Turning on and turning off: A focus group study of the factors that affect women's sexual arousal

This is a post print version of the article. The official published version can be accessed from the link below.The aim of this study was to inform the development of a questionnaire to assess a woman's tendency to respond with sexual excitation/inhibition in different situations. Nine focus groups, involving 80 women (M age = 34.3 years; range, 18-84), were conducted. Women described a wide range of physical (genital and nongenital), cognitive/emotional, and behavioral cues to arousal. The relationship between sexual interest (desire) and sexual arousal was complex; sexual interest was reported as sometimes preceding arousal, but at other times following it. Many women did not clearly differentiate between arousal and interest. Qualitative data on the factors that women perceived as enhancers and inhibitors of sexual arousal are presented, with a focus on the following themes: feelings about one's body; concern about reputation; unwanted pregnancy/ contraception; feeling desired versus feeling used by a partner; feeling accepted by a partner; style of approach/initiation; and negative mood. The findings can help inform conceptualizations of sexual arousal in women.This research was funded (in part) by a grant from the Lilly Centre for Women‟s Health

Men with broken condoms: Who and why?

This is an open access article - Copyright @ 2007 BMJ Publishing GroupObjectives: To identify (1) the prevalence of condom breakage, and demographic and sexuality-related differences among young men who have sex with women reporting and not reporting this event; (2) condom-specific behaviours associated with breakage. Methods: Young men (n=278) attending a clinic for treatment of sexually transmitted infections (STIs) responded to an anonymous questionnaire aided by a CD recording of the questions. The samples were screened to include only men who had used a condom during penile–vaginal sex at least three times in the past 3 months. Condom-specific behaviours (including breakage) were assessed using these last three acts of condom use as the recall period. Correlates achieving bivariate significance were subjected to multivariate analysis. Results: Nearly one third (31.3%) of the men reported recent breakage. The breakage rate was 15%. Three correlates significantly distinguished between men who did and did not report breakage. Men who had past STIs were more likely to report breakage (adjusted odds ratio (AOR) 2.08), as were men who also reported condom slippage (AOR 2.72). Less self-efficacy for correct condom use was also significantly associated with breakage (AOR 1.07). Further, three condom-specific behaviours were significantly associated with breakage: allowing condoms to contact sharp objects (AOR 2.6), experiencing problems with the “fit or feel” of condoms (AOR 2.3) and not squeezing air from the receptacle tip (AOR 2.0). Conclusions: Breakage may be common and may occur in a larger context of difficulties with condoms. STI clinics could potentially benefit some men by providing instructions on the correct use of condoms.Financial Support for this project was provided by the Rural Center for AIDS/STD Prevention, a joint project of Indiana University, University of Colorado and University of Kentucky, and the Office of the Associate Dean of Research, School of Health, Physical Education, and Recreation, Indiana University

Opportunities to utilize traditional phenological knowledge to support adaptive management of social-ecological systems vulnerable to changes in climate and fire regimes

The field of adaptive management has been embraced by researchers and managers in the United States as an approach to improve natural resource stewardship in the face of uncertainty and complex environmental problems. Integrating multiple knowledge sources and feedback mechanisms is an important step in this approach. Our objective is to contribute to the limited literature that describes the benefits of better integrating indigenous knowledge (IK) with other sources of knowledge in making adaptive-management decisions. Specifically, we advocate the integration of traditional phenological knowledge (TPK), a subset of IK, and highlight opportunities for this knowledge to support policy and practice of adaptive management with reference to policy and practice of adapting to uncharacteristic fire regimes and climate change in the western United States

Relationship of cognitive function in patients with schizophrenia in remission to disability: a cross-sectional study in an Indian sample

Background: Cognitive deficits in various domains have been consistently replicated in patients with schizophrenia. Most studies looking at the relationship between cognitive dysfunction and functional disability are from developed countries. Studies from developing countries are few. The purpose of the present study was to compare the neurocognitive function in patients with schizophrenia who were in remission with that of normal controls and to determine if there is a relationship between measures of cognition and functional disability. <p/>Methods: This study was conducted in the Psychiatric Unit of a General Hospital in Mumbai, India. Cognitive function in 25 patients with schizophrenia in remission was compared to 25 normal controls. Remission was confirmed using the brief psychiatric rating scale (BPRS) and scale for the assessment of negative symptoms (SANS). Subjects were administered a battery of cognitive tests covering aspects of memory, executive function and attention. The results obtained were compared between the groups. Correlation analysis was used to look for relationship between illness factors, cognitive function and disability measured using the Indian disability evaluation and assessment scale. <p/>Results: Patients with schizophrenia showed significant deficits on tests of attention, concentration, verbal and visual memory and tests of frontal lobe/executive function. They fared worse on almost all the tests administered compared to normal controls. No relationship was found between age, duration of illness, number of years of education and cognitive function. In addition, we did not find a statistically significant relationship between cognitive function and scores on the disability scale. <p/>Conclusion: The data suggests that persistent cognitive deficits are seen in patients with schizophrenia under remission. The cognitive deficits were not associated with symptomatology and functional disability. It is possible that various factors such as employment and family support reduce disability due to schizophrenia in developing countries like India. Further studies from developing countries are required to explore the relationship between cognitive deficits, functional outcome and the role of socio-cultural variables as protective factors

Cognitive skills and literacy performance of Chinese adolescents with and without dyslexia

The present study sought to identify cognitive abilities that might distinguish Hong Kong Chinese adolescents with dyslexia and to assess how these abilities were associated with Chinese word reading, word dictation, and reading comprehension. The cognitive skills of interest were morphological awareness, visual-orthographic knowledge, rapid naming, and verbal working memory. A total of 90 junior secondary school students, 30 dyslexic, 30 chronological age controls, and 30 reading level controls was tested on a range of cognitive and literacy tasks. Dyslexic students were less competent than the control students in all cognitive and literacy measures. The regression analyses also showed that verbal working memory, rapid naming, morphological awareness, and visual-orthographic knowledge were significantly associated with literacy performance. Findings underscore the importance of these cognitive skills for Chinese literacy acquisition. Overall, this study highlights the persistent difficulties of Chinese dyslexic adolescents who seem to have multiple causes for reading and spelling difficulties

SSWAP: A Simple Semantic Web Architecture and Protocol for semantic web services

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>SSWAP (<b>S</b>imple <b>S</b>emantic <b>W</b>eb <b>A</b>rchitecture and <b>P</b>rotocol; pronounced "swap") is an architecture, protocol, and platform for using reasoning to semantically integrate heterogeneous disparate data and services on the web. SSWAP was developed as a hybrid semantic web services technology to overcome limitations found in both pure web service technologies and pure semantic web technologies.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>There are currently over 2400 resources published in SSWAP. Approximately two dozen are custom-written services for QTL (Quantitative Trait Loci) and mapping data for legumes and grasses (grains). The remaining are wrappers to Nucleic Acids Research Database and Web Server entries. As an architecture, SSWAP establishes how clients (users of data, services, and ontologies), providers (suppliers of data, services, and ontologies), and discovery servers (semantic search engines) interact to allow for the description, querying, discovery, invocation, and response of semantic web services. As a protocol, SSWAP provides the vocabulary and semantics to allow clients, providers, and discovery servers to engage in semantic web services. The protocol is based on the W3C-sanctioned first-order description logic language OWL DL. As an open source platform, a discovery server running at <url>http://sswap.info</url> (as in to "swap info") uses the description logic reasoner Pellet to integrate semantic resources. The platform hosts an interactive guide to the protocol at <url>http://sswap.info/protocol.jsp</url>, developer tools at <url>http://sswap.info/developer.jsp</url>, and a portal to third-party ontologies at <url>http://sswapmeet.sswap.info</url> (a "swap meet").</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>SSWAP addresses the three basic requirements of a semantic web services architecture (<it>i.e</it>., a common syntax, shared semantic, and semantic discovery) while addressing three technology limitations common in distributed service systems: <it>i.e</it>., <it>i</it>) the fatal mutability of traditional interfaces, <it>ii</it>) the rigidity and fragility of static subsumption hierarchies, and <it>iii</it>) the confounding of content, structure, and presentation. SSWAP is novel by establishing the concept of a canonical yet mutable OWL DL graph that allows data and service providers to describe their resources, to allow discovery servers to offer semantically rich search engines, to allow clients to discover and invoke those resources, and to allow providers to respond with semantically tagged data. SSWAP allows for a mix-and-match of terms from both new and legacy third-party ontologies in these graphs.</p

Bioavailability in soils

The consumption of locally-produced vegetables by humans may be an important exposure pathway for soil contaminants in many urban settings and for agricultural land use. Hence, prediction of metal and metalloid uptake by vegetables from contaminated soils is an important part of the Human Health Risk Assessment procedure. The behaviour of metals (cadmium, chromium, cobalt, copper, mercury, molybdenum, nickel, lead and zinc) and metalloids (arsenic, boron and selenium) in contaminated soils depends to a large extent on the intrinsic charge, valence and speciation of the contaminant ion, and soil properties such as pH, redox status and contents of clay and/or organic matter. However, chemistry and behaviour of the contaminant in soil alone cannot predict soil-to-plant transfer. Root uptake, root selectivity, ion interactions, rhizosphere processes, leaf uptake from the atmosphere, and plant partitioning are important processes that ultimately govern the accumulation ofmetals and metalloids in edible vegetable tissues. Mechanistic models to accurately describe all these processes have not yet been developed, let alone validated under field conditions. Hence, to estimate risks by vegetable consumption, empirical models have been used to correlate concentrations of metals and metalloids in contaminated soils, soil physico-chemical characteristics, and concentrations of elements in vegetable tissues. These models should only be used within the bounds of their calibration, and often need to be re-calibrated or validated using local soil and environmental conditions on a regional or site-specific basis.Mike J. McLaughlin, Erik Smolders, Fien Degryse, and Rene Rietr

Factors influencing the adoption of an innovation: An examination of the uptake of the Canadian Heart Health Kit (HHK)

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>There is an emerging knowledge base on the effectiveness of strategies to close the knowledge-practice gap. However, less is known about how attributes of an innovation and other contextual and situational factors facilitate and impede an innovation's adoption. The Healthy Heart Kit (HHK) is a risk management and patient education resource for the prevention of cardiovascular disease (CVD) and promotion of cardiovascular health. Although previous studies have demonstrated the HHK's content validity and practical utility, no published study has examined physicians' uptake of the HHK and factors that shape its adoption.</p> <p>Objectives</p> <p>Conceptually informed by Rogers' Diffusion of Innovation theory, and Theory of Planned Behaviour, this study had two objectives: (1) to determine if specific attributes of the HHK as well as contextual and situational factors are associated with physicians' intention and actual usage of the HHK kit; and (2), to determine if any contextual and situational factors are associated with individual or environmental barriers that prevent the uptake of the HHK among those physicians who do not plan to use the kit.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>A sample of 153 physicians who responded to an invitation letter sent to all family physicians in the province of Alberta, Canada were recruited for the study. Participating physicians were sent a HHK, and two months later a study questionnaire assessed primary factors on the physicians' clinical practice, attributes of the HHK (relative advantage, compatibility, complexity, trialability, observability), confidence and control using the HHK, barriers to use, and individual attributes. All measures were used in path analysis, employing a causal model based on Rogers' Diffusion of Innovations Theory and Theory of Planned Behaviour.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>115 physicians (follow up rate of 75%) completed the questionnaire. Use of the HHK was associated with intention to use the HHK, relative advantage, and years of experience. Relative advantage and the observability of the HHK benefits were also significantly associated with physicians' intention to use the HHK. Physicians working in solo medical practices reported experiencing more individual and environmental barriers to using the HHK.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The results of this study suggest that future information innovations must demonstrate an advantage over current resources and the research evidence supporting the innovation must be clearly visible. Findings also suggest that the innovation adoption process has a social element, and collegial interactions and discussions may facilitate that process. These results could be valuable for knowledge translation researchers and health promotion developers in future innovation adoption planning.</p

Influence of soil type and natural Zn chelates on flax response, tensile properties and soil Zn availability

A greenhouse experiment was conducted on weakly acidic and calcareous soils to evaluate the relative efficiencies of three natural Zn chelates [Zn-aminelignosulphonate (Zn-AML), Zn-polyhydroxyphenylcarboxylate (Zn-PHP) and Zn-S,S-ethylenediaminedisuccinate (Zn-S,S-EDDS)] applied to a crop textile flax (Linum ussitatisimum L.) at application rates of 0, 5 and 10 mg Zn kg−1. In the flax plant, the following parameters were determined: dry matter yield, soluble and total Zn concentrations in leaf and stem, chlorophyll, crude fibre, and tensile properties. For the different soil samples, the following parameters were determined: available Zn (DTPA-AB and Mehlich-3 extractable Zn), easily leachable Zn (BaCl2-extractable Zn), the distribution of Zn fractions, pH and redox potential. On the basis of the use of added Zn by flax, or Zn utilization, it would seem recommendable to apply Zn-S,S-EDDS at the low Zn rate in both soils. In contrast, adding the high Zn rate of this chelate to the weakly acidic soil produced an excessive Zn concentration in the plant, which caused a significant decrease in both dry matter yield and chlorophyll content. Furthermore, assessing available Zn with the DTPA-AB method proved the best way of estimating the level of excess Zn in flax plants. The soluble Zn concentration, which was established with 2-(N-morpholino)ethanesulfonic acid reagent (MES), of plant fresh and dry matter could be used as an alternative way of diagnosing the nutritional status of Zn in flax plants. In this experiment, the highest soil pHs were associated with the lowest redox potentials, which coincided with the smallest amounts of available Zn and water soluble Zn in soil, and the lowest levels of Zn uptake by flax plants