DXC Technology (Denmark)

For women, the correlation between circulating androgens and sexual desire is inconclusive. Substitution with androgens at physiological levels improves sexual function in women who experience decreased sexual desire and androgen deficiency from surgical menopause, pituitary disease, and age-related decline in androgen production in the ovaries. Measuring bioactive testosterone is difficult and new methods have been proposed, including measuring the primary androgen metabolite androsterone glucuronide (ADT-G). The aim of this study was to investigate a possible correlation between serum levels of androgens and sexual desire in women and whether the level of ADT-G is better correlated than the level of circulating androgens with sexual desire. This was a cross-sectional study including 560 healthy women aged 19-65 years divided into three age groups. Correlations were considered to be statistically significant at P<0.05. Sexual desire was determined as the total score of the sexual desire domain of the Female Sexual Function Index. Total testosterone (TT), calculated free testosterone (FT), androstenedione, dehydroepiandrosterone sulfate (DHEAS), and ADT-G were analyzed using mass spectrometry. Sexual desire correlated overall with FT and androstenedione in the total cohort of women. In a subgroup of women aged 25-44 years with no use of systemic hormonal contraception, sexual desire correlated with TT, FT, androstenedione, and DHEAS. In women aged 45-65 years, androstenedione correlated with sexual desire. No correlations between ADT-G and sexual desire were identified. In the present study, FT and androstenedione were statistically significantly correlated with sexual desire in the total cohort of women. ADT-G did not correlate more strongly than circulating androgens with sexual desire and is therefore not superior to measuring circulating androgens by mass spectrometry.

This article reviews the performance of an optical-label-controlled packet routing node as implemented in the European FP5-IST STOLAS project including a set of general engineering rules. Experimental networking scenarios and results from a STOLAS based network emulator supporting optical overspill routing are presented

As part of a major upgrading of the Dyckerhoff AG, Amoneburg cement plant, Germany, a fully automated quality control and quality assurance system has been installed. The laboratory automation system is the robotics-based QCX/Robolab system. At the production laboratory, samples from nine automatic sampling points are brought by a pneumatic tube transport system to the industrial robot and distributed to sample preparation and analytical equipment. The robot-controlled analysis activity comprises X-ray fluorescence, X-ray diffraction, particle size distribution, and color measurement. The results are used for automatic process control applications. A number of manually operated analytical devices are connected to the system, allowing automatic analysis-data collection for activities like quality test of incoming and outgoing products, environmental protection, etc. Via a network, all analytical and associated production data from the production control system are automatically transferred to the central plant data management system.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">&gt;</ETX>