Positive Peers: Exploring How and Why to Incorporate Peers Into HIV Prevention Services

In 2002, the Human Resource Service Administration (HRSA) began encouraging and funding a new strategy in HIV prevention. Referred to as Prevention with Positives (PwP), this approach to HIV prevention focused efforts on intervention with individuals who were already HIV-infected. This study examines one particular modality for the delivery of these important prevention messages to men and women living with HIV - the utilization of a peer-based model. Peer-based refers to any program which utilizes HIV-positive individuals as service providers for other HIV-positive individuals. A nationwide sample of such programs is used to provide an exploratory look into the possibilities peer-based programming may hold for PwP interventions. Semi-structured interviews with various levels of program staff (administrators, supervisors, and peers) were conducted using a mixed methods approach to answer two research questions: 1) To what extent do peer-based models of HIV service delivery adhere to an established set of program characteristics of Prevention with Positives interventions? and 2) What are the experiences of peer-based PwP program staff in terms of implementation and provision of peer-based services? A set of 19 key PwP program characteristics identified in the literature served as a foundation for understanding how peer-based programs fit and/or expanded upon existing traditional PwP strategies. Findings are discussed in an applied manner, with service providers and funders in mind. Programs participating in the study demonstrate a strong level of fit between the established PwP key program characteristics and the peer-based modality, including several program characteristics which may be better accomplished through the incorporation of peers (e.g. rapport). Advice for other service providers and agencies considering incorporating a peer-based program into their HIV services includes much discussion of additional considerations and commitment to be required (especially related to supervision, recruitment of peers, and management and training needs). However, the overall value peers add to HIV service delivery is found to far exceed the challenges

A compact robotic device for upper-limb reaching rehabilitation

This paper presents a compact linear-motion robotic device for upper-extremity reaching rehabilitation. Starting from conceptual design, the paper describes electronic circuit design and program development. The work develops a prototype that provides active and passive rehabilitation training. In active training, subjects actively move their arm with assistive or resistive force from the device to finish predefined displacement and force profiles. In passive training, subjects remain passive while the device moves the limb following the pre-defined displacement profile. Engineering specifications with adequate safety factor are determined and standard electronic and readily available mechanical components are exploited to keep the total cost low

Hospital discharge planning: a qualitative study of new-graduate physiotherapists' experiences

Purpose: Discharge planning constitutes a large part of a physiotherapist's role when working in hospital settings. The challenges of decision-making relating to discharge planning have been identified by experienced physiotherapists. Despite known challenges associated with the transition from student to clinician, the experiences of new-graduates undertaking discharge planning are largely unknown. Therefore, this study aimed to explore:1)    new-graduate physiotherapists' experiences of discharge planning in hospital settings, and2)    the influence of pre-professional training on their perceived preparedness for discharge planning.Design: A qualitative general inductive approach using semi-structured interviews. New-graduate physiotherapists (n = 14) working in hospital settings were recruited.Finding: Four themes were generated: 1) responding to the pressures associated with discharging patients, 2) complex decision-making, 3) the role of the interprofessional team, and 4) desiring additional context and complexity from pre-professional training.Practice Implications: The study has identified that new-graduates underestimate the extent to which discharge planning features in their roles within hospital settings, and are unaware of the interprofessional practice required. Whilst they felt that their pre-professional training provides the technical skills required for their roles, they felt that they were not prepared for their role within the broader healthcare system, nor the complexity of clinical practice. This study encourages education providers to emphasise the role of physiotherapists within the broader health care system, through highlighting contexts where physiotherapy knowledge can be applied (i.e., discharge planning) and understanding the role of the physiotherapist within the interprofessional team.Limitations: Important perspectives of mentors and other members of the interprofessional team involved in discharge planning have not been included in this study which may have impacted the interpretation of the results

On the formation of trapezium-like systems

We investigate the formation and evolution of high-order massive star multiples similar to the Trapezium in the Orion Nebula Cluster. We perform ensembles of N-body simulations of the evolution of N=1000 Orion-like clusters with initial conditions ranging from cool and clumpy to relatively smooth and relaxed. We find that trapezium-like systems are frequently formed in the first 2 Myr in initially cool and clumpy clusters and can survive for significant amounts of time in such clusters. We also find that these systems are highly dynamical entities, constantly interacting with the surrounding cluster, changing their appearance and membership regularly. The eventual decay of trapezium-like systems can even destroy the host cluster. We argue that the current state of any trapezium-like system is transient and care should be taken when analysing and drawing conclusions from a single snapshot in the life of a highly dynamic object.Comment: Accepted for publication in MNRAS. Supplementary material can be found at ftp://hydra.shef.ac.uk/pub/spg/TRAP_SUPLIMENTARY.pd

The response of coral skeletal nano-structure and hardness to ocean acidification conditions

Funding: Scottish Funding Council - HR09011; UK Natural Environment Research Council - NE/I022973/1.Ocean acidification typically reduces coral calcification rates and can fundamentally alter skeletal morphology. We use atomic force microscopy (AFM) and microindentation to determine how seawater pCO2 affects skeletal structure and Vickers hardness in a Porites lutea coral. At 400 µatm, the skeletal fasciculi are composed of tightly packed bundles of acicular crystals composed of quadrilateral nanograins, approximately 80–300 nm in dimensions. We interpret high adhesion at the nanograin edges as an organic coating. At 750 µatm the crystals are less regular in width and orientation and composed of either smaller/more rounded nanograins than observed at 400 µatm or of larger areas with little variation in adhesion. Coral aragonite may form via ion-by-ion attachment to the existing skeleton or via conversion of amorphous calcium carbonate precursors. Changes in nanoparticle morphology could reflect variations in the sizes of nanoparticles produced by each crystallization pathway or in the contributions of each pathway to biomineralization. We observe no significant variation in Vickers hardness between skeletons cultured at different seawater pCO2. Either the nanograin size does not affect skeletal hardness or the effect is offset by other changes in the skeleton, e.g. increases in skeletal organic material as reported in previous studies.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

Stellar Kinematics of Young Clusters in Turbulent Hydrodynamic Simulations

The kinematics of newly-formed star clusters are interesting both as a probe of the state of the gas clouds from which the stars form, and because they influence planet formation, stellar mass segregation, cluster disruption, and other processes controlled in part by dynamical interactions in young clusters. However, to date there have been no attempts to use simulations of star cluster formation to investigate how the kinematics of young stars change in response to variations in the properties of their parent molecular clouds. In this letter we report the results of turbulent self-gravitating simulations of cluster formation in which we consider both clouds in virial balance and those undergoing global collapse. We find that stars in these simulations generally have velocity dispersions smaller than that of the gas by a factor of ~ 5, independent of the dynamical state of the parent cloud, so that subvirial stellar velocity dispersions arise naturally even in virialized molecular clouds. The simulated clusters also show large-scale stellar velocity gradients of ~0.2-2 km s$^{-1}$ pc$^{-1}$ and strong correlations between the centroid velocities of stars and gas, both of which are observed in young clusters. We conclude that star clusters should display subvirial velocity dispersions, large-scale velocity gradients, and strong gas-star velocity correlations regardless of whether their parent clouds are in virial balance, and, conversely, that observations of these features cannot be used to infer the dynamical state of the parent gas clouds.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures, accepted to ApJ

Swimming using surface acoustic waves

Microactuation of free standing objects in fluids is currently dominated by the rotary propeller, giving rise to a range of potential applications in the military, aeronautic and biomedical fields. Previously, surface acoustic waves (SAWs) have been shown to be of increasing interest in the field of microfluidics, where the refraction of a SAW into a drop of fluid creates a convective flow, a phenomenon generally known as SAW streaming. We now show how SAWs, generated at microelectronic devices, can be used as an efficient method of propulsion actuated by localised fluid streaming. The direction of the force arising from such streaming is optimal when the devices are maintained at the Rayleigh angle. The technique provides propulsion without any moving parts, and, due to the inherent design of the SAW transducer, enables simple control of the direction of travel

Corrigendum: Extensive microRNA-mediated crosstalk between lncRNAs and mRNAs in mouse embryonic stem cells

In the above-mentioned article, one result reported in the third paragraph of the Results subsection “ceRNAts of individual lnceRNAs tend to be functionally related” was in error. This paragraph should now read: “On average, mESC-expressed lnceRNAs have 20.2 predicted MREs per kb of transcript that are specific to 12 different mESC-expressed miRNAs. This MRE density is similar to the density within 3′ UTRs of ceRNAts (20.4 MREs predicted per kb; P = 0.34, two-tailed Mann-Whitney U test) (Supplemental Fig. S9; Supplemental Table S8). A single lnceRNA might, therefore, be as likely as an mRNA to regulate post-transcriptionally the transcript abundance of many mRNAs via crosstalk with many miRNAs.” Corrected versions of Supplemental Figure S9 and Supplemental Table S8 are also now provided online. This correction does not affect any of the conclusions of the paper. The authors apologize for any confusion caused by this error

Cryptic diversity found in Didymellaceae from Australian native legumes

Ascochyta koolunga (Didymellaceae, Pleosporales) was first described in 2009 (as Phoma koolunga) and identified as the causal agent of Ascochyta blight of Pisum sativum (field pea) in South Australia. Since then A. koolunga has not been reported anywhere else in the world, and its origins and occurrence on other legume (Fabaceae) species remains unknown. Blight and leaf spot diseases of Australian native, pasture and naturalised legumes were studied to investigate a possible native origin of A. koolunga. Ascochyta koolunga was not detected on native, naturalised or pasture legumes that had leaf spot symptoms, in any of the studied regions in southern Australia, and only one isolate was recovered from P. sativum. However, we isolated five novel species in the Didymellaceae from leaf spots of Australian native legumes from commercial field pea regions throughout southern Australia. The novel species were classified on the basis of morphology and phylogenetic analyses of the internal transcribed spacer region and part of the RNA polymerase II subunit B gene region. Three of these species, Nothophoma garlbiwalawarda sp. nov., Nothophoma naiawu sp. nov. and Nothophoma ngayawang sp. nov., were isolated from Senna artemisioides. The other species described here are Epicoccum djirangnandiri sp. nov. from Swainsona galegifolia and Neodidymelliopsis tinkyukuku sp. nov. from Hardenbergia violacea. In addition, we report three new host-pathogen associations in Australia, namely Didymella pinodes on S. artemisioides and Vicia cracca, and D. lethalis on Lathyrus tingitanus. This is also the first report of Didymella prosopidis in Australi