Forty years ago Horney and Thompson each wrote about the inferior role of women in marriage based on sociocultural situations. The present day message of equality has had variable effects with the result that many women complain of the belittling opinions and actions of their male partners when they attempt to become self-assertive. Equality in marriage in Canada is more established in law than socially today. Dual career marriages often illustrate this dichotomy as the husband's career takes precedence over that of the wife. The therapist plays an important role in the resolution of the ambivalent feelings of both partners.
Canada's Royal Commission on New Reproductive Technologies rejects all forms of surrogacy arrangement under the rubric of objecting to commercial surrogacy. Noncommercial surrogacy arrangements, however, can be defended against the commission's objections. They can be viewed as cases of giving a benefit or service to another in a way that expresses benevolence, and establishes a relationship between surrogates and prospective 'social' parents that allows mutual understanding and reciprocal personal interaction between them.
Biochemical parameters of the plasma were studied in mice at different stages of the development of depression-like states in males after social defeats in 10 and 20 intermale confrontations (T10 and T20 victims, respectively). Glucose and cholesterol levels were increased in T10 victims in comparison with intact animals. In T20 victims the increase in glucose level was paralleled by an increase in total protein. T20 victims differed from T10 victims by lower catalase activity.
Limited research has investigated how physician-patient interaction changes over time. We have therefore examined physician-patient communication during the two initial, as well as the seventh (on average) patient visit to a haematology outpatient clinic. Consultations were audio taped and analyzed using the Roter interaction analysis system (RIAS). Patients completed the Impact of Events Scale (IES) before and a satisfaction questionnaire after each consultation. Consultations were generally physician dominated and task-focused. While the amount of task-focused communication was significantly reduced between the initial and the return visits, the amount of socio-emotional communication remained quite stable. In return visits (but not in the two initial visits), patients with more severe diagnoses were given longer consultations and they provided more task-focused information to a less verbally dominant physician. Patients were more satisfied in the second and return visits (but not in the first), if consultations contained greater levels of socio-emotional communication.
When dairy cow facilities are being designed, a limited feeding area might be profitable and recommendable if the increased competition for feed does not harm the welfare of the animals or affect production negatively. An experiment was conducted at the University Cattle Research Centre (Uppsala, Sweden) to investigate the performance of individual cows as well as groups of cows. Treatments used 1 or 4 cows per feeding station with a total mixed diet fed for ad libitum intake. The feeding stations were troughs placed on electronic balances and were 1.08 m wide. Sixteen dairy cows were divided into two groups and were studied in an experiment with a change-over design so that each group went through each treatment twice. A computerized feeding system automatically recorded consumption data for feed and water. Video recordings were used to study the social dominance order, the level of aggression at the feeding area, and the time budget of the cows. The mean feed intake increased slightly, but the number of visits to the feeding stations did not change at the higher level of competition. The cows, however, spent significantly less time eating and increased their consumption rate when the competition level increased. The number of displacements at the feeding stations increased dramatically. Cows of low social rank were much more frequently displaced while eating. The effects of dominance value, age, eating rate, and energy requirement of the cows are presented.
The risk of infanticide may alter foraging decisions made by females, which otherwise would have been based on nutritional requirements and forage quality and availability. In systems where meat resources are spatially aggregated in late summer and fall, female brown bears (Ursus arctos) would be faced with a trade-off situation. The need of reproductive females to accumulate adequate fat stores would likely result in a decision to frequent salmon streams and consume the protein- and lipid-rich spawning salmon. In contrast, aggregations of bears along salmon streams would create conditions of high risk of infanticide. We investigated consumption of salmon by brown bears on Admiralty and Chichagof Islands in Southeast Alaska from 1982 to 2000 using stable isotope analysis and radiotelemetry. While nearly all males (22 of 23) consumed relatively large amounts of salmon (i.e., >10% relative contribution to seasonal diet), not all females (n=56) did so. Five of 26 females for which we had reproductive data, occupied home ranges that had no access to salmon and thus did not consume salmon when they were mated or accompanied by young. Of females that had access to salmon streams (n=21), all mated individuals (n=16) had delta(15)N values indicative of salmon consumption. In contrast, 4 out of 16 females with cubs avoided consuming salmon altogether, and of the other 12, 3 consumed less salmon than they did when they were mated. For 11 of 21 females with access to salmon streams we had data encompassing both reproductive states. Five of those altered foraging strategies and exhibited significantly lower values of delta(15)N when accompanied by young than when mated, while 6 did not. Radiotelemetry data indicated that females with spring cubs were found, on average, further away from streams during the spawning season compared with females with no young, but both did not differ from males and females with yearlings and 2-year-olds. Females with young that avoided salmon streams were significantly lighter indicating that female choice to avoid consumption of salmon carries a cost that may translate to lower female or cub survivorship. The role of the social hierarchy of males and females, mating history, and paternity in affecting the risk of infanticide and foraging decisions of female brown bears merit further investigation.
