What we attend to at any moment determines what we learn at that moment, and this also depends on our past learning. This focused conceptual paper concentrates on a single well-documented attention mechanism – highlighting. This phenomenon – well studied in non-linguistic but not in linguistic contexts – should be highly relevant to language learning because it is a process that (1) specifically protects past learning from being disrupted by new (and potentially spurious) associations in the learning environment, and (2) strongly constrains new learning to new information. Within the language learning context, highlighting may disambiguate ambiguous references and may be related to processes of lexical competition that are known to be critical to on-line sentence comprehension. The main sections of the paper will address (1) the highlighting phenomenon in the literature; (2) its relevancy to language learning; (3) the highlighting effect in children; (4) developmental studies concerning the effect in different contexts; and (5) a developmental mechanism for highlighting in language learning.

Peripheral T-cell lymphomas are a group of rare neoplasms originating from clonal proliferation of mature post-thymic lymphocytes with different entities having specific biological characteristics and clinical features. As natural killer cells are closely related to T-cells, natural killer-cell lymphomas are also part of the group. The current World Health Organization classification recognizes four categories of T/natural killer-cell lymphomas with respect to their presentation: disseminated (leukemic), nodal, extranodal and cutaneous. Geographic variations in the distribution of these diseases are well documented: nodal subtypes are more frequent in Europe and North America, while extranodal forms, including natural killer-cell lymphomas, occur almost exclusively in Asia and South America. On the whole, T-cell lymphomas are more common in Asia than in western countries, usually affect adults, with a higher tendency in men, and, excluding a few subtypes, usually have an aggressive course and poor prognosis. Apart from anaplastic lymphoma kinase-positive anaplastic large cell lymphoma, that have a good outcome, other nodal and extranodal forms have a 5-year overall survival of about 30%. According to the principal prognostic indexes, the majority of patients are allocated to the unfavorable subset. In the past, the rarity of these diseases prevented progress in the understanding of their biology and improvements in the efficaciousness of therapy. Recently, international projects devoted to these diseases created networks promoting investigations on T-cell lymphomas. These projects are the basis of forthcoming cooperative, large scale trials to detail biologic characteristics of each sub-entity and to possibly individuate targets for new therapies.

Background It has been argued that primary care practitioners have an important part to play in the prevention of suicide. However, levels of assessment of risk of suicide among patients treated in this setting are generally low.

Methods Cross-sectional survey of general practitioners (GPs) and people being treated in primary care who had signs of depression. The study combined open and closed questions on attitudes to screening or being screened for suicidal ideation.

Results One hundred and one of 132 patients took part in the survey and 103 of 300 GPs completed a questionnaire. A majority of both GPs and patients stated that people should be screened for suicidal ideation. However, an important minority of patients and GPs stated that asking or being asked such questions made them feel uncomfortable. Less than half of GPs had received formal training on the assessment of suicide risk. GPs told the researchers that barriers to screening included time pressures, culture and language, and concerns about the impact that screening could have on people's mental health. One-quarter of GPs and one-fifth of patients supported the notion that screening for suicidal ideation could induce a person to have thoughts of self-harm.

Conclusions GPs and family doctors should screen for suicidal risk among depressed patients and should receive training on how to do this as part of their general training in the assessment and management of mental disorders. Research should be conducted to examine what, if any, effect screening for suicidal ideation has on mental health.

Research investigating the efficacy of infant massage has largely focused on premature and low birth weight infants. The majority of investigations have neglected highly acute patients in academic neonatal intensive care units (NICUs). The current study was developed with two aims: (Phase 1) to develop, implement and demonstrate the feasibility and safety of a parent-trained compassionate touch/massage program for infants with complex medical conditions and (Phase 2) to conduct a longitudinal randomized control trial (RCT) of hand containment/massage versus standard of care in a level III academic Center for Newborn and Infant Critical Care (CNICC). Certified infant massage instructors (CIMIs) taught parents to massage their hospitalized infants. Massage therapy and instruction were performed for seven consecutive days and health outcomes were collected for up to 1 month following treatment. Caregivers, nurses and certified infant massage therapists indicated moderate to high levels of satisfaction and feasibility with the implementation of hand containment/massage in a level III academic center CNICC. In addition, infant behavioral and physiological measures were within safe limits during the massage sessions. All caregivers participating in the massage group reported high levels of satisfaction 7 days into the intervention and at the 1-month follow-up with regards to their relationship with their infant, the massage program's impact on that relationship and the massage program. Due to unequal and small sample sizes, between group analyses (control versus massage) were not conducted. Descriptive infant characteristics of health outcomes are described. Preliminary data from this study indicates feasibility and safety of infant massage and satisfaction among the caregivers, CIMIs and the nurses in the CNICC. An important contribution from this study was the demonstration of the infants’ safety based on physiological stability and no change in agitation/pain scores of the infants receiving massage. Massage in a tertiary urban academic NICU continues to be an area of needed study. Future studies examining infant health outcomes, such as weight gain, decreased length of hospitalization and caregiver–infant bonding, would provide greater insight into the impact of massage for medically fragile infants.

From 1997 to 2000, Mycobacterium tuberculosis was diagnosed in two Asian elephants (Elephas maximus), three Rocky Mountain goats (Oreamnos americanus), and one black rhinoceros (Diceros bicornis) in the Los Angeles Zoo. DNA fingerprint patterns suggested recent transmission. An investigation found no active cases of tuberculosis in humans; however, tuberculin skin-test conversions in humans were associated with training elephants and attending an elephant necropsy.

Forty patients with coarctation of the aorta under the age of 2 years were studied, and a well-developed collateral circulation was present when the coarctation was severe and the sole lesion. In those with an associated congenital heart lesion a collateral circulation was seen in rather more than half. It is suggested that in many patients, the collateral circulation develops during fetal or early postnatal life.

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