High-quality early childhood programs have been shown to have substantial benefits in reducing crime, raising earnings, and promoting education. Much less is known about their benefits for adult health. We report on the long-term health effects of one of the oldest and most heavily cited early childhood interventions with long-term follow-up evaluated by the method of randomization: the Carolina Abecedarian Project (ABC). Using recently collected biomedical data, we find that disadvantaged children randomly assigned to treatment have significantly lower prevalence of risk factors for cardiovascular and metabolic diseases in their mid-30s. The evidence is especially strong for males. The mean systolic blood pressure among the control males is 143 millimeters of mercury (mm Hg), whereas it is only 126 mm Hg among the treated. One in four males in the control group is affected by metabolic syndrome, whereas none in the treatment group are affected. To reach these conclusions, we address several statistical challenges. We use exact permutation tests to account for small sample sizes and conduct a parallel bootstrap confidence interval analysis to confirm the permutation analysis. We adjust inference to account for the multiple hypotheses tested and for nonrandom attrition. Our evidence shows the potential of early life interventions for preventing disease and promoting health.

/pdf/early-childhood-investments-substantially-boost-adult-health-1pqafd7dmm.pdf

Early childhood investments substantially boost adult health

The emerging field of quantum machine learning has the potential to substantially aid in the problems and scope of artificial intelligence. This is only enhanced by recent successes in the field of classical machine learning. In this work we propose an approach for the systematic treatment of machine learning, from the perspective of quantum information. Our approach is general and covers all three main branches of machine learning: supervised, unsupervised, and reinforcement learning. While quantum improvements in supervised and unsupervised learning have been reported, reinforcement learning has received much less attention. Within our approach, we tackle the problem of quantum enhancements in reinforcement learning as well, and propose a systematic scheme for providing improvements. As an example, we show that quadratic improvements in learning efficiency, and exponential improvements in performance over limited time periods, can be obtained for a broad class of learning problems.

Quantum-Enhanced Machine Learning.

Cities and urban areas are critical components of global sustainability as loci of sustainability progress and drivers of global transformation, especially in terms of energy efficiency, climate change adaptation, and social innovation. However, urban ecosystems have not been incorporated adequately into urban governance and planning for resilience despite mounting evidence that urban resident health and wellbeing is closely tied to the quality, quantity, and diversity of urban ecosystem services. We suggest that urban ecosystem services provide key links for bridging planning, management and governance practices seeking transitions to more sustainable cities, and serve an important role in building resilience in urban systems. Emerging city goals for resilience should explicitly incorporate the value of urban ES in city planning and governance. We argue that cities need to prioritize safeguarding of a resilient supply of ecosystem services to ensure livable, sustainable cities, especially given the dynamic nature of urban systems continually responding to global environmental change. Building urban resilience of and through ecosystem services, both in research and in practice, will require dealing with the dynamic nature of urban social–ecological systems and incorporating multiple ways of knowing into governance approaches to resilience including from scientists, practitioners, designers and planners.

Resilience of and through urban ecosystem services

Addressing the treatment gap: A key challenge for extending evidence-based psychosocial interventions.

The effect of urbanization on environmental pollution in rapidly developing urban agglomerations

What should you think more? Time to get this [PDF? It is easy then. You can only sit and stay in your place to get this book. Why? It is on-line book store that provide so many collections of the referred books. So, just with internet connection, you can enjoy downloading this book and numbers of books that are searched for now. By visiting the link page download that we have provided, the book that you refer so much can be found. Just save the requested book downloaded and then you can enjoy the book to read every time and place you want.

https://science.sciencemag.org/content/sci/352/6288/904.full.pdf

Cities are the Future

![Figure][1] 

CREDIT: ALEXEY CHUVARKOV/GETTY IMAGES

How often have you had your eyes pass over a text, only to realize some time later that you absorbed nothing of it? Or spent an hour listening at a seminar, only to walk away unclear about what the most important advance was? Is this entirely your fault, or is the design of the text or the seminar partly to blame?

In this special issue, we have collected a variety of articles that focus on literacy in science. The term represents two angles of the problem: knowing what science has discovered and being able to communicate in the language of science. And the value is twofold, as well: Good literacy skills make it easier to learn science, but science topics can also be used to teach literacy skills that will translate well to other subjects.

As Snow points out (p. [450][2]), the language used in science is different from the language used in everyday conversation. The focus on details, the exclusion of ambiguous interpretations, and the complexity of the vocabulary all present the reader with challenges different from those found in fictional texts. But as van den Broek discusses (p. [453][3]), strategies taken by the writer or speaker can help the novice through the language barrier. Webb (p. [448][4]) discusses the kinds of supports that are helpful when the language of school is not the native language of the students. Krajcik and Sutherland (p. [456][5]) analyze how scientific texts are best used in a classroom setting and how to design curricula that support life-long science literacy skills. Taking the view that not all literacy is about writing, Osborne (p. [463][6]) discusses how argumentation skills are critical for understanding why some ideas are wrong and others right. Pearson and colleagues (p. [459][7]) describe the integration of literacy and science training through professional development for teachers, innovative curricula, and enhanced classroom materials. And research reported by Taylor et al. (p. [512][8]) analyzes how both genetics and the teachers available affect a child's literacy skills.

In the Education Forum, Schleicher (p. [433][9]) discusses how literacy skills required for participation in increasingly sophisticated societies have evolved and how meaningful international assessments can be conducted. In the 20 and 27 April issues, Science Signaling presents a set of Teaching Resources by Thatcher, each of which is a pair of short animations of a canonical signaling pathway; student-authored Journal Clubs cover topics ranging from signaling in cells of the immune system to signaling in plants.

Science is about generating and interpreting data. But it is also about communicating facts, ideas, and hypotheses. Scientists write, speak, debate, visualize, listen, and read about their specialties daily. For students unfamiliar with the language or style of science, the deceptively simple act of communication can be a barrier to understanding or becoming involved with the science.

 [1]: pending:yes
 [2]: /lookup/doi/10.1126/science.1182597
 [3]: /lookup/volpage/328/453?iss=5977
 [4]: /lookup/doi/10.1126/science.1182596
 [5]: /lookup/volpage/328/456?iss=5977
 [6]: /lookup/doi/10.1126/science.1183944
 [7]: /lookup/volpage/328/459?iss=5977
 [8]: /lookup/volpage/328/512?iss=5977
 [9]: /lookup/volpage/328/433?iss=5977

http://science.sciencemag.org/content/sci/328/5977/447.full.pdf

Learning to Read, Reading to Learn

![Figure][1] 

Illustration of how a virtual interviewer sees a human. The interviewer assesses the psychological state of the human by tracking and analyzing their facial expressions, body posture, and speech.

CREDITS: (PHOTO) NICK DOLDING/GETTY IMAGES; DATA: BALTRUSAITIS, TADAS, PETER

https://science.sciencemag.org/content/sci/349/6245/248.full.pdf

Rise of the Machines

https://science.sciencemag.org/content/sci/344/6188/1100.full.pdf

Rethinking the global supply chain

[Index to Education 2013 special section][1]

Why should anyone who is not a scientist care about science education? Professional scientists and educators may find the question insulting. Every culture has struggled to find the most effective ways to teach the uninitiated and translate that learning into productive skills. But if students and parents around the world don't see the need for a high-quality education in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (the so-called STEM fields), or mistakenly think that they are already receiving satisfactory teaching in those areas, then calls from the scientific community to improve STEM education will fall on deaf ears.

![Figure][2] 

CREDIT: THINKSTOCK

In this special issue of Science , we have invited experts to tell us what they think are the most important challenges facing science education. Through a mixture of News, Reviews, Perspectives, Education Forums, and an Editorial, we explore the obstacles to progress, be they within the classroom, across the school system, or in the larger social arena. We also offer substantive suggestions on how to proceed. For example, distance education, online simulations as educational aids, and social networking tools are already part of science education. Many university faculty members are working to upgrade centuries-old approaches to instruction. And, with a new emphasis on the practice of science, promising assessment tools are being developed to improve learning.

The challenges covered in this special issue will be familiar to those who have devoted their lives and livelihoods to improving education. There is a huge and expanding literature on these topics and many others not covered in these pages. Yet convincing the public of the importance of STEM education will require more than explaining what the research shows or finding ways to scale up best practices to reach the billions of students who are entitled to a high-quality education. For scientists, advances in science and technology arrive at such a rapid clip that last year's knowledge barely scratches the surface of what is needed next year. At the same time, larger and more diverse student populations clamor for access to knowledge. Not only will the scientific workforce for the 21st century need skills and knowledge we haven't even heard of yet, but all global citizens, whether in their doctor's office or in a polling booth, need to be better informed. Turning the fire of the natural curiosity of students into effective, flexible, and well-grounded outcomes will take a concerted effort by many different actors. Among them, scientists must play a central role.

This is another grand challenge, and one that the scientific community ignores at its peril.

 [1]: http://www.sciencemag.org/site/special/education2013/index.xhtml
 [2]: pending:yes

Brad Wible

Papers

Cities are the Future

Learning to Read, Reading to Learn

Rise of the Machines

Rethinking the global supply chain

Plenty of Challenges for All