No description available.

Yes / A study was conducted to determine the seroprevalence of chronic hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection among children and their mothers on Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands two decades after routine vaccination was introduced in the 1990s. Mothers’ knowledge and attitudes towards HBV disease and vaccination were also assessed. Methods: Results of a national seroprevalence survey conducted in 2016–2017 and antenatal records were used to determine the prevalence of HBV seropositivity in children aged 6–8 years and their biological mothers. The associations between demographic, social and vaccination-related factors and seropositivity were explored using Fisher’s exact tests. Results: HBV seroprevalence was 0.3% in children and 6.8% in their mothers (during pregnancy). Coverage of timely HBV vaccination was 90.3% for the birth dose and was significantly associated with factors related to place of residence (P < 0.001), place of birth (P < 0.001) and number of antenatal visits (P < 0.001). Maternal attitudes towards infant vaccination and antenatal screening were largely positive (95.8% and 96.7%, respectively) despite low vaccination rates (20.9%) among mothers. Knowledge levels were low for disease complications, treatment and transmission. Discussion: Prevalence of HBV in children and mothers residing on Kwajalein Atoll in 2016–2017 was lower than the national average for the Marshall Islands. Timely birth dose administration appears to have been effective in preventing mother-to-child transmission of HBV in this setting and should be promoted in remote settings where antiviral therapy is not available. Provision of out-of-cold-chain HBV vaccines should be considered to improve access in remote settings.

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Batu velakero iri kenaga, loboro mana vakatikili gira vano muzi (Highly effective leaders are at the front, walk in the middle, and encourage those from behind to catch up) My uncle Zorapa said, while I was on a 'pig-hunting' trip with him some twenty odd years ago, that school principals, like all leaders, can only be called leaders if they make a difference. In modern parlance, one frequently encounters this homespun wisdom in the statement that highly effective schools are led by highly effective principals. This study investigates the perceptions of six practicing principals of the elements of highly effective principalship in Solomon Islands' Community High schools. The study investigates and explores these perceptions and tries to describe the elements of highly effective principalship and the impediments that may prevent principals from becoming effective. The study hopes to contribute towards the possible development of highly effective principalship in the Solomon Islands schools. The finding of this research reveals that although the participating principals were very experienced, their responses indicate that there appeared to be no theory-driven basis for their practice. Similarly, the perceptions expressed reveal the urgent need for the Solomon Islands to pay more attention to leadership development strategies that will see the creation of national, and personal, leadership philosophies and set the process of ongoing leadership development, enhancement and improvement in the country. The proposed strategies must incorporate current international research and literature on educational leadership theories as well as building on current practice in the Solomon Islands that is nationally and culturally appropriate. In addition, the study suggests that current practitioners should be encouraged to engage in educational leadership research and begin to build a national literature base. This study suggests that the process of establishing the notion of highly effective educational leadership in the country's school system should start as soon as possible. Those in policy and decision-making positions must have the courage to implement strategies that will contribute to improved levels of educational leadership in order to raise the quality of education for all learners in the country. The children are the future prosperity of the country.

The purpose of this inquiry is to explore the social construction of surfing tourist space in the Mentawai Islands, Indonesia and to expand existing theory to explain the process by which tourist space comes to be overlaid upon the geographical and social domain of destination communities. A review of surfing tourism literature revealed a modest body of knowledge that was largely descriptive, and devoid of any clear theoretical and philosophical perspectives. In order to gain an understanding of the historicity in the production of surfing tourist space, a review of academic and popular surfing literature was undertaken. This review indicated the importance of commercial surf industry discourse, disseminated through a specialist surf media, in defining and maintaining an idealised surfing tourist space (labelled ‘Nirvana’), which is based on the search for, and consumption of, the ‘perfect wave’. A social constructionist interpretation of grounded theory was employed in order to collect and analyse observations and indepth interviews of surfing tourists, surf tour operators, surf industry and media representatives, and locals, from which a number of interpretations were drawn. Firstly, surfing tourist space – Nirvana - is a fragile and contested space based upon four symbolic elements: perfect waves; uncrowded conditions; cushioned adventure; and, a pristine tropical environment. A four-phase process (referred to as Nirvanification) was developed in order to interpret the way in which tourist space is overlaid upon the social and geographical domain of destinations. It is argued that this space is remotely constructed, highly symbolic, and ‘disembedded’ from local realities in the Mentawai Islands. Nirvanification revolves around the construction of symbolic elements of tourist space where it is threatened by alternative discourses, which the industry counters by deploying various myths. The ramification of Nirvanification for local communities in the Mentawais is marginalisation from the economic benefits from tourism. In conclusion this study identified channels for resistance and change which provide an alternative theoretical and philosophical position from which to question the assumptions that underlie socially constructed tourist space.

Field archaeology is the study of surface features of archaeological sites (Crawford 1960: 36). It is concerned not only with the location of sites for excavation, but with their distributions and relationships in time and space. A sequence of field monuments in an area can be difficult to reconstruct, as the information necessary for dating of sites may be not be obtainable from interpretation of surface features alone. The landscape, on which human activities may leave visible traces, is palimpsestic (ibid: 51) : human activity may erase previous traces, or merely add to them. Superposition of remains, resulting from the continued occupation of a particular location, may not necessarily leave visible traces, and if it does, the traces may represent an accumulation of activities, or the remains of only the most recent. A landscape may include sites representing human occupation at different times in the past. The survival of traces of activity as archaeological surface features depends on the extent to which natural features of the landscape are permanently modified. The recognition of these traces depends on the ability of the field archaeologist to interpret the landscape. The geographical context of archaeological sites is the present-day landscape, but study of the site necessitates consideration both of this context and also of environmental features obtaining at the time the site was occupied. Reconstruction and interpretation of both landscape and site are necessary: the site, once the human activity leading to its recognition by the field archaeologist has ceased, is subject to the same agents of change as the landscape. The interpretation of archaeological sites rests chiefly on excavation. Once a type of site has been examined throughly by excavation, the resulting interpretations may be transferred to other similar, but unexcavated sites. Such inferences can be very specific, or quite general. Frequently the surface form of a site gives little indication of whether predictable or exceptional features will be found on excavation-- Chapter One.

The purpose of this inquiry is to explore the social construction of surfing tourist space in the Mentawai Islands, Indonesia and to expand existing theory to explain the process by which tourist space comes to be overlaid upon the geographical and social domain of destination communities. A review of surfing tourism literature revealed a modest body of knowledge that was largely descriptive, and devoid of any clear theoretical and philosophical perspectives. In order to gain an understanding of the historicity in the production of surfing tourist space, a review of academic and popular surfing literature was undertaken. This review indicated the importance of commercial surf industry discourse, disseminated through a specialist surf media, in defining and maintaining an idealised surfing tourist space (labelled ‘Nirvana’), which is based on the search for, and consumption of, the ‘perfect wave’. A social constructionist interpretation of grounded theory was employed in order to collect and analyse observations and indepth interviews of surfing tourists, surf tour operators, surf industry and media representatives, and locals, from which a number of interpretations were drawn. Firstly, surfing tourist space – Nirvana - is a fragile and contested space based upon four symbolic elements: perfect waves; uncrowded conditions; cushioned adventure; and, a pristine tropical environment. A four-phase process (referred to as Nirvanification) was developed in order to interpret the way in which tourist space is overlaid upon the social and geographical domain of destinations. It is argued that this space is remotely constructed, highly symbolic, and ‘disembedded’ from local realities in the Mentawai Islands. Nirvanification revolves around the construction of symbolic elements of tourist space where it is threatened by alternative discourses, which the industry counters by deploying various myths. The ramification of Nirvanification for local communities in the Mentawais is marginalisation from the economic benefits from tourism. In conclusion this study identified channels for resistance and change which provide an alternative theoretical and philosophical position from which to question the assumptions that underlie socially constructed tourist space.

The Canary islands are formed by a slow moving hotspot, from Fuerteventura 20 Ma to el Hierro 1.2Ma years old and La Palma is in the shield building stage of evolution. La Palma had its last eruption 1971 and has had seven eruptions since 1430, which makes it the most active of the islands in our times. The samples consist of host lavas, basanites, and mafic/ultramafic and felsic xenoliths, alkali gabbros and syenites respectively. Minerals in the lavas and the alkali gabbro xenolith samples are clinopyroxene, olivine, amphibole and plagioclase, the clinopyroxenes are zoned. Forsterite content in the olivines increases at the rim for the xenoliths and decreases for the host lavas. While magnesium number in the clinopyroxenes decreases towards the rim. The Fe-Mg partitioning indicates that there were points of equilibrium between the clinopyroxenes and their host lavas, which was calculated to temperature, pressure and depth indicating 62-74km for the xenoliths and 23-35km for the host lavas. The temperatures and pressures were 1184-1205°C with 6-10 kbar for the host lavas compared to 1316-1341°C and 17-20 kbar for the xenoliths.