Neural correlates of sexual arousal in homosexual and heterosexual men.

Men exhibit much higher levels of genital and subjective arousal to sexual stimuli containing their preferred sex than they do to stimuli containing only the nonpreferred sex. This study used event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging to investigate how this category-specific pattern would be reflected in the brains of homosexual (n = 11) and heterosexual (n = 11) men. Comparisons of activation to preferred sexual stimuli, nonpreferred sexual stimuli, and sports stimuli revealed large networks correlated with sexual arousal, spanning multiple cortical and subcortical areas. Both homosexual and heterosexual men exhibited category-specific arousal in brain activity. Within the amygdala, greater preference-related activity was observed in homosexual men, but it is unclear whether this is a cause or a consequence of their sexuality. In a subsequent analysis of regions hypothesized to support arousal, both participant groups demonstrated widespread increases in evoked activity for preferred stimuli. Aggregate data from these regions produced significant differences between stimulus types in 16 out of 22 participants. Significant activational differences matched reported sexual orientation in 15 of these 16 participants, representing an advance in psychophysiological measures of arousal. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Kinetics of Zn and Pb evaporation from liquid iron

The evaporation kinetics of Zn and Pb from liquid iron at 1600°C were studied under argon pressure 0.1 to 50 bar in an induction furnace. It was found that the limiting step of evaporation under p_Ar < 1 bar is diffusion in the melt. Diffusion in the gas phase becomes rate-determining with increasing argon pressure. The phase boundary reaction has no effect on the evaporation of Zn and Pb. The evaporation of Zn can evidently be reduced by increasing argon pressure above 1 bar, while the evaporation of Pb is not significantly effected by changes of argon pressure.     

Betriebsmittel für mechanische Vakuumpumpen in der chemischen und der verwandten Industrie

All vacuumpummps which use a liquid as a sealing-agent have to take care of their specific demands. In this paper liquid-ring-vacuum-pumps will be short mentioned, because the user is familiar with this pumps and alternative fluids. Using other fluids in other mecanical vacuumpumps are not in operation in the field of the various applications frequently. You will find some ideas for using other fluids which are possibly used in rotary-vane vacuum-pumps to find more consideration in the future.     

A neural network model for the wire bonding process

A crucial step in manufacturing microcircuits is the wire bonding process in which a very thin gold wire must be formed to connect two surfaces in the microcircuit. The quality of the wire bond can be measured by visual inspection and a pull test—both of which are high-reliability, high-cost approaches to statistical process control. Westinghouse wanted to develop a high-reliability, low-cost quality assurance system. In this paper, we report on a year-long study to construct a neural network model that is capable of predicting the quality of wire bonds. The results of our modeling efforts reveal that neural networks are useful tools for statistical process control problems.     

On-line coupled liquid chromatography-gas chromatography (LC-GC) and LC-LC-GC for detecting irradiation of fat-containing foods

Summary On-line coupled liquid chromatography-gas chromatography-flame ionisation detection (LC-GC-FID) enables efficient and unambiguous determination of irradiation for some fat-containing foods (e.g. meat). Other products, however, contain interfering components or are contaminated, e.g., with mineral oil. Since more selective detection by mass spectrometry has limited success, the determination was improved by a more selective isolation of some key components among the fat degradation products, e.g. the dienes or trienes, by LC-LC-GC-FID. Applications are shown for soup mixes, some spices, fish, and shrimps.

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Nachweis der Bestrahlung fetthaltiger Lebensmittel durch direkt gekoppelte LC-GC und LC-LC-GC

Zusammenfassung Die Bestrahlung einiger fetthaltiger Lebensmittel, z. B. Fleisch, kann mit direkt gekoppelter LC-GC-FID rationell und eindeutig nachgewiesen werden. In anderen Proben wird die Analyse aber durch Inhaltsstoffe des Produktes oder durch Verunreinigungen (z. B. mit Mineralöl) gestört. Da selektivere Detektion durch Massenspektrqmetrie wenig verspricht, wurde der Nachweis durch selektivere Isolierung von Schlüsselkomponenten unter den Bestrahlungsprodukten, z. B. der Diene oder Triene, mittels LC-LC-GC yerbessert. Anwendungen werden gezeigt für Suppenpulver, einige Gewürze, Fisch und Garnelen.

     

Fast and Compact 16 by 16 Cellular Neural Network Implementation

The paper presents a Cellular Neural Network implementation based on a high gain sigmoid operation. The required simplifications to the original theory are described that allow the use of high gain. With this design black and white images can be processed. The basic building blocks in a cell are described. A 16×16 cells network has been designed and processed with 1.2 micron CMOS technology. Measurement results which show the operation of the network are presented.     

Sequence clustering strategies improve remote homology recognitions while reducing search times

Sequence databases are rapidly growing, thereby increasing thecoverage of protein sequence space, but this coverage is unevenbecause most sequencing efforts have concentrated on a smallnumber of organisms. The resulting granularity of sequence spacecreates many problems for profile-based sequence comparisonprograms. In this paper, we suggest several strategies thataddress these problems, and at the same time speed up the searchesfor homologous proteins and improve the ability of profile methodsto recognize distant homologies. One of our strategies combinesdatabase clustering, which removes highly redundant sequence,and a two-step PSI-BLAST (PDB-BLAST), which separates sequencespaces of profile composition and space of homology searching.The combination of these strategies improves distant homologyrecognitions by more than 100%, while using only 10% of theCPU time of the standard PSI-BLAST search. Another method, intermediateprofile searches, allows for the exploration of additional searchdirections that are normally dominated by large protein sub-familieswithin very diverse families. All methods are evaluated witha large fold-recognition benchmark.     

MRT of experimental liver abscesses: a comparison of a new blood pool contrast medium with gadolinium-DTPA in animal experiments

PURPOSE: In an experimental pyogenic liver abscess model, the signal intensities were compared intraindividually and interindividually after the application of a new blood pool contrast agent, 24-gadolinium-DTPA (diethylenetriamine-pentaacetic acid) cascade polymer, and after the application of gadopentetate dimeglumine. METHODS: In 20 rabbits with experimentally induced liver abscesses, the relative signal intensities of the liver, abscess centre, abscess wall and portal vein were assessed before and between 30 seconds and 60 minutes after injection of a 25 mumol/kg dose of gadolinium polymer and of 100 mumol/kg of gadolinium-DTPA, respectively. Measurements were performed at 1.5 Tesla, using a head coil and a Flash-2-D sequence. RESULTS: The interindividual comparison (unpaired T-test, p < 0.05) yielded significant differences of the relative signal intensities of the abscess centre (at any time point after contrast-media application), abscess wall (between 15 and 60 minutes after contrast media application), and portal vein (between 30 seconds and 7.5 minutes after contrast media application). The interindividual comparison showed a significantly higher abscess centre-liver contrast (between 30 seconds and 12.5 minutes after contrast media application) and a significantly higher abscess wall-centre contrast (between two and 7.5 minutes after contrast media application) after the application of gadolinium polymer compared with gadopentetate dimeglumine. CONCLUSION: In this animal model, the higher abscess centre-liver contrast after the application of gadolinium polymer was the basis for a better and prolonged visibility of the abscesses, as compared with images acquired after injection of gadopentetate dimeglumine.