Asset-Based Policy in Hong Kong: Child Development Fund

The government of Hong Kong launched the HK$300 million Child Development Fund (CDF) in November 2008 to “capitalize on the strengths of various sectors in the community to help our disadvantaged children,” according to then Hong Kong’s Secretary for Labor and Welfare, Mr. Matthew Cheung Kin-chung. The Hong Kong government drew upon the asset-building research and experience of the Center for Social Development (CSD) at Washington University in St. Louis. Michael Sherraden of CSD consulted for the Hong Kong Government’s Commission on Poverty that planned the CDF policy

Social Geographies at Play: Mapping the Spatial Politics of Community-Based Youth Sport Participation

Organized youth sports programs (YSP) provide opportunities for participation in physical activity, and represent an important part of the broader public health agenda in the U.S. YSP not only provide physiological health benefits through active participation, but also promote social relationships within communities. In this study, we (1) investigated participants’ travel to access YSP located in neighborhoods historically delineated by an over/under-representation of socio-economic and/or racial diversity; and (2) examined the neighborhood demographics for those YSP participants who traveled the most/least to participate. Five years of demographic and GIS visualization data from participants in a publically-provisioned youth sport league network were analyzed. Significant differences were found between the travel distances of participants in different sports, and between the travel distances of participants from neighborhoods with different racial and/or socio-economic composition. This research expands understanding of the potential segregation effects of community-based YSP for various stakeholder groups

Sex/gender differences and autism: setting the scene for future research.

OBJECTIVE: The relationship between sex/gender differences and autism has attracted a variety of research ranging from clinical and neurobiological to etiological, stimulated by the male bias in autism prevalence. Findings are complex and do not always relate to each other in a straightforward manner. Distinct but interlinked questions on the relationship between sex/gender differences and autism remain underaddressed. To better understand the implications from existing research and to help design future studies, we propose a 4-level conceptual framework to clarify the embedded themes. METHOD: We searched PubMed for publications before September 2014 using search terms "'sex OR gender OR females' AND autism." A total of 1,906 articles were screened for relevance, along with publications identified via additional literature reviews, resulting in 329 articles that were reviewed. RESULTS: Level 1, "Nosological and diagnostic challenges," concerns the question, "How should autism be defined and diagnosed in males and females?" Level 2, "Sex/gender-independent and sex/gender-dependent characteristics," addresses the question, "What are the similarities and differences between males and females with autism?" Level 3, "General models of etiology: liability and threshold," asks the question, "How is the liability for developing autism linked to sex/gender?" Level 4, "Specific etiological-developmental mechanisms," focuses on the question, "What etiological-developmental mechanisms of autism are implicated by sex/gender and/or sexual/gender differentiation?" CONCLUSIONS: Using this conceptual framework, findings can be more clearly summarized, and the implications of the links between findings from different levels can become clearer. Based on this 4-level framework, we suggest future research directions, methodology, and specific topics in sex/gender differences and autism.Dr. Lai has received grant or research support from the William Binks Autism Neuroscience Fellowship, the European Autism Interventions— A Multicentre Study for Developing New Medications (EU-AIMS), and Wolfson College, Cambridge University. Dr. Lombardo has received grant or research support from the British Academy, the Wellcome Trust, and Jesus College, Cambridge University. Dr. Auyeung has received grant or research support from the Wellcome Trust. Dr. Chakrabarti has received grant or research support from the UK Medical Research Council. Dr. Baron-Cohen has received grant or research support from the Wellcome Trust, the EU-AIMS, the UK Medical Research Council, and the Autism Research Trust.This is the final published version. It first appeared at http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0890856714007254#

Telomere length tracking in children and their parents:Implications for adult onset diseases

Adults with comparatively short or long leukocyte telomere length (LTL) typically continue to display comparatively short or long LTL throughout life. This LTL tracking stems from the inability of person-to-person variation in age-dependent LTL shortening during adulthood to offset the wide interindividual LTL variation established prior to adult life. However, LTL tracking in children is unstudied. This study aimed to examine LTL shortening rates and tracking in children and their parents. Longitudinal study in children (n = 67) and their parents (n = 99), whose ages at baseline were 11.4 +/- 0.3 and 43.4 +/- 0.4 yr, respectively. LTL was measured by Southern blotting at baseline and similar to 14 yr thereafter. LTL displayed tracking in both children [intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) = 0.905, P <0.001] and their parents (ICC = 0.856, P <0.001). The children's rate of LTL shortening was twice that of their parents (40.7 +/- 2.5 bp/yr; 20.3 +/- 2.1 bp/yr, respectively; P <0.0001). LTL tracking applies not only to adulthood but also to the second decade of life. Coupled with previous work showing that the interindividual variation in LTL across newborns is as wide as in their parents, these findings support the thesis that the LTL-adult disease connection is principally determined before the second decade of life, perhaps mainly at birth

Analytical Treatment of the Oscillating Yukawa Potential

Using a suitable Laguerre basis set that ensures a tridiagonal matrix representation of the reference Hamiltonian, we were able to evaluate in closed form the matrix elements of the generalized Yukawa potential with complex screening parameter. This enabled us to treat analytically both the cosine and sine-like Yukawa potentials on equal footing and compute their bound states spectrum as the eigenvalues of the associated analytical matrix representing their Hamiltonians. Finally we used a carefully designed complex scaling method to evaluate the resonance energies and compared our results satisfactorily with those obtained in the literature.Comment: 8 pages 2 table