Screening for cardiovascular disease risk factors beginning in childhood

Cardiovascular diseases (CVD) are the leading cause of death worldwide. Individual detection and intervention on CVD risk factors and behaviors throughout childhood and adolescence has been advocated as a strategy to reduce CVD risk in adulthood. The U.S. National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) has recently recommended universal screening of several risk factors in children and adolescents, at odds with several recommendations of the U.S. Services Task Force and of the U.K. National Screening committee. In the current review, we discuss the goals of screening for CVD risk factors (elevated blood pressure, abnormal blood lipids, diabetes) and behaviors (smoking) in children and appraise critically various screening recommendations. Our review suggests that there is no compelling evidence to recommend universal screening for elevated blood pressure, abnormal blood lipids, abnormal blood glucose, or smoking in children and adolescents. Targeted screening of these risk factors could be useful but specific screening strategies have to be evaluated. Research is needed to identify target populations, screening frequency, intervention, and follow-up. Meanwhile, efforts should rather focus on the primordial prevention of CVD risk factors and at maintaining a lifelong ideal cardiovascular health through environmental, policy, and educational approaches

Screening for cardiovascular disease risk factors beginning in childhood

Cardiovascular diseases (CVD) are the leading cause of death worldwide. Individual detection and intervention on CVD risk factors and behaviors throughout childhood and adolescence has been advocated as a strategy to reduce CVD risk in adulthood. The U.S. National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) has recently recommended universal screening of several risk factors in children and adolescents, at odds with several recommendations of the U.S. Services Task Force and of the U.K. National Screening committee. In the current review, we discuss the goals of screening for CVD risk factors (elevated blood pressure, abnormal blood lipids, diabetes) and behaviors (smoking) in children and appraise critically various screening recommendations. Our review suggests that there is no compelling evidence to recommend universal screening for elevated blood pressure, abnormal blood lipids, abnormal blood glucose, or smoking in children and adolescents. Targeted screening of these risk factors could be useful but specific screening strategies have to be evaluated. Research is needed to identify target populations, screening frequency, intervention, and follow-up. Meanwhile, efforts should rather focus on the primordial prevention of CVD risk factors and at maintaining a lifelong ideal cardiovascular health through environmental, policy, and educational approaches

Vocabulary and grammar development in young learners of English as an additional language

Internationally, an increasing number of children learn English as an additional language (EAL). Children with EAL grow up in an environment where English is the majority language but are exposed to a different, minority language at home. Despite the increase in the number of EAL learners around the world, comparatively little is known about the development of their vocabulary and grammar at preschool age. Furthermore, the use of different methods in EAL studies can make research evidence difficult to summarize. The aim of this chapter is to provide a comprehensive review of EAL learners’ vocabulary and grammar development at preschool, drawing from studies that have used standardized tests, experimental tasks, or both. This review indicates that few studies have focused on preschool children with EAL. These suggest that, at the earliest stages of language learning, EAL learners generally know fewer words and acquire grammatical constructions at a slower pace than their English monolingual peers. These differences often persist throughout development, risking a negative impact on EAL learners’ academic attainment in an English-only school environment. Thus, this chapter also includes some suggestions for practice that could help children with EAL develop their vocabulary and grammar knowledge during and after preschool

Quantum gravity corrections to neutrino propagation

Massive spin-1/2 fields are studied in the framework of loop quantum gravity by considering a state approximating, at a length scale $\cal L$ much greater than Planck length $\ell_P=1.2\times 10^{-33}$cm, a spin-1/2 field in flat spacetime. The discrete structure of spacetime at $\ell_P$ yields corrections to the field propagation at scale $\cal L$. Next, Neutrino Bursts (${\bar p}\approx 10^5$GeV) accompaning Gamma Ray Bursts that have travelled cosmological distances, $L\approx 10^{10}$l.y., are considered. The dominant correction is helicity independent and leads to a time delay w.r.t. the speed of light, $c$, of order $({\bar p} \ell_P) L/c\approx 10^4$s. To next order in ${\bar p} \ell_P$ the correction has the form of the Gambini and Pullin effect for photons. Its contribution to time delay is comparable to that caused by the mass term. Finally, a dependence $L_{\rm os}^{-1} \propto {\bar p}^2 \ell_P$ is found for a two-flavour neutrino oscillation length.Comment: RevTeX, 5pp, no figures. Notation of a sum in Eq.(2) improved. Slight modifications in redaction. Final version to appear in Phys. Rev. Let

Submillimeter to centimeter excess emission from the Magellanic Clouds. II. On the nature of the excess

Dust emission at submm to cm wavelengths is often simply the Rayleigh-Jeans tail of dust particles at thermal equilibrium and is used as a cold mass tracer in various environments including nearby galaxies. However, well-sampled spectral energy distributions of the nearby, star-forming Magellanic Clouds have a pronounced (sub-)millimeter excess (Israel et al., 2010). This study attempts to confirm the existence of such a millimeter excess above expected dust, free-free and synchrotron emission and to explore different possibilities for its origin. We model NIR to radio spectral energy distributions of the Magellanic Clouds with dust, free-free and synchrotron emission. A millimeter excess emission is confirmed above these components and its spectral shape and intensity are analysed in light of different scenarios: very cold dust, Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) fluctuations, a change of the dust spectral index and spinning dust emission. We show that very cold dust or CMB fluctuations are very unlikely explanations for the observed excess in these two galaxies. The excess in the LMC can be satisfactorily explained either by a change of the spectral index due to intrinsic properties of amorphous grains, or by spinning dust emission. In the SMC however, due to the importance of the excess, the dust grain model including TLS/DCD effects cannot reproduce the observed emission in a simple way. A possible solution was achieved with spinning dust emission, but many assumptions on the physical state of the interstellar medium had to be made. Further studies, using higher resolution data from Planck and Herschel, are needed to probe the origin of this observed submm-cm excess more definitely. Our study shows that the different possible origins will be best distinguished where the excess is the highest, as is the case in the SMC.Comment: 7 pages, 6 figures; accepted in A&

Evolution of dust in the Orion Bar with Herschel: I. Radiative transfer modelling

Interstellar dust is a key element in our understanding of the interstellar medium and star formation. The manner in which dust populations evolve with the excitation and the physical conditions is a first step in the comprehension of the evolution of inter- stellar dust. Within the framework of the Evolution of interstellar dust Herschel key program, we have acquired PACS and SPIRE spec- trophotometric observations of various photodissociation regions, to characterise this evolution. The aim of this paper is to trace the evolution of dust grains in the Orion Bar photodissociation region. We use Herschel/PACS (70 and 160 mic) and SPIRE (250, 350 and 500 mic) together with Spitzer/IRAC observations to map the spatial distribution of the dust populations across the Bar. Brightness profiles are modelled using the DustEM model coupled with a radiative transfer code. Thanks to Herschel, we are able to probe finely the dust emission of the densest parts of the Orion Bar with a resolution from 5.6" to 35.1". These new observations allow us to infer the temperature of the biggest grains at different positions in the Bar, which reveals a gradient from \sim 80 K to 40 K coupled with an increase of the spectral emissivity index from the ionization front to the densest regions. Combining Spitzer/IRAC observations, which are sensitive to the dust emission from the surface, with Herschel maps, we have been able to measure the Orion Bar emission from 3.6 to 500 mic. We find a stratification in the different dust components which can be re- produced quantitatively by a simple radiative transfer model without dust evolution. However including dust evolution is needed to explain the brightness in each band. PAH abundance variations, or a combination of PAH abundance variations with an emissivity enhancement of the biggest grains due to coagulation give good results.Comment: 11 pages, 12 figure