Breast feeding practices and views among diabetic women: a retrospective cohort study

Objective: to explore the pattern and experiences of breast-feeding practices among diabetic women. Design: retrospective cohort study using maternal records and postal questionnaires in a Baby-Friendly hospital. Participants: diabetic mothers including women with gestational diabetes, and type 1 and 2 diabetes mellitus. Findings: from the total group of respondents, 81.9% intended to breast feed. The actual breast feeding rates were 81.9% at birth, 68.1% at 2 weeks and 28.7% at 6 months postpartum. Major themes that were identified from women's experiences included information and advice, support vs. pressure, classification and labelling, and expectations. Conclusions: more than two-thirds of the diabetic women intended to breast feed and actually did breast feed in this study. For both the total study population and the type 1 and 2 diabetics alone, more than half were still breast feeding at 2 weeks postpartum, and approximately one-third were still breast feeding at 6 months postpartum. Implications for practice: structured support, provided for women through Baby-Friendly initiatives, was appreciated by the diabetic women in this study. The extent to which this support influenced the highly successful breast feeding practices in this group of women needs focused investigation. The need for a delicate balancing act between pressure and advice in order to prevent coercion was noted.</p

Parton Distributions Working Group

The main focus of this working group was to investigate the different issues associated with the development of quantitative tools to estimate parton distribution functions uncertainties. In the conclusion, we introduce a "Manifesto" that describes an optimal method for reporting data.Comment: Report of the Parton Distributions Working Group of the 'QCD and Weak Boson Physics workshop in preparation for Run II at the Fermilab Tevatron'. Co-Conveners: L. de Barbaro, S.A. Keller, S. Kuhlmann, H. Schellman, and W.-K. Tun

Structural and mutational characterization of the catalytic A-module of the mannuronan C-5-epimerase AlgE4 from Azotobacter vinelandii

Alginate is a family of linear copolymers of (1→4)-linked β-d-mannuronic acid and its C-5 epimer α-l-guluronic acid. The polymer is first produced as polymannuronic acid and the guluronic acid residues are then introduced at the polymer level by mannuronan C-5-epimerases. The structure of the catalytic A-module of the Azotobacter vinelandii mannuronan C-5-epimerase AlgE4 has been determined by x-ray crystallography at 2.1-Å resolution. AlgE4A folds into a right-handed parallel β-helix structure originally found in pectate lyase C and subsequently in several polysaccharide lyases and hydrolases. The β-helix is composed of four parallel β-sheets, comprising 12 complete turns, and has an amphipathic α-helix near the N terminus. The catalytic site is positioned in a positively charged cleft formed by loops extending from the surface encompassing Asp(152), an amino acid previously shown to be important for the reaction. Site-directed mutagenesis further implicates Tyr(149), His(154), and Asp(178) as being essential for activity. Tyr(149) probably acts as the proton acceptor, whereas His(154) is the proton donor in the epimerization reaction