Search

Resume La presente etude rend compte de la frequence, du contenu et du ton emotionnel des reves erotiques en se basant sur le journal intime des reves d’un echantillon d’etudiants allemands. Quatre cent vingt-cinq eleves ont transmis 1612 reves, dont environ 6 % portaient sur des themes erotiques, un chiffre conforme aux recherches anterieures. Quant au contenu du reve, le baiser etait l’activite erotique la plus frequente, suivi des rapports sexuels et des preliminaires sexuels explicites. L’ouverture a l’experience est positivement liee a la frequence des reves erotiques ; le neuroticisme et la conscience sont associes a une tonalite emotionnelle plutot negative pour de tels reves. Cela confirme l’hypothese de continuite selon laquelle l’experience erotique du reve reflete l’activite sexuelle de la vie eveillee, qui est susceptible d’etre influencee par ces dispositions de la personnalite. D’autres recherches devraient approfondir la connaissance des aspects et de l’intensite emotionnelle de l’activite sexuelle du moment ou l’on se reveille et leurs reflets dans les reves erotiques, c’est-a-dire si les evenements sexuels indesirables et mal percus sont associes au ton affectif des reves erotiques. Pour etudier la causalite de la relation entre l’activite sexuelle eveillee et revee et les emotions qui y sont liees, une etude experimentale serait une approche necessaire.

Summary The present study reports about the frequency, content and emotional tone of erotic dreams based on dream diary reports of a German college student sample. Four hundred and twenty-five students provided 1612 dreams, of which about 6% contained erotic themes, a figure which is in line with previous research. As for the dream content, kissing was the most frequent erotic activity, followed by intercourse and explicit sexual foreplay. Openness to experience is positively related to the frequency of erotic dreams; neuroticism and conscientiousness are associated with a rather negative emotional tone of such dreams. This supports the continuity hypothesis stating that erotic dreaming experience reflects waking life sexual activity, which is likely to be influenced by these personality dispositions. Further research should extend the knowledge of the aspects and emotional intensity of waking life sexual activity and their reflection in erotic dream content, i.e., whether experiencing unwanted and negatively perceived sexual events are associated with the emotional tone of erotic dreams. To investigate the causality of the relation between waking and dreaming sexual activity and the emotions related to it, an experimental study would be a necessary approach.

This paper presents a system on board (SoB) solution intended for fully autonomous implantable continuous monitoring of biomaterials. The proposed SoB is built around a packaged highly-integrated chip, which comprises two capacitive resonant-tank-based complex permittivity dielectric sensors operating in K-band, temperature sensor, wakeup timer, finite state machine (FSM), serial peripheral interface (SPI), ADC and a 60 GHz transmitter. Wakeup timer is used to turn on the 1.5 V power domain regularly every 8.9 min, which stays "on" only for 4.2 ms. During this time the FSM implements the fully autonomous functionality of the system by running a pre-defined sequence, performing the sensor measurements and forwarding the data to transmitter. The sensor data is read via SPI, buffered and transmitted outside of the implant as a Manchester coded BPSK sequence modulated onto a 60 GHz carrier. The chip is realized in a 130 nm BiCMOS process and packaged using a flip-chip ball-grid array technology. To save chip area, the 60 GHz antenna is realized in the redistribution layer (RDL) of the package. The SoB additionally comprises an external PLL, low-dropout regulators and external reference oscillator. The size of the SoB module is only 18 mm × 14 mm. It can operate up to 233 days from a small 3.7 V LiPo 95 mAh battery. The functionality is verified in measurement by monitoring the fully autonomous sequence. Next, biological materials are applied to the sensor, modulated values are transmitted and demodulated using an external 60 GHz down-converter and digital Costas loop. Finally, isopropanol-water solutions are applied in 25% concentration change steps and demodulated complex permittivity values are evaluated.

Continuously transposed cable (CTC) is a multistranded conductor mainly for application in power transformers. As its structure is complicated a simplified simulation model and an easy analytic model for the buckling analysis of transformer coils are investigated in this paper. In the simplified models the transposition of the strands is neglected leading to an easy rotation symmetric cross section. These simplified models are compared to detailed models using finite element analysis (FEA) based linear and nonlinear buckling simulations. Furthermore analytical approaches are adopted from the buckling-behavior of a circular arch for the use with CTCs. All models are compared with respect to their critical buckling load for some typical winding and CTC dimensions varying between 11 to 41 strands. The maximum deviation between detailed and simplified FEA based CTC models for both linear and nonlinear buckling analysis lies below 13%. The deviations for the analytic approaches are with a maximum of 22% higher but serve to verify the trends deduced from the simulation results.

Article de synthese traitant de l'evaluation de l'impact de projets agricoles sur l'alimentation, la nutrition et la sante de l'homme. Methodologies et exemples; irrigation en Haiti, projet de developpement de l'alimentation en eau d'une ville en Thailande, l'eradication de la deficience en vitamine A aux Philippines et d'autres projets culture de rente au Mexique, au Kenya, en Nouvelles Guinees, au Burkina Faso et au Sri Lanka

OBJECTIVE The purpose of this retrospective analysis was to estimate the cost and effectiveness of venlafaxine extended-release (VXR) compared with selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors in the outpatient treatment of major depressive disorder. METHODS Pooled data from 8, 8-week, randomized, double-blind studies comparing treatment of major depressive disorder with venlafaxine/venlafaxine XR (n = 851), selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (fluoxetine, paroxetine, fluvoxamine; n = 748), or placebo (4 studies; n = 446) were retrospectively analyzed to determine the economic implications of symptom remission from the perspective of a US third party payer and that of an employer. A decision modeling approach was used to determine cost and effectiveness ratios. RESULTS Patients on VXR were associated with 22.8 depression-free days versus 18.6 depression-free days with the studied selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, based on the decision model. Productive and quality-adjusted days were also expected to increase for VXR patients (22.06 vs. 19.34 and 4.56 to 9.36 vs. 3.72 to 7.63), as was the percentage of patients achieving full activity (25.9% vs. 19.6%). The expected cost per patient achieving remission of symptoms was US 1303.94 dollars and US 1514.96 dollars, and the cost per depression-free days was US 25.66 dollars and US 28.25 dollars, for the VXR and selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors groups, respectively. CONCLUSIONS Treatment with VXR is not only expected to increase the rate of remission of symptoms but is also associated with achievement of full activity, higher number of depression-free days, productive days, and quality-adjusted days. VXR is a cost-effective treatment option for major depressive disorder.

Background: Recent advances in psychotherapy and pharmacotherapy have increased the number of treatment options for anxiety disorders. This article examines changes in outpatient treatment of anxiety disorders in the United States between 1987 and 1999. Method: Analyses are presented of service utilization data from 2 nationally representative surveys of the general population: the 1987 National Medical Expenditure Survey and the 1999 Medical Expenditure Panel Survey. Respondents were selected who made I or more outpatient visits for the treatment of an anxiety disorder (ICD-9/DSM-IV: 300.0, 300.2, 300.3, or 308.3). The rates of treatment, psychotropic medication use, psychotherapy, number of outpatient treatment visits, type of provider, and source of payment were determined. Results: The rate of outpatient treatment for anxiety disorders increased from 0.43 per 100 persons in 1987 to 0.83 in 1999 (p

To investigate effects of hay intake and feeding sequence on indicators of the microbial activity within the hindgut, six horses were fed 1.00 kg oats plus 0.50, 0.67, 0.83 or 1.00 kg hay/100 kg body weight (BW) x day, each for 14 days. Oats was offered either 30 min prior to hay (OA) or in the reversed sequence (HA) in a 2 x 8-week crossover design. Because typically exercised horses should be subjected to the study, faeces was used as substrate. Faecal dry matter (DM), the faecal waters' short-chain fatty acids (SCFA, in mmol/1) and molar percentages (mol%) of propionate and iso-butyrate were highest with OA (p < 0.01). Acetate mol%, acetate-propionate quotient (A/P) and buffering capacities 1 and 2 (BC1: current pH to pH 6; BC2: pH 6 to 5) of the faecal water were highest with HA (p < 0.01). While the hay intake rose, faecal pH, acetate mol%, A/P, BC1 and BC2 (the latter with HA only) increased (p < 0.05), but DM, SCFA and propionate mol% declined (p < 0.05). The hay-induced rise in A/P and BC1 was much higher with HA than with OA. L-Lactate and ammonia were unaffected by the feeding sequence and hay intake. In conclusion, hay intake and feeding sequence influence the microbial activity within the hindgut, although the concentrate level remains consistent. In horse rations with 1.00 kg oats/100 kg BW x day amounts of at least 0.83 kg hay/100 kg BW x day and offering the hay first seem to have the potency to protect the hindgut content from acidification. Behavioural abnormality was not observed any longer first with 1.00 kg hay/100 kg BW x day.

Study Objective. To compare treatment adequacy in the management of depression during the acute and continuation phases between patients newly treated with venlafaxine extended release (XR) and those newly treated with fluoxetine. Design. Retrospective observational analysis of pharmacy claims data. Setting. Large California-based managed care organization. Patients. A total of 11,298 patients newly prescribed venlafaxine XR or fluoxetine between January 1, 2000, and February 28, 2001, and continuously enrolled throughout the study, as well as a subset of 7430 patients who continued taking venlafaxine XR or fluoxetine during the follow-up period. Measurements and Main Results. The Health Plan Employer Data and Information Set definition was used for continuous antidepressant treatment during the acute and continuation phases. Treatment adequacy was determined for those deemed continuous. Patients receiving within ±10% of the target dose for each drug (venlafaxine XR 75–150 mg, fluoxetine 20 mg) were defined as receiving an adequate dose. Logistic regression was used to evaluate venlafaxine XR versus fluoxetine on treatment adequacy, controlling for age, sex, physician specialty, and pharmacy benefit. The unadjusted adequacy rate for the venlafaxine XR-only group was 79% versus 57% for the fluoxetine-only group for 84 continuous days (p

In order to make hidden Markov model (HMM) speech recognition suitable for mobile phone applications, Siemens developed a recognizer, Very Smart Recognizer (VSR), for deployment in future mobile phone generations. Typical applications will be name dialling, command and control operations suited for different environments, for example in cars. The paper describes research and development issues of a speech recognizer in mobile devices focusing on noise robustness, memory efficiency and integer implementation. The VSR is shown to reach a word error rate as low as 4.1% on continuous digits recorded in a car environment. Furthermore by means of discriminative training and HMM-parameter coding, the memory requirements of the VSR HMMs are smaller than 64 kBytes.

Spontaneous dissection of the external iliac artery due to fibromuscular dysplasia. A case of spontaneous dissection of the external iliac artery due to fibromuscular dysplasia is presented. In a 45-year-old man with a history of sudden onset of intermittent claudication a dissection of the right external iliac artery was found by duplex ultrasound. The patient, who was first treated with conservative therapy, subsequently required operative treatment because of further progression of the dissection. Considering the age of the patient a retrograde thrombendarterectomy manoeuver over guide wire was performed. Angiographic control at the end of operation demonstrated a good reconstructive result without any changes in the right common iliac artery and the aorta. Histopathological examination of the removed material showed fibromuscular dysplasia of the media. In the postoperative course the patient was clinically asymptomatic with ankle/brachial pressure indices of 1.0 on both legs. But shortly after discharge the intermittent claudication in the right leg recurred. Angiography and duplex ultrasound revealed focal stenosis of the right common iliac artery as well as retrograde dissection of the right common iliac artery extending into the distal aorta. Conservative therapy was recommended to the patient by the local hospital and no further progression of clinical and duplex findings within the last six months was found.

In der Atiologie des Thoracic-outlet-Syndroms (TOS) spielen angeborene knocherne und fibromuskulare Strukturen, Haltungsanomalien und Traumata eine Rolle. Das Beschwerdebild ist sehr variabel und vielfaltig, je nachdem ob die Kompression des Plexus, der Arterie oder der Vene im Vordergund steht. Bei der Diagnostik ist die sorgfaltige klinische Untersuchung unter Einschlus des AER-Testes von ausschlaggebender Bedeutung. Unabdingbar sind die Darstellungen von A. und V. subclavia in verschiedenen Positionen. Wahrend weniger als 5% der TOS-Patienten eine aneurysmatische Erweiterung der A. subclavia aufweisen, zeigen 76% periphere Digitalarterienverschlusse. Unerlaslich ist eine praoperative neurologische Untersuchung mit Messung der proximalen Leitgeschwindigkeiten von N. ulnaris und medianus. Morphologische Veranderungen an der A. subclavia, eine verzogerte proximale Nervenleitgeschwindigkeit sowie die filiforme Kompression der V. subclavia, ebenso aber auch schwerste Schmerzzustande und Analgetikaabusus, stellen u.E. Indikationen zur operativen Dekompression des neurovaskularen Bundels dar. Diese erfolgt in Form der transaxillaren Exartikulation der 1. Rippe ggf. unter Mitnahme einer Halsrippe und der Beseitigung samtlicher fibromuskularer Bandstrukturen. Die Ergebnisse der Primaroperation sind gunstig: vollkommen beschwerdefrei 85%, entscheidend gebessert 12%, unverandert oder verschlechtert 3%. Demgegenuber sind die Behandlungsergebnisse bei persistierenden und rezidivierten Kompressionssyndromen enttauschend: 48% vollstandig beschwerdefrei, 31% wesentlich gebessert und 21% unverandert oder verschlechtert.

Dietary goals are usually expressed in the form of consumption of absolute quantities of specific nutrients. Translating such information into food patterns is difficult. Consequently it is not easy to convey these goals in the promotion of a healthy diet or to monitor dietary change in populations. This paper explores the difficulties and advantages of a food frequency questionnaire approach as used in a large regional health survey to describe food patterns and hence to monitor change in relation to dietary variables. There was considerable variation in the frequency of consumption of individual foods between different sub-groups in the population and these were as expected. To assess the overall diet a composite dietary index was proposed. The index score was significantly associated with various socio-demographic and lifestyle variables. Unhealthy lifestyles were associated with low scores (i.e. an ‘unhealthy’ diet) on the index indicating a measure of validity. However there were several limitations in the food frequency questionnaire method used: neither the questionnaire nor simple global indices of a ‘healthy’ diet derived from the questions used had been validated against a more robust quantifiable measure of diet; some of the questions were not specific for population groups of interest; some questions grouped foods in categories that masked differences in consumption and several did not correspond to recent food targets; and finally there was no energy adjustment, which meant that the obese appeared to have a healthy dietary pattern. The use of a valid set of food frequency questions as an efficient and practical way of monitoring a population's diet by survey is suggested. The questions must be validated against reliable measures of nutrients, and be compatible with food targets based on nutritional recommendations.

Stem cells play an important role in veterinary medicine in different ways. Currently several stem cell therapies for animal patients are being developed and some, like the treatment of equine tendinopathies with mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs), have already successfully entered the market. Moreover, animal models are widely used to study the properties and potential of stem cells for possible future applications in human medicine. Therefore, in the young and emerging field of stem cell research, human and veterinary medicine are intrinsically tied to one another. Many of the pioneering innovations in the field of stem cell research are achieved by cooperating teams of human and veterinary medical scientists.

To investigate effects of hay intake and feeding sequence on indicators of the microbial activity within the hindgut, six horses were fed 1.00 kg oats plus 0.50, 0.67, 0.83 or 1.00 kg hay/100 kg body weight (BW) x day, each for 14 days. Oats was offered either 30 min prior to hay (OA) or in the reversed sequence (HA) in a 2 x 8-week crossover design. Because typically exercised horses should be subjected to the study, faeces was used as substrate. Faecal dry matter (DM), the faecal waters' short-chain fatty acids (SCFA, in mmol/1) and molar percentages (mol%) of propionate and iso-butyrate were highest with OA (p0.01). Acetate mol%, acetate-propionate quotient (A/P) and buffering capacities 1 and 2 (BC1: current pH to pH 6; BC2: pH 6 to 5) of the faecal water were highest with HA (p0.01). While the hay intake rose, faecal pH, acetate mol%, A/P, BC1 and BC2 (the latter with HA only) increased (p0.05), but DM, SCFA and propionate mol% declined (p0.05). The hay-induced rise in A/P and BC1 was much higher with HA than with OA. L-Lactate and ammonia were unaffected by the feeding sequence and hay intake. In conclusion, hay intake and feeding sequence influence the microbial activity within the hindgut, although the concentrate level remains consistent. In horse rations with 1.00 kg oats/100 kg BW x day amounts of at least 0.83 kg hay/100 kg BW x day and offering the hay first seem to have the potency to protect the hindgut content from acidification. Behavioural abnormality was not observed any longer first with 1.00 kg hay/100 kg BW x day.

Cet article présentent les résultats d'une Consultation d'Experts dont l'objectif était d'évaluer l'efficacité et l'innocuité des suppléments de fer administrés aux nourrissons et aux jeunes enfants dans les zones d’endémie palustre, ainsi que les conséquences d’une telle mesure pour la santé publique. Les participants à cette Consultation, qui s’est déroulée à Lyon (France) les 12–14 juin 2006, se sont entendus sur plusieurs questions importantes concernant l’administration d’une supplémentation martiale aux nourrissons et aux jeunes enfants dans les zones d’endémie palustre. Les conclusions du présent rapport s’appliquent plus particulièrement aux pays où le paludisme est endémique.

The development of appropriate edge termination structures is a challenging task for all kinds of different vertical power semiconductors such as high-voltage diodes, IGBTs or especially compensation devices. Ion-beam induced charge microscopy and electron-beam induced charge microscopy are reliable tools for imaging of space-charge regions and detection of electric-field enhancements inside of power devices. The usefulness of these methods is shown for the example of high-voltage power diodes and low-voltage power MOSFET. Advantages and limitations of the measurement techniques are discussed.

The use of a parameter related to the vocal tract length of humans is investigated for a speaker recognition system. This parameter is a warping factor for the frequency spectrum and it was determined from a vocal tract length normalization module of an automatic speech recognizer. A decision fusion approach was used to combine the output of the stand-alone speaker verification with a separate classifier for the warping factor. The fused system exhibits a relative improvement of 23% compared to the stand-alone system.

Beta-lactam antibiotics, such as piperacillin-tazobactam, are commonly administered frequently throughout the day as intermittent infusions over a period of 30-60 min. However, increasing knowledge of how these antibiotics kill bacteria has made continuous infusion a valuable option to achieve maximal clinical outcomes while consuming the least amount of institutional resources. Continuous infusion of piperacillin-tazobactam is currently used at our hospital because of its clinical and economic benefits when compared with intermittent infusion. This article will review our experience with the administration of piperacillin-tazobactam by continuous infusion and the numerous advantages we have documented. Additionally, advantages related to a reduction in nursing resource consumption will be a focus of discussion.

Objective. To describe comorbidities and treatment charges in patients receiving initial anxiolytic therapy for anxiety disorders. Design. Retrospective data analysis. Patients. Six thousand six hundred forty-seven patients with anxiety disorders. Measurements and Main Results. Analysis was conducted using medical and pharmacy data for patients in 26 United States health plans from the PharMetrics Integrated Outcomes database. Data were collected for 12 months before and after the first anxiolytic prescription date (index date) during the study period (January 1, 1998-December 31, 2000). The sample comprised patients with a diagnosis of anxiety disorder whose original anxiolytic prescription had been refilled within 120 days. International Classification of Diseases, 9th revision, Clinical Modification (ICD-9-CM) codes and medical and prescription data identified the existence of comorbidities, and medical and prescription charges. The most common diagnoses of anxiety disorder were anxiety not otherwise specified (67%), panic disorder (14%), and generalized anxiety disorder (13%). The most commonly prescribed anxiolytics were benzodiazepines, such as alprazolam (43%) and lorazepam (27%). Hypertension was the most common nonpsychiatric comorbidity (22%) and depression the most common psychiatric comorbidity (37%). Other comorbidities observed were lipid disorders (17%), chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (9%), and asthma (7%). Total treatment charges 12 months before and after initial anxiety diagnosis and anxiolytic prescription were $6279 and $9270, respectively (p