Endocrinologic Control of Men's Sexual Desire and Arousal/Erection

Several hormones and neurotransmitters orchestrate men's sexual response, including the appetitive (sexual desire) and consummative (arousal and penile erection) phases. AIM: To provide an overview and recommendations regarding endocrinologic control of sexual desire and arousal and erection and their disturbances. METHODS: Medical literature was reviewed by the subcommittee of the International Consultation of Sexual Medicine, followed by extensive internal discussion, and then public presentation and discussion with other experts. The role of pituitary (prolactin, oxytocin, growth hormone, and α-melanocyte-stimulating hormone), thyroid, and testicular hormones was scrutinized and discussed. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Recommendations were based on grading of evidence-based medical literature, followed by interactive discussion. RESULTS: Testosterone has a primary role in controlling and synchronizing male sexual desire and arousal, acting at multiple levels. Accordingly, meta-analysis indicates that testosterone therapy for hypogonadal individuals can improve low desire and erectile dysfunction. Hyperprolactinemia is associated with low desire that can be successfully corrected by appropriate treatments. Oxytocin and α-melanocyte-stimulating hormone are important in eliciting sexual arousal; however, use of these peptides, or their analogs, for stimulating sexual arousal is still under investigation. Evaluation and treatment of other endocrine disorders are suggested only in selected cases. CONCLUSION: Endocrine abnormalities are common in patients with sexual dysfunction. Their identification and treatment is strongly encouraged in disturbances of sexual desire and arousal

Heavy-quark jets in hadronic collisions

We present a next-to-leading order QCD calculation of the production rates of jets containing heavy quarks. This calculation is performed using the standard Snowmass jet algorithm; it therefore allows a comparison with similar results known at next-to-leading order for generic jets. As an application, we present results for the inclusive transverse energy of charm and bottom jets at the Tevatron collider, with a complete study of the dependence on the jet cone-size and of the theoretical uncertainties.Comment: 23 pages Latex, uses epsfig.sty, 16 eps figures appended as uuencoded, gzipped, tarred fil

Driving performance via exploration in changing environments: Evidence from Formula One racing

Until recently, scholars have customarily lumped multiple dimensions of environmental change into single constructs, and usually ascertained that the more the context changes, the more value firms derive from higher levels of exploration. In sync with more recent studies focusing on specific dimensions of change, in this paper we borrow theoretical elements from systems theory to examine the possibility that the reward to developing innovative product components may itself be eroded by implicit and yet burgeoning costs to fit the new component technology into existing architectures, thereby dampening system performance. Specifically, we theoretically assess how varying magnitudes of industry regulatory changes affect the optimum level of firm exploration, and propose—counter-intuitively vis-à-vis past literature—that the more radical (i.e., competence-destroying), as opposed to incremental (i.e., competence-enhancing) these changes are, the more the optimum intensity of firm exploration recedes. Based on quantitative as well as qualitative empirical analyses from the Formula One racing industry, we precisely trace the observed performance outcomes back to the underlying logic of our theory, stressing that impaired capabilities to integrate the new component in the architecture re-design, as well as time-based cognitive limitations both operate to inhibit the otherwise positive relationship between firm exploration and performance. In the end, we offer new insights to theory and practice

Surface doping in T6/ PDI-8CN2 Heterostructures investigated by transport and photoemission measurements

In this paper, we discuss the surface doping in sexithiophene (T6) organic field-effect transistors by PDI-8CN2. We show that an accumulation heterojunction is formed at the interface between the organic semiconductors and that the consequent band bending in T6 caused by PDI-8CN2 deposition can be addressed as the cause of the surface doping in T6 transistors. Several evidences of this phenomenon have been furnished both by electrical transport and photoemission measurements, namely the increase in the conductivity, the shift of the threshold voltage and the shift of the T6 HOMO peak towards higher binding energies.Comment: 5 pages, 5 figure

Alternate route to tax equity

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Lipomatous hypertrophy: an accidental finding in heart

Lipomatous hypertrophy is an uncommon benign lesion of the atrium, generally asymptomatic, characterized by unencapsulated accumulation of adipose tissue entrapping cardiomyocytes. This pathology generally remains unnoticed and often emerges as an occasional finding. Here, we report two cases from our hospital including a review of the available literature

Black hole and galaxy coevolution from continuity equation and abundance matching

We investigate the coevolution of galaxies and hosted supermassive black holes (BHs) throughout the history of the universe by a statistical approach based on the continuity equation and the abundance matching technique. Specifically, we present analytical solutions of the continuity equation without source terms to reconstruct the supermassive BH mass function from the active galactic nucleus (AGN) luminosity functions. Such an approach includes physically motivated AGN light curves tested on independent data sets, which describe the evolution of the Eddington ratio and radiative efficiency from slim- to thin-disk conditions. We nicely reproduce the local estimates of the BH mass function, the AGN duty cycle as a function of mass and redshift, along with the Eddington ratio function and the fraction of galaxies with given stellar mass hosting an AGN with given Eddington ratio. We exploit the same approach to reconstruct the observed stellar mass function at different redshift from the ultraviolet and far-IR luminosity functions associated with star formation in galaxies. These results imply that the build-up of stars and BHs in galaxies occurs via in situ processes, with dry mergers playing a ☉marginal role at least for stellar masses ≤ 3 × 1011 M☉ and BH masses 109 M where the statistical data are more secure and less biased by systematic errors. In addition, we develop an improved abundance matching technique to link the stellar and BH content of galaxies to the gravitationally dominant dark matter (DM) component. The resulting relationships constitute a testbed for galaxy evolution models, highlighting the complementary role of stellar and AGN feedback in the star formation process. In addition, they may be operationally implemented in numerical simulations to populate DM halos or to gauge subgrid physics. Moreover, they may be exploited to investigate the galaxy/AGN clustering as a function of redshift, mass, and/or luminosity. In fact, the clustering properties of BHs and galaxies are found to be in full agreement with current observations, thus further validating our results from the continuity equation. Finally, our analysis highlights that (i) the fraction of AGNs observed in the slim-disk regime, where most of the BH mass is accreted, increases with redshift; and (ii) already at z\gtrsim 6$ a substantial amount of dust must have formed over timescales 108 yr in strongly star-forming galaxies, making these sources well within the reach of ALMA surveys in (sub)millimeter bands