Low-risk Conditions Research Articles

Gender and entrepreneurial propensity: risk-taking and prosocial preferences in labour market entry decisions

PurposeThis study aims to examine gender differences in risk-taking and prosociality through a hypothetical labour market entry choice experiment.Design/methodology/approachTo explore differences between male and female subjects by risk levels and framing effects, a labour market entry choice task that manipulated risk conditions was administered to business school students whereby subjects chose between a managerial job at a company, starting a commercial business or starting a social enterprise. The experimental design isolated and tested the influence of the type of value creation, risk propensity and framing effects. The results were then statistically analysed to test for significant differences between the two gender groups.FindingsResults indicate that in low-risk conditions women prefer the prosocial entrepreneurial option while men opt for purely commercial entrepreneurial activities. As risk increases, differences between men and women initially converge and then reverse under conditions of extreme risk, where men select the social entrepreneurial choice at a higher rate than women.Research limitations/implicationsThe research was conducted within the single country context of Peru and carried out using a specific subset of potential entrepreneurs (i.e. business school students). Second and related, the experimental labour entry task was hypothetical. Whether decisions would hold if business school students faced an actual occupational choice remains open to further investigation.Practical implicationsThe practical implication of the paper suggests that Peruvian business school students react differently towards potential labour market opportunities depending on their gender. Perhaps, because of gender biases common in the Latin American context, women appear to respond more positively to low-risk prosocial opportunities. However, as risk increases, contextual factors appear to become less important and reveal core sets of prosocially anchored men and commercially anchored women.Originality/valueThis research provides new insights into risk-taking and prosocial differences between men and women facing labour entry decisions, especially in a developing country context with strong gender norms, and is particularly useful to those with an interest in entrepreneurial propensity and in the identification and development of entrepreneurial women.

Ambulatory Blood Pressure Monitoring to Diagnose and Manage Hypertension.

This review portrays how ambulatory blood pressure (BP) monitoring was established and recommended as the method of choice for the assessment of BP and for the rational use of antihypertensive drugs. To establish much-needed diagnostic ambulatory BP thresholds, initial statistical approaches evolved into longitudinal studies of patients and populations, which demonstrated that cardiovascular complications are more closely associated with 24-hour and nighttime BP than with office BP. Studies cross-classifying individuals based on ambulatory and office BP thresholds identified white-coat hypertension, an elevated office BP in the presence of ambulatory normotension as a low-risk condition, whereas its counterpart, masked hypertension, carries a hazard almost as high as ambulatory combined with office hypertension. What clinically matters most is the level of the 24-hour and the nighttime BP, while other BP indexes derived from 24-hour ambulatory BP recordings, on top of the 24-hour and nighttime BP level, add little to risk stratification or hypertension management. Ambulatory BP monitoring is cost-effective. Ambulatory and home BP monitoring are complimentary approaches. Their interchangeability provides great versatility in the clinical implementation of out-of-office BP measurement. We are still waiting for evidence from randomized clinical trials to prove that out-of-office BP monitoring is superior to office BP in adjusting antihypertensive drug treatment and in the prevention of cardiovascular complications. A starting research line, the development of a standardized validation protocol for wearable BP monitoring devices, might facilitate the clinical applicability of ambulatory BP monitoring.

Association Between US Physician Malpractice Claims Rates and Hospital Admission Rates Among Patients With Lower-Risk Syncope

The US Government Accountability Office has changed its estimate of the annual costs of defensive medicine, largely because it has been difficult to objectively measure its impact. Evaluating the association of malpractice claims rates with hospital admission rates and the costs of admitting patients with low-risk conditions would help to document the impact of defensive medicine. Although syncope is a concerning symptom, most patients with syncope have a low risk of adverse outcomes. However, many low-risk patients are still admitted to the hospital, with associated costs of more than $2.5 billion per year in the US. To assess whether hospital admission rates after emergency department visits among patients with lower-risk syncope are associated with state-level variations in malpractice claims rates. This cross-sectional study of emergency department visits among patients with lower-risk syncope used deidentified data from the Clinformatics Data Mart database (Optum). Lower-risk syncope visits were defined as those with a primary diagnosis of syncope and collapse based on International Classification of Diseases, Ninth Revision, Clinical Modification code 780.2 or International Classification of Diseases, Tenth Revision, Clinical Modification code R55 that did not include another major diagnostic code for a condition requiring hospital admission (such as heart disease, cancer, or medical shock) or an inpatient hospital stay of more than 3 days. These data were linked to publicly available data from the National Practitioner Data Bank pertaining to physician malpractice claims between January 1, 2008, and December 31, 2017. The 2 data sets were linked at the state-year level. Data were analyzed from October 2, 2019, to September 12, 2020. The association between the rate of hospital admission after emergency department visits among patients with lower-risk syncope and the rate of physician malpractice claims was assessed at the state-year level using a state-level fixed-effects model. Standardized costs obtained from the Clinformatics Data Mart database were adjusted for inflation and expressed in 2017 US dollars using the Consumer Price Index. Among 40 482 813 emergency department visits between 2008 and 2017, 519 724 visits (1.3%) were associated with syncope. Of those, 234 750 visits (45.2%) met the criteria for lower-risk syncope. The mean (SD) age of patients in the lower-risk cohort was 71.8 (13.5) years; 141 050 patients (60.1%) were female, and 44 115 patients (18.8%) were admitted to the hospital, representing an extra cost of $6542 per admission. The mean rate of physician malpractice claims varied from 0.27 claims per 100 000 people to 8.63 claims per 100 000 people across states and across years within states. A state-level fixed-effects regression model indicated that, for every 1 in 100 000-person increase in the physician malpractice claims rate, there was an absolute increase of 6.70% (95% CI, 4.65%-8.75%) or a relative increase of 35.6% in the hospital admission rate, which represented an additional $102 million in costs associated with this lower-risk cohort. In this study, increases in physician malpractice claims rates were associated with increases in hospital admission rates and substantial health care costs for patients with lower-risk syncope, and these increases are likely associated with the practice of defensive medicine.

Comparison between EPA UV index app and UV monitor to assess risk for solar ultraviolet radiation exposure in agricultural settings in Eastern North Carolina

Agricultural workers are exposed to solar ultraviolet (UV) radiation due to the significant amount of time spent working outdoors. Risk information on UV exposure from the EPA SunWise UV Index mobile app is conveniently available for timely advice on risk management, but its reliability is unknown. The purpose of this study was to determine the reliability of the EPA UV Index app in providing accurate risk information to reduce UV exposure and prevent related illnesses among agricultural workers in eastern North Carolina. UV radiation effective irradiance (UV eff ) indices were datalogged at two agricultural sites using radiometers from April–August 2019 and were assigned to risk levels (low, moderate, high, very high, extreme) based on the ACGIH® Threshold Limit Values (TLVs®). The UV index (UV app ) and its corresponding risk level were obtained using the app. Hourly UV app -based risk level assignments were time-matched to their corresponding UV eff /TLV-based risk level assignments (871 pairs) and analyzed using cross tabulation by determining the percentage of hourly UV eff /TLV-based risk levels (“gold standard”) with the same hourly UV app -based risk levels, with a larger percentage indicating higher app reliability. Results showed that the app correctly identified 100% of low risk conditions, but its reliability decreased as the UV risk condition became more severe. The app correctly identified 0% of moderate, high and very high risk conditions but instead assigned 100% of them to lower risk levels (30–100% as low risk, 5–70% as moderate risk), indicating that the app was less protective in assessing UV risk. The app correctly identified 0.6% of extreme risk conditions but assigned 99.4% of them to lower risk levels (9.4% as low, 29.7% as moderate, 24.6% as high, 35.8% as very high). It is concluded that the performance of the EPA UV Index app in assessing occupational UV risk is not protective of workers particularly for high risk conditions, and that the use of the app for the assessment of risk to UV exposure in agricultural settings is not recommended.

A cloud priority-based dynamic online double auction mechanism (PB-DODAM)

Double auctions are considered to be effective price-scheduling mechanisms to resolve cloud resource allocation and service pricing problems. Most of the classical double auction models use price-based mechanisms in which determination of the winner is based on the prices offered by the agents in the market. In cloud ecosystems, the services offered by cloud service providers are inherently time-constrained and if they are not sold, the allocated resources for the unsold services are wasted. Furthermore, cloud service users have time constraints to complete their tasks, otherwise, they would not need to request these services. These features, perishability and time-criticality, have not received much attention in most classical double auction models. In this paper, we propose a cloud priority-based dynamic online double auction mechanism (PB-DODAM), which is aligned with the dynamic nature of cloud supply and demand and the agents’ time constraints. In PB-DODAM, a heuristic algorithm which prioritizes the agents’ asks and bids based on their overall condition and time constraints for resource allocation and price-scheduling mechanisms is proposed. The proposed mechanism drastically increases resource allocation and traders’ profits in both low-risk and high-risk market conditions by raising the matching rate. Moreover, the proposed mechanism calculates the precise defer time to wait for any urgent or high-priority request without sacrificing the achieved performance in resource allocation and traders’ profits. Based on experimental results in different scenarios, the proposed mechanism outperforms the classical price-based online double auctions in terms of resource allocation efficiency and traders’ profits while fulfilling the double auction’s truthfulness pillar.

Enhancing Education to Avoid Complications in Endovascular Treatment of Unruptured Intracranial Aneurysms: A Neurointerventionalist's Perspective.

It is of utmost importance to avoid errors and subsequent complications when performing neurointerventional procedures, particularly when treating low-risk conditions such as unruptured intracranial aneurysms. We used endovascular treatment of unruptured intracranial aneurysms as an example and took a survey-based approach in which we reached out to 233 neurointerventionalists. They were asked what they think are the most important points staff should teach their trainees to avoid errors and subsequent complications in endovascular treatment of unruptured intracranial aneurysms. One hundred twenty-one respondents (51.9%) provided answers in the form of free text responses, which were thematically clustered in an affinity diagram and summarized in this Practice Perspectives. The article is primarily intended for neurointerventional radiology fellows and junior staff and will hopefully provide them the opportunity to learn from the mistakes of their more experienced colleagues.

Low prevalence of colorectal neoplasia in microscopic colitis: A large prospective multi-center study

Background and AimsMicroscopic colitis (MC) is the most frequent condition in subjects undergoing ileocolonoscopy for chronic non-bloody diarrhea (CNBD) in Western countries. Emerging evidence has shown a negative association between MC and colorectal cancer. Within this prospective multi-center study we have evaluated the risk of colorectal neoplasia in MC and non-MC patients with CNBD receiving ileocolonoscopy with high-definition plus virtual chromoendoscopic imaging and histopathological assessment. MethodsPatients with CNBD of unknown origin were prospectively enrolled in 5 referral centers in Northern Italy for ileocolonoscopy with high-definition and digital/optical chromoendoscopy plus multiple biopsies in each segment. The prevalence of colorectal neoplasia (cancer, adenoma, serrated lesion) in MC was compared to that observed in a control group including CNBD patients negative for MC, inflammatory bowel disease or eosinophilic colitis. ResultsFrom 2014 and 2017, 546 consecutive CNBD patients were recruited. Among the 492 patients (mean age 53±18 years) fulfilling the inclusion criteria against the exclusion critieria, MC was the predominant diagnosis at histopathological assessment (8.7%: N=43, 28 CC, 15 LC). The regression model adjusted for age and gender showed a significant negative association between the diagnosis of CM and colorectal neoplasia (OR=0.39; 95% CI 0.22−0.67, p <0.001) with a 60% decreased risk of adenomatous and neoplastic serrated polyps as compared to the control group (n=412). ConclusionThis multi-center study confirms MC as a low-risk condition for colorectal neoplasia. No surveillance colonoscopy program is to be performed for MC diagnosis.

PANEL REACTIVE ANTIBODY AND THE ASSOCIATION OF EARLY STEROID WITHDRAWAL WITH KIDNEY TRANSPLANT OUTCOMES

Introduction: Early steroid withdrawal (ESW) is a viable maintenance immunosuppression strategy in certain low-risk kidney transplant recipients. A low panel reactive antibody (PRA) may indicate low-risk condition amenable to ESW. We aimed to identify the threshold value of PRA above which ESW may pose additional risk, and to compare the association of ESW with transplant outcomes across PRA strata. Materials and Methods: Using the US national registry data, we studied 121,699 deceased-donor kidney-only recipients in 2002-2017. Using natural splines and ESW-PRA interaction terms, we explored how the associations of ESW with transplant outcomes change with increasing PRA values, and discovered rapid exacerbation in PRA>60 (Figure 1). Then, we assessed whether PRA>60 modifies the associations of ESW with 1-year acute rejection, death-censored graft failure, and death.Results: Among PRA≤60 recipients, ESW was associated with a minor increase in rejection (aOR=1.001.051.10) and with a tendency of decreased graft failure (aHR=0.910.971.03; Table 1). However, among PRA>60 recipients, ESW was associated with a substantial increase in rejection (aOR=1.191.271.36; interaction p<0.001) and with a tendency of increased graft failure (aHR=0.981.081.20; interaction p=0.028). The association of ESW with death was similar between PRA strata (PRA≤60, aHR=0.910.961.01; and PRA>60, aHR=0.900.991.09; interaction p=0.5).Conclusion: The associations of ESW with rejection and graft failure were significantly more adverse in recipients with high PRA, especially those above 60. PRA should be considered in the risk assessment for ESW tailoring. American Society of Nephrology. National Institutes of Health.

Media coverage of calls to rename low-risk cancers: a content analysis

ObjectivesThe use of more medicalised labels can increase both concern about illness and the desire for more invasive treatment. This study analyses the media’s coverage of an Analysis article in...

Comparison between OSHA-NIOSH Heat Safety Tool app and WBGT monitor to assess heat stress risk in agriculture

Agricultural workers are exposed to heat stress due to spending significant amount of time outdoors. Risk information from mobile apps is more readily available for timely advice on risk management that is crucial in preventing severe acute illnesses and deaths, but its reliability is unknown. The purpose of this study was to determine the reliability of the OSHA-NIOSH Heat Safety Tool mobile app in providing accurate risk information to prevent heat-related illnesses among agricultural workers in eastern North Carolina. Wet bulb globe temperature (WBGT) indices were datalogged at two agricultural sites using heat stress monitors from April–August 2019 and were assigned to risk levels (minimal, low, moderate, high, extreme) by workload (light, moderate, heavy, very heavy) based on the ACGIH® Threshold Limit Values (TLVs®). Hourly heat index (HI) and its corresponding risk level were obtained using the app. Hourly HI-based risk level assignments were time-matched to their corresponding WBGT-based risk level assignments (682 pairs) and analyzed using cross-tabulation by determining the percentage of hourly WBGT-based risk level assignments (“gold standard”) with the same hourly HI-based risk level assignments under different workloads, with a higher percentage indicating higher app reliability. Results showed that the app correctly identified 60–100% of minimal risk conditions, depending on workload type, but its reliability decreased as the heat stress risk condition and workload became more severe. The app identified the majority of low risk conditions for a moderate workload (74%) and moderate risk conditions for a light workload (94%) only, indicating limited use in these specific conditions, while the app identified 0% of either the high risk or extreme risk conditions at any workload type. It is concluded that the performance of the OSHA-NIOSH app in assessing occupational risk to heat stress is not protective of workers particularly for heavy and very heavy workloads, and that the use of the app for the assessment of occupational heat stress risk in agricultural settings is not recommended.

Influence of self-relevance on moral decision-making under reputational loss risk: An ERP study

The way people make decisions that have direct consequences to the self and others forms the moral foundation of human society. Although humans are at times impacted by social fairness norms and cooperation, economists have supposed that humans generally prioritize maximizing their own self-interest over others’. Recent psychological studies have shown people to be hyperaltruistic in social decisions, such as moral decision-making. Moral decision-making typically involves a trade-off between maintaining personal benefits and preventing harm to others. Previous human brain imaging studies have found similarities in neural activation between moral and economic decision-making under risk situations. Meanwhile, the way that people balance the gains and losses between themselves and others under social risk situations, especially the underlying neural mechanism, remains unclear. Reputational concern is a potentially important factor during human moral decision-making; that is, people are extremely concerned about how others perceive their behavior, which has a significant impact on prosocial behavior and motivation. Thus, this event-realted potential (ERP) study used the dilemma scenario-priming paradigm to explore how both self-relevance and reputational loss risk interact with behavioral and neural responses during moral decision-making. Participants were instructed to accomplish a moral decision-making task under reputational loss risk situations. Specifically, the participants needed to decide whether they were willing to sacrifice their own interests to help a protagonist (friend, acquaintance, or stranger) facing dilemmas of reputational loss risk (low to high risk). In addition to behavioral data and ERP analyses, we conducted spectral analysis to examine the neural oscillations underlying moral decision-making. Behavioral results showed that under low risk of reputational loss conditions, participants demonstrated a differential altruistic tendency, indicating that participants made more helping choices and subsequently reported weaker unpleasant experiences toward friends compared with acquaintances and strangers. Nonetheless, the participants showed an obvious “acquaintance effect”, suggesting that participants took longer time to make decisions and experienced stronger displeasure. Electrophysiological results revealed that moral decision-making toward acquaintances under low reputational loss risk conditions also elicited larger P260-N2-LPP (300–450 ms) effects during emotional and cognitive processing, compared with friends and strangers. Spectral analysis results showed that the delta- (1–4 Hz, 200–300 ms) and alpha-band powers (8–13 Hz, 300–600 ms) for moral decision-making toward acquaintances were significantly larger compared with the case for friends and strangers, under low risk of reputational loss conditions. However, these effects of all indices weakened or disappeared under high risk of reputational loss conditions. The present results suggested that the moral principles that guide interpersonal moral decision-making can best be described as egoistically biased altruism, and that uncertainty in interpersonal relationships brings emotional and cognitive burden to moral decision-making. Moreover, reputational concerns may play a crucial role in limiting selfish tendencies and eliminating uncertainties.

Comparative Effectiveness of Radiofrequency Ablation, Surgical Resection and Transplantation for Early Hepatocellular Carcinoma by Cancer Risk Groups: Results of Propensity Score-Weighted Analysis.

PurposeControversies exist for which treatment is optimal for early hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC): radiofrequency ablation (RFA), surgical resection (SR), or transplantation (LT). We compared outcomes between treatments as first-line therapy for HCC patients measuring up to 5 cm or different cancer risk groups.Patients and methodsThe Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results database was retrieved for HCC patients treated with RFA, SR, or LT between 2004 and 2015. The effects of three treatments were compared using propensity score, inverse probability of treatment weights adjustment, and instrumental variable analysis for overall survival (OS) and competing risks regression models for disease-specific survival (DSS). We also evaluated whether the effect of treatments varied according to baseline clinical characteristics by locally weighted regression method.ResultsOf 7664 patients, RFA and SR yielded worse OS (HR 1.67, CI 1.43–1.70, P<0.001; HR 1.43, CI 1.40–1.67, P<0.001) and DSS (HR 2.00, CI 1.10–3.30, P<0.011; HR 2.50, CI 2.00–3.30, P<0.001) than LT. In patients with small tumors, SR may confer more survival benefits than RFA (HR>1) for different tumor sizes measuring up to 5 cm and may be an appropriate first-line treatment. Additionally, RFA has more survival benefits compared with SR (HR 0.83, CI 0.53–1.25) for those patients with low tumor risk and good general health condition (without any prognostic risk factors). However, those patients with a predicted 5-year overall mortality risk >30% seem to benefit more for SR than RFA.ConclusionDue to a shortage of donors, RFA and SR can be applied as either primary management of HCC or as a bridging therapy for LT. Furthermore, SR is an effective option for patients with different HCC tumor size. However, RFA could achieve comparable survival benefits with SR for patients without any risk factors.

Sender and receiver experience alters the response of fish to disturbance cues

Predation is a pervasive selection pressure, shaping morphological, physiological, and behavioral phenotypes of prey species. Recent studies have begun to examine how the effects of individual experience with predation risk shapes the use of publicly available risk assessment cues. Here, we investigated the effects of prior predation risk experience on disturbance cue production and use by Trinidadian guppies Poecilia reticulata under laboratory conditions. In our first experiment, we demonstrate that the response of guppies from a high predation population (Lopinot River) was dependent upon the source of disturbance cue senders (high vs. low predation populations). However, guppies collected from a low predation site (Upper Aripo River) exhibited similar responses to disturbance cues, regardless of the sender population. In our second experiment, we used laboratory strain guppies exposed to high versus low background risk conditions. Our results show an analogous response patterns as shown for our first experiment. Guppies exposed to high background risk conditions exhibited stronger responses to the disturbance cues collected from senders exposed to high (vs. low) risk conditions and guppies exposed to low risk conditions were not influenced by sender experience. Combined, our results suggest that experience with background predation risk significantly impacts both the production of and response to disturbance cues in guppies.

Influence of Self-Relevance and Reputational Concerns on Altruistic Moral Decision Making.

Complex moral decision making may share certain cognitive mechanisms with economic decision making under risk situations. However, it is little known how people weigh gains and losses between self and others during moral decision making under risk situations. The current study adopted the dilemma scenario-priming paradigm to examine how self-relevance and reputational concerns influenced moral decision making. Participants were asked to decide whether they were willing to sacrifice their own interests to help the protagonist (friend, acquaintance, or stranger) under the dilemmas of reputational loss risk, while the helping choices, decision times and emotional responses were recorded. In Study 1, participants showed a differential altruistic tendency, indicating that participants took less time to make more helping choices and subsequently reported weaker unpleasant experience toward friends compared to acquaintances and strangers. In Study 2, participants still made these egoistically biased altruistic choices under the low reputational loss risk conditions. However, such an effect was weakened by the high reputational loss risks. Results suggested that moral principle guiding interpersonal moral decision making observed in our study is best described as an egoistically biased altruism, and that reputational concerns can play a key role in restraining selfish tendency.

Pediatric reference values for chromium and mercury in urine in the City of Buenos Aires and Greater Buenos Aires.

Due to the heavy industrialization of the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires and Greater Buenos Aires, the population may have become exposed to metals. To assess the level of exposure to chromium and mercury in children, it is critical to have local reference values (RVs). Our objective was to determine pediatric RV s for chromium and mercury in a single urine sample. Children who were not exposed to the studied contaminants and who attended the Department of Low Risk Conditions and the Daycare Center Office of Hospital de Pediatría S.A.M.I.C. "Prof. Dr. Juan P. Garrahan" were included. Urinary chromium (UCr), urinary mercury (UHg), and urinary creatinine were measured. The p95 and its corresponding 95 % confidence interval (CI) were estimated based on the RV concept proposed by the German Human Biomonitoring Commission. The study included 160 patients. A total of 144 samples from children aged 1-17 years (median: 7 years) were collected. UCr was measured in 137 samples and UHg, in 129 samples. The median value of chromium was 0.54 µg/g of creatinine (range, undetectable to 3.06), while that of mercury was 0.49 µg/g of creatinine (range, undetectable to 7.57). The RVs for UCr were up to 1.5 µg/L [1.2-2.8] and up to 2.2 µg/g of creatinine [1.8-3.0], and for UHg, up to 2.5 µg/L [1.8-4.8] and 3.2 µg/g of creatinine [2.5-4.7].

Climate exposure of East Asian temperate forests suggests transboundary climate adaptation strategies are needed

The impacts of climate change traverse administrative borders, which calls for new strategies for forest ecosystem conservation and adaptive management. Despite relatively high biodiversity, the temperate forests in East Asia have lacked a comprehensive regional evaluation of potential climate change impacts. Here, we assess the level of climate change exposure of the Temperate Broadleaf and Mixed Forests Biome of East Asia by 2070. These temperate forests occupy 18 ecoregions, five countries, and 102 provinces. We categorize climate change exposure by classifying baseline (1960–1990) climate conditions for the current geographic distribution of five temperate forest types within each ecoregion and within the biome. We then measure the level of change under four future climates: a warmer or a hotter future climate and under reduced emissions (RCP4.5) or with emissions continuing unabated (RCP8.5). By 2070, using the RCP8.5 emission scenario, 24.5–65.7% of these forests enter non-analog or the most marginal 1% of baseline climate conditions. These results reveal the need for extensive transboundary governmental coordination, including forest preservation actions among 51 of 54 provinces that will retain some forest locations in climatically stable or low-risk conditions. Furthermore, among 96 provinces with forests that will be highly exposed, 90 will require transboundary climate change adaptation strategies because these forests span their borders, including the border areas of China, the Russian Federation, and North Korea. The analytical approach of this study could serve as a template for supporting transboundary institutional coordination to address climate change.

Neurobehavior of mexican newborns in conditions of low perinatal risk

INTRODUCTION: The first hours of life are still a window of opportunity to identify at-risk newborns, but there are few studies focusing on early neonatal behavior.OBJECTIVE: Describe in a cross section the behavior of newborns born in conditions of low perinatal risk under 48 hours of extrauterine life and compare it with historical referents.METHOD: We studied 47 newborns with low perinatal risk, whose behavior was assessed using the Brazelton Neonatal Behavioral Assessment Scale (NBAS). Scores were obtained by item and area, and then were compared with 7 historical referents.RESULTS: Low scores were found, both by item and by areas in up to 25% of the population. NBAS scores were related primarily with age of newborn, weight, and height. Significant differences were found in relation to referents for which higher scores were reported in the majority of cases.CONCLUSIONS: A pattern was found of behavior, in which the same areas or items caused greater or lesser difficulty in achieving higher scores or those which required a certain level of adaptation to the environment, which would lead us to believe that our newborns should attain the scores seen in other populations as they advance in age.

The effect of ageing on cathodic protection shielding by fusion bonded epoxy coatings

Cathodic protection (CP) permeable coatings are commonly perceived in the pipeline industry as advantageous in terms of corrosion protection in a coating disbondment scenario, since CP currents through the coating could create an alkaline pH capable of inducing steel passivation. The CP current permeability of fusion bonded epoxy (FBE) coatings in as new condition was recently evaluated and found to be very low. This paper explores the possible effects of ageing and, in particular, water uptake on CP current permeability. FBE films were hydrothermally aged for up to seven months. Water uptake was found to increase drastically over the first three months and then reach a plateau. In addition to weight changes, water uptake and other chemical changes were evaluated through Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy and differential scanning calorimetry analysis. CP current permeability of aged FBE coatings had a significant increase in relation to unaged samples. However, experiments also suggested that FBE coatings were partially permeable to OH− and/or H+ which limited their ability to produce the high pH environment required for steel passivation. This indicates that the increase in CP current conduction as a result of ageing is not the likely cause for the low corrosion risk observed in service for disbonded FBE coatings. However, low corrosion risk conditions could still be achieved if pinholes are developed in service. The effect of artificial pinholes on FBE coatings was tested and it was found to drastically increase the CP current permeability, allowing a rise of pH to values sufficiently alkaline for steel passivation.

Associations of Cumulative Family Risk With Academic Performance and Substance Involvement: Tests of Moderation by Child Reading Engagement

Background: Exposure to cumulative contextual risk within the family early in life increases children’s risk for substance involvement and related difficulties, including school failure, in adolescence and young adulthood. However, potential protective factors that buffer these risk associations are relatively untested, yet such tests are needed to improve existing preventive interventions for enhancing resilience among vulnerable children. Objectives: This study tested child reading engagement with parents at home as a moderator of cumulative family risk associations with adolescent substance use and academic performance as well as young adult substance abuse. Methods: Population register data as well as parent-report and adolescent-report data from 6,963 participants of the 1986 Northern Finland Birth Cohort study were analyzed via structural equation modeling with latent variable interactions. Results: Results showed that child reading engagement moderated the associations of cumulative family risk with both adolescent academic performance and young adult substance abuse, but not with adolescent substance use. The highest levels of academic performance were observed under conditions of low risk and high reading engagement. Interestingly, cumulative family risk had a small positive association with substance abuse when reading engagement was low and a negative association with the young adult outcome when reading engagement was high. Conclusions/Importance: Moderation tests revealed complex interaction forms that may have implications for both theory and family-based preventive interventions.

Impulsivity Moderates Skin Conductance Activity During Decision Making in a Modified Version of the Balloon Analog Risk Task.

Individual differences in traits such as impulsivity and processing of risk and reward have been linked to decision making and may underlie divergent decision making strategies. It is, however, unclear whether and how far individual differences in these characteristics jointly influence decision making. Here, we aimed to investigate the roles of skin conductance responses, a psychophysiological marker of risk processing and impulsivity, as assessed by the Barratt Impulsiveness Scale 11 on decision making. Forty-six healthy participants performed a modified version of the Balloon Analog Risk Task (BART), where reward and explosion risk are manipulated separately. Participants are informed about whether they play a high versus low reward and high versus low explosion risk condition. The exact risk and reward contingencies are, however, unknown to participants. Participants were less risk-taking under high, compared to low explosion risk and under high reward, compared to low reward on the modified BART, which served as a validation of the paradigm. Risk-taking was negatively related to skin conductance responses under high explosion risk. This relationship was primarily driven by individuals with relatively high levels of impulsivity. However, impulsivity alone was not found to be related to decision making on the modified BART. These results extend evidence that skin conductance responses may guide decision making in situations, where participants are informed about risk level (high vs. low), which might be differentially moderated by different levels of impulsivity.