Childhood Neglect History, Depressive Symptoms, and Intimate Partner Violence Perpetration by College Students.

College students experience intimate partner violence (IPV) at an alarming rate, and preventing such violence depends on identifying factors that contribute to perpetration. Although there is extensive research that has established a link between childhood neglect and later physical IPV perpetration, less is known about the specific mechanisms through which childhood neglect leads to IPV perpetration. In the present study, we examined potential mediators of the relationship between childhood neglect and IPV perpetration by college students, with special emphasis on the role of depressive symptoms and IPV victimization. A total of 302 college students reported on their experiences of childhood maltreatment, depressive symptoms, and IPV victimization and perpetration. Results indicate that increasing levels of childhood emotional and physical neglect correspond with increasing rates of IPV perpetration, after accounting for the effect of childhood emotional, physical, and sexual abuse. This effect between childhood neglect and IPV perpetration was fully mediated by the combination of IPV victimization and depressive symptoms for the overall sample. However, when examining the model for men and women separately, only the indirect effect through victimization remained statistically significant for men. Our findings suggest that research on the link between childhood neglect and IPV perpetration should also consider the impact of IPV victimization, as neglect may lead to IPV perpetration within the context of a mutually aggressive relationship. Furthermore, these findings indicate that childhood neglect leads to long-term emotional consequences that contribute to later IPV perpetration, and treating depressive symptoms may help prevent IPV perpetration against college students who experienced childhood neglect.

Concurrent validity of the School Outcomes Measure (SOM) and Pediatric Evaluation of Disability Inventory (PEDI) in preschool-age children.

AIMS: The purpose of this study was to examine the concurrent validity of the School Outcomes Measure (SOM) compared with the Pediatric Evaluation of Disability Inventory (PEDI) in preschool-age children. This study also examined the consistency of children's motor performance across the home and school settings. METHODS: Five school-based physical therapists collected data on 44 preschool-age children with physical or combined physical and cognitive disability. Correlation coefficients analyzed the strength of association between SOM and PEDI subscale scores, while participant group mean scores analyzed agreement between measures regarding level of motor performance. RESULTS: Correlations between homologous PEDI and SOM subscale scores varied from rs = .53 to rs = .92 supporting concurrent validity. With some exceptions, group mean SOM scores showed agreement with group mean PEDI scores when children were categorized by age, gross motor function level, or PEDI cutoff score (1 or 2 SD below the mean). CONCLUSIONS: The results partially support concurrent validity between the SOM and PEDI, and suggest that the children's motor performance was similar across home and school settings. The findings also suggest that as a minimal database the SOM can reliably assess motor performance in the school setting; the disadvantage is difficulty interpreting SOM scores.

Optical segmentation of unprocessed breast tissue for margin assessment.

Visual and tactual examination of unprocessed breast specimens is the standard for intraoperative surgical margin assessment in the United States. However, this procedure does not provide surgeons or pathologists with microscopic views of the tissue, which makes it difficult to accurately assess margin status or the extent of the disease, especially in non-palpable cases. We use a combination of spectral and polarization macroscopic imaging to optically segment the adipose and collagen tissues thus highlighting regions suspected of containing epithelium in order to facilitate optical microscopy techniques. A small study on five lumpectomy and mastectomy samples showed a sensitivity of 70% ± 20% and specificity of 50% ± 10% for adipose segmentation and a sensitivity of 50% ± 20% and specificity of 50% ± 20% for collagen segmentation. This sensitivity and specificity are sufficient for providing morphological information to the pathologist in order to guide microscopic examination of regions likely to be of clinical significance.