Two Faces of AIDS in Hong Kong: Culture and the Construction of the `AIDS Celebrity'

Since the first reported case of HIV infection in Hong Kong in 1985, only two HIV-positive individuals in the territory have voluntarily made public their seropositivity: a British dentist named Mike Sinclair, who disclosed his condition to the media in 1992 and died in 1995, and J.J. Chan, a local Chinese disc-jockey, who came forward in 1995 and died just a few months later. When they made their revelations, both became instant media personalities and were invited by the Hong Kong Government to act as spokespeople for AIDS awareness and prevention. Mike Sinclair worked as an education officer for the Hong Kong AIDS Foundation, and J.J. Chan appeared in Government television commercials about AIDS. This article explores how the public identities of these two figures were constructed in the cultural context of Hong Kong where both Eastern and Western values exist side by side and interact. It argues that the construction of `AIDS celebrities' is a kind of `identity project' negotiated among the players involved: the media, the Government, the public, and the person with AIDS (PWA) himself, each bringing to the construction their own `theories' regarding the self and communication. When the players in the construction hold shared assumptions about the nature of the self and the role of communication in enacting it, harmonious discourses arise, but when cultural models among the players differ, contradictory or ambiguous constructions result. The effect of culture on the way `AIDS celebrities' are constructed has implications for the way societies view the issue of AIDS and treat those who have it. It also helps reveal possible sites of difficulty when individuals of different cultures communicate about the issue.

Biogeography of Glandulocaudinae (Teleostei : Characiformes : Characidae) revisited: phylogenetic patterns, historical geology and genetic connectivity

The biogeography of the Glandulocaudinae ( former Glandulocaudini) is reviewed. The major pattern of diversification presented by this group of freshwater fishes can be clearly associated to the main aspects of the tectonic evolution of the southern portion of the Cis-Andean South American Platform. The phylogenetic relationships within the group suggest that the clade represented by Lophiobrycon is the sister-group of the more derived clade represented by the genus Glandulocauda and Mimagoniates. Lophiobrycon and Glandulocauda occur in areas of the ancient crystalline shield of southeastern Brazil and their present allopatric distribution is probably due to relict survival and tectonic vicariant events. Populations of Glandulocauda melanogenys are found in contiguous drainages in presently isolated upper parts of the Tiete, Guaratuba, Itatinga, and Ribeira de Iguape basins and this pattern of distribution is probably the result of river capture caused by tectonic processes that affected a large area in eastern and southeastern Brazil. The species of Mimagoniates are predominantly distributed along the eastern and southeastern coastal areas, but M. microlepis is additionally found in the rio Iguacu and Tibagi basins. Mimagoniates barberi occurs in both SW margin of the upper rio Parana basin and the lower Paraguay and Mimagoniates sp. occurs in the upper Paraguay river basin. Tectonic activations of the Continental Rift of Southeastern Brazil along the eastern margin of the Upper Parana basin promoted population fragmentation responsible of the present day distribution presented by Glandulocauda melanogenys. We hypothesize that occurrence of Mimagoniates along the lowland area around the Parana basin was due to a single or a multiple fragmentation of populations along the W-SW border of the upper Parana Basin, probably due to the major tectonic origin of the Chaco-Pantanal wetland foreland basins since the Miocene as well as Cenozoic tectonic activity along the borders of the upper Parana basin, such as in the eastern Paraguay, in the Asuncion Rift. Distributional pattern of Mimagoniates suggests that its initial diversification may be related to the tectonic evolution of the Chaco-Pantanal foreland basin system and a minimum age of 2.5 M.Y are proposed for this monophyletic group. Previous hypotheses on sea level fluctuations of the late Quaternary as being the main causal mechanism promoting cladogenesis and speciation of the group are critically reviewed. Phylogeographic studies based on molecular data indicate significant differences among the isolated populations of M. microlepis. These findings suggest that a much longer period of time and a paleogeographic landscape configuration of the Brazilian southeastern coastal region explain the present observed phylogenetic and biogeographic patterns.

A revision of the spider genera Chaetopelma ausserer 1871 and Nesiergus simon 1903 (Araneae, theraphosidae, ischnocolinae)

Chaetopelma Ausserer 1871 and Nesiergus Simon 1903 are revised. Cratorrhagus Simon 1891 is considered a junior synonym of Chaetopelma. Cratorrhagus tetramerus (Simon 1873) and the female of Cratorrhagus concolor (Simon 1873) are conspecific with C. olivaceum (C. L. Koch 1841). Ischnocolus gracilis Ausserer 1871, Ischnocolus syriacus Ausserer 1871, Chaetopelma shabati Hassan 1950 and Ischnocolus jerusalemensis Smith 1990 are also treated here as junior synonyms of C. olivaceum. Chaetopelma adenense Simon 1890 is proposed as a junior synonym of Ischnocolus jickelii L. Koch 1875. Chaetopelma gardineri Hirst 1911 is transferred to Nesiergus. Hence, Chaetopelma comprises three valid species: C. olivaceum (C. L. Koch 1841); C. karlamani Vollmer 1997; C. concolor (Simon 1873) n. comb. from the Middle East and northeastern Africa. Nesiergus, which appears endemic to the Seychelles archipelago, now comprises three valid species: N. gardineri (Hirst 1911) n. comb.; N. halophilus Benoit 1978; N. insulanus Simon 1903.

Phylogeography and evolutionary history of dengue virus type 3

In this study, we revisited the phylogeography of the three of major DENV-3 genotypes and estimated its rate of evolution, based on the analysis of the envelope (E) gene of 200 strains isolated from 31 different countries around the world over a time period of 50 years (1956-2006). Our phylogenetic analysis revealed a geographical subdivision of DENV-3 population in several country-specific clades. Migration patterns of the main DENV-3 genotypes showed that genotype I was mainly circumspect to the maritime portion of Southeast-Asia and South Pacific, genotype 11 stayed within continental areas in South-East Asia, while genotype III spread across Asia, East Africa and into the Americas. No evidence for rampant co-circulation of distinct genotypes in a single locality was found, suggesting that some factors, other than geographic proximity, may limit the continual dispersion and reintroduction of new DENV-3 variants. Estimates of the evolutionary rate revealed no significant differences among major DENV-3 genotypes. The mean evolutionary rate of DENV-3 in areas with long-term endemic transmissions (i.e., Indonesia and Thailand) was similar to that observed in the Americas, which have been experiencing a more recent dengue spread. We estimated the origin of DENV-3 virus around 1890, and the emergence of current diversity of main DENV-3 genotypes between the middle 1960s and the middle 1970s, coinciding with human population growth, urbanization, and massive human movement, and with the description of the first cases of DENV-3 hemorrhagic fever in Asia. (C) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Education and Earnings for Poverty Reduction : Short-Term Evidence of Pro-Poor Growth from the Mexican Oportunidades Program

Education, as an indispensable component of human capital, has been acknowledged to play a critical role in economic growth, which is theoretically elaborated by human capital theory and empirically confirmed by evidence from different parts of the world. The educational impact on growth is especially valuable and meaningful when it is for the sake of poverty reduction and pro-poorness of growth. The paper re-explores the precious link between human capital development and poverty reduction by investigating the causal effect of education accumulation on earnings enhancement for anti-poverty and pro-poor growth. The analysis takes the evidence from a well-known conditional cash transfer (CCT) program — Oportunidades in Mexico. Aiming at alleviating poverty and promoting a better future by investing in human capital for children and youth in poverty, this CCT program has been recognized producing significant outcomes. The study investigates a short-term impact of education on earnings of the economically disadvantaged youth, taking the data of both the program’s treated and untreated youth from urban areas in Mexico from 2002 to 2004. Two econometric techniques, i.e. difference-in-differences and difference-in-differences propensity score matching approach are applied for estimation. The empirical analysis first identifies that youth who under the program’s schooling intervention possess an advantage in educational attainment over their non-intervention peers; with this identification of education discrepancy as a prerequisite, further results then present that earnings of the education advantaged youth increase at a higher rate about 20 percent than earnings of their education disadvantaged peers over the two years. This result indicates a confirmation that education accumulation for the economically disadvantaged young has a positive impact on their earnings enhancement and thus inferring a contribution to poverty reduction and pro-poorness of growth.

Elitutbildning: en strategi för erkännande? : En studie om anti-diskrimineringsstrategier bland juriststudenter med ursprung i Mellanöstern

Elite Education: a strategy for recognition? A study on anti-discrimination strategies among law-students of Middle Eastern background While research show that individuals of foreign background are being discriminated against and stigmatized in Sweden, an increasing number of them still choose higher education and also show a tendency towards choosing an elite education. In this article, I examine if there is a link between experiences of discrimination and the choice of elite education. The study is based upon semi-structured interviews with five female and five male law students of Middle Eastern background. The findings show that discrimination, either against the students or their parents, has led to a high study motivation where the choice of elite education can be understood as an anti-discrimination strategy. Other anti-discrimination strategies are to resist a victim mentality and to destigmatize by challenging stereotypes. These anti-discrimination strategies can be understood as strategies for recognition, that is, striving for equality by being ascribed a positive status.

High-School Students´ Summer Jobs and their Ensuing Labor Market Achievement : the Long Term Effect

In part because of high and persistent youth unemployment, adolescent students’ transition from school to work is an important policy and research topic. Many countries have implemented public programs offering summer jobs or work while in high-school as measures to smooth the transition. While the immediate effect of the programs on school attendance, school grades, and disposable income is well documented, their effect on the transition to the labor market remains an open question. Observational studies have shown strong positive effects of summer jobs, but also that the estimated effect is highly vulnerable to selection bias. In this paper, some 3700 high-school students applying for summer jobs in the period 1995-2003,via a program, are followed to 30 years of age. A quarter of the applicants were randomly offered a summer job each year. Among the remaining students, 50% had a (non-program related) summer job while in high-school. We find the income, post high-school, for the offered and non-offered groups to be similar and conclude that the effect of summer jobs on the transition to the labor market is inconsequential.

Democracy and capitalist revolution

Democracy became the preferred and consolidated form of government only in the twentieth century. It is not sufficient to explain this change solely by reference to rational motives, nor by detecting processes and leadership. A historical approach is required. The new historical fact that led to the change of preference from aristocratic rule to democracy is the capitalist revolution, which changed the manner of appropriating the economic surplus from violence to the market. This is the first necessary condition for democracy. The disappearance of the fear of expropriation, the rise of middle classes and the pressures of the poor or of the workers are the second, third and fourth new historical facts that opened the way for the transition from the liberal to the liberal-democratic regime. After these four conditions were fulfilled, the elites ceased to fear that they would be expropriated if universal suffrage was granted. Eventually, after the transition, the democratic regime became the rational choice for all classes. The theory presented here does not predict transitions, since countries often turn democratic without fully realized historical conditions, but it predicts democratic consolidation, since no country that has completed its capitalist revolution falls back into authoritarianism.

Democracy and growth in pre-industrial countries

This paper distinguishes three types of countries (rich, middle-income, and pre-industrial) and focus on the latter, which, in contrast to the other two, didn’t complete their industrial and capitalist revolutions. Can pre-industrial countries be governed well and embody the principles of consolidated democracies? Today these countries are under pressure from the imperial West to eschew institutions and developmental strategies that, in the past, allowed rich and middle-income countries to industrialize. At the same time, they are pressured by these same Western parties (and by its own people) to be democratic, even though their societies are not mature enough to fulfill that. In fact, no country completed its industrial and capitalist revolution within the framework of even a minimal democracy, suggesting that such demands are unfair. Added to this, pre-industrial countries are extremely difficult to govern because they usually don’t have a strong nation and capable states. This double pressure to renounce development strategies that have worked for the West while being required to become a democracy represents a major obstacle to their development.

Desenvolvimento, pobreza e meio ambiente no seridó potiguar: um estudo centrado nas micro-regiões do seridó oriental e ocidental

This research work intends to carry out a study focused on the dynamic between development, poverty reduction and conservation of natural resources. To consider this relationship to the region chosen was the micro-region of Eastern and Western Seridó in the state of Rio Grande do Norte. In recent years, several studies (Araújo, 2011; BASTOS, 2009) have pointed out that after a period of economic crisis in its tripodproductive, formed by the activities of farming, cotton farming, mining and faced in the eighties, this region of the State of Rio Grande do Norte, has not only shown signs of economic recovery but also improve their social indicators. On the other hand, studies of desertification as the view of the state of RN (produced in cooperation between the Government of RN and research institutions) and the Sustainable Development Plan of Seridó (ADES, 2000), indicate that there is an ongoing French process of degradation of natural resources that is capable of compromising the ability of sustaining such a system. To verify this reality and likely finding this relationship, this work is adopted for this study, the analysis of evolution of secondary data from official bodies such as the IBGE on HDI, per capita income and other social indicators between 2000 and 2009. Here is another time of the survey analysis of qualitative data collected from interviews with institutions of academic intervention in nature, researchers at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte (UFRN) State agencies that address the issue of the Middle Environment in Seridó: Institute for Sustainable Development of the NB (IDEMA) and the Brazilian Institute of Environment and the Amazon (IBAMA) and institutions of direct intervention in the region, as the Agency's Sustainable Development Seridó (adhesive) and the Joint Semi-Arid (ASA). After crossing data from quantitative and qualitative, it was found that the dynamics of the region's economic Seridó Potiguar partially answers the improvement of social indicators of poverty. Contribution by the State in this shared stock transfer income. Regarding the influence of productive restructuring in the region on issues of environment, it is noted that the ceramic tile industry, responsible for the absorption percentage of the population with limited ingress into the urban economy, given the low education, accounts for the increase of susceptibility to the ongoing process of desertification in North Seridó Rio Grande. We conclude finally that the guarantee of increased income, freedom and conservation of natural resources ensures primarily by changing the beliefs and values, especially on the part of the business sector, which use natural resources so predatory, aimed at maintaining their rates of return on investment. And concomitantly, the synchronization between technological change, through the use of new energy sources, and institutional change.

Molecular characterization of two Brazilian isolates of Lettuce mosaic virus with distinct biological properties

Efetuou-se a clonagem e seqüenciamento do gene que codifica a proteína capsidial de dois isolados do vírus do mosaico da alface (Lettuce mosaic virus, LMV) provenientes do estado de São Paulo, previamente caracterizados como pertencentes aos patótipos II (AF198, incapaz de infetar cultivares com os genes de resistência mo1¹ ou mo1²) e IV (AF199, capaz de quebrar a resistência propiciada pelos genes mo1¹ e mo1²), com base na virulência em cultivares diferenciadoras. Análise comparativa das seqüências de nucleotídeos de isolados provenientes da Europa, América do Norte, Oriente Médio e os dois isolados brasileiros não permitiu sua separação em estirpes, pois as porcentagens de homologia foram sempre superiores a 95%. Entretanto, análise filogenética dos isolados sugere uma origem comum entre o isolado AF-198 e os isolados LMV-R e LMV-0 (patótipo II, provenientes dos Estados Unidos e da França, respectivamente). O isolado AF199 apresentou uma alta homologia de seqüência com os isolados LMV-Aud e LMV-13, ambos provenientes da França. Esses isolados também são relacionados a isolados provenientes do Chile, embora uma origem comum não seja proposta. Eventos independentes de mutação podem estar ocorrendo em diferentes partes do mundo, propiciando o surgimento de novas estirpes de LMV capazes de quebrar a resistência conferida pelos genes mo1¹ e mo1².

Sex Trade Involvement in São Paulo, Brazil and Toronto, Canada: Narratives of Social Exclusion and Fragmented Identities

An extensive international literature has been developed regarding the risk trajectories of sex trade-involved children and youth. This literature has not, however, substantially incorporated the narratives of youths regarding their experiences. In this article, the contemporary literature on child and youth sex trade-involvement is reviewed and the findings of a qualitative analysis of the narratives of 14 youth from São Paulo, Brazil and 58 youth from Toronto, Canada are presented. Substantial similarities were found between the groups of narratives with respect to abusive and unstable home experiences, pathways into the sex trade, social exclusion, and the impacts of the sex trade on physical and mental health. Key areas of divergence included the roles of poverty and drug use in entering the sex trade. The implications of shared experiences of social exclusion and fragmented identity across differing sociocultural contexts for policy and intervention are discussed.

Peripheral facial palsy in the past: contributions from Avicenna, Nicolaus Friedreich and Charles Bell

Este estudo apresenta documentos de paralisia facial periférica nas artes plásticas no Egito antigo, Grécia e Roma, Idade Média, Renascimento e também dos últimos 4 séculos. Pensamos que a história da paralisia facial periférica acompanha a história da própria espécie humana. São apresentadas as contribuições de Avicenna e Nicolaus Friedreich, e são mostradas controvérsias sobre a descrição original de Charles Bell.

Immune responses in sheep naturally infected with Oestrus ovis (Diptera: Oestridae) and gastrointestinal nematodes

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)

Larval development of Apiomithrax violaceus (A. Milne Edwards, 1868) (Decapoda : Brachyura : Majoidea : Pisidae) reared in laboratory conditions, and a review of larval characters of Pisidae

Apiomithrax violaceus (A. Milne Edwards, 1868 ) is a pisid majoid crab occurring in tropical and subtropical coastal waters of the eastern and western South Atlantic. Larval development consists of two zoeal stages and a megalopa. Beginning with the first zoea, the duration of each larval stage at 24degreesC was 3-8 (5+/-1), 3-5 (4+/-0.5) and 9-15 (11+/-2) days, the megalopa and first crab instar appearing 9-11 (10+/-1) and 20-27 (23+/-2) days after hatching, respectively. Larval characters agree with those proposed for the Majoidea, in having nine or more setae on the scaphognathite in the first zoea and well-developed pleopods in the second zoea. However, larvae of A . violaceus do not fit larval pisid features. Zoeal stages differ from most other Pisidae in having lateral spines, a long rostral spine extending beyond the antenna, two spines per telson fork and a dorsolateral process on the third abdominal somite. The megalopa differs in having a spine dorsally on the carapace and on the basial segment of the second pereiopod. Two characters that are potentially unique to Apiomithrax include a zoeal antenna with an exopod that is much longer than the protopod, and a rostral spine that is longer than the dorsal spine. These characters should facilitate the identification of this taxon and could also be useful for phylogenetic studies. A review of larvae of 28 species among 14 genera indicated that there is no apparent single larval character that differentiates the Pisidae, with more limited phylogenetic analyses suggesting that this is a paraphyletic group. Apiomithrax , Eurynolambrus , Pisoides , Rochinia and Scyra have the most divergent morphological characters within the family. The analysis and inclusion of additional taxa is likely to shed more light on the sister-group relationships of the Pisidae. However, based on the extent of morphological interspecific variability of known larvae it is likely that the group, as presently defined by adult morphology, is not monophyletic.