Changes in the Sexual Dimorphism of Triatominae in the Transition from Natural to Artificial Habitats

A shift from large to small average sizes was observed in Triatoma infestans and Rhodnius domesticus between field and domestic (or laboratory) conditions of life. It was more pronounced in the female specimens, leading to a subsequent reduction of sexual size dimorphism. This feature is discussed in terms of genetic and populational changes occurring from natural to artificial habitats, in particular those related to population densities. Sexual size dimorphism is then recommended as a new character to be used in the study of species of Triatominae adapting to domestic ecotopes.

Closeness in relationships as a mediator between sexual abuse in childhood or adolescence and psychopathological outcome in adulthood.

The risk of adverse psychological outcomes in adult victims of childhood and adolescent sexual abuse (CSA) has been documented; however, research on possible mediating variables is still required, namely with a clinical perspective. The attachment literature suggests that secure interpersonal relationships may represent such a variable. Twenty-eight women who had experienced episodes of CSA, and 16 control women, were interviewed using Bremner's Early Trauma Inventory and the DSM-IV Global Assessment of Functioning; they also responded to Collins' Relationship Scales Questionnaire, evaluating adult attachment representations in terms of Closeness, Dependence and Anxiety. Subjects with an experience of severe abuse reported significantly more interpersonal distance in relationships (low index of Closeness) than other subjects. The index of psychopathological functioning was correlated with both the severity of abuse and attachment (low index of Closeness). Regression analysis on the sample of abused women revealed that attachment predicted psychopathology when abuse was controlled for, whereas abuse did not predict psychopathology when attachment was controlled for. Therefore, preserving a capacity for closeness with attachment figures in adulthood appears to mediate the consequences of CSA on subsequent psychopathological outcome.

Sexual Health Promotion Strategy and Action Plan

A five year sexual health strategy including addendum 2008-2013

Tackling Sexual Violence at Home

Tackling Violence at Home Action Plans

Tackling Sexual Violence and Abuse 09-10 Action Plan

Tackling Sexual Violence and Abuse

Tackling Sexual Violence and Abuse - A regional Strategy 2008-2013 (PDF 20.2 MB)

Tackling Sexual Violence and Abuse - A regional Strategy 2008-2013

Cefalea tusígena, de esfuerzo y relacionada con la actividad sexual:descripción de una serie de 50 casos

Las cefaleas tusígena, de esfuerzo y sexual son entidades infrecuentes y poco descritas. Hemos realizado un estudio retrospectivo de pacientes que consultaron durante 5 años por dicha patología en nuestro centro. De una muestra de 50 pacientes, 25 consultaron por cefalea tusigena, 15 por esfuerzo y 10 relacionadas con actividad sexual (74%, 80% y 80% de formas respectivamente). Las tres entidades podrían tratarse del espectro de una misma patología. Los principales elementos diferenciadores respecto a las formas secundarias fueron la asociación en estas de sintomatología neurológica, exploración patológica y la edad de debut más temprana. Ambas pueden responder a Indometacina

Deciding where to belong: gender differences in educational trajectories and migration in a rural Spanish town

From an anthropological perspective, formal post-secondary schooling is not an abstractentity with an intrinsic value that everyone finds desirable, but rather one alternative among many that young people evaluate from their different positions in the social field. The problem discussed in this paper is the diverging life trajectories that young men and women in a concrete rural context, at the end of the 20th century, shape for themselves at the ages of 14-16, a moment of decision created by national legislation regarding mandatory education (LGE, 1970, General Education Law, and LOGSE, 1990, General Organic Law of the Education System). Despite a strong cultural norm of equal inheritance divided among all children, male and female, and despite the equal educational opportunities provided by the Spanish State, different meanings of possession and use-rights over land and the resulting culturally accepted gendered division of work converge to orient men and women differently towards post-secondary schooling. Observation of the age, gender, and civil status structure of the population led to the preliminary query: Why do men and women, in this town, behave differently with respect to migration and marriage? The main hypothesis was that women’s longer school trajectories and resulting migration and men’s anchoring in the town and their higher rates of celibacy were not drastic changes in values, in the positional-relational sense of Bourdieu (1988, 2002), but the current outcome of previously existing dissimilar relations to property that produce dissimilar mobility. Through their schooling and work choices, young men and women, at very early ages, locate themselves in, or decide to belong to, different contexts that later reveal very different possibilities of finding marriage partners. This paper is based on an ethnographic study of a small rural town (302 inhabitants in 1950; 193 in 2000) near Leon. Although this paper deals with the situation in the final decades of the 20th century, we must also consider the first half of the century, where some elements that shape this situation have their roots. Fieldwork was carried out between 1988 and 2001, in periods of differing length and intensity. The social subjects discussed here are the domestic unit and its component members. They were studied in conjunction, analyzing the life-trajectory decisions of specific persons in the framework of the domestic unit and the relations among people and property which comprise it. The tried-and-true methods of ethnographic research –participant observation, interviews, and life-histories, etc.- were employed. Archival research was also important for producing demographic data. Demographic analysis, the analysis of the composition and transformation of domestic units, and the creation of life trajectories were among the principal techniques used. The theoretical analysis was oriented by Bourdieu’s (2002) framework of the social field, habitus, and difference.

Sexual Offending in Northern Ireland - Managing the Risk

Sexual Offending in Northern Ireland - Managing the Risk

Sexual Health Promotion Strategy (PDF 180 KB)

Sexual Health Promotion Strategy