—Infochemicals play an important role in the biology of many insect species. An understanding of their role in plant-herbivore-carnivore interactions can be used in the development of tools for the enhancement of environmentally benign alternatives to synthetic pesticides. This review discusses how chemical information mediates ecological interactions between organisms and the role of infochemicals in integrated pest management. Infochemicals can be used in pest monitoring and in pest control, through mating disruption, mass trapping and to aggregate herbivores at delivery sites for biological control agents. Particular emphasis is placed on the potential of using pheromones and kairomones in the management of the banana weevil, Cosmopolites sordidus (Germar) (Coleoptera: Curculionidae), a pest in plantations of East African highland banana and plantain in most banana-growing regions of the world. Cosmopolites sordidus produces an aggregation pheromone that attracts both males and females. This pheromone has been identified and synthesised and is being recommended as an effective agent in the trapping and control of the weevil. The synergism between banana plant extracts (kairomones) and the synthetic pheromone in attracting C. sordidus should be better exploited. Future research areas that can provide information for the development of an infochemical-based trapping system for the management of C. sordidus are discussed.

Electroluminescence (EL)-based displays are an emerging technology for next generation flat panel displays. ZnS is an important component material for light emitting devices and EL-displays. To make this material useful for high efficiency and low voltage EL applications, the density of dislocations is required to be low. High quality single crystalline ZnS thin films have recently been grown by chemical beam epitaxy [1]. This paper focuses on studying the formation mechanism of stacking faults in the film and its relation with the interface structure between the substrate and the film [2].

Stacking faults are the main defects present in the film (Fig. 1). All four stacking faults (sf) are intrinsic and sf1, growing towards the left-hand side from the interface, is only of short range since after crossing sf2 the defect is terminated by a Shockley partial dislocation and the normal stacking sequence is restored. This is the mechanism that annihilates most of the stacking faults generated from the interface within the first 70 nm thickness range.