The innovation and implementation of appropriate health education.

It is a frequent but mistaken assumption that effective and appropriate health education for developing countries is simply a matter of finding out what the community needs and then delivering it. Innovation and implementation are two quite distinct facets and both require an equal amount of study and effort. To be truly effective, health education needs to be based upon an accurate assessment of individual community needs; it needs to be provided in a format that is acceptable to, and practical for, that community; and it needs the provision of a supportive ongoing system. A list of criteria against which both past and prospective campaigns can be assessed are presented.

Lessons from BLAT.

As acronyms go, BLAT has little to commend it. It has been likened to the sort of expletive beloved by children's comics and can be roughly translated into Polish. The latter, with its allusion to a lady of the streets, is not totally inaccurate, as BLAT is at the service of the medical and health professions. BLAT actually stands for The British Life Assurance Trust, and it represents the coming together in 1966 of the British Medical Association and the British Life Offices, for the purpose of establishing a charitable trust to promote innovation in health and medical education. BMA requires no explanation; BLO is the professional organization of the companies who make up the life assurance industry in the UK. Health is the obvious common ground between the two parent bodies, with the facetious claiming that both have a common financial interest in keeping people alive: the one to maintain the patient list, the other to maintain the premium paying list.(1.)

Audiotape and booklet self-instructional materials in physiology: an evaluation of their effectiveness and acceptability in the pre-clinical curriculum.

Audiotape and booklet self-instructional materials in physiology have been evaluated for their effectiveness and acceptability in the pre-clinical course. Learning effectiveness was determined by comparison of pre-test and post-test scores on multiple choice tests, and acceptability was determined by scores on a specially constructed and validated Likert type questionnaire. It is concluded that in three out of the four physiology topics studied, audiotape and booklet was a significantly more effective method of study than the conventional method of text books and lecture notes. Self-instructional material in the form of audiotape and booklet is acceptable to students both in absolute terms and when compared with other methods of learning. Use of the self-instructional material enabled students to achieve the required learning objectives.

Ceratoscopelus maderensis: peculiar sound-scattering layer identified with this myctophid fish.

A sound-scattering layer, composed of discrete hyperbolic echosequences and apparently restricted to the Slope Water region of the western North Atlantic, has been identified from the Deep Submergence Research Vehicle Alvin with schools of the meyctophid fish Ceratoscopelus maderensis. By diving into the layer and using Alvin's echo-ranging sonar, we approached and visually identified the sound scatterers. The number of echo sequences observed with the surface echo-soutnder (1/23.76 x 10(5) cubic meters of water) checked roughly with the number of sonar targets observed from the submarine (1/7.45 x 105 cubic meters). The fish schools appeared to be 5 to 10 meters thick, 10 to 100 meters in diameter, and on centers 100 to 200 meters apart. Density within schools was estimated at 10 to 15 fish per cubic meter.