Parent Observations of the Health Status of Infants With Clefts of the Lip: Results From Qualitative Interviews

Objective: To explore, using semistructured qualitative interviews, parent observations of their infant’s health as they relate to having a cleft lip or cleft lip and cleft palate (CL±P) and/or associated treatments. Design: Cross-sectional, qualitative study across 3 sites. Setting: Parents were recruited from 3 academic craniofacial centers. Most interviews were conducted over the telephone, audio-recorded, and transcribed. Participants: Forty-one parents (31 English-, 10 Spanish-speaking) were interviewed. Parents had a child ages 1 to 35 months diagnosed with CL±P. Main Outcome Measure(s): Twelve domains reflecting infant health and well-being, likely affected by a CL±P and/or associated treatments, were identified from clinical experience and literature review. Study investigators conducted semistructured interviews based on 12 identified domains. After transcripts of the interviews were reviewed, our multidisciplinary team selected illustrative quotes from each domain that reflected consistent observations made by parents. Results: Parents’ responses covered all 12 domains. Specifically, parents discussed the domain of feeding most frequently, followed by observations about sleep, development, comfort, breathing, and vocalization. Conclusions: We found that parents of infants with clefts provided caregiver-centered language useful in describing their daily observations. No additional domains of infant health were noted by parents. We will use these observations and language to develop and validate a parent-reported observation diary that can augment assessments of the impacts of interventions on infants who are receiving care for CL±P.

Parent-observed thematic data on quality of life in children with autism spectrum disorder

Domains of quality of life in children with autism spectrum disorder have not previously been explored and there has been no quality of life measure developed for this population. Our study investigated parent observations to identify the domains important to children with autism spectrum disorder who also had an intellectual disability. In all, 21 parents (19 mothers, 2 fathers) of children with autism spectrum disorder (aged 6–17 years) participated in a qualitative study to discuss their child’s quality of life. Thematic analysis using a grounded theory framework was conducted and 10 domains emerged in relation to health and well-being, capacity to perform and develop skills in daily life, and connections with the community and environment. Unique aspects of quality of life included varying levels of social desire, consistency of routines, and time spent in nature and the outdoors, which are not comprehensively captured in existing measures. Parent observations provide an initial framework for understanding quality of life in autism spectrum disorder and support the development of a new measure for this population.

Stochastic Comparisons of Order Statistics and Spacings: A Review

We review some of the recent developments in the area of stochastic comparisons of order statistics and sample spacings. We consider the cases when the parent observations are identically as well as nonidentically distributed. But most of the time we will be assuming that the observations are independent. The case of independent exponentials with unequal scale parameters as well as the proportional hazard rate model is discussed in detail.

Changes of cytosine methylation induced by wide hybridization and allopolyploidy in Cucumis

We previously demonstrated that allopolyploidization could induce phenotypic variations and genome changes in a newly synthesized allotetraploid in Cucumis . To explore the molecular involvement of epigenetic phenomena, we investigated cytosine methylation in Cucumis by using methylation-sensitive amplified polymorphism (MSAP). Results revealed a twofold difference in the level of cytosine methylation between the reciprocal F1 hybrids and the allotetraploid. Analysis of the methylation pattern indicated that methylation changed at 2.0% to 6.4% of total sites in both the F1 hybrids and the allotetraploid compared with their corresponding parents. Furthermore, 68.2% to 80.0% of the changed sites showed an increase in cytosine methylation and a majority of the methylated sites were from the maternal parent. Observations in different generations of the allotetraploid found that the extent of change in cytosine methylation pattern between the S1 and S2 was significantly higher than that between the S2 and S3, suggesting stability in advanced generations. Analysis of 7 altered sequences indicated their similarity to known functional genes or genes involved in regulating gene expression. Reverse transcription – polymerase chain reaction analysis suggested that at least two of the methylation changes might be related to gene expression changes, which further supports the hypothesis that DNA methylation plays a significant role in allopolyploidization.