Enhancing social problem-solving performance in an elementary school setting.

Social problem-solving training, conducted as part of a social studies curriculum with 185 3rd- and 4th-grade children, was assessed by a measure of problem-solving thinking, a structured adult–child interaction, a structured group interaction, and the Nowicki-Strickland Locus of Control Scale for Children. The experimental design used 4 training groups: no treatment (control), video modeling tapes (TV), video modeling tapes plus discussion exercises (discussion), and video modeling tapes plus role-play exercises (role play). The major findings revealed significant overall treatment effects on problem-solving thinking, the group interaction, and locus of control. Findings are interpreted as indicating that the role-play treatment is more likely to transfer to everyday social interactions and enhance children's social competence. (25 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

High school students as mental health aides in the elementary school setting.

Offered more relevant experiences to 15 underachieving high school students by training them to work with 23 maladapted primary graders. Teachers' ratings of children's behavior indicated program children improved more than 27 matched controls, a finding supported by aides' ratings of improvement in program children. Aides felt the program helped their understanding of children, and they perceived it as better than other school activities. These findings, together with the positive reaction of school personnel to the program, testify to its effectiveness and feasibility. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Stuttering therapy in the elementary school setting: guidelines for clinician-teacher collaboration

This article describes guidelines for developing an effective collaborative/consultative approach to the treatment of stuttering in an elementary school setting. Four primary areas of shared clinician/teacher responsibility are discussed, which include: education, observation, facilitation of fluent speech, and generalization of speech fluency. Although the speech-language pathologist should initiate the teacher's involvement in a child's therapy, both the clinician and teacher should work toward developing a mutually influential partnership, through which the specific needs of individual children who stutter can be addressed in a comprehensive manner.     

Hepatitis C virus transmission dynamics in injection drug users

Hepatitis C virus (HCV) presents several challenges to the development of prevention programs. HCV infection is persistent in up to 80% of cases, and viremic individuals may transmit infection to others. With 65-90% of injection drug users anti-HCV positive, a large reservoir of infection exists in most drug-injector populations. Studying the genetic variability of HCV infections could permit researchers to reconstruct chains of viral transmission in IDUs. However, the relationship of HCV to HIV epidemiology remains unclear and may depend on whether the proportions of infectious persons in the population are similar for both viruses.     

Hepatitis B virus and hepatocellular carcinoma

Hepatitis B is a very important public health problem. Epidemiologic studies have shown a relationship between the hepatitis B virus (HBV) chronic carrier state and the development of hepatocellular carcinoma. HBV belongs to the Hepadna viruses family which includes the woodchuck hepatitis virus (WHV), Woodchucks infected with WHV represent a good experimental model to study the viral oncogenesis. In 85% of the studied cases, WHV acts by insertional mutagenesis in a gene of the myc family, mostly the N-myc2 gene. Expression of the myc genes is increased, suggesting the role of the viral enhancer. Study of transgenic mice have shown the liver specificity of the WHV action. In man, the liver oncogenesis is not explained. Studies are in progress to detect inactivation of tumor suppressor genes.     

Hepatitis B virus infection in dental surgical practice

Sixty-one dental surgeons at King's College Hospital were interviewed to establish the incidence of attacks of viral hepatitis and to relate this to environmental risk factors. Six (10%) had a history of hepatitis, in one case due to infection with the hepatitis B virus. Screening blood for HBsAg by radioimmunoassay showed no carriers of the antigen, but transient antigenaemia was observed in one dentist. Antibody to HBsAg, tested by radioimmunoassay, was detected in four dentists (7%), only one of whom had had clinical hepatitis. Dental surgeons may be more at risk from infection with the hepatitis B virus than the general population, although this should be minimised in hospital practice, where the most infected patients will already have been identified and appropriate precautions can be taken. The risk of transmission from an antigen-positive dentist to his patients is probably much smaller, and there is no evidence to restrict his clinical activities.     

Family characteristics and elementary school achievement in an urban ghetto.

Investigated the relationships of sex, father absence, family size, and birth order to factor scores representing "general academic achievement" in a sample of 149 urban black ghetto 5th graders. Significant main effects were found for sex (with girls showing higher achievement levels than boys) and family size (with the highest achievement in small families). A significant Birth Order * Family Size interaction was found: Firstborn Ss did best in small families, lastborn Ss did best in intermediate (4-5 children) families, and there was no birth order differentiation in large families. No significant effect on achievement was found for father absence. (18 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Hepatitis B virus genomic heterogeneity: variation between quasispecies may confound molecular epidemiological analyses of transmission incidents

Nucleotide sequence variability studies were conducted on a 263-base pair fragment of the core-coding genomic region of hepatitis B virus (HBV), amplified by the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) from three surgeons with varying circulating levels of HBV, all of whom were thought to have transmitted HBV to their patients post-surgically. DNA sequencing was applied to amplicons obtained directly from serum and those cloned into plasmid vectors, and from single HBV molecules in serum separated by a limiting dilution procedure. In one surgeon, who had a titre of approximately 3 x 10(5) genome equivalents ml-1, the direct sequence was identical to none of 29 other sequences and differed by one base substitution from the sequence amplified from the single patient he infected. In another surgeon, who had a titre of approximately 2 x 10(6) genome equivalents ml-1, the direct sequence was identical to 17 of 36 (47%) sequences; however, the sequence common to all three infected patients was identical to a unique sequence in the surgeon that differed by three base substitutions from the direct sequence. By contrast, the direct sequence in the third surgeon, who had a titre of approximately 4 x 10(7) genome equivalents ml-1, was identical to 25 of 38 (66%) sequences, and to the sequence common to all 11 infected patients. Assessment of HBV DNA sequences directly amplified from clinical specimens may not be appropriate to studies of transmission in which the source of infection harbours a relatively dilute, heterogeneous mix of viral variants.     

Characteristics of children selecting low-fat foods in an elementary school lunch program

OBJECTIVE: To describe the demographic characteristics of children that were associated with the selection of low-fat entrees available in a school lunch program. DESIGN: For 5 consecutive months, we recorded student entree selections on the 46 days in which one of the two available lunch entrees was low fat (< or = 30% of calories from fat). Entree selections were tracked using a computerized meal-card system. The lunch menus did not indicate that one of the two entrees was low fat. Demographic and family characteristics were obtained from the school district's registration database and, in one school, from a household telephone survey. SETTING: A school lunch program in two public elementary schools in Bellevue, Wash. PARTICIPANTS: Students who regularly eat school lunches (N = 471). Sixty-five percent were from families with incomes less than 185% of the federal poverty level, and 49% were nonwhite. INTERVENTION: None. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE: The proportion of days that each student selected the low-fat entree. RESULTS: Girls selected the low-fat entree more often than boys (33% of days vs 27% of days; P < .001), and the proportion of students selecting the low-fat entree increased with grade level (P = .003). Children were more likely to select low-fat entrees if a household member was known to have an elevated blood cholesterol level (P = .004). The proportion of students selecting the low-fat entree increased with maternal education level (P = .007), but children receiving free or reduced-price lunches (< 185% of the federal poverty level) chose the low-fat entree as often as those receiving full-price lunches (30% of days vs 29% of days; P = .14). There were no significant differences in entree selection among races. CONCLUSIONS: Given a choice of low-fat school lunch entrees, girls, older children, and those who had family members with elevated cholesterol levels were most likely to select these entrees. While parental education level was directly related to the selection of low-fat entrees, race and family income had little association with entree selection.     

Surveillance and prevention of hepatitis B virus transmission

We have demonstrated a microfabricated single-molecule DNA sizing device. This device does not depend on mobility to measure molecule size, is 100 times faster than pulsed-field gel electrophoresis, and has a resolution that improves with increasing DNA length. It also requires a million times less sample than pulsed-field gel electrophoresis and has comparable resolution for large molecules. Here we describe the fabrication and use of the single-molecule DNA sizing device for sizing and sorting DNA restriction digests and ladders spanning 2-200 kbp.     

Hepatitis B virus surface antigen binds to apolipoprotein H

We have previously demonstrated that a plasma membrane-enriched fraction isolated from human liver is capable of binding recombinant hepatitis B surface antigen (rHBsAg) (P. Pontisso, M. A. Petit, M. Bankowski, and M. E. Peeples, J. Virol. 63:1981-1988, 1989). In this study we have separated the plasma membrane proteins by sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis and used a ligand-blotting technique to identify a 46-kDa rHBsAg-binding protein. This protein could be removed from the membranes with a weakly acidic buffer, implying that it is peripherally bound. Examination of human serum revealed that the 46-kDa binding protein is a serum protein. Isolation of plasma lipoproteins revealed that the binding protein is in part associated with chylomicrons and high-density lipoproteins, both of which are targeted to the hepatocyte during the normal course of lipid metabolism. The binding protein was identified as apolipoprotein H (apo H), also known as beta 2-glycoprotein I, on the basis of copurification of the rHBsAg-binding activity with the apo H protein and the ability of cDNA-expressed apo H to bind rHBsAg. Serum-derived HBsAg also binds to apo H, indicating that binding is not unique to rHBsAg. Binding is saturable, requires only the small S protein of rHBsAg, and is inhibited by excess rHBsAg, antibodies to HBsAg, and antibodies to apo H. The binding activity of apo H is destroyed upon reduction, indicating that 1 or more of its 22 disulfide bonds are required for interaction with rHBsAg. The possibility that an interaction between hepatitis B virus particles and lipoprotein particles may facilitate entry of the virus into hepatocytes is discussed.     

Hepatitis B virus infection, hepatitis B vaccine, and hepatitis B immune globulin

Hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection is a major health problem in the United States; in 1995, approximately 128,000 cases occurred. Transmission of HBV occurs primarily by blood exchange (eg, by shared needles during injection drug use) and by sexual contact. Persons infected early in life are much more likely to become chronically infected than those infected during adulthood: as many as 90% of infants infected perinatally develop chronic infection and up to 25% will die of HBV-related chronic liver disease as adults. Clinical signs of acute hepatitis occur in about 50% of infected adults but in only 5% of infected preschool-aged children. In the United States, hepatitis B vaccine is currently made by recombinant DNA technology using baker's yeast. Preexposure vaccination results in protective antibody levels in almost all infants and children (> 95%) and healthy adults younger than 40 years of age (> 90%). The most common adverse event following administration of hepatitis B vaccine is pain at the injection site, which occurs in 13% to 29% of adult and 3% to 9% of children. A comprehensive hepatitis B vaccination policy is now recommended that includes (1) routine infant vaccination; (2) catch-up vaccination of 11- to 12-year-olds who were not previously vaccinated; (3) catch-up vaccination of young children at high risk for infection; (4) vaccination of adolescents and adults based on lifestyle or environmental, medical, and occupational situations that place them at risk; and (5) prevention of perinatal HBV infection.