Why have socio-economic explanations between favoured over cultural ones in explaining the intensive spread of HIV in South Africa?

The HIV prevalence in South Africa’s various racial/ethnic groups differs by more than an order of magnitude. These differences are determined not by the lifetime number of sexual partners, but by how these partnerships are more likely to be arranged concurrently in African communities. The available evidence demonstrates that neither HIV nor concurrency rates are determined by socio-economic factors. Rather, high concurrency rates are maintained by a culturally sanctioned tolerance of concurrency. Why then do socio-economicexplanations trump cultural ones in the South African HIV aetiological literature? In this article, we explore how three factors (a belief in monogamy as a universal norm, HIV’s emergence in a time of the construction of non-racialism, and a simplified understanding of HIV epidemiology) have intersected to produce this bias and therefore continue to hinder the country’s HIV prevention efforts

Determinants of Self-Perceived HIV Risk in Young South Africans Engaged in Concurrent Sexual Relationships

Concurrent sexual partnerships are increasingly believed to be a key factor explaining the size of the HIV pandemic in Southern and Eastern Africa. Little, however, is known about what determines if persons in concurrent relationships develop a perception of being at risk for HIV infection. Data from a representative sample of 2245 young sexually active inhabitants of Cape Town, South Africa, were analysed using multivariate logistic regression to examine what the correlates of HIV risk were in both those involved in concurrent relations (termed the high risk group) and in those not (the low risk group). A considerable difference was noted between males and females. In the high risk group, amongst the males, secondary level education (as compared with primary or post-secondary level), and believing in monogamy (as a means of HIV risk reduction) were correlated with a decreased-perception-of-HIV-risk. The usage of drugs was associated with an increased-perception-of-HIV-risk. Amongst the females, a longer time since sexual debut, having experienced sexual coercion, a greater number of sex partners in the past year and knowing someone who died of AIDS were correlated with an increased-HIV-risk-perception (Afr. J. Reprod. Health 2010; 14[3]: 171-181).Key words: HIV risk perception, sexual partner concurrency, health belief model, illness representation theory, social identity theory, cognitive dissonance theory

Combined ultraviolet studies of astronomical sources

Topics addressed include: Cygnus Loop; P Cygni profiles in dwarf novae; YY Gem; nova shells; HZ Herculis; activity cycles in cluster giants; Alpha Ori; metal deficient giant stars; ultraviolet spectra of symbiotic stars detected by the Very Large Array; time variability in symbiotic stars; blue galaxies; and quasistellar objects with X-ray spectra

The TAOS Project: Upper Bounds on the Population of Small KBOs and Tests of Models of Formation and Evolution of the Outer Solar System

We have analyzed the first 3.75 years of data from TAOS, the Taiwanese American Occultation Survey. TAOS monitors bright stars to search for occultations by Kuiper Belt Objects (KBOs). This dataset comprises 5e5 star-hours of multi-telescope photometric data taken at 4 or 5 Hz. No events consistent with KBO occultations were found in this dataset. We compute the number of events expected for the Kuiper Belt formation and evolution models of Pan & Sari (2005), Kenyon & Bromley (2004), Benavidez & Campo Bagatin (2009), and Fraser (2009). A comparison with the upper limits we derive from our data constrains the parameter space of these models. This is the first detailed comparison of models of the KBO size distribution with data from an occultation survey. Our results suggest that the KBO population is comprised of objects with low internal strength and that planetary migration played a role in the shaping of the size distribution.Comment: 18 pages, 16 figures, Aj submitte