Refugee children in Canada: searching for identity.

Canada is providing a new home to refugees from around the globe, who have left their countries of origin because of persecution and are seeking safety elsewhere. These families bring with them myriad stresses arising from their migration. Child refugees, in particular, have special needs that must be considered--trauma from witnessing violent crimes, language difficulties, family disruption, and adjustment to a different culture--in addition to the challenges that accompany childhood and growing up.

Resonant effects in periodic gratings comprising a finite number of grooves in each period.

We give numerical evidence of a kind of resonance that appears in infinite perfectly conducting gratings comprising a finite number of grooves in each period when illuminated by a normally incident p-polarized plane wave. This phenomenon is intimately connected with the particular distribution of the phase of the electromagnetic field inside the cavities, which is automatically generated by waves of certain resonant wavelengths. The resonances appear as sharp peaks in the specularly reflected efficiency and are accompanied by a significant intensification of the interior field. We study the particular case of rectangular cavities and consider configurations with different numbers of grooves per period. The diffraction problem is solved for s and p polarization by using the modal method, which proves to be especially suitable for this profile.

The Impact-on-Family Scale: a test of invariance across culture.

OBJECTIVE: To test the cultural invariance of the Impact-on-Family Scale in order to make cross-cultural comparisons. METHODS: The Italian version of the scale was administered to mothers of children with chronic illnesses. Factorial invariance was examined to investigate whether the four factors found with the original United States (U.S.) scale could be replicated. RESULTS: The results clearly demonstrate the replicability of the first three factors, Financial Burden, Familial/Social Impact, and Personal Strain. In addition, internal consistency and the homogeneity of the items of the corresponding scales are satisfactory. However, the fourth factor, Mastery, could not be replicated, and the reliability of the corresponding scale is poor. Italian mothers scored significantly lower on the Financial Burden and on the Familial/Social Impact dimension, compared to the American sample. CONCLUSIONS: Three of the four factors of the Impact-on-Family Scale are useful for cross-cultural comparisons between U.S. and Italian samples.

A longitudinal study of cognitive abilities and achievement status of children with myelomeningocele and their relationship with clinical types.

Cognitive abilities and achievement status of 178 children with myelomeningocele (MMC) were examined with neuropsychological techniques. These children as a whole scored below the population average. Children with MMC and shunted hydrocephalus performed worse than the arrested (unshunted) and non-hydrocephalic children. The greater deficit occurred on the Performance IQ. 80.7% of the subjects attended normal school while, 19.3% received remedial instruction. The results of our study are consistent with a large body of literature indicating that children with shunted hydrocephalus demonstrate poorer development of non-verbal relative to verbal cognitive abilities.

Lupus anticoagulant: interference with in vivo prostaglandin production and with platelet sensitivity to prostacyclin.

The hypothesis has been made that inhibition of prostacyclin (PG12) production may play a role in the pathogenesis of thrombosis in patients with the lupus anticoagulant (LA), but so far no evidence of reduced PG12 levels in vivo has been produced. We have tested the plasma levels of PG12 and thromboxane A2 (TXA2) and the platelet sensitivity to PG12 in 14 patients with and without LA and in 14 healthy controls. No significant difference in the prostanoid basal levels was detected among the groups; however, in some patients PG12 increments seemed to parallel the clinical course of the disease. Platelet sensitivity to exogenous PG12 was significantly enhanced in the LA + patients and correlated with PG12 values. We suggest that in these subjects additional factors, other than reduced PG12, may predispose to thrombosis.

Use of the plate diagram in the fast evaluation of monochromators and spectrographs.

In this work we show a geometrical method-the unified plate diagram-which makes it possible to estimate simply and rapidly the dependence of image sharpness aberrations (spherical, coma, and astigmatism) on the basic design parameters of plane grating spectrographic systems. We also present analytical equations with the help of which additional parameters may be adjusted, such as off-axis relations, position, and form of the focal surface.

Czerny-Turner spectrograph with a wide spectral range.

In this work we present the design of a Czerny-Turner spectrograph with practically constant images over a wide spectral range (3500-7500 A). The plate diagram method is used to determine the parameters and the resulting design is evaluated by ray tracing.

[Delivery by cesarean section under general anesthesia and the neurobehavioral assessment of the newborn infant]. / Nascita per taglio cesareo in anestesia generale e valutazione neuro-comportamentale del neonato.

The problem of the effects on newborns of the anaesthetics administered to the mother has been reviewed. For research purposes Pentothal, widely used for induction in Caesarean section was considered. In spite of the presence of fair quantities of this drug, as demonstrated by foetal blood withdrawn from the umbilical cord, the newborns examined and submitted to painstaking neuro-behavioral assessment using Brazelton's method, did not show any signs of neurological impairment nor diversity in behaviour compared to a control group.