Earlier research has documented negative perceptions of childless couples, particularly the voluntarily childfree, among college students. In this project we used hypothetical vignettes to assess variations in students' (N= 478) perceptions of childless couples related to the couple's race, occupations of husband and wife, and assumed reasons for childlessness. Perceptions were strongly influenced by occupational status and gender, but we found few race differences. Neither infertility nor chosen childlessness was rated negatively, but couples were rated more positively if they were perceived as temporarily rather than permanently childless. Our findings suggest that delayed parenthood is regarded as normative and that students have few negative biases regarding infertility or chosen childlessness. Perceptions were strongly conditioned by economic and employment considerations, which reflect current concerns about balancing work and family trajectories.

Earlier studies have documented persistent negative stereotypes of childless or childfree adults, though acceptance has increased in recent decades. Recent studies have also shown negative biases against parents, especially mothers, in work-related contexts. The current study used college students’ responses to hypothetical vignettes (N = 1,266) to compare perceptions of childless and childfree adults and parents using means comparisons with generalized linear modeling methods, controlling for student and vignette characteristics. Results showed that parents were perceived as warmer, but with less positive marital relationships, than those without children. Mothers were perceived as more stressed and childless men and women as more emotionally troubled, but there were few differences in work-related perceptions. Childless wives with no plans to have children were perceived as least warm, whereas husbands were perceived as least stressed. Results indicate some persistent negative stereotypes of childless adults along with negative perceptions of stress and marital strains related to parenthood.

The development of a complex cellular model, which incorporates the basic cell components of the dog skin, would be a useful tool to investigate the biology and pathology of canine skin and also to replace animal testing partially. The aim of the present study was to develop and characterize a canine skin equivalent. Epidermal keratinocytes and dermal fibroblasts were freshly isolated from skin biopsies from healthy dogs. Fibroblasts were embedded into a bio-matrix from collagen type I matrix protein; this built the scaffold where the keratinocytes were seeded, at air exposed conditions. At 3, 7, 15 and 21 days of culture in special growth media, skin equivalents were analysed by histological, immunohistochemical and electron microscopical techniques. At 15 days, keratinocytes underwent differentiation to a multilayer epidermis with stratum basal, stratum spinosum, stratum granulosum and stratum corneum. Expression of epidermal cytokeratins in keratinocytes was detected by immunhistochemistry, and followed the same pattern than in the normal canine epidermis. Fibroblasts from the skin equivalent expressed vimentin as dermal fibroblasts do. A basement membrane (BM) was observed underneath the epidermis; ultrastructurally, it was similar to the normal canine BM and collagen IV and laminin 5 were detected immunohistochemically as major components of this structure. Skin equivalents developed from canine cutaneous cells presented a similar morphological structure than healthy canine skin. Moreover, the immunohistochemical analysis revealed the expression of the major markers of the epidermis (keratins), dermis (vimentin) and BM (collagen type IV, laminin 5).

Many health problems such as hypertension, obesity, and diabetes are associated with unhealthy lifestyles, and drastically higher for low income minority populations. The Health Belief Model (HBM) assists practitioners in explaining and predicting health behaviors within its clients. 209 faith-based participants from 15 churches participated in a 16-week program, Village HeartBEAT, which integrated the HBM through one-on-one Health Coaching (HC) sessions. 16 individuals participated in the HC aspect of the program, averaging 2 sessions within the 16-week program. HC participants lost 3.60% of total weight, compared to 1.57% of those who did not attend HC, averaging 7lbs lost vs. 4lbs of non-HC participants. Total program participation of all programs for those who participated in HC averaged 15 per person, vs. 5 of non-HC participants. The findings suggest that the HBM needs to be integrated in preventive health programming to ensure adherence and success of the participants.

Background/Aims: Polyphenol compounds may explain most of the health-related beneficial effects of plants and vegetables, mainly through their antioxidant properties. The aim of the study was to assess the main changes on leukocyte gene expression of dogs caused by intake of three natural polyphenol-rich extracts and to compare them with caloric restriction. Methods: 20 female dogs were divided into 5 groups: control fed ad libitum (C), caloric-restricted to 30% less than control (CR), and 3 groups fed ad libitum supplemented with citrus extract (CE), green tea extract (GTE) or grape seed extract (GSE). Leukocytes gene expression was analyzed in a specially designed microarray. Results: CE treatment mainly downregulated genes related to inflammative (IL-8, VLA-4) and cytotoxic response (GRP 58) as well as proliferation of leukocytes. GTE induced gene expression related to leukocyte proliferation and signaling (GNAQ, PKC-B). GSE upregulated some of the genes increased by CE treatment. CR downregulated genes related with energy metabolism (ATP5A1, COX7C) and inflammatory markers (VLA-4). Conclusion: A chronic ingestion of citric, grape seed and green tea polyphenols is able to modulate canine leukocyte functions through changes in gene expression. CE ingestion reduces expression of some genes also diminished by a 30% caloric restriction.