Increased Cross-Gender Identification Independent of Gender Role Behavior in Girls with Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia: Results from a Standardized Assessment of 4- to 11-Year-Old Children.

While reports showing a link between prenatal androgen exposure and human gender role behavior are consistent and the effects are robust, associations to gender identity or cross-gender identification are less clear. The aim of the current study was to investigate potential cross-gender identification in girls exposed prenatally to high concentrations of androgens due to classical congenital adrenal hyperplasia (CAH). Assessment included two standardized measures and a short parent interview assessing frequency of behavioral features of cross-gender identification as conceptualized in Part A of the diagnostic criteria for gender identity disorder (GID) in the DSM-IV-TR. Next, because existing measures may have conflated gender role behavior with gender identity and because the distinction is potentially informative, we factor analyzed items from the measures which included both gender identity and gender role items to establish the independence of the two constructs. Participants were 43 girls and 38 boys with CAH and 41 unaffected female and 31 unaffected male relatives, aged 4- to 11-years. Girls with CAH had more cross-gender responses than female controls on all three measures of cross-gender identification as well as on a composite measure of gender identity independent of gender role behavior. Furthermore, parent report indicated that 5/39 (12.8 %) of the girls with CAH exhibited cross-gender behavior in all five behavioral domains which comprise the cross-gender identification component of GID compared to 0/105 (0.0 %) of the children in the other three groups combined. These data suggest that girls exposed to high concentrations of androgens prenatally are more likely to show cross-gender identification than girls without CAH or boys with and without CAH. Our findings suggest that prenatal androgen exposure could play a role in gender identity development in healthy children, and may be relevant to gender assignment in cases of prenatal hormone disruption, including, in particular, cases of severely virilized 46, XX CAH.

Kinetic Monte Carlo simulations of anisotropic Si(100) etching: Modeling the chemical origins of characteristic etch morphologies.

An atomistic, chemically realistic, kinetic Monte Carlo simulator of anisotropic Si(100) etching was developed. Surface silicon atoms were classified on the basis of their local structure, and all atoms of each class were etched with the same rate. A wide variety of morphologies, including rough, striped, and hillocked, was observed. General reactivity trends were correlated with specific morphological features. The production of long rows of unstrained dihydride species, recently observed in NH(4)F (aq) etching of Si(100), could only be explained by the rapid etching of dihydrides that are adjacent to (strained) monohydrides-so-called "alpha-dihydrides." Some etch kinetics promoted the formation of {111}-microfaceted pyramidal hillocks, similar in structure to those observed experimentally during Si(100) etching. Pyramid formation was intrinsic to the etch kinetics. In contrast with previously postulated mechanisms of pyramid formation, no masking agent (e.g., impurity, gas bubble) was required. Pyramid formation was explained in terms of the slow etch rate of the {111} sides, {110} edges, and the dihydride species that terminated the apex of the pyramid. As a result, slow etching of Si(111) surfaces was a necessary, but insufficient, criterion for microfacet formation on Si(100) surfaces.