The Effect of Months of the Year, Recorded by a Smart Bee Device, on the Temperature and Relative Humidity of Beehives and Broods

Threats from different origins are affecting agriculture in general and beekeeping in particular. Climate change, diseases, the use of pesticides, insecticides, thefts and genetic erosion due to random crossing of exotic and native strains. Internet of Things (IoT) devices have found many applications to reduce these threats, including the honeybees sector. They consist of embedded sensing, computing, and communication devices, connected to the Internet through specific lightweight messaging protocols. A SmartBee%2B Device, developed by Beekeeper Tech (www.smartbeekeeper.com) was used and honeybees information have been gathered during three years period 2020-2021, from over 100 in-field beehives. Each beehive was set up at a different location in Tunisia, France and New Zealand. A SmartBee%2B device connects to one beehive and operates in several modes%253A the Monitoring mode, the Transhumance mode, the Tracking mode, and the hibernate mode. Two embedded sensors and two external sensors measured the hives main parameters%253A The inner beehive%252339%253Bs temperature and relative humidity and the Brood%252339%253Bs temperature and its relative Humidity. In addition, the hive%252339%253Bs location is recorded with a GPS module. A total of 51444 and 50671 temperature and relative humidity records from the hives and 8756 records of the temperature and relative humidity at the brood level were used in this study, analyzed and results presented and discussed. Main results showed how honeybees workers mitigate the heat burden at the brood level by increasing their temperature till 7deg%253BC in winter and decreasing the brood temperature by 8 deg%253BC in summer hot months. Breeding values of queens, based on their endothermic mechanism trait, can be predicted to improve their ability to cope with extreme temperatures and select well-adapted strains. These improvements will affect positively the majority of small beehives keepers in the world by reducing the loss of their colonies

Evaluation of the protective efficacy of Olyset®Plus ceiling net on reducing malaria prevalence in children in Lake Victoria Basin, Kenya: study protocol for a cluster-randomized controlled trial.

BACKGROUND: In the Lake Victoria Basin of western Kenya, malaria remains highly endemic despite high coverage of interventions such as insecticide-impregnated long-lasting insecticidal nets (LLIN). The malaria-protective effect of LLINs is hampered by insecticide resistance in Anopheles vectors and its repurposing by the community. Ceiling nets and LLIN with synergist piperonyl butoxide (PBO-LLIN) are novel tools that can overcome the problems of behavioral variation of net use and metabolic resistance to insecticide, respectively. The two have been shown to reduce malaria prevalence when used independently. Integration of these two tools (i.e., ceiling nets made with PBO-LLIN or Olyset®Plus ceiling nets) appears promising in further reducing the malaria burden. METHODS: A cluster-randomized controlled trial is designed to assess the effect of Olyset®Plus ceiling nets on reducing malaria prevalence in children on Mfangano Island in Homa Bay County, where malaria transmission is moderate. Olyset®Plus ceiling nets will be installed in 1315 residential structures. Malaria parasitological, entomological, and serological indicators will be measured for 12 months to compare the effectiveness of this new intervention against conventional LLIN in the control arm. DISCUSSION: Wider adoption of Olyset®Plus ceiling nets to complement existing interventions may benefit other malaria-endemic counties and be incorporated as part of Kenya's national malaria elimination strategy. TRIAL REGISTRATION: UMIN Clinical Trials Registry UMIN000045079. Registered on 4 August 2021

Ten Simple Rules for Organizing a Virtual Conference—Anywhere

Etienne P. de Villiers and Sheila C. Ommeh are ILRI author

Bye-bye Barack: dislocating afropolitanism, spectral marxism and dialectical disillusionment in two Obama-era novels

In contextually specific and formally distinctive ways, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Americanah and Imbolo Mbue’s Behold the Dreamers are fictional interrogations of Obama’s presidential pledge to resuscitate the American dream on the wake of the global financial crash. This paper explores how they supplement and challenge familiar tropes associated with African and American, rather than African-American, diaspora writing. Given broader debates within transnational literary studies about flows and exchanges (of people, finance, cultural production, dissemination, consumption et al.) linking the global South and North, I consider how these texts grapple with the complexities and complicities of contemporary neoliberalism through the lens of renascent African Marxisms. While my chosen writers could not be described as Marxist, I engage with more materially oriented scholarship, such as Krishnan’s Writing Spatiality in West Africa and Ngugi’s The Rise of the African Novel, to consider how Americanah and Behold the Dreamers circulate in a global literary marketplace where certain texts, not to mention authors, are seen as symptomatic of an African and/or Afropolitan and/or ‘Africapitalist’ renaissance. By grappling with Marxist-inflected scholarship, this paper interrogates the politics, as well as poetics, of the oft-conspicuous airbrushing of those socio-economic, specifically class concerns at the heart of these entangled debates

Considering difference: Clinician insights into providing equal and equitable burns care for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children

Objective: To better understand issues driving quality in burn care related to equity of outcomes and equality of provision for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children. Methods: Seventy-six interviews with team members who provide care for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children in six paediatric burn units across five Australian jurisdictions were completed. Interface research methodology within a qualitative design guided data collection and analysis. Results: Three themes were identified: i) Burn team members who identify the requirement to meet the specific needs of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and deliver differential care; ii) Burn team members who believe in equal care, but deliver differential care based on the specific needs of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children; and iii) Burn team members who see little need for provision of differential care for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and rather, value the provision of equal care for all. Conclusion: Burn team members conflate equitable and equal care, which has implications for the delivery of care for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children. Equitable care is needed to address disparities in post-burn outcomes, and this requires clinicians, healthcare services and relevant system structures to work coherently and intentionally to reflect these needs. Implications for public health: Changes in health policy, the embedding of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander liaison officers in burn care teams and systems that prioritise critical reflexive practice are fundamental to improving care