Gender power imbalance on women\'s capacity to negotiate self-protection against HIV/AIDS in Botswana and South Africa

Background: Gender power imbalance, which translates into a power imbalance in sexual interactions, is increasingly being recognized as a factor in fueling the spread of HIV/AIDS by increasing the number of unsafe sexual encounters. Objectives: To examine the influence of gender power imbalance and other factors on women\'s capacity to negotiate self protection against HIV infection; as well as men\'s response to the suggested condom use. Methods: Drawing on data gathered from 2658 women aged 18-49 years in a cross-sectional survey in Kwa Zulu Natal Province of South Africa and Botswana, the study used descriptive statistics and logistic regression to reveal a number of gender related factors that significantly affect women\'s ability to protect themselves against HIV infection. Results: Gender power imbalance significantly affects women\'s ability to suggest condom use to their partners. The study showed that it is women with partners 10 or more years older than them, abused women, and those economically dependent on their partners who are less likely to suggest condom use to their partners. Gender power imbalance also influences men\'s inclination towards refusing to use the suggested condom. The study showed that men are more likely to refuse to use the condom when the age difference between them and their female partners is wide, if they are in a married relationship, and where there is no communication about HIV/AIDS between them and their partners. What is more disturbing is the finding that it is men with multiple partners who are significantly more likely to refuse to use the condom. Conclusion: Across all levels of society, there is a need to see a social paradigm shift that transforms relationships between women and men, from the one of inequality and dominance as is the case in patriarchal societies, to equality, respect and consideration for one another. African Health Sciences Vol. 5 (3) 2005: pp. 188-19

Topological Quantum Critical Points in the Extended Bose-Hubbard Model

The combination of topology and quantum criticality can give rise to an exotic mix of counterintuitive effects. Here, we show that unexpected topological properties take place in a paradigmatic strongly correlated Hamiltonian: the 1D extended Bose-Hubbard model. In particular, we reveal the presence of two distinct topological quantum critical points with localized edge states and gapless bulk excitations. Our results show that the topological critical points separate two phases, one topologically protected and the other topologically trivial, both characterized by a long-range ordered string correlation function. The long-range order persists also at the topological critical points and explains the presence of localized edge states protected by a finite charge gap. Finally, we introduce a superresolution quantum gas microscopy scheme for dipolar dysprosium atoms, which provides a reliable route towards the experimental study of topological quantum critical points

Integration of a personalized health care model into health systems and policies in Europe

Every day, we read about new scientifi¬c discoveries and technological advancements for health and medicine in the newspapers, such as: “Diabetes gene is found!” However, we don’t see this genome-based knowledge used in health services. Somehow, they don’t complete their journey from the laboratory to the society. This PhD dissertation deals with the integration of personalized health care applications into health services. It starts with setting the scene by describing health system and its interrelations with ‘public health’, which is presented in light of the 'Health for All' vision. The second part introduces a preventive personalized health care model called Gentest, within the wider context of the ¬field of personalized medicine and health care. This practice model is used as an example in this dissertation to effectively explore the issues related to integration. The third part investigates how this practice model can be integrated into primary care services within European health systems

O-GlcNAc modification blocks the aggregation and toxicity of the protein α-synuclein associated with Parkinson's disease.

Several aggregation-prone proteins associated with neurodegenerative diseases can be modified by O-linked N-acetyl-glucosamine (O-GlcNAc) in vivo. One of these proteins, α-synuclein, is a toxic aggregating protein associated with synucleinopathies, including Parkinson's disease. However, the effect of O-GlcNAcylation on α-synuclein is not clear. Here, we use synthetic protein chemistry to generate both unmodified α-synuclein and α-synuclein bearing a site-specific O-GlcNAc modification at the physiologically relevant threonine residue 72. We show that this single modification has a notable and substoichiometric inhibitory effect on α-synuclein aggregation, while not affecting the membrane binding or bending properties of α-synuclein. O-GlcNAcylation is also shown to affect the phosphorylation of α-synuclein in vitro and block the toxicity of α-synuclein that was exogenously added to cells in culture. These results suggest that increasing O-GlcNAcylation may slow the progression of synucleinopathies and further support a general function for O-GlcNAc in preventing protein aggregation

Towards experimental quantum-field tomography with ultracold atoms

The experimental realization of large-scale many-body systems in atomic- optical architectures has seen immense progress in recent years, rendering full tomography tools for state identification inefficient, especially for continuous systems. To work with these emerging physical platforms, new technologies for state identification are required. Here we present first steps towards efficient experimental quantum-field tomography. Our procedure is based on the continuous analogues of matrix-product states, ubiquitous in condensed-matter theory. These states naturally incorporate the locality present in realistic physical settings and are thus prime candidates for describing the physics of locally interacting quantum fields. To experimentally demonstrate the power of our procedure, we quench a one- dimensional Bose gas by a transversal split and use our method for a partial quantum-field reconstruction of the far-from-equilibrium states of this system. We expect our technique to play an important role in future studies of continuous quantum many-body systems

Effect of incoherent scattering on shot noise correlations in the quantum Hall regime

We investigate the effect of incoherent scattering in a Hanbury Brown and Twiss situation with electrons in edge states of a three-terminal conductor submitted to a strong perpendicular magnetic field. The modelization of incoherent scattering is performed by introducing an additional voltage probe through which the current is kept equal to zero which causes voltage fluctuations at this probe. It is shown that inelastic scattering can lead in this framework to positive correlations, whereas correlations remain always negative for quasi-elastic scattering.Comment: 5 pages latex, 5 eps figure