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This paper aims to identify the 'whitening' strategies used by undergraduate students in a developing country with strong levels of ethno-racial discrimination and social mobility. We adopt a critical, constructivist theoretical perspective and a qualitative approach, in the design and analysis, for which we use three instruments: surveys, focus groups and the Q-Methodology. We find that students use several 'whitening' strategies (e.g. wearing expensive clothing, improving their diction and managing their bodies) in order to shield against the ethno-racial discrimination they face, and protect from the negative effects it imposes on their personal, academic and employment outcomes. Our findings also reveal that race is redefined in such a way that it involves more than just the skin colour, a process that is enabled by a relatively high degree of social mobility, experienced in the wake of a booming economy.

BackgroundPreterm birth has been associated with increased risk of cardiovascular morbidity in adult life. We evaluated whether preterm birth is associated with deviating cardiac structure and function before school start. Methods and ResultsIn total, 176 children aged 6 years and born extremely preterm (EXPT; gestational age of 22–26 weeks) and 134 children born at term (control [CTRL]) were studied. We used echocardiography to assess left heart dimensions, geometry, and functions. Recording and off‐line analyses of echocardiographic images were performed by operators blinded to group belonging. Body size, blood pressure, and heart rate were also measured. Rates of family history of cardiovascular disease and sex distribution were similar in the EXPT and CTRL groups. Heart rate and systolic blood pressure did not differ, whereas diastolic blood pressure was slightly higher in EXPT than CTRL participants. After adjusting for body surface area, left ventricular length, width, and aortic valve annulus diameter were 3% to 5% smaller in EXPT than CTRL participants. Left ventricular longitudinal shortening and systolic tissue velocity were 7% to 11% lower, and transversal shortening fraction was 6% higher in EXPT than CTRL participants. The EXPT group also exhibited lower atrial emptying velocities than the CTRL group. Sex, fetal growth restriction, or a patent ductus arteriosus in the neonatal period did not contribute to cardiac dimensions or performance. ConclusionsSix‐year‐old children born extremely preterm exhibit a unique cardiac phenotype characterized by smaller left ventricles with altered systolic and diastolic functions than same‐aged children born at term.

BackgroundAdvances in perinatal medicine have increased infant survival after very preterm birth. Although this progress is welcome, there is increasing concern that preterm birth is an emerging risk factor for hypertension at young age, with implications for the lifetime risk of cardiovascular disease. Methods and ResultsWe measured casual blood pressures (BPs) in a population‐based cohort of 6‐year‐old survivors of extremely preterm birth (

Sensorimotor representations in the brain encode the sensory and motor aspects of one's own bodily activity. It is highly debated whether sensorimotor representations are the core basis for the representation of action-related knowledge and, in particular, action words, such as verbs. In this review, we will address this question by bringing to bear insights from the study of brain-damaged patients exhibiting language disorders and from the study of the mechanisms for language acquisition in infants. Cognitive neuropsychology studies have assessed how damage to representations supporting action production impacts patients' ability to process action-related words. While correlations between verbal and nonverbal (motor) impairments are very common in patients, damage to the representations for action production can leave the ability to understand action-words unaffected; likewise, actions can still be produced successfully in cases of impaired action-word understanding. Studies with infants have evaluated the relevance of sensorimotor information when infants learn to map a novel word onto an action that they are performing or perceiving. These results demonstrate that sensorimotor information is insufficient to fully account for the complexity of verb learning: in this process, infants seem to privilege abstract constructs such as goal, intentionality and causality, as well as syntactic constraints, over the perceptual and motor dimensions of an action. Altogether, the empirical data suggest that, while not crucial for verb learning and understanding, sensorimotor processes can contribute to solving the problem of symbol grounding and/or serve as a primary mechanism in social cognition, to learn about others' goals and intentions. By assessing the relevance of sensorimotor representations in the way action-related words are acquired and represented, we aim to provide a useful set of criteria for testing specific predictions made by different theories of concepts.

Embodied theories hold that understanding what another person is doing requires the observer to map that action directly onto his or her own motor representation and simulate it internally. The human motor system may, thus, be endowed with a "mirror matching" device through which the same motor representation is activated, when the subject is either the performer or the observer of another's action ("self-other shared representation"). It is suggested that understanding action verbs relies upon the same mechanism; this implies that motor responses to these words are automatic and independent of the subject of the verb. In the current study, participants were requested to read silently and decide on the syntactic subject of action and nonaction verbs, presented in first (1P) or third (3P) person, while TMS was applied to the left hand primary motor cortex (M1). TMS-induced motor-evoked potentials were recorded from hand muscles as a measure of cortico-spinal excitability. Motor-evoked potentials increased for 1P, but not for 3P, action verbs or 1P and 3P nonaction verbs. We provide novel demonstration that the motor simulation is triggered "only" when the conceptual representation of a word integrates the action with the self as the agent of that action. This questions the core principle of "mirror matching" and opens to alternative interpretations of the relationship between conceptual and sensorimotor processes.

Coarctation of the aorta (CoA), a congenital narrowing of the proximal descending thoracic aorta, is a relatively common form of congenital heart disease. Untreated significant CoA has a major impact on morbidity and mortality. In the past 3 decades, transcatheter intervention (TCI) for CoA has evolved as an alternative to surgery. The authors report on all TCIs for CoA performed from 2000 to 2016 in 4 countries covering 25 million inhabitants, with a mean follow-up duration of 6.9 years. During the study period, 683 interventions were performed on 542 patients. The procedural success rate was 88%, with 9% considered partly successful. Complications at the intervention site occurred in 3.5% of interventions and at the access site in 3.5%. There was no in-hospital mortality. During follow-up, TCI for CoA reduced the presence of hypertension significantly from 73% to 34%, but despite this, many patients remained hypertensive and in need of continuous antihypertensive treatment. Moreover, 8% to 9% of patients needed aortic and/or aortic valve surgery during follow-up. TCI for CoA can be performed with a low risk for complications. Lifetime follow-up after TCI for CoA seems warranted. [Display omitted] [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Ventricular tachycardia (VT) substrate in left ventricular (LV) nonischemic cardiomyopathy (NICM) consists of fibrosis with surviving myocardium.Objective: The purpose of this study was to determine whether, in patients with LV NICM and sustained VT, reduced QRS amplitude and QRSf during sinus rhythm can identify the presence and location of abnormal septal (S-NICM) and/or free-wall (FW-NICM) VT substrate.Methods: We compared patients with NICM and VT (group 1) with electroanatomic mapping septal (S-NICM; n = 21) or free-wall (FW-NICM; n = 20) VT substrate to a 38-patient reference cohort (group 2) with cardiac magnetic resonance imaging (cMRI) and NICM but no VT referred for primary prevention implantable cardioverter-defibrillator (26 [68.4%] with late gadolinium enhancement).Results: Group 1 had lower QRS amplitude in leads II (0.60 ± 0.22 vs 0.86 ± 0.35, P <.001), aVR (0.60 ± 0.24 vs 0.75 ± 0.31, P = .002), aVF (0.48 ± 0.20 vs 0.70 ± 0.28, P <.001), and V2 (1.09 ± 0.52 vs 1.38 ± 0.55, P = .001) than group 2. QRS <0.55 mV in lead aVF identified VT and accompanying substrate with sensitivity 70% and specificity 71%. Most group 1 and group 2 patients had 12-lead ECG QRS fractionation (QRSf) in ≥2 contiguous leads (78% vs 63.2%, P = .14). Sensitivity and specificity for ≥2 QRSf leads identifying respective regional electroanatomic or cMRI abnormalities were 76% and 50% for inferior, 44% and 87% for lateral, and 21% and 89% for anterior leads.Conclusion: In LV NICM, low frontal plane QRS (<0.55 mV in aVF) is associated with VT substrate. Although multilead QRS fractionation is associated with the presence and location of VT substrate, it is frequently identified in patients without VT with cMRI abnormalities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]