Protective Efficacy of Menthol Propylene Glycol Carbonate Compared to N, N-diethyl-Methylbenzamide Against Mosquito Bites in Northern Tanzania.

The reduction of malaria parasite transmission by preventing human-vector contact is critical in lowering disease transmission and its outcomes. This underscores the need for effective and long lasting arthropod/insect repellents. Despite the reduction in malaria transmission and outcomes in Tanzania, personal protection against mosquito bites is still not well investigated. This study sought to determine the efficacy of menthol propylene glycol carbonate (MR08), Ocimum suave as compared to the gold standard repellent N, N-diethyl-methylbenzamide (DEET), either as a single dose or in combination (blend), both in the laboratory and in the field against Anopheles gambiae s.l and Culex quinquefasciatus. In the laboratory evaluations, repellents were applied on one arm while the other arm of the same individual was treated with a base cream. Each arm was separately exposed in cages with unfed female mosquitoes. Repellents were evaluated either as a single dose or as a blend. Efficacy of each repellent was determined by the number of mosquitoes that landed and fed on treated arms as compared to the control or among them. In the field, evaluations were performed by human landing catches at hourly intervals from 18:00  hr to 01:00  hr. A total of 2,442 mosquitoes were collected during field evaluations, of which 2,376 (97.30%) were An. gambiae s.l while 66 (2.70%) were Cx. quinquefaciatus. MR08 and DEET had comparatively similar protective efficacy ranging from 92% to 100 for both single compound and blends. These findings indicate that MR08 has a similar protective efficacy as DEET for personal protection outside bed nets when used singly and in blends. Because of the personal protection provided by MR08, DEET and blends as topical applicants in laboratory and field situations, these findings suggest that, these repellents could be used efficiently in the community to complement existing tools. Overall, Cx. quinquefasciatus were significantly prevented from blood feeding compared to An. gambiae s.l. The incorporation of these topical repellents for protection against insect bites can be of additional value in the absence or presence of IRS and ITNs coverage. However, a combination of both the physical (bed nets) and the repellent should be used in an integrated manner for maximum protection, especially before going to bed. Additional research is needed to develop repellents with longer duration of protection

Is aging raw cattle urine efficient for sampling Anopheles arabiensis Patton?

Background: To ensure sustainable routine surveillance of mosquito vectors, simple, effective and ethically acceptable tools are required. As a part of that, we evaluated the efficiency of resting boxes baited with fresh and aging cattle urine for indoor and outdoor sampling of An. arabiensis in the lower Moshi rice irrigation schemes. Methods: A cattle urine treatment and re-treatment schedule was used, including a box with a piece of cloth retreated with urine daily, and once after 3 and 7 day. Resting box with piece of black cloth not treated with urine was used as a control. Each treatment was made in pair for indoor and outdoor sampling. A 4 by 4 Latin square design was used to achieve equal rotation of each of the four treatments across the experimental houses. Sampling was done over a period of 6 months, once per week. Results: A total of 7871 mosquitoes were collected throughout the study period. 49.8% of the mosquitoes were collected from resting box treated with urine daily; 21.6% and 20.0% were from boxes treated 3 and 7 days respectively. Only 8.6% were from untreated resting box (control). The proportion collected indoors was similar to 2 folds greater than the outdoor. Of all mosquitoes, 12.3% were unfed, 4.1% full fed, 34.2% semi-gravid and 49.4% gravid. Conclusion: Fresh and decaying cattle urine odour baited resting boxes offer an alternative tool for sampling particularly semi-gravid and gravid An. arabiensis. Evaluation in low density seasons of An. arabiensis in different ecological settings remains necessary. This sampling method may be standardized for replacing human landing catch

Advantages and Limitations of Commercially Available Electrocuting Grids for Studying Mosquito Behaviour.

Mosquito feeding behaviour plays a major role in determining malaria transmission intensity and the impact of specific prevention measures. Human Landing Catch (HLC) is currently the only method that can directly and consistently measure the biting rates of anthropophagic mosquitoes, both indoors and outdoors. However, this method exposes the participant to mosquito-borne pathogens, therefore new exposure-free methods are needed to replace it. Commercially available electrocuting grids (EGs) were evaluated as an alternative to HLC using a Latin Square experimental design in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Both HLC and EGs were used to estimate the proportion of human exposure to mosquitoes occurring indoors (πi), as well as its two underlying parameters: the proportion of mosquitoes caught indoors (Pi) and the proportion of mosquitoes caught between the first and last hour when most people are indoors (Pfl). HLC and EGs methods accounted for 69% and 31% of the total number of female mosquitoes caught respectively and both methods caught more mosquitoes outdoors than indoors. Results from the gold standard HLC suggest that An. gambiae s.s. in Dar es Salaam is neither exophagic nor endophagic (Pi ≈ 0.5), whereas An. arabiensis is exophagic (Pi < < 0.5). Both species prefer to feed after 10 pm when most people are indoors (Pfl > >0.5). EGs yielded estimates of Pi for An. gambiae s.s., An. arabiensis and An. coustani, that were approximately equivalent to those with HLC but significantly underestimated Pfl for An. gambiae s.s. and An. coustani. The relative sampling sensitivity of EGs declined over the course of the night (p ≤ 0.001) for all mosquito taxa except An. arabiensis. Commercial EGs sample human-seeking mosquitoes with high sensitivity both indoors and outdoors and accurately measure the propensity of Anopheles malaria vectors to bite indoors rather than outdoors. However, further modifications are needed to stabilize sampling sensitivity over a full nocturnal cycle so that they can be used to survey patterns of human exposure to mosquitoes

The burden of diabetes mellitus during pregnancy in low- and middle-income countries : a systematic review

Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Costs of Implementing Collective Action and Capacity Building Among Pastoralists in Southern Ethiopia

Since 2000, the PARIMA project has implemented risk-management activities among semi-settled pastoralists in southern Ethiopia. The goal has been to improve human welfare via collective action and capacity building. Outcomes include progress in income generation, asset conservation, and livelihood diversification. Fifty-nine collective-action groups were created. Dominated by women, they included over 2,000 founding members and groups have recently merged to form 37 cooperatives, consistent with government policy. Creating sustainable impacts via collective action and capacity building requires many inputs. Taking raw, illiterate volunteers and transforming them into sustainable groups took up to three years, on average. Costs of implementing this program are estimated at USD 34 per person for a target population of 13,800 direct beneficiaries, based on an exchange rate of 9.1 Ethiopian Birr per USD. This is about USD 1 per person per month. The project has generated many direct and indirect benefits for individuals and communities, but these are very difficult to quantify. We speculate, however, that there has been a large and positive net benefit from the project once costs are considered. Simply knowing potential costs is useful because it helps development agencies decide how such programs might be effectively designed and implemented

Mean Field Theory of Josephson Junction Arrays with Charge Frustration

Using the path integral approach, we provide an explicit derivation of the equation for the phase boundary for quantum Josephson junction arrays with offset charges and non-diagonal capacitance matrix. For the model with nearest neighbor capacitance matrix and uniform offset charge $q/2e=1/2$, we determine, in the low critical temperature expansion, the most relevant contributions to the equation for the phase boundary. We explicitly construct the charge distributions on the lattice corresponding to the lowest energies. We find a reentrant behavior even with a short ranged interaction. A merit of the path integral approach is that it allows to provide an elegant derivation of the Ginzburg-Landau free energy for a general model with charge frustration and non-diagonal capacitance matrix. The partition function factorizes as a product of a topological term, depending only on a set of integers, and a non-topological one, which is explicitly evaluated.Comment: LaTex, 24 pages, 8 figure

Using a New Odour-Baited Device to Explore Options for Luring and Killing Outdoor-Biting Malaria Vectors: A Report on Design and Field Evaluation of the Mosquito Landing Box.

Mosquitoes that bite people outdoors can sustain malaria transmission even where effective indoor interventions such as bednets or indoor residual spraying are already widely used. Outdoor tools may therefore complement current indoor measures and improve control. We developed and evaluated a prototype mosquito control device, the 'Mosquito Landing Box' (MLB), which is baited with human odours and treated with mosquitocidal agents. The findings are used to explore technical options and challenges relevant to luring and killing outdoor-biting malaria vectors in endemic settings. Field experiments were conducted in Tanzania to assess if wild host-seeking mosquitoes 1) visited the MLBs, 2) stayed long or left shortly after arrival at the device, 3) visited the devices at times when humans were also outdoors, and 4) could be killed by contaminants applied on the devices. Odours suctioned from volunteer-occupied tents were also evaluated as a potential low-cost bait, by comparing baited and unbaited MLBs. There were significantly more Anopheles arabiensis, An. funestus, Culex and Mansonia mosquitoes visiting baited MLB than unbaited controls (P<=0.028). Increasing sampling frequency from every 120 min to 60 and 30 min led to an increase in vector catches of up to 3.6 fold (P<=0.002), indicating that many mosquitoes visited the device but left shortly afterwards. Outdoor host-seeking activity of malaria vectors peaked between 7:30 and 10:30pm, and between 4:30 and 6:00am, matching durations when locals were also outdoors. Maximum mortality of mosquitoes visiting MLBs sprayed or painted with formulations of candidate mosquitocidal agent (pirimiphos-methyl) was 51%. Odours from volunteer occupied tents attracted significantly more mosquitoes to MLBs than controls (P<0.001). While odour-baited devices such as the MLBs clearly have potential against outdoor-biting mosquitoes in communities where LLINs are used, candidate contaminants must be those that are effective at ultra-low doses even after short contact periods, since important vector species such as An. arabiensis make only brief visits to such devices. Natural human odours suctioned from occupied dwellings could constitute affordable sources of attractants to supplement odour baits for the devices. The killing agents used should be environmentally safe, long lasting, and have different modes of action (other than pyrethroids as used on LLINs), to curb the risk of physiological insecticide resistance

Entomological Surveillance of Behavioural Resilience and Resistance in Residual Malaria Vector Populations.

The most potent malaria vectors rely heavily upon human blood so they are vulnerable to attack with insecticide-treated nets (ITNs) and indoor residual spraying (IRS) within houses. Mosquito taxa that can avoid feeding or resting indoors, or by obtaining blood from animals, mediate a growing proportion of the dwindling transmission that persists as ITNs and IRS are scaled up. Increasing frequency of behavioural evasion traits within persisting residual vector systems usually reflect the successful suppression of the most potent and vulnerable vector taxa by IRS or ITNs, rather than their failure. Many of the commonly observed changes in mosquito behavioural patterns following intervention scale-up may well be explained by modified taxonomic composition and expression of phenotypically plastic behavioural preferences, rather than altered innate preferences of individuals or populations. Detailed review of the contemporary evidence base does not yet provide any clear-cut example of true behavioural resistance and is, therefore, consistent with the hypothesis presented. Caution should be exercised before over-interpreting most existing reports of increased frequency of behavioural traits which enable mosquitoes to evade fatal contact with insecticides: this may simply be the result of suppressing the most behaviourally vulnerable of the vector taxa that constituted the original transmission system. Mosquito taxa which have always exhibited such evasive traits may be more accurately described as behaviourally resilient, rather than resistant. Ongoing national or regional entomological monitoring surveys of physiological susceptibility to insecticides should be supplemented with biologically and epidemiologically meaningfully estimates of malaria vector population dynamics and the behavioural phenotypes that determine intervention impact, in order to design, select, evaluate and optimize the implementation of vector control measures

A Matlab/Simulink Model of Self Excited Induction Generator for an Electrical Brake Application

This paper presents a MATLAB/Simulink dynamic model of an induction generator, which makes simulation studies possible for the design of fuzzy logic controllers for the purpose of controlling the retarding torque output of the generator in an electrical brake application, using the fuzzy logic toolbox of MATLAB. Electrical braking has been proposed in the literature as an alternative to the mechanical braking systems with an advantage of providing lower maintenance costs. An induction generator, acting as a brake, converts the kinetic energy of a vehicle to electrical energy, which can be dissipated in a resistor bank or used in a regenerative mode.The Simulink model developed will be used to design and test controllers for an effective control of the output torque of the electrical brake system

Critical properties of two-dimensional Josephson junction arrays with zero-point quantum fluctuations

We present results from an extensive analytic and numerical study of a two-dimensional model of a square array of ultrasmall Josephson junctions. We include the ultrasmall self and mutual capacitances of the junctions, for the same parameter ranges as those produced in the experiments. The model Hamiltonian studied includes the Josephson, $E_J$, as well as the charging, $E_C$, energies between superconducting islands. The corresponding quantum partition function is expressed in different calculationally convenient ways within its path-integral representation. The phase diagram is analytically studied using a WKB renormalization group (WKB-RG) plus a self-consistent harmonic approximation (SCHA) analysis, together with non-perturbative quantum Monte Carlo simulations. Most of the results presented here pertain to the superconductor to normal (S-N) region, although some results for the insulating to normal (I-N) region are also included. We find very good agreement between the WKB-RG and QMC results when compared to the experimental data. To fit the data, we only used the experimentally determined capacitances as fitting parameters. The WKB-RG analysis in the S-N region predicts a low temperature instability i.e. a Quantum Induced Transition (QUIT). We carefully simulations and carry out a finite size analysis of $T_{QUIT}$ as a function of the magnitude of imaginary time axis $L_\tau$. We find that for some relatively large values of $\alpha=E_C/E_J$ ($1\leq \alpha \leq 2.25)$, the $L_\tau\to\infty$ limit does appear to give a {\it non-zero} $T_{QUIT}$, while for $\alpha \ge 2.5$, $T_{QUIT}=0$. We use the SCHA to analytically understand the $L_\tau$ dependence of the QMC results with good agreement between them. Finally, we also carried out a WKB-RG analysis in the I-N region and found no evidence of a low temperature QUIT, up to lowest order in ${\alpha}^{-1}$Comment: 39 pages, 18 postscript figures, to appear in Phys. Rev.