HIV, Stigma, and Rates of Infection: A Rumour without Evidence

The modern concept of a social stigma comes from the work of American sociologist Erving Goffman, who described it as a response to a deeply discrediting attribute that devalues the person [1]. In the medical literature, stigma is almost inevitably written about in terms of adverse social sequelae of a disease—such as leprosy, tuberculosis, epilepsy, schizophrenia, or filariasis [2–6]—or a physical characteristic or functional loss, such as obesity, deafness, or paraplegia [7–9]. The consequences of stigma range from moderate opprobrium at one end of the spectrum to death [10]

Stigma, social reciprocity and exclusion of HIV/AIDS patients with illicit drug histories: A study of Thai nurses' attitudes

Background: Stigma is a key barrier for the delivery of care to patients living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHA). In the Asia region, the HIV/AIDS epidemic has disproportionately affected socially marginalised groups, in particular, injecting drug users. The effect of the stigmatising attitudes towards injecting drug users on perceptions of PLWHA within the health care contexts has not been thoroughly explored, and typically neglected in terms of stigma intervention. Methods: Semi-structured interviews were conducted with a group of twenty Thai trainee and qualified nurses. Drawing upon the idea of 'social reciprocity', this paper examines the constructions of injecting drug users and PLWHA by a group of Thai nurses. Narratives were explored with a focus on how participants' views concerning the high-risk behaviour of injecting drug use might influence their attitudes towards PLWHA. Results: The analysis shows that active efforts were made by participants to separate their views of patients living with HIV/AIDS from injecting drug users. While the former were depicted as patients worthy of social support and inclusion, the latter were excluded on the basis that they were perceived as irresponsible 'social cheaters' who pose severe social and economic harm to the community. Absent in the narratives were references to wider socio-political and epidemiological factors related to drug use and needle sharing that expose injecting drug users to risk; these behaviours were constructed as individual choices, allowing HIV positive drug users to be blamed for their seropositive status. These attitudes could potentially have indirect negative implications on the nurses' opinions of patients living with HIV/AIDS more generally. Conclusion: Decreasing the stigma associated with illicit drugs might play crucial role in improving attitudes towards patients living with HIV/AIDS. Providing health workers with a broader understanding of risk behaviours and redirecting government injecting drug policy to harm reduction are discussed as some of the ways for stigma intervention to move forward

Disentangling the stigma of HIV/AIDS from the stigmas of drugs use, commercial sex and commercial blood donation – A factorial survey of medical students in China

Background: HIV/AIDS related stigma interferes with the provision of appropriate care and support for people living with HIV/AIDS. Currently, programs to address the stigma approach it as if it occurs in isolation, separate from the co-stigmas related to the various modes of disease transmission including injection drug use (IDU) and commercial sex (CS). In order to develop better programs to address HIV/AIDS related stigma, the inter-relationship (or 'layering') between HIV/AIDS stigma and the co-stigmas needs to be better understood. This paper describes an experimental study for disentangling the layering of HIV/AIDS related stigmas. Methods: The study used a factorial survey design. 352 medical students from Guangzhou were presented with four random vignettes each describing a hypothetical male. The vignettes were identical except for the presence of a disease diagnosis (AIDS, leukaemia, or no disease) and a cocharacteristic (IDU, CS, commercial blood donation (CBD), blood transfusion or no cocharacteristic). After reading each vignette, participants completed a measure of social distance that assessed the level of stigmatising attitudes. Results: Bivariate and multivariable analyses revealed statistically significant levels of stigma associated with AIDS, IDU, CS and CBD. The layering of stigma was explored using a recently developed technique. Strong interactions between the stigmas of AIDS and the co-characteristics were also found. AIDS was significantly less stigmatising than IDU or CS. Critically, the stigma of AIDS in combination with either the stigmas of IDU or CS was significantly less than the stigma of IDU alone or CS alone. Conclusion: The findings pose several surprising challenges to conventional beliefs about HIV/ AIDS related stigma and stigma interventions that have focused exclusively on the disease stigma. Contrary to the belief that having a co-stigma would add to the intensity of stigma attached to people with HIV/AIDS, the findings indicate the presence of an illness might have a moderating effect on the stigma of certain co-characteristics like IDU. The strong interdependence between the stigmas of HIV/AIDS and the co-stigmas of IDU and CS suggest that reducing the co-stigmas should be an integral part of HIV/AIDS stigma intervention within this context

Efficient blind image restoration using discrete periodic Radon transform

Author name used in this publication: Daniel P. K. LunAuthor name used in this publication: David Dagan FengCentre for Multimedia Signal Processing, Department of Electronic and Information Engineering2003-2004 > Academic research: refereed > Publication in refereed journalVersion of RecordPublishe

Interactive fusion and contrast enhancement for whole body PET/CT data using multi-image pixel composting

Author name used in this publication: Dagan FengCentre for Multimedia Signal Processing, Department of Electronic and Information EngineeringVersion of RecordPublishe

G-quadruplex ligands exhibit differential G-tetrad selectivity.

A rapid and simple equilibrium-binding assay mediated by ligand-induced fluorescence quenching of fluorophore-labelled G-quadruplex (G4) structures enabled quantitative interrogation of mutually exclusive ligand binding interactions at opposed G-tetrads. This technique revealed that the ligands TmPyP4, PhenDC3, and PDS have differential chemotype-specific binding preferences for individual G-tetrads of a model genomic G4 structure.This work was supported by the following grants: Cancer Research UK Programme, BBSRC BB/K018043/1 and EPSRC EP/ K039520/1. We thank Dr Chris Lowe for his constructive comments and for proofreading the manuscript.This is the final published version. It was first made available by RSC at http://pubs.rsc.org/en/Content/ArticleLanding/2015/CC/c5cc02252e#!divAbstract

An FPT haplotyping algorithm on pedigrees with a small number of sites

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Genetic disease studies investigate relationships between changes in chromosomes and genetic diseases. Single haplotypes provide useful information for these studies but extracting single haplotypes directly by biochemical methods is expensive. A computational method to infer haplotypes from genotype data is therefore important. We investigate the problem of computing the minimum number of recombination events for general pedigrees with a small number of sites for all members.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>We show that this NP-hard problem can be parametrically reduced to the Bipartization by Edge Removal problem with additional parity constraints. We solve this problem with an exact algorithm that runs in <inline-formula><graphic file="1748-7188-6-8-i1.gif"/></inline-formula> time, where <it>n </it>is the number of members, <it>m </it>is the number of sites, and <it>k </it>is the number of recombination events.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>This algorithm infers haplotypes for a small number of sites, which can be useful for genetic disease studies to track down how changes in haplotypes such as recombinations relate to genetic disease.</p

Online Multi-Coloring with Advice

We consider the problem of online graph multi-coloring with advice. Multi-coloring is often used to model frequency allocation in cellular networks. We give several nearly tight upper and lower bounds for the most standard topologies of cellular networks, paths and hexagonal graphs. For the path, negative results trivially carry over to bipartite graphs, and our positive results are also valid for bipartite graphs. The advice given represents information that is likely to be available, studying for instance the data from earlier similar periods of time.Comment: IMADA-preprint-c

Cancer incidence in British vegetarians

Background: Few prospective studies have examined cancer incidence among vegetarians. Methods: We studied 61 566 British men and women, comprising 32 403 meat eaters, 8562 non-meat eaters who did eat fish ('fish eaters') and 20 601 vegetarians. After an average follow-up of 12.2 years, there were 3350 incident cancers of which 2204 were among meat eaters, 317 among fish eaters and 829 among vegetarians. Relative risks (RRs) were estimated by Cox regression, stratified by sex and recruitment protocol and adjusted for age, smoking, alcohol, body mass index, physical activity level and, for women only, parity and oral contraceptive use. Results: There was significant heterogeneity in cancer risk between groups for the following four cancer sites: stomach cancer, RRs (compared with meat eaters) of 0.29 (95% CI: 0.07–1.20) in fish eaters and 0.36 (0.16–0.78) in vegetarians, P for heterogeneity=0.007; ovarian cancer, RRs of 0.37 (0.18–0.77) in fish eaters and 0.69 (0.45–1.07) in vegetarians, P for heterogeneity=0.007; bladder cancer, RRs of 0.81 (0.36–1.81) in fish eaters and 0.47 (0.25–0.89) in vegetarians, P for heterogeneity=0.05; and cancers of the lymphatic and haematopoietic tissues, RRs of 0.85 (0.56–1.29) in fish eaters and 0.55 (0.39–0.78) in vegetarians, P for heterogeneity=0.002. The RRs for all malignant neoplasms were 0.82 (0.73–0.93) in fish eaters and 0.88 (0.81–0.96) in vegetarians (P for heterogeneity=0.001). Conclusion: The incidence of some cancers may be lower in fish eaters and vegetarians than in meat eaters

Machine Learning of Human Pluripotent Stem Cell-Derived Engineered Cardiac Tissue Contractility for Automated Drug Classification

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