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While clear guidelines and best practices exist for the assessment of autism spectrum disorders (ASD), little information is available about assessing for ASD in culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD) populations. CLD populations might be misidentified and under-identified with ASD due to the assessment practices that we employ. Four autism diagnostic tools and six autism screeners were selected and evaluated for their cultural and linguistic responsiveness. Although the evaluation of ASD within CLD populations is highly complex, this study identified the need for improved autism assessment tools and practices. Without the appropriate assessment of these populations, CLD children will likely continue to be misidentified (or not identified at all) and will miss crucial intervention opportunities. Keywords Autism * Diagnostic assessment * Screening * Diverse populations, Introduction In recent years, the number of children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) has increased significantly. At present, ASDs are the fastest growing childhood neurodevelopmental disorders; recent estimates purport [...]

In this work, we evaluate for the first time the performance of a label-free porous silicon (PSi) immunosensor assay in a blind clinical study designed to screen authentic patient urine specimens for a broad range of opiates. The PSi opiate immunosensor achieved 96% concordance with liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry/tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) results on samples that underwent standard opiate testing (n = 50). In addition, successful detection of a commonly abused opiate, oxycodone, resulted in 100% qualitative agreement between the PSi opiate sensor and LC-MS/MS. In contrast, a commercial broad opiate immunoasssy technique (CEDIA) achieved 65% qualitative concordance with LCMS/MS. Evaluation of important performance attributes including precision, accuracy, and recovery was completed on blank urine specimens spiked with test analytes. Variability of morphine detection as a model opiate target was 10.1021/ac101804s

A low-cost photonic lab on a chip with three different working regimes for cell screening is presented. The proposed system is able to perform scattering, scattering + absorption, and absorption measurements without any modification. Opposite to the standard flow cytometers, in this proposed configuration, a single 30 ms scan allows to obtain information regarding the cell optical properties. An additional novelty is that the whole spectrum is obtained and analyzed, being then possible to determine for each regime which is the optimal working wavelength that would provide the best performance in terms of sensitivity and limit of detection (LOD). Experimental results have provided with an LOD of 54.9 [+ or -] 0.7 cells (in the scattering regime using unlabeled cells), 53 [+ or -] 1 cells (in the scattering + absorption regime using labeled cells), and 105 [+ or -] 4 cells (in the absorption regime using labeled cells). Finally, the system has also been used for measuring the dead/live cell ratio, obtaining LODs between 7.6 [+ or -] 0.4% and 6.7 [+ or -] 0.3%, depending on the working regime used. 10.1021/ac100590z

Primary care physicians are more likely to see patients with depression than with any other disorder except hypertension, and its management poses a challenge to busy primary care practices. The [...]

A validation study of the substance abuse and mental illness Symptoms Screener that was conducted in an HIV-positive patient population is described. It is found that people screening positive results in HIV need a more rigorous confirmatory psychiatric evaluation.

It is now recommended by some experts that all adults in the United States have their blood cholesterol level tested. Various devices have been developed to measure cholesterol in blood; these instruments are portable and can be used for testing in the field rather than in a laboratory or a physician's office. The devices can test blood obtained from a pinprick rather than by venipuncture, and provide the test results in minutes. In one screening program in Rochester, New York, the Kodak Ektachem DT-60 device was evaluated for the accuracy of its cholesterol determinations. The test conditions were designed to simulate a mass field screening program where sources of error typically include use of personnel with varying degrees of experience, frequent movement of sensitive equipment, changes in environmental temperature and humidity, and a large number of patients. Cholesterol was tested using the DT-60, and was tested again using standard laboratory methods. The results obtained using the DT-60 were found to be clinically acceptable. The precision, the ability to obtain comparable values on repeated testing, was satisfactory. A coefficient of variation (CV) of under five is considered acceptable and the DT-60 was within this range. In conclusion, the accuracy of the instrument was satisfactory; it compared favorably to laboratory methods of cholesterol testing. (Consumer Summary produced by Reliance Medical Information, Inc.)

NOVA BIOMEDICAL has received clearance from the Food and Drug Administration to use the new StatStrip glucose monitor in neonatal testing. Unlike other glucose monitors that may report an error [...]