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Ophthalmic examinations of developmentally delayed/autistic children are challenging. Oral midazolam may be a viable alternative to general anaesthesia for this indication. Single-centre retrospective cohort study (January 2018-March 2020). Oral midazolam (0.5 mg/kg, max 15 mg). Metrics included: patient demographics, examination completion rate, duration of stay and adverse events. 50 oral midazolam examinations were performed (45 patients). Mean age was 79.12 months. All had developmental delay (66.67% autism). Time to ophthalmic examination was 60.31 minutes. Eye examination was successfully completed in 98%. No adverse events were reported. Mean stay was 3.35 hours. Oral midazolam (0.5 mg/kg, max 15 mg) is associated with safe, successful completion of ophthalmic examinations in children previously unexaminable in clinic.

Maternal ready-to-use supplementary foods (M-RUSF) have been shown to improve birth outcomes among undernourished pregnant women. Docosahexaenoic acid (DHA), eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA), and choline have been hypothesized to further improve gestational duration and cognitive development. The primary objective of this study was to determine the acceptability and feasibility of a new formulation of M-RUSF, referred to as MRUSF+, that included fish oil, containing about 400 to 500 mg DHA and EPA, and 550 mg choline among pregnant women in the Pujehun District of Sierra Leone. Both the control and the experimental supplementary foods contained 18 g of high quality protein and 580 kcal, with generous amounts of all essential micronutrients. The ration size was 100 g/d. Both intervention and control recipes were locally produced using peanut paste by the Project Peanut Butter Factory in Freetown, Sierra Leone. The fish oil was added to the M-RUSF+ after all the grinding had been accomplished to limit degardation. The study used a 2x2 crossover design to assess the acceptability of the M-RUSF and M-RUSF+ formulations. Pregnant women were assigned to one of two sequences of foods: either M-RUSF+ followed by M-RUSF, or M-RUSF followed by M-RUSF+. Each food was given for one week. Fifty-one pregnant women were enrolled (day 0), with data collection occurring on days 3, 7, 10 and 14 after enrollment. At each visit, women returned the packets, either empty or partially consumed. Acceptability was assessed at all follow-up visits based on overall consumption, likeability, and adverse events reported. Consumption of M-RUSF and M-RUSF+ averaged 99%. The likability scores averaged 4.8 and 4.9 out of 5 for M-RUSF and M-RUSF+, respectively. For 85/90 visits during which M-RUSF+ was being consumed and 77/83 visits during which M-RUSF was being consumed, the foods were rated with a likability score of 5. Adverse events, defined as diarrhea, vomiting or rash were infrequent (<7%) and showed no significant differences. These results suggest that both M-RUSF and M-RUSF+ are acceptable and feasible for use among pregnant women in the Pujehun District, Sierra Leone. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While research regarding emotion recognition in ASD has focused primarily on social cues, musical stimuli also elicit strong emotional responses. This study extends and expands the few previous studies of response to music in ASD, measuring both psychophysiological and behavioral responses in younger children (ages 8-11) as well as older adolescents (ages 16-18). Compared to controls, the ASD group demonstrated reduced skin conductance response to music-evoked emotion. Younger groups, regardless of diagnosis, showed greater physiological reactivity to scary stimuli than to other emotions. There was a significant interaction of age group and diagnostic group in identifying scary music stimuli, possibly evidencing disrupted developmental trajectories in ASD for integrating physiological and cognitive cues that may underlie symptoms of anxiety.

Bowler et al. ("Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders" 44(9):2355-2362. doi:10.1007/s10803-014-2105-y, 2014) have suggested that a specific memory impairment in autism spectrum disorders (ASD) arises from hippocampal failure to consolidate multiple related pieces of information. Twenty-four adults diagnosed with ASD and matched healthy controls completed a pattern separation memory task that is known to critically depend on hippocampal involvement. They additionally completed questionnaires regarding anxiety, depression, and behavioral motivation. Specific deficits in pattern separation were significantly correlated with negative emotionality; the best predictor of memory deficit was from a measure of achievement motivation that has also been associated with hyperactivity and impulsivity. In the context of impaired emotion regulation in ASD, there is a need for integrated cognitive, affective, and neural systems approaches to build targeted interventions.

Bill Barrable,1 Nancy Thorogood,1 Vanessa Noonan,1,2 Jocelyn Tomkinson,1 Phalgun Joshi,1 Ken Stephenson,1 John Barclay,1 Katharina Kovacs Burns3 1Rick Hansen Institute, 2Division of Spine, Department of Orthopaedics, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, 3Health Sciences Council, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB, Canada Abstract: To improve health care outcomes with cost-effective treatments and prevention initiatives, basic health research must be translated into clinical application and studied during implementation, a process commonly referred to as translational research. It is estimated that only 14% of health-related scientific discoveries enter into medical practice and that it takes an average of 17 years for them to do so. The transition from basic research to clinical knowledge and from clinical knowledge to practice or implementation is so fraught with obstacles that these transitions are often referred to as “valleys of death”. The Rick Hansen Institute has developed a unique praxis model for translational research in the field of spinal cord injury (SCI). The praxis model involves three components. The first is a coordinated program strategy of cure, care, consumer engagement, and commercialization. The second is a knowledge cycle that consists of four phases, ie, environmental scanning, knowledge generation and synthesis, knowledge validation, and implementation. The third is the provision of relevant resources and infrastructure to overcome obstacles in the “valleys of death”, ie, funding, clinical research operations, informatics, clinical research and best practice implementation, consumer engagement, collaborative networks, and strategic partnerships. This model, which is to be independently evaluated in 2018 to determine its strengths and limitations, has been used to advance treatments for pressure ulcers in SCI. The Rick Hansen Institute has developed an innovative solution to move knowledge into action by bridging the “valleys of death” in the research continuum, with the intention of improving health outcomes for people with SCI and decreasing the financial impact on the health care system. This model may be generalizable to other health conditions and the lessons learned in developing the praxis model may assist other organizations dealing with similar translational research challenges. Keywords: spinal cord injuries, clinical outcomes, translational research, implementation, knowledge mobilization, praxis model

Electrical power sources used in outer planet missions are a key enabling technology for data acquisition and communications. State–of-the-art power sources generate electricity from alpha decay of 238Pu via thermoelectric conversion. However, production of 238Pu requires specialist facilities including a nuclear reactor, a source of 237Np for target irradiation and hotcells to chemically separate neptunium and plutonium within the irradiated targets. These specialist facilities are expensive to build and operate, so naturally, a more economical alternative is attractive to the industry. Within Europe 241Am is considered a promising alternative heat source for radioisotope thermoelectric generators (RTGs) and radioisotope heating units (RHUs). As a daughter product of 241Pu decay, 241Am exists in 1000 kgs quantities within the UK civil plutonium stockpile. A chemical separation process is required to extract the 241Am in a pure form and this paper describes the AMPPEX process (Americium and Plutonium Purification by Extraction), successfully developed over the past five years to isolate 241Am in high yield (> 99%) and to a high purity (> 99%). The process starts by dissolving plutonium dioxide in nitric acid with the aid of a silver(II) catalyst, which is generated electrochemically. The solution is then conditioned and fed to a PUREX type solvent extraction process, where the plutonium is separated from the americium and silver. The plutonium is converted back to plutonium dioxide and the americium is fed forward to a second solvent extraction step. Here the americium is selectively extracted leaving the silver in the aqueous phase. The americium is stripped from the solvent and recovered from solution as americium oxalate, which is calcined to give americium dioxide as the final product. This paper will describe the development of the separation process over a series of six solvent extraction separation trials using centrifugal contactors. The material produced (~ 4g 241Am) was used to make ceramic pellets to establish the behaviour of americium oxide material under high temperature (1450°C) sintering conditions. The chemical separation process is now demonstrated at concentrations expected on the full scale facility taking this process to TRL 4-5.

It is shown that applying isotropic quantitative mobility analysis to anisotropic materials can lead to drastic qualitative errors, even in the case of modest anisotropy. The procedure may provide not only wrong values for carrier mobilities and concentrations but even a wrong number of carrier species. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]