In this experiment, average calcaneal fracture force is measured across male and female groups. The purpose of this experiment is an analysis of alternatives exploring the importance of sex-based criteria in models representing injuries typical in underbody blast environments. Seventeen (17) right legs were harvested at the knee from cadavers representing three anthropometries: 50th percentile male (6), 75th percentile female (6), and 5th percentile female (5). Care was taken to preserve anatomically correct geometry as the legs were cut to equal lengths, the tibia and fibula were potted in Dyna-Cast®, flesh and ligaments were excised from the inferior surface of the calcaneus, and a small Dyna-Cast® pad was poured and sanded flat – interfacing with the exposed calcaneal surface. Each test specimen was mounted in a custom fixture and exposed once to high-rate axial loading characterized by a constant acceleration and 25.4mm intrusion, achieving an average speed of 4.7m/s (σ = 0.3m/s) in 10ms. Input acceleration was measured by an Endevco 7264c accelerometer and a Denton 2513 six-axis load cell measured reaction force proximal to the specimen. A VR Phantom v9.1 camera recorded x-ray imagery at 2k frames per second. Data were collected by a TDAS Pro data acquisition system at 20k samples per second and filtered in accordance with SAE J211. Time of fracture, established through x-ray imagery, was used to determined fracture force from the electronically synchronized load-cell data. 100% injury was recorded. Average calcaneus fracture forces were reported as follows: 5406N (σ = 780N) for 50th percentile males, 4130N (σ = 1061N) for 75th percentile females, and 2873N (σ = 1293N) for 5th percentile females. Statistical significance was established between the reported averages according to three ANOVA tests: One-way (p = 0.0054), Brown-Forsythe (p = 0.0091), and Welch's (p = 0.0156). Unpaired Student's t-test confirmed significant differences between 50th percentile male vs 75th percentile female (p = 0.0469) and 50th percentile male vs 5th percentile female (p = 0.0030); the t-test did not show significance between the two female groups (p = 0.1315). Average impulse-to-fracture was calculated for each group and found to be not statistically significant. / Master of Science / A marked shift can be found in combat wound epidemiology towards a predominance of extremity injuries sustained from explosives. The Warrior Injury Assessment Mannequin (WIAMan) Project sought to develop a baseline dataset of post-mortem human surrogate responses to realistic explosive loading and correlate it to a highly instrumented mannequin for the further development of combat vehicles and personal protective gear. The following experiment exists within the WIAMan paradigm as an analysis of alternatives exploring the adequacy of the above mentioned baseline dataset in directly representing both male and female injuries. More specifically, this experiment interrogates the differences in average fracture forces between male and female calcanei across three anthropometries: 50th percentile male, 75th percentile female, and 5th percentile female. Testing was carried out on 17 right cadaver legs cut to equal lengths, potted proximally in Dyna-Cast®, with the inferior surface of their calcanei exposed; a small Dyna-Cast® pad was poured for each calcaneus and sanded flat. Each test specimen was fixed to a Denton 2513 six-axis load cell proximally and exposed to a high-rate, constant acceleration, 25.4mm displacement aligned with the calcaneus along the long axis of the leg bones. Fracture time, established through x-ray images recorded at 2k frames per second with a VR Phantom V9.1 camera, was used to determine load cell force measurement at fracture. Average calcaneus fracture forces were reported as follows: 5406N (σ = 780N) for 50th percentile males, 4130N (σ = 1061N) for 75th percentile females, and 2873N (σ = 1293N) for 5th percentile females. Statistical significance was established between the reported averages according to three ANOVA tests: One-way (p = 0.0054), Brown-Forsythe (p = 0.0091), and Welch's (p = 0.0156). Unpaired Student's t-test confirmed significant differences between 50th percentile male vs 75th percentile female (p = 0.0469) and 50th percentile male vs 5th percentile female (p = 0.0030); the t-test did not show significance between the two female groups (p = 0.1315). Average impulse-to-fracture was calculated for each group and found to be not statistically significant.

I examine some of the ecological and evolutionary implications of body size in hermit crabs, with special emphasis on the upper intertidal species Clibanarius digueti. In Chapter 1 I show that body size had a far greater effect than species identity on desiccation tolerance for shell-less individuals of C. digueti, Paguristes anahuacus, Pagurus lepidus, and Phimochirus roseus. In contrast with other intertidal taxa, there was no correlation between the upper tidal limit of a species and the expected desiccation tolerance of an average-sized, shell-less individual of that species. This suggests that the gastropod shell that normally houses the hermit crab is sufficient to eliminate desiccation as a community-structuring force in this guild. Clibanarius digueti exhibits strong sexual dimorphism in body size, with almost no overlap in size between adult males and females. In Chapter 2 I show that sexual differences in the intensity of selection on size favor this dimorphism. Specifically, male mating success depended more strongly on body size than did female fecundity. In fact, the rate of increase in fecundity with body size equalled the lowest previously recorded for decapod crustaceans, suggesting that sexual size dimorphism in this species may depend more on weak fecundity selection on females than on strong sexual selection on males. Documenting contemporary selection on a character, however, is not the same as documenting that selection caused the character to evolve. Chapter 3 presents the first empirical test in a single species (C. digueti) of the hypothesis that sexual size dimorphism represents an evolutionary response to sexual differences in selection on size. The test is based on a general model that predicts crab body size as a function of shell limitations, shell fit and body size. Both males and females occupied optimally sized shells of non-preferred species, but the greater the desirability of a shell species, the greater the tendency for males to occupy tighter-fitting shells than females. Males also apparently suffere higher mortality than similarly-sized females. According to the general model, these results agree with the hypothesis that differential selection is causally involved in the evolution of sexual size dimorphism, and contradict the alternative hypothesis that energetic constraints on females produce the dimorphism.

Interconnected freshwater habitats are essential for many fish populations, which allow fish to migrate between areas to fulfil their life-cycle and maximize their fitness. Currently, such populations are negatively affected by human habitat exploitation. As a result, the biodiversity in freshwater ecosystems is decreasing. In this study, I use data from surveys of two Asp (Leuciscus aspius) populations in Uppland to see how a representation of day length, water temperature and water current influence their spawning migrations. I also determine the difference in timing of migration between males and females, and if the individual body size matters. I found that day length, water temperature and water current affect the migratory behavior of Asp. I also found a significant difference in migratory timing between males and females, where males on average arrive 5-6 days earlier than females to spawning areas.

Research suggests biological sex differences may affect pain perception, however the difference in analgesic tolerance between male and females not been extensively studied. Therefore, here we studied the response of male and female Sprague-Dawley rats to prolonged duration local anesthetics; including conventional amino-amide anesthetics (bupivacaine), site 1 sodium channel blockers (tetrodotoxin) and a prolonged duration liposomal formulation (Exparel). This study examined the incidence and duration of sensory and motor blockade; systemic side effects, as well as local neurotoxicity and myotoxicity in both male and female rodents in an in vivo model of sciatic nerve blockade. The data collected does not indicate a sexual dimorphism among the agents studied. / 2019-07-03T00:00:00Z

Myelin is an extensive cell membrane produced by oligodendrocytes to ensheath neuronal axons in the central nervous system with the primary goal of maximizing the efficiency of electrochemical impulse transmission. During brain development, oligodendrocytes differentiate into myelin forming cells in a tightly regulated process which makes them vulnerable to multiple insults. Previous results from the laboratory showed that the timing of oligodendrocyte differentiation and rat brain myelination were altered by perinatal exposure to buprenorphine and methadone, opioid analogues used for treating pregnant addicts. The mechanism by which these opioids exerted their effects involved two opioid receptors, the μ-opioid receptor (MOR) and the nociceptin/orphanin FQ receptor (NOR). However, the role of these receptors and their endogenous ligands in controlling the timing of myelination under normal physiological conditions of brain development is not known. In this dissertation, we found that the endogenous MOR ligand endomorphin-1 (EM-1) acts as a strong promoter of rat pre-oligodendrocyte differentiation, but surprisingly, this effect is observed only in cells isolated from female pups. Interestingly, the stimulatory action of EM-1 was abolished upon co-incubation with the endogenous NOR ligand, nociceptin. Moreover, injections of NOR antagonist to 9-day-old female and male rat pups accelerated rat brain myelination in female rat pups with no significant changes in their male counterparts. Interestingly, the lack of major sex-dependent differences in developmental brain levels of EM-1 and nociceptin and the presence of the two receptors MOR and NOR in male and female oligodendrocytes suggested that the observed sex-specific responses may be highly dependent on critical intrinsic sex-dependent differences within these cells. Although nociceptin alone did not exert observable effects on pre-oligodendrocyte maturation, it increased the number of cells expressing Ki-67, a cell proliferation indicator, in oligodendrocyte progenitor cultures. These results suggest that nociceptin may be playing a stage specific role in oligodendrocyte development during brain maturation. The finding of critical functions of EM-1 and nociceptin in the developing female oligodendrocytes and brain myelination highlights the need for considering sexual dimorphism in the design of safer and more effective therapeutic approaches for treating opioid abuse, pain, and demyelinating disease as multiple sclerosis.

Sexual differences are dramatic and widespread across taxa. However, a common genome between males and females should hinder phenotypic divergence. In this thesis I have used experimental, genomic, and theoretical approaches to study processes that can facilitate and maintain differences between males and females. I studied two mechanisms for the evolution of sexual dimorphism - condition-dependence and gene duplication. If sex-specific traits are costly, then individuals should only express such traits when they possess enough resources to do so. I experimentally manipulated adult condition and found that the sex-biased gene expression depends on condition. Second, duplication events can permit different gene copies to adopt sex-specific expression. I showed that half of all duplicate families have paralogs with different sex-biased expression patterns between members. I investigated how current sexual dimorphism may support novel dimorphism. With regards gene duplication, I found that related duplicates did not always have different expression patterns. However, duplicating a pre-existing sex-biased gene effectively increases organismal sexual dimorphism overall. From a theoretical perspective, I investigated how sexually dimorphic recombination rates allow novel sexually antagonistic variation to invade. Male and female recombination rates separately affect invasion probabilities of new alleles. Finally, I examined the assumption that a common genetic architecture impedes the evolution of sexual dimorphism. First, I conducted a literature review to test whether additive genetic variances in shared traits were different between the sexes. There were few significant statistical differences. However, extreme male-biased variances were more common than extreme female-biased variances. Sexual dimorphism is expected to evolve easily in such traits. Second, I compared these results to findings from the multivariate literature. In contrast to single trait studies, almost all multivariate studies of sexual dimorphism have found variance differences, both in magnitude and orientation, between males and females. Overall, this thesis concludes that sexual dimorphism can evolve by processes that generate novel sexual dimorphism or that take advantage of pre-existing dimorphism. Furthermore, a common genome is not necessarily a strong barrier if genetic variances differ between the sexes. It will be an exciting challenge to understand how mutation and selection work together to allow organisms differ in their ability evolve sexual dimorphism.

Life-history theory proposes that different activities, such as growth, maintenance and reproduction compete for limited resources and therefore, life-history traits are bound together by physiological trade-offs. In dioecious species, females are assumed to invest a higher amount of resources in reproduction in comparison with males and this higher investment in reproduction is then assumed to have numerous consequences for the expression of other life-history traits. Some recent papers have, however, suggested that although common, this investment pattern may not be the case in all dioecious plant species. One notable exception is Silene latifolia. Therefore, I examined whether the male sex could be investing more in reproduction than females in a closely related Silene species, Silene dioica. This study was carried out on three islands in the Skeppsvik Archipelago, Umeå, where I examined possible differences between the sexes in different life history traits. On each island, 20 patches were laid out in two different successional zones. In each patch, flowering date was recorded and stem diameter, length and width of cauline leaves, flower diameter, and number of open flowers on male and female plants was measured. At the end of the study, flowering stems were collected and thereafter dried so they could be weighed to estimate biomass allocated to male and female vegetative and reproductive structures. The hypothesis that males of S. dioica should have a higher reproductive cost seemed to be confirmed since males started flowering earlier, produced more and larger flowers, produced smaller and fewer leaves and thinner stems. The males also allocated a greater proportion of their total biomass to reproductive parts and as a consequence, had a higher sink to source ratio. This study has shown that there are exceptions to the "rule" of females having a higher cost of reproduction and when doing research on dioecious species, it is important not to assume that only one and the same sex has the higher investment in reproduction in all species. This higher cost may have consequences for survival and reproductive fitness and can select for differences in other ecological traits, such as phenology, growth, chemical composition and morphology, which could in turn affect the competitive ability and the susceptibility to herbivores and pathogens.

Sexual differentiation is divided into gonadal sexual differentiation and brain sexual differentiation in the teleosts. Gonadal sexual differentiation is regulated by brain sexual differentiation. Brain sexual differentiation is resulted from the neural development, which lead to the sexual dimorphism of both structure and functions of brain. The neural development is influenced by the genetic factors and the external environmental factors. The lower temperature induces a higher proportion of female while the elevated temperature induces a higher proportion of male in tilapia. In addition, there is sexual difference in effects of temperature on the activity of brain neurochemicals. Water temperature plays an important role on the development of central neurotransmitter systems and sexual differentiation during the developing period. In the present study, the primary neural culture cloned from the female and male tilapia¡AOreochromis mossambicus was used. The difference of the physiological characteristics between the neural cells derived from the females and males, were investigated. These results show that the elevated temperature has an effect to enhance the proliferation in both primary neural culture of females and males.

Many species use color during courtship displays, with the more colorful individuals often selected as potential mates. Female blue crabs, Callinectes sapidus, display prominent red markings on their chelipeds, which is absent in males. I tested the hypothesis that females use this sexual dimorphism as an effective signal to potential mates. Body size was positively correlated with size of the colorful pattern on the crusher dactyl. Digital imaging techniques were used to examine and quantify a pattern of coloration in the female blue crab. Morphometric measurements were made using digital images of the carapace and chelae of crabs collected along the Gulf of Mexico coast in Galveston, Texas. Color complexity was examined on digital images of the chelae using Adobe? Photoshop? and Image J. Specific wavelengths were selected and their presence within the attribute quantified and evaluated. To determine whether male blue crabs prefer more colorful females, males were given a choice between females of different female coloration. Males displayed more often and directed more courtship displays towards the more colorful females. I hypothesize that male blue crabs use cheliped coloration as a visual cue for mate selection.

Thesis (M.S.)--University of North Carolina at Wilmington, 2004. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves : [79]-88).