Specific factors and methodological decisions influencing brain responses to sexual stimuli in women

Most of the neuroimaging studies on sexual behavior have been conducted with male participants, leading to men-based models of sexual arousal. Here, possible factors and methodological decisions that might influence brain responses to sexual stimuli, specifically for the inclusion of women, will be reviewed. Based on this review, we suggest that future studies consider the following factors: menstrual phase, hormonal contraception use, history of sexual or psychiatric disorders or diseases, and medication use. Moreover, when researching sexual arousal, we suggest future studies assess sexual orientation and preferences, that women should select visual sexual stimuli, and a longer duration than commonly used. This review is thought to represent a useful guideline for future research in sexual arousal, which hopefully will lead to a higher inclusion of women and therefore more accurate neurobiological models of sexual arousal

Industrial Melanism in the Peppered Moth Is Not Associated with Genetic Variation in Canonical Melanisation Gene Candidates

Industrial melanism in the peppered moth (Biston betularia) is an iconic case study of ecological genetics but the molecular identity of the gene determining the difference between the typical and melanic (carbonaria) morphs is entirely unknown. We applied the candidate gene approach to look for associations between genetic polymorphisms within sixteen a priori melanisation gene candidates and the carbonaria morph. The genes were isolated and sequence characterised in B. betularia using degenerate PCR and from whole-transcriptome sequence. The list of candidates contains all the genes previously implicated in melanisation pattern differences in other insects, including aaNAT, DOPA-decarboxylase, ebony, tan, tyrosine hydroxylase, yellow and yellow2 (yellow-fa). Co-segregation of candidate gene alleles and carbonaria morph was tested in 73 offspring of a carbonaria male-typical female backcross. Surprisingly, none of the sixteen candidate genes was in close linkage with the locus controlling the carbonaria-typical polymorphism. Our study demonstrates that the ‘carbonaria gene’ is not a structural variant of a canonical melanisation pathway gene, neither is it a cis-regulatory element of these enzyme-coding genes. The implication is either that we have failed to characterize an unknown enzyme-coding gene in the melanisation pathway, or more likely, that the ‘carbonaria gene’ is a higher level trans-acting factor which regulates the spatial expression of one or more of the melanisation candidates in this study to alter the pattern of melanin production

New Container Architectures for Mobile, Drone, and Cloud Computing

Containers are increasingly used across many different types of computing to isolate and control apps while efficiently sharing computing resources. By using lightweight operating system virtualization, they can provide apps with a virtual computing abstraction while imposing minimal hardware requirements and a small footprint. My thesis is that new container architectures can provide additional functionality, better resource utilization, and stronger security for mobile, drone, and cloud computing. To demonstrate this, we introduce three new container architectures that enable new mobile app migration functionality, a new notion of virtual drones and efficient utilization of drone hardware, and stronger security for cloud computing by protecting containers against untrusted operating systems. First, we introduce Flux to support multi-surface apps, apps that seamlessly run across multiple user devices, through app migration. Flux introduces two key mechanisms to overcome device heterogeneity and residual dependencies associated with app migration to enable app migration. Selective Record/Adaptive Replay to record just those device-agnostic app calls that lead to the generation of app-specific device-dependent state in services and replay them on the target. Checkpoint/Restore in Android (CRIA) to transition an app into a state in which device-specific information the app contains can be safely discarded before checkpointing and restoring the app within a containerized environment on the new device. Second, we introduce AnDrone, a drone-as-a-service solution that makes drones accessible in the cloud. AnDrone provides a drone virtualization architecture to leverage the fact that computational costs are cheap compared to the operational and energy costs of putting a drone in the air. This enables multiple virtual drones to run simultaneously on the same physical drone at very little additional cost. To enable multiple virtual drones to run in an isolated and secure manner, each virtual drone runs its own containerized operating system instance. AnDrone introduces a new device container architecture, providing virtual drones with secure access to a full range of drone hardware devices, including sensors such as cameras and geofenced flight control. Finally, we introduce BlackBox, a new container architecture that provides fine-grain protection of application data confidentiality and integrity without the need to trust the operating system. BlackBox introduces a container security monitor, a small trusted computing base that creates separate and independent physical address spaces for each container, such that there is no direct information flow from container to operating system or other container physical address spaces. Containerized apps do not need to be modified, can still make full use of operating system services via system calls, yet their CPU and memory state are isolated and protected from other containers and the operating system

A Clinical Evaluation of Primary Angioplasty and Stenting in Acute Myocardial Infarction

In 1949 the fibrinolytic effect of streptococcal fibrinolysin (streptokinase) was described for the treatment of fibrous, pUl1llent or sanguineous pleural exudations. The effect of this lytic agent in patients with acute myocardial infarction was described by Fletcher in 1958. In the late nineteensevcnties the pathofysiologic mechanism underlying acute myocardial infarction was recognised. In the majority of patients with acute myocardial infarction a completely occluded coronary artery is present at immediate angiography, caused by the formation of a platelet rich thrombus on reptured atherosclerotic plaque. Reperfusion therapy is aimed at removal of this obstructing clot which can be achieved by t1uombolytic agents (given directly into the coronary artery or intrav

Toward a Theory of Atypical Media Work and Social Hope

Most media work today takes place under atypical conditions, i.e. media professionals such as journalists, musicians, filmmakers, advertising creatives and game developers generally work without open-ended contracts. In this essay, a theory of atypical media work is outlined highlighting this way of working and being at work from the current culture of capitalism. Further, it also throws light on how dualisms, dominating the discourse on media work – such as contracted versus freelance labour, primary and secondary sector employment, good versus bad jobs, paid versus unpaid work – are not as useful as they seem to be is shown. It also delves into the different ways of making precarity, precariousness, constrained autonomy and lack of agency and highlights themas the key problematic features of atypical work – productive (beyond productivity narratives). Throughout the argument, the reasons and motivations for (doing and studying) atypical media work are articulated with a distinct sense of shared social hope

The secondary structure of the ferredoxin transit sequence is modulated by its interaction with negatively charged lipids

AbstractImport of proteins into chloroplasts depends on an N-terminal transit sequence. Transit sequences contain little primary sequence similarity and therefore recognition of these sequences is thought to involve specific folding. To assess the conformational flexibility of the transit sequence, we studied the transit peptide of preferredoxin (trfd) by circular dichroism. In buffer, trfd is in a random coil conformation. A large increase in α-helix was induced in the presence of micelles or vesicles formed by anionic lipids. Less pronounced changes in secondary structure were induced by zwitterionic detergents but no changes were observed in the presence of neutral detergents or vesicles composed of phosphatidylcholine

The cause of reduced growth of Manduca sexta larvae on a low-water diet: Increased metabolic processing costs or nutrient limitation?

Relative growth rates and nitrogen accumulation rates are lower for third-instar Manduca sexta larvae on an artificial diet containing 65% water than on one containing 82% water, due to reduced efficiencies of conversion of digested food and digested nitrogen into larval biomass. Uric acid production is 2.0-2.5-fold greater, and non-feeding respiration rates 16.0% higher in the larvae on the low-water diet. Food is the major source of water for the larvae, with metabolic water making only a minor contribution to water input. Faecal excretion is the major avenue of water loss, although a significant amount of water is also lost by transpiration. Larvae from the low-water diet retain and use a higher percentage of the water they gain than larvae from the high-2ater diet (49.4% vs 41.9%). They produce much drier faeces (48.1% water vs 77.3% water), and, because their tissues are less hydrated (81.3% water vs 88.1% water), they synthesize 70% more new, fully hydrated tissue from a given amount of water than larvae from the high-water diet. We discuss problems involved in the use of determinations of efficiency of conversion of digested food in establishing causal links between diet, growth, and metabolic maintenance costs, and also offer a definition of food processing costs that distinguishes them from metabolic costs attributable to other processes, such as food acquisition, growth, and moulting. We conclude that reduced growth and reduced efficiency of conversion of digested food on low-water diets are due to limitation in the amount of water available for the synthesis of new hydrated tissue, and not to the imposition of higher food processing costs.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/27572/1/0000616.pd