Cohort Profile: The Mater-University of Queensland Study of Pregnancy (MUSP)

How did the study come about? At the initiative of three hospital-based obstetricians one of the authors (JMN) and another sociologist attended a 1978 meeting to explore the potential for collaborative research. No specific project was proposed by the obstetricians. Two of the obstetricians had been trained in Scotland; one in Aberdeen where he had had some familiarity with the work of obstetrician Dugald Baird and sociologist Raymond Illsely. The obstetricians argued for an agenda which was clinically oriented. The two sociologists were more focussed on understanding how some social constructs (e.g. social class) might be relevant to explaining health outcomes. The initial year of the study was characterised by frequent (at least weekly) meetings at which the aims and substance of the proposed study were debated vigorously. As an initial decision the team focused on factors associated with adverse pregnancy outcomes. The first major project was to be a 3-5 year longitudinal study of pregnant women which would include a 6-month child post-natal follow-up as the main outcome of interest

Obstetrical Outcomes of Aboriginal Pregnancies at a Major Urban Hospital

While a number of previous papers have documented the poor general health of Australia's Aboriginal population, relatively few have considered the health of Aborigines living in Australia's urban centres. In this latter instance, Aborigines have access to conventional medical services and they live in a physical environment that does not differ greatly from that experienced by the lower-class white population. Of course, racial, familial and economic differences may continue to influence differentially the perceived accessibility of services to Aborigines and their non-Aboriginal neighbours. This paper compares the pregnancy outcomes of Aboriginal women and non-Aboriginal women living in a major urban centre in Australia. The data indicate that urban Aboriginal women have adverse pregnancy outcomes at one and a half o two times the rate experienced by the non-Aboriginal population. Much of the difference can be attributed to lifestyle variations in the groups being compared

Postnatal Depression - Myth and Reality: Maternal Depression Before and After the Birth of a Child

Background Much has been written about postnatal depression as a clinical condition. There is some evidence to suggest that a substantial proportion of women who give birth experience a depression in the postnatal period. This paper reports the results of a longitudinal study of the mental health of a large sample of women who were in the early stages of pregnancy at entry to the study. Methods Each participant was assessed for symptoms of depression at the first clinic visit (entry to the study), and reassessed at various intervals - at 3-5 days, at 6 months, and again at 5 years after the birth of the child - using the DSSI-D (Delusions-Symptoms-States Inventory). Results Retrospective recall questions indicate that shortly after the birth the majority of women experienced some depressed mood. Of those who experienced depressed mood, the data suggest that the symptoms were not severe, nor did these symptoms generally continue beyond a few weeks. The longitudinal data indicate that levels of depression in our sample are highest either at the firrst clinic visit or at the 5-year follow-up. Rates of depression at the 6-month follow-up are relatively low by comparison. Conclusion While most mothers experience periods of depressed mood after the birth of their baby, these periods are generally of short duration and of lesser intensity than a major depression. Mothers appear to experience increasing levels of symptoms of depression as their child grows up. Many of the "cases" of depression experienced at the 5-year follow-up represent a recurrence of a previous experience of depression

Intrauterine Growth and Intelligence Within Sibling Pairs: Findings From the Mater-University Study of Pregnancy and its Outcomes

Objective: To examine the association between intrauterine growth and intelligence. Design: Population based birth cohort study of sibling pairs born within a maximum of three years of each other. Setting: Mater-University women and children's hospital, Brisbane, Australia. Participants: 235 (470 children) sibling pairs. Results: Among one randomly selected sibling from each pair verbal comprehension at age 5, general intelligence at age 14, and reading ability at age 14 increased linearly with increasing gestational age and sex standardised birth weight z scores. With adjustment for maternal age, race, and smoking during pregnancy, birth order, family income, and parental education the associations with verbal comprehension at age 5 and general intelligence at age 14 remained, whereas the association with reading ability at age 14 was attenuated to the null. Within sibling pairs, differences in intrauterine growth were positively associated with differences in verbal comprehension at age 5 (test score difference per one unit difference in birth weight z score = 1.52 (0.11 to 3.26)) and general intelligence at age 14 (1.09 (0.01 to 2.18)), but not with reading ability at age 14. Conclusions: Socioeconomic position or other fixed maternal characteristics do not seem to explain the positive association between intrauterine growth and childhood intelligence

Maternal Anxiety and Depression, Poverty and Marital Relationship Factors During Early Childhood as Predictors of Anxiety and Depressive Symptoms in Adolescence

BACKGROUND This paper examines the degree to which symptoms of anxiety and depression at age 14 years are associated with early childhood experience of maternal anxiety and depression, poverty, and mother's marital relationship distress and break-up. METHODS In a longitudinal study, 4434 families were followed-up from infancy to adolescence. RESULTS: Maternal anxiety and depression during early childhood were found to have small, but significant, influences upon the development of high anxiety-depression symptoms at age 14, after controlling for the effects of poverty and marital relationship factors. This effect was greater with repeated exposure to high maternal anxiety and depression. Poverty, distressed marital relationship and marital break-up during the child's first five years also produced small, but significant, increases in risk of high anxiety and depression symptoms in adolescence. Stable, single-parent status was not found to be a risk factor. There was no evidence of marked gender differences in risk factors, other than poverty, which had a stronger impact for girls than boys. CONCLUSIONS Overall, the results suggest that maternal anxiety and depression, poverty, parent relationship conflict and marital break-up during early childhood are associated with small, but significant, increased risk of anxiety-depression symptoms in adolescence

Contribution of heme oxygenase 2 to blood pressure regulation in response to swimming exercise and detraining in spontaneously hypertensive rats

Background: We aimed to determine the effects of exercise followed by detraining on systolic blood pressure (SBP), heme oxygenase 2 (HO-2) expression, and carboxyhemoglobin (COHb) concentration in spontaneously hypertensive rats (SHR) to explain the role of carbon monoxide (CO) in this process. Material/Methods: Animals were randomized into exercised and detrained groups. Corresponding sedentary rats were grouped as Time 1–2. Swimming of 60 min/5 days/week for 10 weeks was applied. Detraining rats discontinued training for an additional 5 weeks. Gene and protein expressions were determined by real-time PCR and immunohistochemistry. Results: Aorta HO-2 histological scores (HSCORE) of hypertensive rats were lower, while SBP was higher. Swimming caused enhancement of HO-2 immunostaining in aorta endothelium and adventitia of SHR. Exercise induced elevation of blood COHb index in SHR. Synchronous BP lowering effect of exercise was observed. HO-2 mRNA expression, HSCORE, and blood COHb index were unaltered during detraining, while SBP was still low in SHR. Conclusions: CO synthesized by HO-2 at least partly plays a role in SBP regulation in the SHR-and BP-lowering effect of exercise. Regular exercise with short-term pauses may be advised to both hypertensives and individuals who are at risk. © Med Sci Monit

2+1 Dimensional Georgi-Glashow Instantons in Weyl Gauge

Semiclassical instanton solutions in the 3D SU(2) Georgi-Glashow model are transformed into the Weyl gauge. This illustrates the tunneling interpretation of these instantons and provides a smooth regularization of the singular unitary gauge. The 3D Georgi-Glashow model has both instanton and sphaleron solutions, in contrast to 3D Yang-Mills theory which has neither, and 4D Yang-Mills theory which has instantons but no sphaleron, and 4D electroweak theory which has a sphaleron but no instantons. We also discuss the spectral flow picture of fundamental fermions in a Georgi-Glashow instanton background.Comment: 22 pages, 8 figures, revtex4; v2 - references and comments adde

Effective connectivity reveals strategy differences in an expert calculator

Mathematical reasoning is a core component of cognition and the study of experts defines the upper limits of human cognitive abilities, which is why we are fascinated by peak performers, such as chess masters and mental calculators. Here, we investigated the neural bases of calendrical skills, i.e. the ability to rapidly identify the weekday of a particular date, in a gifted mental calculator who does not fall in the autistic spectrum, using functional MRI. Graph-based mapping of effective connectivity, but not univariate analysis, revealed distinct anatomical location of “cortical hubs” supporting the processing of well-practiced close dates and less-practiced remote dates: the former engaged predominantly occipital and medial temporal areas, whereas the latter were associated mainly with prefrontal, orbitofrontal and anterior cingulate connectivity. These results point to the effect of extensive practice on the development of expertise and long term working memory, and demonstrate the role of frontal networks in supporting performance on less practiced calculations, which incur additional processing demands. Through the example of calendrical skills, our results demonstrate that the ability to perform complex calculations is initially supported by extensive attentional and strategic resources, which, as expertise develops, are gradually replaced by access to long term working memory for familiar material

Aircraft Accident Prevention: Loss-of-Control Analysis

The majority of fatal aircraft accidents are associated with loss-of-control . Yet the notion of loss-of-control is not well-defined in terms suitable for rigorous control systems analysis. Loss-of-control is generally associated with flight outside of the normal flight envelope, with nonlinear influences, and with an inability of the pilot to control the aircraft. The two primary sources of nonlinearity are the intrinsic nonlinear dynamics of the aircraft and the state and control constraints within which the aircraft must operate. In this paper we examine how these nonlinearities affect the ability to control the aircraft and how they may contribute to loss-of-control. Examples are provided using NASA s Generic Transport Model