Self-Reported Occupational Exposure to HIV and Factors Influencing its Management Practice: A Study of Healthcare Workers in Tumbi and Dodoma Hospitals, Tanzania.

Blood borne infectious agents such as hepatitis B virus (HBV), hepatitis C virus (HCV) and human immune deficiency virus (HIV) constitute a major occupational hazard for healthcare workers (HCWs). To some degree it is inevitable that HCWs sustain injuries from sharp objects such as needles, scalpels and splintered bone during execution of their duties. However, in Tanzania, there is little or no information on factors that influence the practice of managing occupational exposure to HIV by HCWs. This study was conducted to determine the prevalence of self-reported occupational exposure to HIV among HCWs and explore factors that influence the practice of managing occupational exposure to HIV by HCWs in Tanzania. Self-administered questionnaire was designed to gather information of healthcare workers' occupational exposures in the past 12 months and circumstances in which these injuries occurred. Practice of managing occupational exposure was assessed by the following questions: Nearly half of the HCWs had experienced at least one occupational injury in the past 12 months. Though most of the occupational exposures to HIV were experienced by female nurses, non-medical hospital staff received PEP more frequently than nurses and doctors. Doctors and nurses frequently encountered occupational injuries in surgery room and labor room respectively. HCWs with knowledge on the possibility of HIV transmission and those who knew whom to contact in event of occupational exposure to HIV were less likely to have poor practice of managing occupational exposure. Needle stick injuries and splashes are common among HCWs at Tumbi and Dodoma hospitals. Knowledge of the risk of HIV transmission due to occupational exposure and knowing whom to contact in event of exposure predicted practice of managing the exposure. Thus provision of health education on occupational exposure may strengthen healthcare workers' practices to manage occupational exposure

Let's Make Love: Whiteness, Cleanliness and Sexuality in the French Reception of Marilyn Monroe

Copyright © by SAGE PublicationsRichard Dyer’s seminal work on whiteness in film considers Marilyn Monroe as the epitome of an institutionally racist Hollywood system that imagines the most desirable woman to be blonde, given that blondeness is understood as a guarantee of whiteness. This article adds to other recent scholarship on Monroe that has sought to complicate this reading by examining other meanings that can be attributed to her bleached blonde hair. By closely analyzing media texts that discussed Monroe in 1950s France, this article demonstrates the way in which her performance of ideal American female sexuality was read through the prism of Monroe as icon of cleanliness and (linked) modernity. It examines the way in which Monroe’s modernity allowed her to partially escape the traditional feminine private sphere and it concludes that Monroe’s bleached blonde hair can be seen in this context as having liberatory potential

Scripts people live in the marketplace: an application of script analysis to Confessions of a Shopaholic

This paper shows how Script Analysis can produce new marketing theory by applying it to contemporary shopping behaviour via British novelist Madeleine Wickham’s novel, Confessions of a Shopaholic. We show how Becky Bloomwood, the central character, is a Scripted Shopaholic for whom shopping is the activity around which everything else in her live falls in and out of place. In presenting a Scripted Shopaholic Racket System, we theorise: how shopping is used to structure time and relationships with others; the role of injunctions and attributions and related discounting in fulfilling shopping scripts; and, the possibility of freedom from excessive shopping scripts. We therefore bring together psychoanalysis, literary texts, and shopping theories to generate new insights about why people shop (and often shop too much), and how such behaviours might be transforme

Achieving WIPP certification for software: A white paper

The NMT-1 and NMT-3 organizations within the Chemical and Metallurgical Research (CMR) facility at the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) is working to achieve Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) certification to enable them to transport their TRU waste to WIPP. In particular, the NMT-1 management is requesting support from the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory (INEEL) to assist them in making the Laboratory Information Management System (LIMS) software WIPP certifiable. Thus, LIMS must be compliant with the recognized software quality assurance (SQA) requirements stated within the QAPD. Since the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory (INEEL) has achieved WIPP certification, INEEL personnel can provide valuable assistance to LANL by sharing lessons learned and recommendations. Thus, this white paper delineates the particular software quality assurance requirements required for WIPP certification

The ‘brand’ of the Catholic Church in England and Wales: challenges and opportunities for communications

This paper considers the concept of ‘brand’ in relation to religious organisations and, in particular, the Catholic Church in England and Wales. It explores the application of marketing and branding concepts to the Church and reports on perceptions of the Church’s brand and identity. The findings show that the Catholic Church in England and Wales has very strong brand equity and high levels of brand loyalty among its members, although conventional marketing language should be avoided due to the sensitivities involved. The findings suggest that the Church could usefully be regarded as a ‘brand community’, akin in many key respects to brand communities in the commercial sphere. It recommends that Church communications could be enhanced by leveraging the brand more effectively as within a true ‘brand community’ for the purpose of encouraging brand loyalty and energising Church members

A Discourse Analysis of Pilgrimage Reviews

This paper is the first to provide an account of the discursive features of online consumer reviews of pilgrimage sites. Drawing from pilgrimage studies and narrativity theory in consumer research, we explore how consumers communicate the spiritual and material aspects of pilgrimage experiences by examining a corpus of 833 consumer reviews on TripAdvisor of the most sacred pilgrimage sites of the world’s major five faith groups. Pilgrims include analytical discursive features to communicate the material aspect of their consumption experience. They reserve narration for spiritual transformation and the experience of strong emotions. Moreover, review ratings are only reflective of the spiritual aspect of their consumption experience. As such, our research complements previous studies by highlighting the material, physical aspect of this extraordinary consumption experience

Factors influencing nurses' compliance with Standard Precautions in order to avoid occupational exposure to microorganisms: A focus group study

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Nurses may acquire an infection during the provision of nursing care because of occupational exposure to microorganisms. Relevant literature reports that, compliance with Standard Precautions (a set of guidelines that can protect health care professionals from being exposed to microorganisms) is low among nurses. Additionally, high rates of exposure to microorganisms among nurses via several modes (needlesticks, hand contamination with blood, exposure to air-transmitted microorganisms) occur. The aim of the study was to study the factors that influence nurses' compliance with Standard Precaution in order to avoid occupational exposure to pathogens, by employing a qualitative research design.</p> <p>Method</p> <p>A focus group approach was used to explore the issue under study. Four focus groups (N = 30) were organised to elicit nurses' perception of the factors that influence their compliance with Standard Precautions. The Health Belief Model (HBM) was used as the theoretical framework and the data were analysed according to predetermined criteria.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Following content analysis, factors that influence nurses' compliance emerged. Most factors could be applied to one of the main domains of the HBM: benefits, barriers, severity, susceptibility, cues to action, and self-efficacy.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Changing current behavior requires knowledge of the factors that may influence nurses' compliance with Standard Precautions. This knowledge will facilitate in the implementation of programs and preventive actions that contribute in avoiding of occupational exposure.</p

More data than you want, less data than you need: machine learning approaches to starlight subtraction with MagAO-X

High-contrast imaging data analysis depends on removing residual starlight from the host star to reveal planets and disks. Most observers do this with principal components analysis (i.e. KLIP) using modes computed from the science images themselves. These modes may not be orthogonal to planet and disk signals, leading to over-subtraction. The wavefront sensor data recorded during the observation provide an independent signal with which to predict the instrument point-spread function (PSF). MagAO-X is an extreme adaptive optics (ExAO) system for the 6.5-meter Magellan Clay telescope and a technology pathfinder for ExAO with GMagAO-X on the upcoming Giant Magellan Telescope. MagAO-X is designed to save all sensor information, including kHz-speed wavefront measurements. Our software and compressed data formats were designed to record the millions of training samples required for machine learning with high throughput. The large volume of image and sensor data lets us learn a PSF model incorporating all the information available. This will eventually allow us to probe smaller star-planet separations at greater sensitivities, which will be needed for rocky planet imaging.9 pages, 5 figures, proceedings of Adaptive Optics Systems IX at SPIE Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation 202