Estimating HIV Incidence, Time to Diagnosis, and the Undiagnosed HIV Epidemic Using Routine Surveillance Data.

BACKGROUND Estimates of the size of the undiagnosed HIV-infected population are important to understand the HIV epidemic and to plan interventions, including "test-and-treat" strategies. METHODS We developed a multi-state back-calculation model to estimate HIV incidence, time between infection and diagnosis, and the undiagnosed population by CD4 count strata, using surveillance data on new HIV and AIDS diagnoses. The HIV incidence curve was modelled using cubic splines. The model was tested on simulated data and applied to surveillance data on men who have sex with men in The Netherlands. RESULTS The number of HIV infections could be estimated accurately using simulated data, with most values within the 95% confidence intervals of model predictions. When applying the model to Dutch surveillance data, 15,400 (95% confidence interval [CI] = 15,000, 16,000) men who have sex with men were estimated to have been infected between 1980 and 2011. HIV incidence showed a bimodal distribution, with peaks around 1985 and 2005 and a decline in recent years. Mean time to diagnosis was 6.1 (95% CI = 5.8, 6.4) years between 1984 and 1995 and decreased to 2.6 (2.3, 3.0) years in 2011. By the end of 2011, 11,500 (11,000, 12,000) men who have sex with men in The Netherlands were estimated to be living with HIV, of whom 1,750 (1,450, 2,200) were still undiagnosed. Of the undiagnosed men who have sex with men, 29% (22, 37) were infected for less than 1 year, and 16% (13, 20) for more than 5 years. CONCLUSIONS This multi-state back-calculation model will be useful to estimate HIV incidence, time to diagnosis, and the undiagnosed HIV epidemic based on routine surveillance data.

An examination of the link between just world belief and schadenfreude

Schadenfreude is a pleasure derived from someone else’s misfortune. Just world belief is a desire to belief that people get what they deserve and deserve what they get (Lerner, 1965,1980). Interestingly, previous scholars documented the link between schadenfreude, responsibility and deservingness (e.g. van Dijk, Goslinga, & Ouwerkerk, 2008), i.e. the more failure is deserved, the more perceived responsibility for the failure, and subsequently more schadenfreude is evoked. Thus, the present study tested if a threat of a just world belief intensifies experience of schadenfreude. The participants (N=48, 31 women and 17 men, M age = 23.72), were randomly assigned to one of two experimental conditions (just world belief: threat versus no-threat) between-participant design. They read scenarios which were designed to threaten or maintain their just world belief. Next, they were transferred to an online magazine presenting funny stories about other peoples’ failures. The stories were selected in a pilot study in order to evoke schadenfreude. As presumed, the participants exposed to the threat of just world belief experienced more schadenfreude, i.e. spent more time on reading schadenfreude stories. The results confirmed the existence of a link between just world threat and schadenfreude.

Printed Narrative: The Festival Books for Archduke Ernest of Austria from Brussels and Antwerp 1594

Workshop „The Narrative in Eastern and Western Art“, Graduate School of Letters, Kyoto, 2-5 December 2013 Abstract by Ivo Raband, University of Berne Printed Narrative: The Festival Books for Ernest of Austria from Brussels and Antwerp 1594 During the early modern period the medium of the festival book became increasingly more important as an object of ‘political narration’ throughout Europe. Focusing on Netherlandish examples from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, my talk will focus on the festival books printed for the Joyous Entries of Archduke Ernest of Austria (1553–1595). Ernest was appointed Governor General of the Netherlands by King Philipp II in 1593, being the first Habsburg Prince to reside in Brussels since 30 years. In Brussels and Antwerp, the Archduke was greeted with the traditional Blijde Imkomst, Joyous Entry, which dates back to the fourteenth century and was a necessity to actually become the sovereign of Brabant and Antwerp and to uphold the privileges of the cities. Decorated with ephemeral triumphal arches, stages, and tableaux vivants, both cities welcomed Ernest and, at the same time, demonstrated their civic self-assurance and negotiated their statuses. In honor of these events of civic power, the city magistrates commissioned festival books. These books combine a Latin text with a description of the events and the ephemeral structures, including circa 30 engravings and etchings. Being the only visual manifestation of the Joyous Entries, the books became important representational objects. The prints featured in festival books will be my point of departure for discussing the importance of narrative political prints and the concept of the early modern festival book as a ‘political object’. By comparing the prints from Ernest’s entries with others from the period between 1549 and 1635, I will show how the prints became as important as the event itself. Thus, I want to pose the question of whether it would have been possible to substitute a printed version of the event for the actual ceremony.

The Forgotten Archduke: The Funeral Monument for Ernest of Austria in Brussels

Archduke Ernest of Austria (1553–1595), second son of Emperor Maximilian II and younger brother of Emperor Rudolf II, was in his youth a possible candidate for the thrones of the Empire or the Spanish Kingdom. Instead, he became Governor-General of the Netherlands in 1593 and relocated to Brussels in 1594 where he was welcomed with lavish festivities as the bearer of hope and prosperity. Unfortunately, Ernest died only thirteen months later without having achieved any political success. His brother and successor Albert of Austria commissioned the funeral monument for Ernest in 1600 after it was settled that he would be buried in Brussels and not Vienna. Focusing on this monument, which draws stylistically from various dynasty-related models, it will be shown that Albert intended to use this monument – and thus his brother’s memoria – to make the Brussels Cathedral the primary location of Habsburg dynastic memory in the Low Countries.

How parties justified the 2014 EP election debate. A comparative analysis in six EU countries

On the role of parties as important channels for people to voice their preferences there is a sound consensus in the literature. Traditional socio-economic concerns have been more and more displaced by culturally fought issues such as immigration and European integration. Scholarly works, however, have paid less attention how, if at all, parties combine different cultural issues. The primary aim of the analysis is to investigate if and under which conditions parties link immigration and European integration issues to address the growing discontent in the population with these issues. Our expectation is that parties endorse different strategies depending on the party competition, in particular the presence of a populist challenger. The analysis is based on a quantitative content analysis of press releases and newspapers articles published in the 12 weeks preceding the 2014 EP election in five European countries (Austria, Germany, Greece, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom).

How Teresa and Maria Margaretha migrated to Nordstrand: Translation of Relics and Transformation of a German Island into a Catholic Dutch enclave in the 17th century

When on 26 May 1662 the founding first stone was laid for a new church on the island Nordstrand at the coast of Schleswig, relics of Teresa of Avila (1515-1582) and of the Dutch Carmelite abbess Maria Margaretha ab Angelis (1605-1658) were inserted. This church was built for Dutch dyke builders who were called to reconstruct the island after its destruction by flood in 1634; coming from a Catholic background and from the Dutch Republic which was at war with Spain at that time, the dyke builders and their families were guaranteed religious freedom in the Lutheran duchy of Holstein. In this paper, the reasons for the choice for the Spanish mystic Teresa of Avila and for the Dutch Carmelite abbess Maria Margaretha are discussed. The latter patroness was never beatified but had died in the smell of holiness; after her death several miracles were ascribed to her. It is understandable that migrants brought relics of their appreciated holy persons who would remind them of their homeland. The paper will first shortly introduce the two patronesses of the church. In the second part, the reasons for this choice will be discussed. Behind this translation of relics not only spiritual reasons played a role. The function of the translation of the saints was first to keep up geographical and political connections with the old country (both Spain and the Netherlands), secondly to perpetuate personal-familial relationships (esp. with Maria Margaretha), thirdly to strengthen the confessional identity in a non-Catholic environment. Fourthly the transfer brought a certain model of Christian life and reform to the new place of living, which in the second part of the 17th century became marked as “Jansenist”. The paper shows the transformation of the island into an enclave of Dutch Catholic culture.

Did Impending War in Europe Help Destroy the Gold Bloc in 1936? An Internal Inconsistency Hypothesis

This paper investigates the gold bloc operated between France, the Netherlands, Switzerland and Belgium, especially over the period after the USA left the gold standard in March 1933 to its end in September 1936. It enquires into the effect of military-political developments in Germany and Italy on the sustainability of the gold bloc between its members. Juxtaposed is the view of leading political scientists, such as Henry Kissinger, who see impending war in Europe as deeply and adversely affecting psychology in Europe, and what may be called the standard "economists' view" that sees the demise of the gold bloc as being caused almost exclusively by economic factors. Developing concepts of external and internal inconsistency of the gold bloc, this investigation concludes that both economic and military-political developments played important roles in destroying the last vestiges of the gold standard.

Oceanography during TYDEMAN cruise DCM (DeepChlorMax) to the Equatorial Atlantic

The cruise with RV Tydeman was devoted to study permanently stratified plankton systems in the (sub)tropical ocean, which are characterised by a deep chlorophyll peak between 80 and 150 m. To minimise lateral effects by horizontal transport of nutrients and organic matter from river outflow and upwelling regions, stations were selected in the middle of the North Atlantic Ocean between the continents of America and Africa. (5 - 35° N and 50 - 15° W). Here the vertical distributions of light and nutrients control the abundance and growth of autotrophic algae in the thermically stratified water column. This phytoplankton is numerically dominated by the prokaryotic picoplankters Synechococcus spp. and Prochlorococcus spp., which are smaller than 2 ?m. The productivity of the 100 to 150 m deep euphotic zone can be high, because a high heterotrophic/autotrophic biomass ratio induces a rapid regeneration of nutrients and inorganic carbon. Primary grazers are mainly micro-organisms such as heterotrophic nannoflagellates and ciliates, which feed on the small algae and on bacteria. Heterotrophic bacteria can outnumber the autotrophic algae, because their number is related to the substrate pools of dissolved and particulate dead organic matter. These DOC and detritus pools reach equilibrium at a concentration, where the rate of their production (proportional to algal biomass) equals their mineralisation and sinking rate (proportional to the concentration and weight of POC and detritus). At a relatively low value of the weight-specific loss rates, the equilibrium concentration of these carbon pools and their load of bacteria can be high. The bacterial productivity is proportional to the mineralisation rate, which in a steady state can never be higher than the rate of primary production. Hence the ratio in turnover rate of bacteria and autotrophs tends to be reciprocally proportional to their biomass ratio.

Planktonic foraminifera of the Mediterranean Sea

A high-resolution biochronology is presented for the Late Quaternary of the central Mediterranean. In the Late Pleistocene-Holocene successions three assemblage zones are distinguished on the basis of frequency patterns of planktic foraminifera. The age of these zones is determined by Accelerator Mass Spectrometry (AMS)14C dating. The zonal boundaries are dated at 12,700 yr B.P. (the end of Termination Ia) and 9600 yr B.P. (the start of Termination Ib), respectively. The AMS dates show that major changes in the planktic and benthic realms occurred synchronously over wide areas, although records of individual species may show important regional differences. In the studied areas, resedimentation processes revealed by anomalous successions of14C dates, play a far more important role than indicated by the sedimentological and micropaleontological data. Possibly these processes contribute to the very high accumulation rates in the glacial Zone III. Although the AMS technique has increased the accuracy of14C-measurements, admixture of older carbonate may still lead to substantial age differences between areas with different sedimentary regimes.

Soil carbon in the Jena Experiment (all blocks Main Experiment up to 30cm depth, year 2006)

This data set contains soil carbon measurements (Organic carbon, inorganic carbon, and total carbon; all measured in dried soil samples) from the main experiment plots of a large grassland biodiversity experiment (the Jena Experiment; see further details below). In the main experiment, 82 grassland plots of 20 x 20 m were established from a pool of 60 species belonging to four functional groups (grasses, legumes, tall and small herbs). In May 2002, varying numbers of plant species from this species pool were sown into the plots to create a gradient of plant species richness (1, 2, 4, 8, 16 and 60 species) and functional richness (1, 2, 3, 4 functional groups). Plots were maintained by bi-annual weeding and mowing. Soil sampling and analysis: Stratified soil sampling was performed in April 2006 to a depth of 30 cm. Three samples per plot were taken using a split tube sampler with an inner diameter of 4.8 cm (Eijkelkamp Agrisearch Equipment, Giesbeek, the Netherlands). Sampling locations were less than 30 cm apart from sampling locations in 2002. Soil samples were segmented into 5 cm depth segments in the field (resulting in six depth layers) and made into composite samples per depth. Subsequently, samples were dried at 40°C. All soil samples were passed through a sieve with a mesh size of 2 mm. Because of much higher proportions of roots in the soil, samples in years after 2002 were further sieved to 1 mm according to common root removal methods. No additional mineral particles were removed by this procedure. Total carbon concentration was analyzed on ball-milled subsamples (time 4 min, frequency 30 s**-1) by an elemental analyzer at 1150°C (Elementaranalysator vario Max CN; Elementar Analysensysteme GmbH, Hanau, Germany). We measured inorganic carbon concentration by elemental analysis at 1150°C after removal of organic carbon for 16 h at 450°C in a muffle furnace. Organic carbon concentration was calculated as the difference between both measurements of total and inorganic carbon.

Collection of data on particulate and dissolved soil phosphorus in the Jena Experiment (Main Experiment, time series since 2002)

This data set contains two time series of measurements of dissolved phosphorus (organic, inorganic and total with a biweekly resolution) and dissolved inorganic phosphorus with a seasonal resolution. In addition, data on phosphorus from soil samples measured in 2007 and fractionated by different acid-extrations (Hedley fractions) are provided. All data measured at the main experiment plots of a large grassland biodiversity experiment (the Jena Experiment; see further details below). In the main experiment, 82 grassland plots of 20 x 20 m were established from a pool of 60 species belonging to four functional groups (grasses, legumes, tall and small herbs). In May 2002, varying numbers of plant species from this species pool were sown into the plots to create a gradient of plant species richness (1, 2, 4, 8, 16 and 60 species) and functional richness (1, 2, 3, 4 functional groups). Plots were maintained by bi-annual weeding and mowing. 1. Dissolved phosphorus in soil solution: Suction plates installed on the field site in 10, 20, 30 and 60 cm depth were used to sample soil pore water. Cumulatively extracted soil solution was collected every two weeks from October 2002 to May 2006. The biweekly samples from 2002, 2003 and 2004 were analyzed for dissolved organic phosphorus (DOP), dissolved inorganic phosphorus (PO4P) and dissolved total phosphorus (TDP) by Continuous Flow Analyzer (CFA SAN ++, SKALAR [Breda, The Netherlands]). 2. Seasonal values of dissolved inorganic phosphorus in soil solution were calculated as volume-weighted mean values of the biweekly measurements (spring = March to May, summer = June to August, fall = September to November, winter = December to February). 3. Phosphorus fractions in soil: Five independent soil samples per plot were taken in a depth of 0-15 cm using a soil corer with an inner diameter of 1 cm. The five samples per plot were combined to one composite sample per plot. A four-step sequential P fractionation (Hedley fractions) was applied and concentrations of P fractions in soil were measured photometrically (molybdenum blue-reactive P) with a Continuous Flow Analyzer (Bran&Luebbe, Germany).