It’s all about sex: what urban zimbabwean men know of labia minora elongation

Labia minora elongation is one of the vaginal practices that some Zimbabwean women engage in during the pre-menarche age. This practice has not been thoroughly investigated in Zimbabwe. The objective of this study is to learn about the knowledge, attitudes and perceptions of urban Zimbabwean men towards labia minora elongation. A qualitative study was conducted in Chitungwiza, Harare, in 2012. Thirty-one adult men were interviewed. Data was collected on men’s understanding of the procedure, motivations, its relevance for marriage and sexual life, and its implications on health. The findings demonstrate that labia minora elongation is recognized in Zimbabwe as a practice that enhances the sexual pleasure for both male and female partners, and that there are no perceived harms to women’s health. More research is necessary to better understand the role of labia minora elongation in sexuality and acceptance of HIV/STI barrier methods.O alongamento dos pequenos lábios vaginais (labia minora) é praticado por algumas mulheres zimbabueanas antes de atingirem a fase menstrual. Esta prática não tem sido investigada em profundidade no Zimbábue. O objetivo deste estudo é analisar os conhecimentos, as atitudes e as perceções de homens zimbabueanos residentes em meios urbanos relativamente ao alongamento dos pequenos lábios. Esta análise tem por base um estudo qualitativo realizado em Chitungwiza, Harare, em 2012. Foram entrevistados 31 homens adultos. Foram recolhidos dados sobre a percepção dos homens acerca do procedimento, as motivações, a sua relevância para o casamento e para a vida sexual, e as suas implicações em termos de saúde. Os resultados mostram que o alongamento dos pequenos lábios é reconhecido no Zimbábue como uma prática que aumenta o prazer sexual para ambos os parceiros, e que não prejudica a saúde das mulheres. No entanto serão necessárias mais pesquisas para compreender melhor o papel do alongamento dos pequenos lábios na sexualidade e na aceitação de métodos de prevenção contra o HIV/DST

Designing text-messaging (SMS) in HIV programs : ethics-framed recommendations from the field

Text messages (SMS) are being increasingly integrated into HIV programs across Southern Africa to improve patient adherence, linkage to care and provide psycho-social support. Careful attention needs to be paid to the design of SMS-based interventions for clients of HIV-care services to ensure that any potential harm, such as unwanted disclosure of HIV status, is minimized. In this article we propose a set of best practice recommendations to ensure that any SMS-based intervention considers ethical principles to safeguard safety, autonomy and confidentiality of its targeted HIV-positive beneficiaries. This analysis draws from our operational experience in Southern Africa in the design and conduct of mHealth interventions in the frame of HIV projects. The recommendations, framed in the context of the Belmont Report's three ethical pillars, may contribute to more safely operationalize any SMS service integrated into an HIV program if adopted by mHealth planners and implementers. We encourage actors to report on the ethical and methodological pathways followed when conducting SMS-based innovations to improve the wellbeing and quality provision of HIV-care for their targeted clients

Analysis of Non-Idealities on CMOS Passive Mixers

In the current state of the art, WiFi-alike standards require achieving a high Image Rejection Ratio (IRR) while having low power consumption. Thus, quadrature structures based on passive ring mixers offer an attractive and widely used solution, as they can achieve a high IRR while being a passive block. However, it is not easy for the designer to know when a simple quadrature scheme is enough and when they should aim for a double quadrature structure approach, as the latter can improve the performance at the cost of requiring more area and complexity. This study focuses on the IRR, which crucially depends on the symmetry between the I and Q branches. Non-idealities (component mismatches, parasitics, etc.) will degrade the ideal balance by affecting the mixer and/or following/previous stages. This paper analyses the effect of imbalances, providing the constraints for obtaining a 40 dB IRR in the case of a conversion from a one-hundred-megahertz signal to the five-gigahertz range (upconversion) and vice versa (downconversion) for simple and double quadrature schemes. All simulations were carried out with complete device models from 65 nm standard CMOS technology and also a post-layout Monte Carlo analysis was included for mismatch analysis. The final section includes guidelines to help designers choose the most adequate scheme for each case

Barriers to pilot mobile teleophthalmology in a rural hospital in Southern Malawi

Introduction: Malawi has one of the highest HIV prevalences in Sub-Saharan Africa. The rate of eligible  HIV-infected people being initiated on antiretroviral therapy (ART) and retained in HIV-care is currently far from adequate. Consequently, many people continue present with advanced immunosuppression at public health facilities, often with undiagnosed opportunistic infections (OIs).Methods: In this context, mHealth was the innovation chosen to assist Eye Clinical Officers in early diagnosis of HIV-related diseases having eye manifestations in a rural hospital in Thyolo, Southern Malawi.Results: The mTeleophthalmology program began in October 2013, but was stopped prematurely due to organizational and technological barriers that compromised its feasibility.Conclusion: Sharing these barriers might be useful to inform the design of similar innovations in other  resource-limited settings with a high HIV prevalence and a dearth of eye specialists with capacity to diagnose HIV-related retinopathies.Key words: mHealth, HIV/AIDS, Malawi, opportunistic infections, eye diseases, mteleophthalmolog

Family Functioning Assessment Instruments in Adults with a Non-Psychiatric Chronic Disease: A Systematic Review

There is little information on the evaluation of family functioning in adult patients with chronic non-psychiatric illness. The objective of this systematic review was to identify family functioning assessment instruments of known validity and reliability that have been used in health research on patients with a chronic non-psychiatric illness. We conducted a search in three biomedical databases (PubMed, Science Direct, and Web of Science), for original articles available in English or Spanish published between 2000 and 2019. The review was conducted in accordance with PRISMA guidelines. Fourteen articles were included in the review. The instruments Family Assessment Device, Family Adaptability and Cohesion Evaluation Scales, Family Functioning Health and Social Support, Family APGAR, Assessment of Strategies in Families-Effectiveness, Iceland Expressive Family Functioning, Brief Family Assessment Measure-III, and Family Relationship Index were identified. All of them are reliable instruments to evaluate family functioning in chronic patients and could be very valuable to help nurses identify families in need of a psychosocial intervention. The availability and clinical application of these instruments will allow nurses to generate knowledge on family health and care for non-psychiatric chronic conditions, and will eventually contribute to the health and wellbeing of adults with a non-psychiatric chronic disease and their familie

Strong asymptotics for Sobolev orthogonal polynomials in the complex plane

15 pages, no figures.-- MSC2000 codes: 42C05, 33C25.MR#: MR2376173Zbl#: Zbl 1154.33303^aWe obtain the strong asymptotics for the sequence of monic polynomials minimizing the norm $$\Vert q_S\Vert=(\sum_{k=0}^N \Vert q^{(k)}\Vert_k^2)^{1/2}$$ where $\Vert \bullet\Vert_k$, $k=0,\dots, N-1$, are $L^2$ norms with respect to measures supported on the same rectifiable Jordan closed curve on $\Gamma$, and $\Vert \bullet\Vert_N$ is the $L^2$ norm corresponding to a weight supported or arc $\Gamma$, which satisfies the Szegö condition, plus mass points in the unbounded connected component of \bbfC\setminus \Gamma.First author's research partially supported by Ministerio de Ciencia y Tecnología, grant MTM2006-13000-C03-02 and by Comunidad de Madrid-Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, grant CCG06-UC3M/EST-0690. Second author's research partially supported by Ministerio de Ciencia y Tenología, project code MTM2005-09648-C02-01 and by Junta de Andalucía, FQM-229, FQM-481 and P06-FQM-01738. Fourth author's research partially supported by a research grant from Centro de Investigación Matemática de Canarias (CIMAC), Spain.Publicad

Model for Vaccine Design by prediction of B-Epitopes of IEDB given perturbations in peptide sequence, in vivo process, experimental techniques, and source or host organisms

Perturbation methods add variation terms to a known experimental solution of one problem to approach a solution for a related problem without known exact solution. One problem of this type in immunology is the prediction of the possible action of epitope of one peptide after a perturbation or variation in the structure of a known peptide and/or other boundary conditions (host organism, biological process, and experimental assay). However, to the best of our knowledge, there are no reports of general-purpose perturbation models to solve this problem. In a recent work, we introduced a new quantitative structure-property relationship theory for the study of perturbations in complex biomolecular systems. In this work, we developed the first model able to classify more than 200,000 cases of perturbations with accuracy, sensitivity, and specificity >90% both in training and validation series. The perturbations include structural changes in >50000 peptides determined in experimental assays with boundary conditions involving >500 source organisms, >50 host organisms, >10 biological process, and >30 experimental techniques. The model may be useful for the prediction of new epitopes or the optimization of known peptides towards computational vaccine designThe present study was partially supported by Grants AGL2010-22290-C02 and AGL2011-30563-C03 from Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovacion, Spain, and Grant CN 2012/155 ´ from Xunta de Galicia, SpainS

Programa de salud para la planificación familiar masculina

Los nuevos avances en anticoncepción masculina y su posible comercialización en un futuro próximo, plantean un cambio social sobre el rol a desempeñar en la planificación familiar y la necesidad de crear programas de salud dirigidos a la población joven.<br /

SECADO DE MALANGA Y BONIATO PARA LA ELABORACIÓN DE HARINA PARA PAN Y REPOSTERÍA / DRYING OF TARO AND SWEET POTATOES FOR THE ELABORATION OF FLOUR FOR BREAD AND PASTRIES

La presente investigación se realizó en el Laboratorio de Microbiología de la Facultad de Ciencias Agropecuarias de la Universidad Máximo Gómez Báez de Ciego de Ávila. Se utilizó el cultivar de malanga (Colocasia esculenta L. Schott), INIVIT MC-2006 y el cultivar de boniato (Ipomoea batata L.), INIVIT B2-2005, con el objetivo de obtener harina para la elaboración de pan y repostería mediante métodos sostenibles de secado. Se secaron rodajas de malanga y boniato con dos tratamientos, a temperaturas de 60°C en el horno de secado (estufa) y hasta 55°C en el secador solar durante 16 horas. Se realizó análisis de la dinámica de pérdida de masa, análisis sensorial y análisis de los costos. En el caso de la malanga se corroboró que independientemente del método utilizado se produce una disminución de la masa en la que se alcanza a las 16 horas el 75 % de pérdida, mientras que en el boniato es del 66 %. La calidad sensorial no se afecta para ambos métodos y especies, los costos fueron menores en el método de secador solar