Sleepwalking Into Infertility: The Need for a Public Health Approach Toward Advanced Maternal Age

In Western countries today, a growing number of women delay motherhood until their late 30s and even 40s, as they invest time in pursuing education and career goals before starting a family. This social trend results from greater gender equality and expanded opportunities for women and is influenced by the availability of contraception and assisted reproductive technologies (ART). However, advanced maternal age is associated with increased health risks, including infertility. While individual medical solutions such as ART and elective egg freezing can promote reproductive autonomy, they entail significant risks and limitations. We thus argue that women should be better informed regarding the risks of advanced maternal age and ART, and that these individual solutions need to be supplemented by a public health approach, including policy measures that provide women with the opportunity to start a family earlier in life without sacrificing personal career goals.     

Development and Evaluation of a Decision Aid About Prenatal Testing for Women of Advanced Maternal Age

Objective: To develop and evaluate a decision aid designed to prepare patients of advanced maternal age for counseling about prenatal diagnostic testing. Setting: A regional genetics center. Design: A before/after study. Interventions: Participants used an audioguided workbook to learn about options and outcomes and to clarify personal risks, values, questions, and predispositions. Subjects: 21 women of advanced maternal age and 17 spouses. Main outcome measures: Knowledge of prenatal testing alternatives, decisional conflict, level of anxiety, and acceptability of the decision aid. Results: After using the decision aid, participants had significantly reduced decisional conflict (uncertainty) and a significant increase in knowledge. There was no effect on state or trait anxiety. More than three-quarters of participants were satisfied with the length, clarity, balance, and acceptability of the decision aid. Conclusions: The decision aid shows promise as a useful aid for preparing couples for counseling.     

Validity of Adolescents' Report of Maternal Age

Examined the validity of adolescents' reports of their mother's age. Most research on the validity of self-report focuses on personal behaviors such as alcohol and substance use, or response bias due to social desirability. Few studies investigate the validity of adolescents reporting of nonsensitive information. Data from 80 mother–adolescent pairs were collected. The sample included 9th graders from four high school English classes, equal numbers of males and females, and 15% African Americans. The correlation between mothers' reports and youths' reports of mother's age was .99, and 95% of the youth were within a year of their mother's correct age. No race or gender differences were found. These results allow researchers to examine adolescent outcomes for youth born to teen mothers without the expense of also collecting data from their mothers. Results also suggest that adolescents' self-reports of other nonsensitive familial data may also be valid.     

Privacy in the Shadow of Nanotechnology

One of the more salient concerns about nanotechnology is the fear that it will harm privacy by collecting personal information and distributing it. This sentiment is complicated by the fact that the specific nanotechnologies that might affect privacy are located more in the near future than in the present, so our knowledge of them is more speculative than empirical. To come to terms with these issues, we will need both knowledge of the science – what is realistic and what is not – and a sense of the on-going discourses on privacy and technology that are likely to frame feelings about nanotech.     

何以为儒:论明代“伪儒”问题的本质

明代社会中的"伪儒"一词意蕴丰富多元,它不仅仅是文人相轻心态下儒士相互间的攻讦,而且也是社会舆论对种种不循道统现象的批判。作为长期纷扰明代儒学进展的复杂社会现象,"伪儒"问题的表相是儒学正统的赓续与践履问题,然究其本质,却也是儒学在社会转型与通俗化过程中,何以面对亟待解决的思想困境问题。作为带有明显主观建构性质的批判对象,"伪儒"以社会问题的面目而出现,体现了明代儒学的内部分化,以及儒学知识阶层的学术理想与社会现实间的张力与断裂。     

In the Shadow of Terror

Summary

This study examined the effects of terror on world assumptions in Israeli youth. The sample comprised 2,999 adolescents aged 13-16 who were exposed to different levels of terror. Relations of objective and subjective exposure to terror, life events, ideological, religious commitment, and social support with world assumptions were assessed. Results show that personal and social resources made a more substantial contribution to the explained variance of world assumptions than exposure to terror. Implications of the associations between religious and ideological commitment and social support with world assumptions are discussed.     

Postmenopausal Motherhood Reloaded: Advanced Age and In Vitro Derived Gametes

In this paper we look at the implications of an emerging technology for the case in favor of, or against, postmenopausal motherhood. Technologies such as in vitro derived gametes (sperm and eggs derived from nonreproductive cells) have the potential to influence the ways in which reproductive medicine is practiced, and are already bringing new dimensions to debates in this area. We explain what in vitro derived gametes are and how their development may impact on the case of postmenopausal motherhood. We briefly review some of the concerns that postmenopausal motherhood has raised—and the implications that the successful development, and use in reproduction, of artificial gametes might have for such concerns. The concerns addressed include arguments from nature, risks and efficacy, reduced energy of the mother, and maternal life expectancy. We also consider whether the use of in vitro derived gametes to facilitate postmenopausal motherhood would contribute to reinforcing a narrow, geneticized account of reproduction and a pro‐reproductive culture that encourages women to produce genetically related offspring at all costs.     

试论儒家的意义治疗思想

儒家学说中蕴涵着丰富的意义治疗思想。认为人要活得有意义,就必须成就自己的道德生命,成为具有道德的人;人只有通过自己的切身体验将外在的道德规范转化为一种道德信念,才能完成自己的道德使命,实践自己的道德人生;生与死一样,都是求"道"的工具和使命;而是否能够实现生命的意义、是否能够达到理想的人格,主要取决于其生命实践。     

试论儒家的意义治疗思想

儒家学说中蕴涵着丰富的意义治疗思想.认为人要活得有意义,就必须成就自己的道德生命,成为具有道德的人;人只有通过自己的切身体验将外在的道德规范转化为一种道德信念,才能完成自己的道德使命,实践自己的道德人生;生与死一样,都是求"道"的工具和使命;而是否能够实现生命的意义、是否能够达到理想的人格,主要取决于其生命实践.     

A Quality Life in the Shadow of Terrorism

After the demise of the Soviet Union, many individuals felt a sigh of relief as fear was leaving them. Yet, over the years, counselors have seen a new fear—terrorism—demonstrated in drive-by shootings, hate crimes, and now, weapons of mass destruction. In helping clients deal with this all-too-real phenomenon, a reframing process is in order, one that views our lives not in permanence, but as constant change. Much needless suffering is due to clinging to permanent belief systems, which, in reality, are impermanent. Many clients I have worked with have found effective ways not only to deal with, but to flourish in whatever life brings, via a self-Being relationship.