Developmental changes in the role of different metalinguistic awareness skills in Chinese reading acquisition from preschool to third grade

Copyright @ 2014 Wei et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.The present study investigated the relationship between Chinese reading skills and metalinguistic awareness skills such as phonological, morphological, and orthographic awareness for 101 Preschool, 94 Grade-1, 98 Grade-2, and 98 Grade-3 children from two primary schools in Mainland China. The aim of the study was to examine how each of these metalinguistic awareness skills would exert their influence on the success of reading in Chinese with age. The results showed that all three metalinguistic awareness skills significantly predicted reading success. It further revealed that orthographic awareness played a dominant role in the early stages of reading acquisition, and its influence decreased with age, while the opposite was true for the contribution of morphological awareness. The results were in stark contrast with studies in English, where phonological awareness is typically shown as the single most potent metalinguistic awareness factor in literacy acquisition. In order to account for the current data, a three-stage model of reading acquisition in Chinese is discussed.National Natural Science Foundation of China and Knowledge Innovation Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences

Application of Graphene within Optoelectronic Devices and Transistors

Scientists are always yearning for new and exciting ways to unlock graphene's true potential. However, recent reports suggest this two-dimensional material may harbor some unique properties, making it a viable candidate for use in optoelectronic and semiconducting devices. Whereas on one hand, graphene is highly transparent due to its atomic thickness, the material does exhibit a strong interaction with photons. This has clear advantages over existing materials used in photonic devices such as Indium-based compounds. Moreover, the material can be used to 'trap' light and alter the incident wavelength, forming the basis of the plasmonic devices. We also highlight upon graphene's nonlinear optical response to an applied electric field, and the phenomenon of saturable absorption. Within the context of logical devices, graphene has no discernible band-gap. Therefore, generating one will be of utmost importance. Amongst many others, some existing methods to open this band-gap include chemical doping, deformation of the honeycomb structure, or the use of carbon nanotubes (CNTs). We shall also discuss various designs of transistors, including those which incorporate CNTs, and others which exploit the idea of quantum tunneling. A key advantage of the CNT transistor is that ballistic transport occurs throughout the CNT channel, with short channel effects being minimized. We shall also discuss recent developments of the graphene tunneling transistor, with emphasis being placed upon its operational mechanism. Finally, we provide perspective for incorporating graphene within high frequency devices, which do not require a pre-defined band-gap.Comment: Due to be published in "Current Topics in Applied Spectroscopy and the Science of Nanomaterials" - Springer (Fall 2014). (17 pages, 19 figures

Theoretical study of Oldroyd-b visco-elastic fluid flow through curved pipes with slip effects in polymer flow processing

The characteristics of the flow field of both viscous and viscoelastic fluids passing through a curved pipe with a Navier slip boundary condition have been investigated analytically in the present study. The Oldroyd-B constitutive equation is employed to simulate realistic transport of dilute polymeric solutions in curved channels. In order to linearize the momentum and constitutive equations, a perturbation method is used in which the ratio of radius of cross section to the radius of channel curvature is employed as the perturbation parameter. The intensity of secondary and main flows is mainly affected by the hoop stress and it is demonstrated in the present study that both the Weissenberg number (the ratio of elastic force to viscous force) and slip coefficient play major roles in determining the strengths of both flows. It is also shown that as a result of an increment in slip coefficient, the position of maximum velocity markedly migrates away from the pipe center towards the outer side of curvature. Furthermore, results corresponding to Navier slip scenarios exhibit non-uniform distributions in both the main and lateral components of velocity near the wall which can notably vary from the inner side of curvature to the outer side. The present solution is also important in polymeric flow processing systems because of experimental evidence indicating that the no-slip condition can fail for these flows, which is of relevance to chemical engineers

Cognitive skills and literacy performance of Chinese adolescents with and without dyslexia

The present study sought to identify cognitive abilities that might distinguish Hong Kong Chinese adolescents with dyslexia and to assess how these abilities were associated with Chinese word reading, word dictation, and reading comprehension. The cognitive skills of interest were morphological awareness, visual-orthographic knowledge, rapid naming, and verbal working memory. A total of 90 junior secondary school students, 30 dyslexic, 30 chronological age controls, and 30 reading level controls was tested on a range of cognitive and literacy tasks. Dyslexic students were less competent than the control students in all cognitive and literacy measures. The regression analyses also showed that verbal working memory, rapid naming, morphological awareness, and visual-orthographic knowledge were significantly associated with literacy performance. Findings underscore the importance of these cognitive skills for Chinese literacy acquisition. Overall, this study highlights the persistent difficulties of Chinese dyslexic adolescents who seem to have multiple causes for reading and spelling difficulties

Coronary artery calcium screening: current status and recommendations from the European Society of Cardiac Radiology and North American Society for Cardiovascular Imaging

Current guidelines and literature on screening for coronary artery calcium for cardiac risk assessment are reviewed for both general and special populations. It is shown that for both general and special populations a zero score excludes most clinically relevant coronary artery disease. The importance of standardization of coronary artery calcium measurements by multi-detector CT is discussed

Familial hypercholesterolaemia in children and adolescents from 48 countries: a cross-sectional study

Background Approximately 450 000 children are born with familial hypercholesterolaemia worldwide every year, yet only 2·1% of adults with familial hypercholesterolaemia were diagnosed before age 18 years via current diagnostic approaches, which are derived from observations in adults. We aimed to characterise children and adolescents with heterozygous familial hypercholesterolaemia (HeFH) and understand current approaches to the identification and management of familial hypercholesterolaemia to inform future public health strategies. Methods For this cross-sectional study, we assessed children and adolescents younger than 18 years with a clinical or genetic diagnosis of HeFH at the time of entry into the Familial Hypercholesterolaemia Studies Collaboration (FHSC) registry between Oct 1, 2015, and Jan 31, 2021. Data in the registry were collected from 55 regional or national registries in 48 countries. Diagnoses relying on self-reported history of familial hypercholesterolaemia and suspected secondary hypercholesterolaemia were excluded from the registry; people with untreated LDL cholesterol (LDL-C) of at least 13·0 mmol/L were excluded from this study. Data were assessed overall and by WHO region, World Bank country income status, age, diagnostic criteria, and index-case status. The main outcome of this study was to assess current identification and management of children and adolescents with familial hypercholesterolaemia. Findings Of 63 093 individuals in the FHSC registry, 11 848 (18·8%) were children or adolescents younger than 18 years with HeFH and were included in this study; 5756 (50·2%) of 11 476 included individuals were female and 5720 (49·8%) were male. Sex data were missing for 372 (3·1%) of 11 848 individuals. Median age at registry entry was 9·6 years (IQR 5·8–13·2). 10 099 (89·9%) of 11 235 included individuals had a final genetically confirmed diagnosis of familial hypercholesterolaemia and 1136 (10·1%) had a clinical diagnosis. Genetically confirmed diagnosis data or clinical diagnosis data were missing for 613 (5·2%) of 11 848 individuals. Genetic diagnosis was more common in children and adolescents from high-income countries (9427 [92·4%] of 10 202) than in children and adolescents from non-high-income countries (199 [48·0%] of 415). 3414 (31·6%) of 10 804 children or adolescents were index cases. Familial-hypercholesterolaemia-related physical signs, cardiovascular risk factors, and cardiovascular disease were uncommon, but were more common in non-high-income countries. 7557 (72·4%) of 10 428 included children or adolescents were not taking lipid-lowering medication (LLM) and had a median LDL-C of 5·00 mmol/L (IQR 4·05–6·08). Compared with genetic diagnosis, the use of unadapted clinical criteria intended for use in adults and reliant on more extreme phenotypes could result in 50–75% of children and adolescents with familial hypercholesterolaemia not being identified. Interpretation Clinical characteristics observed in adults with familial hypercholesterolaemia are uncommon in children and adolescents with familial hypercholesterolaemia, hence detection in this age group relies on measurement of LDL-C and genetic confirmation. Where genetic testing is unavailable, increased availability and use of LDL-C measurements in the first few years of life could help reduce the current gap between prevalence and detection, enabling increased use of combination LLM to reach recommended LDL-C targets early in life. Funding Pfizer, Amgen, Merck Sharp & Dohme, Sanofi–Aventis, Daiichi Sankyo, and Regeneron