First Dedicated Minimally Invasive Right Atrial Retractor.

Introduction: The importance of correcting tricuspid valve insufficiency in patients with left-sided valve disease is clear. In the United States, up to 30% of mitral valve operations are minimally invasive, while the data for isolated tricuspid valve is not known. A minimally invasive approach to the tricuspid valve provides faster recovery with lower transfusion rates and lower length of stay.

Is the Scoutreach Initiative of Boy Scouts of America Linked to Character Development among Socioeconomically, Racially, and Ethnically Diverse Youth?: Initial Explorations.

Youth development programs represent key tools in the work of youth-serving practitioners and researchers who strive to promote character development and other attributes of youth thriving, particularly among youth who may confront structural and social challenges related to their racial, ethnic, and/or economic backgrounds. This article conducts secondary analyses of two previously reported studies of a relatively recent innovation in Boy Scouts of America (BSA) developed for youth from low-income communities, Scoutreach. Our goal is to provide descriptive and admittedly preliminary exploratory information about whether these data sets-one involving a sample of 266 youth of color from socioeconomically impoverished communities in Philadelphia (M  = 10.

Character Development within Youth Development Programs: Exploring Multiple Dimensions of Activity Involvement.

We examined links among three dimensions of youth involvement (intensity, duration, and engagement) in Boy Scouts of America (BSA), an international out-of-school time (OST) youth development program designed to promote moral and performance character in boys. Using data from 737 youth and their parents who participated in one of 40 BSA program sites (commonly referred to as "packs"), we first considered how individual- and pack-level measures of program involvement were differentially linked with character development. Next, we examined whether pack-level involvement characteristics moderate individual-level involvement characteristics, hypothesizing that highly involved packs would serve to further enhance the positive effects of high levels of individual involvement.