Thirty years after Harrison and Saeed: Does the medium make the message?

In 1977, Harrison and Saeed published what became the classic study of personal advertisements. They found that women tended to offer youth and attractiveness, while seeking financial security or wealth. Men, in turn, sought youth and attractiveness, while offering financial security. The purpose of the current study was to determine if changes in the medium used for personal ads (Internet versus print) has had an impact on stated preferences in mate selection. Our results duplicated the Harrison and Saeed (1977) findings, suggesting that neither the medium, nor the societal changes of the last 30 years, have had any effect on mate selection. In a supplementary analysis of women in the 50–69 age group, however, we found that these women were less willing to date older men, preferring younger partners.     

Malnutrition prevalence and precision in nutritional care differed in relation to hospital volume – a cross-sectional survey

Background  

To explore the point prevalence of the risk of malnutrition and the targeting of nutritional interventions in relation to undernutrition risk and hospital volume.     

Three-dimensional structure of the zona pellucida at ovulation

The mammalian zona pellucida (ZP) is an extracellular matrix surrounding oocytes and early embryos, which is critical for normal fertilization and preimplantation development. It is made up of three/four glycoproteins arranged in a delicate filamentous matrix. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) studies have shown that ZP has a porous, net-like structure and/or nearly smooth and compact aspect. In this study, the fine 3-D structure of the human and mouse ZP is reviewed with the aim to integrate ultrastructural and molecular data, considering that the mouse is still used as a good model for human fertilization. By conventional SEM observations, numerous evidences support that the spongy ZP appearance well correlates with mature oocytes. When observed through more sophisticated techniques at high resolution SEM, ZP showed a delicate meshwork of thin interconnected filaments, in a regular alternating pattern of wide and tight meshes. In mature oocytes, the wide meshes correspond to "pores" of the "spongy" ZP, whereas the tight meshes correspond to the compact parts of the ZP surrounding the pores. In conclusion, the traditional "spongy" or "compact" appearance of the ZP at conventional SEM appears to be only the consequence of a prevalence of different arrangements of microfilament networks, according to the maturation stage of the oocyte, and in agreement with the modern supramolecular model of the ZP at the basis of egg-sperm recognition. Despite great differences in molecular characterization of ZP glycoproteins between human and mouse ZP, there are no differences in the 3-D organization of glycoproteic microfilaments in these species.