Children of affectively ill parents: a review of the past 10 years

OBJECTIVE: To review the literature investigating the effects of parental affective illness on children over the past decade. METHOD: A computerized search of articles published over the past 10 years was completed. Articles were reviewed and relevant studies are presented. RESULTS: Over the course of the past 10 years a number of longitudinal studies have confirmed that children of affectively ill parents are at a greater risk for psychiatric disorders than children from homes with non-ill parents. Life table estimates indicate that by the age of 20 a child with an affectively ill parent has a 40% chance of experiencing an episode of major depression. Children from homes with affectively ill parents are more likely to exhibit general difficulties in functioning, increased guilt, and interpersonal difficulties as well as problems with attachment. Marital difficulties, parenting problems, and chronicity and severity of parental affective illness have been associated with the increased rates of disorder observed in these children. CONCLUSION: The presence of depression in parents should alert clinicians to the fact that their children also may be depressed and therefore in need of services. J. Am. Acad. Child Adolesc.     

Chronic growth faltering amongst a birth cohort of Indian children begins prior to weaning and is highly prevalent at three years of age

Background  

Poor growth of children in developing countries is a major public health problem associated with mortality, morbidity and developmental delay. We describe growth up to three years of age and investigate factors related to stunting (low height-for-age) at three years of age in a birth cohort from an urban slum.     

Thickness dependence of stress-induced leakage currents in siliconoxide

The thickness dependence of high-voltage stress-induced leakage currents (SILC's) has been measured in oxides with thicknesses between 5 and 11 nm. The SILC's were shown to be composed of two components: a transient component and a DC component. Both components were due to trap-assisted tunneling processes. The transient component was caused by the tunnel charging and discharging of the stress-generated traps near the two interfaces. The DC component was caused by trap-assisted tunneling completely through the oxide. The thickness, voltage, and trap density dependences of both of these components were measured. The SILC's will affect data retention in electrically erasable programmable read-only memories (EEPROM's) and the DC component was used to estimate to fundamental limitations on oxide thicknesses     

Detection of atomic deuterium in the upper atmosphere of Mars

High-resolution spectroscopy of Mars' atmosphere with the Hubble Space Telescope revealed the deuterium Lyman alpha line at an intensity of 23 +/- 6 rayleighs. This measured intensity corresponds to HD/H2 = 1.5 +/- 0.6 x 10(-4), which is smaller by a factor of 11 than HDO/H2O. This indicates that fractionation of HD/H2 relative to that of HDO/H2O is not kinetically controlled by the rates of formation and destruction of H2 and HD but is thermodynamically controlled by the isotope exchange HD + H2O left and right arrow HDO + H2. Molecular hydrogen is strongly depleted in deuterium relative to water on Mars because of the very long lifetime of H2 (1200 years). The derived isotope fractionation corresponds to an estimate of a planetwide reservoir of water ice about 5 meters thick that is exchangeable with the atmosphere.     

Teaching for transfer versus formal discipline.

Criticizes the assertion by D. R. Lehman et al (see record 1988-34113-001) that their experiments support the doctrine of formal discipline. The present author contends that the work of Lehman et al provides evidence that one must teach for transfer, not that transfer occurs automatically. The problems of creating a curriculum and teaching it must be addressed if teachers are to help students apply a rule across fields. Support is given to E. L. Thorndike's (1906, 1913) assessment of the general method of teaching for transfer. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effects of cigarette smoking on the angiographic evolution of coronary atherosclerosis. A Canadian Coronary Atherosclerosis Intervention Trial (CCAIT) Substudy. CCAIT Study Group

BACKGROUND: Although smoking increases both the risk of developing coronary disease and the risk of coronary events in patients with known coronary atherosclerosis, the effect of smoking on the evolution of coronary atherosclerosis as assessed by serial angiography is poorly defined. METHODS AND RESULTS: Ninety smokers with coronary atherosclerosis shown on a recent angiogram and with fasting cholesterol levels between 220 and 300 mg/dL were enrolled in a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial of cholesterol-lowering therapy, along with 241 nonsmokers and exsmokers. Lovastatin at a mean dose of 36 mg/d lowered total and LDL cholesterol by 21 +/- 11% and 29 +/- 11%, respectively, but these levels changed by < 2% in placebo-treated patients. Coronary arteriography was repeated after 2 years in 72 smokers and their 557 lesions were measured blindly with an automated quantitative system, along with 1752 lesions in 227 nonsmokers. Coronary change score, the per-patient mean of the minimal lumen diameter changes for all qualifying lesions, worsened by 0.16 +/- 0.16 mm in smokers and by 0.07 +/- 0.15 mm in nonsmokers in the placebo group (P < .001). Lovastatin-treated smokers had less worsening (0.07 +/- 0.15 mm) than placebo-treated smokers (P = .024). One or more coronary lesions progressed in 16 of 34 lovastatin-treated smokers and in 28 of 38 placebo-treated smokers (47% versus 74%, P < .001). In the placebo group, new coronary lesions developed in 21 of 38 smokers and in 28 of 115 nonsmokers (55% versus 24%, P < .001); fewer lovastatin-treated smokers developed new lesions (15% versus 55%, P < .001). CONCLUSIONS: Smoking accelerates coronary progression and new lesion formation as assessed by serial quantitative coronary arteriography. Lovastatin slows the progression of coronary atherosclerosis and prevents the development of new coronary lesions in smokers.     

Relevance: Who Decides?

Relevance and usefulness are important concepts in the academic world today, and I am grateful to Menges and Trumpeter (1972) for their analysis of the topic from the point of view of the undergraduate student in psychology. However, I believe it is a mistake to leave unspoken the fact that undergraduates might be quite mistaken in deciding that a topic is or is not relevant and useful, possibly as a result of the fact that the relevance of a topic is not made clear by the instructor. If the curriculum is to be structured in terms of relevance, expert opinion should be used instead of student opinion. To do otherwise is to cheat both society and students. Possibly a commission of experts could define the nature and extent of the usefulness of the various topics. Some attempt at evaluation of consequences would also be helpful. I believe this has been made more possible by the fact that, to their credit, the students used by Menges and Trumpeter tended to collapse relevance and usefulness into a single construct and distinguished more clearly between those concepts and interest. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)