In post-Apartheid South Africa, women are constitutionally guaranteed protections and freedoms that were previously unknown to them. These freedoms may have positive implications for women’s ability to negotiate sexual protection with partners and hence prevent unintended pregnancy and decrease their risk of HIV. Among tertiary institution students who are a relatively ‘privileged’ group, there is little information on gender norms that might shape responses to HIV prevention programmes. To elicit gender norms regarding women’s and men’s roles, condom and contraceptive use, sexual communication, and sexual pleasure, we conducted 10 semi-structured focus group discussions with African and Indian female tertiary institution students so as to understand how norms might be used to buttress HIV and pregnancy prevention. Participants reported dramatic changes in the structure of gender norms and relations with the formal recognition of women’s rights in the post-Apartheid context. These generational shifts in norms are supported by other research in South Africa. At the same time, women recognized the co-existence of traditional constructions of gender that operate to constrain women’s freedom. The perceived changes that have taken place provide an entry point for intervention, particularly for reinforcing emerging gender norms that promote women’s protection against unintended pregnancy and HIV/STIs.

Despite limited safety data and the absence of efficacy data, several studies have reported that the female condom is being used for anal sex by men who have sex with men. We describe providers' awareness of female condom use during anal sex among their clients and their experiences in counseling clients. We conducted semi-structured interviews with 78 health care providers recruited from various health care delivery systems in New York City: a family planning agency, a sexually transmitted disease agency, a hospital-based obstetrics and gynecology clinic, and two communitybased AIDS service organizations. While two-thirds of providers reported that they were uncertain as to whether the female condom could or should be used for anal intercourse, nearly one-third believed that anything is better than nothing to prevent HIV/STIs during anal sex. Few providers had actually talked with clients about anal use of the female condom, and clients themselves had seldom mentioned nor asked for information about such use. Our findings highlight providers' uncertainty about anal use of the female condom. Lacking guidelines regarding the safety and efficacy of female condom use during anal sex, health care providers are left to make their own well-intentioned recommendations (or not) to potential users. The dearth of information on female condom use during anal sex could encourage individuals to use the female condom for anal sex, which may increase HIV transmission risk or represent a missed opportunity for protecting non-condom users. There is a need for a series of safety, acceptability, and efficacy studies and, in the interim, for the development of a carefully qualified harm-reduction set of guidelines regarding anal use of the female condom for health care providers.

Techniques based on vacuum bagging (VB) and electrophoretic impregnation (EPI) have been investigated for the impregnation of SiC powder into layered Nicalon SiC fabric preforms. The aim was to produce preimpregnated samples for subsequent chemical vapor infiltration (CVI) with reduced intertow porosity that arises from the construction of the fabric layers while leaving unblocked the intratow porosity that is so indispensable for a successful infiltration. Because the goal was simply to learn about the ability to impregnate the samples, no interphase coating was applied to the fibers as would normally be used when producing SiC f /SiC composites. While the VB process generally yielded much stronger preforms, depending on the pressure used and the powder particle size, it resulted in powder becoming located in the intratow rather than the intertow porosity. In contrast, provided an appropriate electrode arrangement was used, EPI offered the potential for a more controlled impregnation process with the powder primarily found in the intertow porosity; however, the preforms were very weak and delaminated easily. The combination of the two processes resulted in a very successful approach, with greater uniformity of particle infiltration and higher green strengths, while largely avoiding impregnating the intratow porosity.

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