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Building on long-term benefits of early intervention (Paper 2 of this Series) and increasing commitment to early childhood development (Paper 1 of this Series), scaled up support for the youngest children is essential to improving health, human capital, and wellbeing across the life course. In this third paper, new analyses show that the burden of poor development is higher than estimated, taking into account additional risk factors. National programmes are needed. Greater political prioritisation is core to scale-up, as are policies that afford families time and financial resources to provide nurturing care for young children. Effective and feasible programmes to support early child development are now available. All sectors, particularly education, and social and child protection, must play a role to meet the holistic needs of young children. However, health provides a critical starting point for scaling up, given its reach to pregnant women, families, and young children. Starting at conception, interventions to promote nurturing care can feasibly build on existing health and nutrition services at limited additional cost. Failure to scale up has severe personal and social consequences. Children at elevated risk for compromised development due to stunting and poverty are likely to forgo about a quarter of average adult income per year, and the cost of inaction to gross domestic product can be double what some countries currently spend on health. Services and interventions to support early childhood development are essential to realising the vision of the Sustainable Development Goals.

A survey assessed the motivations of Chinese adults learning (N=512), living in Canada, English as a Second Language. Results revealed such motives as linguistic needs, basic skills, cultural awareness, social interaction, and resume-writing but found no differences in perceived motivation according to age, education level, or length of stay in Canada. (Author/CB)

September 1-5, 1998, South Africa

June 30 - July 5, 1998, Naples, Italy

Vertical connections, constructed using inquiry, give students the skills to reach new heights in both their academic and local communities. In this article, the authors present inquiry projects, developed by middle level teachers, to ensure that students use higher-level thinking skills to improve the community. Each project is connected to the previous year's to give students a deeper understanding of how research can help citizens build a sustainable community. Teachers work together to plan field studies and guide students in presenting their findings to others in the community using models, PowerPoint presentations, a web accessible database, and reports from field investigations. The projects are as follows: (1) healthy marine ecosystems--sixth grade; (2) interdisciplinary science: biodiversity and development--seventh grade; and (3) collaborating to create a better biosphere--eighth grade. (Contains 1 figure and 4 online resources.)

A correction is presented to the article "Can individual fatty acids be used as functional biomarkers of dairy fat consumption in relation to cardiometabolic health?"

Salvinia minima Baker (Salviniaceae) has been recorded for the first time in Africa. This South American native macrophyte is highly invasive and damaging, costing millions of dollars to control in the USA, and has the potential to invade many of southern Africa's waterbodies. Field surveys have confirmed the presence of S. minima from four sites in South Africa, with the largest invasion occurring on the highly polluted Hartbeespoort Dam, north east of the country's capital. Salvinia minima has been targeted for biological control in South Africa, using the weevil, Cyrtobagous salviniae, which is undergoing host specificity testing under quarantine conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The cholera epidemic in Haiti will be a year old in October and is far from under control. As cases spiked across the country during the summer rainy season, the [...]

Nanoarchaeum equitans and lgnicoccus hospitalis represent a unique, intimate association of two archaea. Both form a stable coculture which is mandatory for N. equitans but not for the host L hospitalis. Here, we investigated interactions and mutual influence between these microorganisms. Fermentation studies revealed that during exponential growth only about 25% of L hospitalis cells are occupied by N. equitans cells (one to three cells). The latter strongly proliferate in the stationary phase of L hospitalis, until 80 to 90% of the L hospitalis cells carry around 10 N. equitans cells. Furthermore, the expulsion of [H.sub.2]S, the major metabolic end product of I. hospitalis, by strong gas stripping yields huge amounts of free N. equitans cells. N. equitans had no influence on the doubling times, final cell concentrations, and growth temperature, pH, or salt concentration ranges or optima of I. hospitalis. However, isolation studies using optical tweezers revealed that infection with N. equitans inhibited the proliferation of individual L hospitalis cells. This inhibition might be caused by deprivation of the host of cell components like amino acids, as demonstrated by [.sup.13]C-labeling studies. The strong dependence of N. equitans on L hospitalis was affirmed by live-dead staining and electron microscopic analyses, which indicated a tight physiological and structural connection between the two microorganisms. No alternative hosts, including other Ignicoccus species, were accepted by N. equitans. In summary, the data show a highly specialized association of N. equitans and L hospitalis which so far cannot be assigned to a classical symbiosis, commensalism, or parasitism.

ABSTRACT In this paper, we model business workflows using Harel's statecharts. Mapping to statecharts allows us to systematically identify potential workflow problems. It also allows us to investigate specific properties […]