Urban Environs Research Articles

Aflatoxin B1 and M1 contamination of animal feeds and milk from urban centers in Kenya.

Aflatoxin M1 (AFM1) is the principal hydroxylated AFB1 metabolite present in milk of cows fed with a diet contaminated with AFB1and excreted within 12 hours of administration of contaminated feeds. This study was initiated to assess the knowledge and practices of urban dairy farmers and feed millers about aflatoxin in feeds and milk, determine the prevalence and quantify the levels of AFB1 and AFM1 in animal feeds and milk respectively from urban environs in Kenya. This work was carried out in the Department of Public Health Pharmacology and Toxicology, University of Nairobi, Kenya, between February 2006 and March 2007. A total of 830 animal feed and 613 milk samples from four urban centers were analyzed for aflatoxin B1 and M1 respectively using competitive enzyme immunoassay. Eighty six percent (353/412) of the feed samples from farmers were positive for aflatoxin B1 and 67% (235/353) of these exceeded the FAO/WHO level of 5µ gKg-1. Eighty one percent (197/243) of the feed samples from feed millers and 87% (153/175) from agrochemical shops were positive, while 58% (115/197) and 66% (92/153) of the positive samples exceeded the FAO/WHO limits respectively. Seventy two percent (315/439) of the milk from dairy farmers, 84% (71/85) from large and medium scale farmers and 99% (88/89) of the pasteurized marketed milk were positive for aflatoxin M1, and 20%, 35% an 31% of positive milk from dairy farmers, medium and large scale farmers and market outlets respectively, exceeded the WHO/FAO levels of 0.05µ g/Kg-1. Sixty seven percent of the urban smallholder dairy farmers had no knowledge that milk could be contaminated with aflatoxin M1 and neither knew how they could mitigate against this exposure. Feed millers knew about aflatoxin B1 in grains and excretion of aflatoxin M1 in milk, but were not alleviating exposure to animals. There is need to create awareness and establish routine monitoring of animal feeds and milk to reduce animal and consequently human response.

Nutrient Imbalances: Follow the Waste

In their Policy Forum (“Nutrient imbalances in agricultural development,” 19 June, p. [1519][1]), P. M. Vitousek and colleagues appropriately addressed the consequences of both overextraction and excess application of nutrients in low-input, rotation, and high-input corn production systems in Kenya, the United States, and China, respectively. The authors provided several on-farm mitigating approaches to these imbalances and called for a more sustainable approach to nutrient management in both developed and developing nations. Unfortunately, the human waste stream and the resulting nutrient redistribution went unmentioned. Over the past 200 years, global populations have become increasingly urban, shifting from 97% rural in 1800 to about 50% in 2007 (75% in developed countries) ([ 1 ][2]). Nutrients in plant and animal products collected broadly across rural landscapes are increasingly concentrated in urban environs where waste removal efforts result in transformation of nutrients into gases, dilution into rivers and marine bodies, and deposition in pits and landfills. Only a fraction of these assets (nutrients and carbon) are ever returned to rural lands. As a result, soils are slowly being drained of trace elements, soil carbon reserves are being depleted, and it is necessary to mine nutrients and chemically produce N fertilizer to satisfy crop demands. Global N fertilizer use ([ 2 ][3]) currently outpaces global human N demand ([ 1 ][2], [ 3 ][4]) by a factor of 7 at an annual energy expense equivalent to 1.1 billion barrels of oil. Conversely, N in human excreta in urban centers is nearly equivalent to the total global anhydrous NH3-N production and represents sufficient N to fertilize 100 million hectares of cropland at 150 kg N ha−1 year−1. Sustainable agriculture cannot be achieved until we learn to efficiently and safely redistribute the nutrients in agricultural byproducts and human excreta to the soils of rural landscapes. 1. [↵][5] United Nations, “World urbanization prospects: The 2007 revision—Highlights” (United Nations, Tech. Rep. no. E.04.XIII.6, 2008). 2. [↵][6] 1. J. N. Galloway 2. et al ., Science 320, 889 (2008). [OpenUrl][7][Abstract/FREE Full Text][8] 3. [↵][9] 1. D. H. Calloway, 2. S. Margen , J. Nutr. 101, 205 (1971). [OpenUrl][10][Abstract/FREE Full Text][11] [1]: /lookup/doi/10.1126/science.1170261 [2]: #ref-1 [3]: #ref-2 [4]: #ref-3 [5]: #xref-ref-1-1 View reference 1 in text [6]: #xref-ref-2-1 View reference 2 in text [7]: {openurl}?query=rft.jtitle%253DScience%26rft.stitle%253DScience%26rft.issn%253D0036-8075%26rft.aulast%253DGalloway%26rft.auinit1%253DJ.%2BN.%26rft.volume%253D320%26rft.issue%253D5878%26rft.spage%253D889%26rft.epage%253D892%26rft.atitle%253DTransformation%2Bof%2Bthe%2BNitrogen%2BCycle%253A%2BRecent%2BTrends%252C%2BQuestions%252C%2Band%2BPotential%2BSolutions%26rft_id%253Dinfo%253Adoi%252F10.1126%252Fscience.1136674%26rft_id%253Dinfo%253Apmid%252F18487183%26rft.genre%253Darticle%26rft_val_fmt%253Dinfo%253Aofi%252Ffmt%253Akev%253Amtx%253Ajournal%26ctx_ver%253DZ39.88-2004%26url_ver%253DZ39.88-2004%26url_ctx_fmt%253Dinfo%253Aofi%252Ffmt%253Akev%253Amtx%253Actx [8]: /lookup/ijlink/YTozOntzOjQ6InBhdGgiO3M6MTQ6Ii9sb29rdXAvaWpsaW5rIjtzOjU6InF1ZXJ5IjthOjQ6e3M6ODoibGlua1R5cGUiO3M6NDoiQUJTVCI7czoxMToiam91cm5hbENvZGUiO3M6Mzoic2NpIjtzOjU6InJlc2lkIjtzOjEyOiIzMjAvNTg3OC84ODkiO3M6NDoiYXRvbSI7czoyNDoiL3NjaS8zMjYvNTk1My82NjUuMS5hdG9tIjt9czo4OiJmcmFnbWVudCI7czowOiIiO30= [9]: #xref-ref-3-1 View reference 3 in text [10]: {openurl}?query=rft.jtitle%253DJournal%2Bof%2BNutrition%26rft.stitle%253DJ.%2BNutr.%26rft.issn%253D0022-3166%26rft.aulast%253DCalloway%26rft.auinit1%253DD.%2BH.%26rft.volume%253D101%26rft.issue%253D2%26rft.spage%253D205%26rft.epage%253D216%26rft.atitle%253DVariation%2Bin%2BEndogenous%2BNitrogen%2BExcretion%2Band%2BDietary%2BNitrogen%2BUtilization%2Bas%2BDeterminants%2Bof%2BHuman%2BProtein%2BRequirement%26rft_id%253Dinfo%253Apmid%252F5540441%26rft.genre%253Darticle%26rft_val_fmt%253Dinfo%253Aofi%252Ffmt%253Akev%253Amtx%253Ajournal%26ctx_ver%253DZ39.88-2004%26url_ver%253DZ39.88-2004%26url_ctx_fmt%253Dinfo%253Aofi%252Ffmt%253Akev%253Amtx%253Actx [11]: /lookup/ijlink/YTozOntzOjQ6InBhdGgiO3M6MTQ6Ii9sb29rdXAvaWpsaW5rIjtzOjU6InF1ZXJ5IjthOjQ6e3M6ODoibGlua1R5cGUiO3M6NDoiQUJTVCI7czoxMToiam91cm5hbENvZGUiO3M6OToibnV0cml0aW9uIjtzOjU6InJlc2lkIjtzOjk6IjEwMS8yLzIwNSI7czo0OiJhdG9tIjtzOjI0OiIvc2NpLzMyNi81OTUzLzY2NS4xLmF0b20iO31zOjg6ImZyYWdtZW50IjtzOjA6IiI7fQ==

Mughal gardens of the indian subcontinent and the colonial legacy: the treatment of delhi's shalamar Bagh

The treatment of historic Mughal gardens in India today largely continues to draw on the practices evolved by the British as their custodians in the ninteenth and early twentieth centuries. This paper aims to illustrate how the British approach in the past and its espousal in contemporary practice have prevented Mughal gardens being interpreted and presented in their entirety as cultural assets. The paper examines the case of Delhi's Shalamar Bagh in this context, tracing the garden's reduction from a seventeenth-century Mughal leisure retreat to a fragmented and neglected ensemble of ruined garden structures in the colonial era. The perpetuation of the colonial approach by the garden's current custodians has severed Shalamar Bagh's relevance to contemporary times. A case is made for shunning the monument-centric approach of conservation adopted in the past and taking up the conservation of Delhi's Shalamar Bagh as a spatial entity in its entirety, where both its architectural remains and the enveloping garden can provide an enriching experience to the users, supplanting the garden's current perception as an open space disconnected from its urban environs.

Ethnomethodology and the Non‐representational: What Are Disaffected Young White Men Capable of?

AbstractThis short review draws together three research trajectories underway in contemporary human geography; ethnographic research with young white men living out changing urban contexts, non‐representational styles of thinking and experiments with ethnomethodological precepts and research practice. The article begins by examining the possibility of rapprochement between non‐representational and ethnomethodological thought. This unlikely meeting is applied to the possibility of an empirical engagement with young white men in Burnley, UK. In his report on the summer 2001 disturbances in Northern England's mill towns, Ted Cantle signals the political problem presented by ‘disaffected’ young white men. However, a generic concept of disaffection presents an obstacle to connecting those men, as capable individuals, to positive political futures. In response, this article speculates that studying the varied affective capacities behind disaffection will multiply the ways in which young white men may be recognised as capable political actors. The meeting of distinctive critiques of empiricism will enable an ethnographic approach well placed to generate understandings of how a variety of capacities to think, feel and act come to matter amid politically unsettled, post‐industrial urban environs.

Nesting Biology of Urban Cooper's Hawks in Milwaukee, Wisconsin

ABSTRACT Urban landscapes vary greatly across North America and long‐term data on the nesting biology of Cooper's hawks (Accipiter cooperii) from a variety of urban environments will improve our understanding of these poorly studied populations. We studied Cooper's hawks nesting in the metropolitan Milwaukee area, Wisconsin, USA, over a 12‐year period, 1993–2004. Nesting success for 254 first nesting attempts averaged 64.6% with means of 2.27 young per laying pair and 3.53 young per successful pair. For 8 second nesting attempts (i.e., re‐nests), nesting success averaged 87.5% with means of 2.57 young per laying pair and 3.00 young per successful pair. Productivity for first nesting attempts did not vary over the 12‐year period, and productivity for re‐nests did not differ from first nesting attempts. We documented evidence of nest predation by raccoons (Procyon lotor) and red‐tailed hawks (Buteo jamaicensis). On average, second year (SY [i.e., 1‐yr‐old]) Cooper's hawks comprised 14.6% (43 of 295 breeding birds; 21.5% [37 of 172] of F and 4.9% [6 of 123] of M) of the known breeding population. The percentage of SY breeders within this population declined over the 12‐year period, suggesting a relatively young population. Cooper's hawks consistently reoccupied nest sites annually after initial discovery over an estimated 2 generations of breeding adults, suggesting that population density for our study was at least stable. We trapped 105 breeding adults, including 5 natal dispersal birds. Based on long‐term, relatively high reproduction, repeated re‐occupancy of nest sites, and confirmed recruitment from within this population, we suggest that these nesting areas were not marginal or inferior habitats and that urban Cooper's hawks in this study area were not a sink population. We recommend no active management of this population at this time; however, additional information for nesting Cooper's hawks from other urban environs will expand our knowledge base for these populations.

Poisson Multilevel Methodology of Bicycle Levels of Service for Road Networks

Methodologies for bicycle levels of service have been developed for urban and suburban road segments, as well as for rural road segments. Today, however, the utilitarian (commuter) cyclist requires access to urban, suburban, and rural environs to travel safely between home and work. To complement bicycle level-of-service methodologies that incorporate mental stressors in road segments, this study developed a bicycle level-of-service methodology that incorporates physical stressors in road networks with the greatest influence on the frequency and the severity of cycling injuries from bicycle–motor vehicle collisions. To do so, the methodology integrates output from two different statistical models. To model the frequency of bicycle–motor vehicle collisions on all road segments (n = 65) in a regional road network, a Poisson model was used. To model the severity of all bicycle–motor vehicle collisions (n = 25) on the road segments in a regional road network, a multilevel model was used. To complete the Poisson multilevel bicycle level-of-service methodology, the outputs from the Poisson model of the frequency of bicycle–motor vehicle collisions and from the multilevel model of the severity of bicycle-motor vehicle collisions were used as the inputs in a geographic information system. Through analysis of the study area road network, samples of utilitarian cycling routes that minimize distance alone and that maximize safety alone were selected to quantify the benefits and the costs to utilitarian cyclists in terms of time and safety for both selections.

The difference is in the detail: Its potential as a place branding tool and impact upon perceptions and responses

This paper makes a case for the forgotten potential of detail in creating a sense of place, calling for a review of the design and treatment of detailing in public spaces and its role in urban environments. The study introduces the importance of detail in forming perceptions, and subsequently its effect on behaviour in public spaces and urban environs. Arguing that the combination of details has the potential to create or destroy a sense of ownership and territory, the paper questions how they could be better used to build civic pride among residents and visitors. It also considers how those who create and manage public realm environments could learn from attitudes to detail commonly seen in other areas of design practice, such as product, interior and communication design. It looks to approaches that underpin corporate brands, and proposes that a similarly focused attention to detail could help better define the unique character of a city or place. It also acknowledges the charm of ‘random’ details, and highlights that a balance must be sought between unplanned and controlled detail.

The Public Military High School

This article explores an innovative secondary educational institution: a public military academy. Data were collected through observations, interviews, paper content analyses, and surveys in an urban military high school. The data reveal how the school's unique military subculture develops students by enabling them to accrue various forms of social capital, including military capital, and by developing cadets’ civility, leadership skills and agency, discipline, and propensity for education. Therefore, the institutional product or academy graduate should possess enhanced life skills and increased chances to achieve upward mobility, making this school a potentially powerful educational institution for underprivileged urban-minority youth. Future research should explore how this school compares to other urban public schools, parochial schools, and private military schools and the life outcomes of the students from these different schools. The research has broad implications for the potential power of public military schools, especially in urban environs.

Seroprevalence of anti-cysticercus antibodies among the children living in the urban environs of Maputo, Mozambique.

Blood and faecal samples were collected from 269 children (aged 0-15 years) who lived in the urban environs of Maputo, the capital city of Mozambique. Antibodies against Cysticercus cellulosae were detected, at a titre of at least 1:100, in 56 (20.8%) of the blood samples. When the stool samples were checked for Taenia solium and other helminths, both as direct smears and after formalin-ether concentration, 180 (67.0%) were found to contain at least one helminth species. The parasites most commonly detected in the faecal samples were Trichurus trichiura (36.0%) and Ascaris lumbricoides (35.7%). Only in one sample (0.4%) were gravid proglottids of Ta. solium detected, but Hymenolepis nana (1.1%) and H. diminuta (0.4%) were also found. A positive correlation between seropositivity for anti-cysticercus antibodies and subject age, and positive associations between such seropositivity and infection with A. lumbricoides and infection with Tr. trichiura were observed. None of the other demographic and environmental factors investigated--the child's sex, religion and access to toilets and/or piped water, the type of house in which he or she lived, the number of individuals in the household to which he or she belonged, and whether that household had pets or raised livestock--showed any apparent association with either the seroprevalence of anti-cysticercus antibodies or infection with any intestinal helminth. The use of water from the common sewage-drainage system for agricultural irrigation in the study area probably causes most of the contamination with intestinal parasites.

Teaching About the Environment in Cattle Country: A Reflection on Values and Conflict

Teaching About the Environment in Cattle Country: A Reflection on Values and Conflict Kathleen A. Dahl Eastern Oregon University I teach anthropology at a rural university with a student body derived mostly from the surrounding areas. Sixty percent of the students at Eastern Oregon University are from that immediate region, and another 20 percent are from other rural areas. Many of our students come from families that have been ranching or farming or logging for generations, and many students expect to return to these occupations after college. This academic world, for many, is an alien world, filled with bizarre theories and upside-down values diametrically opposed to those learned at home or in the tiny and isolated public school systems in the small towns scattered throughout northeastern Oregon. Students must learn to cope with the disorientation and even shock resulting from exposure to radical ideas and radical professors, at the same time they learn to navigate the urban environs of the sprawling metropolis of La Grande. Lest you think I am exaggerating the extent of such provincialism in our modern age of television, movie videos, and the Internet, let me offer just one illustrative example. I and other professors teach in disciplines that emphasize human biological evolution. The concept of human evolution is so upsetting to some students that they will not even come to class during that portion of the course, and choose to forfeit points on exams rather than hear about evolution. Perhaps the one topic that provokes even more outrage and resistance than evolution is environmentalism, or any environmentally based analysis of human society and behavior. Eastern Oregon is a region still greatly dependent on agricultural activities like farming and ranching, and on the timber industry in one form or another. I say still dependent because these industries are declining a little less rapidly than elsewhere, although declining they are. Declines in the cattle and timber industries, especially, are blamed on government regulations and environmentalists who, it is believed, are successful at limiting the number of trees cut or the areas where cattle may graze. Every mainstream anthropology textbook examines humanity's development from small-scale foraging societies with minimal impacts on the environment, to one global system dominated by high-tech industrial and post-industrial societies based on intensive profit-oriented

Antibodies to spotted fever group rickettsiae in dogs in Croatia

The prevalence of IgG antibodies to spotted fever group rickettsiae was studied by the indirect immunofluorescent antibody assay in a sample of 194 canine sera from different parts of Croatia. Dogs (n = 141) from urban and suburban-semirural environs from the middle part of the eastern coast of Adriatic sea, and dogs (n = 53) from Zagreb, the capital of Croatia located in the northern continental part of Croatia, were tested. The total of 88 (62.4%) dogs from southern coastal Croatia had antibodies to Rickettsia conorii, with a significantly higher prevalence (69.9%) in suburban-semirural areas. The prevalence rate of antibodies to Rickettsia conorii in canine sera from urban environment in the north of Croatia was 20.7%. The results show that the members of spotted fever group rickettsiae are present in both coastal and continental Croatia.

Transportation of radionuclides in urban environs: Draft environmental assessment

Many methods and applications for maritime transportation risk analysis have been presented in the literature. In parallel, there is a recent focus on foundational issues in risk analysis, with calls for intensified research on fundamental concepts and principles underlying the scientific field. This paper presents a review and analysis of risk definitions, perspectives and scientific approaches to risk analysis found in the maritime transportation application area, focusing on applications addressing accidental risk of shipping in a sea area. For this purpose, a classification of risk definitions, an overview of elements in risk perspectives and a classification of approaches to risk analysis science are applied. Results reveal that in the application area, risk is strongly tied to probability, both in definitions and perspectives, while alternative views exist. A diffuse situation is also found concerning the scientific approach to risk analysis, with realist, proceduralist and constructivist foundations co-existing. Realist approaches dominate the application area. Very few applications systematically account for uncertainty, neither concerning the evidence base nor in relation to the limitations of the risk model in relation to the space of possible outcomes. Some suggestions are made to improve the current situation, aiming to strengthen the scientific basis for risk analysis.

Model Study of the Propagation of Sound from V/STOL Aircraft into Urban Environs

The propagation of sound from elevated noise sources into urban environs was studied with a series of model experiments. The experiments included the modeling of previous urban propagation field studies, the measurement of sound enhancement and barrier effects in an urban region, and the determination of the significance of building facades in urban propagation. Results of the study were expressed in the difference in sound level observed between a particular urban source-receiver geometry and a corresponding open field geometry. The results expressed in this manner can be applied directly to many urban situations to predict sound levels from known noise sources. In addition to the model results, a more general method of sound level prediction based solely on urban geometries has been developed. With the model results and elementary psychoacoustic considerations, urban geometries which produce the most and least noise intrusion have been rank ordered for the specialized case of V/STOL aircraft. [Work supported by U. S. Department of Transportation.]

Extended Families Among Black Americans

Black families in Chicago are described as bilateral extended in form and as representing an institution that has existed under widely varied conditions: in Southern and Northern, rural and urban environs. Two basic household types are characterized: conjugal and matrilocal, each including a potential second extended phase as sons and daughters remain at home with their own children for varying periods of time. These extended stages, together with the frequent temporary addition of other relatives to the household, both reflect and reinforce the extended family as a primary unit of reciprocity. Migration patterns show a strong tendency for mobile family members and households to join relatives in other areas; reunions, funeral ritual and other family ceremonies are influential in maintaining family ties over distances. Friendships outside the family frequently take on kinship characteristics as “playkin” relationships, further indicating the weight of kinship as a principle of social organization. Origins of family and kinship organization may be seen on Southern plantations, where extended families were more functional than nuclear; yet the Black family represents a tradition that has survived under many conditions, transmitting values of Black Americans.