Evaluation of HIV/AIDS peer education projects in Zambia

This 1998 evaluation assessed the peer education programmes of HIV/AIDS projects run by four non-governmental organisations. A mini-case study approach was used and analysis was based on cross-case itemistic variables. The projects were assessed only in terms of immediate developmental outcomes to target groups rather than on long-term impact. The study concluded the following: (1) The projects had raised community awareness of HIV/AIDS; (2) Basic knowledge of HIV/AIDS was for the most part accurate; (3) There was anecdotal evidence of behavioural changes in terms of partner-reduction as reported by the projects, though the evidence was sometimes conflicting; and (4) There was evidence that certain traditional practices, which contributed to the spread of the virus (e.g. sexual cleansing and scarification), were becoming modified over time. The programmes were also instrumental in protecting human rights and enabling people living with HIV/AIDS to maintain human dignity.     

The twenty-percent majority: Pro-union bias in prevailing rate determinations

Each individual wage rate set by Davis-Bacon or by any similar state or local prevailing wage determination petrifies the outcome of competing views of how construction work should be staffed and paid on public works projects. Although presented with great precision (to tenths of a cent for both wages and fringe benefits), the level of wages themselves are of surprisingly little consequence: Those set at union levels soon rise, being automatically updated to new contracts and conditions; the rest fast become obsolete in any rising market, because surveys to update them are rare. But in addition to setting wage levels, determinations also delineate which jobs get to have rates set for them, and perhaps most critically, whether those delineated are identified as union or notunion. Whatever pattern is found may remain in effect for years or even decades, influencing which journeymen and laborers own what job tasks and who may perform what. Also, if a particular job happens to be set as union, it may bring with it dozens or even hundreds of related special job categories, grades of sub-groups, fine distinctions of fringe benefits, and complex divisions of geographic applicability based on local union jurisdictional areas. This study uses determinations recently made in Pennsylvania as an example to examine the mechanics of the wage-setting process. I find that, in addition to the endemic problems one might expect associated with a complex and partly judgmental process, every step of finding and setting prevailing rates includes overwhelming deference on the part of government towards union views and methods. It shows why unions representing less than 20 percent of the private construction work force consistently set the parameters controlling most of public construction. It ends with some suggestions on how better surveys and determinations could be made.     

Heterogeneity: A Major Factor Influencing Microbial Exposure and Risk Assessment

Microbial risk assessment is dependent on several biological and environmental factors that affect both the exposure characteristics to the biological agents and the mechanisms of pathogenicity involved in the pathogen‐host relationship. Many exposure assessment studies still focus on the location parameters of the probability distribution representing the concentration of the pathogens and/or toxin. However, the mean or median by themselves are insufficient to evaluate the adverse effects that are associated with a given level of exposure. Therefore, the effects on the risk of disease of a number of factors, including the shape parameters characterizing the distribution patterns of the pathogen in their environment, were investigated. The statistical models, which were developed to provide a better understanding of the factors influencing the risk, highlight the role of heterogeneity and its consequences on the commonly used risk assessment paradigm. Indeed, the heterogeneity characterizing the spatial and temporal distribution of the pathogen and/or the toxin contained in the water or food consumed is shown to be a major factor that may influence the magnitude of the risk dramatically. In general, the risk diminishes with higher levels of heterogeneity. This scheme is totally inverted in the presence of a threshold in the dose‐response relationship, since heterogeneity will then have a tremendous impact, namely, by magnifying the risk when the mean concentration of pathogens is below the threshold. Moreover, the approach of this article may be useful for risk ranking analysis, regarding different exposure conditions, and may also lead to improved water and food quality guidelines.     

Cocaine use among the College Age Group: Historical Perspective—The Long and Colorful History of Erythoxylon Coca

Abstract

The rate of increase in the use of cocaine among college students has been greater even than the increase in the use of marijuana during the past ten years. Nationwide surveys indicate that 9 million Americans within the 18–25 age group, or 28.7%, have used cocaine. This compares with 2.9 million, or 9.1%, just a decade ago. The history of cocaine begins with the history of the coca plant. Even prior to the inca period the plant was used in South America; for centuries use of the plant remained restricted primarily to that continent. In 1859, an Austrian explorer brought home from Peru coca leaves that he sent to the University of Gottigen where Dr. Albert Niemann extracted and purified a crystalline compound he called cocaine. Several prominent physicians including Sigmund Freud and William Halsted, the father of modern surgery, experimented with cocaine on themselves and on their patients. Their published observations helped effect widespread use of cocaine in patent medicines, tonics, wines, and soft drinks. That earlier epidemic and the rest of the long and colorful history of cocaine brings into perspective the current epidemic of cocaine use.

“Mild Hypertension: When and How to Treat,” NORMAN H. KAPLAN. “Early and aggressive” drug therapy for mild hypertension, now widely prescribed in the United States, may be inappropriate for many of the 30 million patients with this condition. Although all of these patients are at greater risks of premature cardiovascular disease, the risks are manifested neither quickly nor uniformly. Drug therapy has not proved beneficial for patients with a diastolic (D) BP reading below 100 mm Hg, particularly those patients who are otherwise at low risk. Those antihypertensive drugs that are available now carry risks along with their benefits. Therefore, persons with mild hypertension who are at low risk should be encouraged to use nondrug therapies for at least six to 12 months. If their DBP remains below 100 mm Hg, they may be better off than if they were given drugs. The drug used in initial therapy has usually been a diuretic. For many patients, however, an adrenergic inhibitor may be a more appropriate choice. (Archives of Internal Medicine, 1983;143:255–259)

“Persistence of Normal BP After Withdrawal of Drug Treatment in Mild Hypertension,” PAUL D. LEVINSON, IBRAHIM M. KHATRI, EDWARD D. FREIS. Antihypertensive therapy was discontinued in 24 patients with mild hypertension whose BPs had been well controlled with diuretics alone. Eleven patients (46%) maintained normal diastolic BPs (≤ 90 mm Hg) for six months after stopping treatment and five patients (21%) for 12 months. All patients who remained normotensive for six to 12 months had mean diastolic BPs of 82 mm Hg or less during treatment. There was no signficant correlation between maintenance of normotension and any of the following: pretreatment BP, presence of target-organ damage, duration of known hypertension, family history of hypertension, heart size, body weight, weight gain after stopping diuretic therapy, 24-hour urinary sodium and potassium excretion, serum electrolyte values or renin profile. This study demonstrates that hypertension may be favorably modified, sometimes for many months, by effective antihypertensive treatment. (Archives of Internal Medicine 1982;142:2265–2268)     

Literate Technologies and the Science of Man

This paper attempts to map the groundwork for a theory of ‘literate technologies’ – that is, the treatment of reading/writing process that devolve upon a materialist conception of agency. The basic premise is that such sign operations are essentially technical and not founded in either a transcendental ego or genetic faculty – such as, for example, Chomsky’s ‘universal grammar’. This approach is only peripherally concerned with so‐called reading machines or artificial intelligence, except to the extent that such machines pose the question of the definability of such terms as ‘intelligence’. The technical status of literacy, moreover, is viewed as being contiguous with the advent of language as such, and not as a ‘technologisation’ of language. By recognising within this status the fundamentally ambivalent, probabilistic character of ‘agency’, it is argued that a condition of literacy may be said to obtain not only in terms of human systems of communication, but in the general terms of a base materiality, wherever ‘dynamic systems’ may arise.     

Ordres socio-économiques et polarisation de la recherche dans l'agriculture : pour une critique des rapports science/société

What if farming were the exemplar of a knowledge-based society? Due to their many, ambivalent effects, research and innovation in agronomy lie at the center of trends now shaping the world of agriculture. To present this history, the types of pairing are examined between, on the one hand, processes for producing scientific knowledge and techniques and, on the other, contingent forms for organizing collective action. For this purpose, the notion of a “socioeconomic order” is introduced to account for the multiplication of collective spaces of action based on specific systems of norms and cooperation. Studying these pairings brings to light three “models of polarization of research” in France (the Colbertist model, academic polarization, and fragmented polarization), which have changed over the past fifty years. Accordingly, agriculture's recent history is interpreted as the joint transformation of socioeconomic orders and these modes of polarization. - Special issue on Agriculture and food.     

Towards Design Theory and Expandable Rationality: The Unfinished Program of Herbert Simon

Journal of Management and Governance -