The Potential of Anti-Bullying Efforts to Prevent Academic Failure and Youth Crime. A Case Using the Olweus Bullying Prevention Program (OBPP)

Prevention Science - The effectiveness of bullying prevention programs has led to expectations that these programs could have effects beyond their primary goals. By reducing the number of victims...     

Assessment of pituitary adenoma volumetric change using longitudinal MR image registration

Introduction  

Change detection is a crucial factor in monitoring of slowly evolving pathologies. The objective of the study was to test a semi-automatic method applied on longitudinal MRI monitoring of volume change in pituitary macroadenomas.     

Histogram analysis of MR imaging-derived cerebral blood volume maps： combined glioma grading and identification of low-grade oligodendroglial subtypes

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE： Inclusion of oligodendroglial tumors may confound the utility of MR based glioma grading. Our aim was, first, to assess retrospectively whether a histogram-analysis method of MR peifusion images may both grade gliomas and differentiate between low-grade oligodendroglial tumors with or without loss of heterozygosity （LOH） on 1p/19q and, second, to assess retrospectively whether low-grade oligodendroglial subtypes can be identified in a population of patients with high-grade and low-grade astrocytic and oligodendroglial tumors.     

The apparent plasticizing effect of polyethylene glycol (PEG) on the crystallinity of spray dried lactose/PEG composites.

Aqueous solutions of lactose and polyethylene glycol (PEG) were spray dried in a Büchi Model 191 spray dryer with the aim to investigate the effect of PEG on the crystallinity of the composite. A PEG concentration of 10.7% by weight of solids was studied for PEG 200, 600, 1500, 4000 and 8000. For PEG 200 and 4000 additional concentrations from 1.5-19.3% to 1.5-32.4%, respectively, were investigated. The spray dried composites were analysed with X-ray powder diffraction and modulating differential scanning calorimetry. The crystallinity of lactose in the composites varied from 0% to 60%, dependent on the molecular weight and concentration of PEG. Apparently, lactose crystallinity is promoted by low molecular weight and high concentration of the PEG. PEG did not affect the lactose glass transition temperature. It is suggested that lactose and PEG are solidified separately during spray drying and that partial crystallization of lactose is associated with effects of PEG on the rate of drying.     

Assessment of early mother-child relation in infants with oesophageal atresia

Fifteen one-year old infants with oesophageal atresia and their parents were used to demonstrate how the Parent-Child Early Relational Assessment (PCERA) can be used to explore the mother-child interaction in a clinical sample of children. The infants and their mothers were videotaped for 5-min episodes during feeding and free play, and the quality of the mother-infant interactions was assessed by PCERA. The results showed areas of strength regarding most of the maternal, infant and dyadic components. There was concern about maternal positive physical contact, maternal quality of verbalizations to or about the child, maternal social initiative, infant's communicative competence and infant's visual contact with mother. This concern of social proximity between infants and their mothers was most prominent in the feeding situation. The present study indicates that oesophageal atresia in infants may constitute stressors impinging on the parent-infant relationship. PCERA was found to be an adequate assessment tool with acceptable reliability to evaluate the mother-infant interaction.     

Deductibles in Health Insurance: Pay or Pain?

We study a health-insurance market where individuals are offered coverage against both medical expenditures and losses in income due to illness. Individuals vary in their level of innate ability and their probability of falling ill. If there is private information about the probability of illness and an individual's innate ability is sufficiently low, we find that competitive insurance contracts yield screening partly in the form of co-payment, i.e., a deductible in pay, and partly in the form of reduced medical treatment, i.e., a deductible in pain.