The viruses most commonly associated with food-and waterborne outbreaks of gastroenteritis are the noroviruses. The lack of a culture method for noroviruses warrants the use of cultivable model viruses to gain more insight on their transmission routes and inactivation methods. We studied the inactivation of the reported enteric canine calicivirus no. 48 (CaCV) and the respiratory feline calicivirus F9 (FeCV) and correlated inactivation to reduction in PCR units of FeCV, CaCV, and a norovirus. Inactivation of suspended viruses was temperature and time dependent in the range from 0 to 100°C. UV-B radiation from 0 to 150 mJ/cm 2 caused dose-dependent inactivation, with a 3 D (D ‫؍‬ 1 log 10 ) reduction in infectivity at 34 mJ/cm 2 for both viruses. Inactivation by 70% ethanol was inefficient, with only 3 D reduction after 30 min. Sodium hypochlorite solutions were only effective at >300 ppm. FeCV showed a higher stability at pH <3 and pH >7 than CaCV. For all treatments, detection of viral RNA underestimated the reduction in viral infectivity. Norovirus was never more sensitive than the animal caliciviruses and profoundly more resistant to low and high pH. Overall, both animal viruses showed similar inactivation profiles when exposed to heat or UV-B radiation or when incubated in ethanol or hypochlorite. The low stability of CaCV at low pH suggests that this is not a typical enteric (calici-) virus. The incomplete inactivation by ethanol and the high hypochlorite concentration needed for sufficient virus inactivation point to a concern for decontamination of fomites and surfaces contaminated with noroviruses and virus-safe water.

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Principal factor analysis followed by promax rotations were performed on Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL) scores of 2,339 children randomly drawn from a sample of 4,674 clinically referred Dutch children, aged 4-18 years. Dutch syndromes were very similar in item composition to the eight CBCL cross-informant syndromes derived by T. M. Achenbach (1991 b), except for the Social Problems syndrome. Cross-national correlations ranged from .82 for the Social Problems syndrome to .99 for the Somatic Complaints and Anxious/Depressed syndromes. Confirmatory factor analysis of the Dutch and American syndromes in a cross-validation sample of the remaining 2,335 Dutch children supported both the Dutch and the American scales to the same degree. Exploratory and confirmatory results both strongly supported the cross-cultural generalizability of the CBCL crossinformant syndromes.Central to increasing the knowledge of developmental psychopathology is the identification of patterns of behavioral and emotional problems that are common to children from different countries. For school-age children and adolescents, multivariate analyses of rating scales for assessing behavioral and emotional problems have shown that different dimensions of problem behaviors can be distinguished (Achenbach & Edelbrock, 1978;Quay, 1986). A well-validated set of instruments for the assessment of problem behavior includes the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL), the Teacher's Report Form (TRF), and the \buth Self-Report (YSR), to be filled out by parents, teachers, and children themselves (Achenbach & Edelbrock, 1983, 1986, 1987, During the development of these instruments, syndrome scales and scoring profiles were developed that were different for each instrument, for both sexes, and for age groups 4-5, 6-11, and 12-16 years. Comparisons of the pre-1991 syndromes derived from CBCLs completed by parents of American and Dutch samples of clinically referred boys and girls confirmed the cross-cultural construct validity and generality of most syndromes (Achenbach, Verhulst,

Investigated late psychosocial sequelae in 133 parents of children who survived cancer, using questionnaires developed to measure the specific impact of the disease. Childhood cancer had distinct and persistent late psychosocial effects on parents of survivors. Uncertainty and loneliness were the most reported problems. Demographic and situational characteristics such as being a mother, low SES, no religious affiliation, chronic disease in a family member other than the child surviving cancer, and concurrent stresses increased the risk of reporting late problems. Treatment itself had little or no effect on reported problems. However, when treatment led to long-term sequelae in the child, a significant and specific effect on parental problems was observed. No decline of problems over time was found, which has implications for patient care.