Findings from research on parent-child and adult mate relationships suggest that there are different paths of development in Japan and the United States. In Japan, the path is one of symbiotic harmony, as seen in the emphasis on union in infancy, others' expectations in childhood, the stability of relationships with parents and peers in adolescence, and assurance about the mate relationship in adulthood. In the United States, the path is one of generative tension, as seen in the tug between separation and reunion in infancy, the emphasis on personal preferences in childhood, the transfer of closeness from parents to peers in adolescence, and the emphasis on trust-a faith and hope in new relationships-in adulthood. The notion that there are different paths of development challenges Western investigators' presumption that certain processes-separation-individuation, use of the relational partner as a secure base for exploration, and conflict between partners-are central in all relationships. The notion of different paths also challenges the assumption of many cross-cultural investigators that relationships in the United States are less valued or weaker than those in Japan; this article highlights cultural differences in the meaning and dynamics, as opposed to the importance and strength, of relationships. The model suggests a need to investigate the processes underlying, and the adaptive consequences of, these two alternative paths.

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In cascade perfusion and superfusion experiments on rabbit tissues, when acetylcholine (ACh) was introduced into the circuit so as to perfuse the aorta under perfusion with noradrenaline (NA), the effluent relaxed the transverse aortic strip which had been denuded of endothelium. The effluent from the perfused aorta which was capable of relaxing the transverse aortic strip also significantly inhibited platelet aggregation induced by arachidonic acid (AA) in a volume‐related manner. The inhibitory activity was decreased by the prolongation of transit time before addition of the effluent to platelet‐rich plasma. Neither the inhibition of AA‐induced aggregation nor the relaxation of the transverse strip by the effluent could be observed after the removal of endothelium from the aorta, or after pretreatment of aorta with mepacrine or nordihydroguaiaretic acid (NDGA). The AA‐induced platelet aggregation was unaffected by pretreatment of platelets with mepacrine or NDGA at the concentration tested. Pretreatment of aorta with indomethacin failed to modify the relaxation of the transverse strip induced by the effluent. These results strongly suggest that endothelium‐derived vascular relaxant factor (EDRF) possesses inhibitory activity on AA‐induced aggregation in addition to its vasodilator activity.

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The boreotropical flora concept suggests that relictual tropical disjunctions between Asia and the Americas are a result of the expansion of the circumboreal tropical flora from the middle to the close of the Eocene. Subsequently, temperate species diverged at high latitudes and migrated to other continents. To test this concept, we conducted a molecular phylogenetic analysis (using cpDNA) of the Magnoliaceae, a former boreotropical element that currently contains both tropical and temperate disjuncts. Divergence times of the clades were estimated using sequences of matK and two intergenic regions consisting of psbA-trnH and atpB-rbcL. Results indicate the tropical American section Talauma branched first, followed by the tropical Asian clade and the West Indies clade. Within the remaining taxa, two temperate disjunctions were formed. Assuming the temperate disjunction of Magnolia acuminata and Asian relatives occurred 25 mya (late Oligocene; based on seed fossil records), section Talauma diverged 42 mya (mid-Eocene), and tropical Asian and the West Indies clades 36 mya (late Eocene). These events correlate with cooling temperatures during the middle to late Eocene and probably caused the tropical disjunctions.

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We made a disease-specific comparison of unrelated cord blood (CB) recipients and human leukocyte antigen allelematched unrelated bone marrow (BM) recipients among 484 patients with acute myeloid leukemia (AML; 173 CB and 311 BM) and 336 patients with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL; 114 CB and 222 BM) who received myeloablative transplantations. In multivariate analyses, among AML cases, lower overall survival (hazard ratio [HR] ‫؍‬ 1.5; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.0-2.0, P ‫؍‬ .028) and leukemia-free survival (HR ‫؍‬ 1.5; 95% CI, 1.1-2.0, P ‫؍‬ .012) were observed in CB recipients. The relapse rate did not differ between the 2 groups of AML (HR ‫؍‬ 1.2; 95% CI, 0.8-1.9, P ‫؍‬ .38); however, the treatment-related mortality rate showed higher trend in CB recipients (HR ‫؍‬ 1.5; 95% CI, 1.0-2.3, P ‫؍‬ .085). In ALL, there was no significant difference between the groups for relapse (HR ‫؍‬ 1.4, 95% CI, 0.8-2.4, P ‫؍‬ .19) and treatment-related mortality (HR ‫؍‬ 1.0; 95% CI, 0.6-1.7, P ‫؍‬ .98), which contributed to similar overall survival (HR ‫؍‬ 1.1; 95% CI, 0.7-1.6, P ‫؍‬ .78) and leukemia-free survival (HR ‫؍‬ 1.2; 95% CI, 0.9-1.8, P ‫؍‬ .28). Matched or mismatched single-unit CB is a favorable alternative stem cell source for patients without a human leukocyte antigen-matched related or unrelated donor. For patients with AML, decreasing mortality, especially in the early phase of transplantation, is required to improve the outcome for CB recipients. (Blood.

This study investigated and compared ideas about parenting in Argentine, Belgian, French, Israeli, Italian, Japanese, and U.S. mothers of 20-month-olds. Mothers evaluated their competence, satisfaction, investment, and role balance in parenting and rated attributions of successes and failures in 7 parenting tasks to their own ability, effort, or mood, to difficulty of the task, or to child behavior. Few cross-cultural similarities emerged; rather, systematic culture effects for both self-evaluations and attributions were common, such as varying degrees of competence and satisfaction in parenting, and these effects are interpreted in terms of specific cultural proclivities and emphases. Child gender was not an influential factor. Parents' self-evaluations and attributions help to explain how and why parents parent and provide further insight into the broader cultural contexts of children's development.