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Infected population size estimation is a common problem in HIV/AIDS epidemic analysis and it is the most important aspect for planning appropriate care and prevention policies. Some Ordinary Differential Equations models of HIV epidemic in Cuba considering the Contact Tracing strategy have been described in previous works. In this paper we present a HIV/AIDS model described by Differential Inclusions. Also, we establish a mathematical framework allowing us to make suitable prediction of the size HIV infected population at a future time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Chapter 24 of the book "Start With a Story: The Case Study Method of Teaching College Science: An NSTA Press Journals Collection" is presented. It focuses on AIDS and virologist Peter Duesberg's position that the disease was the result of recreational and anti-HIV drugs. It describes a student assignment used by practitioners of Problem-Based Learning (PBL) which involves the use of papers from the literature rather than a written scenario.

The selection of the distance measure to separate the objects of the knowledge space is critical in many classification algorithms. In this paper, we analyze the distance measures reported in the literature for the problem of HIV prediction. We propose a new distance for HIV viral sequences, based on the mutations with regard to the HXB2 reference sequence. In a first step, we reduce data dimensionality in order to subsequently analyze the distance measure΄s performance in terms of its ability to separate classes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper outlines the existential-phenomenological (E-P) approach to psychotherapy and considers some of its core concepts, the stance taken to understanding sexuality and the implications for therapeutic practice with gay male clients. Three previously published case studies are reviewed to provide illustrations of the approach, and the paper concludes by arguing that a non-pathologising view of sexuality is useful in assisting clients in therapy and in assisting therapists and services in understanding their clients without problematising them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

DNA is a database. The information it contains allows the assembly of the all-important protein molecules within the living cell from their component parts, the amino acids. This database is passed on from one cell to another by the DNA molecule's power of self-replication, as we saw in Chapter 1. Now we look at how the protein recipes are extracted from DNA during the lifetime of an individual cell. Information flow in most organisms is a one-way street: from DNA to protein. This rule is known as the Central Dogma of molecular biology. This term was coined by Francis Crick in 1956, many years before the details of the molecular processes involved were actually worked out. The genetic code The concept of the gene as an inheritable factor responsible for an organism's characteristics was first put forward by the Austrian botanist and monk Gregor Mendel in 1865. Mendel looked at how characteristics such as flower colour, height and seed shape were inherited during carefully controlled experiments with pea plants. Peas are normally pure-breeding. They reproduce by self-pollination, in which pollen and ovules (the male and female sex cells) from the same plant unite, to give offspring that are similar to their parent. So a pea with white flowers would normally produce more peas with white flowers, and so on. Mendel removed the stamens (which produce pollen) from his experimental plants, so they could no longer self-pollinate. Then he chose pairs with different characteristics: smooth or wrinkled seeds, red or white flowers, for example. He cross-pollinated these pairs by brushing pollen from one plant onto the stigma (the tip of the female sex organ) of the other. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a report that clarifies that attaining the target of the Millennium Development Goals for access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation will bring a payback worth many times the investment involved. This paper also includes the impact of the lack of drinking water and sanitation towards the life of the people at different stages, with highlight of the gender divide and threat caused by HIV/AIDS.

The second half of the twentieth century saw the development within the psychological and medical communities of a transsexual model and procedures for identifying, describing, and treating individuals who sought sex reassignment. This model viewed transsexualism as a form of mental illness characterized by a pervasive and ongoing wish to be a member of the other sex. The model prescribes a set of medical and social procedures called sex reassignment, whereby an individual "changed sex." The 1990s saw the rise of a new model which explained transsexualism as a natural form of human variability. This model, which continues to gain prominence, views sex reassignment as but one of a variety of acceptable life choices for transsexual individuals, and recognizes the need and right of nontranssexual transgendered people to make similar choices. This paper discusses both models and touches on the social and treatment implications of the rise of the transgender model. ] [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes the history of a psychotherapy group for HIV-positive veterans and service members on active military duty at a Veterans Administration clinic in Oakland, California, during the first decade of the epidemic. The author discusses the difficulties encountered working within a homophobic and AIDS phobic system, and the strategies used to make that work possible. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Daunomycin has shown interesting properties as a stabilizing agent for the antigene methodology. This approach consists of targeting a polypurine region of a given gene, with a triplex forming oligonucleotide (TFO), realizing a triple helix complex (triplex), with the aim of down-regulating gene expression. This chapter describes the basic principles of the triplex approach, the chemistry underlining the binding of daunomycin to oligonucleotides, and some results of gene-inhibition obtained with daunomycin-TFO conjugates with different targets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As we saw in chapter 3, the popular discourse in these post-Soviet places is preoccupied with modernization, retraditionalization, and resistance to dissolution (in both literal and figurative terms). And as discussed in chapter 4, much the same holds for national identity policy. The official platforms developed in all three countries make it possible, at least in the abstract, to engage in identity construction at the national and local levels through a combination of strategic innovation and “invented” and resurrected traditions. Ideally, such identity constructs must then be convincingly articulated and enacted, so that young people internalize and reproduce them through their own actions. But what does this imply for the process of youth identity construction? In particular, through what modalities do those who implement policy seek to mold the attitudes and conduct of young people? To what extent does this involve interaction among them, in what contexts, and to what particular ends? As the following discussion shows, in each city a complex course of action unfolds whereby the state, acting through its formal auspices, attempts to establish national youth identity while at the same time devolving extensive responsibilities to actors at lower levels of authority. The latter actors, in turn, attempt to foster essentially the same norms and practices both independently and in conjunction with one another as well as the state. The result is not only a striking affinity of values, but also a confluence of organized efforts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the former Soviet Union, one finds a veritable preoccupation with cultural globalization. Many people – like Volkov, the Astrakhan official we met in the Introduction – tend to experience it as Westernization (or, often, as “Americanization”), which is widely understood as conveying a massive pressure for homogeneity. This in turn generates a powerful mix of emotions: excitement, pride, anxiety, and disgust. After all, the perceived trend of homogenization is perceived to carry with it a range of potentially positive and negative effects, both with regard to national integrity and autonomy as well as pedestrian, everyday matters. Left unmediated to intermingle with locally produced ideas and practices, therefore, global influences beckon with opportunity, but also with danger. As a result, strikingly ambivalent attitudes percolate up into social discourse, in the form of an intense engagement with globalization. In a variety of public forums people in all walks of life struggle to come to terms with the influx of foreign ideas, groping for their underlying significance and spinning out narratives of the future, upon which they project their hopes and fears for the nation. And naturally, such hopes and fears are especially vivid where they surface in the discourse of youth culture. Disentangling the strands of social discourse As the following sections describe, what we find in this discourse is a typical pattern of hybridization: selective absorption, rejection, and assertion of national identity constructs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) as a social problem. AIDS was viewed as a social problem as soon as epidemiologic reports about a gay plague appeared in the United States. Like other sexually transmitted diseases, AIDS was associated with people who had the misfortune to fit into rather distinct classes of outcasts and social pariahs. The first social pariah to be named in the AIDS epidemic was the white, gay man whose lifestyle was assumed to be an efficient conduit for HIV (human immunodeficiency virus) transmission. AIDS, in fact, was known as the gay white man's disease well past the time when the accuracy of this characterization should have been questioned, and certainly past the time when heterosexual citizens in developing countries were being infected at an alarming rate. AIDS is not just a virus that afflicts hapless individuals at random but is the product of social and economic forces that help determine how, when, and where particular persons are infected.

The article discusses the author's concerns about the written texts of law and the visual texts of culture. It cites the author's interpretation of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and its relation to the process of judgment. It centers on the reading of cases concerning the judgment of the gay men, more specifically, the HIV positive gay men before the law. It details how the modern textuality of law has been occupied by a visual order of representation.

Chapter 9 of the book "Suffering, Death and Identity," is presented. It discusses the place of religion in the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) conflict. It explores the history, physiology and transmission of HIV and acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS). It discusses the response of religion to HIV, including its dilemma on whether the disease should be treated as a health or moral issue.