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Compared with juveniles who start offending in adolescence, child delinquents (age 12 and younger) are two to three times more likely to become tomorrow's serious and violent offenders. This propensity, however, can be minimized. These children are potentially identifiable either before they begin committing crimes or at the very early stages of criminality--times when interventions are most likely to succeed. Therefore, treatment, services, and intervention programs that target these very young offenders offer an exceptional opportunity to reduce the overall level of crime in a community. This Bulletin is part of the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention's Child Delinquency Series, which presents the findings of the Study Group on Very Young Offenders. This series offers the latest information about child delinquency, including analyses of child delinquency statistics, insights into the origins of very young offending, and descriptions of early intervention programs and approaches that work to prevent the development of delinquent behavior by focusing on risk and protective factors. The Bulletin reviews treatment and services available to such child delinquents and their families and examines their efficacy. At a time of limited budgets, it is imperative to consider the cost effectiveness of specific programs because children who are not diverted from criminal careers will require significant resources in the future. The timely provision of the kinds of treatment, services, and intervention programs described in this Bulletin while child delinquents are still young and impressionable may prevent their progression to chronic criminality, saving the expense of later interventions. (Contains 73 references.) (GCP)

This brief paper on a topical discussion session held at a conference on children's mental health about implications of the 1999 report, "Mental Health: A Report of the Surgeon General," for children. The discussion focuses primarily on the chapter in the report specifically about children and mental health with comments by four individuals who contributed to the chapter. Thomas Bornemann described the overall process of developing the report and gave an overview of it and the role of such reports in influencing change. Peter Jenson described the overall framework for the children's chapter, which included a strong developmental perspective emphasizing protective factors and risk factors as well as the importance of an integrated biological, psychological, and sociocultural perspective. Barbara Burns reviewed the findings of the report with regard to the efficacy and effectiveness of clinical interventions. The report concluded that there is a range of psychosocial and pharmacological treatments in a variety of settings that have been demonstrated to be efficacious in children. Robert Friedman summarized findings with regard to the service delivery system, especially the systems of care approach. Trina Osher stressed the report's emphasis on the role of families in systems of care. (DB)

Five out of every 100 children develop serious emotional disturbances. Another 20 to 25 out of every 100 develop less severe emotional problems that can be resolved with proper care. It is this group for whom appropriate intervention can make a difference. This booklet describes the Great Smoky Mountains Study, a longitudinal, population-based community survey of children and adolescents in North Carolina. It summarizes the first component to yield findings, and provides information about rates of emotional and behavioral disorders and use of mental health services. It also provides policy-relevant information in the areas of the need for mental health services, risks for emotional and behavioral disorders, outcomes of serious emotional disorders, use of mental health services across sectors, and effectiveness of mental health care. It considers the impact of insurance on the availability and delivery of services. A summary of the recommendations for action include: (1) increase professional mental health resources in schools; (2) adopt standardized assessment methods and instruments for early detection; (3) take steps to enhance interagency relationships; and (4) incorporate need for services into policy as the criterion for use. (JDM)

The solar energy labor force is analyzed by identifying the importance of education and training in the commercialization and diffusion of solar technologies, discussing issues for planning and analysis of solar education and training efforts, and illustrating the range of programs and courses presently available. Four general perspectives are reviewed concerning the diffusion of such a new technology as solar energy systems, with special attention to the education and training issues. Planning and analysis issues discussed include the following: whether there is a need for more education and training programs, and of what kinds; the possible roles of the federal and state governments; the availability of trained workers for the manufacture of solar systems; the tradeoffs between expanding the capabilities of persons already within the field or training unemployed and underemployed persons as solar workers; and the allocation of effort between training workers and training trainers. Examples of programs and courses are given for the four identified categories: general education, professional solar energy education and training, technician training, and solar industries infrastructure training. The general conclusion is that a large number and variety of education and training programs and courses are presently offered, but that little or no evaluation of individual programs or the overall effort has yet been done. (Author/CT)

The Advanced Microwave Sounding Unit (AMSU) and the Microwave Humidity Sounder (MHS) constitute the advanced microwave sounding system to be flown on the EOS-PM platform. Similar instruments (the AMSU-A corresponding to the AMSU and the AMSU-B corresponding to the MHS) are scheduled to become operational on the NOAA polar orbiting satellites beginning with NOAA-K. The unique characteristics of the AMSU-MHS instruments, as compared to the capabilities of their infrared and microwave predecessors, introduce new opportunities, and challenges, for operational retrievals of atmospheric structure. Not only will these new data improve present capabilities for the retrieval of atmospheric profiles of temperature and moisture, but they will provide the only opportunity for successfully retrieving atmospheric temperature and humidity profiles in the presence of modest amounts of cloud and precipitation. A complementary opportunity is presented by the potential of the AMSU-MHS to obtain information about the structure of clouds and precipitation. The data sets obtained will contribute to the current knowledge of global water and energy budgets, and provide critical information on the horizontal and vertical distribution of tropospheric water vapor, the spatial and temporal distribution of rain, and the relationship of cloud formation and dissipation to atmospheric dynamics and thermodynamics.

The effects of ice surface melt on microwave signatures and errors in the calculation of sea ice concentration are examined, using active and passive microwave data sets from the Marginal Ice Zone Experiment aircraft flights in the Fram Strait region. Consideration is given to the possibility of using SAR to supplement passive microwave data to unambiguously discriminate between open water areas and ponded floes. Coincident active multichannel microwave radiometer and SAR measurements of individual floes are used to describe the effects of surface melt on sea ice concentration calculations.

A discussion is presented concerning the effect of variations in ice surface characteristics on the concentration calculations, in order to ascertain how active and passive microwave data can be optimally combined. Attention is given to dual-polarized, multifrequency passive microwave sensors and to single-channel SAR, in virtue of their availability in the near future. An examination of SAR intensity data at both 1 and 10 GHz indicates that the latter are much less sensitive to ice type and surface condition variations such as wetness and ridging. The Advanced Multichannel Microwave Radiometer is discussed.