Food meanings in HIV and AIDS caregiving trajectories: Ritual, optimism and anguish among caregivers in Lesotho

The article describes the caregiving responsibility to provide food for chronically ill family members and the meanings attached to food and eating when ill created stress for family caregivers. The results come from a qualitative phenomenological study using in-depth interviews with 21 family caregivers of chronically ill HIV and AIDS patients in one district in Lesotho. Analysis of the interview data showed that the caregivers attached profound meanings to food and feeding care recipients. Their perceptions about food as part of family life and caring, the role of food and eating in curbing disease progression, the link between food and medical efficacy and the link between food and life led to ritualised behaviour around food, and moments of optimism and anguish in caregiving. Patients’ behaviour in relation to food was in most instances inconsistent with the caregivers’ goals, thus leading this aspect of caregiving to induce stress. Services intended to support home-based caregivers and patients could contribute to the reduction of stress associated with food through suitably tailored food assistance and professional support to caregivers to enhance their competences and understanding of the dynamics of food intake as AIDS progressed

Climate Change to the Nuclear Fuel Cycle: Expanding the spectral ¹⁴CO₂ database for non-AMS Field Measurement Systems

<p>Accelerator Mass Spectrometry (AMS) is well known and universally employed for radiocarbon analysis but is not adaptable to in-situ field measurements limiting applications. ¹⁴CO₂is a key tracer for fossil fuel CO₂as well as for release of enriched ¹⁴CO₂characteristic of the nuclear fuel cycle with ∆¹⁴CO₂values ranging from -1000 to ∼+500 per mil. However, to exploit the full value of in situ ¹⁴CO₂data in diverse climate change and nuclear fuel cycle applications, high data rate temporal and spatial field measurement sensors and systems are required. The development of non-AMS methods based on quantum cascade laser, cavity ring down and optogalvanic spectroscopy are emerging applications but not fully developed for field use or widely accepted. Spectral data for lasing transitions for ¹⁴CO₂are lacking in contrast to HITRAN data available for ¹²CO₂(626) and ¹³CO₂(636) (among other isotopologues 628, 638, etc.) in the spectral databases limiting development and innovation in non-AMS ¹⁴CO₂sensors and systems. We review the corpus of ¹⁴CO₂spectral data available in the literature and document grating tuned isotopic lasers (e.g., Freed 1990¹; Bradley et al., 1986²), well suited for expanded spectral studies of ¹⁴CO₂and inclusion in the HITRAN database. Non-AMS ¹⁴CO₂approaches are reviewed with suggestions for future work to support field systems for ¹⁴CO₂measurements. Available isotopic lasers for ¹⁴CO₂collaborative studies are described.</p