HIV-related immune activation and clinical outcomes of mothers and infants in rural Zimbabwe

The increasing availability of antiretroviral therapy in sub-Saharan Africa has improved outcomes of pregnant women living with HIV and reduced vertical HIV transmission to children. However, the impact of maternal HIV on overall outcomes of children in the current antiretroviral therapy era remains uncertain. The research presented in this thesis was undertaken as part of the SHINE trial at the Zvitambo Institute for Maternal and Child Health Research in Zimbabwe, and has five broad findings. First, in the context of 80% antiretroviral coverage, children born to mothers with HIV had 41% higher mortality compared to children born to mothers without HIV. Second, HIVexposed children who survived infancy and remained HIV-free to 18 months of age had significantly more growth impairment compared to HIV-unexposed children. Third, HIV-associated biological maternal characteristics were strongly associated with infant mortality. In particular, maternal cytomegalovirus viraemia and inflammation during pregnancy were independently associated with infant mortality. Fourth, HIV-exposed but uninfected children had differences in immune development compared to children who are HIV-unexposed, characterised by increased CD8+ T-cell differentiation, activation, proliferation, senescence and exhaustion, higher soluble CD14 concentrations, and differences in proportions of monocyte subsets. Fifth, differences in immune parameters were strongly associated with late gestational exposure to antenatal cytomegalovirus viraemia and early acquisition cytomegalovirus infection in infancy. Overall, this thesis has highlighted the vulnerability of HIV-exposed children despite improvements in the availability of ART. Maternal cytomegalovirus viraemia and systemic inflammation are identified as critical associations of infant outcomes independently of HIV viraemia, highlighting future research avenues and potential new targets for interventions

Preparing SME Suppliers for Sustainable Local Authority eProcurement

Public sector organisations are increasingly introducing eProcurement systems in order to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of their procurement processes. This clearly has implications for their suppliers, who are being asked to adopt eProcurement. For many SMEs, particularly small and micro businesses, this is proving a difficult challenge given their lack of eProcurement knowledge, as well as their resource shortages. It is at the Local Authority (LA) level that this situation is most problematic, as SMEs tend to supply more to local than central government. This paper presents the results of research undertaken with LAs and SMEs as part of the EPROC project. In particular, it provides insights into the level of eProcurement use and development in LAs in North West Europe, and illustrates how the introduction of eProcurement could have a negative impact on local economies and communities if LAs don’t help their SMEs to adopt eProcurement. The paper also reports on the findings of research conducted with SMEs in relation to the problems they’ve experienced in undertaking eProcurement with LAs, and details how some LAs are engaging with their local SMEs to help them become ‘eProcurement ready’. The research has demonstrated there is a need to bridge the knowledge gap between SME understanding and awareness of LA eProcurement developments on the one hand, and on the other, LA understanding of the typical eProcurement capabilities of their SME supplier base. To meet these needs, the EPROC project has developed separate eProcurement guides for SMEs and LAs

Languages flex cultural thinking

Recent studies have revealed remarkable interactions between language and emotion. Here, we show that such interactions influence judgments made regarding cultural information. Balanced Welsh–English bilinguals categorized statements about their native Welsh culture as true or false. Whilst participants categorized positive statements as true when they were true, they were biased towards categorizing them as true also when they were false, irrespective of the language in which they read them. Surprisingly, participants were unbiased when categorizing negative statements presented in their native language Welsh, but showed a reverse bias - categorizing sentences as false, even when they were true - for negative statements when they read them in English. The locus of this behavior originated from online semantic evaluation of the statements, shown in corresponding modulations of the N400 peak of event-related brain potentials. These findings suggest that bilinguals perceive and react to cultural information in a language-dependent fashion.</jats:p

Sport Psychology Consultants’ Perspectives on Facilitating Sport Injury-Related Growth

Despite recent conceptual, methodological, and theoretical advancements on sport injury-related 26 growth (SIRG), there is no research on sport psychology consultants’ (SPCs) experiential 27 knowledge of working with injured athletes to promote SIRG. Toward this end, this study examined 28 SPCs’ perspectives on facilitating SIRG to provide an evidence-base for professional practice. 29 Participants were purposefully sampled (4 females, 6 males; Mean of 19 years’ applied experience) 30 and interviewed. Transcripts were thematically analyzed. Methodological rigor and generalizability 31 were maximized through self-reflexivity and eliciting external reflections. Five themes were 32 identified: Hear the Story, Contextualize the Story, Reconstruct the Story, Live the Story, and Share 33 the Story. Findings offer practitioners a novel approach to working with injured athletes. Rather than 34 focusing on returning to preinjury level of functioning, the findings illustrate how SPCs can work 35 with injured athletes to help transform injury into an opportunity to bring about positive change

Tackling Human Trafficking in Governments Supply Chains: Legal Certainty & Effectiveness Issues Under the Australian Commonwealth Procurement Rules Model

International organisations emphasise how Governments around the world must use the public procurement process to aid a global drive to eliminate human trafficking in their supply chains. In this significant and original contribution, the authors examine a leading procurement model, the Australian Commonwealth Procurement Rules (CPR), for the purpose of examining whether the CPR model satisfies the necessary standards of Legal Certainty and Effectiveness for addressing the risk of trafficking occurring in public sector supply chains. The research generates new insights for countries seeking to tackle trafficking via public procurement systems, and identifies pitfalls for countries to avoid if seeking to emulate the Australia CPR model, making appropriate reference to US and UK models where appropriate. The authors demonstrate how key elements of the CPR model fail to provide for the required degree of legal certainty and effectiveness to tackle trafficking, with system failure demonstrated by analysis of key CPR provisions which either fail to satisfy these 2 key tests, or because of the complete absence of appropriate provisions to comprehensively deal with the risk of trafficking in public sector supply chains. This article should serve not only as a guide to countries yet to address human rights considerations in their public procurement supply chains, but also as a blueprint for countries around the world seeking to re-evaluate whether existing provisions in their domestic procurement framework are fit to tackle the global scourge of trafficking in public supply chains

An Antipodean Imaginary for Architecture+Philosophy: Ficto-Critical Approaches to Design Practice Research

This is a collaborative essay that presents the design practice research of six postgraduate researchers (past and present), who have been working within the Architecture+Philosophy research stream at the School of Architecture, RMIT University, Melbourne. What unites the projects is an aspiration to maintain a creative relationship between architectural design project research and critical theory, with an emphasis on transdisciplinary potentialities. While the design research introduced here is diverse, the researchers all share an engagement in how to construct imaginary worlds using what can be identified as a ficto-critical approach that draws on the productive intersection of architecture and philosophy. Hélène Frichot, who will situate this research from her position as their primary doctoral advisor, argues that by pursuing a productive relay between theory and practice a novel Antipodean design imaginary can be seen to emerge across the collected projects