4,791 research outputs found
Social support for female sexual dysfunction in fibromyalgia
The aim of this study is to describe and understand experiences related to social support for women with fibromyalgia who suffer from sexual dysfunction. An interpretive qualitative research methodology based on Gadamer’s philosophical hermeneutics was used. Data collection included a focus group and in-depth interviews with 13 women who averaged 44.8 years of age and 14.3 years since being diagnosed with fibromyalgia. Data were analyzed using Fleming’s method and two themes were identified: “searching for understanding in socio-family support” and “lack of formal support regarding fibromyalgia patient’s sexuality.” The partner constitutes the main support for women with fibromyalgia. Although they can find understanding and social support in patient associations, they lack formal support from health care professionals. Women demand trusted and expert professionals, like sexologists and nurses, to carry out a multidisciplinary approach to tackle sexual dysfunction associated with fibromyalgia
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Ontology Clustering with OWL2Vec*
In this work we present an exploratory study to apply OWL2Vec* to drive the clustering of ontology entities (i.e., ontology clustering). OWL2Vec* is a state-of-the-art system that creates embeddings, capturing the semantics of both entities and tokens that appear in the ontology
Fossil Groups Origins III. Characterization of the sample and observational properties of fossil systems
(Abridged) Fossil systems are group- or cluster-sized objects whose
luminosity is dominated by a very massive central galaxy. In the current cold
dark matter scenario, these objects formed hierarchically at an early epoch of
the Universe and then slowly evolved until present day. That is the reason why
they are called {\it fossils}. We started an extensive observational program to
characterize a sample of 34 fossil group candidates spanning a broad range of
physical properties. Deep band images were taken for each candidate and
optical spectroscopic observations were obtained for 1200 galaxies. This
new dataset was completed with SDSS DR7 archival data to obtain robust cluster
membership and global properties of each fossil group candidate. For each
system, we recomputed the magnitude gaps between the two brightest galaxies
() and the first and fourth ranked galaxies ()
within 0.5 . We consider fossil systems those with mag or mag within the errors. We find
that 15 candidates turned out to be fossil systems. Their observational
properties agree with those of non-fossil systems. Both follow the same
correlations, but fossils are always extreme cases. In particular, they host
the brightest central galaxies and the fraction of total galaxy light enclosed
in the central galaxy is larger in fossil than in non-fossil systems. Finally,
we confirm the existence of genuine fossil clusters. Combining our results with
others in the literature, we favor the merging scenario in which fossil systems
formed due to mergers of galaxies. The large magnitude gap is a
consequence of the extreme merger ratio within fossil systems and therefore it
is an evolutionary effect. Moreover, we suggest that at least one candidate in
our sample could represent a transitional fossil stage.Comment: 14 pages, 11 figures, accepted for publication in A&
Effect of two protein sources of different rumen degradability on growth and digestive processes in beef cattle
Two trials were conducted to evaluate the effects of two dietary protein sources on liveweight gain, ruminal fermentation and digestion kinetics of beef cattle. In the first trial, 100 young Salers bulls (200 1.72 kg BW) and 60 Salers heifers (207 2.16 kg BW) were blocked by initial body weight in pairs and randomly assigned to one of the following treatments: 1) grazing in rye grass-oat pasture, oat hay and a ruminal degradable protein supplement (RDP); and 2) rye grass-oat pasture, oat hay and a ruminal undegradable protein supplement (RUDP). No differences between treatments were observed (p>0.05) in daily gain over a 112 d feeding period, which presumably means that the nitrogen requirements of the animals were met with both diets. In the second study four steers with ruminal and duodenal cannula were assigned to a Latin square design 4 X 4. The treatments were: T0, a control diet with RDP using a poultry manure-urea supplement; T150, a diet with a low level of RUDP (150 g/d of blood meal); T300, a diet with a intermediate level of RUDP (300 g/d of blood meal); and T450, a diet with a high level of RUDP (450 g/d of blood meal). In general, all the treatments presented a similar pattern in ruminal fermentation, liquid and solid kinetics, digestion, outflow of nutrientes to the duodenum and microbial protein synthesis
PROSITE, a protein domain database for functional characterization and annotation
PROSITE consists of documentation entries describing protein domains, families and functional sites, as well as associated patterns and profiles to identify them. It is complemented by ProRule, a collection of rules based on profiles and patterns, which increases the discriminatory power of these profiles and patterns by providing additional information about functionally and/or structurally critical amino acids. PROSITE is largely used for the annotation of domain features of UniProtKB/Swiss-Prot entries. Among the 983 (DNA-binding) domains, repeats and zinc fingers present in Swiss-Prot (release 57.8 of 22 September 2009), 696 (∼70%) are annotated with PROSITE descriptors using information from ProRule. In order to allow better functional characterization of domains, PROSITE developments focus on subfamily specific profiles and a new profile building method giving more weight to functionally important residues. Here, we describe AMSA, an annotated multiple sequence alignment format used to build a new generation of generalized profiles, the migration of ScanProsite to Vital-IT, a cluster of 633 CPUs, and the adoption of the Distributed Annotation System (DAS) to facilitate PROSITE data integration and interchange with other sources. The latest version of PROSITE (release 20.54, of 22 September 2009) contains 1308 patterns, 863 profiles and 869 ProRules. PROSITE is accessible at: http://www.expasy.org/prosite/
Evolution of metabolic risk factors over a two-year period in a cohort of first episodes of psychosis
Patients with a first episode of psychosis (FEP) display a broad range of metabolic risk factors related to the development of diverse medical comorbidities. Initial stages of these disorders are essential in understanding the increased vulnerability of developing cardiometabolic disturbances, associated with a reduced life expectancy. This study aimed to evaluate the metabolic profile of a cohort of patients with a FEP and its evolution during a two year follow-up, as well as the factors that influence the changes in their metabolic status. 16 participating centers from the PEPs Project recruited 335 subjects with a FEP and 253 matched healthy controls, aged 9–35 years. We investigated a set of anthropometric measures, vital signs and laboratory data obtained from each participant over two years in a prospective, naturalistic study. From the beginning of the study the FEP group showed differences in the metabolic profile compared to the control group, together with a progressive worsening in the major part of the analyzed variables during the follow-up period, with higher rates of obesity and metabolic syndrome. Certain risk factors were related to determinate clinical variables such as male gender, the presence of affective symptoms or an early onset or to treatment variables such as the use of antipsychotic polypharmacy, antidepressants or mood stabilizers. Our results highlight the extremely high risk of patients at early phases of schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders of developing cardiovascular comorbidity and the fast worsening of the metabolic profile during the first two years
Improvement of catalytic performance of lignin peroxidase for the enhanced degradation of lignocellulose biomass based on the imbedded electron-relay in long-range electron transfer route
Background: Although lignin peroxidase is claimed as a key enzyme in enzyme-catalyzed lignin degradation, in vitro enzymatic degradation of lignin was not easily observed in lab-scale experiments. It implies that other factors may hinder the enzymatic degradation of lignin. Irreversible interaction between phenolic compound and lignin peroxidase was hypothesized when active enzyme could not be recovered after the reaction with degradation product (guaiacol) of lignin phenolic dimer. Results: In the study of lignin peroxidase isozyme H8 from white-rot fungi Phanerochaete chrysosporium (LiPH8), W251 site was revealed to make the covalent coupling with one moiety of monolignolic radical (guaiacol radical) by LC-MS/MS analysis. Hypothetical electron-relay containing W251 residue was newly suggested based on the observation of repressed radical coupling and remarkably lower electron transfer rate for W215A mutant. Furthermore, the retardation of the suicidal radical coupling between the W251 residue and the monolignolic radical was attempted by supplementing the acidic microenvironment around the W251 residue to engineer radical-robust LiPH8. Among many mutants, mutant A242D showed exceptional catalytic performances by yielding 21.1- and 4.9-fold higher increases of k(cat) and k(cat)/K-M values, respectively, in the oxidation of non-phenolic model lignin dimer. Conclusions: A mechanism-based suicide inhibition of LiPH8 by phenolic compounds was firstly revealed and investigated in this work. Radical-robust LiPH8 was also successfully engineered by manipulating the transient radical state of radical-susceptible electron-relay. Radical-robust LiPH8 will play an essential role in degradation of lignin, which will be consequently linked with improved production of sugars from lignocellulose biomass.open
Bolometric luminosity variations in the Luminous Blue Variable AFGL2298
We characterise the variability in the physical properties of the luminous
blue variable AFGL2298 between 1989-2008. In conjunction with published data
from 1989-2001, we have undertaken a long term (2001-2008) near-IR
spectroscopic and photometric observational campaign for this star and utilise
a non-LTE model atmosphere code to interpret these data. We find AFGL2298 to
have been highly variable during the two decades covered by the observational
datasets. Photometric variations of >1.6 mag have been observed in the JHK
wavebands; however, these are not accompanied by correlated changes in near-IR
colour. Non-LTE model atmosphere analysis of 4 epochs of K band spectroscopy
obtained between 2001-7 suggests that the photometric changes were driven by
expansion and contraction of the stellar photosphere accompanied by
comparatively small changes in the stellar temperature. Unclumped mass loss
rates throughout this period were modest and directly comparable to those of
other highly luminous LBVs. However, the bolometric luminosity of AFGL2298
appears to have varied by at least a factor of ~2 between 1989-2008, with it
being one of the most luminous stars in the Galaxy during maximum. Comparison
to other LBVs that have undergone non bolometric luminosity conserving
`eruptions' shows such events to be heterogeneous, with AFGL2298 the least
extreme example. These results - and the diverse nature of both the quiescent
LBVs and associated ejecta - may offer support to the suggestion that more than
one physical mechanism is responsible for such behaviour. [ABRIDGED]Comment: 12 pages, 6 figures, accepted for publication in Astronomy and
Astrophysic
An Overview of the 2014 ALMA Long Baseline Campaign
A major goal of the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) is to
make accurate images with resolutions of tens of milliarcseconds, which at
submillimeter (submm) wavelengths requires baselines up to ~15 km. To develop
and test this capability, a Long Baseline Campaign (LBC) was carried out from
September to late November 2014, culminating in end-to-end observations,
calibrations, and imaging of selected Science Verification (SV) targets. This
paper presents an overview of the campaign and its main results, including an
investigation of the short-term coherence properties and systematic phase
errors over the long baselines at the ALMA site, a summary of the SV targets
and observations, and recommendations for science observing strategies at long
baselines. Deep ALMA images of the quasar 3C138 at 97 and 241 GHz are also
compared to VLA 43 GHz results, demonstrating an agreement at a level of a few
percent. As a result of the extensive program of LBC testing, the highly
successful SV imaging at long baselines achieved angular resolutions as fine as
19 mas at ~350 GHz. Observing with ALMA on baselines of up to 15 km is now
possible, and opens up new parameter space for submm astronomy.Comment: 11 pages, 7 figures, 2 tables; accepted for publication in the
Astrophysical Journal Letters; this version with small changes to
affiliation
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