The text introduces Papua New Guinea as a region where an encounter of various cultural and religious traditions occurred in the last several centuries and which still happens today. Christianization has posed a significant cultural change that has taken place recently and at the same time as modernization. Using examples from Papua New Guinea, the study demonstrates that although Christianity can dominate in a particular society, elements of original Indigenous religions can exist in parallel or can create a syncretic synthesis. The aim of the study is to analyze the types of this coexistence and to identify the factors of maintenance and transformation of Indigenous traditions as a result of Christianization as part of the process of globalization. The study is a contribution to the discussion on the forms of world Christianity.

A total of 235 vials of nematodes held in the Australian Helminthological Collection of the South Australian Museum from 125 individuals of Isoodon macrourus were examined. The nematode assemblage of I. macrourus, comprising 12 families, including 16 genera and 23 identified species, was compared with the sympatric bandicoot species Perameles nasuta, 20 identified species (Sorensen’s index of similarity 0.56) and P. pallescens, 12 identified species (Sorensen’s index 0.51). Sprattellus cassonei n. sp. is distinguished from its congeners by having a synlophe with 7–8 ridges with the anterior ventral ridges interrupted, the morphology of the dorsal ray and the branching of the spicule tips. A single male specimen identified as Linstowinema sp. 1. is characterised by seven circles of body hooks, the oesophagus terminating at the level of the seventh circle and robust scale-like spines on the posterior ventral body. A complete description of the species will require additional material, including females. Difficulties in identifying individuals of the genus Mackerrastrongylus to species level are discussed. Overall similarities in the nematode assemblages of the three bandicoot hosts are likely due to shared relationships and similar behaviours.

Both the theories coming out of the linguistic turn and those running away from it have placed special emphasis on human language (or human symbolic thinking) as a matter of convention and shared meanings. Yet there are other histories that link language and humanness through invention, deceit, and secrecy rather than through convention and publicness. These alternate models have been used as diagnostic of humanness in a range of contexts, from the colonial past into the technologized present. I examine here the ways in which the unshared, non-public symbol has stood at the center of two disparate contexts in which the humanness of speakers of novel languages are put in question. The first case examines the ways in which Christian missionaries started to see Tok Pisin, a novel pidginized language spoken by indentured laborers in colonial Papua New Guinea, as a possible language of evangelism when it became associated with deceit and moral dissolution. The second case examines a 2017 moral panic in the United States about two chatbots that were reported to have invented their own language and then used it to lie to one another. In contrast to the first case, one of the ways that bots get figured as beyond-human is in the fear that there is no way to impose a moral order, no colonial evangelism that could be used to encompass them. By taking on the symbolic while withholding public meanings, the speakers of these unshared symbols sit at the boundaries of humanness.

There is a demonstrated link between intimate partner violence (IPV) and pregnancy termination, and this association has received much attention in developed settings. Despite the high prevalence of IPV in Papua New Guinea (PNG), little is known about the association between these experiences and pregnancy termination. This study examined the association between IPV and pregnancy termination in PNG. The present study used population-based data from the PNG’s first Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) conducted in 2016–2018. The analysis involved women aged 15–49 years who were in intimate unions (married or co-habiting). We used binary logistic regression modelling to analyse the association between IPV and pregnancy termination. Results were reported as crude odds ratios (cOR) and adjusted odds ratios (aOR) with 95% confidence intervals (CIs). Overall, 6.3% of women involved in this study had ever terminated a pregnancy, and 6 in 10 women (61.5%) reported having experienced IPV in the last 12 months preceding the survey. Of those women who experienced IPV, 7.4% had ever terminated a pregnancy. Women who had experienced IPV had a 1.75 higher odds of reporting pregnancy termination (cOR: 1.75; 95% CI: 1.29–2.37) than women who did not experience IPV. After controlling for theoretically and empirically relevant socio-demographic and economic factors, IPV remained a strong and significant determinant of pregnancy termination (aOR: 1.67, 95% CI: 1.22–2.30). The strong association between IPV and pregnancy termination among women in intimate unions in PNG calls for targeted policies and interventions that address the high prevalence of IPV. The provision of comprehensive sexual reproductive health, public education, and awareness creation on the consequences of IPV, regular assessment, and referral to appropriate services for IPV may reduce the incidence of pregnancy termination in PNG.

Here we describe a 14-year collaboration in New Ireland, Papua New Guinea, between an Indigenous NGO, Indigenous scientists and international researchers. New Ireland is a marine province in the Western Pacific region where most residents depend on fishing, marine gleaning and small-scale gardening for their livelihoods. Ailan Awareness is a locally founded and managed NGO that focuses on the strengthening of Indigenous sovereignty regarding biological, cultural and spiritual diversity as well as fostering Indigenous epistemology practices and strengthening biocultural diversity. In partnership with anthropological researchers, Ailan Awareness has designed an approach to marine conservation informed by the growing field of decolonial research practices. By working to empower coastal communities to make decisions about their marine and cultural resources using a mix of Indigenous, anthropological and scientific methods and giving primacy to strengthening Indigenous modes of knowledge production and the role of community Elders, Ailan Awareness addresses a major gap in the efforts of the national government and international NGOs: giving the people most directly affected by declining biodiversity and loss of tradition the support and tools required to design and carry out the strengthening of both biological diversity and traditional social practices. In this paper we describe the methodology used by Ailan Awareness and the history of collaboration that resulted in these methods.

Contributing to the broader topic of minimum wage determination in developing countries, this article discusses the shaping and implementation of minimum wage policy in Papua New Guinea (PNG). It begins by outlining the institutional arrangements under which minimum wage rates are determined in PNG. It then critically examines the argument that wage levels in the country are unsustainably high – a claim that has perennially characterised Papua New Guinea (PNG) minimum wage fixing. The article argues that, on the contrary, wage levels are indeed low and not adequate to reasonably support a single worker, let alone a family in an urban setting. This counter-argument is discussed in the context of debates over minimum wage levels and their relationship to economic growth, employment creation, international competitiveness, and capacity to pay. Whilst focusing on the PNG wage fixing system, the article thus sheds light on the dilemmas and challenges facing wages policy generally in a developing country setting.

The US government invests substantial sums to control the HIV/AIDS epidemic. To monitor progress toward epidemic control, PEPFAR, or the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, oversees a data reporting system that includes standard indicators, reporting formats, information systems, and data warehouses. These data, reported quarterly, inform understanding of the global epidemic, resource allocation, and identification of trouble spots. PEPFAR has developed tools to assess the quality of data reported. These tools made important contributions but are limited in the methods used to identify anomalous data points. The most advanced consider univariate probability distributions, whereas correlations between indicators suggest a multivariate approach is better suited. For temporal analysis, the same tool compares values to the averages of preceding periods, though does not consider underlying trends and seasonal factors. To that end, we apply two methods to identify anomalous data points among routinely collected facility-level HIV/AIDS data. One approach is Recommender Systems, an unsupervised machine learning method that captures relationships between users and items. We apply the approach in a novel way by predicting reported values, comparing predicted to reported values, and identifying the greatest deviations. For a temporal perspective, we apply time series models that are flexible to include trend and seasonality. Results of these methods were validated against manual review (95% agreement on non-anomalies, 56% agreement on anomalies for recommender systems; 96% agreement on non-anomalies, 91% agreement on anomalies for time series). This tool will apply greater methodological sophistication to monitoring data quality in an accelerated and standardized manner.

The 2020 COVID-19 pandemic continues during 2021. Some countries are revisiting their containment measures to be eased or re-imposed after massive testing programs. Yet is testing itself a solution? Testing may be an important containment step, yet in low-income countries (LICs), it may be substantially challenging to carry out. This is because the situation in LICs is complexified by inadequate and corrupt economic, political, and healthcare systems in which testing is often beyond reach. Focusing on Pakistan and Papua New Guinea (PNG), we contend that the sparse number of recorded COVID-19 infections may demonstrate that both countries lack the required resources to conduct effective testing and deal with the pandemic. To appropriately tackle the pandemic, such countries need focus on implementing the measures they can and on public education about how viruses work and why it is so important to seek to contain their spread. Furthermore, we invite thorough studies to examine and analyze massive testing from various perspectives.

When European colonists arrived in the late 19th century, large villages dotted the coastline of the Gulf of Papua (southern Papua New Guinea). These central places sustained long-distance exchange and decade-spanning ceremonial cycles. Besides ethnohistoric records, little is known of the villages’ antiquity, spatiality, or development. Here we combine oral traditional and 14C chronological evidence to investigate the spatial history of two ancestral village sites in Orokolo Bay: Popo and Mirimua Mapoe. A Bayesian model composed of 35 14C assays from seven excavations, alongside the oral traditional accounts, demonstrates that people lived at Popo from 765–575 cal BP until 220–40 cal BP, at which time they moved southwards to Mirimua Mapoe. The village of Popo spanned ca. 34 ha and was composed of various estates, each occupied by a different tribe. Through time, the inhabitants of Popo transformed (e.g., expanded, contracted, and shifted) the village to manage social and ceremonial priorities, long-distance exchange opportunities and changing marine environments. Ours is a crucial case study of how oral traditional ways of understanding the past interrelate with the information generated by Bayesian 14C analyses. We conclude by reflecting on the limitations, strengths, and uncertainties inherent to these forms of chronological knowledge.

Volcanoes cause a wide range of hazardous phenomena. Close to volcanic vents, hazards can be highly dangerous and destructive and include pyroclastic flows and surges, ballistic projectiles, lava flows, lahars, thick ashfalls, and gas and aerosol emissions. Direct health impacts include trauma, burns, and exacerbation of respiratory diseases. Far-reaching volcanic hazards include volcanic ashfalls, gas and aerosol dispersion, and lahars. Within Oceania, the island arc countries of Papua New Guinea (PNG), the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, Tonga, and New Zealand are the most at-risk from volcanic activity. Since 1500ad, approximately 10,000 lives have been lost due to volcanic activity across Oceania, with 39 lives lost since 2000. While volcano monitoring and surveillance save lives, residual risks remain from small, sudden, unheralded eruptions, such as the December 9, 2019 eruption of Whakaari/White Island volcano, New Zealand which has a death toll of 21 at the time of writing. Widespread volcanic ashfalls can affect the habitability of downwind communities by contaminating water supplies, damaging crops and buildings, and degrading indoor and outdoor air quality, as well as disrupting transport and communication networks and access to health services. While the fatality rate due to volcanic eruptions may be low, far greater numbers of people may be affected by volcanic activity with approximately 100,000 people in PNG and Vanuatu displaced since 2000. It is challenging to manage health impacts for displaced people, particularly in low-income countries where events such as eruptions occur against a background of low, variable vaccination rates, high prevalence of infectious diseases, poor sanitation infrastructure, and poor nutritional status. As a case study, the 2017-2018 eruption of Ambae volcano, Vanuatu caused no casualties but triggered two separate mandatory off-island evacuations of the entire population of approximately 11,700 people. On the neighboring island of Santo, a health disaster response was coordinated by local government and provided acute care when evacuees arrived. Involving primary care clinicians in this setting enhanced local capacity for health care provision and allowed for an improved understanding of the impact of displacement on evacuee communities.

Six new species of Vaccinium, identified as new to science by the late George Argent while compiling a revision of Vaccinium sect. Orianthe for New Guinea, are described and illustrations provided.

Ten new species of Trypetheliaceae are described: Astrothelium bullatothallinum from Venezuela, which is close to A. aeneum but differs by the bullate thallus with a thick cortex, intermixed in a mosaic with the prothallus; A. cayennense from French Guiana, which is similar to A. flavomegaspermum but with a yellow pigment in the pseudostroma near the ostioles; A. diaphanocorticatum from Papua New Guinea, which has a bullate thallus with a thick hyaline cortex and 3-septate ascospores of 25–28×10–12 μm; A. macroeustomum from French Guiana, with joint lateral ostioles, UV+ yellow ostiolar region and 5-septate ascospores of 50–55×12–17 μm; A. minicecidiogenum from Costa Rica, with muriform ascospores of 70–90×20–25 μm, without pseudostromata, with solitary ascomata, lateral ostioles and an inspersed hamathecium; A. palaeoexostemmatis from Thailand, which is similar to A. exostemmatis but with larger, I+ blue ascospores; A. quasimamillanum from Brazil, with muriform ascospores of 30–33×9·5–10·5 μm, without pseudostromata, with solitary ascomata, lateral ostioles and an inspersed hamathecium; A. studerae from Brazil, with astrothelioid ascomata, lichexanthone only in the pseudostromata, 3-septate ascospores of 21·5–23·0×6·5–7·5 μm; A. tanianum from Malaysia, with a bullate thallus, solitary ascomata, covered by the thallus, (9–)11(–15)-septate ascospores, 75–100×20–22 μm; and Pseudopyrenula miniflavida from Brazil, with a yellow-inspersed hamathecium, the inspersion dissolving in KOH without colour change, and 3-septate ascospores, 15–17×5·5–6·5 μm. The unusually thick, hyaline cortical layer of the thallus of Astrothelium diaphanocorticatum, through which the individual algal cells are clearly visible, is discussed. Furthermore, 30 species are reported from 34 countries in which they had previously been unrecorded; one (Astrothelium inspersaeneum) is from a new continent, Asia.