Ecohealth research in Southeast Asia : past, present and the way forward

Ecohealth is a comprehensive approach to understanding health at its human, animal and environmental interface in a socio-ecological systems context. This approach was introduced widely in Southeast Asia (SEA) by the Canadian International Development Research Centre (IDRC) in the late 2000s. Aimed at addressing the problem of emerging infectious diseases (EIDs), numerous such projects and activities have been generated throughout the region. Ecohealth is increasingly converging with the One Health approach, as both movements emphasise a holistic understanding to health. We conducted a scoping review by considering all of the Ecohealth programmes, initiatives and projects that have been implemented in SEA since the introduction of the approach, and also gathered information from peer-reviewed literature. The objective of this paper is to review Ecohealth activities within SEA over the last 10 years to address the lessons learned, challenges faced and the way forward for Ecohealth in the region. Activities range from those focusing purely on capacity, projects focusing on research and projects covering both. Achievements to date include, for example, research contributing to the field of infectious diseases in relation to social ecological factors and associated urbanisation and agricultural intensification. Challenges remain at the project design and implementation level, in the available capacity and coordination to develop Ecohealth research teams in the countries, gauging teams' assimilation of Ecohealth's underlying tenets and their translation into sustainable disease prevention and control, as well as in the ability to scale up Ecohealth projects. We suggest that the way forward for Ecohealth should be from a regional perspective in terms of research, training and policy translation using Ecohealth in combination with the One Health approach

Sustaining a regional emerging infectious disease research network : a trust-based approach

The paper describes some history and achievements of the Asia Partnership on Emerging Infectious Diseases Research (APEIR) with a focus on the partnership's five major areas of emerging infectious disease research: wild migratory birds, backyard poultry systems, socio-economic impact, policy analysis, and control measures. Two case studies are highlighted, illustrating how the partnership's research results are being used to inform policy. Also highlighted are lessons learned after five years of building partnerships and the value-added by a multi-country, multi-sectoral, multi-disciplinary research partnership like APEIR

Vortex flow generator utilizing synthetic jets by diaphragm vibration

This paper develops a millimeter scale fully packaged device in which a vortex flow of high velocity is generated inside a chamber. Under the actuation by a lead zirconate titanate (PZT) diaphragm, a flow circulates with increasing velocity after each actuating circle to form a vortex in a cavity named as the vortex chamber. At each cycle, the vibration of the PZT diaphragm creates a small net air flow through a rectifying nozzle, generates a synthetic jet which propagates by a gradual circulation toward the vortex chamber and then backward the feedback chamber. The design of such device is firstly conducted by a numerical analysis whose results are considered as the base of our experimental set-up. A vortex flow generated in the votex chamber was observed by a high-speed camera. The present approach which was illustrated by both the simulation and experiment is potential in various applications related to the inertial sensing, fluidic amplifier and micro/nano particle trapping and mixing

Health and environmental impact of agricultural intensification: Translating Ecohealth program-derived knowledge into practice

International Development Research Centr

Ecohealth research to regionally address agriculture intensification impacts on health and the environment in Southeast Asia and China

Ecohealth Field Building Leadership Initiative is a regional operational research network in Southeast Asia and China that focuses on solving human health problems associated with agricultural intensification. FBLI has 3 focus areas, namely research, capacity building and knowledge translation. FBLI gathers researchers, policy makers, community members and other stakeholders from 4 focused countries (China, Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam). Here we describe the operational research component that focuses on aspects of agriculture intensification on health and the environment including animal waste from pig production (Vietnam), dairy production (Indonesia), pesticide use in vegetable production (China), and health risks in rubber plantation (Thailand). Integrated approaches to the research component including survey, participatory and cross-cutting methods are discussed. The research results from Vietnam and Indonesia showed health and environmental impacts of manure management options, in particular the biogas system and turning waste to value. In Hanam of Vietnam, the health risks from biogas effluent reuse include E. coli infection (19–22% of population exposed) and G. lamblia infection (45–55% of population exposed). In Pangalengan, Indonesia, the Ecohealth approach was used to promote the production of medicinal worm and casting biofertilizer from cow manure as an environmentallyfriendly fertilizer alternative. In Chachoengsao Province of Thailand, key findings include evidences for higher risk of vectorborne diseases (dengue and chikungunya) in rubber plantation areas as well as higher microbial and heavy metal contamination of water and soil. In six villages of three townships in a County of Yunnan Province, China, issues identified were lack of farmer knowledge of pesticides, pesticide abuse, and ineffective policy to reduce pesticide abuse. Pesticide contamination was recorded from 6.1% to 12.7% of vegetables depending on sampling location in the field or market. The findings from 4 countries illustrate how Ecohealth research has been applied in health and agriculture and serve as basis for interventions for reduce health and environmental risks

A study of ion wind generator using parallel arranged electrode configuration for centrifugal flow mixer

Ion wind is recently applied in various research areas such as the biomedical engineering, microfluidic mixing and particle manipulation. In this work, a bipolar ion wind generator configured by parallel arranged electrodes is used for centrifugal mixing applications. With the proposed configuration, negative and positive ion winds are simultaneously generated, mixed and then neutralized by each other while travelling toward liquid surface. The efficiency of the device was investigated both computationally and experimentally. The mixing of liquid occurred in different ways when the system is activated by either direct or alternating currents. Furthermore, the mixing is dependent on the dimension of electrode tip

REALIZATION OF BROADBAND AND INDEPENDENT POLARIZATION METAMATERIAL PERFECT ABSORBER BASED ON THE THIRD-ORDER RESONANCE

In this report, we studied numerically and experimentally the electromagnetic properties of perfect MAs using ring-shaped structures at microwave frequencies. By creating a magnetic resonance, the ring structure confines electromagnetic energy at the first- and third-order resonances. And then, we leveraged the super-cell structures, which consist of different rings in one unit cell to obtain broadband absorption. The results showed that the absorption band of MA is broaden from 1.3 to 2.17 GHz when the number of rings in the unit cell increases from four to nine-ring

Corona based air-flow using parallel discharge electrodes

A novel air-flow generator based on the effect of ion wind has been developed by the simultaneous generation of both positive and negative ions using two electrodes of opposite polarity placed in parallel. Unlike the conventional unipolar-generators, this bipolar configuration creates an ion wind, which moves away from both electrodes and yields a very low net charge on the device. The electro-hydrodynamic behavior of air-flow has been experimentally and numerically studied. The velocity of ion wind reaches values up to 1.25 m/s using low discharge current 5 mu-A with the kinetic conversion efficiency of 0.65% and the released net charge of �30 fA, 8 orders of magnitude smaller compared with the discharge current. Due to easy scalability and low net charge, the present configuration is beneficial to applications with space constraints and/or where neutralized discharge process is required, such as inertial fluidic units, circulatory flow heat transfer, electrospun polymer nanofiber to overcome the intrinsically instability of the process, or the formation of low charged aerosol

A closed device to generate vortex flow using PZT

This paper reports for the first time a millimeter scale fully packaged device which generates a vortex flow of high velocity. The flow which is simply actuated by a PZT diaphragm circulates with a higher velocity after each actuating circle to form a vortex in a desired chamber. The design of such device is firstly conducted by a numerical analysis using OpenFOAM. Several numerical results are considered as the base of our experiment where a flow vortex is observed by a high speed camera. The present device is potential in various applications related to the inertial sensing, fluidic amplifier and micro/nano particle trapping and mixing