Personal narratives are monological stories based on a personal experience that help children explain and understand their emotional states, as well as process positive and negative experiences. The aim of this study was to identify age- and emotion-related traits of lexical and grammatical abilities and coherence of personal stories produced by school-aged children between 7 and 13 years.
A total of 60 typically developing children, speakers of Croatian, were stratified into three groups according to age. Using the Global TALES protocol, each child was asked to produce six personal stories prompted by different emotional states. The personal narratives were analysed using measures of lexical diversity (lemma-token ratio and number of different words), productivity (total number of words), and syntactic complexity (mean length of utterances and clausal density). Based on the Narrative Coherence Coding Scheme, three coherence dimensions (context, chronology, and theme) were rated.
Age group was shown to explain 18% of the variance in the ability to produce personal narratives. Personal narratives elicited through positive prompts were overall more lexically diverse but were significantly less elaborated chronologically and thematically than negative and neutral narratives.
This study showed that coherence of the produced stories was connected with the child\'s lexicon and that both variables - lexicon and coherence - were influenced by emotional valence of the story. In contrast, grammatical aspects of the narrative were influenced only by age. Finally, it is possible to state that the Global TALES protocol is sensitive enough to capture specificities of creating personal stories, both developmental ones and those created under the influence of the emotional valence of the prompts.

OBJECTIVE: Chronic comorbidities are common in people with multiple sclerosis (PwMS), thus worsening their prognosis and quality of life, and increasing disease burden. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the prevalence of common comorbidities in PwMS in Tuscany (Central Italy) and to compare it with the general population.
METHODS: The prevalence of comorbidities, including diabetes, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), hypertension, stroke, heart failure (HF), cardiac infarction and ischemic heart disease (IHD), was assessed in PwMS and in general population resident in Tuscany, aged > 20 years, using administrative data.
RESULTS: In total, we identified 8,274 PwMS. Among them, 34% had at least one comorbidity, with hypertension being the most common (28.5%). Comparing PwMS with the general population, PwMS had a higher frequency of hypertension and stroke when considering the whole group, and of diabetes, COPD, and IHD when considering sex and age subgroups. This increased risk was especially evident in the young and intermediate age groups, where multiple sclerosis may play an important role as risk factor for some comorbidities. In PwMS, as well as in the general population, prevalence of chronic diseases was higher in males and increased with age.
CONCLUSIONS: Comorbidities frequently coexist with multiple sclerosis and they may have an impact on this complex disease, from the health, clinical, and socioeconomic points of view. Therefore, a routine screening of chronic comorbidities should be a crucial step in clinical practice, as well as the promotion of healthy lifestyles to prevent the onset and to reduce their burden.

Recent studies indicate the accepted concept of using land-use mix (LUM) to promote physical activity is ineffective and even counteractive in the Chinese context. Before considering LUM as a whole, different amenity types need to be respectively analyzed in relation to various functions and demands. This study aims to examine the specific associations between food-related amenities and perceived daily walking duration (WD) in small Chinese cities. Two interviewer-administered questionnaire surveys (n = 354) were conducted in Yuncheng and Suihua between 2017 and 2018. Logistic regression models were used to examine the associations of WD with seven different categories of food outlet at three levels of walking distance. The associations were further explored by food environment diversity and through two age groups. With the exception of café/tea house, the other six food outlets were positively associated with WD. After adjusting for socioeconomic variables, the associations of grocery store and supermarket weakened. Higher levels of food environment diversity were associated with a longer WD. Among the age groups, food outlets were more associated with older adults\' WD. This novel quantitative study suggests that increasing the number and heterogeneity of food-related amenities (including mobile street vendors) within a neighborhood can enhance physical activity in small Chinese cities.

This study investigated the risk factors for in-hospital mortality of severe blunt trauma patients who underwent transcatheter arterial embolization (TAE). We analysed data from the Japan Trauma Data Bank from 2009 to 2018. Patients with severe blunt trauma and an Injury Severity Score (ISS) ≥ 16 who underwent TAE were enrolled. The primary analysis evaluated patient characteristics and outcomes, and variables with significant differences were included in the secondary multivariate logistic regression analysis. In total, 5800 patients (6.4%) with ISS ≥ 16 underwent TAE. There were significant differences in the proportion of male patients, transportation method, injury mechanism, injury region, Revised Trauma Score, survival probability values, and those who underwent urgent blood transfusion and additional urgent surgery. In multivariable regression analyses, higher age, urgent blood transfusion, and initial urgent surgery were significantly associated with higher in-hospital mortality risk [p < 0.001, odds ratio (OR), 95% confidence interval (CI): 1.01 (1.00-1.01); p < 0.001, 3.50 (2.55-4.79); and p = 0.001, 1.36 (1.13-1.63), respectively]. Inter-hospital transfer was significantly associated with lower in-hospital mortality risk (p < 0.001, OR = 0.56, 95% CI = 0.44-0.71). Treatment protocols for urgent intervention before and after TAE and a safe, rapid inter-hospital transport system are needed to improve mortality risks for severe blunt trauma patients.

Assistive technologies have become more important owing to the aging population, especially when they foster healthy behaviors. Because of their natural interface, virtual agents are promising assistants for people in need of support. To engage people during an interaction with these technologies, such assistants need to match the users´ needs and preferences, especially with regard to social outcomes.
Prior research has already determined the importance of an agent\'s appearance in a human-agent interaction. As seniors can particularly benefit from the use of virtual agents to maintain their autonomy, it is important to investigate their special needs. However, there are almost no studies focusing on age-related differences with regard to appearance effects.
A 2×4 between-subjects design was used to investigate the age-related differences of appearance effects in a human-agent interaction. In this study, 46 seniors and 84 students interacted in a health scenario with a virtual agent, whose appearance varied (cartoon-stylized humanoid agent, cartoon-stylized machine-like agent, more realistic humanoid agent, and nonembodied agent [voice only]). After the interaction, participants reported on the evaluation of the agent, usage intention, perceived presence of the agent, bonding toward the agent, and overall evaluation of the interaction.
The findings suggested that seniors evaluated the agent more positively (liked the agent more and evaluated it as more realistic, attractive, and sociable) and showed more bonding toward the agent regardless of the appearance than did students. In addition, interaction effects were found. Seniors reported the highest usage intention for the cartoon-stylized humanoid agent, whereas students reported the lowest usage intention for this agent. The same pattern was found for participant bonding with the agent. Seniors showed more bonding when interacting with the cartoon-stylized humanoid agent or voice only agent, whereas students showed the least bonding when interacting with the cartoon-stylized humanoid agent.
In health-related interactions, target group-related differences exist with regard to a virtual assistant\'s appearance. When elderly individuals are the target group, a humanoid virtual assistant might trigger specific social responses and be evaluated more positively at least in short-term interactions.

This cross-sectional study examined 6 key areas of neuropsychological functioning (cognitive, academic, attention, executive function, adaptive skills) comparing adolescents and school-age children with prenatal alcohol exposure (PAE). The aims were: (i) to examine which neuropsychological measures were predictive of an FASD diagnosis in adolescents and school-age children with PAE, and (ii) to compare the neuropsychological performance of adolescents and children diagnosed with FASD. Hierarchical logistic regressions determined that the Full-Scale IQ, Verbal Comprehension and Perceptual Reasoning indices, basic reading and math skills, adaptive functioning at school, and components of executive functioning (dependent on age) improved the probability of an accurate FASD diagnosis in both groups: 9.1% to 19.2% for adolescents and 10.9% to 19.4% for school-age children (61.5%-80.9% correct classifications overall). For the age comparison analyses (ANOVAs/MANOVAs), a significant difference was observed in the cognitive domain, as well as with basic math skills (trend) in the sample diagnosed with FASD, with lower scores observed for adolescents across these measures. These findings provide further evidence for age differences in neuropsychological assessment as well as increased neuropsychological difficulties in adolescence by comparison with childhood with FASD. Longitudinal studies will be needed to make further inferences about developmental changes in neuropsychological functioning in FASD.

The aim of this study was to prove our hypothesis that adult rats with lowering of body weight gain, rats at 12 weeks of age as an example, are suitable for evaluation of myelotoxicity. Age-related differences between young rats (6-week-old study) and adult rats (12-week-old study) were analyzed in hematological examination values. The data of the young rats were reprinted from our previous report (Miyata et al., 2009) since our hypothesis was verified by comparison with that previous report. Several experimental groups were defined for the 12-week-old study as well as for the 6-week-old study; these included 5-fluorouracil (5-FU) treated groups receiving 12, 15 and 18 mg/kg/day (FU12, FU15 and FU18), pair-feeding groups (R12, R15 and R18 receiving the same amount of food as in the FU12, FU15 and FU18 groups, respectively) and a nontreated control group. Numerous hematologic and bone marrow parameters in the 5-FU treated groups were comparable to those in the corresponding pair-feeding groups in both age studies. Generally, the influences of undernutrition were more apparent in the young rats than in the adult rats. Histopathological examinations showed a decrease in hematopoiesis in the bone marrow in the 5-FU treated and pair-feeding groups. No apparent differences were observed in the decreased hematopoiesis between the 5-FU treated and pair-feeding groups in the 6-week-old study, but a difference between these groups was noted in the 12-week-old study; decreased hematopoiesis was more frequently noted in the 5-FU treated groups. These facts suggest that adult rats are more suitable than young rats for evaluation of 5-FU-induced myelotoxicity.