The Power of Play: A Pediatric Role in Enhancing Development in Young Children

Children need to develop a variety of skill sets to optimize their development and manage toxic stress. Research demonstrates that developmentally appropriate play with parents and peers is a singular opportunity to promote the social-emotional, cognitive, language, and self-regulation skills that build executive function and a prosocial brain. Furthermore, play supports the formation of the safe, stable, and nurturing relationships with all caregivers that children need to thrive

Franchises lost and gained: post-coloniality and the development of women’s rights in Canada

The Canadian constitution is to some extent characterised by its focus on equality, and in particular gender equality. This development of women’s rights in Canada and the greater engagement of women as political actors is often presented as a steady linear process, moving forwards from post-enlightenment modernity. This article seeks to disturb this ‘discourse of the continuous,’ by using an analysis of the pre-confederation history of suffrage in Canada to both refute a simplistic linear view of women’s rights development and to argue for recognition of the Indigenous contribution to the history of women’s rights in Canada. The gain of franchise and suffrage movements in Canada in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century are, rightly, the focus of considerable study (Pauker 2015), This article takes an alternative perspective. Instead, it examines the exercise of earlier franchises in pre-confederation Canada. In particular it analyses why franchise was exercised more widely in Lower Canada and relates this to the context of the removal of franchises from women prior to confederation

The production of antisperm antibodies in vasectomized male mice

The immunological response of Swiss ICR mice to vasectomy has not been previously studied. The adult male rodents were divided into three groups: bilaterally vasectomized mice, sham-vasectomized control mice, and unoperated control animals. In preparing the vasectomized animals, the vasa deferentia were exposed through abdominal incisions, ligated, sectioned, and returned to the body cavity. A similar surgical procedure was followed in the preparation of the sham group, but the vasa deferentia were left intact. The Kibrick macroscopic gelatin agglutination technique was employed to detect the presence of antisperm antibodies in the sera of the three groups. The presence of sperm antibodies was demonstrated by the development of a precipitate in the agglutination tubes upon the addition of sera to the gelatin suspension of spermatozoa.After 12 weeks, circulating sperm-agglutinating antibodies were present in the sera of 18 of 20 (90 percent) bilaterally vasectomized Swiss ICR mice. No sperm agglutinins were detected in either the 8 shamvasectomized or 13 unoperated control animals.These data indicate that Swiss ICR mice produce antisperm antibodies in response to vasectomy.Thesis (M.S.