Accumulating evidence shows that young children benefit developmentally by participating in quality child‐care centers and preschools. But we know little about which family characteristics and home practices influence parents' selection of a center‐based program. This article reports on the influence of the family's social‐structural attributes, ethnicity, and parental practices on the likelihood of selecting a center‐based program, after taking into account economic characteristics. The odds that parents enroll their child in a center‐based program are greatest when mothers are more highly educated, when the child is older, and when less plentiful (nonpaternal) social support is available to the mother, such as from a resident grandparent. Ethnic differences in the propensity to select centers were found, even after family‐economic and structural variables were taken into account: African‐American families were more likely than white or Latino families to use center‐based care. Parental practices linked to the child's early literacy development and close supervision were related to the likelihood of center selection. Selection processes must be more carefully taken into account as researchers attempt to isolate the discrete effects of children's participation in centers and preschools.

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Cadmium (Cd) is a common environmental pollutant, and urinary Cd (UCd) is generally used as a marker of exposure; however, our understanding on the related urinary metabolic changes caused by Cd exposure is still not clear. In this study, we applied a mass-spectrometry-based metabolomic approach to assess the urinary metabolic changes in human with long-term environmental Cd exposure, aimed to identify early biomarkers to assess Cd nephrotoxicity. Urine samples from 94 female never smokers aged 44-70 with UCd in the range of 0.20-68.67 μg/L were analyzed by liquid chromatography quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectrometry (LC-Q-ToF-MS) and gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS). It was found that metabolites related to amino acid metabolism (L-glutamine, L-cystine, L-tyrosine, N-methyl-L-histidine, L-histidinol, taurine, phenylacetylglutamine, hippurate, and pyroglutamic acid), galactose metabolism (D-galactose and myo-inositol), purine metabolism (xanthine, urea, and deoxyadenosine monophosphate), creatine pathway (creatine and creatinine), and steroid hormone biosynthesis (17-α-hydroxyprogesterone, tetrahydrocortisone, estrone, and corticosterone) were significantly higher among those with a UCd level higher than 5 μg/L. Moreover, we noticed that the level of N-methyl-L-histidine had already started to elevate among individuals with a UCd concentration of ≥2 μg/L. The overall findings illustrate that metabolomics offer a useful approach for revealing metabolic changes as a result of Cd exposure.

Education is widely recognized as a fundamental right and as one of the most powerful instruments for economic growth and poverty alleviation. Education is critical to the World Bank Group's mission to end extreme poverty and boost shared prosperity in the world by 2030. It also features prominently in the Sustainable Development Goals adopted by the United Nations in 2015 to transform the world. The fourth of these global goals calls for access to quality education and lifelong learning opportunities for all. In fact, quality education is essential for any country aiming for sustained and diversified economic growth. The question that policy makers are constantly asking is how to achieve quality in education in the face of daunting challenges. The World Bank's Education Strategy 2020 calls for investing early, investing smartly, and investing for all-with a particular emphasis on strengthening education systems and raising learning outcomes. Worldwide, education systems differ in history, context, policy focus, and implementation, as well as results. Through its financing, development knowledge, and global partnerships, the World Bank Group aspires to bring the best global and comparative evidence to individual country contexts. This study, How Shanghai Does It, provides many exciting, valuable, and relevant lessons from Shanghai, one of the world's best-performing education systems according to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development's (OECD's) Program for International Student Assessment (PISA). By analyzing and benchmarking education policies and practices pertaining to teachers, school financing, student assessment, and school autonomy and accountability, the study provides an unparalleled and comprehensive account of the insights and lessons from Shanghai. The account reveals that Shanghai has managed to strategically plan, develop, and establish a set of highly coherent and synergistic education policies that have together boosted education results. Furthermore, the study reveals a second secret-that Shanghai implements its education policies consistently and constantly strives to innovate and reform to meet new challenges. The breadth of the information and analysis in this study is both practical and relevant, not only for education systems aspiring to achieve Shanghai's success, but for Shanghai itself in view of the rapidly changing landscape of social demography and educational purpose and technology in the region and globally. xii

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