ABSTRACT:Fourteen samples of sodium poly(2-acrylamido-2-methylpropanesulfonate) ranging in weight-average molecular weight from 1:7 Â 10 3 to 1:4 Â 10 6 have been studied by static light scattering (or sedimentation equilibrium) and viscometry to characterize the polyelectrolyte in 0.05 and 0.5 M aqueous NaCl at 25 C. The measured intrinsic viscosities (except for the two lowest molecular weights) and radii of gyration in the respective solvents are consistently described by combinations of the theories for unperturbed wormlike chains and excluded-volume effects (in the quasi-two-parameter scheme) with the parameter sets: q (the total persistence length) = 1.5 nm, M L (the linear mass density) = 900 nm À1 , d (the chain diameter) = 1.6 nm, and B (the excluded-volume strength) = 3 nm in 0.5 M aqueous NaCl and q ¼ 3:0 nm, M L ¼ 900 nm À1 , d ¼ 1:7 nm, and B ¼ 6:2 nm in 0.05 M aqueous NaCl. It is shown that the end effect on the electrostatic persistence length hardly affects the estimation of q in the aqueous salts.

BackgroundThis study aimed to use a portable ultrasound method to quantitatively measure skin thickness and to compare leg edema in obese and non-obese pregnant women.Material/MethodsThirty-six pregnant women (17 primiparas and 19 multiparas) at 27/28 and 37/38 weeks of pregnancy, with and without leg edema, had their lower leg skin thickness measured using a B-scan portable ultrasonography device (72 legs and maximum of 98 measurements). Measurements were compared between women who were obese prior to pregnancy, with a body mass index (BMI) ≥25 kg/m2 and non-obese with a BMI <25 kg/m2.ResultsSkin thickness of the legs in pregnant women with edema was significantly increased compared with that in pregnant women without edema (6.4±0.3 mm vs. 4.6±0.4 mm) (p=0.0001). There was a significant correlation between the degree of pitting edema and skin thickness in all edematous legs (ρ=0.56; n=98; p<0.0001). The cutoff level of edema measured by portable ultrasound in non-obese pregnant women was 4.7 mm (sensitivity 83.9%, specificity 66.7%) and was 7.5 mm in obese pregnant women. Obese pregnant women with edema had a significantly increased leg skin thickness compared with non-obese pregnant women with edema (11.3±1.3 mm vs. 5.7±0.2 mm) (p<0.0001).ConclusionsPortable ultrasonography is a reliable method of quantitatively measuring skin thickness of the lower leg in edema associated with pregnancy. The thickness of the skin in obese pregnant women with edema can be expected to be significantly increased compared with non-obese pregnant women with edema.

We investigated the effects of grammatical and stereotypical gender information on the comprehension of human referent role nouns among bilinguals of a grammatical (French) and a natural gender language (English). In a sentence evaluation paradigm, participants judged the acceptability of a gender-specific sentence referring to either a group of women or men following a sentence containing the plural form of a role noun female (e.g., social workers), male (e.g., surgeons) or neutral (e.g., musicians) in stereotypicality. L1 French and L1 English bilinguals were tested both in French and English. The results showed that bilinguals construct mental representations of gender associated to the language of the task they are engaged in, shifting representations as they switch languages. Specifically, in French, representations were male dominant (i.e., induced by the masculine form), whereas in English, they were stereotype based. Furthermore, the results showed that the extent to which representations shifted was modulated by participants' proficiency in their L2; high proficient L2 participants resembling closer to native speakers of the L2 and less proficient L2 participants being influenced more by their native language.

The growing literature on gender inequality in academia attests to the challenge that awaits female researchers during their academic careers. However, research has not yet conclusively resolved whether these biases persist during the peer review process of research grant funding and whether they impact respective funding decisions. Whereas many have argued for the existence of gender inequality in grant peer reviews and outcomes, others have demonstrated that gender equality is upheld during these processes. In the present paper, we illustrate how these opinions have come to such opposing conclusions and consider methodological and contextual factors that render these findings inconclusive. More specifically, we argue that a more comprehensive approach is needed to further the debate, encompassing individual and systemic biases as well as more global social barriers. We also argue that examining gender biases during the peer review process of research grant funding poses critical methodological challenges that deserve special attention. We conclude by providing directions for possible future research and more general considerations that may improve grant funding opportunities and career paths for female researchers.

Employing a linguistic-visual paradigm, we investigated whether the grammaticization of gender information impacts readers’ gender representations. French and German were taken as comparative languages, taking into account the male gender bias associated to both languages, as well as the comparative gender biases associated to their plural determiners (French: les [generic] vs. German: die [morphologically feminine]). Bilingual speakers of French and German had to judge whether a pair of facial images representing two men or a man and a woman could represent a gender stereotypical role noun prime (e.g., nurses). The prime was presented in the masculine plural form with or without a plural determiner. Results indicated that the overt grammaticization of the male gender in the masculine form dominated the representation of the role nouns (though interpretable as generic). However, the effect of the determiner was not found, indicating that only gender information associated to a human reference role noun had impacted readers’ representations. The results, discussed in the framework of the thinking-for-speaking hypothesis, demonstrated that linguistic-visual paradigms are well-suited to gauge the impact of both stereotype information and grammaticization when processing role nouns.