The Comparison of Three Assessment Scales in a Neonatal Unit in Poland

The aim of this study was to analyse the relationship between the following three assessments: the Neonatal Behavioral Assessment Scale (NBAS), the Alberta Infant Motor Scale (AIMS), and the General Movement Assessment (GMA). 29 patients from the neonatal unit of the Gynecology and Obstetrics Clinical Hospital were examined. The study was conducted between feedings by a person properly trained in the use of the NBAS, the AIMS, and the GMA. The average postmenstrual age of the examined newborns was 35.6 weeks. The average week of gestation was the 29th, the average birth weight was 1469 g, and the Median Apgar score in the fifth minute of life was 7. A relationship was found between the AIMS and the NBAS. It was concluded that the Neonatal Behavioral Assessment Scale and the Alberta Infant Motor Scale may be used to determine the motor development of preterm infants. Moreover, it is advisable to use more than one assessment method in order to adjust the intervention.

An ‘Evil State’

This chapter reflects on a 'copy of an intercepted and deciphered letter exchanged between one of the Queen of Bohemia's ladies in waiting, and her cousin, a young lady in England'. It is difficult not to read the letter as implicit criticism of the excesses enjoyed by the two courts in The Hague. The satire is directed at the leading ladies of these courts, and the military commanders infatuated with them, while the common soldiers died in their droves at Breda and beyond for lack of food, with neither Frederick V nor Frederick Henry able to intervene. The fact that there is little evidence that any such 'progress' ever took place merely adds to this feeling, as does the care with which the author appears to have hidden their identity. Though a fabrication, it nevertheless fits the general movement of Elizabeth Stuart's life very closely, as it moves from the deceptive frivolity of the court to the deathly earnestness of the military campaign without pausing to take so much as a breath. Thus, it appears that in some quarters, Elizabeth was held to blame for the dire state of Mansfeld's troops and the disaster that followed at Breda.

Inter- and Intra-observer Reliability of the “assessment of Motor Repertoire- 3 to 5 Months” Based on Video Recordings of Infants With PWS

BackgroundThe “Assessment of Motor Repertoire - 3 to 5 Months”, which is part of Prechtl's General Movement Assessment (GMA), has been gradually applied to infants with genetic metabolic disorders. However, there still have been no studies on the application of GMA for infants with Prader-Williams Syndrome (PWS).Aimsthe purpose of this study was to determine inter- and intra-observer reliability of the assessment tool in PWS population.Study designReliability and agreement study.SubjectsThis was a cross-sectional study of 15 infants with PWS born at average gestational age 38 weeks.Outcome measuresStandardized video recordings of 15 infants with PWS (corrected ages 3 to 5 months) were independently assessed by three observers. Kappa and ICC statistics were applied in inter- and intra-observer reliability analysis.ResultsThe overall reliability ICCs values of “Motor Optimality Score” (MOS) ranged from 0.84 to 0.98 and the regarding pairwise agreement ranged between 0.86 and 0.95 in inter- observe reliability. In addition, ICC values for MOS ranged between 0.95 and 0.98 for respectively testers agreement in intra-observer reliability.The complete agreement reliability (100%) was achieved in subcategories of “Fidgety Movements” and “Movement Character” for the inter- and intra-observer. Moderate to high inter- and intra-observer reliability were found in subcategories of “Repertoire of Co-Existent Other Movements”, “Quality of Other Movements” and “Posture”, with kappa values ranging between 0.63 and 1.00. Conclusionhere were high levels of inter-and intra-observer agreement in the “Assessment of Motor Repertoire - 3 to 5 Months” for infants with PWS. It will be possible to carry out standardized quantitative assessment on the motor performance infants with PWS.

The Annihilation of Tradition?

When it came to founding new Napolas, the NPEA authorities often used the strategy of laying claim to educational institutions with venerable traditions, Nazifying and ‘Napolising’ them. This could include the appropriation of well-known humanistic boarding schools with a Protestant ethos such as Schulpforta (alma mater of Nietzsche, Ranke, and Fichte), or the Klosterschule in Ilfeld, which were both taken over as going concerns. However, the National Socialist regime’s deep hostility towards Catholic foundations also led to the forcible expropriation of former monastic schools such as the Ursuline convent school in Haselünne, or the Missionary School of the Society of the Divine Word (Steyler Orden) in St. Wendel, which were transformed into NPEA Emsland and NPEA Saarland respectively. Expropriation could also be used to punish oppositional non-religious schools such as the aristocratic Landschulheim in Neubeuern, Bavaria. Although most of these schools still retained the curriculum of a ‘humanistic Gymnasium’, teaching both Latin and ancient Greek, by the end of World War II, their existing traditions had been almost completely expunged. We can therefore see these forms of expropriation and Napolisation as part of a more general movement towards the de-Christianization of education during the Third Reich, with the NPEA in the vanguard. This chapter treats the schools at Schulpforta, Ilfeld, Haselünne, St. Wendel, and Neubeuern as case studies, concluding with a brief treatment of NPEA Weierhof am Donnersberg, a former Mennonite school which had collaborated with the Nazi authorities even prior to its transformation into a Napola.

Contagion

The study of contagion in Victorian literature may seem like a niche area of study, but understanding this focused topic depends upon deep foundational knowledge of many other concepts. Contagion was not a static concept over the course of the 19th century, as scientific innovations rapidly shifted epidemiological understandings. The result is that there is no overarching Victorian understanding of contagion, but rather, sets of disparate epidemiological concepts unique to different times, spaces, and social contexts, and even the predominant views at any given time were always actively debated. As debates about the nature of contagion itself shifted across the century—in a general movement from miasma theory, which posited toxic air as the source of disease, and toward germ theory, which posited individual microbes as the source of disease—concomitant debates about how to control and manage disease, the role of the government in so doing, and ideas of risk, community, and shared spaces also changed. Changing concepts of contagion also impacted thinking about societal roles, both individually and nationally. The role of the doctor in preserving health, and especially the doctor’s increasing professionalization and certification, was one of these considerations, as was Britain’s perceived role in colonial “improvement” projects abroad. Because of the role public health played in efforts to control or limit contagion, many scholarly considerations of Victorian contagion focus on surveillance and control of human bodies enacted by public health projects. Here, the debt to Michel Foucault will be obvious. Further, because protection and prevention against infectious disease necessitated locating the disease via surveillance and observational practices, many studies of Victorian disease focus on sight, seeing, optical technologies, and representation of sight in fiction and scientific texts. Finally, understanding contagion in this period also necessitates understanding the physical pathogens of most concern to Victorians because of their sheer prevalence. These include cholera, tuberculosis, syphilis, and, to a lesser extent, typhoid fever.