The Role of Carbon Dioxide in Host-Finding by Mosquitoes (Diptera: Culicidae): A Review

\ud From a critical review of the literature, it is concluded that the role of carbon dioxide in host-seeking by mosquitoes comprises two distinct actions. Firstly, it acts as an attractant’, orientation towards the host being mediated by kinesis and optomotor anemotaxis. When tested in the absence of moving air currents, orientation to the source is not possible and only the kinetic or activating effect is manifested. Moreover, in the absence of other host factors, sustained flight takes place only in response to intermittent pulses of carbon dioxide; this response is not elicited in uniformly permeated airstreams. Secondly, carbon dioxide has a combined action with warm moist convection currents\u

Educational potential, underachievement, and cultural pluralism

The term 'underachievement' is widespread in modern educational discourse, invoked most frequently in relation to a perceived failure to reach 'potential'. In this paper, it is suggested that such terms, though widely used, are highly problematic, masking ideological assumptions which concern socially constructed, culturally sensitive, subjective, and relative matters. In fact, underachievement is most often used to mean low academic attainment and the paper argues that this is already better understood in terms of well-known factors such as prior attainment, socioeconomic disadvantage, and systemic biases. This paper also suggests that there is a danger of pathologising the low attainer when in fact it may be the system which is failing the learner. Further, the paper argues that the monologic focus on individual academic attainment as the sole measure of 'achievement' fails to take account of alternative cultural values and risks the charge of cultural imperialism