An Examination of African American Women with HIV and Health Care Barriers

For over 40 years, HIV has been seen as an epidemic and problem on health care that disproportionately affects the African American women (AAW) and population. This epidemic represents 12% of the total U.S. population, yet accounts for 37% of the commutative HIV cases, and 45% of the new HIV cases reported since 1998. Research in this case was needed for increased understanding to this health care problem, between AAW and HIV. A review in the literature indicated the problem and found new alternatives that helped support aspects on today\u27s health care. The purpose of the study was to help explore the experiences of the AAW with HIV and make an effort to identify the barriers in the health care system. This was by using a narrative design and qualitative approach that helped address the overall questions, on the economic and environmental risk factors associated with HIV, and how one compensates for barriers to HIV treatment and resources. The current results by the narrative provided new knowledge for AAW with HIV. They are seen as the new generation of AAW with new challenges on health care and HIV treatment. Therefore, in an effort to make further recommendations and deal with the challenges on social change, the older generation of AAW need to educate their younger generation on HIV prevention strategies. They are implementations of strategies for positive social change that will help make a difference, by educating today\u27s youths and correct the miss-educated, among our black population of society

Is this the real time for genomics

In the last decades, molecular biology has moved from gene-by-gene analysis to more complex studies using a genome-wide scale. Thanks to high-throughput genomic technologies, such as microarrays and next-generation sequencing, a huge amount of information has been generated, expanding our knowledge on the genetic basis of various diseases. Although some of this information could be transferred to clinical diagnostics, the technologies available are not suitable for this purpose. In this review, we will discuss the drawbacks associated with the use of traditional DNA microarrays in diagnostics, pointing out emerging platforms that could overcome these obstacles and offer a more reproducible, qualitative and quantitative multigenic analysis. New miniaturized and automated devices, called Lab-on-Chip, begin to integrate PCR and microarray on the same platform, offering integrated sample-to-result systems. The introduction of this kind of innovative devices may facilitate the transition of genome-based tests into clinical routine. (C) 2014 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/)

A miniaturized silicon based device for nucleic acids electrochemical detection

In this paper we describe a novel portable system for nucleic acids electrochemical detection. The core of the system is a miniaturized silicon chip composed by planar microelectrodes. The chip is embedded on PCB board for the electrical driving and reading. The counter, reference and work microelectrodes are manufactured using the VLSI technology, the material is gold for reference and counter electrodes and platinum for working electrode. The device contains also a resistor to control and measuring the temperature for PCR thermal cycling. The reaction chamber has a total volume of 20 μL. It is made in hybrid silicon–plastic technology. Each device contains four independent electrochemical cells.Results show HBV Hepatitis-B virus detection using an unspecific DNA intercalating redox probe based on metal–organic compounds. The recognition event is sensitively detected by square wave voltammetry monitoring the redox signals of the intercalator that strongly binds to the double-stranded DNA. Two approaches were here evaluated: (a) intercalation of electrochemical unspecific probe on ds-DNA on homogeneous solution (homogeneous phase); (b) grafting of DNA probes on electrode surface (solid phase).The system and the method here reported offer better advantages in term of analytical performances compared to the standard commercial optical-based real-time PCR systems, with the additional incomes of being potentially cheaper and easier to integrate in a miniaturized device. Keywords: Electrochemical detection, Real time PCR, Unspecific DNA intercalato

Carbon-dots conductometric sensor for high performance gas sensing

In this paper the first example of using C-dots (CDs) as sensing nanomaterial for monitoring low concentrations of NO2 in ambient air is reported. In the logic to support a green circular economy, CDs were prepared from a natural low cost precursor consisting in olive solid waste (OSW) by a simple pyrolysis process combined with chemical oxidation. Characterization data showed the formation of spherical CDs with dimensions in the narrow size range from 0.5 to 5 nm and charged with functional groups (COO- (carboxylate), C-O-C (epoxide) and C-OH (hydroxyl) imprinting excellent water colloidal dispersion. The nanomaterial was used to fabricate and test a conductometric gas sensor (CDs-sensor) that was found to exhibit excellent performances in terms of high and selective response to sub-ppm concentration of NO2 at low temperature (150 °C), low limit of detection (LOD) of 50 ppb, good reproducibility and stability over use and aging. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first example reported in the literature of CDs high performances gas sensing material. Results here presented pave the way for a new class of a carbon nanomaterial for gas sensing to be applied in the field of environmental monitoring

Here, there and in-between: rehearsing over Skype

The gathering of people together in a contiguous physical space in order to make something is the most basic description of my typical rehearsal process. My rehearsals have, until recently, always been dictated by the ability to gather a group of collaborators together at the same time and in the same geographical place. In this analogue version of rehearsal, tea breaks and side conversations have dictated as much about the process of creation as the work done in the centre of the space and physical presence has been an implied requirement of participation. Starting in 2007, I have been collaborating with the New York based dance company Tiffany Mills Company in the role of dramaturge and performance coach/director. Because I live and work in England, I am not able to be physically present in the New York dance studio on a regular basis. Instead, we have worked over SKYPE, an Internet-based telephone and videoconferencing programme. The physical space of the rehearsal room has been destabilised as a result of our trans-Atlantic collaboration: our process occurs in a space between my home in England and the dance studio in New York, in a space that contains images and sounds, which acts as both a portal between here and there and as a space in its own right. Johannes Birringer (2004: 172) has described the destabilisation of expected spatial relationships in relation to live performance as “telepresence”. He notes that in Here I come again/Flying Birdman (ADaPT, 2004), which had seven performance sites, seven performance ensembles and seven audiences all linked via multiple screens, that the collaborators were “separate but appear to be together in a shared virtual space of the Internet” (ibid). Birringer, and others, have mostly focused on the delivery of performance using the distribution networks made available by the Internet. In this article, I am concerned primarily with the way that collaborative technologies have shifted the landscape of the rehearsal room, and the rehearsal process itself, radically altering the synchronous way in which we participate in rehearsals

Virtuoso (working title)

Visual foley. A television show that doesn't exist. A spot on the wall. Three performers stage the story of a stagnant American suburbia, circa 1963, where the minutiae of everyday life has become strange: glass windows portend violence, a spot on the wall promises freedom, a stranger appears in the living room. Playing games to keep boredom at bay, they switch virtuosically from persona to persona, never content to idly wait for something to happen. Outside, the world seems to be closing in on them as the protective banality of suburbia dissolves – leaving them stranded, and exposed. The audience witnesses the construction of this strange world on three flat screen monitors, behind which the performers can be seen assembling the backgrounds, costumes and props necessary to crafting a series of perfect images. Building the visual world in front of the audience using live video feeds, the performers also manipulate miniature figurines, houses and scenery in a play on scale that toys with the boundaries of perception. Virtuoso (working title) is a negotiation of the live and the mediated, ruminating on love, home, and perfection

Whisper

Whisper is a visually decadent, aurally immersive performance that asks the audience to question ‘what is real’ in a world of increasing technological sophistication. Each audience member is given a set of headphones through which they hear the voices of three live performers narrating a fictional walk through a fictional city. Obscured behind a cinematic screen, the performers are seen as shadows, silhouettes or in stark clarity, creating a fully immersive sound environment to accompany their narration. Not only are the three performers narrating a walk that switches between the ‘here and now’ of the story and ‘dream-world’ of memory, but they are also creating a fully immersive sound environment through the use of a sound technique called foley. Foley is a technique employed in film, where a sound artist adds sounds to a film after the film has been shot, thereby creating a hyper-realistic world of sound for the film