Assessing Sexual Differences with the Decision to Remain a Virgin

Assessing Sexual Differences with the Decision to Remain a Virgin Jessica Del Rossi, Depts. of Biology and Sociology, with Dr. Claire Kimberly, Dept. of Internal Medicine, VCU School of Medicine In the transition to adulthood, the loss of virginity can be seen as an important step in personal development. The first sexual experience someone encounters is often memorable with a positive or negative interaction impacting sexual satisfaction and sexual communication in the future. People have different definitions of virginity which can lead to miscommunication in personal relationships, research and/or a therapy setting. People may remain a virgin till marriage due to religious convictions and gender differences. Data was collected from 531 adults through Qualtrics and included questions about demographics, definition of virginity, and sexual satisfaction/communication. Respondents included 62.9% of the people thought at one point in their life they would remain a virgin until marriage while 36.9% reported that they did not. Average responses for sexual communication and satisfaction were reviewed by whether or not the individual decided at some point to be a virgin and demographics. Notable gender differences were found with men who decided not to be a virgin at one point in their life having higher sexual communication when compared to women who had decided not to remain a virgin. However, women who decided to be a virgin at one point had higher sexual satisfaction later on when compared to men and women who did not decide to be a virgin at one point in their lives. In regards to interest in religion, people that stated that religion was unimportant and had not decided to be a virgin had higher sexual satisfaction later on then people who thought religion was important and had decided to be a virgin. The results have the potential to help people in research, education, and therapy. Specifically, it can supplement the knowledge about gender differences and religion when it comes to virginity loss and how it might impact current relationships.https://scholarscompass.vcu.edu/uresposters/1309/thumbnail.jp

Cellular and molecular mediators of bone metastatic lesions

Bone is the preferential site of metastasis for breast and prostate tumor. Cancer cells establish a tight relationship with the host tissue, secreting factors that stimulate or inhibit bone cells, receiving signals generated from the bone remodeling activity, and displaying some features of bone cells. This interplay between tumor and bone cells alters the physiological bone remodeling, leading to the generation of a vicious cycle that promotes bone metastasis growth. To prevent the skeletal-related events (SRE) associated with bone metastasis, approaches to inhibit osteoclast bone resorption are reported. The bisphosphonates and Denosumab are currently used in the treatment of patients affected by bone lesions. They act to prevent or counteract the SRE, including pathologic fractures, spinal cord compression, and pain associated with bone metastasis. However, their primary effects on tumor cells still remain controversial. In this review, a description of the mechanisms leading to the onset of bone metastasis and clinical approaches to treat them are described

The role of extracellular vesicles in bone metastasis

Multiple types of cancer have the specific ability to home to the bone microenvironment and cause metastatic lesions. Despite being the focus of intense investigation, the molecular and cellular mechanisms that regulate the metastasis of disseminated tumor cells still remain largely unknown. Bone metastases severely impact quality of life since they are associated with pain, fractures, and bone marrow aplasia. In this review, we will summarize the recent discoveries on the role of extracellular vesicles (EV) in the regulation of bone remodeling activity and bone metastasis occurrence. Indeed, it was shown that extracellular vesicles, including exosomes and microvesicles, released from tumor cells can modify the bone microenvironment, allowing the formation of osteolytic, osteosclerotic, and mixed mestastases. In turn, bone-derived EV can stimulate the proliferation of tumor cells. The inhibition of EV-mediated crosstalk between cancer and bone cells could represent a new therapeutic target for bone metastasis

Existence, uniqueness and decay rates for evolution equations on trees

We study evolution equations governed by an averaging operator on a directed tree, showing existence and uniqueness of solutions. In addition we find conditions of the initial condition that allows us to find the asymptotic decay rate of the solutions as $t\to \infty$. It turns out that this decay rate is not uniform, it strongly depends on how the initial condition goes to zero as one goes down in the tree.Fil: del Pezzo, Leandro Martin. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales. Departamento de Matemática; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; ArgentinaFil: Mosquera, Carolina Alejandra. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales. Departamento de Matemática; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; ArgentinaFil: Rossi, Julio Daniel. Universidad de Alicante; España. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentin