The Impact of Having a Baby on the Level and Content of Women’s Well-Being

The primary objective of this study was to more fully understand the impact of having a baby on women’s well-being by attending to both the level and the content of well-being. To cover the judgemental and affective aspects of well-being we included global measures of life satisfaction and well-being and affective experience measures derived from the day reconstruction method. In a sample of 19 first-time mothers no differences between pre and postnatal reports of general life satisfaction, depression, anxiety, and experienced positive and negative affect were found, suggesting that the arrival of the newborn baby does not universally impact on women’s level of well-being. Changes in the content of well-being were studied by examining changes in the way women experience specific activities and interactions with various social partners. There appeared to be an upward shift in experienced positive affect during active leisure and a slight decrease in negative affect during time spent with relatives. The results are discussed in light of previously documented changes across the transition to motherhood in negative mood states, time use, women’s evaluation of various aspects of daily life, and relational satisfaction

Recommendations for the quantitative analysis of landslide risk

This paper presents recommended methodologies for the quantitative analysis of landslide hazard, vulnerability and risk at different spatial scales (site-specific, local, regional and national), as well as for the verification and validation of the results. The methodologies described focus on the evaluation of the probabilities of occurrence of different landslide types with certain characteristics. Methods used to determine the spatial distribution of landslide intensity, the characterisation of the elements at risk, the assessment of the potential degree of damage and the quantification of the vulnerability of the elements at risk, and those used to perform the quantitative risk analysis are also described. The paper is intended for use by scientists and practising engineers, geologists and other landslide experts

Thermolysin in human cultured keratinocyte isolation

BACKGROUND: When treating extensively burned patients using cultured epidermal sheets, the main problem is the time required for its production. Conventional keratinocyte isolation is usually done using Trypsin. We used a modification of the conventional isolation method in order to improve this process and increase the number of colonies from the isolated epidermal cell population. PURPOSE: To compare the action of trypsin and thermolysin in the keratinocyte isolation using newborn foreskin. METHODS: This method used thermolysin as it selectively digests the dermo-epidermal junction. After dermis separation, the epidermis was digested by trypsin in order to obtain a cell suspension. RESULTS: Compared to the conventional procedure, these experiments demonstrated that in the thermolysin group, the epidermis was easily detached from the dermis, there was no fibroblast contamination and there were a larger number of keratinocyte colonies which had a significant statistical difference. CONCLUSION: The number of colonies in the thermolysin group was significantly greater than in the trypsin group