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The article discusses the centenary celebrations of Herman Melville's "Billy Budd," including a major exhibition at the Grolier Club in New York City showcasing the manuscript and related artifacts, honoring the novella's legacy,from September 12 through November 9, 2024.

Background: We recently developed a preliminary predictive model identifying clinical and radiologic factors associated with the need for surgery following blunt abdominal trauma (BAT) in children. Our aim in this study was to further validate the factors in this predictive model in a multi-institutional study. Methods: A retrospective chart review of pediatric patients from five pediatric trauma centers who experienced BAT between 2011 and 2020 was performed. Patients under 18 years of age who had BAT and computed tomography (CT) abdomen imaging were included. Children with evidence of pneumoperitoneum, and hemodynamic instability were excluded. Fisher's exact test was used for statistical analysis of the association between the following risk factors and need for laparotomy: abdominal wall bruising (AWB), abdominal pain/tenderness (APT), thoracolumbar fracture (TLF), presence of free fluid (FF), presence of solid organ injury (SOI). A predictive logistic regression model was then estimated employing these factors. Findings: Seven hundred thirty-four patients were identified in this multi-institutional dataset with BAT and abdominal CT imaging, and 726 were included. Of those, 59 underwent surgical intervention (8.8%). Univariate analysis of association between the studied factors and need for surgical management showed that the presence of TLF (p < 0.01), APT (p < 0.01), FF (p < 0.01), and SOI (p < 0.01) were significantly associated. A predictive model was created using the 5 factors resulting in an area under the curve (AUC) of 0.80. For the motor vehicle collisions (MVC) group, only FF, SOI, and TLF are significantly associated with the need for surgical intervention. The AUC for the MVC group was 0.87. Conclusions: A clinical and radiologic prediction rule was validated using a large multi-institutional dataset of pediatric BAT patients, demonstrating a high degree of accuracy in identifying children who underwent surgery. FF, SOI, and TLF are the most important factors associated with the need for surgical intervention. Level of evidence: Level III. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Sahel region is projected to be highly impacted by the more frequent hazards associated with climate change, including increased temperature, drought and flooding. This systematic review examined the evidence for climate change-related health consequences in the Sahel. The databases used were Medline (PubMed), Embase (Ovid), Web of Science (Clarivate) and CABI Global Health. Hand searches were also conducted, which included directly engaging Sahelian researchers and hand-searching in the African Journals Online database. Of the 4153 studies found, 893 were identified as duplicates and the remaining 3260 studies were screened (title and abstract only) and then assessed for eligibility. A total of 81 studies were included in the systematic review. Most studies focused on vector-borne diseases, food security, nutrition and heat-related stress. Findings suggest that mosquito distribution will shift under different climate scenarios, but this relationship will not be linear with temperature, as there are other variables to consider. Food insecurity, stunting (chronic malnutrition) and heat-related mortality are likely to increase if no action is taken owing to the projected impact of climate change on environmental factors and agriculture. Seventy-one per cent of manuscripts ( n = 58) had first authors from institutions in North America or Europe, of which 39.7% ( n = 23) included co-authors from African institutions., Competing Interests: We declare we have no competing interests., (© 2024 The Authors.)