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Subjective Measurements (subjective + measurement)

Distribution by Scientific Domains

Medical Sciences	50%

Selected Abstracts

The Influence of Testosterone Combined with a PDE5-inhibitor on Cognitive, Affective, and Physiological Sexual Functioning in Women Suffering from Sexual Dysfunction

THE JOURNAL OF SEXUAL MEDICINE, Issue 3 2009
Flip Van Der Made MD
ABSTRACT Introduction., Women with female sexual dysfunction have a reduced sensitivity to sexual stimuli. Activation of central mechanisms may open a window for phosphodiesterase type 5 inhibitors (PDE5) to be effective; as a consequence, the combination of testosterone and a PDE5 inhibitor will restore sexual function. Aim., To demonstrate that the combination of testosterone and vardenafil will increase the sensitivity for sexual stimuli and will improve the desire and arousal components of the sexual response. Methods., In a double-blind randomly assigned placebo-controlled crossover design, 28 women with desire and/or arousal disorder underwent four different drug treatments on four separate experimental days. A masked version of the emotional Stroop task with sexual and nonsexual words was used to measure sensitivity for sexual content. Neutral and erotic film fragments were used to determine genital,physiological and subjective reactions. Main Outcome Measures., A masked version of the emotional Stroop task, vaginal pulse amplitude. For subjective measurement, responses were collected continuously with a lever and two self-report measures were used. Results., In two subgroups, which were differentiated on the basis of their initial preconscious attentional bias for sexual cues, a different sexual response profile was found. In an initially low-attention group, preconscious attentional bias for sexual cues increased under the testosterone condition. In these women, the combination of testosterone and vardenafil caused an improvement in genital response and subjective indices of sexual functioning. In the group that had initially a high attention for sexual cues, preconscious attentional bias for sexual cues decreased under the condition of testosterone. In these women, the combination of testosterone and vardenafil had no effect on any of the indices of their sexual functioning. Conclusion., In women suffering from low sexual desire,associated with low attention for sexual cues,the combination of testosterone and vardenafil may be a promising new treatment. van der Made F, Bloemers J, Yassem WE, Kleiverda G, Everaerd W, van Ham D, Olivier B, Koppeschaar H, and Tuiten A. The influence of testosterone combined with a PDE5-inhibitor on cognitive, affective, and physiological sexual functioning in women suffering from sexual dysfunction. J Sex Med 2009;6:777,790. [source]

Comparison between objective and subjective measurements of quality of service over an Optical Wide Area network

EUROPEAN TRANSACTIONS ON TELECOMMUNICATIONS, Issue 3 2008
Francesco Matera
The introduction of intelligence for management and control of the quality of service (QoS) are key issues for the evolution of the next generation IP optical network based on Ethernet technology. A test bed of a core-access network was implemented to investigate such issues and in this paper, the authors report measurements concerning the QoS of multimedia services for different traffic conditions. The network was implemented with a differentiated service over Multi-Protocol Label Switch (MPLS) architecture; it consists of a real optical network based on core routers with optical Gigabit Ethernet (GBE) interfaces connected by means of long single mode fibres (about 50\,km), contained in an installed cable between Rome and Pomezia. The network is based on different access devices, but in this paper we only refer to an access based on Fibre To The building (FTTB) architecture. The QoS was investigated both in terms of network (or objective) tests that include packet loss, jitter, one way delay and throughput measurements and perceptive (or subjective) tests that conversely are based on the evaluation of user perception. The services under test mainly consisted of video streams that circulated in the network according to the switching operations based in the IP differentiated service over MPLS technique that allowed us to guarantee the QoS for some class of service, also in the presence of network overload. Particular attention was given to the correlation between objective and subjective measurements. Furthermore, in order to have a complete analysis about QoS of real networks, measurements were performed also in the presence of restoration operations for link failures; in particular we compare the results in the case of conventional IP network restoration with a procedure proposed by us and based on a link switching activated by the loss of signal command coming from the routers. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source]

Increased occurrence of asthma and allergy: critical appraisal of studies using allergic sensitization, bronchial hyper-responsiveness and lung function measurements

CLINICAL & EXPERIMENTAL ALLERGY, Issue 10 2001
M. H. Wieringa
Background Many studies have reported an increase in the occurrence of asthma and respiratory allergies in recent decades, but this increase is mostly based on studies using rather subjective measurements of asthma and allergies, such as questionnaires and doctor's diagnosis. None of the reviews specifically focused on studies using more ,objective' measurements, such as sensitization (specific IgE or skin prick testing (SPT)), bronchial hyper-responsiveness (BHR) or lung function (LF). Objective To review articles studying a time trend of occurrence of these ,more objective' measurements. Methods A MEDLINE-search (1966,February 2000) was performed. The following criteria were used: population-based, using IgE, SPT, BHR or LF measurements in the same age-group at least twice, with at least 2 years between and using similar methods. Results The MEDLINE-search resulted in only 16 articles, performed in 13 populations in seven different countries. Nine articles used the same objective measurements twice in the whole population. Three of these reported a non-significant increase or decrease. The other six articles found a significant increase in at least one objective measurement and of these only three reported a consistent significant increase. Conclusions The increase in the occurrence of reported asthma and allergy is supported by only a few articles confirming these results with ,more objective measurements'. [source]