Some early ichthyosaurs used rounded, pebble-like teeth to crush the shells of snails and clam-like bivalves, according to new research.

Paris : Roret, 1834-1854.

London (No. 29 Newman Street, Oxford Street) : Published ... by V. & R. Green, January 18th 1788

Athletic forward Satou Sabally is preparing to take the leap to the WNBA level following three productive seasons at Oregon. As a junior, she averaged 16.2 points and 6.9 rebounds per game while helping the Ducks sweep the Pac-12 regular season and tournament titles. At 6-foot-4, she also drained 45 3-pointers for Oregon in 2019-20 while notching a career-best average of 2.3 assists per game.

During Friday's "Pac-12 Perspective," Stanford head coach Tara VanDerveer spoke about Haley Jones' positionless game and how the Cardinal used the dynamic freshman in 2019-20. Download and listen wherever you get your podcasts.

Laurent Gardes.

Source: Electronic Journal of Statistics, Volume 14, Number 1, 661--701.

Abstract:
The first part of the paper is dedicated to the construction of a $gamma$ - nonparametric confidence interval for a conditional quantile with a level depending on the sample size. When this level tends to 0 or 1 as the sample size increases, the conditional quantile is said to be extreme and is located in the tail of the conditional distribution. The proposed confidence interval is constructed by approximating the distribution of the order statistics selected with a nearest neighbor approach by a Beta distribution. We show that its coverage probability converges to the preselected probability $gamma $ and its accuracy is illustrated on a simulation study. When the dimension of the covariate increases, the coverage probability of the confidence interval can be very different from $gamma $. This is a well known consequence of the data sparsity especially in the tail of the distribution. In a second part, a dimension reduction procedure is proposed in order to select more appropriate nearest neighbors in the right tail of the distribution and in turn to obtain a better coverage probability for extreme conditional quantiles. This procedure is based on the Tail Conditional Independence assumption introduced in (Gardes, Extremes , pp. 57–95, 18(3) , 2018).

Tuo Chen, Zhihua Su, Yi Yang, Shanshan Ding.

Source: Electronic Journal of Statistics, Volume 14, Number 1, 143--173.

Abstract:
As a generalization of the classical linear regression, expectile regression (ER) explores the relationship between the conditional expectile of a response variable and a set of predictor variables. ER with respect to different expectile levels can provide a comprehensive picture of the conditional distribution of the response variable given the predictors. We adopt an efficient estimation method called the envelope model ([8]) in ER, and construct a novel envelope expectile regression (EER) model. Estimation of the EER parameters can be performed using the generalized method of moments (GMM). We establish the consistency and derive the asymptotic distribution of the EER estimators. In addition, we show that the EER estimators are asymptotically more efficient than the ER estimators. Numerical experiments and real data examples are provided to demonstrate the efficiency gains attained by EER compared to ER, and the efficiency gains can further lead to improvements in prediction.

Alexandre Mösching, Lutz Dümbgen.

Source: Electronic Journal of Statistics, Volume 14, Number 1, 24--49.

Abstract:
We consider bivariate observations $(X_{1},Y_{1}),ldots,(X_{n},Y_{n})$ such that, conditional on the $X_{i}$, the $Y_{i}$ are independent random variables. Precisely, the conditional distribution function of $Y_{i}$ equals $F_{X_{i}}$, where $(F_{x})_{x}$ is an unknown family of distribution functions. Under the sole assumption that $xmapsto F_{x}$ is isotonic with respect to stochastic order, one can estimate $(F_{x})_{x}$ in two ways: (i) For any fixed $y$ one estimates the antitonic function $xmapsto F_{x}(y)$ via nonparametric monotone least squares, replacing the responses $Y_{i}$ with the indicators $1_{[Y_{i}le y]}$. (ii) For any fixed $eta in (0,1)$ one estimates the isotonic quantile function $xmapsto F_{x}^{-1}(eta)$ via a nonparametric version of regression quantiles. We show that these two approaches are closely related, with (i) being more flexible than (ii). Then, under mild regularity conditions, we establish rates of convergence for the resulting estimators $hat{F}_{x}(y)$ and $hat{F}_{x}^{-1}(eta)$, uniformly over $(x,y)$ and $(x,eta)$ in certain rectangles as well as uniformly in $y$ or $eta$ for a fixed $x$.

Annalisa Fabretti, Samantha Leorato.

Source: Electronic Journal of Statistics, Volume 14, Number 1, 1611--1647.

Abstract:
We propose a method to generate random distributions with known quantile distribution, or, more generally, with known distribution for some form of generalized quantile. The method takes inspiration from the random Sequential Barycenter Array distributions (SBA) proposed by Hill and Monticino (1998) which generates a Random Probability Measure (RPM) with known expected value. We define the Sequential Quantile Array (SQA) and show how to generate a random SQA from which we can derive RPMs. The distribution of the generated SQA-RPM can have full support and the RPMs can be both discrete, continuous and differentiable. We face also the problem of the efficient implementation of the procedure that ensures that the approximation of the SQA-RPM by a finite number of steps stays close to the SQA-RPM obtained theoretically by the procedure. Finally, we compare SQA-RPMs with similar approaches as Polya Tree.

Xi Chen, Weidong Liu, Yichen Zhang.

Source: The Annals of Statistics, Volume 47, Number 6, 3244--3273.

Abstract:
This paper studies the inference problem in quantile regression (QR) for a large sample size $n$ but under a limited memory constraint, where the memory can only store a small batch of data of size $m$. A natural method is the naive divide-and-conquer approach, which splits data into batches of size $m$, computes the local QR estimator for each batch and then aggregates the estimators via averaging. However, this method only works when $n=o(m^{2})$ and is computationally expensive. This paper proposes a computationally efficient method, which only requires an initial QR estimator on a small batch of data and then successively refines the estimator via multiple rounds of aggregations. Theoretically, as long as $n$ grows polynomially in $m$, we establish the asymptotic normality for the obtained estimator and show that our estimator with only a few rounds of aggregations achieves the same efficiency as the QR estimator computed on all the data. Moreover, our result allows the case that the dimensionality $p$ goes to infinity. The proposed method can also be applied to address the QR problem under distributed computing environment (e.g., in a large-scale sensor network) or for real-time streaming data.

Chih-Yuan Hsu, Yi-Hau Chen, Ruoh-Rong Yu, Tsung-Wei Hung.

Source: The Annals of Applied Statistics, Volume 14, Number 1, 160--177.

Abstract:
Workers in Taiwan overall have been suffering from long-lasting wage stagnation since the mid-1990s. In particular, there seems to be little mobility for the wages of Taiwanese workers to transit across wage quantile groups. It is of interest to see if certain groups of workers, such as female, lower educated and younger generation workers, suffer from the problem more seriously than the others. This work tries to apply a systematic statistical approach to study this issue, based on the longitudinal data from the Panel Study of Family Dynamics (PSFD) survey conducted in Taiwan since 1999. We propose the quantile transition regression model, generalizing recent methodology for quantile association, to assess the wage status transition with respect to the marginal wage quantiles over time as well as the effects of certain demographic and job factors on the wage status transition. Estimation of the model can be based on the composite likelihoods utilizing the binary, or ordinal-data information regarding the quantile transition, with the associated asymptotic theory established. A goodness-of-fit procedure for the proposed model is developed. The performances of the estimation and the goodness-of-fit procedures for the quantile transition model are illustrated through simulations. The application of the proposed methodology to the PSFD survey data suggests that female, private-sector workers with higher age and education below postgraduate level suffer from more severe wage status stagnation than the others.

Emily Berg, Danhyang Lee.

Source: The Annals of Applied Statistics, Volume 13, Number 4, 2158--2188.

Abstract:
Quantiles of the distributions of several measures of erosion are important parameters in the Conservation Effects Assessment Project, a survey intended to quantify soil and nutrient loss on crop fields. Because sample sizes for domains of interest are too small to support reliable direct estimators, model based methods are needed. Quantile regression is appealing for CEAP because finding a single family of parametric models that adequately describes the distributions of all variables is difficult and small area quantiles are parameters of interest. We construct empirical Bayes predictors and bootstrap mean squared error estimators based on the linearly interpolated generalized Pareto distribution (LIGPD). We apply the procedures to predict county-level quantiles for four types of erosion in Wisconsin and validate the procedures through simulation.

Abdelaati Daouia, Stéphane Girard, Gilles Stupfler.

Source: Bernoulli, Volume 26, Number 1, 531--556.

Abstract:
Expectiles define a least squares analogue of quantiles. They are determined by tail expectations rather than tail probabilities. For this reason and many other theoretical and practical merits, expectiles have recently received a lot of attention, especially in actuarial and financial risk management. Their estimation, however, typically requires to consider non-explicit asymmetric least squares estimates rather than the traditional order statistics used for quantile estimation. This makes the study of the tail expectile process a lot harder than that of the standard tail quantile process. Under the challenging model of heavy-tailed distributions, we derive joint weighted Gaussian approximations of the tail empirical expectile and quantile processes. We then use this powerful result to introduce and study new estimators of extreme expectiles and the standard quantile-based expected shortfall, as well as a novel expectile-based form of expected shortfall. Our estimators are built on general weighted combinations of both top order statistics and asymmetric least squares estimates. Some numerical simulations and applications to actuarial and financial data are provided.

Tobias Zwingmann, Hajo Holzmann.

Source: Bernoulli, Volume 26, Number 1, 323--351.

Abstract:
We show weak convergence of quantile and expectile processes to Gaussian limit processes in the space of bounded functions endowed with an appropriate semimetric which is based on the concepts of epi- and hypo- convergence as introduced in A. Bücher, J. Segers and S. Volgushev (2014), ‘ When Uniform Weak Convergence Fails: Empirical Processes for Dependence Functions and Residuals via Epi- and Hypographs ’, Annals of Statistics 42 . We impose assumptions for which it is known that weak convergence with respect to the supremum norm generally fails to hold. For quantiles, we consider stationary observations, where the marginal distribution function is assumed to be strictly increasing and continuous except for finitely many points and to admit strictly positive – possibly infinite – left- and right-sided derivatives. For expectiles, we focus on independent and identically distributed (i.i.d.) observations. Only a finite second moment and continuity at the boundary points but no further smoothness properties of the distribution function are required. We also show consistency of the bootstrap for this mode of convergence in the i.i.d. case for quantiles and expectiles.

Zhi-Qiang Wang, Nian-Sheng Tang.

Source: Bayesian Analysis, Volume 15, Number 2, 579--604.

Abstract:
Bayesian inference on quantile regression (QR) model with mixed discrete and non-ignorable missing covariates is conducted by reformulating QR model as a hierarchical structure model. A probit regression model is adopted to specify missing covariate mechanism. A hybrid algorithm combining the Gibbs sampler and the Metropolis-Hastings algorithm is developed to simultaneously produce Bayesian estimates of unknown parameters and latent variables as well as their corresponding standard errors. Bayesian variable selection method is proposed to recognize significant covariates. A Bayesian local influence procedure is presented to assess the effect of minor perturbations to the data, priors and sampling distributions on posterior quantities of interest. Several simulation studies and an example are presented to illustrate the proposed methodologies.

Kelly C. M. Gonçalves, Hélio S. Migon, Leonardo S. Bastos.

Source: Bayesian Analysis, Volume 15, Number 2, 335--362.

Abstract:
The paper introduces a new class of models, named dynamic quantile linear models, which combines dynamic linear models with distribution-free quantile regression producing a robust statistical method. Bayesian estimation for the dynamic quantile linear model is performed using an efficient Markov chain Monte Carlo algorithm. The paper also proposes a fast sequential procedure suited for high-dimensional predictive modeling with massive data, where the generating process is changing over time. The proposed model is evaluated using synthetic and well-known time series data. The model is also applied to predict annual incidence of tuberculosis in the state of Rio de Janeiro and compared with global targets set by the World Health Organization.

Spanish translation of the BIS press release about the BIS Quarterly Review, March 2018

Awareness for surprising sensory events is shaped by prior belief inferred from past experience. Here, we combined hierarchical Bayesian modeling with fMRI on an associative learning task in 28 male human participants to characterize the effect of the prior belief of tactile events on connections mediating the outcome of perceptual decisions. Activity in anterior insular cortex (AIC), premotor cortex (PMd), and inferior parietal lobule (IPL) were modulated by prior belief on unexpected targets compared with expected targets. On expected targets, prior belief decreased the connection strength from AIC to IPL, whereas it increased the connection strength from AIC to PMd when targets were unexpected. Individual differences in the modulatory strength of prior belief on insular projections correlated with the precision that increases the influence of prediction errors on belief updating. These results suggest complementary effects of prior belief on insular-frontoparietal projections mediating the precision of prediction during probabilistic tactile learning.

SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT In a probabilistic environment, the prior belief of sensory events can be inferred from past experiences. How this prior belief modulates effective brain connectivity for updating expectations for future decision-making remains unexplored. Combining hierarchical Bayesian modeling with fMRI, we show that during tactile associative learning, prior expectations modulate connections originating in the anterior insula cortex and targeting salience-related and attention-related frontoparietal areas (i.e., parietal and premotor cortex). These connections seem to be involved in updating evidence based on the precision of ascending inputs to guide future decision-making.

Pizza and pasta are pretty obviously out, but what are the other no-nos?

These flying reptiles patrolled the African skies some 100 million years ago

In a new twist on oral history, University of Alberta paleontologists have discovered that an Argentinian reptile from 95 million years ago developed a type of tooth enamel that is common in humans and other mammals but rare among reptiles.

Central Bank of Chile Working Papers by Andrés Sagner

Denver Newsroom, May 8, 2020 / 05:29 pm (CNA).- Mother’s Day is going to look different for most families this year, due to the coronavirus pandemic.

For Catholics, some churches are in the process of slowly re-opening public Masses, but the dispensation from the Sunday obligation continues to stand, as the virus has not gone away and a cure or vaccine has yet to be found.

While most Catholics are eager to return to Mass, a small group of Catholics are relieved that they will not be sitting in a public pew this Mother’s Day.

“We actually heard from one woman who said, ‘I kind of feel badly about saying this, but I'm sort of glad that we won't be in the pews this year for Mother's Day,’” Ann Koshute, founder of Springs in the Desert Catholic ministry, told CNA.


“That's something that we hear and that everybody I think on the team has experienced at one point in this journey,” she said - the desire to avoid Mass on Mother’s Day. That’s because Koshute, along with other members of her ministry, have had painful experiences with infertility, and the customary Mother’s Day blessing given to mothers at many parishes that day can bring their grief and sense of loss poignantly to the fore.


“I think that so often people in our own families, our friends, and even our pastors don't really understand the full extent of the pain and the grief or even the full extent of the issue of infertility, of how many couples are really dealing with it,” she said.


The pain of infertility, and the lack of resources available to Catholics on the subject, was why Koshute and her friend, Kimberly Henkel, founded Springs in the Desert, a Catholic ministry to spiritually and emotionally support women and couples experiencing infertility and infant loss. Originally, Henkel and Koshute, who have both experienced infertility, thought they might write a book. But they decided to start with a ministry website and a blog that could bring people together and allow for other women and couples to share their experiences. The group is relatively new, and held its first retreat in Philadelphia in December. They were set to hold a second one this weekend - Mother’s Day weekend - in the Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend, when, well, the pandemic hit.

Now, they’ve moved the retreat online and opened it up to Catholics across the country - and they’ve been overwhelmed by the response.

“We thought that we would be really excited if maybe a couple dozen people found out about it and came. We are over 100 participants now. And it's free and it's going to be available all weekend,” Koshute said. The retreat is trying to address the emotional and spiritual experience of infertility and loss for a broad range of people, Henkel said - from mothers who have miscarried, to women who are past child-bearing years and still grieving the loss of infertility, to women “who feel like their biological clocks are ticking and just haven’t met the right guy.” But now that it's a virtual, pre-recorded, watch-at-your-leisure retreat, it also has the potential to reach a population that is often more reluctant to gather in groups and talk about their experiences of infertility: men. “It's mostly women who are emailing us (about the retreat), although we know that many of their husbands will watch with them. But we've also had a few men email us,” Koshute said.


“One in particular, it just really touched my heart. And he said that he was searching the web for help for his wife on Mother's Day. And I was just so filled with praise and thanksgiving to God for that, for a husband to see that hurt in his wife and to want to find a way to help her,” she added. Men and women typically experience the grief of infertility quite differently, Koshute noted. “For us women, it's so visceral because life is conceived within us and we carry that life. But for a man, it's so different,” she said.

“(Men are) kind of distant from that experience until the child is actually born. And so I think many times men, the grief and the burden that they carry is their wife's. They really carry her sadness and I think feel at a loss because they want to make everything right. They want to fix this, and they want to make her whole. And the mystery of infertility is that it's not that simple. And that's one of the things that makes it so difficult,” she said. Henkel said she experienced her own difficulties in trying to discuss infertility with her husband. Now that they’ve experienced the joy of growing their family through adoption, she said, he is much more open to inviting other men to share their experiences. Henkel said she is hoping that an additional benefit of this retreat being online is that it will facilitate discussions between couples watching the videos together. Both Henkel and Koshute said that while the experience of infertility and loss is painful, and they want to help couples acknowledge and accept that pain, they also want Springs in the Desert to be a positive and supportive experience for couples and women, where they can find hope and redemption even in their suffering. One of the topics they focus on is how all women are called to motherhood in their lives, whether it is spiritual or biological.

“My experience has shown me that my motherhood is really engaged in so many ways that I never considered before,” Koshute said.

“Not just with my godson or with other children in my family, but with women who are older than I who are friends and who might come to me with a difficulty or problem and I can help them,” or by helping family members in need or through charitable works, she added. “That's one of the messages that we try to get across to women and to couples as well, that those kinds of things, what we would maybe refer to as spiritual motherhood, is not illegitimate,” she said.

“It's not second-place. It's a real way of engaging and living out our motherhood. It's also not a replacement for a baby. So it's not as if you go out and volunteer in your community and now you won't have this longing for a child anymore. But we've really found through our own experience and through talking with other women that the more we kind of put ourselves out there and give ourselves to others, the more that we can begin to see that motherhood enacted in us.”

Henkel said she also likes to encourage couples to look at the ways God is calling them to be fruitful in their marriages outside of biological children.

“We really encourage these couples that they are not forgotten, they're not being punished. That God loves them so much and that he has something amazing for them. He's using this to draw them near to him and to allow them to cry out to him and ask for him to guide them, to lead them, to give them his love and show them what fruitfulness he has for them, what place in ministry and mission he has for them.” Henkel and her husband in particular like to share with couples their experience of foster care as one example of where God might be calling them to be fruitful. After a frustrating and expensive experience with some adoption agencies, Henkel and her husband decided to look into giving a home to children through foster care.

“Here is a situation where these children really need families,” she said. “It's hard because there's no guarantee you're going to get to keep this child, so there's a sense of this new greater level of having to learn how to trust God.” “I think that with a couple discerning that fruitfulness, it's also discerning - where is God really calling you? There's so much need in this world. And he wants to use us.”

Couples interested in the Springs in the Desert Mother’s Day weekend retreat can sign up for free online at the Springs in the Desert website. Content will be uploaded and available for anyone who registers, Henkel said, even if they register late. The retreat team will also be hosting a live talk on Sunday, May 10 at 2 p.m. Eastern on the ministry’s Facebook page.

“There's a place for you in Springs of the Desert,” Henkel added. “There's so many women who have reached out to us in Philly. We added several more women to our group, to our team, our official team, women who came to the retreat. One woman had come there and she said she had had a miscarriage, and neither one of us has experienced that. So we said, please join us. We want your voice.”

“We're trying to really bring the voices of many different women to our team so that people will feel there is somebody that is talking they can really relate to. Because there are all of these different situations, but they've got obviously a very similar undercurrent.”

Denver Newsroom, May 8, 2020 / 05:29 pm (CNA).- Mother’s Day is going to look different for most families this year, due to the coronavirus pandemic.

For Catholics, some churches are in the process of slowly re-opening public Masses, but the dispensation from the Sunday obligation continues to stand, as the virus has not gone away and a cure or vaccine has yet to be found.

While most Catholics are eager to return to Mass, a small group of Catholics are relieved that they will not be sitting in a public pew this Mother’s Day.

“We actually heard from one woman who said, ‘I kind of feel badly about saying this, but I'm sort of glad that we won't be in the pews this year for Mother's Day,’” Ann Koshute, founder of Springs in the Desert Catholic ministry, told CNA.


“That's something that we hear and that everybody I think on the team has experienced at one point in this journey,” she said - the desire to avoid Mass on Mother’s Day. That’s because Koshute, along with other members of her ministry, have had painful experiences with infertility, and the customary Mother’s Day blessing given to mothers at many parishes that day can bring their grief and sense of loss poignantly to the fore.


“I think that so often people in our own families, our friends, and even our pastors don't really understand the full extent of the pain and the grief or even the full extent of the issue of infertility, of how many couples are really dealing with it,” she said.


The pain of infertility, and the lack of resources available to Catholics on the subject, was why Koshute and her friend, Kimberly Henkel, founded Springs in the Desert, a Catholic ministry to spiritually and emotionally support women and couples experiencing infertility and infant loss. Originally, Henkel and Koshute, who have both experienced infertility, thought they might write a book. But they decided to start with a ministry website and a blog that could bring people together and allow for other women and couples to share their experiences. The group is relatively new, and held its first retreat in Philadelphia in December. They were set to hold a second one this weekend - Mother’s Day weekend - in the Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend, when, well, the pandemic hit.

Now, they’ve moved the retreat online and opened it up to Catholics across the country - and they’ve been overwhelmed by the response.

“We thought that we would be really excited if maybe a couple dozen people found out about it and came. We are over 100 participants now. And it's free and it's going to be available all weekend,” Koshute said. The retreat is trying to address the emotional and spiritual experience of infertility and loss for a broad range of people, Henkel said - from mothers who have miscarried, to women who are past child-bearing years and still grieving the loss of infertility, to women “who feel like their biological clocks are ticking and just haven’t met the right guy.” But now that it's a virtual, pre-recorded, watch-at-your-leisure retreat, it also has the potential to reach a population that is often more reluctant to gather in groups and talk about their experiences of infertility: men. “It's mostly women who are emailing us (about the retreat), although we know that many of their husbands will watch with them. But we've also had a few men email us,” Koshute said.


“One in particular, it just really touched my heart. And he said that he was searching the web for help for his wife on Mother's Day. And I was just so filled with praise and thanksgiving to God for that, for a husband to see that hurt in his wife and to want to find a way to help her,” she added. Men and women typically experience the grief of infertility quite differently, Koshute noted. “For us women, it's so visceral because life is conceived within us and we carry that life. But for a man, it's so different,” she said.

“(Men are) kind of distant from that experience until the child is actually born. And so I think many times men, the grief and the burden that they carry is their wife's. They really carry her sadness and I think feel at a loss because they want to make everything right. They want to fix this, and they want to make her whole. And the mystery of infertility is that it's not that simple. And that's one of the things that makes it so difficult,” she said. Henkel said she experienced her own difficulties in trying to discuss infertility with her husband. Now that they’ve experienced the joy of growing their family through adoption, she said, he is much more open to inviting other men to share their experiences. Henkel said she is hoping that an additional benefit of this retreat being online is that it will facilitate discussions between couples watching the videos together. Both Henkel and Koshute said that while the experience of infertility and loss is painful, and they want to help couples acknowledge and accept that pain, they also want Springs in the Desert to be a positive and supportive experience for couples and women, where they can find hope and redemption even in their suffering. One of the topics they focus on is how all women are called to motherhood in their lives, whether it is spiritual or biological.

“My experience has shown me that my motherhood is really engaged in so many ways that I never considered before,” Koshute said.

“Not just with my godson or with other children in my family, but with women who are older than I who are friends and who might come to me with a difficulty or problem and I can help them,” or by helping family members in need or through charitable works, she added. “That's one of the messages that we try to get across to women and to couples as well, that those kinds of things, what we would maybe refer to as spiritual motherhood, is not illegitimate,” she said.

“It's not second-place. It's a real way of engaging and living out our motherhood. It's also not a replacement for a baby. So it's not as if you go out and volunteer in your community and now you won't have this longing for a child anymore. But we've really found through our own experience and through talking with other women that the more we kind of put ourselves out there and give ourselves to others, the more that we can begin to see that motherhood enacted in us.”

Henkel said she also likes to encourage couples to look at the ways God is calling them to be fruitful in their marriages outside of biological children.

“We really encourage these couples that they are not forgotten, they're not being punished. That God loves them so much and that he has something amazing for them. He's using this to draw them near to him and to allow them to cry out to him and ask for him to guide them, to lead them, to give them his love and show them what fruitfulness he has for them, what place in ministry and mission he has for them.” Henkel and her husband in particular like to share with couples their experience of foster care as one example of where God might be calling them to be fruitful. After a frustrating and expensive experience with some adoption agencies, Henkel and her husband decided to look into giving a home to children through foster care.

“Here is a situation where these children really need families,” she said. “It's hard because there's no guarantee you're going to get to keep this child, so there's a sense of this new greater level of having to learn how to trust God.” “I think that with a couple discerning that fruitfulness, it's also discerning - where is God really calling you? There's so much need in this world. And he wants to use us.”

Couples interested in the Springs in the Desert Mother’s Day weekend retreat can sign up for free online at the Springs in the Desert website. Content will be uploaded and available for anyone who registers, Henkel said, even if they register late. The retreat team will also be hosting a live talk on Sunday, May 10 at 2 p.m. Eastern on the ministry’s Facebook page.

“There's a place for you in Springs of the Desert,” Henkel added. “There's so many women who have reached out to us in Philly. We added several more women to our group, to our team, our official team, women who came to the retreat. One woman had come there and she said she had had a miscarriage, and neither one of us has experienced that. So we said, please join us. We want your voice.”

“We're trying to really bring the voices of many different women to our team so that people will feel there is somebody that is talking they can really relate to. Because there are all of these different situations, but they've got obviously a very similar undercurrent.”

Spinal muscular atrophy with respiratory distress type 1 (SMARD1) is a progressive, inherited neuromuscular disease manifesting with diaphragmatic paralysis in the first year of life. All patients need mechanical ventilation.

We describe the natural course of SMARD1, developed a scoring system, and defined prognostic values. The clinical outcome of the patients was heterogeneous, and residual enzymatic activity of the IGHMBP2 protein was associated with a more benign disease course. (Read the full article)

Infantile colic affects almost 10% of all infants and is characterized by crying and fussing in an otherwise healthy and well-fed infant. Prenatal exposure to tobacco smoking is a risk factor, but it is unclear whether nicotine causes the association.

Infants exposed to nicotine replacement therapy during pregnancy had elevated infantile colic risk of the same magnitude as infants exposed to tobacco smoking. Intrauterine exposure to nicotine may play a causal role in the pathogenesis of infantile colic. (Read the full article)

Infantile hypertrophic pyloric stenosis incidence varies over different regions and time periods. Recently, a decline was reported in the United States, Sweden (concurrent with a decline in sudden infant death syndrome), Scotland, and Denmark. The etiology remains unclear; therefore, epidemiologic data are valuable.

A decline in the incidence of infantile hypertrophic pyloric stenosis in Germany from 2000 to 2008 was noted but with wide regional variations. The regional distribution of infantile hypertrophic pyloric stenosis was different from that of sudden infant death syndrome. (Read the full article)

Preterm infants from 33 gestational weeks can detect specific shape features (prism and cylinder) by touch (without visual control), and remember them; however, nothing is known about such abilities earlier in development.

The preterm infant, even when very immature (from 28 gestational weeks), is endowed with tactile sensory abilities: the exploration and memorization of an object by touch, the discrimination of a novel object, and the recognition of a familiar object after interference. (Read the full article)

Infantile hemangiomas have a period of rapid growth in early infancy. Most hemangioma growth is completed by 5 months of age, but the majority of patients are not seen by a specialist until after the growth phase is complete.

The most rapid hemangioma growth is between 1 and 2 months of life, much earlier than previously believed. Patients with high-risk hemangiomas should be followed closely, and treatment initiation should be considered before or during the most rapid growth phase. (Read the full article)

Percentile charts for birth weight are used to assess the somatic development of neonates (small, appropriate, or large for gestational age).

A systematic error was identified in the majority of birth weight percentile charts. As a consequence, small for gestational age rates are overestimated and large for gestational age rates are underestimated; ~5% of neonates are misclassified. (Read the full article)

Research indicates that adolescents who perceive their school to have a positive socioeducational environment are at reduced risk of developing depressive symptoms. However, there is limited evidence that school environments can influence adolescent emotional health independently from individual perceptions.

This multilevel longitudinal study shows that better school socioeducational environments, as assessed at the school level, reduce the prospective risk of depressive symptoms in adolescents. This association is shown to be independent from confounders and stronger in girls than boys. (Read the full article)

Accurately identifying ill hospitalized children with vital signs concerning for clinical deterioration is fundamental to inpatient pediatrics. Normal vital sign ranges for healthy children are useful for outpatient practice but have limited application to detecting deterioration in the hospital setting.

Percentile curves for heart and respiratory rate in hospitalized children were developed and validated. The distributions differed from existing reference ranges and early warning scores. They may be useful to identify vital signs deviating from ranges expected among hospitalized children. (Read the full article)

The systemic nonselective β-blocker propranolol hydrochloride is increasingly used as first-line management for infantile hemangiomas. Superficial nonulcerating lesions do not require systemic medications. Case series have suggested the efficacy of timolol; however, its safety has been questioned.

This randomized controlled trial indicates that timolol maleate 0.5% gel is a well-tolerated, safe, and effective treatment of superficial infantile hemangiomas. (Read the full article)

The Centers for Disease Control and FITNESSGRAM BMI percentile thresholds are commonly used for obesity screening in youth. It is assumed that these thresholds are predictive of metabolic health risk, but little diagnostic data are available.

Both thresholds are predictive of metabolic syndrome, more so for boys than for girls, although with differing sensitivity and specificity. The diagnostic details of the thresholds can inform clinicians and practitioners about how these standards perform in practice. (Read the full article)

Leishmania major is the causative agent of cutaneous leishmaniasis (CL). No human vaccine is available for CL and current drug regimens present several drawbacks such as emerging resistance, severe toxicity, medium effectiveness, and/or high cost. Thus, the need for better treatment options against CL is a priority. In the present study, we validate the enzyme methionine aminopeptidase-1 (MetAP1), a metalloprotease that catalyzes the removal of N-terminal methionine from peptides and proteins, as a chemotherapeutic target against CL infection. The in vitro antileishmanial activity of eight novel MetAP1 inhibitors (OJT001-OJT008) were investigated. Three compounds OJT006, OJT007, and OJT008 demonstrated potent anti-proliferative effect in macrophages infected with L. major amastigotes and promastigotes at submicromolar concentrations, with no cytotoxicity against host cells. Importantly, the leishmanicidal effect was diminished by almost 10-fold in transgenic L. major promastigotes overexpressing MetAP1_LM in comparison to wild-type promastigotes. Furthermore, the in vivo activity of OJT006, OJT007, and OJT008 were investigated in L. major-infected BALB/c mice. In comparison to the control group, OJT008 significantly decreased footpad parasite load by 86%, and exhibited no toxicity against in treated mice. We propose MetAP1 inhibitor OJT008 as a potential chemotherapeutic candidate against CL infection caused by L. major infection.

OBJECTIVES:

Infantile hemangiomas (IHs) are common; some cases require timely referral and treatment to prevent complications. We developed and validated a reliable instrument for timely and adequate referral of patients with IH to experts by nonexpert primary physicians.

A perceived lack of liquidity can make creditors uneasy.

 Regarding imposing of anti-dumping duty on all imports of Recordable Digital Versatile Disc [DVD] of all kinds origina

The next two months will be weak and slowdown in Ulips to continue for the rest of the year

CANTILEVER AND OVERHEAD SIGN STRUCTURES, I-95

The use of innovative technology in agriculture – agtech – has fundamentally disrupted conventional production techniques and market linkages in the Indian agricultural sector.

An ancient marine reptile that swam the oceans nearly 250 million years ago had unusual pebble-like teeth which it used to crush hard-shelled prey, scientists believe. The creature, named Cartorhynchus lenticarpus, belongs to an extinct group of reptiles known as ichthyosaurs. Not much is known about the ancestry...

China’s will face an increasingly hostile world over the next five years, meaning its policy plan should be focused on its vast domestic market, home-grown technological innovation and improving its citizens’ welfare, according to recommendations in a new paper.The report by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS), a think tank affiliated with the State Council, foresees the next five years presenting “major changes unseen in a century” for China, as “the strategic game between…

Here’s why the perception that skilled migration damages the source country is wrong.

Bài viết giải thích tại sao nhận thức cho rằng sự di cư của lao động có kỹ năng nghề làm tổn hại nguồn lực quốc gia là sai lầm.