Setting-up a cross-border action-research project to control malaria in remote areas of the Amazon: describing the birth and milestones of a complex international project (Malakit)

Background In French Guiana, gold miners working illegally represents a major reservoir of malaria. This mobile population, mainly of Brazilian descent, enters the French Guianese forest from neighbouring countries, Suriname and Brazil. A complex and innovative intervention was piloted as a cooperation with the three involved countries involved to control malaria in this specific population. The principle was that health workers called “facilitators” provide the participants with a self-diagnosis and self-treatment kit along with adequate training and material to rapidly manage an episode of malaria symptoms on their own, when they find themselves isolated from health care services. Methods This paper describes the design, development, content of the intervention and players’ organization of this multi-country project, the opportunities and constraints encountered, and the lessons learnt at this stage. Results The choice not to implement the usual “Test and Treat” approach within the community is mainly driven by regulatory reasons. The content of medical messages tends to balance the tension between thoroughness, accuracy and efficacy. The wide range of tools developed through a participatory approach was intended to cope with the challenges of the literacy level of the target population. Despite the difficulties encountered due to language, regulation differences and distance between partners, cooperation was fruitful, due to the complementary of stakeholders, their involvement at all important stages and regular face-to-face meetings. Discussion and conclusion This experience shows the feasibility of an ambitious project of action-research in a border malaria context, involving several countries and with a mobile and undocumented population. It reveals some factors of success which may be transferable in analogous settings.

EVALUASI PROGRAM PENGENDALIAN DAN PENGAMANAN LALU LINTAS MELALUI LAYANAN PENGUJIAN KENDARAAN BERMOTOR DRIVE THRU DI DINAS PERHUBUNGAN KABUPATEN SIDOARJO

Program pengendalian dan pengamanan lalu lintas merupakan salah satu program yang telah dicantumkan di dalam Rencana Strategis Dinas Perhubungan Kabupaten Sidoarjo tahun 2017-2021. Program ini telah dilaksanakan untuk meminimalisir angka kecelakaan lalu lintas. Untuk mencapai tujuan tersebut dilakukan uji kir menggunakan uji kelayakan kendaraan bermotor, yang mana dilakukan secara berkala untuk menguji kendaraan bermotor yang besar, kecil, milik pribadi ataupun perusahaan yang telah melalui tahap lulus layak uji sehingga dapat beroperasi di jalan raya. Tujuan dari penelitian ini adalah untuk mengevaluasi program pengujian kendaraan bermotor drive thru di Dinas Perhubungan Kabupaten Sidoarjo. Jenis penelitian yang digunakan dalam penelitian ini adalah jenis penelitian deskriptif kualitatif. Teknik dalam penelitian ini melalui metode studi literatur, observasi, wawancara, dan dokumentasi. Teknik analisis menggunkan metode deskriptif-kualitatif, dengan mengkompres fakta, objek penelitian, dan data bahasa maupun wacana. Hasil penelitian ini menujukan bahwa program uji kir drive thru masih belum efektif, perbedaan antrian sesudah dan sebelum adanya drive thru tidak signifikan sehingga masih perlu di maksimalkan. Dari segi efisiensi, pelaksanaan uji kir sangat baik dilakukan sesuai dengan aturan yang berlaku. Dalam hal kecukupan jalur uji dan lahan yang masih kurang menyebabkan antrian panjang masih sering terjadi. Pada kesamaan pengujian dilakukan sesuai antrian pendaftaran. Rensponsivitas masyarakat masih banyak yang memilih jalur pengujian biasa. Keseluruhan pelaksanaan uji kir sudah baik, semua dilakukan sesuai peraturan yang berlaku. Saran dari penelitian ini karyawan lebih disiplin jam buka, menambah jalur baru, membedakan jalur antara jalur biasa dengan drive thru, dan menyelesaikan pembagunan lahan baru uji kir di Jalan Veteran Lingkar Timur. Kata Kunci : Evaluasi , Uji Kir, Drive Thru. The traffic control and security program are one of the programs that have been included in the Strategic Plan of the Sidoarjo Regency Transportation Service for 2017-2021. This program has been implemented to minimize the number of traffic accidents. To achieve this goal, a test car is carried out using a motorized vehicle feasibility test, which is carried out periodically to test large, small, private, or company motorized vehicles that have passed the test-worthy stage so that they can operate on the highway The purpose of this study was to evaluate the drive-thru motorized vehicle testing program at the Department of Transportation, Sidoarjo Regency. The type of research used in this research is descriptive qualitative research. The technique in this research is through the method of literature study, observation, interviews, and documentation. The analysis technique uses descriptive-qualitative methods, by compressing facts, research objects, and language and discourse data. The results of this study indicate that the drive-thru kir test program is still ineffective, the queue difference after and before the drive-thru is not significant so it still needs to be maximized. In terms of efficiency, it is best to carry out the test run according to the applicable regulations. In terms of the adequacy of the test route and the insufficient land, long queues still occur. On the similarity, testing is carried out according to the registration queue There are still many people who choose the usual test route. The overall implementation of the test is good, everything is carried out by the applicable regulations. Suggestions from this research are employees to be more disciplined in opening hours, add new routes, differentiate between the normal route and the drive-thru, and complete the construction of a new land test at Jalan Veteran Lingkar Timur. Keywords: Evaluation, Kir Drive-Thru Test

Setting-Up A Cross-Border Action-Research Project to Control Malaria in Remote Areas of the Amazon: Describing the Birth and Milestones of A Complex International Project (Malakit)

Background: In French Guiana, gold miners working illegally represents a major reservoir of malaria. This mobile population, mainly of Brazilian descent, enters the French Guianese forest from neighboring countries, Suriname and Brazil. A complex and innovative intervention was piloted in cooperation with the three involved countries to control malaria in this specific population. The principle was to provide participants through health workers called “facilitators” with a self-diagnosis and self-treatment kit along with adequate training and material to rapidly manage an episode of malaria symptoms on their own, when they find themselves isolated from health care services. Method: We describe here the design, development, content of the intervention and players’ organization of this multi-country project, the opportunities and constraints encountered, and the lessons learnt at this stage. Results: We chose not to implement a usual “Test and Treat” approach within the community mainly for regulatory reasons. The content of medical messages tend to balance the tension between thoroughness, accuracy and efficacy. The wide range of tools developed through a participatory approach was intended to cope with the challenges of the literacy level of the target population. Despite the difficulties encountered due to language, regulation differences and distance between partners, cooperation was fruitful, due to the complementary of stakeholders, their involvement at all important stages and regular face-to-face meetings. Discussion and conclusion: This experience shows the feasibility of an ambitious project of action-research in a border malaria context, involving several countries and with a mobile and undocumented population. It reveals some factors of success which may be transferable in analogous settings.

An Experiment Investigation to the Effect on Measurement Precision of Torsional Vibration

Tortional vibration is a common phenomena in the rotary machine such as internal combustion engine. The measurement of tortional vibration is an usual test in the engine experiments. In this paper, the influences of some parameters of measurement instruments such as teeth number and diameter of gear wheel were investigated by experiment approach. Some useful results to guarantee the precision of measurement were obtained.

Waveform discrimination, phase sensitivity and jamming avoidance in a wave-type electric fish

The electric organ discharge (EOD) of most species of the freshwater knifefishes (Gymnotiformes) of South America is of the wave, not the pulse, type. Wave EODs are usually of constant frequency and amplitude, and show a bewildering multitude of species-characteristic waveforms. The EOD of Eigenmannia is sexually dimorphic in waveform and in the intensity of its higher harmonics. In a go/no go paradigm, trained food-rewarded fish discriminated between these waveforms, and naive (untrained) fish showed a significant preference. To determine whether spectral or waveform (time) cues are used by the fish, artificial stimuli of identical amplitude spectrum were synthesized that differed only in phase relationship between their harmonics, i.e. waveform, and the fish discriminated even among these stimulus waveforms (i.e. spectral cues are not required). Our sensory model predicts that, for successful waveform detection, a minimum frequency difference is required between the stimulus and the EOD. As expected, trained fish confused test stimuli of different waveform that were frequency-clamped and phase-locked to the EOD (frequency difference 0 Hz). Opening the electronic feedback loop immediately restored discrimination performance on an on/off basis, and a strong jamming avoidance response (JAR; a frequency shift away from the stimulus) accompanied every behavioural decision (to go for a food reward). The strong habituation of the JAR that occurs in response to stimuli of no behavioural consequence (the usual test situation) was not seen in the present experiments. The proposed sensory model (which is based on time-marking T electroreceptors) is supported by these experiments, and a biological function for the JAR - subserving EOD waveform discrimination is shown to be useful in a social context.

Biological and Molecular Detection of Toxic Lipodepsipeptide-Producing Pseudomonas syringae Strains and PCR Identification in Plants

ABSTRACT Toxin-based identification procedures are useful for differentiating Pseudomonas syringae pathovars. A biological test on peptone-glucose-NaCl agar in which the yeastRhodotorula pilimanae was used proved to be more reliable for detecting lipodepsipeptide-producing strains of P. syringae than the more usual test on potato dextrose agar in which Geotrichum candidum is used. A PCR test performed with primers designed to amplify a 1,040-bp fragment in the coding sequence of the syrD gene, which was assumed to be involved in syringomycin and syringopeptin secretion, efficiently detected the gene in pathovars that produce the lipodepsipeptides. Comparable results were obtained in both tests performed with strains of the syringomycin-producing organisms P. syringae pv. syringae,P. syringae pv. atrofaciens, and P. syringaepv. aptata, but the PCR test failed with a syringotoxin-producingPseudomonas fuscovaginae strain. The specificity of the test was verified by obtaining negative PCR test results for related pathovars or species that do not produce the toxic lipodepsipeptides.P. syringae pv. syringae was detected repeatedly in liquid medium inoculated with diseased vegetative tissue and assayed by the PCR test. Our procedure was also adapted to detect P. syringae pv. morsprunorum with a cfl gene-based PCR test.

Insights on the SASW nondestructive testing method

Spectral analysis of surface waves (SASW) is a nondestructive and in-situ method used for determining the thickness and elastic properties of pavement and soil sites using the dispersion characteristics of surface waves. In this paper, computer simulations of actual surface wave field tests are used to clarify errors that may arise in experimental dispersion curves of pavement sites when the usual test and data analysis procedures of the SASW method are followed. Two aspects of these procedures are considered: (i) relative phase angle unwrapping and (ii) source-to-near-receiver distance. The results of these simulations reveal that the currently used procedures may lead to erroneous results for some sites; the simulations offer valuable insights on the underlying causes. An overview of the theoretical aspects and field procedures of the surface wave method is briefly presented. Key words: surface waves, nondestructive testing, pavements, soils, elastic modulus.

't HOOFT'S SCATTERING AMPLITUDE FROM CHERN–SIMONS–WITTEN GRAVITY IN 2+1 DIMENSIONS

By using canonical phase space variables different from those associated with individual particles, we couple the Chern–Simons–Witten gravity to point-like sources. The resulting theory provides an alternative to the usual test particle approximation and yields 't Hooft's scattering amplitude in the limit of two very massive slowly moving particles.