Impact of sexual dysfunction on quality of life among anxiety disorder patients

Current research suggests that anxiety disorders may be associated with sexual dysfunction. This increased risk may carry important implications given the detrimental effect sexual dysfunction has been shown to have on quality of life in a variety of populations. However, no studies have examined the impact of sexual dysfunction on quality of life among anxiety disorder patients. Thus, in this study, participants were asked to complete questionnaires measuring quality of life, sexual functioning, and mental health. The data were used to compare quality of life between patients reporting sexual dysfunction and those reporting normal sexual functioning. Additionally, data were analyzed to explore the relationship between sexual dysfunction and other psychological factors. The results showed that, while overall sexual functioning was not significantly related to quality of life, specific areas of sexual functioning were correlated. The impact of these findings on the assessment and treatment of anxiety disorder patients will be discussed

Doctrina perpetua: brokering change, promoting innovation and transforming marginalisation in university learning and teaching [Editors introduction]

Doctrina perpetua—translated variously as “forever learning” (Cryle, 1992, p. 27), “lifelong learning” and “lifelong education”—is the Latin motto of Central Queensland University (CQU), an Australian regional university with campuses in Central Queensland and the metropolitan and provincial cities of Brisbane, the Gold Coast, Melbourne and Sydney and with centres in China, Fiji, Hong Kong and Singapore. During its early development the institution was small and regional; in many ways it was an institution at the margins of higher education. For only a third of its 40-year life has it been recognised as a university. However, the vision of both its founders and its continuing staff has been that of an institution that actively brokers change, promotes innovation and seeks to transform marginalisation— for students, for its community and for itself. Its short life on the edge of the universe of higher education has promoted a culture of innovation and an acceptance that change is a necessary and positive aspect of life on the edge. Embracing change, CQU has become a complex institution, a notion well expressed in a speech in August 1999 by former Vice-Chancellor Lauchlan Chipman on Visioning Our Future: I have often remarked that I do not see CQU as “the last university of the old millennium” but rather as “the first university of the new millennium”. One of our greatest strengths in making the transition is our relative immaturity as a university. The more mature a university, especially if it is successful, the less agile it is when it comes to the need to change. So far as the future of universities and change is concerned, my position is unequivocally Heraclitean: change is the only thing that is permanent. Applying to itself the motto “doctrina perpetua” over its short life, the agile University has become a “complex and diverse organisation” (Danaher, Harreveld, Luck & Nouwens, 2004, p. 13). This overview of CQU seeks to provide readers with a short description of the current state of the institution and the story of its development to provide a context for understanding the chapters that follow, and to assist readers to reflect on how these developments at CQU relate to higher education generally, and to the universities with which they are more familiar

Picosecond strain dynamics in Ge2_{2}Sb2_{2}Te5_{5} monitored by time-resolved x-ray diffraction

Coherent phonons (CP) generated by laser pulses on the femtosecond scale have been proposed as a means to achieve ultrafast, non-thermal switching in phase-change materials such as Ge$_{2}$Sb$_{2}$Te$_{5}$(GST). Here we use ultrafast optical pump pulses to induce coherent acoustic phonons and stroboscopically measure the corresponding lattice distortions in GST using 100 ps x-ray pulses from the ESRF storage ring. A linear-chain model provides a good description of the observed changes in the diffraction signal, however, the magnitudes of the measured shifts are too large to be explained by thermal effects alone implying the presence of transient non-equilibrium electron heating in addition to temperature driven expansion. The information on the movement of atoms during the excitation process can lead to greater insight into the possibilities of using CP-induced phase-transitions in GST.Comment: 7 pages, 4 figures, Phys. Rev. B, in pres

Hybrid forward osmosis-reverse osmosis for wastewater reuse and seawater desalination: Understanding the optimal feed solution to minimise fouling

© 2018 Institution of Chemical Engineers To enhance the seawater desalination energy efficiency forward osmosis – reverse osmosis (FO-RO) hybrid system has recently been developed. In this process, the FO “pre-treatment” step is designed to use seawater (SW) as draw solution to filter the wastewater (WW) while reducing the seawater osmotic pressure. Thereby reducing the operating pressure of the RO to desalinate the diluted SW. However, membrane fouling is a major issue that needs to be addressed. Proper selection of suitable WWs is necessary before proceeding with large-scale FO-RO desalination plants. In this study, long-term experiments were carried out, using state-of-the-art FO membrane, using real WW and SW solutions. A combination of water flux modelling and membrane characterisation were used to assess the degree of membrane fouling and the impact on the process performance. Initial water flux as high as 22.5 Lm−2 h−1 was observed when using secondary effluent. It was also found that secondary effluent causes negligible flux decline. On the other hand, biologically treated wastewater and primary effluent caused mild and severe flux decline respectively (25% and 50% of flux decline after 80 hours, compared to no-fouling conditions). Ammonia leakage to the diluted seawater was also measured, concluding that, if biologically treated wastewater is used as feed, the final NH4+ concentration in the draw is likely to be negligible

Intracellular processing and presentation of T cell epitopes, expressed by recombinant Escherichia coli and Salmonella typhimurium, to human T cells

Vaccines based on recombinant attenuated bacteria represent a potentially safe and effective immunization strategy. A carrier system was developed to analyze in vitro whether foreign T cell epitopes, inserted in the outer membrane protein PhoE of Escherichia coli and expressed by recombinant bacteria, are efficiently processed and presente

Community assembly in Lake Tanganyika cichlid fish:Quantifying the contributions of both niche-based and neutral processes

The cichlid family features some of the most spectacular examples of adaptive radiation. Evolutionary studies have highlighted the importance of both trophic adaptation and sexual selection in cichlid speciation. However, it is poorly understood what processes drive the composition and diversity of local cichlid species assemblages on relatively short, ecological timescales. Here, we investigate the relative importance of niche-based and neutral processes in determining the composition and diversity of cichlid communities inhabiting various environmental conditions in the littoral zone of Lake Tanganyika, Zambia. We collected data on cichlid abundance, morphometrics, and local environments. We analyzed relationships between mean trait values, community composition, and environmental variation, and used a recently developed modeling technique (STEPCAM) to estimate the contributions of niche-based and neutral processes to community assembly. Contrary to our expectations, our results show that stochastic processes, and not niche-based processes, were responsible for the majority of cichlid community assembly. We also found that the relative importance of niche-based and neutral processes was constant across environments. However, we found significant relationships between environmental variation, community trait means, and community composition. These relationships were caused by niche-based processes, as they disappeared in simulated, purely neutrally assembled communities. Importantly, these results can potentially reconcile seemingly contrasting findings in the literature about the importance of either niche-based or neutral-based processes in community assembly, as we show that significant trait relationships can already be found in nearly (but not completely) neutrally assembled communities; that is, even a small deviation from neutrality can have major effects on community patterns

A framework for human-like behavior in an immersive virtual world

Just as readers feel immersed when the story-line adheres to their experiences, users will more easily feel immersed in a virtual environment if the behavior of the characters in that environment adheres to their expectations, based on their life-long observations in the real world. This paper introduces a framework that allows authors to establish natural, human-like behavior, physical interaction and emotional engagement of characters living in a virtual environment. Represented by realistic virtual characters, this framework allows people to feel immersed in an Internet based virtual world in which they can meet and share experiences in a natural way as they can meet and share experiences in real life. Rather than just being visualized in a 3D space, the virtual characters (autonomous agents as well as avatars representing users) in the immersive environment facilitate social interaction and multi-party collaboration, mixing virtual with real