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Is Exposure to Poultry Harmful to Child Nutrition? An Observational Analysis for Rural Ethiopia
Derek Headey,
Affiliation International Food Policy Research Institute, Washington, DC, United States of America
Kalle Hirvonen
* E-mail: k.hirvonen@cgiar.org
Affiliation International Food Policy Research Institute, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
Derek Headey Kalle Hirvonen
Although strategic thinking on water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) has prioritized reducing exposure to human feces in order to limit diarrheal infections, recent research suggests that elevated exposure to livestock–particularly poultry and poultry feces–may be an important risk factor for diarrhea, environmental enteric disorder (EED) and respiratory infections, all of which may seriously retard linear growth in young children. Yet a very different literature on nutrition-sensitive agriculture suggests that livestock ownership is highly beneficial for child growth outcomes through its importance for increasing consumption of nutrient-rich animal sourced foods, such as eggs. Together, these two literatures suggest that the net nutritional benefit of poultry ownership is particularly ambiguous and potentially mediated by whether or not children are highly exposed to poultry. We test this novel hypothesis using a large agricultural survey of rural Ethiopian households that includes measures of child height-for-age Z-scores (HAZ), ownership of poultry and other types of livestock, and an indicator of whether livestock are kept within the main household dwelling overnight. We used least squares regression analysis to estimate unadjusted and adjusted models that control for a wide range of potentially confounding factors. We find that while poultry ownership is positively associated with child HAZ [β = 0.291, s.e. = 0.094], the practice of corralling poultry in the household dwelling overnight is negatively associated with HAZ [β = -0.250, s.e. = 0.118]. Moreover, we find no negative associations between HAZ and corralling other livestock species indoors. These results suggest that while poultry ownership can be beneficial to child growth, overly close exposure to poultry poses a concurrent risk factor for undernutrition, most likely because of increased risk of infection.
Citation: Headey D, Hirvonen K (2016) Is Exposure to Poultry Harmful to Child Nutrition? An Observational Analysis for Rural Ethiopia. PLoS ONE 11(8): e0160590. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0160590
Editor: Jacobus van Wouwe, TNO, NETHERLANDS
Received: October 16, 2015; Accepted: July 21, 2016; Published: August 16, 2016
Copyright: © 2016 Headey, Hirvonen. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Data Availability: This study is based on secondary data collected by the Central Statistical Agency (CSA) of Ethiopia. Researchers interested in using these data can request access from the CSA by filling in the appropriate documents (downloadable here: http://www.csa.gov.et/index.php/component/content/article/8-home/121-data-access-polices) and submitting them to the Central Statistical Authority: by email: csa@ethionet.et; by fax: (251) 111 55 03 or by post: P.O. Box 1143, Addis Ababa, ETHOPIA.
Funding: Funding for this work was received through the Feed-the-Future project funded by the United States Agency for International Development, and the Advancing Research on Nutrition and Agriculture (AReNA) project funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
Child undernutrition in poor countries has long been linked to disease burdens such as diarrhea and respiratory infections, but more recently to environmental enteric disorder (EED), a sub-clinical condition characterized by chronic damage to the gut, malabsorption of nutrients and low level immune system stimulation that diverts resources away from growth and development [1–3]. Both EED and diarrhea are strongly associated with elevated exposure to fecal matter. But because humans appear to be the main reservoir for several of the most common pathogens that cause clinical diarrhea, the vast majority of water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) interventions and strategies have placed primary emphasis on toilet construction and related hygiene and water measures, such as handwashing [4–6]. In contrast, there is little indication that WASH or health and nutrition programs regularly include any significant emphasis on reducing exposure to animal feces [7, 8]. Likewise nutrition-sensitive livestock interventions, which are increasingly popular in the developing world because of the important animal-sourced foods for child nutrition [9, 10], pay little or no attention to the health hazards associated with exposure to livestock feces.
There are several reasons to reconsider the neglect of animal feces in the WASH, health/nutrition and agricultural sectors.
First, exposure to animal feces may be more widespread than exposure to human feces in many parts of the developing world. Over 1990–2012, open defecation in the least developed countries fell from 45% to 20%, and in the world as a whole it fell from 24% to 14% [11]. But in most developing countries the majority of rural households own some form of livestock, as do many urban households [12]. While there is no systematic monitoring of the extent to which animal feces pervade homestead environment and private or public water supplies, recent evidence from rural India suggests that animal-sourced fecal matter is much more widespread than human-sourced fecal matter [13].
Second, a recent meta-analysis re-examined linkages between diarrhea in young children and exposure to animals [14]. It found that 21 of 27 suitable studies found significant positive associations between exposure to livestock and diarrhea, even though most of these studies were not specifically looking to corroborate such a linkage. Thus there is some evidence that exposure to livestock does increase the probability of diarrheal infections. Likewise it has long been known that exposure to poultry can increase the risk of respiratory infections in both adults and young children [15].
Finally, it has also been hypothesized that high concentrations of any bacteria–even non-pathogenic bacteria–in the small intestine can cause EED and stunting [1]. So while human feces may contain greater concentrations of the pathogenic bacteria that cause diarrhea [4], the greater prevalence of animal feces in developing countries could potentially pose a greater risk for EED and stunting.
Although biologically plausible, little research has examined the consequences of close exposure to livestock on child nutrition outcomes, even though over half of current and ongoing nutrition-sensitive agricultural projects include some form of livestock intervention [9]. Exceptions include formative research studies from Peru [16], Zimbabwe [17] and Ethiopia [8], in which researchers observed young children directly consuming chicken feces found to contain extremely high concentrations of pathogenic bacteria, such as Campylobacter jejuni and E. Coli. In addition to this formative research, two papers from the Global Enteric Multicenter Study in the Mirzapur sub-district of Bangladesh linked EED and stunting with maternal reports of geophagy [18] and keeping poultry inside the room where young children sleep [19].
In addition to this recent literature on the hygiene dimensions of livestock ownership, there is a re-emerging literature on the important of animal sourced foods (ASFs) for child nutrition in developing countries [20–25], as well as several studies that have attempted to more directly assess the impact of livestock ownership on child nutrition, particularly dairy cattle [26–28]. One recent study also makes a strong case for scaling up egg production and consumption in poor countries on the grounds that eggs are rich in essential fatty acids, proteins, choline, vitamins A and B12, selenium, and other nutrients that are essential for physical and cognitive development [29]. To the best of our knowledge, however, none of this literature has discussed the risks of livestock ownership for gastrointestinal or respiratory infections.
In this study we broach these two separate literatures by exploring the associations between household poultry ownership, exposure of children to poultry in the home, and child height-for-age Z-scores (HAZ) in a large multi-purpose household survey in rural Ethiopia. The context for this observational study, Ethiopia, is apt for several reasons. First, Ethiopia has rates of child stunting in excess of 40 percent [30] and low levels of hygiene, dietary diversity and nutritional knowledge [8, 31–33]. Second, small farms are facing significant financial constraints [34], which inhibits their ability to modernize their livestock systems; hence scavenging systems are still the norm. Third, Ethiopia has one of the highest livestock densities in the world [35], and significant qualitative evidence that Ethiopian children are highly exposed to poultry and their feces [8]. The objective of this study is therefore to explicitly test the hypothesis that poultry ownership in Ethiopia has both a positive association with HAZ (at least in part because poultry ownership increases egg consumption), and a negative association stemming from elevated exposure to livestock-based pathogens.
Data and Methods
We use household survey data collected by the Central Statistical Agency of Ethiopia, with technical assistance from The International Food Policy Research Institute (for more details of the survey, see [36]). This large scale survey took place between June and July 2015 in the five largest regions of Ethiopia (Amhara, Oromia, Somali, Southern Nations, Nationalities, and Peoples' Region (SNNP) and Tigray). The main purpose of the survey was to obtain post-intervention (midline) information in localities that were to receive investments to improve agricultural production and nutrition under the Feed the Future (FtF) program funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), or in localities that were to act as comparison sites for the evaluation of FtF. These data are representative of the zone of influence within which the FtF program operates but are not regionally or nationally representative. However, the sample is large– 6,977 households–and widespread, the survey having been administered in 252 villages in 84 of Ethiopia's 670 rural districts (woredas).
A novel feature of the survey is that it allows us to link detailed agricultural production with children's reported intake of food groups (dietary diversity) in the previous 24 hours and anthropometry. Anthropometric and dietary diversity data were collected for preschool children 0–59 months of age, amounting to a final sample of 3,494 children (from 2,704 households) after data cleaning. Length or height-for-age Z-scores (hereafter HAZ)–measured against World Health Organization norms [37]–constitute our main nutrition outcome of interest. Mothers were also asked whether children consumed particular foods over the last 24 hours, including a range of animal-sourced foods (ASFs) categorized into broader groups such as dairy products, eggs and flesh foods. The survey also records a number of other indicators typically present in nutrition models, including a standardized household asset index and various separate housing characteristics (electricity, roof materials), ownership of agricultural equipment, farm sizes, the highest level of parental education, access to an improved water source, household toilet use, access to health and agricultural extension services, and a series of questions pertaining to nutritional knowledge of appropriate child feeding practices from which we construct a nutritional knowledge z-score using principal components analysis.
In terms of livestock the FtF survey records ownership of different types of livestock types in addition to poultry. However, in earlier field visits we observed that while some household kept poultry in separate chicken coops/houses at night, many households keep poultry (and other livestock) in their main dwelling overnight, which may imply elevated levels of exposure to pathogens. Hence we requested the inclusion of additional questions to the FtF midline survey on whether any animals were kept inside the housing structure where household members sleep. This question results in indicators similar to those used in the Global Enteric Multicenter Study in Bangladesh [19], except that in the FtF, the question was posed for all types of livestock (as opposed to poultry only). A limitation of this question is that it may underestimate children's exposure to poultry and poultry feces given that scavenging poultry rarely venture further than 50 meters away from the homestead [38], and may therefore contaminate outdoor areas where children sit or crawl. However, we hypothesized that keeping poultry in the main household dwelling overnight might offer additional contamination in indoor areas where children spend considerable amount of time (especially in the rainy season). Hence we test whether the practice of keeping poultry and other livestock in the household itself poses a specific risk for children, whilst acknowledging that there are still risks even for households that keep scavenging poultry in external chicken houses.
Fig 1 describes the principal hypothesis underlying the analytical framework of this study. As noted in the introduction, livestock ownership in remote rural areas is generally hypothesized to be an important precondition for increasing ASF consumption, which in the case of poultry would primarily refer to egg consumption. However, we additionally hypothesize that the positive relationship between poultry ownership and child growth is negatively mediated by children's physical exposure to poultry (operationalized by whether livestock are corralled in the house overnight), which increases the risk of contact with harmful pathogens. A simple means of testing this mediation hypothesis is to first estimate a least squares regression model of HAZ as a function of poultry ownership alone, and then to add the poultry exposure indicator to a second model [39]. If the coefficient on poultry being kept indoors is significant and negative, and the coefficient on poultry ownership is reduced in magnitude in the second model, this would be consistent with elevated exposure to poultry being a mediating factor in the livestock-HAZ relationship.
Fig 1. A conceptual framework linking poultry ownership to child growth, with poultry corralling indoors as a mediating factor.
Source: Authors' construction.
At the same time, the dashed box and dashed arrows in Fig 1 illustrate the risk of confounding factors simultaneously influencing the decision to own poultry, the decision to corral poultry indoors, and child growth outcomes. In particular, the decisions to own poultry or corral them indoors could be related to household wealth (household assets, agricultural assets such as farm size or ownership of other livestock), parental education and nutritional knowledge, general household hygiene (toilet use, improved water supply), housing characteristics (floor and roof materials), household demographics, or environmental factors (such as overnight temperatures or rainfall, or exposure to animal predators or theft). Fortunately the multipurpose nature of our survey–and the use of village fixed effects to capture time-invariant environmental factors–allows us to control for these kinds of confounding factors (referred to as "adjusted models" below), and to test whether they systematically vary across households that do or do not own poultry, and do or do not corral their poultry indoors. Thus while the data and study design at hand is not experimental by design, we can at least test the robustness of the hypothesized model in Fig 1 to the presence of potentially confounding factors.
Finally, while the objective of our empirical analysis is to test for negative mediation of children's exposure to poultry, the FtF data set can also be used to engage in supplementary tests of whether poultry ownership increases children's egg consumption. To test this we follow a similar analysis of cattle ownership, dairy consumption and child nutrition in rural Ethiopia [27]. First, we use a linear probability model to estimate egg consumption as a function of poultry ownership after controlling for the confounding factors referred to in Fig 1. Second, we test whether poultry ownership might also influence children's diets through generic wealth effects, rather than specifically through egg availability. To do so we regress indicators of children's consumption of non-egg ASFs against poultry ownership and control variables. Finally, we explore how closely indicators of socioeconomic status (household assets, farm size, electricity access, housing materials and non-poultry ASF consumption) are related to poultry ownership after controlling for other factors. These three supplementary tests can therefore shed light on whether the positive associations between HAZ and poultry ownership stem from direct effects on egg consumption and/or more generic linkages between household wealth and poultry ownership (linkages which could be bi-directional).
Descriptive Results
We begin our analysis with some descriptive analysis of nutrition, diets and animal husbandry in rural Ethiopia. Livestock ownership and housing practices are reported in Table 1. As expected, we find that ownership rates of livestock are very high (with relatively little regional variation; see S1 Table in our supplement). Consistent with the nationally representative 2011 Ethiopian Demographic Health Survey [30], the FtF midline survey suggests that around half of rural households own poultry. We also observe that keeping livestock indoors at night is very common, particularly for poultry owners, almost half of whom follow this practice (48%).
Table 1. Livestock ownership and corralling practices by livestock type in a sample of 2,704 rural Ethiopian households.
Table 2 reports means of the main variables used in our analysis for the sample as a whole as well as sub-samples based on whether the household owns no poultry, owns poultry that are corralled inside the main household dwelling overnight, or owns poultry that are corralled outside the main dwelling. We also report t-tests for differences in means relative to the sub-sample of households that keep poultry inside the main household dwelling ("Poultry inside"). These t-tests provide some indicative evidence as to whether confounding factors may influence the associations hypothesized in Fig 1.
Table 2. Variable means for the full sample and poultry-based sub-samples, including t-tests of mean differences relative to the "Poultry inside" sub-sample.
In terms of anthropometric outcomes, Table 1 shows that mean HAZ scores are very low, and almost half (48%) of our sample of children are stunted (HAZ below two standard deviations), a result consistent with results of recent Demographic Health Surveys in Ethiopia [40]. Furthermore, S1 Fig in our supplement shows the HAZ scores in this sample follow the usual dynamics of growth faltering observed in other low income country settings [41].
In Table 2 we also observe that the sub-sample of "poultry outside" has significantly better nutritional outcomes (44% stunting) compared to "poultry inside" (50% stunting). ASF consumption is low and not significantly different across groups, but egg consumption by children is higher in the poultry-owning groups, and higher in the "poultry outside" sub-sample than in the "poultry inside" group. However, we subsequently show below that this difference in egg consumption between the "poultry outside" and "poultry inside" groups is not significant after other factors are taken into account.
We also observe another significant difference across the sub-samples: "Poultry inside" households are more likely to keep other animals inside and own more livestock (perhaps because of common threats like predation or theft). These relationships are further explored in S2 Table in our supplement. However, between "poultry inside" and "poultry outside" households there are no significant differences in non-livestock indicators like education, assets, land size, toilet use, safe water, nutritional knowledge, or child age and sex, even though "poultry outside" households are slightly less likely to receive health or agricultural extension visits. Interestingly, although poultry is regarded as a low-entry activity that even the poor can engage in [42], we generally observe that households not owning poultry are somewhat poorer and less educated than those owning poultry. Lastly, we also know that there are some spatial differences between the "poultry inside" and "poultry outside" samples, including altitude, which strongly influences night-time temperature (results available on request). However, controlling for village fixed effects eliminates these time-invariant confounding factors from spuriously influencing the main relationships of interest. Moreover, the intra-cluster correlation of "poultry inside" is quite low (0.22), suggesting that there is plenty of within-village variation in whether households keep poultry indoors.
Regression Results
Table 3 reports our HAZ regression results for 3,494 children aged 0–59 months. Regression 1 specifies an unadjusted model that only includes poultry ownership, along with only very basic controls for child age (linear spline function [43] with knots at 12 and 24 months) and sex, as well as village fixed effects. Regression 2 estimates the same unadjusted model with the addition of the binary variable for whether a household keeps poultry in the main house overnight. Comparison of "Owns poultry" coefficients across these two models provides a test of whether "Poultry in house" is a mediating factor in the relationship between "Owns poultry" and child HAZ. In regression 1 we observe a highly significant and positive coefficient on "Owns poultry" equal to 0.207. In regression 2 this coefficient increases to 0.346 and remains highly significant, while the addition of "Poultry in house" to the model in Regression 2 also yields a statistically significant coefficient, but one that is negative and large in magnitude (-0.286). Regression 2 therefore suggests that keeping poultry in close proximity to children is an important negative mediator that substantially reduces the positive association between poultry ownership and HAZ. Indeed, in regression 2 we cannot reject the null hypothesis that the coefficients on "Owns poultry" and "Poultry in house" are equal in absolute magnitude (p = 0.531), suggesting that keeping poultry in close proximity to children could substantially offset the growth benefits of household poultry ownership.
Table 3. Adjusted and unadjusted least squares regression models of child HAZ scores against binary indicators of "Owns poultry" and "Poultry in house".
In regressions 3 and 4 we repeat the same exercise but adjust for the potential confounding factors listed in Table 2. The effect of introducing these controls is to mildly reduce the magnitudes of the coefficients on "Owns poultry" and "Poultry in house", but the inferences above remain unchanged. In the adjusted model in regression 4 for example, the coefficients on "Owns poultry" and "Poultry in house" are both large in absolute magnitude, but an F-test confirms that the two coefficients are not significantly different from each other in absolute terms (p = 0.669). Observable confounding factors therefore do not seem to substantially influence the associations hypothesized in Fig 1.
One other testable implication of the associations hypothesized in Fig 1 is the assumption that poultry ownership is beneficial to child nutrition through increased consumption of eggs, which are nutritionally very beneficial for young children [29], rather than simply being an indicator of generic household wealth. In regression 1 of Table 4 we therefore estimate a linear probability model with 24-hour recall of egg consumption as the dependent variable. As hypothesized, poultry ownership increases the probability of egg consumption, with the point estimate suggesting an effect of 5.5 percentage points. Also of note is that the coefficient on "Poultry inside" is insignificant, thus assuaging a concern raised by the t-tests of sub-sample means in Table 2, that children from households who keep poultry outside are somewhat more likely to have consumed egg in the past 24 hours.
Table 4. Linear probability models for binary indicators of 24-hour recall of children's ASF consumption.
The remaining regressions in Table 4 explore whether poultry ownership might influence HAZ through consumption of non-egg ASFs, particularly if poultry ownership is a strong indicator of rural wealth. However, we find no evidence that poultry ownership or keeping poultry inside the house are significantly associated with the consumption of non-eggs ASFs such as meat or dairy products. In supplemental results, however, we do find that poultry ownership is indeed associated with indicators of household socioeconomic status (S3 Table in our supplement). The direction of causation in this relationship is ambiguous: household wealth could increase the likelihood of owning poultry, or poultry ownership could contribute to household wealth accumulation. Nevertheless, it is comforting that the coefficient on the "Poultry in the house" variable remains insignificant in all models implying that there are no statistically significant wealth differences between "Poultry-in" and Poultry-out" households, after controlling for other factors. Finally, the fact that poultry ownership does increase the probability of children's consumption of eggs (Table 4) suggests that the association between poultry ownership and HAZ is at least plausibly causal.
In addition to the results in Tables 3 and 4 we engaged in a number of other robustness tests, which are reported in the Supplementary Materials. For example, one concern with the results in Table 3 is that all types of non-poultry livestock are aggregated together. One hypothesis might be that that small ruminants (sheep, goats) also contaminate areas where young children spend much of their time, whereas larger ruminants spend more time further from the house. To explore this, in Table 5 we disaggregate "other livestock" into small ruminants (sheep and goats) and larger animals (cattle and pack animals), but we do not uncover significant coefficients for these categories, and the poultry coefficients remain materially unchanged.
Table 5. Adjusted least squares regression models of child HAZ scores against binary indicators of "Owns poultry" and "Poultry in house" and a series of more disaggregated livestock categories.
We also tested the robustness of the results in Table 3 to stepwise addition of control variables (S4 Table in our supplement). The coefficients on the "Owns Poultry" and "Poultry in house" variables remain remarkably stable across these different specifications.
Lastly, we explored whether keeping livestock in the house had varying associations at different points in the HAZ distribution. Least squares regressions minimize variation around the mean, which is very low in Ethiopia, but researchers often also use dichotomous variables as dependent variables such HAZ<-2. Though intuitive in the terms of quantifying odds ratios for risk factors, using dichotomous variables unnecessarily discards information and is not recommended by epidemiological statisticians [44]. We therefore used a series of quantile regressions (for previous examples, see [45] and [27] in the context of nutrition) that minimize absolute residual deviations around the 25th, 50th, 75th quantiles to explore whether keeping livestock in the house had different impacts at different points in the conditional HAZ distribution (S5 Table in our supplement). We find some tendency towards stronger relationships when the regressions minimize deviations around higher levels of HAZ. However, comparison of the point estimates between the 25th and 75th quantiles reveals that the differences are not statistically significant. Hence irrespective of the quantile in question, the regressions continue to suggest that keeping poultry inside the house has large adverse consequences for child growth.
This paper engaged in an observational analysis of the novel hypothesis that the otherwise positive relationship between poultry ownership and child nutrition is negatively mediated by a child's physical proximity to poultry, as operationalized by whether a household keeps poultry indoors overnight. The results reported in the previous section are consistent with this hypothesis. Although these associations should not be interpreted too literally, the negative association between close physical exposure to poultry and child growth is large in magnitude, and not statistically different in magnitude from the positive association between poultry ownership and growth. This results suggests that poultry-related hygiene issues are an important mediating factor linking poultry ownership to child growth.
Inferences from these results should be cautious, because the data and methods used to reach these conclusions come with several important caveats. First, the coefficient estimates reported above are associations derived from an exploratory analysis of observational data rather than causal estimates from a confirmatory analysis. That said, we found no evidence that the decision of poultry-owning households to keep livestock indoors or outdoors is associated with any observable factors, nor were the adjusted regression models in Table 3 unduly sensitive to the inclusion of potential confounding variables. Second, although the presence of poultry in the house appears to be a relevant indicator of proximity of poultry, as also indicated by the Bangladesh study cited above [19], this is an only an indirect indicator of exposure to animal fecal matter or other livestock-related disease vectors. Indeed, measurement error in this respect might cause a downwards attenuation bias in our estimates; that is, more accurate measures of exposure to animal feces might reveal stronger negative associations. Third, while child growth is in many respects a reasonable biomarker for capturing long term exposure to infections, the large scale FtF survey used in this study does not include biomarkers of environmental enteropathy, appropriate indicators of diarrheal or chest infections, alternative nutrition outcomes of potential relevance, or indicators of cognitive performance.
These limitations aside, this study makes two important contributions to the existing literature on child nutrition, as well as the various literatures on WASH, health/nutrition and livestock interventions in developing countries.
First, the results corroborate findings from the more qualitative research studies cited above in which small samples of young children were observed over long periods [8, 16, 17, 19]. These studies observed that young children in developing countries are highly exposed to poultry feces and the animals themselves. We also find that large proportions of young children are highly exposed to poultry in terms of sheer physical proximity. One of these studies also hypothesized that this exposure might lead to adverse nutrition outcomes through EED [17], but was not able to demonstrate an adverse impact on HAZ due to sampling limitations; our study shows that this exposure at least predicts reductions in child growth, even if the biological mechanisms for such an association cannot be identified with the data at hand. Our principal finding is similar to the MAL-ED studies from Bangladesh, which found that keeping poultry indoors and maternal reports of child geophagy were both associated with child stunting, as well as EED markers [18, 19]. Two differences of note are: (1) the MAL-ED studies only collected data for a small sample of poultry-owning households (N = 217); and (2) these studies did not explore whether poultry ownership also had positive associations with stunting after controlling for poultry exposure or geophagy.
Second, the studies cited above all suggest that poultry appear to pose a special risk to children. Although it is certainly conceivable that exposure to other livestock yields similar risks, existing studies yield plausible indications as to why poultry might pose a much greater risk. In Ethiopia, as in most poor settings, poultry are scavenging because of the relative expense of purchasing improved feed (feed being an essential precondition for corralling livestock). In scavenging poultry systems the flock tends to roam in and around the household dwelling (within 50 meters) during the day in pursuit of household food waste [38]. As a result, poultry tend to defecate in and around the homestead where young children are also left to sit or crawl, while other livestock likely defecate much further from the homestead. Moreover, poultry feces are small enough to be easily handled and ingested by small children, and small, dry and odorless enough to be neglected by caregivers (unlike larger animals). And as noted in the introduction, poultry feces have high concentrations of pathogenic bacteria [16, 17] and poultry have long been identified as potentially important vectors for respiratory infections [15]. Hence, there are several behavioral and biological reasons to believe that poultry ownership poses a particularly acute health risk for young children.
Finally, the results reported in Section 4 have important implications for programs and policies across several sectors. While it has been argued that egg consumption has significant potential to improve child nutrition outcomes in developing countries [29], the results of this study suggest that poultry interventions in developing countries could yield much greater health benefits for young children if they focused greater attention on improving household hygiene knowledge, and on improving livestock management practices, particularly the reduction of children's physical exposure to poultry and their feces [4, 46, 47]. The same message applies to WASH strategies, which have historically placed primary emphasis on reducing exposure to human rather than animal feces [4]. Finally, the potential for nutritional synergies between livestock management, household hygiene, and infant and young child care practices, suggests the need for greater coordination between several sectors–WASH, health/nutrition and agriculture–that have often interacted very little with each other. The results in this paper therefore provide further justification for emphasizing the importance of multisectoral coordination in combating child undernutrition [48].
S1 Fig. Height-for-age Z-score by child age among a sample of 3,494 children.
(DOCX)
S1 Table. Mean livestock ownership by livestock type and region for 2,704 rural Ethiopian households.
S2 Table. Correlations between binary indicators of which animals are kept in the main household dwelling overnight among 2,704 rural Ethiopian households.
S3 Table. Least squares regression models of socioeconomic indicators as a function of poultry indicators and control variables.
S4 Table. Testing the robustness of the results in Table 3 to stepwise addition of control variables.
S5 Table. Adjusted quantile regression models of child HAZ scores against binary indicators of "Owns poultry" and "Poultry in house".
Funding for this work was received through the Feed-the-Future project funded by the United States Agency for International Development, and the Advancing Research on Nutrition and Agriculture (AReNA) project funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. We thank Dan Gilligan and Marie Ruel for useful comments on an earlier version of the paper, as well as Rebecca Stolzfus and other members of the SHINE project.
Conceptualization: DH KH.
Data curation: DH KH.
Formal analysis: DH KH.
Funding acquisition: DH KH.
Investigation: DH KH.
Methodology: DH KH.
Project administration: DH KH.
Resources: DH KH.
Validation: DH KH.
Visualization: DH KH.
Writing - original draft: DH KH.
Writing - review & editing: DH KH.
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18. George CM, Oldja L, Biswas S, Perin J, Lee GO, Kosek M, et al. Geophagy is Associated with Environmental Enteropathy and Stunting in Children in Rural Bangladesh. The American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene. 2015.
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21. Murphy SP, Allen LH. Nutritional Importance of Animal Source Foods. The Journal of Nutrition. 2003;133(11):3932S–5S. pmid:14672292
22. Hoppe C, Molgaard C, Michaelsen KF. Cow's milk and linear growth in industrialized and developing countries. Annual review of nutrition. 2006;26:131–73. Epub 2006/07/20. pmid:16848703.
23. FAO. Milk and dairy products in human nutrition. Rome: Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO); 2013.
24. Iannotti L, Muehlhoff E, McMahon D. Review of milk and dairy programmes affecting nutrition. Journal of Development Effectiveness. 2013;5(1):82–115.
25. Leroy JL, Frongillo EA. Can Interventions to Promote Animal Production Ameliorate Undernutrition? The Journal of Nutrition. 2007;137(10):2311–6. pmid:17885016
26. Rawlins R, Pimkina S, Barrett CB, Pedersen S, Wydick B. Got milk? The impact of Heifer International's livestock donation programs in Rwanda on nutritional outcomes. Food Policy. 2014;44(C):202–13.
27. Hoddinott J, Headey D, Dereje M. Cows, Missing Milk Markets, and Nutrition in Rural Ethiopia. The Journal of Development Studies. 2015;51(8):958–75.
28. Azzarri C, Zezza A, Haile B, Cross E. Does Livestock Ownership Affect Animal Source Foods Consumption and Child Nutritional Status? Evidence from Rural Uganda. The Journal of Development Studies. 2015;51(8):1034–59.
29. Iannotti LL, Lutter CK, Bunn DA, Stewart CP. Eggs: the uncracked potential for improving maternal and young child nutrition among the world's poor. Nutrition reviews. 2014;72(6):355–68. Epub 2014/05/09. pmid:24807641.
30. CSA, ICF-International. Ethiopia Demographic and Health Survey 2011. Maryland, USA: Central Statistical Agency and ICF International, 2012.
31. Nguyen PH, Avula R, Ruel MT, Saha KK, Ali D, Tran LM, et al. Maternal and Child Dietary Diversity Are Associated in Bangladesh, Vietnam, and Ethiopia. The Journal of Nutrition. 2013;143(7):1176–83. pmid:23658424
32. Abebe Z, Haki GD, Baye K. Health Extension Workers' Knowledge and Knowledge-Sharing Effectiveness of Optimal Infant and Young Child Feeding Are Associated With Mothers' Knowledge and Child Stunting in Rural Ethiopia. Food and Nutrition Bulletin. 2016;forthcoming.
33. Hirvonen K. Rural-urban differences in children's dietary diversity in Ethiopia: a Poisson decomposition analysis. ESSP Working Paper [Internet]. 2016; 89.
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35. Sebastian K. Atlas of African agriculture research and development: Revealing agriculture's place in Africa. Washington DC: International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI); 2014.
36. Bachewe F, Berhane G, Hirvonen K, Hoddinott J, Hoel J, Tadesse F, et al. Feed the Future (FtF) of Ethiopia–Baseline report 2013. Addis Ababa: Ethiopia Strategy Support Program and International Food Policy Research Institute, 2014.
37. WHO. Reliability of anthropometric measurements in the WHO Multicentre Growth Reference Study. Acta Pædiatrica. 2006;450(Suppl):38–46.
38. Dessie T, Esatu W, Waaij LV, Zegeye F, Gizaw S, Mwai O, et al. Village chicken production in the central and western highlands of Ethiopia: Characteristics and strategies for improvement. Institute ILR, editor. Nairobi, Kenya2013.
39. MacKinnon DP, Krull JL, Lockwood CM. Equivalence of the mediation, confounding and suppression effect. Prevention science: the official journal of the Society for Prevention Research. 2000;1(4):173–81.
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42. Dessie T, Ogle B. Village poultry production systems in the central highlands of Ethiopia. Tropical Animal health and production. 2001;33(6):521–37. pmid:11770206
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Is the Subject Area "Livestock" applicable to this article?
Is the Subject Area "Poultry" applicable to this article?
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Is the Subject Area "Chicken eggs" applicable to this article?
Medical risk factors
Is the Subject Area "Medical risk factors" applicable to this article?
Child growth
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Boasting a wide variety of landscapes and remarkable architectural heritage, the Occitanie region is filled with countless natural, architectural, traditional and gastronomic wonders. As well as enjoying plenty of sunshine and an ideal location in south-western France, Occitanie offers visitors an infinite variety of sights to see. The famous Pyrenean mountain range with its impressive peaks, the surprising blockfield of Montpellier-le-Vieux, the immense cirques of Gavarnie and Troumouse, the peaceful Aubrac Plateau, the romantic Canal du Midi, the impressive Navacelles cirque, the authentic Cévennes massif, and the long, sandy beaches of the Mediterranean, so beloved by sunbathers, really offer a great deal to lovers of nature and outdoor activities!
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Traditional festivals, markets full of colours and flavours, and famous gastronomic specialities like aligot, Roquefort, cassoulet, poultry from Gers, garbure, cod brandade, Corbières wine, Blanquette de Limoux, Pélardon and Cévennes honey, make Occitanie a wonderful place to enjoy good food and drink in a friendly atmosphere.
A vast mountainous territory located at the very heart of France, the Massif Central is a favourite destination for lovers of nature and hiking. The Auvergne Volcanoes Park, Cévennes Park and Livradois-Forez Park truly have something to enchant everyone, with their outstanding natural areas strewn with countless paths!
A haven for hikers and other nature-lovers, the Pyrenees mountain range is home to exceptional flora and fauna, and will enchant you with its wild, unspoilt landscapes, peaks offering incredible views, high-altitude lakes, legendary mountain passes, green valleys and welcoming winter sports resorts so loved by skiers.
Deep in the South-West, discover Quercy and its countless attractions: the sacred town of Rocamadour, the hillside village of Saint-Cirq-Lapopie, Cahors old town, Moissac Abbey, the decorated cave of Pech-Merle, the fortified town of Lauzerte, and the Lot and Dordogne Valleys are among the remarkable places to discover.
Boasting a rich heritage, the Aude offers visitors to meet its Romanesque abbeys, its Canal du Midi, its Cathar castles, and the medieval town of Carcassonne.
Land of traditions, the Aveyron offers everything to satisfy nature and authenticity lovers, with the limestone plateau of Larzac, the Tarn river gorges, the Aubrac volcanic plateau and its herds of cows, the beautiful picturesque villages, and the famous specialities.
In the département of the Gard, the Cevennes massif crossed by hiking trails, the impressive Navacelles rock formations, the little Camargue, the famous Gard bridge, and the Roman city of Nimes are some of the sites to be enjoyed by visitors.
In the heart of Gascony, the Gers is rich in fortified towns and villages and castles, and invites those who like local products to discover its renowned culinary specialities, its duck and goose markets and fairs, its traditional festivals and its Armagnac vineyards.
Renowned for its long sandy beaches and its seaside resorts, the Hérault also offers visitors its back-country with hilly and mountainous landscapes, and its main city, Montpellier, the capital of Languedoc-Roussillon.
The famous village of Rocamadour, with its sanctuary and its Cave of Marvels (Grotte des Merveilles) with paintings, the magnificent cliffside village of Saint-Cirq-Lapopie, the old town of Figeac and its Écritures square, the prehistoric cave of Pech-Merle and the medieval town of Cahors are among the unmissable sites of the Lot.
The Cevennes massif and the mount Lozère , the vast Aubrac plateau, the Margeride forests and the magnificent Tarn gorges are among the beautiful natural sites of Lozère.
Variety of landscapes and fantastic architecture characterise the Tarn, as illustrated by the Sidobre massif, the Black Mountain (Montagne Noire), the Gaillac vineyards, the red city of Albi and its fortified cathedral, the fortified towns and villages, and the upper town of Cordes-sur-Ciel with its exceptional Gothic heritage.
The Tarn-et-Garonne offers to visitors the possibility to discover the Aveyron gorges, the charming village of Bruniquel, but also the Moissac abbey, whose tympanum and cloister are inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List.


text:
Q: Adding an extra JSON Object to the Web API Response I need to attach an extra JSON object to my JSON response generated by the Web API Method. For example:
My code now:
[Route("api/getcomnts")]
public IHttpActionResult GetCommentsForActivity(string actid)
{
       List<Comment> cmntList = CC.GetAllComments(actid);
       return Ok(cmntList);
}

If the comments were successfully retrieved, I'd like to send:

"status":"success"

along with the comments list that it already sends as the JSON Array.
or

"status":"fail"

if the comments list is EMPTY. Is it possible to attach this extra JSON object named JSON to my already existing method?
This would make it very convenient for my client Android and iOS apps :)
EDIT
Or for a scenario such as this:
    [HttpGet]
    [Route("api/registeruser")]
    public IHttpActionResult RegisterUser(string name, string email, string password)
    {

        int stat = opl.ConfirmSignup(name, email, password);
        string status = "";
        if (stat == 0)
        {
            status = "fail";
        }
        else
        {
            status = "success";
        }
        return Ok(status);
    }

A: You can return anonymous object with Web API.
    [Route("api/getcomnts")]
    public IHttpActionResult GetCommentsForActivity(string actid)
    {
           List<Comment> cmntList = CC.GetAllComments(actid);
           var success = cmntList.Count() > 0 ? "success" : "success";
           return Ok(new { List = cmntList, success } );
    }

**EDIT:**

    [Route("api/getcomnts")]
    public IHttpActionResult GetCommentsForActivity(string actid)
    {
           List<Comment> cmntList = CC.GetAllComments(actid);
           string status = "";
           if(cmntList.Count()!=0)
           {
                status = "success";
           }
           else
           {
                status = "fail";
           }
           return Ok(new { List = cmntList, status } );
    }

A: You can try this
public HttpResponseMessage Get(string actid)
    {
        //sample..
        if (value == true)
            return Request.CreateResponse(HttpStatusCode.OK, getStatus("success"), JsonMediaTypeFormatter.DefaultMediaType);
        else
            return Request.CreateResponse(HttpStatusCode.OK, getStatus("failed"), JsonMediaTypeFormatter.DefaultMediaType);
    }

    private object getStatus(string s)
    {
        var status = new { Status = s };
        return status;
    }

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


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text:
Features E3 2018 Roundup
I wouldn't put any money on it, but I reckon we'll see it 2021 perhaps?
Post by: JakeTucker, 22 Jun 2018 in forum: Article Discussion
Reviews PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds Review
I was in top 5000 players in EU (haven't played enough with Christmas to get ranked in the new leaderboard), and I encountered two hackers in 800...
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Reviews Call of Duty: WWII Review
Honestly, I'd just rather play five good short games than one long game with the pacing all wrong. Happy to play a good long game, I think Heat...
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Took me about 8 hours on Regular, but I did replay a section a few times to try and do it in stealth. I don't think eight hours is a bad time....
Reviews Assassin's Creed: Origins Review
Ha, I'm enjoying 'Some assassination moves fail because they were bad at assassination' as a concept.
Reviews Rogue Trooper Redux Review
This is the Rogue, Helm, Gunnar and Bagman. Honestly Byron, I feel the same, but as an Xbox game it's aged a little poorly now. I was excited to...
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Gaming Tekken 7 Review
ZaDeadman, If you're not bothered about single player and just want a fighter on the PC to play online or with friends, Tekken will suit. If...
Gaming Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy: The Telltale Series - Episode 1 review
It's good, but we've seen this before. https://www.bit-tech.net/gaming/2017/04/18/marvel-s-guardians-of-the-galaxy-telltale/1
Thread by: JakeTucker, 18 Apr 2017, 0 replies, in forum: Article Discussion
Gaming Mr Shifty Review
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Gaming Lego City Undercover Review
I'll focus on Switch versions for a little bit when offered, just because there aren't many Switch games and it's cool to let you guys know what's...
I didn't notice them enough to be annoying, but mostly played it in docked mode, where it's using a bit more power.
Gaming PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds Preview
You can't play with friends only, there's 100 players. Haven't encountered many lag issues once you get through the lobby.
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I've been cutting some interesting moments into videos for twitter. Quality is bad and they're not in any way officially affiliated with Bit-Tech,...
Gaming Mass Effect: Andromeda Review
I've got you covered buddy. Expect something a bit later this week (because I'm very deep in a couple of other reviews). In short, I've enjoyed it.
Gaming Styx: Shards of Darkness review
Styx (the goblin) is annoying, but Styx (the game) is pretty okay https://www.bit-tech.net/gaming/2017/03/21/styx-shards-of-darkness-review/1
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Gaming The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild review
This sums up a lot of my appreciation for it . https://twitter.com/Babylonian/status/843573091968016384
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Gaming 911 Operator Review
Yeah, I dug it, but it's not something I would have bought if I saw it go past me on the Steam wheel.
Just wanted to swing by and further explain my comments in case people couldn't infer it. When you buy a console you're never buying it for a...
I don't think I was expecting this game to be as good as it is https://www.bit-tech.net/gaming/2017/03/13/the-legend-of-zelda-breath-of-the-wild/1
Thread by: JakeTucker, 13 Mar 2017, 58 replies, in forum: Article Discussion

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
Crime and Punishment in the Edo Period
Many, many moons ago I read a book by Mark Schreiber titled `The Dark Side: Infamous Japanese Crimes and Criminals` which was, as the title plainly stated, about the subject of people in Japanese history (from around the Edo period through to the late Showa/early Heisei era – i.e., late 1980s – early 1990s) who had committed some fairly heinous crimes and the type of punishments that they were subjected to. One thing in particular that struck me was a short chapter regarding the Edo execution grounds of Kozukappara (now found in Minami Senjū 2 Chōme, Arakawa ward of the Tokyo municipal area). Mark Schreiber`s description of this area at the time of its founding (around 1651) vividly captured its horrible nature, for in its early manifestation it was common for the bodies of executed criminals to be left where they fell. Their heads were put on display, thus serving as a warning for any travellers coming into Edo along the Tokaidō that this was the type of punishment lawbreakers could expect if they misbehaved in the shogun`s capital. Of course, executing hundreds of criminals over the course of year meant that there were a lot of corpses lying about, and with the coming of summer Kozukappara would become infamous for its horrendous stench and the plague of insects that infested the area.
Eventually a temple was erected nearby (in 1667) in order to provide a place in which to bury the bodies of the recently executed along with their heads. It would perform this role for the next two hundred years until the execution grounds were finally abolished in the early Meiji period (around 1870).
Now why have I gone into all this detail about such a horrible subject? I recently bought a book written by Ujiie Mikito titled `Crime and Punishment in the Edo Period` (published by Soshisha) which details how the trial system of the Edo period worked, and how authorities gradually began to eliminate the more gruesome punishments that were left over from the Sengoku period to embrace a more `humane` system of punishments (by humane, this is of course according to the standards of the time). Clearly there were major issues with the idea of `have the punishment fit the crime` as even minor transgressions could end up in with a death sentence, not to mention the prevalence of `tsujigiri` (a practice that was both sanctioned and outlawed during the course of the Edo period. Basically it allowed members of the samurai class to execute a person without recourse to magistrates. Instant justice, if you will).
The subject of crime and punishment of the Edo era has been dealt with in English within academic studies, however I thought that pursuing this subject in a more accessible format (i.e., a blog) might be more useful, or at least serve as an introduction to the subject. The first chapter of Ujiie`s book alone gives a good indication that it will be both a fascinating read and one that will educate the general public on the path of criminal punishments as practised in early modern Japan. The first chapter is translated as below (and in subsequent posts).
Suzuki Shōsan criticizes the practice of `tsujigiri`
We shall begin by discussing Suzuki Shōsan.
After being involved in the Osaka campaign as one of the many samurai in the Tokugawa army, Suzuki Shōsan (1579-1655), who adopted that name after becoming a monk, was not only well known as an author of religious texts in the early Edo period but is famous in the history of Japanese literature as author of works such as the `Ni nin bi kuni` and the `Inka monogatari` which were written in kana cursive script. (pg.12)
Shōsan`s ideals have already been debated at length by other scholars along with his literary works (one such study is Miura Masahiko`s `Collected Studies of Suzuki Shōsan` etc). So I don`t intend to introduce either Shōsan`s standing in the history of literature or his individual works. (pg.12)
So why Shōsan? The reason is that the words in Shōsan`s theories (one could also call them sermons), which were opposed to just how lightly warriors could take the lives of others, allow one to feel just how painful it was to live during his times. Of course one should not take a life without a second thought, yet it appears that this idea had not really penetrated the world of the samurai at the time. (pg.12)
Shōsan`s acolyte Echū, who wrote a compilation of Shōsan`s sayings titled `Roankyō` (published 1660), posited the following `Montō` (a Zen inspired question and answer session):
紀州二某シト云強者アリ、国中二聞エタル人切ニテ、内ノ者トモ二手モ不見少ノ事モ不許切ナリ、此人一日我所二来リ、某シハカクレナキ人切也、是悪業トヤ成ベキト云
If we continued to quote from this piece, most readers would very soon tire of it. So we`ll stop the quote at this point and translate the rest as follows. (pg.13)
"Warriors from the province of Kii were well known for their execution of people. If a person committed even the most minor error while serving in a warrior`s house, they would be cut down without a word. One day a warrior called upon me (Shōsan), and the two of us had the following conversation.
Warrior: I am a well renowned executioner (literally `people cutter`). You will have heard of my bad reputation.
Shōsan: No, not really. The people you execute are thieves or rogues. But you shouldn`t kill the innocent.
Warrior: Well that is true…
Shōsan: Are there others who are rogues, not just in your own household but among your colleagues as well?
Warrior: There are.
Shōsan: Would you kill them?
Warrior: No I wouldn`t.
Shōsan: Well then. It is the very height of folly to only kill those innocents who serve your lord while ignoring those rogues among your colleagues and from other places as well." (pgs.13-14)
Spring and the coming of famine
This particular post has been a long time coming. Sure, I could keep trying to update it on a week to week basis, but with little to say that other blogs, particularly blogs that are able to comment on events as they happen, have already explained in detail, to follow these up seems a little redundant. So at the risk of losing followers, I am going back to what I started this blog for in the first place, as a outlet for my observations of pre-modern Japan and its various unique traditions. As part of that process, I am once again looking at Shimizu Katsuyuki`s 「大飢饉、室町社会を襲う!」, which I introduced in a previous blog post. This book examines the effects of natural and other disasters on people of the Muromachi period, and how they responded to such dangers and calamities. The particular translation included below comes from the final chapter, that dealing with the coming of Spring, which for the people of the era was a period of hardship before Summer brought with it the promise of more produce. As it was in Europe so was it in Japan. With the passing of Winter all of the food stocks remaining in villages across the nation would have been exhausted, and thus a number of weeks had to be endured with little to nothing to eat, thus bringing on a ravenous, desperate level of hunger that could not be satiated.
The climax of the great famine
Many people of the Middle Ages period died with the coming of Spring. Tamura Noriyoshi shed light on this phenomenon using the Kakochō records (this was a book that recorded the year, month, and day of death, along with the posthumous name of the deceased) of the Nichiren-sect affiliated Hondoji located in Matsudo City in Chiba Prefecture. According to Tamura, for those people of the Middle Ages who weren`t able to harvest enough produce during Autumn, they would engage in planting, suppress their appetite, and try to stay alive until the following year. Yet unable to wait until the wheat harvest at the beginning of Summer, when Spring came these people began to die one by one. During the Middle Ages period, even if a famine was not in progress, in the period between the harvesting of rice (in Autumn) and the harvesting of wheat (at the beginning of Summer) there were an extraordinarily large number of deaths stemming from either starvation or else from disease that often accompanied the weakening of the immune system from malnutrition. The Middle Ages certainly played host to cruel famines (p.170)
As we see from the origins of the great famine of the Ōei period, the real tragedy did not start following the harvest season, but began in the Spring of Ōei 28 (1421). The `Yearly Record of Eikōji` of Noto province noted in Ōei 27 that the region had suffered from a `great drought`, and recorded in the following year that `many have died of starvation`. At the estate of Fushimi in the same year, it was recorded on the fifteenth day of the first month (under the modern calendar the 26th day of February) that the scale of the estate`s traditional procession (in which a number of residents of the estate ordinarily dressed up in costumes and took part in a procession) was smaller than usual. The reason given was that `in this year a famine throughout the realm robbed the people of their strength`. In the 2nd month, rather than lacking in strength it seems a number of people appeared who were suffering from illnesses. On the evening of the 30th of the 2nd month (the 11th of April), a fire suddenly broke out in the house belonging to one of the shrine maidens of Go Gōnomiya, the guardian of Fushimi estate. Embers from the fire intermingled with acrid black smoke that rose up into the air (pg.170-171)
At the time, there were a lot of ill people within the village of Ishii on the Fushimi estate. Sadanari (the author of the Fushimi estate diary) saw this thick, black smoke accumulate over the village of Ishii, and concluded in his diary that the `fire wagon` of hell, used to transport the dead to the underworld, was making a stop at Ishii. (pg.171) On the 10th of the 3rd month (the 21st of April), the residents of the Fushimi estate petitioned Sadanari to postpone the `Sarugaku` entertainments of Go Gōnomiya, which would normally take place in Spring, until Autumn. The reason given was that there was `a great famine in the realm`. Indeed, within the estate a large number of residents had already `arrived at Shuyō` (meaning they had died from starvation), and so those that were left did not have enough revenue to be able to afford a professional `Sarugaku` performer to take part in proceedings (up until now, most historians have interpreted the phrase 「首陽に赴く」as meaning that people `went to Kyoto`, yet the phrase is an idiom whose origins lie in the incidents at Shuyōzan in China, which meant `death from starvation`).(pg.172)
On the 24th of the 3rd month (the 5th of May), one of the shrine officials at Go Gōnomiya came down with a fever from a virulent disease. A rumour soon spread that this was `divine judgment` for postponing the Sarugaku activities indefinitely. The people of the estate, rendered speechless by the suddenness of this `divine judgment`, quickly assembled for a meeting in front of the shrine of Go Gōnomiya. (pg.172) As a result of this meeting, a decision was made to not to wait until Autumn and have the Sarugaku performed on the 10th day of the 4th month (the 19th of May). This particular episode demonstrates just how much confusion the people at the time experienced, and how their lives were disrupted by the arrival of a natural disaster. Until the wheat was harvested at the beginning of Summer the people of the time had to try to survive the Spring as best they could. It was something that everyone of the time had to go through. And so the great famine headed towards its climax. (pg.172)


text:
Q: Jquery nested sortable with sub-level restrictions I am working on drag and drop of sorting of nested lists using nested sortable jquery plugin.I need particular restriction
The restrictions I need are that top-level items can be reordered but cannot be moved to a sub-level. Also sub-level items cannot be moved into top-level positions and it should not  be moved to other top-level items as a sub-item.
The sub-level items can be reordered within that top level item only.
I achieved top level restriction by setting protectRoot to true.
How we can achieve the sub-level reordering within that top level items only.


With great cities like Mobile, Birmingham, Huntsville, and Montgomery, its no wonder that Alabama is considered the "Heart of Dixie." The state of Alabama is home to more than 20 state parks and areas of recreation. Huntsville and Madison feature several playgrounds and parks that offer something for all ages to enjoy. Contact your local Alabama playground equipment representative for more information on adding new equipment to this beautiful area!


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text:
using System;

namespace Nmap
{
	/// <summary>
	/// Provides functionality for building maps.
	/// </summary>
	public sealed class MapBuilder : TypeMapCreating
	{
		#region Constructors

		/// <summary>
		/// Prevents a default instance of the <see cref="T:Nmap.MapBuilder" /> class from being created.
		/// </summary>
		private MapBuilder()
		{
		}

		/// <summary>
		/// Initializes the <see cref="T:Nmap.MapBuilder" /> class.
		/// </summary>
		static MapBuilder()
		{
			MapBuilder.Instance = new MapBuilder();
		}

		#endregion

		#region Public Properties

		/// <summary>
		/// Gets the instance.
		/// </summary>
		public static MapBuilder Instance
		{
			get;
			private set;
		}

		#endregion
	}
}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


text:
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What's in a word? Non-religious people describe and define themselves (and are described and defined) in various ways. These variations do reflect some differences in meaning and emphasis, though in practice there is very considerable overlap.
"Non-believers" do, of course, have many beliefs, though not religious ones. For example, they typically hold that moral feelings are social in origin, based on treating others as they would wish to be treated (the 'golden rule' which antedates all the major world religions). They may describe themselves in various ways, and the most common today are listed below. These non-religious positions, attitudes and beliefs have a long history, though denial of religion began to be publicly acceptable only during the 19th and 20th centuries. During this period a range of organisations began to serve and represent the interests of the non-religious.
Beliefs and Definitions
"Agnostic" in normal usage today means "don't know" or having an open mind about religious belief, especially the existence of God. It can also mean something much firmer: that nothing is known, or can possibly be known, about God or supernatural phenomena, and that it is wrong of people to claim otherwise. That is the original meaning of the word, and 19th century "agnostics" lived their lives atheistically in practice – that is, without any reference to any concepts of gods.
"Atheist" includes those who reject a belief in the existence of God or gods and those who simply choose to live without God or gods. Along with this often, but not always, go disbelief in the soul, an afterlife, and other beliefs arising from god-based religions.
"Freethinker" is an old-fashioned term, popular in the nineteenth century, used of those who reject authority in matters of belief, especially political and religious beliefs. It was a very popular term in the 19th century and is still used in different languages in some European countries by non-religious organisations to describe themselves.
"Humanist" is used today to mean those who seek to live good lives without religious or superstitious beliefs. A humanist may embrace all or most of the other approaches introduced here, and in addition humanists believe that moral values follow on from human nature and experience in some way. Humanists base their moral principles on reason (which leads them to reject the idea of any supernatural agency), on shared human values and respect for others. They believe that people should work together to improve the quality of life for all and make it more equitable. Humanism is a full philosophy, "life stance" or worldview, rather than being about one aspect of religion, knowledge, or politics.
"Non-religious" – as well as those who are uninterested in religion or who reject it, this category may include the vague or unaffiliated, those who are only nominally or culturally affiliated to a religious tradition, and the superstitious.
"Rationalist" in this context, describing a non-religious belief, means someone who prioritises the use of reason and considers reason crucial in investigating and understanding the world. Rationalists usually reject religion on the grounds that it is unreasonable. (Rationalism is in contradistinction to fideism – positions which rely on or advocate "faith" in some degree).
"Skeptic" today usually means someone who doubts the truth of religious and other supernatural or "paranormal" beliefs, typically on rationalist grounds. ('Skeptic' also has a special philosophical meaning: someone who rejects or is skeptical with regard to all claims to knowledge).
"Secularists" believe that laws and public institutions (for example, the education system) should be neutral as between alternative religions and beliefs. Almost all humanists are secularists, but religious believers may also take a secularist position which calls for freedom of belief, including the right to change belief and not to believe. Secularists seek to ensure that persons and organisations are neither privileged nor disadvantaged by virtue of their religion or lack of it. They believe secular laws – those that apply to all citizens – should be the product of a democratic process, and should not be determined, or unduly influenced, by religious leaders or religious texts. The word "secularism" was once used to describe a non-religious worldview generally but this meaning is now very old fashioned.
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Commonwealth Gazette, No. 67 - 03/06/1919 - See Cenotaph Database.
William Gibb was the youngest son of David Duke and Jane (née Deavoll) Gibb. Born on 14 March 1890 1888 at Timaru, he was educated at Timaru Main School. Hisfather died in 1902, when William was just 12 years old. William went to Australia in about 1912 and enlisted with the Australian Forces. Both William and his brother Gordon were involved in the Dardanelles action and afterwards met on the Gallipoli Peninsula. He married a Canadian lady, Amy Florence. Their daughter, Mary Catherine Gibb, was born in 1920 in Canada. In 1930 and 1940, William, Amy and Mary were living in the USA.


Forty-two ways to green your neighborhood: just plant a new tree Lee, sweep up the salt Walt, pick up your dog's poo Lu, and set yourself free. ….help save the planet Janet. OK, we'll stop there and save you some pain. Just get started. Pick one thing from the list and get a move on! Let Neighborhood Greening know when you've checked off all 42!


text:
Q: Angular 4 ngOnInit not working when loading the component first time I Have a component in Angular 4 that and a template to change the route
This component is called but does not load anything no server call.
If i put the ngOnInit() method content into constructor it works fine.
It seems ngOnInit is not called. Anybody please can help i am working on this since last 2 days.
here is my routing configuration.
const testRouting: ModuleWithProviders = RouterModule.forChild([
        { path:'createtest/:id', component:TestComponent, resolve: { test:TestResolver }},
        { path:'createtest', component:TestComponent, resolve: { test:TestResolver }},
        { path:'testlist', component:TestListComponent }
]);

import {Component,OnInit} from '@angular/core'
import {TestService,Test} from '../shared'
import 'rxjs/add/operator/map';
@Component({
    selector:'test-list',
    templateUrl:'./testlist.component.html'
})
export class TestListComponent implements OnInit{
    testList:Array<Test>;
    constructor(private testService:TestService){}
    ngOnInit = ()=>{
        this.testService.getTest()
        .subscribe(
            data=>this.testList = <Array<Test>>data,
            error=>alert(error)
        );
        console.log("ngOnInit");
    }
}

And here is my template to configure routing

    SLearn
    Test List

A: You have to overload the ngOnInit function. This doesn't work with arrow functions.
You have to do:
ngOnInit() {
    this.testService.getTest()
    .subscribe(
        data=>this.testList = <Array<Test>>data,
        error=>alert(error)
    );
    console.log("ngOnInit");
}

Hope i could help.

Update (Additional information thanks to maximus):
While a normal function declaration creates the ngOnInit property on the prototype, an arrow function creates it on the instance.
Angular itself  looks only for the hooks on the prototype. which is why your original approach doesn't work as expected.


text:
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Ed Steed
March 6, 2017 April 11, 2017 Joan RhoLeave a comment
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February 11, 2017 April 11, 2017 Joan Rho1 Comment
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November 18, 2016 April 11, 2017 Joan RhoLeave a comment
"We experienced events in an order, and perceived their relationship as cause and effect. They experienced all events at once, and perceived a purpose underlying them all."
Still thinking on this after watching Arrival the other day. 🐙🌫➰
Designing with Empathy
August 7, 2016 April 11, 2017 Joan RhoLeave a comment
One issue we touched upon, which I think is really critical, is this idea of being easily able to influence behaviors in ways that are very important. For people who don't know [how to better their lives], don't think about it, or are busy doing other things, there's a lot you could do to improve and facilitate what they do in ways that are useful. That is certainly true in behavioral economics and in design.
The other one is, if you remember in the book, we talk a bit about this sort of empathy bridge. The idea is that if we're able to describe to you what it's like to be super busy, maybe you'll understand a little better what it's like to be super poor. I think this empathy issue is really critical for when we think about policy, including neighborhood design—for you to perceive the other as not as exotic and bizarre and less good, but somebody who easily could have been you and vice versa, given a different situation. Our policies toward the poor, toward criminals, toward all kinds of people, are extremely non-empathetic. It's very easy for us to erect enormous boundaries and distinctions based on our understanding, which creates lots of trouble in everything, from neighborhood safety to sharing our ideas and everything else.
from an interview with Eldar Shafir in Metropolis
On Racism & National Identity in America
June 29, 2016 Joan RhoLeave a comment
Ezra Klein: This is a systematic creator of blind spots in our policy discussion: we are very good at talking about things that we are very comfortable with the tools to change them, and very bad talking about things where we are uncomfortable with the tools, or maybe we haven't even created the tools, that would change them.
Heather McGhee: Well, maybe that's part of why we are so reluctant to talk about racism. Because we feel like if the Civil Rights movement and Barack Obama couldn't fix it, how are we going to fix it? I think it's important to recognize how little we have done, how much some societies that have experienced great social trauma, great historical injustice, make it a part of every public ritual, public culture, have a much more self-conscious cultural front around it. And I think that's where we need to be.
EK: When we think about how to have conversations about these parts of our (national) heritage—when we think about how to fix them—people want a fix. If you don't have language for a fix, the political system begins to reject it.
A lot of these debates that you've seen in these last couple of years—and these debates really emerged at a time when the internet has allowed members of our marginalized communities to say, "This thing that doesn't bother you is an ongoing trauma to me. It really matters to me"—and I'll often see folks say, you'll often see it being said around requests for people to pay attention to a grievance: Well, what do you want done? What is your policy platform here? And then if you don't have it, eventually the conversation begins to get fought off as "soft", as "fuzzy", as just people complaining or people wanting to express their feelings, or wanting to be protected from something.
That is a real expression of a kind of privilege—that folks from the more historically dominant groups in this country have had a lot of time to structure their grievances into political language that we understand how to deal with. And so the debates are empirical and they're technical, and they have policy proposals on both sides and they feel very serious.
And then you have these things where you're dealing with a newer grievance, or maybe not a new one, but one that's only now being taken seriously, and the debates are much more chaotic, they're much angrier, they're much more personal, they're much less structured into policy questions…and then they get dismissed for that reason.
But that's part of the issue. That's part of how the conversation has been stacked. That we have a really good way of talking about the ways in which rich folks feel the tax system is unfair or even poor whites feel that the college admission system is unfair, but very little language about talking about trans rights or for talking about the ways in which lower level forms of misogyny affect people. I think that's really come out as a tremendous debate in the era of the internet, but it's one I think we're still really struggling with how to fit into some kind of format where the political system knows how to engage with it.
— From a great conversation between Ezra Klein and Heather McGhee on The Ezra Klein Show released today. Listen to the full episode here.
Yoga Accessibility in Public Schools
June 16, 2016 June 16, 2016 Joan RhoLeave a comment
I love this piece by Eddie Stern, Director of Ashtanga Yoga New York, from a few years ago:
As a yoga teacher since 1989, I am at the point where I am almost embarrassed to say that it is what I do because it can sound like such a cliche. Everyone does yoga; sometimes it feels like everyone sells yoga. The yoga scene, which has always been pretty wacky (think the Omnipotent Oom's yoga harem of the early 1900's), seems to be getting wackier by the day (suede yoga mat bags, anyone?).
Yoga in India was originally — and by originally I mean more or less 3,000 years ago — practiced by those living on society's fringes: those intrepid seekers of reality that left the cities and their Vedic lifestyles to search out truth, freedom and liberation. Vedas are the revealed sacred texts of the Hindus, and to be Vedic is to belong to the Hindu culture that produced and abided by the Vedas.
While in America there are certainly are many practicing yoga with profound sincerity, it seems as though they are dwarfed by a multi-billion dollar industry that is largely focused on, well, selling stuff that we don't really need to practice yoga.
Anyway, let it be. That spirit of commercialism and consumerism has helped to make yoga a household word, and that's not an entirely bad thing. I believe that increased accessibility to yoga is a positive result of yoga's modernization.
Why do I believe this? Because everyone experiences suffering. Suffering is undiscriminating and it comes to all who live on this planet. Yoga affirms, though, that there is a way to deal with it: by practicing yoga poses, by breathing consciously for a few minutes each day, and by being attentive, thoughtful human beings, we can mitigate the mental torments we all experience.
One example of how yoga has become a mainstream practice can be seen in the New York City public school system. Schools are coming to realize that yoga is helpful for public students who deal with many sources of stress and trauma on a daily basis.
I serve on the board of a nonprofit organization called Bent On Learning, founded in 2001 by Anne Desmond, Jennifer Ford and Courtney McDowell. To date we have taught over 9,000 school children, and currently serve over 1,500 children per week, in 10 schools. If yoga remained esoteric and mysterious, rather than mainstream, Bent On Learning would not be able to have such a strong presence in NYC public schools. In fact, we most likely would not have a waitlist of schools from the Bronx to Brooklyn, eager for yoga classes.
Interestingly, my late teacher, Sri K. Pattabhi Jois, was deeply committed to creating a yoga syllabus in the Indian school system. I did not know this when I was first studying with him, and found this out only much later after I became involved with yoga in the schools. He saw the importance of training children from an early age to be conscious of their bodies, health and the ability to strengthen their minds before unhealthy habits took root — habits that later in life are much more difficult to reverse.
I am convinced that yoga belongs in schools, especially in NYC public schools. Out of a seven-hour school day, children in most public schools get only 15 minutes for lunch and 15 minutes for recess. Only 56 percent of NY's 1.5 million public school kids are of a healthy weight. Many schools have painted a walking track around the perimeter of their cafeterias so the kids can walk in circles to get exercise. They have to walk in the cafeterias because many schools have no gym facilities. Forty-three percent of NY's 1,450 public schools do not even have a gym teacher. Coupled with constant exam preparation, cohabitated schools and overcrowded classrooms, the DOE clearly could use some help getting children to exercise.
A proven fact is that children need to move to be healthy, and healthy kids are happy kids, and better learners. Cooped up kids, exploding with the energy of youth, are not happy kids! BOL has a simple and practical solution to this problem: yoga in the classroom. By moving the desks to the side of the room, the classroom is transformed into a yoga room, a haven for relaxation and stress reduction, and in which the children can learn skills for healthy movement, healthy breathing and concentration.
In a realm where the popular phrase 'giving back' is heard in association with such endeavors like BOL, I would prefer to think that groups such as BOL are not 'giving back,' but simply giving. Why patronize the intelligent, vital kids we are teaching? We need them as much as they need us, for they are the future of this world, and it is our duty to help however we can.
The spirit of yoga is the removal of suffering; it is the central tenet of the earliest texts. As I stated earlier, everyone suffers: inner city kids, their teachers, the wealthy who summer in East Hampton. Suffering is undiscriminating and comes to all who live on this planet. Yoga provides tools to cultivate stability, good health, mental focus, relaxation and compassion. Bent On Learning lives by this simple prescription. The children who take our classes find that it makes them happy, and perhaps a little healthier. In the BOL syllabus book, the first definition we give of yoga is that yoga is a practice of kindness. I can't think of anything more worthwhile to practice in life.
March 15, 2016 August 7, 2016 Joan RhoLeave a comment
The idea that a person is at fault when something goes wrong is deeply entrenched in society. That's why we blame others and even ourselves. Unfortunately, the idea that a person is at fault is imbedded in the legal system. When major accidents occur, official courts of inquiry are set up to assess the blame. More and more often the blame is attributed to "human error." The person involved can be fined, punished, or fired. Maybe training procedures are revised. The law rests comfortably. But in my experience, human error usually is a result of poor design: it should be called system error. Humans err continually; it is an intrinsic part of our nature. System design should take this into account. Pinning the blame on the person may be a comfortable way to proceed, but why was the system ever designed so that a single act by a single person could cause calamity? Worse, blaming the person without fixing the root, underlying cause does not fix the problem: the same error is likely to be repeated by someone else.
― Don Norman, The Design of Everyday Things
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If you're in need of cables and wiring for your JLG lift equipment, you've come to the right place. In this section you can browse a comprehensive catalog of OEM and aftermarket JLG lift cables and boom wires, suitable for a wide variety of telehandlers, vertical mast lifts, scissor lifts and boom lifts.
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text:
Fugitive Indian tycoon denies fraud
Mr Vijay Mallya arriving for an extradition hearing at a London court yesterday. He fled India last year owing more than S$1.38 billion after defaulting on loan payments to state-owned banks.PHOTO: REUTERS
Jun 14, 2017, 5:00 am SGT
http://str.sg/4beb
LONDON • Tycoon Vijay Mallya insisted he was innocent as he appeared in a London court yesterday over an extradition request from India, where he is accused of fraud.
"I deny all allegations that have been made and I will continue to deny them," said the flamboyant financier, who co-owns Formula One team Force India.
"I have not eluded any court. If it is my lawful duty to be here, I'm happy to be here," he added. "I've given enough evidence to prove my case."
Mr Ben Watson, Mr Mallya's representative, told the preliminary hearing that his client could face a second extradition request, including a "separate set of charges".
Mr Mallya fled India last year owing more than US$1 billion (S$1.38 billion) after defaulting on loan payments to state-owned banks and allegedly misusing the funds.
India submitted an extradition request to Britain in early February after investigators demanded that the 61-year-old be brought home to face charges.
Mr Mallya, known for his lavish lifestyle, made Kingfisher beer a global brand and ran a now-defunct airline with the same name.
He stepped down as the director of the Indian Premier League cricket team Royal Challengers Bangalore last year.
He caused a stir last week when he attended India's cricket match against South Africa in London, where Indian fans met him with shouts of chor, chor (thief, thief).
His financial dealings are being investigated by the federal Central Bureau of Investigation and the Enforcement Directorate, a financial crimes agency.
Mr Mallya, who lives in a US$15 million mansion in England's county of Hertfordshire, has denied absconding and has criticised the media for what he calls a "witch hunt".
A version of this article appeared in the print edition of The Straits Times on June 14, 2017, with the headline 'Fugitive Indian tycoon denies fraud'. Print Edition | Subscribe