Children’s Attitudes toward Cats on St. Kitts,West Indies

Little is known of the attitudes of Caribbean people toward freeroaming and pet cats, so we conducted a questionnaire survey of primaryschool children aged 5 to 13 years (n = 417, 206 girls and 209 boys, while two questionnaires did not indicate gender) in 23 schools around St. Kitts. Over 50% reported they owned or had owned a cat, and ownership was associated with feelings of happiness and comfort. Children reported 511 reasons for liking cats compared with 433 reasons for disliking them. They liked cats mainly for behavioral reasons (58%), such as cats being playful and providing companionship, and aesthetic reasons (47%), such as cats being colorful and beautiful. Children only infrequently reported liking cats for practical reasons (14%), such as removing vermin. Eighty-four percent of cat owners reported purchasing special food for their cats, and 96% provided water. Over 60% of non-cat owners provided water for free-roaming cats. Most school children (43%) thought there were too many cats on St. Kitts, while only 28% thought this was not the case. The children principally owned cats because they loved animals (43%) and cats controlled vermin (28%). Seventy-two percent of children thought there were too many rodents on St. Kitts. Most children (61%) were aware that cats were associated with human diseases but were principally afraid of cats because of the possibility of being bitten or scratched (54%). In summary, our study shows that primary-school children on St. Kitts mostly have positive attitudes toward free-roaming cats and are concerned for cats’ wellbeing. Although important in their own right, children’s attitudes often reflect those of their families and so our findings could facilitate decisionmaking on cat welfare issues in the region.     

Indo-Fijian Children’s BMI

Health research has shown that overweight and obesity in children and adults are becoming significant public health problems in the developing world. Evidence suggests that this phenomenon is more marked in urban than rural areas and may be associated with modernization. However, the underlying reasons for this nutrition transition remain unclear. Dietary shifts, often in conjunction with income and time constraints in urban environments, may entail a greater reliance on more convenient sugar and fat-dense food. Also, the necessity of labor-intensive agricultural work to meet rural subsistence needs is supplanted in urban environments by sedentary work. This paper extends the application of human behavioral ecology theory into the realm of international development and policy by applying Kaplan’s embodied capital theory to explore differences in food habits and nutritional status of Indo-Fijian children within the context of urbanization. Urban high-embodied-capital women demonstrate higher rates of wage-earning employment than urban low-embodied-capital or rural women. Findings indicate that urban high-embodied-capital households spend significantly more on food purchases, purchase a greater proportion of processed foods, and have children with higher body mass indexes (BMI) than do urban low-embodied-capital or rural households. This suggests that urban high-embodied-capital mothers, who tend to be employed, may be making trade-offs between income and food choices.

Merging Children’s Oncology Group Data with an External Administrative Database Using Indirect Patient Identifiers: A Report from the Children’s Oncology Group

Purpose

Clinical trials data from National Cancer Institute (NCI)-funded cooperative oncology group trials could be enhanced by merging with external data sources. Merging without direct patient identifiers would provide additional patient privacy protections. We sought to develop and validate a matching algorithm that uses only indirect patient identifiers.

Methods

We merged the data from two Phase III Children’s Oncology Group (COG) trials for de novo acute myeloid leukemia (AML) with the Pediatric Health Information Systems (PHIS). We developed a stepwise matching algorithm that used indirect identifiers including treatment site, gender, birth year, birth month, enrollment year and enrollment month. Results from the stepwise algorithm were compared against the direct merge method that used date of birth, treatment site, and gender. The indirect merge algorithm was developed on AAML0531 and validated on AAML1031.

Results

Of 415 patients enrolled on the AAML0531 trial at PHIS centers, we successfully matched 378 (91.1%) patients using the indirect stepwise algorithm. Comparison to the direct merge result suggested that 362 (95.7%) matches identified by the indirect merge algorithm were concordant with the direct merge result. When validating the indirect stepwise algorithm using the AAML1031 trial, we successfully matched 157 out of 165 patients (95.2%) and 150 (95.5%) of the indirectly merged matches were concordant with the directly merged matches.

Conclusions

These data demonstrate that patients enrolled on COG clinical trials can be successfully merged with PHIS administrative data using a stepwise algorithm based on indirect patient identifiers. The merged data sets can be used as a platform for comparative effectiveness and cost effectiveness studies.     

A Spotlight on Preschool: The Influence of Family Factors on Children’s Early Literacy Skills

Rationale

Phonological awareness, letter knowledge, oral language (including sentence recall) and rapid automatised naming are acknowledged within-child predictors of literacy development. Separate research has identified family factors including socio-economic status, parents’ level of education and family history. However, both approaches have left unexplained significant amounts of variance in literacy outcomes. This longitudinal study sought to improve prospective classification accuracy for young children at risk of literacy failure by adding two new family measures (parents’ phonological awareness and parents’ perceived self-efficacy), and then combining the within-child and family factors.

Method

Pre-literacy skills were measured in 102 four year olds (46 girls and 56 boys) at the beginning of Preschool, and then at the beginning and end of Kindergarten, when rapid automatised naming was also measured. Family factors data were collected at the beginning of Preschool, and children’s literacy outcomes were measured at the end of Year 1 (age 6–7 years).

Results

Children from high-risk backgrounds showed poorer literacy outcomes than low-risk students, though three family factors (school socio-economic status, parents’ phonological awareness, and family history) typically accounted for less Year 1 variance than the within-child factors. Combining these family factors with the end of Kindergarten within-child factors provided the most accurate classification (i.e., sensitivity = .85; specificity = .90; overall correct = .88).

Implications

Our approach would identify at-risk children for intervention before they began to fail. Moreover, it would be cost-effective because although few at-risk children would be missed, allocation of unnecessary educational resources would be minimised.     

Pauli Murray’s journey toward social justice

Pauli Murray’s lifelong fate was to be both ahead of her times concerning racism, heteropatriarchy, and class exploitation, yet largely behind the scenes within social movements that challenged these systems of oppression. As a truly independent African American feminist thinker, Murray’s accomplishments have long remained relatively unknown. This review essay analyses The Firebrand and the Lady and Jane Crow, two important biographies that constitute important additions to the growing corpus of scholarship on Murray’s life. These books lay a scholarly foundation for studying not only the life of this neglected African American feminist intellectual activist, but also how her ideas and actions catalyzed social change. Drawing upon contemporary anti-racist, feminist and intersectional frameworks, this essay analyses how both books draw upon race, class, gender, and sexuality as categories of analysis, yet place different analytical weight on these concepts.     

The Development of Infants’ Sensitivity to Behavioral Intentions when Inferring Others’ Social Preferences

The present study investigated whether infants reason about others’ social preferences based on the intentions of others’ interactive actions. In Experiment 1, 12-month-old infants were familiarized with an event in which an agent either successfully helped a circle to climb up a hill (successful-helping condition) or failed to help the circle to achieve its goal (failed-helping condition). During the test, the infants saw the circle approach either the helper (approach-helper event) or the hinderer (approach-hinderer event). In the successful-helping condition, the 12-month-old infants looked for longer at the approach-hinderer event than at the approach-helper event, but in the failed-helping condition, looking times were about equal for the two test events. These results suggest that 12-month-old infants could not infer the circle’s preference when the helper’s action did not lead to its intended outcome. In Experiment 2, 16-month-olds were tested in the failed-helping condition; they looked longer at the approach-hinderer event than at the approach-helper event, which suggests that they could reason about the third party’s social preferences based on the exhibited intentions. In Experiment 3, 12-month-olds were familiarized with events in which the final outcomes of helping and hindering actions were ambiguous. The results revealed that 12-month-old infants are also sensitive to intentions when inferring other’s social preferences. The results suggest that by 12-months of age, infants expect an agent to prefer and approach another who intends to help the circle to achieve its goal, regardless of the outcome. The current research has implications for moral reasoning and social evaluation in infancy.     

Lactobacillus rhamnosus GG Intake Modifies Preschool Children’s Intestinal Microbiota,Alleviates Penicillin-Associated Changes,and Reduces Antibiotic Use

Antibiotic use is considered among the most severe causes of disturbance to children’s developing intestinal microbiota, and frequently causes adverse gastrointestinal effects ranging from mild and transient diarrhoea to life-threatening infections. Probiotics are commonly advocated to help in preventing antibiotic-associated gastrointestinal symptoms. However, it is currently unknown whether probiotics alleviate the antibiotic-associated changes in children’s microbiota. Furthermore, it is not known how long-term probiotic consumption influences the developing microbiota of children. We analysed the influence of long-term Lactobacillus rhamnosus GG intake on preschool children’s antibiotic use, and antibiotic-associated gastrointestinal complaints in a double blind, randomized placebo-controlled trial with 231 children aged 2–7. In addition, we analysed the effect of L. rhanmosus GG on the intestinal microbiota in a subset of 88 children. The results show that long-term L. rhamnosus GG supplementation has an influence on the composition of the intestinal microbiota in children, causing an increase in the abundance of Prevotella, Lactococcus, and Ruminococcus, and a decrease in Escherichia. The treatment appeared to prevent some of the changes in the microbiota associated with penicillin use, but not those associated with macrolide use. The treatment, however, did reduce the frequency of gastrointestinal complaints after a macrolide course. Finally, the treatment appeared to prevent certain bacterial infections for up to 3 years after the trial, as indicated by reduced antibiotic use.Trial Registration: ClinicalTrials.gov {"type":"clinical-trial","attrs":{"text":"NCT01014676","term_id":"NCT01014676"}}NCT01014676     

Determinants of Change in Children’s Sedentary Time

Background

Understanding the determinants of sedentary time during childhood contributes to the development of effective intervention programmes.

Purpose

To examine family and home-environmental determinants of 1-year change in objectively measured sedentary time after-school and at the weekend.

Methods

Participants wore accelerometers at baseline and 1 year later. Longitudinal data for after-school and weekend analyses were available for 854 (41.5%male, mean±SD age 10.2±0.3years) and 718 (41.8%male, age 10.2±0.3years) participants. Information on 26 candidate determinants, including socioeconomic status (SES), availability of electronic media and parental rules for sedentary behaviours was self-reported by children or their parents at baseline. Change in the proportion of registered time spent sedentary was used as the outcome variable in multi-level linear regression models, adjusted for age, sex, body mass index and baseline sedentary time. Simple and multiple models were run and interactions with sex explored.

Results

Children from higher socioeconomic status families exhibited greater increases in after-school (beta; 95% CI for change in % time spent sedentary 1.02; 0.37, 1.66) and weekend (1.42; 0.65, 2.18) sedentary time. Smaller increases in after-school sedentary time were observed in children with more siblings (−1.00; −1.69, −0.30), greater availability of electronic media (−0.81; −1.29, −0.33) and, for boys, more frequent family visits to the park (−1.89; −3.28, −0.51) and family participation in sport (−1.28; −2.54, −0.02). Greater maternal weekend screen-time (0.45; 0.08, 0.83) and, in girls, greater parental restriction on playing outside (0.91; 0.08, 1.74) were associated with larger increases in weekend sedentary time. The analytical sample was younger, more likely to be female, had lower BMI and was of higher SES than the original baseline sample.

Conclusions

Intervention strategies aimed at reducing parents’ weekend screen-time, increasing family participation in sports or recreation (boys) and promoting freedom to play outside (girls) may contribute towards preventing the age-related increase in sedentary time.     

Interneuronal Mechanism for Tinbergen’s Hierarchical Model of Behavioral Choice

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Fluoride and Children’s Intelligence: A Meta-analysis

This paper presents a systematic review of the literature concerning fluoride that was carried out to investigate whether fluoride exposure increases the risk of low intelligence quotient (IQ) in China over the past 20 years. MEDLINE, SCI, and CNKI search were organized for all documents published, in English and Chinese, between 1988 and 2008 using the following keywords: fluorosis, fluoride, intelligence, and IQ. Further search was undertaken in the website www.fluorideresearch.org because this is a professional website concerning research on fluoride. Sixteen case-control studies that assessed the development of low IQ in children who had been exposed to fluoride earlier in their life were included in this review. A qualitative review of the studies found a consistent and strong association between the exposure to fluoride and low IQ. The meta-analyses of the case-control studies estimated that the odds ratio of IQ in endemic fluoride areas compared with nonfluoride areas or slight fluoride areas. The summarized weighted mean difference is -4.97 (95%confidence interval [CI] = -5.58 to -4.36; p < 0.01) using a fixed-effect model and -5.03 (95%CI = -6.51 to 3.55; p < 0.01) using a random-effect model, which means that children who live in a fluorosis area have five times higher odds of developing low IQ than those who live in a nonfluorosis area or a slight fluorosis area.     

Grandmothers and Children’s Schooling in Sub-Saharan Africa

Under poor circumstances, co-residence of a grandmother is generally considered to be beneficial for (grand)children. Empirical evidence does not unequivocally support this expectation and suggests that the grandmother’s importance depends on the family’s circumstances. We study the relationship between grandmother’s co-residence and children’s schooling in sub-Saharan Africa under a broad range of circumstances. Results make clear that the effect of a co-residing grandmother varies but is almost always positive. Grandmothers over age 60 are most effective in helping their (grand)children. They are particularly important for girls, and when the mother is deceased or not living in the household. Grandmothers are less effective in situations with few opportunities, as in very poor regions or in communities with few schooling opportunities. Our findings indicate that providing support to grandmothers should not be overlooked when designing policies aimed at strengthening the position of women and children in the sub-Saharan African context.     

Adaptive Visual Re-Weighting in Children’s Postural Control

This study investigated how children’s postural control adapts to changes in the visual environment and whether they use previous experience to adjust postural responses to following expositions. Four-, eight-, and twelve-year-old children (10 in each group) and 10 young adults stood upright inside of a moving room during eight trials each lasting one-minute. In the first trial, the room was stationary. In the following seven trials, the room oscillated at 0.2 Hz, amplitude of 0.5 cm, with the exception of the fifth trial, in which the room oscillated with amplitude of 3.2 cm. Body sway responses of young adults and older children down-weighted more to the increased visual stimulus amplitude when compared to younger children. In addition, four- and eight-year-old children quickly up-weighted body responses to visual stimulus in the subsequent two trials after the high amplitude trial. Sway variability decreased with age and was greatest during the high-amplitude trial. These results indicate that four year olds have already developed the adaptive capability to quickly down-weight visual influences. However, the increased gain values and residual variability observed for the younger children suggest that they have not fully calibrated their adaptive response to that of the young adults tested. Moreover, younger children do not carry over their previous experience from the sensorial environment to adapt to future changes.     

Mechanisms of Neural and Behavioral Dysfunction in Alzheimer’s Disease

This review critically examines progress in understanding the link between Alzheimer’s disease (AD) molecular pathogenesis and behavior, with an emphasis on the impact of amyloid-β. We present the argument that the AD research field requires more multifaceted analyses into the impacts of Alzheimer’s pathogenesis which combine simultaneous molecular-, circuit-, and behavior-level approaches. Supporting this argument is a review of particular research utilizing similar, “systems-level” methods in mouse models of AD. Related to this, a critique of common physiological and behavioral models is made—highlighting the likely usefulness of more refined and specific tools in understanding the relationship between candidate molecular pathologies and behavioral dysfunction. Finally, we propose challenges for future research which, if met, may greatly extend our current understanding of how AD molecular pathology impacts neural network function and behavior and possibly may lead to refinements in disease therapeutics.     

Relationships Between Element Contents in Polish Children’s and Adolescents’ Hair

Environment, sex, and age are the main factors which determine the elemental composition of hair. The objective of the study is to determine the contents of calcium (Ca), magnesium (Mg), zinc (Zn), copper (Cu), iron (Fe), lead (Pb), and cadmium (Cd) in girls’ and boys’ hair in five age groups (within 1–19-year range) corresponding to successive human ontogenesis phases as well as to evaluate the relationships between these elements. Quantitative analysis has been carried out using atomic absorption spectrometry (AAS). Experimental results were analyzed using classic and principal component (PCA) statistical analyses. In particular, differences between contents of particularly Ca, Mg, and Zn in girls’ and boys’ hair were found, and substantial differences between age groups were stated. In general, larger amounts of Ca, Mg, and Zn as compared to boys’ hair have been observed for girls’ hair and higher toxic element (Pb, Cd) contents for boys were measured in some age groups. An increasing trend was found for bioelements (Ca, Mg, Zn) both for girls and boys in all age groups, while for Cu and Fe content, changes are insignificant and even decreasing for teenagers. The most frequently correlating element pairs are Ca–Mg, Ca–Zn, Mg–Zn, and Pb–Cd. Classic and PCA statistics show, in general, a satisfactory consistence. The elemental composition of hair varies depending on the gender and age of children and young people.