HIV/AIDS-related knowledge and behaviour of FET college students: implications for sexual health promotion

The impact of the HIV/AIDS pandemic is mostly felt by adolescents as half of all new HIV/AIDS infections have occurred in people aged 15-24 years. Statistics show that campaigns implemented by the South African government have failed to bring about positive behavioural change among young people. The aim of this study was to determine the HIV/AIDS-related knowledge among students at a college and the association between knowledge, self-efficacy, self-concept in sexual practices. This study was conducted at a Further Education and Training College in Cape Town. Data were collected using self-administered questionnaires consisting of five sections including demographic information; sexual practices; knowledge of HIV/AIDS, levels of self-efficacy; and self-concept. Fifty four percent of the participants indicated no condom use when having sex, either by themselves or by a partner; 43% indicated that they had more than 2 sexual partners in the 12 months prior to the study. The odds that a person with higher HIV/AIDS knowledge will use a condom were 1.047 times greater than someone with less HIV/AIDS knowledge. The odd’s ratio for self-efficacy indicates a positive relationship with the number of partners of an individual. The findings of the present study suggest adequate/high HIV/AIDS knowledge among the study sample. The study further highlights that for males, there is a greater likelihood that lower self-efficacy would predict more sexual partners in comparison to females. The results further suggest that although governmental organisations’ efforts improved knowledge of HIV/AIDS, programmes avidly promoting self-efficacy for males should be implemented.Department of HE and Training approved lis

Space program: Space debris a potential threat to Space Station and shuttle

Experts estimate that more than 3.5 million man-made objects are orbiting the earth. These objects - space debris - include whole and fragmentary parts of rocket bodies and other discarded equipment from space missions. About 24,500 of these objects are 1 centimeter across or larger. A 1-centimeter man-made object travels in orbit at roughly 22,000 miles per hour. If it hit a spacecraft, it would do about the same damage as would a 400-pound safe traveling at 60 miles per hour. The Government Accounting Office (GAO) reviews NASA's plans for protecting the space station from debris, the extent and precision of current NASA and Defense Department (DOD) debris-tracking capabilities, and the extent to which debris has already affected shuttle operations. GAO recommends that the space debris model be updated, and that the findings be incorporated into the plans for protecting the space station from such debris. GAO further recommends that the increased risk from debris to the space shuttle operations be analyzed

Contextual Considerations of Green Stormwater Infrastructure Siting

Green infrastructure increasingly is used to ameliorate water quality and quantity problems caused by runoff in cities. Studies show how the spatial distribution of these Green Stormwater Infrastructure (GSI) sites are unevenly distributed relative to socioeconomic and demographic groups. Often this is described as an indicator of perpetuated environment injustice, given the purported social and environmental benefits of GSI. To assess equity, researchers often examine either who gets what with respect to environmental ‘goods’ such as tree canopy and other green infrastructures, or investigate the procedures, decision making processes, and power structures pertaining to planning processes. This paper uses both spatial analyses to examine where GSI is located and who lives nearby in New Haven, CT, and illuminates the processes by which those locations were determined. An environmental injustice pattern was not observed: most GSI were located in low-income communities of color. However, the process that led to the siting had very little to do with who was living where. Instead, GSI siting decisions were determined by funding opportunities and their site selection criteria, flooding, combined sewer infrastructure, and avoiding infrastructure conflicts on a street segment. Future spatial analyses could consider the implicit or explicit baselines for equity in light of the processes and constraints that determine how and where GSI gets installed, and better incorporate the process of green infrastructure allocation in the chosen analytical metrics. By examining the process (ie the “how”) and the outcomes (ie the “what went where”) this study broadens the spatial analyses to include embedded knowledge from those who actually make the decisions that ultimately determine the location of GSI

Benchtop micromolding of polystyrene by soft lithography

Polystyrene (PS), a standard material for cell culture consumable labware, was molded into microstructures with high fidelity of replication by an elastomeric polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) mold. The process was a simple, benchtop method based on soft lithography using readily available materials. The key to successful replica molding by this simple procedure relies on the use of a solvent, for example, gamma-butyrolactone, which dissolves PS without swelling the PDMS mold. PS solution was added to the PDMS mold, and evaporation of solvent was accomplished by baking the mold on a hotplate. Microstructures with feature sizes as small as 3 µm and aspect ratios as large as 7 were readily molded. Prototypes of microfluidic chips made from PS were prepared by thermal bonding of a microchannel molded in PS with a flat PS substrate. The PS microfluidic chip displayed much lower adsorption and absorption of hydrophobic molecules (e.g. rhodamine B) compared to a comparable chip created from PDMS. The molded PS surface exhibited stable surface properties after plasma oxidation as assessed by contact angle measurement. The molded, oxidized PS surface remained an excellent surface for cell culture based on cell adhesion and proliferation. The micromolded PS possessed properties that were ideal for biological and bioanalytical needs, thus making it an alternative material to PDMS and suitable for building lab-on-a-chip devices by soft lithography methods

Trapping cells on a stretchable microwell array for single-cell analysis

There is a need for a technology that can be incorporated into routine laboratory procedures to obtain a continuous, quantitative, fluorescence-based measurement of the dynamic behaviors of numerous individual living cells in parallel, while allowing other manipulations, such as staining, rinsing, and even retrieval of targeted cells. Here we report a simple, low cost microarray platform that can trap cells for dynamic single-cell analysis of mammalian cells. The elasticity of polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) was utilized to trap tens of thousands of cells on an array. The PDMS microwell array was stretched by a tube through which cells were loaded on the array. Cells were trapped on the array by removal of the tube and relaxation of the PDMS. Once that was accomplished, the cells remained trapped on the array without continuous application of an external force and permitted subsequent manipulations, such as staining, rinsing, imaging, and even isolation of targeted cells. We demonstrate the utility of this platform by multicolor analysis of trapped cells and monitoring in individual cells real-time calcium flux after exposure to the calcium ionophore ionomycin. Additionally, a proof of concept for target cell isolation was demonstrated by using a microneedle to locally deform the PDMS membrane in order to retrieve a particular cell from the array

Isolation and manipulation of living adherent cells by micromolded magnetic rafts

A new strategy for magnetically manipulating and isolating adherent cells with extremely high post-collection purity and viability is reported. Micromolded magnetic elements (termed microrafts) were fabricated in an array format and used as culture surfaces and carriers for living, adherent cells. A poly(styrene-co-acrylic acid) polymer containing well dispersed magnetic nanoparticles was developed for creating the microstructures by molding. Nanoparticles of γFe2O3 at concentrations up to 1% wt.∕wt. could be used to fabricate microrafts that were optically transparent, highly magnetic, biocompatible, and minimally fluorescent. To prevent cellular uptake of nanoparticles from the magnetic polymer, a poly(styrene-co-acrylic acid) layer lacking γFe2O3 nanoparticles was placed over the initial magnetic microraft layer to prevent cellular uptake of the γFe2O3 during culture. The microraft surface geometry and physical properties were altered by varying the polymer concentration or layering different polymers during fabrication. Cells plated on the magnetic microrafts were visualized using standard imaging techniques including brightfield, epifluorescence, and confocal microscopy. Magnetic microrafts possessing cells of interest were dislodged from the array and efficiently collected with an external magnet. To demonstrate the feasibility of cell isolation using the magnetic microrafts, a mixed population of wild-type cells and cells stably transfected with a fluorescent protein was plated onto an array. Microrafts possessing single, fluorescent cells were released from the array and magnetically collected. A post-sorting single-cell cloning rate of 92% and a purity of 100% were attained

Selection and Separation of Viable Cells Based on a Cell-Lethal Assay

A method to select and separate viable cells based on the results of a cell-lethal assay was developed. Cells were plated on an array of culture sites with each site composed of closely spaced, releasable micropallets. Clonal colonies spanning multiple micropallets on individual culture sites were established within 72 h of plating. Adjacent sites were widely spaced with 100% of the colonies remaining sequestered on a single culture site during expansion. A laser-based method mechanically released a micropallet underlying a colony to segment the colony into two genetically identical colonies. One portion of the segmented colony was collected with 90% efficiency while viability of both fractions was 100%. The segmented colonies released from the array were fixed and subjected to immunofluorescence staining of intracellular phospho-ERK kinase to identify colonies that were highly resistant or sensitive to phorbol ester-induced activation of ERK. These resistant and sensitive cells were then matched to the corresponding viable colonies on the array. Sensitive and resistant colonies on the array were released and cultured. When these cultured cells were reanalyzed for phorbol ester-induced ERK activity, the cells retained the sensitive or resistant phenotype of the originally screened subcolony. Thus cells were separated and collected based using the result of a cell-lethal assay as selection criteria. These microarrays enabling clonal colony segmentation permitted sampling and manipulation of the colonies at very early times and at small cell numbers to reduce reagent, time and manpower requirements

Embodied Discourses of Literacy in the Lives of Two Preservice Teachers

This study examines the emerging teacher literacy identities of Ian and A.J., two preservice teachers in a graduate teacher education program in the United States. Using a poststructural feminisms theoretical framework, the study illustrates the embodiment of literacy pedagogy discourses in relation to the literacy courses’ discourse of comprehensive literacy and the literacy biographical discourses of Ian and A.J. The results of this study indicate the need to deconstruct how the discourse of comprehensive literacy limits how we, as literacy teacher educators, position, hear and respond to our preservice teachers and suggests the need for differentiation in our teacher education literacy courses

Proteomic features of skeletal muscle adaptation to resistance exercise training as a function of age

YesResistance exercise training (RET) can counteract negative features of muscle ageing but older age associates with reduced adaptive capacity to RET. Altered muscle protein networks likely contribute to ageing RET adaptation; therefore, associated proteome-wide responses warrant exploration. We employed quantitative sarcoplasmic proteomics to compare age-related proteome and phosphoproteome responses to RET. Thigh muscle biopsies were collected from eight young (25 ± 1.1 years) and eight older (67.5 ± 2.6 years) adults before and after 20 weeks supervised RET. Muscle sarcoplasmic fractions were pooled for each condition and analysed using Isobaric Tags for Relative and Absolute Quantification (iTRAQ) labelling, tandem mass spectrometry and network-based hub protein identification. Older adults displayed impaired RET-induced adaptations in whole-body lean mass, body fat percentage and thigh lean mass (P > 0.05). iTRAQ identified 73 differentially expressed proteins with age and/or RET. Despite possible proteomic stochasticity, RET improved ageing profiles for mitochondrial function and glucose metabolism (top hub; PYK (pyruvate kinase)) but failed to correct altered ageing expression of cytoskeletal proteins (top hub; YWHAZ (14-3-3 protein zeta/delta)). These ageing RET proteomic profiles were generally unchanged or oppositely regulated post-RET in younger muscle. Similarly, RET corrected expression of 10 phosphoproteins altered in ageing, but these responses were again different vs. younger adults. Older muscle is characterised by RET-induced metabolic protein profiles that, whilst not present in younger muscle, improve untrained age-related proteomic deficits. Combined with impaired cytoskeletal adhesion responses, these results provide a proteomic framework for understanding and optimising ageing muscle RET adaptation.TE was supported by a postdoctoral fellowship from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science and the Royal Society (JSPS/FF1/435). This work was supported by grants from the Medical Research Council (MR/T026014/1 and G0801271) and the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BB/X510697/1 and BB/C516779/1)