Experiencing male infertility: A review of the qualitative research literature

This article examines the qualitative research literature that exists in relation to men’s experiences of male infertility. Since men have often been marginalized in the realm of reproduction, including academic research on infertility, it is important to focus on any qualitative research that gives voices to male perspectives and concerns. Given the distress documented by studies of infertile women, we focus in particular on the emotive responses and lived experiences of men in relation to infertility. In this article then, we present an analysis of the core themes across 19 qualitative articles, which include “infertility as crisis”; “emoting infertility- men as “being strong”’ “infertility as a source of stigma”; and the “desire for fatherhood.” In light of these insights, we identify key areas for future research and development including men’s emotional responses to infertility, how men seek support for infertility, the intersection between masculinity and infertility, the relationship between the desire to father and infertility, and the outcomes of infertility for men in terms of other aspects of their lives. We suggest that such research would facilitate making the experiences of men more central within our understandings of infertility within a field that has primarily been female focused

Measurement of the Luminosity in the ZEUS Experiment at HERA II

The luminosity in the ZEUS detector was measured using photons from electron bremsstrahlung. In 2001 the HERA collider was upgraded for operation at higher luminosity. At the same time the luminosity-measuring system of the ZEUS experiment was modified to tackle the expected higher photon rate and synchrotron radiation. The existing lead-scintillator calorimeter was equipped with radiation hard scintillator tiles and shielded against synchrotron radiation. In addition, a magnetic spectrometer was installed to measure the luminosity independently using photons converted in the beam-pipe exit window. The redundancy provided a reliable and robust luminosity determination with a systematic uncertainty of 1.7%. The experimental setup, the techniques used for luminosity determination and the estimate of the systematic uncertainty are reported.Comment: 25 pages, 11 figure

Luminometer for the future International Linear Collider - simulation and beam test results

LumiCal will be the luminosity calorimeter for the proposed International Large Detector of the International Linear Collider (ILC). The ILC physics program requires the integrated luminosity to be measured with a relative precision on the order of 10e-3, or 10e-4 when running in GigaZ mode. Luminosity will be determined by counting Bhabha scattering events coincident in the two calorimeter modules placed symmetrically on opposite sides of the interaction point. To meet these goals, the energy resolution of the calorimeter must be better than 1.5% at high energies. LumiCal has been designed as a 30-layer sampling calorimeter with tungsten as the passive material and silicon as the active material. Monte Carlo simulation using the Geant4 software framework has been used to identify design elements which adversely impact energy resolution and correct for them without loss of statistics. BeamCal, covering polar angles smaller than LumiCal, will serve for beam tuning, luminosity optimisation and high energy electron detection. Secondly, prototypes of the sensors and electronics for both detectors have been evaluated during beam tests, the results of which are also presented here.Comment: Technology and Instrumentation in Particle Physics 2011, Chicago, IL, USA. Presented June 11, 2011, and submitted to Physics Procedi

Measurement of shower development and its Moli\`ere radius with a four-plane LumiCal test set-up

A prototype of a luminometer, designed for a future e+e- collider detector, and consisting at present of a four-plane module, was tested in the CERN PS accelerator T9 beam. The objective of this beam test was to demonstrate a multi-plane tungsten/silicon operation, to study the development of the electromagnetic shower and to compare it with MC simulations. The Moli\`ere radius has been determined to be 24.0 +/- 0.6 (stat.) +/- 1.5 (syst.) mm using a parametrization of the shower shape. Very good agreement was found between data and a detailed Geant4 simulation.Comment: Paper published in Eur. Phys. J., includes 25 figures and 3 Table

On Unbounded Composition Operators in L2L^2-Spaces

Fundamental properties of unbounded composition operators in $L^2$-spaces are studied. Characterizations of normal and quasinormal composition operators are provided. Formally normal composition operators are shown to be normal. Composition operators generating Stieltjes moment sequences are completely characterized. The unbounded counterparts of the celebrated Lambert's characterizations of subnormality of bounded composition operators are shown to be false. Various illustrative examples are supplied

Performance of fully instrumented detector planes of the forward calorimeter of a Linear Collider detector

Detector-plane prototypes of the very forward calorimetry of a future detector at an e+e- collider have been built and their performance was measured in an electron beam. The detector plane comprises silicon or GaAs pad sensors, dedicated front-end and ADC ASICs, and an FPGA for data concentration. Measurements of the signal-to-noise ratio and the response as a function of the position of the sensor are presented. A deconvolution method is successfully applied, and a comparison of the measured shower shape as a function of the absorber depth with a Monte-Carlo simulation is given.Comment: 25 pages, 32 figures, revised version following comments from referee

ECFA Detector R&D Panel, Review Report

Two special calorimeters are foreseen for the instrumentation of the very forward region of an ILC or CLIC detector; a luminometer (LumiCal) designed to measure the rate of low angle Bhabha scattering events with a precision better than 10$^{-3}$ at the ILC and 10$^{-2}$ at CLIC, and a low polar-angle calorimeter (BeamCal). The latter will be hit by a large amount of beamstrahlung remnants. The intensity and the spatial shape of these depositions will provide a fast luminosity estimate, as well as determination of beam parameters. The sensors of this calorimeter must be radiation-hard. Both devices will improve the e.m. hermeticity of the detector in the search for new particles. Finely segmented and very compact electromagnetic calorimeters will match these requirements. Due to the high occupancy, fast front-end electronics will be needed. Monte Carlo studies were performed to investigate the impact of beam-beam interactions and physics background processes on the luminosity measurement, and of beamstrahlung on the performance of BeamCal, as well as to optimise the design of both calorimeters. Dedicated sensors, front-end and ADC ASICs have been designed for the ILC and prototypes are available. Prototypes of sensor planes fully assembled with readout electronics have been studied in electron beams.Comment: 61 pages, 51 figure

Infrastructure for Detector Research and Development towards the International Linear Collider

The EUDET-project was launched to create an infrastructure for developing and testing new and advanced detector technologies to be used at a future linear collider. The aim was to make possible experimentation and analysis of data for institutes, which otherwise could not be realized due to lack of resources. The infrastructure comprised an analysis and software network, and instrumentation infrastructures for tracking detectors as well as for calorimetry.Comment: 54 pages, 48 picture

A novel method to compare protein structures using local descriptors

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Protein structure comparison is one of the most widely performed tasks in bioinformatics. However, currently used methods have problems with the so-called "difficult similarities", including considerable shifts and distortions of structure, sequential swaps and circular permutations. There is a demand for efficient and automated systems capable of overcoming these difficulties, which may lead to the discovery of previously unknown structural relationships.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>We present a novel method for protein structure comparison based on the formalism of local descriptors of protein structure - DEscriptor Defined Alignment (DEDAL). Local similarities identified by pairs of similar descriptors are extended into global structural alignments. We demonstrate the method's capability by aligning structures in difficult benchmark sets: curated alignments in the SISYPHUS database, as well as SISY and RIPC sets, including non-sequential and non-rigid-body alignments. On the most difficult RIPC set of sequence alignment pairs the method achieves an accuracy of 77% (the second best method tested achieves 60% accuracy).</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>DEDAL is fast enough to be used in whole proteome applications, and by lowering the threshold of detectable structure similarity it may shed additional light on molecular evolution processes. It is well suited to improving automatic classification of structure domains, helping analyze protein fold space, or to improving protein classification schemes. DEDAL is available online at <url>http://bioexploratorium.pl/EP/DEDAL</url>.</p

Coping Processes of Couples Experiencing Infertility

This study explored the coping processes of couples experiencing infertility. Participants included 420 couples referred for advanced reproductive treatments. Couples were divided into groups based on the frequency of their use of eight coping strategies. Findings suggest that coping processes, which are beneficial to individuals, may be problematic for one\u27s partner. Couples where men used high amounts of distancing, while their partner used low amounts of distancing, reported higher levels of distress when compared to couples in the other groups. Conversely, couples with women who used high amounts of self-controlling coping, when paired with men who used low amounts of self-controlling coping, reported higher levels of distress. Implications of study findings are discussed, and ideas for future research are proposed