12,853 research outputs found
“I wish I’d told them”: a qualitative study examining the unmet psychosexual needs of prostate cancer patients during follow-up after treatment
<b>Objective</b> To gain insight into patients' experiences of follow-up care after treatment for prostate cancer and identify unmet psychosexual needs.<p></p>
<b>Methods</b> Semi-structured interviews were conducted with a purposive sample of 35 patients aged 59-82 from three UK regions. Partners were included in 18 interviews. Data were analyzed using constant comparison. <p></p>
<b>Results</b> (1) Psychosexual problems gained importance over time, (2) men felt they were rarely invited to discuss psychosexual side effects within follow-up appointments and lack of rapport with health care professionals made it difficult to raise problems themselves, (3) problems were sometimes concealed or accepted and professionals' attempts to explore potential difficulties were resisted by some, and (4) older patients were too embarrassed to raise psychosexual concerns as they felt they would be considered 'too old' to be worried about the loss of sexual function.<p></p>
<b>Conclusion</b> Men with prostate cancer, even the very elderly, have psychosexual issues for variable times after diagnosis. These are not currently always addressed at the appropriate time for the patient.Practice implications Assessments of psychosexual problems should take place throughout the follow-up period, and not only at the time of initial treatment. Further research examining greater willingness or reluctance to engage with psychosexual interventions may be particularly helpful in designing future intervention
Thickness dependence of spin-orbit torques generated by WTe2
We study current-induced torques in WTe2/permalloy bilayers as a function of
WTe2 thickness. We measure the torques using both second-harmonic Hall and
spin-torque ferromagnetic resonance measurements for samples with WTe2
thicknesses that span from 16 nm down to a single monolayer. We confirm the
existence of an out-of-plane antidamping torque, and show directly that the
sign of this torque component is reversed across a monolayer step in the WTe2.
The magnitude of the out-of-plane antidamping torque depends only weakly on
WTe2 thickness, such that even a single-monolayer WTe2 device provides a strong
torque that is comparable to much thicker samples. In contrast, the
out-of-plane field-like torque has a significant dependence on the WTe2
thickness. We demonstrate that this field-like component originates
predominantly from the Oersted field, thereby correcting a previous inference
drawn by our group based on a more limited set of samples.Comment: 8 pages, 8 figure
Comparing Simulations and Observations of the Lyman-Alpha Forest I. Methodology
We describe techniques for comparing spectra extracted from cosmological
simulations and observational data, using the same methodology to link
Lyman-alpha properties derived from the simulations with properties derived
from observational data. The eventual goal is to measure the coherence or
clustering properties of Lyman-alpha absorbers using observations of quasar
pairs and groups. We quantify the systematic underestimate in opacity that is
inherent in the continuum fitting process of observed spectra over a range of
resolution and signal-to-noise ratio. We present an automated process for
detecting and selecting absorption features over the range of resolution and
signal-to-noise of typical observational data on the Lyman-alpha "forest".
Using these techniques, we detect coherence over transverse scales out to 500
h^{-1}_{50} kpc in spectra extracted from a cosmological simulation at z = 2.Comment: 52 pages, includes 14 figures, to appear in ApJ v566 Feb 200
Measuring gravitational lens time delays using low-resolution radio monitoring observations
Obtaining lensing time delay measurements requires long-term monitoring
campaigns with a high enough resolution (< 1 arcsec) to separate the multiple
images. In the radio, a limited number of high-resolution interferometer arrays
make these observations difficult to schedule. To overcome this problem, we
propose a technique for measuring gravitational time delays which relies on
monitoring the total flux density with low-resolution but high-sensitivity
radio telescopes to follow the variation of the brighter image. This is then
used to trigger high-resolution observations in optimal numbers which then
reveal the variation in the fainter image. We present simulations to assess the
efficiency of this method together with a pilot project observing radio lens
systems with the Westerbork Synthesis Radio Telescope (WSRT) to trigger Very
Large Array (VLA) observations. This new method is promising for measuring time
delays because it uses relatively small amounts of time on high-resolution
telescopes. This will be important because instruments that have high
sensitivity but limited resolution, together with an optimum usage of followup
high-resolution observations from appropriate radio telescopes may in the
future be useful for gravitational lensing time delay measurements by means of
this new method.Comment: 10 pages, 7 figures, accepted by MNRA
Are Ferroan Anorthosites Direct Products of the Lunar Magma Ocean?
According to Lunar Magma Ocean (LMO) theory, lunar samples that fall into the ferroan anorthosite (FAN) category represent the only samples we have of of the primordial crust of the Moon. Modeling indicates that plagioclase crystallizes after >70% LMO crystallization and formed a flotation crust, depending upon starting composition. The FAN group of highlands materials has been subdivided into mafic-magnesian, mafic-ferroan, anorthositic- sodic, and anorthositic-ferroan, although it is not clear how these subgroups are related. Recent radiogenic isotope work has suggested the range in FAN ages and isotopic systematics are inconsistent with formation of all FANs from the LMO. While an insulating lid could have theoretically extend the life of the LMO to explain the range of the published ages, are the FAN compositions consistent with crystallization from the LMO? As part of a funded Emerging Worlds proposal (NNX15AH76G), we examine this question through analysis of FAN samples. We compare the results with various LMO crystallization models, including those that incorporate the influence of garnet
You are what you eat, or are you? The challenges of translating high-fat-fed rodents to human obesity and diabetes
Obesity and type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) are rapidly growing worldwide epidemics with major health consequences. Various human-based studies have confirmed that both genetic and environmental factors (particularly high-caloric diets and sedentary lifestyle) greatly contribute to human T2DM. Interactions between obesity, insulin resistance and β-cell dysfunction result in human T2DM, but the mechanisms regulating the interplay among these impairments remain unclear. Rodent models of high-fat diet (HFD)-induced obesity have been used widely to study human obesity and T2DM. With \u3e9000 publications on PubMed over the past decade alone, many aspects of rodent T2DM have been elucidated; however, correlation to human obesity/diabetes remains poor. This review investigates the reasons for this translational discrepancy by critically evaluating rodent HFD models. Dietary modification in rodents appears to have limited translatable benefit for understanding and treating human obesity and diabetes due—at least in part—to divergent dietary compositions, species/strain and gender variability, inconsistent disease penetrance, severity and duration and lack of resemblance to human obesogenic pathophysiology. Therefore future research efforts dedicated to acquiring translationally relevant data—specifically human data, rather than findings based on rodent studies—would accelerate our understanding of disease mechanisms and development of therapeutics for human obesity/T2DM
The Galaxy Angular Correlation Functions and Power Spectrum from the Two Micron All Sky Survey
We calculate the angular correlation function of galaxies in the Two Micron
All Sky Survey. We minimize the possible contamination by stars, dust, seeing
and sky brightness by studying their cross correlation with galaxy density, and
limiting the galaxy sample accordingly. We measure the correlation function at
scales between 1-18 arcdegs using a half million galaxies. We find a best fit
power law to the correlation function has a slope of 0.76 and an amplitude of
0.11. However, there are statistically significant oscillations around this
power law. The largest oscillation occurs at about 0.8 degrees, corresponding
to 2.8 h^{-1} Mpc at the median redshift of our survey, as expected in halo
occupation distribution descriptions of galaxy clustering.
We invert the angular correlation function using Singular Value Decomposition
to measure the three-dimensional power spectrum and find that it too is in good
agreement with previous measurements. A dip seen in the power spectrum at small
wavenumber k is statistically consistent with CDM-type power spectra. A fit of
CDM-type power spectra to k < 0.2 h Mpc^{-1} give constraints of
\Gamma_{eff}=0.116 and \sigma_8=0.96. This suggest a K_s-band linear bias of
1.1+/-0.2. This \Gamma_{eff} is different from the WMAP CMB derived value. On
small scales the power-law shape of our power spectrum is shallower than that
derived for the SDSS. These facts together imply a biasing of these different
galaxies that might be nonlinear, that might be either waveband or luminosity
dependent, and that might have a nonlocal origin.Comment: 14 pages, 20 figures, to be published in ApJ January 20th, revision
included two new figures, version with high resolution figures can be found
here http::ww
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