Adult outcomes in women who experienced parental violence during childhood

OBJECTIVE: The aims of this work are to analyze the associations between violence suffered at the hands of fathers and mothers in childhood and adolescence and three outcomes in adulthood--having or not having children, marital status, and occupational status--controlling for the possible impact of partner violence. METHOD: This cross-sectional study examined a sample of 510 women, attending various health care and social services facilities in a Northern Italian city. Both quantitative and qualitative data were collected. RESULTS: Almost one quarter of the respondents reported some kind of abuse by one or both parents, and 18.2% had experienced physical and/or sexual violence by a partner or ex-partner; women abused by parents were more likely to experience partner violence. Irrespective of whether they experienced partner violence, women abused by parents were more likely to be childless, divorced or never married, and in a precarious occupational situation. CONCLUSIONS: This study is the first one carried out in Italy on this subject: results largely confirmed the trends found in studies in other countries. However, two of the associations which emerged, namely between parents' abuse and being divorced or never married and between parents' abuse and being childless, are worth noting, since they could be interpreted as failures or, on the contrary, as active and positive choices made by abused women in a difficult context. Qualitative data from case histories provided insights into the violence some women have suffered and its consequences, but also into women's great resilience and strengths.     

Adolescent Work, Vocational Development, and Education

This review examines contemporary issues in vocational development with emphasis on adolescents' work experiences in social context. Attention is directed to the changing social and cultural context for vocational development, the influence of work experience on adolescent development and educational achievement, and theoretical approaches that guide contemporary studies of vocational development and career maturity. In light of the utility of current theories, new directions are suggested to enhance understanding of adolescent employment, vocational development, and educational pursuits. Social policy initiatives to promote adolescents' exercise of agency and their vocational development are considered.     

Temperament,tympanum, and temperature: four provisional studies of the biobehavioral correlates of tympanic membrane temperature asymmetries

Previous research in both humans and nonhuman primates suggests that subtle asymmetries in tympanic membrane (TM) temperatures may be related to aspects of cognition and socioaffective behavior. Such associations could plausibly reflect lateralities in cerebral blood flow that support side-to-side differences in regional cortical activation. Asymmetries in activation of the left and right frontal cortex, for example, are correlates of temperamental differences in child behavior and markers of risk status for affective and anxiety disorders. Tympanic membrane temperatures might thus reflect the neural asymmetries that subserve individual differences in temperament and behavior. This report merged findings from four geographically and demographically distinctive studies, which utilized identical thermometry methods to examine associations between TM temperature asymmetries and biobehavioral attributes of 4- to 8-year-old children (N = 468). The four studies produced shared patterns of associations that linked TM temperature lateralities to individual differences in behavior and socioaffective difficulties. Warmer left TMs were associated with "surgent," affectively positive behaviors, whereas warmer right TMs were related to problematic, affectively negative behaviors. Taken together, these findings suggest that asymmetries in TM temperatures could be associated with behavior problems that signal risk for developmental psychopathology.     

Severo Ochoa and the biomedical sciences in Spain under Franco, 1959-1975

The influence of Severo Ochoa in the establishment of biochemistry and molecular biology in Spain is the central topic of this essay. From the time he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1959, Ochoa's links with Spanish scientists and top authorities in education and science became instrumental to the development of these areas in the country of his birth. Ochoa's influence is analyzed through investigation of three "events": the reception of the award in Spain and some of its immediate consequences; his role in the VIth Meeting of the Federation of European Biochemical Societies, held in Madrid in 1969; and the international scientific symposium, held in Madrid and Barcelona, that celebrated his seventieth birthday in 1975. After an account of Ochoa's biography up to 1959, analysis of these events shows that Ochoa's influence cannot be understood without taking into account the political and scientific context of its reception.     

Time-place learning in the eight-arm radial maze

Rats (n=4) searched for food on an eight-arm radial maze. Daily 56-min sessions were divided into eight 7-min time zones, during each of which a different location provided food; locations were randomized across subjects before training. The rats obtained multiple pellets within each time zone by leaving and returning to the correct location. Evidence that the rats had knowledge about the temporal and spatial features of the task includes the following. The rats anticipated locations before they became active and anticipated the end of the currently active locations. The rats discriminated currently active locations from earlier and forthcoming active locations in the absence of food transition cues. After the rats had left the previously active location, they visited the next correct location more often than would be expected by chance in the absence of food transition cues. The rats used handling or opening doors as a cue to visit the first location and timed successive 7-min intervals to get to subsequent locations.     

Dynamic patterns of time use in adolescence

Patterns of time use are tangible representations of individual identity and the meaning of age groups in the life course. How do young people allocate their time to multiple domains of involvement, including the school, workplace, family, and peer group? Drawing on longitudinal data from the Youth Development Study (N = 1,010), a person-centered analytic strategy was used to describe configurations of time use through the high school years. Over half of the students were engaged in many domains, although a substantial percentage of students focused their time on one or two domains outside the school. Students who were highly engaged in multiple domains tended to remain so across grade levels, whereas students focused on one or two domains frequently changed their commitments. Plans for school, grade point average, future orientations that emphasize marriage and good citizenship, and gender significantly predicted time-use patterns. These findings elucidate connections among school, work, and other contexts through the high school years.     

Informing the public health

Why with an increase in the amount of health information, and ways of accessing it, so many people experience poor health? What is the role of health library and information professionals in improving public health? These questions are of great interest to me. There are many examples of initiatives, particularly in the public library sector, which address health issues, however they are often very local and best practice is not always shared. Clearly changing the health status of a population requires more than information, but information is clearly an essential component. If health information is to be effective in improving public health then we need to address health literacy, and this is where health library and information professionals can play a significant role. Through this journal and the other activities of the Health Libraries Group I hope we can share good practice and explore new ways that health library and information workers can improve the health of individuals and communities.     

Toward greater specificity in identifying associations among interparental aggression, child emotional reactivity to conflict, and child problems

This study examined specific forms of emotional reactivity to conflict and temperamental emotionality as explanatory mechanisms in pathways among interparental aggression and child psychological problems. Participants of the multimethod, longitudinal study included 201 two‐year‐old children and their mothers who had experienced elevated violence in the home. Consistent with emotional security theory, autoregressive structural equation model analyses indicated that children’s fearful reactivity to conflict was the only consistent mediator in the associations among interparental aggression and their internalizing and externalizing symptoms 1 year later. Pathways remained significant across maternal and observer ratings of children’s symptoms and with the inclusion of other predictors and mediators, including children’s sad and angry forms of reactivity to conflict, temperamental emotionality, gender, and socioeconomic status.     

Characterization of a microflow cytometer with an integrated three-dimensional optofluidic lens system

Flow cytometry is a standard analytical method in cell biology and clinical diagnostics and is widely distributed for the experimental investigation of microparticle characteristics. In this work, the design, realization, and measurement results of a novel planar optofluidic flow cytometric device with an integrated three-dimensional (3D) adjustable optofluidic lens system for forward-scattering∕extinction-based biochemical analysis fabricated by silicon micromachining are presented. To our knowledge, this is the first planar cytometric system with the ability to focus light three-dimensionally on cells∕particles by the application of fluidic lenses. The single layer microfluidic platform enables versatile 3D hydrodynamic sample focusing to an arbitrary position in the channel and incorporates integrated fiber grooves for the insertion of glass fibers. To confirm the fluid dynamics and raytracing simulations and to characterize the sensor, different cell lines and sets of microparticles were investigated by detecting the extinction (axial light loss) signal, demonstrating the high sensitivity and sample discrimination capability of this analysis system. The unique features of this planar microdevice enable new biotechnological analysis techniques due to the highly increased sensitivity.     

Whole blood pumping with a microthrottle pump

We have previously reported that microthrottle pumps (MTPs) display the capacity to pump solid phase suspensions such as polystyrene beads which prove challenging to most microfluidic pumps. In this paper we report employing a linear microthrottle pump (LMTP) to pump whole, undiluted, anticoagulated, human venous blood at 200 μl min(-1) with minimal erythrocyte lysis and no observed pump blockage. LMTPs are particularly well suited to particle suspension transport by virtue of their relatively unimpeded internal flow-path. Micropumping of whole blood represents a rigorous real-world test of cell suspension transport given blood's high cell content by volume and erythrocytes' relative fragility. A modification of the standard Drabkin method and its validation to spectrophotometrically quantify low levels of erythrocyte lysis by hemoglobin release is also reported. Erythrocyte lysis rates resulting from transport via LMTP are determined to be below one cell in 500 at a pumping rate of 102 μl min(-1).