At a Crossroad: The Intersection of Fraternity, Sexuality and Masculinity

Within the college environment, gender roles serve a unique purpose when it comes to finding a partner, interactions with other students, and personal identity development. Masculinity and sexual orientation stand as two of among many of identities that college men hold. In this article I will review existing literature on masculinity and sexuality within the Latino culture. I will also address the implications and practices of membership within a Latino fraternal organization and how these two ideas intersect

Modeling dimensionally-heterogeneous problems: analysis, approximation and applications

In the present work a general theoretical framework for coupled dimensionally-heterogeneous partial differential equations is developed. This is done by recasting the variational formulation in terms of coupling interface variables. In such a general setting we analyze existence and uniqueness of solutions for both the continuous problem and its finite dimensional approximation. This approach also allows the development of different iterative substructuring solution methodologies involving dimensionally-homogeneous subproblems. Numerical experiments are carried out to test our theoretical result

The AMBRE Project: Parameterisation of FGK-type stars from the ESO:HARPS archived spectra

The AMBRE project is a collaboration between the European Southern Observatory (ESO) and the Observatoire de la Cote d'Azur (OCA). It has been established to determine the stellar atmospheric parameters (effective temperature, surface gravity, global metallicities and abundance of alpha-elements over iron) of the archived spectra of four ESO spectrographs. The analysis of the ESO:HARPS archived spectra is presented. The sample being analysed (AMBRE:HARPS) covers the period from 2003 to 2010 and is comprised of 126688 scientific spectra corresponding to 17218 different stars. For the analysis of the spectral sample, the automated pipeline developed for the analysis of the AMBRE:FEROS archived spectra has been adapted to the characteristics of the HARPS spectra. Within the pipeline, the stellar parameters are determined by the MATISSE algorithm, developed at OCA for the analysis of large samples of stellar spectra in the framework of galactic archaeology. In the present application, MATISSE uses the AMBRE grid of synthetic spectra, which covers FGKM-type stars for a range of gravities and metallicities. We first determined the radial velocity and its associated error for the ~15% of the AMBRE:HARPS spectra, for which this velocity had not been derived by the ESO:HARPS reduction pipeline. The stellar atmospheric parameters and the associated chemical index [alpha/Fe] with their associated errors have then been estimated for all the spectra of the AMBRE:HARPS archived sample. Based on quality criteria, we accepted and delivered the parameterisation of ~71% of the total sample to ESO. These spectra correspond to ~10706 stars; each are observed between one and several hundred times. This automatic parameterisation of the AMBRE:HARPS spectra shows that the large majority of these stars are cool main-sequence dwarfs with metallicities greater than -0.5 dex

Reduction in PSA messenger-RNA expression and clinical recurrence in patients with prostatic cancer undergoing neoadjuvant therapy before radical prostatectomy

BACKGROUND: We assessed the incidence of micro-metastases at surgical margins (SM) and pelvic lymph nodes (LN) in patients submitted to radical retropubic prostatectomy (RP) after neoadjuvant therapy (NT) or to RP alone. We compared traditional staging to molecular detection of PSA using Taqman-based quantitative real-time PCR (qrt-PCR) never used before for this purpose. METHODS: 29 patients were assigned to NT plus RP (arm A) or RP alone (arm B). Pelvic LN were dissected for qrt-PCR analysis, together with right and left lateral SM. RESULTS: 64,3% patients of arm B and 26.6% of arm A had evidence of PSA mRNA expression in LN and/or SM. 17,2% patients, all of arm B, had biochemical recurrence. CONCLUSIONS: Qrt-PCR may be more sensitive, compared to conventional histology, in identifying presence of viable prostate carcinoma cells in SM and LN. Gene expression of PSA in surgical periprostatic samples might be considered as a novel and reliable indicator of minimal residual disease after NT

An A* Algorithm for Flight Planning Based on Idealized Vertical Profiles

The Flight Planning Problem is to find a minimum fuel trajectory between two airports in a 3D airway network under consideration of the wind. We show that this problem is NP-hard, even in its most basic version. We then present a novel A* heuristic, whose potential function is derived from an idealized vertical profile over the remaining flight distance. This potential is, under rather general assumptions, both admissible and consistent and it can be computed efficiently. The method outperforms the state-of-the-art heuristic on real-life instances

Vesicoureteral Reflux in the Child with Lazy Bladder Syndrome: The Infrequent Voider

The Infrequent Voider Syndrome or Lazy Bladder Syndrome in children is characterized by a large capacity bladder, frequently associated with a significant volume of residual urine. Usually these patients arrive at medical examination with a history of recurrent urinary infections but without anomalies in the upper urinary tract. We report about a young girl affected by one-sided 2° degree vesico-ureteral reflux due to Lazy Bladder Syndrome that had never been diagnosed before. This patient has been submitted to a prompt bladder training and seems presently to have at last gained a physiological micturition after 9 months of follow-up, without actual evidence of vesicoureteral reflux. Therefore we must stress that it is prominently important considering about infrequent micturition in a paediatric case history or a large capacity bladder, possible presence of bladder dysfunction and vesicoureteral reflux too

"Ejaculatory disorders and α(1)-adrenoceptor antagonists therapy: clinical and experimental researches"

BACKGROUND: It is well known that the use of the α-adrenergic receptor antagonists in the BPH therapy may induce ejaculatory disorder. A review of clinical literature shows a greater incidence of ejaculatory disorder during the use of tamsulosin compared with alfuzosin. Anejaculation has been until now referred to retrograde ejaculation due to relaxation of prostatic and bladder neck smooth muscle tone. In a recent researches was evaluated the effect of tamsulosin and alfuzosin on rat vas deferent "in vitro", concluding that tamsulosin may "cause ejaculatory dysfunction by altering the progression and emission of sperm". An abnormal increase of contraction would be the cause of ejaculatory disorder. The aim of our paper is to compare human and rat vas deferens contractile activity and to evaluate with a clinical study if tamsulosin causes retrograde ejaculation disorder. METHODS: We have revaluated the human and rat vas deferens contractile activity in vitro according to our experience and literature. We have also performed a clinical study on 10 patients (48–72 y) affected by anejaculation. Post-coital urine was examined to search spermatozoa. RESULTS: Human and rat vas deferens activity is not comparable. Contractile activity induced by norepinephrin after tamsulosin incubation in rat prostatic vas deferens strips is similar to the contractile activity evoked by norepinephrin in human strips. Spermatozoa were found in post coital urine of 6 patients. CONCLUSION: In our opinion the treatment with tamsulosin may induce retrograde ejaculation but not other ejaculatory disorder due to abnormal sperm progression

Micro ad-hoc Health Social Networks (uHSN). Design and evaluation of a social-based solution for patient support

Objective: To contribute the design, development, and assessment of a new concept: Micro ad hoc Health Social Networks (uHSN), to create a social-based solution for supporting patients with chronic disease. Design: After in-depth fieldwork and intensive co-design over a 4-year project following Community-Based Participatory Research (CBPR), this paper contributes a new paradigm of uHSN, defining two interaction areas (the “backstage” the sphere invisible to the final user, where processes that build services take place; and the “onstage” the visible part that includes the patients and relatives), and describes a new transversal concept, i.e., “network spaces segments, ” to provide timely interaction among all involved profiles and guaranteeing qualitative relationships. This proposal is applicable to any service design project and to all types of work areas; in the present work, it served as a social-based solution for supporting patients with chronic disease in two real-life health scenarios: a Parkinson disease patient association and a Stroke rehabilitation service in a hospital. These two scenarios included the following main features: thematic (related to the specific disease), private, and secure (only for the patient, relatives, healthcare professional, therapist, carer), with defined specific objectives (around patient support), small size (from tens to hundreds of users), ability to integrate innovative services (e.g., connection to hospital information service or to health sensors), supported by local therapeutic associations, and clustered with preconfigured relationships among users based in network groups. Measurements: Using a mixed qualitative and quantitative approach for 6 months, the performance of the uHSN was assessed in the two environments: a hospital rehabilitation unit working with Stroke patients, and a Parkinson disease association providing physiotherapy, occupational therapy, psychological support, speech therapy, and social services. We describe the proposed methods for evaluating the uHSN quantitatively and qualitatively, and how the scientific community can replicate and/or integrate this contribution in its research. Results: The uHSN overcomes the main limitations of traditional HSNs in the main areas recommended in the literature: privacy, security, transparency, system ecology, Quality of Service (QoS), and technology enhancement. The qualitative and quantitative research demonstrated its viability and replicability in four key points: user acceptance, productivity improvement, QoS enhancement, and fostering of social relations. It also meets the expectation of connecting health and social worlds, supporting distance rehabilitation, improving professionals’ efficiency, expanding users’ social capital, improving information quality and immediacy, and enhancing perceived peer/social/emotional support. The scientific contributions of the present paper are the first step not only in customizing health solutions that empower patients, their families, and healthcare professionals, but also in transferring this new paradigm to other scientific, professional, and social environments to create new opportunities

A UV Sensitive Integrated Micromegas with Timepix Readout

This article presents a detector system consisting of three components, a CMOS imaging array, a gaseous-detector structure with a Micromegas layout and a UV-photon sensitive CsI reflective photocathode. All three elements have been monolithically integrated using simple post-processing steps. The Micromegas structure and the CMOS imaging chip are not impacted by the CsI deposition. The detector operated reliably in He/isobutane mixtures and attained charge gains with single photons up to a level of 6 \cdot 10^4. The Timepix CMOS array permitted high resolution imaging of single UV-photons. The system has an MTF50 of 0.4 lp/pixel which corresponds to app. 7 lp/mm.Comment: 4 pages with 8 figures. Submitted to Nucl. Instr. and Meth. A (Elsevier) for proceedings of VCI 2010