Bacterial vaginosis as a risk factor for high-grade cervical lesions and cancer in HIV-seropositive women.

OBJECTIVE: To assess the effect of bacterial vaginosis (BV) on the risk of high-grade squamous intraepithelial lesions (HSIL) among HIV-seropositive women. METHODS: A hospital-based prospective cohort study of HIV-seropositive women was conducted in Johannesburg, South Africa from January 2005 to September 2009. Multivariate log-binomial and Poisson regressions were used to estimate prevalence and rate ratios, respectively. RESULTS: Among 1954 HIV-seropositive women, the baseline prevalence of HSIL was 17%. BV prevalence was high (54%) and showed no association with prevalence of HSIL (adjusted prevalence ratio, 1.12; 95% confidence intervals (CI), 0.92-1.35) nor with cervical lesion progression at follow-up visit (n=503) (adjusted rate ratio: 1.00; 95% CI, 0.65-1.53). CONCLUSION: Among HIV-seropositive women, BV was not associated with an increased risk of HSIL or cervical lesion progression.

Paleoenvironmental reconstruction of the coastal Monte Léon and Santa Cruz formations (Early Miocene) at Rincón del Buque, Southern Patagonia: A revisited locality

© 2015 Elsevier Ltd.Sedimentological, ichnological and paleontological analyses of the Early Miocene uppermost Monte León Formation and the lower part of the Santa Cruz Formation were carried out in Rincón del Buque (RDB), a fossiliferous locality north of Río Coyle in Santa Cruz Province, Patagonia, Argentina. This locality is of special importance because it contains the basal contact between the Monte Léon (MLF) and the Santa Cruz (SCF) formations and because it preserves a rich fossil assemblage of marine invertebrates and marine trace fossils, and terrestrial vertebrates and plants, which has not been extensively studied. A ~90m-thick section of the MLF and the SCF that crops out at RDB was selected for this study. Eleven facies associations (FA) are described, which are, from base to top: subtidal-intertidal deposits with Crassotrea orbignyi and bioturbation of the Skolithos-Cruziana ichnofacies (FA1); tidal creek deposits with terrestrial fossil mammals and Ophiomorpha isp. burrows (FA2); tidal flat deposits with Glossifungites ichnofacies (FA3); deposits of tidal channels (FA4) and tidal sand flats (FA5) both with and impoverish Skolithos ichnofacies associated; marsh deposits (FA6); tidal point bar deposits recording a depauperate mixture of both the Skolithos and Cruziana ichnofacies (FA7); fluvial channel deposits (FA8); fluvial point bar deposits (FA9); floodplain deposits (FA10); and pyroclastic and volcaniclastic deposits of the floodplain where terrestrial fossil mammal remains occur (FA11).The transition of the MLF-SCF at RDB reflects a changing depositional environment from the outer part of an estuary (FA1) through the central (FA2-6) to inner part of a tide-dominated estuary (FA7). Finally a fluvial system occurs with single channels of relatively low energy and low sinuosity enclosed by a broad, low-energy floodplain dominated by partially edaphized ash-fall, sheet-flood, and overbank deposits (FA8-11). Pyroclastic and volcaniclastic materials throughout the succession must have been deposited as ash-fall distal facies in a fluvial setting and also were carried by fluvial streams and redeposited in both estuarine and fluvial settings. These materials preserve most of the analyzed terrestrial fossil mammals that characterize the Santacrucian age of the RDB's succession. Episodic sedimentation under volcanic influence, high sedimentation rates and a relatively warm and seasonal climate are inferred for the MLF and SCF section.Lateral continuity of the marker horizons at RDB serve for correlation with other coastal localities such as the lower part of the coastal SCF south of Río Coyle (~17.6-17.4Ma) belonging to the Estancia La Costa Member of the SCF.

New Ways of Looking at the State Apparatus and the State Archive in Nineteenth Century Ireland: Curiosities from that Phonetic Museum - Royal Irish Constabulary Reports and their Political Uses, 1879-91

This essay seeks to contextualise the intelligence work of the Royal Irish Constabulary, particularly in the 1880s, in terms of the wider British and imperial practice and, as a corollary, to reflect upon aspects of the structure of the state apparatus and the state archive in Ireland since the Union. The author contrasts Irish and British police and bureaucratic work and suggests parallels between Ireland and other imperial locations, especially India. This paper also defines the narrowly political, indeed partisan, uses to which this intelligence was put, particularly during the Special Commission of 1888 on 'Parnellism and crime', when governmentheld police records were made available to counsel for The Times. By reflecting on the structure of the state apparatus and its use in this instance, the author aims to further the debate on the governance of nineteenth-century Ireland and to explore issues of colonial identity and practice. The line of argument proposed in this essay is prefigured in Margaret O'Callaghan, British high politics and a nationalist Ireland: criminality, land and the law under Forster and Balfour (Cork, 199

The WEU::A Europe of the Seven, 1954-1969

The history of the Western European Union after 1954–1955 is still a terra incognita. This article examines the function of the Western European Union in the Euro-Atlantic security architecture of the Cold War up to the 1960s. The paper studies the prime shifts of the tectonic plates forming the Western partial system of the bipolar Cold War system – and their systemic repercussions. The relationship between the Western umbrella organisation, NATO, and its European subsystem is analysed in four case studies: (1) the Arms Pool Negotiations of 1955; (2) Selwyn Lloyd's Grand Design of 1956–1957; (3) the wider Political European Union agenda of 1960–1962 and (4) the Western European Union nuclear force project of 1963.

The Bonds of Brotherhood: New Evidence of Sino-North Korean Exchanges, 1950-1954

Drawing on recently declassified documents from the archive of the Foreign Ministry of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), this article looks at China’s relationship with North Korea during and immediately after the Korean War. Although previous scholarship has touched on PRC–North Korean military ties during the war, this article is the first in-depth analysis of issues that are less well understood, notably China’s efforts to cope with a huge influx of refugees from North Korea, the PRC’s economic assistance during the war and in the early postwar reconstruction, and Chinese educational and ideological support for North Korean professionals and party cadres. The article shows that the extensive military coordination between Beijing and Pyongyang was only one way in which the war brought North Korea and the PRC into a closer relationship

Biochemical and physiochemical characteristics of a pre-B cell stimulating factor produced by the plasmacytoma cell line LICR LON HMY2

We have characterized the pre-B cell colony stimulating activity (pre-B cell CSA) from LICR LON HMY2 conditioned medium (CM) by a variety of biochemical techniques. Pre-B cell CSA was found to be associated with a heat stable glycoprotein which has an isoelectric point of 8.3 and a mol. wt, as determined by polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis, of 28-32 kD. The relationship of this activity to previously described factors acting on cells of the B cell lineage is discussed.