enhances overall vehicle stability.

The Disappearing Technology and Products of Traditional Tibetan Village Blacksmiths

Tibetans have a long history of iron mining, smelting, and forging. For centuries, craftsmen in major cities and large iron production centers made high-quality swords and suits of armor, as well as decorative iron ritual objects for monasteries and the elites, but blacksmithing workshops in small villages have always produced and repaired everyday objects for agricultural and home use. Modern political changes, along with greater availability of industrial objects in local markets, have greatly reduced the rank of the village blacksmith. Ethnographic fieldwork reported here from two Tibetan Bön villages in the Aba Tibetan and Qiang Autonomous Prefecture, China (once part of traditional Amdo area of Tibet), highlights some of the threats to the continued existence of village blacksmiths. Both a part-time blacksmith in one village and a full-time blacksmith in another make only a marginal living from their work. Their descendants are unlikely to continue the business. Many of the village blacksmiths in the area have already stopped production and closed their workshops. It is likely that the village blacksmith tradition might soon disappear altogether in this region of the world without support. Preservation of this tradition could benefit both cultural and environmental sustainability goals.

예이츠의 슬라이고와 엘리엇의 이스트 코우커

Starting with a general assumption that poets and regions are closely connected, this study discusses the significance of specific locales in the works of Yeats and Eliot, who are at the center of “international” modernism beyond regional boundaries. This paper focuses on Yeats’s Sligo and Eliot’s East Coker, the places that they chose as their burial grounds, with the locales’ close proximity to their origins in mind. While examining their biographical details and letters related to Sligo and East Coker, and exploring how these regions are reproduced in Yeats’s poems and Eliot’s “East Coker,” we will find interesting points of comparison between the two poets. Yeats’s experience in Sligo County provides explicit settings and materials such as Sligo place names and mythic figures, and in his poems about Sligo, the literal and the mythical are mingled. In “East Coker,” however, Eliot explores more symbolic and metaphysical meanings evoked by the small village of East Coker, even with its casual or distinct associations with him and his ancestors. In addition, this study concludes with how the present ambience of Sligo and East Coker may function for the 21st century readers of Yeats and Eliot.

The impact of modernization on mating strategies in Iran: A comparison across cities versus small towns

The mating market in Iran has shown an increased rate of relationship formation. In such relationships, the most important pillar is physical attractiveness. We adopt an evolutionary perspective to understand this trend. Through comparing districts with different levels of modernization, this study explores the effects of modernization on mate preferences in Iran. We propose that rapid modernization reduces the preference for long-term relationships and has led to a rise in short-term mating strategies. We predict that the rise of short-term mating strategies will be reflected in higher frequencies of relationships and prioritizing physical attraction in mate-seeking in modern versus non-modern areas. We collected data across states and interviewed 504 participants from 3 big cities (i.e., highly modernized) and 14 small towns and villages (i.e., less modernized). We found evidence of mating patterns in Iran that aligns with our predictions. We provide some plausible theoretical explanations and discuss the implications of these findings.

Land, landowners, and the delivery of affordable homes on rural exception sites in England

Land is a major part of the total cost of residential development, particularly in advanced economies where significant proportions of economic value resolve to land and where land for development is rationed through planning systems that seek to corral extractable value into specific locations, in support of the infrastructure investment needed to unlock development opportunity. In England, strong markets assign a high value for land allocated for housing in local plans, relative to unallocated land. In England’s rural areas, constraints on land development – for reasons of landscape and amenity protection, or to support food security – contribute to significant affordability challenges for households on lower rural wages, who may be out-competed in the housing market by adventitious purchasers, or simply by more affluent buyers bidding for a limited supply of rural homes. Planned development (on sites allocated in a local plan) may not meet the needs of lower-income groups in constrained rural housing markets. For that reason, it is necessary to support housing affordability by granting exceptional permission for development on unallocated land, and then negotiating land sales at a price that will allow a non-profit housing provider (a ‘registered provider of social housing’) to build affordable rented homes for local households in need. Development on ‘rural exception sites’ (RES) has a thirty-year history. It is an important means of supporting the development of affordable homes in smaller villages (market-led schemes on allocated sites are the norm in larger settlements, with affordable homes procured through agreement with for-profit developers). The RES approach lays bare the impact of land cost on housing affordability. Only if a sufficiently low price for land, which is well below ‘full residential’ value, can be agreed will it be viable to develop affordable homes, with rents matching local wages. Where such a price is agreed, it may be possible to build homes without cash subsidy. If the price rises, affordability may be threatened, unless public grant support is more generous or market homes on the RES can be used to mitigate a higher land cost by providing cross-subsidy for affordable homes. This monograph details research exploring the recent granting of exceptional planning permissions in England, the critical relationship with landowners, and how those landowners may be incentivized to sell land at a price that supports affordability. It analyses extant threats to the approach, and therefore the risk that a key mechanism for delivering affordable homes may be undermined by a market logic that continuously questions the efficacy of ‘non-market’ and ‘non-profit’ housing solutions in England.

Information systems‐enabled sustainability transformation: A study of an energy self‐sufficient village in Germany

AbstractInformation systems (IS) play an important role in helping organisations attain environmental sustainability targets, and how to use IS for sustainability transformation is attracting research attention. However, extant studies have mainly focused on such transformation of business enterprises, overlooking it of communities. Our study intends to fill this gap by conducting an in‐depth case study at Feldheim, a small village in Germany that has successfully built a renewable energy system using IS and achieved energy self‐sufficiency. Guided by the belief‐action‐outcome (BAO) framework, our study unveiled a process model of antecedents, belief and action formation, and outcomes specific to community‐based sustainability transformation. The model also reveals three roles that IS assume in such transformation: participation objects, connectivity enablement, and fluctuation mitigation. Our study contributes to the literature on IS‐enabled sustainability transformation by extending it from the business enterprise context to the community context. It also provides communities with guidelines for conducting IS‐enabled sustainability transformation.

Muslim Holy Sites in the Southern Urals: geoinformation mapping and spatial analysis

In the last decade, there has been a tendency in the Southern Urals to reconstruct old and to form new holy places revered by Muslims. To date, more than 115 such objects have been recorded. Most of them are revered only by the residents of small villages, but some have acquired great importance for Muslims throughout the region. The purpose of this work is to identify the most popular places of worship of Muslims in the Southern Urals. Considering that some of the objects of regional importance have been revered by Muslims since the XIV century, and others, having appeared relatively recently, quickly became one of the most visited places, it is necessary to determine the factors influencing the growth of this popularity. The study supposed the Geoinformation methods to be used. Thus, using free Quantum GIS software, and on the basis of archival materials, archaeologists’, ethnographers’, religious scholars’, culturologists’ groundwork, as well as referring to the materials of Internet communities and other open sources, we have created the following layers: 1) Mausoleums, 2) Places of worship according to the Central Spiritual Administration of Muslims of Russia, 3) Places of worship according to the Internet community Sufi RB, 4) Religious tourist routes. Using a comparative method, it was determined that the most popular among Muslims in the region are the mausoleum of Hussein-Bey and Mount Narystau (Ilchigulovo IV, kurgan burial ground). The results of the study indicate that the popularity of objects is influenced by a number of factors: they can be identified as the presence of a monumental structure, the representation of the object in the media space and in the Internet, as well as the availability of objective scientific data about it.

Implementing a provisional overarching intervention for COVID-19 monitoring and control in the Brazil-Colombia-Peru frontier.

he challenge was to provide comprehensive health resources to a remote and underserved population living in the Brazil-Colombia-Peru border, amid the most disruptive global crisis of the century. In August 2021, Fundação Oswaldo Cruz Amazonia (FIOCRUZ Amazônia) and partner collaborators implemented an overarching provisional program for SARS-CoV-2 detection and lineages characterization, training of laboratory personnel and healthcare providers, donation of diagnostic supplies and personal protective equipment, and COVID-19 vaccination. The expedition was conducted at the Port of Tabatinga, a busy terminal with an intense flux of people arriving and departing in boats of all sizes, located in the Amazon River basin. Local government, non-profit organizations, private companies, and other stakeholders supported the intervention. The expedition was accomplished in a convergence point, where migrant workers, traders, army personnel, people living in urban areas, and people from small villages living in riversides and indigenous territories are in close and frequent contact, with widespread cross-border movement. Using a boat as a provisional lab and storage facility, the intervention provided clinical and laboratory monitoring for 891 participants; vaccination for 536 individuals; personal protective equipment for 200 healthcare providers; diagnostic supplies for 1,000 COVID-19 rapid tests; training for 42 community health agents on personal protection, rapid test execution, and pulse oximeter management; and hands-on training for four lab technicians on molecular diagnosis. Our experience demonstrates that multilateral initiatives can counterweigh the scarcity of health resources in underserved regions. Moreover, provisional programs can have a long-lasting effect if investments are also provided for local capacity building.

Fragile X syndrome in the largest world clustering. I. Genetic epidemiology and founder effect outline.

The FMR1 5' regulation gene region harbors a CGG trinucleotide repeat expansion (CGG-TRE) that causes Fragile X syndrome (FXS) when it expands to more than 200 repetitions. Ricaurte is a small village in southwestern Colombia, with an FXS prevalence of 1 in 38 men and 1 in 100 women (~100 times higher than the worldwide reported prevalence), defining Ricaurte as the largest FXS cluster in the world. In the present study, using next-generation sequencing of whole exome capture, we genotype 55 individuals from Ricaurte (49 with either full mutation or with premutation), four individuals from neighboring villages (with either the full mutation or with the premutation), and one unaffected woman, native of Ricaurte, who did not belong to any of the affected families. With advanced clustering and haplotype reconstruction, we modeled a common haplotype of 33 SNPs spanning 83,567,899 bp and harboring the FMR1 gene. This reconstructed haplotype was found in all the men from Ricaurte who carried the expansion, demonstrating that the genetic conglomerate of FXS in this population is due to a founder effect. The definition of this founder effect and its population outlining will allow a better prediction, follow-up, precise and personalized characterization of epidemiological parameters, better knowledge of the disease's natural history, and confident improvement of the clinical attention, life quality, and health interventions for this community.

Comparison of solar district heating and renovation of buildings as measures for decarbonization of heat supply in rural areas

In this study two different decarbonization strategies for rural heat supply are compared on the example of 180 buildings located in a small village in Germany with about 860 inhabitants and typically mainly old buildings, partly in half-timbered construction. The comparison shows that erection of a solar district heating system with solar fraction of about 67 % leads to similar heating costs as an energy efficient renovation followed by installation of decentralized air source heat pumps for most of the buildings. Both concepts aim to achieve a heat supply that is free from the local use of fossil fuels. While the solar district heating system can probably be realized within a few years and therefore achieves the full CO2 savings promptly, this would take decades for the implementation of energy efficient renovation and heat pumps due to low renovation rate. Reaching climate-neutrality for the heat supply could thus be accelerated significantly by the construction of a solar district heating system. Moreover, the two decarbonization approaches do not appear to be fundamentally mutually exclusive: subsequent steady renovation of connected buildings will either increase solar share in heat supply or enable connection of new consumers at similar solar coverage rate. However, it should be also noted that with solar district heating alone, not always the same thermal comfort as with reinforced building renovation is achieved.

Geography and form of settlement of Russians of the near abroad (Baltic states, Belarus, Moldova): main trends of the first quarter of the 21st century

The article identifies the main trends of the territorial dynamics of the Russian population of the Baltic states, Belarus, Moldova and Transnistria during 2000s-2010s. It was found that, correlating with the general decline, the geography of Russian population also decreased. However, in all the studied countries the fragmentation of the settlement system occurred at the expense of settlements of lower taxonomic ranks (farms, small villages). In larger settlements, Russian groups persisted even in Moldova and Lithuania, which demonstrated the highest rates of demographic decline of Russian communities in the post-Soviet period. The largest concentrations of the Russian population in all the considered countries remained in the capitals. Moreover, they were also the epicenters of assimilation, the main factor of Russian depopulation in the 2000s and the first half of the 2010s. The level of urbanization of Russian communities remained very high in all the countries (80-90%), but at the beginning of the 21st century it decreased. This process was related not so much to the increased rootedness of Russian villagers, but rather to the migration of the Russian population from peripheral regions to the rural outskirts of metropolitan agglomerations. Being a form of deurbanization, it represented a variant of the geodemographic metropolization of Russian communities (the increasing concentration in capital regions). Only in Moldova the increased demographic stability of rural Russians was determined by a small group of old believer villages amidst a high level of derussification of the rest of the settlement network. Only the Russian community of Transnistria demonstrated an increased territorial and quantitative stability in the 2000s and 2010s. It clearly illustrated the significant role of geocivilizational orientation of post-Soviet states in the demographic dynamics of the local Russian population.

Prolong Submersion in the Swimming Pool without Neurological Outcome

Abstract Drowning can be defined as a chain of events of respiratory disability due to submersion or immersion in liquid with sequelae such as irreversible brain damage, heart failure, and death. The main organ in a drowning subject is the brain, which has almost zero energy and oxygen stores and hence needs a continuous supply of blood to fulfill its need for oxygen and loss of laryngospasm. This leads to massive aspiration, lung atelectasis, and edema. This unique and miracle case was a child submerged in a swimming pool for a prolonged period without receiving CPR, traveling from the drowning place to the present hospital around 30 km. The patient came from a small village where there were no facilities of ambulance inbuilt basic facilities or advanced life support. He was on a mechanical ventilator in the pediatric intensive care unit in the present institute. He was unconscious on admission. Recovered from all complications and was discharged without any neurological abnormalities. A 13-year-old boy was admitted to the pediatric emergency department with a history of drowning in a swimming pool; he was a nonswimmer and went with his friends who were swimmers, where he accidentally fell into the water without notice from other friends. After not finding him around, his friends searched for him. They found him immersed in water at the bottom of the pool for about 10–15 min, not receiving cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) as nobody was trained. The primary diagnosis was drowning without neurological complications. Therapeutic interventions included a mechanical ventilator, intravenous antibiotics, intravenous steroids, chest physiotherapy. On discharge patient had no neurological complication except limping of right foot. After 1 month of follow up, central nervous system examination was within the normal limits. No limping was seen. No neurological deficit was observed. Drowning is a common etiology of accidental mortality in the pediatric age group. Most victims not treated with CPR at the site develop permanent neurological deficits. Proper and effective management can improve many complications caused due to drowning. Guidelines should be strictly followed in private/public swimming pools to have all duties of lifeguards who are trained in CPR. Drowning patients should be managed in hospitals with well-equipped mechanical ventilators, including trained staff.