'The mum has to live with the decision much more than the dad'; a qualitative study of men's perceptions of their influence on breastfeeding decision-making

© 2018 The Author(s). Background: Although breastfeeding is widely acknowledged as the normal method of infant feeding, there are large variations in rates of initiation and duration. Several factors are linked to the likelihood of breastfeeding initiation, including the influence and opinion of the child's father. There is limited research into men's perception of their influence, or if they feel it appropriate to be involved in deciding how to feed their children. The aim of this study was to investigate, using a qualitative methodology, fathers' perceptions of their influence on the decision to feed their child breastmilk or formula. Methods: Six men were recruited through Children's Centres in Bristol, United Kingdom, and a phenomenological research methodology implemented using semi-structured interviews. Specific objectives were: to understand participants' views on breastfeeding; understand if and how these views were discussed with their partner; to determine if participants believed involvement in the feeding decision is appropriate; to understand how they felt about the decision made; and to see if their views changed after the birth of their child. Results: Multiple themes emerged during analysis, including deferring of responsibility to the mother; breastfeeding as normal practice; change in attitude; involvement in parenting; and, advantages for the father. The men in the study accepted breastfeeding as normal behaviour, probably because of their upbringing in households where breastfeeding was practiced. There was consensus that women had more say in deciding to breastfeed, which was explained as a consequence of their greater involvement. It could also be interpreted as an unwillingness to interfere in an area perceived as 'owned' by women. Participants acknowledged that breastfeeding was more difficult than they had perceived. Conclusions: The key themes emerging from the interviews are suggestive of an impact on breastfeeding interventions that use the father as an intermediary. If they do not feel that they are 'permitted' to comment on their partner's breastfeeding, then simply increasing knowledge of breastfeeding benefits in these men is likely to have minimal impact

Latina and European American Girls’ Experiences with Academic Sexism and their Self-Concepts in Mathematics and Science During Adolescence

The study investigated Latina and European American adolescent girls’ (N = 345, M = 15.2 years, range = 13 to 18) experiences with academic sexism in mathematics and science (M/S) and their M/S perceived competence and M/S value (liking and importance). M/S academic sexism was based on girls’ reported experiences hearing sexist comments about girls’ abilities in math and science. Older European American adolescents, and both younger and older Latina adolescents, who experienced several instances of academic sexism felt less competent in M/S than girls who experienced less sexism (controlling for M/S grades). In addition, among older girls (regardless of ethnicity), those who experienced several instances of academic sexism valued M/S less than girls who experienced less sexism

The personal and contextual contributors to school belongingness among primary school students

School belongingness has gained currency among educators and school health professionals as an important determinant of adolescent health. The current cross-sectional study presents the 15 most significant personal and contextual factors that collectively explain 66.4% (two-thirds) of the variability in 12-year old students' perceptions of belongingness in primary school. The study is part of a larger longitudinal study investigating the factors associated with student adjustment in the transition from primary to secondary school. The study found that girls and students with disabilities had higher school belongingness scores than boys, and their typically developing counterparts respectively; and explained 2.5% of the variability in school belongingness. The majority (47.1% out of 66.4%) of the variability in school belongingness was explained by student personal factors, such as social acceptance, physical appearance competence, coping skills, and social affiliation motivation; followed by parental expectations (3% out of 66.4%), and school-based factors (13.9% out of 66.4%) such as, classroom involvement, task-goal structure, autonomy provision, cultural pluralism, and absence of bullying. Each of the identified contributors of primary school belongingness can be shaped through interventions, system changes, or policy reforms

De novo characterization of the gametophyte transcriptome in bracken fern, Pteridium aquilinum

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Because of their phylogenetic position and unique characteristics of their biology and life cycle, ferns represent an important lineage for studying the evolution of land plants. Large and complex genomes in ferns combined with the absence of economically important species have been a barrier to the development of genomic resources. However, high throughput sequencing technologies are now being widely applied to non-model species. We leveraged the Roche 454 GS-FLX Titanium pyrosequencing platform in sequencing the gametophyte transcriptome of bracken fern (<it>Pteridium aquilinum</it>) to develop genomic resources for evolutionary studies.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>681,722 quality and adapter trimmed reads totaling 254 Mbp were assembled <it>de novo </it>into 56,256 unique sequences (i.e. unigenes) with a mean length of 547.2 bp and a total assembly size of 30.8 Mbp with an average read-depth coverage of 7.0×. We estimate that 87% of the complete transcriptome has been sequenced and that all transcripts have been tagged. 61.8% of the unigenes had blastx hits in the NCBI nr protein database, representing 22,596 unique best hits. The longest open reading frame in 52.2% of the unigenes had positive domain matches in InterProScan searches. We assigned 46.2% of the unigenes with a GO functional annotation and 16.0% with an enzyme code annotation. Enzyme codes were used to retrieve and color KEGG pathway maps. A comparative genomics approach revealed a substantial proportion of genes expressed in bracken gametophytes to be shared across the genomes of <it>Arabidopsis</it>, <it>Selaginella </it>and <it>Physcomitrella</it>, and identified a substantial number of potentially novel fern genes. By comparing the list of <it>Arabidopsis </it>genes identified by blast with a list of gametophyte-specific <it>Arabidopsis </it>genes taken from the literature, we identified a set of potentially conserved gametophyte specific genes. We screened unigenes for repetitive sequences to identify 548 potentially-amplifiable simple sequence repeat loci and 689 expressed transposable elements.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>This study is the first comprehensive transcriptome analysis for a fern and represents an important scientific resource for comparative evolutionary and functional genomics studies in land plants. We demonstrate the utility of high-throughput sequencing of a normalized cDNA library for <it>de novo </it>transcriptome characterization and gene discovery in a non-model plant.</p

Dense sampling of bird diversity increases power of comparative genomics (vol 587, pg 252, 2020)

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Isolation via 454 sequencing, and characterisation of microsatellites for Drymodes brunneopygia, southern scrub-robin (Aves: Petroicidae): a species at risk due to substantial habitat loss and climate change

We isolated 10 new polymorphic microsatellite markers from Drymodes brunneopygia, a ground-dwelling bird species distributed in semi-arid mallee habitat across southern Australia. Initially 454 shotgun sequencing was used to identify 51 loci for which primers were designed. We trialled all 51 loci in the target species and 29 (57%) amplified a polymorphic product of expected size. Subsequently 18 of these loci were screened for variation in 38 individuals from Billiatt Conservation Park in South Australia. All loci were polymorphic; however, only 10 loci could be scored reliably. For those 10 loci, observed heterozygosity ranged from 0.105 to 0.842 (mean 0.634) and the number of alleles per locus ranged from 2 to 10 (average of 6.7). These loci will be useful for characterising genetic variation and metapopulation structure in Drymodes brunneopygia, a species threatened by agriculture and climate change. © 2011 Springer Science+Business Media B.V.Jolene A. Scoble, Andrew J. Lowe, Michael G. Gardne