Two cooperatively social populations of the theridiid spider Anelosimus studiosus in a temperate region

The quality of an individual's odour can allow potential mates to discriminate against individuals of low social class, poor health status or unsuitable genotype. Competitive scent marking provides a further mechanism which could allow mates to discriminate between individuals of apparently high quality. The presence or absence of fresh countermarks from competitors within an owner's territory or area marked by a dominant animal provides a reliable indicator of the owner's ability to defend its territory or dominate competitors. This could be used by potential mates to discriminate between individuals advertising their apparently high competitive ability through their scent-marking behaviour and odour quality. We tested this by manipulating scent marks in the neighbouring territories of wild-caught male house mice, Mus domesticus. As predicted, oestrous females used scent marks to select males apparently able to defend exclusive territories over those unable to exclude intruders. Females were more strongly attracted to the odour of owners of exclusively marked territories and showed more sexually related behaviour when interacting with these males. Furthermore, while females preferred a territory containing a better protected nest site regardless of the owner's apparent competitive ability, they still used the presence or absence of intruder countermarks when selecting a potential mate. This suggests that females use scent marks as a reliable signal of the best-quality mate among neighbouring males independently of their nest location. Since assessment depends on both the territory holder's own marks and those of competitor males, countermarking is likely to be an important mechanism of competition for mates between neighbours. Copyright 1998 The Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour     

Treatment with blood components and coagulation factor concentrates--modern concepts of hemotherapy

Transfusion of whole blood is the most common and successful organ transplantation world wide. It is in use longer than any other transplantation procedure. With the exception of uses in situations of crisis, treatment with whole blood is nowadays obsolete. This is due to enormous progress in preparation technologies. As a result blood from volunteer donors is separated before therapeutic use into its cellular and plasmatic components. The latter may be further processed into subfractions or secondary products. The advantages of this strategy are evident: a) the crude pharmaceutic material blood is used optimally, b) the isolated components may be stored over periods appropriate for their stability be it in a cryopreserved state or after biochemical, immunologic or biological modification, c) the patient receives only the blood components he needs, d) the transfusion of unnecessary fractions of blood is avoided, e) the rate of transfusion-associated adverse events is reduced, f) the physician has a basis for customized hematotherapy. Important implications concern logistics, economy, differentiated therapy and drug safety consideration. This contribution gives an overview on progress made in therapy of hematologic and oncologic patients with blood products and concentrates of coagulation factors. It demonstrates selected aspects of actual interest for optimal hemotherapy.     

Brief assessments of dietary behavior in field settings

Our research team is involved in ongoing research in both worksites and medical office settings. These settings offer great potential for reaching individuals who would not otherwise participate in health promotion, but they also place considerable constraints on assessment time and efforts, especially if one's goal is to attract a high and representative proportion of employees or patients. This paper reports on our experience with measures of dietary behavior in these two settings. We found it problematic to collect detailed assessments such as 4-day food records or comprehensive food frequency/history checklists in worksites or medical office settings using population-based samples. Instead, we recommend and provide data on the utility of a dietary-fat screening instrument, and on the Food Habits Questionnaire (FHQ-Kristal, Shattuck, & Henry, 1990), a brief measure of dietary behaviors associated with high-fat eating patterns. The FHQ, in particular, was found to correlate well with other more costly and time-consuming methods of assessment, to be reliable and responsive to intervention effects, and to provide behavioral targets for intervention. The strengths and limitations of these measures for tailoring intervention and assessing outcomes are discussed.