Integrated vector management for malaria control

Integrated vector management (IVM) is defined as "a rational decision-making process for the optimal use of resources for vector control" and includes five key elements: 1) evidence-based decision-making, 2) integrated approaches 3), collaboration within the health sector and with other sectors, 4) advocacy, social mobilization, and legislation, and 5) capacity-building. In 2004, the WHO adopted IVM globally for the control of all vector-borne diseases. Important recent progress has been made in developing and promoting IVM for national malaria control programmes in Africa at a time when successful malaria control programmes are scaling-up with insecticide-treated nets (ITN) and/or indoor residual spraying (IRS) coverage. While interventions using only ITNs and/or IRS successfully reduce transmission intensity and the burden of malaria in many situations, it is not clear if these interventions alone will achieve those critical low levels that result in malaria elimination. Despite the successful employment of comprehensive integrated malaria control programmes, further strengthening of vector control components through IVM is relevant, especially during the "end-game" where control is successful and further efforts are required to go from low transmission situations to sustained local and country-wide malaria elimination. To meet this need and to ensure sustainability of control efforts, malaria control programmes should strengthen their capacity to use data for decision-making with respect to evaluation of current vector control programmes, employment of additional vector control tools in conjunction with ITN/IRS tactics, case-detection and treatment strategies, and determine how much and what types of vector control and interdisciplinary input are required to achieve malaria elimination. Similarly, on a global scale, there is a need for continued research to identify and evaluate new tools for vector control that can be integrated with existing biomedical strategies within national malaria control programmes. This review provides an overview of how IVM programmes are being implemented, and provides recommendations for further development of IVM to meet the goals of national malaria control programmes in Africa

The dilemmas of ethnic privilege: A comparison of constructions of 'British', 'English' and 'Anglo-Celtic' identity in contemporary British and Australian political discourse

Copyright © 2002 SAGE PublicationsThere has been considerable political debate regarding the construction of 'British' and 'English' identity. This article examines the views of British political leaders Blair, Hague and Duncan Smith. It argues that a comparison with Australian political debates over the construction of 'Anglo-Celtic' and national identity can be particularly helpful. The Australian experience draws attention to the need to consider diasporic constructions of 'Britishness'; reinforces the need to address the colonial implications of mainstream British identity; and emphasizes the dangers posed by conservative mobilizations of traditional ethnic identities in response to 'modernizing' projects by Labour governments. Both the British and Australian debates reveal the dilemmas posed by powerful ethnic identities whose privilege is under threat.Carol Johnso

Reservoir quality of Cenozoic carbonate buildups and coral reef terraces

Almost half of SE Asia's considerable hydrocarbon reserves are contained in carbonates. The majority of these reservoirs are Miocene buildups up to tens of kilometres across. However, with the exception of a few fields, there is little detailed data on how local depositional and diagenetic conditions influence the considerable heterogeneities in reservoir quality often encountered. This study focuses on factors influencing the facies, diagenetic and reservoir variability of comparable Modern, Quaternary and Neogene reef associated deposits from the Tukang Besi Archipelago, Central Indonesia.The Archipelago includes large atolls, a number of smaller buildups and 4 main islands each with modern rimmed shelves or fringing reefs. On the islands, over ten late Neogene and Quaternary coral reef terraces have been uplifted to maximum heights of ~300 m. Analysis of the modern deposits allows initial reservoir potential to be assessed and related to local environmental conditions. The influence of diagenesis on final reservoir quality is evaluated for the depositional facies exposed in the uplifted terraces. The overall spatial distribution of effective porosity across the area is strongly dependent on local energy conditions, water depth, carbonate producers, size of atolls or islands, climate and local meteoric diagenetic processes. This evaluation of spatial variability in carbonate reservoir characteristics provides much needed analogue data as the hydrocarbon industry focuses on improving recovery from existing fields and exploring for new reserves

'Voyaging in': colonialism and migration

A major reference chapter on the history of the literature of colonialism and migration 1945-70. The book marks an intervention into conventional histories of British Literature. The chapter illustrates and analyses the influential formation of alternative modernities by migrant writers resident in Britain during this period; it also extends the gaze to the period before 1945 earlier in the twentieth century. Maps new ways of reading literary history; broad and wideranging discussion of migration during this period