Objective: To determine the current HIV/AIDS Knowledge, Attitudes and Sexual Practices (KASP) indicators among university students that would facilitate development and implementation of a peer education programme and the subsequent monitoring and evaluation of other HIV/AIDS activities. Design: An institutional based cross-sectional study. Setting: Maseno University, Kenya. Subjects: Five hundred students composed of 60% males and 40% females as dictated by the university's male to female ratio. Main outcome measures: Levels of HIV and AIDS awareness, knowledge and attitudes and the current related behavioural trends and tendencies, among the students at the University. Results: Of the five hundred respondents included in the study, 68.5% of them reported having ever had sexual intercourse, with males being the majority at 78.2%, while the females were 54.7%. A large majority (77%) of females were in current sexual relationships compared to 66.7% of males. A significant proportion (54.8%) of first year students reported having had their first sexual intercourse at the university. Sexual activity was seen to increase from 56.9 to 71.2% among the first year students when they got to second year of study at the university. Peer pressure emerged as an important factor in students' sexual behaviour (P=0.001). Of the students, 32% reported having undergone HIV tests, 70.8% were willing to go for a test while 74.3% perceived they had a chance of being infected with the virus based on their previous risky sexual experiences. A significant 77.7% of the respondents affirmed having ever used condoms but only 15.8% reported consistent use. Conclusion: High proportions of students are sexually active with peaks in first and second years of study. This is coupled with an equal inconsistent use of condoms. Peer influence emerged as an important feature in accelerating risky sexual behaviour hence the need for advancing peer education programmes in universities.

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Cultivation of important woody species with the goal of conserving them is hampered by little, or no, information on how such species can be propagated or their seedlings established. We investigated propagation and seedling establishment of 14 important multipurpose species much valued for traditional medicine in Uganda. The experiments included sexual and vegetative propagation, as well as a seedling growth experiment. The multipurpose species Psidium guajava, Markamia lutea, Maesopsis eminii and Spathodea campanulata propagated easily from seed, and Ficus natalensis from cuttings. The medicinal species Zanthoxylum leprieurii, Warburgia ugandensis and Ficus saussureana did not germinate at all. Toddalia asiatica and Canarium schweinfurthii had high dormancy and low synchrony of seed emergence. Markamia lutea seedlings established readily with addition of fertilizer (NPK) and moderate watering (three times a week). We conclude that whereas the multipurpose use species appear to propagate easily, the medicinal plants are difficult to propagate sexually or asexually.

Glioblastoma is the most common and most malignant type of intrinsic brain tumor in adults. The standard of care for glioblastoma consists of surgical debulking followed by combined radiochemotherapy. The clinical efficacy of standard therapies for newly diagnosed glioblastomas is rather modest with the highest survival rate at 5-years being less than 10%. Inevitable recurrence after cytotoxic therapies poses the major challenge in the clinical management of high grade gliomas. For recurrent glioblastomas, there is no standard therapy with lack of level one evidence for treatment efficacy. Recent evidence indicates that post-therapy recurrence in gliomas is a consequence of a plethora of molecular and cellular factors including intratumoural heterogeneity, functional hierarchy of distinct types of glioma cells, dynamic changes in the molecular landscapes and cellular composition of the tumour during therapy and the impact of particular treatment modalities. There is an emerging consensus that molecular distinctions within and between individual tumours is an important factor determining clinical outcomes. Consequently, integrated approaches based on the combination of molecular profiling with traditional methods such as immunohistochemical phenotyping, karyotyping and/or non-quantitative methylation-specific PCR have emerged as a promising venue towards increasing the predictive value of diagnostics for malignant brain tumors. The high level of inter-and intra-tumoural molecular diversity in gliomas underscores the need of integrating high throughput molecular profiling and pharmacogenomics into a diagnostic paradigm for gliomas and raises the possibility that molecular-instructed personalized treatments may provide clinical benefit to patients with glioblastoma, particularly in the setting of post-treatment recurrence. Here we discuss potential prospects and challenges of patient-tailored diagnostics and personalized treatment strategies for recurrent glioblastomas.

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