Folic acid supplement use and the risk of gestational hypertension and preeclampsia

Background

Hypertensive disorders of pregnancy are among the leading causes of maternal morbidity and mortality. Studies suggest that the use of folic acid may lower the risk of hypertensive disorders in pregnant women.

A Randomized Controlled Trial Assessing the Efficacy of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Substance‐Dependent Domestic Violence Offenders: An Integrated Substance Abuse‐Domestic Violence Treatment Approach (SADV)

The current study evaluates a therapy for substance‐dependent perpetrators of partner violence. Sixty‐three males arrested for partner violence within the past year were randomized to a cognitive behavioral substance abuse‐domestic violence (SADV; n = 29) or a drug counseling (DC; n = 34) condition. Seventy percent of offenders completed eight core sessions with no differences between SADV and DC conditions in the amount of substance or aggression at pretreatment. SADV participants had fewer cocaine‐positive toxicology screens and breathalyzer results during treatment, were less likely to engage in aggressive behavior proximal to a drinking episode, and reported fewer episodes of violence than DC participants at posttreatment follow‐up. SADV shows promise in decreasing addiction and partner violence among substance‐dependent male offenders.     

Who's a good boy then? Anthropocentric masculinities in veterinary practice

Veterinary surgeons (vets) provide us with a fascinating platform to study anthropocentric and zoocentric beliefs, which we argue are gendered in both their genesis and practice. Gendered in the sense of the double meaning of our title ‘who's a good boy then?’, which reflects both a default male gender and a patronizing masculine claim to mastery over the animal. In addition, veterinary practices are organized in specifically masculine ways that, despite the demographic feminization of the profession, are oblivious to distinctively gendered practices and concerns and thus to the reproduction of gendered inequalities. The research also focuses on how there is a tendency for vets to neglect their own bodies for the sake of the animal's welfare (zoocentrism) but, at the same time, this reflects and reproduces masculine anthropocentric demands for human supremacy involving linear rational and effective control over the animal as a necessary part of their commercial and career success. In the empirical presentation, we show how organizational gendering within the gendered organization of veterinary surgery occurs at all levels, sometimes openly and explicitly, but also covertly and implicitly. In seeking to interrogate the covert and implicit in gender asymmetry, we draw on post‐humanist feminist philosophical perspectives that facilitate our challenging of the gendered anthropocentric organization of veterinary work.     

Maternal education influences Australian infants’ language experience from six months

Disparities in children's early language skills associated with socioeconomic factors have led to many studies examining children's early language environments, but few as yet in the first year of life. This longitudinal study assessed the home language environments of 50 Australian infants, who varied in maternal education (university education, or not). Full‐day audio recordings were collected and analyzed using the LENA system when infants were aged 6–9 months and 12–15 months. Using the device‐specific analysis software, we assessed 12‐h projected counts of (1) adult speech input, (2) conversational interactions, and (3) child vocalizations. At both ages, higher maternal education was associated with higher counts of adult words and conversational turns, but not child vocalizations. The study adds to the literature by demonstrating disparities in the infants’ language experience within the first year of life, related to mothers’ education, with implications for early intervention and parenting supports.     

Beneficial effects of the mother's voice on infants’ novel word learning

The maternal voice appears to have a special role in infants’ language processing. The current eye‐tracking study investigated whether 24‐month‐olds (n = 149) learn novel words easier while listening to their mother's voice compared to hearing unfamiliar speakers. Our results show that maternal speech facilitates the formation of new word–object mappings across two different learning settings: a live setting in which infants are taught by their own mother or the experimenter, and a prerecorded setting in which infants hear the voice of either their own or another mother through loudspeakers. Furthermore, this study explored whether infants’ pointing gestures and novel word productions over the course of the word learning task serve as meaningful indexes of word learning behavior. Infants who repeated more target words also showed a larger learning effect in their looking behavior. Thus, maternal speech and infants’ willingness to repeat novel words are positively linked with novel word learning.     

Living on the edge? Professional anxieties at work in academia and veterinary practice

ABSTRACT

Through empirical research on academics and veterinary surgeons, this article focuses on identity and how it is reflected in, and reproduced by, anxiety and insecurity at work. Three analytical themes – perfection, performativity and commodified service – each of which generates anxiety indicates a loss of autonomy as academics and vets are subjected to competitive market forces as well as an intensification of masculine managerial controls of assessment, audit and accountability. We see these pressures and their effects as reflecting a commodification of service provision where the consumer (student or client) begins to redefine the relationship between those offering some expertise and those who are its recipients, partly achieved through the performative gaze of constant and visible rating mechanisms. Our empirical research also identifies sources of anxiety concerns in their attempts to achieve perfection against this background of uncertain knowledge and precarious contexts of the performative nature of professional expertise.