Sex Differences in Preschoolers' Perceptions of Young, Middle-Aged and Elderly Adults.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Downs, A. Chris; Walz, Patricia J.

This study examines the sex differences in preschool children's perception of male and female adults of different ages (young, middle-aged and elderly) and the degree to which physical attractiveness plays a role in children's attributions concerning adults. Forty 3- and 4-year-old children (20 boys, 20 girls) from middle-income families served as…

Dominance relationships in a family pack of captive arctic wolves (Canis lupus arctos): the influence of competition for food, age and sex

PubMed Central

Lazzaroni, Martina; Marshall-Pescini, Sarah

2016-01-01

Background Dominance is one of the most pervasive concepts in the study of wolf social behaviour but recently its validity has been questioned. For some authors, the bonds between members of wolf families are better described as parent-offspring relationships and the concept of dominance should be used just to evaluate the social dynamics of non-familial captive pack members (e.g., Mech & Cluff, 2010). However, there is a dearth of studies investigating dominance relationships and its correlates in wolf family packs. Methods Here, we applied a combination of the most commonly used quantitative methods to evaluate the dominance relationships in a captive family pack of 19 Arctic wolves. Results We found a significant linear and completely transitive hierarchy based on the direction of submissive behaviours and found that dominance relationships were not influenced by the competitive contexts (feeding vs. non-feeding context). A significant linear hierarchy also emerges amongst siblings once the breeding pair (the two top-ranking individuals) is removed from analyses. Furthermore, results suggest that wolves may use greeting behaviour as a formal signal of subordination. Whereas older wolves were mostly dominant over younger ones, no clear effect of sex was found. However, frequency of agonistic (submissive, dominant and aggressive) behaviours was higher between female–female and male–male dyads than female–male dyads and sex-separated linear hierarchies showed a stronger linearity than the mixed one. Furthermore, dominance status was conveyed through different behavioural categories during intra-sexual and inter-sexual interactions. Discussion Current results highlight the importance of applying a systematic methodology considering the individuals’ age and sex when evaluating the hierarchical structure of a social group. Moreover, they confirm the validity of the concept of dominance relationships in describing the social bonds within a family pack of

Sex, Preference, and Family - Essays on Law and Nature

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Estlund, David M.; Nussbaum, Marth C.

1998-06-01

The public furor over issues of same sex marriages, gay rights, pornography, and single-parent families has erupted with a passion not seen since the 1960s. This book gathers seventeen eminent philosophers and legal scholars who offer commentary on sexuality (including sexual behavior, sexual orientation, and the role of pornography in shaping sexuality), on the family (including both same-sex and single-parent families), and on the proper role of law in these areas. The essayists are all fiercely independent thinkers and offer the reader a range of bold and thought-provoking proposals. Susan Moller Okin argues, for instance, that gender ought to be done away with--that differences in biological sex ought to have "no more social relevance than one's eye color or the length of one's toes"--and she urges that we look to same-sex couples as a model for households and families in a gender-free society. And Cass Sunstein suggests that the Supreme Court case Loving vs. Virginia (which overthrew the ban on interracial marriages in Virginia) might be a precedent for overturning laws that bar same-sex marriage: just as Loving overturned miscegenation laws because they were at the service of white supremacy, Sunstein shows, the laws against same-sex marriages and homosexuality are at the service of male supremacy, and might also be overturned. Of vital importance to anyone interested in sexuality, homosexuality, gender, feminism, and the family. Sex, Preference, and the Family both clarifies the current debate and points the way toward a less divisive future.

Childhood temperament and family environment as predictors of internalizing and externalizing trajectories from ages 5 to 17.

PubMed

Leve, Leslie D; Kim, Hyoun K; Pears, Katherine C

2005-10-01

Childhood temperament and family environment have been shown to predict internalizing and externalizing behavior; however, less is known about how temperament and family environment interact to predict changes in problem behavior. We conducted latent growth curve modeling on a sample assessed at ages 5, 7, 10, 14, and 17 (N = 337). Externalizing behavior decreased over time for both sexes, and internalizing behavior increased over time for girls only. Two childhood variables (fear/shyness and maternal depression) predicted boys' and girls' age-17 internalizing behavior, harsh discipline uniquely predicted boys' age-17 internalizing behavior, and maternal depression and lower family income uniquely predicted increases in girls' internalizing behavior. For externalizing behavior, an array of temperament, family environment, and Temperament x Family Environment variables predicted age-17 behavior for both sexes. Sex differences were present in the prediction of externalizing slopes, with maternal depression predicting increases in boys' externalizing behavior only when impulsivity was low, and harsh discipline predicting increases in girls' externalizing behavior only when impulsivity was high or when fear/shyness was low.

Understanding resilience in same-sex parented families: the work, love, play study

PubMed Central

2010-01-01

Background While families headed by same-sex couples have achieved greater public visibility in recent years, there are still many challenges for these families in dealing with legal and community contexts that are not supportive of same-sex relationships. The Work, Love, Play study is a large longitudinal study of same-sex parents. It aims to investigate many facets of family life among this sample and examine how they change over time. The study focuses specifically on two key areas missing from the current literature: factors supporting resilience in same-sex parented families; and health and wellbeing outcomes for same-sex couples who undergo separation, including the negotiation of shared parenting arrangements post-separation. The current paper aims to provide a comprehensive overview of the design and methods of this longitudinal study and discuss its significance. Methods/Design The Work, Love, Play study is a mixed design, three wave, longitudinal cohort study of same-sex attracted parents. The sample includes lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender parents in Australia and New Zealand (including single parents within these categories) caring for any children under the age of 18 years. The study will be conducted over six years from 2008 to 2014. Quantitative data are to be collected via three on-line surveys in 2008, 2010 and 2012 from the cohort of parents recruited in Wave1. Qualitative data will be collected via interviews with purposively selected subsamples in 2012 and 2013. Data collection began in 2008 and 355 respondents to Wave One of the study have agreed to participate in future surveys. Work is currently underway to increase this sample size. The methods and survey instruments are described. Discussion This study will make an important contribution to the existing research on same-sex parented families. Strengths of the study design include the longitudinal method, which will allow understanding of changes over time within internal family

Understanding resilience in same-sex parented families: the work, love, play study.

PubMed

Power, Jennifer J; Perlesz, Amaryll; Schofield, Margot J; Pitts, Marian K; Brown, Rhonda; McNair, Ruth; Barrett, Anna; Bickerdike, Andrew

2010-03-09

While families headed by same-sex couples have achieved greater public visibility in recent years, there are still many challenges for these families in dealing with legal and community contexts that are not supportive of same-sex relationships. The Work, Love, Play study is a large longitudinal study of same-sex parents. It aims to investigate many facets of family life among this sample and examine how they change over time. The study focuses specifically on two key areas missing from the current literature: factors supporting resilience in same-sex parented families; and health and wellbeing outcomes for same-sex couples who undergo separation, including the negotiation of shared parenting arrangements post-separation. The current paper aims to provide a comprehensive overview of the design and methods of this longitudinal study and discuss its significance. The Work, Love, Play study is a mixed design, three wave, longitudinal cohort study of same-sex attracted parents. The sample includes lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender parents in Australia and New Zealand (including single parents within these categories) caring for any children under the age of 18 years. The study will be conducted over six years from 2008 to 2014. Quantitative data are to be collected via three on-line surveys in 2008, 2010 and 2012 from the cohort of parents recruited in Wave1. Qualitative data will be collected via interviews with purposively selected subsamples in 2012 and 2013. Data collection began in 2008 and 355 respondents to Wave One of the study have agreed to participate in future surveys. Work is currently underway to increase this sample size. The methods and survey instruments are described. This study will make an important contribution to the existing research on same-sex parented families. Strengths of the study design include the longitudinal method, which will allow understanding of changes over time within internal family relationships and social supports. Further

Does parental sexual orientation matter? A longitudinal follow-up of adoptive families with school-age children.

PubMed

Farr, Rachel H

2017-02-01

Controversy continues to surround parenting by lesbian and gay (LG) adults and outcomes for their children. As sexual minority parents increasingly adopt children, longitudinal research about child development, parenting, and family relationships is crucial for informing such debates. In the psychological literature, family systems theory contends that children's healthy development depends upon healthy family functioning more so than family structure. From the framework of family stress theory, it was expected that longitudinal outcomes for school-age children adopted in infancy could be distinct among those with same-sex versus other-sex parents (N = 96 families). Similar findings were hypothesized in terms of parent adjustment, couple relationships, and family functioning in comparing same-sex and other-sex parent families. Results indicated that adjustment among children, parents, and couples, as well as family functioning, were not different on the basis of parental sexual orientation (lesbian, gay, or heterosexual) when children were school-age. Rather, children's behavior problems and family functioning during middle childhood were predicted by earlier child adjustment issues and parenting stress. These findings are consistent with and extend previous literature about families headed by LG parents, particularly those that have adopted children. The results have implications for advancing supportive policies, practices, and laws related to adoption and parenting by sexual minority adults. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2017 APA, all rights reserved).

Alarm signals of the great gerbil: Acoustic variation by predator context, sex, age, individual, and family group

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Randall, Jan A.; McCowan, Brenda; Collins, Kellie C.; Hooper, Stacie L.; Rogovin, Konstantin

2005-10-01

The great gerbil, Rhombomys opinus, is a highly social rodent that usually lives in family groups consisting of related females, their offspring, and an adult male. The gerbils emit alarm vocalizations in the presence of diverse predators with different hunting tactics. Alarm calls were recorded in response to three predators, a monitor lizard, hunting dog, and human, to determine whether the most common call type, the rhythmic call, is functionally referential with regard to type of predator. Results show variation in the alarm calls of both adults and subadults with the type of predator. Discriminant function analysis classified an average of 70% of calls to predator type. Call variation, however, was not limited to the predator context, because signal structure also differed by sex, age, individual callers, and family groups. These variations illustrate the flexibility of the rhythmic alarm call of the great gerbil and how it might have multiple functions and communicate in multiple contexts. Three alarm calls, variation in the rhythmic call, and vibrational signals generated from foot-drumming provide the gerbils with a varied and multi-channel acoustic repertoire.

The Sociocultural Context of Family Size Preference, Ideal Sex Composition, and Induced Abortion in India: Findings From India’s National Family Health Surveys

PubMed Central

Agrawal, Sutapa

2017-01-01

In this study, the author examined the effect of family size preference and sex composition of living children as determinants of induced abortion among women in India by analyzing 90,303 ever-married women aged 15–49, included in India’s second National Family Health Survey, conducted in 1998–99. Multivariate logistic regression methods were used to examine the association between induced abortion and possible determinants. The results indicated that a woman’s desire to limit family size with preferred sex composition of children, coupled with her autonomy and the sociocultural context, largely determines her experience of induced abortion in India. PMID:23066963

Family relationships and adolescent well-being: are families equally protective for same-sex attracted youth?

PubMed

Pearson, Jennifer; Wilkinson, Lindsey

2013-03-01

Existing research suggests that sexual minority youth experience lower levels of well-being, in part because they perceive less social support than heterosexual youth. Sexual minority youth with strong family relationships may demonstrate resilience and increased well-being; however, it is also possible that the experience of sexual stigma may make these relationships less protective for sexual minority youth. Using two waves of data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, we explore the links between same-sex attraction, family relationships, and adolescent well-being in a sample of over 13,000 7th-12th grade adolescents (51 % female, 52 % non-Latino/a white, 17 % Latino, 21 % African American, and 7 % Asian). Specifically, we examine whether lower levels of parental closeness, parental involvement, and family support among same-sex attracted youth explain in part why these youth experience increased depressive symptoms and risk behaviors, including binge drinking, illegal drug use, and running away from home, relative to other-sex attracted youth. Second, we ask whether family relationships are equally protective against depressive symptoms and risk behaviors for same-sex attracted and other-sex attracted youth. We find that same-sex attracted youth, particularly girls, report higher levels of depressive symptoms, binge drinking, and drug use in part because they perceive less closeness with parents and less support from their families. Results also suggest that parental closeness and parental involvement may be less protective against risk behaviors for same-sex attracted boys than for their other-sex attracted peers. Findings thus suggest that interventions targeting the families of sexual minority youth should educate parents about the potentially negative effects of heteronormative assumptions and attitudes on positive adolescent development.

Legal recognition of same-sex couples and family formation.

PubMed

Trandafir, Mircea

2015-02-01

It has long been debated how legalizing same-sex marriage would affect (different-sex) family formation. In this article, I use data on OECD member countries for the period 1980-2009 to examine the effects of the legal recognition of same-sex couples (through marriage or an alternative institution) on different-sex marriage, divorce, and extramarital births. Estimates from difference-in-difference models indicate that the introduction of same-sex marriage or of alternative institutions has no negative effects on family formation. These findings are robust to a multitude of specification checks, including the construction of counterfactuals using the synthetic control method. In addition, the country-by-country case studies provide evidence of homogeneity of the estimated effects.

ACHESS--The Australian study of child health in same-sex families: background research, design and methodology.

PubMed

Crouch, Simon Robert; Waters, Elizabeth; McNair, Ruth; Power, Jennifer; Davis, Elise

2012-08-13

There are an increasing number of children in Australia growing up with same-sex attracted parents. Although children from same-sex parent families do in general perform well on many psychosocial measures recent research is beginning to consider some small but significant differences when these children are compared with children from other family backgrounds. In particular studies suggest that there is an association between the stigma that same-sex parent families experience and child wellbeing. Research to date lacks a holistic view with the complete physical, mental and social wellbeing of children not yet addressed. In addition, most studies have focused only on families with lesbian parents and have studied only small numbers of children. The Australian Study of Child Health in Same-Sex Families (ACHESS) is a national study that aims to determine the complete physical, mental and social wellbeing of Australian children under the age 18 years with at least one parent who self identifies as being same-sex attracted. There will be a particular focus on the impact that stigma and discrimination has on these families. Parent and child surveys will be used to collect data and will be available both online and in paper form. Measures have been chosen whenever possible that have sound conceptual underpinnings, robust psychometric properties and Australian normative data, and include the Child Health Questionnaire (CHQ), the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) and the Kessler Psychological Distress Scale (K10). ACHESS aims to be the largest study of its kind and will for the first time produce a detailed quantitative analysis of Australian children with same-sex attracted parents. By inviting participants to take part in further research it will also establish a valuable cohort of children, and their families, to launch future waves of research that will help us better understand the health and wellbeing of children with same-sex attracted parents.

Sex differences and sex hormones in anxiety-like behavior of aging rats.

PubMed

Domonkos, Emese; Borbélyová, Veronika; Csongová, Melinda; Bosý, Martin; Kačmárová, Mária; Ostatníková, Daniela; Hodosy, Július; Celec, Peter

2017-07-01

Sex differences in the prevalence of affective disorders might be attributable to different sex hormone milieu. The effects of short-term sex hormone deficiency on behavior, especially on anxiety have been studied in numerous animal experiments, mainly on young adult rats and mice. However, sex differences in aged animals and the effects of long-term hypogonadism are understudied. The aim of our study was to analyze sex differences in anxiety-like behavior in aged rats and to prove whether they can be attributed to endogenous sex hormone production in males. A battery of tests was performed to assess anxiety-like behavior in aged female, male and gonadectomized male rats castrated before puberty. In addition, the aged gonadectomized male rats were treated with a single injection of estradiol or testosterone or supplemented with estradiol for two-weeks. Female rats displayed a less anxious behavior than male rats in most of the conducted behavioral tests except the light-dark box. Long-term androgen deficiency decreased the sex difference in anxiety either partially (open field, PhenoTyper cage) or completely (elevated plus maze). Neither single injection of sex hormones, nor two-week supplementation of estradiol in gonadectomized aged male rats significantly affected their anxiety-like behavior in the elevated plus maze. In conclusion, our results confirm sex differences in anxiety in aged rats likely mediated by endogenous testosterone production in males. Whether long-term supplementation with exogenous sex hormones could affect anxiety-like behavior in elderly individuals remains to be elucidated. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

The accuracy of age—sex registers, practice medical records and family practitioner committee registers

PubMed Central

Fraser, Robin C.; Clayton, David G.

1981-01-01

This paper presents the results of a point prevalent evaluation of the comparative reliability and validity of age-sex registers, practice medical records and family practitioner committee (FPC) registers from five teaching practices. They all exhibited similar levels of acceptable accuracy for patient names, sex and age, but the distribution of wrong addresses varied greatly: practice medical records 3·9 per cent, age-sex registers 8·2 per cent and FPC registers 17·1 per cent. The presence of a patient entry in all three registers was associated with a high degree of probability (95·3 per cent) that this individual would be a bona fide practice patient. The register population inflation rates were FPC records 5·5 per cent, practice records 9·8 per cent and age-sex registers 10·6 per cent, but there were large variations between individual practices. A statistically significant contribution to inflation rates came from the age groups 0 to 1 and 21 to 40 (p<0·0005). The register population deflation rates were minimal. The significance of these findings is discussed and the need for practices to determine the accuracy of their individual age-sex registers is stressed. A convenient and economic method for so doing is suggested. We also suggest ways of making it easier to construct and use age-sex registers, since they can be a most versatile and useful aid to research in general practice. ImagesFigure 1. PMID:7320986

Variability of age at onset in siblings with familial Alzheimer disease.

PubMed

Gómez-Tortosa, Estrella; Barquero, M Sagrario; Barón, Manuel; Sainz, M Jose; Manzano, Sagrario; Payno, Maria; Ros, Raquel; Almaraz, Carmen; Gómez-Garré, Pilar; Jiménez-Escrig, Adriano

2007-12-01

Variability of age at onset (AO) of Alzheimer disease (AD) among members of the same family is important as a biological clue and because of its clinical effects. To evaluate which clinical variables influence the discrepancy in AO among affected relatives with familial AD. Clinical genetic project of Spanish kindred with AD conducted by 4 academic hospitals in Madrid, Spain. Age at onset of AD in 162 families and discrepancy in AO in intragenerational and intergenerational affected pairs were analyzed in relation to age, sex, maternal or paternal transmission, pattern of inheritance, and apolipoprotein E genotype. Maternal transmission of AD was significantly more frequent than paternal transmission (P < .001). In 27% of the affected individuals, AO occurred before the patient was 65 years old. Discrepancy in AO among siblings was within 5 years in 44% of the families, 6 to 10 years in 29%, and more than 10 years in 27% (range, 0-22). This discrepancy was independent of the sex of the sibling pairs and was significantly lower with maternal transmission of AD (P = .02). Segregation analysis showed no differences in the inheritance pattern between families with low (< or =5 years) or high (>5 years) AO discrepancy. Age at onset in carriers of the apolipoprotein E epsilon4 allele was slightly younger. However, among siblings, an extra apolipoprotein E epsilon4 allele was not consistently associated with earlier onset of AD. Eighty percent of patients, independent of sex or mode of transmission, were already affected at their parents' reported AO. There is a wide discrepancy in AO in affected siblings that is not clearly explained by a single clinical variable or apolipoprotein E genotype. The interaction of many factors probably determines AO in each affected individual. However, maternal transmission of AD seems to result in a similar AO in offspring, and the risk of developing dementia after the parent's reported AO decreases significantly.

Same-Sex Parent Families and Children's Academic Achievement

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Potter, Daniel

2012-01-01

Children in traditional families (i.e., married, 2 biological parents) tend to do better than their peers in nontraditional families. An exception to this pattern appears to be children from same-sex parent families. Children with lesbian mothers or gay fathers do not exhibit the poorer outcomes typically associated with nontraditional families.…

Family Sex Communication and the Sexual Desire, Attitudes, and Behavior of Late Adolescents

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Zamboni, Brian D.; Silver, Rachel

2009-01-01

Parental sex education might promote healthy sexual behavior among adolescents, but some parents assume that family communication about sex will lead to sexual activity. Family sex communication has been studied with a limited range of adolescent sexual behaviors but not sexual fantasy or desire. Two measures of family sex communication were…

Sex preference and its effect on family size and child welfare.

PubMed

Williamson, N E

1982-12-01

Sex discrimination begins before birth in many parts of the world. Many cultures have myths about how parents can increase their chances of having a son. There is now a test, anmiocentesis, that provides the scientific method for determining sex before birth. The text involves examining the chromosomes in the amniotic fluid. Until now little advantage has been taken of this knowledge since amniocentesis is uncommon around the world. There are recent news reports that assert that in India female fetuses are being aborted. The same has been rumored for China. Sex selection may become more widespread as the technology of sex detection improves. Currently, an abortion for the purpose of sex selection must be performed in the 2nd trimester of pregnancy because the test can be done only after the 3rd or 4th month of pregnancy. A technology which permits very early sex detection could, when combined with early menstrual regulation, have widespread ramifications, particularly since the preference for sons is so widespread. Son preference is common throughout the world and is unusually strong in Arab countries and in South Asia. It is fairly mild in Latin America and Southeast Asia. In Africa sex preference has not become a public issue for fertility is so high. Policymakers in countries such as Bangladesh, China, India, Pakistan, South Korea, and Taiwan have recently become concerned about sex preference for their objective is to reduce the population growth rates of their countries. Among countries with son preference China is unusual in that the government has tried to undermine the basis for son preference. It has encouraged families with an only daughter to adopt a son-in-law and have him take the family name. It has tried to equalize women's position in marriage and the economy. The policymakers in other countries assume that son preference will diminish with modernization. Family planning workers in most Asian countries assume that sex preference affects family size

Impact of the Family on the Sex Lives of Adolescents.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Pick, Susan; Palos, Patricia Andrade

1995-01-01

Presents results of three studies as they relate to family influence on adolescents' sex lives. The studies' results support the hypothesis that the family has a substantial influence on adolescents' sexual and contraceptive behavior, justifying the incorporation of such issues as parent-child communication into sex education programs. (RJM)

"Sex Is a sin": Afro-Caribbean Parent and Teen Perspectives on Sex Conversations.

PubMed

Gabbidon, Kemesha S; Shaw-Ridley, Mary

2018-01-18

This study characterized (a) mothers' childhood and teenage experiences with sex conversations and (b) families' perceptions of current parent-child sex conversations within two underserved Afro-Caribbean communities in the U.S. Fourteen dyads comprised of Haitian and Jamaican mothers and teens (aged 14-18) living in Miami, Florida, completed semi-structured interviews sharing their experiences with sex conversations. Researchers analyzed data using thematic content analysis. Mothers' mean age was 41.85 years, (SD = 5.50) and teens' mean age was 16.35 years, (SD = 1.31). Most mothers reported forbidden or little childhood experiences with parent-child sex conversations. They affected their sexual attitudes, behaviors, and ability to discuss sex with their children. Although some mothers benefited from educational and skill development others shared fear-based messages with their children that some teens believed adversely affected the mother-child relationship quality. Culturally appropriate, skill-based approaches are necessary to improve families' communication self-efficacy for healthy sex conversations to occur in Afro-Caribbean families.

Evaluating the welfare of the child in same-sex families.

PubMed

Pennings, Guido

2011-07-01

Within the field of medically assisted reproduction, the welfare of the child is advanced as the major argument to decide the acceptability of certain applications. This argument, however, needs a complex framework in order to be understood and used properly. The effect of empirical evidence regarding the welfare of the child on people's judgments about the acceptability of same-sex families will differ for utilitarians and deontologists. Deontologists who are opposed to same-sex families will not change their mind when confronted with reassuring evidence. However, utilitarians also frequently use the evidence wrongly or draw the wrong conclusions. The reasonable welfare standard is put forward to avoid counterintuitive judgments and to block comparative reasoning that may follow from the use of heterosexual families as a control in follow-up research. Finally, a number of problems related to the use of parental sexual orientation as a criterion are discussed. The discrimination against same-sex families will not be overturned by empirical evidence about the welfare of the children. Children in same-sex families are generally doing well but their situation could be improved if their parents' relationship were to be socially and legally recognized.

Determining age and sex of American coots

USGS Publications Warehouse

Eddleman, William R.; Knopf, Fritz L.

1985-01-01

Reliable techniques for age and sex determination of migrating and wintering American Coots (Fulica americana) have not been available. Breeding coots can be ages through age 3 by tarsal color (birds 4 years and older were placed in a 4+ age class) (Crawford 1978), and males and females have sex-specific behaviors and calls while on breeding territories (Gullion 1950, 1952). Externally, juvenile coots differ from adults in having gray (as opposed to white) bills and brown (as opposed to red) eyes to an age of 75 days (Gullion 1954-394). Bill color changes to white by about 120 days. No quantitative data have been available, however, on the proportion of juveniles retaining these traits throughout fall and early winter. Nonbreeding coots can be ages as juvenile or adult by internal examination of the thickness of the wall of the bursa of Fabricius, although bursal depth does not predictably decline with age (Fredrickson 1968). Attempts to sex coots by single external measurements of combinations of measurements have met with mixed success. Eight-five percent of 101 fall migrants in Wisconsin could be sexed by the length of the metatarsus-midtoe including claw by using 139.5 mm as a cutoff point (Burton 1959), whereas 88% of 67 coots in California were correctly sexed by the length of the metatarsus-midtoe without claw using 127.5 mm as the cutoff point (Gullion 1952). Two-hundred-thirty-two of 291 coots collected in Iowa, however, were in the zone of overlap between the sexes for this measurement (Fredrickson 1968). Previous studies attempting to develop aging and sexing techniques for American Coots have been limited to a few study sites or to 1 season or year, often failing to take geographical, annual, and seasonal morphological variation into account (e.g., Visser 1976, Fjeldsa 1977). We designed the present study to refine and quantify external and internal age and sex criteria for postbreeding coots, with the objective of defining techniques applicable for all

Family homework and school-based sex education: delaying early adolescents' sexual behavior.

PubMed

Grossman, Jennifer M; Frye, Alice; Charmaraman, Linda; Erkut, Sumru

2013-11-01

Early sexual activity can undermine adolescents' future school success and health outcomes. The purpose of this study was to assess the role of a family homework component of a comprehensive sex education intervention in delaying sexual initiation for early adolescents and to explore what social and contextual factors prevent adolescents from completing these family homework activities. This mixed methods study included 6th- and 7th-grade survey responses from 706 students at 11 middle school schools receiving a sex education intervention, as well as interviews from a subset of 33, 7th-grade students from the larger sample. Adolescents who completed more family homework assignments were less likely to have vaginal intercourse in 7th grade than those who completed fewer assignments, after controlling for self-reports of having had vaginal intercourse in 6th grade and demographic variables. Participants' explanations for not completing assignments included personal, curriculum, and family-based reasons. Family homework activities designed to increase family communication about sexual issues can delay sex among early adolescents and contribute to school-based sex education programs. Successful sex education programs must identify and address barriers to family homework completion. © 2013, American School Health Association.

Measuring trends in age at first sex and age at marriage in Manicaland, Zimbabwe.

PubMed

Cremin, I; Mushati, P; Hallett, T; Mupambireyi, Z; Nyamukapa, C; Garnett, G P; Gregson, S

2009-04-01

To identify reporting biases and to determine the influence of inconsistent reporting on observed trends in the timing of age at first sex and age at marriage. Longitudinal data from three rounds of a population-based cohort in eastern Zimbabwe were analysed. Reports of age at first sex and age at marriage from 6837 individuals attending multiple rounds were classified according to consistency. Survival analysis was used to identify trends in the timing of first sex and marriage. In this population, women initiate sex and enter marriage at younger ages than men but spend much less time between first sex and marriage. Among those surveyed between 1998 and 2005, median ages at first sex and first marriage were 18.5 years and 21.4 years for men and 18.2 years and 18.5 years, respectively, for women aged 15-54 years. High levels of reports of both age at first sex and age at marriage among those attending multiple surveys were found to be unreliable. Excluding reports identified as unreliable from these analyses did not alter the observed trends in either age at first sex or age at marriage. Tracing birth cohorts as they aged revealed reporting biases, particularly among the youngest cohorts. Comparisons by birth cohorts, which span a period of >40 years, indicate that median age at first sex has remained constant over time for women but has declined gradually for men. Although many reports of age at first sex and age at marriage were found to be unreliable, inclusion of such reports did not result in artificial generation or suppression of trends.

Building healthcare workers' confidence to work with same-sex parented families.

PubMed

von Doussa, Henry; Power, Jennifer; McNair, Ruth; Brown, Rhonda; Schofield, Margot; Perlesz, Amaryll; Pitts, Marian; Bickerdike, Andrew

2016-06-01

This article reports on a qualitative study of barriers and access to healthcare for same-sex attracted parents and their children. Focus groups were held with same-sex attracted parents to explore their experiences with healthcare providers and identify barriers and facilitators to access. Parents reported experiencing uncomfortable or anxiety-provoking encounters with healthcare workers who struggled to adopt inclusive or appropriate language to engage their family. Parents valued healthcare workers who were able to be open and honest and comfortably ask questions about their relationships and family. A separate set of focus groups were held with mainstream healthcare workers to identity their experiences and concerns about delivering equitable and quality care for same-sex parented families. Healthcare workers reported lacking confidence to actively engage with same-sex attracted parents and their children. This lack of confidence related to workers' unfamiliarity with same-sex parents, or lesbian, gay and bisexual culture, and limited opportunities to gain information or training in this area. Workers were seeking training and resources that offered information about appropriate language and terminology as well as concrete strategies for engaging with same-sex parented families. For instance, workers suggested they would find it useful to have a set of 'door opening' questions they could utilize to ask clients about their sexuality, relationship status or family make-up. This article outlines a set of guidelines for healthcare providers for working with same-sex parented families which was a key outcome of this study. © The Author 2015. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com.

Sex Differences in Language Across Early Childhood: Family Socioeconomic Status does not Impact Boys and Girls Equally.

PubMed

Barbu, Stéphanie; Nardy, Aurélie; Chevrot, Jean-Pierre; Guellaï, Bahia; Glas, Ludivine; Juhel, Jacques; Lemasson, Alban

2015-01-01

Child sex and family socioeconomic status (SES) have been repeatedly identified as a source of inter-individual variation in language development; yet their interactions have rarely been explored. While sex differences are the focus of a renewed interest concerning emerging language skills, data remain scarce and are not consistent across preschool years. The questions of whether family SES impacts boys and girls equally, as well as of the consistency of these differences throughout early childhood, remain open. We evaluated consistency of sex differences across SES and age by focusing on how children (N = 262), from 2;6 to 6;4 years old, from two contrasting social backgrounds, acquire a frequent phonological alternation in French - the liaison. By using a picture naming task eliciting the production of obligatory liaisons, we found evidence of sex differences over the preschool years in low-SES children, but not between high-SES boys and girls whose performances were very similar. Low-SES boys' performances were the poorest whereas low-SES girls' performances were intermediate, that is, lower than those of high-SES children of both sexes but higher than those of low-SES boys. Although all children's mastery of obligatory liaisons progressed with age, our findings showed a significant impeding effect of low-SES, especially for boys.

Sex-Based Differences in Asthma among Preschool and School-Aged Children in Korea.

PubMed

Jang, Yeonsoo; Shin, Anna

2015-01-01

The purpose of this study was to explore risk factors related to asthma prevalence among preschool and school-aged children using a representative national dataset from the Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (KNHANES) conducted from 2009-2011. We evaluated the demographic information, health status, household environment, socioeconomic status, and parents' health status of 3,542 children aged 4-12 years. A sex-stratified multivariate logistic regression was used to obtain adjusted prevalence odds ratios (ORs) and 95% confidence intervals after accounting for primary sample units, stratification, and sample weights. The sex-specific asthma prevalence in the 4- to 12-year-old children was 7.39% in boys and 6.27% in girls. Boys and girls with comorbid atopic dermatitis were more likely to have asthma than those without atopic dermatitis (boys: OR = 2.20, p = 0.0071; girls: OR = 2.33, p = 0.0031). Boys and girls with ≥1 asthmatic parent were more likely to have asthma than those without asthmatic parents (boys: OR = 3.90, p = 0.0006; girls: OR = 3.65, p = 0.0138). As girls got older, the prevalence of asthma decreased (OR = 0.90, p = 0.0408). Girls residing in rural areas were 60% less likely to have asthma than those residing in urban areas (p = 0.0309). Boys with ≥5 family members were more likely to have asthma than those with ≤3 family members (OR = 2.45, p = 0.0323). The factors related to asthma prevalence may differ depending on sex in preschool and school-aged children. By understanding the characteristics of sex-based differences in asthma, individualized asthma management plans may be established clinically.

Leading causes of injury hospitalisation in children aged 0-4 years in New South Wales by injury submechanism: a brief profile by age and sex.

PubMed

Schmertmann, Marcia; Williamson, Ann; Black, Deborah

2012-11-01

To identify the leading causes of injury in children aged 0-4 years by single year of age using injury submechanisms and present a brief epidemiologic profile of each cause. Hospitalisation data for New South Wales from 1999 to 2009 were used to identify the leading causes of injury for children aged 0-4 years by single year of age. For each leading cause, rates over time and by sex were calculated by single year of age. Associated age and sex risk ratios were estimated. The leading causes of injury for children aged <1, 1 and 2 years were falls while being carried, burns by hot non-aqueous substances and poisoning by other and unspecified pharmaceutical substances, respectively. Falls involving playground equipment ranked first for children aged 3-4 years. Each leading injury cause exhibited an age pattern that remained stable over time and by sex. Age predicted falls while being carried and both age and sex predicted the remaining leading injury causes, with age and sex interacting to predict burns by hot non-aqueous substances. Epidemiologic analysis using single-year age intervals and injury submechanisms results in a clearer picture of injury risk for young children. The findings of this study provide detailed information regarding the leading causes of hospitalised injury in young children by age and sex. Child health-care providers can use this information to focus discussions of child development and injury risk with families of young children and suggest appropriate prevention measures in terms of a child's age and sex. © 2012 The Authors. Journal of Paediatrics and Child Health © 2012 Paediatrics and Child Health Division (Royal Australasian College of Physicians).

Epidemiology and Heritability of Major Depressive Disorder, Stratified by Age of Onset, Sex, and Illness Course in Generation Scotland: Scottish Family Health Study (GS:SFHS).

PubMed

Fernandez-Pujals, Ana Maria; Adams, Mark James; Thomson, Pippa; McKechanie, Andrew G; Blackwood, Douglas H R; Smith, Blair H; Dominiczak, Anna F; Morris, Andrew D; Matthews, Keith; Campbell, Archie; Linksted, Pamela; Haley, Chris S; Deary, Ian J; Porteous, David J; MacIntyre, Donald J; McIntosh, Andrew M

2015-01-01

The heritability of Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) has been estimated at 37% based largely on twin studies that rely on contested assumptions. More recently, the heritability of MDD has been estimated on large populations from registries such as the Swedish, Finnish, and Chinese cohorts. Family-based designs utilise a number of different relationships and provide an alternative means of estimating heritability. Generation Scotland: Scottish Family Health Study (GS:SFHS) is a large (n = 20,198), family-based population study designed to identify the genetic determinants of common diseases, including Major Depressive Disorder. Two thousand seven hundred and six individuals were SCID diagnosed with MDD, 13.5% of the cohort, from which we inferred a population prevalence of 12.2% (95% credible interval: 11.4% to 13.1%). Increased risk of MDD was associated with being female, unemployed due to a disability, current smokers, former drinkers, and living in areas of greater social deprivation. The heritability of MDD in GS:SFHS was between 28% and 44%, estimated from a pedigree model. The genetic correlation of MDD between sexes, age of onset, and illness course were examined and showed strong genetic correlations. The genetic correlation between males and females with MDD was 0.75 (0.43 to 0.99); between earlier (≤ age 40) and later (> age 40) onset was 0.85 (0.66 to 0.98); and between single and recurrent episodic illness course was 0.87 (0.72 to 0.98). We found that the heritability of recurrent MDD illness course was significantly greater than the heritability of single MDD illness course. The study confirms a moderate genetic contribution to depression, with a small contribution of the common family environment (variance proportion = 0.07, CI: 0.01 to 0.15), and supports the relationship of MDD with previously identified risk factors. This study did not find robust support for genetic differences in MDD due to sex, age of onset, or illness course. However, we found

Work-Family Conflict and the Sex Difference in Depression Among Training Physicians.

PubMed

Guille, Constance; Frank, Elena; Zhao, Zhuo; Kalmbach, David A; Nietert, Paul J; Mata, Douglas A; Sen, Srijan

2017-12-01

Depression is common among training physicians and may disproportionately affect women. The identification of modifiable risk factors is key to reducing this disease burden and its negative impact on patient care and physician career attrition. To determine the presence and magnitude of a sex difference in depressive symptoms and work-family conflict among training physicians; and if work-family conflict impacts the sex difference in depressive symptoms among training physicians. A prospective longitudinal cohort study of medical internship in the United States during the 2015 to 2016 academic year in which 3121 interns were recruited across all specialties from 44 medical institutions. Prior to and during their internship year, participants reported the degree to which work responsibilities interfered with family life using the Work Family Conflict Scale and depressive symptoms using the Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9). Mean (SD) participant age was 27.5 (2.7) years, and 1571 participants (49.7%) were women. Both men and women experienced a marked increase in depressive symptoms during their internship year, with the increase being statistically significantly greater for women (men: mean increase in PHQ-9, 2.50; 95% CI, 2.26-2.73 vs women: mean increase, 3.20; 95% CI, 2.97-3.43). When work-family conflict was accounted for, the sex disparity in the increase in depressive symptoms decreased by 36%. Our study demonstrates that depressive symptoms increase substantially during the internship year for men and women, but that this increase is greater for women. The study also identifies work-family conflict as an important potentially modifiable factor that is associated with elevated depressive symptoms in training physicians. Systemic modifications to alleviate conflict between work and family life may improve physician mental health and reduce the disproportionate depression disease burden for female physicians. Given that depression among physicians is

Sex Role Attitudes and Sex Role Stereotyping: Recent Literature.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

New Jersey Research Bulletin, 1996

1996-01-01

This annotated bibliography profiles 17 publications examining sex role attitudes/sex role stereotyping from the perspectives of ethnicity, gender, and age. Cited in the section on ethnicity are studies of work satisfaction/family functioning among working-class Mexican-American women and cultural variations in sex typing by students in the United…

Family Kinship Patterns and Female Sex Work in the Informal Urban Settlement of Kibera, Nairobi, Kenya.

PubMed

Ngugi, Elizabeth N; Benoit, Cecilia; Hallgrimsdottir, Helga; Jansson, Mikael; Roth, Eric A

2012-06-01

A basic ecological and epidemiological question is why some women enter into commercial sex work while other women in the same socio-economic environment never do. To address this question respondent driven sampling principles were adopted to recruit and collect data for 161 female sex workers and 159 same aged women who never engaged in commercial sex in Kibera, a large informal settlement in Nairobi, Kenya. Univariate analysis indicated that basic kinship measures, including number of family members seen during adolescence and at present, not having a male guardian while growing up, and earlier times of ending relationships with both male and female guardians were associated with commercial sex work in Kibera. Multivariate analysis via logistic regression modeling showed that not having a male guardian during childhood, low education attainment and a small number of family members seen at adolescence were all significant predictors of entering sex work. By far the most important predictor of entering sex work was not having any male guardian, e.g., father, uncle, older brother, etc. during childhood. Results are interpreted in light of the historic pattern of sub-Saharan African child fostering and their relevance for young women in Kibera today.

Salt preference: age and sex related variability.

PubMed

Verma, Punam; Mittal, Sunita; Ghildiyal, Archana; Chaudhary, Lalita; Mahajan, K K

2007-01-01

Salt preference was assessed in 60 adults of 18-21 yrs of age (30 males and 30 females) and in 60 children of 7-12 yrs of age (30 boys and 30 girls). Subjects rated the preference on Likert scale for popcorns of five salt concentrations (OM, 1M, 2M, 3M and +3M). Statistical analysis using Two way ANOVA revealed statistically significant effect of age and sex on salt preference (F4,100 = 15.027, P < 0.01) and One Way ANOVA revealed statistically significant sex difference in salt preference of adults (F4,50 = 16.26, P < 0.01) but no statistically significant sex difference in salt preference of children (F4,50 = 4.08, P > 0.05). Dietary experiences during development and more physical activity in children may be responsible for higher salt preference in children while finding no sex variability in children favours the role of sex hormones in salt preference of male and females.

Sex Differences in Language Across Early Childhood: Family Socioeconomic Status does not Impact Boys and Girls Equally

PubMed Central

Barbu, Stéphanie; Nardy, Aurélie; Chevrot, Jean-Pierre; Guellaï, Bahia; Glas, Ludivine; Juhel, Jacques; Lemasson, Alban

2015-01-01

Child sex and family socioeconomic status (SES) have been repeatedly identified as a source of inter-individual variation in language development; yet their interactions have rarely been explored. While sex differences are the focus of a renewed interest concerning emerging language skills, data remain scarce and are not consistent across preschool years. The questions of whether family SES impacts boys and girls equally, as well as of the consistency of these differences throughout early childhood, remain open. We evaluated consistency of sex differences across SES and age by focusing on how children (N = 262), from 2;6 to 6;4 years old, from two contrasting social backgrounds, acquire a frequent phonological alternation in French – the liaison. By using a picture naming task eliciting the production of obligatory liaisons, we found evidence of sex differences over the preschool years in low-SES children, but not between high-SES boys and girls whose performances were very similar. Low-SES boys’ performances were the poorest whereas low-SES girls’ performances were intermediate, that is, lower than those of high-SES children of both sexes but higher than those of low-SES boys. Although all children’s mastery of obligatory liaisons progressed with age, our findings showed a significant impeding effect of low-SES, especially for boys. PMID:26696938

How Do Families Matter? Age and Gender Differences in Family Influences on Delinquency and Drug Use

PubMed Central

Fagan, Abigail A.; Van Horn, M. Lee; Antaramian, Susan; Hawkins, J. David

2010-01-01

Parenting practices, age, and gender all influence adolescent delinquency and drug use, but few studies have examined how these factors interact to affect offending. Using data from 18,512 students in Grades 6, 8, 10 and 12, this study found that across grades, parents treated girls and boys differently, but neither sex received preferential treatment for all practices assessed, and younger children reported more positive parenting than older students. Family factors were significantly related to delinquency and drug use for both sexes and for all grades. However, particular parenting practices showed gender and age differences in the degree to which they were related to outcomes, which indicates complexities in parent/child interactions that must be taken into account when investigating the causes of adolescent offending and when planning strategies to prevent the development of problem behaviors. PMID:21499537

Sex Role Stress and Job Burnout among Family Practice Physicians.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lemkau, Jeanne P.; And Others

1987-01-01

Explored relationships among sex role stress, gender, and job burnout in family practice physicians (N=67) in four residency programs. Results showed sexes agreed in describing ideal physician. Men saw themselves falling short on expressiveness; women saw themselves short on instrumentality and sensitivity. Sex role measures were most related to…

Influence of family and school-level factors on age of sexual initiation.

PubMed

White, Candace N; Warner, Lynn A

2015-02-01

This study examined the association of individual, family, and school-level characteristics with age of sexual initiation (ASI) and focused specifically on school context as a moderator of known predictors of ASI. Data are from Waves I and IV of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (N = 10,596). Predictors include grade point average, physical development, attitudes about sex, likelihood of higher education, alcohol use, delinquency, family structure, parents' education level, childhood abuse, maternal approval of sex, parental monitoring, and parent-child relationship quality. School-level predictors are averages of adolescents' attitudes about sex and likelihood of higher education and parents' education. Hierarchical linear models run separately by sex were used to predict ASI. When school-level attitudes about sex are more favorable, both boys and girls report younger ASI, and school mean parental education attainment moderates the influence of individual adolescents' attitudes about sex on ASI. More of the predictors are significant for girls than boys, whereas perception of maternal and peer approval of sexual activity are the most salient predictors of younger ASI for boys. Results highlight the importance of school context for understanding adolescents' motivations for early ASI. Findings support the need for school-wide prevention interventions that engage adolescents, peers, and parents in addressing attitudes about early sex. Copyright © 2015 Society for Adolescent Health and Medicine. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Protective effects of middle school comprehensive sex education with family involvement.

PubMed

Grossman, Jennifer M; Tracy, Allison J; Charmaraman, Linda; Ceder, Ineke; Erkut, Sumru

2014-11-01

School-based comprehensive sex education programs can reduce early adolescents' risky sexual behavior. The purpose of this study was to assess the effectiveness of a 3-year comprehensive sex education program in delaying vaginal sex for middle school students and whether the family component of the intervention contributes to its effectiveness. This longitudinal evaluation followed a cohort of 6th graders (N = 2453) through the end of 8th grade. The design used random assignment of 24 schools into treatment and comparison conditions. The analysis included multiple-group logistic regression to assess differences in delay of sex between intervention and comparison groups. In schools where the program was taught, 16% fewer boys and 15% fewer girls had had sex by the end of 8th grade compared to boys and girls at comparison schools. Completing family activities during the first year of the program predicted delayed sexual debut for boys. Theory-based, developmentally appropriate, comprehensive sex education programs that include parent involvement can be effective in delaying vaginal sex for middle school students. Parent involvement is particularly important for boys, as family activities may encourage parents to talk with their sons earlier and more frequently. © 2014, American School Health Association.

Predicting Age of Sexual Initiation: Family-Level Antecedents in Three Ethnic Groups

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Moilanen, Kristin L.; Leary, Janie M.; Watson, S. Michelle; Ottley, Jason

2018-01-01

We investigated how family characteristics and experiences during early adolescence predicted timing of sexual initiation. In addition, we investigated adolescent sex and race/ethnicity as potential moderating factors. As part of the Children of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth-1979 (CNLSY-79), 799 adolescents aged 12 to 15 years provided…

Gifted Students' Perceptions of Parenting Styles: Associations with Cognitive Ability, Sex, Race, and Age

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Rudasill, Kathleen Moritz; Adelson, Jill L.; Callahan, Carolyn M.; Houlihan, Deanna Vogt; Keizer, Benjamin M.

2013-01-01

Children whose parents are warm and responsive yet also set limits and have reasonable expectations for their children tend to have better outcomes than their peers whose parents show less warmth and responsiveness, have low expectations, or both. Parenting behavior is related to family race and children's sex, age, and cognitive ability. However,…

Hyperostosis frontalis interna: criteria for sexing and aging a skeleton.

PubMed

May, Hila; Peled, Nathan; Dar, Gali; Cohen, Haim; Abbas, Janan; Medlej, Bahaa; Hershkovitz, Israel

2011-09-01

Estimation of sex and age in skeletons is essential in anthropological and forensic medicine investigations. The aim of the current study was to examine the potential of hyperostosis frontalis interna (HFI) as a criterion for determining sex and age in forensic cases. Macroscopic examination of the inner aspect of the frontal bone of 768 skulls (326 males and 442 females) aged 1 to 103, which had undergone a head computerized tomography scan, was carried out using the volume rendering technique. HFI was divided into two categories: minor and major. HFI is a sex- and age-dependent phenomena, with females manifesting significantly higher prevalence than males (p<0.01). In both females and males, prevalence of HFI increases as age increases (p<0.01). We present herein the probabilities of designating an unknown skull to a specific sex and age cohort according to the presence of HFI (standardized to age distribution in an Israeli population). Moreover, we present the probability of an individual belonging to a specific sex or age cohort according to age or sex (respectively) and severity of HFI. We suggest a valid, reliable, and easy method for sex and age identification of unknown skulls.

Practice and content of sex education among adolescents in a family setting in rural southwest Nigeria.

PubMed

Asekun-Olarinmoye, E O; Dairo, M D; Abodurin, O L; Asekun-Olarinmoye, I O

A descriptive cross-sectional study to assess adolescents' view of the practice and content of sex education within the family setting in a rural Nigerian community and explore whether there is any association between parental communication on sex and adolescents' sexual debut and habits. Simple random sampling was utilized, while a semi-structured questionnaire was used to collect data from 350 respondents. Data analysis was by the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS version 11). Majority of the respondents (48.8%) were late adolescents, 291 (85.1%) had had sex education, most (45.7%) of whom were exposed between ages 10 and 14 years. The main content of parental sex education was HIV/AIDS prevention (51.9%), avoidance of pregnancy (40.9%), abstinence (38.1%), and basic information about reproduction and biology (35.4%). Poor attitude to parental communication on sex was associated with a higher likelihood of pre-marital sex (p = 0.001). Curiosity was the most common major reason for sexual debut. This emphasizes the importance of early sex education within the family setting and its possible impact in delaying sexual initiation. Promotion of parent-child communication about sexual issues is vital in order to improve the reproductive health of the adolescents in this environment. Community-based health education intervention programs for parents are recommended.

Sex differences in the development of perceived family cohesion and depressive symptoms in Taiwanese adolescents.

PubMed

Sze, Tat-Ming; Hsieh, Pei-Jung; Lin, Sieh-Hwa; Chen, I-Jung

2013-08-01

This study investigates the progression of family cohesion perceptions and depressive symptoms during the character development stage in adolescents. Data were used from the Taiwan Youth Project. The final sample comprised 2,690 adolescents with 1,312 girls (48.8%; M age = 13.0 yr., SD = 0.5). Latent curve growth analysis was employed to explore these developments. Seventh-grade girls reported greater family cohesion and more depressive symptoms than boys, and boys reported greater growth in family cohesion than girls. However, progression of depressive symptoms was not associated with the child's sex. Higher perceived family cohesion in Grade 7 correlated with less increase of depressive symptoms from Grades 9 to 11. The long-term positive influence of family cohesion on depressive symptoms is discussed.

Family Structure and Child Health: Does the Sex Composition of Parents Matter?

PubMed

Reczek, Corinne; Spiker, Russell; Liu, Hui; Crosnoe, Robert

2016-10-01

The children of different-sex married couples appear to be advantaged on a range of outcomes relative to the children of different-sex cohabiting couples. Despite the legalization of same-sex marriage in the United States, whether and how this general pattern extends to the children of same-sex married and cohabiting couples is unknown. This study examines this question with nationally representative data from the 2004-2013 pooled National Health Interview Survey (NHIS). Results reveal that children in cohabiting households have poorer health outcomes than children in married households regardless of the sex composition of their parents. Children in same-sex and different-sex married households are relatively similar to each other on health outcomes, as are children in same-sex and different-sex cohabiting households. These patterns are not fully explained by socioeconomic differences among the four different types of families. This evidence can inform general debates about family structure and child health as well as policy interventions aiming to reduce child health disparities.

Young men's perspectives on family support and disclosure of same-sex attraction.

PubMed

Carpineto, Julie; Kubicek, Katrina; Weiss, George; Iverson, Ellen; Kipke, Michele D

2008-06-01

Young men who have sex with men (YMSM) face myriad challenges when deciding to disclose their sexual orientation to family members. Key to this decision is consideration of how disclosure may influence the support they receive from family. This paper explores a diverse sample of YMSM's (N = 43) perspectives on disclosure of their same-sex attractions to key family members and its impact on family support. Several stages/categories of disclosure are described and some YMSM seemed to continue to move between categories. Additionally, relationships after disclosure included negotiations between the expression of their sexual orientation and the maintenance of family support.

How do health and biological age influence chronological age and sex differences in cognitive aging: moderating, mediating, or both?

PubMed

Wahlin, Ake; MacDonald, Stuart W S; deFrias, Cindy M; Nilsson, Lars-Göran; Dixon, Roger A

2006-06-01

Much research on cognitive competence in normal older adults has documented age and sex differences. The authors used new cross-sectional data from the Victoria Longitudinal Study (VLS) (n=386; age 61 to 95 years) to examine how health and biological age influence age and sex differences in cognitive aging. The authors found evidence for both moderating and mediating influences. Age differences were moderated by health status, such that the negative effects of age were most pronounced among participants of relatively better health. Sex differences were moderated by health and were more pronounced among participants reporting comparatively poorer health. Although health mediated a notable amount of age-related cognitive variation, BioAge mediated considerably more variance, even after statistical control for differences in health. A complex pattern emerged for the mediation of sex differences: Although BioAge accounted for sex-related variation in cognitive performance, health operated to suppress these differences. Overall, both health and BioAge predicted cognitive variation independently of chronological age. Copyright (c) 2006 APA, all rights reserved.

Female same-sex families in the dialectics of marginality and conformity.

PubMed

Sobočan, Ana Marija

2011-01-01

The article discusses the continuum between the personal and public roles of families, where two women parent together in Slovenia, against the background of the current marginal position of same-sex families in regard to rights and symbolic status, in claiming the position of same-sex parenting in the context of family models as well as in the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) movement agendas. It briefly outlines the situation in Slovenia in regard to homosexuality, and then moves to discussing the outcomes of the processes and experiences of lesbian mothers that are transgressing the borders of parental and homosexual identities. These outcomes are: "justifying" and demonstrating the "appropriateness" of family life in non-heteronormative families, constructing strategies for claiming a joint parental identity, and building a sense of belonging by forming a community that is both homosexual and parental. The article draws extensively on the lived (motherhood) experiences and stories of families where parents are two female partners and reads them as negotiating a constantly shifting place between a marginal status in the broader society and a conformist character in the perspective of their non-normative sexuality. In the article, it is recognized that same-sex families in Slovenia are entering the political agenda and are thus involved in transforming both contexts-the family and homosexual identities.

Prenatal sex determination: a new family-building strategy.

PubMed

Khanna, S K

1995-01-01

In the Indian village of Shahargaon, a village undergoing urbanizing effects near New Delhi, ultrasound and other prenatal diagnosis services are offered for people seeking prenatal sex determination and abortion of female fetuses. In the last 10 years there has been a significant rise in the practice of amniocentesis and ultrasonography to identify female fetuses followed by abortion to avoid the birth of a daughter. Cultural practices are behind this custom of sex-selective abortion because of strong son preference. Since the 1970s many activist organizations, women's groups, and voluntary agencies have condemned prenatal sex determination and called for strict government control. A survey of these village women, a midwife, and doctors at clinics surrounding Shahargaon indicated that ultrasound examinations and sex-selected abortion are common practice and they are on the rise. The techniques most widely used in north India are amniocentesis, ultrasonography, chorionic villus sampling, and fetoscopy. The dominant ethnic group in the area are the Jats, who owned most of the land before 1964. Since the 1970s they have been flocking to New Delhi as wage laborers and taking up employment in the service sector in low paying jobs. In the traditional Jat community the birth of son is considered a gift, while that of daughter is an expense, a moral burden, and a threat to the family. Thus, the devaluation of women and son preference continue. In 1993 the birth rate in the Shahargaon Jat community was 32.18 per 1000 population with a growing disparity between the number of boys and girls. The average family size is 5.98. The highly skewed sex ratio in this population of children 5 years or younger can be largely attributed to increased use of prenatal sex determination and sex-selective abortion of female fetuses.

Sex differences in normal age trajectories of functional brain networks.

PubMed

Scheinost, Dustin; Finn, Emily S; Tokoglu, Fuyuze; Shen, Xilin; Papademetris, Xenophon; Hampson, Michelle; Constable, R Todd

2015-04-01

Resting-state functional magnetic resonance image (rs-fMRI) is increasingly used to study functional brain networks. Nevertheless, variability in these networks due to factors such as sex and aging is not fully understood. This study explored sex differences in normal age trajectories of resting-state networks (RSNs) using a novel voxel-wise measure of functional connectivity, the intrinsic connectivity distribution (ICD). Males and females showed differential patterns of changing connectivity in large-scale RSNs during normal aging from early adulthood to late middle-age. In some networks, such as the default-mode network, males and females both showed decreases in connectivity with age, albeit at different rates. In other networks, such as the fronto-parietal network, males and females showed divergent connectivity trajectories with age. Main effects of sex and age were found in many of the same regions showing sex-related differences in aging. Finally, these sex differences in aging trajectories were robust to choice of preprocessing strategy, such as global signal regression. Our findings resolve some discrepancies in the literature, especially with respect to the trajectory of connectivity in the default mode, which can be explained by our observed interactions between sex and aging. Overall, results indicate that RSNs show different aging trajectories for males and females. Characterizing effects of sex and age on RSNs are critical first steps in understanding the functional organization of the human brain. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Young men's perspectives on family support and disclosure of same-sex attraction

PubMed Central

Carpineto, Julie; Kubicek, Katrina; Weiss, George; Iverson, Ellen; Kipke, Michele D

2011-01-01

Young men who have sex with men (YMSM) face myriad challenges when deciding to disclose their sexual orientation to family members. Key to this decision is consideration of how disclosure may influence the support they receive from family. This paper explores a diverse sample of YMSM’s (N = 43) perspectives on disclosure of their same-sex attractions to key family members and its impact on family support. Several stages/categories of disclosure are described and some YMSM seemed to continue to move between categories. Additionally, relationships after disclosure included negotiations between the expression of their sexual orientation and the maintenance of family support. PMID:21423842

Family Structure and Child Health: Does the Sex Composition of Parents Matter?

PubMed Central

Reczek, Corinne; Spiker, Russell; Liu, Hui; Crosnoe, Robert

2016-01-01

The children of different-sex married couples appear to be advantaged on a range of outcomes relative to the children of different-sex cohabiting couples. Despite the legalization of same-sex marriage in the United States, whether and how this general pattern extends to the children of same-sex married and cohabiting couples is unknown. This study examines this question with nationally representative data from the 2004–2013 pooled National Health Interview Survey (NHIS). Results reveal that children in cohabiting households have poorer health outcomes than children in married households regardless of the sex composition of their parents. Children in same-sex and different-sex married households are relatively similar to each other on health outcomes, as are children in same-sex and different-sex cohabiting households. These patterns are not fully explained by socioeconomic differences among the four different types of families. This evidence can inform general debates about family structure and child health as well as and policy interventions aiming to reduce child health disparities. PMID:27553617

Protective Effects of Middle School Comprehensive Sex Education with Family Involvement

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Grossman, Jennifer M.; Tracy, Allison J.; Charmaraman, Linda; Ceder, Ineke; Erkut, Sumru

2014-01-01

Background: School-based comprehensive sex education programs can reduce early adolescents' risky sexual behavior. The purpose of this study was to assess the effectiveness of a 3-year comprehensive sex education program in delaying vaginal sex for middle school students and whether the family component of the intervention contributes to its…

Impact of family structure and socio-demographic characteristics on child health and wellbeing in same-sex parent families: A cross-sectional survey.

PubMed

Crouch, Simon Robert; McNair, Ruth; Waters, Elizabeth

2016-05-01

Children with same-sex attracted parents develop well in terms of their health and wellbeing. There are many recognised factors that have an impact on child health, in general, including individual, family and wider social mediators. The aim of this study is to determine the impact of family structure and socio-demographic characteristics on child health and wellbeing in Australian same-sex parent families. A cross-sectional survey of self-identified same-sex attracted parents from across Australia was used to collect information on child health and wellbeing between May and December 2012. Mixed-effects multiple linear regression models were used to identify associations between family structure/socio-demographic characteristics and child wellbeing. Child health outcomes were measured using the Child Health Questionnaire and the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire. In same-sex parent families, biological relationships, parental gender and parental education were not significantly associated with health and wellbeing. Parental income, rurality and stable parental relationships were associated with health and wellbeing, and living in a single-parent household was associated with poorer wellbeing. Stable dual parent families offer good outcomes for children with same-sex attracted parents. Family processes are most important. This study does not support the assertion that children require both male and female parents, nor that biological relationships are essential to health and wellbeing. This study provides scientific data from a cross-sectional Australian-based study to describe and understand health determinants for children in family contexts that comprise same-sex parent and all family contexts. It recommends equitable, stigma-free family support. © 2016 Paediatrics and Child Health Division (The Royal Australasian College of Physicians).

Relationship between environmental factors, age of onset and familial history in Japanese patients with psoriasis.

PubMed

Bayaraa, Bolortuya; Imafuku, Shinichi

2018-06-01

Psoriasis is a chronic inflammatory disease that often involves the skin and joints. Psoriasis develops at any age and the distribution of age of onset of psoriasis is bimodal in Japan. Also, male predominance is distinct in Japanese psoriatic patients. To clarify the relationship between sex difference and habitual/environmental status, age and incidence of familial psoriasis, we analyzed data from the Fukuoka University Psoriasis Registry. A total of 1120 Japanese patients (751 men, 369 women) were analyzed. The male/female ratio was 2.03:1. Smoking and drinking habit, known as risk factors of psoriasis, were significantly more prevalent in men. Age-specific psoriasis-onset rate standardized by population showed bimodal distribution in both men and women; the younger peak was in their 30s for men and 10s in women; the second peak was in the 50s for both sexes. A familial history of psoriasis was seen in 6.3% of patients overall; however, female patients showed a significantly higher rate (8.7%) compared with men (5.1%, P = 0.024). When stratified by age of onset, the frequency of familial history was much higher among women with onset at less than 30 years (15.4%), compared with 30 years or more (5.3%, P = 0.0026). Our data suggest that genetic factors have a stronger influence in young women who experience fewer environmental factors such as smoking and drinking. This is the first study to show that there is a difference in the incidence of familial psoriasis depending on age of onset of psoriasis in Japan. © 2018 Japanese Dermatological Association.

Family Size and Sex Preference of Children: A Bi-racial Comparison.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Rao, V.V. Prakasa; Rao, V. Nandini

1981-01-01

Compares the attitudes of 409 White and Black undergraduate students toward the ideal and expected number of children, intentions of having a large family, sex preference for the first child, and sex preference for three children. (Author/CM)

A microRNA family exerts maternal control on sex determination in C. elegans

PubMed Central

McJunkin, Katherine; Ambros, Victor

2017-01-01

Gene expression in early animal embryogenesis is in large part controlled post-transcriptionally. Maternally contributed microRNAs may therefore play important roles in early development. We elucidated a major biological role of the nematode mir-35 family of maternally contributed essential microRNAs. We show that this microRNA family regulates the sex determination pathway at multiple levels, acting both upstream of and downstream from her-1 to prevent aberrantly activated male developmental programs in hermaphrodite embryos. Both of the predicted target genes that act downstream from the mir-35 family in this process, suppressor-26 (sup-26) and NHL (NCL-1, HT2A, and LIN-41 repeat) domain-containing-2 (nhl-2), encode RNA-binding proteins, thus delineating a previously unknown post-transcriptional regulatory subnetwork within the well-studied sex determination pathway of Caenorhabditis elegans. Repression of nhl-2 by the mir-35 family is required for not only proper sex determination but also viability, showing that a single microRNA target site can be essential. Since sex determination in C. elegans requires zygotic gene expression to read the sex chromosome karyotype, early embryos must remain gender-naïve; our findings show that the mir-35 family microRNAs act in the early embryo to function as a developmental timer that preserves naïveté and prevents premature deleterious developmental decisions. PMID:28279983

Why Don't Smart Teens Have Sex? A Behavioral Genetic Approach

PubMed Central

Harden, K. Paige; Mendle, Jane

2011-01-01

Academic achievement and cognitive ability have been shown to predict later age at first sexual intercourse. Using a sample of 536 same-sex twin pairs who were followed longitudinally from adolescence to early adulthood, this study tested whether relations between intelligence, academic achievement and age at first sex were due to unmeasured genetic and environmental differences between families. Twins who differed in their intelligence or their academic achievement did not differ in their age at first sex. Rather, the association between intelligence and age at first sex could be attributed entirely to unmeasured environmental differences between families, whereas the association between academic achievement and age at first sex could be attributed entirely to genetic factors. PMID:21679172

Civic Competence of Dutch Children in Female Same-Sex Parent Families: A Comparison With Children of Opposite-Sex Parents

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bos, Henny; Gartrell, Nanette; Roeleveld, Jaap; Ledoux, Guuske

2016-01-01

This study examined whether Dutch children reared in families headed by female same-sex parents differ in civic competence from Dutch children reared by opposite-sex parents. The participants, drawn from a national sample, included 32 children (11-13 years old) parented by female same-sex couples who were matched on demographic characteristics…

Sex-Role Inconstancy, Biology, and Successful Aging: A Dialectical Model

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Sinnott, Jan Dynda

1977-01-01

This paper examines sex-role inconstancy from a life-span point of view. New environmental realities and an increasing life-span may make traditional sex roles less functional in old age. Evidence is presented for more successful aging in persons manifesting convergent sex-role behavior. (Author)

Ancient X chromosomes reveal contrasting sex bias in Neolithic and Bronze Age Eurasian migrations.

PubMed

Goldberg, Amy; Günther, Torsten; Rosenberg, Noah A; Jakobsson, Mattias

2017-03-07

Dramatic events in human prehistory, such as the spread of agriculture to Europe from Anatolia and the late Neolithic/Bronze Age migration from the Pontic-Caspian Steppe, can be investigated using patterns of genetic variation among the people who lived in those times. In particular, studies of differing female and male demographic histories on the basis of ancient genomes can provide information about complexities of social structures and cultural interactions in prehistoric populations. We use a mechanistic admixture model to compare the sex-specifically-inherited X chromosome with the autosomes in 20 early Neolithic and 16 late Neolithic/Bronze Age human remains. Contrary to previous hypotheses suggested by the patrilocality of many agricultural populations, we find no evidence of sex-biased admixture during the migration that spread farming across Europe during the early Neolithic. For later migrations from the Pontic Steppe during the late Neolithic/Bronze Age, however, we estimate a dramatic male bias, with approximately five to 14 migrating males for every migrating female. We find evidence of ongoing, primarily male, migration from the steppe to central Europe over a period of multiple generations, with a level of sex bias that excludes a pulse migration during a single generation. The contrasting patterns of sex-specific migration during these two migrations suggest a view of differing cultural histories in which the Neolithic transition was driven by mass migration of both males and females in roughly equal numbers, perhaps whole families, whereas the later Bronze Age migration and cultural shift were instead driven by male migration, potentially connected to new technology and conquest.

Neurovascular control of blood pressure is influenced by aging, sex, and sex hormones.

PubMed

Baker, Sarah E; Limberg, Jacqueline K; Ranadive, Sushant M; Joyner, Michael J

2016-12-01

In this review, we highlight that the relationship between muscle sympathetic nerve activity (MSNA) and mean arterial pressure is complex, differs by sex, and changes with age. In young men there is an inverse relationship between MSNA and cardiac output where high MSNA is compensated for by low cardiac output. This inverse relationship is not seen in older men. In young women sympathetic vasoconstriction is offset by β-adrenoreceptor mediated vasodilation, limiting the ability of young women to maintain blood pressure in response to orthostatic stress. However, β-mediated dilation in women is attenuated with age, leading to unopposed α-adrenergic vasoconstriction and a rise in the direct transduction of MSNA into increases in blood pressure. We propose that these changes with age and menopausal status are major contributing factors in the increased prevalence of hypertension in older women. In addition to aging, we highlight that changes in sex hormones in young women (across the menstrual cycle, with oral contraceptive use, or with pregnancy) influence MSNA and the transduction of MSNA into increases in blood pressure. It is likely that the β-adrenergic receptors and/or changes in baroreflex sensitivity play a large role in these sex differences and changes with alterations in sex hormones. Copyright © 2016 the American Physiological Society.

Associations Between Early Family Meal Environment Quality and Later Well-Being in School-Age Children.

PubMed

Harbec, Marie-Josée; Pagani, Linda S

Past research suggests a positive link between family meals and child and adolescent health. Although researchers have often relied on how often families eat together, this may not capture the complexity of the experience. Using a birth cohort, this study examines the prospective associations between the environmental quality of the family meal experience at age 6 years and child well-being at age 10. Participants are 1492 children of the Quebec Longitudinal Study of Child Development. When children were age 6, parents reported on their typical family meal environment quality. At age 10, parents, teachers, and children themselves provided information on lifestyle habits, academic achievement, and social adjustment, respectively. The relationship between early family meal environment quality and later child outcomes was analyzed using a series of multivariate linear regression. Family meal environment quality at age 6 predicted higher levels of general fitness and lower levels of soft drink consumption, physical aggression, oppositional behavior, nonaggressive delinquency, and reactive aggression at age 10. These relationships were adjusted for child characteristics (sex, temperament problems and cognitive abilities, and baseline body mass index [BMI]) and family characteristics (family configuration and functioning, maternal education, depression, and BMI). From a population-health perspective, our findings suggest that family meals have long-term influences on children's biopsychosocial well-being. At a time when family meal frequency is on a natural decline in the population, this environmental characteristic can become a target of home-based interventions and could be featured in information campaigns that aim to optimize child development.

Sex Role Development of Preschoolers from Two-Parent and One-Parent Families.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Brenes, Margarita Elena; And Others

1985-01-01

Examines sex-role development in families in which parents were divorced or separated, specifically assessing children's understanding of gender identity and sex-role stereotypes and indicating toy choices during play. (Author/KS)

National Needs of Family Planning Among US Men Aged 15 to 44 Years

PubMed Central

Gibbs, Susannah E.; Choiriyyah, Ifta; Sonenstein, Freya L.; Astone, Nan M.; Pleck, Joseph H.; Dariotis, Jacinda K.

2016-01-01

Objectives. To estimate national need for family planning services among men in the United States according to background characteristics, access to care, receipt of services, and contraception use. Methods. We used weighted data from the 2006–2010 National Survey of Family Growth to estimate the percentage of men aged 15 to 44 years (n = 10 395) in need of family planning, based on sexual behavior, fecundity, and not trying to get pregnant with his partner. Results. Overall, 60% of men were in need of family planning, defined as those who ever had vaginal sex, were fecund, and had fecund partner(s) who were not trying to get pregnant with partner or partner(s) were not currently pregnant. The greatest need was among young and unmarried men. Most men in need of family planning had access to care, but few reported receiving family planning services (< 19%), consistently using condoms (26%), or having partners consistently using contraception (41%). Conclusions. The need for engaging men aged 15 to 44 years in family planning education and care is substantial and largely unmet despite national public health priorities to include men in reducing unintended pregnancies. PMID:26890180

China's marriage squeeze: A decomposition into age and sex structure.

PubMed

Jiang, Quanbao; Li, Xiaomin; Li, Shuzhuo; Feldman, Marcus W

2016-06-01

Most recent studies of marriage patterns in China have emphasized the male-biased sex ratio but have largely neglected age structure as a factor in China's male marriage squeeze. In this paper we develop an index we call "spousal sex ratio" (SSR) to measure the marriage squeeze, and a method of decomposing the proportion of male surplus into age and sex structure effects within a small spousal age difference interval. We project that China's marriage market will be confronted with a relatively severe male squeeze. For the decomposition of the cohort aged 30, from 2010 to 2020 age structure will be dominant, while from 2020 through 2034 the contribution of age structure will gradually decrease and that of sex structure will increase. From then on, sex structure will be dominant. The index and decomposition, concentrated on a specific female birth cohort, can distinguish spousal competition for single cohorts which may be covered by a summary index for the whole marriage market; these can also be used for consecutive cohorts to reflect the situation of the whole marriage market.

A scale on beliefs about children's adjustment in same-sex families: reliability and validity.

PubMed

Frias-Navarro, Dolores; Monterde-I-Bort, Hector

2012-01-01

In this study, we developed a new instrument named Scale Beliefs about Children's Adjustment on Same-Sex Families (SBCASSF). The scale was developed to assess of the adults' beliefs about negative impacts on children who are raised by same-sex parents. An initial pool of 95 items was generated by the authors based on a review of the literature on homophobia and feedback from several focus groups. Research findings, based on a sample of 212 university students (mean age 22 years, SD = 8.28), supported the reliability and validity of the scale. The final versions of the SBCASSF included items reflecting the following two factors: individual opposition (α = .87) and normative opposition (α = .88). Convergent validity of the scale is demonstrated by predictable correlations with beliefs about the cause of same-sex sexual orientation and the support for gay and lesbian rights. Our study reveals a strong positive association between high scores on SBCASSF and beliefs that the origin of same-sex sexual orientation is learned and opposition to gay and lesbian rights.

Age and sex influences on running mechanics and coordination variability.

PubMed

Boyer, Katherine A; Freedman Silvernail, Julia; Hamill, Joseph

2017-11-01

The purpose of this study was to examine the impact of age on running mechanics separately for male and female runners and to quantify sex differences in running mechanics and coordination variability for older runners. Kinematics and kinetics were captured for 20 younger (10 male) and 20 older (10 male) adults running overground at 3.5 m · s -1 . A modified vector coding technique was used to calculate segment coordination variability. Lower extremity joint angles, moments and segment coordination variability were compared between age and sex groups. Significant sex-age interaction effects were found for heel-strike hip flexion and ankle in/eversion angles and peak ankle dorsiflexion angle. In older adults, mid-stance knee flexion angle, ankle inversion and abduction moments and hip abduction and external rotation moments differed by sex. Older compared with younger females had reduced coordination variability in the thigh-shank transverse plane couple but greater coordination variability for the shank rotation-foot eversion couple in early stance. These results suggest there may be a non-equivalent aging process in the movement mechanics for males and females. The age and sex differences in running mechanics and coordination variability highlight the need for sex-based analyses for future studies examining injury risk with age.

A microRNA family exerts maternal control on sex determination in C. elegans.

PubMed

McJunkin, Katherine; Ambros, Victor

2017-02-15

Gene expression in early animal embryogenesis is in large part controlled post-transcriptionally. Maternally contributed microRNAs may therefore play important roles in early development. We elucidated a major biological role of the nematode mir-35 family of maternally contributed essential microRNAs. We show that this microRNA family regulates the sex determination pathway at multiple levels, acting both upstream of and downstream from her-1 to prevent aberrantly activated male developmental programs in hermaphrodite embryos. Both of the predicted target genes that act downstream from the mir-35 family in this process, suppressor-26 ( sup-26 ) and NHL (NCL-1, HT2A, and LIN-41 repeat) domain-containing-2 ( nhl-2 ), encode RNA-binding proteins, thus delineating a previously unknown post-transcriptional regulatory subnetwork within the well-studied sex determination pathway of Caenorhabditis elegans Repression of nhl-2 by the mir-35 family is required for not only proper sex determination but also viability, showing that a single microRNA target site can be essential. Since sex determination in C. elegans requires zygotic gene expression to read the sex chromosome karyotype, early embryos must remain gender-naïve; our findings show that the mir-35 family microRNAs act in the early embryo to function as a developmental timer that preserves naïveté and prevents premature deleterious developmental decisions. © 2017 McJunkin and Ambros; Published by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press.

[Sex education and sexual development of female adolescents].

PubMed

Barth, H; Döbler, T; Galletzki, R; Amon, K

1983-01-01

A questionnaire survey on sex knowledge of 930 female vocational students (17-18 year olds) was done to assess future needs in sex education. Main points in the questionnaire were sex upbringing and education received; peer groups, couple and contraceptive behavior; and attitude to family and family planning. Socioeconomic factors, parents' occupation, and size of residence were considered. Results showed: 70.4% had some kind of sex upbringing before age 12; 24.5% after age 12. Whereas up to 80% wanted sex education from parents, only about 55% actually received this (mothers mostly); 80% of actual sex information came from books and TV. Peers proved closer to the girls in confidence than parents. Although teachers were 3rd in line to provide actual sex education they were last as persons desired by the girls to provide this. Nearly 60% of the subjects desired more information in the areas of love and marriage, sex in adolescence, effects and side effects of the pill, general contraceptive methods and sex behavior. Conclusions from the survey point to the need to start sex education at an early age and extend it into adolescence and beyond; it should be direct, continuous and goal-oriented. Teenagers desire interpersonal dialogue with concerned adults. There should be cooperation in sex education between parents, teachers, and youth organizations. Teachers are insufficiently prepared to assume the role as sex educator. Teenagers need more factual information on conscious family planning and contraceptive methods.

The association between major depression prevalence and sex becomes weaker with age.

PubMed

Patten, Scott B; Williams, Jeanne V A; Lavorato, Dina H; Wang, Jian Li; Bulloch, Andrew G M; Sajobi, Tolulope

2016-02-01

Women have a higher prevalence of major depressive episodes (MDE) than men, and the annual prevalence of MDE declines with age. Age by sex interactions may occur (a weakening of the sex effect with age), but are easily overlooked since individual studies lack statistical power to detect interactions. The objective of this study was to evaluate age by sex interactions in MDE prevalence. In Canada, a series of 10 national surveys conducted between 1996 and 2013 assessed MDE prevalence in respondents over the age of 14. Treating age as a continuous variable, binomial and linear regression was used to model age by sex interactions in each survey. To increase power, the survey-specific interaction coefficients were then pooled using meta-analytic methods. The estimated interaction terms were homogeneous. In the binomial regression model I (2) was 31.2 % and was not statistically significant (Q statistic = 13.1, df = 9, p = 0.159). The pooled estimate (-0.004) was significant (z = 3.13, p = 0.002), indicating that the effect of sex became weaker with increasing age. This resulted in near disappearance of the sex difference in the 75+ age group. This finding was also supported by an examination of age- and sex-specific estimates pooled across the surveys. The association of MDE prevalence with sex becomes weaker with age. The interaction may reflect biological effect modification. Investigators should test for, and consider inclusion of age by sex interactions in epidemiological analyses of MDE prevalence.

Mallard age and sex determination from wings

USGS Publications Warehouse

Carney, S.M.; Geis, A.D.

1960-01-01

This paper describes characters on the wing plumage of the mallard that indicate age and sex. A key outlines a logical order in which to check age and sex characters on wings. This method was tested and found to be more than 95 percent reliable, although it was found that considerable practice and training with known-age specimens was required to achieve this level of accuracy....The implications of this technique and the sampling procedure it permits are discussed. Wing collections could provide information on production, and, if coupled with a banding program could permit seasonal population estimates to be calculated. In addition, representative samples of wings would provide data to check the reliability of several other waterfowl surveys.

Sex, the aging immune system, and chronic disease.

PubMed

Gubbels Bupp, Melanie R

2015-04-01

The immune systems of men and women differ in significant ways, especially after puberty. In particular, females are generally more prone to autoimmunity, but experience lower rates of infections and chronic inflammatory disease. Sex hormones, genes encoded on the sex chromosomes, and gender-specific behaviors likely contribute to these differences. The aging process is associated with changes in the composition and function of the immune system and these changes may occur at an accelerated rate in men as compared to women. Moreover, after the age of menopause, the incidence of chronic inflammatory disease in women approaches or exceeds that observed in males. At the same time, the incidence of autoimmunity in post-menopausal women is decreased or equivalent to the rates observed in similarly-aged men. Additional studies addressing the influence of sex on the pathogenesis of chronic and autoimmune diseases in the aged are warranted. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Sex education and family planning services for young adults: alternative urban strategies in Mexico.

PubMed

Townsend, J W; Diaz de May, E; Sepúlveda, Y; Santos de Garza, Y; Rosenhouse, S

1987-01-01

In Mexico, youth face difficulties in obtaining reliable information on sex education and family planning through existing community programs. Two alternative strategies to provide these services are being tested in poor urban areas of Monterrey. In one experimental area, Integrated Youth Centers were established, which provide sex education and family planning services as well as counseling, academic tutoring, and recreational activities. In another area, trained young adults and community counselors work through informal networks to provide sex education and family planning information. Both utilization and the cost of these services are examined in the context of plans for expanding coverage in Mexico-U.S. border areas.

Sex differences in the effect of aging on dry eye disease.

PubMed

Ahn, Jong Ho; Choi, Yoon-Hyeong; Paik, Hae Jung; Kim, Mee Kum; Wee, Won Ryang; Kim, Dong Hyun

2017-01-01

Aging is a major risk factor in dry eye disease (DED), and understanding sexual differences is very important in biomedical research. However, there is little information about sex differences in the effect of aging on DED. We investigated sex differences in the effect of aging and other risk factors for DED. This study included data of 16,824 adults from the Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (2010-2012), which is a population-based cross-sectional survey. DED was defined as the presence of frequent ocular dryness or a previous diagnosis by an ophthalmologist. Basic sociodemographic factors and previously known risk factors for DED were included in the analyses. Linear regression modeling and multivariate logistic regression modeling were used to compare the sex differences in the effect of risk factors for DED; we additionally performed tests for interactions between sex and other risk factors for DED in logistic regression models. In our linear regression models, the prevalence of DED symptoms in men increased with age ( R =0.311, P =0.012); however, there was no association between aging and DED in women ( P >0.05). Multivariate logistic regression analyses showed that aging in men was not associated with DED (DED symptoms/diagnosis: odds ratio [OR] =1.01/1.04, each P >0.05), while aging in women was protectively associated with DED (DED symptoms/diagnosis: OR =0.94/0.91, P =0.011/0.003). Previous ocular surgery was significantly associated with DED in both men and women (men/women: OR =2.45/1.77 [DED symptoms] and 3.17/2.05 [DED diagnosis], each P <0.001). Tests for interactions of sex revealed significantly different aging × sex and previous ocular surgery × sex interactions ( P for interaction of sex: DED symptoms/diagnosis - 0.044/0.011 [age] and 0.012/0.006 [previous ocular surgery]). There were distinct sex differences in the effect of aging on DED in the Korean population. DED following ocular surgery also showed sexually different

The health perspectives of Australian adolescents from same-sex parent families: a mixed methods study.

PubMed

Crouch, S R; Waters, E; McNair, R; Power, J

2015-05-01

Research involving adolescents from same-sex parent families provides an important contribution to the evidence base on their health, well-being and the impact of stigma. To date reports on the perspectives of adolescents with same-sex attracted parents have been limited. This study aimed to describe the multidimensional experiences of physical, mental and social well-being of adolescents living in this context. A mixed methods study of adolescents with same-sex attracted parents comprising of an adolescent-report survey of 10- to 17-year-olds and family interviews with adolescents and their parents. Data were collected in 2012 and 2013 as part of the Australian Study of Child Health in Same-Sex Families. The findings from qualitative interviews with seven adolescents and responses to an open-ended survey question (n = 16) suggest four themes: perceptions of normality, positive concepts of health, spheres of life (including family, friends and community) and avoiding negativity. The quantitative sample of adolescents with same-sex attracted parents (n = 35) reported higher scores than population normative data on the dimensions general health and family activities within the Child Health Questionnaire (CHQ) as well as higher on the peer problems scale on the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ). Perceived stigma correlates with lower health and well-being overall. Positive health outcomes are informed by the ways adolescents conceptualize health and how they construct their spheres of life. Peer relationships, and community perspectives of same-sex families, inform perceived stigma and its correlation with poorer health and well-being. Although adolescents see their families as essentially normal they are negatively affected by external societal stigma. © 2014 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Romanticism as a function of age, sex, and ethnicity.

PubMed

Regan, Pamela C; Anguiano, Carlos

2010-12-01

This study examined the association between romanticism (operationalized as mean score on the Romantic Beliefs Scale) and age, sex, and ethnicity in a large community sample (N = 436). Age was negatively correlated with romanticism scores; as age increased, romanticism scores decreased. No sex differences were found; men and women had similar, moderate scores. Although ethnicity largely was unrelated to romanticism, Asian/Pacific Islander participants were significantly more romantic than were African-American participants.

The Promise and Perils of Population Research on Same-Sex Families.

PubMed

Reczek, Corinne; Spiker, Russell; Liu, Hui; Crosnoe, Robert

2017-12-01

As a follow-up to our 2016 study, this article presents new findings examining the relationship between same-sex family structure and child health using the 2008-2015 National Health Interview Survey (NHIS). After discussing NIHS data problems, we examine the relationship between family structure and a broad range of child well-being outcomes, including school days lost, behavior, parent-rated health, emotional difficulties, and activity limitations. We find both similarities (school days lost, behavior, parent-rated health) and differences (emotional difficulties and activity limitations) across our two studies using different survey years, but our overall conclusions are robust. We further discuss the implications of our findings for future research on this topic, including how to account for biological relatedness in a study on child health in same-sex families.

Biological age and sex-related declines in physical activity during adolescence.

PubMed

Cairney, John; Veldhuizen, Scott; Kwan, Matthew; Hay, John; Faught, Brent E

2014-04-01

Sex differences in the rate of decline in physical activity (PA) are most pronounced during adolescence. However, once boys and girls are aligned on biological age, sex differences in the patterns of PA become attenuated. The aim of this study was to test whether biological maturation can account for sex differences in participation in PA over time from late childhood to early adolescence. A prospective cohort of children (N = 2100; 1064 boys) was followed from ages 11 to 14 yr, with repeated assessments of PA and anthropometry. Self-reported participation in organized and free play activities was used to track participation in PA. Biological age was measured using an estimate of years to attainment of peak height velocity. Mixed-effects models were used to test whether controlling for biological age attenuates the effect of chronological age and sex on PA. As expected, the rate of decline in participation in PA was greater for girls than for boys (B = -1.18, P < 0.01). In multivariable analyses, adjusting for biological age completely attenuated the effect of sex and chronological age for participation in free play activities, but not for participation in organized play. Overall, biological age was a stronger predictor of participation than chronological age. The effect of biological age on sex by chronological age differences may be specific to certain types of PA participation. Given the importance of maturation to participation in activity, it is suggested that public health strategies target biological not chronological age to prevent declines in PA during adolescence particularly when promoting habitual or lifestyle activity.

Age dependent sex disproportion in US asthma hospitalization rates, 2000-2010.

PubMed

Lin, Robert Yao-wen; Ji, Rong; Liao, William

2013-09-01

Age-stratified sex differences in asthma hospitalizations rates have been reported to be most marked between the ages of 40 and 54 years in New York. It is not known whether age-dependent sex differences in asthma hospitalization rates also exist for the entire United States. To compare sex-specific hospitalization rates for asthma in adults in the United States and to describe the adjusted associations between female sex and age in the fifth to sixth decades of life. The National Inpatient Sample databases for 2000-2010 were queried for a principal diagnosis of asthma to calculate the ratio of female to male hospitalization rates for different decades of adult life. Logistic regression modeling was used to determine whether age in the fifth to sixth decades of life had associations with female sex that remained significant after adjusting for comorbidities and demographic features. For all years of the study, there was a distinct peaking in female to male ratio most manifested in the fifth to sixth decades of life. This age grouping was significantly associated with female sex. Models revealed that female sex was significantly associated with this age grouping, even after adjustment for obesity, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, race, insurance status, discharge year, and smoking. Excluding identifiable repeat admissions also did not abrogate the age grouping association. There is a striking propensity of women in their fifth to sixth decades of life to be admitted for asthma, which appears to be independent of many known comorbidities. Copyright © 2013 American College of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

The development of structural complexity in the child's concept of family: the effect of cognitive stage, sex, and intactness of family.

PubMed

Wedemeyer, N V; Bickhard, M H; Cooper, R G

1989-12-01

Twenty-eight boys and 28 girls at each of the Piagetian preoperational, concrete operational, and formal operational cognitive stages were given an interview focusing on their concepts of family. Half of each group were from intact families, and half were from divorced families. Interviews were scored for two structural aspects of the concept of family: conceptual level, and use of dimensions that structure the concept. The complexity of children's concepts was strongly related to cognitive stage and, to a lesser degree, to sex. Frequency of use of concept dimensions was strongly affected by general developmental level, though not specifically cognitive stage, and by intactness of family, but to a lesser degree by sex. Specific information is provided on the effect of these factors on perceptions of family composition, parental roles, and breadth of family activities.

Effect of sex, age and genetics on crossover interference in cattle

PubMed Central

Wang, Zhiying; Shen, Botong; Jiang, Jicai; Li, Jinquan; Ma, Li

2016-01-01

Crossovers generated by homologous recombination ensure proper chromosome segregation during meiosis. Crossover interference results in chiasmata being more evenly distributed along chromosomes, but the mechanism underlying crossover interference remains elusive. Based on large pedigrees of Holstein and Jersey cattle with genotype data, we extracted three-generation families, including 147,327 male and 71,687 female meioses in Holstein, and 108,163 male and 37,008 female meioses in Jersey, respectively. We identified crossovers in these meioses and fitted the Housworth-Stahl “interference-escape” model to study crossover interference patterns in the cattle genome. Our result reveals that the degree of crossover interference is stronger in females than in males. We found evidence for inter-chromosomal variation in the level of crossover interference, with smaller chromosomes exhibiting stronger interference. In addition, crossover interference levels decreased with maternal age. Finally, sex-specific GWAS analyses identified one locus near the NEK9 gene on chromosome 10 to have a significant effect on crossover interference levels. This locus has been previously associated with recombination rate in cattle. Collectively, this large-scale analysis provided a comprehensive description of crossover interference across chromosome, sex and age groups, identified associated candidate genes, and produced useful insights into the mechanism of crossover interference. PMID:27892966

Early Exposure to Traffic-Related Air Pollution, Respiratory Symptoms at 4 Years of Age, and Potential Effect Modification by Parental Allergy, Stressful Family Events, and Sex: A Prospective Follow-up Study of the PARIS Birth Cohort

PubMed Central

Rancière, Fanny; Bougas, Nicolas; Viola, Malika; Momas, Isabelle

2016-01-01

Background: The relation between traffic-related air pollution (TRAP) exposure and the incidence of asthma/allergy in preschool children has been widely studied, but results remain heterogeneous, possibly due to differences in methodology and susceptibility to TRAP. Objectives: We aimed to study the relation of early TRAP exposure with the development of respiratory/allergic symptoms and asthma during preschool years, and to investigate parental allergy, “stressful” family events, and sex as possible effect modifiers. Methods: We examined data of 2,015 children from the PARIS birth cohort followed up with repeated questionnaires completed by parents until age 4 years. TRAP exposure in each child’s first year of life was estimated by nitrogen oxides (NOx) air dispersion modeling, taking into account both home and day care locations. Association between TRAP exposure and patterns of wheezing, dry night cough, and rhinitis symptoms was studied using multinomial logistic regression models adjusted for potential confounders. Effect modification by parental history of allergy, stressful family events, and sex was investigated. Results: An interquartile range (26 μg/m3) increase in NOx levels was associated with an increased odds ratio (OR) of persistent wheezing at 4 years (adjusted OR = 1.27; 95% confidence interval: 1.09, 1.47). TRAP exposure was positively associated with persistent wheeze, dry cough, and rhinitis symptoms among children with a parental allergy, those experiencing stressful family events, and boys, but not in children whose parents did not have allergies or experience stressful events, or in girls (all interaction p-values < 0.2). Conclusions: This study supports the hypothesis that not all preschool children are equal regarding TRAP health effects. Parental history of allergy, stressful family events, and male sex may increase their susceptibility to adverse respiratory effects of early TRAP exposure. Citation: Rancière F, Bougas N, Viola M

Familial Risk of Early Suicide: Variations by Age and Sex of Children and Parents

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Garssen, Joop; Deerenberg, Ingeborg; Mackenbach, Johan P.; Kerkhof, Ad; Kunst, Anton E.

2011-01-01

To determine familial risk of early suicide, data on cause of death of all Dutch residents aged 20-55 years who died between 1995 and 2001 were linked to data of their parents. Men whose father died by suicide had a higher odds of suicide themselves, relative to men whose father died of other causes (Odds Ratio (OR): 2.5; 95% confidence interval:…

Age- and sex-specific thorax finite element model development and simulation.

PubMed

Schoell, Samantha L; Weaver, Ashley A; Vavalle, Nicholas A; Stitzel, Joel D

2015-01-01

The shape, size, bone density, and cortical thickness of the thoracic skeleton vary significantly with age and sex, which can affect the injury tolerance, especially in at-risk populations such as the elderly. Computational modeling has emerged as a powerful and versatile tool to assess injury risk. However, current computational models only represent certain ages and sexes in the population. The purpose of this study was to morph an existing finite element (FE) model of the thorax to depict thorax morphology for males and females of ages 30 and 70 years old (YO) and to investigate the effect on injury risk. Age- and sex-specific FE models were developed using thin-plate spline interpolation. In order to execute the thin-plate spline interpolation, homologous landmarks on the reference, target, and FE model are required. An image segmentation and registration algorithm was used to collect homologous rib and sternum landmark data from males and females aged 0-100 years. The Generalized Procrustes Analysis was applied to the homologous landmark data to quantify age- and sex-specific isolated shape changes in the thorax. The Global Human Body Models Consortium (GHBMC) 50th percentile male occupant model was morphed to create age- and sex-specific thoracic shape change models (scaled to a 50th percentile male size). To evaluate the thoracic response, 2 loading cases (frontal hub impact and lateral impact) were simulated to assess the importance of geometric and material property changes with age and sex. Due to the geometric and material property changes with age and sex, there were observed differences in the response of the thorax in both the frontal and lateral impacts. Material property changes alone had little to no effect on the maximum thoracic force or the maximum percent compression. With age, the thorax becomes stiffer due to superior rotation of the ribs, which can result in increased bone strain that can increase the risk of fracture. For the 70-YO models

China’s marriage squeeze: A decomposition into age and sex structure

PubMed Central

LI, Xiaomin; LI, Shuzhuo; FELDMAN, Marcus W.

2016-01-01

Most recent studies of marriage patterns in China have emphasized the male-biased sex ratio but have largely neglected age structure as a factor in China’s male marriage squeeze. In this paper we develop an index we call “spousal sex ratio” (SSR) to measure the marriage squeeze, and a method of decomposing the proportion of male surplus into age and sex structure effects within a small spousal age difference interval. We project that China’s marriage market will be confronted with a relatively severe male squeeze. For the decomposition of the cohort aged 30, from 2010 to 2020 age structure will be dominant, while from 2020 through 2034 the contribution of age structure will gradually decrease and that of sex structure will increase. From then on, sex structure will be dominant. The index and decomposition, concentrated on a specific female birth cohort, can distinguish spousal competition for single cohorts which may be covered by a summary index for the whole marriage market; these can also be used for consecutive cohorts to reflect the situation of the whole marriage market. PMID:27242390

Aging obviates sex-specific physiological responses to exercise.

PubMed

Deschenes, Michael R; Taylor, Jessica L; Mangis, Katherine A

2013-01-01

Both sex and aging have been shown to affect physiological responses to exercise. The aim of the present investigation was to determine whether aging impacted the sex-specific nature of physiological responses to exercise commonly noted among young adults. Ten aged men (69.0 ± 1.7 years; mean ± SE) and 10 aged women (71.6 ± 1.3 years) reporting similar levels of habitual physical activity performed a 30-min exercise session at 60-65% of their predetermined peak oxygen uptake. Cardiovascular, thermoregulatory, and metabolic variables were assessed before exercise, at the 15th and 30th min of exercise, and at 5 and 15 min into a passive postexercise recovery period. Variables of interest were statistically analyzed via two-way analysis of variance with repeated measures; significance was set at P < 0.05. Significant effects of time (i.e., exercise) for each physiological variable of interest were identified, but not once was a significant effect of group (i.e., sex) detected. Exercise-induced physiological responses to prolonged, moderate intensity exercise were similar among aged men and aged women. This evidence that the sexually dimorphic nature of physiological responses to exercise is obviated with age should be taken into account when prescribing health-related exercise training programs for older individuals. Copyright © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

The impact of family status on gender identity and on sex-typing of household tasks in Israel.

PubMed

Kulik, Liat

2005-06-01

The author examined differences in sex-typing of household tasks (adult gender roles and children's chores) and differences in gender identity among adult Israelis. The author compared 2 groups of participants: single people without children (single-family participants; n = 62) and married people with children (full-family participants; n = 62). Regarding sex-typing of household tasks and direct assessments of masculine and feminine identity, there were no differences between single-family participants and full-family participants. However, family status affected self-assessments of gender identity that were based on cultural definitions of masculine and feminine attributes. Furthermore, correlations between direct assessments of gender identity and sex-typing of household tasks differed according to family status.

Sex hormones, aging, and Alzheimer’s disease

PubMed Central

Barron, Anna M.; Pike, Christian J.

2012-01-01

A promising strategy to delay and perhaps prevent Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is to identify the age-related changes that put the brain at risk for the disease. A significant normal age change known to result in tissue-specific dysfunction is the depletion of sex hormones. In women, menopause results in a relatively rapid loss of estradiol and progesterone. In men, aging is associated with a comparatively gradual yet significant decrease in testosterone. We review a broad literature that indicates age-related losses of estrogens in women and testosterone in men are risk factors for AD. Both estrogens and androgens exert a wide range of protective actions that improve multiple aspects of neural health, suggesting that hormone therapies have the potential to combat AD pathogenesis. However, translation of experimental findings into effective therapies has proven challenging. One emerging treatment option is the development of novel hormone mimetics termed selective estrogen and androgen receptor modulators. Continued research of sex hormones and their roles in the aging brain is expected to yield valuable approaches to reducing the risk of AD. PMID:22201929

Sex Differences in Familiality Effects on Neurocognitive Performance in Schizophrenia

PubMed Central

Calkins, Monica E.; Ray, Amrita; Gur, Ruben C.; Freedman, Robert; Green, Michael F.; Greenwood, Tiffany A.; Light, Gregory A.; Nuechterlein, Keith H.; Olincy, Ann; Radant, Allen D.; Seidman, Larry J.; Siever, Larry J.; Silverman, Jeremy M.; Stone, William S.; Sugar, Catherine; Swerdlow, Neal R.; Tsuang, Debby W.; Tsuang, Ming T.; Turetsky, Bruce I.; Braff, David L.; Lazzeroni, Laura C.; Gur, Raquel E.

2013-01-01

Background Numerous studies have documented that patients with schizophrenia show neurocognitive impairments, which are also heritable in schizophrenia families. In view of these findings, the current investigation tested the hypothesis that neurocognitive performance of schizophrenia probands can predict the neurocognitive performance of their unaffected family members. Methods Participants (n=1,967; schizophrenia=369; first-degree relatives=1,072; community comparison subjects=526) in the Consortium on the Genetics of Schizophrenia (COGS) were administered the Penn Computerized Neurocognitive Battery (CNB). Results Consistent with prior work, probands showed significant neurocognitive impairment, and neurocognitive ability was significantly heritable, across domains. On average, unaffected relatives did not differ from community comparison subjects in their neurocognitive performance. However, in 6 of 7 domains, probands’ score predicted the performance of their unaffected siblings. Male, but not female, probands’ performance was predictive of their unaffected relatives (siblings and mothers) performance, most consistently in face memory and spatial processing. Conclusions Using a novel approach in which individual probands are paired with their respective unaffected relatives within each family, we found that male probands’ performance predicted both sister and brother performance, an effect that was most powerfully observed for face memory and spatial processing. Results suggest that the familial transmission of sexually dimorphic neurocognitive domains, in which a particular sex tends to show a performance advantage over the other, may not itself be sex specific in schizophrenia families. PMID:23395246

The Development of Sex Role Stereotypes in the Third Year: Relationships to Gender Labeling, Gender Identity, Sex-Typed Toy Preference, and Family Characteristics.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Weinraub, Marsha; And Others

1984-01-01

The onset and development of preschoolers' awareness of sex role stereotypes, gender labeling, gender identity, and sex-typed toy preference were explored in 26-, 31-, and 36-month-old children. Family characteristics that affect early sex role development also were investigated. (Author/RH)

Correlates of Forced Sex Among Young Men Who Have Sex With Men in Yangon and Monywa, Myanmar.

PubMed

Johnston, Lisa G; Mon, Myo Myo; Steinhaus, Mara; Sass, Justine

2017-05-01

Forced sex at an early age is associated with a variety of negative factors including increased illness, high-risk sexual and substance-use behaviors, and mental and psychological stress. These sequelae may be compounded for men who have sex with men (MSM), especially young MSM and those with feminine gender identity and expression. This survey examined the prevalence and associations of forced sex among young MSM in two cities in Myanmar. In 2013-2014, surveys using respondent-driven sampling collected data on 200 young MSM in Yangon and 200 in Monywa. One quarter of young MSM in Yangon and 21 % in Monywa reported ever experiencing forced sex. In a multivariable model, having problems with family members and having any MSM friends with many partners had higher odds of experiencing forced sex. Having maternal acceptance of same-sex attraction (compared to acceptance by both parents) and becoming aware of their same-sex attraction at or above the age of 16 had lower odds of experiencing forced sex. Focused research is needed to understand the family and other social dynamics affecting vulnerability to forced sex, as well as specific sexual risks associated with forced sex among young MSM, including HIV acquisition and transmission risks.

Sex and Age Differences in Trail Half Marathon Running.

PubMed

Navalta, James W; Montes, Jeffrey; Tanner, Elizabeth A; Bodell, Nathaniel G; Young, John C

2018-01-01

Female participation is growing in trail running races. The purpose was to evaluate sex and age differences in top finishers of a trail running half marathon. Velocity differences between males (M) and females (F) were determined for the top 10 finishers of the Moab Trail Half Marathon from 2012 - 2015 across age, and by finishing place. Differences between age category and between sexes were determined through ANOVA with significance accepted at P < 0.05. A significant difference for running velocity was present between sexes at each age category (20-29 yr F = 2.9±0.3, M = 3.4±0.4 m·sec -1 ; 30-39 yr F = 2.8±0.3, M = 3.3±0.3; 40-49 yr F = 2.7±0.3, M = 3.0±0.5; 50-59 yr F = 2.3±0.2, M = 2.8±0.3; 60-69 yr F = 1.6±0.3, M = 2.2±0.4; P < 0.0001). Sex difference in trail running velocity was consistent (~13%) among all age categories with exception of the oldest group (33%, P = 0.0001). There were significantly greater female finishers in every age category (20 - 29 yr F = 107±18, M = 56±1;, 30 - 39 yr F = 150±34, M = 84±21; 40 - 49 yr F = 112±17, M = 64±16; P < 0.01) until 50 - 59 yr (F = 48±13, M = 41±14; P = 0.50). These data indicate that the widening gap in sex differences observed in road races are ameliorated in a trail running environment that has a larger number of female participants.

Answering Young Children's Questions about Sex.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hansen, Gladys

Intended for use by parents and teachers of preschool age children, this short booklet provides some guidelines to follow when introducing sex education to young children. It discusses issues such as where to begin, how to encourage the child to ask questions about sex, how to handle sex-related problems, child molestation, nudity and the family,…

Working, sex partner age differences, and sexual behavior among African American youth.

PubMed

Bauermeister, José A; Zimmerman, Marc; Xue, Yange; Gee, Gilbert C; Caldwell, Cleopatra H

2009-10-01

Participation in the workplace has been proposed as a potential structural-level HIV/STI prevention strategy for youth. Only a few cross-sectional studies have explored the effect of work during adolescence and young adulthood on sexual behavior and their results have been mixed. This study builds on this literature by exploring whether work influences youths' sexual behavior in a cohort of African American youth (N = 562; 45% males; M = 14.5 years, SD = 0.6) followed from adolescence to young adulthood (ages 13-25 years). Using growth curve modeling, we tested whether working was associated with older sex partners. Then, we explored the association between sex partner age differences and sexual behaviors (i.e., number of sex partners, condom use, and frequency of sexual intercourse). Finally, we tested whether the relationship between sex partner age differences and sexual behaviors was confounded by working. Working greater number of hours was not significantly associated with having older sex partners. Sex partner age differences was associated with number of partners, condom use, and higher sex frequency. These associations were larger for females. Working was associated with higher sex frequency, after accounting for age differences. We discuss the implications of these findings for future research and program planning, particularly in the context of youth development programs.

Liminality and low-income aging families by choice: meanings of family and support.

PubMed

McDaniel, Susan; Gazso, Amber

2014-12-01

Through the lens of individualization, aging families demonstrate changes both in family composition and in meanings of family and support. So, also, do low-income families that - in order to survive - choose flexible, sometimes novel, social-support relations, including kin and non-kin: these are aging families by choice. Applying the concept of liminality (transitional states of being) created through individualization, we explored the experiences of close relations in low-income families consisting of aging kin and non-kin members. Qualitative interviews with respondents representing two or three generations of aging families of choice illustrated how these families perceive the meanings of family and social support. We find that reciprocity is less vital to relationships of older with younger members in familial networks than may be expected. Liminality contours meanings and exchanges in low-income aging families of choice such that no matter how tenuous relations may be, they provide a sense of belonging and meaning.

Perceived control and communication about sex: a study of South African families.

PubMed

Goodnight, Bradley; Salama, Christina; Grim, Elizabeth C; Anthony, Elizabeth R; Armistead, Lisa; Cook, Sarah L; Skinner, Donald; Toefy, Yoesrie

2014-01-01

Caregiver-youth communication about sex protects youth against HIV/AIDS, and caregivers who believe that sex knowledge is important are more likely to talk to their youth about sex. However, caregivers who experience barriers to communication about sex may not talk to their youth about sex even if the caregiver believes that sex education is important. The Theory of Planned Behaviour predicts that an actor has perceived control is necessary for behavioural change. This study therefore hypothesised that caregivers' perceived control moderates the relationship between caregiver attitudes about youth sex knowledge and caregiver-youth communication about sex. Results from a sample of 99 female South African caregivers of adolescent (10-14 year old) youth supported our hypothesis, indicating that caregiver attitudes about providing youth with sex knowledge positively predict communication about sex only when caregivers have perceived control. This finding illustrates the importance of perceived control in predicting caregiver-youth communication, and therefore has implications for family-based interventions aimed at improving caregiver-youth communication about sex.

When Families Present with Concerns about an Adolescent's Experience of Same-Sex Attraction.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Yarhouse, Mark A.

1998-01-01

Examines the American Association for Marital and Family Therapy's Code of Ethics to explore ways in which marriage and family therapists can provide services within the framework of existing ethical principles and standards for accountability and professionalism to families with an adolescent child experiencing same-sex attraction. (Author/MKA)

Evidence for sex differences in cardiovascular aging and adaptive responses to physical activity.

PubMed

Parker, Beth A; Kalasky, Martha J; Proctor, David N

2010-09-01

There are considerable data addressing sex-related differences in cardiovascular system aging and disease risk/progression. Sex differences in cardiovascular aging are evident during resting conditions, exercise, and other acute physiological challenges (e.g., orthostasis). In conjunction with these sex-related differences-or perhaps even as an underlying cause-the impact of cardiorespiratory fitness and/or physical activity on the aging cardiovascular system also appears to be sex-specific. Potential mechanisms contributing to sex-related differences in cardiovascular aging and adaptability include changes in sex hormones with age as well as sex differences in baseline fitness and the dose of activity needed to elicit cardiovascular adaptations. The purpose of the present paper is thus to review the primary research regarding sex-specific plasticity of the cardiovascular system to fitness and physical activity in older adults. Specifically, the paper will (1) briefly review known sex differences in cardiovascular aging, (2) detail emerging evidence regarding observed cardiovascular outcomes in investigations of exercise and physical activity in older men versus women, (3) explore mechanisms underlying the differing adaptations to exercise and habitual activity in men versus women, and (4) discuss implications of these findings with respect to chronic disease risk and exercise prescription.

Evidence for sex differences in cardiovascular aging and adaptive responses to physical activity

PubMed Central

Parker, Beth A.; Kalasky, Martha J.; Proctor, David N.

2010-01-01

There are considerable data addressing sex-related differences in cardiovascular system aging and disease risk/progression. Sex differences in cardiovascular aging are evident during resting conditions, exercise, and other acute physiological challenges (e.g., orthostasis). In conjunction with these sex-related differences—or perhaps even as an underlying cause—the impact of cardiorespiratory fitness and/or physical activity on the aging cardiovascular system also appears to be sex-specific. Potential mechanisms contributing to sex-related differences in cardiovascular aging and adaptability include changes in sex hormones with age as well as sex differences in baseline fitness and the dose of activity needed to elicit cardiovascular adaptations. The purpose of the present paper is thus to review the primary research regarding sex-specific plasticity of the cardiovascular system to fitness and physical activity in older adults. Specifically, the paper will (1) briefly review known sex differences in cardiovascular aging, (2) detail emerging evidence regarding observed cardiovascular outcomes in investigations of exercise and physical activity in older men versus women, (3) explore mechanisms underlying the differing adaptations to exercise and habitual activity in men versus women, and (4) discuss implications of these findings with respect to chronic disease risk and exercise prescription. PMID:20480371

Age- and sex-related growth patterns of the craniofacial complex in European children aged 3-6 years.

PubMed

Tutkuviene, Janina; Cattaneo, Cristina; Obertová, Zuzana; Ratnayake, Melanie; Poppa, Pasquale; Barkus, Arunas; Khalaj-Hedayati, Kerstin; Schroeder, Inge; Ritz-Timme, Stefanie

2016-11-01

Craniofacial growth changes in young children are not yet completely understood. Up-to-date references for craniofacial measurements are crucial for clinical assessment of orthodontic anomalies, craniofacial abnormalities and subsequent planning of interventions. To provide normal reference data and to identify growth patterns for craniofacial dimensions of European boys and girls aged 3-6 years. Using standard anthropometric methodology, body weight, body height and 23 craniofacial measurements were acquired for a cross-sectional sample of 681 healthy children (362 boys and 319 girls) aged 3-6 years from Germany, Italy and Lithuania. Descriptive statistics, correlation coefficients, percentage annual changes and percentage growth rates were used to analyse the dataset. Between the ages of 3-6 years, craniofacial measurements showed age- and sex-related patterns independent from patterns observed for body weight and body height. Sex-related differences were observed in the majority of craniofacial measurements. In both sexes, face heights and face depths showed the strongest correlation with age. Growth patterns differed by craniofacial measurement and can be summarised into eight distinct age- and sex-related patterns. This study provided reference data and identified sex- and age-related growth patterns of the craniofacial complex of young European children, which may be used for detailed assessment of normal growth in paediatrics, maxillofacial reconstructive surgery and possibly for forensic age assessment.

76 FR 80966 - Agency Information Collection Activities; Proposed Collection: Age, Sex, and Race of Persons...

Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

2011-12-27

... Collection Activities; Proposed Collection: Age, Sex, and Race of Persons Arrested 18 Years of Age and Over; Age, Sex, and Race of Persons Arrested Under 18 Years of Age; Revision of a Currently Approved..., Sex, and Race of Persons Arrested 18 Years of Age and Over; Age, Sex, and Race of Persons Arrested...

Working, Sex Partner Age Differences, and Sexual Behavior among African American Youth

PubMed Central

Bauermeister, José A.; Zimmerman, Marc; Xue, Yange; Gee, Gilbert C.; Caldwell, Cleopatra H.

2009-01-01

Participation in the workplace has been proposed as a potential structural-level HIV/STI prevention strategy for youth. Only a few cross-sectional studies have explored the effect of work during adolescence and young adulthood on sexual behavior and their results have been mixed. This study builds on this literature by exploring whether work influences youths’ sexual behavior in a cohort of African American youth [N = 562; 45% males; M = 14.5 years, SD = 0.6] followed from adolescence to young adulthood (ages 13 to 25). Using growth curve modeling, we tested whether working was associated with older sex partners. Then, we explored the association between sex partner age differences and sexual behaviors (i.e., number of sex partners, condom use, and frequency of sexual intercourse). Finally, we tested whether the relationship between sex partner age differences and sexual behaviors was confounded by working. Working greater number of hours was not significantly associated with having older sex partners. Sex partner age differences was associated with number of partners, condom use, and and higher sex frequency. These associations were larger for females. Working was associated with higher sex frequency, after accounting for age differences. We discuss the implications of these findings for future research and program planning, particularly in the context of youth development programs. PMID:18574686

Sex differences in familiality effects on neurocognitive performance in schizophrenia.

PubMed

Calkins, Monica E; Ray, Amrita; Gur, Ruben C; Freedman, Robert; Green, Michael F; Greenwood, Tiffany A; Light, Gregory A; Nuechterlein, Keith H; Olincy, Ann; Radant, Allen D; Seidman, Larry J; Siever, Larry J; Silverman, Jeremy M; Stone, William S; Sugar, Catherine; Swerdlow, Neal R; Tsuang, Debby W; Tsuang, Ming T; Turetsky, Bruce I; Braff, David L; Lazzeroni, Laura C; Gur, Raquel E

2013-05-15

Numerous studies have documented that patients with schizophrenia show neurocognitive impairments, which are also heritable in schizophrenia families. In view of these findings, the current investigation tested the hypothesis that neurocognitive performance of schizophrenia probands can predict the neurocognitive performance of their unaffected family members. Participants (n=1967; schizophrenia=369; first-degree relatives=1072; community comparison subjects=526) in the Consortium on the Genetics of Schizophrenia were administered the Penn Computerized Neurocognitive Battery. Consistent with prior work, probands showed significant neurocognitive impairment, and neurocognitive ability was significantly heritable across domains. On average, unaffected relatives did not differ from community comparison subjects in their neurocognitive performance. However, in six of seven domains, proband scores predicted the performance of their unaffected siblings. Male, but not female, proband performance was predictive of their unaffected relatives' (siblings and mothers) performance, most consistently in face memory and spatial processing. Using a novel approach in which individual probands are paired with their respective unaffected relatives within each family, we found that male proband performance predicted both sister and brother performance, an effect that was most powerfully observed for face memory and spatial processing. Results suggest that the familial transmission of sexually dimorphic neurocognitive domains, in which a particular sex tends to show a performance advantage over the other, may not itself be sex specific in schizophrenia families. Copyright © 2013 Society of Biological Psychiatry. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Age, sex, and setting factors and labor force in athletic training.

PubMed

Kahanov, Leamor; Eberman, Lindsey E

2011-01-01

Occupation or occupational setting shifts might be occurring in the athletic training profession, and differences between sexes might exist; however, little evidence exists to confirm this supposition. To evaluate trends in male and female athletic training employment patterns in terms of age and occupational setting. Cross-sectional study. We requested demographic data from the National Athletic Trainers' Association (October 27, 2009) and obtained frequency totals of members by sex across the occupational life span by occupational setting. Our sample included 18 571 athletic trainers employed in the 3 largest classifications of occupational settings within the profession: college or university, clinical, and secondary school. We calculated frequencies and percentages to determine demographic and descriptive data. We analyzed the data using an analysis of variance to identify the differences between sexes across age and setting. We observed trends in occupational setting and sex across ages 22 to 67 years. We identified differences between sexes across the ages 22 to 67 years (F(1,18569) = 110818.080, P < .001, η(2) = .068) and across occupational settings (F(1,18569) = 61.908, P < .001, η(2) = .003), noting a marked decline in female athletic trainers in the workforce beginning around age 28 years and an increase in male athletic trainers in the secondary school setting beginning around their middle to late 40s. We observed differences at the intercept between setting and sex (F(1,18569) = 63529.344, P < .001, η(2) = .845), which were greater when observed across the ages (F(1,18569) = 23566787.642, P < .001, η(2) = .939). We identified differences between sexes across settings and ages in addition to an overall decrease in the workforce among all professionals. A marked decline in female athletic trainers occurred at age 28 years, yet the male population increased at the secondary school level, suggesting a setting shift. Burnout, fatigue, pay scale, and a

The Motive to Avoid Success Studied as a Function of Sex, Age, and Sex of Cue Variables.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Talcott, Lou Ann W.

This thesis describes an experimental study of the "motive to avoid success," as described by Matina Horner (1968), using sex, age, and sex of cues as independent variables. School-aged subjects (5th, 8th, 11th grade and college students) wrote stories in response to one of two written thematic apperceptive cues. The dependent measure was the…

Age, sex and reproductive status affect boldness in dogs.

PubMed

Starling, Melissa J; Branson, Nicholas; Thomson, Peter C; McGreevy, Paul D

2013-09-01

Boldness in dogs is believed to be one end of the shy-bold axis, representing a super-trait. Several personality traits fall under the influence of this super-trait. Previous studies have found that boldness is affected by breed and breed groups, influences performance in sporting dogs, and is affected in some cases by the sex of the dogs. This study investigated the effects of dog age, sex and reproductive status on boldness in dogs by way of a dog personality survey circulated amongst Australian dog owners. Age had a significant effect on boldness (F=4.476; DF=16,758; P<0.001), with boldness decreasing with age in years. Males were bolder than females (F=19.219; DF=1,758; P<0.001) and entire dogs were bolder than neutered dogs (F=4.330; DF=1,758; P<0.038). The study indicates how behaviour may change in adult dogs as they age and adds to the literature on how sex and reproductive status may affect personality in dogs. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Sex-specific phenotypes of hyperthyroidism and hypothyroidism in aged mice.

PubMed

Rakov, Helena; Engels, Kathrin; Hönes, Georg Sebastian; Brix, Klaudia; Köhrle, Josef; Moeller, Lars Christian; Zwanziger, Denise; Führer, Dagmar

2017-12-22

Sex and age play a role in the prevalence of thyroid dysfunction (TD), but their interrelationship for manifestation of hyper- and hypothyroidism is still not well understood. Using a murine model, we asked whether sex impacts the phenotypes of hyper- and hypothyroidism at two life stages. Hyper- and hypothyroidism were induced by i.p. T4 or MMI/ClO 4 -/LoI treatment over 7 weeks in 12- and 20-months-old female and male C57BL/6N mice. Control animals underwent PBS treatment (n = 7-11 animals/sex/treatment). Animals were investigated for impact of sex on body weight, food and water intake, body temperature, heart rate, behaviour (locomotor activity, motor coordination and strength) and serum thyroid hormone (TH) status. Distinct sex impact was found in eu- and hyperthyroid mice, while phenotypic traits of hypothyroidism were similar in male and female mice. No sex difference was found in TH status of euthyroid mice; however, T4 treatment resulted in twofold higher TT4, FT4 and FT3 serum concentrations in adult and old females compared to male animals. Hyperthyroid females consistently showed higher locomotor activity and better coordination but more impairment of muscle function by TH excess at adult age. Importantly and in contrast to male mice, adult and old hyperthyroid female mice showed increased body weight. Higher body temperature in female mice was confirmed in all age groups. No sex impact was found on heart rate irrespective of TH status in adult and old mice. By comparison of male and female mice with TD at two life stages, we found that sex modulates TH action in an organ- and function-specific manner. Sex differences were more pronounced under hyperthyroid conditions. Importantly, sex-specific differences in features of TD in adult and old mice were not conclusively explained by serum TH status in mice.

'They have embraced a different behaviour': transactional sex and family dynamics in eastern Congo's conflict.

PubMed

Maclin, Beth; Kelly, Jocelyn; Kabanga, Justin; VanRooyen, Michael

2015-01-01

The decades-long conflict in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has resulted in major changes to local economies, strained social networks and insecurity. This environment forces many to pursue unconventional and, at times, socially stigmatised avenues for income. This paper explores the ways in which individuals in eastern DRC engage in, and are affected by, the commoditisation of sex within the context of decades of violent conflict. Focus group discussions conducted with men and women in 2009-2010 highlight how the war in the region has placed individuals, particularly women, in dire economic circumstances, while also changing their roles within families. In the face of severe poverty, women and girls may choose to engage in transactional sex in order to support themselves and their families. Discussants detailed how engaging in transactional sex due to an economic imperative has nonetheless damaged women's relationships with family members between spouses as well as parents and their children through breach of trust and failure to provide. These focus group discussions elucidate how transactional sex is both a symptom of, and a catalyst for, changes within family dynamics in eastern DRC.

Psychosocial Adjustment, School Outcomes, and Romantic Relationships of Adolescents With Same-Sex Parents

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Wainright, Jennifer L.; Russell, Stephen T.; Patterson, Charlotte J.

2004-01-01

This study examined associations among family type (same-sex vs. opposite-sex parents); family and relationship variables; and the psychosocial adjustment, school outcomes, and romantic attractions and behaviors of adolescents. Participants included 44 12- to 18-year-old adolescents parented by same-sex couples and 44 same-aged adolescents…

Parent-reported measures of child health and wellbeing in same-sex parent families: a cross-sectional survey

PubMed Central

2014-01-01

Background It has been suggested that children with same-sex attracted parents score well in psychosocial aspects of their health, however questions remain about the impact of stigma on these children. Research to date has focused on lesbian parents and has been limited by small sample sizes. This study aims to describe the physical, mental and social wellbeing of Australian children with same-sex attracted parents, and the impact that stigma has on them. Methods A cross-sectional survey, the Australian Study of Child Health in Same-Sex Families, was distributed in 2012 to a convenience sample of 390 parents from Australia who self-identified as same-sex attracted and had children aged 0-17 years. Parent-reported, multidimensional measures of child health and wellbeing and the relationship to perceived stigma were measured. Results 315 parents completed the survey (completion rate = 81%) representing 500 children. 80% of children had a female index parent while 18% had a male index parent. Children in same-sex parent families had higher scores on measures of general behavior, general health and family cohesion compared to population normative data (β = 2.93, 95% CI = 0.35 to 5.52, P = .03; β = 5.60, 95% CI = 2.69 to 8.52, P = <.001; and β = 6.01, 95% CI = 2.84 to 9.17, P = <.001 respectively). There were no significant differences between the two groups for all other scale scores. Physical activity, mental health, and family cohesion were all negatively associated with increased stigma (β = -3.03, 95% CI = -5.86 to -0.21, P = .04; β = -10.45, 95% CI = -18.48 to -2.42, P = .01; and β = -9.82, 95% CI = -17.86 to -1.78, P = .02 respectively) and the presence of emotional symptoms was positively associated with increased stigma (β =0.94, 95% CI = 0.08 to 1.81, P = .03). Conclusions Australian children with same-sex attracted parents score higher than population samples on a

Parent-reported measures of child health and wellbeing in same-sex parent families: a cross-sectional survey.

PubMed

Crouch, Simon R; Waters, Elizabeth; McNair, Ruth; Power, Jennifer; Davis, Elise

2014-06-21

It has been suggested that children with same-sex attracted parents score well in psychosocial aspects of their health, however questions remain about the impact of stigma on these children. Research to date has focused on lesbian parents and has been limited by small sample sizes. This study aims to describe the physical, mental and social wellbeing of Australian children with same-sex attracted parents, and the impact that stigma has on them. A cross-sectional survey, the Australian Study of Child Health in Same-Sex Families, was distributed in 2012 to a convenience sample of 390 parents from Australia who self-identified as same-sex attracted and had children aged 0-17 years. Parent-reported, multidimensional measures of child health and wellbeing and the relationship to perceived stigma were measured. 315 parents completed the survey (completion rate = 81%) representing 500 children. 80% of children had a female index parent while 18% had a male index parent. Children in same-sex parent families had higher scores on measures of general behavior, general health and family cohesion compared to population normative data (β = 2.93, 95% CI = 0.35 to 5.52, P = .03; β = 5.60, 95% CI = 2.69 to 8.52, P = <.001; and β = 6.01, 95% CI = 2.84 to 9.17, P = <.001 respectively). There were no significant differences between the two groups for all other scale scores. Physical activity, mental health, and family cohesion were all negatively associated with increased stigma (β = -3.03, 95% CI = -5.86 to -0.21, P = .04; β = -10.45, 95% CI = -18.48 to -2.42, P = .01; and β = -9.82, 95% CI = -17.86 to -1.78, P = .02 respectively) and the presence of emotional symptoms was positively associated with increased stigma (β =0.94, 95% CI = 0.08 to 1.81, P = .03). Australian children with same-sex attracted parents score higher than population samples on a number of parent-reported measures of child

Sex- and age-related variations of the somatotype in a Chuvasha population.

PubMed

Kalichman, L; Kobyliansky, E

2006-01-01

The aim of this large, cross-sectional study was to describe the age- and sex-related variations of the somatotype, employing Heath and Carter's method, in a Chuvasha population residing in a rural region in central Russia. The investigated sample included 802 males aged 18-89 years (mean 46.9) and 738 females aged 18-90 years (mean 48.6). We evaluated the age and sex differences by one-way ANOVA with somatotype components as dependent variables and sex or age groups as grouping variables. Sex differences of somatotypes appear to be the strongest for endomorphy, with generally higher values in women. Endomorphy in males remained virtually unchanged after 30 years of age, but endomorphy in females kept increasing up to the 6th decade, and then subsequently decreased. Virtually no differences were noted in mesomorphy and a very small difference in ectomorphy between males and females aged 18-30 years. A reduction of sexual dimorphism in all somatotype components after age 70 was also observed. The largest difference of all somatotype components appeared between age groups 18-30 and 31-40 years. Thereafter, somatotypes remained practically unchanged. Mesomorphy continued to increase until the 5th decade in both sexes, while in females, endomorphy continuously increased until their 6th decade. In the 7th and 8th decades, a decrease in mean values was observed. Mesomorphy and ectomorphy showed opposite age-related trends. Results of our study clearly suggest that in physique investigations, the somatotypes need to be studied in each sex separately, and in studies of young people, they need also to be adjusted to age.

Stability and change in same-sex attraction, experience, and identity by sex and age in a New Zealand birth cohort.

PubMed

Dickson, Nigel; van Roode, Thea; Cameron, Claire; Paul, Charlotte

2013-07-01

Gaps remain in knowledge of changes in sexual orientation past adolescence and early adulthood. A longitudinal study of a New Zealand birth cohort was used to examine differences by age and sex in change in sexual attraction between 21 (1993/1994) and 38 years (2010/2011), sexual experiences between 26 and 38 years, and sexual identity between 32 and 38 years. Any same-sex attraction was significantly more common among women than men at all ages. Among women, any same-sex attraction increased up to age 26 (from 8.8 to 16.6 %), then decreased slightly by age 38 (12.0 %); among men, prevalence was significantly higher at age 38 (6.5 %) than 21 (4.2 %), but not in the intermediate assessments. It is likely that the social environment becoming more tolerant was responsible for some of the changes. Same-sex attraction was much more common than same-sex experiences or a same-sex identity, especially among women, with no major sex differences in these latter dimensions. Women exhibited much greater change in sexual attraction between assessments than men; for change in experiences and identity, sex differences were less marked and not statistically confirmed. Changes in the respective dimensions appeared more likely among those initially with mixed attraction and experiences, and among those initially identifying as bisexual, but this did not account for the sex difference in likelihood of change. These results provide contemporary information about the extent and variation of reported sexual attraction, experiences, and identity that we show continues across early and mid-adulthood.

Parental Monitoring, Parent-Adolescent Communication about Sex, and Sexual Risk among Young Men who Have Sex with Men

PubMed Central

Thoma, Brian C.; Huebner, David M.

2014-01-01

Parental monitoring and parent-adolescent communication about sex protect against HIV-related sexual risk behaviors among heterosexual adolescents, but it is unknown if these findings generalize to young men who have sex with men (YMSM). Sexual orientation-specific stressors, including “coming out” to parents, complicate the family context of YMSM. We examined associations between parental monitoring, communication about sex, outness to cohabitating parents, and sexual behaviors. Ethnically diverse YMSM ages 14–19 provided cross-sectional data (n = 257). Monitoring and outness to parents interacted to predict recent same-sex unprotected anal intercourse (UAI). For YMSM who reported mixed or uncertain outness to parents, higher levels of perceived parental monitoring were associated with greater risk of UAI. Higher levels of communication about sex were associated with greater risk of UAI for YMSM out to parents. Parental monitoring and communication about sex might not protect YMSM against sexual risk in the same way they protect heterosexual youth. Future research should examine whether adapted forms of family factors could protect YMSM, and family-based HIV risk-reduction interventions for YMSM should be attuned to the unique ways family factors function within this group. PMID:24549462

Parental monitoring, parent-adolescent communication about sex, and sexual risk among young men who have sex with men.

PubMed

Thoma, Brian C; Huebner, David M

2014-08-01

Parental monitoring and parent-adolescent communication about sex protect against HIV-related sexual risk behaviors among heterosexual adolescents, but it is unknown if these findings generalize to young men who have sex with men (YMSM). Sexual orientation-specific stressors, including "coming out" to parents, complicate the family context of YMSM. We examined associations between parental monitoring, communication about sex, outness to cohabitating parents, and sexual behaviors. Ethnically diverse YMSM ages 14-19 provided cross-sectional data (n = 257). Monitoring and outness to parents interacted to predict recent same-sex unprotected anal intercourse (UAI). For YMSM who reported mixed or uncertain outness to parents, higher levels of perceived parental monitoring were associated with greater risk of UAI. Higher levels of communication about sex were associated with greater risk of UAI for YMSM out to parents. Parental monitoring and communication about sex might not protect YMSM against sexual risk in the same way they protect heterosexual youth. Future research should examine whether adapted forms of family factors could protect YMSM, and family-based HIV risk-reduction interventions for YMSM should be attuned to the unique ways family factors function within this group.

Paternal-age and birth-order effect on the human secondary sex ratio.

PubMed Central

Ruder, A

1985-01-01

Because of conflicting results in previous analyses of possible maternal and paternal effects on the variation in sex ratio at birth, records of United States live births in 1975 were sorted by offspring sex, live birth order (based on maternal parity), parental races, and, unlike prior studies, ungrouped parental ages. Linear regression and logistic analysis showed significant effects of birth order and paternal age on sex ratio in the white race data (1.67 million births; 10,219 different combinations of independent variables). Contrary to previous reported results, the paternal-age effect cannot be ascribed wholly to the high correlation between paternal age and birth order as maternal age, even more highly correlated with birth order, does not account for a significant additional reduction in sex-ratio variation over that accounted for by birth order alone. PMID:3985011

Marriage and Family: LGBT Individuals and Same-Sex Couples

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Gates, Gary J.

2015-01-01

Though estimates vary, as many as 2 million to 3.7 million U.S. children under age 18 may have a lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender parent, and about 200,000 are being raised by same-sex couples. Much of the past decade's legal and political debate over allowing same-sex couples to marry has centered on these couples' suitability as parents,…

Cognitive sex differences are not magnified as a function of age, sex hormones, or puberty development during early adolescence.

PubMed

Herlitz, Agneta; Reuterskiöld, Lena; Lovén, Johanna; Thilers, Petra P; Rehnman, Jenny

2013-01-01

Are cognitive sex differences magnified by individual differences in age, sex hormones, or puberty development? Cross-sectional samples of 12- to 14-year-old boys (n = 85) and girls (n = 102) completed tasks assessing episodic memory, face recognition, verbal fluency, and mental rotations. Blood estradiol, free testosterone, and self-rated puberty scores were obtained. Sex differences were found on all cognitive measures. However, the magnitude was not larger for older children, hormones and cognitive performance were not associated, and early maturers did not perform better than late maturers. Thus, cognitive sex differences were not associated with age, levels of sex hormones, or puberty development.

Physical Attractiveness, Age, and Sex as Determinants of Reactions to Resumes.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Quereshi, M. Y.; Kay, Janet P.

1986-01-01

Physical attractiveness, age, and sex were manipulated to determine their effect on the evaluation of 54 hypothetical applicants' resumes for three different jobs by 60 Master's in Business Administration students. Physical attractiveness favorably influenced the suitability ratings for all jobs; raters' sex and age were not significant but…

Predicting condom use attitudes, norms, and control beliefs in Hispanic problem behavior youth: the effects of family functioning and parent-adolescent communication about sex on condom use.

PubMed

Malcolm, Shandey; Huang, Shi; Cordova, David; Freitas, Derek; Arzon, Margaret; Jimenez, Giselle Leon; Pantin, Hilda; Prado, Guillermo

2013-08-01

Hispanic problem behavior youth are at an increased risk of engaging in HIV risk behaviors, including low condom use. However, relatively little research has examined factors that affect condom use in this population. Although research indicates that family processes, such as higher levels of family functioning and open parent-adolescent communication about sex, and condom use attitudes, norms, and control beliefs as depicted by the theory of planned behavior have an effect on condom use behaviors, the combination of the two factors has received minimal attention. The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of family functioning on condom use intentions and behaviors through communication about sex and condom use attitudes, parental norms, and control beliefs. A cross-sectional study of 171 predominately male (73.1%) sexually active Hispanic problem behavior adolescents (mean age = 14.88 years) was conducted. Structural equation modeling was used to test the study hypothesis. Findings largely support the overall model and suggest that family functioning had an indirect effect on condom use intention and behavior through communication about sex, condom use attitudes, and control beliefs. Family functioning, however, did not have an indirect effect on condom use intention and behavior through communication about sex and parental norms. Implications for prevention science and future research are discussed.

Determination of age, sex, and blood group from a single tooth.

PubMed

Nayar, Amit K; Parhar, Swati; Thind, Gagandeep; Sharma, Aman; Sharma, Divya

2017-01-01

Human identification is one of the most challenging subjects that human has been confronted with. Through the ages, odontological examinations have been a critical determinant in the search of human identity. Data in the form of age, gender, and blood group might provide vital clues in such investigations. In the recent times, it has been often desirable to preserve tissues for further investigations following the unfolding of certain events or discovery of new data. Hence, it is important to gather as much data as possible using less tissue. The purpose of this study was to determine age, sex, and ABO blood group of individual from a single tooth, to determine the effect of different environmental conditions, and to extract maximum information also at the same time preserving some tissue for the further investigation whenever needed. The study sample consisted of sixty teeth divided into four groups under different environmental conditions and time. The teeth were sectioned longitudinally in the buccolingual plane along the midline. Longitudinal ground sections of each tooth were prepared for age determination from cemental lines. Pulp removed was divided into two halves thereafter sex and blood group was determined. For correlation of age between estimated age and actual age, using cemental lines Pearson's correlation coefficient was applied. Further for determination of both sex and blood group between groups, Chi-square test was applied. A strong positive correlation was found between the estimated age and actual age of the study groups. Moreover, there was no significant difference between the actual and determined sex and blood group of the study groups. Although age, sex, and blood group are more reliably determined in freshly extracted teeth, these variables may be of significant help in identification even after a period of 6 weeks postextraction.

Conjectures concerning cross-sex hormone treatment of aging transsexual persons.

PubMed

Gooren, Louis; Lips, Paul

2014-08-01

Guidelines for cross-sex hormone treatment of transsexual people are now in place. However, little attention has been paid to the issue of treatment suitability for older people. Does existing treatment need to be adapted as subjects age, and does it make a difference if treatment is only started when the subject is already older? To assess the necessity of adapting cross-sex hormone administration for elderly transsexual people. Risks/benefits of continued use of cross-sex hormones with regard to bone health, cardiovascular risks, and malignancies. Due to lack of data on the subject population, sex hormone treatment of other conditions in older non-transsexual people has been taken as the best available analogy to determine the extent to which these might be applicable to comparable transsexual persons. Findings in transsexual people receiving cross-sex hormone treatment sometimes modified the above approach of applying guidelines for the elderly to the aging transsexual population. Testosterone administration to female-to-male transsexual persons (FtoM) carries little risk with regard to cardiovascular disease and cancer. For those with high hematocrit or cardiac insufficiency the dose can be reduced. Administration of estrogens to male-to-female transsexual persons (MtoF), particularly when combined with progestins, does significantly increase the risk of developing cardiovascular disease (almost a twofold incidence compared with the general population). This may require dose adjustment or changing from oral to safer transdermal estrogens. Tumors of the breasts, prostate and pituitary may occur. In FtoM, breast cancer can occur even after breast ablation. Older subjects can commence cross-sex hormone treatment without disproportionate risks. Cross-sex hormones may be continued into old age but monitoring for cardiovascular disease and malignancies, both of the old and new sex, is recommended. MtoF will have more health complications in old age than Fto

Attitudes Toward Same-Sex Parenting: An Effect of Gender.

PubMed

Webb, Stephanie N; Chonody, Jill M; Kavanagh, Phillip S

2017-01-01

The definition of family in Australia has been continuously changing over the past four decades. The 21 st century has brought with it various images of family, with an increase of awareness to same-sex families; however, the acceptance of such family structures does not appear to be widespread and is often determined by sex. Substantive literature demonstrates differences between men and women in attitudes toward same-sex parenting, with theory suggesting that gender role norms may explain this. Despite large efforts to determine sex differences in attitudes toward same-sex parenting, little research, and even less in Australia, has been done to investigate whether there are differences in reasons behind negative attitudes toward same-sex parenting between men and women. To further this understanding, an Australian sample (N= 790) ranging in age from 18-78 completed a survey regrading attitudes toward same-sex parenting, in addition to relevant demographic information. Participants reported more positive attitudes about parenting by lesbians as compared to parenting by gay men. Reasons behind attitudes toward same-sex parenting also differed between males and females. Results suggested that the impact of socially prescribed gender norms may affect prejudice toward same-sex families. Despite an increase in tolerance for sexual minorities recently, policies that continue to discriminate against same-sex parenting rights demonstrates the importance of continuing to identify potential influences of same-sex family prejudice to reduce the potentially negative impacts associated with the prejudice.

Empathy, Intimacy, Loneliness and Locus of Control in Child Sex Offenders: A Comparison between Familial and Non-Familial Child Sexual Offenders.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Parton, Felicity; Day, Andrew

2002-01-01

Compares a group of familial and non-familial child sex offenders on a number of relationship dimensions thought to be important in explaining offending. No statistically significant differences were found between these groups on measures of general empathy, intimacy and loneliness, although non-familial offenders were found to have higher levels…

The Content and Process of Mother-Adolescent Communication about Sex in Latino Families

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Guilamo-Ramos, Vincent; Dittus, Patricia; Jaccard, James; Goldberg, Vincent; Casillas, Eileen; Bouris, Alida

2006-01-01

Research has shown that Latino parents discuss sexual topics with their children less often than do parents from other ethnic groups; however, communication about sex in Latino families is not well understood. The present study explored the content and process of mother-adolescent communication about sex to better understand how to facilitate…

Sex Differences in the Longitudinal Relations among Family Risk Factors and Childhood Externalizing Symptoms

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Blatt-Eisengart, Ilana; Drabick, Deborah A. G.; Monahan, Kathryn C.; Steinberg, Laurence

2009-01-01

Despite potential sex differences in base rates, predictors, and maintaining processes for children's externalizing behaviors, little prospective research has examined sex differences in the relations between concurrent, proximal family risk factors and children's externalizing behaviors. The current study examined the relations among maternal…

[Relationship between family functioning and lifestyle in school-age adolescents].

PubMed

Lima-Serrano, Marta; Guerra-Martín, María Dolores; Lima-Rodríguez, Joaquín Salvador

Risk behaviors in adolescents can lead to serious disorders, therefore the objectives of this work are to characterize the lifestyles of teenagers about substance use, sex, and road safety, and to meet socio-demographic factors associated with these. A cross-sectional, descriptive and correlational study was conducted with 204 school-age-children from 12 to 17 years, in 2013. They were given a validated questionnaire about sociodemographic, family functioning, and lifestyles such as substance abuse, sexual intercourse and road safety. A descriptive and multivariate analysis was performed by using multiple linear regression in the case of quantitative dependent variables, and binary logistic regression models in the case of binary categories. Data analysis was based on SPSS 20.0, with a significance level of p<0.05. 32.4% of students had smoked, and 61.3% had drunk alcohol. 26% of adolescent between 14-17 years had sexual intercourse; the average age of the first sexual intercourse was 14.9 years. 85.2% used condoms. 94.6% respected traffic signs, 77.5% used to wear a seat belt and 81.9% a helmet. Family functioning, as protective factor, was the variable more frequently associated to risk behaviour: smoking (OR=7.06, p=.000), alcohol drinking (OR=3.97, p=.008), sexual intercourse (OR=3.67, p=.041), and road safety (β=1.82, p=.000). According the results, age, gender and family functioning are the main factors associated with the adoption of risk behaviors. This information is important for the development of public health policies, for instance health promotion at schools. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier España, S.L.U. All rights reserved.

Menarcheal age of girls from dysfunctional families.

PubMed

Toromanović, Alma; Tahirović, Husref

2004-07-01

The objective of the present study was to determine median age at menarche and the influence of familial instability on maturation. The sample included 7047 girls between the ages of 9 and 17 years from Tuzla Canton. The girls were divided into two groups. Group A (N=5230) comprised girls who lived in families free of strong traumatic events. Group B (N=1817) included girls whose family dysfunction exposed them to prolonged distress. Probit analysis was performed to estimate mean menarcheal age using the Probit procedure of SAS package. The mean menarcheal age calculated by probit analysis for all the girls studied was 13.07 years. In girls from dysfunctional families a very clear shift toward earlier maturation was observed. The mean age at menarche for group B was 13.0 years, which was significantly lower that that for group A, 13.11 years (t=2.92, P<0.01). The results surveyed here lead to the conclusion that girls from dysfunctional families mature not later but even earlier than girls from normal families. This supports the hypothesis that stressful childhood life events accelerate maturation of girls.

Sex differences in neurochemical markers that correlate with behavior in aging mice.

PubMed

Frick, K M; Burlingame, L A; Delaney, S S; Berger-Sweeney, J

2002-01-01

Sex differences in neurochemical markers that correlate with behavior in aging mice NEUROBIOL AGING. We examined whether the enzymatic activities of choline acetyltransferase (ChAT) and glutamic acid decarboxylase (GAD) were altered similarly with age in male and female mice, and whether these changes were correlated with age-related alterations in memory and anxiety. ChAT and GAD activities were measured in neocortex, hippocampus, and striatum of behaviorally characterized male and female C57BL/6 mice (5, 17, and 25 months). Generally, ChAT activity was increased, and GAD activity decreased, with age. However, disparate changes were revealed between the sexes; activities of both enzymes were decreased in 17-month males, whereas alterations in females were not observed until 25-months. Furthermore, enzyme-behavior correlations differed between the sexes; in males, ChAT activity was related to one behavioral task, whereas in females, activities of both enzymes were correlated with multiple tasks. Significant enzyme-behavior correlations were most evident at 17 months of age, likely the result of behavioral and enzymatic sex differences at this age. These data represent the first comprehensive report illustrating differential alterations of ChAT and GAD activities in aging male and female mice.

Sex and Age Differences in the Risk Threshold for Delinquency

PubMed Central

Loeber, Rolf; Slotboom, Anne-Marie; Bijleveld, Catrien C. J. H.; Hipwell, Alison E.; Stepp, Stephanie D.; Koot, Hans M.

2015-01-01

This study examines sex differences in the risk threshold for adolescent delinquency. Analyses were based on longitudinal data from the Pittsburgh Youth Study (n = 503) and the Pittsburgh Girls Study (n = 856). The study identified risk factors, promotive factors, and accumulated levels of risks as predictors of delinquency and nondelinquency, respectively. The risk thresholds for boys and girls were established at two developmental stages (late childhood: ages 10–12 years, and adolescence: ages 13–16 years) and compared between boys and girls. Sex similarities as well as differences existed in risk and promotive factors for delinquency. ROC analyses revealed only small sex differences in delinquency thresholds, that varied by age. Accumulative risk level had a linear relationship with boys’ delinquency and a quadratic relationship with girls’ delinquency, indicating stronger effects for girls at higher levels of risk. PMID:23183920

Exploring the role of computers in sex and relationship education within British families.

PubMed

Turnbull, Triece; van Schaik, Paul; van Wersch, Anna

2013-04-01

In this study, we aimed to identify the impact that computers can have in relation to sex and relationship education, as well as to provide a communication model that can be used within British families. We used a mixed-methods approach to explore the factors that influence communication of sexual matters within British families. Twenty families from the northeast of England were recruited through purposive sampling. First, semistructured interviews were conducted to identify how sexual matters were discussed within families. Interviews were recorded, transcribed verbatim, and then analyzed using the grounded theory approach. The second part of the research involved identifying the impact of using a computer program on knowledge and confidence within families to enhance communication about sexual matters. Although the majority of parents and their children were found to discuss sexual matters, the computer program was found to increase knowledge and confidence, which led to greater communication within families. The results highlighted the beneficial role that computer programs can have when educating and increasing communication within families. Future research needs to focus on improving access to information relating to sex and relationship education for parents so they can educate and talk openly about sexual matters with their children. A resource that does exactly this is www.safecoolsex.com.

It's A Family Affair: Reflections About Aging and Health Within a Family Context.

PubMed

Utz, Rebecca L; Berg, Cynthia A; Butner, Jonathan

2017-02-01

One's health and aging cannot be uncoupled from the family system in which it occurs. Not only do families provide genetic material that determines major health risks and outcomes, families also share a culture, environment, and lifestyle that further influence health and aging trajectories. As well, family members are interconnected, so that an illness or a positive lifestyle change in one person can have reverberating effects on the health and well-being of others in the family system. This essay explores how families have the potential to both promote and threaten individual health and well-being, thereby influencing how an individual might age or experience later life. Weaving together personal biographies from three different authors, this essay provides specific examples of how the family affects the health and aging of individuals and how the health and aging of individuals affect the larger family unit. These dynamic processes have the potential to positively or negatively shape individual experiences of health and aging, even among those persons who are not yet in late life. This essay blends a developmental life course perspective with a dynamic family-systems approach to show how families engage in collaborative efforts throughout the life course, in which they both affect and are affected by the diagnosis and management of chronic diseases and the adoption of health promoting behaviors. Applying this perspective to the study of health and aging calls for interdisciplinary thinking, as well as novel methodological and quantitative solutions. © The Author 2016. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The Gerontological Society of America. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.

Long-term impact of family arguments and physical violence on adult functioning at age 30 years: findings from the simmons longitudinal study.

PubMed

Paradis, Angela D; Reinherz, Helen Z; Giaconia, Rose M; Beardslee, William R; Ward, Kirsten; Fitzmaurice, Garrett M

2009-03-01

To prospectively examine the extent to which an increase in family arguments by age 15 years and the occurrence of family physical violence by age 18 years are related to deficits in key domains of adult functioning at age 30 years. The 346 participants were part of a single-age cohort from a predominately white working-class community whose psychosocial development has been traced since age 5 years. Family arguments and violence were assessed through self-reports during adolescence. Developmentally relevant areas of current adult functioning were measured by self-reports, structured diagnostic interviews, and clinical interviewer ratings. Both family arguments and physical violence were significantly related to compromised functioning across multiple areas of adult functioning. Although many associations were somewhat attenuated after controlling for sex, other early family adversities, and family history of disorder, most relations retained statistical significance. Both risk factors were linked with later mental health problems and deficits in psychological and occupational/career functioning. Family violence was also linked to poorer physical health at age 30 years. Findings underscore the potential long-term impact of troubled family interactions and highlight the critical importance of early intervention programs for youths experiencing either verbal conflict or physical violence in the home.

Aging and Family Life: A Decade Review

PubMed Central

Silverstein, Merril; Giarrusso, Roseann

2010-01-01

In this review, we summarize and critically evaluate the major empirical, conceptual, and theoretical directions that studies of aging families have taken during the first decade of the 21st century. The field has benefited from an expanded perspective based on four overarching themes: (a) complexity in emotional relations, (b) diversity in family structures and households, (c) interdependence of family roles and functions, and (d) patterns and outcomes of caregiving. Although research on aging families has advanced theory and applied innovative statistical techniques, the literature has fallen short in fully representing diverse populations and in applying the broadest set of methodological tools available. We discuss these and other frontier areas of scholarship in light of the aging of baby boomers and their families. PMID:22930600

Sex- and age-related variation in metal content of penguin feathers.

PubMed

Squadrone, Stefania; Abete, Maria Cesarina; Brizio, Paola; Monaco, Gabriella; Colussi, Silvia; Biolatti, Cristina; Modesto, Paola; Acutis, Pier Luigi; Pessani, Daniela; Favaro, Livio

2016-03-01

The presence of xenobiotics, such as metals, in ecosystems is concerning due to their durability and they pose a threat to the health and life of organisms. Moreover, mercury can biomagnify in many marine food chains and, therefore, organisms at higher trophic levels can be adversely impacted. Although feathers have been used extensively as a bio-monitoring tool, only a few studies have addressed the effect of both age and sex on metal accumulation. In this study, the concentrations of trace elements were determined in the feathers of all members of a captive colony of African Penguins (Spheniscus demersus) housed in a zoological facility in Italy. Tests were performed by inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry to detect aluminum, arsenic, cadmium, cobalt, chromium, copper, iron, manganese, nickel, lead, selenium, tin, vanadium, and zinc. Mercury was detected by a direct mercury analyzer. Sexing was performed by a molecular approach based on analyzing the chromo-helicase-DNA-binding1 gene, located on the sex chromosomes. Sex- and age-related differences were studied in order to investigate the different patterns of metal bioaccumulation between male and female individuals and between adults and juveniles. Juvenile females had significantly higher arsenic levels than males, while selenium levels increased significantly with age in both sexes. Penguins kept in controlled environments-given that diet and habitat are under strict control-represent a unique opportunity to determine if and how metal bioaccumulation is related to sex and age.

A tabular format of Pyle's ageing and sexing methods for landbirds

Treesearch

W.H. Sakai; C.J. Ralph

2002-01-01

We present a new method of summarizing Peter Pyle's (1997) ageing and sexing guide into a tabular format that has proven to be extremely useful for both novice and experienced banders. This format allows quick and accurate assessment by a bander to distinguish species, age, and sex criteria. Rapid and accurate processing are essential to the health of birds...

Sex-dependent effects of letrozole on anxiety in middle-aged rats.

PubMed

Borbélyová, Veronika; Domonkos, Emese; Csongová, Melinda; Kačmárová, Mária; Ostatníková, Daniela; Celec, Peter; Hodosy, Július

2017-12-01

Aromatase catalyzes the conversion of testosterone to estradiol and is involved in the physiological effects of sex hormones on brain function. Animal experiments have shown that the aromatase inhibitor, letrozole, can induce anxiety in young ovariectomized females that are used as a model of aging. Whether or not these effects would be similar in intact middle-aged animals is unknown. The aim of our study was to analyze the effects of letrozole on anxiety in middle-aged rats of both sexes. Fifteen month old male and female rats were treated daily with either letrozole or vehicle for 2 weeks. The elevated plus maze was used to test anxiety-like behaviour. Sex differences were found not only in plasma concentrations of testosterone but also in the effects of letrozole treatment on plasma testosterone (P<.05). The interaction between sex and treatment was also proven in locomotor activity (P<.05) and time spent in the open arms of the elevated plus maze (P<.05). Letrozole-treated male rats spent 95% less time in the open arms of the elevated plus maze than the control rats did (P<.05) suggesting an anxiogenic effect of aromatase inhibition. This difference was not found between letrozole-treated and vehicle-treated females. In contrast to previous experiments on young animals, letrozole seems to induce anxiety in male but not in female middle-aged rats. This sex-specific effect might be related to sex differences of oestrogen and androgen signalling in aging brains. These results should be taken into account in clinical applications of letrozole, especially in men. © 2017 John Wiley & Sons Australia, Ltd.

Chronic stress and neural function: accounting for sex and age.

PubMed

Luine, V N; Beck, K D; Bowman, R E; Frankfurt, M; Maclusky, N J

2007-10-01

Cognitive responses to stress follow the temporally dependent pattern originally established by Selye (1) wherein short-term stressors elicit adaptive responses whereas continued stress (chronic) results in maladaptive changes--deleterious effects on physiological systems and impaired cognition. However, this pattern for cognitive effects appears to apply to only half the population (males) and, more specifically, to young, adult males. Females show different cognitive responses to stress. In contrast to impaired cognition in males after chronic stress, female rodents show enhanced performance on the same memory tasks after the same stress. Not only cognition, but anxiety, shows sex-dependent changes following chronic stress--stress is anxiolytic in males and anxiogenic in females. Moreover, behavioral responses to chronic stress are different in developing as well as aging subjects (both sexes) as compared to adults. In aged rats, chronic stress enhances recognition memory in both sexes, does not alter spatial memory, and anxiety effects are opposite to young adults. When pregnant dams are exposed to chronic stress, at adulthood the offspring display yet different consequences of stress on anxiety and cognition, and, in contrast to adulthood when the behavioral effects of stress are reversible, prenatal stress effects appear enduring. Changing levels of estradiol in the sexes over the lifespan appear to contribute to the differences in response to stress. Thus, theories of stress dependent modulations in CNS function--developed solely in male models, focused on peripheral physiological processes and tested in adults--may require revision when applied to a more diverse population (age- and sex-wise) at least in relation to the neural functions of cognition and anxiety. Moreover, these results suggest that other stressors and neural functions should be investigated to determine whether age, sex and gonadal hormones also have an impact.

Sex differences in elite swimming with advanced age are less than marathon running.

PubMed

Senefeld, J; Joyner, M J; Stevens, A; Hunter, S K

2016-01-01

The sex difference in marathon performance increases with finishing place and age of the runner but whether this occurs among swimmers is unknown. The purpose was to compare sex differences in swimming velocity across world record place (1st-10th), age group (25-89 years), and event distance. We also compared sex differences between freestyle swimming and marathon running. The world's top 10 swimming times of both sexes for World Championship freestyle stroke, backstroke, breaststroke, and butterfly events and the world's top 10 marathon times in 5-year age groups were obtained. Men were faster than women for freestyle (12.4 ± 4.2%), backstroke (12.8 ± 3.0%), and breaststroke (14.5 ± 3.2%), with the greatest sex differences for butterfly (16.7 ± 5.5%). The sex difference in swimming velocity increased across world record place for freestyle (P < 0.001), breaststroke, and butterfly for all age groups and distances (P < 0.001) because of a greater relative drop-off between first and 10th place for women. The sex difference in marathon running increased with the world record place and the sex difference for marathon running was greater than for swimming (P < 0.001). The sex difference in swimming increased with world record place and age, but was less than for marathon running. Collectively, these results suggest more depth in women's swimming than marathon running. © 2015 John Wiley & Sons A/S. Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Influence of family type and parenting behaviours on teenage sexual behaviour and conceptions.

PubMed

Bonell, C; Allen, E; Strange, V; Oakley, A; Copas, A; Johnson, A; Stephenson, J

2006-06-01

Longitudinal data were used to explore relations between teenage pregnancy, sexual behaviour, and family type. The study examined whether students from lone parent and/or teenage mother initiated families more commonly report sex, lack of contraception at first sex, and/or conceptions by age 15/16, and whether such associations can be explained by low parental strictness, difficult parent-child communication, and/or low parental input into sex education. Up to date longitudinal UK research on family influences on conceptions is lacking, as is longitudinal research on family influences on sexual behaviour. No previous studies have comprehensively examined effects of parenting behaviours. Unlike previous research, this study tested theories suggesting that parenting deficits among lone parent and teenage initiated families increase risk of teenage pregnancy among their children. Secondary analysis of data from a trial of sex education. Girls and boys from lone parent families or having mothers who were teenagers when they were born were more likely to report sex but not lack of contraception at first sex by age 15/16. Girls and boys with mothers having them as teenagers, and boys but not girls from lone parent families, were more likely to report being involved in conceptions by age 15/16. Only the association between teenage mother family and girls' conceptions was reduced by adjusting for a parenting behaviour measure. Students from lone parent families or having mothers who were teenagers when they were born are more likely to report early sexual debut and conceptions by age 15/16, but this is not generally explained by parenting style.

Age and sex variation in serum albumin concentration: an observational study.

PubMed

Weaving, Gary; Batstone, Gifford F; Jones, Richard G

2016-01-01

In the UK, a common reference interval for serum albumin is widely used irrespective of age or sex. Implicit in this is that laboratories produce analytically similar results. This paper challenges the validity of this approach. A three-week collection of results sent to all primary care centres in England has been analysed by age, sex and laboratory. In all, 1,079,193 serum albumin reports were included in this analysis. The mean population serum albumin concentration increases to peak at around age 20 years and then decreases with increasing age. Values in females decrease more rapidly but become close to male values at 60 years. The variation between laboratories was large and potentially clinically significant. Reference intervals for serum albumin should be stratified by age and sex. Until there is greater methodological standardization, laboratories should determine their own reference intervals and not accept a single consensus reference interval. © The Author(s) 2015.

In Search of Emerging Same-Sex Sexuality: Romantic Attractions at Age 13 Years.

PubMed

Li, Gu; Hines, Melissa

2016-10-01

Sex-typed behavior in childhood is significantly related to sexual orientation in adulthood. In addition, same-sex attractions in early adolescence are more non-exclusive than in adulthood and can differ from later same-sex orientations. However, little research has focused on romantic attractions as they emerge during early adolescence. Drawing a sample from the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (197 girls, 204 boys), the current study examined whether same-sex romantic attractions at age 13 years were exclusive, and whether they were predicted by sex-typed behavior at age 3.5 years. No young adolescents in this sample reported exclusive same-sex attractions, and increased same-sex attractions were not significantly related to reduced other-sex sexualities. Childhood sex-typed behavior did not significantly predict early same-sex attractions, suggesting that early same-sex attractions differ from later same-sex orientations. The current study highlights the importance of studying the development of sexuality beginning prior to adulthood.

Interactions between Age, Sex, and Hormones in Experimental Ischemic Stroke

PubMed Central

Liu, Fudong; McCullough, Louise D.

2012-01-01

Age, sex, and gonadal hormones have profound effects on ischemic stroke outcomes, although how these factors impact basic stroke pathophysiology remains unclear. There is a plethora of inconsistent data reported throughout the literature, primarily due to differences in the species examined, the timing and methods used to evaluate injury, the models used, and confusion regarding differences in stroke incidence as seen in clinical populations versus effects on acute neuroprotection or neurorepair in experimental stroke models. Sex and gonadal hormone exposure have considerable independent impact on stroke outcome, but these factors also interact with each other, and the contribution of each differs throughout the lifespan. The contribution of sex and hormones to experimental stroke will be the focus of this review. Recent advances and our current understanding of age, sex, and hormone interactions in ischemic stroke with a focus on inflammation will be discussed. PMID:23068990

A demographic and social profile of age- and sex-matched vegetarians and nonvegetarians.

PubMed

Freeland-Graves, J H; Greninger, S A; Young, R K

1986-07-01

A demographic and social profile was compiled for 150 vegetarians and 150 nonvegetarians who were matched for age and sex. A 328-item questionnaire containing both closed- and open-ended questions was administered. Information collected included personal and demographic data, personal habits, social activities, and possible influences of vegetarianism. No differences were observed in the cultural, ethnic, or familial background of the groups. Vegetarians were less influenced by parents and traditional religions, were slightly less well educated, and were employed in less-skilled occupations. However, vegetarians socialized more than nonvegetarians, as evidenced by their greater frequency of entertaining, going out with friends, and joining organizations. The commitment to vegetarianism was strong and appeared to be reinforced by an extensive network of family and friends who were also vegetarians. This strong support network was particularly evident for those who practiced the more restrictive forms of vegetarianism, the only major difference observed within the types of vegetarians studied.

ASSOCIATION BETWEEN SINGLE-PARENT FAMILY STRUCTURE AND AGE OF SEXUAL DEBUT AMONG YOUNG PERSONS IN JAMAICA.

PubMed

Oshi, Daniel C; Mckenzie, Jordan; Baxter, Martin; Robinson, Royelle; Neil, Stephan; Greene, Tayla; Wright, Wayne; Lodge, Jeorghino

2018-02-26

There is a high and increasing proportion of single-parent families in Jamaica. This has raised concerns about the potential impact of single-parent families on the social, cognitive and behavioural development of children, including their sexual relationships. The aim of this study was to investigate the association between being raised in a single-parent family and age of sexual debut among young people in Jamaica. The study was cross-sectional in design, and based on a multi-stage sampling procedure. The study was conducted in July/September 2016. The study sample comprised 233 respondents (110 males and 123 females) aged from 18 to 35 years (mean 26.37 years; SD 5.46). Respondents completed a self-administered questionnaire with questions on socio-demographic characteristics, family structure, sexual debut and current sexual behaviour. Ninety-seven (41.7%) respondents grew up in single-parent families. A total of 201 (86.3%) had had sex (102 males and 99 females). Their mean age of sexual debut was 15.51 years (SD 3.41). Sixty-five (32.3%) had early sexual debut (<16 years). Respondents from single-parent families were more likely to have had early sexual debut (56.9%; n=37) compared with those from two-parent families (43.1%, n=28; p=0.004). Only 44.6% (n=29) of those who experienced early sexual debut used a condom during their first sexual encounter compared with 73% (n=100) of those who had a later sexual debut (≥16 years; p=<0.001). A single-father family structure was a significant predictor of early sexual debut (AOR 5.5; 95%CI: 1.1-25.8). The study found a significant association between single-parent family structure and age of sexual debut.

Is There a Sex Ratio Difference in the Familial Aggregation of Specific Language Impairment? A Meta-Analysis

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Whitehouse, Andrew J. O.

2010-01-01

Purpose: Specific language impairment (SLI) is known to aggregate in families. Debate exists on whether the male sex presents an additional risk for SLI. This meta-analysis examined whether there is a sex ratio difference in the risk for impairment among family members of an SLI proband and whether this is mediated by assessment method (direct…

Family planning education.

PubMed

Hamburg, M V

1983-02-01

17 days were spent devoted to the effort of learning about China's educational approach to family planning in the hope of discovering how they are achieving their remarkable success in reducing population growth. As a member of the 1981 New York University/SIECUS Colloquim in China, it was necessary to rely on the translation provided by the excellent guides. Discussions were focused on questions prepared in advance about the topics that concerned the group. These observations, based on a short and limited exposure, cover the following areas: marriage and family planning policies; the family planning program; school programs; adult education; family planning workers; and unique aspects of the program. China has an official position on marriage and family planning that continues to undergo revisions. The new marriage law sets the minimum ages of marriage at 22 for men and 20 for women. Almost everyone marries, and an unmarried person over age 28 is a rarity. The family planning program in China is carried out by an extensive organizational network at national, provincial, and local government levels. Officials termed it a "propaganda campaign." Hospitals, clinics, and factories invariably displayed posters; a popular set of four presents the advantages of the 1 child family as follows: late marriage is best, for it allows more time to work and study; 1 child is best for the health of the mother; one gets free medical care for his/her child if a family has only 1 child; and there is more time to teach 1 child. The state operated television regularly explains the 1 child policy utilizing special films. According to 1 family planning official, "before marriage there is little sex." There are few abortions for unmarried women. Education about sex is for adults, for those persons who are about to be married. There is little if any sex education in schools. Sexual teaching is not generally acceptable, especially in the rural areas. By contrast, in Shanghai the physiology

Sex and genetic effects on upper and lower body fat and associations with diabetes in multigenerational families of African heritage.

PubMed

Miljkovic-Gacic, Iva; Wang, Xiaojing; Kammerer, Candace M; Bunker, Clareann H; Patrick, Alan L; Wheeler, Victor W; Kuller, Lewis H; Evans, Rhobert W; Zmuda, Joseph M

2008-06-01

Very few studies have comprehensively defined the genetic and environmental influences on body fat storage in the arms and legs and their association with diabetes, especially in families of African heritage. We analyzed body fat distribution by dual-energy x-ray absorptiometry (percentage total fat, percentage trunk fat, percentage arm fat, and percentage leg fat) and fasting serum glucose in 471 individuals (mean age, 43 years) from 8 multigenerational Afro-Caribbean families (mean family size = 51; 3535 relative pairs). Diabetes was inversely associated with percentage leg fat (P = .009) and, to some extent, positively associated with percentage arm fat independent of age, sex, and body size (P = .08), but not with anthropometric or dual-energy x-ray absorptiometric measures of total and central adiposity. Furthermore, percentage leg fat was inversely, whereas percentage arm fat was positively, associated with body mass index, waist circumference, and serum glucose (P < .01). Residual heritability (h2r) for arm and leg fat was significant (P < .01) and high: 62% (for percentage arm fat) and 40% (for percentage leg fat). Moreover, sex-specific h2r for leg fat was considerably higher (P = .02) in women than in men (h2r values, 58% vs 17%, respectively). Genetic correlation (rho(G)) between arm and leg fat was -0.61 (P < .01), suggesting that only 37% of the covariation between these 2 adipose tissue depots may be due to shared genetic influences. This study provides new evidence for a strong genetic and sex contribution to upper and lower body fat, with relatively little covariation between these traits due to shared genes. Our findings also suggest that, in this population, leg fat is associated with diabetes independent of overall adiposity.

Empathy Mediates the Effects of Age and Sex on Altruistic Moral Decision Making.

PubMed

Rosen, Jan B; Brand, Matthias; Kalbe, Elke

2016-01-01

Moral decision making involves affective and cognitive functions like emotional empathy, reasoning and cognitive empathy/theory of mind (ToM), which are discussed to be subject to age-related alterations. Additionally, sex differences in moral decision making have been reported. However, age-related changes in moral decision making from early to late adulthood and their relation to sex and neuropsychological functions have not been studied yet. One hundred ninety seven participants (122 female), aged 19-86 years, were tested with a moral decision making task comprising forced choice "everyday life" situations in which an altruistic option that favors a socially accepted alternative had to be considered against an egoistic option that favors personal benefit over social interests. The percentage of altruistic decisions was analyzed. A structural equation model (SEM) was calculated to test the hypothesis whether age and sex predict altruistic moral decision, and whether relevant neuropsychological domains mediate these hypothesized relationships. A significant relationship between age and moral decision making was found indicating more frequent altruistic decisions with increasing age. Furthermore, women decided more altruistically than men. The SEM showed that both age and sex are significant predictors of altruistic moral decision making, mediated by emotional empathy but not by reasoning. No cognitive empathy and ToM scores were correlated to age and moral decision making at the same time and thus were not included in the SEM. Our data suggest that increasing age and female sex have an effect on altruistic moral decisions, but that this effect is fully mediated by emotional empathy. The fact that changes of moral decision making with age are mediated by emotional empathy can be interpreted in the light of the so-called "positivity effect" and increasing avoidance of negative affect in aging. The mediated sex effect might represent both biological aspects and

Empathy Mediates the Effects of Age and Sex on Altruistic Moral Decision Making

PubMed Central

Rosen, Jan B.; Brand, Matthias; Kalbe, Elke

2016-01-01

Moral decision making involves affective and cognitive functions like emotional empathy, reasoning and cognitive empathy/theory of mind (ToM), which are discussed to be subject to age-related alterations. Additionally, sex differences in moral decision making have been reported. However, age-related changes in moral decision making from early to late adulthood and their relation to sex and neuropsychological functions have not been studied yet. One hundred ninety seven participants (122 female), aged 19–86 years, were tested with a moral decision making task comprising forced choice “everyday life” situations in which an altruistic option that favors a socially accepted alternative had to be considered against an egoistic option that favors personal benefit over social interests. The percentage of altruistic decisions was analyzed. A structural equation model (SEM) was calculated to test the hypothesis whether age and sex predict altruistic moral decision, and whether relevant neuropsychological domains mediate these hypothesized relationships. A significant relationship between age and moral decision making was found indicating more frequent altruistic decisions with increasing age. Furthermore, women decided more altruistically than men. The SEM showed that both age and sex are significant predictors of altruistic moral decision making, mediated by emotional empathy but not by reasoning. No cognitive empathy and ToM scores were correlated to age and moral decision making at the same time and thus were not included in the SEM. Our data suggest that increasing age and female sex have an effect on altruistic moral decisions, but that this effect is fully mediated by emotional empathy. The fact that changes of moral decision making with age are mediated by emotional empathy can be interpreted in the light of the so-called “positivity effect” and increasing avoidance of negative affect in aging. The mediated sex effect might represent both biological aspects

Fitness prospects: effects of age, sex and recruitment age on reproductive value in a long-lived seabird.

PubMed

Zhang, He; Rebke, Maren; Becker, Peter H; Bouwhuis, Sandra

2015-01-01

Reproductive value is an integrated measure of survival and reproduction fundamental to understanding life-history evolution and population dynamics, but little is known about intraspecific variation in reproductive value and factors explaining such variation, if any. By applying generalized additive mixed models to longitudinal individual-based data of the common tern Sterna hirundo, we estimated age-specific annual survival probability, breeding probability and reproductive performance, based on which we calculated age-specific reproductive values. We investigated effects of sex and recruitment age (RA) on each trait. We found age effects on all traits, with survival and breeding probability declining with age, while reproductive performance first improved with age before levelling off. We only found a very small, marginally significant, sex effect on survival probability, but evidence for decreasing age-specific breeding probability and reproductive performance with RA. As a result, males had slightly lower age-specific reproductive values than females, while birds of both sexes that recruited at the earliest ages of 2 and 3 years (i.e. 54% of the tern population) had somewhat higher fitness prospects than birds recruiting at later ages. While the RA effects on breeding probability and reproductive performance were statistically significant, these effects were not large enough to translate to significant effects on reproductive value. Age-specific reproductive values provided evidence for senescence, which came with fitness costs in a range of 17-21% for the sex-RA groups. Our study suggests that intraspecific variation in reproductive value may exist, but that, in the common tern, the differences are small. © 2014 The Authors. Journal of Animal Ecology © 2014 British Ecological Society.

Sex, gender, and age: contributions to laboratory pain responding in children and adolescents.

PubMed

Myers, Cynthia D; Tsao, Jennie C I; Glover, Dorie A; Kim, Su C; Turk, Norman; Zeltzer, Lonnie K

2006-08-01

A cross-sectional design across late childhood and adolescence examined the influence of sex, gender socialization, and age on responses to controlled laboratory pain tasks. Healthy children and adolescents (n = 240, 50% female, age 8 to 18 years) completed the Child Sex Role Inventory, a self-report measure of identification with stereotypically masculine and feminine personality traits, as an index of gender socialization and participated in pressure, cold pressor, and heat pain tasks. Pain tolerance, pain intensity, and bothersomeness of each pain task were assessed. Masculinity correlated with lower heat pain ratings in boys but not girls. Logistic regression indicated cold pain intensity ratings were predicted by sex, gender score, and the age-by-gender score interaction. Heat pain intensity was predicted by age, gender score, age-by-gender score interaction, and sex-by-gender score. The current findings support closer examination of the influence of gender socialization on young people's pain responses and highlight the importance of a multifactorial, developmental approach to studying the impact of gender socialization on the emergence of sex differences in pain responses after puberty.

Effect of family disintegration on age at menarche.

PubMed

Toromanović, Alma; Tahirović, Husref

2015-01-01

The aim of this study was to determine the effect of psychosocial factors on the age at menarche of girls in Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (FBH). A cross-sectional study was conducted from September 2002 to May 2003 in all Cantons of the FBH. The random stratified sample included 19.803 girls aged 9.0 to 17.5 years. Data were collected using the status quo method. Probit analysis was used to estimate median age at menarche and 95% confidence intervals. The present study shows that menarche occurred significantly earlier (p<0.05) in girls from dysfunctional families (median: 12.99 years, 95% confidence interval: 12.93-13.05) than in girls who grew up in intact families (median: 13.04 years, 95% confidence interval: 13.01-13.07). Analyzing separately the impact of each of family stressors on age at menarche, we found that menarcheal age was significantly lower in girls from single-mother families, whose parents are divorced, whose one parent is died and where alcoholism in family is present than in girls from intact families. Maturation was found to be earlier in girls from dysfunctional families then in those from intact families after the influence of place of residence and sibship size was eliminated. From our research we can conclude that the girls from dysfunctional families reached earlier age at menarche than their peers who grew up in normal families, and that this effect did not disappear after controlling for socioeconomic variables. Copyright © 2015 by Academy of Sciences and Arts of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Size-dependent sex allocation in Aconitum gymnandrum (Ranunculaceae): physiological basis and effects of maternal family and environment.

PubMed

Zhao, Z-G; Meng, J-L; Fan, B-L; Du, G-Z

2008-11-01

Theory predicts size-dependent sex allocation (SDS): flowers on plants with a high-resource status should have larger investment in females than plants with a low-resource status. Through a pot experiment with Aconitum gymnandrum (Ranunculaceae) in the field, we examined the relationship between sex allocation of individual flowers and plant size for different maternal families under different environmental conditions. We also determined the physiological base of variations in plant size. Our results support the prediction of SDS, and show that female-biased allocation with plant size is consistent under different environmental conditions. Negative correlations within families showed a plastic response of sex allocation to plant size. Negative genetic correlations between sex allocation and plant size at the family level indicate a genetic cause of the SDS pattern, although genetic correlation was influenced by environmental factors. Hence, the size-dependency of sex allocation in this species had both plastic and genetic causes. Furthermore, genotypes that grew large also had higher assimilation ability, thus showing a physiological basis for SDS.

Family-centered prevention ameliorates the longitudinal association between risky family processes and epigenetic aging.

PubMed

Brody, Gene H; Yu, Tianyi; Chen, Edith; Beach, Steven R H; Miller, Gregory E

2016-05-01

Research has suggested that 'risky' family processes have unforeseen negative consequences for health later in life. The purpose of this study was to further understanding of risky family environments and development of health vulnerabilities by (a) examining the likelihood that elevated levels of parental depressive symptoms when children are age 11 forecast accelerated epigenetic aging 9 years later at age 20; (b) determining whether participation in an efficacious family-centered prevention program focused on enhancing supportive parenting and strengthening family relationships will ameliorate this association; and (c) testing a moderation-mediation hypothesis that prevention-induced reductions in harsh parenting across adolescence will account for prevention effects in reducing accelerated epigenetic aging. In the rural southeastern United States, parents and 11-year-old children from 399 families participated in the Strong African American Families (SAAF) program or a control condition. Parents reported their own depressive symptoms when their children were 11, and both youths and parents reported youth exposure to harsh parenting at ages 11 and 16. Blood was drawn from youths at age 20 to measure accelerated epigenetic aging using a marker derived from the DNA methylation of cells. Elevated parental depressive symptoms forecast accelerated epigenetic aging among youths in the control condition, but not among SAAF participants. Moderated-mediation analyses confirmed that reductions in harsh parenting accounted for SAAF's protective effects on epigenetic aging. Subsequent exploratory analyses indicated that accelerated epigenetic aging forecast emotional distress among young adults in the control condition but not among those who participated in SAAF. This study is unique in using a randomized prevention trial to test hypotheses about the ways risky family processes contribute to accelerated epigenetic aging. The results suggest that developmentally

Impact of Age and Sex on Response to Asthma Therapy.

PubMed

Dunn, Ryan M; Lehman, Erik; Chinchilli, Vernon M; Martin, Richard J; Boushey, Homer A; Israel, Elliot; Kraft, Monica; Lazarus, Stephen C; Lemanske, Robert F; Lugogo, Njira L; Peters, Stephen P; Sorkness, Christine A; Szefler, Stanley; Wechsler, Michael E

2015-09-01

Age and sex are associated with differences in asthma prevalence and morbidity. To determine if age and sex associate with distinct phenotypes and a variable response to therapy in subjects with mild to moderate asthma. We used Asthma Clinical Research Network data to determine the impact of age and sex on phenotypes and treatment failures among subjects participating in 10 trials from 1993 to 2003. A total of 1,200 subjects were identified (median age, 30.4 yr; male, 520 [43.3%]; female, 680 [56.7%]) and analyzed. A higher proportion of subjects greater than or equal to 30 years old experienced treatment failures (17.3% vs. 10.3%; odds ratio [OR], 1.82; confidence interval [CI], 1.30-2.54; P < 0.001), and rates increased proportionally with increasing age older than 30 across the cohort (OR per yr, 1.02 [CI, 1.01-1.04]; OR per 5 yr, 1.13 [CI, 1.04-1.22]; P < 0.001). Lower lung function and longer duration of asthma were associated with a higher risk of treatment failures. A higher proportion of subjects greater than or equal to 30 years old receiving controller therapy experienced treatment failures. When stratified by specific therapy, treatment failures increased consistently for every year older than age 30 in subjects on inhaled corticosteroids (OR per year, 1.03; CI, 1.01-1.07). Females had a slightly higher FEV1 % predicted (84.5% vs. 81.1%; P < 0.001) but similar asthma control measures. There was not a statistically significant difference in treatment failures between females and males (15.2% vs. 11.7%; P = 0.088). Older age is associated with an increased risk of treatment failure, particularly in subjects taking inhaled corticosteroids. There was no significant difference in treatment failures between sexes.

Vocabulary, Grammar, Sex, and Aging.

PubMed

Moscoso Del Prado Martín, Fermín

2017-05-01

Understanding the changes in our language abilities along the lifespan is a crucial step for understanding the aging process both in normal and in abnormal circumstances. Besides controlled experimental tasks, it is equally crucial to investigate language in unconstrained conversation. I present an information-theoretical analysis of a corpus of dyadic conversations investigating how the richness of the vocabulary, the word-internal structure (inflectional morphology), and the syntax of the utterances evolves as a function of the speaker's age and sex. Although vocabulary diversity increases throughout the lifetime, grammatical diversities follow a different pattern, which also differs between women and men. Women use increasingly diverse syntactic structures at least up to their late fifties, and they do not deteriorate in terms of fluency through their lifespan. However, from age 45 onward, men exhibit a decrease in the diversity of the syntactic structures they use, coupled with an increased number of speech disfluencies. Copyright © 2016 Cognitive Science Society, Inc.

Short-Term and Long-Term Educational Mobility of Families: A Two-Sex Approach.

PubMed

Song, Xi; Mare, Robert D

2017-02-01

We use a multigenerational perspective to investigate how families reproduce and pass their educational advantages to succeeding generations. Unlike traditional mobility studies that have typically focused on one-sex influences from fathers to sons, we rely on a two-sex approach that accounts for interactions between males and females-the process in which males and females mate and have children with those of similar educational statuses and jointly determine the educational status attainment of their offspring. Using data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, we approach this issue from both a short-term and a long-term perspective. For the short term, grandparents' educational attainments have a direct association with grandchildren's education as well as an indirect association that is mediated by parents' education and demographic behaviors. For the long term, initial educational advantages of families may benefit as many as three subsequent generations, but such advantages are later offset by the lower fertility of highly educated persons. Yet, all families eventually achieve the same educational distribution of descendants because of intermarriages between families of high- and low-education origin.

Age and sex identification of Akohekohe

USGS Publications Warehouse

Simon, John C.; Pratt, T.K.; Berlin, Kim E.; Kowalsky, James R.

1998-01-01

We present methods to determine the age and sex of Akohekohe (Palmeria dolei), an endangered Hawaiian honeycreeper, developed on the basis of 45 museum specimens and 91 live birds captured on the island of Maui. Akohekohe retained all Juvenal primaries, some Juvenal secondaries, and some body feathers after the first prebasic molt; they attained full adult plumage after the second prebasic molt. Retention of brown Juvenal body feathers, especially on the head, distinguished most birds in the first basic plumage from adults, which have a full complement of distinctive, black lanceolate body feathers with white, gray, or orange tips. Male Akohekohe were heavier than females and had longer wing, tail, and tarsometatarsus lengths. We present a linear discriminant function to sex both adults and juveniles using lengths of their wing and tarsometatarsus.

24 CFR 882.514 - Family participation.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2011 CFR

2011-04-01

... Families selected to participate must be maintained so as to provide HUD with racial, gender, and ethnic..., religion, sex, age, handicap, familial status, or national origin. The informal review provisions for the...

The influence of averageness on judgments of facial attractiveness: no own-age or own-sex advantage among children attending single-sex schools.

PubMed

Vingilis-Jaremko, Larissa; Maurer, Daphne; Gao, Xiaoqing

2014-04-01

We examined how recent biased face experience affects the influence of averageness on judgments of facial attractiveness among 8- and 9-year-old children attending a girls' school, a boys' school, and a mixed-sex school. We presented pairs of individual faces in which one face was transformed 50% toward its group average, whereas the other face was transformed 50% away from that average. Across blocks, the faces varied in age (adult, 9-year-old, or 5-year-old) and sex (male or female). We expected that averageness might influence attractiveness judgments more strongly for same-age faces and, for children attending single-sex schools, same-sex faces of that age because their prototype(s) should be best tuned to the faces they see most frequently. Averageness influenced children's judgments of attractiveness, but the strength of the influence was not modulated by the age of the face, nor did the effects of sex of face differ across schools. Recent biased experience might not have affected the results because of similarities between the average faces of different ages and sexes and/or because a minimum level of experience with a particular group of faces may be adequate for the formation of a veridical prototype and its influence on judgments of attractiveness. The results suggest that averageness affects children's judgments of the attractiveness of the faces they encounter in everyday life regardless of age or sex of face. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Sex and Age Differences in Future Temporal Perspective.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Grant, Edward; Sawler, Joyce

This study explored sex differences in the Future Temporal Perspectives (FTP) of children. The influences of age, social class and intelligence were also investigated, or FTP was generally believed to be affected by them. Subjects were 96 boys and 96 girls, selected from 26 schools in Nova Scotia, from three age groups: 9.6-11.0, 12.0-13.6, and…

Age-related changes in the craniofacial region in a modern Greek population sample of known age and sex.

PubMed

Chovalopoulou, Maria-Eleni; Bertsatos, Andreas; Papageorgopoulou, Christina

2017-07-01

The aim of this paper is to investigate ageing changes in craniofacial region in both sexes and evaluate whether these shape changes are substantial to achieve age discrimination of samples used in anthropological analyses. The study sample consisted of 157 crania of known sex and age (81 males and 76 females) belonging to individuals who lived in Greece during the twentieth century. The sample was divided in three age groups: young adults (YA, 18-39 years old), middle adults (MA, 40-59 years old) and old adults (OA, >60 years old). The three-dimensional coordinates of 31 ecto-cranial landmarks were digitized using a Microscribe 3DX contact digitizer, and landmark configurations were analyzed using the generalized least-squares Procrustes method. The results indicate that both males and females show significant difference among the age groups; however, shape differences can not be used for age group discrimination due to a large range on the accuracy of age group classification. The morphometric changes related to age were different between sexes.

Revised age estimates of the Euphrosyne family

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Carruba, Valerio; Masiero, Joseph R.; Cibulková, Helena; Aljbaae, Safwan; Espinoza Huaman, Mariela

2015-08-01

The Euphrosyne family, a high inclination asteroid family in the outer main belt, is considered one of the most peculiar groups of asteroids. It is characterized by the steepest size frequency distribution (SFD) among families in the main belt, and it is the only family crossed near its center by the ν6 secular resonance. Previous studies have shown that the steep size frequency distribution may be the result of the dynamical evolution of the family.In this work we further explore the unique dynamical configuration of the Euphrosyne family by refining the previous age values, considering the effects of changes in shapes of the asteroids during YORP cycle (``stochastic YORP''), the long-term effect of close encounters of family members with (31) Euphrosyne itself, and the effect that changing key parameters of the Yarkovsky force (such as density and thermal conductivity) has on the estimate of the family age obtained using Monte Carlo methods. Numerical simulations accounting for the interaction with the local web of secular and mean-motion resonances allow us to refine previous estimates of the family age. The cratering event that formed the Euphrosyne family most likely occurred between 560 and 1160 Myr ago, and no earlier than 1400 Myr ago when we allow for larger uncertainties in the key parameters of the Yarkovsky force.

Effects of age and sex on developmental neural networks of visual-spatial attention allocation.

PubMed

Rubia, Katya; Hyde, Zoe; Halari, Rozmin; Giampietro, Vincent; Smith, Anna

2010-06-01

Compared to our understanding of the functional maturation of brain networks underlying complex cognitive abilities, hardly anything is known of the neurofunctional development of simpler cognitive abilities such as visuo-spatial attention allocation. Furthermore, nothing is known on the effect of gender on the functional development of attention allocation. This study employed event related functional magnetic resonance imaging to investigate effects of age, sex, and sex by age interactions on the brain activation of 63 males and females, between 13 to 38years, during a visual-spatial oddball task. Behaviourally, with increasing age, speed was traded for accuracy, indicative of a less impulsive performance style in older subjects. Increasing age was associated with progressively increased activation in typical areas of selective attention of lateral fronto-striatal and temporo-parietal brain regions. Sex difference analysis showed enhanced activation in right-hemispheric inferior frontal and superior temporal regions in females, and in left-hemispheric inferior temporo-parietal regions in males. Importantly, the age by sex interaction findings showed that these sex-dimorphic patterns of brain activation may be the result of underlying sex differences in the functional maturation of these brain regions, as females had sex-specific progressive age-correlations in the same right inferior fronto-striato-temporal areas, while male-specific age-correlations were in left medial temporal and parietal areas. The findings demonstrate progressive functional maturation of fronto-striato-parieto-temporal networks of the relatively simple function of attention allocation between early adolescence and mid-adulthood. They furthermore show that sex-dimorphic patterns of enhanced reliance on right inferior frontal, striatal and superior temporal regions in females and of left temporo-parietal regions in males during attention allocation may be the result of underlying sex

Development of a Healthy Aging Score in the Population-Based Rotterdam Study: Evaluating Age and Sex Differences.

PubMed

Jaspers, Loes; Schoufour, Josje D; Erler, Nicole S; Darweesh, Sirwan K L; Portegies, Marileen L P; Sedaghat, Sanaz; Lahousse, Lies; Brusselle, Guy G; Stricker, Bruno H; Tiemeier, Henning; Ikram, M Arfan; Laven, Joop S E; Franco, Oscar H; Kavousi, Maryam

2017-03-01

To develop a healthy aging score (HAS), to assess age and sex differences in HAS, and to evaluate the association of the HAS with survival. Prospective population-based cohort. Inhabitants of Ommoord, Rotterdam, The Netherlands. A total of 1405 men and 2122 women, mean (standard deviation) age 75.9 (6.4) years. We included 7 domains in the total score of HAS: chronic diseases, mental health, cognitive function, physical function, pain, social support, and quality of life; each scored 0, 1, or 2 in each domain. A total score (range 0-14) was constructed and was assessed continuously and in tertiles (13-14: healthy aging, 11-12: intermediate aging, 0-10: poor aging). Sex-specific change in the mean HAS was computed for the age categories of 65-69, 70-74, 75-79, 80-84, and ≥85 years. The association between HAS and mortality was assessed with Cox proportional hazards models. Mean follow-up was 8.6 (3.4) years. Men had poorer scores in the chronic disease domain than women. However, women had poorer mental health, worse physical function, more pain, and lower quality of life compared with men. The prevalence of healthy aging was higher in men (n = 396, 28.2%), than in women (n = 526, 24.8%). The mean (standard deviation) HAS was 11.1 (2.2) in men and 10.7 (2.3) in women. Mean HAS was higher in men than in women for all age categories. The β for change in mean HAS across the 5 increasing age categories was -0.55 (-0.65 to -0.45) in men and -0.65 (-0.73 to -0.57) in women. The age-adjusted hazard ratio per unit increase in HAS with mortality was 0.86 (0.83-0.89) in men, and 0.89 (0.87-0.91) in women. Levels of HAS were lower in women compared with men, in all age categories. The HAS declined with increasing age for both sexes, albeit slightly steeper in women. The HAS was strongly associated with mortality in both sexes. A better understanding of population healthy aging and sex differences in this regard could aid to implement strategies for sustainable

Measurement of Family Affective Structure.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lowman, Joseph

1980-01-01

Three studies demonstrate that the Inventory of Family Feelings, a measure of family affective structure, has high reliability and construct and concurrent validity. It is appropriate for affective comparisons by age, sex, and ordinal position of children and for measuring change after family or marital therapy, or after predictable stress…

Age and Sex Differences in Interaction with a Human Infant.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Blakemore, Judith E. O.

1981-01-01

Examines sex differences in vocalizations and play behaviors displayed toward an infant by preschoolers, preadolescents, and adults. Preschoolers showed less interaction than older subjects. Males talked and played less with the baby than did females at all ages; however, among adult subjects, no sex-role effects were found. (Author/RH)

Victimization, Social Support, and Psychosocial Functioning among Children of Same-Sex and Opposite-Sex Couples in the United Kingdom

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Rivers, Ian; Poteat, V. Paul; Noret, Nathalie

2008-01-01

To further develop an understanding of psychological and social functioning of children raised by lesbian couples, the authors compared 18 students ages 12-16 raised in families led by female same-sex couples, who were identified from a large school-based survey, with 18 matched students raised by opposite-sex couples and the general student…

Intrinsic connectivity networks from childhood to late adolescence: Effects of age and sex.

PubMed

Solé-Padullés, Cristina; Castro-Fornieles, Josefina; de la Serna, Elena; Calvo, Rosa; Baeza, Inmaculada; Moya, Jaime; Lázaro, Luisa; Rosa, Mireia; Bargalló, Nuria; Sugranyes, Gisela

2016-02-01

There is limited evidence on the effects of age and sex on intrinsic connectivity of networks underlying cognition during childhood and adolescence. Independent component analysis was conducted in 113 subjects aged 7-18; the default mode, executive control, anterior salience, basal ganglia, language and visuospatial networks were identified. The effect of age was examined with multiple regression, while sex and 'age × sex' interactions were assessed by dividing the sample according to age (7-12 and 13-18 years). As age increased, connectivity in the dorsal and ventral default mode network became more anterior and posterior, respectively, while in the executive control network, connectivity increased within frontoparietal regions. The basal ganglia network showed increased engagement of striatum, thalami and precuneus. The anterior salience network showed greater connectivity in frontal areas and anterior cingulate, and less connectivity of orbitofrontal, middle cingulate and temporoparietal regions. The language network presented increased connectivity of inferior frontal and decreased connectivity within the right middle frontal and left inferior parietal cortices. The visuospatial network showed greater engagement of inferior parietal and frontal cortices. No effect of sex, nor age by sex interactions was observed. These findings provide evidence of strengthening of cortico-cortical and cortico-subcortical networks across childhood and adolescence. Copyright © 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.

Effects of age and sex on the results of an ankle plantar-flexor manual muscle test.

PubMed

Jan, Mei-Hwa; Chai, Huei-Ming; Lin, Yeong-Fwu; Lin, Janice Chien-Ho; Tsai, Li-Ying; Ou, Yu-Chih; Lin, Da-Hon

2005-10-01

The ability to perform 20 or more one-leg heel-rises is considered a "normal" grade for muscle strength (force-generating capacity of muscle) of the ankle plantar flexors, regardless of age and sex. Because muscle strength is closely related to age and sex, the "normal" test criterion was re-evaluated in different groups categorized by age and sex. One hundred eighty sedentary volunteers (21-80 years of age) without lower-limb lesions performed as many repetitions of one-leg heel-rise as possible. Lunsford and Perry criteria were used to determine completion of the test. The age and sex of the participants influenced the maximal repetitions of heel-rise, and the repetitions decreased with age and in female subjects. The muscle strength of the ankle plantar flexors, as measured by manual muscle testing, varied with age and sex. Clinicians should consider the variances of age and sex when they perform manual muscle testing of the ankle plantar flexors.

The Probable Ages of Asteroid Families

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Harris, A. W.

1993-01-01

There has been considerable debate recently over the ages of the Hirayama families, and in particular if some of the families are very oung(u) It is a straightforward task to estimate the characteristic time of a collision between a body of a given diameter, d_o, by another body of diameter greater of equal to d_1. What is less straightforward is to estimate the critical diameter ratio, d_1/d_o, above which catastrophic disruption occurs, from which one could infer probable ages of the Hirayama families, by knowing the diameter of the parent body, d_o. One can gain some insight into the probable value of d_1/d_o, and of the likely ages of existing families, from the plot below. I have computed the characteristic time between collisions in the asteroid belt of a size ratio greater of equal to d_1/d_o, for 4 sizes of target asteroids, d_o. The solid curves to the lower right are the characteristic times for a single object...

Early Exposure to Traffic-Related Air Pollution, Respiratory Symptoms at 4 Years of Age, and Potential Effect Modification by Parental Allergy, Stressful Family Events, and Sex: A Prospective Follow-up Study of the PARIS Birth Cohort.

PubMed

Rancière, Fanny; Bougas, Nicolas; Viola, Malika; Momas, Isabelle

2017-04-01

The relation between traffic-related air pollution (TRAP) exposure and the incidence of asthma/allergy in preschool children has been widely studied, but results remain heterogeneous, possibly due to differences in methodology and susceptibility to TRAP. We aimed to study the relation of early TRAP exposure with the development of respiratory/allergic symptoms and asthma during preschool years, and to investigate parental allergy, "stressful" family events, and sex as possible effect modifiers. We examined data of 2,015 children from the PARIS birth cohort followed up with repeated questionnaires completed by parents until age 4 years. TRAP exposure in each child's first year of life was estimated by nitrogen oxides (NO x ) air dispersion modeling, taking into account both home and day care locations. Association between TRAP exposure and patterns of wheezing, dry night cough, and rhinitis symptoms was studied using multinomial logistic regression models adjusted for potential confounders. Effect modification by parental history of allergy, stressful family events, and sex was investigated. An interquartile range (26 μg/m 3 ) increase in NO x levels was associated with an increased odds ratio (OR) of persistent wheezing at 4 years (adjusted OR = 1.27; 95% confidence interval: 1.09, 1.47). TRAP exposure was positively associated with persistent wheeze, dry cough, and rhinitis symptoms among children with a parental allergy, those experiencing stressful family events, and boys, but not in children whose parents did not have allergies or experience stressful events, or in girls (all interaction p -values < 0.2). This study supports the hypothesis that not all preschool children are equal regarding TRAP health effects. Parental history of allergy, stressful family events, and male sex may increase their susceptibility to adverse respiratory effects of early TRAP exposure.

Flight of the Stork: What Children Think (and When) about Sex and Family Building.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bernstein, Anne C.

This book provides parents with some insight on how children come to understand sex and reproduction. Chapter 1 discusses some of the ways children think differently from adults and chapter 2 offers suggestions for talking with children about sex and birth and forming families. In chapters 3-8, children's explanations of the origins of babies are…

Anti-aging drugs reduce hypothalamic inflammation in a sex-specific manner.

PubMed

Sadagurski, Marianna; Cady, Gillian; Miller, Richard A

2017-08-01

Aging leads to hypothalamic inflammation, but does so more slowly in mice whose lifespan has been extended by mutations that affect GH/IGF-1 signals. Early-life exposure to GH by injection, or to nutrient restriction in the first 3 weeks of life, also modulate both lifespan and the pace of hypothalamic inflammation. Three drugs extend lifespan of UM-HET3 mice in a sex-specific way: acarbose (ACA), 17-α-estradiol (17αE2), and nordihydroguaiaretic acid (NDGA), with more dramatic longevity increases in males in each case. In this study, we examined the effect of these anti-aging drugs on neuro-inflammation in hypothalamus and hippocampus. We found that age-associated hypothalamic inflammation is reduced in males but not in females at 12 months of age by ACA and 17αE2 and at 22 months of age in NDGA-treated mice. The three drugs blocked indices of hypothalamic reactive gliosis associated with aging, such as Iba-1-positive microglia and GFAP-positive astrocytes, as well as age-associated overproduction of TNF-α. This effect was not observed in drug-treated female mice or in the hippocampus of the drug-treated animals. On the other hand, caloric restriction (CR; an intervention that extends the lifespan in both sexes) significantly reduced hypothalamic microglia and TNF-α in both sexes at 12 months of age. Together, these results suggest that the extent of drug-induced changes in hypothalamic inflammatory processes is sexually dimorphic in a pattern that parallels the effects of these agents on mouse longevity and that mimics the changes seen, in both sexes, of long-lived nutrient restricted or mutant mice. © 2017 The Authors. Aging Cell published by the Anatomical Society and John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Effects of age and sex on voice onset time: Evidence from Mandarin voiceless stops.

PubMed

Ma, Junzhou; Chen, Xiaoxiang; Wu, Yezhou; Zhang, Linjie

2018-07-01

Considerable studies have addressed effects of age and sex on voice onset time (VOT) in English. However, few studies have examined these effects on Mandarin stops. This study attempts to examine effects of age and sex on VOT in Mandarin. A total of 85 Mandarin-speaking children, aged 4-18 years old, and 13 adults as reference participated in a production experiment. Productions were elicited by reading target words in carrier phrases. Results showed that children aged 6-7 years old had longer VOTs than older ones for highly aspirated stops, and the same tendency was not observed for unaspirated stops. However, no linear developmental trend was observed for both highly aspirated and unaspirated stops. In addition, females displayed longer VOTs for highly aspirated stops and shorter for unaspirated stops, whereas significant sex differences in VOTs existed from 14 years old to adulthood for highly aspirated stops, and no significant sex differences in VOTs were found for unaspirated stops in each group, indicating that sex differences in VOTs varied with age and aspiration. The findings suggest that physiological changes in and differences between males and females provide account for some, but not all differences in VOTs across age and sex.

Age-of-Recall Effects on Family-of-Origin Ratings.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hampson, Robert B.; And Others

1994-01-01

College students (n=141) completed Self-Report Family Inventory on Beavers Systems Model of Family Functioning, rating current family, family when they were 10 years old, and family when they were 16 years old. Found significant differences between age-of-recall groups, with recall ratings from age 10 significantly more competent, cohesive, and…

Familiality and SNP heritability of age at onset and episodicity in major depressive disorder.

PubMed

Ferentinos, P; Koukounari, A; Power, R; Rivera, M; Uher, R; Craddock, N; Owen, M J; Korszun, A; Jones, L; Jones, I; Gill, M; Rice, J P; Ising, M; Maier, W; Mors, O; Rietschel, M; Preisig, M; Binder, E B; Aitchison, K J; Mendlewicz, J; Souery, D; Hauser, J; Henigsberg, N; Breen, G; Craig, I W; Farmer, A E; Müller-Myhsok, B; McGuffin, P; Lewis, C M

2015-07-01

Strategies to dissect phenotypic and genetic heterogeneity of major depressive disorder (MDD) have mainly relied on subphenotypes, such as age at onset (AAO) and recurrence/episodicity. Yet, evidence on whether these subphenotypes are familial or heritable is scarce. The aims of this study are to investigate the familiality of AAO and episode frequency in MDD and to assess the proportion of their variance explained by common single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP heritability). For investigating familiality, we used 691 families with 2-5 full siblings with recurrent MDD from the DeNt study. We fitted (square root) AAO and episode count in a linear and a negative binomial mixed model, respectively, with family as random effect and adjusting for sex, age and center. The strength of familiality was assessed with intraclass correlation coefficients (ICC). For estimating SNP heritabilities, we used 3468 unrelated MDD cases from the RADIANT and GSK Munich studies. After similarly adjusting for covariates, derived residuals were used with the GREML method in GCTA (genome-wide complex trait analysis) software. Significant familial clustering was found for both AAO (ICC = 0.28) and episodicity (ICC = 0.07). We calculated from respective ICC estimates the maximal additive heritability of AAO (0.56) and episodicity (0.15). SNP heritability of AAO was 0.17 (p = 0.04); analysis was underpowered for calculating SNP heritability of episodicity. AAO and episodicity aggregate in families to a moderate and small degree, respectively. AAO is under stronger additive genetic control than episodicity. Larger samples are needed to calculate the SNP heritability of episodicity. The described statistical framework could be useful in future analyses.

Genetic and environmental influences on the relationships between family connectedness, school connectedness, and adolescent depressed mood: sex differences.

PubMed

Jacobson, K C; Rowe, D C

1999-07-01

This study investigated (a) genetic and environmental contributions to the relationship between family and school environment and depressed mood and (b) potential sex differences in genetic and environmental contributions to both variation in and covariation between family connectedness, school connectedness, and adolescent depressed mood. Data are from 2,302 adolescent sibling pairs (mean age = 16 years) who were part of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health. Although genetic factors appeared to be important overall, model-fitting analyses revealed that the best-fitting model was a model that allowed for different parameters for male and female adolescents. Genetic contributions to variation in all 3 variables were greater among female adolescents than male adolescents, especially for depressed mood. Genetic factors also contributed to the correlations between family and school environment and adolescent depressed mood, although, again, these factors were stronger for female than for male adolescents.

Caste-, sex-, and age-dependent expression of immune-related genes in a Japanese subterranean termite, Reticulitermes speratus

PubMed Central

Kobayashi, Kazuya; Matsuura, Kenji

2017-01-01

Insects protect themselves from microbial infections through innate immune responses, including pathogen recognition, phagocytosis, the activation of proteolytic cascades, and the synthesis of antimicrobial peptides. Termites, eusocial insects inhabiting microbe-rich wood, live in closely-related family groups that are susceptible to shared pathogen infections. To resist pathogenic infection, termite families have evolved diverse immune adaptations at both individual and societal levels, and a strategy of trade-offs between reproduction and immunity has been suggested. Although termite immune-inducible genes have been identified, few studies have investigated the differential expression of these genes between reproductive and neuter castes, and between sexes in each caste. In this study, we compared the expression levels of immune-related genes among castes, sexes, and ages in a Japanese subterranean termite, Reticulitermes speratus. Using RNA-seq, we found 197 immune-related genes, including 40 pattern recognition proteins, 97 signalling proteins, 60 effectors. Among these genes, 174 showed differential expression among castes. Comparing expression levels between males and females in each caste, we found sexually dimorphic expression of immune-related genes not only in reproductive castes, but also in neuter castes. Moreover, we identified age-related differential expression of 162 genes in male and/or female reproductives. In addition, although R. speratus is known to use the antibacterial peptide C-type lysozyme as an egg recognition pheromone, we determined that R. speratus has not only C-type, but also P-type and I-type lysozymes, as well as other termite species. Our transcriptomic analyses revealed immune response plasticity among all castes, and sex-biased expression of immune genes even in neuter castes, suggesting a sexual division of labor in the immune system of R. speratus. This study heightens the understanding of the evolution of antimicrobial

Caste-, sex-, and age-dependent expression of immune-related genes in a Japanese subterranean termite, Reticulitermes speratus.

PubMed

Mitaka, Yuki; Kobayashi, Kazuya; Matsuura, Kenji

2017-01-01

Insects protect themselves from microbial infections through innate immune responses, including pathogen recognition, phagocytosis, the activation of proteolytic cascades, and the synthesis of antimicrobial peptides. Termites, eusocial insects inhabiting microbe-rich wood, live in closely-related family groups that are susceptible to shared pathogen infections. To resist pathogenic infection, termite families have evolved diverse immune adaptations at both individual and societal levels, and a strategy of trade-offs between reproduction and immunity has been suggested. Although termite immune-inducible genes have been identified, few studies have investigated the differential expression of these genes between reproductive and neuter castes, and between sexes in each caste. In this study, we compared the expression levels of immune-related genes among castes, sexes, and ages in a Japanese subterranean termite, Reticulitermes speratus. Using RNA-seq, we found 197 immune-related genes, including 40 pattern recognition proteins, 97 signalling proteins, 60 effectors. Among these genes, 174 showed differential expression among castes. Comparing expression levels between males and females in each caste, we found sexually dimorphic expression of immune-related genes not only in reproductive castes, but also in neuter castes. Moreover, we identified age-related differential expression of 162 genes in male and/or female reproductives. In addition, although R. speratus is known to use the antibacterial peptide C-type lysozyme as an egg recognition pheromone, we determined that R. speratus has not only C-type, but also P-type and I-type lysozymes, as well as other termite species. Our transcriptomic analyses revealed immune response plasticity among all castes, and sex-biased expression of immune genes even in neuter castes, suggesting a sexual division of labor in the immune system of R. speratus. This study heightens the understanding of the evolution of antimicrobial

THE SCHULHOF FAMILY: SOLVING THE AGE PUZZLE

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Vokrouhlický, David; Ďurech, Josef; Pravec, Petr

The Schulhof family, a tight cluster of small asteroids around the central main belt body (2384) Schulhof, belongs to a so far rare class of very young families (estimated ages less than 1 Myr). Characterization of these asteroid clusters may provide important insights into the physics of the catastrophic disruption of their parent body. The case of the Schulhof family has been up to now complicated by the existence of two proposed epochs of its origin. In this paper, we first use our own photometric observations, as well as archival data, to determine the rotation rate and spin axis orientation ofmore » the largest fragment (2384) Schulhof. Our data also allow us to better constrain the absolute magnitude of this asteroid, and thus also improve the determination of its geometric albedo. Next, using the up-to-date catalog of asteroid orbits, we perform a new search of smaller members in the Schulhof family, increasing their number by 50%. Finally, the available data are used to access Schulhof's family age anew. We now find that the younger of the previously proposed two ages of this family is not correct, resulting from a large orbital uncertainty of single-opposition members. Our new runs reveal a single age solution of about 800 kyr with a realistic uncertainty of 200 kyr.« less

The Schulhof Family: Solving the Age Puzzle

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Vokrouhlický, David; Ďurech, Josef; Pravec, Petr; Kušnirák, Peter; Hornoch, Kamil; Vraštil, Jan; Krugly, Yurij N.; Inasaridze, Raguli Ya.; Ayvasian, Vova; Zhuzhunadze, Vasili; Molotov, Igor E.; Pray, Donald; Husárik, Marek; Pollock, Joseph T.; Nesvorný, David

2016-03-01

The Schulhof family, a tight cluster of small asteroids around the central main belt body (2384) Schulhof, belongs to a so far rare class of very young families (estimated ages less than 1 Myr). Characterization of these asteroid clusters may provide important insights into the physics of the catastrophic disruption of their parent body. The case of the Schulhof family has been up to now complicated by the existence of two proposed epochs of its origin. In this paper, we first use our own photometric observations, as well as archival data, to determine the rotation rate and spin axis orientation of the largest fragment (2384) Schulhof. Our data also allow us to better constrain the absolute magnitude of this asteroid, and thus also improve the determination of its geometric albedo. Next, using the up-to-date catalog of asteroid orbits, we perform a new search of smaller members in the Schulhof family, increasing their number by 50%. Finally, the available data are used to access Schulhof's family age anew. We now find that the younger of the previously proposed two ages of this family is not correct, resulting from a large orbital uncertainty of single-opposition members. Our new runs reveal a single age solution of about 800 kyr with a realistic uncertainty of 200 kyr.

Short-Term and Long-Term Educational Mobility of Families: A Two-Sex Approach

PubMed Central

Mare, Robert D.

2017-01-01

We use a multigenerational perspective to investigate how families reproduce and pass their educational advantages to succeeding generations. Unlike traditional mobility studies that have typically focused on one-sex influences from fathers to sons, we rely on a two-sex approach that accounts for interactions between males and females—the process in which males and females mate and have children with those of similar educational statuses and jointly determine the educational status attainment of their offspring. Using data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, we approach this issue from both a short-term and a long-term perspective. For the short term, grandparents’ educational attainments have a direct association with grandchildren’s education as well as an indirect association that is mediated by parents’ education and demographic behaviors. For the long term, initial educational advantages of families may benefit as many as three subsequent generations, but such advantages are later offset by the lower fertility of highly educated persons. Yet, all families eventually achieve the same educational distribution of descendants because of intermarriages between families of high- and low-education origin. PMID:28058636

Impact of Age and Sex on Response to Asthma Therapy

PubMed Central

Dunn, Ryan M.; Lehman, Erik; Chinchilli, Vernon M.; Martin, Richard J.; Boushey, Homer A.; Israel, Elliot; Kraft, Monica; Lazarus, Stephen C.; Lemanske, Robert F.; Lugogo, Njira L.; Peters, Stephen P.; Sorkness, Christine A.; Szefler, Stanley

2015-01-01

Rationale: Age and sex are associated with differences in asthma prevalence and morbidity. Objectives: To determine if age and sex associate with distinct phenotypes and a variable response to therapy in subjects with mild to moderate asthma. Methods: We used Asthma Clinical Research Network data to determine the impact of age and sex on phenotypes and treatment failures among subjects participating in 10 trials from 1993 to 2003. Measurements and Main Results: A total of 1,200 subjects were identified (median age, 30.4 yr; male, 520 [43.3%]; female, 680 [56.7%]) and analyzed. A higher proportion of subjects greater than or equal to 30 years old experienced treatment failures (17.3% vs. 10.3%; odds ratio [OR], 1.82; confidence interval [CI], 1.30–2.54; P < 0.001), and rates increased proportionally with increasing age older than 30 across the cohort (OR per yr, 1.02 [CI, 1.01–1.04]; OR per 5 yr, 1.13 [CI, 1.04–1.22]; P < 0.001). Lower lung function and longer duration of asthma were associated with a higher risk of treatment failures. A higher proportion of subjects greater than or equal to 30 years old receiving controller therapy experienced treatment failures. When stratified by specific therapy, treatment failures increased consistently for every year older than age 30 in subjects on inhaled corticosteroids (OR per year, 1.03; CI, 1.01–1.07). Females had a slightly higher FEV1 % predicted (84.5% vs. 81.1%; P < 0.001) but similar asthma control measures. There was not a statistically significant difference in treatment failures between females and males (15.2% vs. 11.7%; P = 0.088). Conclusions: Older age is associated with an increased risk of treatment failure, particularly in subjects taking inhaled corticosteroids. There was no significant difference in treatment failures between sexes. PMID:26068329

On the age of the Nele asteroid family

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Carruba, V.; Vokrouhlický, D.; Nesvorný, D.; Aljbaae, S.

2018-06-01

The Nele group, formerly known as the Iannini family, is one of the youngest asteroid families in the main belt. Previously, it has been noted that the pericentre longitudes ϖ and nodal longitudes Ω of its largest member asteroids are clustered at the present time, therefore suggesting that the collisional break-up of parent body must have happened recently. Here, we verify this conclusion by detailed orbit-propagation of a synthetic Nele family and show that the current level of clustering of secular angles of the largest Nele family members requires an approximate age limit of 4.5 Myr. Additionally, we make use of an updated and largely extended Nele membership to obtain, for the first time, an age estimate of this family using the backward integration method. Convergence of the secular angles in a purely gravitational model and in a model including the non-gravitational forces caused by the Yarkovsky effect are both compatible with an age younger than 7 Myr. More accurate determination of the Nele family age would require additional data about the spin state of its members.

Employment Discrimination: Age, Sex and National Origin.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Carter, David G.; Lawson, Miriam

Chapter 17 of a book on school law is an historical review of judicial decisions and legislative enactments that apply to employment. The purpose of the chapter is to analyze those cases concerned with discrimination because of sex, age, or national origin, and to discuss the decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court in these areas. Not until the…

Policy Statement and General Guidelines on Family Life and Sex Education.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Illinois State Board of Education, Springfield.

This guide is a statement of policy and guidelines on family life and sex education devised by the Illinois State Board of Education to aid local boards of education, school administrators, and community groups in developing and implementing new programs or extending existing programs. A statement of policy including purpose, programs, and…

Family Migration and Labor Force Outcomes: Sex Differences in Occupational Context

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Shauman, Kimberlee A.; Noonan, Mary C.

2007-01-01

Empirical analyses of sex differences in the career consequences of family migration have focused on adjudicating between the human capital and the gender-role explanations but have ignored the potential influence of gender inequality in the structure of the labor market. In this paper we estimate conditional difference-in-difference models with…

Sex ratio of equine offspring is affected by the ages of the mare and stallion.

PubMed

Santos, Marianna Machado; Maia, Leonardo Lara; Nobre, Daniel Magalhães; Oliveira Neto, José Ferraz; Garcia, Tiago Rezende; Lage, Maria Coeli Gomes Reis; de Melo, Maria Isabel Vaz; Viana, Walmir Santos; Palhares, Maristela Silveira; da Silva Filho, José Monteiro; Santos, Renato Lima; Valle, Guilherme Ribeiro

2015-10-15

The aim of this study was to determine the influence of parental age on the sex ratio of offspring in horses. Two trials were performed. In the first trial, the data from a randomly obtained population with a 1:1 sex ratio of 59,950 Mangalarga Marchador horses born in Brazil from 1990 to 2011 were analyzed. The sex ratios of the offspring were compared among groups according to the mare and the stallion ages (from 3 to 25 years). In the first step of the analysis, the mares and stallions were grouped according to age in 5-year intervals. In the second step, the groups were based on the parental age gap at conception. In the third step, the group of the mares and stallions with similar ages from the second step was subdivided, and the different parental age subgroups that were divided into 5-year intervals were compared. In the fourth step, the sex ratio of the offspring was determined according to the ages of the mares and the stallions at conception. The second trial was based on the data from 253 horses of several breeds that were born after natural gestation into a herd from 1989 to 2010, and the offspring of groups that were younger or older than 15 years were compared. The data from both trials were analyzed using a chi-square test (P ≤ 0.01 for the first trial; and P ≤ 0.05 for the second trial) for the comparisons of the sex ratios. In the first trial, the Spearman test (P ≤ 0.01) was used to verify the correlations between the parental age and the offspring sex ratio. In the first trial, the offspring sex ratio decreased as the mare or stallion age increased, and the decrease was more marked for the mares than for the stallions. In the second trial, the mares older than 15 years had more fillies than the younger mares, but the stallion age had no effect on the sex of the offspring. The first trial, with a large number of horses, revealed the pattern of the distribution of the sex ratios of offspring according to the parental age in horses, whereas the

Age and sex differences in ranges of motion and motion patterns.

PubMed

Hwang, Jaejin; Jung, Myung-Chul

2015-01-01

This study investigated the effects of age and sex on joint ranges of motion (ROMs) and motion patterns. Forty participants performed 18 motions using eight body segments at self-selected speeds. Older subjects showed smaller ROMs than younger subjects for 11 motions; the greatest difference in ROM was 44.9% for eversion/inversion of the foot. Older subjects also required more time than younger subjects to approach the peak angular velocity for six motions. In contrast, sex significantly affected ROMs but not motion patterns. Male subjects exhibited smaller ROMs than female subjects for four motions; the greatest sex-dependent difference in ROM was 29.7% for ulnar/radial deviation of the hand. The age and sex effects depended on the specific segments used and motions performed, possibly because of differences in anatomical structures and frequencies of use of the joints in habitual physical activities between the groups.

[Changes in structure and function of the family of the adolescent in the last decade (1997-2007)].

PubMed

Pérez Milena, Alejandro; Martínez Fernández, María Luz; Mesa Gallardo, Inmaculada; Pérez Milena, Rafael; Leal Helmling, Francisco Javier; Jiménez Pulido, Idoia

2009-09-01

To find out the structure and functioning of the family of the adolescent and its changes in the last decade. Cross-sectional descriptive study using questionnaires. Pupils in obligatory secondary education and high-school in one rural (Granada) and one urban (Jaén) area. Self-administered questionnaire (years 1997-2001-2004-2007) in which details of age, sex, family structure and family-Apgar test were recorded. A total of 1356 adolescents participated, 1271 questionnaires valid (259, 386, 246 and 380 respectively per year). Ages 12-18 years, equality of sexes. The nuclear family structure was predominant (78-84%), followed by single parent family in (7-11%), extended (6-7%) and reconstituted (2%). The family function was mainly normal (70-76%), with 30% dysfunction (slight dysfunction 18-21% and severe dysfunction 5-10%). The structure and family function does not vary by sex or the year of study, it is influenced by age: adolescents 16 years with a higher percentage of family dysfunction in 1997/2001 than the rest of ages, declining in the years 2004/2007 (P <0.05 chi(2)), similar to other ages. While the nuclear family in 1997 had a greater number of adolescents with normal family function (P <0.05 chi(2)), in the remaining years there were no significant differences between different family structures. The perception of family function in adolescents has changed and now does not depend on sex, age and structure. Family care during adolescence should focus on promoting positive family dynamics, regardless of family structure.

Muscularity as a function of species, sex and age in small mammals

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Pace, N.; Rahlmann, D. F.; Smith, A. H.

1984-01-01

Changes in the body skeletal muscle mass SMM (measured as a function of the ratio between the body creatine mass and the fat-free muscle creatine), and in muscularity (expressed as the ratio of SMM to fat-free body mass) were studied as functions of age, sex, and species in mouse, rat, hamster, guinea pig, and rabbit. Six animals of each sex were examined in eight age cohorts ranging from 1 to 24 months. Both species and age factors affect SMM. Strong sexual dimorphism in the SMM changes with age was displayed by mouse, rat, and guinea pig, whereas the hamster and rabbit were statistically monomorphic. The mouse, rat, and hamster attain a maximal SMM at about 1 year of age, whereas in the guinea pig and rabbit the decrease in SMM starts after 2 years. The value of muscularity reached a peak at age of 2-3 months in all animals of both sexes, with a pronounced difference among the species. The mouse emerged as the most muscular, while the guinea pig the least muscular, of all species.

Physical fitness in preschool children: association with sex, age and weight status.

PubMed

Latorre Román, P Á; Moreno Del Castillo, R; Lucena Zurita, M; Salas Sánchez, J; García-Pinillos, F; Mora López, D

2017-03-01

Because fitness level is a potent biomarker of health from an early age, the improvements of physical fitness performance through the promotion of physical activity could be important for the health of preschool children, particularly in obesity prevention. The purpose of this study is to determine the physical fitness in children aged 3-6 years, discriminating performance by sex, age and body mass index (BMI). A total of 3868 children from 3 to 6 years agreed voluntarily to participate. Demographic characteristics revealed that 1961 children were male (age: 55.71 ± 11.11 months old, BMI = 16.03 ± 1.93 kg/m 2 ), and 1907 were female (age 56.16 ± 0.97 months old, BMI = 15.85 ± 1.89 kg/m 2 ), and they were selected from 51 schools in southern Spain. Significant differences were found between sexes: boys showed a greater performance on cardio respiratory endurance, reaction time, strength and running speed. We found significant differences by sex in the different age groups (3, 4, 5 and 6 years old). Sex differences in physical fitness are evident at an early age; in addition, the relationship between physical fitness and BMI is inconsistent in preschool children. The improvements of physical fitness performance and its association with physical activity could be important for the health of children, particularly in obesity prevention. © 2016 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

AβPP/PS1 Transgenic Mice Show Sex Differences in the Cerebellum Associated with Aging.

PubMed

Ordoñez-Gutierrez, Lara; Fernandez-Perez, Ivan; Herrera, Jose Luis; Anton, Marta; Benito-Cuesta, Irene; Wandosell, Francisco

2016-09-06

Cerebellar pathology has been related to presenilin 1 mutations in certain pedigrees of familial Alzheimer's disease. However, cerebellum tissue has not been intensively analyzed in transgenic models of mutant presenilins. Furthermore, the effect of the sex of the mice was not systematically analyzed, despite the fact that important gender differences in the evolution of the disease in the human population have been described. We analyzed whether the progression of amyloidosis in a double transgenic mouse, AβPP/PS1, is susceptible to aging and differentially affects males and females. The accumulation of amyloid in the cerebellum differentially affects males and females of the AβPP/PS1 transgenic line, which was found to be ten-fold higher in 15-month-old females. Amyloid-β accumulation was more evident in the molecular layer of the cerebellum, but glia reaction was only observed in the granular layer of the older mice. The sex divergence was also observed in other neuronal, survival, and autophagic markers. The cerebellum plays an important role in the evolution of the pathology in this transgenic mouse model. Sex differences could be crucial for a complete understanding of this disease. We propose that the human population could be studied in this way. Sex-specific treatment strategies in human populations could show a differential response to the therapeutic approach.

The Impact of Older Age and Sex on Motion Discrimination.

PubMed

Conlon, Elizabeth G; Power, Garry F; Hine, Trevor J; Rahaley, Nicole

2017-01-01

Background/Study Context: Reports of age-related differences on motion discrimination tasks have produced inconsistent findings concerning the influence of sex. Some studies have reported that older women have higher thresholds than older men, with others finding that women have higher motion thresholds regardless of age group. Reports of the age at which declines in motion discrimination first occur also differ, with some studies reporting declines only in groups aged over 70 years, with others reporting that age-related decline occurs at a younger age. The current study aimed to determine whether the sex differences found occur because relative to men, women have greater difficulty extracting motion signals from noise (Experiment 1) or have greater difficulty making use of the available motion cues (Experiment 2) in these complex moving stimuli. In addition, the influence of these manipulations on groups aged under and over 70 years was explored. Motion discrimination measures were obtained using 39 older adults aged between 60 and 85 years (21 women) and 40 younger adults aged between 20 and 45 years (20 women). In Experiment 1, coherent motion and relative motion displacement thresholds were obtained. In Experiment 2, coherent motion thresholds were obtained for stimuli containing either 150 or 600 dots. In Experiment 1, the older group had significantly higher thresholds on the relative motion displacement and coherent motion tasks than a younger group. No differences in motion sensitivity were found in the older groups aged under or over 70 years. Women regardless of age group had significantly higher thresholds than men on both tasks. In Experiment 2, the older group had higher coherence thresholds than the younger group, and the number of dots presented had no influence on thresholds, for the older group or older women specifically. In the younger group, women had higher coherence thresholds than men with presentation of 150 but not 600 dots. There

Sex-related differences and age of peak performance in breaststroke versus freestyle swimming

PubMed Central

2013-01-01

Background Sex-related differences in performance and in age of peak performance have been reported for freestyle swimming. However, little is known about the sex-related differences in other swimming styles. The aim of the present study was to compare performance and age of peak performance for elite men and women swimmers in breaststroke versus freestyle. Methods Race results were analyzed for swimmers at national ranked in the Swiss high score list (during 2006 through 2010) and for international swimmers who qualified for the finals of the FINA World Swimming Championships (during 2003 through 2011). Results The sex-related difference in swimming speed was significantly greater for freestyle than for breaststroke over 50 m, 100 m, and 200 m race distances for Swiss swimmers, but not for FINA finalists. The sex-related difference for both freestyle and breaststroke swimming speeds decreased significantly with increasing swimming distance for both groups. Race distance did not affect the age of peak performance by women in breaststroke, but age of peak performance was four years older for FINA women than for Swiss women. Men achieved peak swimming performance in breaststroke at younger ages for longer race distances, and the age of peak swimming performance was six years older for FINA men than for Swiss men. In freestyle swimming, race distance did not affect the age of peak swimming performance for Swiss women, but the age of peak swimming performance decreased with increasing race distance for Swiss men and for both sexes at the FINA World Championships. Conclusions Results of the present study indicate that (i) sex-related differences in swimming speed were greater for freestyle than for breaststroke for swimmers at national level, but not for swimmers at international level, and (ii) both female and male swimmers achieved peak swimming speeds at younger ages in breaststroke than in freestyle. Further studies are required to better understand differences

Sex Differences and Within-Family Associations in the Broad Autism Phenotype

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Klusek, Jessica; Losh, Molly; Martin, Gary E.

2014-01-01

While there is a strong sex bias in the presentation of autism, it is unknown whether this bias is also present in subclinical manifestations of autism among relatives, or the broad autism phenotype. This study examined this question and investigated patterns of co-occurrence of broad autism phenotype traits within families of individuals with…

Relationships Between Meibomian Gland Loss and Age, Sex, and Dry Eye.

PubMed

Pult, Heiko

2018-02-12

This study evaluated relationships between meibomian gland loss (MGL) and age, sex, and dry eye. Dry eye and MGL of the lower eyelid was evaluated from 112 randomly selected subjects (66 women; mean age 62.8; SD ±15.7; and age range: 19-89 years) from Horst Riede GmbH, Weinheim, Germany. In addition, subjects were grouped into dry eye and non-dry eye by the Ocular Surface Disease Index (OSDI) score, lid-parallel conjunctival folds and non-invasive break-up time. Symptoms were evaluated by the OSDI. Meibography of the lower eyelid was performed using a Cobra camera (bon Optic, Lübeck, Germany), and images were analyzed by its digital grading tool. Data were analyzed by backward, multiple regression analyses and Pearson correlation. Analyzing all subjects, multiple regression analyses detected that age and dry eye status (dry eye diagnosis or OSDI) but not sex were significantly related to MGL. In both, non-dry eye (n=66) and dry eye subjects (n=46), dry eye status (OSDI) but not age or sex was significantly related to MGL. Ocular Surface Disease Index scores were significantly correlated with MGL, but this correlation was stronger among all subjects (Pearson correlation; r=0.536, P<0.001) and dry eye group subjects (r=0.520, P<0.001) than in non-dry eye group subjects (r=0.275, P=0.014). Dry eye group subjects showed significantly increased MGL of the lower eyelid. Age and dry eye status were related to MGL of the lower eyelid, but sex was not; dry eye status was the dominant factor.

Teacher Evaluations of Executive Functioning in Schoolchildren Aged 9-12 and the Influence of Age, Sex, Level of Parental Education.

PubMed

van Tetering, Marleen A J; Jolles, Jelle

2017-01-01

Executive functions (EFs) develop over the period of early childhood and adolescence up until young adulthood. Individual children differ substantially in the pace at which their EFs develop, and characteristics such as sex and the level of parental education (LPE) are thought to contribute to these differences. In the present study, we assessed age-related changes in EFs as perceived and evaluated by teachers and parents as well as the influence of sex and LPE on their evaluations. We used a newly developed observer-report questionnaire, the Amsterdam Executive Function Inventory (AEFI). The AEFI assesses three important components of the executive aspects of daily life behavior in 13 questions: Attention; Self-control and Self-monitoring; and Planning and Initiative taking. Teachers and parents evaluated these aspects of executive functioning in 186 schoolchildren in grades 3-6 (age: 9-12 years). Age effects within grades and differences in social economic status between the four participating schools were controlled. Results showed a significant increase in teacher-perceived EFs from third to fourth grades and from fifth to sixth grades. This development was influenced both by the sex of the child and by the LPE. As perceived by teachers, the component self-control and self-monitoring was higher for girls than for boys, and planning abilities were higher for children from families with a higher LPE. Additional analyses showed that there is a systematic and statistically significant difference between the evaluations of the teachers and that of parents. Parents reported higher scores for planning, whereas teachers reported higher scores for self-control and self-monitoring. Evaluations by parents and teachers were different for girls, but not for boys. These findings are important because they imply that the development of EFs as perceived by parents and teachers is influenced by child-related factors. Second, there are clear differences in evaluations between

Familial Aggregation and Segregation Analysis in Families Presenting Autoimmunity, Polyautoimmunity, and Multiple Autoimmune Syndrome

PubMed Central

Castiblanco, John; Sarmiento-Monroy, Juan Camilo; Mantilla, Ruben Dario; Rojas-Villarraga, Adriana; Anaya, Juan-Manuel

2015-01-01

Studies documenting increased risk of developing autoimmune diseases (ADs) have shown that these conditions share several immunogenetic mechanisms (i.e., the autoimmune tautology). This report explored familial aggregation and segregation of AD, polyautoimmunity, and multiple autoimmune syndrome (MAS) in 210 families. Familial aggregation was examined for first-degree relatives. Segregation analysis was implemented as in S.A.G.E. release 6.3. Data showed differences between late- and early-onset families regarding their age, age of onset, and sex. Familial aggregation of AD in late- and early-onset families was observed. For polyautoimmunity as a trait, only aggregation was observed between sibling pairs in late-onset families. No aggregation was observed for MAS. Segregation analyses for AD suggested major gene(s) with no clear discernible classical known Mendelian transmission in late-onset families, while for polyautoimmunity and MAS no model was implied. Data suggest that polyautoimmunity and MAS are not independent traits and that gender, age, and age of onset are interrelated factors influencing autoimmunity. PMID:26697508

Healthy Family 2009: Assuring Healthy Aging

MedlinePlus

... Issue Past Issues Healthy Family 2009 Assuring Healthy Aging Past Issues / Winter 2009 Table of Contents For ... please turn Javascript on. 7 Smart Steps to Aging Well 1. Control Blood Pressure You can have ...

On the ages of resonant, eroded and fossil asteroid families

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Milani, Andrea; Knežević, Zoran; Spoto, Federica; Cellino, Alberto; Novaković, Bojan; Tsirvoulis, Georgios

2017-05-01

In this work we have estimated 10 collisional ages of 9 families for which for different reasons our previous attempts failed. In general, these are difficult cases that required dedicated effort, such as a new family classifications for asteroids in mean motion resonances, in particular the 1/1 and 2/1 with Jupiter, as well as a revision of the classification inside the 3/2 resonance. Of the families locked in mean motion resonances, by employing a numerical calibration to estimate the Yarkovsky effect in proper eccentricity, we succeeded in determining ages of the families of (1911) Schubart and of the "super-Hilda" family, assuming this is actually a severely eroded original family of (153) Hilda. In the Trojan region we found families with almost no Yarkovsky evolution, for which we could compute only physically implausible ages. Hence, we interpreted their modest dispersions of proper elements as implying that the Trojan asteroid families are fossil families, frozen at their proper elements determined by the original ejection velocity field. We have found a new family, among the Griquas locked in the 2/1 resonance with Jupiter, the family of (11097) 1994 UD1. We have estimated the ages of 6 families affected by secular resonances: families of (5) Astraea, (25) Phocaea, (283) Emma, (363) Padua, (686) Gersuind, and (945) Barcelona. By using in all these cases a numerical calibration method, we have shown that the secular resonances do not affect significantly the secular change of proper a. We have confirmed the existence of the family resulting from cratering on (5) Astraea by computing a new set of resonant proper elements adapted to the resonance g +g5 - 2g6 : this new family has a much larger membership and has a shape compatible with simple collisional models. For the family of (145) Adeona we could estimate the age only after removal of a number of assumed interlopers. With the present paper we have concluded the series dedicated to the determination of

Sex modifies the relationship between age and gait: a population-based study of older adults.

PubMed

Callisaya, Michele L; Blizzard, Leigh; Schmidt, Michael D; McGinley, Jennifer L; Srikanth, Velandai K

2008-02-01

Adequate mobility is essential to maintain an independent and active lifestyle. The aim of this cross-sectional study is to examine the associations of age with temporal and spatial gait variables in a population-based sample of older people, and whether these associations are modified by sex. Men and women aged 60-86 years were randomly selected from the Southern Tasmanian electoral roll (n = 223). Gait speed, step length, cadence, step width, and double-support phase were recorded with a GAITRite walkway. Regression analysis was used to model the relationship between age, sex, and gait variables. For men, after adjusting for height and weight, age was linearly associated with all gait variables (p <.05) except cadence (p =.11). For women, all variables demonstrated a curvilinear association, with age-related change in these variables commencing during the 7th decade. Significant interactions were found between age and sex for speed (p =.04), cadence (p =.01), and double-support phase (p =.03). Associations were observed between age and a broad range of temporal and spatial gait variables in this study. These associations differed by sex, suggesting that the aging process may affect gait in men and women differently. These results provide a basis for further research into sex differences and mechanisms underlying gait changes with advancing age.

Identifying sex and age of akiapolaau

USGS Publications Warehouse

Pratt, T.K.; Fancy, S.G.; Harada, C.K.; Lindsey, G.D.; Jacobi, J.D.

1994-01-01

Methods for identifying the sex and age of the Akiapolaau (Hemignathus munroi), an endangered honeycreeper found only on the island of Hawaii, were developed by examination and measurement of 73 museum specimens and 24 live birds captured in mist nests. Akiapolaau probably undergo a single annual molt, with most birds molting between February and July. The mottled juvenal plumage is replaced by a first basic plumage characterized by yellowish-gray or yellowish-green underparts and often by retained wingbars. Male Akiapolaau may not attain adult plumage until their third molt. In adult females, only the throat and upper breast become yellow, whereas in adult males the superciliaries, cheeks, and entire underparts are yellow. Adult males have greater exposed culmen, gonys, wing chord, tail, and tarsus lengths than do females. Akiapolaau in first prebasic molt or older can be identified as to sex by culmen length, that of males being >23.4 mm.

The Dyadic Effects of Family Cohesion and Communication on Health-Related Quality of Life: The Moderating Role of Sex.

PubMed

Lim, Jung-Won; Shon, En-Jung

Spouses' ability to care for survivors can be particularly challenging because patients and spouses are interdependent and mutually influence one another. Family functioning such as family cohesion and communication may play a primary role in improving the health-related quality of life (HRQOL) of couples, given that cancer can influence family dynamics. The aims of this study were to investigate the mediating effect of family communication on the relationship between family cohesion and HRQOL and examine the moderating effect of sex on this relationship among cancer survivor-spouse dyads. A total of 91 cancer survivors with a diagnosis of breast, colorectal, or prostate cancer and their spouses were recruited from the University Hospital Registry in Cleveland, Ohio. The dyadic data were analyzed using structural equation modeling with the actor-partner interdependence mediation model. Findings demonstrated that the spouses' own perceived family communication mediated the associations between their own family cohesion and physical HRQOL and between the survivors' family cohesion and physical HRQOL. The spouse actor effects between family communication and HRQOL significantly differed by sex. Enhancing family cohesion and communication within the family can improve the spouses' HRQOL. Findings regarding sex differences serve as a rationale for gender-based approaches to improving HRQOL in survivorship care in the family context. Couple- and/or family-based interventions should be designed to enhance family cohesion and improve family communication skills for effective adjustments within couples and families. Supportive care within the family context can be promoted to address the diverse challenges of survivorship care.

A cross-sectional analysis of age and sex patterns in grip strength, tooth loss, near vision and hearing levels in Chinese aged 50-74 years.

PubMed

Wu, Yili; Pang, Zengchang; Zhang, Dongfeng; Jiang, Wenjie; Wang, Shaojie; Li, Shuxia; Kruse, Torben A; Christensen, Kaare; Tan, Qihua

2012-01-01

By focusing on four health variables, handgrip strength, near visual acuity, tooth loss and hearing level, this study examined the different patterns of age-related changes in these variables in Chinese aged from 50 to 74 years, as well as explored the relationship among the variables in a cross-sectional sample of 2006 individuals. The data exhibited high quality with a low missing rate of under 5% in any age groups for each variable. Effects of age and sex on the changes in the four health variables were assessed using multiple regression models with age and sex interactions included. Upon the highly significant effects of age on all four measurements, we observed substantially higher grip strength for men who, however, exhibited a faster age-related decline than for women. No sex difference or age-sex interaction was found in the number of teeth lost. Near visual acuity displayed a faster age-related decline in women than in men but neither the overall sex difference nor age-sex interaction reached statistical significance. For hearing function, while no sex difference was found at middle frequency, women had better sensitivity at high frequency and men were more sensitive at low frequency. Multivariate analysis did not support an age-related common mechanism underlying the four health variables. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

Age and Sex Differences in Rates of Influenza-Associated Hospitalizations in Hong Kong.

PubMed

Wang, Xi-Ling; Yang, Lin; Chan, Kwok-Hung; Chan, King-Pan; Cao, Pei-Hua; Lau, Eric Ho-Yin; Peiris, J S Malik; Wong, Chit-Ming

2015-08-15

Few studies have explored age and sex differences in the disease burden of influenza, although men and women probably differ in their susceptibility to influenza infections. In this study, quasi-Poisson regression models were applied to weekly age- and sex-specific hospitalization numbers of pneumonia and influenza cases in the Hong Kong SAR, People's Republic of China, from 2004 to 2010. Age and sex differences were assessed by age- and sex-specific rates of excess hospitalization for influenza A subtypes A(H1N1), A(H3N2), and A(H1N1)pdm09 and influenza B, respectively. We found that, in children younger than 18 years, boys had a higher excess hospitalization rate than girls, with the male-to-female ratio of excess rate (MFR) ranging from 1.1 to 2.4. MFRs of hospitalization associated with different types/subtypes were less than 1.0 for adults younger than 40 years except for A(H3N2) (MFR = 1.6), while all the MFRs were equal to or higher than 1.0 in adults aged 40 years or more except for A(H1N1)pdm09 in elderly persons aged 65 years or more (MFR = 0.9). No MFR was found to be statistically significant (P < 0.05) for hospitalizations associated with influenza type/subtype. There is some limited evidence on age and sex differences in hospitalization associated with influenza in the subtropical city of Hong Kong. © The Author 2015. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.

Age and Family Control Influences on Children's Television Viewing.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Rubin, Alan M.

1986-01-01

Indicates that (1) age and family control did not influence children's television viewing levels; (2) age influenced program preferences of children; (3) cartoon preferences related negatively to family control for the youngest groups; and (4) comedy and children's program preferences and television realism related positively to family control for…

The Interface of Family and Society in Sex Role Changes, Emphasizing the Saliency of Occupation.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Settles, Barbara H.

This paper develops a theoretical framework for examining how families interact with the society under conditions in which the expectations for sex roles are changing. The difference between mandated and voluntary change is examined and the cost-benefit ratio to families for participating in the process of change is evaluated in different…

Generation to Generation: The Heart of Family Medicine

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Winter, Robin O.

2012-01-01

According to the American Board of Family Medicine, "The scope of family medicine encompasses all ages, both sexes, each organ system and every disease entity." What makes the seemingly daunting task of practicing family medicine possible is that family physicians learn to utilize similar clinical reasoning for all of their patients…

The beneficial effect of family meals on obesity differs by race, sex, and household education: the national survey of children's health, 2003-2004.

PubMed

Rollins, Brandi Y; Belue, Rhonda Z; Francis, Lori A

2010-09-01

Studies have indicated that family meals may be a protective factor for childhood obesity; however, limited evidence is available in children with different racial, socioeconomic, and individual characteristics. The purpose of this study was to examine family meal frequency as a protective factor for obesity in a US-based sample of non-Hispanic white, non-Hispanic black, and Hispanic children age 6 to 11 years, and to identify individual, familial, and socioeconomic factors that moderate this association. Data were from the 2003 National Survey of Children's Health (n=16,770). Multinomial logistic regression analyses were used to test the association between family meal frequency and weight status, and the moderating effects of household structure, education, poverty level, and sex, by racial group. Non-Hispanic white children who consumed family meals every day were less likely to be obese than those eating family meals zero or a few days per week. A moderating effect for sex was observed in non-Hispanic black children such that family meal frequency was marginally protective in boys but not in girls. Higher family meal frequency was a marginal risk factor for obesity in Hispanic boys from low-education households, but not in girls from similar households. In conclusion, family meals seem to be protective of obesity in non-Hispanic white children and non-Hispanic black boys, whereas they may put Hispanic boys living in low-education households at risk. Greater emphasis is needed in future research on assessing why this association differs among different race/ethnic groups, and evaluating the influence of the quality and quantity of family meals on child obesity. Copyright 2010 American Dietetic Association. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Sex hormones in Malay and Chinese men in Malaysia: are there age and race differences?

PubMed Central

Chin, Kok-Yong; Soelaiman, Ima-Nirwana; Mohamed, Isa Naina; Ahmad, Fairus; Ramli, Elvy Suhana Mohd; Aminuddin, Amilia; Ngah, Wan Zurinah Wan

2013-01-01

OBJECTIVES: Variations in the prevalence of sex-hormone-related diseases have been observed between Asian ethnic groups living in the same country; however, available data concerning their sex hormone levels are limited. The present study aimed to determine the influence of ethnicity and age on the sex hormone levels of Malay and Chinese men in Malaysia. METHODS: A total of 547 males of Malay and Chinese ethnicity residing in the Klang Valley Malaysia underwent a detailed screening, and their blood was collected for sex hormones analyses. RESULTS: Testosterone levels were normally distributed in the men (total, free and non-sex hormone-binding globulin (SHBG) bound fractions), and significant ethnic differences were observed (p<0.05); however, the effect size was small. In general, testosterone levels in males began to decline significantly after age 50. Significant ethnic differences in total, free and non-SHBG bound fraction estradiol levels were observed in the 20-29 and 50-59 age groups (p<0.05). The estradiol levels of Malay men decreased as they aged, but they increased for Chinese men starting at age 40. CONCLUSIONS: Small but significant differences in testosterone levels existed between Malay and Chinese males. Significant age and race differences existed in estradiol levels. These differences might contribute to the ethnic group differences in diseases related to sex hormones, which other studies have found in Malaysia. PMID:23525310

Sex hormones in Malay and Chinese men in Malaysia: are there age and race differences?

PubMed

Chin, Kok-Yong; Soelaiman, Ima-Nirwana; Mohamed, Isa Naina; Ahmad, Fairus; Ramli, Elvy Suhana Mohd; Aminuddin, Amilia; Ngah, Wan Zurinah Wan

2013-01-01

Variations in the prevalence of sex-hormone-related diseases have been observed between Asian ethnic groups living in the same country; however, available data concerning their sex hormone levels are limited. The present study aimed to determine the influence of ethnicity and age on the sex hormone levels of Malay and Chinese men in Malaysia. A total of 547 males of Malay and Chinese ethnicity residing in the Klang Valley Malaysia underwent a detailed screening, and their blood was collected for sex hormones analyses. Testosterone levels were normally distributed in the men (total, free and non-sex hormone-binding globulin (SHBG) bound fractions), and significant ethnic differences were observed (p<0.05); however, the effect size was small. In general, testosterone levels in males began to decline significantly after age 50. Significant ethnic differences in total, free and non-SHBG bound fraction estradiol levels were observed in the 20-29 and 50-59 age groups (p<0.05). The estradiol levels of Malay men decreased as they aged, but they increased for Chinese men starting at age 40. Small but significant differences in testosterone levels existed between Malay and Chinese males. Significant age and race differences existed in estradiol levels. These differences might contribute to the ethnic group differences in diseases related to sex hormones, which other studies have found in Malaysia.

Woodcock age and sex determination from wings

USGS Publications Warehouse

Martin, F.W.

1964-01-01

Age of woodcock (Philohela minor) can be accurately determined throughout the year by differences in pattern, color, and wear of secondary feathers. Immature woodcock retain most secondaries during the postjuvenal molt that begins in July or August and ends in October. In contrast, subadults (first-year adults) and older woodcock molt all secondaries during the postnuptial molt beginning in June or July and ending in October. Retention of juvenal secondaries by immatures and molt of these feathers by adults form the basis for age determination. Sex of woodcock can be accurately determined by width of the outer three primaries, which are conspicuously narrower on males.

Maths performance as a function of sex, laterality, and age of pubertal onset.

PubMed

Sappington, John; Topolski, Richard

2005-07-01

Sex differences in math/spatial performance demand explanations. Within the biological view, the complexity and number of variables make the explanation difficult at best. Laterality and age of pubertal onset have been investigated prominently in this context but rarely considered as interactions in the same study. Some 468 college subjects with SAT MATH (SAT M) scores were divided into 12 groups defined by sex, laterality, and age (early, middle, and late) of pubertal onset. Significant main effects for sex and age of onset emerged, as did an interaction between lateral preference and pubertal onset. Generally males outperformed females. The combination of maleness, sinistrality, and early maturation was associated with high SAT M scores. Sinistrality and late maturation among females predicted very poor math performance.

Adolescent risk behaviours and mealtime routines: does family meal frequency alter the association between family structure and risk behaviour?

PubMed

Levin, Kate A; Kirby, Joanna; Currie, Candace

2012-02-01

Family structure is associated with a range of adolescent risk behaviours, with those living in both parent families generally faring best. This study describes the association between family structure and adolescent risk behaviours and assesses the role of the family meal. Data from the 2006 Health Behaviour in School-Aged Children survey were modelled using Multilevel Binomial modelling for six risk behaviour outcomes. Significantly more children from 'both parent' families ate a family meal every day and fewer 'hardly ever or never' did. Family structure was associated with boys' and girls' smoking, drinking, cannabis use and having sex and with girls' fighting. Frequency of eating a family meal was associated with a reduced likelihood of all risk behaviours among girls and all but fighting and having sex among boys. Eating a family meal regularly nullified the association between family structure and drinking alcohol for boys and girls and cannabis use for boys and reduced the effect size of alternative family structures on boys having sex and smoking. The family meal, associated with a reduced likelihood of many adolescent risk behaviours, reduces or eliminates the association with family structure and may therefore help to overcome inequalities in adolescent risk behaviours.

HIV Disclosure by Men Who have Sex with Men to Immediate Family over Time

PubMed Central

SEROVICH, JULIANNE M.; ESBENSEN, ANNA J.; MASON, TINA L.

2006-01-01

Previous researchers have comprehensively documented rates of HIV disclosure to family at discrete time periods yet none have taken a dynamic approach to this phenomenon. The purpose of this study was to address the trajectory of HIV serostatus disclosure to family members. Time to disclosure was analyzed from data provided by 135 HIV-positive men who have sex with men. Results indicated that mothers remain the family member to be told in greatest proportion, yet the proportion of family members told changes over time in a different manner than presented in earlier research. Additionally, the rate at which family members are told at all time points generally does not significantly differ from each other when accounting for characteristics of participants and family members. PMID:16124845

HIV disclosure by men who have sex with men to immediate family over time.

PubMed

Serovich, Julianne M; Esbensen, Anna J; Mason, Tina L

2005-08-01

Previous researchers have comprehensively documented rates of HIV disclosure to family at discrete time periods yet none have taken a dynamic approach to this phenomenon. The purpose of this study was to address the trajectory of HIV serostatus disclosure to family members. Time to disclosure was analyzed from data provided by 135 HIV-positive men who have sex with men. Results indicated that mothers remain the family member to be told in greatest proportion, yet the proportion of family members told changes over time in a different manner than presented in earlier research. Additionally, the rate at which family members are told at all time points generally does not significantly differ from each other when accounting for characteristics of participants and family members.

Influence of family dynamics on burden among family caregivers in aging Japan

PubMed Central

Kusaba, Tesshu; Sato, Kotaro; Fukuma, Shingo; Yamada, Yukari; Matsui, Yoshinori; Matsuda, Satoshi; Ando, Takashi; Sakushima, Ken; Fukuhara, Shunichi

2016-01-01

Background. Long-term care for the elderly is largely shouldered by their family, representing a serious burden in a hyper-aging society. However, although family dynamics are known to play an important role in such care, the influence of caring for the elderly on burden among caregiving family members is poorly understood. Objective. To examine the influence of family dynamics on burden experienced by family caregivers. Methods. We conducted a cross-sectional study at six primary care clinics, involving 199 caregivers of adult care receivers who need long-term care. Participants were divided into three groups based on tertile of Index of Family Dynamics for Long-term Care (IF-Long score), where higher scores imply poorer relationships between care receivers and caregiving family: best, <2; intermediate, 2 to <5; worst, ≥5. The mean differences in burden index of caregivers (BIC-11) between the three groups were estimated by linear regression model with adjustment for care receiver’s activity of daily living and cognitive function. Results. Mean age of caregivers was 63.2 years (with 40.7% aged ≥ 65 years). BIC-11 scores were higher in the worst IF-Long group (adjusted mean difference: 4.4, 95% confidence interval: 1.2 to 7.5) than in the best IF-Long group. We also detected a positive trend between IF-Long score and BIC-11 score (P-value for trend <0.01). Conclusion. Our findings indicate that family dynamics strongly influences burden experienced by caregiving family members, regardless of the care receiver’s degree of cognitive impairment. These results underscore the importance of evaluating relationships between care receivers and their caregivers when discussing a care regimen for care receivers. PMID:27450988

Refractive errors in a Brazilian population: age and sex distribution.

PubMed

Ferraz, Fabio H; Corrente, José E; Opromolla, Paula; Padovani, Carlos Roberto; Schellini, Silvana A

2015-01-01

To determine the prevalence of refractive errors and their distribution according to age and sex in a Brazilian population. This population-based cross-sectional study involved 7654 Brazilian inhabitants of nine municipalities of Sao Paulo State, Brazil, between March 2004 and July 2005. Participants aged >1 year were selected using a random, stratified, household cluster sampling technique, excluding individuals with previous refractive or cataract surgery. Myopia was defined as spherical equivalent (SE) ≤-0.5D, high myopia as SE ≤-3.0D, hyperopia as SE ≥+0.5D, high hyperopia as SE ≥+3D, astigmatism as ≤-0.5DC and anisometropia as ≥1.0D difference between eyes. Age, sex, complaints and a comprehensive eye examination including cycloplegic refraction test were collected and analysed using descriptive analysis, univariate and multivariate methods. The prevalence of astigmatism was 59.7%, hyperopia 33.8% and myopia was 25.3%. Astigmatism had a progressive increase with age. With-the-rule (WTR) axes of astigmatism were more frequently observed in the young participants and the against-the-rule (ATR) axes were more frequent in the older subjects. The onset of myopia occurred more frequently between the 2nd and 3rd decades of life. Anisometropia showed a prevalence of 13.2% (95% CI 12.4-13.9; p < 0.001). There was an association between age and all types of refractive error and hyperopia was also associated with sex. Hyperopia was associated with WTR axes (odds ratio 0.73; 95% CI: 0.6-0.8; p < 0.001) and myopia with ATR axes (odds ratio 0.66; 95% CI: 0.6-0.8; p < 0.001). Astigmatism was the most prevalent refractive error in a Brazilian population. There was a strong relationship between age and all refractive errors and between hyperopia and sex. WTR astigmatism was more frequently associated with hyperopia and ATR astigmatism with myopia. The vast majority of participants had low-grade refractive error, which favours planning aimed at correction of

Impact of biological aging on arterial aging in American Indians: findings from the Strong Heart Family Study.

PubMed

Peng, Hao; Zhu, Yun; Yeh, Fawn; Cole, Shelley A; Best, Lyle G; Lin, Jue; Blackburn, Elizabeth; Devereux, Richard B; Roman, Mary J; Lee, Elisa T; Howard, Barbara V; Zhao, Jinying

2016-08-01

Telomere length, a marker of biological aging, has been associated with cardiovascular disease (CVD). Increased arterial stiffness, an indicator of arterial aging, predicts adverse CVD outcomes. However, the relationship between telomere length and arterial stiffness is less well studied. Here we examined the cross-sectional association between leukocyte telomere length (LTL) and arterial stiffness in 2,165 American Indians in the Strong Heart Family Study (SHFS). LTL was measured by qPCR. Arterial stiffness was assessed by stiffness index β. The association between LTL and arterial stiffness was assessed by generalized estimating equation model, adjusting for sociodemographics (age, sex, education level), study site, metabolic factors (fasting glucose, lipids, systolic blood pressure, and kidney function), lifestyle (BMI, smoking, drinking, and physical activity), and prevalent CVD. Results showed that longer LTL was significantly associated with a decreased arterial stiffness (β=-0.070, P=0.007). This association did not attenuate after further adjustment for hsCRP (β=-0.071, P=0.005) or excluding participants with overt CVD (β=-0.068, P=0.012), diabetes (β=-0.070, P=0.005), or chronic kidney disease (β=-0.090, P=0.001). In summary, shorter LTL was significantly associated with an increased arterial stiffness, independent of known risk factors. This finding may shed light on the potential role of biological aging in arterial aging in American Indians.

Age, Sex, and Cultural Differences in the Meaning of Achievement.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Salili, Farideh

This study explored variations in the meaning and psychological dimensions of achievement among people of different ages, sexes, and cultures. Subjects were 504 male and female British and Chinese students aged 13-55 in Hong Kong. Repertory grid technique was used to elicit success situations and related constructs. A group grid was then…

Sex selection and restricting abortion and sex determination.

PubMed

Zilberberg, Julie

2007-11-01

Sex selection in India and China is fostered by a limiting social structure that disallows women from performing the roles that men perform, and relegates women to a lower status level. Individual parents and individual families benefit concretely from having a son born into the family, while society, and girls and women as a group, are harmed by the widespread practice of sex selection. Sex selection reinforces oppression of women and girls. Sex selection is best addressed by ameliorating the situations of women and girls, increasing their autonomy, and elevating their status in society. One might argue that restricting or prohibiting abortion, prohibiting sex selection, and prohibiting sex determination would eliminate sex selective abortion. But this decreases women's autonomy rather than increases it. Such practices will turn underground. Sex selective infanticide, and slower death by long term neglect, could increase. If abortion is restricted, the burden is placed on women seeking abortions to show that they have a legally acceptable or legitimate reason for a desired abortion, and this seriously limits women's autonomy. Instead of restricting abortion, banning sex selection, and sex determination, it is better to address the practice of sex selection by elevating the status of women and empowering women so that giving birth to a girl is a real and positive option, instead of a detriment to the parents and family as it is currently. But, if a ban on sex selective abortion or a ban on sex determination is indeed instituted, then wider social change promoting women's status in society should be instituted simultaneously.

A Review of Parental Involvement in Sex Education: The Role for Effective Communication in British Families

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Turnbull, Triece; van Wersch, Anna; van Schaik, Paul

2008-01-01

A review of recent literature (2000--2006) has been undertaken to investigate the role of sex education within the family context, in order to engage with the problems of sexual health in British society. The findings which emerged were categorized under the following five themes: (1) Parental roles regarding sex education; (2) The importance of…

The interaction of glottal-pulse rate and vocal-tract length in judgements of speaker size, sex, and age

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Smith, David R. R.; Patterson, Roy D.

2005-11-01

Glottal-pulse rate (GPR) and vocal-tract length (VTL) are related to the size, sex, and age of the speaker but it is not clear how the two factors combine to influence our perception of speaker size, sex, and age. This paper describes experiments designed to measure the effect of the interaction of GPR and VTL upon judgements of speaker size, sex, and age. Vowels were scaled to represent people with a wide range of GPRs and VTLs, including many well beyond the normal range of the population, and listeners were asked to judge the size and sex/age of the speaker. The judgements of speaker size show that VTL has a strong influence upon perceived speaker size. The results for the sex and age categorization (man, woman, boy, or girl) show that, for vowels with GPR and VTL values in the normal range, judgements of speaker sex and age are influenced about equally by GPR and VTL. For vowels with abnormal combinations of low GPRs and short VTLs, the VTL information appears to decide the sex/age judgement.

Neurobehavioral Deficits Consistent Across Age and Sex in Youth with Prenatal Alcohol Exposure

PubMed Central

Panczakiewicz, Amy L.; Glass, Leila; Coles, Claire D.; Kable, Julie A.; Sowell, Elizabeth R.; Wozniak, Jeffrey R.; Jones, Kenneth Lyons; Riley, Edward P.; Mattson, Sarah N.

2016-01-01

Background Neurobehavioral consequences of heavy prenatal alcohol exposure are well documented, however the role of age or sex in these effects has not been studied. The current study examined the effects of prenatal alcohol exposure, sex, and age on neurobehavioral functioning in children. Methods Subjects were 407 youth with prenatal alcohol exposure (n=192) and controls (n=215). Two age groups [child (5–7y) or adolescent (10–16y)] and both sexes were included. All subjects completed standardized neuropsychological testing and caregivers completed parent-report measures of psychopathology and adaptive behavior. Neuropsychological functioning, psychopathology, and adaptive behavior were analyzed with separate 2 (exposure history) × 2 (sex) × 2 (age) MANOVAs. Significant effects were followed by univariate analyses. Results No three-way or two-way interactions were significant. The main effect of group was significant in all three MANOVAs, with the control group performing better than the alcohol-exposed group on all measures. The main effect of age was significant for neuropsychological performance and adaptive functioning across exposure groups with younger children performing better than older children on three measures (language, communication, socialization). Older children performed better than younger children on a different language measure. The main effect of sex was significant for neuropsychological performance and psychopathology; across exposure groups, males had stronger language and visual-spatial scores and fewer somatic complaints than females. Conclusion Prenatal alcohol exposure resulted in impaired neuropsychological and behavioral functioning. Although adolescents with prenatal alcohol exposure may perform more poorly than younger exposed children, the same was true for non-exposed children. Thus, these cross-sectional data indicate that the developmental trajectory for neuropsychological and behavioral performance is not altered by

Neurobehavioral Deficits Consistent Across Age and Sex in Youth with Prenatal Alcohol Exposure.

PubMed

Panczakiewicz, Amy L; Glass, Leila; Coles, Claire D; Kable, Julie A; Sowell, Elizabeth R; Wozniak, Jeffrey R; Jones, Kenneth Lyons; Riley, Edward P; Mattson, Sarah N

2016-09-01

Neurobehavioral consequences of heavy prenatal alcohol exposure are well documented; however, the role of age or sex in these effects has not been studied. The current study examined the effects of prenatal alcohol exposure, sex, and age on neurobehavioral functioning in children. Subjects were 407 youth with prenatal alcohol exposure (n = 192) and controls (n = 215). Two age groups (child [5 to 7 years] or adolescent [10 to 16 years]) and both sexes were included. All subjects completed standardized neuropsychological testing, and caregivers completed parent-report measures of psychopathology and adaptive behavior. Neuropsychological functioning, psychopathology, and adaptive behavior were analyzed with separate 2 (exposure history) × 2 (sex) × 2 (age) multivariate analyses of variance (MANOVAs). Significant effects were followed by univariate analyses. No 3-way or 2-way interactions were significant. The main effect of group was significant in all 3 MANOVAs, with the control group performing better than the alcohol-exposed group on all measures. The main effect of age was significant for neuropsychological performance and adaptive functioning across exposure groups with younger children performing better than older children on 3 measures (language, communication, socialization). Older children performed better than younger children on a different language measure. The main effect of sex was significant for neuropsychological performance and psychopathology; across exposure groups, males had stronger language and visual spatial scores and fewer somatic complaints than females. Prenatal alcohol exposure resulted in impaired neuropsychological and behavioral functioning. Although adolescents with prenatal alcohol exposure may perform more poorly than younger exposed children, the same was true for nonexposed children. Thus, these cross-sectional data indicate that the developmental trajectory for neuropsychological and behavioral performance is not

Aging and sex hormones in males

PubMed Central

Decaroli, Maria Chiara

2017-01-01

ABSTRACT Several large cohort studies have disclosed the trajectories of sex steroids changes overtime in men and their clinical significance. In men the slow, physiological decline of serum testosterone (T) with advancing age overlaps with the clinical condition of overt, pathological hypogonadism. In addition, the increasing number of comorbidities, together with the high prevalence of chronic diseases, all further contribute to the decrease of serum T concentrations in the aging male. For all these reasons both the diagnosis of late-onset hypogonadism (LOH) in men and the decision about starting or not T replacement treatment remain challenging. At present, the biochemical finding of T deficiency alone is not sufficient for diagnosing hypogonadism in older men. Coupling hypogonadal symptoms with documented low serum T represents the best strategy to refine the diagnosis of hypogonadism in older men and to avoid unnecessary treatments. PMID:27831823

Sex education and adolescent sexual behavior: do community characteristics matter?

PubMed

Kraft, Joan Marie; Kulkarni, Aniket; Hsia, Jason; Jamieson, Denise J; Warner, Lee

2012-09-01

Studies point to variation in the effects of formal sex education on sexual behavior and contraceptive use by individual and community characteristics. Using the 2002 National Survey of Family Growth, we explored associations between receipt of sex education and intercourse by age 15, intercourse by the time of the interview and use of effective contraception at first sex among 15-19-year-olds, stratified by quartiles of three community characteristics and adjusted for demographics. Across all quartiles of community characteristics, sex education reduced the odds of having sex by age 15. Sex education resulted in reduced odds of having sex by the date of the interview and increased odds of using contraception in the middle quartiles of community characteristics. Variation in the effects of sex education should be explored. Research might focus on programmatic differences by community type and programmatic needs in various types of communities. Published by Elsevier Inc.

Age, Sex, and Religious Beliefs Impact the Attitude towards Cord Blood Banking.

PubMed

Sundell, Inger Birgitta; Setzer, Teddi J

2015-01-01

In this study, a self-administered questionnaire was used to assess opinions about stem cell research and cord blood banking. Three attitudes were examined: willingness to accept cord blood banking, willingness to accept embryonic stem cell research, and religious belief system. A total of 90 Wayne State University students enrolled in the study in response to an invitation posted on a web page for the university. Sex distribution among study participants was 79 females and eight males; three declined to state their sex. Support for cord blood banking was high (> 70%) among students. Students over the age of 25 years of age were more (85%) positive than students 18 to 24 years old (57%). They prefered a public cord blood bank over a private cord blood bank. Atheist/agnostic or spiritual/not religious students (> 90%), Catholic students (78%) and Christian students (58%) support cord blood banking. Age, sex and religion seems influence the student's attitude towards stem cell research and cord blood banking.

Methods of Suicide by Age: Sex and Race Differences among the Young and Old.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

McIntosh, John L.; Santos, John F.

1986-01-01

Annual official statistics for specific methods of suicide (firearms, hanging, poisons) by age for different sex and racial groups (Whites, Blacks, non-Whites excluding Black) were examined from 1960 to 1978. Comparisons among the age-sex-race groups, along with trends over time and differences in the methods employed, were noted. (Author/ABL)

Sex preference and contraceptive behaviour among men in Mbeya region, Tanzania.

PubMed

Mwageni, E A; Ankomah, A; Powell, R A

2001-04-01

While recent studies confirm parental child sex preference in less developed countries, its pattern varies. Son preference is especially prevalent in Bangladesh, China, India, and Pakistan. Sex preference in sub-Saharan Africa is a neglected area of enquiry. Completed research focuses on women's views to the neglect of men, despite the latter's importance as primary decision-makers. This study identifies factors influencing contraceptive behaviour among men in Mbeya region, Tanzania, demonstrating how it is affected by their preferred family sex composition. Data used were collected from a cross-sectional survey of 600 men aged 16-50 and six focus groups conducted in the region's rural and urban areas. Using single statements and Coombs' Scales, sex preference was found to be prevalent in the study area, with sons strongly preferred to daughters. Sex preference is significantly associated with the number of existing daughters a man has, his marital status, residence and occupation. Findings suggest programmes should be initiated to challenge men's attitudes towards one-sex family composition. Men should be educated about the advantages of small family sizes and persuaded that both children's sexes are equally important. Such measures can assist men in reconsidering their desired family sizes, reduce biases towards one sex, minimise marital problems and improve women's status. Efforts to increase contraceptive use in Tanzania will be hampered, however, if men maintain their preference for sons over daughters.

Sex differences, sexual selection, and ageing: an experimental evolution approach.

PubMed

Maklakov, Alexei A; Bonduriansky, Russell; Brooks, Robert C

2009-10-01

Life-history (LH) theory predicts that selection will optimize the trade-off between reproduction and somatic maintenance. Reproductive ageing and finite life span are direct consequences of such optimization. Sexual selection and conflict profoundly affect the reproductive strategies of the sexes and thus can play an important role in the evolution of life span and ageing. In theory, sexual selection can favor the evolution of either faster or slower ageing, but the evidence is equivocal. We used a novel selection experiment to investigate the potential of sexual selection to influence the adaptive evolution of age-specific LH traits. We selected replicate populations of the seed beetle Callosobruchus maculatus for age at reproduction ("Young" and "Old") either with or without sexual selection. We found that LH selection resulted in the evolution of age-specific reproduction and mortality but these changes were largely unaffected by sexual selection. Sexual selection depressed net reproductive performance and failed to promote adaptation. Nonetheless, the evolution of several traits differed between males and females. These data challenge the importance of current sexual selection in promoting rapid adaptation to environmental change but support the hypothesis that sex differences in LH-a historical signature of sexual selection-are key in shaping trait responses to novel selection.

Naked at Our Age: Talking out Loud about Senior Sex

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Davis, Melanie

2012-01-01

"Naked at Our Age" is an excellent resource for sexually interested and/or active adults over the age of 60. The book combines the author's personal reflections, questions and stories shared by older adults, and advice from sex therapists, sexuality educators, the author, and health care providers. The breadth of topics makes the book useful to…

Age, sex, marital status and suicide: an empirical study of east and west.

PubMed

Yip, P S

1998-02-01

The relationships among age, sex, marital status and suicidal behaviour in Australia and Hong Kong showed disparity in age-specific suicide rates among the four marital status groups, never married, married, widowed and divorced, for both sexes in the two locations. Examining the coefficients of preservation suggested the coefficient for never married to married in all cases was larger than 1, except for the groups of teenagers aged 15-19 years for both sexes and of elderly women aged 60 years or over in Hong Kong. The widowed or divorced groups have lower suicide rates than the married women among the elderly in Hong Kong. Hong Kong women seem not to have been benefited in marriage as much as men. Responsibility and workload in married life rather than low social status are the likely reasons for the relative high female suicide rate in Hong Kong. Possible cultural and environmental factors which are somewhat speculative (yet to be confirmed) are discussed.

Fitkids Treadmill Test: Age- and Sex-Related Normative Values in Dutch Children and Adolescents.

PubMed

Kotte, Elles M W; de Groot, Janke F; Bongers, Bart C; Winkler, Alexander M F; Takken, Tim

2016-11-01

Recent research has shown that the Fitkids Treadmill Test (FTT) is a valid and reproducible exercise test for the assessment of aerobic exercise capacity in children and adolescents who are healthy. The study objective was to provide sex- and age-related normative values for FTT performance in children and adolescents who were healthy, developing typically, and 6 to 18 years of age. This was a cross-sectional, observational study. Three hundred fifty-six children and adolescents who were healthy (174 boys and 182 girls; mean age=12.9 years, SD=3.7) performed the FTT to their maximal effort to assess time to exhaustion (TTE). The least-mean-square method was used to generate sex- and age-related centile charts (P3, P10, P25, P50, P75, P90, and P97) for TTE on the FTT. In boys, the reference curve (P50) showed an almost linear increase in TTE with age, from 8.8 minutes at 6 years of age to 16.1 minutes at 18 years of age. In girls, the P50 values for TTE increased from 8.8 minutes at 6 years of age to 12.5 minutes at 18 years of age, with a plateau in TTE starting at approximately 10 years of age. Youth who were not white were underrepresented in this study. This study describes sex- and age-related normative values for FTT performance in children and adolescents who were healthy, developing typically, and 6 to 18 years of age. These age- and sex-related normative values will increase the usefulness of the FTT in clinical practice. © 2016 American Physical Therapy Association.

Age and Sex Related Differences in Subcortical Brain Iron Concentrations among Healthy Adults

PubMed Central

Persson, Ninni; Wu, Jianlin; Zhang, Qing; Liu, Ting; Shen, Jing; Bao, Ruyi; Ni, Mingfei; Liu, Tian; Wang, Yi; Spincemaille, Pascal

2015-01-01

Age and sex can influence brain iron levels. We studied the influence of these variables on deep gray matter magnetic susceptibilities. In 183 healthy volunteers (44.7 ± 14.2 years, range 20-69, ♀ 49%), in vivo Quantitative Susceptibility Mapping (QSM) at 1.5T was performed to estimate brain iron accumulation in the following regions of interest (ROIs): caudate nucleus (Cd), putamen (Pt), globus pallidus (Gp), thalamus (Th), pulvinar (Pul), red nucleus (Rn), substantia nigra (Sn) and the cerebellar dentate nuclei (Dn). We gauged the influence of age and sex on magnetic susceptibility by specifying a series of Structural Equation Models. The distributions of susceptibility varied in degree across the structures, conforming to histologic findings (Hallgren & Sourander, 1958), with the highest degree of susceptibility in the Gp and the lowest in the Th. Iron increase correlated across several ROIs, which may reflect an underlying age-related process. Advanced age was associated with a particularly strong linear rise of susceptibility in the striatum. Nonlinear age trends were found in the Rn, where they were the most pronounced, followed by the Pul and Sn, while minimal nonlinear trends were observed for the Pt, Th, and Dn. Moreover, sex related variations were observed, so that women showed lower levels of susceptibility in the Sn after accounting for age. Regional susceptibility of the Pul increased linearly with age in men but exhibited a nonlinear association with age in women with a leveling off starting from midlife. Women expected to be post menopause (+51 years) showed lower total magnetic susceptibility in the subcortical gray matter. The current report is consistent with previous reports of age related variations of brain iron, but also adds to the current knowledge by reporting age-related changes in less studied, smaller subcortical nuclei. This is the first in-vivo report to show lower total subcortical brain iron levels selectively in women from

Age and sex related differences in subcortical brain iron concentrations among healthy adults.

PubMed

Persson, Ninni; Wu, Jianlin; Zhang, Qing; Liu, Ting; Shen, Jing; Bao, Ruyi; Ni, Mingfei; Liu, Tian; Wang, Yi; Spincemaille, Pascal

2015-11-15

Age and sex can influence brain iron levels. We studied the influence of these variables on deep gray matter magnetic susceptibilities. In 183 healthy volunteers (44.7 ± 14.2 years, range 20-69, ♀ 49%), in vivo quantitative susceptibility mapping (QSM) at 1.5T was performed to estimate brain iron accumulation in the following regions of interest (ROIs): caudate nucleus (Cd), putamen (Pt), globus pallidus (Gp), thalamus (Th), pulvinar (Pul), red nucleus (Rn), substantia nigra (Sn) and the cerebellar dentate nuclei (Dn). We gauged the influence of age and sex on magnetic susceptibility by specifying a series of structural equation models. The distributions of susceptibility varied in degree across the structures, conforming to histologic findings (Hallgren and Sourander, 1958), with the highest degree of susceptibility in the Gp and the lowest in the Th. Iron increase correlated across several ROIs, which may reflect an underlying age-related process. Advanced age was associated with a particularly strong linear rise of susceptibility in the striatum. Nonlinear age trends were found in the Rn, where they were the most pronounced, followed by the Pul and Sn, while minimal nonlinear trends were observed for the Pt, Th, and Dn. Moreover, sex related variations were observed, so that women showed lower levels of susceptibility in the Sn after accounting for age. Regional susceptibility of the Pul increased linearly with age in men but exhibited a nonlinear association with age in women with a leveling off starting from midlife. Women expected to be post menopause (+51 years) showed lower total magnetic susceptibility in the subcortical gray matter. The current report not only is consistent with previous reports of age related variations of brain iron, but also adds to the current knowledge by reporting age-related changes in less studied, smaller subcortical nuclei. This is the first in-vivo report to show lower total subcortical brain iron levels selectively in women

Timing of first sex before marriage and its correlates: evidence from India.

PubMed

Santhya, K G; Acharya, Rajib; Jejeebhoy, Shireen J; Ram, Usha

2011-03-01

While several studies have documented the extent of pre-marital sexual experience among young people in India, little work has been done to explore the factors that are correlated with the timing of pre-marital sexual initiation. This paper examines age at initiation of pre-marital sex, circumstances in which first sex was experienced, nature of first sexual experience and correlates of age at initiation of pre-marital sex. Life table estimates suggest that pre-marital sexual initiation occurred in adolescence for 1 in 20 young women and 1 in 10 young men. For the majority of these young people, their first sex was with an opposite-sex romantic partner. First sex, moreover, was unprotected for the majority and forced for sizeable proportion of young women. A number of individual, family-, peer- and community-level factors were correlated with age at first pre-marital sex. Moreover, considerable gender differences were apparent in the correlates of age at first pre-marital sex, with peer- and parent-level factors found more often to be significant for young women than men.

Family Structure and Approval Dependency in College Females

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Farley, Frank H.

1975-01-01

Approval dependency in college females was studied as a function of birth order, family size, and sibling sex with control over sib age separation. The results indicated no significant contribution of the family structure variables to approval dependency. (Author)

Limitations of backward integration method for asteroid family age estimation

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Radović, Viktor

2017-10-01

Determining the age of an asteroid family is important as it gives us a better understanding of the dynamics, formation and collisional evolution of a family. So far, a few methods for determining the age of a family have been developed. The most accurate one is probably the backward integration method (BIM) that works very well for young families. In this paper, we try to study its characteristics and limitations in more detail using a fictional asteroid family. The analysis is performed with two numerical packages: orbfit and mercury. We studied the clustering of the secular angles Ω and ϖ and obtained linear relationship between the depth of the clustering and the age of the family. Our results suggest that the BIM could be successfully applied only to families not older than 18 Myr.

Association of Social Support and Cognitive Aging Modified by Sex and Relationship Type: A Prospective Investigation in the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing

PubMed Central

Liao, Jing; Scholes, Shaun

2017-01-01

Abstract We examined whether between-persons differences and within-person changes in levels of social support were associated with age-related cognitive decline and whether these associations varied by sex and by relationship type. Executive function and memory scores over 8 years (2002–2010) were analyzed by mixture models among 10,241 adults aged ≥50 years in the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing. Between-persons differences and within-person changes in positive social support and negative social support were independently associated with cognitive decline in different ways according to sex and relationship type. Among men, higher-than-average positive social support from a spouse/partner was associated with slower cognitive decline (for executive function, βperson-mean×time-in-study = 0.005, 95% CI: 0.001, 0.010; for memory, βperson-mean×time-in-study = 0.006, 95% CI: 0.000, 0.012); whereas high negative social support from all relationship types was associated with accelerated decline in executive function (for all relationships combined, βperson-mean×time-in-study = −0.005, 95% CI: −0.008, −0.002). For women, higher-than-average positive social support from children (β = 0.037, 95% CI: 0.010, 0.064) and friends (β = 0.115, 95% CI: 0.081, 0.150)—but not from a spouse/partner (β = −0.034, 95% CI: −0.059, −0.009) or extended family (β = −0.035, 95% CI: −0.064, −0.006)—was associated with higher executive function. Associations between social support and age-related cognitive decline vary across different relationship types for men and women. PMID:28520853

Age and sex differences of risk factors of activity limitations in Japanese older adults.

PubMed

Monma, Takafumi; Takeda, Fumi; Noguchi, Haruko; Tamiya, Nanako

2016-06-01

The objective of the present study was to verify how socioeconomic and physical/mental health status would be associated with activity limitations by age and sex among older adults, using nationally representative cross-sectional data in Japan. The present study focused on 8373 older adults aged 65 years or older extracted from the Comprehensive Survey of Living Conditions conducted in 2007 by the Japanese Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare. Univariate and multiple logistic regression analyses and population-attributable risk were applied to validate the relationships of socioeconomic and physical/mental health status with activity limitations among the total population, and by age groups (young-old or old-old) and sex. Mental health showed the highest odds ratio and population-attributable risk in the total population. In addition, low back pain was associated with activity limitations regardless of age and sex. Other musculoskeletal diseases, such as arthropathy and osteoporosis, were related to activity limitations for women, regardless of age, whereas cardiovascular diseases, including angina pectoris/myocardial infarction and cerebral stroke, were associated with activity limitations for men in any age group. There were no statistically significant correlations between socioeconomic status and activity limitations in any groups. Mental health was the most important factor of activity limitations in Japanese older adults. Furthermore, low back pain regardless of age and sex, other musculoskeletal diseases only for women and cardiovascular diseases mainly for men could also be significant risk factors to activity limitations. Therefore, preventive approaches of activity limitations considering sex differences are important for older adults in Japan. Geriatr Gerontol Int 2015; ●●: ●●-●●. © 2015 Japan Geriatrics Society.

Parent-adolescent communication about sex in Filipino American families: a demonstration of community-based participatory research.

PubMed

Chung, Paul J; Borneo, Hena; Kilpatrick, Shelley D; Lopez, Donna M; Travis, Raphael; Lui, Camillia; Khandwala, Shefali; Schuster, Mark A

2005-01-01

Pregnancy rates among Filipino American adolescents exceed those of other Asian and Pacific Islander adolescents. Strong parent-adolescent communication may promote healthy sexual development and protect against adolescent sexual risk behaviors. We explored communication barriers between Filipino American parents and adolescents. Using community-based participatory research (CBPR), we collaborated with Filipino American community leaders, parents, and adolescents to design a focus-group study. Trained bilingual moderators conducted focus groups with 85 Filipino Americans (41 parents and grandparents and 44 adolescents aged 14-18 years) from various neighborhoods in Los Angeles. Sessions were recorded, transcribed, coded, and analyzed for themes. Focus-group participants appeared to divide sex information into 3 categories, which we termed facts, feelings, and values. Adolescents emphasized facts and feelings. Parents and grandparents emphasized facts and values. In general, facts were obtained through school, feelings through friends, and values through parents. The focus groups identified large barriers to value transmission, stemming from adolescent acculturation to the United States. Parents and grandparents felt that values were transmitted best through traditional Filipino respect for parents who often eschewed open discussion. Adolescents believed that open discussion was necessary for value transmission to occur. The result was bilateral withdrawal from family communication about sex. Our focus groups found that parent-child communication about sex, especially regarding values, was limited. Potential causes included conflicts between Filipino and US beliefs regarding respect for parents and open discussion. Our results raise important questions about the effect of acculturation on sex education for Filipino American adolescents and demonstrate potential advantages of CBPR.

Role of Estrogen and Other Sex Hormones in Brain Aging. Neuroprotection and DNA Repair

PubMed Central

Zárate, Sandra; Stevnsner, Tinna; Gredilla, Ricardo

2017-01-01

Aging is an inevitable biological process characterized by a progressive decline in physiological function and increased susceptibility to disease. The detrimental effects of aging are observed in all tissues, the brain being the most important one due to its main role in the homeostasis of the organism. As our knowledge about the underlying mechanisms of brain aging increases, potential approaches to preserve brain function rise significantly. Accumulating evidence suggests that loss of genomic maintenance may contribute to aging, especially in the central nervous system (CNS) owing to its low DNA repair capacity. Sex hormones, particularly estrogens, possess potent antioxidant properties and play important roles in maintaining normal reproductive and non-reproductive functions. They exert neuroprotective actions and their loss during aging and natural or surgical menopause is associated with mitochondrial dysfunction, neuroinflammation, synaptic decline, cognitive impairment and increased risk of age-related disorders. Moreover, loss of sex hormones has been suggested to promote an accelerated aging phenotype eventually leading to the development of brain hypometabolism, a feature often observed in menopausal women and prodromal Alzheimer’s disease (AD). Although data on the relation between sex hormones and DNA repair mechanisms in the brain is still limited, various investigations have linked sex hormone levels with different DNA repair enzymes. Here, we review estrogen anti-aging and neuroprotective mechanisms, which are currently an area of intense study, together with the effect they may have on the DNA repair capacity in the brain. PMID:29311911

[Lead intakes by different age-sex population groups from Chinese total diet study in 2000].

PubMed

Zhang, Lei; Gao, Junquan; Li, Xiaowei

2007-07-01

To estimate the dietary lead intakes by different age-sex population groups in China. The lead concentrations of food sample from 3rd Chinese total diet study were determined, and then were combined with the food consumption by population of ten age-sex groups, The lead intakes, and its distribution and dietary sources were obtained. It was found that the mean and median concentrations of lead in all food samples were 0.118 and 0.052mg/kg, respectively. The highest concentration of individual sample and mean concentrations of lead in preserved egg were 8.964mg/kg and 2.577mg/kg, respectively. The vegetable samples in Hubei Province were heavily contaminated. The lead intakes by different age-sex groups were estimated to be 54.9-112.7microg/day. The average dietary lead intakes by 2-7 years old group could reach 86.1% of PTWI, and individual lead intakes by about 30% children in this group exceed PTWI. But the average dietary lead intakes of other age-sex population groups ranged from 42.8% to 86.1% of PTWI. The main sources of dietary lead were cereals and vegetables in ten age-sex population groups, and could reach 72%-80% of total lead intakes. Although the dietary lead intakes by different age-sex population groups are all lower than PTWI, it should be decreased to a lower level. Moreover, the dietary exposures to lead are higher enough for 2-7 years old children and population in some provinces to be considered seriously.

Syphilis among middle-aged female sex workers in China: a three-site cross-sectional study.

PubMed

Liu, Hongjie; Dumenci, Levent; Morisky, Donald E; Xu, Yongfang; Li, Xiaojing; Jiang, Baofa

2016-05-10

This study addresses the lack of empirical studies about the epidemic of syphilis among middle-aged female sex workers (FSWs). The objectives of this study were to investigate prevalence of syphilis, and its potential risk factors among middle-aged FSWs in China. A cross-sectional study with respondent-driven sampling (RDS). A multisite study conducted at three Chinese cites (Nanning, Hefei, and Qingdao) with different levels of sexually transmitted diseases in 2014. 1245 middle-aged female sex workers who were over 35 years old (about 400 per study site). Unprotected commercial sex, and syphilis and HIV infection were biologically tested and measured. The RDS-adjusted prevalence of active syphilis was 17.3% in Hefei, 9.9% in Qingdao, and 5.4% in Nanning. The RDS-adjusted prevalence of prevalent syphilis was between 6.8% and 33.6% in the three cities. The proportion of unprotected sex in the past 48 h verified by the prostate-specific antigen test (PSA) was between 27.8% and 42.4%. Multiple log-binomial regression analyses indicate that middle-aged FSWs who had 5 or more clients in the past week prior to interviews and engaged in unprotected sex were more likely to be active syphilitic cases. Middle-aged FSWs who had rural residency were less likely to be active syphilitic cases. In contrast with previous studies that reported low prevalence of syphilis and high prevalence of protected sex among FSWs in China, both the prevalence of syphilis and unprotected sex were high among middle-aged FSWs. Evidence-based intervention programmes should be developed and evaluated among this vulnerable population in China and other countries with similar settings. Published by the BMJ Publishing Group Limited. For permission to use (where not already granted under a licence) please go to http://www.bmj.com/company/products-services/rights-and-licensing/

Estimating Small-area Populations by Age and Sex Using Spatial Interpolation and Statistical Inference Methods

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Qai, Qiang; Rushton, Gerald; Bhaduri, Budhendra L

The objective of this research is to compute population estimates by age and sex for small areas whose boundaries are different from those for which the population counts were made. In our approach, population surfaces and age-sex proportion surfaces are separately estimated. Age-sex population estimates for small areas and their confidence intervals are then computed using a binomial model with the two surfaces as inputs. The approach was implemented for Iowa using a 90 m resolution population grid (LandScan USA) and U.S. Census 2000 population. Three spatial interpolation methods, the areal weighting (AW) method, the ordinary kriging (OK) method, andmore » a modification of the pycnophylactic method, were used on Census Tract populations to estimate the age-sex proportion surfaces. To verify the model, age-sex population estimates were computed for paired Block Groups that straddled Census Tracts and therefore were spatially misaligned with them. The pycnophylactic method and the OK method were more accurate than the AW method. The approach is general and can be used to estimate subgroup-count types of variables from information in existing administrative areas for custom-defined areas used as the spatial basis of support in other applications.« less

Sex differences and within-family associations in the broad autism phenotype

PubMed Central

Klusek, Jessica; Losh, Molly; Martin, Gary E

2013-01-01

While there is a strong sex bias in the presentation of autism, it is unknown whether this bias is also present in subclinical manifestations of autism among relatives, or the broad autism phenotype (BAP). This study examined this question, and investigated patterns of co-occurrence of BAP traits within families of individuals with autism. Pragmatic language and personality features of the BAP were studied in 42 fathers and 50 mothers of individuals with autism using direct assessment tools used in prior family studies of the BAP. Higher rates of aloof personality style were detected among fathers, while no sex differences were detected for other BAP traits. Within individuals, pragmatic language features were associated with the social personality styles of the BAP in mothers but not fathers. A number of BAP features were correlated within spousal pairs. Finally, associations were detected between paternal BAP characteristics and the severity of children’s autism symptoms in all three domains (social, communication, and repetitive behaviors). Mother-child correlations were detected for aspects of communication only. Together, findings suggest that most features of the BAP express comparably in males and females, and raise some specific questions about how such features might inform studies of the genetic basis of autism. PMID:23188882

Variance in age-specific sex composition of Pacific halibut catches, and comparison of statistical and genetic methods for reconstructing sex ratios

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Loher, Timothy; Woods, Monica A.; Jimenez-Hidalgo, Isadora; Hauser, Lorenz

2016-01-01

Declines in size at age of Pacific halibut Hippoglossus stenolepis, in concert with sexually-dimorphic growth and a constant minimum commercial size limit, have led to the expectation that the sex composition of commercial catches should be increasingly female-biased. Sensitivity analyses suggest that variance in sex composition of landings may be the most influential source of uncertainty affecting current understanding of spawning stock biomass. However, there is no reliable way to determine sex at landing because all halibut are eviscerated at sea. In 2014, a statistical method based on survey data was developed to estimate the probability that fish of any given length at age (LAA) would be female, derived from the fundamental observation that large, young fish are likely female whereas small, old fish have a high probability of being male. Here, we examine variability in age-specific sex composition using at-sea commercial and closed-season survey catches, and compare the accuracy of the survey-based LAA technique to genetic markers for reconstructing the sex composition of catches. Sexing by LAA performed best for summer-collected samples, consistent with the hypothesis that the ability to characterize catches can be influenced by seasonal demographic shifts. Additionally, differences between survey and commercial selectivity that allow fishers to harvest larger fish within cohorts may generate important mismatch between survey and commercial datasets. Length-at-age-based estimates ranged from 4.7% underestimation of female proportion to 12.0% overestimation, with mean error of 5.8 ± 1.5%. Ratios determined by genetics were closer to true sample proportions and displayed less variability; estimation to within < 1% of true ratios was limited to genetics. Genetic estimation of female proportions ranged from 4.9% underestimation to 2.5% overestimation, with a mean absolute error of 1.2 ± 1.2%. Males were generally more difficult to assign than females: 6.7% of

Family Network, Workplace Network, and Their Influence on Condom Use: A Qualitative Study Among Older Female Sex Workers in China

PubMed Central

Hao, Chun; Guida, Jennifer; Morisky, Donald E.; Liu, Hongjie

2014-01-01

The objective of this study was to qualitatively explore the components of social networks and their influence on condom use among older female sex workers (FSWs) aged 35 years and older in China. In-depth interviews with 63 older FSWs and 6 focus groups interviews with pimps and owners of roadside salons and hotels were conducted in three Chinese cities. The mean age of participants was 42.6 years old (SD = 6.9 years) and the mean age of starting sex work was 38.6 years old (SD = 6.6 years). Two types of networks that influenced condom use were identified: family networks (relationship with children and husbands) and workplace networks (relationship with peers, clients, pimps and owners). Relationships between older FSWs and their children negatively influenced condom use. Low levels of network support and norms regarding condom use were observed in the relationship between older FSWs and their clients, whereas positive social support and norms were prevalent among older FSWs who had frequent contact with peers. Norms for condom use existed among pimps and owners, but were counterbalanced by monetary gains. Future HIV interventions for older FSWs should take the different features of social network components into consideration. PMID:25411685

Family Network, Workplace Network, and Their Influence on Condom Use: A Qualitative Study Among Older Female Sex Workers in China.

PubMed

Hao, Chun; Guida, Jennifer; Morisky, Donald E; Liu, Hongjie

2015-01-01

The objective of this study was to qualitatively explore the components of social networks and their influence on condom use among female sex workers (FSWs) aged 35 years and older in China. In-depth interviews with 63 older FSWs and 6 focus group interviews with pimps and owners of roadside salons and hotels were conducted in 3 Chinese cities. The mean age of participants was 42.6 years old (SD = 6.9 years) and the mean age of starting sex work was 38.6 years old (SD = 6.6 years). Two types of networks that influenced condom use were identified: family networks (relationship with children and husbands) and workplace networks (relationship with peers, clients, pimps, and owners). Relationships between older FSWs and their children negatively influenced condom use. Low levels of network support and norms regarding condom use were observed in the relationship between older FSWs and their clients, whereas positive social support and norms were prevalent among older FSWs who had frequent contact with peers. Norms for condom use existed among pimps and owners but were counterbalanced by monetary gains. Future human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) interventions for older FSWs should take the different features of social network components into consideration.

Age- and sex-related differences in the anthropometry and neuromuscular fitness of competitive taekwondo athletes.

PubMed

Nikolaidis, Pantelis Theodoros; Buśko, Krzysztof; Clemente, Filipe Manuel; Tasiopoulos, Ioannis; Knechtle, Beat

2016-01-01

Anthropometry and neuromuscular fitness have been shown to relate with taekwondo (TKD) performance; however, little information is available on the variation of these fitness components by sex and age in athletes practicing this sport. The aim of the present study was to examine the anthropometry and neuromuscular fitness of TKD athletes by sex and age. A total of 393 athletes (7-48 years old), separated into six age groups (7-9, 10-11, 12-13, 14-17, 18-32, and 33+), were examined for anthropometry and performed a series of neuromuscular fitness tests (flexibility, agility, muscle power, and isometric strength). An age × sex interaction on body mass, body height, and body fat percentage (BF, p ≤0.003, η 2 ≥0.045), but not on body mass index ( p =0.172, η 2 =0.020), was shown, where a larger increase in body mass and body height from 12-13 to 14-17 groups was observed in males than in females, and the sex difference in BF increased from 12-13 to 14-17 age group. An age × sex interaction on sit-and-reach (SAR) test, mean power output in the Bosco test, and Abalakov jump ( p ≤0.038, η 2 ≥0.031) was observed with larger differences between 12-13 and 18-32 groups in males than in females. In SAR, it was remarkable that the male athletes achieved similar scores as female athletes in the 18-32 group. An age × sex group interaction on measures of isometric muscle strength (right and left handgrip, trunk, and legs) was also shown ( p ≤0.002, η 2 ≥0.068), where larger differences in male than female athletes were observed between the 12-13 and 14-17 groups. From a practical perspective, coaches can use these findings as reference for the evaluation of their athletes. Because the anthropometric characteristics and neuromuscular fitness varied by sex (i.e., highest scores in males, except flexibility) and age (i.e., highest scores in the 18-32 age group) with unique sport-specific patterns in TKD athletes, these findings would be important for the

What Contributes to the (Im)Balanced Division of Family Work Between the Sexes?

PubMed Central

Lothaller, Harald; Mikula, Gerold; Schoebi, Dominik

2011-01-01

This study examines a comprehensive set of variables that have been proposed as explaining the imbalance of the division of family work between the sexes. The analyses use survey data of 735 dual-earner couples from Austria, the Netherlands, and Portugal. The results support theoretical explanations referring to time availability, gender ideology, relative resources, and the importance of characteristics of the family system. No support was obtained for the doing-gender perspective. Additional findings suggest that increased consideration of psychological concepts adds to the understanding of why women do more family work than men. The analyses revealed similarities, but also differences between the factors that contribute to the division of household labor and childcare. PMID:22318972

Abuse Experiences of Family Members, Child Maltreatment, and the Development of Sex Offending Among Incarcerated Adolescent Males.

PubMed

McCuish, Evan C; Cale, Jesse; Corrado, Raymond R

2017-02-01

Child sexual abuse is considered a risk factor for the development of sexual offending in adolescence. Beyond this, comparisons of the risk factor profiles between adolescent sex offenders (ASOs) and adolescent non-sex offenders (ANSOs) have uncovered minimal differences. However, differences between ASOs and ANSOs in terms of patterns in the abuse histories of their family members have rarely been studied. The aim in the current study was to retrospectively examine histories of abuse among family members of ASOs compared with ANSOs to determine whether and how these were related to youth abuse experiences and sexual offending in adolescence. The current study is based on a sample of 482 incarcerated male adolescents (ASOs = 67, ANSOs = 415). Latent class analysis was conducted to determine multidimensional familial abuse profiles, and a series of logistic regression models were used to examine the relationship between family abuse profiles, youth abuse experiences, and adolescent sexual offending. Overall, familial abuse profiles were related to subsequent youth abuse experiences and sexual offending, and these abuse profiles differentiated ASOs and ANSOs.

Family Homework and School-Based Sex Education: Delaying Early Adolescents' Sexual Behavior

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Grossman, Jennifer M.; Frye, Alice; Charmaraman, Linda; Erkut, Sumru

2013-01-01

Background: Early sexual activity can undermine adolescents' future school success and health outcomes. The purpose of this study was to assess the role of a family homework component of a comprehensive sex education intervention in delaying sexual initiation for early adolescents and to explore what social and contextual factors prevent…

How sex and age affect immune responses, susceptibility to infections, and response to vaccination

PubMed Central

Giefing-Kröll, Carmen; Berger, Peter; Lepperdinger, Günter; Grubeck-Loebenstein, Beatrix

2015-01-01

Do men die young and sick, or do women live long and healthy? By trying to explain the sexual dimorphism in life expectancy, both biological and environmental aspects are presently being addressed. Besides age-related changes, both the immune and the endocrine system exhibit significant sex-specific differences. This review deals with the aging immune system and its interplay with sex steroid hormones. Together, they impact on the etiopathology of many infectious diseases, which are still the major causes of morbidity and mortality in people at old age. Among men, susceptibilities toward many infectious diseases and the corresponding mortality rates are higher. Responses to various types of vaccination are often higher among women thereby also mounting stronger humoral responses. Women appear immune-privileged. The major sex steroid hormones exhibit opposing effects on cells of both the adaptive and the innate immune system: estradiol being mainly enhancing, testosterone by and large suppressive. However, levels of sex hormones change with age. At menopause transition, dropping estradiol potentially enhances immunosenescence effects posing postmenopausal women at additional, yet specific risks. Conclusively during aging, interventions, which distinctively consider the changing level of individual hormones, shall provide potent options in maintaining optimal immune functions. PMID:25720438

Cholesterol Curves to Identify Population Norms by Age and Sex in Healthy Weight Children

PubMed Central

Skinner, Asheley Cockrell; Steiner, Michael J.; Chung, Arlene E.; Perrin, Eliana M.

2012-01-01

Objective Develop clinically applicable charts of lipid values illustrating fluctuations throughout childhood and by sex among healthy weight children. Methods The National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (1999–2008) was used to estimate total cholesterol, high-density lipoprotein (HDL), low-density lipoprotein (LDL), and triglycerides by age and sex in healthy weight children age 3 to 17 years. Using LMS procedures, the authors created smoothed curves demonstrating population-based 50th percentile for age and the 75th and 95th percentiles. Results The curves were based on 7681 children meeting inclusion criteria. Total cholesterol, HDL, and LDL demonstrated peaks at approximately 8 to 12 years for boys. Similar peaks were evident for girls at slightly younger ages, approximately 7 to 11 years. Triglycerides showed peaks for girls, but values were similar across ages for boys. Conclusions The use of fixed lipid value cutoffs in established guidelines regardless of age or sex likely mislabels many children as abnormal. The authors’ charts may allow for a more nuanced interpretation based on population norms. PMID:22157422

Parentification, substance use, and sex among adolescent daughters from ethnic minority families: the moderating role of monitoring.

PubMed

Sang, Jina; Cederbaum, Julie A; Hurlburt, Michael S

2014-06-01

Guided by structural family systems theory, this study explored the relationship between parentification and adolescent daughters' sexual risk engagement and substance use. We also explored how adolescent reports of parental monitoring moderated the relationship between parentification and adolescent risk. Data were from a cross-sectional, cross-generational study of 176 mother-daughter dyads from low-income, inner-city, ethnic minority families. In this sample, which included a subset of mothers with HIV, parental physical symptoms were associated with slightly higher levels of parentification. Parentification was associated with adolescent daughters' intention to have sex (but not substance use) in a direction opposite to prediction. Higher parentification was associated with lower intention to have sex. Parental monitoring did not moderate relationships between parentification and adolescent risk. These findings highlight that despite the negative influence hypothesized in structural family systems theory, parentification was not associated with risk engagement of high-risk adolescent daughters in ethnic minority families with low income. © 2013 FPI, Inc.

Work-family conflict among members of full-time dual-earner couples: an examination of family life stage, gender, and age.

PubMed

Allen, Tammy D; Finkelstein, Lisa M

2014-07-01

Based on cross-sectional data from the 2008 National Study of the Changing Workforce, this study investigates relationships between gender, age, and work-family conflict across 6 family life stages. Participants were 690 married/partnered employees who worked 35 or more hours a week. Results indicated a small but negative relationship between age and work-family conflict. Work-family conflict was also associated with family stage, with the least amount of conflict occurring during the empty nest stage and the most occurring when the youngest child in the home was 5 years of age or younger. Gender differences were also observed. Specifically, men reported more work interference with family than did women when the youngest child in the home was a teen. Women overall reported more family interference with work than did men. Results concerning age and gender revealed a different pattern demonstrating that family stage is not simply a proxy for age. Age had a main effect on work-to-family conflict that was monotonic in nature and on family to-work conflict that was linear in nature. In conclusion, the results indicate gender, age, and family stage each uniquely relate to work-family conflict.

Sex- and age-based variation in transfusion practices among patients undergoing major surgery.

PubMed

Valero-Elizondo, Javier; Spolverato, Gaya; Kim, Yuhree; Wagner, Doris; Ejaz, Aslam; Frank, Steven M; Pawlik, Timothy M

2015-11-01

Data on hemoglobin (Hb) threshold levels for "appropriate" packed red blood cell (PRBC) transfusions have not taken into account patient-specific variables such as sex and age. We sought to define differences in perioperative transfusion practices based on patient sex and age among patients undergoing complex gastrointestinal (GI) and cardiothoracic-vascular (CT-V) surgical procedures. All patients undergoing any major GI or CT-V procedures between January 2010 and April 2014 at the Johns Hopkins Hospital were identified. Data on sex, age, as well as other clinicopathologic and procedures were collected and analyzed relative to transfusion practices (restrictive: transfusion at blood Hb < 7 vs liberal transfusion at Hb ≥ 7 g/dL). Among the 10,772 patients included in the study cohort, 4,689 (44.0%) were transfused with ≥ 1 PRBC. Median preoperative Hb was lower among women (12.3 vs 13.4 g/dL in men) and the aged (<65 years, 13.1 vs ≥ 65 years, 12.7 g/dL) patients (both P < .05). On adjusted analysis, male sex (odds ratio [OR], 1.13; 95% CI, 1.02-1.26; P = .03) and age ≥ 65 (OR, 1.77; 95% CI, 1.35-2.33; P < .001) were associated independently with an increased odds of receipt of ≥ 1 PRBC. Although sex did not seem to impact transfusion strategy, patient age did impact the relative trigger used by providers for a transfusion. Specifically, patients 65-74 years (OR, 2.87; 95% CI, 1.93-4.26) and those ≥ 74 years (OR, 3.42; 95% CI, 2.28-5.14) were at a much greater odds of being transfused liberally compared with patients <65 years old (both P < .05). The proportion of patients who had a potentially avoidable transfusion (ie, both trigger ≥ 7 and target ≥ 9 g/dL) was greater among aged patients (50%) compared with nonaged patients (41%; P < .001). Of note, a restrictive transfusion strategy did not increase the risk of overall morbidity among women (OR, 0.76; 95% CI, 0.59-0.99; P = .04) or aged (OR, 1.13; 95% CI, 0.87-1.47; P = .37) patients. Sex and age

Sex differences in the effects of juvenile and adult diet on age-dependent reproductive effort.

PubMed

Houslay, T M; Hunt, J; Tinsley, M C; Bussière, L F

2015-05-01

Sexual selection should cause sex differences in patterns of resource allocation. When current and future reproductive effort trade off, variation in resource acquisition might further cause sex differences in age-dependent investment, or in sensitivity to changes in resource availability over time. However, the nature and prevalence of sex differences in age-dependent investment remain unclear. We manipulated resource acquisition at juvenile and adult stages in decorated crickets, Gryllodes sigillatus, and assessed effects on sex-specific allocation to age-dependent reproductive effort (calling in males, fecundity in females) and longevity. We predicted that the resource and time demands of egg production would result in relatively consistent female strategies across treatments, whereas male investment should depend sharply on diet. Contrary to expectations, female age-dependent reproductive effort diverged substantially across treatments, with resource-limited females showing much lower and later investment in reproduction; the highest fecundity was associated with intermediate lifespans. In contrast, long-lived males always signalled more than short-lived males, and male age-dependent reproductive effort did not depend on diet. We found consistently positive covariance between male reproductive effort and lifespan, whereas diet altered this covariance in females, revealing sex differences in the benefits of allocation to longevity. Our results support sex-specific selection on allocation patterns, but also suggest a simpler alternative: males may use social feedback to make allocation decisions and preferentially store resources as energetic reserves in its absence. Increased calling effort with age therefore could be caused by gradual resource accumulation, heightened mortality risk over time, and a lack of feedback from available mates. © 2015 European Society For Evolutionary Biology. Journal of Evolutionary Biology © 2015 European Society For Evolutionary

Sexual Behavior Among Orphaned Adolescents in Western Kenya: A Comparison of Institutional- and Family-Based Care Settings.

PubMed

Embleton, Lonnie; Nyandat, Joram; Ayuku, David; Sang, Edwin; Kamanda, Allan; Ayaya, Samuel; Nyandiko, Winstone; Gisore, Peter; Vreeman, Rachel; Atwoli, Lukoye; Galarraga, Omar; Ott, Mary A; Braitstein, Paula

2017-04-01

This study sought to assess whether risky sexual behaviors and sexual exploitation of orphaned adolescents differed between family-based and institutional care environments in Uasin Gishu County, Kenya. We analyzed baseline data from a cohort of orphaned adolescents aged 10-18 years living in 300 randomly selected households and 19 charitable children's institutions. The primary outcomes were having ever had consensual sex, number of sex partners, transactional sex, and forced sex. Multivariate logistic regression compared these between participants in institutional care and family-based care while adjusting for age, sex, orphan status, importance of religion, caregiver support and supervision, school attendance, and alcohol and drug use. This analysis included 1,365 participants aged ≥10 years: 712 (52%) living in institutional environments and 653 (48%) in family-based care. Participants in institutional care were significantly less likely to report engaging in transactional sex (adjusted odds ratio, .46; 95% confidence interval, .3-.72) or to have experienced forced sex (adjusted odds ratio, .57; 95% confidence interval, .38-.88) when controlling for age, sex, and orphan status. These associations remained when adjusting for additional variables. Orphaned adolescents living in family-based care in Uasin Gishu, Kenya, may be at increased risk of transactional sex and sexual violence compared to those in institutional care. Institutional care may reduce vulnerabilities through the provision of basic material needs and adequate standards of living that influence adolescents' sexual risk-taking behaviors. The use of single items to assess outcomes and nonexplicit definition of sex suggest the findings should be interpreted with caution. Copyright © 2016 Society for Adolescent Health and Medicine. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Sexual behaviour among orphaned adolescents in western Kenya: a comparison of institutional- and family-based care settings

PubMed Central

Embleton, Lonnie; Nyandat, Joram; Ayuku, David; Sang, Edwin; Kamanda, Allan; Ayaya, Samuel; Nyandiko, Winstone; Gisore, Peter; Vreeman, Rachel; Atwoli, Lukoye; Galarraga, Omar; Ott, Mary A.; Braitstein, Paula

2016-01-01

Purpose This study sought to assess whether risky sexual behaviours and sexual exploitation of orphaned adolescents differed between family-based and institutional care environments in Uasin Gishu County, Kenya. Methods We analyzed baseline data from a cohort of orphaned adolescents aged 10–18 years living in 300 randomly-selected households and 19 Charitable Children’s Institutions. The primary outcomes were having ever had consensual sex, number of sex partners, transactional sex, and forced sex. Multivariable logistic regression compared these between participants in institutional care and family-based care, while adjusting for age, sex, orphan status, importance of religion, caregiver support and supervision, school attendance, and alcohol and drug use. Results This analysis included 1,365 participants aged ≥10 years; 712 (52%) living in institutional environments and 653 (48%) in family-based care. Participants in institutional care were significantly less likely to report engaging in transactional sex (AOR 0.46 95% CI: 0.3–0.72) or to have experienced forced sex (AOR=0.57 95% CI: 0.38–0.88) when controlling for age, sex, and orphan status. These associations remained when adjusting for additional variables. Conclusion Orphaned adolescents living in family-based care in Uasin Gishu, Kenya, may be at increased risk of transactional sex and sexual violence compared to those in institutional care. Institutional care may reduce vulnerabilities through the provision of basic material needs and adequate standards of living that influence adolescents’ sexual risk-taking behaviours. The use of single items to assess outcomes and non-explicit definition of sex suggest the findings should be interpreted with caution. PMID:28110864

Children of female sex workers and drug users: a review of vulnerability, resilience and family-centred models of care.

PubMed

Beard, Jennifer; Biemba, Godfrey; Brooks, Mohamad I; Costello, Jill; Ommerborn, Mark; Bresnahan, Megan; Flynn, David; Simon, Jonathon L

2010-06-23

Injection drug users and female sex workers are two of the populations most at risk for becoming infected with HIV in countries with concentrated epidemics. Many of the adults who fall into these categories are also parents, but little is known about the vulnerabilities faced by their children, their children's sources of resilience, or programmes providing services to these often fragile families. This review synthesizes evidence from disparate sources describing the vulnerabilities and resilience of the children of female sex workers and drug users, and documents some models of care that have been put in place to assist them. A large literature assessing the vulnerability and resilience of children of drug users and alcoholics in developed countries was found. Research on the situation of the children of sex workers is extremely limited. Children of drug users and sex workers can face unique risks, stigma and discrimination, but both child vulnerability and resilience are associated in the drug use literature with the physical and mental health of parents and family context. Family-centred interventions have been implemented in low- and middle-income contexts, but they tend to be small, piecemeal and struggling to meet demand; they are poorly documented, and most have not been formally evaluated. We present preliminary descriptive data from an organization working with pregnant and new mothers who are drug users in Ukraine and from an organization providing services to sex workers and their families in Zambia. Because parents' drug use or sex work is often illegal and hidden, identifying their children can be difficult and may increase children's vulnerability and marginalization. Researchers and service providers, therefore, need to proceed with caution when attempting to reach these populations, but documentation and evaluation of current programmes should be prioritized.

Influence of female sex and fertile age on neuromyelitis optica spectrum disorders.

PubMed

Borisow, Nadja; Kleiter, Ingo; Gahlen, Anna; Fischer, Katrin; Wernecke, Klaus-Dieter; Pache, Florence; Ruprecht, Klemens; Havla, Joachim; Krumbholz, Markus; Kümpfel, Tania; Aktas, Orhan; Ringelstein, Marius; Geis, Christian; Kleinschnitz, Christoph; Berthele, Achim; Hemmer, Bernhard; Angstwurm, Klemens; Weissert, Robert; Stellmann, Jan-Patrick; Schuster, Simon; Stangel, Martin; Lauda, Florian; Tumani, Hayrettin; Mayer, Christoph; Zeltner, Lena; Ziemann, Ulf; Linker, Ralf A; Schwab, Matthias; Marziniak, Martin; Then Bergh, Florian; Hofstadt-van Oy, Ulrich; Neuhaus, Oliver; Winkelmann, Alexander; Marouf, Wael; Rückriem, Lioba; Faiss, Jürgen; Wildemann, Brigitte; Paul, Friedemann; Jarius, Sven; Trebst, Corinna; Hellwig, Kerstin

2017-07-01

Gender and age at onset are important epidemiological factors influencing prevalence, clinical presentation, and treatment response in autoimmune diseases. To evaluate the impact of female sex and fertile age on aquaporin-4-antibody (AQP4-ab) status, attack localization, and response to attack treatment in patients with neuromyelitis optica (NMO) and its spectrum disorders (neuromyelitis optica spectrum disorder (NMOSD)). Female-to-male ratios, diagnosis at last visit (NMO vs NMOSD), attack localization, attack treatment, and outcome were compared according to sex and age at disease or attack onset. A total of 186 NMO/SD patients (82% female) were included. In AQP4-ab-positive patients, female predominance was most pronounced during fertile age (female-to-male ratio 23:1). Female patients were more likely to be positive for AQP4-abs (92% vs 55%; p < 0.001). Interval between onset and diagnosis of NMO/SD was longer in women than in men (mean 54 vs 27 months; p = 0.023). In women, attacks occurring ⩽40 years of age were more likely to show complete remission ( p = 0.003) and better response to high-dose intravenous steroids ( p = 0.005) compared to woman at >40 years. Our data suggest an influence of sex and age on susceptibility to AQP4-ab-positive NMO/SD. Genetic and hormonal factors might contribute to pathophysiology of NMO/SD.

Preschoolers' Beliefs about Sex and Age Differences in Emotionality.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Karbon, Mariss; And Others

1992-01-01

Assesses beliefs of 32 male and 35 female middle-class preschool children about the frequency and intensity with which girls, boys, women, and men experience anger, sadness, and happiness. Children's beliefs are complex; they vary as a function of the target person's age and sex and of the specific emotion. (SLD)

Familial 46,XY sex reversal without campomelic dysplasia caused by a deletion upstream of the SOX9 gene

PubMed Central

Layman, Lawrence C.; Ullmann, Reinhard; Shen, Yiping; Ha, Kyungsoo; Rehman, Khurram; Looney, Stephen; McDonough, Paul G.; Kim, Hyung-Goo; Carr, Bruce R.

2014-01-01

Background 46,XY sex reversal is a rare disorder and familial cases are even more rare. The purpose of the present study was to determine the molecular basis for a family with three affected siblings who had 46,XY sex reversal. Methods DNA was extracted from three females with 46,XY sex reversal, two normal sisters, and both unaffected parents. All protein coding exons of the SRY and NR5A1 genes were subjected to PCR-based DNA sequencing. In addition, array comparative genomic hybridization was performed on DNA from all seven family members. A deletion was confirmed using quantitative polymerase chain reaction. Expression of SOX9 gene was quantified using reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction. Results A 349kb heterozygous deletion located 353kb upstream of the SOX9 gene on the long arm of chromosome 17 was discovered in the father and three affected siblings, but not in the mother. The expression of SOX9 was significantly decreased in the affected siblings. Two of three affected sisters had gonadoblastomas. Conclusion This is the first report of 46,XY sex reversal in three siblings who have a paternally inherited deletion upstream of SOX9 associated with reduced SOX9 mRNA expression. PMID:24907458

[Chinese Total Diet Study in 2000. Cadium intakes by different age-sex population groups].

PubMed

Zhang, Lei; Gao, Junquan; Li, Xiaowei

2008-05-01

To estimate the dietary cadium intakes by different age-sex groups in China. The cadium concentrations of food sample from 3rd Chinese total diet study were determined, and then combine these data with the food consumption by population of ten age-sex groups, The cadium intakes, and its distribution and dietary sources were obtained. It was found that the mean and median concentrations of cadium in all food samples were 0.046 and 0.006 mg/kg, respectively. The cadium contents in shellfish and liver were far higher than other food staffs. The cadium intakes by different age-sex groups were estimated to be 12.0 - 25.9 microg/day, ranged from 30.3% to 67.0% of PTWI. The individual dietary cadium intakes by 14% children in 2 - 7 years old group exceed PTWI. Cereals, vegetables and seafood were the main sources of cadium exposure, and contributed about 80% of total intakes. Although the dietary cadium intakes by different age-sex groups are all lower than PTWI, they are increased in the past decade. Moreover, in some provinces, the cadium burden of people is heavy.

Relationship between cortisol reactivity to psychosocial stress and declarative memory decline during aging: Impact of age and sex.

PubMed

Dos Santos, Aline Talita; Leyendecker, Dayse Maria D; Costa, Ana Lucia Siqueira; de Souza-Talarico, Juliana Nery

2018-01-01

To analyze the relationship between memory performance and the neuroendocrine and cardiovascular response to acute psychosocial stress in healthy older people, and the sex and age impact in this relationship. We randomly selected 100 literate older adults, without cognitive or functional impairment. The neuroendocrine stress response was evaluated by measuring the concentration of salivary cortisol, whereas cardiovascular reactions were determined based on blood pressure and heart rate measures taken before, during and after participant exposure to an acute psychosocial stressor (the Trier social stress test [TSST]). Memory performance was evaluated by applying the word pairs test before and after the TSST. A significant reduction in the word pair test scores was observed after the TSST, and a negative correlation between cortisol concentration and immediate and delayed recall of the word pair. Cortisol concentration associated with age, sex and education explained memory performance variability before and after the TSST. The results showed that the influence of acute stress on memory performance during aging might vary according to age and sex, highlighting potential differences in the vulnerability of older individuals to the neurotoxic effects of stress exposure on memory and consequently on the development of cognitive disorders. Geriatr Gerontol Int 2018; 18: 169-176. © 2017 Japan Geriatrics Society.

Odour-Mediated Orientation of Beetles Is Influenced by Age, Sex and Morph

PubMed Central

Arnold, Sarah E. J.; Stevenson, Philip C.; Belmain, Steven R.

2012-01-01

The behaviour of insects is dictated by a combination of factors and may vary considerably between individuals, but small insects are often considered en masse and thus these differences can be overlooked. For example, the cowpea bruchid Callosobruchus maculatus F. exists naturally in two adult forms: the active (flight) form for dispersal, and the inactive (flightless), more fecund but shorter-lived form. Given that these morphs show dissimilar biology, it is possible that they differ in odour-mediated orientation and yet studies of this species frequently neglect to distinguish morph type, or are carried out only on the inactive morph. Along with sex and age of individual, adult morph could be an important variable determining the biology of this and similar species, informing studies on evolution, ecology and pest management. We used an olfactometer with motion-tracking to investigate whether the olfactory behaviour and orientation of C. maculatus towards infested and uninfested cowpeas and a plant-derived repellent compound, methyl salicylate, differed between morphs or sexes. We found significant differences between the behaviour of male and female beetles and beetles of different ages, as well as interactive effects of sex, morph and age, in response to both host and repellent odours. This study demonstrates that behavioural experiments on insects should control for sex and age, while also considering differences between adult morphs where present in insect species. This finding has broad implications for fundamental entomological research, particularly when exploring the relationships between physiology, behaviour and evolutionary biology, and the application of crop protection strategies. PMID:23145074

Age-related sex differences in language lateralization: A magnetoencephalography study in children.

PubMed

Yu, Vickie Y; MacDonald, Matt J; Oh, Anna; Hua, Gordon N; De Nil, Luc F; Pang, Elizabeth W

2014-09-01

It is well supported by behavioral and neuroimaging studies that typical language function is lateralized to the left hemisphere in the adult brain and this laterality is less well defined in children. The behavioral literature suggests there maybe be sex differences in language development, but this has not been examined systematically with neuroimaging. In this study, magnetoencephalography was used to investigate the spatiotemporal patterns of language lateralization as a function of age and sex. Eighty typically developing children (46 female, 34 male; 4-18 years) participated in an overt visual verb generation task. An analysis method called differential beamforming was used to analyze language-related changes in oscillatory activity referred to as low-gamma event-related desynchrony (ERD). The proportion of ERD over language areas relative to total ERD was calculated. We found different patterns of laterality between boys and girls. Boys showed left-hemisphere lateralization in the frontal and temporal language-related areas across age groups, whereas girls showed a more bilateral pattern, particularly in frontal language-related areas. Differences in patterns of ERD were most striking between boys and girls in the younger age groups, and these patterns became more similar with increasing age, specifically in the preteen years. Our findings show sex differences in language lateralization during childhood; however, these differences do not seem to persist into adulthood. We present possible explanations for these differences. We also discuss the implications of these findings for presurgical language mapping in children and highlight the importance of examining the question of sex-related language differences across development.

Differences in Prevalence of Symptomatic Zika Virus Infection, by Age and Sex-Puerto Rico, 2016.

PubMed

Lozier, Matthew J; Burke, Rachel M; Lopez, Juan; Acevedo, Veronica; Amador, Manuel; Read, Jennifer S; Jara, Amanda; Waterman, Stephen H; Barrera, Roberto; Muñoz-Jordan, Jorge; Rivera-Garcia, Brenda; Sharp, Tyler M

2018-05-05

During the outbreak of Zika virus (ZIKV) disease in Puerto Rico in 2016, nonpregnant women aged 20-39 years were disproportionately identified with ZIKV disease. We used household-based cluster investigations to determine whether this disparity was associated with age- or sex-dependent differences in the rate of ZIKV infection or reported symptoms. Participation was offered to residents of households within a 100-m radius of the residences of a convenience sample of 19 laboratory-confirmed ZIKV disease cases. Participants answered a questionnaire and provided specimens for diagnostic testing by reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) and enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). Among 367 study participants, 114 (31.1%) were laboratory positive for ZIKV infection, of whom 30% reported a recent illness (defined as self-reported rash or arthralgia) attributable to ZIKV infection. Age and sex were not associated with ZIKV infection. Female sex (adjusted prevalence ratio [aPR], 2.28; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.40, 3.67), age <40 years (aPR, 2.39; 95% CI, 1.55, 3.70), and asthma (aPR, 1.63; 95% CI, 1.12, 2.37) were independently associated with symptomatic infection. Although neither female sex nor age were associated with an increased prevalence of ZIKV infection, both were associated with symptomatic infection. Further investigation to identify a potential mechanism of age- and sex-dependent differences in reporting symptomatic ZIKV infection is warranted.

Age- and sex-specific mortality and population structure in sea otters

USGS Publications Warehouse

Bodkin, James L.; Burdin, A.M.; Ryazanov, D.A.

2000-01-01

We used 742 beach-cast carcasses to characterize age- and sex-specific sea otter mortality during the winter of 1990-1991 at Bering Island, Russia. We also examined 363 carcasses recovered after the 1989 grounding of the T/V Exxon Valdez, to characterize age and sex composition in the living western Prince William Sound (WPWS) sea otter population. At Bering Island, mortality was male-biased (81%), and 75% were adults. The WPWS population was female-biased (59%) and most animals were subadult (79% of the males and 45% of the females). In the decade prior to 1990-1991 we found increasing sea otter densities (particularly among males), declining prey resources, and declining weights in adult male sea otters at Bering Island. Our findings suggest the increased mortality at Bering Island in 1990-1991 was a density-dependent population response. We propose male-maintained breeding territories and exclusion of juvenile females by adult females, providing a mechanism for maintaining densities in female areas below densities in male areas and for potentially moderating the effects of prey reductions on the female population. Increased adult male mortality at Bering Island in 1990-1991 likely modified the sex and age class structure there toward that observed in Prince William Sound.

Life circumstances of women entering sex work in Nagaland, India.

PubMed

Bowen, Kathryn J; Dzuvichu, Bernice; Rungsung, Rachel; Devine, Alexandra E; Hocking, Jane; Kermode, Michelle

2011-11-01

The study objective was to enhance understanding of female sex workers' lives in Nagaland, India (one of the country's highest HIV prevalence states), to inform the development of interventions to reduce HIV transmission and assist women who want to leave sex work. A cross-sectional survey (n = 220) and semi-structured interviews (n = 30) were conducted with sex workers. Topics included the following: life situation currently and at time of initial engagement in sex work, circumstances of first sex work occasion, and current patterns of sex work. Participants' lives at time of entry into sex work were socio-culturally and economically vulnerable as evidenced by the early age of sexual debut, low levels of education, unemployment, absence of protective male partners, and poor relationships with families. Participants experienced high levels of mobility, insecure accommodation, the need to financially support family, and the demand to give a portion of their income to others. The use of alcohol and other drugs, including heroin, was widespread. For these women, sex work can be seen as a pragmatic option for earning sufficient income to live. The women's lives would be improved by strategies to promote their health, ensure their safety, and protect their rights as long as they are engaging in sex work. This is likely to benefit not only the sex workers but also their children, their families, and the wider community. The development of alternative employment opportunities is vital to protect against entry into sex work and to support women who want to exit sex work.

Sex, Aging, and Preexisting Cerebral Ischemic Disease in Patients With Aortic Stenosis

PubMed Central

Wang, Ping; Acker, Michael A.; Bilello, Michel; Melhem, Elias R.; Stambrook, Elizabeth; Ratcliffe, Sarah J.; Floyd, Thomas F.

2011-01-01

Background Patients undergoing cardiac surgery have a high frequency of preexisting cerebral ischemic lesions, the presence of which appears to predict cognitive sequelae. Patients undergoing aortic valve replacement for aortic stenosis (AS) incur an exceptionally high risk for perioperative cerebral ischemia. The extreme risk in this subgroup may arise from the preexisting burden of cerebral ischemic disease. We tested the hypotheses that increasing age, female sex, coronary artery disease, and the severity of AS are predictive of the severity of preexisting cerebral ischemic lesions. Methods A total of 95 subjects were included in this study. Subjects were imaged on 1.5 Tesla magnetic resonance imaging scanners to obtain multimodal image sets which were used for the automatic segmentation of cerebral lesion volume. The dependence of lesion volume upon age, sex, coronary artery disease, and the severity of AS were tested. Results The results demonstrate a strong correlation between aging, female sex, and white matter and ischemia-like lesion volume in patients with aortic stenosis. Conclusions Women and those of advanced age presenting for aortic valve replacement for AS may incur a particularly high risk for postoperative neurologic sequelae due to an exceptional preexisting burden of cerebral ischemic disease. PMID:20868818

Apolipoprotein E and Alzheimer disease: Genotype-specific risks by age and sex

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Bickeboeller, H.; Babron, M.C.; Clerget-Darpoux, F.

1997-02-01

The distribution of apolipoprotein E (APOE) genotypes as a function of age and sex has been examined in a French population of 417 Alzheimer disease (AD) patients and 1,030 control subjects. When compared to the APOE {epsilon}3 allele, an increased risk associated with the APOE {epsilon}4 allele (odds ratio [OR] [{epsilon}4] = 2.7 with 95% confidence interval [CI] = 2.0-3.6; P < .001) and a protective effect of the APOE {epsilon}2 allele (OR[{epsilon}2] = 0.5 with 95% CI = 0.3-0.98; P = .012) were retrieved. An effect of the {epsilon}4 allele dosage on susceptibility was confirmed (OR[{epsilon}4/{epsilon}4] vs. the {epsilon}3/{epsilon}3more » genotype = 11.2 [95% CI = 4.0-31.6]; OR[{epsilon}3/{epsilon}4] vs. the {epsilon}3/{epsilon}3 genotype = 2.2 [95% Cl = 1.5-3.5]). The frequency of the {epsilon}4 allele was lower in male cases than in female cases, but, since a similar difference was found in controls, this does not lead to a difference in OR between sex. ORs for the {epsilon}4 allele versus the {epsilon}3 allele, OR({epsilon}4), were not equal in all age classes: OR({epsilon}4) in the extreme groups with onset at < 60 years or > 79 years were significantly lower than those from the age groups 60-79 years. In {epsilon}3/{epsilon}4 individuals, sex-specific lifetime risk estimates by age 85 years (i.e., sex-specific penetrances by age 85 years) were 0.14 (95% CI 0.04-0.30) for men and 0.17 (95% CI 0.09-0.28) for women. 53 refs., 1 fig., 3 tabs.« less

Sex and age differences in attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder symptoms and diagnoses: implications for DSM-V and ICD-11.

PubMed

Ramtekkar, Ujjwal P; Reiersen, Angela M; Todorov, Alexandre A; Todd, Richard D

2010-03-01

To examine gender and age differences in attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) symptom endorsement in a large community-based sample. Families with four or more full siblings ascertained from Missouri birth records completed telephone interviews regarding lifetime DSM-IV ADHD symptoms and the Strengths and Weaknesses of ADHD-Symptoms and Normal-behavior (SWAN) questionnaire for current ADHD symptoms. Complete data were available for 9,380 subjects aged 7 through 29 years. Lifetime and current DSM-IV-like ADHD diagnoses were assigned by the DSM-IV symptom criteria. Linear regression was used to examine sex and age effects on SWAN ADHD symptom scores. Logistic regression was used to examine sex and age effects on specific ADHD diagnoses. Fractional polynomial graphs were used to examine ADHD symptom count variations across age. Overall prevalence of current DSM-IV-like ADHD was 9.2% with a male:female ratio of 2.28:1. The prevalence of DSM-IV-like ADHD was highest in children. Gender differences in DSM-IV-like ADHD subtype prevalences were highest in adolescents. On average, individuals with lifetime DSM-IV-like ADHD diagnoses had elevated current ADHD symptoms even as adolescents or adults. Lower male:female ratios than reported in some clinic-based studies suggest that females are underdiagnosed in the community. Although they may no longer meet the full symptom criteria, young adults with a history of lifetime DSM-IV-like ADHD maintain higher levels of ADHD symptoms compared with the general population. The use of age-specific diagnostic criteria should be considered for DSM-V and ICD-11.

Vitamin D intakes of children differ by race/ethnicity, sex, age, and income in the United States, 2007 to 2010.

PubMed

Moore, Carolyn E; Radcliffe, John D; Liu, Yan

2014-06-01

The 2007-2010 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey was used to estimate vitamin D intakes of children 1 to 18 years old in the United States by race/ethnicity, sex, age, and family using 24-hour dietary intake recalls and dietary supplement use questionnaires. We hypothesized that total, dietary, and supplemental vitamin D intakes of children would differ by race/ethnicity, sex, age, and income. Statistical analyses of weighted data were performed using Statistical Analysis Software (V 9.2) to estimate means ± SE. Race and ethnic intake differences controlling for poverty income ratio (PIR), sex, and age were assessed by analysis of covariance. Total (dietary and supplement) vitamin D intake was greater in the high (7.9 ± 0.3 μg/d) vs the medium (6.5 ± 0.3 μg/d) income group, but not the low (7.2 ± 0.2 μg/d) PIR group. Total vitamin D intake of non-Hispanic (NH) white children (8.1 ± 0.2 μg/d) was greater than Hispanic (7.0 ± 0.2 μg/d) and NH black (5.9 ± 0.2 μg/d) children. Total vitamin D intake declined with age, and intake by boys was higher than girls. Only 17.4% of the children consumed supplements containing vitamin D. Overall, mean intake of vitamin D by all children in each age and ethnic group was lower than the estimated average requirement for vitamin D. Public health efforts should encourage consumption of foods high in vitamin D, expand the number of foods fortified, and target health messages to parents to increase use of vitamin D supplements by children. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Association of Social Support and Cognitive Aging Modified by Sex and Relationship Type: A Prospective Investigation in the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing.

PubMed

Liao, Jing; Scholes, Shaun

2017-10-01

We examined whether between-persons differences and within-person changes in levels of social support were associated with age-related cognitive decline and whether these associations varied by sex and by relationship type. Executive function and memory scores over 8 years (2002-2010) were analyzed by mixture models among 10,241 adults aged ≥50 years in the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing. Between-persons differences and within-person changes in positive social support and negative social support were independently associated with cognitive decline in different ways according to sex and relationship type. Among men, higher-than-average positive social support from a spouse/partner was associated with slower cognitive decline (for executive function, βperson-mean×time-in-study = 0.005, 95% CI: 0.001, 0.010; for memory, βperson-mean×time-in-study = 0.006, 95% CI: 0.000, 0.012); whereas high negative social support from all relationship types was associated with accelerated decline in executive function (for all relationships combined, βperson-mean×time-in-study = -0.005, 95% CI: -0.008, -0.002). For women, higher-than-average positive social support from children (β = 0.037, 95% CI: 0.010, 0.064) and friends (β = 0.115, 95% CI: 0.081, 0.150)-but not from a spouse/partner (β = -0.034, 95% CI: -0.059, -0.009) or extended family (β = -0.035, 95% CI: -0.064, -0.006)-was associated with higher executive function. Associations between social support and age-related cognitive decline vary across different relationship types for men and women. © The Author(s) 2017. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Mothers’ Parenting and Child Sex Differences in Behavior Problems among African American Preschoolers

PubMed Central

Barnett, Melissa A.; Scaramella, Laura V.

2014-01-01

Sex differences in rates of behavior problems, including internalizing and externalizing problems, begin to emerge during early childhood. These sex differences may occur because mothers parent their sons and daughters differently, or because the impact of parenting on behavior problems is different for boys and girls. This study examines whether associations between observations of mothers’ positive and negative parenting and children’s externalizing and internalizing behaviors vary as a function of child sex. The sample consists of 137 African American, low-income families with one sibling approximately two-years-old and the closest aged older sibling who is approximately four-years-old. Results from fixed-effects within-family models indicate clear sex differences regardless of child age. Mothers were observed to use less positive parenting with sons than with daughters. Higher levels of observed negative parenting were linked to more externalizing behaviors for boys, while lower levels of positive parenting were linked to more externalizing behaviors for girls. No child sex differences emerged regarding associations between observed positive and negative parenting and internalizing behaviors. PMID:23937420

Unique sex- and age-dependent effects in protective pathways in acute kidney injury.

PubMed

Boddu, Ravindra; Fan, Chunlan; Rangarajan, Sunil; Sunil, Bhuvana; Bolisetty, Subhashini; Curtis, Lisa M

2017-09-01

Sex and age influence susceptibility to acute kidney injury (AKI), with young females exhibiting lowest incidence. In these studies, we investigated mechanisms which may underlie the sex/age-based dissimilarities. Cisplatin (Cp)-induced AKI resulted in morphological evidence of injury in all groups. A minimal rise in plasma creatinine (PCr) was seen in Young Females, whereas in Aged Females, PCr rose precipitously. Relative to Young Males, Aged Males showed significantly, but temporally, comparably elevated PCr. Notably, Aged Females showed significantly greater mortality, whereas Young Females exhibited none. Tissue KIM-1 and plasma NGAL were significantly lower in Young Females than all others. IGFBP7 levels were modestly increased in both Young groups. IGFBP7 levels in Aged Females were significantly elevated at baseline relative to Aged Males, and increased linearly through day 3 , when these levels were comparable in both Aged groups. Plasma cytokine levels similarly showed a pattern of protective effects preferentially in Young Females. Expression of the drug transporter MATE2 did not explain the sex/age distinctions. Heme oxygenase-1 (HO-1) levels (~28-kDa species) showed elevation at day 1 in all groups with highest levels seen in Young Males. Exclusively in Young Females, these levels returned to baseline on day 3 , suggestive of a more efficient recovery. In aggregate, we demonstrate, for the first time, a distinctive pattern of response to AKI in Young Females relative to males which appears to be significantly altered in aging. These distinctions may offer novel targets to exploit therapeutically in both females and males in the treatment of AKI.

Effects of genes, sex, age, and activity on BMC, bone size, and areal and volumetric BMD.

PubMed

Havill, Lorena M; Mahaney, Michael C; L Binkley, Teresa; Specker, Bonny L

2007-05-01

Quantitative genetic analyses of bone data for 710 inter-related individuals 8-85 yr of age found high heritability estimates for BMC, bone area, and areal and volumetric BMD that varied across bone sites. Activity levels, especially time in moderate plus vigorous activity, had notable effects on bone. In some cases, these effects were age and sex specific. Genetic and environmental factors play a complex role in determining BMC, bone size, and BMD. This study assessed the heritability of bone measures; characterized the effects of age, sex, and physical activity on bone; and tested for age- and sex-specific bone effects of activity. Measures of bone size and areal and volumetric density (aBMD and vBMD, respectively) were obtained by DXA and pQCT on 710 related individuals (466 women) 8-85 yr of age. Measures of activity included percent time in moderate + vigorous activity (%ModVig), stair flights climbed per day, and miles walked per day. Quantitative genetic analyses were conducted to model the effects of activity and covariates on bone outcomes. Accounting for effects of age, sex, and activity levels, genes explained 40-62% of the residual variation in BMC and BMD and 27-75% in bone size (all p<0.001). Decline in femoral neck (FN), hip, and spine aBMD with advancing age was greater among women than men (age-by-sex interaction; all p sex-by-activity interaction, both p

Age and sex selectivity in trapping mule deer

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Garrott, R.A.; White, G.C.

1982-01-01

A mule deer (Odocoileus hemionus) trapping experiment is described using modified Clover traps in which changes in the placement of bait and height of the trap door modified the ratio of adult does to male and female fawns captured. The mechanisms responsible for the changes in age-sex capture ratios are discussed and indicate that modified Clover traps selectivity capture mule deer, thus introducing bias into population sampling. (JMT)

Familial occurrence of cervical artery dissection--coincidence or sign of familial predisposition?

PubMed

Grond-Ginsbach, Caspar; de Freitas, Gabriel R; Campos, Cynthia R; Thie, Andreas; Caso, Valeria; Machetanz, Jochen; Kloss, Manja

2012-01-01

BACKGROUNDAND PURPOSE: The etiology of spontaneous cervical artery dissection (CeAD) is poorly understood in most patients. Mild cervical trauma preceding the dissection event is a common finding, but many CeAD occur spontaneously. It is likely that genetic factors may increase the risk for CeAD. However, familial cases are excedingly rare. Familial clustering of CeAD may be accidental or associated with genetic or environmental risk factors shared between affected relatives. In this explorative study, we aim to show that specific risk factors for familial CeAD exist. Age of onset, sex, affected artery and number of recurrent CeAD were documented for familial patients and compared with published findings from patients with sporadic CeAD. Concordance of age, sex and dissected artery within the families was analyzed by correlation analysis and by analysis of variance or Kruskal-Wallis testing. The study sample consisted of 9 new patients with a family history of CeAD enrolled in the Neurology Department of the University of Heidelberg or referred to Heidelberg from other centers. The study sample also included published findings from another 23 patients, in total 32 patients. The mean age of the patients with familial CeAD at their first dissections was 38.4 ± 13.3 years. Twenty (62.5%) patients were female and 12 patients (37.5%) suffered multiple dissections. Four patients (12.5%) presented with recurrent dissections after >1 year. Patients with a familial history of CeAD were younger (p = 0.023) and presented more often with multiple dissections (p = 0.024) and recurrent dissections (p = 0.018). Age at the first event (correlation analysis p = 0.026; analysis of variance p = 0.029) and site of the dissection (correlation analysis p = 0.032; Kruskal-Wallis test p = 0.018) differed between the families, and there was no concordance of gender of affected family members (correlation analysis p = 0.500; Kruskal-Wallis test p = 0.211). The high prevalence of multiple

Neuropsychological sex differences associated with age of initiated use among young adult cannabis users.

PubMed

Crane, Natania A; Schuster, Randi Melissa; Mermelstein, Robin J; Gonzalez, Raul

2015-01-01

Earlier initiation of cannabis use is associated with poorer neuropsychological functioning across several domains. Given well-documented sex differences in neuromaturation during adolescence, initiation of cannabis use during this time may affect neuropsychological functioning differently for males and females. In the current study, we examined sex differences in the relationship between age of initiated cannabis use and neuropsychological performance after controlling for amount of lifetime cannabis use in 44 male and 25 female young adult cannabis users. We found that an earlier age of initiated use was related to poorer episodic memory, especially immediate recall, in females, but not in males. On the other hand, we found that, surprisingly, an earlier age of initiated use was associated with better decision making overall. However, exploratory analyses found sex-specific factors associated with decision making and age of initiated use, specifically that attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) symptoms in females may drive the relationship between an earlier age of initiated use and better decision making. Further, an earlier age of initiated use was associated with less education, a lower IQ, and fewer years of mother's education for females, but more lifetime cannabis use for males. Taken together, our findings suggest there are sex differences in the associations between age of initiated cannabis use and neuropsychological functioning. The current study provides preliminary evidence that males and females may have different neuropsychological vulnerabilities that place them at risk for initiating cannabis use and continued cannabis use, highlighting the importance of examining the impact of cannabis on neuropsychological functioning separately for males and females.

Sex-related differences in the wheel-running activity of mice decline with increasing age.

PubMed

Bartling, Babett; Al-Robaiy, Samiya; Lehnich, Holger; Binder, Leonore; Hiebl, Bernhard; Simm, Andreas

2017-01-01

Laboratory mice of both sexes having free access to running wheels are commonly used to study mechanisms underlying the beneficial effects of physical exercise on health and aging in human. However, comparative wheel-running activity profiles of male and female mice for a long period of time in which increasing age plays an additional role are unknown. Therefore, we permanently recorded the wheel-running activity (i.e., total distance, median velocity, time of breaks) of female and male mice until 9months of age. Our records indicated higher wheel-running distances for females than males which were highest in 2-month-old mice. This was mainly reached by higher running velocities of the females and not by longer running times. However, the sex-related differences declined in parallel to the age-associated reduction in wheel-running activities. Female mice also showed more variances between the weekly running distances than males, which were recorded most often for females being 4-6months old but not older. Additional records of 24-month-old mice of both sexes indicated highly reduced wheel-running activities at old age. Surprisingly, this reduction at old age resulted mainly from lower running velocities and not from shorter running times. Old mice also differed in their course of night activity which peaked later compared to younger mice. In summary, we demonstrated the influence of sex on the age-dependent activity profile of mice which is somewhat contrasting to humans, and this has to be considered when transferring exercise-mediated mechanism from mouse to human. Copyright © 2016. Published by Elsevier Inc.

Ideal resuscitation pressure for uncontrolled hemorrhagic shock in different ages and sexes of rats

PubMed Central

2013-01-01

Introduction Our previous studies demonstrated that 50-60 mmHg mean arterial blood pressure was the ideal target hypotension for uncontrolled hemorrhagic shock during the active hemorrhage in sexually mature rats. The ideal target resuscitation pressure for immature and older rats has not been determined. Methods To elucidate this issue, using uncontrolled hemorrhagic-shock rats of different ages and sexes (6 weeks, 14 weeks and 1.5 years representing pre-adult, adult and older rats, respectively), the resuscitation effects of different target pressures (40, 50, 60, 70 and 80 mmHg) on uncontrolled hemorrhagic shock during active hemorrhage and the age and sex differences were observed. Results Different target resuscitation pressures had different resuscitation outcomes for the same age and sex of rats. The optimal target resuscitation pressures for 6-week-old, 14-week-old and 1.5-year-old rats were 40 to 50 mmHg, 50 to 60 mmHg and 70 mmHg respectively. Ideal target resuscitation pressures were significantly superior to other resuscitation pressures in improving the hemodynamics, blood perfusion, organ function and animal survival of uncontrolled hemorrhagic-shock rats (P < 0.01). For same target resuscitation pressures, the beneficial effect on hemorrhagic shock had a significant age difference (P < 0.01) but no sex difference (P > 0.05). Different resuscitation pressures had no effect on coagulation function. Conclusion Hemorrhagic-shock rats at different ages have different target resuscitation pressures during active hemorrhage. The ideal target resuscitation hypotension for 6-week-old, 14-week-old and 1.5-year-old rats was 40 to 50 mmHg, 50 to 60 mmHg and 70 mmHg, respectively. Their resuscitation effects have significant age difference but had no sex difference. PMID:24020401

Factors associated with HIV testing history and returning for HIV test results among men who have sex with men in Thailand.

PubMed

Wimonsate, Wipas; Naorat, Sathapana; Varangrat, Anchalee; Phanuphak, Praphan; Kanggarnrua, Kamolset; McNicholl, Janet; Akarasewi, Passakorn; van Griensven, Frits

2011-05-01

We evaluated factors associated with HIV testing history and returning for HIV test results among 2,049 Thai men who have sex with men. Of men, 50.3% reported prior HIV testing and 24.9% returned for HIV test results. Factors associated with prior HIV testing were male sex work, older age, employed, living away from the family, insertive anal sex role, history of drug use and having heard of effective HIV/AIDS treatment. Factors associated with returning for HIV test results were male sex work, older age, lack of a family confidant, history of sexually transmitted infections, and testing HIV negative in this study.

A Research Note on Time With Children in Different- and Same-Sex Two-Parent Families.

PubMed

Prickett, Kate C; Martin-Storey, Alexa; Crosnoe, Robert

2015-06-01

Public debate on same-sex marriage often focuses on the disadvantages that children raised by same-sex couples may face. On one hand, little evidence suggests any difference in the outcomes of children raised by same-sex parents and different-sex parents. On the other hand, most studies are limited by problems of sample selection and size, and few directly measure the parenting practices thought to influence child development. This research note demonstrates how the 2003-2013 American Time Use Survey (n=44,188) may help to address these limitations. Two-tier Cragg's Tobit alternative models estimated the amount of time that parents in different-sex and same-sex couples engaged in child-focused time. Women in same-sex couples were more likely than either women or men in different-sex couples to spend such time with children. Overall, women (regardless of the gender of their partners) and men coupled with other men spent significantly more time with children than men coupled with women, conditional on spending any child-focused time. These results support prior research that different-sex couples do not invest in children at appreciably different levels than same-sex couples. We highlight the potential for existing nationally representative data sets to provide preliminary insights into the developmental experiences of children in nontraditional families.

Family Sponsorship and Late-Age Immigration in Aging America: Revised and Expanded Estimates of Chained Migration.

PubMed

Carr, Stacie; Tienda, Marta

2013-12-01

We use the Immigrants Admitted to the United States (micro-data) supplemented with special tabulations from the Department of Homeland Security to examine how family reunification impacts the age composition of new immigrant cohorts since 1980. We develop a family migration multiplier measure for the period 1981 to 2009 that improves on prior studies by including immigrants granted legal status under the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act and relaxing unrealistic assumptions required by synthetic cohort measures. Results show that every 100 initiating immigrants admitted between 1981-85 sponsored an average of 260 family members; the comparable figure for initiating immigrants for the 1996-2000 cohort is 345 family members. Furthermore, the number of family migrants ages 50 and over rose from 44 to 74 per 100 initiating migrants. The discussion considers the health and welfare implications of late-age immigration in a climate of growing fiscal restraint and an aging native population.

Family Sponsorship and Late-Age Immigration in Aging America: Revised and Expanded Estimates of Chained Migration

PubMed Central

Carr, Stacie; Tienda, Marta

2013-01-01

We use the Immigrants Admitted to the United States (micro-data) supplemented with special tabulations from the Department of Homeland Security to examine how family reunification impacts the age composition of new immigrant cohorts since 1980. We develop a family migration multiplier measure for the period 1981 to 2009 that improves on prior studies by including immigrants granted legal status under the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act and relaxing unrealistic assumptions required by synthetic cohort measures. Results show that every 100 initiating immigrants admitted between 1981–85 sponsored an average of 260 family members; the comparable figure for initiating immigrants for the 1996–2000 cohort is 345 family members. Furthermore, the number of family migrants ages 50 and over rose from 44 to 74 per 100 initiating migrants. The discussion considers the health and welfare implications of late-age immigration in a climate of growing fiscal restraint and an aging native population. PMID:24415816

Sex differences and within-family associations in the broad autism phenotype.

PubMed

Klusek, Jessica; Losh, Molly; Martin, Gary E

2014-02-01

While there is a strong sex bias in the presentation of autism, it is unknown whether this bias is also present in subclinical manifestations of autism among relatives, or the broad autism phenotype. This study examined this question and investigated patterns of co-occurrence of broad autism phenotype traits within families of individuals with autism. Pragmatic language and personality features of the broad autism phenotype were studied in 42 fathers and 50 mothers of individuals with autism using direct assessment tools used in prior family studies of the broad autism phenotype. Higher rates of aloof personality style were detected among fathers, while no sex differences were detected for other broad autism phenotype traits. Within individuals, pragmatic language features were associated with the social personality styles of the broad autism phenotype in mothers but not in fathers. A number of broad autism phenotype features were correlated within spousal pairs. Finally, the associations were detected between paternal broad autism phenotype characteristics and the severity of children's autism symptoms in all three domains (social, communication, and repetitive behaviors). Mother-child correlations were detected for aspects of communication only. Together, the findings suggest that most features of the broad autism phenotype express comparably in males and females and raise some specific questions about how such features might inform studies of the genetic basis of autism.

Genetic and Environmental Influences on the Relationships between Family Connectedness, School Connectedness, and Adolescent Depressed Mood: Sex Differences.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Jacobson, Kristen C.; Rowe, David C.

1999-01-01

Investigated genetic and environmental contributions to relationship between family and school environment and depressed mood; also potential sex differences in genetic and environment contributions to variation in and covariation between family connectedness, school connectedness, and depressed mood. Subjects were 2,302 adolescent sibling pairs.…

24 CFR 882.514 - Family participation.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-04-01

... Families selected to participate must be maintained so as to provide HUD with racial, gender, and ethnic... rights if it believes it is being discriminated against on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, age...

Gene-Environment Interplay in Depressive Symptoms: Moderation by Age, Sex, and Physical Illness

PubMed Central

Petkus, Andrew J.; Beam, Christopher R.; Johnson, Wendy; Kaprio, Jaakko; Korhonen, Tellervo; McGue, Matt; Neiderhiser, Jenae M.; Pedersen, Nancy L.; Reynolds, Chandra A.; Gatz, Margaret

2017-01-01

Background Numerous factors influence late-life depressive symptoms in adults, many not thoroughly characterized. We addressed whether genetic and environmental influences on depressive symptoms differed by age, sex, and physical illness. Methods The analysis sample included 24,436 twins aged 40 through 90 drawn from the Interplay of Genes and Environment across Multiple Studies (IGEMS) consortium. Biometric analyses tested age, sex, and physical illness moderation of genetic and environmental variance in depressive symptoms. Results Women reported greater depressive symptoms than men. After age 60, there was an accelerating increase in depressive symptom scores with age, but this did not appreciably affect genetic and environmental variances. Overlap in genetic influences between physical illness and depressive symptoms was greater in men than in women. Additionally, in men extent of overlap was greater with worse physical illness (the genetic correlation ranged from near .00 for the least physical illness to nearly .60 with physical illness two SD above the mean). For men and women, the same environmental factors that influenced depressive symptoms also influenced physical illness. Conclusions Findings suggested that genetic factors play a larger part in the association between depressive symptoms and physical illness for men than for women. For both sexes, across all ages, physical illness may similarly trigger social and health limitations that contribute to depressive symptoms. PMID:28202098

Gene-environment interplay in depressive symptoms: moderation by age, sex, and physical illness.

PubMed

Petkus, A J; Beam, C R; Johnson, W; Kaprio, J; Korhonen, T; McGue, M; Neiderhiser, J M; Pedersen, N L; Reynolds, C A; Gatz, M

2017-07-01

Numerous factors influence late-life depressive symptoms in adults, many not thoroughly characterized. We addressed whether genetic and environmental influences on depressive symptoms differed by age, sex, and physical illness. The analysis sample included 24 436 twins aged 40-90 years drawn from the Interplay of Genes and Environment across Multiple Studies (IGEMS) Consortium. Biometric analyses tested age, sex, and physical illness moderation of genetic and environmental variance in depressive symptoms. Women reported greater depressive symptoms than men. After age 60, there was an accelerating increase in depressive symptom scores with age, but this did not appreciably affect genetic and environmental variances. Overlap in genetic influences between physical illness and depressive symptoms was greater in men than in women. Additionally, in men extent of overlap was greater with worse physical illness (the genetic correlation ranged from near 0.00 for the least physical illness to nearly 0.60 with physical illness 2 s.d. above the mean). For men and women, the same environmental factors that influenced depressive symptoms also influenced physical illness. Findings suggested that genetic factors play a larger part in the association between depressive symptoms and physical illness for men than for women. For both sexes, across all ages, physical illness may similarly trigger social and health limitations that contribute to depressive symptoms.

Intimate partner, familial and community violence among men who have sex with men in Namibia

PubMed Central

Stephenson, Rob; Hast, Marisa; Finneran, Catherine; Sineath, Craig R.

2015-01-01

Men who have sex with men in sub-Saharan Africa are known to experience high levels of violence, yet little research has focused on their perceptions of intimate partner violence (IPV). This study examines the perceived typologies and sources of multiple forms of violence, including IPV, family/community violence and discrimination from healthcare workers, among men who have sex with men in Namibia. Focus-group discussions and in-depth interviews were conducted with a 52 men residing in five cities across Namibia. Results indicate that violence, in varying forms, is commonplace in the lives of men who have sex with men in this community, and may be associated with HIV testing patterns. PMID:24735113

Association between sarcopenia with lifestyle and family function among community-dwelling Chinese aged 60 years and older.

PubMed

Hai, Shan; Wang, Hui; Cao, Li; Liu, Ping; Zhou, Jianghua; Yang, Ying; Dong, Birong

2017-08-18

Sarcopenia is defined as the age-related decline in skeletal muscle mass and function. The risk factors and causes of sarcopenia must be identified to develop prevention and treatment strategies for this syndrome. Our aim was to examine the association between sarcopenia with lifestyle and family function among community-dwelling Chinese people aged 60 years and older. We conducted this study to evaluate sarcopenia among 834 community-dwelling Chinese individuals aged ≥60 years using the Asian Working Group for Sarcopenia (AWGS) criteria. The sociodemographic characteristics, food consumption patterns, habits of smoking, and alcohol consumption of the participants were collected using a general questionnaire, whereas physical activity was assessed using the International Physical Activity Questionnaire (IPAQ; long-form version). Family function was assessed using the Family APGAR scale. In addition, the association of sarcopenia with lifestyle and family function was examined using univariate and multivariate analyses. The total prevalence rate of sarcopenia was 10.6%. Female participants with sarcopenia had a lower frequency per week of nut consumption than those without sarcopenia (p < 0.05), whereas, for male participants, the differences in food consumption patterns of those with sarcopenia versus those without sarcopenia were not significant. Among the participants, the mean Family APGAR score was 8 (standard deviation [SD] = 0.92). For both sexes, participants with sarcopenia had lower family function scores than those without sarcopenia. In the multivariate model, after adjustment for all covariates, frequency per week of nut consumption (adjusted OR 0.724, 95% CI 0.532-0.985, P < 0.05) and Family APGAR score (adjusted OR 0.683, 95% CI 0.496-0.940, P = 0.019) were statistically significantly associated with sarcopenia. The relationship between other lifestyle habits and sarcopenia was not significant. There was significant association between

Female sex, small size at birth and low family income increase the likelihood of insulin resistance in late childhood: the Healthy Growth Study.

PubMed

Manios, Yannis; Moschonis, George; Papandreou, Christopher; Siatitsa, Paraskevi-Eirini; Iatridi, Vassiliki; Lidoriki, Irene; Lionis, Christos; Chrousos, George P

2014-02-01

To identify among a wide range of perinatal indices, as well as certain family sociodemographic and parental characteristics, those independently associated with insulin resistance (IR) in late childhood. A representative sample of 2195 Greek schoolchildren, aged 9-13 yr, was examined, and based on the biochemical indices collected IR was estimated using the homeostasis model assessment (HOMA-IR < 3.16). Perinatal data were recorded from children's medical records, retrospectively, while family sociodemographics and parental anthropometrics were reported by parents. The overall prevalence of IR was 28.4%, with a higher prevalence observed for girls compared with boys (p <0.05). Examination of univariate associations, per se, showed that maternal current and pre-pregnancy overweight/obesity, maternal smoking at early pregnancy, children's small birth weight, and rapid growth at infancy as well as female sex and non-Caucasian race increased the likelihood of IR. In contrast, folate supplementation during pregnancy, as well as higher paternal education and annual family income decreased the likelihood of IR in children. Inclusion of all above variables at a multivariable regression model highlighted female sex [odds ratios (OR): 1.67, 95% confidence intervals (CI): 1.30-2.13], small birth weight (OR: 1.41, 95% CI: 1.03-2.01), and higher annual family income (OR: 0.71, 95% CI: 0.53-0.95 for 12 000-30 000 € and OR: 0.68, 95% CI: 0.48-0.96 for >30 000 €) as the only significant correlates of IR after also controlling for children's body mass index (BMI) and Tanner stage. The current study highlighted small birth weight and female sex as the only perinatal factors independently associated with the occurrence of IR in late childhood, when examined at a multivariable level with a wide range of perinatal indices as well as certain family sociodemographic and parental characteristics. © 2013 John Wiley & Sons A/S. Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Competition and Habitat Quality Influence Age and Sex Distribution in Wintering Rusty Blackbirds

PubMed Central

Mettke-Hofmann, Claudia; Hamel, Paul B.; Hofmann, Gerhard; Zenzal Jr., Theodore J.; Pellegrini, Anne; Malpass, Jennifer; Garfinkel, Megan; Schiff, Nathan

2015-01-01

Bird habitat quality is often inferred from species abundance measures during the breeding and non-breeding season and used for conservation management decisions. However, during the non-breeding season age and sex classes often occupy different habitats which suggest a need for more habitat-specific data. Rusty Blackbird (Euphagus carolinus) is a forested wetland specialist wintering in bottomland hardwood forests in the south-eastern U. S. and belongs to the most steeply declining songbirds in the U.S. Little information is available to support priority birds such as the Rusty Blackbird wintering in this threatened habitat. We assessed age and sex distribution and body condition of Rusty Blackbirds among the three major habitats used by this species in the Lower Mississippi Alluvial Valley and also measured food availability. Overall, pecan groves had the highest biomass mainly driven by the amount of nuts. Invertebrate biomass was highest in forests but contributed only a small percentage to overall biomass. Age and sex classes were unevenly distributed among habitats with adult males primarily occupying pecan groves containing the highest nut biomass, females being found in forests which had the lowest nut biomass and young males primarily staying in forest fragments along creeks which had intermediate nut biomass. Males were in better body condition than females and were in slightly better condition in pecan groves. The results suggest that adult males occupy the highest quality habitat and may competitively exclude the other age and sex classes. PMID:25946335

Competition and habitat quality influence age and sex distribution in wintering rusty blackbirds.

PubMed

Mettke-Hofmann, Claudia; Hamel, Paul B; Hofmann, Gerhard; Zenzal, Theodore J; Pellegrini, Anne; Malpass, Jennifer; Garfinkel, Megan; Schiff, Nathan; Greenberg, Russell

2015-01-01

Bird habitat quality is often inferred from species abundance measures during the breeding and non-breeding season and used for conservation management decisions. However, during the non-breeding season age and sex classes often occupy different habitats which suggest a need for more habitat-specific data. Rusty Blackbird (Euphagus carolinus) is a forested wetland specialist wintering in bottomland hardwood forests in the south-eastern U. S. and belongs to the most steeply declining songbirds in the U.S. Little information is available to support priority birds such as the Rusty Blackbird wintering in this threatened habitat. We assessed age and sex distribution and body condition of Rusty Blackbirds among the three major habitats used by this species in the Lower Mississippi Alluvial Valley and also measured food availability. Overall, pecan groves had the highest biomass mainly driven by the amount of nuts. Invertebrate biomass was highest in forests but contributed only a small percentage to overall biomass. Age and sex classes were unevenly distributed among habitats with adult males primarily occupying pecan groves containing the highest nut biomass, females being found in forests which had the lowest nut biomass and young males primarily staying in forest fragments along creeks which had intermediate nut biomass. Males were in better body condition than females and were in slightly better condition in pecan groves. The results suggest that adult males occupy the highest quality habitat and may competitively exclude the other age and sex classes.

Mental Health and Functioning of Female Sex Workers in Chittagong, Bangladesh.

PubMed

Hengartner, Michael P; Islam, Md Nazrul; Haker, Helene; Rössler, Wulf

2015-01-01

To examine the mental health and functioning of female sex workers (FSW) in Chittagong, Bangladesh, a population that has commonly been neglected in mental health policy and research. We included 259 women in the study (M age: 23.2 years; range: 11-48). The comprehensive Composite International Diagnostic Interview was used to assess their 12-month prevalence rates of DSM-IV mental disorders, and a comprehensive questionnaire was adapted to explore various factors, such as socio-demographics, working and living conditions, or experiences of abuse. On average, participants began their commercial sex work at 18.5 years old (range: 10-45). Their main motives for sex work were coercion (49.4%) and the necessity to financially support families (54.8%). In total, 224 FSW (86.5%) wanted to quit commercial sex work. A mental disorder within the past 12 months was reported by 100 FSW (38.6%), with drug abuse clearly being the most prevalent diagnosis (15.4%). Sexual, physical, and emotional abuse were very common among the FSW, and substance use disorders (SUD) were significantly more prevalent in persons who experienced emotional abuse (OR = 2.2). Prevalence rates of any mental disorder and SUD were higher in women who did sex work to support their family, whereas mood disorders were more frequent in those who needed the money to pay debts. Participants with any disorder were significantly older than those without (M age: 24.4 vs. 22.5 years) and had started significantly later in the sex business (M age: 19.7 vs. 17.7 years). Our study revealed that FSW in Chittagong are very vulnerable and highly impaired, as expressed by high rates of abuse and mental disorders. Coercion is very common and many FSW are required to work in the sex business because they need the money to support their families. FSW are a very marginalized population, especially in the developing countries where awareness for mental health is low and the availability of mental health services

Variations in Dream Recall Frequency and Dream Theme Diversity by Age and Sex

PubMed Central

Nielsen, Tore

2012-01-01

We assessed dream recall frequency (DRF) and dream theme diversity (DTD) with an internet questionnaire among a cohort of 28,888 male and female participants aged 10–79 years in a cross-sectional design. DRF increased from adolescence (ages 10–19) to early adulthood (20–29) and then decreased again for the next 20 years. The nature of this decrease differed for males and females. For males, it began earlier (30–39), proceeded more gradually, and reached a nadir earlier (40–49) than it did for females. For females, it began later (40–49), dropped more abruptly, and reached nadir later (50–59). Marked sex differences were observed for age strata 10–19 through 40–49 and year-by-year analyses estimated the window for these differences to be more precisely from 14 to 44 years. DTD decreased linearly with age for both sexes up to 50–59 and then dropped even more sharply for 60–79. There was a sex difference favoring males on this measure but only for ages 10–19. Findings replicate, in a single sample, those from several previous studies showing an increase in DRF from adolescence to early adulthood, a subsequent decrease primarily in early and middle adulthood, and different patterns of age-related decrease in the two sexes. Age-related changes in sleep structure, such as decreasing %REM sleep which parallel the observed dream recall changes, might help explain these findings, but these sleep changes are much smaller and more gradual in nature. Changes in the phase and amplitude of circadian rhythms of REM propensity and generational differences in life experiences may also account for some part of the findings. That decreases in DTD parallel known age-related decreases in episodic and autobiographical memory may signify that this new diversity measure indexes an aspect of autobiographical memory that also influences dream recall. PMID:22783222

Incarcerated Dutch Juvenile Sex Offenders Compared with Non-Sex Offenders

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

van Wijk, Anton Ph.; Vreugdenhil, Coby; van Horn, Joan; Vermeiren, Robert; Doreleijers, Theo A. H.

2007-01-01

There is some debate about whether or not sex offenders are similar to non-sex offenders with regard to family background (parental characteristics), personality, and psychopathology. The central aim of this study focused on the comparison of juvenile sex offenders and non-sex offenders. The sample consisted of incarcerated juvenile male sex (n =…

Age- and Sex-Specific Causal Effects of Adiposity on Cardiovascular Risk Factors

PubMed Central

Fall, Tove; Hägg, Sara; Ploner, Alexander; Mägi, Reedik; Fischer, Krista; Draisma, Harmen H.M.; Sarin, Antti-Pekka; Benyamin, Beben; Ladenvall, Claes; Åkerlund, Mikael; Kals, Mart; Esko, Tõnu; Nelson, Christopher P.; Kaakinen, Marika; Huikari, Ville; Mangino, Massimo; Meirhaeghe, Aline; Kristiansson, Kati; Nuotio, Marja-Liisa; Kobl, Michael; Grallert, Harald; Dehghan, Abbas; Kuningas, Maris; de Vries, Paul S.; de Bruijn, Renée F.A.G.; Willems, Sara M.; Heikkilä, Kauko; Silventoinen, Karri; Pietiläinen, Kirsi H.; Legry, Vanessa; Giedraitis, Vilmantas; Goumidi, Louisa; Syvänen, Ann-Christine; Strauch, Konstantin; Koenig, Wolfgang; Lichtner, Peter; Herder, Christian; Palotie, Aarno; Menni, Cristina; Uitterlinden, André G.; Kuulasmaa, Kari; Havulinna, Aki S.; Moreno, Luis A.; Gonzalez-Gross, Marcela; Evans, Alun; Tregouet, David-Alexandre; Yarnell, John W.G.; Virtamo, Jarmo; Ferrières, Jean; Veronesi, Giovanni; Perola, Markus; Arveiler, Dominique; Brambilla, Paolo; Lind, Lars; Kaprio, Jaakko; Hofman, Albert; Stricker, Bruno H.; van Duijn, Cornelia M.; Ikram, M. Arfan; Franco, Oscar H.; Cottel, Dominique; Dallongeville, Jean; Hall, Alistair S.; Jula, Antti; Tobin, Martin D.; Penninx, Brenda W.; Peters, Annette; Gieger, Christian; Samani, Nilesh J.; Montgomery, Grant W.; Whitfield, John B.; Martin, Nicholas G.; Groop, Leif; Spector, Tim D.; Magnusson, Patrik K.; Amouyel, Philippe; Boomsma, Dorret I.; Nilsson, Peter M.; Järvelin, Marjo-Riitta; Lyssenko, Valeriya; Metspalu, Andres; Strachan, David P.; Salomaa, Veikko; Ripatti, Samuli; Pedersen, Nancy L.; Prokopenko, Inga; McCarthy, Mark I.

2015-01-01

Observational studies have reported different effects of adiposity on cardiovascular risk factors across age and sex. Since cardiovascular risk factors are enriched in obese individuals, it has not been easy to dissect the effects of adiposity from those of other risk factors. We used a Mendelian randomization approach, applying a set of 32 genetic markers to estimate the causal effect of adiposity on blood pressure, glycemic indices, circulating lipid levels, and markers of inflammation and liver disease in up to 67,553 individuals. All analyses were stratified by age (cutoff 55 years of age) and sex. The genetic score was associated with BMI in both nonstratified analysis (P = 2.8 × 10−107) and stratified analyses (all P < 3.3 × 10−30). We found evidence of a causal effect of adiposity on blood pressure, fasting levels of insulin, C-reactive protein, interleukin-6, HDL cholesterol, and triglycerides in a nonstratified analysis and in the <55-year stratum. Further, we found evidence of a smaller causal effect on total cholesterol (P for difference = 0.015) in the ≥55-year stratum than in the <55-year stratum, a finding that could be explained by biology, survival bias, or differential medication. In conclusion, this study extends previous knowledge of the effects of adiposity by providing sex- and age-specific causal estimates on cardiovascular risk factors. PMID:25712996

[Binge drinking among 12-year-old adolescent schoolchildren and its association with sex, socioeconomic factors and alcohol consumption by best friends and family members].

PubMed

Paiva, Paula Cristina Pelli; Paiva, Haroldo Neves de; Lamounier, Joel Alves; Ferreira, Efigênia Ferreira E; César, Carlos Augusto Santos; Zarzar, Patrícia Maria

2015-11-01

This is a cross-sectional study with a convenience sample of 101 twelve-year-old adolescents enrolled in public and private schools in the city of Diamantina in the State of Minas Gerais. The scope was to evaluate the prevalence of binge drinking among 12-year-old schoolchildren and its association with gender, socioeconomic status and alcohol consumption by family members and best friends. The participants completed a self-administered questionnaire entitled the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT-C) and the consumption of alcoholic beverages by friends and family. Parents/guardians answered the form on sociodemographic questions. Descriptive analyses and association tests were performed (p < 0.05). The prevalence of binge drinking was 24.8%. Alcoholic beverage consumption began at the age of 10 (16.8%), though sex was not associated with binge drinking by adolescents. However, attending a public school (0.005) and alcohol consumption by best friends (p < 000.1) were associated with binge drinking by adolescents in the bivariate analysis. The prevalence of binge drinking was high and was associated with low socioeconomic status and alcohol consumption by the best friend. No association between sex and alcohol consumption by the family members of adolescents was detected.

Association of Family History of Exceptional Longevity With Decline in Physical Function in Aging.

PubMed

Ayers, Emmeline; Barzilai, Nir; Crandall, Jill P; Milman, Sofiya; Verghese, Joe

2017-11-09

Although many genetic and nongenetic factors interact to determine an individual's physical phenotype, there has been limited examination of the contribution of family history of exceptional parental longevity on decline in physical function in aging. The LonGenity study recruited a relatively genetically homogenous cohort of Ashkenazi Jewish adults age 65 and older, who were defined as either offspring of parents with exceptional longevity ([OPEL]: having at least one parent who lived to age 95 or older) or offspring of parents with usual survival ([OPUS]: neither parent survived to age 95). Decline in performance on objective measures of strength (grip strength), balance (unipedal stance), and mobility (gait speed) as well as a composite physical function measure, the Short physical performance battery (SPPB), were compared between the two groups over a median follow-up of 3.2 years, accounting for age, sex, education, and comorbidities. Of the 984 LonGenity participants (mean age 76, 55% women), 448 were OPEL and 536 were OPUS. Compared to OPUS, OPEL had slower decline on measures of unipedal stance (-0.03 log-units/year, p = .026), repeated chair rise (0.13 s/year, p = .020) and SPPB (-0.11 points/year, p = .002). OPEL women had slower decline on chair rise and SPPB scores compared to OPUS women, although OPEL men had slower decline on unipedal stance compared to OPUS men. Our findings provide evidence that variation in late-life decline in physical function is associated with familial longevity, and may vary for men and women. © The Author 2017. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The Gerontological Society of America. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.

Manual control age and sex differences in 4 to 11 year old children.

PubMed

Flatters, Ian; Hill, Liam J B; Williams, Justin H G; Barber, Sally E; Mon-Williams, Mark

2014-01-01

To what degree does being male or female influence the development of manual skills in pre-pubescent children? This question is important because of the emphasis placed on developing important new manual skills during this period of a child's education (e.g. writing, drawing, using computers). We investigated age and sex-differences in the ability of 422 children to control a handheld stylus. A task battery deployed using tablet PC technology presented interactive visual targets on a computer screen whilst simultaneously recording participant's objective kinematic responses, via their interactions with the on-screen stimuli using the handheld stylus. The battery required children use the stylus to: (i) make a series of aiming movements, (ii) trace a series of abstract shapes and (iii) track a moving object. The tasks were not familiar to the children, allowing measurement of a general ability that might be meaningfully labelled 'manual control', whilst minimising culturally determined differences in experience (as much as possible). A reliable interaction between sex and age was found on the aiming task, with girls' movement times being faster than boys in younger age groups (e.g. 4-5 years) but with this pattern reversing in older children (10-11 years). The improved performance in older boys on the aiming task is consistent with prior evidence of a male advantage for gross-motor aiming tasks, which begins to emerge during adolescence. A small but reliable sex difference was found in tracing skill, with girls showing a slightly higher level of performance than boys irrespective of age. There were no reliable sex differences between boys and girls on the tracking task. Overall, the findings suggest that prepubescent girls are more likely to have superior manual control abilities for performing novel tasks. However, these small population differences do not suggest that the sexes require different educational support whilst developing their manual skills.

An evaluation of sex-age-kill (SAK) model performance

USGS Publications Warehouse

Millspaugh, Joshua J.; Skalski, John R.; Townsend, Richard L.; Diefenbach, Duane R.; Boyce, Mark S.; Hansen, Lonnie P.; Kammermeyer, Kent

2009-01-01

The sex-age-kill (SAK) model is widely used to estimate abundance of harvested large mammals, including white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus). Despite a long history of use, few formal evaluations of SAK performance exist. We investigated how violations of the stable age distribution and stationary population assumption, changes to male or female harvest, stochastic effects (i.e., random fluctuations in recruitment and survival), and sampling efforts influenced SAK estimation. When the simulated population had a stable age distribution and λ > 1, the SAK model underestimated abundance. Conversely, when λ < 1, the SAK overestimated abundance. When changes to male harvest were introduced, SAK estimates were opposite the true population trend. In contrast, SAK estimates were robust to changes in female harvest rates. Stochastic effects caused SAK estimates to fluctuate about their equilibrium abundance, but the effect dampened as the size of the surveyed population increased. When we considered both stochastic effects and sampling error at a deer management unit scale the resultant abundance estimates were within ±121.9% of the true population level 95% of the time. These combined results demonstrate extreme sensitivity to model violations and scale of analysis. Without changes to model formulation, the SAK model will be biased when λ ≠ 1. Furthermore, any factor that alters the male harvest rate, such as changes to regulations or changes in hunter attitudes, will bias population estimates. Sex-age-kill estimates may be precise at large spatial scales, such as the state level, but less so at the individual management unit level. Alternative models, such as statistical age-at-harvest models, which require similar data types, might allow for more robust, broad-scale demographic assessments.

Sex- and age-dependent gene expression in human liver: An implication for drug-metabolizing enzymes.

PubMed

Uno, Yasuhiro; Takata, Ryo; Kito, Go; Yamazaki, Hiroshi; Nakagawa, Kazuko; Nakamura, Yusuke; Kamataki, Tetsuya; Katagiri, Toyomasa

2017-02-01

Sex and age differences in hepatic expression of drug-metabolizing enzyme genes could cause variations in drug metabolism, but has not been fully elucidated, especially in Asian population. In this study, the global expression of human hepatic genes was analyzed by microarrays in 40 Japanese subjects (27 males and 13 females). Thirty-five sex-biased genes were identified (P < 0.005). Whereas, 60 age-biased genes in two age groups, <60 years and ≥70 years (P < 0.001), were identified in males. By Gene Ontology analysis, the sex-biased genes were related to protein catabolism and modification, while the age-biased genes were related to transcription regulation and cell death. Quantitative polymerase chain reaction confirmed the female-biased expression of drug-metabolizing enzyme genes BChE, CYP4X1, and SULT1E1 (≥1.5-fold, P < 0.05). Further analysis of drug-metabolizing enzyme genes indicated that expression of CYP2A6 and CYP3A4 in females in the ≥70 age group was less than in the <60 age group (≥1.5-fold, P < 0.05), and this trend was also observed for PXR expression in males (≥1.5-fold, P < 0.05). The results presented provide important insights into hepatic physiology and function, especially drug metabolism, with respect to sex and age. Copyright © 2016 The Japanese Society for the Study of Xenobiotics. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Aging and creating families: Never-married heterosexual women over forty.

PubMed

McDill, Tandace; Hall, Sharon K; Turell, Susan C

2006-01-01

An examination of women over age forty who had never married was conducted. The women completed a structured questionnaire about their aging and their self-esteem was assessed with a standard measure. The participants were women from across the United States. Descriptive analyses of the data were ordered with ecological systems theory and findings revealed that the women are self-satisfied, socially productive and well adjusted with their single status and that singleness runs in their families. These women have defined what family means for them as they age-family of origin and close friendships. This description may be helpful in understanding this group as a social force and as role models for young women as they age.

The morphology of human hyoid bone in relation to sex, age and body proportions.

PubMed

Urbanová, P; Hejna, P; Zátopková, L; Šafr, M

2013-06-01

Morphological aspects of the human hyoid bone are, like many other skeletal elements in human body, greatly affected by individual's sex, age and body proportions. Still, the known sex-dependent bimodality of a number of body size characteristics overshadows the true within-group patterns. Given the ambiguity of the causal effects of age, sex and body size upon hyoid morphology the present study puts the relationship between shape of human hyoid bone and body proportions (height and weight) under scrutiny of a morphological study. Using 211 hyoid bones and landmark-based methods of geometric morphometrics, it was shown that the size of hyoid bones correlated positively with measured body dimensions but showed no correlation if the individual's sex was controlled for. For shape variables, our results revealed that hyoid morphology is clearly related to body size as expressed in terms of the height and weight. Yet, the hyoid shape was shown to result primarily from the sex-related bimodal distribution of studied body size descriptors which, in the case of the height-dependent model, exhibited opposite trends for males and females. Apart from the global hyoid shape given by spatial arrangements of the greater horns, body size dependency was translated into size and position of the hyoid body. None of the body size characters had any impact on hyoid asymmetry. Ultimately, sexually dimorphic variation was revealed for age-dependent changes in both size and shape of hyoid bones as male hyoids tend to be more susceptible to modifications with age than female bones. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier GmbH. All rights reserved.

Effect of age and sex on lacosamide pharmacokinetics in healthy adult subjects and adults with focal epilepsy.

PubMed

Schaefer, Carina; Cawello, Willi; Waitzinger, Josef; Elshoff, Jan-Peer

2015-04-01

Age- and sex-related differences in body composition could affect the pharmacokinetic parameters of administered drugs. The purpose of this post hoc analysis was to investigate the influences of age and sex on the pharmacokinetics of lacosamide. This post hoc analysis used pharmacokinetic data taken at steady state from (i) two phase I studies of oral lacosamide in healthy adult subjects (n = 66), and (ii) a population pharmacokinetic analysis carried out using data from two phase III studies of adjunctive oral lacosamide in adults (n = 565) with focal epilepsy taking 1-3 concomitant anti-epileptic drugs. Phase I data were stratified by age and sex as 'younger female' (aged 18-40 years), 'younger male' (aged 18-45 years) or 'elderly male/female' (aged ≥65 years), then normalized by body weight (lean body weight or fat-free mass), height or volume of distribution, and analysed using non-compartmental analysis. Population pharmacokinetic data were stratified by sex and analysed using a one-compartment model. Minor numerical differences between lacosamide exposure [the area under the concentration-time curve at steady state over the dosage interval (AUCτ,ss)] and the maximum plasma concentration at steady state (C max,ss) in subjects of different ages or sexes were noted. The differences could be explained by a scaling factor between the drug applied and the plasma concentration. Following normalization by lean body weight or volume of distribution, an analysis of relative bioavailability resulted in 90 % confidence intervals of the ratios for AUCτ,ss and C max,ss for age (elderly to younger) or sex (male to female) falling within the range accepted for equivalence (80-125 %); without normalization, the 90 % confidence intervals were outside this range. Minor numerical differences in lacosamide plasma concentrations were noted in the comparison between male and female patients (aged 16-71 years) with focal epilepsy. Simulations using different body weights

Vocational interests in the United States: Sex, age, ethnicity, and year effects.

PubMed

Morris, Michael L

2016-10-01

Vocational interests predict educational and career choices, job performance, and career success (Rounds & Su, 2014). Although sex differences in vocational interests have long been observed (Thorndike, 1911), an appropriate overall measure has been lacking from the literature. Using a cross-sectional sample of United States residents aged 14 to 63 who completed the Strong Interest Inventory assessment between 2005 and 2014 (N = 1,283,110), I examined sex, age, ethnicity, and year effects on work related interest levels using both multivariate and univariate effect size estimates of individual dimensions (Holland's Realistic, Investigative, Artistic, Social, Enterprising, and Conventional). Men scored higher on Realistic (d = -1.14), Investigative (d = -.32), Enterprising (d = -.22), and Conventional (d = -.23), while women scored higher on Artistic (d = .19) and Social (d = .38), mostly replicating previous univariate findings. Multivariate, overall sex differences were very large (disattenuated Mahalanobis' D = 1.61; 27% overlap). Interest levels were slightly lower and overall sex differences larger in younger samples. Overall sex differences have narrowed slightly for 18-22 year-olds in more recent samples. Generally very small ethnicity effects included relatively higher Investigative and Enterprising scores for Asians, Indians, and Middle Easterners, lower Realistic scores for Blacks and Native Americans, higher Realistic, Artistic, and Social scores for Pacific Islanders, and lower Conventional scores for Whites. Using Prediger's (1982) model, women were more interested in people (d = 1.01) and ideas (d = .18), while men were more interested in things and data. These results, consistent with previous reviews showing large sex differences and small year effects, suggest that large sex differences in work related interests will continue to be observed for decades. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved).

The development of sex role stereotypes in the third year: relationships to gender labeling, gender identity, sex-typed toy preference, and family characteristics.

PubMed

Weinraub, M; Clemens, L P; Sockloff, A; Ethridge, T; Gracely, E; Myers, B

1984-08-01

The onset and development of preschoolers' awareness of sex role stereotypes, gender labeling, gender identity, and sex-typed toy preference were explored in 26-, 31-, and 36-month-old children. Gender labeling, gender identity, sex-typed toy preferences, and awareness of adult sex role differences were observed in significantly more 26-month-old children than would have been expected by chance. Verbal gender labeling was observed in a majority of 26-month-olds, while verbal and nonverbal gender identity were observed in a majority of 31-month-olds. Nonverbal gender labeling and awareness of adult sex role differences were observed in a majority of children by 36 months. No evidence of awareness of sex differences in children's toys was found in the majority of children at any age. Awareness of sex role differences in children's toys was not related to awareness of adult sex role differences. Brighter children were more aware of adult sex role differences. Sex-typed toy preference was not related to awareness of sex role differences but was related to gender identity. Predictors of sex role development included the mothers' employment, and the father's personality traits, attitudes toward women, and sex-typed activities in the home. Implications for theories of early sex role development are discussed.

Age of Sexual Debut and Physical Dating Violence Victimization: Sex Differences among US High School Students

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ihongbe, Timothy O.; Cha, Susan; Masho, Saba W.

2017-01-01

Background: Research has shown that early age of sexual debut is associated with physical dating violence (PDV), but sex-specific associations are sparse. We estimated the prevalence of PDV victimization in high school students who have initiated sexual intercourse and examined sex-specific association between age of sexual debut and PDV…

Sex education and contraceptive use at coital debut in the United States: results from Cycle 6 of the National Survey of Family Growth.

PubMed

Isley, Michelle M; Edelman, Alison; Kaneshiro, Bliss; Peters, Dawn; Nichols, Mark D; Jensen, Jeffrey T

2010-09-01

The study was conducted to characterize the relationship between formal sex education and the use and type of contraceptive method used at coital debut among female adolescents. This study employed a cross-sectional, nationally representative database (2002 National Survey of Family Growth). Contraceptive use and type used were compared among sex education groups [abstinence only (AO), birth control methods only (MO) and comprehensive (AM)]. Analyses also evaluated the association between demographic, socioeconomic, behavioral variables and sex education. Multiple logistic regression with adjustment for sampling design was used to measure associations of interest. Of 1150 adolescent females aged 15-19 years, 91% reported formal sex education (AO 20.4%, MO 4.9%, AM 65.1%). The overall use of contraception at coitarche did not differ between groups. Compared to the AO and AM groups, the proportion who used a reliable method in the MO group (37%) was significantly higher (p=.03) (vs. 15.8% and 14.8%, respectively). Data from the 2002 NSFG do not support an association between type of formal sex education and contraceptive use at coitarche but do support an association between abstinence-only messaging and decreased reliable contraceptive method use at coitarche. Copyright 2010 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Cognitive, emotion control, and motor performance of adolescents in the NCANDA study: Contributions from alcohol consumption, age, sex, ethnicity, and family history of addiction

PubMed Central

Sullivan, Edith V.; Brumback, Ty; Tapert, Susan F.; Fama, Rosemary; Prouty, Devin; Brown, Sandra A.; Cummins, Kevin; Thompson, Wesley K.; Colrain, Ian M.; Baker, Fiona C.; De Bellis, Michael D.; Hooper, Stephen R.; Clark, Duncan B.; Chung, Tammy; Nagel, Bonnie J.; Nichols, B. Nolan; Rohlfing, Torsten; Chu, Weiwei; Pohl, Kilian M.; Pfefferbaum, Adolf

2015-01-01

Objective To investigate development of cognitive and motor functions in healthy adolescents and to explore whether hazardous drinking affects the normal developmental course of those functions. Method Participants were 831 adolescents recruited across five United States sites of the National Consortium on Alcohol and NeuroDevelopment in Adolescence (NCANDA): 692 met criteria for no/low alcohol exposure, and 139 exceeded drinking thresholds. Cross-sectional, baseline data were collected with computerized and traditional neuropsychological tests assessing eight functional domains expressed as composite scores. General additive modeling evaluated factors potentially modulating performance (age, sex, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, and pubertal developmental stage). Results Older no/low-drinking participants achieved better scores than younger ones on five Accuracy composites (General Ability, Abstraction, Attention, Emotion, and Balance). Speeded responses for Attention, Motor Speed, and General Ability were sensitive to age and pubertal development. The exceeds-threshold group (accounting for age, sex, and other demographic factors) performed significantly below the no/low-drinking group on Balance accuracy and on General Ability, Attention, Episodic Memory, Emotion, and Motor speed scores and showed evidence for faster speed at the expense of accuracy. Delay Discounting performance was consistent with poor impulse control in the younger no/low drinkers and in exceeds-threshold drinkers regardless of age. Conclusions Higher achievement with older age and pubertal stage in General Ability, Abstraction, Attention, Emotion, and Balance suggests continued functional development through adolescence, possibly supported by concurrently maturing frontal, limbic, and cerebellar brain systems. Whether low scores by the exceeds-threshold group resulted from drinking or from other pre-existing factors requires longitudinal study. PMID:26752122

Cognitive function and associated factors among older people in Taiwan: age and sex differences.

PubMed

Li, Cheng-Lun; Hsu, Hui-Chuan

2015-01-01

The aim of this study was to examine cognitive function and the risk and the protective factors by age and sex among Taiwanese older people. The data were from a nation-representative panel of older people in Taiwan. The participants completing both the 2003 and 2007 waves were included for analysis in this study (n=3228). Descriptive analysis and generalized linear model were applied, and the samples were stratified by age groups and by sex. The factors related to higher cognitive function at the intercept included being younger, male, higher education, and doing unpaid work. At the time slope, the age effect and physical function difficulties would reduce the cognitive function across time, while education and providing informational support would increase the cognitive function across time. There were age- and sex-differences in the factors related to cognitive function, particularly on the working status and social participation. Different health promotion strategies to target these populations should be accordingly developed. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

45 CFR 1305.4 - Age of children and family income eligibility.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-10-01

... 45 Public Welfare 4 2010-10-01 2010-10-01 false Age of children and family income eligibility... FAMILIES, HEAD START PROGRAM ELIGIBILITY, RECRUITMENT, SELECTION, ENROLLMENT AND ATTENDANCE IN HEAD START § 1305.4 Age of children and family income eligibility. (a) To be eligible for Head Start services, a...

Performance Development in Adolescent Track and Field Athletes According to Age, Sex and Sport Discipline

PubMed Central

Tønnessen, Espen; Svendsen, Ida Siobhan; Olsen, Inge Christoffer; Guttormsen, Atle; Haugen, Thomas

2015-01-01

Introduction Sex-specific differences that arise during puberty have a pronounced effect on the training process. However, the consequences this should have for goal-setting, planning and implementation of training for boys and girls of different ages remains poorly understood. The aim of this study was to quantify performance developments in athletic running and jumping disciplines in the age range 11-18 and identify progression differences as a function of age, discipline and sex. Methods The 100 all-time best Norwegian male and female 60-m, 800-m, long jump and high jump athletes in each age category from 11 to 18 years were analysed using mixed models with random intercept according to athlete. Results Male and female athletes perform almost equally in running and jumping events up to the age of 12. Beyond this age, males outperform females. Relative annual performance development in females gradually decreases throughout the analyzed age period. In males, annual relative performance development accelerates up to the age of 13 (for running events) or 14 (for jumping events) and then gradually declines when approaching 18 years of age. The relative improvement from age 11 to 18 was twice as high in jumping events compared to running events. For all of the analyzed disciplines, overall improvement rates were >50% higher for males than for females. The performance sex difference evolves from < 5% to 10-18% in all the analyzed disciplines from age 11 to 18 yr. Conclusion To the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to present absolute and relative annual performance developments in running and jumping events for competitive athletes from early to late adolescence. These results allow coaches and athletes to set realistic goals and prescribe conditioning programs that take into account sex-specific differences in the rate of performance development at different stages of maturation. PMID:26043192

Influence of age, sex, and strength training on human muscle gene expression determined by microarray

PubMed Central

ROTH, STEPHEN M.; FERRELL, ROBERT E.; PETERS, DAVID G.; METTER, E. JEFFREY; HURLEY, BEN F.; ROGERS, MARC A.

2010-01-01

The purpose of this study was to determine the influence of age, sex, and strength training (ST) on large-scale gene expression patterns in vastus lateralis muscle biopsies using high-density cDNA microarrays and quantitative PCR. Muscle samples from sedentary young (20–30 yr) and older (65–75 yr) men and women (5 per group) were obtained before and after a 9-wk unilateral heavy resistance ST program. RNA was hybridized to cDNA filter microarrays representing ~4,000 known human genes and comparisons were made among arrays to determine differential gene expression as a result of age and sex differences, and/or response to ST. Sex had the strongest influence on muscle gene expression, with differential expression (>1.7-fold) observed for ~200 genes between men and women (~75% with higher expression in men). Age contributed to differential expression as well, as ~50 genes were identified as differentially expressed (>1.7-fold) in relation to age, representing structural, metabolic, and regulatory gene classes. Sixty-nine genes were identified as being differentially expressed (>1.7-fold) in all groups in response to ST, and the majority of these were downregulated. Quantitative PCR was employed to validate expression levels for caldesmon, SWI/SNF (BAF60b), and four-and-a-half LIM domains 1. These significant differences suggest that in the analysis of skeletal muscle gene expression issues of sex, age, and habitual physical activity must be addressed, with sex being the most critical variable. PMID:12209020

Two models for microsimulation of family life cycle and family structure.

PubMed

Bertino, S; Pinnelli, A; Vichi, M

1988-01-01

2 models are proposed for the microsimulation of the family and analysis of family structure and life cycle. These models were devised primarily for teaching purposes. The families are composed of 3 generations (parents, grandparents, children). Cohabitation is not considered. The 1st model is governed by a transition mechanism based on the rules of a Markov multidimensional, nonhonogeneous chain. The 2nd model is based on stochastic point processes. Input data comprise annual mortality probability according to 1) sex, 2) age, 3) civil status, 4) annual probability of 1st marriage, 5) age combinations between the spouses, and 6) the probability of having 1, 2, or 3 children at 6 months intervals from the previous event (marriage or birth of nth child). The applications of the 1st model are presented using 2 mortality and fertility hypotheses (high and low) and a nuptiality hypothesis (West European nature). The various features of family composition are analyzed according to the duration of a couple's marriage and the age of the individual, as well as the characteristic features of the individual and family life cycle given these 2 demographic conditions.

Family Life and Human Development (Sex Education): The Prince George's County Public Schools Experience.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Schaffer, Michael J.

1981-01-01

The Prince George's County schools' sex education program for grades K-12 was developed and implemented in the late 1960s and has three focus areas: family life and interpersonal relationships; the physiological and personality changes during puberty; and advanced physiology and psychology of human sexual behavior. The program augments what the…

Family functioning, health and social support assessed by aged home care clients and their family members.

PubMed

Hautsalo, Katja; Rantanen, Anja; Astedt-Kurki, Päivi

2013-10-01

The aim of this study was to describe aged home care clients' and their family members' experiences of their family functioning, family health and social support received. An additional purpose was to determine which factors are connected with social support. Increasing life expectancy and ageing of the population require consideration of the adequacy of home care services and the role of family members as care providers. The older population is a very heterogeneous group because of their variable needs and several disabilities. To ensure the quality of home care, experimental information is needed from clients and their family members. A survey design with convenience sampling. The home care client and a family member of his/her answered a questionnaire together, including background questions, the Family Functioning, Health and Social Support instrument and an open question about support received from home care. Statistical methods were used to describe quantitative data, and content analysis was used in analysing the replies to the open question. Family health was noted as good, and family functioning and overall social support fairly good. An older person's higher basic education, higher age of the family member, better family health and male gender were connected with better social support received. The relationship of the older person and the family member as well as the duration of home care service use had an effect on social support received. The content analysis raised expectations related to time, planning of service, organisational factors and caring practise. Home care clients' and families' needs for support vary, and therefore, the assessment of needs, care planning and updating are important. The variable support needs of older people and their family members require flexible and adaptable home services. Cooperation between all participants involved in care would promote the well-being of the older person and the entire family. © 2012 Blackwell

Local-global interference is modulated by age, sex and anterior corpus callosum size

PubMed Central

Müller-Oehring, Eva M.; Schulte, Tilman; Raassi, Carla; Pfefferbaum, Adolf; Sullivan, Edith V.

2007-01-01

To identify attentional and neural mechanisms affecting global and local feature extraction, we devised a global-local hierarchical letter paradigm to test the hypothesis that aging reduces functional cerebral lateralization through corpus callosum (CC) degradation. Participants (37 men and women, 26–79 years) performed a task requiring global, local, or global+local attention and underwent structural MRI for CC measurement. Although reaction time (RT) slowed with age, all participants had faster RTs to local than global targets. This local precedence effect together with greater interference from incongruent local information and greater response conflict from local targets each correlated with older age and smaller callosal genu (anterior) areas. These findings support the hypothesis that the CC mediates lateralized local-global processes by inhibition of task-irrelevant information under selective attention conditions. Further, with advancing age smaller genu size leads to less robust inhibition, thereby reducing cerebral lateralization and permitting interference to influence processing. Sex was an additional modifier of interference, in that callosum-interference relationships were evident in women but not in men. Regardless of age, smaller splenium (posterior) areas correlated with less response facilitation from repetition priming of global targets in men, but with greater response facilitation from repetition priming of local targets in women. Our data indicate the following dissociation: Anterior callosal structure was associated with inhibitory processes (i.e., interference from incongruency and response conflict), which are vulnerable to the effects of age and sex, whereas posterior callosal structure was associated with facilitation processes from repetition priming dependent on sex and independent of age. PMID:17335783

Local-global interference is modulated by age, sex and anterior corpus callosum size.

PubMed

Müller-Oehring, Eva M; Schulte, Tilman; Raassi, Carla; Pfefferbaum, Adolf; Sullivan, Edith V

2007-04-20

To identify attentional and neural mechanisms affecting global and local feature extraction, we devised a global-local hierarchical letter paradigm to test the hypothesis that aging reduces functional cerebral lateralization through corpus callosum (CC) degradation. Participants (37 men and women, 26-79 years) performed a task requiring global, local, or global+local attention and underwent structural MRI for CC measurement. Although reaction time (RT) slowed with age, all participants had faster RTs to local than global targets. This local precedence effect together with greater interference from incongruent local information and greater response conflict from local targets each correlated with older age and smaller callosal genu (anterior) areas. These findings support the hypothesis that the CC mediates lateralized local-global processes by inhibition of task-irrelevant information under selective attention conditions. Further, with advancing age smaller genu size leads to less robust inhibition, thereby reducing cerebral lateralization and permitting interference to influence processing. Sex was an additional modifier of interference, in that callosum-interference relationships were evident in women but not in men. Regardless of age, smaller splenium (posterior) areas correlated with less response facilitation from repetition priming of global targets in men, but with greater response facilitation from repetition priming of local targets in women. Our data indicate the following dissociation: anterior callosal structure was associated with inhibitory processes (i.e., interference from incongruency and response conflict), which are vulnerable to the effects of age and sex, whereas posterior callosal structure was associated with facilitation processes from repetition priming dependent on sex and independent of age.

Cranium asymmetry in a modern Greek population sample of known age and sex.

PubMed

Chovalopoulou, Maria-Eleni; Papageorgopoulou, Christina; Bertsatos, Andreas

2017-05-01

The aim of this paper is to evaluate and quantify cranium asymmetry, sexual differences in the set of individual asymmetry scores, and the relationship between fluctuating asymmetry and age, in a modern Greek population sample. In addition, we test for the developmental origins of health and disease hypothesis by assessing the correlation between fluctuating asymmetry and cause of death. The study sample consisted of 173 crania of known sex and adult age (92 males, 81 females) belonging to individuals who lived in Greece during the twentieth century. The three-dimensional coordinates of 77 ectocranial landmarks were digitized using a Microscribe 3DX contact digitizer and landmark configurations were analyzed using the generalized least-squares Procrustes method. Regarding directional asymmetry, the results show that the human skull has a tendency for a left-side excess for the Greek population. No significant directional asymmetry differences between the sexes are found. The highest levels of fluctuating asymmetry for both sexes are located on the skull base. The levels of fluctuating asymmetry in all cranial regions appear higher for males than females. Nevertheless, these differences do not present any statistical significance between sexes. Additionally, there is no relationship between fluctuating asymmetry scores and age for both males and females. Finally, the results of this study could not confirm that early development has a significant impact on adult health outcomes.

Sex Differences in the Biology and Pathology of the Aging Heart.

PubMed

Keller, Kaitlyn M; Howlett, Susan E

2016-09-01

The knowledge that advanced age is a major risk factor for cardiovascular disease (CVD) has stimulated interest in cardiac aging. Understanding how the heart remodels with age can help us appreciate why older individuals are more likely to acquire heart disease. Growing evidence in both humans and animals shows that the heart exhibits distinct structural and functional changes as a consequence of age. These changes occur even in the absence of overt cardiovascular disease and are often maladaptive. For example, atrial hypertrophy and fibrosis may increase susceptibility to atrial fibrillation in older adults. Age-dependent increases in left ventricular fibrosis, stiffness, and wall thickness promote diastolic dysfunction, predisposing to heart failure with preserved ejection fraction. The influence of age on the heart is evident at rest but is even more prominent during exercise. There is also evidence for sex-specific variation in age-associated remodelling. For instance, there is some evidence that the number of ventricular myocytes declines with age through apoptosis in men but not in women. This helps explain why older men are more likely than women to experience heart failure with reduced ejection fraction. Emerging evidence from preclinical studies suggests that frailty rather than chronological age promotes adverse cardiac remodelling. Mechanisms implicated in cardiac aging include impaired calcium handling, excessive activation of the ß-adrenergic and renin-angiotensin systems, and mitochondrial dysfunction. Further research into cardiac aging in both sexes is needed, because it may be possible to modify disease treatment if the substrate upon which the disease first develops is better understood. Copyright © 2016 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Sexual victimization and family violence among urban African American adolescent women: do violence cluster profiles predict partner violence victimization and sex trade exposure?

PubMed

Kennedy, Angie C; Bybee, Deborah; Kulkarni, Shanti J; Archer, Gretchen

2012-11-01

Guided by an intersectional feminist perspective, we examined sexual victimization, witnessing intimate partner violence (IPV) in the family, and familial physical abuse among a sample of 180 urban African American adolescent women. We used cluster analysis to better understand the profiles of cumulative victimization, and the relationships between profiles and IPV victimization and personal exposure to the sex trade. Just under one third of the sample reported sexual victimization, with cooccurrence with both forms of family violence common. The cluster profile with high levels of severe family violence was associated with the highest rate of IPV victimization and sex trade exposure.