Risk factors for erectile dysfunction in a cohort of 108 477 Australian men

Objectives: To quantify relationships between erectile dysfunction (ED), ageing and health and lifestyle factors for men aged 45 years and older. Design: Cross-sectional, population-based study seeking data on health, sociodemographic and lifestyle facto

The nearby eclipsing stellar system delta Velorum - I. Origin of the infrared excess from VISIR and NACO imaging

- Context: The triple stellar system delta Vel system presents a significant infrared excess, whose origin is still being debated. A large infrared bow shock has been discovered using Spitzer/MIPS observations. Although it appears as a significant contributor to the measured IR excess, the possibility exists that a circumstellar IR excess is present around the stars of the system. - Aims: The objective of the present VISIR and NACO observations is to identify whether one of the stars of the delta Vel system presents a circumstellar photometric excess in the thermal IR domain and to quantify it. - Methods: We observed delta Vel using the imaging modes of the ESO/VLT instruments VISIR (in BURST mode) and NACO to resolve the A-B system (0.6" separation) and obtain the photometry of each star. We also obtained one NACO photometry epoch precisely at the primary (annular) eclipse of delta Vel Aa by Ab. - Results: Our photometric measurements with NACO (2.17 mic), complemented by the existing visible photometry allowed us to reconstruct the spectral energy distribution of the three stars. We then compared the VISIR photometry (8.6-12.8 mic) to the expected photospheric emission from the three stars at the corresponding wavelengths. - Conclusions: We can exclude the presence of a circumstellar thermal infrared excess around delta Vel A or B down to a few percent level. This supports the conclusions of Gaspar et al. (2008) that the IR excess of delta Vel has an interstellar origin, although a cold circumstellar disk could still be present. In addition, we derive the spectral types of the three stars Aa, Ab, and B (respectively A2IV, A4V and F8V), and we estimate the age of the system around 400-500 Myr.Comment: 8 pages, 9 figures, A&A, in pres

Using interpretative phenomenological analysis to inform physiotherapy practice: An introduction with reference to the lived experience of cerebellar ataxia

The attached file is a pre-published version of the full and final paper which can be found at the link below.This article has been made available through the Brunel Open Access Publishing Fund.Qualitative research methods that focus on the lived experience of people with health conditions are relatively underutilised in physiotherapy research. This article aims to introduce interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA), a research methodology oriented toward exploring and understanding the experience of a particular phenomenon (e.g., living with spinal cord injury or chronic pain, or being the carer of someone with a particular health condition). Researchers using IPA try to find out how people make sense of their experiences and the meanings they attach to them. The findings from IPA research are highly nuanced and offer a fine grained understanding that can be used to contextualise existing quantitative research, to inform understanding of novel or underresearched topics or, in their own right, to provoke a reappraisal of what is considered known about a specified phenomenon. We advocate IPA as a useful and accessible approach to qualitative research that can be used in the clinical setting to inform physiotherapy practice and the development of services from the perspective of individuals with particular health conditions.This article is available through the Brunel Open Access Publishing Fund

Polarization and Strong Infra-Red Activity in Compressed Solid Hydrogen

Under a pressure of ~150 GPa solid molecular hydrogen undergoes a phase transition accompanied by a dramatic rise in infra-red absorption in the vibron frequency range. We use the Berry's phase approach to calculate the electric polarization in several candidate structures finding large, anisotropic dynamic charges and strongly IR-active vibron modes. The polarization is shown to be greatly affected by the overlap between the molecules in the crystal, so that the commonly used Clausius-Mossotti description in terms of polarizable, non-overlapping molecular charge densities is inadequate already at low pressures and even more so for the compressed solid.Comment: To appear in Phys. Rev. Let

Multiferroicity in an organic charge-transfer salt: Electric-dipole-driven magnetism

Multiferroics, showing simultaneous ordering of electrical and magnetic degrees of freedom, are remarkable materials as seen from both the academic and technological points of view. A prominent mechanism of multiferroicity is the spin-driven ferroelectricity, often found in frustrated antiferromagnets with helical spin order. There, similar to conventional ferroelectrics, the electrical dipoles arise from an off-centre displacement of ions. However, recently a different mechanism, namely purely electronic ferroelectricity, where charge order breaks inversion symmetry, has attracted considerable interest. Here we provide evidence for this exotic type of ferroelectricity, accompanied by antiferromagnetic spin order, in a two-dimensional organic charge-transfer salt, thus representing a new class of multiferroics. Quite unexpectedly for electronic ferroelectrics, dipolar and spin order arise nearly simultaneously. This can be ascribed to the loss of spin frustration induced by the ferroelectric ordering. Hence, here the spin order is driven by the ferroelectricity, in marked contrast to the spin-driven ferroelectricity in helical magnets.Comment: 8 pages, 9 figures (including 4 pages and 6 figures in supplementary information). Version 2 with minor errors corrected (legend of Fig. 3c and definition of vectors e and Q

Statistics of selectively neutral genetic variation

Random models of evolution are instrumental in extracting rates of microscopic evolutionary mechanisms from empirical observations on genetic variation in genome sequences. In this context it is necessary to know the statistical properties of empirical observables (such as the local homozygosity for instance). Previous work relies on numerical results or assumes Gaussian approximations for the corresponding distributions. In this paper we give an analytical derivation of the statistical properties of the local homozygosity and other empirical observables assuming selective neutrality. We find that such distributions can be very non-Gaussian.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure

Services just for men? Insights from a national study of the well men services pilots.

Men continue to have a lower life expectancy in most countries compared to women. Explanations of this gendered health inequality tend to focus on male risk taking, unhealthy lifestyle choices and resistance to seeking help from health services. In the period 2005-2008 the Scottish Government funded a nationwide community health promotion programme aimed at improving men's health, called Well Men Service Pilots (henceforth WMS)

Wannier-function description of the electronic polarization and infrared absorption of high-pressure hydrogen

We have constructed maximally-localized Wannier functions for prototype structures of solid molecular hydrogen under pressure, starting from LDA and tight-binding Bloch wave functions. Each occupied Wannier function can be associated with two paired protons, defining a ``Wannier molecule''. The sum of the dipole moments of these ``molecules'' always gives the correct macroscopic polarization, even under strong compression, when the overlap between nearby Wannier functions becomes significant. We find that at megabar pressures the contributions to the dipoles arising from the overlapping tails of the Wannier functions is very large. The strong vibron infrared absorption experimentally observed in phase III, above ~ 150 GPa, is analyzed in terms of the vibron-induced fluctuations of the Wannier dipoles. We decompose these fluctuations into ``static'' and ``dynamical'' contributions, and find that at such high densities the latter term, which increases much more steeply with pressure, is dominant.Comment: 17 pages, two-column style with 14 postscript figures embedded. Uses REVTEX and epsf macro

Reverse Semi-Combustion Driven by Titanium Dioxide-Ionic Liquid Hybrid Photocatalyst

EP/L015633/1 EP/K005138/1 CAPES (158804/2017/01-and 001 FAPERGS -16/2552-0000 18/2551-0000561-4 88887.195052/2018-00 CNPq :406260/2018-4 169462/2017-0 406750/2016-5 465454/2014-3 grant agreement No 810310Unprecedented metal-free photocatalytic CO2 conversion to CO (up to 228±48 μmol g−1 h−1) was displayed by TiO2@IL hybrid photocatalysts prepared by simple impregnation of commercially available P25-titanium dioxide with imidazolium-based ionic liquids (ILs). The high activity of TiO2@IL hybrid photocatalysts was mainly associated to (i) TiO2@IL red shift compared to the pure TiO2 absorption, and thus a modification of the TiO2 surface electronic structure; (ii) TiO2 with IL bearing imidazolate anions lowered the CO2 activation energy barrier. The reaction mechanism was postulated to occur via CO2 photoreduction to formate species by the imidazole/imidazole radical redox pair, yielding CO and water.publishersversionpublishe

Near-Infrared interferometry of Eta Carinae with high spatial and spectral resolution using the VLTI and the AMBER instrument

We present the first NIR spectro-interferometry of the LBV Eta Carinae. The K band observations were performed with the AMBER instrument of the ESO Very Large Telescope Interferometer using three 8.2m Unit Telescopes with baselines from 42 to 89m. The aim of this work is to study the wavelength dependence of Eta Car's optically thick wind region with a high spatial resolution of 5 mas (11 AU) and high spectral resolution. The medium spectral resolution observations (R=1,500) were performed in the wavelength range around both the HeI 2.059 micron and the Br gamma 2.166 micron emission lines, the high spectral resolution observations (R=12,000) only in the Br gamma line region. In the K-band continuum, a diameter of 4.0 +/-0.2 mas (Gaussian FWHM, fit range 28-89m) was measured for Eta Car's optically thick wind region. If we fit Hillier et al. (2001) model visibilities to the observed AMBER visibilities, we obtain 50 % encircled-energy diameters of 4.2, 6.5 and 9.6mas in the 2.17 micron continuum, the HeI, and the Br gamma emission lines, respectively. In the continuum near the Br gamma line, an elongation along a position angle of 120+/-15 degrees was found, consistent with previous VLTI/VINCI measurements by van Boekel et al. (2003). We compare the measured visibilities with predictions of the radiative transfer model of Hillier et al. (2001), finding good agreement. Furthermore, we discuss the detectability of the hypothetical hot binary companion. For the interpretation of the non-zero differential and closure phases measured within the Br gamma line, we present a simple geometric model of an inclined, latitude-dependent wind zone. Our observations support theoretical models of anisotropic winds from fast-rotating, luminous hot stars with enhanced high-velocity mass loss near the polar regions.Comment: 22 pages, 14 figures, 2 tables; A&A in pres