Evaluation of a tablet-based assessment tool for measuring cognition among children 4-6 years of age in Ghana.

Objectives: To investigate several basic psychometric properties, including construct, convergent and discriminant validity, of the tablet-based Rapid Assessment of Cognitive and Emotional Regulation (RACER) among children aged 4-6 years in Ghana.

Methods: We investigated whether RACER tasks administered to children in Ghana could successfully reproduce expected patterns of performance previously found in high-income countries on similar tasks assessing inhibitory control (e.g.

Epidemiology of arterial hypertension in Tunisia: Hammam Sousse Sahloul Heart Study (HSHS).

Introduction: Tunisia is experiencing a double burden of morbidity, characterized by the explosion of cardiovascular diseases and their risk factors including arterial Hypertension. The objective of this study, based on the HSHS cohort (Hammam Sousse Sahloul Heart Study), was to determine the prevalence of hypertension in the general population and to identify its predisposing factors.

Methods: HSHS is a cardiovascular health promotion initiative in the city of Hammam Sousse (Tunisia).

Brazil's Missing Infants: Zika Risk Changes Reproductive Behavior.

Zika virus epidemics have potential large-scale population effects. Controlled studies of mice and nonhuman primates indicate that Zika affects fecundity, raising concerns about miscarriage in human populations. In regions of Brazil, Zika risk peaked months before residents learned about the epidemic and its relation to congenital anomalies.

Detecting the Effects of Early-Life Exposures: Why Fecundity Matters.

Prenatal exposures have meaningful effects on health across the lifecourse. Innovations in causal inference have shed new light on these effects. Here, we motivate the importance of innovation in the characterization of fecundity, and prenatal selection in particular.

Minds Under Siege: Cognitive Signatures of Poverty and Trauma in Refugee and Non-Refugee Adolescents.

The impacts of war and displacement on executive function (EF)-what we might call the cognitive signatures of minds under siege-are little known. We surveyed a gender-balanced sample of 12- to 18-year-old Syrian refugees (n = 240) and Jordanian non-refugees (n = 210) living in Jordan. We examined the relative contributions of poverty, trauma exposure, posttraumatic stress, and insecurity to variance in inhibitory control and working memory.

H1N1 Influenza Causing Fulminant Myocarditis Requiring Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation.

Influenza infection is a known cause of global morbidity and mortality. Most cases of influenza A (H1N1) influenza infection are mild and do not require hospitalization. Although the most common presentation is with upper respiratory tract symptoms, hemodynamic instability requiring vasoactive drugs and ventilatory support use is unusual.

Endogenous coresidence and program incidence: South Africa's Old Age Pension.

We investigate whether living arrangements respond to an arguably exogenous shift in the distribution of power in family economic decision-making. In the early 1990s, the South African Old Age Pension was expanded to cover most black South Africans above a sex-specific age cut-off resulting in a substantial increase in the income of older South Africans and potentially their say in the economic decisions of their families. Beneficiaries of the program are more likely to coreside with adults who have less human capital as measured by height and education.

Do daughters really cause divorce? Stress, pregnancy, and family composition.

Provocative studies have reported that in the United States, marriages producing firstborn daughters are more likely to divorce than those producing firstborn sons. The findings have been interpreted as contemporary evidence of fathers' son preference. Our study explores the potential role of another set of dynamics that may drive these patterns: namely, selection into live birth.

Housing wealth, psychological well-being, and cognitive functioning of older Americans.

Objectives: Economic security around retirement age may be an important determinant of psychological and cognitive well-being of older adults. This study examines the impact of the dramatic increase in housing prices from the mid-1990s to the mid-2000s on psychological and cognitive outcomes among Americans born between 1924 and 1960.

Method: Our quasi-experimental empirical strategy exploits geographic differences in housing market price trends during the housing boom (from the mid-1990s until 2006).

Physical health effects of the housing boom: quasi-experimental evidence from the health and retirement study.

Objectives: We examined the impact of the dramatic increases in housing prices in the United States in the 1990s and early 2000s on physical health outcomes among a representative sample of middle-aged and older Americans.

Methods: Using a quasi-experimental design, we exploited geographic and time variation in housing prices using third-party valuation estimates of median single-family detached houses from 1988 to 2007 in each of 2400 zip codes combined with Health and Retirement Study data from 1992 to 2006 to test the impact of housing appreciation on physical health outcomes.

Results: Respondents living in communities in which home values appreciated more rapidly had fewer functional limitations, performed better on interviewer-administered physical tasks, and had smaller waist circumference.

The effect of water quality testing on household behavior: evidence from an experiment in rural India.

How does specific information about contamination in a household's drinking water affect water handling behavior? We randomly split a sample of households in rural Andhra Pradesh, India. The treatment group observed a contamination test of the drinking water in their own household storage vessel; while they were waiting for their results, they were also provided with a list of actions that they could take to remedy contamination if they tested positive. The control group received no test or guidance.

Spontaneous rupture of the splenic capsule with massive bleeding subsequent to the pringle maneuver during laparoscopic liver resection.

Background: The Pringle maneuver has its applications to minimize blood loss during hepatic resection. Splenic rupture during the Pringle maneuver in open liver surgery was described only in few cases. This is the first report of such a complication during laparoscopic surgery.

Exploring the causal machinery behind sex ratios at birth: does hepatitis B play a role?

The causal machinery underlying sex determination is directly relevant to many questions relating gender and family composition to social and economic outcomes. In recent work, Oster highlighted a correlation between parental hepatitis B carrier status and sex of the child. One of her analyses went further, speaking directly to causality.

Late complications of childhood female genital mutilation.

Background: Canada's immigrants are increasingly from non-English-speaking countries with different medical issues. Female genital mutilation (FGM) is a procedure performed for non-medical reasons that is not traditionally encountered in Canada and that has serious health implications for women.

Case: A 36-year-old woman, who underwent FGM at the age of four, presented to our colposcopy unit with increasing swelling of the vulva.

Evidence of depolymerisation of amorphous silica at medium- and short-range order: XANES, NMR and CP-SEM contributions.

This work reports medium- and short-range order of changes of amorphous silica submitted to chemical degradation. Structural changes were studied, using X-ray absorption near edge structure (XANES), nuclear magnetic resonance (29)Si NMR-MAS and controlled pressure scanning electron microscope (CP-SEM). The depolymerisation of amorphous SiO(2) compounds mainly induces the formation of Q(3) species and alkali-rich domains.

Prolonged exposure to angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors during pregnancy. Fetal toxicity could be reversible.

Question: I read in a Motherisk Update that angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitors are contraindicated during pregnancy. Many women, however, do not know they are pregnant for quite some time after conception. One of my patients was taking ACE inhibitors for 3 to 4 months while she was pregnant.

Early history of pathology studies by the Intergroup Rhabdomyosarcoma Study Group.

This review chronicles the series of publications that were the result of the willingness of pathologists and clinicians in the United States to share their pathologic materials and clinical data on patients who were placed on treatment protocols for rhabdomyosarcoma and related tumors over an extended period of time. The availability of this database enabled pathologists and clinicians to study a tumor type that is rare in individual institutions, but occurs in large enough numbers to produce valid conclusions not otherwise possible. Furthermore, young investigators were challenged by this opportunity and were able to spend the necessary time to make new observations that, in retrospect, helped direct protocol designs that produced significant improvement in patient survival.

Undifferentiated sarcomas of children: pathology and clinical behavior--an Intergroup Rhabdomyosarcoma study.

Undifferentiated soft tissue sarcoma (UND-STS) is the most poorly defined tumor eligible for intergroup Rhabdomyosarcoma Studies (IRS). Recent IRS UND-STS experience was reviewed to assess the histologic characteristics and clinical behavior of undifferentiated sarcomas. Of the 1,527 patients entered on IRS-III and IRS pilot-IV, 96 had tumors classified by the IRS Pathology Committee as UND-STS.

Orbital rhabdomyosarcomas and related tumors in childhood: relationship of morphology to prognosis--an Intergroup Rhabdomyosarcoma study.

Children and adolescents who develop rhabdomyosarcoma (RMS) and related sarcomas in the orbit and treated on Intergroup Rhabdomyosarcoma protocols have had an extremely high cure rate. This study evaluates the possible relationship between their tumor morphologic subtypes and this high cure rate. The histology of tumors was re-reviewed from 229 of the 264 patients with tumors of the orbit, conjunctiva, and eyelids treated on Intergroup Rhabdomyosarcoma Studies (IRS I, II, III, and IV pilot protocols, and followed through July, 1992.

Brain heterotopia: choristoma of the back.

Heterotopic brain tissue, except in the head and neck region, is exceedingly rare. Mature neural tissue unexpectedly found in the subcutaneous tissues of the back of a toddler lacked an attachment to the central nervous system (CNS), and appeared to be unorganized glial tissue on pathologic evaluation. Appropriate clinical management of such lesions includes a suspicion of subcutaneous lesions near the CNS and evaluation to eliminate the presence of communication with the CNS, followed by surgical excision.

Brain heterotopia: choristoma of the back.

Heterotopic brain tissue, except in the head and neck region, is exceedingly rare. Mature neural tissue unexpectedly found in the subcutaneous tissues of the back of a toddler lacked an attachment to the central nervous system (CNS), and appeared to be unorganized glial tissue on pathologic evaluation. Appropriate clinical management of such lesions includes a suspicion of subcutaneous lesions near the CNS and evaluation to eliminate the presence of communication with the CNS, followed by surgical excision.

Preservation of the bladder in patients with rhabdomyosarcoma.

Purpose: To review the pathologic findings from children with gross residual rhabdomyosarcoma (RMS) of the bladder and compare the treatment outcome of those who underwent cystectomy with those who did not.

Patients And Methods: Primary and follow-up records and pathology specimens for 28 patients with gross residual disease entered onto the intergroup Rhabdomyosarcoma Study (IRS) III were reviewed. These patients were assigned to receive 20 weeks of multiagent induction chemotherapy and 4 weeks of radiotherapy.

Pseudosarcomatous myofibroblastic tumor of the urinary bladder in children: a study of 11 cases with review of the literature. An Intergroup Rhabdomyosarcoma Study.

Pseudosarcomatous myofibroblastic tumor (PMT) is the result of reactive proliferation of myofibroblasts. In children, PMT of the urinary bladder can be mistaken for embryonal rhabdomyosarcoma clinically, radiologically, and by light microscopy. We are reporting the clinical, histological, and immunohistological features of 11 patients with childhood PMT of urinary bladder that were diagnosed initially as a sarcoma, usually rhabdomyosarcoma.