Measuring the Utility of Surveillance Data For Monitoring the HIV/AIDS Epidemic In Sub-Saharan Africa

Since the early 1980s in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), substantial human and financial resources have been dedicated to monitoring the HIV/AIDS epidemic. Throughout, surveillance data collected at antenatal care (ANC) clinics have been a key data source. ANC surveillance data are well-known to be biased when quantifying population HIV prevalence levels in SSA. Nonetheless, a routinely-accepted, although rarely-tested assumption has been that the data are representative of population-level HIV prevalence trends. More recently, HIV testing data from prevention of mother-to-child transmission (PMTCT) programmes have been proposed as a substitute for ANC surveillance, although these data can be subject to temporal biases too. The primary objective of this thesis is to add to the limited evidence regarding the representativeness of HIV testing data from pregnant women to monitor population-level HIV prevalence trends. Empirical analyses from repeated household-based population surveys and ANC surveillance were done for seven countries in SSA from 2000 to 2010 and among youth aged 15 to 24 years in Manicaland, Zimbabwe from 1985 to 2003. Also, a mathematical model was used to explore temporal bias in ANC surveillance trends in epidemics similar to those in Botswana, Côte d’Ivoire and rural Zimbabwe from 1985 to 2030. Finally, PMTCT programme data were assessed for their representativeness as compared to ANC surveillance data in Manicaland, Zimbabwe from 2006 to 2008. Results showed the representativeness of ANC surveillance data to vary by time period and setting, although trends among youth were more robust than those among adults aged 15 to 49 years across settings, and particularly so among men. Representativeness in the ART-era depends on coverage and scale-up, the setting, and the potential for changing fertility patterns among ART users. PMTCT data for surveillance purposes was of limited use in Manicaland, Zimbabwe from 2006 to 2008. In summary, caution is needed when using HIV testing data from pregnant women to monitor population HIV prevalence trends in SSA

Preliminary Results from NEOWISE: An Enhancement to the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer for Solar System Science

The Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) has surveyed the entire sky at four infrared wavelengths with greatly improved sensitivity and spatial resolution compared to its predecessors, the Infrared Astronomical Satellite and the Cosmic Background Explorer. NASA's Planetary Science Division has funded an enhancement to the WISE data processing system called "NEOWISE" that allows detection and archiving of moving objects found in the WISE data. NEOWISE has mined the WISE images for a wide array of small bodies in our solar system, including near-Earth objects (NEOs), Main Belt asteroids, comets, Trojans, and Centaurs. By the end of survey operations in 2011 February, NEOWISE identified over 157,000 asteroids, including more than 500 NEOs and ~120 comets. The NEOWISE data set will enable a panoply of new scientific investigations

The First Ultra-cool Brown Dwarf Discovered by the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer

We report the discovery of the first new ultra-cool brown dwarf (BDs) found with the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE). The object’s preliminary designation is WISEPC J045853.90+643451.9. Follow-up spectroscopy with the LUCIFER instrument on the Large Binocular Telescope indicates that it is a very late-type T dwarf with a spectral type approximately equal to T9. Fits to an IRTF/SpeX 0.8–2.5 μm spectrum to the model atmospheres of Marley and Saumon indicate an effective temperature of approximately 600 K as well as the presence of vertical mixing in its atmosphere. The new BD is easily detected by WISE, with a signal-to-noise ratio of ~36 at 4.6 μm. Current estimates place it at a distance of 6–10 pc. This object represents the first in what will likely be hundreds of nearby BDs found by WISE that will be suitable for follow-up observations, including those with the James Webb Space Telescope. One of the two primary scientific goals of the WISE mission is to find the coolest, closest stars to our Sun; the discovery of this new BD proves that WISE is capable of fulfilling this objective

L’Affaire Galmot: Colonialism on Trial in 1931

Between 9 March and 21 March 1931 twelve men and two women, all French citizens from Guyane, were put on trial at an extraordinary session of the cour d’assises in Nantes. All were accused of looting and murder during riots which had taken place on 6 and 7 August 1928 in Cayenne; all were acquitted. Despite being one of the largest trials of the interwar period in France, the event was largely forgotten until a major exhibition staged in Nantes in 2011. Examining the public reaction to the trial in 1931, this article has two key aims. First, it will explore attitudes towards colonialism and republicanism in the provinces and metropolitan France. Second, it will use the exhibition of 2011 as a means of addressing the memorial debate to show how such recoveries of forgotten events, however laudable and necessary, risk perpetuating an image of an idealized republicanism based upon universalism

‘La Nouvelle Activité des Trafiquants de Femmes’: France, Le Havre and the Politics of Trafficking, 1919–1939

This article examines how the ‘moral panic’ about sex trafficking during the interwar years manifested itself in Le Havre, a French port which, at the beginning of the twentieth century, had become synonymous with the illegal trade. Interrogating hitherto neglected material in departmental archives, it explores how the problem of the trafficking of women (la traite des femmes) changed after 1919, how the administrative consequences of directives by the League of Nations could influence behaviours in everyday life and how an episode of female migration from Eastern Europe interacted with French political agendas to magnify and, in some cases, generate a problem

Sub-femtosecond electron bunches created by direct laser acceleration in a laser wakefield accelerator with ionization injection

In this work, we will show through three-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations that direct laser acceleration in laser a wakefield accelerator can generate sub-femtosecond electron bunches. Two simulations were done with two laser pulse durations, such that the shortest laser pulse occupies only a fraction of the first bubble, whereas the longer pulse fills the entire first bubble. In the latter case, as the trapped electrons moved forward and interacted with the high intensity region of the laser pulse, micro-bunching occurred naturally, producing 0.5 fs electron bunches. This is not observed in the short pulse simulation.Comment: AAC 201

'"La nouvelle activité des trafiquants de femmes": France, Le Havre and the Politics of Trafficking, 1919–39'

This article examines how the ‘moral panic’ about sex trafficking during the interwar years manifested itself in Le Havre, a French port which, at the beginning of the twentieth century, had become synonymous with the illegal trade. Examining hitherto-neglected material in departmental archives, it explores how the problem of la traite des femmes changed after 1919; how the administrative consequences of directives by the League of Nations could influence behaviours in everyday life; and how an episode in female migration from Eastern Europe interacted with French political agendas to magnify and, in some cases, generate a problem

Evidence that widespread star formation may be underway in G0.253+016, "The Brick"

Image cubes of differential column density as a function of dust temperature are constructed for Galactic Centre molecular cloud G0.253+0.016 ("The Brick") using the recently described PPMAP procedure. The input data consist of continuum images from the Herschel Space Telescope in the wavelength range 70-500 $\mu$m, supplemented by previously published interferometric data at 1.3 mm wavelength. While the bulk of the dust in the molecular cloud is consistent with being heated externally by the local interstellar radiation field, our image cube shows the presence, near one edge of the cloud, of a filamentary structure whose temperature profile suggests internal heating. The structure appears as a cool ($\sim 14$ K) tadpole-like feature, $\sim 6$ pc in length, in which is embedded a thin spine of much hotter ($\sim$ 40-50 K) material. We interpret these findings in terms of a cool filament whose hot central region is undergoing gravitational collapse and fragmentation to form a line of protostars. If confirmed, this would represent the first evidence of widespread star formation having started within this cloud.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures; accepted for publication in MNRAS Letter