Attitudes Toward Weight Gain in Pregnancy

Recently, there has been increased interest in the influence of maternal prenatal nutrition on the course and outcome of pregnancy. Evidence has accumulated that a woman''s weight before pregnancy and the weight gained during pregnancy directly affect infant birth weight, incidence of neonatal mortality, and growth and development of the infant during the first year of life. Although recent recommendations for weight gain in pregnancy have been liberalized, a survey of 195 pregnant women who had prenatal visits in both clinic and private offices showed deficiencies in their understanding of the subject. Some 37 percent of women believed they should gain 20 pounds (9 kg) or less during pregnancy. Eight percent admitted to dieting before at least one antenatal visit and 54 percent thought their doctor would not be concerned about too little weight gained during pregnancy. This suggests that many women and some doctors are still ignorant of current concepts of proper nutrition during pregnancy. Apparently, increased lay and professional educational efforts are needed.     

Luteal phase defects: a possible relationship between short hyperthermic phase and sporadic sexual behavior in women

Sporadic (less than regular weekly) coital activity is associated with a particular type of infertility—the short hyperthermic (luteal) phase. This preliminary report is the first suggestion that a reduced frequency of human sexual activity might, itself, be associated with subfertile reproductive function.     

A Comparison of Methods to Measure Fitness in Escherichia coli

In order to characterize the dynamics of adaptation, it is important to be able to quantify how a population’s mean fitness changes over time. Such measurements are especially important in experimental studies of evolution using microbes. The Long-Term Evolution Experiment (LTEE) with Escherichia coli provides one such system in which mean fitness has been measured by competing derived and ancestral populations. The traditional method used to measure fitness in the LTEE and many similar experiments, though, is subject to a potential limitation. As the relative fitness of the two competitors diverges, the measurement error increases because the less-fit population becomes increasingly small and cannot be enumerated as precisely. Here, we present and employ two alternatives to the traditional method. One is based on reducing the fitness differential between the competitors by using a common reference competitor from an intermediate generation that has intermediate fitness; the other alternative increases the initial population size of the less-fit, ancestral competitor. We performed a total of 480 competitions to compare the statistical properties of estimates obtained using these alternative methods with those obtained using the traditional method for samples taken over 50,000 generations from one of the LTEE populations. On balance, neither alternative method yielded measurements that were more precise than the traditional method.     

Cuticle sclerotization by the American cockroach: Differential incorporation of leucine and tyrosine during post-ecdysis

The incorporation of U-¹⁴C-leucine into the cuticle occurs within the first 2 hr after ecdysis whereas U-¹⁴C-tyrosine is incorporated at a steady rate for approximately 8 hr. These data suggest that most of the cuticle protein is synthesized and laid down within a short time after ecdysis. On the other hand, tyrosine and/or metabolites (such as N-acetyl-dopamine) are translocated into the cuticle for several hours. This indicates that the sclerotization process may take place over an extended period.     

Clinical Utility of Insulin-Like Growth Factor 1 and 2; Determination by High Resolution Mass Spectrometry

Measurement of insulin-like growth factor-1 (IGF-I) has utility for the diagnosis and management of growth disorders, but inter-assay comparison of results has been complicated by a multitude of reference standards, antibodies, detection methods, and pre-analytical preparation strategies. We developed a quantitative LC-MS method for intact IGF-I, which has advantages in throughput and complexity when compared to mass spectrometric approaches that rely on stable isotope dilution analysis of tryptic peptides. Since the method makes use of full-scan data, the assay was easily extended to provide quantitative measurement of IGF-II using the same assay protocol. The validated LC-MS assay for IGF-I and IGF-II provides accurate results across the pediatric and adult reference range and is suitable for clinical use.     

Interstitial bone stress distributions accompanying ingrowth of a screen-like prosthesis anchorage layer

Recent development of screen-like bonded weaves of titanium wire for orthopaedic implant anchorage affords a unique opportunity for analytic studies of porous ingrowth micromechanics. The regular geometry of individual wires and the periodicity of the mesh weave are exploited in a series of two-dimensional finite element models, mapping interstitial bone stress fields as a function of ingrowth depth and wire size, shape, and spacing.

When the depth of bone ingrowth was less than one wire diameter, peak bone stresses always occurred at the leading (i.e. deepest) edge of bone ingrowth, immediately adjacent to the wire. As ingrowth depth approached a full wire diameter, peak local bone stresses were 2–9 times the nominal applied host bone stress, with greater stresses occurring for lower screen weave densities. Within multiple screen layers, the top layer consistently experienced the peak stress and transmitted most of the applied load, regardless of the number of underlying screen layers surrounded by bone. Neither wire size variations nor partial wire flattening substantially affected general trends in stress predictions.     

Seminiferous tubule transfection in vitro to define post-meiotic gene regulation

Background  

Post-meiotically expressed genes in the testis are essential for the proper progression of spermatogenesis, and yet, aside from the construction of individual transgenic mice using specific promoters to drive reporter plasmids, there are only very limited possibilities for relevant and quantitative analysis of gene promoters. This is due to the special nature of post-meiotic haploid cells, which to date are not represented in any appropriate cell-lines. This article reports the development of novel methodology using isolated and cultured rat seminiferous tubules in a multiwell format, into which promoter-reporter constructs can be introduced by a combination of microinjection and electroporation.