HIV-care access among people with incarceration experience in St. Petersburg, Russia

Background: Little is known about the clinical care experiences of HIV-infected persons in St. Petersburg who have experience with incarceration. To address this question, we conducted a capture-recapture study to identify individuals who had been diagnosed with HIV infection while incarcerated and who subsequently presented for medical care in St. Petersburg, Russia following release from prison. Methods: We matched 292 HIV-positive prisoners tested by the prison system in 2010 to the medical records at the St. Petersburg AIDS Center in the following 4 years. Results: The data analysis shows that as many as half of HIV+ prisoners fail to seek treatment in the community upon release. Of those who had sought care post-release, only 36% were receiving HAART. Of the 109 individuals for whom tuberculosis testing was indicated post-release, 36.7% were found to be reactive. Conclusion: Despite the limitations of the data, this study is the first of its kind to review records documenting HIV care among prisoners in Russia post-incarceration. In addition to providing important descriptive information about this marginalized population, the findings from this study highlight areas where HIV control efforts could be improved in order to address the HIV epidemic in the Russian Federation

Superscaling in dilute Fermi gas and its relation to general properties of the nucleon momentum distribution in nuclei

The superscaling observed in inclusive electron scattering is described within the dilute Fermi gas model with interaction between the particles. The comparison with the relativistic Fermi gas (RFG) model without interaction shows an improvement in the explanation of the scaling function $f(\psi ')$ in the region $\psi ' < -1$, where the RFG result is $f(\psi ') = 0$. It is found that the behavior of $f(\psi ')$ for $\psi ' < -1$ depends on the particular form of the general power-law asymptotics of the momentum distribution $n(k)\sim 1/ k^{4+m}$ at large $k$. The best agreement with the empirical scaling function is found for $m\simeq 4.5$ in agreement with the asymptotics of $n(k)$ in the coherent density fluctuation model where $m = 4$. Thus, superscaling gives information about the asymptotics of $n(k)$ and the NN forces.Comment: 6 pages, 5 figures, accepted for publication in Physical Review

Dark spot, Spiral waves and the SW Sex behaviour: it is all about UX Ursae Majoris

We present an analysis of time-resolved, medium resolution optical spectroscopic observations of UX UMa in the blue (3920-5250 A) and red (6100-7200 A) wavelength ranges, that were obtained in April 1999 and March 2008 respectively. The observed characteristics of our spectra indicate that UX UMa has been in different states during those observations. The blue spectra are very complex. They are dominated by strong and broad single-peaked emission lines of hydrogen. The high-excitation lines of HeII 4686 and the Bowen blend are quite strong as well. All the lines consist of a mixture of absorption and emission components. Using Doppler tomography we have identified four distinct components of the system: the accretion disc, the secondary star, the bright spot from the gas stream/disc impact region, and the unique compact area of absorption in the accretion disc seen as a dark spot in the lower-left quadrant of the tomograms. In the red wavelength range, both the hydrogen (H_alpha) and neutral helium (HeI 6678 and HeI 7065) lines were observed in emission and both exhibited double-peaked profiles. Doppler tomography of these lines reveals spiral structure in the accretion disc, but in contrast to the blue wavelength range, there is no evidence for either the dark spot or the gas stream/disc impact region emission, while the emission from the secondary star is weak. During the observations in 1999, UX UMa showed many of the defining properties of the SW Sex stars. However, all these features almost completely disappeared in 2008. We have also estimated the radial velocity semi-amplitudes K_1 and K_2 and evaluated the system parameters of UX UMa. These estimates are inconsistent with previous values derived by means of analysis of WD eclipse features in the light curve in the different wavelength ranges.Comment: 16 pages, 9 figures, Accepted for publication by MNRA

Stabilising the Blue Phases

We present an investigation of the phase diagram of cholesteric liquid crystals within the framework of Landau - de Gennes theory. The free energy is modified to incorporate all three Frank elastic constants and to allow for a temperature dependent pitch in the cholesteric phase. It is found that the region of stability of the cubic blue phases depends significantly on the value of the elastic constants, being reduced when the bend elastic constant is larger than splay and when twist is smaller than the other two. Most dramatically we find a large increase in the region of stability of blue phase I, and a qualitative change in the phase diagram, in a system where the cholesteric phase displays helix inversion.Comment: 15 pages, 6 figure

Microstructure evolution in a Cu-Cr-Zr alloy during warm intense plastic straining

The effect of equal channel angular pressing at a temperature of 200°C to a total strain of 12 on microstructure evolution and mechanical properties of a Cu-0.87wt.%Cr- 0.06wt.%Zr was investigated. New ultrafine grains resulted from gradual increase in the misorientations of strain-induced low-angle boundaries with increasing number of passes. Therefore, the development of ultrafine grains is considered as a kind of dynamic recrystallization. The equal channel angular pressing to a total strain of 12 resulted in the formation of almost equiaxed ultrafine grained structure with an average grain size of 0.5 Tm and 0.7 Tm in the solution treated and aged samples, respectively. At the same time, the fraction of ultrafine grains comprises 0.77 in the solution treated samples and 0.72 in the aged samples. Significant grain refinement led to the remarkable increase of the ultimate tensile strength up to 550 MP

Effect of rolling temperature and thickness reduction on the strength of a 316L steel

The relationship between the microstructural changes and the yield strength of a 316L austenitic stainless steel subjected to plate rolling at temperatures of 200 and 300°C with 40, 65, 85 and 95% rolling reductions was studie

Microtexture evolutions in 304L and 316L stainless steels during rolling at 200°C and annealing

The deformation and annealed microtextures were studied in 304L and 316L stainless steels subjected to plate rolling at temperature of 200°C followed by annealing at 700°C for 30-480 min. The evolution of the microstructure and microtexture during rolling at 200°C is associated with the development of deformation twinning and micro-shear bandin