An HIV epidemic is ready to emerge in the Philippines

Background: The state of the HIV epidemic in the Philippines has been described as "low and slow", which is in stark contrast to many other countries in the region. A review of the conditions for HIV spread in the Philippines is necessary. Methods: We evaluated the current epidemiology, trends in behaviour and public health response in the Philippines to identify factors that could account for the current HIV epidemic, as well as to review conditions that may be of concern for facilitating an emerging epidemic. Results: The past control of HIV in the Philippines cannot be attributed to any single factor, nor is it necessarily a result of the actions of the Filipino government or other stakeholders. Likely reasons for the epidemic's slow development include: the country's geography is complicated; injecting drug use is relatively uncommon; a culture of sexual conservatism exists; sex workers tend to have few clients; anal sex is relatively uncommon; and circumcision rates are relatively high. In contrast, there are numerous factors suggesting that HIV is increasing and ready to emerge at high rates, including: the lowest documented rates of condom use in Asia; increasing casual sexual activity; returning overseas Filipino workers from high-prevalence settings; widespread misconceptions about HIV/AIDS; and high needle-sharing rates among injecting drug users. There was a three-fold increase in the rate of HIV diagnoses in the Philippines between 2003 and 2008, and this has continued over the past year. HIV diagnoses rates have noticeably increased among men, particularly among bisexual and homosexual men (114% and 214% respective increases over 2003-2008). The average age of diagnosis has also significantly decreased, from approximately 36 to 29 years. Conclusions: Young adults, men who have sex with men, commercial sex workers, injecting drug users, overseas Filipino workers, and the sexual partners of people in these groups are particularly vulnerable to HIV infection. There is no guarantee that a large HIV epidemic will be avoided in the near future. Indeed, an expanding HIV epidemic is likely to be only a matter of time as the components for such an epidemic are already present in the Philippines.

Participation or further exclusion? : Contestations over forest conservation and control in the East Usambara Mountains, Tanzania

This Ph.D. thesis Participation or Further Exclusion? Contestations over Forest Conservation and Control in the East Usambara Mountains, Tanzania describes and analyses the shift in the prevailing discourse of forest and biodiversity conservation policies and strategies towards more participatory approaches in Tanzania, and the changes in the practises of resource control. I explore the scope for and limits to the different actors and groups who are considered to form the community, to participate in resource control, in a specific historical and socio-economic context. I analyse whether, how and to which extent the targets of such participatory conservation interventions have been able to affect the formal rules and practices of resource control, and explore their different responses and discursive and other strategies in relation to conservation efforts. I approach the problematic through exploring certain participatory conservation interventions and related negotiations between the local farmers, government officials and the external actors in the case of two protected forest reserves in the southern part of the East Usambaras, Tanzania. The study area belongs to the Eastern Arc Mountains that are valued globally and nationally for their high level of biodiversity and number of endemic and near endemic species. The theoretical approach draws from theorising on power, participation and conservation in anthropology of development and post-structuralist political ecology. The material was collected in three stages between 2003 and 2008 by using an ethnographic approach. I interviewed and observed the actors and their resource use and control practices at the local level, including the representatives of the villagers living close to the protected forests and the conservation agency, but also followed the selected processes and engaged with the non-local agencies involved in the conservation efforts in the East Usambaras. In addition, the more recent processes of change and the actors strategies in resource control were contextualised against the social and environmental history of the study area and the evolvement of institutions of natural resource control. My findings indicate that the discourse of participation that has emerged in global conservation policy debate within the past three decades, and is being institutionalised in the national policies in many countries, including Tanzania, has shaped the practices of forest conservation in the East Usambaras, although in a fragmented and uneven way. Instrumental interpretation of participation, in which it is to serve the goals of improving the control of the forest and making it more acceptable and efficient, has prevailed among the governmental actors and conservation organisations. Yet, there is variation between the different projects and actors promoting participatory conservation regarding the goals and means of participation, e.g. to which extent the local people are to be involved in decision-making. The actors representing communities also have their diverse agendas, understandings and experiences regarding the rationality, outcomes and benefits of being involved in forest control, making the practices of control fluid. The elements of the exclusive conservation thinking and practices co-exist with the more recent participatory processes, and continue to shape the understandings and strategies of the actors involved in resource control. The ideas and narratives of the different discourses are reproduced and selectively used by the parties involved. The idea of forest conservation is not resisted as such by most of the actors at local level, quite the opposite. However, the strict regulations and rules governing access to resources, such as valuable timber species, continue to be disputed by many. Furthermore, the history of control, such as past injustices related to conservation and unfulfilled promises, undermines the participation of certain social groups in resource control and benefit sharing. This also creates controversies in the practices of conservation, and fuels conflicts regarding the establishment of new protected areas. In spite of this, the fact that the representatives of the communities have been invited to the arenas where information is shared, and principles and conditions of forest control and benefit sharing are discussed and partly decided upon, has created expectations among the participants, and opened up opportunities for some of the local actors to enhance their own, and sometimes wider interests in relation to resource control and the related benefits. The local actors experiences of the previous government and other interventions strongly affect how they position themselves in relation to conservation interventions, and their responses and strategies. However, my findings also suggest, in a similar way to research conducted in some other protected areas, that the benefits of participation in conservation and resource control tend to accrue unevenly between different groups of local people, e.g. due to unequal access to information and differences in their initial resources and social position.

On the Discursive Construction of Corruption: A Critical Analysis of Media Texts

While extant studies have greatly advanced our understanding of corruption, we still know little of the processes through which specific practices or events come to be labeled as corruption. In a time when public attention devoted to corruption and other forms of corporate misbehavior has exploded, this thesis raises – and seeks to answer – crucial questions related to how the phenomenon is socially and discursively constructed. What kinds of struggles are manifested in public disputes about corruption? How do constructions of corruption relate with broader conceptions of (il)legitimacy in and around organizations? What are the discursive dynamics involved in the emergence and evolution of corruption scandals? The thesis consists of four essays that each employ different research designs and tackle these questions in slightly different theoretical and methodological ways. The empirical focus is on the media coverage of a number of significant and widely discussed scandals in Norway in the period 2003-2008. By illuminating crucial processes through which conceptions of corruption were constructed, reproduced, and transformed in these scandals, the thesis seeks to paint a more nuanced picture of corruption than what is currently offered in the literature. In particular, the thesis challenges traditional conceptions of corruption as a dysfunctional feature of organizations in and of itself by emphasizing the ambiguous, temporal, context-specific, and at times even contradictory features of corruption in public discussions.

Streamflow response of a small forested catchment on different timescales

The hydrological response of a catchment to rainfall on different timescales is result of a complex system involving a range of physical processes which may operate simultaneously and have different spatial and temporal influences. This paper presents the analysis of streamflow response of a small humid-temperate catchment (Aixola, 4.8 km(2)) in the Basque Country on different timescales and discusses the role of the controlling factors. Firstly, daily time series analysis was used to establish a hypothesis on the general functioning of the catchment through the relationship between precipitation and discharge on an annual and multiannual scale (2003-2008). Second, rainfall-runoff relationships and relationships among several hydrological variables, including catchment antecedent conditions, were explored at the event scale (222 events) to check and improve the hypothesis. Finally, the evolution of electrical conductivity (EC) during some of the monitored storm events (28 events) was examined to identify the time origin of waters. Quick response of the catchment to almost all the rainfall events as well as a considerable regulation capacity was deduced from the correlation and spectral analyses. These results agree with runoff event scale data analysis; however, the event analysis revealed the non-linearity of the system, as antecedent conditions play a significant role in this catchment. Further, analysis at the event scale made possible to clarify factors controlling (precipitation, precipitation intensity and initial discharge) the different aspects of the runoff response (runoff coefficient and discharge increase) for this catchment. Finally, the evolution of EC of the waters enabled the time origin (event or pre-event waters) of the quickflow to be established; specifically, the conductivity showed that pre-event waters usually represent a high percentage of the total discharge during runoff peaks. The importance of soil waters in the catchment is being studied more deeply.

Long-term monitoring of habitats and reef fish found inside and outside the U.S. Virgin Islands Coral Reef National Monument: a comparative assessment

The primary objective of this study was to assess the efficacy of the Virgin Islands Coral Reef National Monument (VICR), a marine protected area in St John, US Virgin Islands. Surveys of habitat and fishes inside and outside of VICR were conducted in 2003-2008. Areas outside the VICR had significantly more scleractinian corals, greater habitat complexity, and greater species richness and density of reef fishes than areas inside., Areas inside and outside the VICR exhibited significant decreases in percent scleractinian coral coverage over the study period. A contrasting trend of increasing macroalgal cover was also observed. No clear effect of the severe 2005 coral bleaching event was observed suggesting other causal factors. No obvious trends in the fish community were observed across the study period. The significant decline in habitat condition, coupled with the initial incorporation of some of the more degraded reefs into the marine protected area may result in a longer time period necessary to detect positive changes in the St. John coral reef ecosystem and associated reef fish abundance and community structure.

支持WSRP 2.0规范的联邦门户的设计与实现

门户（Portal）是基于组件的web应用，它可以集成Internet环境下各种现有应用系统、数据资源和网络信息资源，并为用户形成个性化的访问页面，实现信息的集成和发布。Portlet是门户中的可重用组件，能够提供对web内容、应用程序和其他资源的访问。JSR168规范（Portlet 1.0）和JSR286规范（Portlet 2.0）提供了Portlet的标准。 随着门户的广泛使用，门户已经成为获取信息，巩固和整合IT基础设施的平台。于是来自于同一公司的、自主的、分散的多个部门都部署了自己的门户，但这些门户之间却无法进行内容共享，即Portlet在门户之间的集成。于是出现了联邦门户（Federated Portals），它是由多个分散的门户构成的网络，这些门户基于共同的标准协同工作。联邦门户实现了在异构门户之间共享远程内容，这些远程内容来自于名为生产者的门户，被收集、组合和运行在名为消费者的门户中。 联邦门户的基本特征是基于规范实现跨门户的系统联合。因此联邦门户的关键在于对门户间互操作标准的制定。这个标准就是OASIS推出的WSRP（Web Services for Remote Portlets）规范。WSRP规范提供了门户间互操作标准，成为联邦门户的基础技术。它有1.0和2.0两个版本，分别产生于2003年和2008年。 为了提高联邦门户应用的构建效率，增强异构门户互操作性的能力，完善联邦门户的用户友好性，需要为OncePortal提供支持WSRP 2.0规范的联邦门户。 本文从WSRP 2.0规范和联邦门户的需求出发，设计并实现了支持WSRP 2.0规范的联邦门户。首先根据WSRP 2.0规范对远程Portlet的语法模型、交互模型和生命周期模型三个方面进行特征分析；其次总结了联邦门户的核心功能、系统边界，并给出了联邦门户的设计；然后从Portlet URL的生成与改写、Portlet统一协作框架、远程Portlet资源服务、WSRP容器和代理容器以及Portlet缓存共5个方面介绍了联邦门户的关键技术；最后基于以上分析和设计，实现了联邦门户扩展应用，并将其应用在中科院软件所自主研发的门户产品OncePortal中。

基于图形衬底的InAs/GaAs量子点和量子环液滴外延

液滴外延生长半导体材料是一种较为新颖的MBE生长技术,而图形衬底对液滴外延的影响到目前为止并没有非常详细的研究结果.作者在GaAsμm级别图形衬底上进行了InAs的液滴外延生长,并在不同结构的图形衬底上得到了不同的InAs量子点和量子环生长结果.基于生长结果,分析了图形衬底对液滴外延的影响和液滴外延下量子点和量子环的形成机制以及分布规律.