A molecular survey reveals high occurrence of co-infections in intensive pork production farms with increased rates of mummified swine fetuses in Southern Brazil / [Pesquisa molecular revela alta ocorrência de coinfecções em granjas de produção intensiva de suínos com altas taxas de mumificação fetal no sul do Brasil]

Neste estudo, 308 amostras de fetos mumificados foram testadas para parvovírus suíno (PPV), circovírus suíno tipos 2 e 3 (PCV2 e PCV3) e leptospiras patogênicas. A idade gestacional no momento da perda gestacional e a frequência da mumificação fetal de acordo com a ordem de parto também foram investigadas. As amostras foram coletadas em granjas comerciais de criação de suínos da região sul do Brasil que apresentassem taxas de mumificação fetal igual ou maiores a 2,5%. Fragmentos de pulmão, rim, fígado e coração de fetos suínos mumificados foram coletados para análise molecular. Resultados da PCR foram classificados de acordo com a região de origem das amostras, tendo Santa Catarina, Paraná e Rio Grande do Sul contabilizado 87 (28,25%), 89 (28,90%) e 132 (42,86%) do total de amostras de fetos suínos mumificados, respectivamente. Coinfecções foram observadas na maioria dos casos e PCV3 foi o agente mais prevalente detectado, encontrado em 298 amostras (96,75%). A maioria das perdas gestacionais foi observada entre 50 e 70 dias de gestação (168; 54,5%) e a mumificação fetal não foi associada à ordem de parto das matrizes. Os achados sugerem que as altas taxas de fetos suínos mumificados na região Sul do Brasil podem ser explicadas pela infecção com esses agentes virais.(AU)

Theories of origins of male homosexuality. A cross-cultural look.

In this report, we use data from an isolated Eastern Highlands New Guinea tribe to test psychoanalytic and learning theory explanations for origins of homoerotic behavior. Despite heavy reinforcing of unlimited fellatio in prepubertal boys and youths and powerful teaching that female bodies are poisonously dangerous, Sambia men are almost always heterosexual. We present the history of the one who is not. It shows that, as analytic theory predicts, he is homosexual. In the childhood of all the other boys are the kinds of preoedipal and oedipal experiences that analytic theory proposes for a heterosexual outcome.

The development of masculinity: a cross-cultural contribution.

We have examined, using data from a Stone-Age New Guinea culture, two hypotheses regarding the development of masculinity: that a prolonged and too gratifying mother-son symbiosis threatens a boy's chances of becoming masculine and that a boy, to create masculinity, must raise a psychic barrier against the urge to be merged with his mother. The data show the hypothesized forces to be at work in these New Guineans much as in Western society.

Gay and lesbian youth, emergent identities, and cultural scenes at home and abroad.

This introduction opens up the field of studies of gay and lesbian adolescents, both with regard to past and present studies in the research literature, and by allusion to the new studies collected in this issue. Historical and crosscultural elements of the context of the "coming out" process are discussed. Four preconceptions of gay youth are critically examined, regarding their heterosexuality, inversion, stigma, and heterogeneity. The anthropological construct of life crisis "rites of passage" is utilized as a heuristic framework for deconstructing attitudes regarding change and constancy in homosexual adolescents. Aspects of age, sex, class, and related variables related to the form and content of the coming out process are then examined in the United States and other societies. Finally, the social problems of gay youth, AIDS and its impact in particular, are briefly considered. The author concludes with a plea for new and urgent research.

A comment on cultural attributes and fluidity of bisexuality.

Selected aspects of the "essentialist" critiques and reviews in Bisexual and Homosexual Identities: Critical Theoretical Issues (De Cecco & Shively, eds., 1983/1984) of the idea of the bisexual identity are examined from the standpoint of their cross-cultural significance. Examples from recent studies in Melanesia are used to highlight possible areas of exploration for future research in homosexuality and bisexuality. The idea of fluidity of sexual identity is examined, including the associated notion of sexual desire.

Widening circles: an ethnographic profile of a youth group.

This article introduces work-in-progress on the ethnography of a gay and lesbian youth group in Chicago. The surrounding neighborhood is sketched and aspects of the supporting agency, within which the group functions, are described. Both are seen as contributing contexts for the "coming out" process here. The youth group is described in part, including the age, ethnicity, and related factors of its composition. Youth are found to be involved in a process of dual socialization entailing roles and knowledge in the gay and straight normative communities.

The magical age of 10.

Developmental processes of "puberty" and their cultural contexts in understanding the emergence of sexual subjectivity, especially sexual attraction, prior to gonadarche are critically examined. In particular, we consider the hypothesis that "sexual attraction" follows the onset of adrenal puberty, termed adrenarche, precipitating the development of stable and memorable attraction toward others approximately by the age of 10. In a prior study, the authors suggested that adrenarche is a significant source of this developmental change in sexuality (McClintock, M., and Herdt, G., 1996). The inferential evidence from New Guinea is compared with recent studies from the United States, including clinical findings on "precocious puberty." We conclude with the question of whether the age of 10 is a human universal in the development of attraction and sexuality.

The Sambia "turnim-man": sociocultural and clinical aspects of gender formation in male pseudohermaphrodites with 5-alpha-reductase deficiency in Papua New Guinea.

Continuing controversy surrounding the Dominican Republic studies of 5-alpha-reductase deficiency and the development of gender identity in male pseudohermaphrodites concerns the roles of culture and biology in determining the ambiguity of gender socialization in an unsophisticated population. The present paper provides a cross-cultural perspective on these problems through description of anthropological and clinical data for a sample (N = 14) of subjects suffering from 5-alpha-reductase deficiency. Nine of these male pseudohermaphrodites were reared ambiguously as male and five as female. Female subjects changed from the female to male-identified role, but in circumstances of social trauma. The authors find ambiguity here related to the presence of a third sexual category available for sex-assignment and typing. Cultural valuation of the male role makes gender-switching from female to male pragmatically adaptive. The study concludes that social-experiential and cultural factors are significant in the formation of gender identity change in male pseudohermaphrodites with 5-alpha-reductase deficiency.

Implications for adult roles from differential styles of mother-infant bonding: an ethological study.

Ethological observations of maternal and infant behaviors of nine vervet monkey pairs (Cercopithecus aethiops sabaeus) showed the effects of differential styles of early maternal responsiveness on later infant competence. Those infants receiving the least amount of maternal responsiveness and the most time-off the mother in the first 3 months of development were more socially competent at 6 months of age. The results are discussed within current ethological "attachment" theories. The detachment or separation process of mother-infant interaction is considered as important a factor during infant development as the primary maternal bond.