Biological Well-Being during the "Economic Miracle" in Spain: Height, Weight and Body Mass Index of Conscripts in the City of Madrid, 1955-1974.

Typifying historical populations using anthropometric indicators such as height, BMI and weight allows for an analysis of the prevalence of obesity and malnutrition. This study evaluates secular changes in height, weight and body mass for men cohorts at 21 years old, born between 1934 and 1954 who were called up between 1955 and 1974, in the city of Madrid, Spain. In this study we prove the hypothesis that anthropometric variables increase thanks to improvement in diet and significant investments in hygiene and health infrastructure during the 1960s.

Use of joinpoint regressions to evaluate changes over time in conscript height.

Objectives: Cohort variation in adult height expresses both the impact of socio-economic change on human biology in a wide temporal perspective and social inequalities within populations. We aimed to test the use of joinpoint regressions to identify periods in which changes in height trends were statistically significant.

Methods: Data correspond to the height recorded in Madrid City (Spain) for 65 313 conscripts between 1936 and 1974 (cohorts from 1915 to 1953), a period of social and political turmoil.

Plasticity in the growth of body segments in relation to height-for-age and maternal education in Guatemala.

Objectives: Plasticity in the growth of body segments between populations has been researched in relation to migration, temporal change and high-altitude studies. We study the within population variation in body segments, thus controlling for some of the environmental and genetic differences that could be at play in between populations studies. We test a version of the thrifty phenotype hypothesis, where the growth of head-trunk and hand are prioritized due to their functional significance over height and leg growth.

Disparities in Height and Urban Social Stratification in the First Half of the 20th Century in Madrid (Spain).

Adult height is the most commonly used biological indicator to evaluate material and emotional conditions in which people grew up, allowing the analysis of secular trends associated with socio-economic change as well as of social inequalities among human populations. There is a lack of studies on both aspects regarding urban populations. Our study evaluates the secular trends and the disparities in height of conscripts born between 1915 and 1953 and called-up at the age of 21 between 1936 and 1969, living in districts with low versus middle and high socio-economic conditions, in the city of Madrid, Spain.

[Social disparities in low birth weight among Spanish mothers during the economic crisis (2007-2015)].

Objective: to evaluate the impact of the economic crisis on the disparities in the prevalence and risk of low birth weight (LBW) according to the maternal socioeconomic profile.

Methods: the data analysed corresponds to 1,779,506 single births to Spanish mothers in the years 2007, 2009, 2011, 2013 and 2015. The temporal changes in available maternal-foetal variables are described.

[Height cohorts and district of residence in the city of Madrid during the 20th century].

Objective: in recent decades, an interesting literature has accumulated regarding the biological living standard in Spain at the end of the 19th Century and during the 20th Century. Adult height has been one of the most studied variables, specifically its temporal change at the national and provincial levels, the impact of the Civil War and the subsequent dictatorship, and the differences between urban and rural areas. We want to contribute to this general overview with the presentation of a project about an intra-urban perspective of the city of Madrid.

The impact of delayed maternity on foetal growth in Spain: An assessment by population attributable fraction.

Background: Delayed childbearing is considered a risk factor for maternal-foetal health. As in other higher-income countries, in Spain age at maternity has steadily increased during the last two decades.

Aim: To quantify the impact of the delay in the age at maternity on small for gestational age (SGA) categories of <3rd, 3rd-5th and 5th-10th percentiles.

New birthweight charts according to parity and type of delivery for the Spanish population.

Objective: Birthweight by gestational age charts enable fetal growth to be evaluated in a specific population. Given that maternal profile and obstetric practice have undergone a remarkable change over the past few decades in Spain, this paper presents new Spanish reference percentile charts stratified by gender, parity and type of delivery. They have been prepared with data from the 2010-2014 period of the Spanish Birth Statistics Bulletin.

Is the economic crisis affecting birth outcome in Spain? Evaluation of temporal trend in underweight at birth (2003-2012).

Background: There is growing evidence of the impact of the current European economic crisis on health. In Spain, since 2008, there have been increasing levels of impoverishment and inequality, and important cuts in social services.

Aim: The objective is to evaluate the impact of the economic crisis on underweight at birth in Spain.

Phase-field modelling of the dynamics of Z-ring formation in liposomes: Onset of constriction and coarsening.

We propose a model for the dynamics of the formation of rings of FtsZ on tubular liposomes which produce constriction on the corresponding membrane. Our phase-field model is based on a simple bending energy that captures the dynamics of the interplay between the protein and the membrane. The short-time regime is analyzed by a linear dispersion relation, with which we are able to predict the number of rings per unit length on a tubular liposome.

Variability between the follicular steroid hormone levels in different follicles of the same patient and between patients.

Context: There is disagreement as to whether the concentration of a substance in follicular fluid is related to the quality of the follicle as a possible reflection of the oocyte quality or whether this concentration is related to the clinical characteristics of the patient.

Aim: To establish the variability of steroid hormone levels in follicular fluids from different follicles of the same patient and between patients.

Settings And Design: Prospective cohort study.

Follicular steroid hormones as markers of oocyte quality and oocyte development potential.

Context: Various components of follicular fluid are suggested as biochemical predictors of oocyte quality. Previous studies of follicular steroid hormone levels have shown disparate results when related with fertilization outcomes.

Aim: The objective of the study was to relate the levels of steroid hormones of each individual follicle with oocyte maturation, fertilization results, embryo quality, and pregnancy rates.

Revisiting the daily human birth pattern: time of delivery at Casa de Maternidad in Madrid (1887-1892).

Objectives: Among the ancestral characteristics of the primate group to which Homo sapiens belongs we find a pattern of daytime physical activity, but one notable exception is birthing which usually begins with night-time labor. In populations with a moderate or high level of medicalized labor, there is evidence that the medical preferences interfere with the underlying biological mechanism for the circadian pattern of human birth.

Methods: This study analyses the hourly patterns of 4,599 single live births in the House of Maternity in Madrid between 1887 and 1892, a period of very limited obstetric intervention and without the influence of artificial lighting.

Labor management and mode of delivery among migrant and Spanish women: does the variability reflect differences in obstetric decisions according to ethnic origin?

Based on previous findings showing both better birth outcomes in migrant than in Spanish women and different rates of medical intervention according to mother's origin, we hypothesize that mode of delivery decisions to solve similar problems differ according to ethnic origin. Ethnic differences for maternal characteristics, medical intervention, and mode of delivery were evaluated in 16,589 births from a Maternity Hospital in Madrid (Spain). Multinomial logistic regression analysis was used to evaluate the effect of mother's ethnic origin on the mode of delivery, adjusting for mother's age, parity, gestational age, birth weight, and epidural anesthesia.

Curvature multiphase field model for phase separation on a membrane.

We propose a model to describe the physical mechanisms by which chemical substances separate in the vicinity of a membrane. We assume that the adsorption of the different components of a complex liquid on a membrane is governed by interactions that couple them to the spontaneous curvature of the membrane. This problem is relevant to many fields in science, as cell constriction and division, micelles with cosurfactants, holometamorphosis, and morphogenesis in general.

Hour of birth and birth assistance: from a primate to a medicalized pattern?

Objectives: Previous studies generally agree that in Homo sapiens births without medical intervention occur mostly at night, although with a less accentuated pattern than in other primate species. The present study has three main objectives: (a) to establish the hourly pattern of births in a modern medicalized population, (b) to explore the association between the hour of birth and maternal and fetal variables and mode of delivery, and (c) to evaluate the risk for medical intervention at different hours of the day.

Methods: The hourly distribution of 25,779 deliveries at the "La Paz" Madrid University Maternity Hospital (Spain) has been analyzed.

Flower development as an interplay between dynamical physical fields and genetic networks.

In this paper we propose a model to describe the mechanisms by which undifferentiated cells attain gene configurations underlying cell fate determination during morphogenesis. Despite the complicated mechanisms that surely intervene in this process, it is clear that the fundamental fact is that cells obtain spatial and temporal information that bias their destiny. Our main hypothesis assumes that there is at least one macroscopic field that breaks the symmetry of space at a given time.

Dynamics of reaction-diffusion systems in a subdiffusive regime.

In this paper, we examine the dynamics of reaction-diffusion systems with fractional time derivatives. It is shown that in these conditions diffusion is anomalous, in the sense that the mean-square displacement r2 approximately tgamma, where gamma<1, a situation known as subdiffusion. We study the conditions for the appearance of a diffusion-driven instability and show that the restrictive conditions for a Turing instability are relaxed.

A two-dimensional numerical study of spatial pattern formation in interacting Turing systems.

For many years Turing systems have been proposed to account for spatial and spatiotemporal pattern formation in chemistry and biology. We extend the study of Turing systems to investigate the rô1e of boundary conditions, domain shape, non-linearities, and coupling of such systems. We show that such modifications lead to a wide variety of patterns that bear a striking resemblance to pigmentation patterns in fish, particularly those involving stripes, spots and transitions between them.

Soliton behaviour in a bistable reaction diffusion model.

We analyze a generic reaction-diffusion model that contains the important features of Turing systems and that has been extensively used in the past to model biological interesting patterns. This model presents various fixed points. Analysis of this model has been made in the past only in the case when there is only a single fixed point, and a phase diagram of all the possible instabilities shows that there is a place where a Turing-Hopf bifurcation occurs producing oscillating Turing patterns.

Wave-front dynamics in systems with directional anomalous diffusion.

In this paper we study the solutions of a generalized reaction-diffusion system with a bistable reaction term, and considering directional anomalous diffusion. We use the well-known properties of fractional derivatives to model asymmetric anomalous diffusion, and obtain traveling wave solutions that propagate in a direction that depends on the metastability of the front, the fractional exponent and the asymmetry of the diffusion.

Quasiwetting on spherical solid surfaces by oil-water-amphiphile mixtures.

We study the wetting behavior on spherical walls by ternary mixtures of oil, water, and an amphiphile. We use the Ginzburg-Landau free energy with a single order parameter and find that there are different stable structures of the interface and that a quasiwetting transition is the mechanism involved in the transition among them. We calculate these wetting transitions for two sets of parameters in the bulk free energy which are known to show microemulsion behavior.