The Ganser syndrome has been evolving more in terms of the nosological conception than in relation to its clinic characteristics, with the hypothesis of a hysterical etipopathogenesis in conflict with the psychotic etiopathogenesis, the malingering, and the factitious disorders, adding the possibility of predisposing organic damage underneath.

In DSM-III, it was considered as a factitious disorder with psychotic symptoms, and since the DSM-III-R it is included as a Dissociative Disorder NOS.

We show in a table similarities and differences between Ganser Syndrome and factitious and malingering disorders, the disorders most commonly mistaken with Ganser Syndrome.

The aim of this study was to assess the associations of intake of different types of meat with semen parameters and reproductive hormones in healthy young men. This cross-sectional study included 206 men, 18–23 years, from Southern Spain. All men completed a validated FFQ, underwent a physical examination, and provided blood and semen samples. Multivariable linear regression was used to evaluate the associations between meat intake with semen quality parameters and reproductive hormones. Total meat intake was unrelated to semen quality or reproductive hormone levels. When subgroups of meat were separately considered, however, shellfish intake was positively related to progressive motility. The adjusted percentages of progressively motile spermatozoa for men in increasing quartiles of shellfish intake were 45·2, 42·0, 49·4 and 53·2 % with a significant linear trend across quartiles (Ptrend≤0·001). In contrast, men who consumed organ meats had significantly lower progressive sperm motility (51·5 v. 42·8 %; P = 0·001) and higher luteinising hormone levels (4·0 v. 4·6 IU/l; P = 0·03) compared with men who did not consume organ meats. Intake of shellfish and organ meats was low in this population, however. Given the scarcity of data on the relation between specific types of meat with semen quality and reproductive hormone levels, additional research is needed to confirm or refute these findings.

Plasma radiative properties play a pivotal role both in nuclear fusion and astrophysics. They are essential to analyze and explain experiments or observations and also in radiative-hydrodynamics simulations. Their computation requires the generation of large atomic databases and the calculation, by solving a set of rate equations, of a huge number of atomic level populations in wide ranges of plasma conditions. These facts make that, for example, radiative-hydrodynamics in-line simulations be almost infeasible. This has lead to develop analytical expressions based on the parametrization of radiative properties. However, most of them are accurate only for coronal or local thermodynamic equilibrium. In this work we present a code for the parametrization of plasma radiative properties of mono-component plasmas, in terms of plasma density and temperature, such as radiative power loss, the Planck and Rosseland mean opacities and the average ionization, which is valid for steady-state optically thin plasmas in wide ranges of plasma densities and temperatures. Furthermore, we also present some applications of this parametrization such as the analysis of the optical depth and radiative character of plasmas, the use to perform diagnostics of the electron temperature, the determination of mean radiative properties for multicomponent plasmas and the analysis of radiative cooling instabilities in some kind of experiments on high-energy density laboratory astrophysics. Finally, to ease the use of the code for the parametrization, this one has been integrated in a user interface and brief comments about it are presented.

Radiative properties are fundamental for plasma diagnostics and hydro-simulations. For this reason, there is a high interest in their determination and they are a current topic of investigation both in astrophysics and inertial fusion confinement research. In this work a flexible computation package for calculating radiative properties for low and high Z optically thin and thick plasmas, both under local thermodynamic equilibrium and non-local thermodynamic equilibrium conditions, named RAPCAL is presented. This code has been developed with the aim of providing accurate radiative properties for low and medium Z plasmas within the context of detailed level accounting approach and for heavy elements under the detailed configuration accounting approach. In order to show the capabilities of the code, there are presented calculations of some radiative properties for carbon, aluminum, krypton and xenon plasmas under local thermodynamic and non-local thermodynamic equilibrium conditions.

In this work is accomplished the determination of the corona, local and non-local thermodynamic equilibrium regimes for optically thin carbon plasmas in steady state, in terms of the plasma density and temperature using the ABAKO code. The determination is made through the analysis of the plasma average ionization and ion and level populations. The results are compared whit those obtained applying Griem's criterion. Finally, it is made a brief analysis of the effects of the calculation of level populations assuming different plasma regimes in radiative properties, such as emissivities and opacities.

In this work, we first presents a review of the work that research teams have developed in collaboration in order to determine the optical properties of plasmas during the recent years, and showing the achievements reached. The second part of this paper is devoted to one of these improvements, which is to include reabsorption of the radiation in the calculations of dense optically thick plasmas in non-LTE conditions. Two models recently developed for this purpose are presented. The quantitative study was focused on aluminum plasmas, which was obtained recently at LULI experiments.

A conservation project aimed at ecosystem restoration had several unforeseen effects on a colony of the yellow-legged gull Larus michahellis in a small western Mediterranean island (Benidorm Island). The project included regulation of massive tourist visits to help restore the soil and autochthonous vegetation. However, gulls habituated rapidly to regulation of tourist activities, as nests located either close to or far from the main trail showed a similar hatching success. The quiet conditions produced by regulation seemingly facilitated a rapid colony increase. Partial removal of alien vegetation (Opuntia maxima) showed that gulls had a preference for sites with high vegetation cover because the growth of the colony was proportionally larger in well-vegetated plots. The pricking of a large number of gull eggs surprisingly coincided with a high reproductive success compared to the previous year, although indicators of food availability remained constant between years and the colony had decreased in numbers. Untreated nests were probably more successful because territory size for chicks increased and intraspecific predation decreased. Extreme care must be taken when planning ecosystem-wide management on islands with yellow-legged gull colonies, or other gull species locally considered as pests, to prevent unwanted effects.

In this work, a new analytical potential for studying ions in excited configurations is presented, which is built up from a parametric potential for ions in a ground state. It is used to calculate atomic magnitudes of special importance in plasmas such as total energies, energy levels, and transition energies, for ions in excited configurations. The results are successfully compared with those obtained with both self-consistent or analytical models.

In this work, the Saha equation is solved using atomic data provided by means of a new relativistic-screened hydrogenic model based on analytical potentials to calculate the ionization state and ion abundance for LTE iron plasmas. The plasma effects on the atomic structure are taken into account by including the classical continuum lowering correction of Stewart and Pyatt. For high density, the Saha equation is modified to consider the degeneration of free electrons using the Fermi–Dirac statistics instead of the Maxwellian distribution commonly used. The results are compared with more sophisticated self-consistent codes.

Opacity calculations for targets used in inertial confinement fusion (ICF) needs sophisticated atomic physics models, assuming a large number of configurations and transitions to simulate the plasma. Depending on the degree of accuracy for calculations of targets for ICF, some hydrodynamic-radiation codes use multifrequency opacities or well mean opacities.

In this work, using a sophisticated atomic physics code for LTE opacity calculations, that provides well multifrequency opacities or mean opacities, useful analytical opacity formulas for several single elements used in ICF have been generated, giving both Rosseland and Planck mean opacities as a function of the plasma parameters.

In this work, the Saha equation is solved using atomic data provided by means of analytical potentials to calculate the ionization state and ion abundances for local thermodynamic equilibrium (LTE) plasmas of Al, Fe, and Au. The plasma effects are taking into account using an analytical potential which includes plasma effects. The problem of the cut off partition functions in the Saha equation is also analyzed using three different criteria. Finally, some opacity calculations are performed.

A numerical model for opacity calculations by using a family of analytical potentials for each configuration in the plasma is presented. The obtained numerical opacity results with this model are compared with those obtained by using a self-consistent potential model.

In previous works, we developed several atomic physics models for calculating opacities for low-Z materials. In this work, we used those models for obtaining opacities for Au plasmas in local thermodynamic equilibrium. In this particular case, a great number of configurations must be considered for a full treatment of atoms at plasma conditions. Thus, we included several changes in the aforementioned models, which are extensively reported here.

For nonlocal thermodynamic equilibrium (LTE), the equations of state are not well defined and therefore the hydrodynamic equations are not applicable. In this case, the general transport equations (e.g., Boltzmann or Fokker–Planck) should be used. However, the coupling between atomic physics (rate equations) and the transport equations is extremely complicated. This article shows how the information given by the rate equations is translated into an effective potential. This “potential” theory is explicitly shown for two cases: lithium-like iron plasmas and aluminum plasmas. Moreover, it is suggested that the “collision terms,” and all other interactions that are not taken into account by the explicit rate equations, are described by a stochastic force given by a Langevin equation or equivalently by a Fokker-Planck equation in the ion density space.

The main objective of this work is to find analytical formulas for the oscillator strength f of hydrogen-like ions. It is well known that f is proportional to the energy of the transitions between eigenstates (ΔE), and to the square of the R matrix. Therefore, the problem of calculating f can be reduced to finding analytical expressions for both parameters, ΔE and R. Hence these expressions would be in accordance with quantum results based on more sophisticated calculations.

The calculation of the multigroup opacities using several different atomic physics models is the main goal of this work. The atomic data, such as energy levels, bound-electron populations, oscillator strengths and effective charges are worked out by two atomic physics models using the average-atom concept. The result achieves multifrequency opacities. These are weighted with the Planck function or the real radiation field, making up finally the multigroup opacities in the selected number of groups.

New improvements in the atomic physics models for numerically treating high density plasmas, typical of ICF, together with new algorithms for multigroup radiation transport are presented.

The performance of Large High Aspect Ratio Targets has been numerically determined by using those models implemented in a one-dimensional hydro code. Some differences from experiments are identified, and a comparative analysis with other numerical codes is given.

The quantitative analysis of the collisional line broadening and the ionization state distributions for determining optical properties of aluminum plasmas are the main goal of this paper. In a preliminary analysis, results from an average atom model are compared with those from detailed configurations, assuming LTE conditions. The sensitivity to these physical aspects in the extinction coefficient and in the Rosseland and Planck mean opacities are carefully studied.