Policies and Programmatic Efforts Pertaining to Fatherhood: Commentary

The articles in this section focus attention on (1) the historical shift in policies that affect the young men of this nation (2) how fatherhood policies and programmatic efforts are expanding and (3) how fatherhood practices and policies could and perhaps should be expanded and elaborated further. These efforts are linked to a growing body of research documenting the importance of fathers in children's lives, summarized in other sections of this issue. In our commentary we review the changing policy and programmatic climate with regards to fathers and note the opportunities for the policy and programmatic worlds for the future and for policy and programmatic research to move to new levels in enhancing the knowledge base.     

Using Interorganizational Information Systems to Support Environmental Management Efforts at ASG

We examine use of environmental information systems by ASG AB (hereafter ASG), an international logistics and transport firm headquartered in Stockholm, Sweden, as a case study to illustrate the role of information systems in life-cycle-oriented environmental management. This case provides an example of how a firm can use interorganizational information systems (IOISs) to move toward environmentally sustainable business practices. Through the use of IOISs, ASG has been able to improve its environmental performance and that of its suppliers. Further, this improved environmental performance has been a competitive advantage for ASG and enabled it to attract new business. As such, ASG's experiences illustrate how aggressive practices move environmental management beyond compliance and cost control, at which many firms have been successful, to revenue generation. The case also shows how environmentally sustainable business practices can be integrated into a firm's strategy. In addition to illustrating how ASG has used IOISs to improve environmental performance, we compare their use of environmental ISs with the expected evolution of environmental ISs presented in the Shaft and colleagues (1997) framework. Although some of ASG's experiences verify the expected progression of these types of systems, some developments are not as expected. These differences have implications for the framework.     

Commentary: Impact of Father Involvement on Children's Developmental Trajectories: New Findings Panel for the National Fatherhood Forum

Numerous scholars have called for increased attention to, and sophistication in, understanding the family roles of fathers and their influence on children's development. The articles in this section provide notable moves forward in several arenas, focusing on traditionally understudied populations of fathers, employing a variety of data collection methodologies, and assessing leading theoretical models in the field. In this commentary, the authors review these strengths and delineate important next steps for fathering research. They call for increased research in three arenas: (1) attention to fathers' uniqueness through detailed study of the similarities and differences in mothers' and fathers' behaviors and effects on children; (2) a focus on generalizability, developing models and methods that can be applied across diverse samples of fathers; and (3) more rigorous development and assessment of models delineating fathers' influence on children's development, attending to both promotive and harmful effects of fathering.     

Preliminary Observations Pertaining to Polyadenylation of Rhinovirus RNA

Human rhinovirus type 14 contained polyadenylated RNA. Virus growth in HeLa cells was inhibited by cordycepin or polyuridilic acid and stimulated by polyadenylic acid. Polyadenylic acid also reversed cordycepin inhibition of virus-induced cytopathology of infected HeLa cells.     

Reflections on the Development of Fatherhood Work

This article is a commentary on the preceding articles by 1) Randall Day; 2) Kristin Moore, Jacinta Bronte-Tinkew, and Lillian Bowie; and 3) Jay Fagan. The author stresses some of the key points made in those articles, considers key lessons learned from fatherhood programs over the last 30 years, and offers definitions of what represents a 'good fatherhood program' and a 'good father.' The commentary concludes with a look forward to a paradigm change whereby 'family support services' and public policies evolve to recognize, encompass and meet the needs of all family members, including fathers, irrespective of living and marital situations.     

Applying socioendocrinology to evolutionary models: Fatherhood and physiology

Owing to humans' unique life history pattern, particularly comparatively short interbirth intervals, early weaning, and prolonged support of multiple dependents, human females have greater reproductive value and higher lifetime fertility, on average, than do their Great Ape counterparts. 1 - 4 As hominin females began weaning their young early and “stacking” dependents of various ages, they must have had cooperative allomaternal care partners already in place or been successful at concurrently soliciting help to ensure a high rate of survival of their offspring. 1 - 6 Following Hrdy, I define allomaternal care (and its derivatives, such as “allomothers” and “allomothering”) as “care from anyone other than the mother,” which thus encompasses a wide range of individuals, including fathers. 7 Who the likely allomother candidates mothers were and what form that cooperation took remain intriguing, difficult‐to‐answer questions, which are limited, in some capacity, by the lines of evidence available to us. Here, I present a framework for the ways in which we can integrate neurobiological‐endocrine and social‐behavioral data (“socioendocrinology”) 8 to contribute to this dialogue in terms of evaluating fathers' roles.     

Environmental Influences on Children's Physical Activity: Quantitative Estimates Using a Twin Design

Background

Twin studies offer a ‘natural experiment’ that can estimate the magnitude of environmental and genetic effects on a target phenotype. We hypothesised that fidgetiness and enjoyment of activity would be heritable but that objectively-measured daily activity would show a strong shared environmental effect.

Methodology/Principal Findings

In a sample of 9–12 year-old same-sex twin pairs (234 individuals; 57 MZ, 60 DZ pairs) we assessed three dimensions of physical activity: i) objectively-measured physical activity using accelerometry, ii) ‘fidgetiness’ using a standard psychometric scale, and iii) enjoyment of physical activity from both parent ratings and children''s self-reports. Shared environment effects explained the majority (73%) of the variance in objectively-measured total physical activity (95% confidence intervals (CI): 0.63–0.81) with a smaller unshared environmental effect (27%; CI: 0.19–0.37) and no significant genetic effect. In contrast, fidgetiness was primarily under genetic control, with additive genetic effects explaining 75% (CI: 62–84%) of the variance, as was parent''s report of children''s enjoyment of low 74% (CI: 61–82%), medium 80% (CI: 71–86%), and high impact activity (85%; CI: 78–90%), and children''s expressed activity preferences (60%, CI: 42–72%).

Conclusions

Consistent with our hypothesis, the shared environment was the dominant influence on children''s day-to-day activity levels. This finding gives a strong impetus to research into the specific environmental characteristics influencing children''s activity, and supports the value of interventions focused on home or school environments.     

Efforts to control mites on Iberian ham by physical methods

This study is aimed at the development of a method for integrated mite control in the industrial production of Iberian and Alentejan ham. The investigations were carried out on the premises of five factories in the southwest of the Iberian Peninsula. Tyrophagus longior was predominant on hams in the drying rooms, Tyrophagus putrescentiae in cellars, while Tyrolichus casei was observed only in one factory, together with Melichares dendriticus (Acari: Ascidae), a predator of tyroglyphids. Relative humidity levels below 60% reduced the growth of mites on the ham surface, but these conditions forced the mites to seek refuge: T. putrescentiae and T. casei were found in cavities inside the ham. At the end of the experimental curing period, 11% of the hams were totally disintegrated by mite damage inside. Mites survived high-temperature treatments which are detrimental to the hams: 71 degrees C, 11 min; 57 degrees C, 30 min and 40 degrees C, 96 h. They also survived a long low-humidity period: 1 month at 18 degrees C and 32% R.H.     

Experiments Pertaining to the Suppression of Accessory Sperm in Fertilized Newt Eggs*

In the physiologically polyspermic eggs of the newt, Cynops pyrrhogaster, a number of accessory sperm undergo pronuclear formation along with a concomitant DNA synthesis, but degenerate after zygote nucleus formation. When denuded eggs were divided into two halves at various post-fertilization stages, the andromerogons produced before zygote nucleus formation but not after that stage cleaved at a high frequency. The accessory sperm were unable to participate in the cleavage when they were located in the half of the egg which was connected with the diploid merogon by a cytoplasmic bridge higher than 100 μm in height. The removal of the egg nucleus or the retardation of early post-fertilization nuclear events by treatment with cycloheximide resulted in the induction of multipolar cleavage. Continuous exposure of the fertilized eggs to aphidicolin showed that in the appreciable absence of the DNA synthesis many eggs underwent a first cleavage cytokinesis of a mostly abortive type, but failed to initiate the following cytokinesis at all. Cytological examinations in association with these experiments suggest that the observed suppression of accessory sperm includes the inhibition of centriolar replication under the influence of the zygote nucleus, resulting in the failure of cytasters corporating with nuclear-independent activity of cortical cytoplasm.