Subcortical Brain Volumes and Neurocognitive Function in Children With Perinatal HIV Exposure: A Population-Based Cohort Study in South Africa.

Background: Children who are HIV-exposed and uninfected (HEU) are at risk for early neurodevelopmental impairment. Smaller basal ganglia nuclei have been reported in neonates who are HEU compared to HIV-unexposed (HU); however, neuroimaging studies outside infancy are scarce. We examined subcortical brain structures and associations with neurocognition in children who are HEU.

Persistent Impact of Antenatal Maternal Anaemia on Child Brain Structure at 6-7 Years of Age: A South African Child Health Study.

Background: The study aim was to determine whether associations of antenatal maternal anaemia with smaller corpus callosum, putamen, and caudate nucleus volumes previously described in children at age 2-3 years persist to age 6-7 years in the Drakenstein Child Health Study (DCHS).

Methods: This neuroimaging sub-study was nested within the DCHS, a South African population-based birth cohort. Pregnant women were enrolled (2012-2015) and mother-child dyads were followed prospectively.

Navigating intercultural misunderstandings: An examination of emotion brokering.

Objectives: Communication difficulties are inevitable when individuals interact with members of a different culture. The experience of such communication barriers may be particularly salient for those from immigrant families who need to navigate multiple cultures. Youth from immigrant families are known to serve as cultural brokers to help their families navigate communication with those in the host culture.

Prenatal alcohol exposure and white matter microstructural changes across the first 6-7 years of life: A longitudinal diffusion tensor imaging study of a South African birth cohort.

Prenatal alcohol exposure (PAE) can affect brain development in early life, but few studies have investigated the effects of PAE on trajectories of white matter tract maturation in young children. Here we used diffusion weighted imaging (DWI) repeated over three time points, to measure the effects of PAE on patterns of white matter microstructural development during the pre-school years. Participants were drawn from the Drakenstein Child Health Study (DCHS), an ongoing birth cohort study conducted in a peri-urban community in the Western Cape, South Africa.

Enhanced regularization for on-chip training using analog and temporary memory weights.

In-memory computing techniques are used to accelerate artificial neural network (ANN) training and inference tasks. Memory technology and architectural innovations allow efficient matrix-vector multiplications, gradient calculations, and updates to network weights. However, on-chip learning for edge devices is quite challenging due to the frequent updates.

Association of Maternal and Child Anemia With Brain Structure in Early Life in South Africa.

Importance: Anemia affects millions of pregnant women and their children worldwide, particularly in low- and middle-income countries. Although anemia in pregnancy is a well-described risk factor for cognitive development, the association with child brain structure is poorly understood.

Objective: To explore the association of anemia during pregnancy and postnatal child anemia with brain structure in early life.

The impact of prenatal alcohol exposure on gray matter volume and cortical surface area of 2 to 3-year-old children in a South African birth cohort.

Background: There is a growing literature that demonstrates the effects of prenatal alcohol exposure (PAE) on brain development in school-aged children. Less is known, however, on how PAE impacts the brain early in life. We investigated the effects of PAE and child sex on subcortical gray matter volume, cortical surface area (CSA), cortical volume (CV), and cortical thickness (CT) in children aged 2 to 3 years.

A Neurometabolic Pattern of Elevated Myo-Inositol in Children Who Are HIV-Exposed and Uninfected: A South African Birth Cohort Study.

Introduction: Exposure to maternal HIV in pregnancy may be a risk factor for impaired child neurodevelopment during the first years of life. Altered neurometabolites have been associated with HIV exposure in older children and may help explain the mechanisms underlying this risk. For the first time, we explored neurometabolic profiles of children who are HIV-exposed and uninfected (CHEU) compared to children who are HIV-unexposed (CHU) at 2-3 years of age.

Central white matter integrity alterations in 2-3-year-old children following prenatal alcohol exposure.

Background: Prenatal alcohol exposure (PAE) remains a potentially preventable, but pervasive risk factor to neurodevelopment. Yet, evidence is lacking on the impact of alcohol on brain development in toddlers. This study aimed to investigate the impact of PAE on brain white matter integrity in 2-3-year-old children.

A Survey of Deep Learning on CPUs: Opportunities and Co-Optimizations.

CPU is a powerful, pervasive, and indispensable platform for running deep learning (DL) workloads in systems ranging from mobile to extreme-end servers. In this article, we present a survey of techniques for optimizing DL applications on CPUs. We include the methods proposed for both inference and training and those offered in the context of mobile, desktop/server, and distributed systems.

BRAIN NETWORK CONNECTIVITY FROM MATCHING CORTICAL FEATURE DENSITIES.

We present a new method for constructing structural inference brain networks from functional measures of cortical features. Instead of averaging vertex-wise cortical features, we propose the use of full functions of spatial densities of measures such as thickness and use two dimensional pairwise correlations between regions to construct population networks. We show increased within group correlations for both healthy controls and toddlers with prenatal alcohol exposure compared to the existing mean-based correlation approach.

Neuroimaging young children and associations with neurocognitive development in a South African birth cohort study.

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is an indispensable tool for investigating brain development in young children and the neurobiological mechanisms underlying developmental risk and resilience. Sub-Saharan Africa has the highest proportion of children at risk of developmental delay worldwide, yet in this region there is very limited neuroimaging research focusing on the neurobiology of such impairment. Furthermore, paediatric MRI imaging is challenging in any setting due to motion sensitivity.

The Early Developmental Outcomes of Prenatal Alcohol Exposure: A Review.

This paper systematically reviews the literature on the effects of prenatal alcohol exposure on early child development from birth to 5 years with the aim to synthesize the developmental outcomes associated with prenatal alcohol exposure, and inform further research to improve our knowledge of the manifestations of prenatal alcohol exposure. Electronic databases (MEDLINE, Psych INFO, and Psych ARTICLES) were searched to find papers on the developmental outcomes of prenatal alcohol exposure in neonates, infants and toddlers and pre-school aged children. Studies were selected based on participants self-reporting alcohol consumption during pregnancy (either prospectively or retrospectively) and/or children being diagnosed with FASD based on a standardized assessment that includes a dysmorphology examination.

Normal weight adiposity in a Swedish population: how well is cardiovascular risk associated with excess body fat captured by BMI?

Objective: The aim of this study was to examine how well body mass index (BMI) reflects cardiovascular risk associated with excess adiposity in a Swedish population by examining the association between body fat, BMI and cardiovascular risk factors.

Methods: A total of 3,010 adults participated. Normal weight adiposity was defined as the combination of BMI < 25 kg/m and percentage body fat ≥35% for women and ≥25% for men.

Age-related differences in recommended anthropometric cut-off point validity to identify cardiovascular risk factors in ostensibly healthy women.

Aim: To investigate validity of widely recommended anthropometric and total fat percentage cut-off points in screening for cardiovascular risk factors in women of different ages.

Methods: A population-based sample of 1002 Swedish women aged 38, 50, 75 (younger, middle-aged and elderly, respectively) underwent anthropometry, health examinations and blood tests. Total fat was estimated (bioimpedance) in 670 women.

Higher risk of stillbirth among lower and middle income women who do not use tobacco, but live with smokers.

Objective: To investigate pregnancy outcomes among women living with smokers.

Design: Data were from a cohort study of 1,217 women recruited during 3-7th month of pregnancy and 96% followed-up after delivery. The main objective was to investigate effects of smokeless tobacco on pregnancy outcomes.

Anemia in pregnant women who use smokeless tobacco.

A significantly higher mean hemoglobin level in women smokers in comparison to nonsmokers with a generalized rightward shift of the hemoglobin distribution curve has been reported at the population level. Studies on pregnant women, however, have often associated smoking with decreased hemoglobin levels, although not consistently. We examined whether smokeless tobacco use during pregnancy influenced hemoglobin levels in a population-based cohort of 918 pregnant women in Mumbai, India.

Smokeless tobacco use and risk of stillbirth: a cohort study in Mumbai, India.

Background: Maternal cigarette smoking has been causally associated with an increased risk for stillbirth. Preliminary reports suggest an increased risk for stillbirth with smokeless tobacco use during pregnancy.

Methods: We conducted a population-based prospective cohort study to investigate this association by using a house-to-house approach to recruit 1,217 women who were between 3 and 7 months' gestation.

Inorganic oxide core, polymer shell nanocomposite as a high K gate dielectric for flexible electronics applications.

Organic/inorganic core shell nanoparticles have been synthesized using high K TiO(2) as the core nanoparticle, and polystyrene as the shell. This material is easy to process and forms transparent continuous thin films, which exhibit a dielectric constant enhancement of over 3 times that of bulk polystyrene. This new dielectric material has been incorporated into capacitors and thin film transistors (TFTs).