Pyrethroid and etofenprox resistance in Anopheles gambiae and Anopheles coluzzii from vegetable farms in Yaounde, Cameroon: dynamics, intensity and molecular basis

Previous studies have indicated widespread insecticide resistance in malaria vector populations from Cameroon. However, the intensity of this resistance and underlying mechanisms are poorly known. Therefore, we conducted three cross-sectional resistance surveys between April 2018 and October 2019, using the revised World Health Organization protocol, which includes resistance incidences and intensity assessments. Field-collected Anopheles gambiae s.l. populations from Nkolondom, Nkolbisson and Ekie vegetable farms in the city of Yaounde were tested with deltamethrin, permethrin, alpha-cypermethrin and etofenprox, using 1x insecticide diagnostic concentrations for resistance incidence, then 5x and 10x concentrations for resistance intensity. Subsamples were analyzed for species identification and the detection of resistance-associated molecular markers using TaqMan(R) qPCR assays. In Nkolbisson, both An. coluzzii (96%) and An. gambiae s.s. (4%) were found together, whereas only An. gambiae s.s. was present in Nkolondom, and only An. coluzzii was present in Ekie. All three populations were resistant to the four insecticides (<75% mortality rates-MR1x), with intensity generally fluctuating over the time between mod-erate ( /=98%-MR10x) and high (76-97%-MR10x). The kdr L995F, L995S, and N1570Y, and the Ace-1 G280S-resistant alleles were found in An. gambiae from Nkolondom, at 73%, 1%, 16% and 13% frequencies, respectively, whereas only the kdr L995F was found in An. gambiae s.s. from Nkolbisson at a 50% frequency. In An. coluzzii from Nkolbisson and Ekie, we detected only the kdr L995F allele at 65% and 60% frequencies, respectively. Furthermore, expression levels of Cyp6m2, Cyp9k1, and Gste2 metabolic genes were highly upregulated (over fivefold) in Nkolondom and Nkolbisson. Pyrethroid and etofenprox-based vector control interventions may be jeopardized in the prospected areas, due to high resistance intensity, with multiple mechanisms in An. gambiae s.s. and An. coluzzii

British ‘Colonial governmentality’: slave, forced and waged worker policies in colonial Nigeria, 1896–1930

“This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Management & Organizational History on 22 Apr 2019, available online: https://doi.org/10.1080/17449359.2019.1578669

Influence of biotic vs abiotic processes on the genesis of non-marine carbonates along the Cameroon Volcanic Line (Cameroon) and palaeofluid provenance

Continental spring carbonates are perfect examples of the interaction of biotic and abiotic processes, and they preserve evidence of the velocity of the flow and the chemical composition of the spring water. This study focuses on non-marine carbonates from fossil and active springs from the Bongongo and Ngol areas along the Cameroon Volcanic Line in South-West Cameroon. Here, hydrothermal fluids reach the surface giving rise to small thermal springs, with temperatures between 31 and 49°C, and streams creating waterfalls, terracettes and barrage carbonate deposits. Petrographic analyses of these carbonates revealed that they are made up of stacked laminae of fibrous coarse crystals of low-Mg calcite and laminae of alternate microsparite and micrite. The fibrous coarsely crystalline calcite, often with feather-like fabric, grows from thin layers of micrite and peloids. Filaments of putative microbial origin are preserved within this peloidal micrite. The laminated microsparite and micrite microfacies is characterised by an intricate mesh of hollow filaments of microbial origin. The long feather-like crystals of calcite formed in fast-flowing water where the enhanced CO2 degassing has favoured the precipitation of CaCO3. The laminated micrite and microsparite, on the other hand, are probably formed in ponds where degassing and CO2 removal was lower and the calcite precipitation was fostered by microbial activity. The fast-forming carbonates show higher Ce contents and very low total rare earth elements, revealing a preferential uptake of Ce with respect to other rare earth elements. This process would explain the positive or null Ce anomaly in continental spring carbonates elsewhere. The geochemical composition of these carbonates can be used as proxy for the characterisation of fluid/rock interactions between the groundwater and the substratum and for the characterisation of the sources of calcium and other elements that constitute tufa and travertines. The samples from Ngol are characterised by light rare earth element enrichment while those from Bongongo are overall enriched in heavy rare earth elements. Carbonates from both localities have a strong positive Eu anomaly (&gt;4), suggesting a contribution from deep-seated, hydrothermal, crustal fluids in contact with volcanic rocks and the breakdown of plagioclase from the Cameroon Volcanic Line alkali basalts

Making the law of the jungle: the reform of forest legislation in Bolivia, Cameroon, and Indonesia

The debates over sustainable development put environmental issues squarely on the policy agendas of nations around the world. Throughout, the fate of the forest occupied center stage, and domestic and international pressure induced many developing nations to reform their forest policy, which frequently culminated in new forest legislation. Yet the process that generated those new forest laws has not received much attention and a number of questions remain unanswered. What factors determine whether governments reform forest laws in the first place? What conditions influence the direction of reform? What role does expert advice play in the process? This paper applies a political economy framework that focuses on the interplay between international structure, domestic structure and ideas to answer those questions. It argues that this approach offers the best tools for analyzing the actors and interests involved in the policy process and their power resources. Among the most significant findings are that the World Bank is not as influential in the end as is commonly perceived. Moreover, in democratic developing countries organizations that focus almost exclusively on cultivating their relationship with state ministries to influence forest policy reform usually see their efforts flounder because the legislature, especially legislative committees, is a more significant policy making arena than had been considered here before

Discovering Math APIs by Mining Unit Tests

Abstract. Intoday’sAPI-richworld,programmerproductivitydepends heavily on the programmer’s ability todiscover the requiredAPIs. In this paper, we present a technique and tool, called MathFinder, to discover APIs for mathematical computations by mining unit tests of API methods. Given a math expression, MathFinder synthesizes pseudo-code to compute the expression by mapping its subexpressions to API method calls. For each subexpression, MathFinder searches for a method such that there is a mapping between method inputs and variables of the subexpression. The subexpression, when evaluated on the test inputs of the method under this mapping, should produce results that match the method output on a large number of tests. We implemented Math-Finder as an Eclipse plugin for discovery of third-party Java APIs and performed a user study to evaluate its effectiveness. In the study, the use of MathFinder resulted in a 2x improvement in programmer productivity. In 96 % of the subexpressions queried for in the study, Math-Finder retrieved the desired API methods as the top-most result. The top-most pseudo-code snippet to implement the entire expression was correct in 93 % of the cases. Since the number of methods and unit tests to mine could be large in practice, we also implement MathFinder in a MapReduce framework and evaluate its scalability and response time.

Foraging and navigations, fundamentally: Developers\u27 predictions of value and cost

Empirical studies have revealed that software developers spend 35%-50% of their time navigating through source code during development activities, yet fundamental questions remain: Are these percentages too high, or simply inherent in the nature of software development? Are there factors that somehow determine a lower bound on how effectively developers can navigate a given information space? Answering questions like these requires a theory that captures the core of developers\u27 navigation decisions. Therefore, we use the central proposition of Information Foraging Theory to investigate developers\u27 ability to predict the value and cost of their navigation decisions. Our results showed that over 50% of developers\u27 navigation choices produced less value than they had predicted and nearly 40% cost more than they had predicted. We used those results to guide a literature analysis, to investigate the extent to which these challenges are met by current research efforts, revealing a new area of inquiry with a rich and crosscutting set of research challenges and open problems

Malaria Transmission around the Memve’ele Hydroelectric Dam in South Cameroon: A Combined Retrospective and Prospective Study, 2000–2016

Dam constructions are considered a great concern for public health. The current study aimed to investigate malaria transmission in the Nyabessan village around the Memve&#8217;ele dam in South Cameroon. Adult mosquitoes were captured by human landing catches in Nyabessan before and during dam construction in 2000&#8722;2006 and 2014&#8722;2016 respectively, as well as in the Olama village, which was selected as a control. Malaria vectors were morphologically identified and analyzed for Plasmodium falciparum circumsporozoite protein detection and molecular identification of Anopheles (A.) gambiae species. Overall, ten malaria vector species were identified among 12,189 Anopheles specimens from Nyabessan (N = 6127) and Olama (N = 6062), including A. gambiae Giles (1902), A. coluzzii Coetzee (2013), A. moucheti Evans (1925), A. ovengensis Awono (2004), A. nili Theobald (1903), A. paludis Theobald (1900), A. zieanni, A. marshallii Theobald (1903), A. coustani Laveran (1900), and A. obscurus Gr&#252;nberg (1905). In Nyabessan, A. moucheti and A. ovengensis were the main vector species before dam construction (16&#8722;50 bites/person/night-b/p/n, 0.26&#8722;0.71 infective bites/person/night-ib/p/n) that experienced a reduction of their role in disease transmission in 2016 (3&#8722;35 b/p/n, 0&#8722;0.5 ib/p/n) (p &lt; 0.005). By contrast, the role of A. gambiae s.l. and A. paludis increased (11&#8722;38 b/p/n, 0.75&#8722;1.2 ib/p/n) (p &lt; 0.01). In Olama, A. moucheti remained the main malaria vector species throughout the study period (p = 0.5). These findings highlight the need for a strong vector-borne disease surveillance and control system around the Memve&#8217;ele dam