Understanding the experiences of seronegative partners in HIV discordant couples

Abstract Introduction HIV serodiscordant couples are presenting more often to their doctors as the epidemic continues to spread. There have been various theories as to why some couples remain discordant, but none have yielded a conclusive answer as yet. The negative partners in discordant couples have previously been ignored. However, more of them are now presenting with psychosocial problems of their own. They are increasingly being recognized as ‘hidden’ patients and as potential resources. The researcher would like to discover what issues and problems these negative partners have so that we can understand and help them. Aims To explore seronegative partners’ experiences and emotions in HIV discordant couples. Methodology Using qualitative interview methods to explore the range of emotions and experiences that seronegative partners in discordant relationships experience at the time of disclosure of the different results and thereafter. Results Three main themes emerged from the research. These were: 1) Emotional problems-These were further sub-divided into expected responses and unexpected responses, based on the researchers own views and from literature reviews.2) Coping strategies- these were further sub-divided into positive and negative coping strategies based on the beneficial or harmful effects on the individual, family or the relationship as well as the increase in risk behaviour associated with each action. 3) Future plans-these were according to the participants and included what they wanted for their future. Conclusion Negative partners in discordant couples have been ignored for too long. They face many challenges and problems but they can also assist in the management of their partners. This was explored in more detail. From the research, a host or experiences and reactions were noted and based on these, recommendations for doctors were drawn up. The recommendations include the following: 1. Doctors should not ignore the negative partner in discordant couples. They are also patients and in need of help and support. They can in turn help the doctor in future treatment of the positive partner. By just acknowledging them and that they are also going through difficult times, allows them to bring out their problems and assist in future management. 2. Always discuss the possibility of discordant results before testing a couple. This possibility can be a source of immense stress and confusion to the couple if they have not been alerted to the fact that it can occur. 3. Both partners in the discordant couple must be screened for depression as there is a high rate of this illness in both groups. Too often, this depression is not actively looked for in the negative partner. Doctor’s who fail to do this, will be neglecting the wellbeing of the family unit. 4. All discordant couples should be offered ongoing counseling sessions, either separately or together as a couple. This will give the often ignored negative partner an opportunity to air their views and problems, not only to the doctor, but if they participate in the sessions as a couple, they may be able to speak to their partners, indirectly, by speaking to the doctor. 5. When faced with a discordant couple, the topic of future parenthood should be raised by the doctor. If this is ignored, it may force some couples to engage in high risk behaviour without them knowing the repercussions of it. The doctor must present all the options available to the couple, including adoption and assisted reproductive techniques as well as the role of antiretroviral medication. 6. Doctors must keep abreast of the latest developments in HIV and treatment as patients expect them to provide answers. This would include the doctor improving his/her computer skills as well as learning and practicing the art of critical reading so that he/she can access valid information for patients when the need arises. 7. Doctors must pay attention to the setup at their surgeries so that they always ensure privacy and confidentiality. This includes the position of the waiting room in relation to the consulting rooms so that what is discussed cannot be heard by others. The doctor must also not leave patient records where subsequent patients can see them. Lastly, the doctor must ensure that his staff members, who do see patient records, are informed of their obligations to patient confidentiality. 8. Doctors should avoid using the term undetectable when reporting on the positive partner’s viral load. This term may be misunderstood by both partners to mean that the virus was no longer present and thus safe sex practices were on longer needed. A better word to use would be “further reduced” or “ in the acceptable range showing good compliance”

Minority oral tradition in China

Oral history relies on performativity for inheritance and representation, and the performance of oral history is the transformation of three-dimensional social memory. Such a medium has no gender bias; both men and women can perform and listen to it. Oral history rejects linguistic hegemony and can be performed in various languages, with its audience coming from either the noblity or the "untouchables."Not

Fantasy in children's animated commercials: a comparative study of Nestle's television advertising in South Africa

M.A., Faculty of Humanties, University of the Witwatersrand, 2011With the invention and development of media technologies such as radio, television and the Internet, advertisers have welcomed and embraced these advancements for the purpose of selling products to the masses. Advertisers have considered television to be an effective and popular technology for marketing and communication; and animation has been used extensively in advertising. My proposed research will attempt to explain the reason for the widespread use of animation in television advertising aimed at children. Thus, through an examination and understanding of historical and contextual factors that may have influenced two South African animated television commercials, my research will attempt to highlight why the medium of animation was utilised and thought to be appropriate and appealing to children

A study of the ecology of beetles (coleopteran) by means of pitfall traps

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The Texas Orator is Garbage

The Texas Orato

Elucidation of mechanisms of antibiotic subversion in mycobacteria

The intrinsic resistance of Mycobacterium tuberculosis ( Mtb ) to antibiotics is generally attributed to multiple factors, most significantly the low permeability of the mycobacterial cell wall, the operation of various drug inactivating systems, and the activity of efflux pumps. This study aimed to investigate the role of various components of the "intrinsic resistome" that limit the efficacy of antitubercular agents. The DNA damage response: the SOS response was hypothesized to play a role in antibiotic- mediated cellular death, and that disabling the mycobacterial SOS response, by generating non-cleavable LexA mutants (lexA Ind-), could be used as a tool to validate antibiotic-mediated cell death. To this end, the M. smegmatis (Msm) cleavable LexA was shown to be essential for induced mutagenesis and damage tolerance and that an intact DNA damage repair system is required to respond to antibiotic-mediated DNA damage. In contrast, Mtb cleavable LexA was required for induced mutagenesis but not necessarily damage sensitivity. In addition, the Mtb SOS response does not contribute significantly to remediation of antibiotic-mediated DNA damage. Collectively, these data suggest that DNA repair mechanisms differ between the mycobacterial species and despite effectively inactivating the LexA-dependent DNA repair mechanism(s) in Msm and Mtb, these organisms are able to circumvent this pathway and successfully remediate damaged DNA sustained under various conditions. Furthermore, Mtb auto-bioluminescent reporter strains were generated by introducing the lux operon downstream of the recA or radA promoters. Analysis of a panel of antimicrobials against these strains allowed for the identification of true DNA-damaging agents and the evaluation of the kinetics of the DNA-damage response, in a concentration- and time-dependent manner. Efflux-mediated drug resistance: This study aimed to evaluate the interactions between pairwise combinations of selected antimicrobials and efflux pump inhibitors (EPIs), in vitro and ex vivo, and to identify a novel verapamil (VER)-analogue with improved efficacy against Mtb. Subsequently, a candidate EPI was identified, with equivalent in vitro synergistic effects to VER when used in combination with various antibiotics but with reduced cytotoxic effects, ex vivo, when compared to VER. Mycothiol-mediated protection : It was hypothesized that undetectable levels of mycothiol ( MSH ) in Mtb would potentiate the use of current antibiotics. To investigate the contribution of the cellular antioxidant, MSH, to the mitigation of antimicrobial efficacy, this study aimed to disrupt MSH production by conditionally knocking-down expression of the essential gene, mshC. The mshC knock-down mutants (in all configurations) were not anhydrotetracycline (ATC)-regulatable in liquid or on solid medium, which was subsequently validate d with quantitative gene expression analysis. These data suggest that a tetracycline (Tet)-based conditional expression system may not be applicable to mshC. In conclusion, Mtb has a multitude of inherent mechanisms to subvert the effects of antimicrobial treatment. This study has contributed to the understanding of certain aspects of the intrinsic resistome and in doing so, established tools that can be used in future drug discovery programmes

Extraction of patterns in selected network traffic for a precise and efficient intrusion detection approach

This thesis investigates a precise and efficient pattern-based intrusion detection approach by extracting patterns from sequential adversarial commands. As organisations are further placing assets within the cyber domain, mitigating the potential exposure of these assets is becoming increasingly imperative. Machine learning is the application of learning algorithms to extract knowledge from data to determine patterns between data points and make predictions. Machine learning algorithms have been used to extract patterns from sequences of commands to precisely and efficiently detect adversaries using the Secure Shell (SSH) protocol. Seeing as SSH is one of the most predominant methods of accessing systems it is also a prime target for cyber criminal activities. For this study, deep packet inspection was applied to data acquired from three medium interaction honeypots emulating the SSH service. Feature selection was used to enhance the performance of the selected machine learning algorithms. A pre-processing procedure was developed to organise the acquired datasets to present the sequences of adversary commands per unique SSH session. The preprocessing phase also included generating a reduced version of each dataset that evenly and coherently represents their respective full dataset. This study focused on whether the machine learning algorithms can extract more precise patterns efficiently extracted from the reduced sequence of commands datasets compared to their respective full datasets. Since a reduced sequence of commands dataset requires less storage space compared to the relative full dataset. Machine learning algorithms selected for this study were the Naïve Bayes, Markov chain, Apriori and Eclat algorithms The results show the machine learning algorithms applied to the reduced datasets could extract additional patterns that are more precise, compared to their respective full datasets. It was also determined the Naïve Bayes and Markov chain algorithms are more efficient at processing the reduced datasets compared to their respective full datasets. The best performing algorithm was the Markov chain algorithm at extracting more precise patterns efficiently from the reduced datasets. The greatest improvement in processing a reduced dataset was 97.711%. This study has contributed to the domain of pattern-based intrusion detection by providing an approach that can precisely and efficiently detect adversaries utilising SSH communications to gain unauthorised access to a system

Online ethical dilemmas in educational psychology practice

Abstract : This study was aimed at identifying online ethical dilemmas that educational psychologists might come across when using Web 2.0 platforms and to recommend ways of managing these dilemmas. Web 2.0 platforms involve blog, wikis and social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, Myspace and Instagram. Educational psychologists were selected based on experience within the field, some in private practice while others worked in schools. In this research a qualitative generic approach was taken, making use of an online questionnaire, to gain insight into existing online ethical dilemmas. The results and previous research showed that online ethical dilemmas that seemed to be the most common are confidentiality, informed consent, multiple relationships and soliciting testimonials. The idea of Googling a client and how to manage online ethical dilemmas also seemed to be a prominent aspect that arose. The findings of this research show that when dealing with online ethical dilemmas, educational psychologists tend to take the moral high ground by not violating human rights. It also showed how easily technology can breach an ethical code and how important an educational psychologist’s knowledge and training are in the field of ethics.M.Ed. (Educational Psychology

Workplace Spirituality and Job Satisfaction of Christian College and University Faculty as Moderated by Positive Psychology

The purpose of this study is to understand how the positive psychology elements of subjective well-being and positive character strength moderate the relationship between workplace spirituality and job satisfaction of faculty at Christian colleges and universities. The study utilizes a quantitative non-experimental predictive correlational study. This work presents a gap in the literature as it relates to the study of job satisfaction, specifically, workplace spirituality as a job resource. Research has largely looked at elements of the work environment and working conditions that impact faculty job satisfaction, which leaves the personal job resource element of workplace spirituality and the positive psychology elements less studied. This study utilized a convenience sample of faculty from Christian colleges and universities in the US. Faculty were asked to answer survey questions from the Spirit at Work Scale (SAWS), the Michigan Organizational Assessment Questionnaire- Job Satisfaction Scale (MOAQ-JSS), the Flourishing Scale (FS), and the Global Assessment of Character Strengths-24 (GACS-24). Data was analyzed using moderation analysis through hierarchical linear regression analysis. Results indicated that workplace spirituality was correlated to job satisfaction. Additionally, the element of subjective well-being served as a moderator between workplace spirituality and job satisfaction. Positive character strength had no moderating impact on this relationship. Implications of the results are discussed, as with considerations for future research. Future research should consider specific elements of workplace spirituality; using composite elements of character strength, such as happiness strengths; use of another satisfaction scale that could possibly assess greater satisfaction elements; assess whether factors, such as stress, burnout, or depression are influential; and increasing the sample size

Protein Glycan Coupling Technology as an alternative method for the production of pneumococcal conjugate vaccines: Investigation of the impact of fermentation and technology-specific factors on recombinant vaccine production

The implementation of glycoconjugate vaccines such as Prevnar-13 against invasive pneumococcal disease has significantly reduced deaths worldwide. However, generally the complex manufacturing process for glycoconjugate vaccines and in particular for Prevnar-13 contributes to the cost per dose of the vaccine to be $200 per dose in the USA. The recombinant production of glycoconjugate vaccines presents a comparatively simplified and cheaper process for vaccine production. The work presented is the first to demonstrate successful recombinant production of a pneumococcal glycoconjugate of serotype 4 in bioreactors and from cells grown in defined medium. Initially cells were grown in a fed-batch protocol with either 30 g/L or 100 g/L glycerol in the batch phase. Despite nearly 3-fold higher cell biomass at harvest in the 100 g/L condition, in normalised densitometry analysis glycoconjugate production was 4.5-fold lower. Strains were engineered and grown in fed-batch mode to investigate the impact of oligosaccharyltransferase (OST) gene location (chromosomal versus plasmidic) and of different acceptor proteins. PiuA a lipopolysaccharide component of an iron transporter in the pneumococcus and ExoA is a ribosyltransferase found in Pseudomonas aeruginosa. The introduction of ExoA was more positively impactful on glycoconjugate production compared to OST location. Densitometry analysis in normalised samples found glycoconjugate production was 4.6-26-fold higher when ExoA was the acceptor protein. ELISA quantification found more glycoconjugate was bound to the same amount of protein for ExoA (between 13-226-fold). A DoE study looking to optimise fermentation using a strain with ExoA as the protein was conducted with an exponential feed pre-induction. Cell biomass at harvest was improved by 3-7.7-fold compared to a starting fed-batch protocol, however, densitometry analysis performed on glycoconjugate bands on normalised samples indicated only three conditions had a higher signal. Post-induction temperature and feed rate had a significant impact on cell biomass and glycoconjugate densitometry signal at harvest as determined by DoE modelling. The work in this thesis lays the foundation for future fermentation and strain optimisation studies