The dynamics of parent-offspring relationships in mammals

Evolutionary theories about parent-offspring relationships have predicted that young will aggressively demand food and care from their parents at the time of weaning - when the parents should, in their own interests, reserve their efforts for future offspring. Detailed studies of the behavioural development of mammals have given only limited support for these expectations. Often the mother is more amenable to the needs of her offspring than evolutionary theory predicts, and often offspring are sensitive to the state of their mother, tuning the pattern of their own development accordingly. Such aggression as is seen between mother and offspring tends to occur at stages other than weaning. The mismatch between theory and evidence may arise because a mother needs to monitor her offspring's state as well as her own and respond appropriately in order to maximize her own reproductive success. Similarly, an offspring needs to monitor its mother and prepare for the world in which it will grow up, in order to maximize its chances of surviving to breed.     

W.H.R. Rivers Graduate Prize Essay (1996). "Imperfect angels" : narrative "emplotment" in the medical management of children with craniofacial anomalies

This article uses the paradigm of "therapeutic emplotment" to investigate the medical management of children with facial disfigurements at a craniofacial anomalies center in Northern California. Data are observations of, and semistructured interviews with, plastic surgeons, nurses, geneticists, orthodontists, and other medical professionals who composed the craniofacial anomalies team. Team members perceived that children feel socially stigmatized by their disfigurements. These medical professionals adjusted their own behavior according to these perceptions. They "emplotted" their actions, using the theme that disfigured children are attractive and worthy of attention and affection. Medical professionals attempted to depersonalize and neutralize the symbolically loaded disfigurements through the use of clinical language in an attempt to "separate" the child from his or her facial anomaly. The range of styles and approaches to interaction was diverse and varied in effectiveness, suggesting that some medical professionals were more skilled at emplotment than others.     

The skin as interface in the transmission of arthropod-borne pathogens

Animal skin separates the inner world of the body from the largely hostile outside world and is actively involved in the defence against microbes. However, the skin is no perfect defence barrier and many microorganisms have managed to live on or within the skin as harmless passengers or as disease-causing pathogens. Microbes have evolved numerous strategies that allow them to gain access to the layers underneath the epidermis where they either multiply within the dermis or move to distant destinations within the body for replication. A number of viruses, bacteria and parasites use arthropod vectors, like ticks or mosquitoes, to deliver them into the dermis while taking their blood meal. Within the dermis, successful pathogens subvert the function of a variety of skin resident cells or cells of the innate immune system that rush to the site of infection. In this review several interactions with cells of the skin by medically relevant vector-borne pathogens are discussed to highlight the different ways in which these pathogens have come to survive within the skin and to usurp the defence mechanisms of the host for their own ends.     

Parent–offspring transaction: Mechanisms and the value of within family designs

This article is part of a Special Issue “Parental Care”. Parenting is best understood as a transactional process between parents and their offspring. Each responds to cues in the other, adapting their own behavior to that of their partner. One of the goals of parenting research in the past twenty years has been to untangle reciprocal processes between parents and children in order to specify what comes from the child (child effects) and what comes from the parent (parent effects). Child effects have been found to relate to genetic, pre and perinatal, family-wide, and child-specific environmental influences. Parent effects relate to stresses in the current context (e.g. financial strain, marital conflict), personality and ethnicity but also to adverse childhood experiences (e.g. parental mental health and substance abuse, poverty, divorce). Rodent models have allowed for the specification of biological mechanisms in parent and child effects, including neurobiological and genomic mechanisms, and of the causal role of environmental experience on outcomes for offspring through random assignment of offspring–mother groupings. One of the methods that have been developed in the human and animal models to differentiate between parent and child effects has been to study multiple offspring in the family. By holding the parent steady, and studying different offspring, we can examine the similarities and differences in how parents parent multiple offspring. Studies have distinguished between family average parenting, child-specific parenting and family-wide dispersion (the within family standard deviation). These different aspects of parenting have been differentially linked to offspring behavioral phenotypes.     

Characterization of eight VNTR loci by agarose gel electrophoresis

Allelic frequencies and their confidence intervals were obtained for eight independent VNTR loci from a sample of more than 75 Utah Caucasians. Using high-resolution agarose gel electrophoresis, we were able to resolve alleles at the D17S5 locus that differed by only one repeating unit; it was therefore possible to name the alleles according to the number of repeating units each contained. Two a priori probabilities were calculated for each VNTR locus separately and for all eight loci jointly: (i) the "power of exclusion" for an alleged father/mother/child trio and for an alleged parent/child duo, and (ii) the "probability of matching" when two unrelated individuals or two siblings are genotyped.     

Parent-offspring conflicts, "optimal bad motherhood" and the "mother knows best" principles in insect herbivores colonizing novel host plants

SPECIALIZATION OF INSECT HERBIVORES TO ONE OR A FEW HOST PLANTS STIMULATED THE DEVELOPMENT OF TWO HYPOTHESES ON HOW NATURAL SELECTION SHOULD SHAPE OVIPOSITION PREFERENCES: The "mother knows best" principle suggests that females prefer to oviposit on hosts that increase offspring survival. The "optimal bad motherhood" principle predicts that females prefer to oviposit on hosts that increase their own longevity. In insects colonizing novel host plants, current theory predicts that initial preferences of insect herbivores should be maladaptive, leading to ecological traps. Ecological trap theory does not take into account the fact that insect lineages frequently switch hosts at both ecological and evolutionary time scales. Therefore, the behavior of insect herbivores facing novel hosts is also shaped by natural selection. Using a study system in which four Cephaloleia beetles are currently expanding their diets from native to exotic plants in the order Zingiberales, we determined if initial oviposition preferences are conservative, maladaptive, or follow the patterns predicted by the "mother knows best" or the "optimal bad motherhood" principles. Interactions with novel hosts generated parent-offspring conflicts. Larval survival was higher on native hosts. However, adult generally lived longer on novel hosts. In Cephaloleia beetles, oviposition preferences are usually associated with hosts that increase larval survival, female fecundity, and population growth. In most cases, Cephaloleia oviposition preferences follow the expectations of the "mothers knows best" principle.     

Cell-mediated lympholysis by human maternal and neonatal lymphocytes: mother's reactivity against neonatal cells and vice versa.

Maternal reactivity in cell-mediated lympholysis (CML) against cells from her own child is, in average, half of the maternal reactivity against unrelated adult cells. This finding remains the same when cells from a newborn or from an older child are used, suggesting that the reduced maternal reactivity is based rather on the one haplotype identity between the mother and child than on the occurrence of specific maternal tolerance. Consistently, CML-capacity of the child, directed against cells of own mother, is half of the control values, again independently of the child's age.     

Valuing mother and child health: The intrauterine environment

The paper estimates the value a mother assigns to own health relative to child health. Estimation of relative health valuation requires the decomposition of a child health improvement into its direct effect on the child's health and its indirect effect, through improvements in maternal health. Failure to distinguish the impact of the direct and indirect effects can lead to biased estimates. We consider the intrauterine environment of a pregnant mother and her unborn child, where maternal health inputs are choice variables and her health affects child health. The empirical estimates suggest that mothers value child health up to six times higher than own health, and that the relative value depends on maternal consumption patterns and household characteristics.     

Mental Health: The Search for a Definition

Various attempts to define the concept of “mental health” are examined. Value judgments permeate much mental health literature. Their use militates against obtaining an objective definition, capable of universal application. The acceptance of a definition including a value judgment implies taking an attitude toward a particular society and its social ideals.Present limits of competence only allow us to describe “mental health” conceptually. Such “untechnical” proposals are liable to be confused with “technical” (“scientific”) propositions. Multiple criteria are likely to be helpful in improving our concept of “mental health”.The intrusion of morals into the world of health is discussed as part of the contemporary intellectual dilemma of determined human behaviour versus human responsibility and the reality of moral values.It is suggested that “mental health” might consist simply of an individual''s possession of insight into his own personality, combined with an honest recognition and acceptance of his condition.     

Offspring recognition by mother crab spiders with extreme maternal care

Maternal care is provided by several spider species, but there are no reports of mother spiders recognizing their young, which suggests that maternal care can be exploited by unrelated individuals. Diaea ergandros, a crab spider with extreme, sacrificial maternal care, does accept unrelated spiderlings (ca. 43.9% of spiderlings) into its nest in areas of high nest density. However, a field and a laboratory experiment with mother spiders and natural and adoptive spiderlings demonstrated that mothers did recognize their own offspring. Recognition was not expressed in survival as adopted (unrelated) spiderlings had similar survival rate to that of natural offspring. Instead it was displayed in growth; mother D. ergandros caught large prey items for their own offspring, but not for adopted spiderlings, and so natural offspring grew more than adopted spiderlings. Also, mothers produced trophic oocytes, which are important for the sacrificial care that influences spiderling survival, only when they lived with their own offspring.     

An expert system for the early detection of melanoma using knowledge-based image analysis

Melanoma is the most lethal skin cancer; however, nearly all patients can be saved and cured by early detection and prompt surgical treatment. It has been demonstrated that the major diagnostic and prognostic parameters of melanoma are the vertical thickness, three-dimensional (3D) size and shape, and color of the lesion. The other characteristic features of early melanoma are irregularities in the boundary of the lesion and the appearance of nonuniform pigmentation (with a variety of color). During early stages of development of the melanoma, the changes in these parameters are very difficult to assess since no good tool exists for measuring them in situ and analyzing them for malignancy. A novel optical instrument called the "Nevoscope" has been developed to obtain multiple views of the transilluminated skin lesion from several angles. These views have been used to measure the thickness and 3D size of the skin lesion without excision. A knowledge-based image analysis and interpretation system is being developed to analyze images of the skin lesion for a set of diagnostic and prognostic features: thickness, 3D size, color and margin, boundary and surface characteristics. This analysis combined with the patient's history, such as occurrence of melanoma or dysplastic nevi in the family, life style, skin type, etc., is used by the knowledge-based expert system to detect early or potentially malignant lesions. The diagnostic and prognostic knowledge bases for the early detection of melanoma are being developed with the help of expert dermatologists and published case studies.     

Eating With Your Favourite Mother: Time And Sociality In A Brazilian Amerindian Community

This article is based on an ethnographic account of parent-child relations in a Caboclo-Indian community of south Bahia, Brazil. Raising a child by providing care and food is valued to such an extent that a child's mother may be the woman the child has chosen to be its mother. Choice is not understood as an act of free will, but as a time-frame in the sense that choosing one's mother is a way of emphasizing the possibility of the unmaking or reversibility of parent-child links. The article suggests a 'sociality of becoming a being-in-the-world' as an alternative not only to the notion of socialization but also to the theoretical link between kinship and society.

The Kid has changed the world and myself. Not in the beginning But bit by bit, As I became attached to him Andrei Tarkovskij, The sacrifice

     

Spiritualism, Psychoanalysis, and psychodrama

The term "fluids" of spiritualism seems related to the libido concept in psychoanalysis. A mental breakdown explained as possession by spirits with whom the patient has been in contact in another existence (existential situation) seems to have affinity with a phenomena similar to what psychoanalysts call a "flooding of the ego by a return of the repressed." When compared with psychotherapeutic practice, spiritualism reveals clear affinities with psychodrama.     

Observing virtual arms that you imagine are yours increases the galvanic skin response to an unexpected threat

Multi-modal visuo-tactile stimulation of the type performed in the rubber hand illusion can induce the brain to temporarily incorporate external objects into the body image. In this study we show that audio-visual stimulation combined with mental imagery more rapidly elicits an elevated physiological response (skin conductance) after an unexpected threat to a virtual limb, compared to audio-visual stimulation alone. Two groups of subjects seated in front of a monitor watched a first-person perspective view of slow movements of two virtual arms intercepting virtual balls rolling towards the viewer. One group was instructed to simply observe the movements of the two virtual arms, while the other group was instructed to observe the virtual arms and imagine that the arms were their own. After 84 seconds the right virtual arm was unexpectedly "stabbed" by a knife and began "bleeding". This aversive stimulus caused both groups to show a significant increase in skin conductance. In addition, the observation-with-imagery group showed a significantly higher skin conductance (p<0.05) than the observation-only group over a 2-second period shortly after the aversive stimulus onset. No corresponding change was found in subjects' heart rates. Our results suggest that simple visual input combined with mental imagery may induce the brain to measurably temporarily incorporate external objects into its body image.     

Peptidoglycan remodeling and conversion of an inner membrane into an outer membrane during sporulation

Two hallmarks of the Firmicute phylum, which includes the Bacilli and Clostridia classes, are their ability to form endospores and their "Gram-positive" single-membraned, thick-cell-wall envelope structure. Acetonema longum is part of a lesser-known family (the Veillonellaceae) of Clostridia that form endospores but that are surprisingly "Gram negative," possessing both an inner and outer membrane and a thin cell wall. Here, we present macromolecular resolution, 3D electron cryotomographic images of vegetative, sporulating, and germinating A. longum cells showing that during the sporulation process, the inner membrane of the mother cell is inverted and transformed to become the outer membrane of the germinating cell. Peptidoglycan persists throughout, leading to a revised, "continuous" model of its role in the process. Coupled with genomic analyses, these results point to sporulation as a mechanism by which the bacterial outer membrane may have arisen and A. longum as a potential "missing link" between single- and double-membraned bacteria.     

The application of autogenic training in counseling center for mother and child in order to promote breastfeeding

The aim of this study was to investigate whether mothers with newborn children, the usage of autogenic training with advice on breastfeeding effect on: the decision and the duration of breastfeeding, increase maternal confidence and support. It was assumed that the above result in a higher percentage of mothers who exclusively breastfed baby during the first six months of child's life. The survey was conducted in the Association "For a healthy and happy childhood"-Counseling center for mother and child, in Bjelovar in 2010. The Counseling center was attended by 100 nursing mothers with children aged up to two months. They randomly went to the study or control group. Mothers of both groups were advised to successful breastfeeding. Study group has practiced autogenic training until the child's age of six months. In parallel, by using psychotherapeutic interview and specific questionnaires we collected data on the somatic, psychological and social situation of the mother, discovered mother's mental changes (anxiety, depression) that were treated. The results at the end of the study confirm the initial expected benefits from the application of autogenic training. Mothers of the study group were significantly more emotionally balanced with a higher self-esteem. Autogenous training with the advices for successful breastfeeding conducted in this counseling center contributed in significantly higher rate of breastfeeding children up to six months of life, improved mental and physical health of mother and child and their peculiar relationship.     

Mother–young bonding in prolific D’man and Romanov sheep

The effect of prolificacy on mother–young mutual recognition is still largely unknown in sheep. The aim of the present study was to investigate the ability of prolific ewes to develop an exclusive bond with their neonate and to recognize each other from alien subjects. Observations were performed on 11 D’man and 16 Romanov ewes with, respectively, 19 and 37 of their lambs. Maternal selectivity was tested at 24 h postpartum during two consecutive periods of 3 min. All mothers accepted their own lambs at suckling, while 21 out of 27 (78%) rejected the alien, thus displaying mostly selective nursing. To assess mother–young recognition, a two-choice test was performed at 36 h postpartum. Ewes clearly preferred their own lambs to an alien lamb and behavioral differences were not found between mothers of small (singletons and twins) and large litters (triplets and quadruplets). Romanov ewes reached their own lambsmore rapidly and spent more time near them than D’man ewes. Lambs from small litters, in particular light lambs, clearly preferred their mothers to an alien dam; however, both light and heavy lambs in large litters did not discriminate between the two stimulus ewes. D’man lambs clearly preferred their mothers to an alien dam; in contrast, such a preference was not as clearly demonstrated in Romanov lambs.     

Biographics art "I know me": image generation aiming at EEG control by biofeedback

"I know me" is an interactive artwork that produces images based on EEG measurements from human participants. Although artists have previously made some interactive image works, we considered using human physiological information as input because it reflects human feelings better. In this research we were interested in information about human's mental states, such as anger or sadness. Brain activity was observed with EEG, subjected to Fourier analysis and converted into an animation based on a Lissajous curve.We generated images corresponding to alpha or beta waves activity in real time and showed them to the observer. The observer understood his own mental condition from looking at the images, and could potentially control his own mental state with this interactive device.     

A disease with features of cutis laxa and Ehlers-Danlos syndrome

Summary A mother and daughter are described with light and electron microscopic, and biochemical abnormalities of their connective tissue characteristic of both cutis laxa and the Ehlers-Danlos syndrome. The mother was clinically normal, while her 8-year-old daughter exhibited loose, wrinkled skin and other clinical features of cutis laxa, and also fragility, bruisability and hyper-extensibility of the skin and poor healing of wounds, leaving cigarette paper scars, features characteristic of the Ehlers-Danlos syndrome. Light and electron microscopic studies of skin biopsy specimens and cultured skin fibroblasts from both individuals revealed reduced and distorted elastic fibres, a finding usually seen in cutis laxa. Electrophoretic studies of collagen excreted from cultured skin fibrobasts revealed in both individuals and alpha 2(I) chain with a molecular size smaller than usual. The father and elder daughter were normal by clinical, light and electron microscopic and electrophoretic studies. It was concluded from these findings that the mother and daughter represented a hitherto undescrbed disease of the connective tissue with dominant inheritance and variable expressivity.     

"Strong Women" and "Pretty Girls": Self-Provisioning, Gender, and Class Identity in Rural Galicia (Spain)

In this article I examine expressions of class and gender identity in a worker-peasant community in rural Galicia (Spain). While men who have worked for decades in migrant destinations define their own class positionality partly through reference to the unpaid, subsistence work that is performed mainly by women who remain in the community, these same women adeptly "code switch" between "strong woman" and '"pretty girl" demeanors through their work activities, dress, and use of domestic spaces. Using the example of ethnographic data from this one part of rural Europe, 1 argue for the broader importance of anthropologists considering how laboring bodies become gendered; the intersections between gender and class identities; and connections among mixed livelihood strategies, the continuity of self-provisioning activities, and resistance to fully commoditized consumption. [Key words: class and gender identity, Galicia, Spain, unpaid provisioning work, consumption]