Vector control against infectious diseases: Towards the sustainable development of insect repellents in New Caledonia

More than 80% of the world’s population is threatened by vector-borne diseases with populations in tropical regions most at risk. The World Health Organization (WHO) thus promotes the use of mosquito repellents to prevent infectious diseases. In New Caledonia, the office of Social and Health Affairs Direction (DASS) approved 4 active substances of insect repellents for personal anti-vector protection, among these para-menthan-3,8-diol or PMD. This joint-project between James Cook University (JCU) and the University of New Caledonia (UNC) aimed to identify essential oil bearing plants within the flora of New Caledonia that can supply significant quantities of PMD or its precursor citronellal. The study subsequently identified the essential oil of Corymbia citriodora (Hook.) K.D.Hill & L.A.S.Johnson of the Myrtaceae family already produced in New Caledonia as an important candidate for the production of PMD. This oil provides a significant amount of citronellal, which after an acid-catalyzed thermal cyclisation hydration sequence leads to a mixture of cis and trans isomers of PMD. On the basis of a published method, a standard operating procedure for the conversion of citronellal to PMD has been provided to a distillery in New Caledonia. The distillery has since produced and marketed this renewable insect repellent

Media freedom in Melanesia: the challenges of researching the impact of national security legislation

Commentary: In a global context of national security anxiety, governments across the world are passing an increasing number of laws in response to terror-related threats. Often, national security laws undermine media freedom and infringe on democratic principles and basic human rights. Threats to media freedom and abuse of journalists are also increasing in Melanesia. This commentary argues that in a regional context of repetitive political coups, failures in governance, high levels of corruption, insurrections, or even media crises, the tensions between national security legislation and media freedom need to be examined cautiously. The authors suggest that strong methodological and theoretical frameworks that allow for serious consideration of cultural practices and protocols will be necessary to conduct research examining these tensions in Melanesia

Media ethics beyond frontiers: epistemic challenge and power struggle?

To date, only a few efforts to develop a framework for universal ethical principles of media and journalism that take full account of indigenous knowledge have been made. This paper tentatively demonstrates the importance of taking into consideration such knowledge for the examination of journalistic practice and when entering a debate on global media ethics; it suggests that a significant reconsideration of our theoretical approaches to do so must take place. It also suggests that the challenges to including traditional knowledge or indigenous and traditional epistemologies in such framework goes beyond the sole issue of ‘culture’ and local epistemologies in the non-Western world. It will argue that by deploying a more critical approach that takes into consideration the concept of domination and power – or struggle over domination and power – we may gain a better understanding of why there are many complexities involved in the development of such ambitious project as the one of global media ethics

Vector control against infectious diseases: Towards the sustainable development of insect repellents in New Caledonia

More than 80% of the world’s population is threatened by vector-borne diseases with populations in tropical regions most at risk. The World Health Organization (WHO) thus promotes the use of mosquito repellents to prevent infectious diseases. In New Caledonia, the office of Social and Health Affairs Direction (DASS) approved 4 active substances of insect repellents for personal anti-vector protection, among these para-menthan-3,8-diol or PMD. This joint-project between James Cook University (JCU) and the University of New Caledonia (UNC) aimed to identify essential oil bearing plants within the flora of New Caledonia that can supply significant quantities of PMD or its precursor citronellal. The study subsequently identified the essential oil of Corymbia citriodora (Hook.) K.D.Hill & L.A.S.Johnson of the Myrtaceae family already produced in New Caledonia as an important candidate for the production of PMD. This oil provides a significant amount of citronellal, which after an acid-catalyzed thermal cyclisation hydration sequence leads to a mixture of cis and trans isomers of PMD. On the basis of a published method, a standard operating procedure for the conversion of citronellal to PMD has been provided to a distillery in New Caledonia. The distillery has since produced and marketed this renewable insect repellent

A SPE-LC-MS/MS method for the detection of low concentrations of pharmaceuticals in industrial waste streams

A SPE-LC-MS/MS method was developed and validated for the determination of three active pharmaceutical ingredients in the wastewater of a chemical synthesis production facility. The SPE-LC-MS/MS method was validated in actual influent and effluent samples. Linearity, LOD, LOQ, repeatability, intermediate precision, and recovery were determined. The LC-MS/MS method was used for an on-going monitoring program for these pharmaceuticals in wastewater. The method development techniques, validation procedures, and results from real wastewater samples are presented in this paper

Investigating the photochemical reaction of an oxazolone derivative under continuous-flow conditions: from analytical monitoring to implementation in an advanced UVC-LED-driven microreactor

This study examined the photochemical transformation of an oxazolone derivative in a continuous microreactor irradiated by a UVC LED array (273 nm). The aim of this study was to transfer the reaction protocol originally developed under batch conditions to continuous flow and to further evaluate the scope of this application. A custom-built UVC-LED panel was combined with a microchip, and this microflow system allowed to work under perfectly controlled operating conditions. NMR and LC-MS were used to identify and quantify the main products obtained during the reaction. From this, an HPLC method was developed for imine separation, allowing for an easy and fast monitoring of the reaction progress. Subsequently, the influence of the operating conditions (residence time, photon flux density, temperature) on the selectivity and conversion was investigated to identify the most favorable conditions for a specific product. Temperature did not affect conversion but had an impact on the reaction’s selectivity. The developed UVC-LED-driven continuous-flow microreactor was found to be very efficient since a quantum photon balance ratio of 0.7 was enough to convert all the reactant, while at the same time achieving the maximal yield of the target product. Exhaustive irradiation did not change the molar ratio of each compound present in the reaction medium, thus excluding follow-up photoreactions of the products. This work opens promising perspectives for boosting flow photochemistry in the UV-C domain